Quotes About Humility

Tal como os livros de Petrarca, os meus sabem infinitamente mais do que eu e agradeço-lhes por sequer tolerarem a minha presença. Por vezes, sinto que abuso desse privilégio.

But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.

One thinks one's something unique and wonderful at the center of the universe. But in fact one's merely a slight delay in the ongoing march of entropy.

Fortunately, however, birds don't understand pep talks. Not even St. Francis'. Just imagine, he went on, preaching sermons to perfectly good thrushes and goldfinches and chiff-chaffs! What presumption! Why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut and let the birds preach to him?

Once, when I was grumbling over being obliged to eat meat and do no penance, I heard it said that sometimes there was more of self-love than desire of penance in such sorrow. St. Teresa

Just imagine," he went on, "preaching sermons to perfectly good thrushes and goldfinches and chiff-chaffs! What presumption! Why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut and let the birds preach to him?

Quando nos sentimos como se fôssemos os únicos herdeiros do universo, quando o mar corre em nossas veias [...] e as estrelas são nossas jóias, quando todas as coisas parecem infinitas e sagradas, que motivos poderemos ter para a cobiça ou a soberba, para a fome de poder ou para as formas mais doentias de prazer?

We cannot hope to utter anything worth saying, unless we read and inwardly digest the utterances of our betters.

Pero el hombre que regresa por la Puerta en el Muro ya no será nunca el mismo que salió por ella. Será más instruido y menos engreído, estará más contento y menos satisfecho de sí mismo, reconocerá su ignorancia más humildemente, pero, al mismo tiempo

The true man of genius deliberately subordinates himself, reduces himself to a negative, and allows his genius to play through him as It will. We all know how stupid we are when we try to do things. Seek to make any other muscle work as consistently as your heart does without your silly interference -- you cannot keep it up for forty-eight hours.

an ounce of honest pride is better than a ton of false humility, although an ounce of true humility is worth an ounce of honest pride

Remember, that on the contrary a donkey is not only an intelligent animal, but also an obedient, polite and hard-working one. But if it's overloaded beyond its capacity or expected to be a race horse, it will stop and say, "I cannot do this. Do whatever you want." And you can beat it all you want – it won't move.

singer you did really well. You saved the number." The director said the same thing at the end of the show. "You did a great job," he told me. To which I replied: "Mr. Voice has sung his last song." Messing up on live TV taught me an important lesson about show business: learn to laugh at yourself.

After the virtue of not making a mistake, the greatest virtue of a man is to accept his mistake.

There were times when an apology was best, she thought, even when one really had nothing to apologise for. If only people would say sorry sooner rather than later, Mma Ramotswe believed, much discord and unhappiness could be avoided. But that was not the way people were. So often pride stood in the way of apology, and then, when somebody was ready to say sorry, it was already too late.

Saying sorry does not make you look small—it makes you look big.

If people came at you and started to scratch you, then of course you had the right to sit on them.

Such men knew their worth, but did not flaunt it. Such men could look anybody in the eye without flinching; even a poor man, a man with nothing, could stand upright in the presence of those who had wealth or power. People did not know, Mma Ramotswe felt, just how much we had in those days—those days when we seemed to have so little, we had so much. She

She was, in fact, often wrong--and knew it. Life became difficult when those who were often wrong did not know it.

It was not edifying to dwell on the failings of others.

Es ist ein Zeichen geistiger Reife, seine Meinung zu ändern, wenn man merkt, dass man im Unrecht ist.

But in essence, our smallness, our irrelevance in the cosmic context, should make us less petty, more accepting, less attached to small and ultimately meaningless things.

There are plenty of good stories. There are plenty of good people who go through life without … well, without anger. Who are kind to other folk. Who don't rant and rage.

She wouldn't disapprove of people who gave up philosophy or literary theory to do ordinary things. Maybe not, mused Maggie. If we eat pies, then we should never, not for one moment, look down on the making of them.