The Pilgrim's Progress Humilty Quotes

This is what Evangelist asks the distressed Christian when the two first meet. The Wicket Gate is the strongest symbol Bunyan provides for the humility required of pilgrims. It's not an elaborate marble arch, or a fancy golden gate. Wicket is a simple, cheap material associated with garden fences and cottages. It isn't simply that even the poor will be able to walk the path to the Celestial City, but that such humble beginnings are required. To reach everlasting glory, symbolized by the "Celestial Gates," one has to begin with the humble wicket gate.

This quote expresses the power that comes through humility—not only the humility displayed by Jesus on the cross and by God in offering his son, but also how followers of Christ acknowledge this humility.

We're half-way through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Literally, Christian has made it half-way through death, past the gate to hell, but… instead of congratulating himself, he thinks of his "deliverance." Dude keeps things in perspective.

The meeting of Christian and Faithful begins here, really, as so many good friendships do: with pride before the fall. Christian's "vain-glorious" pleasure at out-stripping Faithful is humbled by his tumble. Instead of laughing at this humiliation, however, Faithful's simple act of helping Christian is a pure gesture of goodwill.

Thinking about humility? The Valley of Humiliation is the place to go! The allegorical names here clearly lay out the social consequences of choosing the humble lifestyle. Proud, arrogant, and worldly people who used to be your friends aren't going to be too chummy anymore. By using the allegorical names, though, Bunyan is making a much larger and conceptual statement: not just that proud people tend to snub the humble, but that people who choose humility have to give up their interest in pride and honor. Humility and pride aren't just enemies … they're mutually exclusive.

Here is Christian's reply to Discontent, which, as you can see, uses a type of logic that comes up frequently in this book. It's basically the old "last shall be first, first shall be last" notion, which points toward the eternal glory and honor of heaven. This is an either/or system of logic. Eternal glory means foregoing worldly glory; and if you choose that latter kind instead, you write yourself off of the heavenly guest-list.

"God prefers a tender Conscience." Lines like this might recall Christian's early conversation with Worldly-Wiseman. Tenderness, which Shame and Worldly-Wiseman think is simply "unmanly" (weak, spineless, lily-livered—substitute any adjective you like), is what allows a believer to be sensitive and accessible to God's will. So, in a way, Christian is really turning the tables on Shame, here: being ashamed of one's humility now, and of one's humble friends, will only make one feel greater shame at judgment day, when actually faced with Christ.

"Wise in his own conceit": this phrase summarizes the problem of Ignorance perfectly—at least as Bunyan represents it. Ignorance is so without humility that he knows more than everybody else, even God.

The sights that the shepherds show the pilgrims from the Delectable Mountains have a profound effect on them. Above all, they realize how easy it still could be for them to fail on their journey, particularly from the example of others who made it even farther than the mountains on their pilgrimages and still ended up in Hell by the passage the shepherds show them. This quote emphasizes their understanding of the need to seek strength and guidance from outside of themselves.

This exchange occurs between Christian and Hopeful as the latter describes his experience of conversion. This bit of text allows Bunyan to put in big bold letters some of the ideas he's illustrated more figuratively in allegory. This point about humility is one of them. The "fear of God" that the two are discussing here is complex. There is the quaking, shivering, frightened sense of fear, especially in this Puritan context. Thinking very literally (as this book encourages one to do) about the horror of damnation is a huge incentive for following the rule. But "fear" here also means respect, particularly in the way that Christian associates it with wisdom. The characters who come across as the most foolish in this story are the ones who are over-confident, who credit their own ideas and preferences over those of the Gospels. The quality of humility described here is also a source of affection for God, keeping the soul "tender" and sensitive to his will. You might think of the affection of a dog for its owner, the way he is more watchful and alive to the wishes of a person who it also feels subservient too. This passage communicates that feeling small before God is essential to loving Him.