Source-backed quotations about self-knowledge, pride, intellectual limits, teachability, receiving correction, service, modest conduct, lightness toward self-importance, and seeing oneself accurately without vanity, false certainty, abasement, or self-erasure.
Humility can mean different things in different sources. Quotations about the self can point in opposite directions: accept yourself, change yourself, trust yourself, question yourself. The tension is part of the subject rather than a problem to hide. This collection includes 143 quotations across 60 authors or source voices and 93 named sources.
Look for lines that clarify a standard, boundary, habit, or decision. Self-respect is more useful when it becomes conduct, not merely a flattering description. Useful neighboring ideas include Short, Wisdom, Life, Deep, Thinking, Understanding.
Voices: Mark Twain, Alexander Pope, Arthur Schopenhauer, King James Bible, Marcus Aurelius.
Sources: Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, An Essay on Criticism, The Analects of Confucius, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
The collection distinguishes confidence from superiority and self-care from avoidance. A good line should sharpen self-knowledge rather than protect the ego from every correction.
These are reading groupings of the same quotations.
Concise lines for readers who want the core idea without a long passage.
Quotations connected with deeper interpretation, perspective, philosophy, or sustained thought.
Lines connected with action, discipline, effort, habits, work, or perseverance.
Material about failure, adversity, recovery, resilience, or learning from pressure.
Older works represented in the collection, useful for comparing how the topic changes across time.
Compare ideas, voices and source contexts before choosing a line.
These lenses help separate different meanings inside a broad topic.
143 quotations from 60 voices and 93 named sources.
Length mix: 96 short · 42 medium · 5 long.
The writers represented here do not necessarily agree with one another.
Frequently represented voices include Mark Twain, Alexander Pope, Arthur Schopenhauer, King James Bible. Frequently represented works include Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, An Essay on Criticism, The Analects of Confucius, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry.
Nearby themes such as Short, Wisdom, Life, Deep, Thinking can help narrow the question.
60 distinct voices across 143 quotations and 93 named sources.
Use these representative lines as a starting point before reading the full collection.
“No man ever originates anything.”
What Is Man? · 1906Read meaning & context →“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
An Essay on Criticism · 1711Read meaning & context →“it is only when he has turned it over that he can be said to know it.”
The Art of Literature · 1851Read meaning & context →“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.”
King James Bible — Proverbs 16:9 · 1611Read meaning & context →“Very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.”
Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus · c. 170Read meaning & context →“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
King James Bible — Proverbs 16:18 · 1611Read meaning & context →“I may be wrong.”
The admission places a limit on Washington’s own policy claims and models intellectual uncertainty rather than presenting judgment as infallible.
Source note: The Future of the American Negro, Chapter VIII; Project Gutenberg #26507. The sentence appears in Washington’s closing policy discussion immediately after his summary of dangers and immediately before his qualification that he may also be in some degree right.
“Murder your darlings.”
The memorable command advises writers to delete showy passages they love when those passages serve vanity or ornament more than the work as a whole.
Source note: On the Art of Writing, Lecture XII, “On Style,” Project Gutenberg #17470; the phrase concludes Quiller-Couch’s warning against purchased or extraneous ornament.
“Do your work quietly.”
Useful work does not need constant display; quiet concentration can keep attention on the quality of the task rather than recognition for performing it.
Source note: Character Building, “Some Great Little Things,” Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington places this instruction among small daily habits of order, quiet, cleanliness, reading and reflection that he treats as important parts of character formation.
“No man ever originates anything.”
This deliberately extreme claim summarizes the Old Man’s thesis that thought is assembled from inherited experience and external influence rather than created from nothing.
Source note: What Is Man?, Old Man speaking in the opening dialogue. This collection treats the sentence as a provocative deterministic position inside the dialogue, not as settled psychology.
“You and I are but sewing-machines.”
The comic comparison reduces human pride by placing ordinary people beside the much richer creative machinery Twain has just attributed to Shakespeare.
Source note: What Is Man?, Old Man speaking after comparing Shakespeare with a Gobelin loom; the machine metaphor is part of the essay’s comic-philosophical dialogue.
“There is joy in self-forgetfulness.”
Joy can grow when attention moves away from constant self-concern and becomes absorbed in people, work, ideas, or experiences beyond oneself.
Source note: The Story of My Life; Keller links happiness with moments when self-consciousness recedes.
“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
Error is treated as ordinary human limitation, while forgiveness requires an additional act of generosity.
Source note: An Essay on Criticism, Part II; Pope warns that shallow learning can produce premature confidence before deeper study tempers judgment.
“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”
Facts can be acquired quickly, while judgment develops more slowly through reflection and experience.
Source note: Poem “Locksley Hall”; the contrast distinguishes readily acquired knowledge from the slower development of judgment and wisdom.
“I neither know nor think that I know.”
Socrates locates a small advantage in recognizing the boundary of his own knowledge: uncertainty is intellectually healthier than possessing the same ignorance while mistaking it for wisdom.
Source note: Plato, Apology, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1656. Socrates says this after examining a politician whom others considered wise; the wording is dialogue speech attributed to Socrates within Plato’s work, not a claim that Socrates knew literally nothing.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
Partial knowledge can produce misplaced confidence; the warning favors deeper study over shallow certainty.
Source note: An Essay on Criticism, Part II; Pope warns that shallow learning can produce premature confidence before deeper study tempers judgment.
“A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing.”
Partial knowledge can create confidence before understanding has become deep enough to recognize its limits.
Source note: An Essay on Criticism; Pope follows the line with the image of drinking deeply from the Pierian spring.
“They know Earth-secrets that know not I.”
The speaker ends by conceding that the small creatures may possess forms of earthly knowledge unavailable to him, turning observation into intellectual humility.
Source note: “An August Midnight,” Project Gutenberg #3168. The line is poetic speculation about nonhuman knowledge rather than a scientific claim about insect cognition.
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
The line warns that confidence without judgment can push people into situations that more thoughtful people approach cautiously.
Source note: An Essay on Criticism, Part III; Pope warns against reckless confidence and poor judgment in critics.
“No class has the prerogative of simplicity”
The claim prevents simplicity from becoming a badge of poverty or privilege: people in different circumstances can still live with directness and proportion.
Source note: The Simple Life, Chapter II, Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; Wagner explicitly rejects class ownership of simplicity.
“And pause awhile from Learning to be wise;”
Johnson distinguishes accumulating learning from exercising judgment, asking the scholar to interrupt pursuit of knowledge long enough to examine what wisdom requires.
Source note: The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Johnson’s imitation of Juvenal’s Tenth Satire; the line introduces a section on the hazards and disappointments surrounding learned ambition.
“The universe is wider than our views of it.”
Reality exceeds any one viewpoint, so confidence in a perspective should leave room for what has not yet been seen.
Source note: Walden, Conclusion; Thoreau uses the sentence while arguing that familiar human views do not exhaust reality.
“For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.”
Confidence without sufficient judgment can make haste look like courage when caution would be wiser.
Source note: An Essay on Criticism; original capitalization is lightly normalized elsewhere on the site.
“They teach us quite as much as we teach them.”
Education is reciprocal: adults may guide children, but close attention to children also teaches adults patience, perspective, honesty, and better ways of understanding growth.
Source note: Little Men; the observation describes the mutual education taking place in the Plumfield household and school rather than a one-way transfer of knowledge.
“Each of you is right, and none of you is wrong.”
The parable resists a simple either-or verdict by showing that apparently competing explanations can each describe part of a larger movement.
Source note: The Forerunner, “The Two Learned Men”; the line concludes a parable about different explanations of motion and perspective.
“ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.”
The narrator uses irony to show how not knowing enough can make almost anything seem plausible, widening speculation rather than understanding.
Source note: Daniel Deronda; narrator’s ironic observation while Gwendolen speculates about Grandcourt, represented from Project Gutenberg #7469.
“I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve.”
The line combines joy with humility: Wentworth recognizes that his renewed happiness exceeds what his earlier pride and mistakes make him feel he has earned.
Source note: Persuasion, Chapter XXIII.
“I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid.”
Abigail asks pardon while attempting to prevent violence, connecting forgiveness with humility, mediation, and the practical work of interrupting retaliation.
Source note: 1 Samuel 25:28, King James Version; Abigail speaks to David during her appeal intended to avert bloodshed against Nabal’s household.
“Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.”
The aphorism mocks reformers who find other people’s behavior easier to correct than their own, using a compact reversal to expose self-exemption and misplaced certainty.
Source note: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter XV epigraph; a Calendar maxim immediately before the eggs-in-one-basket passage.
“Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.”
James resists treating every possible intellectual mistake as catastrophic, because an excessive fear of error can itself prevent inquiry, experience and the possibility of gaining truth.
Source note: The Will to Believe, essay “The Will to Believe”; Project Gutenberg #26659. James is contrasting the risk of being mistaken with the cost of refusing every uncertain intellectual venture.
“He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.”
The joke distinguishes healthy self-respect from vanity by showing how self-adoration can become a closed competition with everyone else.
Source note: Poor Richard’s Almanack.
“Humanity does not desire to be great, but to be beloved.”
Smith contrasts humane character with status-seeking by presenting affection and social trust, rather than greatness itself, as the fitting reward of humanity.
Source note: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part III, in Smith’s discussion of the rewards commonly associated with industry, truth, justice, and humanity.
“Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.”
Chesterton uses levity as a metaphor against swollen self-importance: the ability to take oneself less heavily becomes part of spiritual freedom rather than evidence that serious responsibilities do not matter.
Source note: Orthodoxy, Chapter VII, “The Eternal Revolution,” Project Gutenberg #130. The sentence belongs to Chesterton’s explicitly Christian contrast between levity and pride; he immediately describes pride as a downward heaviness and self-forgetfulness as something one rises toward.
“Very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.”
The line challenges the assumption that a good life requires constant accumulation or ideal circumstances.
Source note: Meditations, Book VII, in George Long’s translation.
“But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.”
Status is inverted: the stronger model of greatness is usefulness to others rather than rank, display, or privilege.
Source note: Matthew 23:11 in the King James Version, within a warning against seeking honorific status and public elevation.
“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”
The wit turns “experience” into a retrospective label for errors, suggesting that mistakes become useful only when understood.
Source note: The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 edition, Chapter 4; third-person narration focalized through Lord Henry reflects that experience is the name people give to their mistakes.
“We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success.”
Failure can expose what does not work and force closer observation, turning setbacks into information that uncomplicated success may never reveal.
Source note: Self-Help, Chapter XI, “Self-Culture—Facilities and Difficulties,” Project Gutenberg #935. The passage follows Charles James Fox’s contrast between early success and perseverance after failure, then leads into examples of discoveries and learning produced through mistakes and failed attempts.
“He will remember always that beauty exists in many forms.”
The sentence resists a single narrow standard of beauty and asks the critic to remain open to excellence appearing through different periods, types and schools.
Source note: The Renaissance, Preface; Project Gutenberg #2398. The following sentences extend the point across periods and schools of taste.
“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”
Nietzsche warns that fixed certainty can block revision more effectively than an obvious falsehood because conviction can make contrary evidence harder to examine.
Source note: Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 483, “The Enemies of Truth”; Helen Zimmern translation, 1909 edition.
“God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.”
Pride is treated as a barrier while humility is presented as a posture open to correction, help, and grace.
Source note: James 4:6 in the King James Version.
“Happy is the man who learns from the misfortunes of others.”
Other people’s failures can become instruction when we pay attention to consequences before repeating the same mistake ourselves.
Source note: Moral printed after “The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass”; the fox changes his conduct after observing the ass’s fate.
“Remember that you must behave in life as at a dinner party.”
The dinner-party image recommends waiting for what comes in proper order instead of grabbing anxiously, turning restraint into a model for daily conduct.
Source note: Enchiridion, chapter 15; the following sentences explain waiting until things come round to you.
“It’s easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient.”
The remark exposes the asymmetry between recommending endurance to someone else and actually bearing hardship oneself.
Source note: Adam Bede; spoken in dialect within the novel, so the source note keeps the fictional conversational setting rather than turning it into an editionless author maxim.
“Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years.”
Mortality is used to challenge postponement: limited time makes present conduct more important than fantasies of an indefinitely extended future.
Source note: Meditations, Book IV, section 17, in George Long’s translation.
“We don’t care to eat toadstools that think they are truffles.”
The food comparison mocks pretension: the problem is not merely being ordinary, but adopting an inflated estimate of one’s own status and expecting others to accept it.
Source note: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter V epigraph, introduced as a remark concerning upstarts in the Calendar sequence.
“The education of character is very much a question of models.”
People absorb conduct from examples around them, so lived models can teach more powerfully than rules that are contradicted by behavior.
Source note: Self-Help, Chapter XII, “Example—Models,” Project Gutenberg #935. Smiles argues that character education depends heavily on models because people unconsciously mould themselves after the characters, manners, habits and opinions around them.
“I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.”
Ruskin defines greatness without self-worship: genuine ability can be recognized accurately while still being held inside a larger sense of proportion, dependence and responsibility.
Source note: Modern Painters, Volume III, Part IV, Chapter XVI, section 24, Project Gutenberg #38923. Ruskin immediately clarifies that humility does not mean doubt of one’s real power or hesitation about one’s opinions; it means understanding those powers in relation to a much larger world.
“Everything has its limit—iron ore cannot be educated into gold.”
The metaphor distinguishes growth from limitless transformation: training can develop capacities, but the dialogue also insists that development occurs within constraints.
Source note: What Is Man?, opening machine-and-metal analogy; the Old Man uses iron and gold to argue for limits within his deterministic model of human development.
“Why dispute what we shall be, when we know not even what we are.”
Speculation about future identity becomes less certain when present self-knowledge is incomplete, making humility a reasonable response to confident predictions about becoming.
Source note: The Madman, parable of the pomegranate; the line closes a dispute among voices imagining different futures.
“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.”
Understanding a position requires serious contact with competing arguments; familiarity with only one side can produce confidence without real comprehension.
Source note: On Liberty, Chapter 2; Mill argues for open discussion because opposing views expose weaknesses and sharpen understanding.
“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.”
Planning has value while remaining limited; the verse holds intention and humility about outcomes together.
Source note: Proverbs 16:9 in the King James Version.
“It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil”
Keller explicitly rejects an optimism that refuses to see harm, making clear-eyed attention to difficult facts part of her constructive outlook.
Source note: Optimism: An Essay (1903), Project Gutenberg #31622. The following paragraph calls ignorant or indifferent optimism dangerous and false.
“They ought to be illustrations not authorities, studies not models.”
Great predecessors can teach principles without becoming templates to copy, preserving the learner’s responsibility to develop independent judgment and expression.
Source note: The Principles of Success in Literature, chapter on Style, Project Gutenberg #10420; Lewes is warning writers against imitating Cicero, Titian or other masters.
“One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”
People often mistake their own preferences for universal standards, while real understanding requires room for different tastes and experiences.
Source note: The observation follows disagreement about what different people enjoy and value.
“When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.”
Pride is linked with poor judgment while humility is linked with wisdom, suggesting that accurate self-estimation improves decision making.
Source note: Proverbs 11:2 in the King James Version.
“Humility—to put a seal upon your lips and forget what you have done.”
Drummond defines humility as allowing good work to remain larger than the ego that performed it: kindness is followed by a refusal to turn the act into self-advertisement or private self-congratulation.
Source note: “The Greatest Thing in the World,” in The Greatest Thing in the World and Other Addresses, Project Gutenberg #16739. Drummond explicitly places Humility among the “ingredients” of Christian love and glosses it as love that does not vaunt itself.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
The proverb treats pride as a warning sign that can blind judgment before a serious mistake.
Source note: Proverbs 15:1 in the King James Version; the proverb contrasts a soft answer with speech that intensifies wrath.
“It is above all things necessary to form a true estimate of oneself.”
A realistic estimate of one’s abilities and limits supports both confidence and humility, reducing the instability that comes from either self-contempt or exaggerated self-belief.
Source note: Of Peace of Mind, section VI; the passage begins Seneca’s practical advice about matching undertakings to one’s actual powers and disposition.
“it is only when he has turned it over that he can be said to know it.”
Learning becomes knowledge, in this account, when material has been actively reconsidered and integrated rather than merely encountered or memorized.
Source note: The Art of Literature, section “On Thinking for Oneself,” T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10714. The preceding sentence says a person must first learn something before turning it over in the mind.
“By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life.”
The proverb connects humility with a larger conception of flourishing, placing character before the rewards associated with status or wealth.
Source note: Proverbs 22:4 in the King James Version.
“We hear only the questions to which we are capable of finding an answer.”
The aphorism suggests that inquiry is limited by the conceptual capacities of the person asking, making intellectual growth partly a matter of becoming able to formulate and recognize better questions.
Source note: The Joyful Wisdom, aphorism 196; Thomas Common translation.
“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure.”
Austen observes that even sincere accounts can contain omission, disguise, or misunderstanding, which makes careful listening and humility important in judging what people say.
Source note: Emma, Volume III, Chapter 13, during the narrator’s reflection on Emma and Mr. Knightley’s conversation.
“Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.”
The proverb ranks ethical conduct above larger income, treating the means by which wealth is obtained as more important than the amount.
Source note: Proverbs 16:8 in the King James Version.
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
Greatness is stripped of spectacle and measured instead by moral clarity, goodness, and freedom from unnecessary complication.
Source note: War and Peace; the narrator’s judgment of greatness appears in the novel’s discussion of Kutuzov, simplicity, goodness and truth.
“Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.”
Human interdependence creates two practical choices when others fall short: help them learn when possible, or practice patient endurance when change is unavailable.
Source note: Meditations, Book VIII; George Long translation in Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”
The epigram satirizes the irritation produced when another person’s good conduct silently exposes our own shortcomings, making moral example feel inconvenient rather than inspiring.
Source note: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter XIX epigraph; one of the Calendar maxims before the chapter.
“The superior man wishes to be slow in his speech and earnest in his conduct.”
Restraint in speech is paired with seriousness in action, placing demonstrated conduct above impressive but unproven words.
Source note: The Analects of Confucius, James Legge’s public-domain English translation; Book IV contrasts careful speech with earnest conduct.
“Give thanks unto God for His grace, but for thyself alone confess thy fault.”
The sentence separates gratitude from self-congratulation: what is received as grace is answered with thanks, while personal failure remains something to examine rather than disguise with spiritual pride.
Source note: The Imitation of Christ, Book II, Chapter X, William Benham translation, Project Gutenberg #1653. This is part of a longer argument opposing ingratitude and pride; this collection preserves its Christian theological framework.
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
Recognizing the limits of one’s knowledge is presented as a mark of wisdom, while certainty about one’s own wisdom can be evidence of the opposite.
Source note: As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 1.
“Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.”
Study and reflection are treated as partners: information without examination is shallow, while speculation without learning can drift away from reality.
Source note: Analects 2:15 in James Legge’s translation; the saying balances study with independent reflection.
“Remember that thou art a man and do not degrade thyself: this is self-respect.”
Janet treats human dignity as a floor below which humility should not push a person: recognizing weakness does not require degrading oneself or surrendering self-respect.
Source note: Elements of Morals, section 165, Caroline Rollin Corson translation, Project Gutenberg #37016. Janet immediately balances this with “Remember that thou art but a man” as the check against vain pride, making self-respect and humility complementary rather than opposites.
“Opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge, but lighter than ignorance?”
Opinion is treated as an intermediate state: it is not complete ignorance, but it also lacks the clarity and stability of knowledge.
Source note: The Republic, Book V; Socrates places opinion between knowledge and ignorance in the argument about what each apprehends.
“Theories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas, in which we can rest.”
James describes theories as tools for moving inquiry and experience forward rather than final intellectual resting places that eliminate the need for further testing or revision.
Source note: Pragmatism, Lecture II, “What Pragmatism Means”; Project Gutenberg #5116. Capitalization has been normalized from the represented all-caps sentence while the wording is otherwise preserved.
“He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.”
Answering before listening mistakes speed for competence; understanding requires enough restraint to hear the matter before judging it.
Source note: Proverbs 18:13 in the King James Version.
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
Poverty is reframed as uncontrolled desire rather than a simple measure of possessions, making appetite itself central to the experience of not having enough.
Source note: Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 2.
“Our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.”
Locke places useful limits around intellectual ambition: human inquiry need not comprehend everything in order to guide life well, and knowing where understanding stops is part of using it responsibly.
Source note: An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Book I, Chapter I, section 6, Project Gutenberg #10615.
“The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility.”
Humility is presented as preparation for wisdom and honour rather than as weakness, emphasizing teachability before status.
Source note: Proverbs 15:33 in the King James Version.
“I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.”
The line makes conversation comic by combining cheerful self-deprecation with a claim of expertise in precisely nothing.
Source note: An Ideal Husband; Lord Goring jokes with his father about the subjects he is qualified to discuss.
“Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish.”
Learning requires willingness to be corrected; rejecting every form of reproof blocks the feedback needed for growth.
Source note: Proverbs 12:1, King James Version.
“What the superior man seeks, is in himself. What the mean man seeks, is in others.”
Mature judgment begins with one’s own conduct and capacities rather than making other people the first explanation for every outcome.
Source note: The Analects of Confucius, James Legge’s public-domain English translation; Book XV contrasts inward self-examination with dependence on others.
“whatever school you follow, it must be only to learn method, not to imitate result”
Studying earlier schools should teach method without turning the student into an imitator, preserving space for an artistic response rooted in the maker’s own time and nature.
Source note: Lectures on Art, Lecture VII, Project Gutenberg #19164. The surrounding passage explicitly distinguishes learning from past masters from adopting their results as one’s own.
“The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.”
Custom can become an obstacle when conformity is treated as an answer in itself; improvement requires room to question inherited patterns and try better ones.
Source note: On Liberty, Chapter III; Mill describes custom as an enduring opponent of the spirit of liberty, progress and improvement.
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.”
Within Proverbs’ religious framework, trust is directed toward God rather than treated as unlimited confidence in one’s own judgment, pairing faith with humility about the limits of personal understanding.
Source note: King James Version, Proverbs 3:5. This is explicitly religious wisdom literature; this collection keeps its theological trust context visible instead of converting it into generic self-help advice.
“Pragmatism unstiffens all our theories, limbers them up and sets each one at work.”
James presents pragmatism as a method that makes theories answer to practical consequences and experience instead of allowing abstract formulations to remain rigid and self-sufficient.
Source note: Pragmatism, Lecture II, “What Pragmatism Means”; Project Gutenberg #5116. The sentence follows James’s claim that theories become instruments rather than final answers.
“Be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”
Humility is described as something practiced visibly in community, not merely an inward opinion about oneself.
Source note: 1 Peter 5:5 in the King James Version; this excerpt keeps the central humility clause.
“Trust not your self; but your defects to know, make use of ev’ry friend—and ev’ry foe.”
Pope treats criticism from both allies and opponents as information that can expose blind spots.
Source note: An Essay on Criticism, in the passage warning against pride in judgment.
“Simple, generous goodness is the best capital to found the business of this life upon.”
Good character is compared with capital because generosity and reliability can support a life more durably than reputation or money alone, especially when circumstances change.
Source note: Little Men; Alcott contrasts durable goodness with forms of success that can disappear, treating moral character as a lasting foundation for life’s work.
“The desire of the child to attain an end which he knows, leads him to correct himself.”
A clear goal can support self-correction because the learner can compare the result with the intended end and revise without waiting for every error to be externally identified.
Source note: Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook, discussion of self-correcting didactic material. Project Gutenberg #29635. Montessori immediately describes the child’s own intelligence, rather than the teacher, as detecting and correcting the error.
“Humility should not be an abasement; for it is never a virtue in man to lower himself.”
Janet sharply separates humility from self-degradation: accurate awareness of human weakness should coexist with dignity, so humility does not require pretending that one has no worth or abilities.
Source note: Elements of Morals, section 165, Caroline Rollin Corson translation, Project Gutenberg #37016. Janet contrasts humility with false abasement and defines it alongside self-respect as an accurate estimate of both human weakness and human dignity.
“The man did not know the rest of my faults, for he would not have mentioned these only.”
Epictetus answers insult without retaliation by turning attention toward his own fallibility; the joke reduces the critic’s power because reputation is treated as an external judgment rather than something that must be avenged.
Source note: Enchiridion, section 33 in George Long’s public-domain translation, Project Gutenberg #10661. The line is the suggested reply after hearing that someone has spoken ill of you; it is Stoic self-command, not an instruction to accept abuse without boundaries.
“To have faults and not to reform them,—this, indeed, should be pronounced having faults.”
Making an error is less serious than refusing to correct it after the problem has become visible.
Source note: The Analects of Confucius, James Legge’s public-domain English translation; Book XV distinguishes ordinary faults from the refusal to reform them.
“In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.”
Franklin treats humility as a continuing discipline rather than a completed achievement: pride is difficult precisely because it can survive attempts to suppress it and can even attach itself to the appearance of modesty.
Source note: Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Project Gutenberg #148. The sentence appears in Franklin’s discussion of adding Humility to his thirteen virtues after a Quaker friend convinced him that his argumentative manner often appeared proud and overbearing.
“Be thankful, therefore, for the least benefit and thou shalt be worthy to receive greater.”
The devotional instruction treats gratitude as a discipline of scale: small benefits should not disappear merely because larger gifts are desired, since attention to what is received is itself part of humility.
Source note: The Imitation of Christ, Book II, Chapter X, “Of gratitude for the Grace of God,” William Benham translation, Project Gutenberg #1653. The passage is explicitly Christian devotional writing about divine grace rather than a general causal promise that gratitude earns material rewards.
“moderate your desire of victory over your adversary, and be pleased with one over yourself.”
Franklin shifts the measure of victory from exploiting another player’s mistakes toward self-command, generosity and the ability to restrain one’s own competitive appetite.
Source note: The Morals of Chess; Founders Online authoritative Franklin Papers text. The wording begins mid-sentence after Franklin’s condition that the game is not being played rigorously; source context is preserved here.
“Papa! Dearest Papa! Pardon me, forgive me! I have come back to ask forgiveness on my knees.”
Florence approaches her estranged father through humility and forgiveness, making reunion depend on restored relationship rather than on winning an argument about the past.
Source note: Dombey and Son, Chapter 59, Project Gutenberg #821. Florence returns to Mr Dombey after his collapse and asks for reconciliation.
“it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.”
Ordinary tasks receive full seriousness because Keller measures duty by how faithfully work is done rather than by the prestige attached to it.
Source note: Optimism: An Essay (1903), Project Gutenberg #31622. Keller contrasts longing for a great task with the daily duty of doing humble tasks well.
“How vain are all these glories, all our pains, Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains:”
Clarissa’s speech argues that appearance and social admiration are unstable unless judgment and character give them something more durable to rest on.
Source note: The Rape of the Lock, Canto V; spoken by Clarissa in a mock-heroic social satire, so the speaker and comic setting remain part of the source context.
“Still raise for Good the supplicating Voice, But leave to Heav'n the Measure and the Choice.”
The poem’s devotional close allows prayer for good while counseling humility about the exact form or measure in which that good should arrive.
Source note: The Vanity of Human Wishes, closing movement; Johnson shifts from satirical catalogues of disappointed ambition toward explicitly Christian devotional counsel.
“A sensible polite person does not assume to be better or wiser or richer than his neighbour.”
Smiles connects humility with ordinary social behavior: modest conduct resists turning differences in knowledge, wealth, rank or achievement into claims of personal superiority over other people.
Source note: Character, Chapter IX, “Manner—Art,” Project Gutenberg #2541. Smiles places the sentence in his discussion of politeness as respect for the personality and circumstances of others, then describes the well-mannered person as modest, unpretentious and more interested in doing than boasting.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”
Custom can disguise error by making the familiar feel legitimate; critical judgment requires re-examining practices that have escaped scrutiny through repetition.
Source note: Common Sense, Introduction; Paine uses the observation to explain the resistance that unfamiliar political arguments may initially provoke.
“you have to become lowly and strong; to recognise the powers of others and to fulfil your own.”
Creative development is framed as a balance between recognizing other people’s powers and taking responsibility for developing one’s own rather than copying them.
Source note: Lectures on Art, Lecture VII, Project Gutenberg #19164. Ruskin is warning students against both conceit and servile imitation.
“Discourses on humility give occasion for pride to the boastful, and for humility to the humble.”
Pascal points to a self-referential danger: even learning or speaking about humility can become another stage for vanity unless a person is willing to examine the motives behind the performance.
Source note: The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal, C. Kegan Paul translation, Project Gutenberg #46921. The next sentence extends the paradox by observing how difficult it is to speak humbly about humility.
“Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.”
Self-promotion and genuine worth are distinguished: the saying reverses ordinary status-seeking by making humility a condition of lasting honour.
Source note: Matthew 23:12 in the King James Version.
“The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become, until he goes abroad.”
The joke turns travel into a mirror for vanity: unfamiliar settings can expose affectation and foolishness that remain easier to overlook at home.
Source note: The Innocents Abroad, chapter on travelers adopting foreign fashions; this is Twain’s comic first-person travel narration rather than a literal rule about every traveler.
“This self-deceit, this fatal weakness of mankind, is the source of half the disorders of human life.”
Smith treats distorted self-judgment as a major moral problem because people can preserve flattering interpretations of conduct instead of examining themselves impartially.
Source note: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part III, discussion of self-examination and the impartial spectator; Smith is describing the difficulty of judging one’s own conduct fairly.
“Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.”
Important plans improve when they are tested against more than one perspective, making counsel part of sound decision-making rather than a sign of weakness.
Source note: Proverbs 15:22 in the King James Version.
“But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:”
Job points toward animals and birds as objects of instruction, suggesting that observation of living nature can challenge narrow human assumptions.
Source note: Job 12:7, King James Version; Job appeals to creatures and the earth as witnesses within his argument about divine power and human understanding.
“The best portion of a good man’s life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”
A good life is measured through small acts of care that may never become famous or even remain in memory.
Source note: Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey; the speaker reflects on small, often unremembered acts of kindness and love.
“Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are.”
The warning is that simplified partial explanations can spread more easily precisely because they remove the complications that fuller understanding would have to preserve.
Source note: Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 578, “Partial Knowledge”; Helen Zimmern translation; sentence shortened before the final clause about popularity and persuasion.
“Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise.”
The absurd comparison makes a serious point about proportion and stage of life: impressive status is not automatically preferable when age or circumstance changes what can actually be enjoyed.
Source note: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Calendar epigraph paired with the friendship maxim before the next narrative section.
“I must studiously and faithfully unlearn a great many things I have somehow absorbed concerning Palestine.”
Direct experience forces revision of inherited mental pictures, making learning partly an act of discarding assumptions that no longer fit observed reality.
Source note: The Innocents Abroad, Palestine section; Twain reflects on the gap between received ideas and what the journey is teaching him on the ground.
“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”
Knowledge needs ethical direction, while good intentions need understanding; either quality becomes inadequate when separated from the other.
Source note: Chapter 41; the Astronomer explains why both competence and moral character are needed for trust.
“No man can read the evidence of labour who is not himself laborious, for he does not know what the work cost”
Experience of sustained effort can deepen appreciation of the labour embedded in another person’s work because the observer has some basis for understanding its cost.
Source note: Lectures on Art, Lecture III, Project Gutenberg #19164. Ruskin is discussing how practice changes the viewer’s ability to recognize workmanship in art.
“The highly educated person is the one who is the most considerate of those individuals who are less fortunate.”
Education is measured partly by consideration for other people, making social responsibility a test of learning rather than a separate accomplishment.
Source note: Character Building, “The Highest Education,” Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington defines education broadly enough to include considerate treatment of people facing poverty, disability or other misfortune; this sentence appears in that address’s discussion of gentleness and sympathy.
“I think I have seen with impartial eyes, and I am sure I have written at least honestly, whether wisely or not.”
Twain distinguishes honest reporting from a claim to perfect judgment, presenting candor and acknowledged fallibility as part of his travel-writing method.
Source note: The Innocents Abroad, author’s preface; Twain explains his departure from conventional travel-book style and qualifies his own judgment.
“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be.”
Pain can deepen understanding of another person when it breaks through earlier self-absorption and makes similar suffering imaginable.
Source note: Great Expectations, Chapter 59.
“Let each man direct himself first to what is proper, then let him teach others; thus a wise man will not suffer.”
Advice to others gains credibility when personal conduct comes first; the verse makes self-direction a prerequisite for instruction rather than an excuse to control other people.
Source note: Dhammapada 158, Chapter XII “Self,” Max Müller translation; the sequence emphasizes governing one’s own conduct before attempting to guide others.
“I only gathered acquaintance with the public aspect of the city, the same that she shows to the meanest stranger.”
Even after deliberate observation, Montaigne admits that a visitor may know only the public face of a place, making limits of access and outsider perspective part of responsible travel judgment.
Source note: The Journal of Montaigne’s Travels in Italy, Volume II, Rome, W. G. Waters translation, Project Gutenberg #70839. Montaigne says this after describing how actively he sought out Roman public life; the point is epistemic modesty about what a stranger can really know, not a claim that travel is futile.
“Right occasion and opportunity have their privileges, and often hold out to ordinary folk what they deny to kings.”
Montaigne observes that access and success do not follow rank mechanically: timing, circumstance and temperament can open an ordinary person’s path even when status or power fails to secure the same result.
Source note: The Journal of Montaigne’s Travels in Italy, Volume II, entry for March 6, 1581 during his visit to the Vatican Library, W. G. Waters translation, Project Gutenberg #70839. The sentence follows Montaigne’s surprise that he gained access where the French ambassador had failed; it is first-person journal reflection, not a general law that opportunity always defeats privilege.
“He that is down needs fear no fall; He that is low, no pride; He that is humble ever shall Have God to be his guide.”
The shepherd boy’s song presents lowliness as freedom from the anxieties attached to status and pride, joining humility with contentment inside Bunyan’s Christian pilgrimage allegory.
Source note: The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part II, Valley of Humiliation, Project Gutenberg #131. Mr. Great-heart and the pilgrims hear a shepherd boy sing the stanza; the line is therefore structured as fictional/allegorical character speech rather than Bunyan autobiography.
“Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”
Finishing and enduring are given more weight than the excitement of starting or the pride of appearance.
Source note: Ecclesiastes 7:8 in the King James Version; the verse contrasts patient spirit with pride and values the completed end of a matter over the excitement of its beginning.
“What a long time it requires to know ourselves, and yet every one has more of this knowledge than he is willing to own.”
Self-knowledge develops slowly, and the second clause suggests that people may resist acknowledging what experience has already taught them about their own motives or limitations.
Source note: Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; a first-person travel reflection on self-knowledge and experience.
“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”
The instruction moves humility into relationships by asking people to resist rivalry and deliberately give weight to the interests and dignity of others.
Source note: Philippians 2:3 in the King James Version.
“To know and yet (think) we do not know is the highest (attainment); not to know (and yet think) we do know is a disease.”
The chapter values an awareness of the limits of knowledge and treats false certainty as a disorder of judgment, making intellectual humility a form of protection against confident ignorance.
Source note: Tao Teh King, Chapter 71, James Legge translation, Project Gutenberg #216. The next lines say the sage avoids this “disease” by recognizing the pain inseparable from it; alternate translations remain one underlying Tao Teh King source family.
“Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough.”
Seneca gives wealth a stopping rule: secure necessities, then recognize sufficiency instead of allowing desire to expand without limit.
Source note: Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 2.
“The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.”
The verse treats recognition of one’s own foolishness as the beginning of wisdom, while self-certainty without understanding becomes a deeper form of ignorance.
Source note: Dhammapada 63, Chapter V, “The Fool,” F. Max Müller translation, Project Gutenberg #2017. The verse belongs to a Buddhist canonical collection and remains a textual source voice rather than a modern individual-author quotation.
“Those things which a man cannot amend in himself or in others, he ought patiently to bear, until God shall otherwise ordain.”
The devotional advice separates attempted correction from patient endurance: when a fault cannot presently be changed, continued struggle to control it may need to give way to forbearance.
Source note: The Imitation of Christ, Book I, Chapter XVI, “Of bearing with the faults of others,” William Benham translation, Project Gutenberg #1653. The chapter is explicitly Christian devotional teaching and continues by urging patience with others partly because each person also has faults that others must bear.
“When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.”
The joke turns the conventional promise of a better afterlife into self-interested moral calculation: the speaker suddenly worries about spending eternity with people he already disliked.
Source note: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Calendar epigraph preceding the October speculation maxim.
“The world in which a man lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he looks at it, and so it proves different to different men”
Schopenhauer emphasizes interpretation as a major part of lived experience: the same world can appear very different depending on the qualities and habits of the person perceiving it.
Source note: The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The claim belongs to Schopenhauer’s philosophical account of personality and subjective experience.
“The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit is to rouse, to startle it into sharp and eager observation.”
Pater values philosophy for sharpening attention: its practical intellectual service is to make perception more alert rather than allowing experience to pass unnoticed through habit.
Source note: The Renaissance, Conclusion; Project Gutenberg #2398. The line belongs to Pater’s historically controversial conclusion on experience and culture.
“I love the good that others do; for their activity is an assurance that whether I can help or not, the true and the good will stand sure.”
Keller finds reassurance in useful activity performed by other people, allowing appreciation of shared good to coexist with limits on her own contribution.
Source note: Optimism: An Essay (1903), Project Gutenberg #31622. The line follows her discussion of many “tiny pushes” by honest workers.
“What we have to do is to be for ever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions, never acquiescing in a facile orthodoxy”
Pater recommends intellectual openness and repeated testing rather than easy conformity, making revision and exposure to new impressions part of an active critical life.
Source note: The Renaissance, Conclusion; Project Gutenberg #2398. The sentence names Comte, Hegel and one’s own orthodoxy in its immediate continuation.
“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
Intellectual confidence can be improved by beginning with questions rather than pretending certainty too early.
Source note: The Advancement of Learning, Book I; Bacon contrasts premature certainty with an inquiry willing to begin from doubt and work toward firmer knowledge.
“How happy I am, that my friend Marcus Cornelius, so distinguished as an orator and so noble as a man, thinks me worth praising and blaming.”
Marcus values a relationship in which admiration does not exclude correction: Fronto’s willingness to praise and blame him is presented as a mark of trusted friendship rather than mere approval.
Source note: Project Gutenberg #2680, Appendix “Correspondence of M. Aurelius Antoninus and M. Cornelius Fronto,” identifies this line as Ad M. Caes. iii. 17. The wording is preserved as correspondence context, not treated as a maxim from the Meditations.
“We must turn out what we can; we must do our endeavor and care nothing at all when the unthinking reproach us for not turning out Gobelins.”
Within the dialogue’s deterministic framework, the practical conclusion is to use one’s actual capacities fully without measuring every effort against another person’s exceptional gifts.
Source note: What Is Man?, Old Man concluding the Shakespeare/Gobelin comparison; “Gobelins” refers to elaborate tapestry and functions as the contrast with an ordinary sewing-machine.
“The first thing that experience finds to do is to free us from the phantoms of the brain—those false notions that have been put into us in youth.”
Experience is presented as corrective: inherited assumptions and youthful projections can be revised when later encounters expose a mismatch between expectation and reality.
Source note: Counsels and Maxims, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10715. The statement belongs to Schopenhauer’s broader, characteristically pessimistic discussion of age and experience.
“He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent. He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty.”
Knowledge of others and external power are contrasted with the harder achievements of self-knowledge and self-mastery, locating a more durable form of strength within.
Source note: Tao Teh King, chapter 33, James Legge translation; the chapter continues by connecting contentment with richness and steadfastness with will.
“There is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women.”
Books matter, but lived contact with admirable people can teach standards, courage and conduct that abstract instruction alone may not communicate.
Source note: Up from Slavery, Chapter III, “The Struggle For An Education,” Project Gutenberg #2376. Washington describes General Samuel Chapman Armstrong’s influence at Hampton and argues that sustained contact with exemplary people can itself be a powerful form of education.
“For if we had understanding, ought we to do any thing else both jointly and severally than to sing hymns and bless the deity, and to tell of his benefits?”
Epictetus links gratitude with attentive understanding: recognizing ordinary capacities and the order of life should produce praise rather than treating what sustains us as invisible or automatically deserved.
Source note: Discourses, Book I, Chapter XVI, George Long translation, Project Gutenberg #10661. The passage is explicitly theological Stoicism about providence and the gifts of bodily and rational life; it should not be flattened into secular positive-thinking language.
“the first step towards seeing one's object as it really is, is to know one's own impression as it really is, to discriminate it, to realise it distinctly.”
Critical judgment begins with accurately noticing one’s own response before turning that response into a claim about the work, making self-observation part of disciplined interpretation.
Source note: The Renaissance, Preface; Project Gutenberg #2398. Pater is describing aesthetic criticism, not claiming that personal impression alone settles every factual question.
“When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam as men who “didn’t know what fear was,” we ought always to add the flea—and put him at the head of the procession.”
The heroic comparison is deliberately deflated by promoting the flea above famous military figures, exposing how literalizing a cliché can make grand praise sound ridiculous.
Source note: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Calendar epigraph before the chapter section in which the flea comparison appears.
“We ought, however, first to examine our own selves, next the business which we propose to transact, next those for whose sake or in whose company we transact it.”
Before committing to action, Seneca asks for an ordered examination of self, task, and company, treating clear self-knowledge as protection against avoidable agitation and mismatch.
Source note: Of Peace of Mind, section VI; Seneca recommends examining personal capacity, the proposed undertaking, and the people involved before choosing commitments.
“For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has no desire for that of which he feels no want.”
Ignorance becomes difficult to correct when a person feels no lack in understanding, because satisfaction with one’s present judgment removes the motivation to seek what is missing.
Source note: Symposium, Socrates recounting Diotima’s teaching, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1600. Diotima is a reported speaker within the dialogue; the passage is philosophical argument about ignorance and desire for wisdom.
“experience, intellectual attainments, the practice of seeing to the bottom of things, and so a perfect mental vision, form in themselves a mass which continues to increase in size”
Schopenhauer describes accumulated experience and practiced inquiry as resources that can continue growing even while other capacities change with age.
Source note: Counsels and Maxims, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10715. The passage appears in an age-related comparison of intellectual powers and accumulated material.
“a man may have a great mass of knowledge, but if he has not worked it up by thinking it over for himself, it has much less value than a far smaller amount which he has thoroughly pondered.”
Accumulated information is distinguished from understanding: Schopenhauer values knowledge that has been actively compared, connected and reconsidered over a larger but unprocessed store.
Source note: The Art of Literature, section “On Thinking for Oneself,” T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10714. The library analogy immediately precedes the sentence.
“It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.”
The prehistoric-toad complaint satirizes habitual fault-finding by imagining a critic so determined to complain that even an absurd geological objection becomes useful.
Source note: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter IX epigraph; the coal complaint follows the birth-and-funeral maxim in the Calendar sequence.
“by the constant growth of insight and knowledge, this intellectual life, like a slowly-forming work of art, will acquire a consistency, a permanent intensity, a unity which becomes ever more and more complete”
The image treats intellectual development as cumulative craftsmanship: insight and knowledge gradually produce greater coherence instead of appearing as a single finished achievement.
Source note: The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The simile compares a developing intellectual life with a slowly formed work of art.
“Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.”
Marcus joins mortality with thankfulness: a completed life is imagined as a ripe fruit that leaves without complaint while acknowledging the nature and conditions that made its growth possible.
Source note: Meditations, Book IV, section 48 in George Long’s public-domain translation, Project Gutenberg #6920/#15877 tradition. The olive image follows a reflection on the shortness of life and frames gratitude as part of accepting mortality rather than denying loss.
“The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason.”
Unexamined common sense can become a prison when inherited assumptions are accepted automatically instead of being tested by deliberate reasoning.
Source note: The Problems of Philosophy, Chapter XV. This is the opening clause of a longer sentence that also names habitual beliefs of one’s age or nation and convictions formed without deliberate reason.
A memorable sentence can change meaning when separated from its original work. Each card keeps the author, source, source note and explanation together.
Compare writers, genres and time periods before treating a quotation as advice or a complete statement of an author’s view.
The collection brings together quotations whose central idea connects with humility. The topic guide and related themes help distinguish different ways authors approach the idea.
Representative voices include Mark Twain, Alexander Pope, Arthur Schopenhauer. Representative sources include Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, An Essay on Criticism, The Analects of Confucius. Author and source links make it easy to continue reading in context.
“Source identified” means the quotation is connected with a named source. “Attribution review” or “Disputed” signals that the attribution needs extra caution. Editions, punctuation and translations can still vary.
A memorable line can be flattened or misread when separated from its context. The explanation states the immediate idea in new wording, while source notes flag where genre, scene, speaker or translation matters.
Yes, but choose for fit rather than popularity. Check the author and source, avoid changing wording in a way that alters the meaning, and consider whether the line suits your situation and audience.
Check the source note and verification label first. If stronger evidence changes the attribution, wording or source context, the record can be corrected. See the verification method for details.