Quotes About Humility

Somebody touched my foot. Looking down, I found a sandy-haired woman tugging on my boot buckle. Katie Butke, she introduced herself as. Katie was solid as a fireplug and clean as a boiled peanut, affable but unimpressed by the likes of me.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say Look! and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.

May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers.

Humility is the prize of the leaf-world. Vain-glory is the bane of us, the humans.

Understand from the first this certainty. Butterflies don't write books, neither do lilies or violets. Which doesn't mean they don't know, in their own way, what they are. That they don't know they are alive—that they don't feel, that action upon which all consciousness sits, lightly or heavily. Humility is the prize of the leaf-world. Vainglory is the bane of us, the humans.

Above the modest house and the palace—the same darkness. Above the evil man and the just, the same stars. Above the child who will recover and the child who will not recover, the same energies roll forward, from one tragedy to the next and from one foolishness to the next. I bow down.

Song of the Builders On a summer morning I sat down on a hillside to think about God— a worthy pastime. Near me, I saw a single cricket; it was moving the grains of the hillside this way and that way. How great was its energy, how humble its effort. Let us hope it will always be like this, each of us going on in our inexplicable ways building the universe.

I have been thinking about living like the lilies that blow in the fields. They rise and fall in the wedge of the wind, and have no shelter from the tongues of the cattle, and have no closets or cupboards, and have no legs. Still I would like to be as wonderful as that old idea. But if I were a lily I think I would wait all day for the green face of the hummingbird to touch me. What I mean is, could I forget myself even in those feathery fields?

Butterflies don't write books, neither do lilies or violets. Which doesn't mean they don't know, in their own way, what they are. That they don't know they are alive—that they don't feel, that action upon which all consciousness sits, lightly or heavily. Humility is the prize of the leaf-world.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say "Look!" and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.

May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.

If I were a perfect person, I would be bowing continuously. I'm not, though I pause wherever I feel this holiness, which is why I'm often so late coming back from wherever I went.

because we are always staring at the stars, we learn the shortness of our arms.

He seems to feel his own worth, and the greatness of his fall.

Man, I cried, how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.

I had always been content to know that there was more in the living world than we could hope to understand.

Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.

Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.

How others behave toward you should not affect your behavior toward them. You must not answer arrogance with arrogance. You must not answer sarcasm with sarcasm. You must not answer contempt with contempt. No matter how others behave toward you, always respond with warm love and a caring heart.

Never defend yourself. Make no excuse. Defensiveness and excuses are unbecoming to you. Smoothly recognize your wrong, apologize, and give thanks to God. Then you will be evaluated as a great person. The more you run away, the smaller you become. How dare you transfer your responsibility to others! A great person is one who can take all the responsibility alone.

Don't harm yourself or others by unnecessarily exaggerating errors you or others made. Instead, exaggerate and praise the smallest good deed, whether it's yours or another's. Then people will overlook your errors and recognize your smallest good deed.

Behave pridefully before no one, show anger to no one, scold no one, restrict no one, resent no one, badmouth no one, hate no one, sadden no one, criticize no one, hurt no one, discriminate against no one, betray no one, be jealous of no one, forgive everyone—this is how we should always hope to be.