#Humility Quotes

“Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, but graciously to know I am no better.”

“Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Coke when he was boasting, The less you speak of your greatness, the more shall I think of it.”

“So holy and so perfect is my love, And I in such a poverty of grace, That I shall think it a most plenteous crop To glean the broken ears after the man That the main harvest reaps.”

“GLOUCESTER: Yet so much is my poverty of spirit, So mighty and so many my defects, As I had rather hide me from my greatness, Being a bark to brook no mighty sea, Than in my greatness covet to be hid, And in the vapour of my glory smother'd. But God be thanked. . . .”

“Pray, do not mock me.I am a very foolish fond old man,Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;And, to deal plainly,I fear I am not in my perfect mind.”

“Pardon, gentles all, the flat unraised spirits that have dared on this unworthy scaffold to bring forth so great an object.”

“I have sounded the very base-string of humility.”

“For my own part, I shall be glad to learn of noble men.”

“Know more than other. Work more than other. Expect less than other”

“It is the witness still of excellency to put a strange face on his own perfection.”

“Come my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession.”

“Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks”

“Whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.”

“They are but beggars that can count their worth.”

“GLOUCESTER: I do not know that Englishman alive With whom my soul is any jot at odds, More than the infant that is born to-night: I thank my God for my humility.”

“For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, To stir men's blood: I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know.”

“I'll give my jewels for a set of beads, My gorgeous palace for a hermitage, My gay apparel for an almsman's gown, My figured goblets for a dish of wood, My scepter for a palmer's walking staff My subjects for a pair of carved saints and my large kingdom for a little grave.”

“Give me a staff of honor for mine age,But not a sceptre to control the world.”

“Who knows himself a braggart, Let him fear this; for it will come to pass That every braggart will be found an ass.”

“There is not one wise man in twenty that will praise himself.”

“You have but mistook me all the while... I live by bread like you, taste grief, feel want, need friends. Conditioned thus how can you call me king?”

“No man has ever had a point of pride that was not injurious to him.”

“Astronomy taught us our insignificance in Nature.”

“The great will not condescend to take anything seriously.”

“Humility is the secret of the wise.”

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger.”

“In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.”

“Blessed are those who have no talent!”

“I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.”

“Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.--Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving.”

“I am old, yet I look at wise men and see that I am very young. I look over those stars yonder, and into the myriads of the aspirant and ordered souls, and see I am a stranger and a youth and have yet my spurs to win. Too ridiculous are these airs of age.”

“I'll privily away; I love the people, But do not like to stage me to their eyes; Though it do well, I do not relish well Their loud applause and aves vehement, Nor do I think the man of safe discretion That does not affect it.”

“The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact.”

“Though I be but prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy.”

“Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered by a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marle?”

“We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.”

“When something goes wrong, accuse yourself first. Even the wisdom of Plato or Solomon can wobble and go blind”

“The ground's generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty! Try to be more like the ground.”

“Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are.”

“In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.”

“I fill up a place, which may be better... when I have made it empty.”

“The Foole doth thinke he is wise, but the wiseman knowes himselfe to be a Foole.”

“Trade your cleverness for bewilderment.”

“Regard a king as someone unconcerned with kingship.”

“Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader,are your own nature reflected in them.”

“When the choice is to be right or to be kind, always make the choice that brings peace”

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion. Bewilderment brings intuitive knowledge.”

“To praise is to praise how one surrenders to the emptiness.”

“The fact that you are willing to say, 'I do not understand, and it is fine,' is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.”