C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Humility
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.
In humility imitate Jesus and Socrates.
The most essential point is lowliness.
Humbleness is always grace, always dignity.
Modest humility is beauty’s crown.
Content thyself to live obscurely good.
Love’s humility is love’s true pride.
My favored temple is an humble heart.
Do not practise excessive humility.
Humble things become the humble.
Highest when it stoops.
True love is the parent of a noble humility.
The doctrines of grace humble man without degrading him and exalt him without inflating him.
Heaven’s gates are not so highly arched as king’s palaces; they that enter there must go upon their knees.
Humility is the altar upon which God wishes that we should offer Him His sacrifices.
Humility is the first of the virtues—for other people.
By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honor, and life.
After crosses and losses, men grow humbler and wiser.
Humility is the solid foundation of all the virtues.
There is nothing so clear-sighted and sensible as a noble mind in a low estate.
The street is full of humiliations to the proud.
We cannot think too highly of our nature, nor too humbly of ourselves.
Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.
Humility—that low, sweet root from which all heavenly virtues shoot.
If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.
The higher a man is in grace, the lower he will be in his own esteem.
Humility is eldest-born of Virtue, and claims the birthright at the throne of heaven.
They that know God will be humble; they that know themselves cannot be proud.
Nothing can be further apart than true humility and servility.
Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation.
’Umble we are, ’umble we have been, ’umble we shall ever be.
The grace that makes every grace amiable is humility.
Humility and resignation are our prime virtues.
It is the cringer to his equal that is chiefly seen bold to his God.
Humility mainly becometh the converse of man with his Maker.
Humility leads to the highest distinction, because it leads to self-improvement.
Be very sure that no man will learn anything at all unless he first will learn humility.
Lowliness is the basis of every virtue; and he who goes the lowest builds the safest.
Wellnigh the whole substance of the Christian discipline is humility.
I have sounded the very base-string of humility.
The fullest and best ears of corn hang lowest toward the ground.
The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.
Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue.
It is in vain to gather virtues without humility; for the Spirit of God delighteth to dwell in the hearts of the humble.
The beloved of the Almighty are the rich who have the humility of the poor, and the poor who have the magnanimity of the rich.
Sense shines with a double lustre when it is set in humility. An able and yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom.
May exalting and humanizing thoughts forever accompany me, making me confident without pride, and modest without servility.
Humility is the Christian’s greatest honor; and the higher men climb, the farther they are from heaven.
To be humble to our superiors is duty; to our equals, courtesy; to our inferiors, generosity.
True humility—the basis of the Christian system—is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.
If thou wouldst find much favor and peace with God and man, be very low in thine own eyes; forgive thyself little, and others much.
The humble soul is like the violet, which grows low, hangs the head downward, and hides itself with its own leaves.
Some one called Sir Richard Steele the “vilest of mankind,” and he retorted with proud humility, “It would be a glorious world if I were.”
“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.
Shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life?
He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.
Whatever obscurities may involve religious tenets, humility and love constitute the essence of true religion; the humble is formed to adore, the loving to associate with eternal love.
God’s sweet dews and showers of grace slide off the mountains of pride, and fall on the low valleys of humble hearts, and make them pleasant and fertile.
The high mountains are barren, but the low valleys are covered over with corn; and accordingly the showers of God’s grace fall into lowly hearts and humble souls.
Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice, and yet everybody is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.
Humility is like a tree, whose root when it sets deepest in the earth rises higher, and spreads fairer and stands surer, and lasts longer, and every step of its descent is like a rib of iron.
The loveliest, sweetest flower that bloomed in paradise, and the first that died, has rarely blossomed since on mortal soil. It is so frail, so delicate, a thing, it is gone if it but look upon itself; and she who ventures to esteem it hers proves by that single thought she has it not.
He who sacrifices a whole offering shall be rewarded for a whole offering; he who offers a burnt-offering shall have the reward of a burnt-offering; but he who offers humility to God and man shall be rewarded with a reward as if he had offered all the sacrifices in the world.
If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble; for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, so it is beloved of none but by itself; the voice of humility is God’s music, and the silence of humility is God’s rhetoric. Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail nor reason.
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 sea shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
“If you ask what is the first step in the way of truth? I answer humility,” saith St. Austin. “If you ask, what is the second? I say humility. If you ask, what is the third? I answer the same—humility.” Is it not as the steps of degree in the temple, whereby we descend to the knowledge of ourselves, and ascend to the knowledge of God? Would we attain mercy? humility will help us.
All the world, all that we are, and all that we have, our bodies and our souls, our actions and our sufferings, our conditions at home, our accidents abroad, our many sins, and our seldom virtues, are as so many arguments to make our souls dwell low in the valley of humility.