Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky): Self-justification

The priest must warn [his flock] particularly persistently against the spirit of self-justification,  which is one of the principal enemies of our salvation. Some people accepted the preaching of our Savior and His Apostles, and others rejected it. Within both groups there were great sinners and people of righteous life. What were the spiritual qualities which caused them to accept of reject the Gospel of salvation? It was almost always this: whoever had the spirit of self-justification and considered himself a decent enough person rejected the preaching of repentance, the preaching of the Gospel; and whoever considered himself a guilty sinner before God and men accepted it and was saved, like Zacchaeus, like the Wise Robber on the cross.
It is the same with Christians who have come to believe. They difference between those who are being saved and those who are perishing, or are far from salvation, lies not so much in the number of their sins, but in the inclination, or lack of it, to admit that they are guilty and sinful.
+Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), from Confession, A Series of Lectures on the Mystery of Repentance, chapter 7, Fear of Admitting a Sin