If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble, for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, is beloved of none but itself. Humility enforces where neither virtue, nor strength, nor reason can prevail.

Francis Quarles (1592–1644) was a prominent English devotional poet and moralist whose writings, shaped by the religious and political tensions of early Stuart England and the approach of the Civil War, frequently stress inward piety and practical Christian ethics. The sentiment in this quotation aligns with Quarles’s characteristic aphoristic counsel: humility as a social and spiritual virtue that wins both divine favor and human goodwill, contrasted with pride as self-enclosed and therefore socially barren. Quarles often cast such lessons in compact, proverbial form for readers seeking guidance in conduct and devotion rather than abstract theology.

The passage argues that humility is uniquely persuasive because it disarms resistance: where moral excellence (“virtue”), force (“strength”), or argument (“reason”) may fail to move others, humility can “enforce” assent by inviting trust and sympathy. Pride, by contrast, is depicted as narcissistic—loving only itself—and therefore incapable of genuine relationship; it receives only the hollow “love” of its own self-regard. The quote thus links spiritual aspiration (“love of God”) with social reality (“love of man”), implying that humility is not merely private self-abasement but an outward posture that makes charity and community possible.