The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

everybody ill-treats us.
One of the most universal forms of irrationality is
the attitude taken by practically everybody towards
malicious gossip. Very few people can resist
saying malicious things about their acquaintances,
and even on occasion about their friends; yet when
people hear that anything has been said against
themselves, they are filled with indignant
amazement. It has apparently never occurred to
them that, just as they gossip about everyone else,
so everyone else gossips about them. This is a
mild form of the attitude which, when exaggerated,
leads on to persecution mania. We expect
everybody else to feel towards us that tender love
and that profound respect which we feel towards
ourselves. It does not occur to us that we cannot
expect others to think better of us than we think of
them and the reason this does not occur to us is that
our own merits are great and obvious, whereas
those of others, if they exist at all, are only visible
to a very charitable eye. When you hear that soand-so
has said something horrid about you, you