It means to be superior to others, and not to appear noble. The real nobility is to regret your mistakes and try not to make the same mistakes again, and to be better than your former self.

This sentence comes from Hemingway's essay True Nobleness.

Hemingway finally wrote in True Nobleness: "To regret one's mistakes and try not to repeat them is the real repentance. It is not noble to be superior to others. The real nobility should be superior to yourself in the past. "

As can be seen from the above, this sentence emphasizes that it is truly noble to be able to know yourself, correct yourself, and make yourself better now than in the past.

Extended materials:

Ways to know yourself correctly:

1. Know yourself through self-observation. Our understanding of our various physical and mental states and interpersonal relationships, namely, physical self, psychological self and social self. Such as their own height, appearance, posture, personality, their relationship with others and other aspects of understanding. In the process of self-knowledge, there are emotional experiences, such as pride, self-confidence or inferiority caused by height and appearance.

and, in the process of self-knowledge and self-emotional experience, whether we intentionally and consciously adjust and control our behaviors and thoughts. We should be good at analyzing ourselves, deeply understanding ourselves and better understanding the external image and internal self.

2. Know yourself through others' evaluation. We all know that "bystanders see clearly" and "taking people as a mirror can understand gains and losses". In the process of knowing ourselves, we should take the initiative to know ourselves from others. We should listen to others' comments with an open mind, and at the same time analyze others' comments objectively and calmly, so that we can know ourselves from many angles.

3. Know yourself through social comparison. Self-observation and others will inevitably have their own subjective projections, so we can better understand ourselves through a reasonable society. We compare our present self with our past and future vertically, compare ourselves horizontally with peers or people with similar conditions, and correctly understand ourselves through more comprehensive vertical and horizontal social comparison.

4. Know yourself through social practice. We can know ourselves by participating in various activities and according to the process and results of various activities. Analyze one's interpersonal communication ability through cooperation with others, analyze one's organizational management ability through organizing activities, discover one's mastery of knowledge through reading activities, and timely check and fill gaps. Analyze your performance and achievements through specific activities and get to know yourself more objectively.

5. Know yourself through reflection and summary. We find that in the above four steps, we are all discovering and knowing ourselves, and many people do, but we still don't know what kind of person we are, so we still need to reflect and summarize ourselves frequently. Keep more diaries and record yourself, sum up your strengths and weaknesses in time, and better grasp your physical self, psychological self and social self.