“Meekness and temperance or as we may quite properly translate, Humility and Moderation, - the graces of the self forgetful soul - manifest not in some peculiar and supernatural spiritual manner, but in ordinary human nature.”

The Fruits of the Spirit, (1942)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Meekness and temperance or as we may quite properly translate, Humility and Moderation, - the graces of the self forget…" by Evelyn Underhill?
Evelyn Underhill photo
Evelyn Underhill 28
British saint, poet, novelist 1875–1941

Related quotes

Zafar Mirzo photo
Jacques Barzun photo

“Culture, humaneness, spiritual grace, are not forced upon us by logic: they either are self-evident or pointless.”

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian

Source: Bernard Shaw in Twilight (1943), IV
Context: For Shaw as for Goethe, the obligation to strive is a primary feeling: reason initiates nothing and would stop everything. Its use is to come after the fact and devise helpful justification of action. Culture, humaneness, spiritual grace, are not forced upon us by logic: they either are self-evident or pointless. There is, Shaw reminds us, no argument in behalf of moral conduct which would not equally well support immoral. But it is clearly impossible (and immoral) to exact moral conduct, cultivation, and grace from those whom circumstances force to lead sub-human lives. Therefore society must be reformed.

Simone Weil photo

“Humility consists of knowing that in this world the whole soul, not only what we term the ego in its totality, but also the supernatural part of the soul, which is God present in it, is subject to time and to the vicissitudes of change.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

"Concerning the Our Father" in Waiting on God (1972), Routledge & Kegan Paul edition, p. 153
Waiting on God (1950)
Context: Humility consists of knowing that in this world the whole soul, not only what we term the ego in its totality, but also the supernatural part of the soul, which is God present in it, is subject to time and to the vicissitudes of change. There must be absolutely acceptance of the possibility that everything material in us should be destroyed. But we must simultaneously accept and repudiate the possibility that the supernatural part of the soul should disappear.

Viktor Schauberger photo
Thomas Paine photo

“Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1790s, Letter to the Addressers (1792)
Context: A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.

Frithjof Schuon photo

“The human being, by his nature, is condemned to the supernatural.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2003, Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism, World Wisdom, 141, 978-0-94153227-3]
Human being, Specificities

Leo Tolstoy photo

“In this awfully stupendous manner, at which Reason stands aghast, and Faith herself is half confounded, was the grace of God to man at length manifested.”

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 74.

Related topics