A vile, creeping, serpentine thing...

From Spurgeon's sermon, "Pride and Humility"

There is no sin into which the heart of man so easily falls as
pride, and yet there is no vice which is more frequently, more
emphatically, and more eloquently condemned in Scripture!

There is no trap into which we poor silly birds so easily fly.

There is no pitfall into which, like foolish beasts of the earth,
we so continually run, as the sin of pride!

Pride is the worst monstrosity of all the monstrous things
in creation; it has nothing lovely in it.

Pride, the first-born son of hell, is indeed like its parent-
all unclean and vile, and in it there is no beauty.

Consider your origin; look back to the hole of the pit where
you were digged. Consider what you would have been, even
now, if it were not for Divine grace.

Consider that among the damned, there are none that would
have been more damned than yourself, if grace had not kept you
from destruction. Let this consideration humble you,
that you have nothing whereon to ground your pride.

Oh! man, hate pride, flee from it, abhor it,
do not let it dwell with you!

If you want to have a madman in your heart, embrace
pride, for you shall never find one more mad than he.

Pride has ten thousand shapes; it is not always that
stiff and starched gentleman that you picture it.

Pride is a vile, creeping, insinuating thing,
that will twist itself like a serpent into our hearts.

It will talk of humility, and prate about being dust and ashes.
I have known men talk about their corruption most marvelously,
pretending to be all humility, while at the same time they were the
proudest wretches that could be found this side the gulf of
separation.

Oh! my friends, you cannot tell how many shapes pride will
assume; look sharply at yourself, or you will be deceived by it,
and when you think you are entertaining angels, you will find you
have been receiving devils unawares.