Quotes About Humility

think there is a great deal in you; but you must not become proud and you must not talk.

There is no pride,' said the lama, after a pause, 'there is no pride among such as follow the Middle Way.

Though I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

It was splendid,' said Dame Perpetua in the Abbess's room. 'You made it splendid.' 'It wasn't I,' said Abbess Catherine. 'It is splendid. That is the blessing of the liturgy, it wipes out self.

Our whole Christian life is a dying to selfishness – wasn't it Monsignor Knox who said the cross was "I" crossed out?

I too am subject to ageing, sickness, and death, not beyond ageing, sickness, and death, and that I should see another who is old, sick or dead and be shocked, disturbed, and disgusted —this is not fitting.' As I reflected thus, the conceit of youth, health, and life entirely left me.21

Life is for action, and if we desire to know anything, we must make up our minds to be ignorant about much.

Humility has everything to do with love.

I have been caused to live by the deep conditions of the universe to which I am humbly and deeply grateful.

I'd rather be a fool than hard-hearted.

God,' he said, 'why have you chastised me with such a terrible deformity as thinking? Why have you taught me to think, instead of teaching me the humility of cattle!

But with time I came to understand that seeing a rubbery as a humiliation and an affront is an exmotional luxury.

Sí, el mundo enseña humildad. Pues regresé de aquel viaje con el sentimiento de vergüenza por mi falta de conocimientos, por la insuficiencia de mis lecturas, por mi ignorancia. Aprendí que una cultura distinta no nos desvelaría sus secretos tan sólo porque así se lo ordenásemos y que antes de encontrarnos con ella era necesario pasar por una larga y sólida preparación.

It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand...

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.

He who loved himself became great in himself, and he who loved others became great through his devotion, but he who loved God became greater than all.

In the deepest sense you shall make yourself nothing, become nothing before God, learn to be silent. In this silence is the beginning, which is to seek first God's kingdom

In order to help another effectively I must understand more than he – yet first of all surely I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him. If, however, I am disposed to plume myself on my greater understanding, it is because I am vain or proud, so that at bottom, instead of benefiting him, I want to be admired.

People do say that now to know oneself is a deception and an imperfection, but often they are unwilling to understand that someone who actually knows himself perceives precisely that he is not capable of anything at all

we must be honest, and not interpret this lack of courage as humility, since it is really pride, whereas the courage of faith is the only humble courage.

The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God. — Søren Kierkegaard

La hora del dolor puede volvernos altivos, si es que no nos quiebra: en ella, nada se ha quebrado…

We need to learn from one another. Of one thing I am certain: No single people, tradition, religion, governmental form, ethical program, moral code, or civilization has had sufficient wisdom and goodness to set the pattern and govern the world in the ways of peace, decency, and mutual respect. I do not believe God ever intended it to be that way. He wants us to reach out and learn from the wisdom he has given to humanity over broad sweeps of time and place and personality.

In some matters, he said, it is better to be intellectually uncertain rather than superficially sure. This will still leave us with a great deal to be certain about, while maintaining a humility to learn.