Humility / Pride

HUMILITY/PRIDE

Related Topics: Arguing, Justifying, Little Things. 1. Sometime when you're feeling important, Sometime when your ego's in bloom, Sometime when you take it for granted You're the best qualified in the room, Sometime when you feel that your going Would leave an unfillable hole, Just follow these simple instructions And see how they humble your soul. Take a bucket & fill it with water, Put your hand in it up to the wrist, Pull it out, & the hole that's remaining Is a measure of how you'll be missed. You can splash all you want when you enter, You may stir up the water galore; But stop, & you find that in no time It looks quite the same as before. The moral in this quaint example Is to do just the best that you can, Fill your place in God's Will, but remember There's no indispensable man. 2. A pompous, inflated Congressman once remarked to Horace Greeley: "I am a self-made man." To which Greeley replied, "Well, Sir, that relieves the Almighty of a great responsibility." 3. A certain French Marquis was raised to his grand & exalted state from very humble surroundings. He had been a shepherd in his earlier days & so, in his palace, he had one room known as "The Shepherd's Room". In that room were reproductions of hills & valleys & running streams & rocks & sheepfolds. Here were the staff he had carried & the clothes he had worn as a lad when herding his sheep.

When asked one day the meaning of this, he replied, "If ever my heart is tempted to haughtiness & pride, I go into that room & remind myself of what I once was." Such humility would have saved Nebuchadnezzar & Belshazzar. 4. Most of us have too big an appetite for appreciation. 5. Flattery is like perfume; you're supposed to smell it, not swallow it. 6. There is nothing that human pride resents so much as to be rebuked. 7. Pride not only withdraws the heart from God, but lifts it up against God. 8. Every breathing of pride in its first stirrings, if it had its way, would run & tear the crown off God's head. 9. Michelangelo was requested by the Gonfaloniere Soderini at Florence to form a giant statue out of a misshapen block. He accepted the task & succeeded in producing a beautiful figure which now stands in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. The statue being finished, the Gonfaloniere came to inspect & criticise its nose, wishing some reduction in its size. Michelangelo mounted the scaffold, &, giving a few harmless blows on the stone, let hall a handful of marble dust which he had secretly scraped up from the floor below. Descending from the scaffold, he turned to the Gonfaloniere for approval. "Ay," exclaimed the sagacious critic, "this is excellent. Now you have given it life indeed." 10. Such pride does the little white ermine take in his spotless coat, he permits nothing to soil it in the slightest degree. Hunters, well-acquainted with this fact, take un-sportsman-like advantage of him. They do not set traps, but daub filth within & around the entrance of his home. As the dogs are loosed & the chase begins, the little animals turned to his one place of refuge. But on seeing the filth, turns to face the yelping dogs, thinking it better to be strained by blood than sully his white coat! 11. Dr. J.F. Cowan once told the story of a small religious college that was having financial difficulties, even though their academic standards had been exceptionally high. One day a very wealthy man came on the campus, found a white-haired man in overalls painting the wall, & asked where he could find the president. The painted pointed out a house on the campus & said he was sure the president could be seen there at noon. At the designated time the visitor knocked at the president's door & was admitted by the same man he had talked to on the grounds, though now he was attired differently. The visitor accepted an invitation to have lunch with the painter-president, asking a number of questions about the needs of the college, & told him he would be sending a little donation. Two days later a letter arrived enclosing a cheque for $50,000. The humility of a man who was fitted for his position as a college president, but who was not too proud to put on the clothes of a workman & do the job that needed doing so badly, had opened his purse strings. 12. All other flattery would be harmless if we did not flatter ourselves. 13. Legalism is an abuse of the law; it is a reliance on law-keeping for acceptance with God, & the proud observance of laws is no part of the grace of God. 14. Legalism is bound to produce pride of heart.--Watchman Nee 15. Poverty & affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride. 16. Make sure it is God's trumpet you are blowing--if it is only yours it won't wake the dead, it will simply disturb the neighbours. 17. A crow sat in a tree holding in his beak a piece of meat that he had stolen. A fox which saw him determined to get the meat. It stood under the tree & began to tell the crow what a beautiful big bird he

was. He ought to be king of all the bird, the fox said; & he would undoubtedly have been made king, if only he had a voice as well. The crow was so anxious to prove that he had a voice, that he dropped the meat & croaked for all he was worth. Up ran the fox, snapped up the meat, & said to him, "If you added brains to all your other qualifications, you would make an ideal king."--Aesop's fables 18. Boswell, the famous biographer of Dr. Johnson, was once insulted by an associate. At once he rushed off to Dr. Johnson, his idol, to complain. "Consider, Sir," said Dr. Johnson, with a laugh, "how insignificant this will appear twelve months hence." Boswell took his advice to heart. Later he admitted: "Were this consideration applied to most of the little vexations of life, by which our quiet is too often disturbed, it would prevent many painful sensations. I have tried it frequently, & with good effect." 19. In a certain pond on one of the farms in the East were two ducks & a frog. Now these neighbours were the best of friends, all day long they use to play together. But as the hot Summer days came, the pond began to dry up & soon there was such a little bit of water that they all realised that they would have to move. Now the ducks could easily fly to another place, but what about their friend the frog? Finally it was decided that they would put a stick in the bill of each duck, & then the frog would hang onto the stick with his mouth & they would fly him to another pond. And so they did. As they were flying, a farmer out in his field looked up & saw them & said, "Well, isn't that a clever idea! I wonder who thought of it!" The frog said, "I did ..." 20. After haggling for hours over which type of water to install, the town council of Pacific Vista seemed hopelessly deadlocked. "I suggest," said one member, "that a committee be appointed to confer with the city engineer at Los Angeles to find which type he had found most successful; if we can profit by another city's mistakes. I think we should do so." Leaping to his feet & angrily shaking his fist, an opposing councilman shouted, "Why should we have to profit by the mistakes of Los Angeles? Gentlemen," he said, pounding the table violently, "I contend that Pacific Vista is a big enough town now to make its own mistakes!" 21. It is better to grow in grace than gifts. 22. The man who thinks he is too big for a little place is too little for a big place. 23. Pride is the idolatrous worship of ourselves, & that is the national religion of Hell.--Alan Redpath 24. Pride thrust proud Nebuchadnezzar out of men's society, proud Saul out of his kingdom, proud Adam out of paradise, proud Haman out of the court & proud Lucifer out of Heaven. 25. There is no room for God in him who is full of himself. 26. One of Spurgeon's students went into a pulpit with every expression of confidence, but he had an extremely difficult time. He came down distressed, almost brokenhearted, & he went to Spurgeon about it. The words of Spurgeon to him were these, "If you had gone up as you came down, you would have come down as you went up." 27. Have you ever thought of it, that only the smaller birds sing? You never heard a note from the eagle in all your life, nor from the turkey, nor from the ostrich. But you have heard from the canary, the wren & the lark. The sweetest music comes from those Christians who are small in their own estimation & before the Lord. 28. The life & death of our Lord Jesus Christ are a standing rebuke to ever form of pride to which men are liable.

Pride of birth & rank: "Is not this the carpenter's son?" Pride of wealth: "The Son of man hath not where to lay His head." Pride of respectability: "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Pride of personal appearance: "He hath no form nor comeliness." Pride of reputation: "A friend of publicans & sinners!" Pride of learning: "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" Pride of superiority: "I am among you as he that serveth." Pride of success: "He came unto His Own, & His Own received Him not." "Neither did His brethren believe on Him." "He was despised & rejected of men." Pride of ability: "I can of mine Own self do nothing." Pride of self-will: "I seek not Mine Own, but the Will of Him that sent Me." Pride of intellect: "As My Father hath taught me, I speak these things." Pride of death: "He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." 29. A proud heart & a lofty mountain are always barren. 30. The essence of sin is arrogance; the essence of Salvation is submission. 31. All pride is idolatry. 32. God assists the humble, but resists the proud. 33. God is not out to hurt our pride; he is out to kill it. 34. God abhors them worst who adore themselves most. 35. If the Devil cannot use failure to drag you down, he will use success. 36. In the San Francisco airport, composer Aaron Copland saw a woman buying two paperbacks, a copy of Shakespeare's plays & Copland's book, What to Listen For in Music." Copland approached her & beamed, "Would you like me to autograph it?" The beam vanished when the woman replied, "Which one?" 37. At a church where D.L. Moody was invited to preach, he was warned that some of the congregation usually left before the end of the sermon. When Mr. Moody rose to begin his sermon, he announced, "I am going to speak to two classes of people this morning: First to the sinners, & then to the saints." He proceeded to address the "sinners" for awhile, then said they could leave. For once every member of the congregation stayed to the end of the sermon. 38. "God Himself could not sink this ship," boasted a deck hand aboard R.M.S. Titanic in 1912. The men who built the ship, the civilised world, the credulous public--all believed & boasted that the ship was unsinkable! But God was not mocked. It is said that when the captain gave the order to abandon ship, many passengers simply could not believe that the Titanic could possibly sink & refused to board the lifeboats. And the crew was almost criminally complacent. So 1,502 men, women & children plunged into the depths. 39. A young Filipino, travelling in Chicago, registered at the hotel Sherman. Taking a walk, he became lost. He was ignorant of the name, location & appearance of the hotel, & so was unable to find it again. Consequently, he selected another room in the Hotel Astor. Unwilling to acknowledge to the authorities that he was lost, he tried for five days to find the place where he had deposited his baggage. Unsuccessful, he finally appealed to the authorities. The police soon found his original registration place, & informed him that for five days he had been living next door to the place where he had left his baggage. Although so near, he lost five days' peace of mind, five days' time, & five days' use of his baggage all because he would not tell an officer that he was lost. No one should entertain any fears about telling the Lord that they are lost, confessing, "I have gone astray like a lost sheep."

40. It is when we forget ourselves that we do things that are most likely to be remembered. 41. You're never going to get anywhere if you think you're already there. 42. A Christian is like ripening corn: The riper he grows, the lower he bows his head. 43. When we take the least notice of our good deeds ourselves, God takes the most notice of them. 44. If we learned humility it might spare us humiliation. 45. During the great Reformation in Europe, Luther & Zwingli found themselves at odds in their concern for the movements they were leading. Early one morning, Zwingli walked out on the mountains of Switzerland & a soul-stirring sight confronted him. He saw two goats making their way over a narrow path on the mountains. One was ascending the trial, the other descending. He also noticed that they must pass at a point where the trail was so narrow that there was room for only one goat. He watched to see what would happen. The animals rounded a turn in the path which brought them in full view of each other. They backed up, as though ready for a lunge, & then the most amazing thing happened. The goat on the trail below laid down in the path, while the goat above him walked over his back. The first animal then arose & continued his journey up the trail. To Zwingli this meant that the way down is the way up. Christ humbled Himself so that men could walk over Him into the Kingdom of light, knowing that afterwards He would be exalted. 46. A high-ranking British official in the Orient entertained a sophisticated lady as his guest. The general's assistant seated the lady at the left of her host rather than at his right, the place of honour. She fumed inwardly until she could no longer bear it. Haughtily she said, "I suppose you have great difficulty getting your aide-de-camp to seat your guests properly!" "Not at all," said the general. "Those who matter don't mind, & those who mind don't matter." 47. A farmer & his young son went into the wheat fields at harvest time. As they looked across the waving fields of golden grain, the boy exclaimed, "Look, Father, at those wheat heads that hold themselves up so proudly. They must be the ones that are filled with grain, & I would supposed that those with their heads bowed are of no account." "How foolish you are, my Son!" the farmer said, & taking some of the heads in his hands, he showed the boy that the heads that stood up so proudly had only a few, poor, shriveled grains or were complete empty, while those that bowed their heads humbly were filled with large, full, golden kernels of wheat. 48. God's choice acquaintances are humble men. 49. The best way to see divine light is to put out thine own candle. 50. The lowest parts of the land are warm & fertile; & lofty mountains are cold & barren.--Spiros Zodhiates 51. Humility is one of the chief of all the Christian virtues; it is the hallmark of the child of God. 52. Although disciples are to be seen doing good works, they must not do good works in order to be seen. 53. Paderewski arrived in a small Connecticut town about noon one day & decided to talk a walk in the afternoon. While strolling along he heard a piano, &, following the sound, came to a house on which was a sign reading: "Miss Jones. Piano lessons 25 cents an hour." Pausing to listen he heard the young woman trying to play one of Chopin's nocturnes, & not succeeding very well.

Paderewski walked up to the house & knocked. Miss Jones came to the door & recognised him at once. Delighted, she invited him in & he sat down & played the nocturne as he only could, afterward spending an hour in correcting her mistakes. Miss Jones thanked him & he departed. Some months later he returned to the town, & again he took the same walk. He soon came to the home of Miss Jones, &, looking at the sign, he read: "Miss Jones (Pupil of Paderewski) Piano lessons $1.00 an hour." 54. A story is told of an Oriental vizier who carried with him a mysterious chest of which no one knew the contents. One man asked him what the chest contained. He was allowed to look inside, but he saw only the common garb of a working man. The vizier said, "Such was I when our Sovereign deigned to lift me from the dust. If ever my heart is tempted with pride, I correct it by looking at these things, & saying, 'Remember what thou wast.'" 55. Do you wish men to speak well of you? Then never speak well of yourself.--Pascual 56. In order to make us trust Him, God works hard to make us lose trust in ourselves. 57. There is no need for us to devise means to draw attention to our work. God in His sovereign providence can well bear that responsibility. 58. We do not know a millionth part of one percent about anything.--Thomas Edison 59. A lion in God's cause must be a lamb in his own. 60. No pretence of humility must make us decline our duty. 61. We always weaken whatever we exaggerate.--Jean Francois De Laharpe 62. Notice in the Corning, California Observer: "If today's copy of this newspaper looks neater, nicer & better printed, it is because it was printed on our fabulous high-speed web press which was christened locally with this issue. "If today's copy of this newspaper does not look neater, nicer & better printed, it is because no one really knows how to run our fabulous high-speed press yet." 63. He who will not be counselled cannot be helped. 64. Peter the Great of Russia had a big idea to improve Russia, which was then in a backward state compared with the rest of Europe. So he left his exalted position, became first an apprentice, then a skilled workman, & finally a teacher & demonstrator. He worked as a shipbuilder in Holland & at Deptford in England, & studied military science in Austria. The result was St. Petersburg, whose name has since been changed, was founded by him. It rises out of the marshes, the capital & harbour for merchant ships, many of which Peter himself piloted in. 65. The newspaper cartoonist H.T. Webster once amused himself by sending telegrams to 20 of his acquaintances whom he selected at random. Each message contained just one word: "Congratulations!" As far as Webster knew, not one of his friends had done anything special for which to be complimented. Yet each person was so flattered that he immediately wrote him a letter of thanks. All 20 assumed they had done something worthy of a congratulatory telegram! 66. Few people need voice lessons to sing their own praise.--E.C. McKenzie 67. King Canute, a Danish conqueror of Britain, was one day flattered by his courtiers on account of his power. Then he ordered his throne to be placed by the seaside. The tide was rolling in, & threatened to drown him. He commanded the waves to stop. Of course, they did not. Then he said to his flatterers, "Behold, how small is the might of kings!"

68. The man who sings his own praises always gets the wrong pitch. 69. It is not too much to say that the Christian speaker who loves to be before the public is hardly prepared spiritually to be before them. 70. The fellow who does things that count doesn't usually stop to count them. 71. Those travelling the highway of humility won't be bothered by any heavy traffic. 72. Sincere humility attracts. Lack of humility subtracts. Artificial humility detracts. 73. Pride of gifts robs us of God's blessing in the use of them. 74. Pride is a denial of dependence upon God. 75. A song that never gets an encore is when you sing your own praises. 76. The test of any man's character is how he takes praise. 77. An overdose of praise is like ten lumps of sugar in coffee; only a few people can swallow it. 78. The person who is all wrapped up in himself is overdressed. 79. Staring up to admire your halo usually creates a pain in the neck. 80. Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level. 81. As the chest swells, the brain & the heart shrink. 82. God never intended for us to pat ourselves on the back. If He had, our hinges would be different. 83. People who talk about things they can't afford often forget to include pride, envy & malice. 84. There are some people who would rather be the head of nothing than the tail of something. 85. Pride hides a man's faults to himself & magnifies them to everyone else. 86. Success that goes to a man's head usually pays a very short visit. 87. When success turns a man's head, it leaves him looking in the wrong direction. 88. High places are slippery places. 89. The Lord would give us great things if only He could trust us not to steal the glory for ourselves. 90. The cure of boasting is to boast in the Lord all the day long. 91. Modesty in delivering our opinions leaves us the liberty of changing them without humiliation. 92. The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather, he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion & as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself.

93. If you lay yourself at Christ's feet He will take you into His arms. 94. Nothing sets a person so much out of the Devil's reach as humility. 95. God can only fill valleys, not mountains. 96. Men frequently admire me; but I abhor the pleasure that I feel. 97. Lord, give me humility or I perish. 98. Let my name be forgotten, let me be trodden under the feet of all men, if Jesus may thereby be glorified.--George Whitefield 99. Show when you are tempted to hide, & hide when you are tempted to show. 100. There is only one endeavor in which you can start at the top & that's digging a hole! 101. My friend & I have built a wall Between us thick & wide; The stones of it are laid in scorn And plastered high with pride. We talk across the stubborn stones So arrogantly tall-Only we cannot touch our hands Since we have built the wall. --Elizabeth Morrow 102. Apparently too proud to accept neighbours' help, an elderly couple died from starvation, exposure & pneumonia, according to the Associated Press. Opinion on the causes of the deaths was given by Medical Examiner Thomas F. Corriden at the Cooley Dickinson Hospital, at Northhampton, Mass. The couple was taken to the hospital from their home in nearby West Cummington where a neighbour said she had been turned away from the door by the husband when she offered assistance. Neighbours finally gained admission to the home & found the man & wife unconscious. Too proud to accept the Gift is the reason numbers of persons are on perishing ground today, in a spiritual sense. The Lord Jesus Christ is God's "unspeakable Gift". Eternal life is the free gift of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom.6:23) Salvation is a gift of God. ... To be too proud to accept such gifts from such a Giver will mean to perish in a deeper sense than from starvation. 103. Letter to Dear Abby: "Since I am a pastor with 43 years' experience, I'd like to offer this suggestion to the inexperienced young minister who didn't know how to handle a very bold woman in his congregation who had designs on him. "Whenever I noticed a romantic twinkle in the eye of a woman in my congregation, I always checked to make sure it wasn't caused by a reflection from the gleam in my own. The Rev. Walter Cowen." 104. A rich man once invited many honored guests for a feast. His own chair, richly decorated, was placed at one end of the long table. While he was away, each guest seated himself according to his own esteem of his position in the sight of the master. When time came & all were seated, the master moved his chair to the other end of the table! 105. The person with true humility never has to be shown his place; he is always in it. 106. A fault which humbles a man is of more use to him than a good action which puffs him up. 107. The best way to be right or wrong is humbly.

108. Humility makes a man feel smaller as he becomes greater. 109. Power is dangerous unless you have humility. 110. The more praise a man is willing to take, the less he deserves it. 111. A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner & outer life depend on the labours of other men, living & dead, & that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received & am receiving.--Einstein 112. I used to think that God's gifts were on shelves one above another, and the taller we grow, The easier we can reach them. Now I find, that God's gifts are on shelves one beneath another, and the lower we stoop, The more we get. 113. A proud lawyer asked a farmer: "Why don't you hold up your head in the world? I bow my head before neither God nor man!" Answered the wise farmer: "Do you see that field of grain? Only the heads of grain which are empty stand upright. The well-filled ones bow low!" 114. Do what you can, being what you are: Shine as a glow worm if you cannot be a star. Work like a pulley if you cannot be a crane; Be a wheel greaser if you cannot drive a train. Be the pliant oar if you cannot be the sailor: Be the little needle if you cannot be the tailor. Be the cleaning besom if you cannot be the sweeper; Be the sharpened sickle if you cannot be the reaper. 115. It takes more grace than one can tell to play the second fiddle well. 116. The egotist is an "I" specialist. 117. An egotist is like a man up in a balloon; everybody looks small to him & he looks small to everybody. 118. A person who is truly great is one who will take more than his share of the blame & less than his share of the credit. 119. A man who is truly great doesn't have to prove it; & if he isn't great, trying to prove it will do no good. 120. The man who has a right to boast doesn't have to. 121. Remember, whenever you're praised to the sky, it's best to keep your feet on the ground.

122. When a proud man hears another praised, he thinks himself injured. 123. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. 124. It is the person who most knows himself liable to fall that will be most ready to overlook any offenses from his fellow men. 125. A person interrupts & endangers his climb up the ladder of success when he stops to pat himself on the back. 126. The worst use that can be made of success is to boast of it. 127. No garment is more becoming to a Christian than the cloak of humility. 128. A man who is self-centered is off-centered. 129. We have observed that many self-made men made their heads oversize. 130. When a man gets too big for his "britches", his hat doesn't fit either. 131. When an egotist doesn't understand something in a book, he decides it must be a misprint. 132. A wise man said that humility is Christian clothing. It never goes out of style. 133. The World's most conceited man was the fellow who celebrated his birthday by sending his mother a telegram of congratulations. 134. Conceit may puff a man up, but it never props him up. 135. The only time you should blow your horn is when you're in the band. 136. To be unusually pleased with yourself is the surest way of offending everybody else. 137. The best remedy for conceit is to sit down & make a list of all the things you don't know. 138. Psychiatrists tell us that conceit is a disease. It's a mighty strange ailment; the victim usually feels all right, but it makes his associates sick. 139. A conceited gentleman in South Carolina said, "Most people won't admit their faults. I'd admit mine if I had any." 140. There's more hope for a confessed sinner than a conceited saint. 141. The fellow who is too deeply in love with himself ought to get a divorce. 142. Some people grow under responsibility, while others only swell. 143. When you try to make an impression--that is precisely the impression you make. 144. Oftentimes the man who most desperately needs help is unwilling to admit he has a need. 145. If you can listen to a man argue a point of view which is contrary to your own & accept his right to his own opinion, that is maturity. 146. God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him.--Martin Luther

147. It is not enough to be merely separately from the world. For we can be separated & be quite proud about it. 148. It is almost as a presumptuous to think you can do nothing as to think you can do everything. 149. Our humility serves us falsely when it leads us to shrink from any duty. The plea of unfitness or inability is utterly insufficient to excuse us. 150. Success makes failures out of too many people. 151. If you are willing to admit you are all wrong when you are ALL wrong, you are all right! 152. Blessed is he who will work as a member of the committee of which he really wanted to be the chairman. 153. Some people who never touch intoxicating liquor are, nevertheless, dead drunk with pride, & the wild use of their lips reveals the totality of their self-intoxication. 154. It is as much a presumption to think you can do nothing as to think there is some critical place which just you & no one else is made to fill. The latter folly supposes that God exhausted Himself when He made you; the former folly, equally impious, supposes that God made a hopeless blunder when He made you. 155. In camp, the soldiers were awaiting imminent transfer to the fighting front. In the dusk one of the soldiers called out to a khaki-clad figure only dimly seen: "Hey, buddy, got a match?" A lighted match was forthcoming, & by its light, as he started to thank the other for the courtesy, the private was horrified to see the markings of a general. "I beg your pardon, Sir!" he said, saluting smartly. "I didn't see that you were a general." "That's all right, Son," said the general benignly. "Just thank God I wasn't a second lieutenant." 156. It really pays to admit that you forgot what you were talking about, then you find out if people are listening. I used to do that in school when I was a schoolteacher. They'd laugh at me, but I'd sure soon find out who was listening. I think I'm the first preacher I ever heard of that would admit that he forgot his train of thought & what he was talking about when I got interrupted. But I have heard preachers who got interrupted or something happened, they lost their train of thought & they really lost it, but every one of them I ever heard covered up & went on to something else & tried to cover up that they hadn't forgotten what they were saying! Isn't that ridiculous? That's just plain pride! I mean, if I forgot what I was saying, I might as well tell you & you can remind me, then I get back on the right track again!--Dad 157. Sir Winston Churchill was stopped by a woman who said to him: "Doesn't it thrill you, Mr. Churchill, to know that every time you make a speech the hall is packed to overflowing?" "It is quite flattering," Sir Winston replied. "But whenever I feel this way I always remember that if, instead of making a political speech, I was being hanged, the crowd would be TWICE as big!" 158. The first test of whether a man is truly great is an examination of his humility. 159. The beginning of greatness is to be little. The increase of greatness is to be less. The perfection of greatness is to be nothing.--D.L. Moody. 160. Give some people an inch & they think they are rulers. 161. The man who is too big for a small job, is too small for a big job. 162. Criticism is often a form of self-boasting.

163. No man can really at one & the same time call attention to himself & glorify Christ. 164. Real Love is humility & total sacrificing, willing to not only lay down your life, but also your wife, if necessary, for the sake of the Cause & for unity & humility & oneness. 165. Real Love is humility & people can neither accept Love nor give it without humility! And if they are so selfish they will not forsake their pride, they won't humble themselves, then they go the other way & harden themselves against it because they can't stand to let it affect them & make them tender or break their hearts. They don't want to be melted, much less broken, so they resist it. It's just exactly like people harden themselves against the Lord! 166. Lord, help us to be willing to be humbled & to be stripped of everything if necessary! Even though it's the thing we fight the most, it's what we need the most.--The humbling, the forsaking & the changing, the just believing that what You say is true, no matter what! Help us not to be rebellious & not to fight it, not to be proud, but to be humble & willing to be nothing. We thank You even for our mistakes that keep us humble & that show others that we're human & not better than they are. If there's a chance for us, there's a chance for them; if You can forgive us, You can forgive them! 167. Even if you feel broken down & uprooted & no longer as lofty as you once were, you can still be useful to the Lord's children, although you may not be as great & glorious & haughty as you were before! 168. It takes humility, childlikeness, simpleness & honesty to confess your needs!--And for some reason or other, especially your physical needs. 169. It takes HUMILITY to be honest. It especially takes humility to be honest about SEX. 170. The Lord probably wanted you to fail so you wouldn't be thinking too highly of yourself & think that you knew what to do. If you hadn't failed, you could give yourself a nice little pat on the back, but now you're more humble & more dependent on the Lord. 171. The Lord has to let you see that He's even in control of your mistakes & sometimes He has to let you fail to keep you humble. 172. It's GOOD for you to make a mistake, it keeps you HUMBLE! I make lots of of'm! If I didn't make some mistakes I'd probably get really proud & think I was very wholly sanctified & couldn't sin! If I didn't make some mistakes, I'd probably get really proud of my sanctimonious holiness! But it seems like the Lord makes me one of the biggest mistake-makers in the World to keep me humble. 173. The Bible in one place even says, "Be ye not overly righteous." (Ecc.7:16) I'm sure it's talking about being a little SELF-righteous & pretending to be a little more righteous than you really are. 174. Pride is self-righteousness, thinking that you are more righteous than God. If you're proud of something, you're proud of your own righteousness. You glory in it, in other words. So if it's your own righteousness, than you're rebelling against God because you're saying you're more righteous than God, & that is pride. 175. In the World, pride is normally quite a virtue, so people are brainwashed & brought up to believe that, but in the Lord's service & in the spiritual, it's very bad & something you have to really try to fight against & overcome. 176. If you would be open & honest & confess you sins, it would remove so many tensions, so much of what they call stress & apprehension. You know what it all is?--FEAR & PRIDE is what's killing the World today! "Men's hearts failing them for fear!" (Luk.21:26) Fear, stress, strain, all these things they talk about people having & dying from, from heart trouble & high blood pressure, it's all FEAR! The Bible just calls it a plain & simple little four-letter word for what it is, FEAR! And the other one's a five-letter

word that caused all the trouble in the first place, PRIDE! 177. Sometimes it can be your pride to be so terribly sorry for your failures. You wanted to do the right thing, you wanted to be perfect & not make any mistakes because of your pride. But in a case when the Lord wants to work on your pride, it's good that you fall or you do the wrong thing, or you don't always hit the mark, because then you realise that only the Lord can do anything, & when you do succeed, you know it's only the Lord, it's not you! Sometimes He has to let you fail to show you that He's the only One Who can succeed! He has to let you see that He's even in control of that & sometimes He has to let you fail to keep you humble! 178. Many of us have trouble taking correction, although we all know that we need it & deserve it. I guess it's not only because we don't like to acknowledge that we were wrong, but also because accepting correction means that we're SUBMITTING to the person who's correcting us, & submission is pretty hard! 179. I think we can say that if we RESENT CORRECTION or don't like it or are rebellious against it, that it's usually because of pride. When we don't want to OBEY the Lord, that's not ALWAYS just because of pride, because there are lots of other reasons why we sometimes don't want to obey the Lord or do His Will, perhaps because we think it's too hard, or that we can't do it. There would be quite a few reasons for not wanting to submit to the Lord, but I guess in the long run it really DOES come down to pride. We could use the excuse of being afraid of failing, that we're afraid we can't do it or we're scared of doing it, but you can even trace THAT back to pride. Why are we afraid of failing? If we were the only ones who knew we failed, that wouldn't affect us so much, but we don't want OTHERS to see that we failed, & that's pride! I guess it's even pride if we don't want to say to OURSELVES, "I've failed." You don't want to accept the fact that you failed or you've done anything wrong, because it destroys the nice self-image that you have of yourself, your self-righteousness. I guess we can trace quite a few of our failures to submit to or obey the Lord & to take correction back to pride! 180. You'll probably never get a complete permanent victory over pride, because pride is something which we all have to constantly fight against, but you CAN get a victory to where it doesn't have such a HOLD or GRIP on you! If you really feel your pride is a big constant hindering problem in your life, then having united prayer against it probably will help!--It certainly can't hurt! The Lord is able!--He SAVED us & now he can DELIVER us from anything! 181. I don't expect that you'll get rid of your pride completely, because we all have some pride, but you could pray to get rid of that domination, that powerful hold it has on you. "Keep back Thy servant also from PRESUMPTUOUS sins, let them have no dominion over me." See, the pride is going to be there always & we're always going to have to fight it, but it doesn't have to have dominion over us. We have that temptation, but we don't have to be BOUND by it & held by its grip! It doesn't have to have DOMINION over us. 182. That's what your problem is, it's your God-damned pride!--It's your selfish pride! What the Hell difference does it matter whether you're happy or not?--Get your mind on the LORD & get your mind on OTHERS & try to just forget yourself & your selfishness & your pride & please OTHER people! Get your mind on the Lord & others! You don't find happiness through the pursuit of it, you find happiness through trying to make other people happy, & it'll find you! 183. You don't realise how serious it is! You don't realise how your spirit reflects on others because you're thinking only about yourself & how you're unhappy, you can't get along with this person, you can't do this or that. 184. Pride is of the Devil! It's of Hell! Pride is the condemnation of the Devil! That's what we're going to be judged for, our pride. That's what leads us into all our problems. 185. Anybody can be a novice if you give them more than they can handle. "Not a novice, lest being lifted up in pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil." If any job you get makes you proud then you're a novice. If it ministers to your pride & you think, "Ah, now what a big shot am I!", that's sure

proof you're a novice! 186. If you are too proud & ashamed to do things like that, then you ought to get out of this business & go some place where pride pays! I never found any branch of the Lord's Work where pride pays at all! Pride does not pay, it doesn't pay the bills. We've got every reason in the World to ask for help for His Work. 187. I'd certainly lots rather change when God shows me something & be right, than through pride & arrogance & inflated ego & fear of embarrassment refuse to change & refuse to be changed by God Himself in the matter of some point of doctrine or some point of prophetic interpretation of some kind or other. I would rather suffer the blow to my ego & the embarrassment of my pride & be right, than stiffen my resistance against anything new & close my mind like most Christians & churches, who say, "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts." 188. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those who sang best. 189. Samson's weakness was his fondness for showing off his strength.