The world will not reform for all your meddling. - Molière

True; but he pretends to too much wit, which annoys me. He is always upon stilts, and, in all his conversations, one sees him labouring to say smart things. Since he took it into his head to be clever, he is so difficult to please that nothing suits his taste. He must needs find mistakes in everything that one writes, and thinks that to bestow praise does not become a wit, that to find fault shows learning, that only fools admire and laugh, and that, by not approving of anything in the works of our time, he is superior to all other people. Even in conversations he finds something to cavil at, the subjects are too trivial for his condescension; and, with arms crossed on his breast, he looks down from the height of his intellect with pity on what everyone says.

C'est un parleur étrange, et qui trouve toujours L'art de ne vous rien dire avec de grands discours.

And self-conceit leads straight to self-deceit.