This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"One of the fundamental points about religious humility is you say you don't know about the ultimate judgment. It's beyond your judgment. And if you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion." - Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
"But when one believes that you've been appointed by God for a particular mission in history, you have to be very careful about that, how you speak about that. Where is the self-reflection in that Where is the humility in that" - Jim Wallis
"The first step to becoming a more peaceful person is to have the humility to admit that, in most cases, you're creating your own emergencies. Life will usually go on if things don't go according to plan. It's helpful to keep reminding yourself and repeating the sentence, Life isn't an emergency." - Richard Carlson
"Scientists are sometimes suspected of arrogance. Carl Sagan commends to us by contrast the humility of the Roman Catholic Church which, as early as 1992, was ready to grant a pardon to Galileo and admit publicly that the Earth does indeed revolve around the Sun. We must hope that this outspoken magnanimity will not cause any offence or hurt to the supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia, Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz who, according to Sagan, in 1993 issued an edict, or fatwa, declaring that the world is flat. Anyone of the round persuasion does not believe in God and should be punished. Arrogance? Scientists are amateurs in arrogance." - Richard Dawkins
"The basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual... the humility of the spirit." - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"The unanswerable mysteries... the attitude that all is uncertain... to summarize it - the humility of the intellect." - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"It is much to be desired that there were that love in all men to teach what they know, and that humility in others to be instructed in what they know not. God humbles sometimes great persons to learn of others that are meaner, and it is our duty to embrace the truth whoever brings it, and oftentimes ordinary persons are instruments of knowledge and comfort to many that are greater than themselves" - Richard Sibbes (or Sibbs)
"Marriage requires the giving and keeping of confidences, the sharing of thoughts and feelings, respect and understanding always, marriage requires humility - the humility to repent, the humility to forgive. Marriage requires flexibility (to give and take) and firmness: not to compromise principles. And a wise and moderate sense of humor. Both need to be pulling together in the same direction." - Richard L. Evans, fully Richard Louis Evans
"I Still Trust in The People. [engraved on his tombstone]" - Samuel Tilden, fully Samuel Jones Tilden
"Internalized experiences of selfhood are linked to autobiographical narratives, which are linked to biographies, legal testimonies, and medical case histories, which are linked to forms of therapy and theories of the subject." - Anthony Kenny, fully Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny
"The God of the New Testament is not less holy that the God of the Old Testament, but more holy. The interval between the creature and Him is not diminished but made absolute; the unworthiness of the profane in contrast to Him is not extenuated but enhanced. That God none the less admits access to Himself and intimacy with Himself is not a mere matter of course; it is a grace beyond our power to apprehend, a prodigious paradox." - Rudolf Otto
"The first step of humility is to obey. This will be natural to those who love Christ above all. Because of the holy service they have promised or because of fear of hell, they will carry out the abbot's order as quickly as if the command came from God. This will be accepted by God only if it is done without making faces or slowly or half-hearted. God sees his heart. The monk will receive no prize for service of this kind. Just the opposite, he will get punished, unless he changes for the better and makes things right." - Saint Benedict of Nursia NULL
"The prophet shows that, for the sake of silence, we are to abstain even from good talk. If this be so, how much more needful is it that we refrain from evil words, on account of the penalty of the sin!" - Saint Benedict of Nursia NULL
"Americans like fat books and thin women." - Russell Baker. fully Russell Wayne Baker
"The greedy man is not content with a whole world set before him." - Sa'di (or Saadi), pen name of Abū-Muḥammad Muṣliḥ al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī, born Muslih-uddin NULL
"Just as the root feeds the tree, so humility feeds the soul. The spirit of humility is sweeter than honey, and whoever is fed by this sweetness produces fruit." - Saint Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, born Fernando Martins de Bulhões NULL
"Solicitude for material things distracts the soul and divides it. The devil seizes the divided soul and drags it to hell." - Saint Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, born Fernando Martins de Bulhões NULL
"A man's personality actuates and quickens his whole body. If anyone said it was unsuitable for the man's power to be in the toe, he would be thought silly, because, while granting that a man penetrates and actuates the whole of his body, he denied his presence in the part. Similarly, no one who admits the presence of the Word of God in the universe as a whole should think it unsuitable for a single human body to be by Him actuated and enlightened." - Saint Athanasius, aka Athanasius of Alexandria, St. Athanasius the Great, St. Athanasius I of Alexandria, St. Athanasius the Confessor, St. Athanasius the Apostolic NULL
"Listen, sons of the Lord and my brothers, pay attention to my words. Incline the ear of your heart and obey the voice of the Son of God. Observe His commands with your whole heart and fulfill His counsels with a perfect mind. Give praise to Him since He is good and exalt Him by your deeds (Tob. 13:6), for He has sent you into the entire world for this reason: that in word and deed you may give witness to His voice and bring everyone to know what there is no one who is all-powerful except Him. Preserve in disciple and holy obedience and with a firm and good purpose fulfill what you have promised to Him." - Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
"Those who do not wish to taste how sweet the Lord is and love the darkness rather than the light (Jn. 3:19), not wishing to fulfill the commands of God, are cursed: of them the prophet says: They are cursed who stray from your commands (Ps. 118:21). But Oh, how happy and blessed are those who love God and do as the Lord Himself says in the Gospel: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself (Mt. 22:37, 39)." - Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
"We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way." - Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
"If formerly it sought sweetness and fervor, and found it, now it much neither seek it nor desire it, for not only will it be unable to find it through its own diligence, but it will rather find aridity, for it turns from the quiet and peaceful blessings which were secretly given it its spirit, to the work that it desires to do with sense; and thus it will lose one and not obtain the other, since no blessings are now given to it by means of sense as they were formerly… God secretly and quietly infuses into the soul loving knowledge and wisdom without any intervention of specific acts. And the soul has then to walk with loving advertence to God, without making specific acts, but conducting itself passively, and making no efforts of its own, but preserving this simple, pure and loving advertence. The soul must be attached to nothing – not even to any kind of meditation or sweetness. The spirit needs to be so free and so completely annihilated that any thought or meditation which the soul in this state might desire, or any pleasure to which it may conceive an attachment, would impede and disturb it and would introduce noise into the deep silence which it is meet that the soul should observe so that it may hear the deep and delicate voice of God which speaks to the heart in this secret place." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" - Saint Paul, aka The Apostle Paul, Paul the Apostle or Saul of Tarsus NULL
"Just as the root feeds the tree, so humility feeds the soul. The spirit of humility is sweeter than honey, and whoever is fed by this sweetness produces fruit." - Saint Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, born Fernando Martins de Bulhões NULL
"Solicitude for material things rends the soul; thus distracted, it divides it. The devil seizes the divided soul and thereby kills it." - Saint Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, born Fernando Martins de Bulhões NULL
"The prophet shows that, for the sake of silence, we are to abstain even from good talk. If this be so, how much more needful is it that we refrain from evil words, on account of the penalty of the sin!" - Saint Benedict of Nursia NULL
"It is a fact that people are always well aware of what is due them. Unfortunately, they remain oblivious of what they owe to others." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL
"The perfection of life is the perfection of love. Love is the life of the soul." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL
"Not every quiet man is humble, but every humble man is quiet." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
"The man who is deemed worthy to see himself is greater than he who is deemed worthy to see the angels." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
"God is nearer to us than any man at every time. He is nearer to me than my raiment, nearer than the air or light, nearer than my wife, father, mother, daughter, son, or friend. I live in Him, soul and body. I breathe in Him, think in Him, feel, consider, intend, speak, undertake, work in Him." - Saint John of Kronstadt, fully John Il’ich Serguiev, aka Holy Father John of the Kronstadt NULL
"There is no greater cause of straying from the path of faithful perseverance than letting up in prayer." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL
"What a great favor God does to those He places in the company of good people!" - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL
"Practice teaching catechism and preaching. Missionaries must apply themselves to these tasks and although they do not accomplish them as successfully as others do, according to the opinion of men, it must be enough for them that they are doing the Will of God and perhaps producing more real fruit." - Saint Vincent de Paul
"We must be full reservoirs in order to let our water spill out without becoming empty, and we must possess the spirit with which we want them to be animated, for no one can give what he does not have." - Saint Vincent de Paul
"In this so-called age of technicians, the only battles we know how to fight are battles against windmills." - Simone Weil
"Respectable scientists like de Broglie himself accept wave mechanics because it confers coherence and unity upon the experimental findings of contemporary science, and in spite of the astonishing changes it implies in connection with ideas of causality, time, and space, but it is because of these changes that it wins favor with the public. The great popular success of Einstein was the same thing. The public drinks in and swallows eagerly everything that tends to dispossess the intelligence in favor of some technique; it can hardly wait to abdicate from intelligence and reason and from everything that makes man responsible for his destiny." - Simone Weil
"There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime--namely, repressive justice." - Simone Weil
"What a blessing this smoking is! Perhaps the greatest that we owe to the discovery of America." - Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps
"The prophet shows that, for the sake of silence, we are to abstain even from good talk. If this be so, how much more needful is it that we refrain from evil words, on account of the penalty of the sin!" - Benedict of Nursia, aka Saint Benedict of Nursia NULL
"And there are men who wear out their bodies to no purpose in the pursuit of total dispassion, heavenly treasures, miracle working, and prophetic ability, and the poor fools do not realize that humility, not hard work, is the mother of such things." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites
"But Adam did not wish to say, I sinned, but said rather the contrary of this and placed the blame for the transgression upon God Who created everything very good, saying to Him, The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate. And after him she also placed the blame upon the serpent, and they did not wish at all to repent and, falling down before the Lord God, beg forgiveness of Him. For this, God banished them from Paradise, as from a royal palace, to live in this world as exiles. At that time also He decreed that a flaming sword should be turned and should guard the entrance into Paradise. And God did not curse Paradise, since it was the image of the future unending life of the eternal Kingdom of Heaven. If it were not for this reason, it would have been fitting to curse it most of all, since within it was performed the transgression of Adam. But God did not do this, but cursed only the whole rest of the earth, which also was corrupt and brought forth everything by itself; and this was in order that Adam might not have any longer a life free from exhausting labors and sweat." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites
"I consider those fallen mourners more blessed than those who have not fallen and are not mourning over themselves; because as a result of their fall, they have risen by a sure resurrection." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites
"If there is a time for everything under heaven, as Ecclesiastes says, and by the word ‘everything’ must be understood what concerns our holy life, then if you please, let us look into it and let us seek to do at each time what is proper for that occasion. For it is certain that, for those who enter the lists, there is a time for dispassion and a time for passion (I say this for the combatants who are serving their apprenticeship); there is a time for tears, and a time for hardness of heart; there is a time for obedience, and there is a time to command; there is a time to fast, and a time to partake; there is a time for battle with our enemy the body, and a time when the fire is dead; a time of storm in the soul, and a time of calm in the mind; a time for heartfelt sorrow, and a time for spiritual joy; a time for teaching, and a time for listening; a time of pollutions, perhaps on account of conceit, and a time for cleansing by humility; a time for struggle, and a time for safe relaxation; a time for stillness, and a time for undistracted distraction; a time for unceasing prayer, and a time for sincere service. So let us not be deceived by proud zeal, and seek prematurely what will come in its own good time; that is, we should not seek in winter what comes in summer, or at seed time what comes at harvest; because there is a time to sow labors, and a time to reap the unspeakable gifts of grace. Otherwise, we shall not receive even in season what is proper to that season." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites
"It is sheer lunacy to imagine that one has deserved the gifts of God. You may be proud only of the achievements you had before the time of your birth. But anything after that, indeed the birth itself, is a gift from God. You may claim only those virtues in you that are there independently of your mind, for your mind was bestowed on you by God. And you may claim only those victories you achieved independently of the body, for the body too is not yours but a work of God." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites
"Repentance raises the fallen, mourning knocks at the gate of Heaven, and holy humility opens it." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites
"Run from places of sin as from the plague." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites
"The lover of silence draws close to God. He talks to Him in secret and God enlightens him." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites
"To admire the labors of the saints is good; to emulate them wins salvation; but to wish suddenly to imitate their life in every point is unreasonable and impossible." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites
"Without the heart it is no worship; it is a stage play; an acting a part without being that person really which is acted by us: a hypocrite, in the notion of the world, is a stage-player. We may as well say a man may believe with his body, as worship God only with his body. Faith is a great ingredient in worship; and it is “with the heart man believes unto righteousness.” We may be truly said to worship God, though we want perfection; but we cannot be said to worship him if we want sincerity; a statue upon a tomb, with eyes and hands lifted up, offers as good and true a service; it wants only a voice, the gestures and postures are the same; nay, the service is better; it is not a mockery; it represents all that it can be framed to; but to worship without our spirits, is a presenting God with a picture, an echo, voice, and nothing else; a compliment; a mere lie; a “compassing him about with lies.”" - Stephen Charnock