Self-Assurace...

'A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in mind and body as irresistibly attractive to men an women.

An Englishman is self-assured as being a citizen of the best-organised state in the world and therefore, as an Englishman, always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtebly correct.

An Italian is self-assured because he is exitable and easily forgets himself and other people.

A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known.

The German's self-assurance is worst of all [...] because he imagines that he knows the truth - science - which he himself has invented but which for him the absolute truth.'

Tolstoy's War and Peace