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222d0fe As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on thing and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you. humility pride C.S. Lewis
74986c2 "Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess: Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older and will soon be old. Keep me from becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity. Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other peoples' affairs. With my immense treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake of it. But thou knowest, Lord, that in the end I will need a few friends. Keep me from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point. Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others; help me to endure them with charity. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains -- they increase with the increasing years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing. I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn't agree with that of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong. Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint -- it is so hard to live with some of them -- but a harsh old person is one of the devil's masterpieces. prayer humility patience old-age Margot Benary-Isbert
a33ec2c To learn which questions are unanswerable, and : this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness. policy certainty humility knowledge Ursula K. Le Guin
4ab94da It's important that what thoughts you are feeding into your mind because your thoughts create your belief and experiences. You have positive thoughts and you have negative ones too. Nurture your mind with positive thoughts: kindness, empathy, compassion, peace, love, joy, humility, generosity, etc. The more you feed your mind with positive thoughts, the more you can attract great things into your life. experiences mind thoughts kindness joy empathy compassion inspiration inspirational-quotes inspire life-quotes living motivation optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking motivational optimism life love inspirational generosity belief humility peace Roy T. Bennett
53ab87b ...talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything. hard-work humility talent Patrick Süskind
467d706 The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet it is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: Small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere. catholicism humility lord-of-the-rings J.R.R. Tolkien
655edb6 "Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast." humility deceit Jane Austen
1cd195a The main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one's narcissism. The narcissistic orientation is one in which one experiences as real only that which exists within oneself, while the phenomena in the outside world have no reality in themselves, but are experienced only from the viewpoint of their being useful or dangerous to one. The opposite pole to narcissism is objectivity; it is the faculty to see other people and things , objectively, and to be able to separate this picture from a picture which is formed by one's desires and fears. understanding love subjective objective objectivity narcissism understanding-oneself-and-others humility narcissistic selfishness psychology Erich Fromm
48f9b31 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. work god weakness humility Madeleine L'Engle
7295537 Those who travel to mountain-tops are half in love with themselves, and half in love with oblivion. inspirational mountaineering adventure arrogance mountains humility oblivion Robert Macfarlane
fc47f32 I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself. self-loathing humble existentialism humility self-realization Hermann Hesse
e4c8d31 Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much; Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd; The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old time, and regulate the sun; Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, And quitting sense call imitating God; As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule-- Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! mankind enlightenment poetry humanity reason error fallibility humility Alexander Pope
224670f The faculty to think objectively is ; the emotional attitude behind reason is that of . To be objective, to use one's reason, is possible only if one has achieved an attitude of humility, if one has emerged from the dreams of omniscience and omnipotence which one has as a child. Love, being dependent on the relative absence of narcissism, requires the developement of humility, objectivity and reason. I must try to see the difference between picture of a person and his behavior, as it is narcissistically distorted, and the person's reality as it exists regardless of my interests, needs and fears. understanding empathy reason love subjective the-art-of-loving erich-fromm objective objectivity narcissism reasoning conflict humility selfishness Erich Fromm
3143e0d Until you have suffered much in your heart, you cannot learn humility. eastern-orthodoxy suffering christianity spirituality inspirational humility Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica
7ff7a12 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. goodness inspirational humility Robert Louis Stevenson
a13a626 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. fantasy religion god inspirational arrogance belief humility atheism modesty respect power Christopher Hitchens
cb03685 Life is sufferin true suffering god love inspirational humility Jordan B. Peterson
022f7a8 Every one is worthy of love, except him who thinks that he is. Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling. humility Oscar Wilde
4053a3c 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? righteousness sovereignty penitence humility C.S. Lewis
e0164bc You must know nothing before you can learn something, and be empty before you can be filled. Is not the emptiness of the bowl what makes it useful? As for laws, a parrot can repeat them word for word. Their spirit is something else again. As for governing, one must first be lowest before being highest. listen full humble humility learn Lloyd Alexander
38e4f97 "Oh Lord Most High, Creator of the Cosmos, Spinner of Galaxies, Soul of Electromagnetic Waves, Inhaler and Exhaler of Inconceivable Volumes of Vacuum, Spitter of Fire and Rock, Trifler with Millennia -- what could we do for Thee that Thou couldst not do for Thyself one octillion times better? Nothing. What could we do or say that could possibly interest Thee? Nothing. Oh, Mankind, rejoice in the apathy of our Creator, for it makes us free and truthful and dignified at last. No longer can a fool point to a ridiculous accident of good luck and say, 'Somebody up there likes me.' And no longer can a tyrant say, 'God wants this or that to happen, and anyone who doesn't help this or that to happen is against God.' O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain!" -The prayer of the Reverend C. Horner Redwine" religion humility Kurt Vonnegut
31b8b9f Who knows himself a braggart, let him fear this, for it will come to pass that every braggart shall be found an ass. shakespeare humor braggart bragging parroles ass humility pride William Shakespeare
0127d23 The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less. gospel humility pride sin Timothy Keller
9daf83f "No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; humility T.S. Eliot.
bb57597 Something very beautiful happens to people when their world has fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor. Perhaps, in a way, that's where humanity is now: about to discover we're not as smart as we thought we were, will be forced by life to surrender our attacks and defenses which avail us of nothing, and finally break through into the collective beauty of who we really are. tragedy perseverance humanity change life cataclysm revelation-of-self humility transformation Marianne Williamson
772eb82 While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone else's, impetus. understanding prejudice truth impetus motivations humility Andrew Solomon
edd10b5 It is only people who are lacking, or bad, or inferior, who have to be good at things. You have always been full and perfect, so you had nothing to make up for. love inspirational self-deprecating humility wooing T.H. White
10ced50 We will never be cleansed until we confess we are dirty. And we will never be able to wash the feet of those who have hurt us until we allow Jesus, the one we have hurt, to wash ours. jesus inspirational confession humility Max Lucado
0e65742 true humility is when you can surprise yourself more than others; the rest is either shyness or good marketing humbleness narcissists true-humility narcissism humility Nassim Nicholas Taleb
5c5eed9 He is as full of valor as of kindness. Princely in both. kindness meekness graciousness humility William Shakespeare
04fd0f2 It's a kind of arrogance to be so certain you're past redemption. humility Ellis Peters
694b1e9 All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost. ...Each human soul has in a sense to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind. meeting-people incarnation friendliness hospitality humility G.K. Chesterton
d4f094c "Sorrow is humbling. I want my pain to be fabulous. I don't need my pain to be worse than anyone else's; I just want it to be strangely, uniquely mine. Art to someone else's breakdown. -- Thea Hillman, "Dear Kath After" from the anthology " pain sorrow thea-hillman michelle-tea humility Clint Catalyst Michelle Tea Thea Hillman
86293a4 Rather than remain a sealed jar, she sought only to pour herself out to others. Everything she did mirrored her faith. It was as though every waking hour of the day she was devoted to pleasing her God by serving others. This God that she worshiped consumed her. It didn't ask for a brief visit to a temple, or a small votive offering of food or coin, or a few prayers every now and then. This God wanted all of her. god serve humility Francine Rivers
a54a99e For thousands of years, it had been nature--and its supposed creator--that had had a monopoly on awe. It had been the icecaps, the deserts, the volcanoes and the glaciers that had given us a sense of finitude and limitation and had elicited a feeling in which fear and respect coagulated into a strangely pleasing feeling of humility, a feeling which the philosophers of the eighteenth century had famously termed the sublime. But then had come a transformation to which we were still the heirs.... Over the course of the nineteenth century, the dominant catalyst for that feeling of the sublime had ceased to be nature. We were now deep in the era of the technological sublime, when awe could most powerfully be invoked not by forests or icebergs but by supercomputers, rockets and particle accelerators. We were now almost exclusively amazed by ourselves. nature wonder humility sublime technology Alain de Botton
a45934e Lord, I believe; help my unbelief'... is the most natural and most human and most agonizing prayer in the gospels, and I think it is the foundation prayer of faith. prayer faith doubts weakness humility Flannery O'Connor
51d390d 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. youth humility James Fenimore Cooper
296fdf2 Exceptional men do not hold their experiences to be out of the ordinary or of interest to anyone else. Unlike the trodden fungus-men, they are not so ignorantly and presumptuously self-absorbed. They are nobody and they know it. They shun notice. They are exceedingly rare. men humility Nick Tosches
df17b71 A medical man likes to make psychological observations, and sometimes in the pursuit of such studies is too easily tempted into momentous prophecy which life and death easily set at nought. physician humility psychology George Eliot
2145d3f In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement. christianity religion edward-said rushdie humility london palestine Christopher Hitchens
5f03b54 What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition and settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. inspirational gk-chesterton humility G.K. Chesterton
fb3bf3a It is easier to move from failure to success in from excuses to success. excuses humility John C. Maxwell
95642ac Two classes of people make up the world: those who have found God, and those who are looking for Him - thirsting, hungering, seeking! And the great sinners came closer to Him than the proud intellectuals! Pride swells and inflates the ego; gross sinners are depressed, deflated and empty. They, therefore, have room for God. God prefers a loving sinner to a loveless 'saint'. Love can be trained; pride cannot. The man who thinks that he knows will rarely find truth; the man who knows he is a miserable, unhappy sinner, like the woman at the well, is closer to peace, joy and salvation than he knows. sinners intellectuals humility Fulton J. Sheen
9f499e8 The company owner doesn't need to win. The best idea does. humility John C. Maxwell
e75ebcd Humility is as good for the soul as it is for the memory humility lessons-learned memory Patricia C. Wrede
1e8a877 It would always be my burden, not that I lacked genius, but that I was fully aware of it. self-awareness humility Pat Conroy
f484f6a Harshaw had the arrogant humility of the man who has learned so much that he is aware of his own ignorance and he saw no point in 'measurements' when he did not know what he was measuring. limitations humility ignorance Robert A. Heinlein
32f83b3 You will only learn in a fight how much you've got to learn. spiritual-warfare discipleship humility Richard Llewellyn
9bb3334 The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless. wisdom humility T.S. Eliot
ce19fad Alas! in the clothes of the greatest potentate, what is there but a man? humanity leadership humility power Robert Louis Stevenson
a84d07d The three jewels of Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility. Balthasar said compassion leads to courage, moderation leads to generosity, and humility leads to leadership. courage leadership tao generosity moderation humility Christopher Moore
70c6d9d Denys (Finch-Hatton) has been written about before and he will be written about again. If someone has not already said it, someone will say that he was a great man who never achieved greatness, and this will not only be trite, but wrong; he was a great man who never achieved arrogance. greatness humility Beryl Markham
98a1c54 "Thus in order to be a "radical" one must be open to the possibility that one's own core assumptions are misconceived." -- false humility radical Christopher Hitchens
630f3f1 The Church has little idea how unorthodox it is at any given moment. If a church can't yet be perfectly orthodox, it can, with the Holy Spirit's help and by the grace of God, be perpetually reformable. humility Brian D. McLaren
c7cd837 The humble, simple souls, who are little enough to see the bigness of God in the littleness of a Babe, are therefore the only ones who will ever understand the reason of His visitation. He came to this poor earth of ours to carry on an exchange; to say to us, as only the Good God could say: 'you give me your humanity, and I will give you my Divinity; you give me your time, and I will give you My eternity; you give me your broken heart, and I will give you Love; you give me your nothingness, and I will give you My all. jesus love the-cross humility Fulton J. Sheen
2ae28a3 "A visitor asked Lincoln what good news he could take home from an audience with the august executive. The president spun a story about a machine that baffled a chess champion by beating him thrice. The stunned champ cried while inspecting the machine, "There's a man in there!"Lincoln's good news, he confided from the heights of leadership, was that there was in fact a man in there." compassion leadership abraham-lincoln-quotes american-civil-war fallibility humility Shelby Foote
60b729b "I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering, and like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt'ring eye and say, "Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?" The poor wretch flees. I am not making chatter; I mean to change his life." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
7cf690c No one is is sure of his premise as the man who knows too little. humility curiosity Barbara W. Tuchman
d4ad6d3 ...when you trust the Lord God to give you the next step, when you wait in humility upon Him, *He* will open the doors or close them, and you'll get to rest and relax until He says, 'Go. trust god humility peace waiting Charles R. Swindoll
6478149 A kind of northing is what I wish to accomplish, a single-minded trek towards that place where any shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky's stars as a pattern of perfect, concentric circles. I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off. At the seashore you often see a shell, or fragment of a shell, that sharp sands and surf have thinned to a wisp. There is no way you can tell what kind of shell it had been, what creature it had housed; it could have been a whelk or a scallop, a cowrie, limpet, or conch. The animal is long since dissolved, and its blood spread and thinned in the general sea. All you hold in your hand is a cool shred of shell, an inch long, pared so thin that it passes a faint pink light. It is an essence, a smooth condensation of the air, a curve. I long for the North where unimpeded winds would hone me to such a pure slip of bone. But I'll not go northing this year. I'll stalk that floating pole and frigid air by waiting here. I wait on bridges; I wait, struck, on forest paths and meadow's fringes, hilltops and banksides, day in and day out, and I receive a southing as a gift. The North washes down the mountains like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, and pours across the valley; it comes to me. It sweetens the persimmons and numbs the last of the crickets and hornets; it fans the flames of the forest maples, bows the meadow's seeded grasses and pokes it chilling fingers under the leaf litter, thrusting the springtails and the earthworms deeper into the earth. The sun heaves to the south by day, and at night wild Orion emerges looming like the Specter over Dead Man Mountain. Something is already here, and more is coming. fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
87914a8 But the truth is that there is no more conscious inconsistency between the humility of a Christian and the rapacity of a Christian than there is between the humility of a lover and the rapacity of a lover. The truth is that there are no things for which men will make such herculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy. There never was a man in love who did not declare that, if he strained every nerve to breaking, he was going to have his desire. And there never was a man in love who did not declare also that he ought not to have it. lovers christianity love chesterton unworthy catholicism christian humility desire G.K. Chesterton
da68d7f "Someone with a low degree of epistemic arrogance is not too visible, like a shy person at a cocktail party. We are not predisposed to respect humble people, those who try to suspend judgement. Now contemplate epistemic humility. Think of someone heavily introspective, tortured by the awareness of his own ignorance. He lacks the courage of the idiot, yet has the rare guts to say "I don't know." He does not mind looking like a fool or, worse, an ignoramus. He hesitates, he will not commit, and he agonizes over the consequences of being wrong. He introspects, introspects, and introspects until he reaches physical and nervous exhaustion. This does not necessarily mean he lacks confidence, only that he holds his own knowledge to be suspect. I will call such a person an epistemocrat; the province where the laws are structured with this kind of human fallibility in mind I will can an epistemocracy." confidence instrospection humility hubris Nassim Nicholas Taleb
3cd904f Life produces a different taste each time you take it. flexibility glory-of-god openness humility Frank Herbert
73d5e27 "He is the kind of person I should expect to rescue one from a mad dog at any risk but then insist on a stoical indifference to the fright afterward." Jefferson Davis's future wife describing him at first meeting." fear stoicism humility Shelby Foote
fa5ce04 It was a lot more fun to get famous than to be famous. solitude fame humility popularity Bill Bryson
68c389c Losing well was a gift, but winning well is this stuff of the authentic manhood. magnanimity humility Pat Conroy
03922ed College was to teach me that I was one of life's journeymen, eager to excel but lacking the requisite gifts. education maturity humility Pat Conroy
40d3d54 For with any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation. There comes a certain point in such conditions when only three things are possible: first a perpetuation of Satanic pride, secondly tears, and third laughter. humility G.K. Chesterton
f0771e7 We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. skepticism humility G.K. Chesterton
0781ec0 There is not, in a material sense, any benefit to being right about a future you will not experience. But there are intrinsic benefits to constantly probing the possibility that our assumptions about the future might be wrong: humility and wonder. future wonder humility Chuck Klosterman
f7a7697 Soft power is quiet persistence. graciousness humility Susan Cain
cd6c445 He learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. openness humility self-confidence Frank Herbert
d2cce05 The humility of wisdom is the happy consciousness that all things come from God, are sustained by God, and exist for God. This wisdom is rooted in the pride-destroying, joy-giving cross of Christ. wisdom humility thinking John Piper
e18265d To turn the tide of materialism in the Christian community, we desperately need bold models of kingdom-centered living. Despite our need to do it in a way that doesn't glorify people, we must hear each other's stories about giving or else our people will not learn to give. models christianity learning modelling example stewardship giving encouragement community materialism humility kingdom stories Randy Alcorn
71f637d "People who sneer at a half a loaf of bread have never been hungry." George Reedy" leadership dependence humility Robert A. Caro
0599ea4 He was one of those men, and they are not the commonest, of whom we can know the best only by following them away from the marketplace, the platform, and the pulpit, entering with them into their own homes, hearing the voice with which they speak to the young and aged about their own hearthstone, and witnessing their thoughtful care for the everyday wants of everyday companions, who take all their kindness as a matter of course, and not as a subject for panegyric. relationships lifestyle humility George Eliot
b6d2552 ...goals not bathed in prayer or brought in humility before the Lord turn out to be downright useless. They don't go anywhere. They don't accomplish anything. prayer god goals humility Charles R. Swindoll
9b573e9 "The color-patches of vision part, shift, and reform as I move through space in time. The present is the object of vision, and what I see before me at any given second is a full field of color patches scattered just so. The configuration will never be repeated. Living is moving; time is a live creek bearing changing lights. As I move, or as the world moves around me, the fullness of what I see shatters. "Last forever!" Who hasn't prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless. But there is more to the present than a series of snapshots. We are not merely sensitized film; we have feelings, a memory for information and an eidetic memory for the imagery of our pasts. Our layered consciousness is a tiered track for an unmatched assortment of concentrically wound reels. Each one plays out for all of life its dazzle and blur of translucent shadow-pictures; each one hums at every moment its own secret melody in its own unique key. We tune in and out. But moments are not lost. Time out of mind is time nevertheless, cumulative, informing the present. From even the deepest slumber you wake with a jolt- older, closer to death, and wiser, grateful for breath. But time is the one thing we have been given, and we have been given to time. Time gives us a whirl. We keep waking from a dream we can't recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end. All I want to do is stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open, with toothpicks, with trees." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
7879b53 I want to think about trees. Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can't think about them. I live with trees. There are creatures under our feet, creatures that live over our heads, but trees live quite convincingly in the same filament of air we inhabit, and in addition, they extend impressively in both directions, up and down, shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach. fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching trees growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
6e230cc If virtue does not equal powers, powers will be misused. leadership servant-leadership self-discipline humility John Howard Griffin
f1f3c26 "In the forty minutes I watched the muskrat, he never saw me, smelled me, or heard me at all. When he was in full view of course I never moved except to breathe. My eyes would move, too, following his, but he never noticed. Only once, when he was feeding from the opposite bank about eight feet away did he suddenly rise upright, all alert- and then he immediately resumed foraging. But he never knew I was there. I never knew I was there, either. For that forty minutes last night I was as purely sensitive and mute as a photographic plate; I received impressions, but I did not print out captions. My own self-awareness had disappeared; it seems now almost as though, had I been wired to electrodes, my EEG would have been flat. I have done this sort of thing so often that I have lost self-consciousness about moving slowly and halting suddenly. And I have often noticed that even a few minutes of this self-forgetfulness is tremendously invigorating. I wonder if we do not waste most of our energy just by spending every waking minute saying hello to ourselves. Martin Buber quotes an old Hasid master who said, "When you walk across the field with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their souls come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
836f9ed Nietzsche tended to equate the memorable with the painful. maturation humility Harold Bloom
be32489 To be humble is to be so sure of one's self and one's mission that one can forego calling excessive attention to one's self and status. And, even more pointedly, to be humble is to revel in the accomplishments or potentials of others -- especially those with whom one identifies and to whom one is linked organically. humility Cornel West
a0e821c You know, in my opinion, being ridiculous is sometimes even a good thing, and better than that: we can forgive one another more quickly, and acquire humilty more quickly; after all, we can't understand everything at once, we can't begin directly from perfection! perfection ridiculous humility Fyodor Dostoyevsky
dcd290e I found the whole modern world talking scientific fatalism; saying that everything is as it must always have been, being unfolded without fault from the beginning. The leaf on the tree is green because it could never have been anything else. Now, the fairy-tale philosopher is glad that the leaf is green precisely because it might have been scarlet. He feels as if it had turned green an instant before he looked at it. gratitude wonder humility creativity G.K. Chesterton
a419ee0 A culture capable of imagining complexly is a humble culture. It acts, when it has to act, as late in the game as possibl, and as cautiously, because it knows its girth and the tight confines of the china shop it's blundering into. And it knows that no matter how well prepared it is -- no matter how ruthlessly it has held its projections up to intelligent scrutiny -- the place it is headed for is going to very different from the place it imagined. The shortfall between the imagined and the real, multiplied by the violence of one's intent, equals the evil one will do. morality intelligence saunders complexity ethics george humility George Saunders
47d7aee Culture is nested in context, not genes. openness humility Thomas L. Friedman
afb6ce4 Starting at the bottom is not about humiliation. It's about humility--a realistic assessment of where you are in the learning curve. lessons learning inspirational-quotes humility Maria Shriver
1514520 If there is a lesson here it has to do with humility. For all our vaunted intelligence and complexity, we are not the sole authors of our destinies or of anything else. You may exercise diligently, eat a medically fashionable diet, and still die of a sting from an irritated bee. You may be a slim, toned paragon of wellness, and still a macrophage within your body may decide to throw in its lot with an incipient tumor. intelligence destinies humility Barbara Ehrenreich
d90ee72 It looked as though the leaves of the autumn forest had taken flight, and were pouring down the valley like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, all the leaves of the hardwoods from here to Hudson's Bay. It was as if the season's colors were draining away like lifeblood, as if the year were molting and shedding. The year was rolling down, and a vital curve had been reached, the tilt that gives way to headlong rush. And when the monarch butterflies had passed and were gone, the skies were vacant, the air poised. The dark night into which the year was plunging was not a sleep but an awakening, a new and necessary austerity, the sparer climate for which I longed. The shed trees were brittle and still, the creek light and cold, and my spirit holding its breath. fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
d03b080 Awful momentum makes carrying through easier than calling off folly. status-quo humility Barbara W. Tuchman
b488979 "All at once, something wonderful happened, although at first, it seemed perfectly ordinary. A female goldfinch suddenly hove into view. She lighted weightlessly on the head of a bankside purple thistle and began emptying the seedcase, sowing the air with down. The lighted frame of my window filled. The down rose and spread in all directions, wafting over the dam's waterfall and wavering between the tulip trunks and into the meadow. It vaulted towards the orchard in a puff; it hovered over the ripening pawpaw fruit and staggered up the steep faced terrace. It jerked, floated, rolled, veered, swayed. The thistle down faltered down toward the cottage and gusted clear to the woods; it rose and entered the shaggy arms of pecans. At last it strayed like snow, blind and sweet, into the pool of the creek upstream, and into the race of the creek over rocks down. It shuddered onto the tips of growing grasses, where it poised, light, still wracked by errant quivers. I was holding my breath. Is this where we live, I thought, in this place in this moment, with the air so light and wild? The same fixity that collapses stars and drives the mantis to devour her mate eased these creatures together before my eyes: the thick adept bill of the goldfinch, and the feathery coded down. How could anything be amiss? If I myself were lighter and frayed, I could ride these small winds, too, taking my chances, for the pleasure of being so purely played. The thistle is part of Adam's curse. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." A terrible curse: But does the goldfinch eat thorny sorrow with the thistle or do I? If this furling air is fallen, then the fall was happy indeed. If this creekside garden is sorrow, then I seek martyrdom. I was weightless; my bones were taut skins blown with buoyant gas; it seemed that if I inhaled too deeply, my shoulders and head would waft off. Alleluia." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
900bb3a 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? fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
e10680f "Today is the winter solstice. The planet tilts just so to its star, lists and holds circling in a fixed tension between veering and longing, and spins helpless, exalted, in and out of that fleet blazing touch. Last night Orion vaulted and spread all over the sky, pagan and lunatic, his shoulder and knee on fire, his sword three suns at the ready-for what? I won't see this year again, not again so innocent; and longing wrapped round my throat like a scarf. "For the Heavenly Father desires that we should see," says Ruysbroeck, "and that is why He is ever saying to our inmost spirit one deep unfathomable word and nothing else." But what is the word? Is this mystery or coyness? A cast-iron bell hung from the arch of my rib cage; when I stirred, it rang, or it tolled, a long syllable pulsing ripples up my lungs and down the gritty sap inside my bones, and I couldn't make it out; I felt the voiced vowel like a sigh or a note but I couldn't catch the consonant that shaped it into sense." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul longing poet creation Annie Dillard
b1f62dc "On Wednesday night, November 13, (1861), Lincoln went with Seward and Hay to McClellan's house. Told that the general was at a wedding, the three waited in the parlor for an hour. When McClellan arrived home, the porter told him the president was waiting, but McClellan passed by the parlor room and climbed the stairs to his private quarters. After another half hour, Lincoln again sent word that he was waiting, only to be informed that the general had gone to sleep. Young John Hay was enraged, " I wish here to record what I consider a portent of evil to come," he wrote in his diary, recounting what he considered an inexcusable "insolence of epaulettes," the first indicator "of the threatened supremacy of the military authorities." To Hay's surprise, Lincoln "seemed not to have noticed it specially, saying it was better at this time not to be making points of etiquette & personal dignity." He would hold McClellan's horse, he once said, if a victory could be achieved. Though Lincoln, the consummate pragmatist, did not express anger at McClellan's rebuff, his aides fumed at every instance of such arrogance. Lincoln's secretary, William Stoddard, described the infuriating delay when he accompanied Lincoln to McClellan's anteroom. "A minute passes, then another, and then another, and with every tick of the clock upon the mantel your blood warms nearer and nearer its boiling-point. Your face feels hot and your fingers tingle, as you look at the man, sitting so patiently over there...and you try to master your rebellious consciousness." As time went by, Lincoln visited the haughty general less frequently. If he wanted to talk with McClellan, he sent a summons for him to appear at the White House." kindness forbearance self-restraint humility pragmatism patience Doris Kearns Goodwin
feffc6a We often live as if our happiness depended on having. But I don't know anyone who is really happy because of what he or she has. True joy, happiness, and inner peace come from the giving of ourselves to others. A happy life is a life for others. That truth, however, is usually discovered when we are confronted with our brokenness. sacrifice happiness humility peace Henri J.M. Nouwen
d104d64 The question to ask, when you feel pride, then, is this: What am I missing right now that a more humble person might see? What am I avoiding, or running from, with my bluster, franticness, and embellishments? It is far better to ask and answer these questions now, with the stakes still low, than it will be later. humility Ryan Holiday
1123575 Old men want to feel that the experience which has come with their years is valuable, that their advice is valuable, that they possess a sagacity that could be obtained only through experience-- a sagacity that could be of use to young men if only young men would ask. honoring-parents humility Robert A. Caro
ade805f And yet now and then he let himself steal a glance at her. Lovely dark colors of her skin, hair, and eyes. We are half-baked compared to them. Allowed out of the kiln before we were fully done. The old aboriginal myth; the truth, there. women humility Philip K. Dick
5f876ad We all need salespeople with humility, honesty, integrity, empathy and an old-fashioned work ethic that ensures the job gets done. money business-to-business buying-decision buying-decision-quote earn-the-right integrity influence-quotes salesmanship selling-skills selling-tips sales-effectiveness selling influence empathy trust honesty business-quotes buying customers salespeople business-success work-ethic shopping business-advice humility sales sales-training negotiation Chris Murray
624840d His enthusiasm and willingness to use what he learned made him get ahead in Spanish. enthusiasm humility Elisabeth Elliot
5af13e3 Policy was not reconsidered because the governing group had no habit of purposeful consultation. feedback humility Barbara W. Tuchman
4175688 Folly is a child of power. thought-life humility Barbara W. Tuchman
e8657a9 "Last year I had a very unusual experience. I was awake, with my eyes closed, when I had a dream. It was a small dream about time. I was dead, I guess, in deep blank space high up above many white stars. My own consciousness had been disclosed to me, and I was happy. Then I saw far below me a long, curved band of color. As I came closer, I saw that it stretched endlessly in either direction, and I understood that I was seeing all the time of the planet where I had lived. It looked like a woman's tweed scarf; the longer I studied any one spot, the more dots of color I saw. There was no end to the deepness and variety of dots. At length I started to look for my time, but, although more and more specks of color and deeper and more intricate textures appeared in the fabric, I couldn't find my time, or any time at all that I recognized as being near my time. I couldn't make out so much as a pyramid. Yet as I looked at the band of time, all the individual people, I understood with special clarity, were living at that very moment with great emotion, in intricate, detail, in their individual times and places, and they were dying and being replaced by ever more people, one by one, like stitches in which wholly worlds of feeling and energy were wrapped in a never-ending cloth. I remembered suddenly the color and texture of our life as we knew it- these things had been utterly forgotten- and I thought as I searched for it on the limitless band, "that was a good time then, a good time to be living." And I began to remember our time. I recalled green fields with carrots growing, one by one, in slender rows. Men and women in bright vests and scarves came and pulled the carrots out of the soil and carried them in baskets to shaded kitchens, where they scrubbed them with yellow brushes under running water. I saw white-faced cattle lowing and wading in creeks. I saw May apples in forests, erupting through leaf-strewn paths. Cells on the root hairs of sycamores split and divided, and apples grew spotted and striped in the fall. Mountains kept their cool caves and squirrels raced home to their nests through sunlight and shade. I remembered the ocean, and I seemed to be in the ocean myself, swimming over orange crabs that looked like coral, or off the deep Atlantic banks where whitefish school. Or again I saw the tops of poplars, and the whole sky brushed with clouds in pallid streaks, under which wild ducks flew with outstretched necks, and called, one by one, and flew on. All these things I saw. Scenes grew in depth and sunlit detail before my eyes, and were replaced by ever more scenes, as I remember the life of my time with increasing feeling. At last I saw the earth as a globe in space, and I recalled the ocean's shape and the form of continents, saying to myself with surprise as I looked at the planet, "yes, that's how it was then, that part there was called France." I was filled with the deep affection of nostalgia- and then I opened my eyes. fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
6744dc1 Those people who shoot endless time-lapse films of unfurling roses and tulips have the wrong idea. They should train their cameras instead on the melting of pack ice, the green filling of ponds, the tidal swings...They should film the glaciers of Greenland, some of which creak along at such a fast clip that even the dogs bark at them. They should film the invasion of the southernmost Canadian tundra by the northernmost spruce-fir forest, which is happening right now at the rate of a mile every 10 years. When the last ice sheet receded from the North American continent, the earth rebounded 10 feet. Wouldn't that have been a sight to see? fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
3b41102 "Say you could view a time-lapse film of our planet: what would you see? Transparent images moving through light, "an infinite storm of beauty." The beginning is swaddled in mists, blasted by random blinding flashes. Lava pours and cools; seas boil and flood. Clouds materialize and shift; now you can see the earth's face through only random patches of clarity. The land shudders and splits, like pack ice rent by a widening lead. Mountains burst up, jutting and dull and soften before your eyes, clothed in forests like felt. The ice rolls up, grinding green land under water forever; the ice rolls back. Forests erupt and disappear like fairy rings. The ice rolls up-mountains are mowed into lakes, land rises wet from the sea like a surfacing whale- the ice rolls back. A blue-green streaks the highest ridges, a yellow-green spreads from the south like a wave up a strand. A red dye seems to leak from the north down the ridges and into the valleys, seeping south; a white follows the red, then yellow-green washes north, then red spreads again, then white, over and over, making patterns of color too swift and intricate to follow. Slow the film. You see dust storms, locusts, floods, in dizzying flash frames. Zero in on a well-watered shore and see smoke from fires drifting. Stone cities rise, spread, and then crumble, like patches of alpine blossoms that flourish for a day an inch above the permafrost, that iced earth no root can suck, and wither in a hour. New cities appear, and rivers sift silt onto their rooftops; more cities emerge and spread in lobes like lichen on rock. The great human figures of history, those intricate, spirited tissues that roamed the earth's surface, are a wavering blur whose split second in the light was too brief an exposure to yield any images. The great herds of caribou pour into the valleys and trickle back, and pour, a brown fluid. Slow it down more, come closer still. A dot appears, like a flesh-flake. It swells like a balloon; it moves, circles, slows, and vanishes. This is your life." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
099ad33 Shadow is the blue patch where the light doesn't hit. It is mystery itself, and mystery is the ancients' ultima Thule, the modern explorer's Point of Relative Inaccessibility, that boreal point most distant from all known lands. There the twin oceans of beauty and horror meet. The great glaciers are calving. Ice that sifted to earth as snow in the time of Christ shears from the pack with a roar and crumbles to water. It could be that our instruments have not looked deeply enough. The RNA deep in the mantis's jaw is a beautiful ribbon. Did the crawling Polyphemus moth have in its watery heart one cell, and in that cell one special molecule, and that molecule one hydrogen atom, and round that atom's nucleus one wild, distant electron that split showed a forest, swaying? fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
0829536 "Xerxes, I read, 'halted his unwieldy army for days that he might contemplate to his satisfaction' the beauty of a single sycamore. You are Xerxes in Persia. Your army spreads on a vast and arid peneplain...you call to you all your sad captains, and give the order to halt. You have seen the tree with the lights in it, haven't you? You must have. Xerxes buffeted on a plain, ambition drained in a puff. Your men are bewildered...there is nothing to catch the eye in this flatness, nothing but a hollow, hammering sky, a waste of sedge in the lee of windblown rocks, a meager ribbon of scrub willow tracing a slumbering watercourse...and that sycamore. You saw it; you will stand rapt and mute, exalted, remembering or not remembering over a period of days to shade your head with your robe. "He had its form wrought upon a medal of gold to help him remember it the rest of his life." We all ought to have a goldsmith following us around. But it goes without saying, doesn't it, Xerxes, that no gold medal worn around your neck will bring back the glad hour, keep those lights kindled so long as you live, forever present? Pascal saw it; he grabbed pen and paper and scrawled the one word, and wore it sewn in his shirt the rest of his life. I don't know what Pascal saw. I saw a cedar. Xerxes saw a sycamore." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
fe39a5e True humility emerges from a sense of wonder and awe. It's an appreciation that our time on earth is limited but that there's something timeless at the core of every being. Embracing humility liberates us from the egotism that drives both perfectionism and self-sabotage, opening us to a deeper experience of self-worth. ego being humility self-worth Michael J Gelb
dfe0866 The author relates the progress of inoculation against smallpox in America with the interaction between an African slave named Onisimus whose homeland knew how to treat the malady and and leading clergyman Cotton Mather who was curious and open-minded enough to listen to him. open-mindedness society humility curiosity Robert J. Allison
8168ae1 He was a faithful servant, and made himself so valuable to those who employed him that they will find it hard to fill his place. He was a good husband and father, so tender, wise, and thoughtful, that Laurie and I learned much of him, and only knew how well he loved his family, when we discovered all he had done for them, unsuspected and unassisted. john-brooke little-women hard-work humility modesty Louisa May Alcott
624a626 I liken modern scientists to conquistadors. They have no idea what they're dealing with, but they're going to conquer it, whatever it is --- all in the name of God. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to scientific discovery and exploration. I love this stuff. What I despise is reckless disregard for how little we know. We create trans fats with nary a question about whether they're good for us or not. We develop a food pyramid with carbohydrates on the bottom and thirty years later we realize it created an obesity and type 2 diabetes epidemic. It should give us all pause that we would be a much healthier nation if the government had never told us how to eat. science healthy-living humility Joel Salatin
5dcff1f I've never met a soldier who knew he was a hero. It's not false modesty. They simply decide to do something that they know they must do, usually for there comrades, because if they don't, those people will suffer in some way. For them, that compulsion is far stronger than any fear. The fact we find it exceptional is a sad indictment of the human race. I'd like to live in a world of heroes. If we did, there would be no wars. humility modesty Karen Traviss
412df09 the most lovable of exceptional American qualities (is) our tradition of insisting that we are part of the middle class, even if we aren't, and of interacting with our fellow citizens as if we were all middle class. culture humility Charles Murray
e2671a0 "In the Christic tradition, this is the meaning of 'becoming as a little child.' Little children don't think they know what things mean, in fact, they know they don't know. They ask someone older and wiser to explain things to them. We're like children who don't know but think we do. We're meant to shine. Look at small children. They're all so unique before they start trying to be, because they demonstrate the power of genuine humility. This is also the explanation of 'beginner's luck.' When we go into a situation not knowing the rules, we don't pretend to know how to figure anything out, and we don't know yet what there is to be afraid of. This releases the mind to create from its own higher power." " inspiration humility Marianne Williamson
07eeb15 He was driven to use the prerogatives of his profession, to act the parson. religiousness openness ministry authenticity humility pride E.M. Forster
e261098 She was torn between her customer service training and her youthful certitude. education maturation graciousness humility Bill Bryson
2b6fb14 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... shortcoming ego humility self-delusion Ryan Holiday
fff65ea It doesn't make you a bad person to want to be remembered. To want to make it to the top. To provide for yourself and your family. After all, that's all part of the allure. There is a balance. Soccer coach Tony Adams expresses it well. Play for the name on the front of the jersey, he says, and they'll remember the name on the back. team-spirit teamwork humility Ryan Holiday
f3327ed One of my biggest challenges is figuring out how to shoehorn my newfound knowledge into conversations. self-centeredness humility A.J. Jacobs
92608a3 It hurt to think that a boy would not have him at his value of himself. education meekness humility sincerity Richard Llewellyn
010e460 When the only one who has a right to be angry chooses love and service, when He considers the interests of others more important than His own and chooses humility-He changes everything (p. 55). jesus humility Edward T. Welch
a815c20 The author writes that key FDR aide Harry Hopkins was in such poor health near the end of his boss's second term that one observer said he didn't know how Hopkins could possibly report to the president. But, at the onset of war and genuine national emergency, Hopkins was animated with a new sense of purpose. ministry mission self-forgetfulness humility Doris Kearns Goodwin
40d94e4 The humble man feels no jealousy or envy. He can praise God when others are preferred and blessed before him. He can bear to hear others praised and himself forgotten, because in God's presence he has learned to say with Paul 'I be nothing' (2 Corinthians 12:11). He has received the spirit of Jesus, who did not please Himself and did not seek His own honor, as the spirit of his life. humility Andrew Murray
352fd44 There are some mornings when I cry and cry and mourn for myself. Some mornings, I'm so angry and bitter. But it doesn't last too long. Then I get up and say, 'I want to live..' 'So far, I've been able to do it. Will I be able to continue? I don't know. But I'm betting on myself I will.' Koppel seemed extremely taken with Morrie. He asked about the humility that death induced. live choice death life bitter mourn cry decision humility Mitch Albom
c492d14 Our own path, whatever we aspire to, will in some ways be defined by the amount of nonsense we are willing to deal with. It doesn't matter how talented you are, how great your connections are, how much money you have. When you want to do something - something big and important and meaningful - you will be subjected to treatment ranging from indifference to outright sabotage. Those who have subdued their ego understand that it doens't degrade you when others treat you poorly; it degrades them. humility patience Ryan Holiday
d9ac447 In the context of today, this WAS heroism. discipleship maturation culture humility John Howard Griffin
f71dbe1 Find canvases for other people to paint on. Clear the path for the people above you and you will eventually create a path for yourself. Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work. It means you're the least important person in the room - until you change that with results. work-ethic humility Ryan Holiday
04064c3 "The first product of self-knowledge is humility," Flannery O'Connor once said. This is how we fight the ego, by really knowing ourselves." self-awareness humility Ryan Holiday
03445fa Let us retreat when we can, not when we must. Lord Chatham openness humility Barbara W. Tuchman
451699b "When meeting criticism, he would regard it not as something to resent but as a thing to be examined, like an interesting beetle. "That's a curious view, not uninteresting." openness discipleship humility Barbara W. Tuchman
c1ffe74 Just because you can't act EVERYWHERE doesn't mean you don't act ANYWHERE. - Madeleine Albright leadership stewardship priorities vocation job humility Walter Isaacson
6d0a129 Kissinger would probably be outraged even if he reread his own memoirs, on the grounds that they are not favorable enough. self-criticism ego reflection humility Walter Isaacson
96d6a4f 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. humility Alexander McCall Smith
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