Best 2588 quotes in «humility quotes» category

Amory, sorry for them, was still not sorry for himself - art, politics, religion, whatever his medium should be, he knew he was safe now, free from all hysteria - he could accept what was acceptable, roam, grow, rebel, sleep deep through many nights... There was no God in his heart, he knew; his ideas were still in riot; there was ever the pain of memory; the regret for his lost youth - yet the waters of disillusion had left a deposit on his soul, responsibility and a love of life, the faint stirring of old ambitions and unrealized dreams... And he could not tell why the struggle was worth while, why he had determined to use to the utmost himself and his heritage from the personalities he had passed... He stretched out his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky. "I know myself," he cried, "but that is all.

An arrogant man whose arrogance we see from his own behaviour is more tolerable than a humble man whose humility we hear of from his own mouth.

A nation that places its laws over its humanity lacks both humility and humanity.

Andrew Carnegie was an inventor only in the sense that he adopted and adapted the discoveries of others.

And the memory made her humble; for we should not forget what it is to be young and to have ideas and attitudes that may later seem so fanciful.

And then I decided to be pro me. Be pro you to the end. No more cutting up myself and serving up myself like pieces of a pie for everyone's tasteless palates. And that doesn't mean you don't know how to say sorry; because being pro you means being pro growth and pro improvement. When I'm wrong, I know I'm wrong and I say that I'm wrong. And that's how I know I'm right!

And under the cicadas, deeper down that the longest taproot, between and beneath the rounded black rocks and slanting slabs of sandstone in the earth, ground water is creeping. Ground water seeps and slides, across and down, across and down, leaking from here to there, minutely at a rate of a mile a year. What a tug of waters goes on! There are flings and pulls in every direction at every moment. The world is a wild wrestle under the grass; earth shall be moved. What else is going on right this minute while ground water creeps under my feet? The galaxy is careening in a slow, muffled widening. If a million solar systems are born every hour, then surely hundreds burst into being as I shift my weight to the other elbow. The sun’s surface is now exploding; other stars implode and vanish, heavy and black, out of sight. Meteorites are arcing to earth invisibly all day long. On the planet, the winds are blowing: the polar easterlies, the westerlies, the northeast and southeast trades. Somewhere, someone under full sail is becalmed, in the horse latitudes, in the doldrums; in the northland, a trapper is maddened, crazed, by the eerie scent of the chinook, the sweater, a wind that can melt two feet of snow in a day. The pampero blows, and the tramontane, and the Boro, sirocco, levanter, mistral. Lick a finger; feel the now. Spring is seeping north, towards me and away from me, at sixteen miles a day. Along estuary banks of tidal rivers all over the world, snails in black clusters like currants are gliding up and down the stems of reed and sedge, migrating every moment with the dip and swing of tides. Behind me, Tinker Mountain is eroding one thousandth of an inch a year. The sharks I saw are roving up and down the coast. If the sharks cease roving, if they still their twist and rest for a moment, they die. They need new water pushed into their gills; they need dance. Somewhere east of me, on another continent, it is sunset, and starlings in breathtaking bands are winding high in the sky to their evening roost. The mantis egg cases are tied to the mock-orange hedge; within each case, within each egg, cells elongate, narrow, and split; cells bubble and curve inward, align, harden or hollow or stretch. And where are you now?

An egoist is a man who denies the existence of ego in him.

An elephant does not need to pick a fight to let the whole jungle know of its strength.

Angels are good not simply because they see bad as bad, but also because they see bad as corny.

Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. This has always been the instinct of Christendom, and especially the instinct of Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented all his angels, not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Remember how the most earnest medieval art was full of light and fluttering draperies, of quick and capering feet...In the old Christian pictures the sky over every figure is like a blue or gold parachute. Every figure seems ready to fly up and float about in the heavens. The tattered cloak of the beggar will bear him up like the rayed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their heavy gold and the proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards, for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One "settles down" into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at a blue sky.

Any country that is now humbled and humiliated by darkness will be raised up by God

Anyone who has mastered a weapon – truly mastered it – is a humble man or woman.

Any man's measure is determined by what he will do when he is faced with his own deep need. Not how high he may reach but how low he may kneel.

Any such work that you take up, which in the very process of execution, leads to the transcending of self is the most sublime of all. Self disappears, humility reappears.

A partner's different perspective is valuable, but the very fact that it is different means that it will require work, humility, time, and resources to incorporate that perspective. At times, this will require checking one's pride at the door.

Apart from childhood and crisis, prayers have a way of being abstracted from the homely and distinctive details that are part and parcel of our ordinary and daily life.

A person with param vinaya [absolute humility] is considered an honorable and respectable person [abroodaar]. Nowadays where is the honor and respect to be found anywhere? In Kaliyug [current time cycle era], can anyone become honorable and respectable? Absolute humility is honor. If we are disrespectful when people are humble, how can we be considered honorable and respectable?

A poor man is not disposed to quick and high resentment when he is among the rich: he is apt to yield to others, for he knows others are above him: he is not stiff and self-willed; he is patient with hard fare; he expects no other than to be despised, and takes it patiently; he does not take it heinously that he overlooked and but little regarded; he is prepared to be in a lowly place; he readily honours his superiors; he takes reproofs quietly; he readily honours others as above him; he easily yields to be taught, and does not claim much to his understanding and judgment; he is not over nice or humoursome, and has his spirit subdued to hard things; he is not assuming, nor apt to take much upon him, but it is natural for him to be subject to others. Thus it is with the humble Christian.

Approach people with love and understanding, and you will find the same reflected in their approach to you.

Appearances, beauty, value and life have their unique mysteries and essence. I prefer that essence to be breathing with humility, honesty, compassion, respect and a timeless love.

A prophet is always underestimated, and part of what makes one a prophet is that he doesn't really mind it.

Arrogance created to project a self-image of superiority is the very trait that demonstrates to others deeply hidden inferiority.

A reminder that for some people in this world, freedom and ordinary aren't basic rights. They're luxuries you should never take for granted.

A righteous beggar is better than a proud king.

A rare academic (was) a man who knew what he didn't know.

As for the fear, you'll have to put up with that like the rest of us.

As a soul, you have the freedom – and earned responsibility – to transpose your personal process of evolution, to manifest your greatest talents and vision, into the work that matters to you most as a means to personal redemption.

A servant leader can always come down to the level of the one he is serving

As his former student Alastair Fowler once remarked, "Lewis seemed always on the verge of hilarity -- between a chuckle and a roar.

As I am defeated today, I tell you to believe what you will. Just as you believe yourself, your worst enemies believe in themselves.

A saint addicted to excessive self-abnegation is a dangerous associate; he may infect you with poverty, and a stiffening of those joints needed for advancement.

A smile is a humble hidden treasure everyman has been endowed with that does not reveal itself until it is called for.

Ask with Confidence, listen with humility.

As long as we refuse to accept that our pride is the source of our unrest, we will continue to wither on the vine. "Humility, that low, sweet root / From which all heavenly virtues shoot." —Thomas Moore

As the honors accrued, creativity diminished.

As she rounded a corner one of her favourite songs came on the radio, and sunlight filtered through the trees the way it does with lace curtains, reminding her of her grandmother, and tears began to slide down her cheeks. Not for her grandmother, who was then still very much among the living, but because she felt an enveloping happiness to be alive, a joy made stronger by the certainty that someday it would all come to an end. It overwhelmed her, made her pull the car to the side of the road. Afterwards she felt a little foolish, and never spoke to anyone about it. Now, however, she knows she wasn’t being foolish. She realizes that for no particular reason she stumbled into the core of what it is to be human. It’s a rare gift to understand that your life is wondrous, and that it won’t last forever.

A student with greater talent than his teacher needs great humility.

A suburban pastor maintained services appropriate for his respected, professional parish. His father, an excitable traveling evangelist, visited and challenged the congregation to confront pride and sing out loudly with the windows open. The next day, the pastor’s banker mentioned overhearing, and he was sheepish. The buttoned-up banker said, though, that the neighborhood had been WAITING TO HEAR the church live out the joy they claimed.

As St. Paul says, what matters isn't so much our knowledge of God as God's knowledge of us; not, as it were, the god we want but the God who wants us. God help us, we don't understand ourselves; how can we expect to understand that Self which stands beside our selves like Niagara beside a trickling tap?

A student whose life is filled with woes least had and understood the hands of a good teacher that shape lives in a distinctive way

As with many tragedies, our story opens in a moment of triumph.

As you render services to others which bring joy/happiness to them, they'll sing your praises. But remember the God factor in you, and remain humble. For the Lord your God is Humble (Meek).

a true leader must be able to command with an iron fist, not just a humble heart.

At some thoughts one stands perplexed - especially at the sight of men's sin - and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that, once and for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.

At some time during the process, [of writing] I came up with a therapeutic device. After each draft I would tear up the pages and feed the paper to a worm compost I keep in my garage. A few months later, those painful pages were dirt that nourished my yard, which I could walk with bare feet. It was a real and tangible connection to that larger immensity. I liked to remind myself that the same process is going to happen to me when I'm done, when I die and nature tears me up...

A true Democratic Spirit is up there with religious faith and emotional maturity and all those other top-of-the-Maslow-Pyramid-type qualities that people spend their whole lives working on. A Democratic Spirit's constituent rigor and humility and self-honesty are, in fact, so hard to maintain on certain issues that it's almost irresistibly tempting to fall in with some established dogmatic camp and to follow that camp's line on the issue and to let your position harden within the camp and become inflexible and to believe that he other camps are either evil or insane and to spend all your time and energy trying to shout over them.

At some point, you just gotta forgive the past, your happiness hinges on it.

At the end of it all, it is our relationship with people that will determine whether they will share in our pain if we fall into dangers.

Attitude gives your work a good finishing beauty. You may be successful in what you do, but when you are not humble enough, nobody may get time to stop by to see what you have to show the world!