John Selden Quotes

Humility is, of all graces, the chiefest when it does not know itself to be a grace at all.

What is modesty but inverted pride?

Humility is like a tree, whose root when it sets deepest in the earth rises higher, and spreads fairer and stands surer, and lasts longer, and every step of its descent is like a rib of iron.

Humility is indeed beatness, a compulsory virtue that no one exhibits unless he has to.

Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.

Plenty of people want to be pious, but no one yearns to be humble.

Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise, and yet every body is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.

Humility is a virtue when you have no other.

Humility must always be doing its work like a bee making honey in the hive: without humility all will be lost.

Pridelessness is negative good; humility is positive good.

We must not confuse humility with false modesty or servility.

Humility is a necessary veil to all other graces.

Modesty makes large amends for the pain it gives those who labor under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy person in their favor.

Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail, nor reason.

Modesty once extinguished knows not how to return.

Humility consists in not esteeming ourselves above other men, and in not seeking to be esteemed above them.

Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.

Humility is the ability to give up your pride and still retain your dignity.

Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation.

Modesty is hardly to be described as a virtue. It is a feeling rather than a disposition. It is a kind of fear of falling into disrepute.

Modesty is the delicate form of hypocrisy.

Modesty is only arrogance by stealth.

I believe humility is a virtue, but I prefer not to use it unless it is absolutely necessary.

One may be humble out of pride.

Humility has the toughest hide.