Humility: Wellspring of Virtue (Paperback)

~ Dietrich von Hildebrand (Author)
Key Phrases: satanic pride, attributes nothing, creaturely status (more...)

Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Sophia Institute Press (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 091847759X
• ISBN-13: 978-0918477590
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 4.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #522,747 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Can't really recommend., July 30, 2007

By	dEw (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews

This is a small, short book which is actually an excerpt from Hildebrand's larger work, "Transformation in Christ." Although this is a Catholic book, I felt it worked well enough for all Christians.

I had difficulty reading and comprehending this text, as it is not common in its speech. Here is an example from page 46: "By virtue of the anthropomorphic conception if the gods, the pattern of earthly existence is projected upon the level of eternity; it is not human life which, in the conspectus of the absolute, acquires a universal and indelible meaning, but inversely, the world of the gods which becomes tinged with the flighty irrelevance of terrestrial life -- hence, the trait of playfulness which, in Homeric antiquity, seems invariably to cling to the image of man, as though he were irrevocably confined in his finiteness." While I'm sure this means something, my head is too busy spinning to figure it out. This is how the entirety of the book reads.

Two words which the author uses frequently are "virtues" and "metaphysical" and I am not well-acquainted with either. I am not a Catholic. Maybe the emphasis on "virtues" is more of a Catholic thing.

While I did find a few things in this book personally helpful, for the most part I found it too dense while also lacking in sufficient elaboration. If you are looking for a book on humility, I would highly recommend "Humility: The Forgotten Virtue" by Wayne A. Mack.