“M. Pascal used to say of those authors who always refer to their works as, ‘My book’, that they sound like solid citizens with a place of their own, always talking about ‘My house’. They would do better, this excellent man added, to say, ‘Our book’, considering that there is usually more of other people’s property in it than their own.”
Blaise Pascal, Pensées, trans. A. Krailsheimer (London, 1966), 355. (Lightly modified.)
D. L. Dusenbury 