Marginalia, no.65

I am a nobody. Treat me as a solar myth, or an echo, or an irrational quantity, or ignore me altogether.

~ James Murray, first editor of the OED

Humility is expensive.  Only heroes can plausibly claim to be Nobody – think of Ulysses’ reply to Polyphemus.  The rest of us are always cheaply trying to pass ourselves off as Somebody.