A Quote by Martin Farquhar Tupper

Humility is the softening shadow before the stature of Excellence, And lieth lowly on the ground, beloved and lovely as the violet.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

Quote Topics

Before Beloved Excellence Ground Humility Lovely Lowly Shadow Stature Violet

Quote Author

Martin Farquhar Tupper
English - Writer
July 17, 1810 - 1889

I understood that every flower created by Him is beautiful, that the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would no longer be enamelled with lovely hues. And so it is in the world of souls, Our lord's living garden.

Thérèse of Lisieux

Venice seemed incredibly lovely, elvishly lovely--to me like a dream of Old Gondor, or Pelargir of the Numenorean Ships, before the return of the Shadow.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Men were created before women. ... But that doesn't prove their superiority – rather, it proves ours, for they were born out of the lifeless earth in order that we could be born out of living flesh. And what's so important about this priority in creation, anyway? When we are building, we lay foundations on the ground first, things of no intrinsic merit or beauty, before subsequently raising up sumptuous buildings and ornate palaces. Lowly seeds are nourished in the earth, and then later the ravishing blooms appear; lovely roses blossom forth and scented narcissi.

Moderata Fonte

One is quite astonished to find how many things there are in the landscape, and in every object in it, one never noticed before. And this is a tremendous new pleasure and interest which invests every walk or drive with an added object. So many colours on the hillside, each different in shadow and in sunlight; such brilliant reflections in the pool, each a key lower than what they repeat; such lovely lights gilding or silvering surface or outline, all tinted exquisitely with pale colour, rose, orange, green or violet.

Winston Churchill

The shadow of a cornstalk on the ground is lovely, but it is no denial of its loveliness to see as one looks on it that it is telling the time of day, the position of the earth and the sun, the size of our planet and its shape, and perhaps even the length of its life and ours among the stars.

Arthur Miller

Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain

Gilbert K. Chesterton

In truth everything and everyone Is a shadow of the Beloved, And our seeking is His seeking And our words are His words... We search for Him here and there, while looking right at Him. Sitting by His side, we ask: 'O Beloved, where is the Beloved?'

Rumi

It is so easy to take the violet flame and to use it that I am certain that once you begin you will recognize that the violet flame and the angels of the violet flame are the servants of the sons and daughters of God and the children of the Light, that the violet flame joyously serves you and acts to cleanse your entire being so that, as Jesus said, your whole body can be full of light.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet

I cannot believe that any man who deserved fame ever labored for it; that is, directly. For, as fame is but the contingent of excellence, it would be like an attempt to project a shadow, before its substance was obtained.

Washington Allston

Holiness is not some lofty experience, unattainable except to those who can leap the stars, but it is rather a lowly experience, which lowly people in the lowly walks of life can share with Jesus, by letting His mind be in them.

Samuel Logan Brengle

Humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic and he true, by whose light it surveys and shape s their opposites. It is a humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequities of existence, prompting tolerant views of life, bridging over the space which separates the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble.

Edwin Percy Whipple

Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old— This knight so bold— And o’er his heart a shadow— Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado. And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow— ‘Shadow,’ said he, ‘Where can it be— This land of Eldorado?’ ‘Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,’ The shade replied,— ‘If you seek for Eldorado!

Edgar Allan Poe

The human race in the course of time has taken the liberty of softening and softening Christianity until at last we have contrived to make it exactly the opposite of what it is in the New Testament.

Soren Kierkegaard

Some people think humility is thinking lowly of yourself. Some people think it's not thinking about yourself. But, to me, the best definition of humility is radical self-awareness from a distance, seeing themselves from a distance and saying, what's my problem?