A verse in the Bible is often misquoted. Dickens does, or at least puts into the mouth of a character a sample of the error:

Origin
From the Bible. Often misquoted as 'money is the root of all evil'. Timothy 6:10. 'For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.'

Mr. Merdle is a fabulously wealthy businessman. The whole discussion is about money. No mention of the love of money.

"Bar came up.
Bar, with his little insinuating jury droop, and fingering his
persuasive double eye-glass, hoped he might be excused if he
mentioned to one of the greatest converters of the root of all evil
into the root of all good,"

my Dad always said pride was the root of all problems in the world... he's got a point worth considering.

"We believe in ourselves as we do not believe in others. We permit all things to ourselves, and that which we call sin in others is experiment for us."

"Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good."

--Emerson

"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."

--Henry Youngman

"Whenever I'm caught between two evils, I take the one I've never tried."

--Mae West

"my Dad always said pride was the root of all problems in the world... he's got a point worth considering."

Dear etaoin: There is pride that makes us unwilling to cheat or steal or behave like an animal.
Regrettably pride can make us reluctant to admit and
correct our errors, and makes us conceited and aloof,
the pride that goeth before a fall.

Two different words in Indonesian: bangga and sombong.

Bangga is a justifiable pride in one's achievements, sombong is an arrogant conviction that you are more important than anyone else.

Bingley

ah. once again, English comes up short.

We do need these two words, Bingley, to add on to our beloved English, bangga and sombong. Many thanks for giving them to us here. We come short and just have phrases: 'pride in one's work' and 'arrogant pride' as you indicated.

There is pride that makes us unwilling to cheat or steal or behave like an animal.

The word one uses to describe those reservations depends on why one learned those values. Pride has nothing to do with why I hold them, but.

**************

Pride in one's accomplishments is the first step toward conceit. Because it's unspoken or spoken minimaly doesn't justify it. I agree with etaoin's Dad completely.

I'm happy that things are done, or someone has relief, or things are "moving along on the right track" or less cumbersome, etc... at the end of the night after a four hour jam session or dance party, I'm thrilled to be a part of making music and enjoyment (I hope) for so many people in a not always enjoyable world, but there is no pride involved.

There is no room for pride in the arts just as there is no room for competition in a democracy.

Dear musick: There is quiet pride and ostentatious pride.
A good musician's artistic pride makes him avoid sour notes and wrong tempo.

I thought that was my years of practice avoiding the aural punishment...

Dear musick: only pride makes a student study, to avoid the humiliation of exposure to ridicule.

only pride makes a student study
you mean it wasn't just love of the art? wanting to be better so I could better express myself?

How many people do you know who enjoy being called a dummy?

being called a dummy

Everyone who plays bridge eventually gets that honor.

Who plays bridge nowadays? And I never knew a good bridge player who wanted to be dummy, unless there was something
in his partner's bidding that made it essential. I had a neighbor who got dealt thirteen Spades, bid a no trump and didn't take a trick. How's that for dummy?

How many people do you know who enjoy being called a dummy?

Since I grew up with a brother who was educationally mentally handicaped (EMH) we learned, early on, that there are very few (if any) appropriate uses of that word. To this day, I tend to learn more about the person who speaks it than the person to whom it is applied.

Dear musick: I assure you I would not use the word to refer
to any one afflicted with a congenital intellectual deficit.

Nor do I think you would, Dr Bill.

My above statements were issued to point out that a child that was worried about being called a dummy wasn't very likely to become an artist... possibly a machine that exceeds when competition time comes along.

Your use of the words "makes a student study" are quite accurate, yet, what I'm *talking about is self-motivation out of intrigue.

Dear musick: what I was responding to was the memory of my two MIT graduate uncles quizzing my older brother, challenging him with tricky math problems. I knew that in a couple years they would be quizzing me, and I did not want to be judged less bright than my older brother. My older brother had a low opinion of me, and I didn't want to reinforce it. I was never able to make him change his mind, but I did better at math than I would have otherwise.
Sweet are the uses of adversity.

Why poke an argument with a spear when a trident will give you more points?

Many would be the motivations for developing levels of performance in music... and certainly working for the purely aesthetic goals is most honorable.

However, I do suspect that there is a great deal of competition--and all of competition's dark brothers and sisters jealousy, pride, shame, fear, and anger--among artists when they are both preparing to perform and actually perform.

There is the performer who insists on having private rehearsals with the musicians before rehearsing with the larger group out of fear that her rehearsals are not to be heard before she has reached an excellent performance level. In other words, she keeps the larger group from moving forward together because she has an inflated sense of how wonderful she needs to sound before she is publically heard, even if only in performance rehearsals. Her personal mythmaking about self she continually manipulates. Pain in the butt to work with because this kind of perfectionism wishes to make one who is not godlike appear to be more godlike. And it causes the musicians to carve out (just for her) still more rehearsal time in an already crowded schedule. Some people are more equal than others.