Daily Inspiration Quote by Arnold Bennett

Bennett is trying to launder a dirty word by redefining it as survival equipment. "Egotism" usually arrives as an insult, shorthand for vanity, selfishness, the person who turns every room into a mirror. Bennett flips it: a "terrific interest in one's self" becomes not a moral failing but a practical requirement, the inner engine behind getting things done. The provocation is deliberate. If you accept his definition, then to reject egotism is to reject competence.

The subtext is less about narcissism than about agency. Bennett wrote in an era when "character" was treated like a public possession and duty could be a kind of social anesthesia. His line defends the private self against that pressure. Efficient living, in his framing, isn't a spreadsheet life-hack; it's the ability to choose, persist, and invest attention in your own aims rather than dissolve into other people's expectations. The adjective "terrific" matters: not mild self-regard, but an intense, almost muscular focus.

As a novelist attentive to ambition, class mobility, and the psychology of striving, Bennett is also smuggling in a critique of false modesty. The culture often rewards self-effacement as virtue while quietly depending on people who are convinced they matter enough to act. He's not excusing boorishness; he's arguing that the impulse to take yourself seriously is what keeps a life from becoming merely reactive. In a modern register, it's a warning: if you don't cultivate interest in your own interior life, someone else's agenda will eagerly fill the vacancy.