Pride is the Engine of Mediocrity

Monroe County

Everyone would do well to read some G.K. Chesterton in their lifetime. Chesterton was a brilliant writer who influenced, among others, C.S. Lewis. Humility, reasoned Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy, generates things; pride prevents growth.


"Chesterton argued that human pride is in fact the engine of mediocrity. It fools us into believing that we have “arrived", that we are complete, that there is little else to learn. Humility, by contrast, he said, reminds us that we are small and incomplete and so urges us on toward the heights of artistic, scientific and societal endeavour." (John Dickson, Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership, Kindle Locations 1158-1161)