A Piece of Concordance on Humility

'The truly humble man fears only that some honor might be shown him; and if such a thing should happen to him, he is interiorly alarmed and distressed at it; he compares himself with no one, neither his superiors, his inferiors, nor yet with his equals, for he esteems himself the last of all. He despises no one but himself; he desires ardently to be despised by all the world, and sincerely rejoices in contempt. Such a man fears no dishonor, because he loves no honor.'

St. Albert the Great

'Believe that others are better than you in the depths of their soul, although outwardly you may appear better than they.'

St. Augustine

'Oh! how dear and precious is humility in the sight of God! When a truly humble soul does any good, she recalls quickly the source whence it proceeds, acknowledging that she can do nothing without the assistance of God, and only attributes to herself what is evil in all her works. I tremble, when I think how artfully pride penetrates into the heart of man. They may be truly called unfortunate who are honoured, and with whom everything succeeds; even the most holy are in danger of being lost by it; happy, on the contrary, are they who combat against temptation, who struggle against sadness, and who walk in the midst of afflictions; for when God is willing to give His servants a sure means of acquiring humility, He conducts them by the path of suffering, and especially of temptation. After which He communicates to them great lights, with a practical knowledge of their nothingness, whereby they acquire a great experience, and a special aid to divest themselves of all self-esteem, and truly to despise themselves. It is not only humility of the understanding, it is still more that of the heart which Jesus Christ counsels us to acquire, so that it should be imprinted in the depths of the soul. He who is truly humble experiences joy in the midst of affronts, because he clearly sees that contempt is his due.'

St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

'To you however, my daughter, I would teach a deeper humility, for that of which I have been speaking is almost more truly to be called worldly wisdom than humility. There are some persons who dare not or will not think about the graces with which God has endowed them, fearing lest they should become self-complacent and vain-glorious; but they are quite wrong. For if, as the Angelic Doctor says, the real way of attaining to the Love of God is by a careful consideration of all His benefits given to us, then the better we realise these the more we shall love Him; and inasmuch as individual gifts are more acceptable than general gifts, so they ought to be more specially dwelt upon. Of a truth, nothing so tends to humble us before the Mercy of God as the multitude of His gifts to us; just as nothing so tends to humble us before His Justice as the multitude of our misdeeds. Let us consider what He has done for us, and what we have done contrary to His Will, and as we review our sins in detail, so let us review His Grace in the same. There is no fear that a perception of what He has given you will puff you up, so long as you keep steadily in mind that whatever is good in you is not of yourself.'

'But, my daughter, I am going a step further, and I bid you everywhere and in everything rejoice in your own abjection. Perhaps you will ask in reply what I mean by that. In Latin abjection means humility, and humility means abjection, so that when Our Lady says in the Magnificat that all generations shall call her blessed, because God hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden, she means that He has accepted her abjection and lowliness in order to fill her with graces and favours. Nevertheless, there is a difference between humility and abjection; for abjection is the poverty, vileness and littleness which exist in us, without our taking heed to them; but humility implies a real knowledge and voluntary recognition of that abjection. And the highest point of humility consists in not merely acknowledging one's abjection, but in taking pleasure therein, not from any want of breadth or courage, but to give the more glory to God's Divine Majesty, and to esteem one's neighbour more highly than one's self. This is what I would have you do;'

St. Francis de Sales

'A proud person thinks everything he does is well done; he wants to domineer over all those who have to do with him; he is always right, he always thinks his own opinion better than that of others. That will not do! A humble and well-taught person, if he is asked his opinion, gives it at once, and then lets others speak. Whether they are right, or whether they are wrong, he says nothing more.'

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney

'Our seventh struggle is against the demon of self-esteem, a multiform and subtle passion which is not readily perceived even by the person whom it tempts. The provocations of the other passions are more apparent and it is therefore somewhat easier to do battle with them, for the soul recognizes its enemy and can repulse him at once by rebutting him and by prayer. The vice of self-esteem, however, is difficult to fight against, because it has many forms and appears in all our activities - in our way of speaking, in what we say and in our silences, at work, in vigils and fasts, in prayer and reading, in stillness and long-suffering. Through all these it seeks to strike down the soldier of Christ. When it cannot seduce a man with extravagant clothes, it tries to tempt him by means of shabby ones. When it cannot flatter him with honor, it inflates him by causing him to endure what seems to be dishonor. When it cannot persuade him to feel proud of his display of eloquence, it entices him through silence into thinking he has achieved stillness. When it cannot puff him up with the thought of his luxurious table, it lures him into fasting for the sake of praise. In short, every task, every activity, gives this malicious demon a chance for battle.'

St. John Cassian

'Humility consists, not in condemning our conscience, but in recognizing God's grace and compassion.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

'The soul that really loves God and Christ, though it may do ten thousand righteousnesses, esteems itself as having wrought nothing, by reason of its insatiable aspiration after God. Though it should exhaust the body with fastings, with watchings, its attitude towards the virtues is as if it had not yet even begun to labour for them.'

St. Macarius the Great

'We must hate avarice, self-esteem and sensual pleasure, as mothers of the vices and stepmothers of the virtues. Because of them we are commanded not to love "the world' and 'the things that are in the world" (1 John 2:15); not so that we should hate God's creation through lack of discernment, but so that we should eliminate the occasions for these three passions.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

'If you praise your neighbor to one man and criticize him to another, you are the slave of self-esteem and jealousy. Through praise you try to hide your jealousy, through criticism to appear better than your neighbor.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

'Some people when praised for their virtue are delighted, and attribute this pleasurable feeling of self-esteem to grace. Others when reproved for their sins are pained, and they mistake this beneficial pain for the action of sin.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

'If you find within yourself an abyss of pride and vain esteem, bury these passions in the abyss of the humility of the Sacred Heart, wherein you must lose all that stirs you interiorly, so as to be arrayed in His sacred annihilations.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

'The love of creatures is as poison in your heart and destroys the love of Jesus Christ. If you seek the esteem of creatures and try to insinuate yourself into their good graces, you will lose those of the Sacred Heart. You will be deprived of Its treasures in proportion as you enrich yourself with created things.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

'Be careful to keep yourself hidden from creatures, and visible to God only, by an earnest desire for His greater glory, by a profound contempt of yourself, by the practice of all virtues, especially humility, patience, gentleness, peace of heart, and by a perfect evenness of temper towards all persons with whom you come in contact.'

'The deeper our humility, the higher will be our place in heaven. . As Lucifer wished to raise himself to the highest place in heaven, and in punishment of his pride was cast into the depths of hell, so the soul that humbles herself most profoundly causes Satan to tremble and be confounded, and God exalts her to the glory of paradise.'

'True consolations and divine lights are always accompanied by a deep humility and such a knowledge of self and of God that we put ourselves under the feet of all. Moreover, they impart sometimes, though not always, clear understanding of heavenly things, along with peace, joy, the love of virtue, and a longing for grace.'

'We must persuade ourselves that we are nothing, that we can do nothing, that we know nothing.'

'To have nothing, to be able to do nothing, to know nothing! and God will cause to spring from this nothingness the work of His greatest glory.'

St. Paul of the Cross

'Scruples are an infirmity which will make a truce with a man, but very rarely peace; humility alone comes off conqueror over them.'

'God takes especial delight in the humility of a man who believes that he has not yet begun to do any good.'

St. Philip Neri

'We and our brother are two images; when a man is watchful about himself, and has to reproach himself, in his heart he thinks his brother better than he; but when he appears to himself to be good, then he thinks his brother evil compared to himself.'

St. Poemen

'I say the same of humility and of all the virtues; the wiles of the devil are terrible, he will run a thousand times round hell if by so doing he can make us believe that we have a single virtue which we have not. And he is right, for such ideas are very harmful, and such imaginary virtues, when they come from this source, are never unaccompanied by vainglory; just as those which God gives are free both from this and from pride.'

St. Teresa of Jesus

'Humility, which Christ recommended to us both by word and example, ought to include three conditions. First, we are to consider ourselves, in all sincerity, worthy of the contempt of men; secondly, to be glad that others should see what is imperfect in us and what might cause them to despise us; thirdly, when the Lord works any good in us or by our means, to conceal it, if possible, at the sight of our baseness, and if this cannot be done, to ascribe it to the Divine Mercy, and to the merits of others. Whoever shall attain to this humility, happy is he! And to him who shall not attain it, griefs will never be wanting.'

'Learning without humility has always been pernicious to the Church; and as pride precipitated the rebellious angels from heaven, it frequently causes the loss of learned men.'

St. Vincent de Paul

'Whoever will proudly dispute and contradict will always stand outside the door. Christ the master of humility, manifests His truth only to the humble and hides Himself from the proud.'

'Try to convince yourself that there is no crime-laden sinner but would have served God better than you. . . if he had received the same graces.'

St. Vincent Ferrer

'If therefore holy men, when they do mighty things, think themselves worthless, what must be said of those who, without fruit of virtue, are yet swollen with pride? But any works, although they be good, are as nothing unless seasoned with humility.'

Pope St. Gregory the Great

'You should be dressed in interior and exterior humility so that you neither extol yourself inwardly as being holier than others nor are outwardly ashamed of acting humbly in public.'

The Lord, to St. Bridget of Sweden