Sermon quotes on pride
Francis Bacon
The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.
Thomas W. Currie III
We sometimes find God’s forgiveness to be offensive: “It reveals us to be distressingly like everyone else!” (And we are so special.)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Yet, I didn’t understand that she was intentionally disguising her feelings with sarcasm; that was usually the last resort of people who are timid and chaste of heart, whose souls have been coarsely and impudently invaded; and who, until the last moment, refuse to yield out of pride and are afraid to express their own feelings to you.
Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
Harry Emerson Fosdick
A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.
Richard J. Foster
Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honor and recognition. It will devise subtle, religiously acceptable means to call attention to the service rendered. If we stoutly refuse to give in to this lust of the flesh, we crucify it. Every time we crucify the flesh, we crucify our pride and arrogance.
Steve Jobs
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.
Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
C.S Lewis
God is not proud. He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.
C.S Lewis
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 someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault that makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
Erwin McManus
Attitude is an accurate monitor of where we fall on the spectrum of pride and humility.
Thomas Merton
Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.
Andrew Murray
Pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you.
Samuel Rutherford
Be not proud of race, face, place, or grace.
Sophocles
All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.
Antigone
John Steinbeck
Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? …Well, think about it. Maybe you’re playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”
East of Eden
Source Unknown
If pride turned some of the angels into demons, then humility can doubtless make angels out of demons.
Dan White Jr.
Expert Pamela Rutledge explained in an article for Psychology Today that taking selfies is indicative of the tornado of narcissism. The selfie is the appropriate snapshot of the state of identity in the West. Paranoia that people don’t see us, understand us, or find us essential is pushing, pushing, pushing self-expression to the center of our daily life.
Isak Dinesen
Pride is faith in the idea that God had when He made you.
David Brooks
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 with lovely emotions like admiration, companionship, and gratitude.
The Road to Character
John Ruskin
Pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.
Samuel Johnson
Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities he does not possess.
Source Unknown
The way up is to go down; the way down is to go up.
Mark Twain
He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to its own merits.
Following the Equator (1897)
Henry Ward Beecher
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.
Brett Hansen
I’ve learned that Jesus is both terribly dangerous and terribly safe. For the proud, he is the biggest threat imaginable. And for the humble, he is the securest refuge.
The Truth about Us: The Very Good News about How Very Bad We Are, Baker Publishing Group.
Diogenes Allen
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 helper.
Spiritual Theology (Lanham, MD: Cowley, 1997), 76.
Still Looking for inspiration?
Consider checking out our illustrations page on Pride.