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Life is a long lesson in humility.
J.M. BARRIE, The Little Minister
Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice; and yet everybody is content to hear.
Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues: hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, Michael Oren Fitzgerald's Christian Spirit
- Pride juggles with her toppling towers,
- They strike the sun and cease,
- But the firm feet of humility
- They grip the ground like trees.
G.K. CHESTERTON, The Ballad of the White Horse
What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left.
OSCAR LEVANT, The Educator's Book of Quotes
Humility is a grace that shines in a high condition but cannot, equally, in a low one because a person in the latter is already, perhaps, too much humbled.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON, Pamela
Poverty is a noose that strangles humility and breeds disrespect for God and man.
Humility is not my forte, and whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people’s characters.
MARGARET HALSEY, With Malice Toward Some
Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, Chicago Tribune, Sep. 26, 2004
Humility is often merely feigned submissiveness assumed in order to subject others, an artifice of pride which stoops to conquer, and although pride has a thousand ways of transforming itself it is never so well disguised and able to take people in as when masquerading as humility.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, Sentences et Maximes Morales
- And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin
- Is pride that apes humility.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, The Devil's Thoughts
The artist alone among men knows what true humility means. His reach forever exceeds his grasp. He can never be satisfied with his work. He knows when he has done well, but he knows he has never attained his dream. He knows he never can.
RHETA CHILDE DORR, A Woman of Fifty
Humility provides everyone, even him who despairs in solitude, with the strongest relationship to his fellow man, and this immediately, though, of course, only in the case of complete and permanent humility.
FRANZ KAFKA, notebook, Feb. 24, 1918
When stepped on, the worm curls up. That is a clever thing to do. Thus it reduces its chances of being stepped on again. In the language of morality: humility.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, "Maxims and Arrows," Twilight of the Idols
Through failure, we learn a lesson in humility which is probably needed, painful though it is.
BILL WILSON, As Bill Sees It
It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.
In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention.
SIMONE WEIL, Gravity and Grace
Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, speech, Jul. 12, 1945
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
JANE AUSTEN, Pride and Prejudice
- Humility, that low, sweet root
- From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
THOMAS MOORE, The Loves of the Angels
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