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.

Love without humility results in the inclination to act as everyone's parent, humility without love results in the need to be everyone's child, and love with humility results in the desire to be a friend.

Every good thing in the Christian life grows in the soil of humility. Without humility, every virtue and every grace withers. That’s why Calvin said humility is first, second, and third in the Christian faith.

Humility, which Burke ranked high among the virtues, is the only effectual restraint upon this congenital vanity; yet our world has nearly forgotten the nature of humility. Submission to the dictates of humility formerly was made palatable to man by the doctrine of grace; that elaborate doctrine has been overwhelmed by modern presumption.

It is well known that obedience is the chief among the initiatory virtues, for first it displaces presumption and then it engenders humility within us. Thus it becomes, for those who willingly embrace it, a door leading to the love of God? Thus humility should be the first concern of those who are fighting against the presumption of the devil, for as we advance it will be a sure guide to all the paths of virtue.

Humility is not an 'added extra,' one of the lesser Christian virtues. If you don't have humility, you may be lost.

This is God's way, the way of humility. It is the way of Jesus; there is no other. And there can be no humility without humiliation.

The key quality that anyone has to develop - a regular person as well as a warrior - is humility. If you don't try to develop humility, what you end up developing is pride, and that's destructive; it destroys yourself and it destroys the world around you.

If humility is always desirable, generous humility is still more so.

A virtue which is divine is humility. A person who could do great things and still maintain humility of the heart, charity of the heart, goodness of the heart is a person who could actually make a difference in peoples lives in a very positive way.

Some people think humility is thinking lowly of yourself. Some people think it's not thinking about yourself. But, to me, the best definition of humility is radical self-awareness from a distance, seeing themselves from a distance and saying, what's my problem?

Humility is the only virtue that no devil can imitate. If pride made demons out of angels, there is no doubt that humility could make angels out of demons.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

There is no harder lesson for man to learn than the lesson of humility. It is the rarest of all gifts. It is a very rare thing to find a man or woman that is following closely the footsteps of the Master in meekness and humility.

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.

Humility must always be doing its work like a bee making honey in the hive: without humility all will be lost.

You learn about gratitude by giving. You learn about humility by receiving, and in the pecking order of human qualities, I'd probably put humility somewhere before gratitude.

Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue. And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil.

It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.

Yet as human beings we have to accept-with humility-that the question of ultimate origins will always remain with us, no matter how deeply we understand the brain and the cosmos that it creates.

If we are to understand anything of the human mind we must approach the people of the past with humility rather than an overconfident superiority.

God's world is a good place. The one thing not good in it is we. How little justice and humility there is in us. How little we understand true patriotism!

The moment the doctrine of the immortality is separately taught, man is already fallen. In the flowing of love, in the adoration of humility, there is no question of continuance. No inspired man ever asks this question, or condescends to these evidences. For the soul is true to itself, and the man in whom it is shed abroad cannot wander from the present, which is infinite, to a future which would be finite.

I'd rather be around broken people who have a degree of humility, and just get on with their work.

Humility is a necessary veil to all other graces.

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

The list of qualities (an investor should have) include patience, self-reliance, common sense, a tolerance for pain, open-mindedness, detachment, persistence, humility, flexibility, a willingness to do independent research, an equal willingness to admit mistakes, and the ability to ignore general panic.

If you want God's grace, all you need is need, all you need is nothing. But that kind of spiritual humility is hard to muster. We come to God saying, "Look at all I've done," or maybe "Look at all I've suffered." God, however, wants us to look to him - to just wash.

One thing is certain: the humility of faith, if it is followed by the proper consequences-by the acceptance of the work and sacrifice demanded by our providential task-will do far more to launch us into the full current of historical reality than the pompous rationalizations of politicians who think they are somehow the directors and manipulators of history.

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.

Humility - the discipline of putting others ahead of self, the choice to value others above self - is, at its core, a matter of faith.

Humility about how little I know has encouraged me to listen more carefully and more wisely.

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

I'm very sceptical about the prospects for 'big' environmental causes - 'saving the planet', halving the world's population, ending the exploitation of animals, and so on - but a person can ask him- or herself how he or she personally may exercise compassion or humility towards animals, vegetal life and so on.

When one gets beaten by somebody better, one has to know how to lose with humility. Sure, I could have served better. Sure, I could have hit my forehand harder. But the truth was this was like an avalanche, and there was no way to stop it.

Religion can emerge in all forms of feeling: here wild anger, there the sweetest pain; here consuming hatred, there the childlike smile of serene humility.

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.

Humility is the proper estimate of oneself.

It is only through the opposition of ideas that we can learn to be self-critical, to work towards intellectual humility.

Humility and Gratitude are the twin characteristics of happiness.

Humility is the first step towards learning. You can’t learn until you are humble enough to realize there is something for you to learn.

As gifts increase in you, let your humility grow, for you must consider that everything is given to you on loan.

Zakath's face grew thoughtful. "You know something, Garion?" he said. "Man thinks he owns the world, but we share it with all sorts of creatures who are indifferent to our overlordship. They have their own societies, and I supposed even their own cultures. They don't even pay attention to us, do you?" "Only when we inconvenience them...It teaches us humility," Garion agreed.

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

True humility does not know that it is humble. If it did, it would be proud from the contemplation of so fine a virtue.

The difference between a good leader and a great leader is humility.

The job is to ask questions - it always was - and to ask them as inexorably as I can. And to face the absence of precise answers with a certain humility.

As I stood alone and forsaken, and the power of the sea and the battle of the elements reminded me of my own nothingness, and on the other hand, the sure flight of the birds recalled the words spoken by Christ: Not a sparrow shall fall on the ground without your Father: then, all at once, I felt how great and how small I was; then did those two mighty forces, pride and humility, happily unite in friendship.