In his classic discourse on pride, President Ezra Taft Benson characterized the many facets of pride:
“Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of ‘my will and not thine be done.’ …
“The proud cannot accept the authority of God giving direction to their lives (see Helaman 12:6). They pit their perceptions of truth against God’s great knowledge, their abilities versus God’s priesthood power, their accomplishments against His mighty works.
“… The proud wish God would agree with them. They aren’t interested in changing their opinions to agree with God’s. …
“Pride results in secret combinations which are built up to get power, gain, and glory of the world (see Helaman 7:5; Ether 8:9, 16, 22–23; Moses 5:31). This fruit of the sin of pride, namely secret combinations, brought down both the Jaredite and the Nephite civilizations and has been and will yet be the cause of the fall of many nations (see Ether 8:18–25)” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1989, 4–5; or Ensign, May 1989, 4, 6).
Elder Joe J. Christensen of the Seventy taught that pride leads to unrighteous comparisons and also may lead to our downfall:
“Pride causes us to become overly concerned, as we compare ourselves with others, about how intelligent we think we are, the brand of our jeans or other clothing—the ‘costly apparel’ we wear, to what organizations we belong, on which side of town we live, how much money we have, what our race or nationality is, what kind of car we drive, even to what church we belong, how much education we have been privileged to acquire, and on and on and on.
“In the scriptures there are many indications that pride has risen to destroy individuals, nations, and in some cases even the Church itself. …
“It has been calculated that no fewer than thirty times throughout the Book of Mormon the cycles of prosperity and peace were destroyed, principally by the effects of human pride” (One Step at a Time: Building a Better Marriage, Family, and You [1996], 138–39). (See diagram “The Cycle of Righteousness and Wickedness” in the appendix, page 414.)