(Simple painting found in the home of St. John Vianney at Ars)

Maybe the quote below won't seem like the usual "Words of Encouragement", but I take this excerpt as being an encouragement toward the beauty of humility. St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, said that humility is like the chain that holds the beads of our virtues together. If you pull out the chain, the beads scatter.

"Pride is the most dangerous of all vices, for, as St. Gregory teaches, while others destroy only their opposite virtues - as, for example, anger destroys patience, this annihilates every virtue, because by refusing to God the glory that is His due, it impels a man to the practice of virtue merely through self-love. On the contrary, humility is the most useful of all virtues, because it refers them all to God, and guards and protects them."

~ Rev. Hilary Maurice Vigo, The Immaculate Conception:

The History, Trials and Triumphs of the Work of God at Lourdes, 1878.