On Pastoral Care

Letter 1,24a - to (the) most holy and fellow-bishop John. February, 591.

"For one must think hard about how each man should attain to the pinnacle of power, when the necessity of affairs demands this, and duly reaching it, how he should live his life, and living it honestly, how he should teach others, and teaching rightly, with how much consideration he should recognize his own weakness, each day, so that his humility does not flee from accession to power, nor his life speak against his reaching it, nor his learning forsake his life, nor his self-assurance applaud his learning.
And so let fear first temper his appetite. But afterwards, let his life recommend him for high office, which is undertaken by the person who does not seek it.
Then the pastor's goodness, which is shown by the way he ives his life, must also be spread by the way he speaks."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 147.