Quotes About Humility

this is the work of the Holy Spirit and our operating instructions, to be cooling breezes to sad or worried people, including ourselves, in this sometimes hot stuffy joint [the world].

Prayer usually means praise, or surrender, acknowledging that you have run out of bullets.

Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means you are willing to stop being such a jerk. When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and in the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back. Most

She quoted the Reverend James Forbes as saying, "Nobody gets into heaven without a letter of reference from the poor.

Now, Muriel Spark is said to have felt that she was taking dictation from God every morning-- sitting there, one supposes, plugged into a Dictaphone, typing away, humming. But this is a very hostile and aggressive position. One might hope for bad things to rain down on a person like this.

Try to remember that to some extent, you're just the typist. A good typist listens.

I would rarely be in conformity with the Divine's huge, crazy love so I just prayed, Help me start walking in your general direction, and the greatest prayer, Help me not be such an asshole.

I want to hear someone remind me that if I want to have loving feelings, I need to do loving things. I want someone to make me laugh about our shared humanity and cuckooness; I want someone to remind me that laughter is carbonated holiness.

were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.

God gives us Her own self. Left to my own devices, I would prefer answers. This is why it is good that I am in charge of so little: the pets, the shopping, the garden.

it really is easier to experience spiritual connection when your life is in the process of coming apart. When things break up and fences fall over, desperation and powerlessness slink in, which turns out to be good: humility and sweetness often arrive in your garden not long after.

Thank God I am in charge of so little, or this could never have happened; life is much wilder, richer, and more profound than I am comfortable with.

Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means you are willing to stop being such a jerk. When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and in the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back.

He said that when he sees little kids sitting in the backseat of cars, in those car seats that have steering wheels, with grim expressions of concentration on their faces, clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car to do whatever it is doing, he thinks of himself and his relationship with God: God who drives along silently, gently amused, in the real driver's seat.

You show up as is, hangdog, skeptical, pissy, or superior. Someone welcomes you and pats the seat next to them. Someone will get other people water, or watch the kids, or do a neighbor's laundry, or wash somebody's feet.

Mercy is radical kindness. Mercy means offering or being offered aid in desperate straits. Mercy is not deserved. It involves absolving the unabsolvable, forgiving the unforgivable. Mercy brings us to the miracle of apology, given and accepted, to unashamed humility when we have erred or forgotten. Charge it to our heads and not our hearts, as the elders in black churches have long said.

It is okay to fear death. Many people who don't can be a little too pleased with themselves.

A man ought not be afraid to say he didn't know. Nor a woman.

Lessa lay in the straw of the redolent cheeseroom she shared as sleeping quarters with the other kitchen drudges.

Write to save yourself ... and someday you'll write because you've been saved. You will feel terrible shame for this. Let your humility grow larger than your shame.

After all, I don't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood.

What was humility unless one possessed the courage to admit error, ignorance and futility, the strength to go back and begin again?

I didn't love him at all. I grieve because he had one life in which to seek truth and find courage to defend it. He had one life in which to explore his soul, find love, compassion, humility - and he wasted it. Nobody is richer for his having been, nobody is poorer because he is gone. Therefore I grieve.

I didn't love him at all. I grieve because he had one life in which to seek truth and find courage to defend it. He had one life in which to explore his soul, find love, compassion, humility - and he wasted it. Nobody is richer for his having been, nobody is poorer because he is gone. Therefore I grieve. (from the book or manuscript, Tathyr)