Quotes about Humility

Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you're tired, go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.

Showing off is the fools's idea of glory.

Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.

however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make;

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament?

Let me put it thus: that from the height of Weissenstein I saw, as it were, my religion. I mean, humility, the fear of death, the terror of height and of distance, the glory of God, the infinite potentiality of reception whence springs that divine thirst of the soul; my aspiration also towards completion, and my confidence in the dual destiny.

When we humans attempt to humble others, we tend to do harm in the process. We humiliate in ways that either tear down and destroy a person or propel a person in self-defense toward greater expressions of pride or self-exaltation. Only God has the capacity to cause the precise internal and external circumstances that will bring a person to appropriate humility.

Only God possesses the love and wisdom necessary to deal with human pride in a consistently constructive manner.

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.

Forgive, forget. Bear with the faults of others as you would have them bear with yours.

Be gentle to all and stern with yourself.