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Humility

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If “humility” means nothing more than the capacity to learn from criticism, then it has an undoubted value; but if “humility” means a willingness to submit to authority ... then it is death to the spirit: the proper name for it, indeed, is “servility.” ~ John Passmore

Humility is the defining characteristic of unpretentious or humble people; those who do not behave as if they were more important than others. The terms humility and modesty are often contrasted in various ways, but they are also often treated as interchangeable synonyms.

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers · Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations · Bible · See also · External links

A

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  • People are paying no attention to the best act of worship: Humility.
    • Aisha, Collected by Ibn Abee Shaybah (13/360) Ibn Hajr graded this Athar as being Saheeh.
  • Humilitas homines sanctis angelis similes facit, et superbia ex angelis demones facit.
  • I know how great is the effort needed to convince the proud of the power and excellence of humility, an excellence which makes it soar above the summits of this world, which sway in their temporal instability, overtopping them all with an eminence not arrogated by human pride, but granted by divine grace.

B

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  • Lowliness is the base of every virtue,
    And he who goes the lowest builds the safest.
  • MEEKNESS, n. Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.
  • “Reformation theology” … pretends to prefer to Pharasaic ostentation a modest invisibility, which in practice means conformity to the world. When that happens, the hallmark of the Church becomes justitia civilis instead of extraordinary visibility. The very failure of the light to shine becomes the touchstone of our Christianity.

C

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  • it seems reasonable to believe — and I do believe — that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.
    • Rachel Carson Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 94
  • The whole secret of the practical success of Christendom lies in the Christian humility, however imperfectly fulfilled. For with the removal of all question of merit or payment, the soul is suddenly released for incredible voyages.
  • To acknowledge one's incapacity is the way to be soon prepared to teach others; for from the moment that a man is no longer full of himself, nor puffed up with empty pride, whatever good he learns in the morning he practices before night.

D

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  • My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
  • How happy in his low degree,
    How rich in humble poverty, is he,
    Who leads a quiet country life;
    Discharged of business, void of strife

F

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  • At very best, a person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.
    • Harry Emerson Fosdick, On Being a Real Person (1943); a similar statement has become attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but apparently only in recent decades: "A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle." This seems to have been first attributed to Franklin in The New Age Magazine Vol. 66 (1958), and the earliest appearance of it yet located is in Coronet magazine, Vol. 34 (1953), p. 27, where it was attributed to a Louise Stein.
  • We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh, but, instead, we must be simple, humble and pure.
    • Francis of Assisi, “Later Admonition and Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance,” Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Volume 1, p. 48

G

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  • Dos veces es eminente el que encierra todas las perfecciones en sí, y ninguna en su estimación.
    • Twice eminent is that who encloses all the perfections into himself, and none into his estimate.
  • Humility is the good and solid foundation of virtues; should it waver, the whole house of virtues collapses.
    • Guigo de Ponte, De vita contemplativa, as translated by Dennis D. Martin, in Carthusian Spirituality: The Writings of Hugh of Balma and Guigo De Ponte, (New York: Paulist Press, 1997), p. 197

H

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I

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  • Question Whence does a man perceive that he has attained to humility?
Answer From the fact that he regards it as odious to please the world either by his association with it or by word, and that the glory of this world is an abomination in his eyes.
  • Saint Isaac the Syrian, The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, Second Edition (2011), published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Brookline, MA p. 439

K

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  • A humble knowledge of oneself is a surer road to God than a deep searching of the sciences.

L

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  • Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, "By jove! I'm being humble", and almost immediately pride — pride at his own humility — will appear.
  • Prayer must be humble: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Here St. James tells us that God does not listen to the prayers of the proud, but resists them; while, on the other hand, he is always ready to hear the prayers of the humble.

M

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  • Be wise;
    Soar not too high to fall; but stoop to rise.
  • Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility.

P

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  • If “humility” means nothing more than the capacity to learn from criticism, then it has an undoubted value; but if “humility” means a willingness to submit to authority—to abandon or to modify what one is doing merely because it does not accord with the teachings of the Bible or the thoughts of Chairman Mao—then it is death to the spirit: the proper name for it, indeed, is “servility.”
  • The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.
    • Vincent de Paul, as quoted in A Year with the Saints (1891) by Anonymous, p. 47.

Q

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R

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  • "שְׁמַע בְּנִי מוּסַר אָבִיךָ, וְאַל תִּטֹּשׁ תּוֹרַת אִמֶּךָ תִּתְנַהֵג תָּמִיד לְדַבֵּר כָּל דְּבָרֶיךָ בְּנַחַת, לְכָל אָדָם וּבְכָל עֵת, וּבַזֶּה תִּנָּצֵל מִן הַכַּעַס, שֶׁהִיא מִדָּה רָעָה לְהַחְטִיא בְּנֵי אָדָם... וְכַאֲשֶׁר תִּנָּצֵל מִן הַכַּעַס, תַּעֲלֶה עַל לִבְּךָ מִדַּת הָעֲנָוָה, שֶׁהִיא מִדָּה טוֹבָה מִכָּל מִדּוֹ טוֹבוֹת... לְמַעַן תַּצְלִיחַ בְּכָל דְּרָכֶיךָ, וְתִזְכֶּה לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא הַצָּפוּן לַצַּדִּיקִים."
    • Hear, my son, the instruction of your father and don't forsake the teaching of your mother (Mishlei 1:8). Get into the habit of always speaking calmly to everyone. This will prevent you from anger, a serious character flaw which causes people to sin... Once you have distanced yourself from anger, the quality of humility will enter your heart. This radiant quality is the finest of all admirable traits... so that you will succeed in all your ways. Thus you will succeed and merit the World to Come which lies hidden away for the righteous.
    • Iggeres HaRamban, translation by [1]

S

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  • My God, I ask not of Thee the leaves of external consequence; I will be content to continue simple, lowly, and plain, if Thou wilt only give me grace to serve Thee and my neighbor. Outward pomp withers like a flower, but inward worth lasts even after death.
    • Christian Scriver, Gotthold's Emblems, translated by Robert Menzies (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1862), CCXII. The Double Flowers, p. 292.
  • There is Humilitas quaedam in Vitio [humility taken to a fault]. If a Man does not take notice of that excellency and perfection that is in himself, how can he be thankful to God, who is the Author of all excellency and perfection?
  • ‘T is better to be lowly born,
    And range with humble livers in content,
    Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,
    And wear a golden sorrow.
  • Often, to our comfort, shall we find
    The sharded beetle in a safer hold
    Than is the full-wing'd eagle.
  • Those who can bend need not be taught how to stand tall.
  • When we buy new clothes not to keep ourselves warm but to look "well-dressed" we are not providing for any important need. We would not be sacrificing anything significant if we were to continue to wear our old clothes, and give the money to famine relief. By doing so, we would be preventing another person from starving. It follows from what I have said earlier that we ought to give money away, rather than spend it on clothes which we do not need to keep us warm. To do so is not charitable, or generous. Nor is it the kind of act which philosophers and theologians have called "supererogatory" - an act which it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do. On the contrary, we ought to give the money away, and it is wrong not to do so.

T

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  • In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes a prediction that to this day few people have understood. He says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5, New Revised Standard Version). In modern versions of the Bible, “meek” is translated as humble. Who are the meek or the humble, and what does it mean that they shall inherit the earth? The meek are the egoless. They are those who have awakened to their essential true nature as consciousness and recognize that essence in all “others,” all lifeforms. They live in the surrendered state and so feel their oneness with the whole and the Source. They embody the awakened consciousness that is changing all aspects of life on our planet, including nature, because life on earth is inseparable from the human consciousness that perceives and interacts with it. That is the sense in which the meek will inherit the earth.
  • Perfection is impossible without humility. Why should I strive for perfection, if I am already good enough?
    • Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom, P. Sekirin, trans. (1997).
  • It is often better for a person to recognize a sin than to do a good deed. Recognizing a sin makes a person humble. Doing a good deed often can feed a person’s pride.
    • Leo Tolstoy, Path of Life, M. Cote, trans. (2002), p. 108

W

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  • A lever. We lower when we want to lift. In the same way, “He who humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
  • The second condition is to take great pains to examine squarely and to contemplate attentively and slowly each school task in which we have failed, seeing how unpleasing and second-rate it is, without seeking any excuse or overlooking any mistake or any of our tutor’s corrections, trying to get down to the origin of each fault. There is a great temptation to do the opposite, to give a sideways glance at the corrected exercise if it is bad, and to hide it forthwith. Most of us do this nearly always. We have to withstand this temptation. Incidentally, moreover, nothing is more necessary for academic success, because, despite all our efforts, we work without making much progress when we refuse to give our attention to the faults we have made and our tutor’s corrections.
Above all it is thus that we can acquire the virtue of humility, and that is a far more precious treasure than all academic progress. From this point of view it is perhaps even more useful to contemplate our stupidity than our sin. Consciousness of sin gives us the feeling that we are evil, and a kind of pride sometimes finds a place in it. When we force ourselves to fix the gaze, not only of our eyes but of our souls, upon a school exercise that we have failed through sheer stupidity, a sense of our mediocrity is borne in upon us with irresistible evidence. No knowledge is more to be desired. If we can arrive at knowing this truth with all our souls we shall be well established on the right foundation.
  • Simone Weil, “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God” (1942)

Bible

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The Bible on Wikisource.
  • Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
  • Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
  • Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
  • By humility, and the fear of the Lord, are riches, honor, and life.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

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Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert's Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
  • Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being little. 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. Modest humility is beauty's crown.
  • "O pity, great Father of light," then I cried,
    " Thy creature who fain would not wander from Thee!
    Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride;
    From doubt and from darkness Thou only canst free."
  • Humility is, of all graces, the chiefest when it does not know itself to be a grace at all.
  • Make me like a little child,
    Simple, teachable, and mild;
    Seeing only in Thy light;
    Walking only in Thy might!
  • "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." This great law of the kingdom of God is, in the teaching of Christ, inscribed over its entrance-gate.
  • Now as they were going along and talking, they espied a boy feeding his father's sheep. The boy was in very mean clothes, but of a fresh and well favored countenance; and as he sat by himself he sang:
    "He that is down, needs fear no fall;
    He that is low, no pride;
    He that is humble ever shall
    Have God to be his guide."
    Then said Mr. Great Heart, "Do you hear him? I will dare to say this boy lives a merrier life, and wears more of that herb called heart's-ease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet."
  • Then Christian began to go forward; but Discretion, Piety, Charity, and Prudence would accompany him down to the foot of the hill. Then said Christian, "As it was difficult coming up, so, so far as I can see, it is dangerous going down." " Yes," said Prudence, "so it is; for it is a hard matter for a man to go down into the valley of Humiliation, as thou art now, and to catch no slip by the way;" " therefore," said they, " we are come out to accompany thee down the hill." So he began to go down, but very warily; yet he caught a slip or two.
  • I want to feel my own nothingness, I want to give myself up in absolute resignation to God, to lie prostrate and passive at His feet, with no other disposition in my heart than that of merging my will into His will, and no other language in my mouth than that of prayer for the perfecting of His strength in my weakness. I desire from the abyss of my own nothingness and vileness to cry unto God that He might cause me to do as I ought, and to be as I ought.
  • Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue.
  • Abraham teaches us the right way of conversing with God: "And Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him." When we plead with Him, our faces should be in the dust.
  • Confess your nothingness and ill-desert before God. Distrust yourself. Rely only upon God. Renounce all glory except from Him. Yield yourself heartily to His will and service. Avoid an aspiring, ambitious, ostentatious, assuming, arrogant, scornful, stubborn, willful, levelling, self-justifying behavior; and strive for more and more of the humble spirit that Christ manifested while He was here upon earth.
  • Of all trees, I observe God hath chosen the vine, a low plant that creeps upon the helpful wall; of all beasts, the soft and patient lamb; of all fowls, the mild and guileless dove. Christ is the rose of the field, and the lily of the valley. When God appeared to Moses, it was not in the lofty cedar nor the sturdy oak nor the spreading palm; but in a bush, a humble, slender, abject shrub; as if He would, by these elections, check the conceited arrogance of man.
  • I pray often to God that He would keep you in the hollow of His hand. The most essential point is lowliness. It is profitable for all things, for it produces a teachable spirit which makes every thing easy.
  • Let me follow in Thy footsteps, O Jesus! I would imitate Thee, but cannot without the aid of Thy grace! O humble and lowly Saviour, grant me the knowledge of the true Christian, and that I may willingly despise myself; let me learn the lesson so incomprehensible to the mind of man, that I must die to myself by an abandonment that shall produce true humility.
  • They that know God will be humble,
    They that know themselves cannot be proud.
  • The more we learn what humility is, the less we discover in ourselves.
  • Humility is the grace which lies prostrate at God's footstool, self-abasing and self-disparaging, amazed at God's mercy, and abhorring its own vileness.
  • Humility, what is it? It is a gracious gift of the Holy Ghost. It is the same disposition which the Psalmist called a " broken heart," and that consciousness of need which Jesus had in view when He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." So far as it has respect to God, it is that docility which is willing to learn what God teaches; that conscious penury, which is willing to accept whatever God proffers; that submission which is willing to do what God desires, and to endure whatever God deems needful.
  • The reason why the publican returned from the Temple justified was that he had got that lowly and self-emptied mind to which the grace of God is welcome. It was not his standing afar off merely, nor his dejected eyes, nor his smiting on his breast, but his despair of himself and his hope in God's mercy — "God be merciful to me a sinner." And you will be justified, too, when, losing all confidence in the flesh, you learn to rejoice in Jesus Christ.
  • The doctrines of grace humble man without degrading him and exalt him without inflating him.
  • Teach me. Lord, my true condition;
    Bring me childlike to Thy knee;
    Stripped of every low ambition,
    Willing to be led by Thee.
  • Be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in the deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God.
  • The wisely cultivated man, conscious how insignificant a drop he is in the vast stream of life, learns his limitation, and accepts events with modesty and equanimity.
  • True humility is a Christian grace and one of the fruits of the Spirit, originating in a deep consciousness of sin past and present, and leading us to discover our nothingness in the view of God, our insufficiency for any thing that is good, and prompting us, as we feel our infirmities, to strive after higher and yet higher attainments.
  • They who know most of God on earth or heaven know that they know little after all; but they know that they may know more and more of Him throughout eternal ages.
  • Humility, that low, sweet root,
    From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
  • And so among the ruins of our pride, we grow to be loving children of the Most High.
  • O it is a happy thing to feel ourselves helpless and naught, for then the presence of God is felt to wrap us about so lovingly! Everlasting, infinite, almighty, — these are the words that strengthen us with speaking them.
  • I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself by now and then finding a smooth pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
  • The most of my sufferings and sorrows were occasioned by my own unwillingness to be nothing, which I am, and by struggling to be something.
  • Humility is that simple, inner life of real greatness, which is indifferent to magnificence, and, surrounded by it all, lives far away in the distant country of a Father's home, with the cross borne silently and self-sacrificingly in the heart of hearts.
  • I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.
  • When thinking of God, when beholding His glorious perfections, when rejoicing in the perfection of His government, and in the excellence of His designs, the humble heart adopts the language of Job: " I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
  • Heaven's gates are not so highly arched as king's palaces; they that enter there must go upon their knees.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 380-81.
  • He saw a cottage with a double coach-house,
    A cottage of gentility!
    And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin
    Is pride that apes humility.
    • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Devil's Walk (original title, Devil's Thoughts); written jointly by Coleridge and Southey.
  • Parvum parva decent.
    • Humble things become the humble.
    • Horace, Epistles, I, 7, 44.
  • God hath sworn to lift on high
    Who sinks himself by true humility.
    • John Keble, Miscellaneous Poems, At Hooker's Tomb.
  • O be very sure
    That no man will learn anything at all,
    Unless he first will learn humility.
  • Fairest and best adorned is she
    Whose clothing is humility.
  • Nearest the throne itself must be
    The footstool of humility.
  • Humility, that low, sweet root,
    From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
    • Thomas Moore, Loves of the Angels, Third Angel's Story, Stanza 11.
  • I was not born for Courts or great affairs;
    I pay my debts, believe, and say my pray'rs.
  • Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise, and yet every body is content to hear.
    • John Selden, Table Talk: Being the Discourses (1786)
  • Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self. It is no humility for a man to think less of himself than he ought, though it might rather puzzle him to do that.
  • The higher a man is in grace, the lower he will be in his own esteem.
  • Da locum melioribus.
    • Give place to your betters.
    • Terence, Phormio, III. 2. 37.

See also

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Wikipedia
Wikipedia
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Wiktionary
Wiktionary
Look up humility in Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Virtues
Altruism • Asceticism • Beneficence • Benevolence • Bravery • Carefulness • Charity • Cheerfulness • Cleanliness • Common sense • Compassion • Constancy • Courage • Dignity • Diligence • Discretion • Earnestness • Faith • Fidelity • Forethought • Forgiveness • Friendship • Frugality • Gentleness • Goodness • Grace • Gratitude • Holiness • Honesty • Honor • Hope • Hospitality • Humanity • Humility • Integrity • Intelligence • Justice • Kindness • Love • Loyalty • Mercy • Moderation • Modesty • Optimism • Patience • Philanthropy • Piety • Prudence • Punctuality • Poverty • Purity • Self-control • Simplicity • Sincerity • Sobriety • Sympathy • Temperance • Tolerance

Vices
Aggression • Anger • Apathy • Arrogance • Bigotry • Contempt • Cowardice • Cruelty • Dishonesty • Drunkenness • Egotism • Envy • Evil speaking • Gluttony • Greed • Hatred • Hypocrisy • Idleness • Ignorance • Impatience • Impenitence • Ingratitude • Inhumanity • Intemperance • Jealousy • Laziness • Lust • Malice • Neglect • Obstinacy • Philistinism • Prejudice • Pretension • Pride • Recklessness • Self-righteousness • Selfishness • Superficiality • Tryphé • Unkindness • Usury • Vanity • Worldliness

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