Let us define “humility”. Humility is a virtue by which a person has a proper opinion of himself because he knows himself well. This is the virtue that belongs to those who have set their hearts to the climb and have gone from virtue to virtue, from step to step, until they reach the highest peak of humility and gaze upon the Truth from the watch-tower of Zion.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
–Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
What is humility but truthfulness? There is no real difference.
–Walter Hilton (1340-1396)
One who loves God retains this humility at all times, not with weariness and struggle, but with pleasure and gladness.
–Walter Hilton (1340-1396)
A person may be faithful; he may have the power to utter hidden mysteries; he may be discriminating in the evaluation of what is said and pure in his actions. But the greater he seems to be, the more humbly he ought to act, and the more zealous he should be for the common good rather than his own interest.
–Saint Clement (First Century)
Nothing is more opposed to God than pride, for self-deification is concealed in it, its own nothingness or sin. Thus more than anything humility is acceptable to God, which considers itself nothing, and attributes all goodness, honor, and glory to God alone. Pride does not accept grace, because it is full of itself, while humility easily accepts grace, because it is free from itself, and from all that is created. God creates out of nothing. As long as we think that we can offer something of ourselves, He does not begin His work in us.
–Saint Philaret of Moscow (1782-1867)
