Richard Steele on Humility

Humility will make you easy and contented in every condition of life; you will then be ready to commanded; easy to be pleased; hard to be provoked; and generally beloved. An humble mind thinks every good it receieves more than it deserves, and every evil less. It will not think itself too great or too good to stoop to the meanest services of an honest employment; nor be wanting in a modest and respectful behaviour to others. You will not then be disputing when you should obey; fretting when you should submit; envying those you should respect, or contemning those you should embrace. These are a consequence of pride in the heart; a disposition that will make you hateful to God, disrespected of men, and uneasy to yourselves; every labour will be thought too much, every reproof too galling, and every week a year, until the time of servitude expires, and then you will carry your chain with you, for what liberty can he have that is a slave to his pride and passions?