Quotes About Humility

If God used only experts and people of renown, some could boast in their own wisdom, but God's way of doing things is not the same as our way. We ordinary people have been given power and wisdom through the Holy Spirit and are called to love others (John 13:34).

If we think we are usually good, then God is usually irrelevant.

Sometimes is [God loves me more than I think] still allows us and our need to be at the center of the world, and God becomes our psychic errand boy given the task of inflating our self esteem.

That's the paradox of self-esteem: Low self-esteem usually means that I think too highly of myself....When you are in the grips of low self-esteem, it's painful, and it certainly doesn't feel like pride. But I believe that this is the dark, quieter side of pride-thwarted pride.

Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. (Ps. 86:1) O LORD, God of my salvation; I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! (Ps. 88:1–2)

And with these thoughts came a realization of how unimportant to the life and happiness of the world is the existence of any one of us. We may be snuffed out without an instant's warning, and for a brief day our friends speak of us with subdued voices. The following morning, while the first worm is busily engaged in testing the construction of our coffin, they are teeing up for the first hole to suffer more acute sorrow over a sliced ball than they did over our, to us, untimely demise.

Non ho mai seguito valori illusori, come il successo, ma ho cercato e trovato dei punti di forza che mi hanno consentito una concezione più ampia del mondo, una sempre rinnovata capacità di gratitudine nei confronti dei miei simili e una sincera umiltà che mi assiste oggi, mentre dalla mia piccola posizione di vantaggio lungo il cammino che va verso l'alto e non finisce mai, guardo la pazienza ammirevole e il coraggio di quelli che dietro di me lottano ancora.

Learn humility, while there's yet time--': those were the last of the abbot's words he had waited to hear. All very well, he thought, to be humble in accepting one's own pain and deprivation, perhaps, but what right have I, what right has he, to make a virtue of meekness when it will be Adam who suffers? I call that cheap humility.

Not his match! And have you not the heart in you to be anything but best? How many are his match? How many in this world do you think stand in the front rank? Are all the rest of us to give up and sit on our hands rather than serve humbly where we deserve?

I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it.

He knew enough of his subject to know that he did not know enough to write about it....

there is no circumstance, in all the contradictions of our most mysterious nature, that appears to be more humiliating than the use we are disposed to make of those sad examples which seem purposely marked for our correction and improvement.

They never open their mouths," he complained of two House colleagues, "without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." Asked

The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their purple, and cast naked into the world, would immediately sink to the lowest rank of society, without a hope of emerging from their obscurity.

I just don't think humanity is the ultimate end. We're so smug about ourselves, secure about how much we know. Well, I've lived with cats most of my life, so I'm very aware that there's another world going on. . . . it sees everything differently, hears everything differently, and probably thinks differently.

As I go through my life in recovery, steps six and seven come into play more actively than any other personally applicable spiritual principles. Open-minded willingness followed by active prayer through changed behavior are able to mold my character, but they do not change it. Change, true conversion, comes as a gift when I am humble enough to ask for it.

In my youth I loved climbing and scrambling up rocks and mountains: now I seldom intrude on the dweller of a second story, and my greatest enemy or friend may avoid me altogether on the third; so humbled is the aspiring spirit of my youth.

And to learn, he must be curious and also humble. For a proud man never learns anything.

Qué representa esa rueda? —preguntó Pentecost. —Es la rueda de la fortuna, señor —contestó el padre. —¿Y qué significa eso, buen hombre? —Pues que aunque un hombre alcance fama y fortuna, puede volver a caer en la miseria. O al revés. Significa que la vida es como una rueda, señor, que no cesa de girar. Y nos enseña que debemos ser humildes, señor. Pues aunque lleguemos muy alto, podemos caer muy bajo.

humility was the ultimate arrogance

The ordinary is not good enough for us; our hubris wants something grandiose. But the ordinary done in obedience to Christ is beautiful, inspired, and oftentimes heroic.

Regarding other people, our problem is that we need them (for ourselves) more than we love them (for the glory of God).

Jesus freely placed your interest above his own. His desire was to elevate your status; in the process he lowered his own. He gave you the royal treatment: he works, you benefit. And you must accept this treatment.

People familiar with shame are willing to wash feet, but they are uncomfortable with other people washing their feet. They are better at serving than being served. Well, get used to being served.