Humility And Humiliation Quotes

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We learn humility through accepting humiliations cheerfully.
Mother Teresa
I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.
Richard Rohr (Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life)
You told me i was your world. It wasn't me. I was an animal." My heart pounded. My cheeks burned. You never wanted it to end. "Why are you being such a jackass, slamming me in the face with my own humiliation?" Humilation? That's what you call this? He forced a more detailed reminder on me. I swallowed. Yes, I certainly remembered that. "I was out of my mind. I‘d never have done it otherwise." Really, his dark eyes mocked, and in them I was demanding more, telling him I wanted it to always be this way. I remembered what he'd replied: that one day I would wonder if it was possible to hate him more.
Karen Marie Moning (Dreamfever (Fever, #4))
Practice radical humility." He (or she)who masters the art of humility cannot be humiliated...
Ralph Waldo Emerson
But self-abasement is just inverted egoism. Anyone who acts with genuine humility will be as far from humiliation as from arrogance.
Stephen Mitchell (The Book of Job)
Humiliation is the only ladder to honoring God's Kingdom.
Andrew Murray (Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness)
... humility is just a humiliation you loved so much it transformed.
Joshua Whitehead (Jonny Appleseed)
Rather than swallowing our pride and simply asking what we do not know, we choose to fill in the blanks ourselves and later become humbled. Wisdom was often, in its youth, proven foolish, and ones humiliated were meant to become wise.
Criss Jami (Healology)
The personal interiorization of the practice of humiliation is called humility.
Kathy Acker
I am leaving now; but know, Katerina Ivanovna, that you indeed love only him. And the more he insults you, the more you love him. That is your strain. You precisely love him as he is, you love him insulting you. If he reformed, you would drop him at once and stop loving him altogether. But you need him in order to continually contemplate your high deed of faithfulness, and to reproach him for his unfaithfulness. And it all comes from your pride. Oh, there is much humility and humiliation in it, but all of it comes from pride.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
For my own part, my constant prayer is that I may know the worst of my case, whatever the knowledge may cost me. I know that an accurate estimate of my own heart can never be otherwise than lowering to my self-esteem; but God forbid that I should be spared the humiliation which springs from the truth! The sweet red apples of self-esteem are deadly poison; who would wish to be destroyed thereby? The bitter fruits of self-knowledge are always healthful, especially if washed down with the waters of repentance, and sweetened with a draught from the wells of salvation; he who loves his own soul will not despise them.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Humility and How to Get It)
Never miss an opportunity to be truly and deeply humiliated! The shame will carve you down to an individual of exquisite layering, and in the process, etch within you the arcs of exceptional narrative.
Ashim Shanker (Sinew of the Social Species)
Before Jesse could say another word, the bedroom door jerked open and Lucie’s father stood on the threshold, looking alarmed. “Lucie?” he said. “Did you call out? I thought I heard you.” Lucie tensed, but the expression in her father’s blue eyes didn’t change—mild worry mixed with curious puzzlement. He really couldn’t see Jesse. Jesse looked at her and, very irritatingly, shrugged as if to say, I told you so. “No, Papa,” she said. “Everything is all right.” He looked at the manuscript pages scattered all over the rug. “Spot of writer’s block, Lulu?” Jesse raised an eyebrow. Lulu? he mouthed. Lucie considered whether it was possible to die of humiliation. She did not dare look at Jesse.
Cassandra Clare (Chain of Gold (The Last Hours, #1))
Sometimes you don’t even notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful, they are also reserved. They possess the self-effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don’t need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline. They radiate a sort of moral joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly. They are silent when unfairly abused. They are dignified when others try to humiliate them, restrained when others try to provoke them. But they get things done. They perform acts of sacrificial service with the same modest everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the groceries. They are not thinking about what impressive work they are doing. They are not thinking about
David Brooks (The Road to Character)
While there are things about which one does not boast, there are others for which to be pitied would be all too humiliating.
Gaston Leroux (The Phantom of the Opera)
We learn humility through accepting humiliations cheerfully. Do not let a chance pass you by. It is so easy to be proud, harsh, moody and selfish, but we have been created for greater things. Why stoop down to things that will spoil the beauty of our hearts?
Mother Teresa (The Joy in Loving: A Guide to Daily Living (Compass))
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.
G.K. Chesterton (The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare)
It’s probably possible to gain humility by means other than repeated humiliation, but repeated humiliation works very well.
Mark Vonnegut (Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir)
Make way for the sweetest humiliation when you underestimate their intelligence while overestimating your knowledge.
Criss Jami
Humility can only be born out of humiliation
Jean Genet (Querelle of Brest)
Moral influence takes its start where humiliation begins; yes, it is nothing else than this humiliation itself, the breaking and bending of the temper down to humility.
Max Stirner (The Ego and Its Own)
Being right and doing right and staying the narrow course means never knowing the fragile line between humility and humiliation, never knowing how difficult it is to ask for forgiveness, never understanding the pain of forgiveness withheld.
Penny Reid (Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7))
Yet the human heart is disheartened by the most unreasonable self-judgments, because even when we take on giants, we too often confuse failure with fault, which I know too well. The only way back from such a bleak despondency is to shape humiliation into humility, to strive always to triumph over the darkness while never forgetting that the honor and the beauty are more in striving than in winning. When triumph at last comes, our efforts alone could not have won the day without that grace which surpasses all understanding and which will, if we allow it, imbue our lives with meaning.
Dean Koontz (Odd Interlude (Odd Thomas, #4.5))
The only way back from such a bleak despondency is to shape humiliation into humility, to strive always to triumph over the darkness while never forgetting that the honor and the beauty are more in the striving than in the winning. When triumph at last comes, our efforts alone could not have won the day without that grace which surpasses all understanding and which will, if we allow it, imbue our lives with meaning.
Dean Koontz (Odd Interlude #3 (Odd Thomas, #4.3))
The most degrading cross has always produced the greatest glory and force, as long as the humility of the martyrdom is sincere. But do you have that humility? What you need is not a challenge but infinite humility and humiliation! You mustn't despise those who judge you, but believe in them sincerely, as in a great church; then you will triumph over them and turn them toward you by your example, and you will be united in love--ah, if only you could endure it!
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Starting at the bottom is not about humiliation. It's about humility—a realistic assessment of where you are in the learning curve.
Maria Shriver (Ten Things I Wish I'd Known--Before I Went Out Into the Real World)
Too many non-achievers confuse humility with humiliation.
Orrin Woodward (LIFE)
One does not have to hit you to abuse you. They can degrade, humiliate, blame, curse, manipulate and try to control you. It still is violence.
Nitya Prakash
HONESTY is reached through the doorway of grief and loss. Where we cannot go in our mind, our memory, or our body is where we cannot be straight with another, with the world, or with our self. The fear of loss, in one form or another, is the motivator behind all conscious and unconscious dishonesties: all of us are afraid of loss, in all its forms, all of us, at times, are haunted or overwhelmed by the possibility of a disappearance, and all of us therefore, are one short step away from dishonesty. Every human being dwells intimately close to a door of revelation they are afraid to pass through. Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth. The ability to speak the truth is as much the ability to describe what it is like to stand in trepidation at this door, as it is to actually go through it and become that beautifully honest spiritual warrior, equal to all circumstances, we would like to become. Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth that gives us power over life or another or even the self, but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually know, how afraid we are of not knowing and how astonished we are by the generous measure of grief that is conferred upon even the most average life. Honesty is grounded in humility and indeed in humiliation, and in admitting exactly where we are powerless. Honesty is not found in revealing the truth, but in understanding how deeply afraid of it we are. To become honest is in effect to become fully and robustly incarnated into powerlessness. Honesty allows us to live with not knowing. We do not know the full story, we do not know where we are in the story; we do not know who is at fault or who will carry the blame in the end. Honesty is not a weapon to keep loss and heartbreak at bay, honesty is the outer diagnostic of our ability to come to ground in reality, the hardest attainable ground of all, the place where we actually dwell, the living, breathing frontier where there is no realistic choice between gain or loss.
David Whyte
The performance was exotic. It was short. And it wasn't much more dreadful than the Chinese opera that had been performed last year. "Bravo!" Ned called. He applauded madly. Thankfully, everyone joined in. Blakely bowed, rather stiffly, and picked his way through the rows toward his seat. He didn't even make eye contact with Ned, didn't acknowledge that Ned had just saved him. Ha, Just because Blakely had no humility didn't mean Ned couldn't try to humiliate him further. "Encore!" Ned shouted. Blakely fixed Ned with a look that promised eventual dismemberment. Luckily for the future attachment of Ned's limbs, nobody else took up the cry.
Courtney Milan (Proof by Seduction (Carhart, #1))
In walking, far from any vehicle or machine, from any mediation, I am replaying the earthly human condition, embodying once again man’s inborn, essential destitution. That is why humility is not humiliating: it just makes vain pretensions fall away, and thus nudges us towards authenticity.
Frédéric Gros (A Philosophy of Walking)
Yet the human heart is disheartened by the most unreasonable self-judgments, because even when we take on giants, we too often confuse failure with fault, which I know too well. The only way back from such a bleak despondency is to shape humiliation into humility, to strive always to triumph over the darkness while never forgetting that the honor and the beauty are more in the striving than in the winning. When triumph at last comes, our efforts alone could not have won the day without that grace which surpasses all understanding and which will, if we allow it, imbue our lives with meaning. In the learning of that simple
Dean Koontz (Odd Interlude: A Special Odd Thomas Adventure)
Shedding an independent, individualistic sense of self, is an apt place to start when remaking oneself. The task of divesting my egoistic coat-of-arms requires that I first understand how I came into being, ascertain how a person forges a baseline personality, and discover how I can modify my template for self-construal. I need to surrender an arrogant sense of self-importance, acknowledge towering ignorance, and learn how to live humbly. I hope to parlay personal humiliation and self-hatred into a transformative act by invoking a spiritual death of my egotistical being that results in a resurrection of a more astute and kinder human being.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
I nocked another arrow. 'Slither away, snake. While you still can.' Python's eyes gleamed with amusement. 'Amazing. You still haven't learned humility? I wonder how you will taste. Like rat? Like god? They are similar enough, I suppose.' He was so wrong. Not about gods tasting like rats . . . I wouldn't know. But I had learned plenty of humility. So much humility that now, facing my old nemesis, I was racked with self-doubt. I could not do this. What had I been thinking? And yet, along with humility, I'd learned something else: getting humiliated is only the beginning, not the end. Sometimes you need a second shot, and a third, and a fourth.
Rick Riordan (The Tower Of Nero (Trials of Apollo, 5))
Humility fears not humiliation.
John Spencer Yantiss
Humiliation is the only ladder to honor in God's kingdom.
Andrew Murray (Humility)
There is only one certain test of the virtue and that is humiliation. The acceptance of humiliation alone shows the depth and reality of our humility.
Nivard Kinsella
Anything that infuses us with humility is good. Even if it feels a bit like humiliation in the moment, the workings of humility within are a gift.
Lysa TerKeurst (Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely)
Anything that infuses us with humility is good. Even if it feels a bit like humiliation in the moment, the workings of humility within are a gift. The
Lysa TerKeurst (Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely)
Sincerity is humility, and you acquire humility only by accepting humiliations.
Mother Teresa (No Greater Love)
Infinite humiliation and grace, and then a striving born of gratitude — this is Christianity.
Søren Kierkegaard (Journals and Papers)
When we humans attempt to humble others, we tend to do harm in the process. We humiliate in ways that either tear down and destroy a person or propel a person in self-defense toward greater expressions of pride or self-exaltation. Only God has the capacity to cause the precise internal and external circumstances that will bring a person to appropriate humility. Only
Hugh Ross (Hidden Treasures in the Book of Job (Reasons to Believe): How the Oldest Book in the Bible Answers Today's Scientific Questions)
We need more worship wars, not fewer. What if the war looked like this in your congregation--the young singles petitioning the church to play more of the old classics for the sake of the elderly people, and the elderly people calling on the leadership to contemporize for the sake of the young new believers? This would signal a counting of others more important than ourselves (Phil 2:3), which comes from the spirit of the humiliated, exalted King, Christ (Phil 2:5-11).
Russell D. Moore (Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ)
A crown of thorns. Do not underestimate the significance of this crown of thorns. This was not simply a way to inflict pain, to press barbs into His profoundly human flesh. This was an attempt to humiliate Him and mock His power. What better way to diminish the King of the universe than to crown Him with the very curse that hangs over His creation? What better way to triumph over Him than for evil to adorn His head? What could be more humiliating than to have our brokenness rest on Him? But
Hannah Anderson (Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul)
They may hail you like an Angel. They may claim you are the world's prince of princes. They may lift you with praise many kilometers above sea level. They may say you are the best of the bests. ....But always remember "you are a human being" with flesh and blood.
Israelmore Ayivor
I’ve managed to stay in a perpetual state of learning only by maintaining what I think of as a posture of ignorant humility. This humility is as mandatory as arrogance… There is only one way to deal with this humiliation: bow you head, let go of the idea that you know anything, and ask politely of this new machine “How do you wish to be operated?” If you accept your ignorance, once you really admit to yourself that everything you know is now useles, the new machine will be good to you and tell you: here is how to operate me.
Ellen Ullman (Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents)
..:"Out of humiliation comes humility." Your humiliation brings forth humility that will enables you to be able to lead and live by your deeds and actions and not by words alone. For a great leader guides, and any other random boss or "leader" will just tell you what to do:..
Rafael Garcia
His failure to defeat something more powerful than himself, and the scar that reminds him of his failure, is no reason for shame; guilt is deserved only when the effort to resist evil is never made. Yet the human heart is disheartened by the most unreasonable self-judgments, because even when we take on giants, we too often confuse failure with fault, which I know too well. The only way back from such a bleak despondency is to shape humiliation into humility, to strive always to triumph over the darkness while never forgetting that the honor and the beauty are more in the striving than in the winning. When triumph at last comes, our efforts alone could not have won the day without that grace which surpasses all understanding and which will, if we allow it, imbue our lives with meaning. Odd Thomas Odd Interlude #3 (An Odd Thomas Story)
Dean Koontz (Odd Interlude #3 (Odd Thomas, #4.3))
The Way of the Worrier 1. Don’t Be a Jerk 2. (And/But . . .) When Necessary, Hide the Zen 3. Meditate 4. The Price of Security Is Insecurity—Until It’s Not Useful 5. Equanimity Is Not the Enemy of Creativity 6. Don’t Force It 7. Humility Prevents Humiliation 8. Go Easy with the Internal
Dan Harris (10% Happier)
Honestly, the pair of you" was Edward's response. I brushed cracker crumbs off my homework folder; I'd needed a snack after giving up most of my lunch. "Silly infants. Don't you know the way people see you has absolutely nothing to do with the way you actually look? Beauty is all sleight of hand. Just ask Holbein. Or Bobbi Brown." "I thought Beauty was Truth," I said wearily. I had a headache, and three pages of French to translate. "That is Keats. I am not overly fond of Keats. Had he not died so poetically early, people might have realized he was not quite what they thought he was." "The same could be said of you," I shot back. I was a little annoyed by the "silly infants" comment. "Oh, so clever. What's the worst-case scenario, should you give the Bainbridge boy a try?" "Well,gosh.Lemme see." I ticked off a few possibilites on my fingers. "Humilation, humiliation, mortification, and humiliation." Edward sniffed. "Qui craint de souffrir, il souffre deja de ce qu'il craint." "And what does that mean?" I recognized it from the second page of my homework. "Well,gosh,darling Ella.You'll just have to ask your new tutor, won't you?" he said silkily. Right before he went back to emulating a lump of metal.
Melissa Jensen (The Fine Art of Truth or Dare)
At the heart of Vonnegut's voice is a humility my earnest young self didn't feel comfortable with: In it, I heard evidence of real humiliation. War really was hell, with hell being the place where whatever you normally counted on or leaned on was taken from you, absolutely. Bill Pilgrim is a skinny virginal dork, and when he gets to war, war leaps on his skinny dorkitude and devastates him unglamorously, and haunts him ever after.
George Saunders (The Braindead Megaphone)
Yet the human heart is disheartened by the most unreasonable self-judgments, because even when we take on giants, we too often confuse failure with fault, which I know too well. The only way back from such a bleak despondency is to shape humiliation into humility, to strive always to triumph over the darkness while never forgetting that the honor and the beauty are more in the striving than in the winning. When triumph at last comes, our efforts alone could not have won the day without that grace which surpasses all understanding and which will, if we allow it, imbue our lives with meaning.
Dean Koontz (Odd Interlude: A Special Odd Thomas Adventure)
We live, after all, in the present: the present is inevitably the context for our reaction and response, and it matters. Yet one of art’s most compelling features is how it showcases the disjuncts between the time of composition, the time of dissemination, and the time of consideration—disjuncts that can summon us to humility and wonder. Such temporal amplitude understandably falls out of favor in politically polarized times, in which the pressure to make clear “which side you’re on” can be intense. New attentional technologies (aka the internet, social media) that feed on and foster speed, immediacy, reductiveness, reach, and negative affect (such as paranoia, anger, disgust, distress, fear, and humiliation) exacerbate this pressure.
Maggie Nelson (On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint)
Honor He Wrote Sonnet 20 The more you break me, the stronger I become. The more you hate me, the gentler I become. The more you mock me, the kinder I become. The more you alienate me, the braver I become. The more you betray me, the more I learn to trust. The more you disappoint me, the more I feel electrified. The more you take advantage, the more I learn to care. The more you backstab me, the more I am energized. The more you humiliate me, the more I gain humility. The more you laugh at me, the more I learn to smile. More you kick me around, more my spine is straightened. The more you drag me down, the higher I end up flying. Every bad behavior directed at me amplifies my power. The broken humans of the world make the greatest healer.
Abhijit Naskar (Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables)
Have you been infected with the toxin of denial? Here are the top five signs to help you find out: If you think you are above certain things happening to you, you are in denial. Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. PROVERBS 16:18 If you think you have the power to plan your own future, you are in denial. We can make our own plans, but the LORD gives the right answer. PROVERBS 16:1 If you think you are the only one who can get it right, you are in denial. People may be pure in their own eyes, but the LORD examines their motives. PROVERBS 16:2 If you think you are never wrong and it’s always someone else’s fault, you are in denial. Pride ends in humiliation, while humility brings honor. PROVERBS 29:23 If you have a rebuttal to anyone and everything, you are in denial. Too much talk leads to sin.
Kasey Van Norman (Raw Faith: What Happens When God Picks a Fight)
The second call The first call is frequently to follow Jesus or to prepare ourselves to do wonderful and noble things for the Kingdom. We are appreciated and admired by family, by friends or by the community. The second call comes later, when we accept that we cannot do big or heroic things for Jesus; it is a time of renunciation, humiliation and humility. We feel useless; we are no longer appreciated. If the first passage is made at high noon, under a shining sun, the second call is often made at night. We feel alone and are afraid because we are in a world of confusion. We begin to doubt the commitment we made in the light of day. We seem deeply broken in some way. But this suffering is not useless. Through the renunciation we can reach a new wisdom of love. It is only through the pain of the cross that we discover what the resurrection means.
Jean Vanier (Community and Growth)
Those minutes were the beginning of his abandoning himself to a very strange kind of devotion, such a reeling, intoxicated sensation that the proud and portentous word ‘love’ is not quite right for it. It was that faithful, dog-like devotion without desire that those in mid-life seldom feel, and is known only to the very young and the very old. A love devoid of any deliberation, not thinking but only dreaming. He entirely forgot the unjust yet ineradicable disdain that even the clever and considerate show to those who wear a waiter’s tailcoat, he did not look for opportunities and chance meetings, but nurtured this strange affection in his blood until its secret fervour was beyond all mockery and criticism. His love was not a matter of secret winks and lurking glances, the sudden boldness of audacious gestures, the senseless ardour of salivating lips and trembling hands; it was quiet toil, the performance of those small services that are all the more sacred and sublime in their humility because they are intended to go unnoticed. After the evening meal he smoothed out the crumpled folds of the tablecloth where she had been sitting with tender, caressing fingers, as one would stroke a beloved woman’s soft hands at rest; he adjusted everything close to her with devout symmetry, as if he were preparing it for a special occasion. He carefully carried the glasses that her lips had touched up to his own small, musty attic bedroom, and watched them sparkle like precious jewellery by night when the moonlight streamed in. He was always to be found in some corner, secretly attentive to her as she strolled and walked about. He drank in what she said as you might relish a sweet, fragrantly intoxicating wine on the tongue, and responded to every one of her words and orders as eagerly as children run to catch a ball flying through the air. So his intoxicated soul brought an ever-changing , rich glow into his dull, ordinary life. The wise folly of clothing the whole experience in the cold, destructive words of reality was an idea that never entered his mind: the poor waiter François was in love with an exotic Baroness who would be for ever unattainable. For he did not think of her as reality, but as something very distant, very high above him, sufficient in its mere reflection of life. He loved the imperious pride of her orders, the commanding arch of her black eyebrows that almost touched one another, the wilful lines around her small mouth, the confident grace of her bearing. Subservience seemed to him quite natural, and he felt the humiliating intimacy of menial labour as good fortune, because it enabled him to step so often into the magic circle that surrounded her.
Stefan Zweig
Our blessed Saviour, the most spiritual worshipper, prostrated himself in the garden with the greatest lowliness, and offered himself upon the cross a sacrifice with the greatest humility. Melted souls in worship have the most spiritual conformity to the person of Christ in the state of humiliation, and his design in that state; as worship without it is not suitable to God, so neither is it advantageous for us. A time of worship is a time of God’s communication. The vessel must be melted to receive the mould it is designed for; softened wax is fittest to receive a stamp, and a spiritually melted soul fittest to receive a spiritual impression. We cannot perform duty in an evangelical and spiritual strain, without the meltingness and meanness in ourselves which the gospel requires. 9. Spiritual worship is
William Symington (The Existence and Attributes of God)
The Way of the Worrier 1. Don’t Be a Jerk 2. (And/But . . .) When Necessary, Hide the Zen 3. Meditate 4. The Price of Security Is Insecurity—Until It’s Not Useful 5. Equanimity Is Not the Enemy of Creativity 6. Don’t Force It 7. Humility Prevents Humiliation 8. Go Easy with the Internal Cattle Prod 9. Nonattachment to Results 10. What Matters Most?
Dan Harris (10% Happier)
There is a fine line between humility and humiliation, and when Augustine’s critics, both loyal and disloyal, fault him for morbid self-criticism, they generally mean to imply that he has crossed the line. You can have a relationship with another person only if you know something of humility; otherwise your ego gets in the way. If, however, you are humiliated instead of humbled, there is no ‘you’ to enter into a relationship. Massilians and Pelagians had differing understandings of when humility before God became too much of a good thing, but they had common cause in not liking Augustine’s scruples about the human will to relate to God. If everything about the soul’s relationship to God is God’s doing, including the very desire to be in relation, where exactly does the soul surface in its redemption? The Word seems to have become a monologue.
James Wetzel
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to see that education can inspire us to become more capable parents, more engaged citizens, and more resourceful human beings. Knowledge has the power to widen our eyes, open our minds, and enable us to see past people’s gender or economic status. It can help us value pricelessness over price tag. It can help us recognize the shame in humiliating and the grace in humility. And it can help us to understand that there is no greater richness than love.” Maha Al Fahim Share
Maha Al Fahim
What is the way out of shame? It is the way of humility, not humiliation. It is the way of being known, not exposed.
Edward T. Welch
Perhaps,” observes James McPherson, “McClellan’s career had been too successful. He had never known . . . the despair of defeat or the humiliation of failure. He had never learned the lessons of adversity and humility.” Lincoln had clearly learned those lessons.
Joshua Wolf Shenk (Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness)
helps us face life with a beginner’s mind or a learner’s mind. Some of us have bad memories of being humbled or humiliated in a negative way, but that’s not the humility we are talking about here. To be humble is to drop our arrogance or the attitude that “I know” about everything. Humility is about learning to watch or to listen more in everyday situations so we can approach them freshly. If you look in the dictionary you’ll see that “humble” is connected with “humus,” which is a special kind of earth. To be humble is to get down on the Mother Earth and
White Bison (The Red Road to Welbriety: In The Native American Way)
The truth of history requires us to sacrifice the orthodox fiction of moral perfection in the apostolic church. But we gain more than we lose. The apostles themselves never claimed, but expressly disowned such perfection.477  They carried the heavenly treasure in earthen vessels, and thus brought it nearer to us. The infirmities of holy men are frankly revealed in the Bible for our encouragement as well as for our humiliation. The bold attack of Paul teaches the right and duty of protest even against the highest ecclesiastical authority, when Christian truth and principle are endangered; the quiet submission of Peter commends him to our esteem for his humility and meekness in proportion to his high standing as the chief among the pillar-apostles; the conduct of both explodes the Romish fiction of papal supremacy and infallibility; and the whole scene typically foreshadows the grand historical conflict between Petrine Catholicism and Pauline Protestantism, which, we trust, will end at last in a grand Johannean reconciliation.
Philip Schaff (History Of The Christian Church (The Complete Eight Volumes In One))
Merton writes, “Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.”13 The hope is that a person like this will experience failure and humiliation and learn from it. The sad reality is that many try to cover up failure and protect against anything that might dull the shiny veneer.
Chuck DeGroat (When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community From Emotional and Spiritual Abuse)
Humility is a sublime virtue It can bend before the mighty wind yet arise with courage. it can bow before a powerful sovereign, yet remain his equal. It can be intimidated by the unjust, yet not be humiliated. It can be gentle before injury yet have the strength to forgive. humility brings the antidote to pride and arrogance and allows the openness to learn and accept!
Celeste Hoeden
A humble beginning always humiliate late adversity.
Martin Uzochukwu Ugwu
If you got the pride in practice game you will get humiliation in real game.
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
To be humble and modest does not entail self-derogation or self-humiliation.
Christopher Peterson (Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification)
Any country that is now humbled and humiliated by darkness will be raised up by God
Sunday Adelaja
First, humiliation, then humility, he would have said. And then comes humanity as a matter of course.
Philip José Farmer (Riverworld: To Your Scattered Bodies Go/The Fabulous Riverboat)
But God gives true theologians a hunger born of humility, which cannot be satisfied with formulas and arguments, and which looks for something closer to God than analogy can bring you. This serene hunger of the spirit penetrates the surface of words and goes beyond the human formulation of mysteries and seeks, in the humiliation of silence, intellectual solitude and interior poverty, the gift of a supernatural apprehension which words cannot truly signify.
Thomas Merton (New Seeds of Contemplation)
October. She knew that she dared not pray for humility, to be granted the grace of humility, it being such a precious thing, but when others were decorating the church for Harvest Festival she chose a humble, even humiliating task, emptying the cat’s tray, bundling the soiled Katlitta into a newspaper. Yet had she even chosen it – it was just something that had to be done. Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.
Barbara Pym (A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Diaries and Letters)
You learn humility only by accepting humiliations. And you will meet humiliation all through your life. The greatest humiliation is to know that you are nothing. This you come to know when you face God in prayer.
Mother Teresa (No Greater Love)
The trashing, demeaning, humiliating, and labeling of other believers is horrifying and grieves God. A call to truth, which we must issue, is always to be done with gentleness, humility, and dignity, for we are calling one made in God’s image. Opinions are not to govern character, no matter how strongly we hold them. Issues are not to govern character no matter how biblical they are. Character is to be rooted and grounded in likeness to Christ so that when we express our thoughts, we manifest his character and none other.
Diane Langberg (Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church)
we are the generation surviving with overloaded information, we have access to all the love songs in the world, to the stories of love, poetry on hate, articles on relationships - they are all just a button away but, we are the generation humiliating love.
Jyoti Patel
I should acquire humility by humiliating myself, considering myself a sinner and the least of all. When I see a defect in other persons, I should think of their good qualities and that those defects may be permitted by God to humiliate the person who has them, and in exchange may be interiorly very pleasing to God, while I have worse and still more defects than she has. I should see the little I’m worth in the sight of God and serve everyone as though I were a slave, since that is what I am through sin.
Michael D. Griffin (God, The Joy of My Life: A Biography of Saint Teresa of the Andes With the Saint's Spiritual Diary)
Jesus is the opposite of all three glorious offices in His humiliation. He is prophet, priest, and king as well as subject, sacrifice, and servant. Thus, Christ brought salvation not through the estate of His glory, which He laid aside, but through the estate of His humiliation.
Christopher Hutchinson (Rediscovering Humility: Why the Way Up is Down)
The real payoff we get is when we let go of our negativity and choose to be loving; we are the ones who benefit. We are the ones who gain from the real payoff. With this increased awareness of who we really are comes the progressive invulnerability to pain. Once we compassionately accept our own humanness and that of others, we are no longer subject to humiliation, for true humility is a part of greatness.
David R. Hawkins (Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender)
Time: life’s inexorable weapon of humiliation.
Shawn Davis (The Talk: A Young Person's Guide to Life's Big Questions)
Many of the old Cowboys had changed their ways with the passing of years. They looked back at the strip clubs and hookers and Cowboys Café with both joy and humiliation-joy over the excitement and camaraderie of it all, humiliation over having treated women not as people, but objects; over having naïvely believed fame and fortune were God-given rights, not temporary luxuries; over discarding wives and children for short-lived excesses; over trading in humility for ego.
Jeff Pearlman (Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty)
The twelve degrees of humility, which he lays down in his Rule,1017 are commended by St. Thomas Aquinas.1018 The first is a deep compunction of heart, and holy fear of God and his judgments, with a constant attention to walk in the divine presence, sunk under the weight of this confusion and fear. 2. The perfect renunciation of our own will. 3. Ready obedience. 4. Patience under all sufferings and injuries. 5. The manifestation of our thoughts and designs to our superior or director. 6. To be content, and to rejoice, in all humiliations; to be pleased with mean employments, poor clothes, &c., to love simplicity and poverty, (which he will have among monks, to be extended even to the ornaments of the altar,) and to judge ourselves unworthy, and bad servants in every thing that is enjoined us. 7. Sincerely to esteem ourselves baser and more unworthy than every one, even the greatest sinners.1019 8. To avoid all love of singularity in words or actions. 9. To love and practise silence. 10. To avoid dissolute mirth and loud laughter. 11. Never to speak with a loud voice, and to be modest in our words. 12. To be humble in all our exterior actions, by keeping our eyes humbly cast down with the publican,1020 and the penitent Manasses
Alban Butler (The Lives of the Saints: Complete Edition)
I began to understand that humiliation was a product of a false face being exposed, but not admitting the truth of the exposure. Denial of the truth led to humiliation. Humility was the product of an admission of truth.
Shawn Nevins (Subtraction: The Simple Math of Enlightenment)
When you revive a connection or relationship that has humiliated you, you are disrespecting yourself. Forgiveness is one thing, but having limits is quite another. By selecting what you will and will not tolerate, you educate people how to treat you. Maintain your self-worth and don't be scared to say no when required.
Genereux Philip
The Way of the Worrier Don’t Be a Jerk (And/But . . .) When Necessary, Hide the Zen Meditate The Price of Security Is Insecurity—Until It’s Not Useful Equanimity Is Not the Enemy of Creativity Don’t Force It Humility Prevents Humiliation Go Easy with the Internal Cattle Prod Nonattachment to Results What Matters Most?
Dan Harris (10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story)
There’s a difference between humiliation and humility. Humiliation lies. Humility speaks truth. Humiliation silences you. Humility empowers you. Humiliation is a byproduct of conflict with someone else. Humility is a byproduct of peace within yourself. The goal of humiliation is to make you hate yourself. Humility requires us to love our ‘me of the moment’ selves with compassion and good humor, making way for better selves we know we can be.
Kristin Chenoweth (I'm No Philosopher, But I Got Thoughts: Mini-Meditations for Saints, Sinners, and the Rest of Us)
The proud human heart is there revealed. We insist on paying for what we have done. We cannot stand the humiliation of acknowledging our bankruptcy and allowing somebody else to pay for us. The notion that this somebody else should be God himself is just too much to take. We would rather perish than repent, rather lose ourselves than humble ourselves.
John R. W. Stott
Sometimes a little humility can save you from huge public humiliation.
Sayem Sarkar
Moral influence takes its start where humiliation begins; indeed, it is nothing more than this humiliation itself the breaking and bending of courage down into humility. If I shout to someone to get out of there when a rock is about to be blasted, I'm exerting no moral influence with this demand; if I say to a child, "You'll go hungry if you don't eat what is put on the table;' this is not moral influence. But if I tell him: "You're going to pray, honor your parents, respect the crucifix, speak the truth, etc., because this belongs to the human being and is the human calling;' or even, "this is God's will;' then moral influence is complete : a person should bend to the human calling, should be obedient, become humble, should give up his will to an alien one which is set up as rule and law; he should abase himself before something higher: self-abasement. "He who abases himself shall be exalted." Yes, yes, in time children must be required to practice piety, godliness, and respectability; a person of good upbringing is one into whom "good principles" have been instilled and impressed, drummed, rammed, and preached.
Max Stirner (The Unique and Its Property)
Do not confuse humility with humiliation.
Alan Cohen
Occasionally, even today, you come across certain people who seem to possess an impressive inner cohesion. They are not leading fragmented, scattershot lives. They have achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled, and rooted. They are not blown off course by storms. They don't crumble in adversity. Their minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable. Their virtues are not the blooming virtues you see in smart college students; they are the ripening virtues you see in people who have lived a little and have learned from joy and pain. Sometimes you don't even notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful, they are also reserved. They possess the self- effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don't need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline. They radiate a sort of moral joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly. They are silent when unfairly abused. They are dignified when others try to humiliate them, restrained when others try to provoke them. But they get things done. They perform acts of sacrificial service with the same modest everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the groceries. They are not thinking about what impressive work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all. They just seem delighted by the flawed people around them. They just recognize what needs doing and they do it. They make you feel funnier and smarter when you speak with them. They move through different social classes not even aware, it seems, that they are doing so. After you've known them for a while it occurs to you that you've never heard them boast, you've never seen them self-righteous or doggedly certain. They aren't dropping little hints of their own distinctiveness and accomplishments. They have not led lives of conflict-free tranquillity, but have struggled toward maturity. They have gone some way toward solving life's essential problem, which is that, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, 'the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.' These are the people who have built a strong inner character, who have achieved a certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the climb to success has surrendered to the struggle to deepen the soul. After a life of seeking balance, Adam I bows down before Adam II. These are the people we are looking for.
David Brooks
Thursday 10/22 (A Desperate Situation: Jer 14:1-16; Joe 1:13, 14; 2:15-17; 1Th 5:17) “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” The conditions of obtaining mercy of God are simple and just and reasonable. The Lord does not require us to do some grievous thing, in order that we may have the forgiveness of sin. We need not take long and wearisome pilgrimages, or perform painful penances to commend our souls to the God of Heaven, or to expiate our transgression; but he that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy. This is a precious promise given to fallen man to encourage him to trust in the God of love, and to seek for eternal life in his kingdom.… Daniel did not seek to excuse himself or his people before God; but in humility and contrition of soul he confessed the full extent and demerit of their transgressions, and vindicated God’s dealings as just toward a nation that had set at naught his requirements and would not profit by his entreaties. There is great need today of just such sincere heart-felt repentance and confession. Those who have not humbled their souls before God in acknowledging their guilt, have not yet fulfilled the first condition of acceptance. If we have not experienced that repentance not to be repented of, and have not confessed our sin with true humiliation of soul and brokenness of spirit, abhorring our iniquity, we have never sought truly for the forgiveness of sin; and if we have never sought, we have never found the peace of God. The only reason why we may not have remission of sins that are past, is that we are not willing to humble our proud hearts, and comply with the conditions of the word of truth. There is explicit instruction given concerning this matter. Confession of sin, whether public or private, should be heart-felt and freely expressed. It is not to be urged from the sinner. It is not to be made in a flippant and careless way, or forced from those who have no realizing sense of the abhorrent character of sin. The confession that is mingled with tears and sorrow, that is the outpouring of the inmost soul, finds its way to the God of infinite pity. Says the psalmist, “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” There are too many confessions like Pharaoh when he was suffering the judgments of God. He acknowledged his sin, to escape further punishment, but returned to his defiance of Heaven as soon as the plagues were stayed. Balaam’s confession was of a similar character. Terrified by the angel standing in his pathway with drawn sword, he acknowledged his guilt, lest he should lose his life. There was no genuine repentance for sin, no contrition, no conversion of purpose, no abhorrence of evil, and no worth or virtue in his confession.… The humble and broken heart, subdued by genuine repentance, will appreciate something of the love of God, and the cost of Calvary; and as a son confesses to a loving father, so will the truly penitent bring all his sins before God. [1Jn 1:9 quoted]. -ST 3-16-88 • CC 63-A Bitter Price; BLJ 361-Repentant Souls Hate Sin and Love Righteousness
Ellen Gould White (Sabbath School Lesson Comments By Ellen G. White - 4th Quarter 2015 (October, November, December 2015 Book 32))
religion meant when they said that humility is the greatest of virtues,” she later wrote, “and if you can’t learn it, God will teach it to you by humiliation. Only so can a man be really great, and it was in those
David Brooks (The Road to Character)
I've never gotten my ass kicked before,” I told Jamie while I examined the blooming bruises across my ribs, “and this hangover isn’t helping my recovery.” “Every grown man should get his ass kicked at least once. Puts a little humility into him. The hangover is just for seasoning.” “I can say with some authority, it was indeed a humiliating experience,” I replied. “Stop it please, now you're beginning to sound like a complete fairy.
Jack Badelaire (Killer Instincts)
   23Pride ends in humiliation,         while humility brings honor.
Stephen Arterburn (The Life Recovery Bible NLT)
And here it is that the teaching is needed: If you would enter into full fellowship with Christ in His death,and know the full deliverance from self, humble yourself. This is your duty. Place yourself before God in your helplessness; consent to the fact that you are powerless to slay yourself; give yourself in patient and trustful surrender to God. Accept every humiliation; look upon every person who tries or troubles you as a means of grace to humble you. God will see such acceptance as proof that your whole heart desires it. It is the path of humility that leads to the full and perfect experience of our death with Christ. Beware of the mistake so many make. They have so many qualifications and limitations, so many thoughts and questions as to what true humility is to be and to do that they never unreservedly yield themselves to it. Humble yourself unto death. It is in the death to self that humility is perfected.
Andrew Murray (Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness)
Occasionally, even today, you come across certain people who seem to possess an impressive inner cohesion. They are not leading fragmented, scattershot lives. They have achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled, and rooted. They are not blown off course by storms. They don’t crumble in adversity. Their minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable. Their virtues are not the blooming virtues you see in smart college students; they are the ripening virtues you see in people who have lived a little and have learned from joy and pain. Sometimes you don’t even notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful, they are also reserved. They possess the self-effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don’t need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline. They radiate a sort of moral joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly. They are silent when unfairly abused. They are dignified when others try to humiliate them, restrained when others try to provoke them. But they get things done. They perform acts of sacrificial service with the same modest everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the groceries. They are not thinking about what impressive work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all. They just seem delighted by the flawed people around them. They just recognize what needs doing and they do it. They make you feel funnier and smarter when you speak with them. They move through different social classes not even aware, it seems, that they are doing so. After you’ve known them for a while it occurs to you that you’ve never heard them boast, you’ve never seen them self-righteous or doggedly certain. They aren’t dropping little hints of their own distinctiveness and accomplishments. They have not led lives of conflict-free tranquillity, but have struggled toward maturity. They have gone some way toward solving life’s essential problem, which is that, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either— but right through every human heart.” These are the people who have built a strong inner character, who have achieved a certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the climb to success has surrendered to the struggle to deepen the soul. After a life of seeking balance, Adam I bows down before Adam II. These are the people we are looking for.
David Brooks
THE DANGERS OF HUMAN PRAISE Showing sorrow for sin and undergoing other humiliating circumstances are far more profitable than success. You know that your troubles made you find out what you never knew before about yourself, and I am afraid that the authority, the success, and the admiration that have now come your way will make you self-satisfied. Such self-satisfaction will mar the best-ordered life, because it is incompatible with humility. We can be humble only so long as we give attention to all our own infirmities. The consciousness of these should be predominant; the soul should feel burdened by them and groan under them, and that groaning should be as a perpetual prayer to be set free from “its bondage to decay,” and admitted into the “glorious freedom of the children of God.” 3 Overwhelmed by its own faults, the soul should feel it deserves no deliverance by the great mercy of Jesus Christ. Woe to the soul that is self-satisfied, that treats God’s gifts as its own merits, and forgets what is due to God! Set apart regular seasons for reading and prayer. Involve yourself in outward matters when it is really necessary, and attend more to softening the harshness of your judgment, to restraining your temper, and to humbling your mind than to upholding your opinion even when it is right. Finally, humble yourself whenever you find that an undue interest in the affairs of others has led you to forget the one all-important matter of yourself: eternity.
François Fénelon (The Complete Fenelon (Paraclete Giants))
God, help me to learn humility from my humiliations. —Amy Eddings
Guideposts (Daily Guideposts 2018: A Spirit-Lifting Devotional)