What They Said

“Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.”

Augustine

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”

Thomas A’ Kempis

"Men, for the most part, are not lost enough in their own feeling for a Saviour.  A holy despair in ourselves is the ground of true hope. In God the fatherless find mercy (Hos. 14:3); if men were more fatherless, they should feel more God’s fatherly affection from heaven, for the God who dwells in the highest heavens dwells likewise in the lowest soul (Isa. 57:15).  Christ’s sheep are weak sheep, and lacking in something or other; he therefore applies himself to the necessities of every sheep. He seeks that which was lost, and brings again that which was driven out of the way, and binds up that which was broken, and strengthens the weak (Ezek. 34:16).  His tenderest care is over the weakest."

Richard Sibbes 

“Let us carry ourselves as God’s children in humility. ‘Be ye clothed with humility’ (1 Peter 5:5). It is a becoming garment. Let a child of God look at his face every morning in the glass of God’s Word and see his sinful spots. This will make him walk humbly all the day after. God cannot endure to see his children grow proud. He suffers them to fall into sin, as he did Peter, that their plumes may fall, and that they may learn to go on lower ground.”

Thomas Watson

“Above all pray and labour for a truly humble mind, that is well acquainted with its own defects ; and fear and fly from a proud, overvaluing of your own understanding.”

Richard Baxter