Quotes About Humility

The first step: Don't be anxious. Nature controls it all. And before long you'll be no one, nowhere—like Hadrian, like Augustus. The second step: Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.

What else did you expect from helping someone out? Isn't it enough that you've done what your nature demands? You want a salary for it too? As if your eyes expected a reward for seeing, or your feet for walking. That's what they were made for.

It is quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it.

That kindness is invincible, provided it's sincere—not ironic or an act. What can even the most vicious person do if you keep treating him with kindness and gently set him straight—if you get the chance—correcting him cheerfully at the exact moment that he's trying to do you harm. "No, no, my friend. That isn't what we're here for. It isn't me who's harmed by that. It's you.

Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both.

The pride which is proud of want of pride is the most intolerable of all.

To feel affection for people even when they make mistakes is uniquely human. You can do it, if you simply recognize: that they're human too, that they act out of ignorance, against their will, and that you'll both be dead before long. And, above all, that they haven't really hurt you. They haven't diminished your ability to choose.

Other people's mistakes? Leave them to their makers.

When you are offended at any man's fault, immediately turn to yourself and reflect in what manner you yourself have erred:

You've given aid and they've received it. And yet, like an idiot, you keep holding out for more: to be credited with a Good Deed, to be repaid in kind. Why?

As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made the honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.

Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised; and the rememberer and the remembered; and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree; no not anyone with himself; and the whole earth too is a point.

Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option: to accept this event with humility [will]; to treat this person as he should be treated [action]; to approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in [perception].

Receive [wealth or prosperity] without arrogance; and be ready to let it go.

Keep before your eyes the swift onset of oblivion, and the abysses of eternity before us and behind; mark how hollow are the echoes of applause, how fickle and undiscerning the judgments of professed admirers, and how puny the arena of human fame. For the entire earth is but a point, and the place of our own habitation but a minute corner in it; and how many are therein who will praise you, and what sort of men are they?

73. When you have done a good act and another has received it, why do you look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return?

He was taught to dress plainly and to live simply, to avoid all softness and luxury.

Does a man offend your pride? Remember he will be dead soon, as will you.

He who is greedy of credit and reputation after his death, doth not consider, that they themselves by whom he is remembered, shall soon after every one of them be dead; and they likewise that succeed those; until at last all memory, which hitherto by the succession of men admiring and soon after dying hath had its course, be quite extinct.

And to have learned how to accept favors from friends without losing your self-respect or appearing ungrateful.

For the entire earth is but a point, and the place of your own habitation but a minute corner in it. (...) Remember then to withdraw into the little field of self. Above all, never struggle or strain; but be master of yourself.

How free from all vanity he carried himself in matter of honour and dignity, (as they are esteemed:) his laboriousness and assiduity, his readiness to hear any man, that had aught to say tending to any common good:

The pride that prides itself on freedom from pride is the hardest of all to bear.

si te elevaran en el aire y miraras hacia abajo las cosas humanas y su versatilidad, piensa que las despreciarías al verlas todas al mismo tiempo que las que habitan por todo el aire y la atmósfera[489]. Y que cuantas veces seas elevado verás lo mismo, lo semejante, su brevedad. De eso depende el delirio de grandeza.