Even someone with little to recommend him can suffer from a smug and egotistical self-aggrandizement.
That is pride's unique failing: it requires no basis in reality to exist.
An adulterer must have a willing consort and a measure of opportunity.
A slanderer requires a listener.
But the sin of pride demands no contextual reality.
The most foolish, poorest, and most unattractive person in the world can harbor a grandiose conception of his importance.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From Understanding the Tanya by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz