How to be Humble?
It’s a constant battle. One of the things I love to do is watch some videos which show the humility of our esteemed scholars. Really helps put a person in their place.
The other thing to do is avoid listening to praise of yourself. If you hear someone praise you, forbid or discourage it, because this person is harming you. How?
It is narrated on the authority of ‘Abdullah that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) observed: He who has in his heart the weight of a mustard seed of pride shall not enter Paradise.
Pride and arrogance are diseases of the heart and the praise of the people is one of the things which fosters it, thus it should be avoided.
Praising others is also not from the manners of the Muslim, because we might praise a person and we don’t know what is between him and Allah. That is to say, his sins may be of a degree that, if we knew of them, we would never extol his virtues. Or the good deeds for which we speak well of him may have had invalid intentions behind them, etc.
Lastly, I would say seeking knowledge and learning the Seerah of our Prophet (ﷺ) are invaluable in this regard. When we learn our religion, we understand how little we knew, so we are humbled. When we learn about RasoolAllah (ﷺ) and his Companions (radhiAllah anhum), we understand the greatness of those who preceded us, thus we are humbled.
May Allah protect all of us from becoming arrogant. Ameen.
Complimenting Others to Lift Their Spirits
It is not recommended but it also depends what the praise is for. Scholars praise one another sometimes and this is beneficial for the laypeople to know who can be looked to for guidance, etc.
What is recommended if one must say something good is to preface it with a disclaimer. For example: "We don’t vouch for anyone before Allah, but from what we’ve seen of Sister Y, she appears diligent in her studying of the religion, may Allah bless her."
And it’s better not to make statements of praise to the face of the person, but rather in a group or gathering where the individual’s name may have come up.
These are just general guidelines, and I don’t say that it’s a bad thing to praise someone, just that it should be done sparingly and with caution because it may be a source of harm for them (because of arrogance, pride, etc. as I mentioned above).
Praising Your Spouse
Sweet words between the spouses, especially those that will increase the love between them are highly encouraged.
However, from what I’ve learned, if one knows that their spouse is given to possibly being harmed by the praise, or it is so abundant and over the top as to cause pride, then it should be done with caution or left off. This is particularly true if the spouse is already aware of the sentiment.
Allahu ‘alim, this is from what I know, may Allah forgive me if I’ve made any mistake. I will update this response if I come across any additional information or the sources that corroborated this info, inshallah.