"Humbleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... worthy and soul-quieting divine; one who spareth not the goad when the conscience needeth pricking, nor hesitateth to dispense consolation to him who seeth his fallen estate; and one that never faileth to deal with charity, and humbleness of spirit, and forbearance with the failings of friends, and forgiveness of enemies, as the chiefest signs of a renovated moral existence; and, therefore, there can be but little reason to distrust ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the earl, yet this day she, meaning to deal very princely with him, in presence of her council, charged him with such things as she had heard to cause her misliking, without any note of mistrust towards him for his fidelity; whereupon he did with such humbleness, wisdom, plainness and dexterity, answer her majesty, as both she and all the rest were fully satisfied, and he adjudged by good proofs to have served in all this time faithfully, and so circumspectly, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Poverty Upon the same subject Upon poverty of spirit His love of the poor Upon the Christian view of Poverty Upon Prosperity Upon Chastity and Charity Upon purity of heart Upon Chastity and Humility Upon Modesty The contempt he felt for his body Upon his Humility Upon humbleness in speech only Upon various degrees of Humility Upon Humiliation Humility with regard to perfection Upon excuses Upon our good name Upon despising the esteem of men Upon the virtues we should practice when calumniated Upon some spiritual maxims Upon Patience ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... architect's widow had caused to be covered with little expense, by all the lucky accidents of the unfinished and unpremeditated, corrected the lack of grace of its new and affected antiquity and archeologic romanticism, and harmonized with the humbleness of a district made ugly ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... is a great mistake in the world. Uriah Heap's father was a very poor judge of human nature, or he would not have told his son, as he did, that people liked humbleness. There is nothing annoys them more, as a rule. Rows are half the fun of life, and you can't have rows with humble, meek-answering individuals. They turn away our wrath, and that is just what we do not want. We want to let it out. We have worked ourselves up into a state of ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... ever more happily placed. It is the very image of the peace and humbleness inculcated ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... imported, as if we thought this land a land of magicians, that sent forth spirits of the air into all parts, to bring them news and intelligence of other countries. It was answered by us all, in all possible humbleness, but yet with a countenance taking knowledge, that we knew that he spake it but merrily. That we were apt enough to think, there was somewhat supernatural in this island, but yet rather as angelical than magical. But to let his lordship know truly what it was that made us tender and doubtful ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... frankly two girls playing at housework. Bea artlessly considered Carol the most beautiful and accomplished lady in the country; she was always shrieking, "My, dot's a swell hat!" or, "Ay t'ink all dese ladies yoost die when dey see how elegant you do your hair!" But it was not the humbleness of a servant, nor the hypocrisy of a slave; it was the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... something in the poise of her head taught him a new rune among love's spells. Drawing softly near her, he spoke in noblest conciliation: "Is it your pride that cannot pardon me, Lady of Avalcomb? Do I seem to sue for grace too boldly because I forget to make my body match the humbleness of my heart? Except in prayer or courtesy, we are not loose of knee, we Angles, but I would stoop as low as I lowest might if that could make you kinder, dear one." Baring his head, he knelt down at her feet,—and the difference between this and the time when he had bent before her in the Abbey, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... a way was this information imparted, that visitors were compelled to receive it in all humbleness, and as a matter of course. They could only feign that Twynintuft had been a household word from their tenderest infancy, and that they have made pilgrimage to Foxden to gaze upon the earthly abiding-place of this remarkable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... months elapsed before the work was finished. Business over, Bishen Singh hung about, reluctant to take his leave, and at last joining his hands and approaching Orde with bated breath and whispering humbleness, said he had a petition to make. Orde's face suddenly lost all trace of expression. "Speak on, Bishen Singh," said he, and the carver in a whining tone explained that his case against his brothers was fixed for hearing ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... beautiful than their greatness and their beauty—the idea of God, of the beginning and the ending, the first and the last, the living One; of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things; who is indeed God over all, blessed forever; and whom I would desire, in all humbleness of mind, to sanctify in my heart, and to make my fear and my dread. This is the true moral use of Art, to quicken and deepen and enlarge our sense of God. I don't mean so much our belief in certain articulate doctrines, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... is—and he must bring me some of the other—which I never heard of—and when it comes I eat it, no matter what it turns out to be, and try to look as if I was used to it, but generally had it better cooked. But, as I said before, it is of no use—your humbleness is too much for me. In a few days they will be bringing us cold victuals, and recommending that we go outside somewhere and eat them, as all the seats in the dining-room are ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... superior to all the distinctions of human system, which lifts the soul above this world, and seems to expand it into a nobler nature; such devotion as can, perhaps, only be experienced, when the mind, rescued, for a moment, from the humbleness of earthly considerations, aspires to contemplate His power in the sublimity of His works, and His goodness in ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... self-explaining unexpressed: Trifles they seem, these petty soul-restraints, Yet he who proves them so must needs possess A constancy and courage grand and bold; They are the trifles that have made the saints. Give me to practice them in humbleness And nobler power than mine ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... commandress of my life, My thoughts' repose, sweet centre of my cares, Where all my hopes and best desires take rest. Lo! where the mighty son of Jupiter Throws himself captive at your conquering feet! Do not disdain my voluntary humbleness: Accept my service, bless me with commanding. I will perform the hardest imposition, And run through twelve new labours for thy sake. Omphale, dear commandress of ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... succeed, And in the Capitol and senate's right, Whom you pretend to honour and adore,— That you withdraw you and abate your strength; Dismiss your followers, and, as suitors should, Plead your deserts in peace and humbleness. ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... bitterly, "for it's really me that you doubt. I can't understand what you have seen in me that makes you believe anything could change me towards you," he added with a kind of humbleness that touched her. "I could have borne to think that I ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... a Wat Tyler [in the inadvertence of the moment he seems to have said 'a Tom Tailor,' by mistake], a Kett, or a Jack Cade! I was not so mad! I knew the state of Spain well, his weakness, his poorness, his humbleness at this time. I knew that six times we had repulsed his forces—thrice in Ireland, thrice at sea, once upon our coast and twice upon his own. Thrice had I served against him myself at sea—wherein, for my country's sake, I had expended of ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... Require what 'tis our wealth to give, And comprehend and wear the crown Of thy despised prerogative! I, who in manhood's name at length With glad songs come to abdicate The gross regality of strength, Must yet in this thy praise abate, That, through thine erring humbleness And disregard of thy degree, Mainly, has man been so much less Than fits his fellowship with thee. High thoughts had shaped the foolish brow, The coward had grasp'd the hero's sword, The vilest had been great, hadst thou, Just to thyself, been worth's reward. ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... with his scientific investigations a profound reverence for Christianity. That he was not attacked shows that there had {464} been considerable progress made in toleration of new ideas. With all of his greatness of vision, he had the humbleness of a true scientist. A short time before his death he said: "I know not what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble, or a prettier shell, than ordinary, ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... with the royal robe, and Lazarus at Dives' gate could not have written out of a lowlier heart. The kingly brow may bear itself high enough before men, the voice may be commanding and imperious enough, cutting through contradiction as with a sword; but before the Highest all is humbleness and bended knees. Other compositions there are, scattered through the volume, by great personages, several by Louisa Henrietta, Electress of Brandenburg, and Anton Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick,—all written two hundred ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... It seems to have receded a millennium in time. It has the terrible fierceness of an Attic tragedy, but it also has the decorum which the Attic tragedy never violated. There is no slaughter in the presence of the audience, despite the humbleness of its personages. It does not keep us perpetually in sight of the shambles. It is, indeed, an exposition of chivalry, rustic, but chivalry, nevertheless. It was thus Clytemnestra slew her husband, and Orestes his mother. Note the contrast which the duel between Alfio and Turiddu ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... understands—and, that if a jewel has been lost in Westmoreland, his are not the eyes by which it is to be found again. If the dignity of Knight of the Shire is to be conferred, he cannot be pronounced a fit person to receive it. For whether, my Brother Freeholders, you look at the humbleness of his situation amongst Country Gentlemen; or at his amphibious habits, in the two elements of Law and Authorship, and the odd vagaries he has played in both; or whether he be tried by the daring opinions which, by his own acknowledgment, he has maintained in Parliament, and at public meetings, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... scattered us among many nations, even to the end of the earth, where now my meanness appears to be among strangers. And there the Lord opened the senses of my unbelief, that I might remember my sin, and that I might be converted with my whole heart to my Lord God, who looked upon my humbleness and had mercy upon my youth and ignorance, and guarded me before I knew Him, and before I knew and distinguished between good and evil, and protected me and comforted me ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... earth and clay imitate the life of heavenly beings, in fastings and prayers and watchings, in hot tears and sober sorrow, as soldiers in the field with death before their eyes, in meekness and gentleness, in silence of the lips, in poverty and want, in chastity and temperance, in humbleness and quietude of mind, in perfect charity toward God and their neighbour, carrying their present life down to the grave, and becoming Angels in their ways. Wherefore God hath graced them with miracles, signs and various virtues and made the voice of their marvellous life to be sounded forth ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... Who has not felt, in such a night as this, The glory and the greatness of a God, And bowed his head, in humbleness, to kiss His merciful and kindly chast'ning rod? The far off stars! how beautiful and bright! Peace seems abroad upon the world to-night; And e'en the bubble, dancing on the stream, Is glittering with ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... the present instance was also not a little lessened by the peculiar nature of the visitation. In any ordinary emergency God might help us, but we had a sort of dim apprehension that even He could not do anything in such weather. So far as humbleness was concerned, there was no lack of that. There are some inflictions which, although terrible, are capable of stirring in haughty human hearts a rebellious indignation. But to cold succumb soul and mind. It has always seemed ...
— The Cold Snap - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... that he has been chosen by an all-wise Providence to be the universal almsgiver of mankind. The arrogance of this boast is unsurpassable. To be rich is within the compass of any man gifted or cursed with an acquisitive temperament. No one may give to another save in humbleness of spirit. And there is not a millionaire in America who does not think that he is fit to perform a delicate duty which has eluded the wise of all ages. In this matter Mr Carnegie is by far the worst ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... attained to by any other person. Verily, thou shalt, soon after that, sport in joy many a region of great felicity created by Ganga herself for those that reverence her. Ganga always extends her grace unto those that are devoted to her with humbleness of heart. She unites those that are so devoted to her with every kind of happiness. I pray that the highly-blessed Ganga may always inspire thy heart and mine with such attributes as ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... low, thy projects high, So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be; Sink not in spirit; who aimeth at the sky Shoots higher much than he that means a tree. A grain of glory mixed with humbleness, Cures both a fever ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... retired from any active part in Catholic affairs. This may have been one of O'Connell's calculations. Although his aggressive propensities were sometimes indulged to an extreme degree, he was right in the main, for, the "whispering humbleness" of the older Catholic leaders would have never won emancipation; and this was handsomely and honourably confessed to Mr. P.V. Fitzpatrick by Lord Fingal, shortly before his death. Lord Fingal having sent for Mr. Fitzpatrick, that gentleman repaired ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... in thy soft surprise and modest silence! Yes! gentle humbleness is beauty's crown— The beautiful forever hid, and shrinking From its own lustre: but thy spirit needs Repose, for aught of strange—e'en sudden joy— ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... acknowledge as her true children those who believe without inspiration. It is not that she excludes reason and custom. On the contrary, the mind must be opened to proofs, must be confirmed by custom, and offer itself in humbleness to inspirations, which alone can produce a true and saving effect. Ne ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... you don't mind, ma'am," he said, with an air of humbleness she certainly had not seen in him before, "but I think the man's dead." And he stirred with his foot the heavy ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... crown was made of purity, chastity, modesty, infinite tenderness and patience and underlying fidelity to her sacred cause. It is to her in this capacity, with such a crown upon her head, that the noblest of men have been willing to bow down, in humbleness and submission, not as to an equal, or a rival in worldly prowess, but as to a superior and ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... such sort as till I may be fully confirmed in my new regeneration of your wonted favour I cannot receive that true comfort which doth appertain to so great a hope. Yet I will not only acknowledge with all humbleness and dutiful thanks the exceeding joy these last blessed lines brought to my long-wearied heart, but will, with all true loyal affection, attend that further joy from your sweet self which may utterly, extinguish all consuming ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... fallen in, the stair is blocked, and the fire still rages below. By Saint Paul! friends, we have fought a very honorable fight, and may say in all humbleness that we have done our devoir, but I think that we may now go back to the Lady Tiphaine and say our orisons, for we have played our parts in this world, and it is time that we made ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... humbly, and yet with a deep gladness, to divine God's intentions. It may sound proud, my friends, but we are conscious that it is also in all humbleness that we say it: the German soul is God's soul: it shall and will rule over mankind.—"On the German God," by PASTOR W. LEHMANN, ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... been Made perfect, and with wood and simple string He hath played music sweet as shawm-playing To please himself with softness of all sound; And no small thing but hath been sometime found Full sweet of use, and no such humbleness But God hath bruised withal the sentences And evidence of wise men witnessing; No leaf that is so soft a hidden thing It never shall get sight of the great sun; The strength of ten has been the strength of one, And lowliness has waxed imperious. SWINBURNE, ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... simplicity. To make the example yet more striking, Providence, which, according to the Stoics, does nothing by chance, determined that the example of these simple virtues should bloom in the midst of all human grandeur—that charity should be taught by the successor of blood stained Caesars, and humbleness of ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... remains, or some similar service. I am indebted to these trifles for some of the happiest attentions and the most pleasing incidents of my life. And there is this about such actions: they are disinterested, and the reward is sweet in proportion to the humbleness of the individual whom you have obliged. It counts many times more to do a kindness to a poor working-man than to a millionaire, who may be able some day to repay the favor. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... find one so free from prejudice as I am. I have many friends among the Protestants, and now that their system is tottering, they are all the dearer to me.' In spite of his scanty means, his shabby valet, his threadbare cloak, and the humbleness of his diplomatic position, the fire and honesty of his character combined with his known ability to place him high in the esteem of the society of St. Petersburg. His fidelity, devotion, and fortitude, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... prizes for oratory and essay writing and so forth that were open to him; he also allowed it to be seen that he was the chief person in the consideration of his class and the fraternity he had joined. Mary had a sort of humbleness about being the mother ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... thus stricken and laid waste, came President Lincoln on the morning of April 4. Never in the history of the world did the head of a mighty nation and the conqueror of a great rebellion enter the captured chief city of the insurgents in such humbleness and simplicity. He had gone two weeks before to City Point for a visit to General Grant, and to his son, Captain Robert Lincoln, who was serving on Grant's staff. Making his home on the steamer which brought him, and enjoying what was probably the most ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... rules or whims of the art, and he said I had "lost my way." I told him that I had "perhaps other notions of art than picture admirers have in general. I looked on pictures as things to be avoided, connoisseurs looked on them as things to be imitated; and that, too, with such a deference and humbleness of submission, amounting to a total prostration of mind and original feeling; as must serve only to fill the world with abortions." But he was very agreeable, and I endured the visit, I trust, without the usual ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... Humbleness, truthfulness, and harmlessness, Patience and honour, reverence for the wise. Purity, constancy, control of self, Contempt of sense-delights, self-sacrifice, Perception of the certitude of ill In birth, death, age, disease, suffering, and sin; Detachment, lightly holding unto home, Children, and ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... had, Singing of thee in the all-beloved clime Once, where the windy wine of spring makes mad Our sisters of Majano, who kept time Clear to my choral rhyme. Yet was the song acclaimed of these aloud Whose praise had made mute humbleness misproud, The song with answering song applauded thus, But of that Daulian dream of Itylus. So but for love's love haply was it—nay, How else?—that even their song took my song's part, For love of love and sweetness of sweet heart, Or god-given glorious madness of mid May And heat of heart ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... apparently preferring to live on money which Gerhardt had long since concluded was not being come by honestly. He was now pretty well satisfied as to the true relations of Jennie and Lester. At first he had believed them to be married, but the way Lester had neglected Jennie for long periods, the humbleness with which she ran at his beck and call, her fear of telling him about Vesta—somehow it all pointed to the same thing. She had not been married at home. Gerhardt had never had sight of her marriage certificate. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... stiffened into mingled anguish and scorn as she renounced the contest. Knowing himself the traitor that he was, he could yet hold her, kiss her, murmur tender things to her, allow her to cry upon his breast, to stammer repentance and humbleness. Cowardly! False! Treacherous! She flung out her hands, rigid, before her in the darkness, as though for ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... nothing new surveys, produc'd That visible speaking, new to us and strange The like not found on earth. Fondly I gaz'd Upon those patterns of meek humbleness, Shapes yet more precious for their artist's sake, When "Lo," the poet whisper'd, "where this way (But slack their pace), a multitude advance. These to the lofty steps shall guide ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... coarse and ignorant though he was, would have probably found his sense of equality in no way diminished, had he known more of the facts to which the present catastrophe was a sequel; at all events, he made no further objections. His manner changed to an almost submissive humbleness, and, without more words, he helped Bill to place the insensible ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... head, walked the old bitch Kashtanka, and the dog Viun, so named because of his black coat and long body and his resemblance to a loach. Viun was an unusually civil and friendly dog, looking as kindly at a stranger as at his masters, but he was not to be trusted. Beneath his deference and humbleness was hid the most inquisitorial maliciousness. No one knew better than he how to sneak up and take a bite at a leg, or slip into the larder or steal a muzhik's chicken. More than once they had nearly broken his hind-legs, twice he had been hung up, every week he was nearly flogged to death, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... in opposing the authority of the crown, they maintained, this session, their dignity against an encroachment of the peers, and would not agree to a conference which, they thought, was demanded of them in an irregular manner. They acknowledged, however, with all humbleness, (such is their expression,) the superiority of the lords: they only refused to give that house any reason for their proceedings; and asserted, that where they altered a bill sent them by the peers, it belonged to them to desire a conference, not to the upper ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... made him the ostensible hero of the tale, would have suited neither the modesty of his feelings nor the humbleness of my own expectation of telling it as I wished. I therefore took a younger and less pretending agent, in the personification of a descendant of the ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... child, who, like the prodigal in Scripture, hast destroyed thy substance with harlots and riotous living, in place of humbleness and repentance, dost thou impudently tell of this poor young maiden's shame before all the world? Oh, son! oh, son! even the blind heathen said, 'Ego illum periisse puto, cui quidem periit pudor' [Footnote: Plautus in Bacchid.]—which means, 'I esteem him dead in ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... slim hands and lifted the thing of gold. She turned, and held it above the startled eyes of Jerry Foster, and she placed it upon his head with all the dignity that became a queen. A word from her, and the men before him dropped in humbleness to the ground. The Princess Marahna was among them in honoring ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... they possessed of making other people happy. Mary remained with them more as a confidante than as a servant; indeed, she had so much money, that she received several offers of marriage, which she invariably refused, observing, with the true humbleness of a contrite heart, that she was undeserving of any honest, good man. Everybody else, even those who knew her history, thought otherwise; but Mary continued firm in her resolution. As for all the rest of the personages introduced into these pages, they passed ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... none, you must fortify your spear by something stronger, if you think of attacking that strongest of all!" "Well I know," the subtle Hagen, with an effect of humbleness, continues, "Siegfried's victorious strength, and how difficult to overcome him in battle; wherefore do you give me good counsel: by what device may this ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... It is a band of foragers, no doubt. But what are we going to do about it?" Hugh was nonplussed. The brown backs and bobbing heads still stretched before them in almost comical humbleness. ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... me as you spurn a stranger cur— Over your threshold; monies is your suit. What should I say to you? Should I not say; Hath a dog money? Is it possible A cur can lend three thousand ducats? Or Shall I bend low, and in a bondsman's key, With bated breath and whispering humbleness say this— Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last; You spurned me such a day; another time You called me—dog, and for these courtesies I'll lend ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... So in all humbleness I conclude my presenting to your good Lordship this wish: that if it perish it is but a loss of that which is not. And thus craving pardon that I have taken so much time from your Lordship, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... determined my father to this decision. John Heywood did it, and you call him my friend? You say that he is a true and devoted servant to us both? Beware of his fidelity, queen, and build not on his devotedness; for I tell you his soul is full of falsehood; and while he appears to bow before you in humbleness, his eyes are only searching for the place on your heel where he can strike you most surely and most mortally. Oh, he is a serpent, a venomous serpent; and he has just wounded me mortally and incurably. But no," continued she, energetically, "I will not ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... backslidings of my age—which have been numerous; and once I had a very heavy backsliding—but that's neither here nor there. So, as I was a-saying, having collected all my sinfulness of life, and humbleness before Heaven, into a goodish bit of courage, forward I steps—a little furder—and a leetle furder more—un-til I come'd just up to the beautiful shining star lying upon the dust. Well, it was a long time I stood a-looking down at it, before I ventured to do what I arterwards did. ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... he could improve the Book, which, if any man shall add unto, there shall be added unto him the plagues that are written therein; just such difference is there between that which, with respect to Nature, man is, in his humbleness, called upon to do, and that which, in his insolence, he imagines himself ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Richard, and his heart sank within him with grim forebodings. Then, when Robin Hood had done, he turned to the Bishop of Hereford. "Now, my Lord Bishop," said he, "dost thou not think this is ill done of anyone, much more of a churchman, who should live in humbleness ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... labours, a magnificent college was erected at Serampore; sixteen flourishing stations were established; the Bible was translated into sixteen languages, and the seeds were sown of a beneficent moral revolution in British India. Carey was never ashamed of the humbleness of his origin. On one occasion, when at the Governor-General's table he over-heard an officer opposite him asking another, loud enough to be heard, whether Carey had not once been a shoemaker: "No, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... again, with a humbleness that seemed strangely gentle after all his bluster and brag, "will you look at this and tell me what you ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Florence—begun in Latin, and he quotes three lines of it—continued afterward in Italian. This is not impossible; indeed, the germ and presage of it may be traced in the Vita Nuova. The idealized saint is there, in all the grace of her pure and noble humbleness, the guide and safeguard of the poet's soul. She is already in glory with Mary the Queen of Angels. She already beholds the face of the Ever-blessed. And the envoye of the Vita Nuova is the promise ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... closest cling to earth, And they first feel the sun; so violets blue, So the soft star-like primrose drenched in dew, The happiest of spring's happy fragrant birth, To gentlest touches, sweetest tones reply; So humbleness, with her low-breathed voice, Can steal o'er man's proud ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be possessing Honor, humbleness, and might, And thus only can the blessing Sent our monarch shine with right. All the ancient sins must perish— In the God-sent deluge all, And the heritage we cherish To a worthy heir ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... shalt see the difference of our spirit, I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it: For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's; The other half comes to the general state, Which humbleness may drive unto ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... his doctor, but he was not conscious of fatigue. He would not have left his post for a king's ransom, for he felt himself communing with the dying, sharing the last stage in his journey as he had shared all the rough marches. His proud spirit found a certain solace in the abasement of its humbleness. ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... Recalling the time when they had refused invitations right and left because there was no one in Prouty whom they had cared to know, a smile of bitterness came to her lips. Since then, she had eaten the pie of humbleness to the last crumb. She had become a self-acknowledged toady, a spineless sycophant, and for what? For the privilege of being invited to teas, bridge whists, of being sure of a place in ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... very tragedy of such humbleness was that it made an appeal to passion rather than to mercy. It made him love her more, not pity her more. "I can't let you go, Elizabeth," he said, hoarsely; "I can't; I love you—I will never let you go! I will die before I will let ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... of Bohemia, yet the real thing nevertheless. It is a broad, clean, brazen sort of sunshine—a sunshine that should say, "See me work! See me shine! See me show up the least last ugliness or smallness or humbleness, and glorify it to something ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... which is, in the sight of God, of great price. For all women there is something nobler than to be recognized as the queen of heaven. Let woman be content to be what God made her, to fill the sphere God appointed for her, in unselfishness, and humbleness, and purity, rejoicing in God her Saviour, content that He had regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden, and rejoicing that God has honored the characteristics regarded as feminine, which she possesses, and which she may use for the glory of God and the good of the ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... ask your father!" Arethusa's expression remained most unrelenting. "But I really do beg your pardon, in all humbleness, for laughing at you. It was horribly rude of me, I'll have to admit, and I'm certainly sorry that I did it. So do forgive me this time, and let's go on being friends. ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... delightful belongings; Jock Jabos and the rest; Monkbarns and Edie Ochiltree, and all the pathos of the Mucklebackits; Bailie Nicol Jarvie and the Dougal Cratur; humours of the clachan and the hillside; Jeanie Deans in her perfect humbleness and truth. It would be vain to attempt to name the new inhabitants of Scotland who appeared out of the unseen wherever Scott moved. Neither to himself nor to his audience could it seem that these friends of all were new created, invented by any man. Scott, who alone could ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... head in deep humbleness and joy. And again he lifted his great voice and intoned his song of praise. The little Pilgrim understood it, but by fragments,—a line that was more simple that came here and there. And it praised the Lord that where the face of the Father was hidden; and where love was ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... that Lang ought to be approached with 'bated breath and whispering humbleness'—just as he is on the point of trampling us and our cause into ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Which also first emboldened me to trust With firmness, hitherto but lightly touched By such a daring thought, that I might leave 55 Some monument behind me which pure hearts Should reverence. The instinctive humbleness, Maintained even by the very name and thought Of printed books and authorship, began To melt away; and further, the dread awe 60 Of mighty names was softened down and seemed Approachable, admitting fellowship Of modest sympathy. Such aspect now, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... and somewhat hastily busied herself with refilling Mr. Linden's cup. Then she folded her hands and sat looking into the fire with a face on which there was a touching expression of humbleness. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... feeling; yet, in the religious system from which his poetry springs, they find nothing but what seems to them dry, harsh, narrow, and antiquated. He attracts and he repels; and the attraction and repulsion are equally strong. They see one side, and he is irresistible in his simplicity, humbleness, unworldliness, and ever considerate charity, combined with so much keenness and freshness of thought, and such sure and unfailing truth of feeling. They see another, and he seems to them full of strange ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... don't know, sir!" said Daisy, looking up with a sudden expression of humbleness. "I do not know anything about ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... a humbleness might Diana have wooed her shepherd, stooping her goddess head to him on the ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be all made of sighs and tears; It is to be all made of faith and service; It is to be all made of phantasy; All made of passion, and all made of wishes; All adoration, duty, and observance; All humbleness, all patience, and impatience; All purity, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... let her seek the governor by her own ways and held myself clear of meddling in the matter, not doubting she was mad. But I have seen her stand before those nobles and might men unafraid, and say her say; and she had not been able to do that but by the help of God. That I know. Therefore with all humbleness I am at her command, to do with me as ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... kind of her," she used to say with heartfelt humbleness of spirit. "I never dreamed of her doing such a generous thing. I hadn't a shadow of a claim upon her—not a shadow." It was her way to express her honest emotions with emphasis which italicised, as it were, her outpourings ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... attitude. In the spaces beyond the stars there may be marvels such as it has not entered into the mind of man to conceive; but there, as here, the right way to look will still be upward, and the right aspiration be still toward humbleness and charity. I have just spoken of Emerson's absence of system; but his writings have nevertheless a singular coherence, by virtue of the single-hearted motive that has inspired them. Many will, doubtless, have noticed, as I have done, how the whole of Emerson ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... work-table placed beneath the portrait of the lieutenant-colonel of artillery between two windows,—a point from which her eye could rake the rue du Bercail and see all comers. She was a good woman, dressed with bourgeois simplicity in keeping with her wan face furrowed by grief. The rigorous humbleness of poverty made itself felt in all the accessories of this household, the very air of which was charged with the stern and upright morals of the provinces. At this moment the son and mother were together in the dining-room, where they were breakfasting ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... All summer he has been doing some original thinking on the subject of Sound. When I was his age, Tyndall was the big voice on this subject; yet we have come to think in all humbleness that Tyndall only touched his toes in the stream. The Dakotan has spent the last few years afield. He is a tramp, a solitaire, a student at the sources of life. Things have been made easier for him here. He took to this life with the ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... you, And worship with a passion new The Heaven that visibly allows Its grace to go about my house, The partial Heaven, that, though I err And mortal am, gave all to her Who gave herself to me. Yet I Boldly thank Heaven, (and so defy The beggarly soul'd humbleness Which fears God's bounty to confess,) That I was fashion'd with a mind Seeming for this great gift design'd, So naturally it moved above All sordid contraries of love, Strengthen'd in youth with discipline Of light, to follow the divine Vision, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... hours which might otherwise have been spent in the society of ungenial spirits, whose base-born spirits cannot soar to those exalted heights of poetical sentiment in which I, it must be confessed, with due humbleness, delight to roam. Hoping soon to receive a response congenial to my heart, no more at present from your attached friend, if I may take the ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... to control education all over the world, banishing or restricting individualism, egotism, chauvinism and bigotism, and promoting by all means panhumanism by developing the mind for collective work, mutual help, personal goodness and humbleness ...
— The New Ideal In Education • Nicholai Velimirovic
... Rosamund, chief among those for whom these tales are told, The Book of Dragons is dedicated in the confident hope that she, one of these days, will dedicate a book of her very own making to the one who now bids eight dreadful dragons crouch in all humbleness at those ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... for my fellow man. If gift o' mine can cheer his soul an' hearten him along his way Let me not keep that talent hid; I would make use of it to-day. An' since the robins ask no praise, or pay for all their songs o' cheer, Let me in humbleness rejoice to do ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... Elizabeth was indeed subjected to great humiliations, and even compelled to sue for her life. What more piteous than her letter to Mary, begging only for an interview: "Wherefore I humbly beseech your Majesty to let me answer before yourself; and, once again kneeling with humbleness of heart, I earnestly crave to speak to your Highness, which I would not be so bold as to desire if I knew not myself most clear, as I know myself most true." Here is a woman pleading for her life to a sister ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... A word of self-explaining unexpressed,— Trifles they seem, these petty soul-restraints; Yet he who proves them so must needs possess A constancy and courage grand and bold. They are the trifles that have made the saints. Give me to practise them in humbleness, And nobler power than mine doth no ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... she said, "that it will be useless to carry the thing any further. I did think I could manage it myself, but I see now that it was hopeless from the start. Will you sit down?" There was a certain sweet humbleness in her voice which turned the big man's heart to water. "I'll tell you everything now, and so you ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... purpling cup they fill, That goblet passes him untasted still— And for his fare—the rudest of his crew Would that, in turn, have passed untasted too; 70 Earth's coarsest bread, the garden's homeliest roots, And scarce the summer luxury of fruits, His short repast in humbleness supply With all a hermit's board would scarce deny. But while he shuns the grosser joys of sense, His mind seems nourished by that abstinence. "Steer to that shore!"—they sail. "Do this!"—'tis done: "Now form and follow ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... have to learn more humbleness of mind, my dear child," he retorted sternly. "I cannot allow you to reply to your future husband in this ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love." Eph. 4:2. When we put on Christ, we put on his nature and characteristics. He was long-suffering; and we are commanded to put on as the elect of God "bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... on her face on the carpet, and passed the night sobbing and weeping, and forming resolutions to live, in future, like Saint Theodore, in poverty and humbleness. ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... it was not the end. It was to mean, not only that Tanqueray would no longer exist for her, but that she would no longer exist for Tanqueray. In her attitude to him, there had always been, though Tanqueray did not know it, an immense simplicity and humbleness. She felt herself wiped out by this woman who wore for him (she saw her wearing) all the powers and all the splendours. Tanqueray's wife must make an end of her and of everything. There was nothing, not the smallest, most pitiful, cast-up fragment that she could save from ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... rose Cock-eye Flinks. "Lady," said he, with humbleness, "you wouldn't be hard on a poor workingman, would you? It ain't my fault I'm here, lady—at least, it ain't rightly my fault. I just climbed over the wall to rest a minute—just a minute, lady, in the ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... thanks for these things, let us pray Almighty God that in all humbleness of spirit we may look always to Him for guidance; that we may be kept constant in the spirit and purpose of service; that by His grace our minds may be directed and our hands strengthened, and that in His good time liberty and security and peace ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... are plac'd On either side, with rich rare jewels grac'd, Moving a question whether that by them The gem is grac'd, or they grac'd by the gem. But the foundation of the architect Is the swan-staining, fair, rare, stately neck Which with ambitious humbleness stands under, Bearing aloft this rich, round world of wonder. Her breast, a place for beauty's throne most fit, Bears up two globes where love and pleasure sit, Which, headed with two rich, round rubies, show Like wanton rosebuds growing out of ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... contemporaries. They did not hide themselves in refectories and dormitories, but lived perpetually before the public. In the sequel indeed they built Friaries for their residence; but these were no less distinguished for the simplicity and humbleness of their appearance, than the monasteries were for their grandeur and almost regal magnificence. The Friars were incessant in preaching and praying, voluntarily exposed themselves to the severest hardships, and were distinguished by a fervour of devotion and charitable ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... winding strip of plain. The snow lay deep upon road and fields, for the April sun was powerless to send warmth through the gray clouds, and the heavy spring rains were yet to come. This chill and universal white, the humbleness of the wooden church and the wooden houses scattered along the road, the gloomy forest edging so close that it seemed to threaten, these all spoke of a harsh existence in a stern land. But as the men and boys ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... much delight in as the process of getting hot and very dirty, and, if convenient, somewhat sanguinary. You cannot educate the manliness out of him, try as you will; and for such blessings let us in all humbleness give ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... from him toward me, to forsake weakness for strength. Yes, I say strength. I was rent by the tumult within me, but I had strength. I have it now. For, despite his hypocrisy, his unbelief, his active sinning, Marcus Harding had been a strong man. And even Henry Chichester, with all his humbleness, his readiness to yield to others, to think nothing of himself, had had the strength that belongs to purity of soul. And then there is the strength the soul draws from looking upon truth. There was strength, there ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... "O Mother Maid! O Maid and Mother free! 15 O bush unburnt! burning in Moses' sight! That down didst ravish from the Deity, Through humbleness, the spirit that did alight Upon thy heart, whence, through that glory's might, Conceived was the Father's sapience, 20 Help me to tell it in ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... aboard and proceeded. That distant dreamful mesa had drawn very near. It was scandalous. The aloof desert whose terror, whose beauty, whose wonder, whose allure was the awe of infinite space that could be traversed only in toil and humbleness, had been contracted by a thing that now ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved; because He is The Giver, The Father of lights, from whom comes every good and perfect gift; because all which makes this earth habitable—all justice, order, wisdom, goodness, mercy, humbleness, self-sacrifice— all which is fair, or honourable, or useful, in men or angels, in kings on their thrones or in labourers at the plough, in divines in their studies or soldiers in the field of battle—all in the whole universe, which is not useless, and ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... England; Look up across the narrow seas, Across the great white nations to thy dark imperial throne Where now three hundred million souls attend on thine august decrees; Ah, bow thine head in humbleness, the Kingdom is thine own: Not for the pride or power God gave thee this in dower; But, now the West and East have met and wept their mortal loss, Now that their tears have spoken And the long ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... then his proud and haughty heart To act of humbleness did never bend, When that great name he heard, from the north part Of our wide world renowned to Aethiop's end, Answered, "I yield to thee, thou worthy art, I am thy prisoner, fortune is thy friend: ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... dead, Appealing but to life: I am afraid Of you, but not so much if you have sinned As for the doubt if sin shall be forgiven. The day was, I have been afraid of pride— Hard man's hard pride; but now I am afraid Of man's humility, I counsel you, By the great God's great humbleness, and by His pity, be not humble over-much. See! I will show at whose unopened doors He stands and knocks, that you may never says 'I am too mean, too ignorant, too lost; He knocks at other ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... sunk. Then, stretched from heaven, Thy hand Slid under me in might, and lifted me, And fixed me in Thy Temple where Thou wouldst. Wonder, ye great ones, wonder, ye the wise! On me, the last and least, this charge was laid This crown, that I in humbleness and truth Should walk this nation's Servant ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... the evening. In the morning purpose, in the evening discuss the manner, what thou hast been this day, in word, work, and thought.' But while the Roman's temper is a modest self-reliance, the Christian aims at a more passive mood, humbleness and meekness, and reliance on the presence and personal friendship of God. The Roman scrutinises his faults with severity, but without the self-contempt which makes the Christian 'vile in his own sight.' The Christian, like the Roman, bids ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... and closed the door behind him with an exaggerated care. It hardly seemed as if he had the right, except in a salutary humbleness, even to touch a door which shut in Esther to the gods of home. He went back to his father's house, and there was Lydia singing as she dusted the library. He walked in blindly not knowing whether she was ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... putting into the mouth of his master, who had so often marched up and down through Thrace, ravaging and burning, these solemn praises of "Tranquillity". And when we read the fulsome flattery which is lavished on Anastasius, the almost obsequious humbleness with which the great Ostrogoth, who was certainly the stronger monarch of the two, prays for a renewal of his friendship, we may perhaps suspect either that the "illiteratus Rex" did not comprehend the full meaning of the document to which he attached his ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... necessity of wasting more time in Greensboro. A little later Teeny-bits and Wolcott Norris were in the Hamilton station greeting Pa Holbrook, who insisted on taking them home to supper. No one could be more hospitable than this kindly old couple who made no excuses for the humbleness of their home and who gave to every one who entered it the true feeling of welcome. They accepted the mining engineer as a friend of Teeny-bits. Ma Holbrook said to herself that here was "a real ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... so of trade tobacco, but that nevertheless his high-born soul was still at so lofty an altitude that it could not sink itself to such a depth of degradation as to shake hands with a mere female woman. Poor Charmian! Since her Malaita experiences she has become a changed woman. Her meekness and humbleness are appallingly becoming, and I should not be surprised, when we return to civilization and stroll along a sidewalk, to see her take her station, with bowed head, a yard ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... monies is your suit, What should I say to you? Should I not say 'Hath a dog money? is it possible A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' or Shall I bend low, and in a bondman's key, With 'bated breath, and whispering humbleness, Say this,— 'Fair Sir, you spet on me on Wednesday last; You spurn'd me such a day; another time You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies I'll lend ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare |
