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Humility: Quotations from Burning Words

Humility, that low, sweet root, From which all heavenly virtues shoot.— T. MOORE

True humility is a Christian grace and one of the fruits of the Spirit, originating in a deep consciousness of sin past and present, and leading us to discover our nothingness in the view of God, our insufficiency for any thing that is good, and prompting us, as we feel our infirmities, to strive after higher and yet higher attainments.— JAMES MCCOSH

Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue. -— CHRYSOSTOM

They that know God will be humble, they that know themselves cannot be proud.— JOHN FLAVEL

Be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in the deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God.— ALEXANDER MACLAREN

Teach me, Lord, my true condition; Bring me childlike to Thy knee; Stripped of every low ambition, Willing to be led by Thee.— H. F. LYTE

Humility is, of all graces, the chiefest when it does not know itself to be a grace at all.— ST. BERNARD

The more we learn what humility is, the less we discover in ourselves.— LA COMBE

Light-houses don't ring bells and fire cannon to call attention to their shining; they just shine on. Humility is that simple, inner life of real greatness, which is indifferent to magnificence, and, surrounded by it all, lives far away in the distant country of a Father's home, with the cross borne silently and self-sacrificingly in the heart of hearts.— F. W. ROBERTSON

I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.— JOHN RUSKIN

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being little. 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. Modest humility is beauty's crown.— ST. AUGUSTINE

Heaven's gates are not so highly arched as king's palaces; they that enter there must go upon their knees.— DANIEL WEBSTER

"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.— THOMAS BROWNE

They who know most of God on earth or heaven know that they know little after all; but they know that they may know more and more of Him throughout eternal ages.— JAMES MCCOSH

Humility is the grace which lies prostrate at God's footstool, self-abasing and self-disparaging, amazed at God's mercy, and abhorring its own vileness.— JAMES HAMILTON

Humility, what is it? It is a gracious gift of the Holy Ghost. It is the same disposition which the Psalmist called a "broken heart," and that consciousness of need which Jesus had in view when He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." So far as it has respect to God, it is that docility which is willing to learn what God teaches; that conscious penury, which is willing to accept whatever God proffers; that submission which is willing to do what God desires, and to endure whatever God deems needful.— JAMES HAMILTON

And so among the ruins of our pride, we grow to be loving children of the Most High.— WM. MOUNTFORD

I want to feel my own nothingness, I want to give myself up in absolute resignation to God, to lie prostrate and passive at His feet, with no other disposition in my heart than that of merging my will into His will, and no other language in my mouth than that of prayer for the perfecting of His strength in my weakness. I desire from the abyss of my own nothingness and vileness to cry unto God that He might cause me to do as I ought, and to be as I ought. --— CHALMERS

Confess your nothingness and ill-desert before God. Distrust yourself. Rely only upon God. Renounce all glory except from Him. Yield yourself heartily to His will and service. Avoid an aspiring, ambitious, ostentatious, assuming, arrogant, scornful, stubborn, willful, levelling, self-justifying behavior; and strive for more and more of the humble spirit that Christ manifested while He was here upon earth.— JONATHAN EDWARDS

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham teaches us the right way of conversing with God : "And Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him." When we plead with Him, our faces should be in the dust.— RICHARD CECIL

When thinking of God, when beholding His glorious perfections, when rejoicing in the perfection of His government, and in the excellence of His designs, the humble heart adopts the language of Job: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."— GARDINER SPRING

"O pity, great Father of light," then I cried, "Thy creature who fain would not wander from Thee ! Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride; From doubt and from darkness Thou only canst free."— JAMES BEATTIE

Not as men of science, not as critics, not as philosophers, but as little children, shall we enter into the kingdom of heaven.— J. C. SHAIRP

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 seashore, and diverting myself by now and then finding a smooth pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.— SIR ISAAC NEWTON

O it is a happy thing to feel ourselves helpless and naught, for then the presence of God is felt to wrap us about so lovingly ! Everlasting, infinite, almighty, - these are the words that strengthen us with speaking them.— Wm. MOUNTFORD

Of all trees, I observe God hath chosen the vine, a low plant that creeps upon the helpful wall; of all beasts, the soft and patient lamb; of all fowls, the mild and guileless dove. Christ is the rose of the field, and the lily of the valley. When God appeared to Moses, it was not in the lofty cedar nor the sturdy oak nor the spreading palm; but in a bush, a humble, slender, abject shrub; as if He would, by these elections, check the conceited arrogance of man.— OWEN FELTHAM

The wisely cultivated man, conscious how insignificant a drop he is in the vast stream of life, learns his limitation, and accepts events with modesty and equanimity.— DR. MAUDSLEY

I pray often to God that He would keep you in the hollow of His hand. The most essential point is lowliness. It is profitable for all things, for it produces a teachable spirit which makes every thing easy. -— FENELON

Now as they were going along and talking, they espied a boy feeding his father's sheep. The boy was in very mean clothes, but of a fresh and well favored countenance; and as he sat by himself he sang: "He that is down, needs fear no fall; He that is low, no pride; He that is humble ever shall Have God to be his guide." Then said Mr. Great Heart, "Do you hear him? I will dare to say this boy lives a merrier life, and wears more of that herb called heart's-ease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet."— JOHN BUNYAN

Then Christian began to go forward; but Discretion, Piety, Charity, and Prudence would accompany him down to the foot of the hill. Then said Christian, "As it was difficult coming up, so, so far as I can see, it is dangerous going down." "Yes," said Prudence, "so it is; for it is a hard matter for a man to go down into the valley of Humiliation, as thou art now, and to catch no slip by the way;" "therefore," said they, "we are come out to accompany thee down the hill." So he began to go down, but very warily; yet he caught a slip or two.— JOHN BUNYAN

My God, I ask not of Thee the leaves of external consequence; I will be content to continue simple, lowly, and plain, if Thou wilt only give me grace to serve Thee and my neighbor. Outward pomp withers like a flower, but inward worth lasts even after death.— CHRISTIAN SCRIVER

Let me follow in Thy footsteps, O Jesus! I would imitate Thee, but cannot without the aid of Thy grace! O humble and lowly Saviour, grant me the knowledge of the true Christian, and that I may willingly despise myself; let me learn the lesson so incomprehensible to the mind of man, that I must die to myself by an abandonment that shall produce true humility.— FENELON

The doctrines of grace humble man without degrading him and exalt him without inflating him. -— CHARLES HODGE

Make me like a little child, Simple, teachable, and mild; Seeing only in Thy light; Walking only in Thy might!— JOHN BERRIDGE,

The reason why the publican returned from the Temple justified was that he had got that lowly and self-emptied mind to which the grace of God is welcome. It was not his standing afar off merely, nor his dejected eyes, nor his smiting on his breast, but his despair of himself and his hope in God's mercy "God be merciful to me a sinner." And you will be justified, too, when, losing all confidence in the flesh, you learn to rejoice in Jesus Christ.— JAMES HAMILTON

The most of my sufferings and sorrows were occasioned by my own unwillingness to be nothing, which I am, and by struggling to be something.— EDWARD PAYSON