Modesty: Ambition or Conviction?

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. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert---himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt---the Divine Reason. . . . the new skeptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn.

G. K. Chesterton