The vices of which we are full we carefully hide from others, and we flatter ourselves with the notion that they are small and trivial; we sometimes even embrace them as virtues.
If the same talents which we admire in ourselves appear in others, or even our betters, we depreciate and diminish them with the utmost malignity, in order that we may not have to acknowledge the superiority of others.
If others have any vices, we are not content to criticize them sharply and severely, but we exaggerate them hatefully.
John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life, 2.4.2