Quotes About Humility

A true disciple of Jesus will always go to where people are feeling weak, broken, sick, in pain, poor, lonely, forgotten, anxious, and lost.

Our salvation comes from something small, tender, and vulnerable, something hardly noticeable. The Lord, who is the creator of the universe, comes to us in smallness, weakness, and hiddenness.

When I demand from others what only God can give, I experience pain.

Becoming a child is living the Beatitudes and so finding the narrow gate into the Kingdom.

The gospel proclaims human freedom and dignity more than human enslavement and depravity. What is needed is a balance of biblical values and emphasis on the empowering quality of the gospel. The spiritual values of humility, long suffering, endurance, and obedience are to be affirmed alongside self-reliance, freedom, proclamation, mission, and authority.

We wonder if we serve better than someone else. We import a drive to achieve into our works of mercy.

Are we really servants when we can become masters again once we think we have done our part or made our contribution? Are we really servants when we can say when, where, and how long we will give of our time and energy? Is service in a far country really an expression of servanthood when we keep enough money in the bank to fly home at any moment?

In the end, a life of prayer is a life with open hands—a life where we need not be ashamed of our weaknesses but realize that it is more perfect for us to be led by the Other than to try to hold everything in our own hands.

Following Jesus means to let go of the "I" and move toward the "other." Following Jesus means to dare to move out of ourselves and to slowly let go of building our "self" up.

As I reflect on this reality, it is clear that God is present in the events of my life, yet I act and speak as if I am in control. But

He who thinks that he is finished, is finished. How true. Those who think that they have arrived, have lost their way. Those who think they have reached their goal, have missed it. Those who think they are saints, are demons.

I looked at the splendid drawings and paintings Rembrandt created in the midst of all his setbacks, disillusionment and grief. One must have died many deaths and cried many tears to have painted a portrait of God in such humility.

As Father, the only authority he claims for himself is the authority of compassion.

To live and serve and worship with others thereby brings us to a place where we come together and remind each other by our mutual interdependence that we are not God, that we cannot meet our own needs, and that we cannot completely fulfill each other's needs.

The father is like me"? Do I want to be like the father? Do I want to be not just the one who is being forgiven, but also the one who forgives; not just the one who is being welcomed home, but also the one who welcomes home; not just the one who receives compassion, but the one who offers it as well?

To pray means to stop expecting from God the same small-mindedness which you discover in yourself.

Never in my life did I dream that men and women with a mental handicap would be the ones who would put their hands on me in a gesture of blessing and offer me a home. For a long time, I had sought safety and security among the wise and clever, hardly aware that the things of the Kingdom were revealed to "little children"; that God has chosen "those who by human standards are fools to shame the wise.

Deep spiritual formation is required, involving the whole person—body, mind, and heart. Formation in the mind of Christ, "who did not cling to power but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, who did not cling" (Phil. 2:6-8) is not what most seminaries are about. But to the degree that such formation is being sought after and realized, there is hope for the church of the twenty-first century.

Forgiveness means that I continually am willing to forgive the other person for not being God — for not fulfilling all my needs. I, too, must ask forgiveness for not being able to fulfill other people's needs. … The interesting thing is that when you can forgive people for not being God, then you can celebrate that they are a reflection of God.

In their poverty, the mentally handicapped reveal God to us and hold us close to the gospel.

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.

Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.

What is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance?

Which is the best man to deal with,-he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?