Quotes About Humility

It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.

Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm. Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, few doubtingly of scepticism.

Humility is essential to the acquiring of spiritual knowledge. To be humble is to be teachable. Humility permits you to be tutored by the Spirit and to be taught from sources inspired by the Lord, such as the scriptures. The seeds of personal growth and understanding germinate and flourish in the fertile soil of humility. Their fruit is spiritual knowledge to guide you here and hereafter.

The voice of humility is God's music, and the silence of humility is God's rhetoric.

It looks glamorous and wonderful, but it's a job like any other. And I think that's their humility coming through, Joel [Coen] and Ethan's [Coen] humility. I think they really believe they are tradesmen, craftsmen, and they're just pursuing their trade, their craft, and doing the best they can with it.

The problem, once again, as in all sciences is the attitude of the mind that is dealing with whatever field. The problem is not philosophy but the lack of intellectual humility. It is when reason becomes arrogant that we lose track. But intellectual humility with science: this is spirituality - this is the way we are with God. So we should not be scared and we must reconcile ourselves.

Humility is the only lens though which great things can be seen--and once we have seen them, humility is the only posture possible.

Humility is not cowardice. Meekness is not weakness. Humility and meekness are indeed spiritual powers.

The humility of Jesus can be seen in the crib, in the exile to Egypt, in the hidden life, in the inability to make people understand Him, in the desertion of His apostles, in the hatred of His persecutors, in all the terrible suffering and death of His Passion, and now in His permanent state of humility in the tabernacle, where He has reduced Himself to such a small particle of bread that the priest can hold Him with two fingers. The more we empty ourselves, the more room we give God to fill us.

We look at each other for a moment and for once I feel awkward. It's not that I'm not into humility; I've just never had to practise it.

Fullness of knowledge always and necessarily means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance, and that is always conducive to both humility and reverence.

[Doctor Strange] is difficult, he's arrogant, but he's kind of brilliant and charming and you'd think, "Yeah, I'd want him on my head if I needed brain surgery." He's good enough to warrant his arrogance and he respects other people but not when he thinks he's right and he'll just do what he deems needs to be done when he knows or feels that he's right and the problem from humility's point of view is that he is right, he's really really good at his job.

Walking in humility isn't focusing on what we are NOT; rather, it's declaring what God is.

We love those people who give with humility, or who accept with ease.

True humility is contentment.

I think people who lack humility are really annoying.

The true test of humility is whether you can say grace before eating crow.

The whole purpose of religion is to facilitate love and compassion, patience, tolerance, humility, and forgiveness.

In all teaching there must be a fusion of authority as an adult providing a stable framework for the children in one's care, and humility as another human being ready to educate an equal who may turn out to be a superior.

In my own pursuit of God, I often became preoccupied with ME! It was easy to think that being constantly aware of my faults and weakness was humility. It’s not! If I’m the main subject, talking incessantly about my weaknesses, I have entered into the most subtle form of pride.

Self knowledge puts us on our knees, and it is very necessary for love. For knowledge of God gives love, and knowledge of self gives humility

Faith is the champion of Grace, and Love the nurse; but Humility is the beauty of Grace.

People are interested in certain ideas, in certain periods, and then that moves, and okay, now people are more interested in studying this, and there is no perfect balance, and how would you know what the perfect balance is? I mean, what does it mean to have too many Beethoven chairs and too few Stravinsky chairs? I mean, that's kind of a value judgment that isn't really based on humility. We don't know what the optimum number is, so let people figure this out on their own. People are more interested in Beethoven than Stravinsky? Great! Why would that bother me?

We are seekers of the truth, but we do not embody the truth. And in humility, we should recognize that the same can be said about our most ardent foes.

The second request of the very pure soul is to see the coming of the Father's kingdom (cf. Mt. 6:10). What this means first of all is that each day Christ should reign among holy men. And this happens when the devil's power has been driven out of our hearts through the expulsion of sinful foulness and when God has begun to reign within us amid the good odors of virtue. With fornication vanquished, chastity rules; with anger overcome, peace is king; with pride under foot, humility is sovereign.

There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.

Real greatness is often hidden, humble, simple, and unobtrusive. It is not easy to trust ourselves and our actions without public affirmation. We must have strong self-confidence combined with deep humility.

I feel it's important to point out that I've earned my humility by being a jackass - like, I trip and fall on my face and say, "Oh, right. Don't think you're a big shot, because you've got a bloody nose now." So it's hard to say.

In the school of the spirit, man learns wisdom through humility.

True humility is more like self-forgetfulness than false modesty.

Gardening is an excellent example of a practice to which, as Alasdair MacIntyre puts it, certain virtues are 'internal'. Good gardening requires a certain goodness on the part of the gardener: care, humility, patience, and respect, for example.

There is something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it.

Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.

We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And, indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again." ~Fiddler, pg. 558

The people who abandon Jihad fall a victim to humility and degradation.

In judging our progress as individuals we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one's social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education... But internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one's development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others - qualities which are within easy reach of every soul - are the foundation of one's spiritual life.

Astronomy, as nothing else can do, teaches men humility.

Success is born out of arrogance, but greatness comes from humility.

I believe that God wants to put His hand upon us so that we may reach ideal definitions of humility, of human helplessness, of human insufficiency, until we will rest no more upon human plans, but have God's thoughts, God's voice, and the Holy Spirit to speak to us.

Humility is always a good thing. It's always a good thing to be humbled by circumstances so you can then come from a sincere place to try to deal with them.

Humility is not thinking meanly of oneself, but rather it means not thinking of oneself at all.

Whatever obscurities may involve religious tenets, humility and love constitute the essence of true religion; the humble is formed to adore, the loving to associate with eternal love.

The reason we see hypocrisy and fraud and unreality in others is because they are all in our own hearts. The great characteristic of a saint is humility-Yes, all those things and other evils would have been manifested in me but for the grace of God, therefore I have no right to judge.

Pride is a terrible and dangerous thing. It can take so many forms; it can even assume the appearance of humility. Pride can lead not only to self-exaltation, but also to self-abasement. The key to battling pride is not found in struggling against thinking too highly of ourselves or in striving to think of ourselves as lowly. The key is found in simply not thinking about ourselves at all, but setting our minds on Christ and the needs of others.

...If humility does not precede all that we do, our efforts are fruitless.

Humility leads to strength and not to weakness. It is the highest form of self-respect to admit mistakes and to make amends for them.

Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot.

One who has an inferiority complex can never be really humble, but can only have false modesty or false humility.