HUMILITY QUOTES II

quotations about humility

Humility is the luxurious art of reducing ourselves to a point, not to a small thing or a large one, but to a thing with no size at all, so that to it all the cosmic things are what they really are -- of immeasurable stature. That the trees are high and the grasses short is a mere accident of our own foot-rules and our own stature. But to the spirit which has stripped off for a moment its own idle temporal standards the grass is an everlasting forest, with dragons for denizens; the stones of the road are as incredible mountains piled one upon the other; the dandelions are like gigantic bonfires illuminating the lands around; and the heath-bells on their stalks are like planets hung in heaven each higher than the other.

G. K. CHESTERTON

"A Defence of Humilities,", The Defendant

Tags: G. K. Chesterton


To have humility is to experience reality, not in relation to ourselves, but in its sacred independence. It is to see, judge, and act from the point of rest in ourselves. Then, how much disappears, and all that remains falls into place.

DAG HAMMARSKJOLD

Markings


Humility is the dress-coat of pride.

T. ELYOT

attributed, Day's Collacon


Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice; and yet everybody is content to hear.

JOHN SELDEN

Table Talk

Tags: John Seldon


Humility is a healthy balance between pride and self-devaluation.

J. MAURUS

Liberation from Life's Shadows


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

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In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention.

SIMONE WEIL

Gravity and Grace

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Humility consists in a low opinion of one's self, and in a contempt of vain glory. He that shines with this noble grace, is a person whose high imaginations have been cast down; not by the force of moral precepts, but by the mighty weapons of the christian warfare. Once he thought he was something, now he sees that he is nothing. Once he was desirous that other men should think highly of him, and he loved to have the preeminence; but now he can, in some sincerity, say, with the royal Psalmist, "Mine heart is not haughty, neither are mine eyes lofty. I have behaved and quieted myself as a child weaned of his mother. My soul is even as a weaned child." Shall we describe him in relation to his neighbor, and to his God?

WILLIAM MCEWEN

"On Humility", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity


Humility is the softening shadow before the stature of Excellence,
And lieth lowly on the ground, beloved and lovely as the violet.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER

Proverbial Philosophy

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Ships that are heaviest laden sail lowest; so a mind laden with sound philosophy is most humble.

T. GALE

attributed, Day's Collacon


Humility is a cuirass which turns aside the blows dealt by the enmity of man; but that cuirass is defective at the heart.

MADAME SWETCHINE

"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine

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Humiliation scars deeper than the lash.

TOBSHA LEARNER

The Witch of Cologne

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It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

MUHAMMAD ALI

attributed, Muhammad Ali

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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

Tags: Frank Lloyd Wright


I am afraid humility to genius is as an extinguisher to a candle.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE

Essays on Men and Manners


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

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Humility means accepting reality with no attempt to outsmart it.

DAVID RICHO

The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them


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

Tags: Samuel Richardson


Those who are capable of humility, of justice, of love, of aspiration, stand already on a platform that commands the sciences and arts, speech and poetry, action and grace. For whoso dwells in this moral beatitude already anticipates those special powers which men prize so highly.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

"The Over-Soul", Essays

Tags: Ralph Waldo Emerson


What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left.

OSCAR LEVANT

attributed, The Educator's Book of Quotes

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