Daily Inspiration Quote by Charles Spurgeon

Self-regard has a way of dressing up cruelty as discernment. Spurgeon’s line lands like a pastoral warning, but it’s also a psychological x-ray: the people most certain of their own righteousness are often the quickest to condemn, not because they see more clearly, but because they need the world to mirror their self-image.

As a Victorian-era preacher, Spurgeon spoke into a culture steeped in moral measurement - respectable appearances, rigid social hierarchies, public piety. In that setting, “a high opinion of themselves” isn’t harmless confidence; it’s a spiritual posture. It implies the Pharisee’s logic: if I am elevated, someone else must be lowered. Judgment becomes an instrument of self-confirmation. You don’t merely evaluate others; you use their supposed failures as proof of your superior standing.

The subtext is sharp: injustice in judgment isn’t just a mistake, it’s a strategy. Pride narrows empathy. It turns complex human lives into case studies, sins into identities, and difference into deficiency. Spurgeon is also quietly accusing his own audience - churchgoers included - of confusing moral seriousness with moral superiority. The more invested you are in your own “goodness,” the more threatening other people’s ambiguity becomes.

What makes the sentence work is its inversion of the expected moral hierarchy. We assume the confident are stable arbiters; Spurgeon argues they’re the least reliable. The target isn’t judgment itself, but the vanity that corrupts it - a reminder that humility isn’t just a virtue, it’s a prerequisite for fairness.