pride on Envy

Pride, envy, avarice - these are the sparks have set on fire the hearts of all men.

O Lord, my every sense, member, faculty, affection, is a snare to me. I can scarce open my eyes but I envy those above me, or despise those below. I covet the honor and riches of the mighty, and a...

The Celebrant and People together, all kneeling Most holy and merciful Father: We confess to you and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinne...

In The Lord of the Rings, Denethor is a steward of Gondor, the great kingdom of men. He comes from a long line of stewards who have ruled Gondor as temporary lords while the kingdom waited for the n...

With vainglory, we crave notice of our achievements with pride, we take full credit for the progress we have made and do not think that God has been involved at all, let alone been our indispensible h...

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

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they ...

Humility is freedom from the need to prove you are superior all the time, but egotism is a ravenous hunger in a small space—self-concerned, competitive, and distinction-hungry. Humility is infused wit...

Catch {a person} 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 ...

Today I come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone loathes when he sees it in so...

Leader: Heavenly Father, I confess that I have sinned against you. I have delighted my soul in other things more than I have in you. Why, then, is it any surprise to me that you feel far off from me? ...

A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

In a sermon delivered at Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville, Tennessee, Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas turns his attention to the dangerous seduction of crowds: It is a terrible thing to fall...

Who, then, are we, we prideful late-twentieth-century creatures? Lord knows, we no longer think of ourselves as belonging to anyone or anything. We do not belong – we own; we possess. And that, to say...

Almighty God, we take pride in our self-sufficiency while we look down on the weak who cannot provide for themselves. We praise others for their efforts, yet we demand perfection from our own families...

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 mo...

Eternal God, Your love for us is without end, yet our love for you and for one another is weak, often interrupted by self-centeredness ... distrust ... vindictiveness. Whenever we come together to...

One of the great ironies of sin is that when human beings try to become more than human beings, to be as gods, they fall to become lower than human beings. To be your own God and live for your own glo...

O Lord Jesus Christ, enthroned in the majesty of heaven, who, when you came forth from God, did make yourself one that serves: We adore you because you did lay aside the garment of your glory, and clo...

Jesus, though you were in very nature God, you did not consider equality with God as something to be used to your own advantage. Rather, you humbled yourself, you made yourself nothing. Lord, you are ...

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a handsome young man who caught sight of his reflection in a pond, fell in love with his own image, toppled into the water and drowned. So “narcissism” is an excessiv...

It is, after all, not intellect that is a threat to spirituality, but pride of intellect, a reliance on, a trust in, a worship of intellect.

Loving Father, You receive all who come humbly before You. Yet we approach You far too often with much satisfaction and inappropriate pride. We think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. W...

God is not proud. He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.

A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

The world has always despised people from the wrong places and with the wrong credentials. We are always trying to justify ourselves. We need desperately to feel superior to others. And everything abo...

Loving and Merciful God, we come before you today aware of our own selfish pride. We have chosen our way above your way. We have chosen our opinions over the unity of your church. Forgive us where we ...

In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson points out our blind-spots with respect to pride: We rarely think of ourselves as proud. I...

Blessed Lord, who puts down the mighty from their seat and exalts those who have been humbled: Save us, we implore you, from pride and arrogance, from self-seeking and false ambition. Give us a humble...