Humility

Humility is the defining characteristic of an unpretentious and modest person, someone who does not think that he or she is better or more important than others.

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• By humility, and the fear of the Lord, are riches, honor, and life.
  • The Bible, Proverbs 22:4

• Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
  • The Bible, Matthew 5:5

• Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, "By jove! I'm being humble", and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear.
  • C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (1942), page 69 in the Harper Collins 2001 edition, ISBN 0-06-065293-4.

• The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.
  • Vincent de Paul, as quoted in A Year with the Saints (1891) by Anonymous, p. 47

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• Humility, that low, sweet root,
  From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
  • T. Moore, p. 328.

• True humility is a Christian grace and one of the fruits of the Spirit, originating in a deep consciousness of sin past and present, and leading us to discover our nothingness in the view of God, our insufficiency for any thing that is good, and prompting us, as we feel our infirmities, to strive after higher and yet higher attainments.
  • James McCosh, p. 329.

• Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue.
  • Chrysostom, p. 329.

• They that know God will be humble,
  They that know themselves cannot be proud.
  • John Flavel, p. 329.

• Be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in the deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God.
  • Alexander Maclaren, p. 329.

• Teach me. Lord, my true condition;
  Bring me childlike to Thy knee;
  Stripped of every low ambition,
  Willing to be led by Thee.
  • Henry Francis Lyte, p. 329.

• Humility is, of all graces, the chiefest when it does not know itself to be a grace at all.
  • St. Bernard, p. 329.

• The more we learn what humility is, the less we discover in ourselves.
  • La Combe, p. 329.

• Humility is that simple, inner life of real greatness, which is indifferent to magnificence, and, surrounded by it all, lives far away in the distant country of a Father's home, with the cross borne silently and self-sacrificingly in the heart of hearts.
  • Frederick William Robertson, p. 330.

• I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.
  • John Ruskin, p. 330.

• Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being little. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation. Modest humility is beauty's crown.
  • Augustine of Hippo, p. 330.

• Heaven's gates are not so highly arched as king's palaces; they that enter there must go upon their knees.
  • Daniel Webster, p. 330.

• "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." This great law of the kingdom of God is, in the teaching of Christ, inscribed over its entrance-gate.
  • Thomas Browne, p. 330.

• They who know most of God on earth or heaven know that they know little after all; but they know that they may know more and more of Him throughout eternal ages.
  • James McCosh.

• Humility is the grace which lies prostrate at God's footstool, self-abasing and self-disparaging, amazed at God's mercy, and abhorring its own vileness.
  • James Hamilton, p. 330.

• Humility, what is it? It is a gracious gift of the Holy Ghost. It is the same disposition which the Psalmist called a " broken heart," and that consciousness of need which Jesus had in view when He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." So far as it has respect to God, it is that docility which is willing to learn what God teaches; that conscious penury, which is willing to accept whatever God proffers; that submission which is willing to do what God desires, and to endure whatever God deems needful.
  • James Hamilton, p. 331.

• And so among the ruins of our pride, we grow to be loving children of the Most High.
  • William Mountford, p. 331.

• I want to feel my own nothingness, I want to give myself up in absolute resignation to God, to lie prostrate and passive at His feet, with no other disposition in my heart than that of merging my will into His will, and no other language in my mouth than that of prayer for the perfecting of His strength in my weakness. I desire from the abyss of my own nothingness and vileness to cry unto God that He might cause me to do as I ought, and to be as I ought.
  • Thomas Chalmers, p. 331.

• Confess your nothingness and ill-desert before God. Distrust yourself. Rely only upon God. Renounce all glory except from Him. Yield yourself heartily to His will and service. Avoid an aspiring, ambitious, ostentatious, assuming, arrogant, scornful, stubborn, willful, levelling, self-justifying behavior; and strive for more and more of the humble spirit that Christ manifested while He was here upon earth.
  • Jonathan Edwards, p. 331.

• Abraham teaches us the right way of conversing with God: "And Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him." When we plead with Him, our faces should be in the dust.
  • Richard Cecil, p. 332.

• When thinking of God, when beholding His glorious perfections, when rejoicing in the perfection of His government, and in the excellence of His designs, the humble heart adopts the language of Job: " I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
  • Gardiner Spring, p. 332.

• "O pity, great Father of light," then I cried,
  " Thy creature who fain would not wander from Thee!
  Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride;
  From doubt and from darkness Thou only canst free."
  • James Beattie, p. 332.

• Not as men of science, not as critics, not as philosophers, but as little children, shall we enter into the kingdom of heaven.
  • John Campbell Shairp, p. 332.

• I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself by now and then finding a smooth pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
  • Sir Isaac Newton, p. 332.

• O it is a happy thing to feel ourselves helpless and naught, for then the presence of God is felt to wrap us about so lovingly! Everlasting, infinite, almighty, — these are the words that strengthen us with speaking them.
  • William Mountford, p. 332.

• Of all trees, I observe God hath chosen the vine, a low plant that creeps upon the helpful wall; of all beasts, the soft and patient lamb; of all fowls, the mild and guileless dove. Christ is the rose of the field, and the lily of the valley. When God appeared to Moses, it was not in the lofty cedar nor the sturdy oak nor the spreading palm; but in a bush, a humble, slender, abject shrub; as if He would, by these elections, check the conceited arrogance of man.
  • Owen Feltham, p. 333.

• The wisely cultivated man, conscious how insignificant a drop he is in the vast stream of life, learns his limitation, and accepts events with modesty and equanimity.
  • Dr. Maudsley, p. 333.

• I pray often to God that He would keep you in the hollow of His hand. The most essential point is lowliness. It is profitable for all things, for it produces a teachable spirit which makes every thing easy.
  • François Fénelon, p. 333.

• Now as they were going along and talking, they espied a boy feeding his father's sheep. The boy was in very mean clothes, but of a fresh and well favored countenance; and as he sat by himself he sang:
  "He that is down, needs fear no fall;
  He that is low, no pride;
  He that is humble ever shall
  Have God to be his guide."
  Then said Mr. Great Heart, "Do you hear him? I will dare to say this boy lives a merrier life, and wears more of that herb called heart's-ease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet."
  • John Bunyan, p. 333.

• Then Christian began to go forward; but Discretion, Piety, Charity, and Prudence would accompany him down to the foot of the hill. Then said Christian, " As it was difficult coming up, so, so far as I can see, it is dangerous going down." " Yes," said Prudence, "so it is; for it is a hard matter for a man to go down into the valley of Humiliation, as thou art now, and to catch no slip by the way;" " therefore," said they, " we are come out to accompany thee down the hill." So he began to go down, but very warily; yet he caught a slip or two.
  • John Bunyan, p. 334.

• My God, I ask not of Thee the leaves of external consequence; I will be content to continue simple, lowly, and plain, if Thou wilt only give me grace to serve Thee and my neighbor. Outward pomp withers like a flower, but inward worth lasts even after death.
  • Christian Scriver, p. 334.

• Let me follow in Thy footsteps, O Jesus! I would imitate Thee, but cannot without the aid of Thy grace! O humble and lowly Saviour, grant me the knowledge of the true Christian, and that I may willingly despise myself; let me learn the lesson so incomprehensible to the mind of man, that I must die to myself by an abandonment that shall produce true humility.
  • François Fénelon, p. 334.

• The doctrines of grace humble man without degrading him and exalt him without inflating him.
  • Charles Hodge, p. 334.

• Make me like a little child,
  Simple, teachable, and mild;
  Seeing only in Thy light;
  Walking only in Thy might!
  • John Berridge, p. 334.

• The reason why the publican returned from the Temple justified was that he had got that lowly and self-emptied mind to which the grace of God is welcome. It was not his standing afar off merely, nor his dejected eyes, nor his smiting on his breast, but his despair of himself and his hope in God's mercy — " God be merciful to me a sinner." And you will be justified, too, when, losing all confidence in the flesh, you learn to rejoice in Jesus Christ.
  • James Hamilton, p. 335.

• The most of my sufferings and sorrows were occasioned by my own unwillingness to be nothing, which I am, and by struggling to be something.
  • Edward Payson, p. 335.

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• A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
  • Benjamin Franklin

• Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought.
  • Dwight Morrow

• Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
  • Alexander Pope

• Don't talk about yourself; it will be done when you leave.
  • Wilson Mizner

• Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.
  • Adlai Stevenson

• Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
  • Eric Hoffer

• I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
  • Helen Keller

• If every fool wore a crown, we should all be kings.
  • Welsh proverb

• It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.
  • Rachel Carson

• It is always the secure who are humble.
  • G. K. Chesterton

• It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
  • Niccolo Machiavelli

• It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
  • Mohandas Gandhi

• Modesty is the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.
  • Oliver Herford

• Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly overvalued by others.
  • William Hazlitt

• Most of us retain enough of the theological attitude to think that we are little gods.
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

• Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
  • William Safire

• Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche

• The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn’t permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor to anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him.
  • Carlos Castaneda

• The man who thinks he can live without others is mistaken; the one who thinks others can't live without him is even more deluded.
  • Hasidic proverb

• There are a billion people in China. It's not easy to be an individual in a crowd of more than a billion people. Think of it. More than a BILLION people. That means even if you're a one-in-a-million type of guy, there are still a thousand guys exactly like you.
  • A. Whitney Brown

• There are two kinds of egotists: Those who admit it, and the rest of us.
  • Laurence J. Peter

• Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.
  • Malcolm S. Forbes

• We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm.
  • Winston Churchill

• We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.
  • François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

• What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
  • Abraham Lincoln

• With people of only moderate ability modesty is mere honesty; but with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.
  • Arthur Schopenhauer

• You shouldn't gloat about anything you've done; you ought to keep going and find something better to do.
  • David Packard

• Humility is good for all, but is an added richness to the rich.
  • Valluvar in Tiruvalluvar: 125]]

• I am third. [Means God must come first in our lives, and our neighbour second.]
  • Catherine Doherty

• The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.
  • St. Augustine

• He who sacrifices a whole offering shall be rewarded for a whole offering; he who offers a burnt-offering shall have the reward of a burnt-offering; but he who offers humility to God and man shall be rewarded with a reward as if he had offered all the sacrifices in the world.
  • The Talmud

• The grace which makes every other grace amiable.
  • Alfred Mercier

• If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble; for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, so it is beloved of none but by itself; the voice of humility is God's music, and the silence of humility is God's rhetoric. Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail nor reason.
  • Francis Quarles

• After crosses and losses men grow humbler and wiser.
  • Benjamin Franklin

• God created the world out of nothing, and as long as we are nothing, he can make something out of us.
  • Martin Luther

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• I would rather have people wonder why there is no statue of me, than wonder why there is.
  • Anonymous

• Swallow your pride occasionally, it's non-fattening!
  • Anonymous

• Modesty: The art of encouraging people to find out for themselves how wonderful you are.
  • Anonymous

• It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
  • Anonymous