Plant a white rose at my feet,
Or a lily fair and sweet,
With the humble mignonette
And the blue-eyed violet. [ Julia C. R. Dorr, Earth to Earth ]
Humble things become the humble. [ Horace ]
Formerly humble huts stood here. [ Virgil ]
It is hard to be high and humble. [ Proverb ]
Oh, may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see.
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tamed, my wishes laid;
For, while our wishes wildly roll.
We banish quiet from the soul.
It is thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care. [ Dyer ]
Humble hearts have humble desires. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Union gives strength to the humble. [ Syrus ]
How blest the humble cotter's fate!
He woos his simple dearie;
The silly bogles, wealth, and state,
Can never make them eerie. [ Burns ]
My favored temple is an humble heart. [ Bailey ]
Thy sum of duty let two words contain
(O! May they graven in thy heart remain!)
Be humble and be just. [ Prior ]
Of friends, however humble, scorn not one. [ Wordsworth ]
Many wish to be pious, but none to be humble. [ La Rochefoucauld ]
Many humble servants have not one true friend. [ Proverb ]
Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame. [ Pope ]
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. [ William Cowper ]
When our thoughts are born
Though they be good and humble, one should mind
How they are reared, or some will go astray. [ Jean Ingelow ]
Little drops of water, little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land.
Thus the little minutes, humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages of eternity. [ F. S. Osgood ]
To be secure, be humble. To be happy, be content. [ James Hurdts ]
'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam.
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. [ John Howard Payne ]
Be it never so humble, there's no place like home. [ J. H. Payne ]
Humble wedlock is far better than proud virginity. [ St. Augustine ]
An honest and diligent servant is an humble friend. [ Proverb ]
Love ought to raise a low heart and not humble a high one. [ Ariosto ]
There is much proud humility and humble pride in the world. [ J. L. Basford ]
Humble love, and not proud science keens the door of heaven. [ Young ]
The higher, the lower; and the more advanced, the more humble. [ Proverb ]
Few men are both rich and generous; fewer are both rich and humble. [ Cardinal Manning ]
The praise that comes of love does not make us vain, but humble rather. [ J. M. Barrie ]
Fortune is gentle to the lowly, and heaven strikes the humble with a light hand. [ Seneca ]
He whose pride oppresses the humble may perhaps be humbled, but will never be humble. [ Lavater ]
The doctrines of grace humble man without degrading him and exalt him without inflating him. [ Charles Hodge ]
Understanding is the wages of a lively faith, and faith is the reward of a humble ignorance. [ Quarles ]
To be humble to our superiors is duty; to our equals, courtesy; to our inferiors, generosity. [ Owen Feltham ]
God created out of the clay the knight and his squire. A higher sense ennobles even a humble race. [ Bürger ]
The modern craze for bargains has often inflicted great hardships upon a certain class of humble toilers. [ Douglas ]
Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages. [ Cowley ]
There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble. [ Washington Irving ]
How wayward is this foolish love, that, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse and presently, all humble, kiss the rod. [ William Shakespeare ]
The sphere-harmony of a Shakespeare, of a Goethe, the cathedral music of a Milton, the humble, genuine lark-notes of a Burns. [ Carlyle ]
He is an eloquent man who can treat humble subjects with delicacy, lofty things impressively, and moderate things temperately. [ Cicero ]
There may come a day when there shall be no more curse; in the meantime you must be humble and honest enough to take your share of it. [ John Ruskin ]
Our humble lilies of the valley and our field sparrows are wise enough to tell us of Nature's overruling care, that makes happiness possible. [ Newell Dwight Hillis ]
Sweet flower, thou tellest how hearts as pure and tender as thy leaf, as low and humble as thy stem, will surely know the joy that peace imparts. [ Percival ]
Verily, I swear, it is better to be lowly born, and range with humble livers in content than to be perked up in a glistering grief, and wear a golden sorrow. [ Shakespeare ]
Literature is a mere step to knowledge; and the error often lies in our identifying one with the other. Literature may, perhaps, make us vain; true knowledge must make us humble. [ Mrs. John Sanford ]
Providence has clearly ordained that the only path fit and salutary for man on earth is the path of persevering fortitude - the unremitting struggle of deliberate self-preparation and humble but active reliance on divine aid. [ B. L. Magoon ]
An accession of wealth is a dangerous predicament for a man. At first he is stunned, if the accession be sudden; he is very humble and very grateful. Then he begins to speak a little louder; people think him more sensible, and soon he thinks himself so. [ Cecil ]
Some very dull and sad people have genius though the world may not count it as such; a genius for love, or for patience, or for prayer, maybe. We know the divine spark is here and there in the world: who shall say under what manifestations, or humble disguise! [ Anne Isabella Thackeray ]
If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble. The proud heart, as it loves none but itself, is beloved of none. By itself, the voice of humility is God's music, and the silence of humility is God's rhetoric. Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail, nor reason. [ Enchiridion ]
Humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic, and the true, by whose light it surveys and shapes their opposites. It is an humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence, prompting tolerant views of life, bridging over the spaces which separate the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble. [ E. P. Whipple ]
Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress. She, by little and little, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority; but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes. [ Montaigne ]
Mutability is the badge of infirmity; it is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing two days alike; now he is for marrying, and now a mistress is preferred to a wife; now he is ambitious and aspiring, presently the meanest servant is not more humble than he; this hour he squanders his money away, the next he turns miser; sometimes he is frugal and serious, at other times profuse, airy, and gay. [ Charron ]
The world's history is a divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every man a word. Its strains have been pealing along down the centuries; and, though there have been mingled the discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian, philosopher, and historian, - the humble listener, - there has been a divine melody running through the song, which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come. [ James A. Garfield ]
Nothing raises the price of a blessing like its removal; whereas it was its continuance which should have taught us its value. There are three requisitions to the proper enjoyment of earthly blessings, - a thankful reflection on the goodness of the Giver, a deep sense of our unworthiness, a recollection of the uncertainty of long possessing them. The first would make us grateful; the second, humble; and the third, moderate. [ Hannah More ]
I cannot look around me without being struck with the analogy observable in the works of God. I find the Bible written in the style of His other books of Creation and Providence. The pen seems in the same hand. I see it, indeed, write at times my steriously in each of these books: thus I know that mystery in the works of God is only another name for my ignorance. The moment, therefore, that I become humble, all becomes right. [ Richard Cecil ]
The love of flowers seems a naturally implanted passion, without any alloy or debasing object in its motive; we cherish them in youth, we admire them in declining years; but perhaps it is the early flowers of spring that always bring with them the greatest degree of pleasure; and our affections seem to expand at the sight of the first blossom under the sunny wall, or sheltered bank, however humble its race may be. With summer flowers we seem to live, as with our neighbors, in harmony and good order; but spring flowers are cherished as private friendships. [ G. A. Sola ]