Humility Quotes
1,295 quotes
"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."
"Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?"
"The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it."
"If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, "He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone."
"I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day."
"Stay hungry, stay young, stay foolish, stay curious, and above all, stay humble because just when you think you got all the answers, is the moment when some bitter twist of fate in the universe will remind you that you very much don't."
"There’s no reason to not be humble, because as great as you may be, you can always be greater."
"Life is a long lesson in humility."
"To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness."
"In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own."
"A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."
"LearningTo believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life."
"The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth."
"Those who travel to mountain-tops are half in love with themselves, and half in love with oblivion."
"As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don't think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, 'I'm probably no better than you, but I'm certainly your equal."
"I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim—so modestly and so humbly—to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world."
"There are two things that men should never weary of, goodness and humility; we get none too much of them in this rough world among cold, proud people."
"The more humble and obedient to God a man is, the more wise and at peace he will be in all that he does."
"I am not the moon orbiting around your planet; I am the sun that will burn through your frozen mind."
"Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?"
"Never curse a fall. The ground is where humility lives."
"The common man prays, 'I want a cookie right now!' And God responds, 'If you'd listen to what I say, tomorrow it will bring you 100 cookies."
"The barrier during self-improvement is not so much that we hate learning, rather we hate being taught. To learn entails that the knowledge was achieved on one's own accord - it feels great - but to be taught often leaves a feeling of inferiority. Thus it takes a bit of determination and a lot of humility in order for one to fully develop."
"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.{Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal}"
"You can't let the truth bring out the worst and let it get the best of you."
"It's much easier on the emotions when one sees life as an experiment rather than a struggle for popularity."
"The humble sinner will sometimes be interpreted as one of the filthiest in the eyes of man yet immersed in the eyes of God, and this is due to the volition of honesty regarding his own corruption."
"It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility "faith"!(Institutio III.2.3)"
"The greatest wisdom consists in knowing one's own follies."
"Shine your soul with the same egoless humility as the rainbow and no matter where you go in this world or the next, love will find you, attend you, and bless you."
"You cannot exalt God and yourself at the same time."
"While differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal."
"There are times when wisdom cannot be found in the chambers of parliament or the halls of academia but at the unpretentious setting of the kitchen table."
"A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble broken-hearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble broken-hearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behaviour."
"I’m sure I am wrong about many things, although I’m not sure exactly which things I’m wrong about. I’m even sure I’m wrong about what I think I’m right about in at least some cases."
"Learning isn't acquiring knowledge so much as it is trimming information that has already been acquired."
"Every man has a specific skill, whether it is discovered or not, that more readily and naturally comes to him than it would to another, and his own should be sought and polished. He excels best in his niche - originality loses its authenticity in one's efforts to obtain originality."
"The problem with thinking that you are the absolute best, is that it leaves no room for you to become any better and while you live life thinking that you're the best, truth is a lot of people around you are already better and becoming even more better."
"Those who live as though God sets the rules are not going by their own rules. That is the self-sacrifice, or selflessness, that peace more often than not requires. Those who insist on going by their own rules cannot make that sacrifice. They are the steady adherents of (global) conflict because they are forever fighting both themselves and others to do whatever they think that they want to do."
"When your only regret is if anyone thinks you regret anything - that is the definition of conviction."
"Beyond all sciences, philosophies, theologies, and histories, a child's relentless inquiry is truly all it takes to remind us that we don't know as much as we think we know."
"A sign of a lover of wisdom is his delight in not running his mouth about things he doesn't know."
"The ultimate story of success: When a nobody, who has never once in his entire life known the feeling of being remembered or respected, suddenly snaps and becomes a world dictator. On one hand it sounds just, but on the other, it illustrates the reason why a prosperity message has and needs its limitations."
"Have more humility. Remember you don't know the limits of your own abilities. Successful or not, if you keep pushing beyond yourself, you will enrich your own life – and maybe even please a few strangers."
"There is no one who would not rather appear to know than to be taught."
"When we look for success, it should be for the sole purpose of boasting sincerely in Christ. There's no other reason for it. Success is only worth it when the more intense it gets for you, the more you find yourself bragging for his glory rather than your own."
"Your young white, who gathers his learning from books and can measure what he knows by the page, may conceit that his knowledge, like his legs, outruns that of his fathers’, but, where experience is the master, the scholar is made to know the value of years, and respects them accordingly."
"Gloating is a superficial glowing, floating is an idle flowing, and bloatedness is the paralysis of blowing up; because silent movement results in loud victories."
"Author says her father was so diplomatic that when people came to him for solutions, people not only accepted them, but they believed they thought of them."
"To respect a mystery is to make way for the answer."
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