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If “humility” means nothing more than the capacity to learn from criticism, then it has an undoubted value; but if “humility” means a willingness to submit to authority—to abandon or to modify what one is doing merely because it does not accord with the teachings of the Bible or the thoughts of Chairman Mao—then it is death to the spirit: the proper name for it, indeed, is “servility.”

— John Passmore The Perfectibility of Man (1971)

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Humility

More quotes by John Passmore

In the interests of the ideal of maximum output, [our society] judges men by their fitness for jobs, not jobs by their fitness for men.

The Perfectibility of Man (1971)

If a man is trained, purely and simply, to be expert and contented in a particular task he will not innovate; Freud would have remained an anatomist, Marx a philosopher, Darwin a field-naturalist.

The historian... has to conform to official interpretations of the past, the philosopher to dogmas, the writer to stereotypes of human action, the craftsman to “production-schedules.

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Be wise;
Soar not too high, to fall; but stoop to rise.

Philip Massinger Duke of Milan (1623)

Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Jesus

At very best, a person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

Harry Emerson Fosdick On Being a Real Person (1943)

Modesty is an unnatural attitude, and one which is only with difficulty taught to children.

Isaac Asimov The Early Asimov Book Two (1972)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Passmore (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.