Humility

'I am God' is an expression of great humility. The man who says 'I am the slave of God' affirms two existences, his own and God's, but he that says 'I am God' has made himself non-existent and has given himself up and says 'I am naught, He is all: there is no being but God's.' This is extreme humility and self-abasement.  Rumi

Such a soul (one who has forgotten itself in God) is not blinded to its own faults or indifferent to its own errors; it is more conscious of them than ever, and increased light shows them in plainer form, but this self-knowledge comes from God, and therefore it is not restless or uneasy.  Fenelon

The man with the clear head is the man who frees himself from those fantastic 'ideas' (the characterological lie about reality) and looks life in the face, realizes that everything in it is problematic, and feels himself lost. And this is the simple truth -- that to live is to feel oneself lost -- he who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look round for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. He who does not really feel himself lost, is without remission; that is to say, he never finds himself, never comes up against his own reality.  Jose Ortega, "The Revolt of the Masses"

Those who put on a false face before the One who has no face--this is idolatry. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk

We need to fall, and we need to be aware of it; for if we did not fall, we should not know how weak and wretched we are of ourselves, nor should we know our Maker's marvellous love so fully. Julian of Norwich. 

The tree laden with fruits always bends low. Ramakrishna. 

Satan is said to be the most enlightened of all angels: the only spiritual excellence he lacks is humility, self-abandonment. Douglas Harding. 

All things must necessarily be accomplished in the truly humble man. He does not need to ask God, he can command God, because the height of divinity is nothing less than the depth of humility… The humble man and God are one; the humble man is master of God as well as himself, and everything possessed by angels is in the nature of the humble man; what God does, the humble man does also, and what God is he is: one life and one being; that is why our Lord has said: “Learn from me that I am gentle and humble in spirit. Meister Eckhart  

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