Humility and Pride

“…humility substitutes for everything. And even if we do not have any other virtues, but humbly realize that we have nothing, then we will be ready to receive the Holy Spirit. Let us try not to forget about this…And let us live in such a way as to be worthy successors of the apostles and worthy bearers of the grace of the Holy Spirit. This is what we are all called to do—to try and humble ourselves before God and our neighbors, to fulfill God’s commandments; and then the Lord will be merciful to us. Then He will not deprive us of His grace, then in His mercy He will give us His Holy Spirit, and He will not deprive us of the Heavenly Kingdom.” (St. Macarius of Optina, Hieromonk Athanasius Deryugin)

“Man has free will, and therefore the grace or power of God is fully manifested in him only when he wholly gives himself over to God, that is, when he is permeated with the spirit of humility and obedience to God's will. Human pride, however, thinking that it can cope through its own powers alone, interferes with the manifestation of God's power in man.” (Archbishop Averky Taushev)

“One might ask: Is pride, with all its derivatives, truly a greater sin than murder? Let us respond: if pride were not the root, would there be murder at all? History is replete with proud, arrogant, vain, and audacious leaders who imagined themselves above others and, as such, led entire nations into catastrophic mass destruction (the two World Wars are a classic example). On the other hand, there is no known example of a humble ruler who initiated wars of conquest or tyrannized his own people. Therefore, pride is the most grievous illness, which must be treated uncompromisingly, for it is the foundation of the most serious sins. Admittedly, there are times when we fail to recognize pride within ourselves (especially if we possess certain virtues or are zealous, and are thereby carried away); yet this is precisely why the role of the spiritual father is indispensable—he can discern our pride when we ourselves cannot, and thus guide the healing of our spiritual wounds.” (Rev. Dr. Oliver Subotic)

“…let us lay aside our pride, let us put to death our own vanity, and let us eagerly seek out the humility which is the only path to living faith. And may this living faith well up in each of our hearts, until it overflows with the genuine, Christ-like, self-emptying love for which this broken world is dying of thirst, and which alone can bring the healing of all our illnesses and the salvation of our souls.” (Igumen Gabriel)

“Do not measure yourself against the weaker among men, but rather stretch yourself to the measure of the commandments of love. If you measure yourself against men, you will fall into the abyss of pride; but if you stretch yourself to the measure of love, you will attain the height of humility of mind. Humility of mind is born of pure prayer, with tears and compunction. For prayer, always calling God to help, does not allow one senselessly to rely on one’s own strength and wisdom or to exalt oneself above others—two fierce diseases of the passion of pride.” (St. Maximus the Confessor)

“The virtue of humility is best captured by our willingness to receive with thanksgiving those things (of whatever size) that come our way. It is the joy of a tree to receive water, sun, the ground beneath its roots. It is our joy to receive even the fatigue of the coming day. In a culture that is utterly fascinated with the abilities of our species to manage and control outcomes, humility is all too rare. In my experience, it is most commonly found among the poor, the sick – in short, all those who know that management and control are not their lot in life. Strangely, they are likely to have more joy than all of the managers in our midst.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“Prompted by humility, he [the Centurian, Luke 7:1-10] sends friends to intervene and avert an occasion of ritual defilement for the Lord. He naturally assumes that he is unworthy to approach Jesus in person (vs. 7). Humility of such depth is a precondition of true faith in God. The centurion evinces such great trust because he harbors no expectations of God. He does not believe God owes him something in return for his kindness toward others, nor because he graciously provided a religious facility for the community (vs. 5).” (Dynamis 10/21/2023)

“…nothing else drives patience out of the soul as does prideful thinking…Having the old virtue of humility also makes us patient with ourselves when we do find the things we probably will see in ourselves. We will be able to accept it as true that the passions, feelings, attitudes, obsessions, and certain kinds of behavior do not go away all at once simply because we have identified them. Humility reminds us that the process of becoming free of our passions is often a long one, and that is alright. Humility allows us to follow another common piece of advice in the early monastic literature: do not try to do everything at once; take on only one passion at a time. Learning to love is a slow business.” (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, Roberta Bondi)

“…humility is required for us to grow in the knowledge of God and the faith in Jesus Christ….Pride refuses to learn anything, for it thinks it knows everything. Pride refuses to be taught by anyone because it thinks it knows more than everyone. Pride closes the door to learning and shuts up the soul in the room of its own delusions. Of the spirit of pride in one’s knowledge, St. Paul said, “And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know” (1 Cor. 8:2). And the deuterocanonical book of the Wisdom of Sirach says, “The greater you are, the more humble you must be, and you will find grace before the Lord (OSB Wisdom of Sirach 3:18).” (Fr. Basil)

“And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”[Matthew 23:12] Christ’s teachings about humility go against the grain of our modern world. The Lord instructs us to humble ourselves in order to be exalted, for He humbled Himself on our account. We, however, have been taught to be proud of who we are and of what we accomplish. We suffer from pride, and the familiar desire for vainglory…Jesus teaches us to practice humility in everything…The Holy Spirit doesn’t allow a man who is weak in humility to feel Him… if you have much humility, the Holy Spirit will again enrapture you.” (Dynamis 9/12/2020, St. John Chrysostom, Monk Proclu Nicau)

“According to the holy fathers, pride is the root and cause of all sinful passions. It is totally destructive for a person’s spiritual development and eternal salvation. Pride is the opposite of humility, and humility is the source of all virtues, and the basis for true spiritual development and salvation.” (Priest Tarasiy Borozenets)

“In addition to turning our attention away from God and His word, making spiritual growth difficult or even impossible, pride has a number of other rather negative effects on the prideful person. 1) Despondency. When we believe things should be a certain way (pride) and our desires are not fulfilled, we are often frustrated and fall into anger and despair…2) Talkativeness. Pride is never quiet. It constantly promotes itself and make a display….3) Idleness. Pride makes the soul of those striving to advance on the spiritual path sluggish, apathetic, and mindless as self-love, that pimp of the passions…4) Pride renders religious activities useless: The fast of the vainglorious person is without reward and his prayer is futile…5) Darkness. A person consumed by pride is inevitably led to despair and falls away from [the light of ]God into the outer darkness…” (Fr. Edward Rommen, St. John Climacus)

“Honest confession of our sins and failures, when made with a modicum of humility, is the single proven path for receiving Christ’s renewing grace and correction. This is what Gospel reveals concerning the first disciples. It is a life-giving truth for us, too, showing us how we may understand, change, and grow in faith and humility in Him.” (Dynamis 7/28/2020)

”It is only in that way, through mysterious humility incomprehensible to the world, that a true Christian comes to one of the two greatest revelations in life. The first of these revelations is that one must discover the truth about oneself, and see oneself as one truly is. You must meet your own self. And believe me it’s the most important acquaintance. A vast number of people live their lives never even bothering to discover themselves at all. Sometimes we only have the vaguest notions or fantasies of who we are, and so depending upon our own vanity, pride, resentments, and ambitions we see nothing. But the truth, however bitter it might seem to us, is that we are ‘wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.’ … Remember that verse from Revelations? And this truth only comes to us through scriptural and ruthlessly honest examination of oneself. Through true humility. True humility does not humiliate a man. On the contrary, anyone who survives this ordeal, this bitterest and harshest of truths becomes a saint. It is only those who are humble who can peer into the future, who can become prophets and miracle workers, wondered at by all of you.” (Metropolitan Tikhon)

“As important as the practice of humility may be, it has the weakness of being passive. We cannot “do” humility as a thing in itself—it is practiced in response to something. My experience over the years has consistently shown the weakness of doing a negative. When we battle a bad habit, for example, simply not doing it is seldom effective. Something good must be done in its place. Life is best lived in the active voice. Not surprisingly, there is an active voice in the practice of humility. The giving of thanks is humility in the active voice.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“People who are humble, don’t have a tongue that makes observations about others who show neglect or who are living a casual life. They don’t have eyes that look out for failings in others, nor ears to listen to something that doesn’t benefit their soul. They aren’t concerned with other people, only with their own sins. They’re peaceable towards everyone, not because of friendship but because of God’s command. If you fast all week and undertake great labors, but are outside this path, then it’s all a waste of time.” (Abba Isaiah)

“Humility, finally, will enable us to hear what others tell us and will help us cultivate within ourselves a continuous attitude of listening to the world around us, to friends, to those who are not so friendly, to what we encounter in prayer and worship. Humility makes us receptive of all that comes to us that might bring us to love of God and of each other. Humility is the only possible attitude out of which we can ever speak a word of truth to another person without doing terrible harm to ourselves and the other. After all, what we are about is never ever executing God’s righteous judgment on another person or ourselves.” (Roberta Bondi)

“It takes the spiritual gift of discernment to recognize the difference between what comes from our own ego and what comes from the Spirit of Christ. What comes from our ego bolsters our pride. But what comes from Christ engenders our humility. Pride divides us from others. But in humility we can be united with others.” (Fr. Basil)

“We display humility by being open to the possibility that the problems or shortcomings in our interpersonal relations might not be due to others, but might be coming from within us. We must begin by allowing ourselves to see all our shortcomings, flaws, and deficiencies without turning away, without assigning meanings of failure to them, and without blaming others.” (Fr. Joshua Makoul)

“Due to pride, we often crave words and actions from others that distract us from seeing ourselves clearly and instead fuel illusions of self-importance and self- righteousness. When doing so becomes a settled habit, we can easily find ourselves attempting to use religion to serve our egos instead of being focused on offering ourselves to the Lord….What might be seen in a child as a means of learning to become conscious of his personal existence is in an adult an expression of untamed primary narcissism. Long before Freud, the holy ascetics of the Christian East identified this behavior and gave it the name of “philautism,” or egotistical love of self. They considered it to be a deep-seated passion, the mother of all the others, like vanity and pride with which it is closely linked, and which are also among the worst passions. Hiding behind ideas of “communication” and “sharing” makes them even worse, for it gives them a false appearance of altruism.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters, Jean-Claude Larchet)

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