Deceit | Honor | Humility | Pride | Self

TO APPEAR HUMBLE
Richard Marius writes of Thomas More: He was ambitious, but he did not want people to know that he was. He loved the praise of the crowd and worked hard to create a public image of himself as a man who took no care for what people thought of him. Yet he hated criticism and responded furiously whenever attacked. He was gregarious, but he felt a contrary pull to solitude, loving isolation and serenity, and he never overcame his early longing for the unambitious, remote life of the cloistered monk he might have been, the monk he always thought he should have been. He worked hard to seem humble. But he always wanted to be somebody, and he always tried to make the public imagine that high position had been thrust upon him only because great and wise men insisted that his talents were too large to be hidden. Few people have enjoyed greater success in advertising their humility. Richard Marius,…