La Rochefoucauld §laroch_254: Humility is often a feigned submission which we employ to supplant others.

Humility is often a feigned submission which we employ to supplant others. It is one of the devices of Pride to lower us to raise us; and truly pride transforms itself in a thousand ways, and is never so well disguised and more able to deceive than when it hides itself under the form of humility. ["Grave and plausible enough to be thought fit for business."--Junius, Letter To The Duke Of Grafton. "He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility, And the devil was pleased, for his darling sin Is the pride that apes humility." Southey, Devil's Walk.] {There are numerous corrections necessary for this quotation; I will keep the original above so you can compare the correct passages: "He passed a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility, And he owned with a grin, That his favourite sin Is pride that apes humility." --Southey, Devil's Walk, Stanza 8. "And the devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes humility." --Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Devil's Thoughts}