Passion / Pride: In the fallen nature of man there is a double infirmity and, spiritually speaking, a double obstacle: on the one hand passion, which draws man outside himself while at the same time compressing him, and on the other hand pride, which shuts man within himself, while at the same time dispersing him. Passion reveals itself by attachment, and pride by ambition; even if the latter were spiritual, it still would be worldly, unless one were to give the word ambition – as is sometimes done – a transposed and neutral meaning. In an analogous way, if one understands by the word passion a force in itself neutral and of potential value one can evidently speak of holy passions, or passions sanctified by their object; but it is obviously not this conversion of a natural energy that is in question when we speak here of infirmities or obstacles. In this connection it must be pointed out that pride does not admit of such a conversion; it can only be destroyed or dissolved – the first term indicating a privative or penitential ascesis and the second an alchemy   of love able to “melt the heart” – depending upon the degrees or modes of hardness. It is true that one can sometimes speak of “legitimate pride,” but this is situated on an inoffensive plane having nothing to do with vice or sin.
Passion, as it is to be understood here, is to prefer the world to God; pride is to prefer oneself to God or, metaphysically speaking, to prefer sensory consciousness to the immanent Self. Or again, to paraphrase the words of a saint: passion is to flee from God, pride is to rise up against Him. In consequence, one can say that to prefer the world – in the form of some thing – to truth or to good, is passion; to prefer oneself – in the form of some vanity – to truth or to good, is pride; for truth, or good, is the trace of God and represents God. Passion expresses itself not only by attachment, but also, and in a more pernicious way, by insatiability. Pride expresses itself not only by ambition, it is yet more vicious when it takes the form of obstinacy. And this shows that the two vices necessarily intermingle: obstinate passion does not go without a measure of pride; insatiable pride does not go without a measure of passion. A man who is without any pride will also be without passion, and he who is wholly without passion will also be without pride. A prideful man may have all the virtues, even some humility, but he arrogates them to his person and thus illusorily cuts them off from God, thereby taking away all their intrinsic value and profound efficacy; which means that the virtues of a prideful man are as it were deprived of their content. As for a humble man, he is well aware that the virtue belongs to him on loan, just as light belongs in a certain way to the water which reflects it, but he never loses sight of the fact that he is not the author of his virtues – any more than the water is the source of the light – and that the finest virtues are nothing apart from God. Conversely, even if one tries to separate them from God in order to appropriate them to oneself, whatever value they may retain still belongs to God . . . It follows from nearly all our preceding considerations that our point of view is not that of individual and sentimental voluntarism: it coincides neither with penitentialism, according to which only the disagreeable leads to God, nor with humilitarianism, according to which every man should think himself the greatest of all sinners. In speaking of passion and attachment, we do not mean a natural attachment to certain things that every man can experience and that is in no way opposed to the sense of relativity or to serenity of spirit, or to detachment generally; we have solely in mind the passional attachment which places an absolute value on relative things to the detriment of the love of God. And in speaking of pride, ambition and pretension, we do not mean natural self-respect, or the awareness which the most objective man may have of his worth, or the sense of dignity or honor – none of these is in any way opposed to the awareness of our metaphysical nothingness or to true humility in relation to others. We have solely in mind overestimation of oneself, which is inevitably accompanied by underestimation of others and which for that very reason renders sincere effacement before God impossible. Pride is the desire to “keep one’s life”; it is the refusal to “die before one dies.” [GTUFS: SurveyME, Passion and Pride]