There is perhaps no one of natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. disguise it. struggle with it. stifle it. mortify it as much as one pleases. it is still alives and will every now and then peep out and show itself... Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.

Benjamin Franklin

The real black, diabolical pride, comes when you look down on others so much that you do not care what they think of you. Of course, it is very right, and often our duty, not to care what people think of us, if we do so for the right reason; namely, because we care so incomparably more what God thinks. Bu the proud man has a different reason for not caring. He says, "why should I care for the applause of that rabble as if their opinion were worthy anything? And even if their opinions were of value, am I the sort of man to blush with pleasure at a compliment like some chit of a girl at her first dance? No, I am an integrated, adult personality. All i have done has been done to satisfy my own ideals - or my artistic conscience - or the traditions of my family - or, in a word, because I'm That Kind of Chap. If the mob like it, let them. They're nothing to me.

By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools.

To anticipate the enemy's strategy, we must consider His aims. The enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbour's talents.

Screwtape Letters - Chapter 14

Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, "By jove! I'm being humble", and almost immediately pride - pride at its own humility - will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt.

CS Lewis - Screwtape Letters - Chapter 14

It is pride that made redemption needful; it is from our pride we need above everything to be redeemed. And our insight into the need of redemption will largely depend upon our knowledge of the terrible nature of the power that has entered our being. 


Andrew Murray, Humility