Earn your own respect. Seneca, Epistles 4.31.1

Seneca encourages Lucilius to finish and express his best moral character, which he has discovered by pursuing philosophy for private ends rather than public glory. Anything we do merely to draw attention to ourselves is always liable to become bad, even if it is initially worthy and worthwhile.

Agnosco Lucilium meum: incipit quem promiserat exhibere. Sequere illum impetum animi quo ad optima quaeque calcatis popularibus bonis ibas: non desidero maiorem melioremque te fieri quam moliebaris. Fundamenta tua multum loci occupaverunt: tantum effice quantum conatus es, et illa quae tecum in animo tulisti tracta.

I know my friend Lucilius, and now 'tis time to acknowledge him, for he begins to show some of the man he once promised to become. Follow that inner mental drive that has carried you beyond the goods dear to the mob, goods you have trampled underfoot on your way toward what is best. I desire nothing greater, or better, for you than that you become the character you have worked so hard to build. The foundations of that character have taken up a great share of your life's space: now put the coping stone on its pinnacle, finishing the work you undertook, and draw forth for us what you have long carried inside your mind.