We rise in glory as we sink in pride.
Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy.
Pride looks back upon its past deeds, and calculating with nicety what it has done, it commits itself to rest; whereas humility looks to that which is before, and discovering how much ground remains to be trodden, it is active and vigilant. Having gained one height, pride looks down with complacency on that which is beneath it; humility looks up to a higher and yet higher elevation. The one keeps us on this earth, which is congenial to its nature; the other directs our eye, and tends to lift us up to heaven.
Pride is the growth of blindness and darkness; humility, the product of light and knowledge; and whilst pride has its origin in a mistaken or delusive estimate of things, humility is as much the offspring of truth as the parent of virtue.
Spiritual pride is the worst of all pride, if it is not the worst snare of the devil. The heart is peculiarly deceitful on just this one thing.
If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble; for the proud heart as it loves none but itself, so it is beloved of none but itself. The voice of humility is God's music, and the silence of humility is God's rhetoric. Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail, nor reason.
Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.
