89 Quotes About Pride

We are looking for our own virtue, our own piety, our own goodness, and so live on and in our own poverty and weakness - today pleased and comforted with the seeming firmness and strength of our own pious tempers and fancying ourselves to be somewhat. Tomorrow, fallen into our own mire, we are dejected, but not humbled; we grieve, but it is only the grief of pride at the seeing our perfection not to be such as we had vainly imagined. And thus it will be, till the whole turn of our minds be so changed that we as fully see and know our inability to have any goodness of our own as to have a life of our own.

This [pride] is the strong castle that we all keep garrisoned against heaven in every one of our hearts, which God continually layeth siege unto.

There is nothing into which the heart of man so easily falls as pride, and yet there is no more vice which is more frequently, more emphatically, and more eloquently condemned in Scripture. Pride is a thing which should be unnatural to us, for we have nothing to be proud of. In almost every other sin, we gather us ashes when the fire is gone. But here, what is left? The covetous man has his shining gold, but what does the proud man have? He has less than he would have had without pride, and is no gainer whatever. Pride wins no crown.

A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

We hear much of a decent pride, a becoming pride, a noble pride, a laudable pride. Can that be decent, of which we ought to be ashamed? Can that be becoming, of which God has set forth the deformity? Can that be noble which God resists and is determined to abase? Can that be laudable, which God calls abominable? Providence is a greater mystery than revelation. The state of the world is more humiliating to our reason than the doctrines of the Gospel. A reflecting Christian sees more to excite his astonishment, and to exercise his faith, in the state of things between Temple Bar and St. Paul's, than in what he reads from Genesis to Revelations.

He that has a great nose, thinks everybody is speaking of it.

And what else is the cause of all transgression, but that man's ignorant pride will have his will preferred to the will of God.

Pride comes from not knowing yourself and the world. The older you grow, and the more you see, the less reason you will find for being proud. Ignorance and inexperience are the pedestal of pride; once the pedestal is removed - pride will soon come down.

Think not that all is well within when all is well without, or that thy being pleased is a sign that God is pleased.

Pride springs from desire. Man aspires to obtain a place for himself that he may feel honored before men. He loves to hear praising voices and considers them just and true. He also attempts to elevate himself in his work, whether in preaching or in writing, for his secret self motive goads him on. In a word, this one has not yet died to his desire of vainglory. He is still seeking what he desires and what can inflate him.

Know that you are your greatest enemy, but also your greatest friend.

Pride thrust Nebuchadnezzar out of men's society, Saul out of his kingdom, Adam out of paradise, Haman out of court, and Lucifer out of heaven.

It is a proud spirit that will not let grace be exalted, but puts self, in the throne of Christ, and his righteousness. It is a filthy and abominable spirit, and pollutes the man more and more: and God abhors it, as that which contradicts his most glorious plot.

The proud man hath no God; the envious man hath no neighbor; the angry man hath not himself. What good, then, in being a man, if one has neither himself nor a neighbor nor God.

Pride will spit in pride's face.

That venomous worm of all goodness, vain glory.

Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.

There is no greater punishment than that of being abandoned to one's self.

You can have no greater sign of confirmed pride than when you think you are humble enough.

Often Satan injects pride into the believer's spirit, evoking in him an attitude of self-importance and of self-conceit. He causes him to esteem himself a very outstanding person, one who is indispensable in God's work. Such a spirit constitutes one of the major reasons for the fall of believers.

According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride.

Once more, Never think that you can live to God by your own power or strength; but always look to and rely on him for assistance, yea, for all strength and grace.

It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.

The cause why our oppressors prevail oft against us is, because we trust too much in our own wits, and lean too much upon our own inventions opposing subtility to subtility, one evil device to another, matching and maintaining policy by policy, and not committing our cause to God.

Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.

Despondency is not a state of humility. On the contrary, it is the vexation and despair of a cowardly pride; nothing is worse. Whether we stumble, or whether we fall, we must only think of rising again and going on in our course.

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.

And yet we are very apt to be full of ourselves, instead of Him that made what we so much value, and but for whom we can have no reason to value ourselves.

Next to ingratitude the most painful thing to bear is gratitude.

Conceit not so high an opinion of any one as to be bashful and impotent in their presence.

Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.

The way we respond to criticism pretty much depends on the way we respond to praise. If praise humbles us, then criticism will build us up. But if praise inflates us, then criticism will crush us; and both responses lead to our defeat.

The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

God can never entrust His Kingdom to anyone who has not been broken of pride, for pride is the armour of darkness itself.

No one enjoys feeling weak, whether it is emotionally, spiritually or physically. There is something within the human spirit that wants to resist the thought of weakness. Many times this is nothing more than our human pride at work. Just as weakness carries a great potential for strength, pride carries an equally great potential for defeat.

Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else a man cannot keep up dignity. In gluttony there must be eating, in drunkenness there must be drinking; 'tis not the eating, and 'tis not the drinking that must be blamed, but the excess. So in pride.

It could be a sign of pride in your life if a word of reproof or admonition is not able to be received with the same grace, whether it be given by the poorest of saints or the most educated person.

Do not be taken in or flattered by your own success or fame. Take not only as to whether or not the old creation, including everything which comes by birth, has gone through the cross.