“Nothing is more deceitful,” said Darcy, “than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.”
Jane Austen,
Pride and Prejudice (Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 2007; 1813), p. 43.
Humility does not consist in having a worse opinion of ourselves than we deserve, or in abasing ourselves lower than we really are, but as all virtue is founded in truth, so humility is founded in a true and just sense of our weakness, misery and sin. He who rightly feels and lives in this sense of his condition, lives in humility.
William Law,
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (London: J.M. Dent, 1951; 1729), p. 209.