A Quote by John C. Maxwell

There are two kinds of pride, both good and bad. 'Good pride' represents our dignity and self-respect. 'Bad pride' is the deadly sin of superiority that reeks of conceit and arrogance.

John C. Maxwell

Quote Topics

Good Arrogance Bad Both Conceit Deadly Dignity Good And Bad Kinds Our Pride Represents Respect Self Self-Respect Sin Superiority Two

Quote Author

John C. Maxwell
American - Priest
Born: February 20, 1947

Most of us think of pride as self-centeredness, conceit, boastfulness, arrogance, or haughtiness. All of these are elements of the sin, but the heart, or core, is still missing. The central feature of pride is enmity - enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen.

Ezra Taft Benson

In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride. It is always considered as a sin. We are not speaking of a wholesome view of self-worth, which is best established by a close relationship with God. But we are speaking of pride as the universal sin, as someone has described it. . . . Essentially, pride is a "my will" rather than "thy will" approach to life. The opposite of pride is humbleness, meekness, submissiveness, or teachableness.

Ezra Taft Benson

I remember thinking, without pride of self-pity, that I was not rich or poor, that I wasn't good or bad. But that was difficult: to be neither good nor bad. It seemed to me, in the end, the same as being bad.

Alejandro Zambra

Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride - where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.

Jane Austen

Live according to the ethics of excellence, and you can always stand proud. Pride - not vanity, but dignity and self-respect - should carry a lot of weight in helping you make decisions. Let pride help you decide.

Price Pritchett

It may do good; pride hath no other glass To show itself but pride, for supple knees Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees.

William Shakespeare

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility...According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites 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.

C. S. Lewis

Pride that you express to other people is probably ego. Pride that you express silently to yourself is real pride. Pride of self is understanding that life is glorious, and that it 's an honor to be here.

Stuart Wilde

Just as meekness is in all our virtues, so is pride in all our sins. Whatever its momentary and alluring guise, pride is the enemy, "the first of the sins." One reason to be particularly on guard against pride is that "the devilish strategy of Pride is that it attacks us, not in our weakest points, but in our strongest. It is preeminently the sin of the noble mind." Not only of the noble mind, but also of the semi-righteous.

Neal A. Maxwell

Give people pride and they'll live on bread and water, bless their exploiters, and even die for them. Self-surrender is a transaction of barter: we surrender our sense of human dignity, our judgement, or moral and aesthetic sense for pride. If there is pride in being free, we are ready to die for liberty. If there is pride to be derived from an identification with a leader, we grovel in the dust before a Napoléon, Hitler or Stalin and are ready to die for him. If there is a distinction in suffering we search for martyrdom as for hidden treasure.

Eric Hoffer

We modern egalitarians are tempted to the primal sin of pride in the opposite way from the ancients. The old, aristocratic form of pride was the desire to be better than others. The new, democratic form is the desire not to have anyone better than yourself. It is just as spiritually deadly and does not even carry with it the false pleasure of gloating superiority.

Peter Kreeft

Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be the pride of a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal virtues - faith and hope.

Charles Dickens

When you are in the grips of low self-esteem, it’s painful, and it certainly doesn’t feel like pride. But I believe that this is the dark, quieter side of pride — thwarted pride.

Edward T Welch

Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.

Eric Hoffer

I believe in pride of race and lineage and self: in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves; in pride of lineage so great as to despise no man's father; in pride of race so chivalrous as neither to offer bastardy to the weak nor beg wedlock of the strong, knowing that men may be brothers in Christ, even though they be not brothers-in-law.