If genuine love for a young man or for a woman does not seek witnesses, but reaps its harvest of pleasure even if it fulfills its desires in secret, then it is even more likely that someone who loves goodness and wisdom, who is intimate and involved with virtue because of his actions, will be quietly self-assured within himself, and will have no need of an admiring audience. There was a man who summoned his serving-woman at home and shouted out, ‘Look at me, Dionysia: I have stopped being big-headed!’ Analogous to this is the behavior of someone who politely does a favor and then runs around telling everyone about it: it is obvious that he is still dependent on external appreciation and drawn towards public recognition, that he does not yet have virtue in his sights and that he is not awake, but is acting randomly among the illusory shadows of a dream and then presents his action for viewing, as if it were a painting.

Plutarch, “On Being Aware of Moral Progress,” trans. R. Waterfield