What is Humility?

I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one’s self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one’s own powers.” –Sherlock Holmes “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter Although I was raised in a culture which ranks humility as a virtue, I never understood why it is a virtue, […]

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“A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life” by William Law

William Law in this work reminds me of Leo Tolstoy in his late writings. Both of them write with a limpid style, both present moral arguments that are undeniably logical and rational, both make severe and incisive criticisms of Christendom, and not surprisingly, both were excommunicated. If a Christian reader tries to see things through Law’s eyes, he would find himself in a dream world, where people, himself included, live […]

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“Four Quartets: II. Fear and Humility” by T. S. Eliot

East Coker A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion, Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter. It was not (to start again) what one had expected. What was to be the value of the long looked forward to, Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders, […]

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