Pride is the devil’s own daughter, who has a great share in his nature. Pride wars against God because of His goodness, and God throws down pride and wars against it. Pride is king of wicked habits. It (she) is the lion that devours all. Pride destroys all the goodness and all the graces and all the good works that are in man. For pride makes of alms sin, and of virtues vices, and by good works, whereby one should buy heaven, it makes us win hell. This sin is the first that assails the knight our Lord, (and) whom it is the last to leave, for when He hath all other evils overcome, then pride assails Him the more strongly. HOW ONE SHALL DIVIDE THE SEVEN BOUGHS OF PRIDE. This sin divides and spreads into so many parts that one can scarcely reckon them. But seven principal divisions there are, which are as seven boughs, which go out, and are born of a wicked root. The first bough, then, of pride is untruth; the second, contempt; the third, overweening, which we call presumption; the fourth, over-boldness, which we call ambition; the fifth, vainglory; the sixth, hypocrisy; the seventh, wicked dread. To these seven divisions belong all the sins that are born of pride. But each of these seven boughs has many small twigs. The first bough of pride, which is untruth, divides itself into three little boughs, whereof the first is bad, the second worse, the third worst of all. The one is crime, the second madness, the third apostasy. Crime generally is in every sin, for no sin is without crime, and so begin all sins by crime. But the crime that we speak of here specially, which comes of pride, is a kind of untruth, is a vice, that is called in book-lore ingratitude; that is, forgetfulness of God and of His gifts, that one thanks Him not as one should do, nor yields Him thanks for His gifts that He hath given us. Forsooth, he is indeed a villain and untrue towards his Lord, who hath done him all good, and he does not thank Him, but forgets, and yields Him evil for good, and villainy for courtesy. The same villainy doth man to God when he bethinks him not of the gifts that God hath given him, and gives him always, and thanks Him not, but rather often opposes Him in that which he uses wickedly and against God’s will. That is very great villainy, as it appears to me, that he (should) receive great goodness and not deign to say great thanks. And yet it is greater when one forsakes Him, or when one forgets Him. But the same is too great, when each day he receives the goodnesses, and each day yields evil for good.