Sayings of The Holy Fathers:

If you would be simple hearted like the Apostles, do not conceal your human shortcomings, and do not pretend to be especially pious. If you would walk free from hypocrisy, then this is the path. While it is easy, not everyone can find it or understand it. This path is the shortest way to salvation and attracts the grace of God.

Unpretentiousness, guilelessness, frankness of soul - this is what is pleasing to the Lord, Who Himself is lowly of heart. "Except ye become children, ye shall not enter the Kingdom of God" (Mt. 18:13).

Elder Leonid of Optina

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Humility is hard to acquire, and the deeper it is, the greater the struggle needed to gain it. There are two different ways in which it comes to those who share in divine knowledge. In the case of one who has advanced halfway along the path of spiritual experience, his self-will is humbled either by bodily weakness, or by people gratuitously hostile to those pursuing righteousness, or by evil thoughts. But when the intellect fully and consciously senses the illumination of God's grace, the soul possesses a humility which is, as it were, natural... The first type of humility is usually marked by remorse and despondency, the second by joy and an enlightened reverence... That is why the first is often undermined by material prosperity, while the second, even if offered all the kingdoms of this world, is not elated and is proof against the arrows of sin. Being wholly spiritual, it is completely indifferent to all material glory. We cannot acquire the second without having passed through the first; for unless God's grace begins by softening our will by means of the first, testing it through assaults of the passions, we cannot receive the riches of the second.

St. Diadochos of Photiki

Philokalia (Vol. 1,On Spiritual Knowledge, pp. 292-293, text 95

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Humility is a grace in the soul... It is indescribable wealth, a name and a gift from God. Learn from Me, He said; that is, not from an angel, not from a man, not from a book, but from Me, that is from My dwelling within you, from My illumination and action within you, for I am gentle and meek of heart (Mt. 11:29) in thought and in spirit, and your souls will find rest from conflicts and relief from evil thoughts.

Saint John Climacus

The Ladder of Divine Ascent (p. 219)

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Don't be troubled when you meditate on the greatness of your former sins, but rather know that God's grace is so much greater in magnitude that it justifies the sinner and absolves the wicked.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria

Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, p. 173