Quotes About Humility

When Dad & I used to tell each other to try a little tenderness we meant calm down, be soft, stop having to be right, give a person the benefit of the doubt for a change.

Everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" And she had tried, truly and honestly, tried so hard that sometimes, despite the nun's kindness and patience, she thought she might go mad with the effort.

The same wakefulness the individual Calvinist was to use to keep watch over his own sins Winthrop and Cotton called for also in the group at large. This humility, this fear, was what kept their delusions of grandeur in check. That's what subsequent generations lost. From New England's Puritans we inherited the idea that America is blessed and ordained by God above all nations, but lost the fear of wrath and retribution.

Winning is not always about shining the brightest. Sometimes it's about sharing the light with someone who has been waiting in the shadows all along.

In the history of the world many souls have been, are, and will be, and with a little reflection this is marvelous and not depressing. Many jerks are made gloomy about it, for they think quantity buries them alive. That's just crazy. Numbers are very dangerous, but the main thing about them is that they humble your pride. And that's good.

Everyone is an idiot, not just the people with low SAT scores. The only differences among us is that we're idiots about different things at different times. No matter how smart you are, you spend much of your day being an idiot.

Every generation before us believed, like Snickers, that it had things figured out. We now know that every generation before us was wrong about a lot of it. Is it likely that you were born at the tipping point of history, in which humans know enough about reality to say we understand it? This is another case where humility is your friend.

I find it useful to remember I can't always tell the difference between genius and stupidity. Neither can anyone else, at least not every time. So when a person who is otherwise smart says something that sounds dumb to me, I remind myself that, in this situation, I might be the dog.

Driven by petty ambition, we serve only ourselves. St. Josemaria put it well: "Those who are 'ambitious,' with small, personal, miserable ambitions, cannot understand that the friends of God should seek to achieve something through a spirit of service and without such'ambition.' " We should never confuse Christian humility and modesty with a will to underachieve.

5 And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Sainthood does not mean sinlessness.

The Lord never gets tired of forgiving us. It is we who get tired of asking for forgiveness.

When you don't know everything that you could know, it's a fine time to shut your fucking noisemaker and be polite.

Wisdom tells me i'm nothing, love tells me I'm everything.

But the man who humbly acknowledges the vanity of all this, who observes with what pleasure the thriving citizen converts his little garden into paradise, and how patiently even the poor man pursues his weary way under his burden, and how all wish equally to behold the light of the sun a little longer - yes, such a man is at peace, and creates his own world within himself;

I do not pretend to aught worth knowing, I do not pretend I could be a teacher To help or convert a fellow-creature. Then, too, I've neither lands nor gold, Nor the world's least pomp or honor hold— No dog would endure such a curst existence!

Schämt euch, ihr Nüchternen! Schämt euch, ihr Weisen!

The highest achievement of the human being as a thinking being is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.

La sencillez y la inocencia no saben apreciar su sagrado valor. No saben que la modestia y la humildad son supremos dones de la generosa naturaleza .

Habe nun, ach! Philosophie, Juristerei und Medizin, Und leider auch Theologie Durchaus studiert, mit heißem Bemühn. Da steh' ich nun, ich armer Tor, Und bin so klug als wie zuvor! Heiße Magister, heiße Doktor gar, Und ziehe schon an die zehen Jahr' Herauf, herab und quer und krumm Meine Schüler an der Nase herum - Und sehe, daß wir nichts wissen können!

If you think I'm going to tell my wife she came in second place, you're out of your gourd. I'll convey the apology and not another bloody word.

If there is anybody here I have not offended, I apologize.

Because in the school of the Spirit man learns wisdom through humility, knowledge by forgetting, how to speak by silence, how to live by dying.

Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil's reach as humility.