Humility Quotes

Thomas à Kempis, John Climacus, Shakespeare, Addison and Emerson lead a short list. The sourced lines are not what you would expect. Sartre’s The Devil and the Good Lord (1951) has a character refusing to be modest while granting that he is humble. Harry Emerson Fosdick, in 1943, says that at very best a person wrapped up in himself makes a small package. Asimov, in 1972, calls modesty an unnatural attitude that is taught to children only with difficulty.

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less” is credited to C. S. Lewis and flagged misattributed. The notes say Rick Warren’s 2002 use of it is the one most often traced to Lewis, and that Ken Blanchard wrote something very similar in 1999. A line on pride turning angels into devils, credited to Augustine, is disputed; the notes give a medieval anthology from about 1306.