"Humility will not be served by lowering your sense of your own worth ([a] common misconception). To do that is simply to cringe, and cringers, beneath their lowly display, are rarely humble- more often they harbour an inadequately sublimated envy at what they see as others' good luck, which should have been theirs, had the world been more just. To be truly humble is to remain alert to the fact that, unless you're a castaway, your life unrolls amidst a tangle of reciprocal relationships, all of which demand some degree or other of discernment that can determine both justly and generously what is due to or from each. It is not humility to see only that your existence will import nothing to many people; neither is it pride to see that, for some, your presence may matter very much indeed. Real humility discerns and maintains an equilibrium between the two. To do its job properly it must solicit the assistance of both love and patience. Love has the best eyes, patience the best temper and tempering faculty. Humility defers wisely to both."
- Robert DiNapoli, from essay "Humility", taken from Arena: The Australian Magazine of Left Political, Social and Cultural Commentary, issue No. 134
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