“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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