Arrogance and Humility

"If by degrees you do not run away from worldly fortune, autumn will come over this spring of yours.
After all, how should East and West, which are not permanent, make any one enduring?
You take pride in the fact that people, from fear and bondage, have become your flatterers for a few days.
When people bow in adoration to any one, they are really pouring poison into his soul.
When his adorer turns away from him, he knows that adoration was poisonous and destructive to him.
Alas for the one who became like a mountain from arrogance!
Know that this pride is a killing poison; that fool was intoxicated by a poisonous wine...
When an unhappy wretch drinks the poisonous wine, he nods his head in delight for one moment.
After one moment, the poison falls on his spirit: the poison exercises complete sway over his spirit.
When one King gains the upper hand over another King, he kills him, or confines him to a dungeon.
But if he find a fallen, wounded man, the King will make a bandage for him, and bestow gifts on him.
Why did he kill the vanquished King?... How did he treat the helpless man so kindly?
No highwayman ever attacked a beggar...
The broken, contrite one will be saved. Be thou broken. Safety lies in poverty: enter into poverty.
How should anything that is level with the earth become a target for arrows? Consider!
But if it raises its head from the earth, then, like targets, it will suffer irremediable blows.
This egoism is the ladder climbed by the creatures of God: they must fall from this ladder in the end.
The higher any one goes, the more foolish you are, for your bones will be more broken."

Rumi (Vol.4 2740-2764)

Commentary: "Pride goeth before the fall"