Famous Quotes & Sayings

William McDonough

If anybody here has trouble with the concept of design humility, reflect on this: It took us 5,000 years to put wheels on our luggage.

Woodrow Wilson

A fault which humbles a person is of more use to him or her than a good action which puffs him or her up.

William Shenstone

Many persons, when exalted, assume an insolent humility, who behaved before with an insolent haughtiness.

William Faulkner

He made the earth first and peopled it with dumb creatures, and then He created man to be His overseer on the earth and to hold suzerainty over the earth and the animals on it in His name, not to hold for himself and his descendants inviolable title forever, generation after generation, to the oblongs and squares of the earth, but to hold the earth mutual and intact in the communal anonymity of brotherhood, and all the fee He asked was pity and humility and sufferance and endurance and the sweat of has face for bread.

Saint Augustine

...If humility does not precede all that we do, our efforts are fruitless.

Saint Augustine

Humility must accompany all our actions, must be with us everywhere; for as soon as we glory in our good works they are of no further value to our advancement in virtue.

Saint Augustine

There never can have been, and never can be, and there never shall be any sin without pride.

Saint Augustine

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

Saint Augustine

You wish to be great, begin from the least. You are thinking to construct some mighty fabric in height; first think of the foundation of humility. And how great soever a mass of building one may wish and design to place above it, the greater the building is to be, the deeper does he dig his foundation.

Saint Augustine

If you should ask me what are the ways of God, I would tell you that the first is humility, the second is humility, and the third is humility. Not that there are no other precepts to give, but if humility does not preceed all that we do, our efforts are fruitless.

Saint Francis de Sales

The highest point of humility consists in not merely acknowledging one's abjection, but in taking pleasure therein, not from any want of breadth or courage, but to give the more glory to God's Divine Majesty, and to esteem one's neighbour more highly than one's self.

Saint Francis de Sales

If after all your efforts you cannot succeed, you could not please our Lord more than by sacrificing to Him your will, and remaining in tranquility, humility, and devotion, entirely conformed and submissive to His divine will and good pleasure.

Saint Francis de Sales

Humility consists in not esteeming ourselves above other men, and in not seeking to be esteemed above them.

Saint Francis de Sales

Humility makes our lives acceptable to God, meekness makes us acceptable to men.

Saint Francis de Sales

Provided that God be glorified, we must not care by whom.

Saint Francis de Sales

If, when stung by slander or ill-nature, we wax proud and swell with anger, it is a proof that our gentleness and humility are unreal, and mere artificial show.

Saint Francis de Sales

True humility scarcely ever utters words of humility.

Saint Francis de Sales

We do not very often come across opportunities for exercising strength, magnanimity, or magnificence; but gentleness, temperance, modesty, and humility, are graces which ought to colour everything we do. There may be virtues of a more exalted mould, but... these are the most continually called for in daily life.

Saint Augustine

No one reaches the kingdom of Heaven except by humility

Saint Augustine

The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.

Saint Augustine

The way to Christ is first through humility, second through humility, and third through humility. If humility does not precede and accompany and follow every good work we do, if it is not before us to focus on, it it is not beside us to lean upon, if it is not behind us to fence us in, pride will wrench from our hand any good deed we do at the very moment we do it.

Saint Augustine

Should you ask me what is the first thing in religion, I should reply that the first, second, and third thing therein is humility.

Saint Augustine

Let your old age be childlike, and your childhood like old age; that is, so that neither may your wisdom be with pride, nor your humility without wisdom.

Saint Augustine

Humility is first, second and third in Christianity.

Saint Augustine

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. 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.

Saint Augustine

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending.

Saint Augustine

You cannot attain to charity except through humility.

Wendell Berry

As long as we insist on relating to it strictly on our own terms-as strange to us or subject to us-the wilderness is alien, threatening, fearful. We have no choice then but to become its exploiters, and to lose, by consequence, our place in it. It is only when, by humility, openness, generosity, courage, we make ourselves able to relate to it on its terms that it ceases to be alien.

Wendell Berry

We must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.

W. Somerset Maugham

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

Wynton Marsalis

Humility is the doorway 2 truth & clarity of objectives... it's the doorway 2 learning.

Wolfgang Tillmans

For me, a good portrait shows the fragility and humility of the person, and at the same time a strength, a resting in themselves.

William Osler

No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition.