Quotes Index

Humility Quotes

A man can counterfeit love, he can counterfeit faith, he can counterfeit hope and all the other graces, but it is very difficult to counterfeit humility.-- D. L. Moody

I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but my chief duty is to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble - Helen Keller

Simplicity is the nature of great souls.-- Papa Ramadas

The smallest things become great when God requires them of us; they are small only in themselves; they are always great when they are done for God. --Francois Fenelon

The ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest. -- Thomas More

We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed. --Brother Lawrence

How do we know if we have a servant’s heart? By how we act when we are treated like one!--Unknown

The only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us in our daily conduct.. –Andrew Murray

Be not proud of race, face, place, or grace. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Looking at yourself in a mirror isn't exactly a study of life. --Lauren Bacall

If all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wildflowers. --Teresa of Lisieux

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.- Woody Allen

Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: That you are dreadfully like other people.—James Pearsall Smith

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.-- Thomas a Kempis

The test of good manners is to be patient with bad ones. –Gabirol

The meek man will attain a place of soul rest. As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. The old struggle to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which meekness brings.-- A.W. Tozer

One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about rights. --Simone Weil

Greatness lies not in trying to be somebody but in trying to help somebody.--Unknown

Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. --Martin Luther King, Jr.

A candle loses nothing of its light by lighting another candle. - Fr. James Keller

Whatever makes us feel superior to other people, whatever tempts us to convey a sense of superiority, that is the gravity of our sinful nature, not grace. --Phillip Yancey

Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but it screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honor and recognition. --Richard Foster

If I cannot in honest happiness take the second place (or the twentieth); if I cannot take the first without making a fuss about my unworthiness, then I know nothing of Calvary love. --Amy Carmichael

Blessed the man and woman who is able to serve cheerfully in the second rank -- a big test. --Mary Slessor

I have learned that much of my spiritual progress does not come directly from God, but through my ability to humble myself and hear Him speak through imperfect people. --Francis Frangipane

How tragic that the very thing that could set us free--playing the fool--is the thing we will not do. When we're afraid to be fools, we end up being afraid to be anything.---Mike Mason

I am sure that there are many Christians who will confess that their experience has been very much like my own—that we had long known the Lord without realizing that meekness and lowliness of heart should be the distinguishing feature of the disciple, as they were of the Master. Such humility is not a thing that will come on its own. It must be made the object of special desire, prayer, faith and practice. Andrew Murray

Humility and love are precisely the graces which the men of the world can understand, if they do not comprehend doctrines. They are the graces about which there is no mystery, and they are within reach of all classes... The poorest Christian can every day find occasion for practicing love and humility. --J. C. Ryle

God descends to the humble as waters flow down from the hills into the valleys. --Tikhon

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility. --Saint Augustine

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself. --Blaise Pascal

Just because God is working through us does not mean that we are right with God.--Unknown

We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving Grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. --Abraham Lincoln

The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace. --Phillip Yancey

In some sense we are all hypocrites in transition. --Erwin McManus

Humility is freedom from your own driven ego. --Martha Kilpatrick

Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying. -- Vincent de Paul

Humility is nothing else but a right judgment of ourselves. --William Law

Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. --C.S. Lewis

Humility is offering no resistance to the dealings of the Lord with us. --Chip Brogden

Those who have known God without knowing their wretchedness have not glorified him, but have glorified themselves. --Blaise Pascal

Humility is knowing you yourself desperately require forgiveness as the greatest of all needs. --Martha Kilpatrick

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life: In himself, nothing; In God, everything. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring.-- A.W. Tozer

Don't imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call "humble" nowadays: he won't be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who's always telling you that, of course, he's nobody. Probably all you'll think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him, it will be because you feel a bit envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He won't be thinking about himself at all. There I must stop. If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you're not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed. --C.S. Lewis

A man will act out what he believes himself to be. --Jacquelyn K. Heasley

Only with great difficulty does a shaft of light pierce the armor of self-righteousness. --Lois Wilson

A proud monk needs no demon. He has turned into one, an enemy to himself. --John Climacus

The devil sees nothing more abominable than a truly humble christian, for [that Christian] is just the opposite of [the devil's] own image -- Hans Nielsen Hauge

Oh, that we fully understood how very opposite our self-righteousness is to the designs of God! --Jeanne Guyon

There is no room for God in him who is full of himself. --Martin Buber

He who knows himself well is mean and abject in his own sight, and takes no delight in the vain praise of men. --Thomas a'Kempis

The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed... The heart's fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest... --A.W. Tozer

It happens, I do not know how, that most of the proud never really discover their true selves. They think they have conquered their passions and they find out how poor they really are only after they die. --John Climacus

The man, full of himself, can never proclaim the Christ who emptied Himself. --Jacquelyn K. Heasley

God is not proud...He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.-- CS Lewis

We are to be as unnoticed as the Lord was at times. We should be willing to pass through the crowd and not be noticed. Jesus made a whole different kind of wave, not a wave of worldliness that seeks the center. He was quiet yet He brought a storm. --W.A. Belle

We'd like to be humble...but what if no one notices? --John Ortberg

Provided that God be glorified, we must not care by whom. --Francis de Sales

We must make humility the chief thing we admire in Him. --Andrew Murray

A humble knowledge of ourselves is a surer way to God than is the search for depth of learning. --Thomas a'Kempis

Without humility of heart all the other virtues by which one runs toward God seem -- and are -- absolutely worthless. --Angela of Foligno

A heart that understands what is implicit in God's tenderness is humbled beyond any hope of goodness or worth in itself.--Marian Scheele

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. --The Bible

People often confuse fear, cowardice, insecurity with humility. Gary Amirault

 

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