Chesterton: Humility in the Wrong

Humility was largely meant as a restraint upon the arrogance and infinity of the appetite of man. What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. The old humility made a man doubtful about his effrots, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy