The world is to be cleaned by somebody, and you are not called of God if you are ashamed to scrub.

Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason.

The real reason for this was that I did not have the humility to care nothing about what people thought or said. I was afraid of their remarks, even kind ones, even approving ones. Indeed, it is a kind of quintessence of pride to hate and fear even the kind and legitimate approval of those who love us! I mean, to resent it as a humiliating patronage.

If I have been able to see farther than others, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants.

The Futurist [in 1997] did a study of the predictions made within its covers over the past 30 years and found that the best futurists in the country had an accuracy rate of just 68%--they scored 23 hits, and 11 misses. In 1984 The Economist asked corporate heads, finance ministers, and London garbage collectors to predict economic prospects for the next 10 years; in 1994 the garbage men proved just as prescient as the CEOs, and both did better than the finance experts.

Never... think we have a due knowledge of ourselves till we have been exposed to various kinds of temptations, and tried on every side. Integrity on one side of our character is no voucher for integrity on another. We cannot tell how we should act if brought under temptations different from those we have hitherto experienced. This thought should keep us humble. We are sinners, but we do not know how great. He alone knows who died for our sins.

A sports writer was invited for dinner at the residence of golfing legend Arnold Palmer. He arrived a bit early and Mrs. Palmer met him, invited him in, and said her husband would be down in a moment. The writer asked if, while he was waiting, he could see Palmer's trophy room. She replied, "Oh, we don't have such a room." That night, the writer asked the golf pro why he didn't have all his trophies on display--over 90 tour victories, a number of them major tournaments. Palmer looked the columnist right in the eye and replied, "For what? That's yesterday's news!" Then he explained: "I have enjoyed every victory and cherished the memories. I have celebrated those tournaments. But come Monday morning of the next week, I'm no different from the man who missed the cut last week. In fact, he is probably more hungry for a victory than I. So if I am to be competitively ready, I must get my thoughts off yesterday and deal with today. There will be a day when I can take the time to look back. But as long as I want to stay competitive, I must never stop and marvel at what I have accomplished, only look forward to my next challenge at hand."

WHOSE HAND ARE YOU IN? A basketball in my hands is worth about $19 A basketball in Michael Jordan's hands is worth about $33 million It depends whose hands it's in A baseball in my hands is worth about $6 A baseball in Mark McGuire's hands is worth $19 million It depends whose hands it's in A tennis racket is only a hobby in my hands A tennis racket in Pete Sampras' hands is a Wimbledon Championship It depends whose hands it's in A rod in my hands will keep away a wild animal A rod in Moses' hands will part the mighty sea It depends whose hands it's in A sling shot in a kids hands is a toy A sling shot in David's hand is a mighty weapon. It depends whose hands it's in Two fish and 5 loaves of bread in my hands is a couple of fish sandwiches Two fish and 5 loaves of bread in God's hands will feed thousands It depends whose hands it's in Nails in my hands might produce a birdhouse; Nails in Jesus Christ's hands will produce salvation for the entire world. It depends whose hands it's in As you see now, many things depend on whose hands it's in. So put your concerns, your worries, your fears, your hopes, your dreams, your families and your relationships in God's hands because It depends whose hands it's in.

The true way to be humble is not to stoop till thou art smaller than thyself, but to stand at thy real height against some higher nature that will show thee what the real smallness of thy greatness is.

A fascinating illustration of the transience of human power comes through the story of Francisco de Goya's painting Allegory of Madrid. As a court painter, Goya painted for whomever was in power. So in 1810, he began a portrait of King Joseph Bonaparte. Napoleon had conquered Spain and installed his brother Joseph as king. In 1812, Spain was liberated and Goya altered the portrait, putting the new Spanish Constitution where former King Joseph's head had been. Joseph's head reappeared, though, in 1813 when the French retook Madrid. The city fell again, and in 1814 Joseph's head was replaced with that of Ferdinand VII's, the new Spanish monarch. (Footnote 1: Paul Johnson, The Birth of the Modern (New York, Harper Collins, 1991) 69.) Comically the head illustrates a profound truth: human power is anything but immutable.

Talleyrand, French diplomat, for money, fame and power bought, sold, double crossed and duped twenty kings and leaders including Napoleon, Alexander of Russia, Francis of Austria and Louis XVIII of France, erected many palaces and led two revolutions. When he died doctors embalmed him after removing his brains, and placed him in a satin-lined coffin. A servant entered to clean up the room and wondered what should be done with the stuff on the table. He remembered a sewer out in the street, so threw the brains therein. Man’s brains fade; God’s wisdom wins out at last.

A leader is not the man who has the best ideas; he is the man who uses the best ideas. (The point is that we need to be willing to learn from others and also to record our own ideas that fly into our head)

"You just collect roses, the praise and compliments, during the day; you hold them, put them together in a bouquet, then at the end of the day, you get on your knees and say, 'Here, Father, these were yours all along. I just held them for you." (Stand Firm, Feb. 2004, p. 7)

S. I. McMillen, in his book None of These Diseases, tells a story of a young woman who wanted to go to college, but her heart sank when she read the question on the application blank that asked, "Are you a leader?" Being both honest and conscientious, she wrote, "No," and returned the application, expecting the worst. To her surprise, she received this letter from the college: "Dear Applicant: A study of the application forms reveals that this year our college will have 1,452 new leaders. We are accepting you because we feel it is imperative that they have at least one follower." Citation: J. R. Love, Ruston, Louisiana

Confidence never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions.

Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge.

You don’t always get what you ask for, but you never get what you don’t ask for... unless it’s contagious!

You’ve got to ask! Asking is, in my opinion, the world’s most powerful -- and neglected -- secret to success and happiness.

Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom.

Remember that it is far better to follow well than to lead indifferently. – John G. Vance

The greatest pleasure I have known is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident. – Charles Lamb, 1775-1834

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundations. -- Augustine

Humility is not thinking less of myself, but not thinking of myself at all.

The meek will inherit the earth - but not the mineral rights. - J. Paul Getty

Every man needs one blind eye and one deaf ear so when people applaud, he will hear only half of it, and when people salute, you’ll only see a part of it. -- C. H. Spurgeon Believe only half of the praise and half of the criticism. -- C. H. Spurgeon

A man is never so proud as when striking an attitude of humility! -- C. S. Lewis

Humility is like underwear. Everyone should have it, but it shouldn't show.

THE eminent Russian physicist Andrei Linde once found himself on a long flight seated beside a businessman nose-deep in A Brief History of Time. Without having been introduced and before the usual small talk, they struck up a conversation about it. “What do you think of it?” Linde asked. “Fascinating,” said the businessman. “I can’t put it down.” “Oh, that’s interesting,” the scientist replied. “I found it quite heavy going in places and didn’t fully understand some parts.” At which point the businessman closed the book on his lap, leaned across with a compassionate smile, and said, “Let me explain. . . .”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_Ends_Park The smallest park in the world. It's a 2 foot wide circle in Portland, Oregon.

With the removal of all question of merit or payment, the soul is suddenly released for incredible adventures and rewards. If we ask an ordinary person how much he merits, he becomes hesitant and instinctively modest. It is doubtful whether he merits six feet of earth. But if we ask him what he'll take or what he's capable of enjoying–the sky's the limit. This gay humility, this holding of ourselves lightly and yet ready for an endless string of unmerited rewards, is the secret of humility, a secret that is almost too simple to grasp. In fact humility is so advantageous and practical a virtue that people suspect it must be a vice. ... Humility is mistaken for a vice all the more easily because it generally goes with a certain simple love of splendour which amounts to vanity. Humility will always, by preference, go clad in scarlet and gold; pride is that which refuses to let gold and scarlet impress it or please it too much.

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.

Many promising reconciliations have broken down because, while both parties came prepared to forgive, neither party came prepared to be forgiven.

The Bible never tells you to pray for humility. It tells you to humble yourself. When God humbles us it's called humiliation. You have two choices--humble yourself or be humiliated. I've had both happen, and I choose to humble myself. (paraphrased)

Everything you've learned in school as obvious becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.

I think it's tragic that scientific advances have caused many people to imagine that they know it all, and that God is irrelevant or nonexistent. The fact is that everything we learn reveals more things that we do not understand. (on Proverbs 3:16)

After one sermon, a woman shook the pastor’s hand at the door and went on and on: “That sermon was one of the most wonderful I’ve ever heard!” The pastor, being necessarily humble, said, “Oh, it really wasn’t me. It was all the Lord.” “Oh no,” she replied, “it wasn’t that good.”

We must never assume, then, that the sermon is ours to make or break. In the 1800s a famous organist traveled from town to town giving concerts. In each town he hired a boy to pump the organ during the concert. After one performance, he couldn’t shake the boy, who followed him back to his hotel. “Well, we had a great concert tonight, didn’t we?” said the boy. “I had a great concert,” replied the maestro. “Go home!” The next night, halfway through a fugue, the organ quit. The little boy stuck his head around the corner of the organ, grinned, and said, “We aren’t havin’ a very good concert tonight, are we?” If God isn’t pumping when we’re preaching, nothing happens.

In holy and divine matters one must first hear rather than see, first believe rather than understand, first be grasped rather than grasp, first be captured rather than capture, first learn rather than teach, first be a disciple rather than a teacher and master of his own. We have an ear so that we may submit to others, and eyes that we may take care of others. Therefore, whoever in the church wants to become an eye and a leader and master of others, let him become an ear and a disciple first. This first.

What we suffer from…is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.

Reality arrived yesterday in the form of an executive editor for my publisher telling me that I should hold off on developing my next book until I’ve spent 6 months marketing Off-Road Disciplines. I was not prepared for this sort of delay. However, when I checked with others in the business, I discovered that the likelihood of a second book depends on the sales of book #1 during those first, critical 6 months. Let’s hope everyone buys them for Christmas presents! Promoting me has never been comfortable. This might sound surprising after several years of newsletters, blogs, and websites, but it’s true. So my editor’s wisdom (she is absolutely right) pushed some issues to the surface. 1. My attitude resembled an ineffective church: I was prepared to create the content for books in perpetuity but had given precious little thought to getting these volumes in anyone’s hands. This condition resembles the church ready to receive new messages from their pastor each week, without a plan for getting this good news into their community. 2. My strategy must resemble an effective church: I will depend a lot on conference speaking and web-based promotion, but the foundation of everything will be relationship, getting the book to people I know who can recommend it to others. Purpose-Driven Life sold so many copies, in part, because readers purchased it for their friends. Great ministries reach their communities, not through programs, but through relationships. 3. My results will resemble the message: There is no cure for a bad book. Also, no amount of marketing, standard, buzz, guerilla, viral, etc. can compensate for readers not benefiting from what they read enough to talk about it. In the same way, the gospel’s ultimate credibility is that Jesus does things in and for people that make them want to share with others. While planning and relationship are essential, the power of the message is its content—Jesus and Him crucified. So I am over my qualms about marketing. Perhaps we can promote ourselves without being self-promoting. The daylight between the two might be called humility. My major recommendation: don’t confuse humility with low self-esteem.

You could rely on the so-called experts to make smart decisions for you. But experts often disagree with each other. That leaves you to pick the best expert, and that’s something you probably aren’t an expert at doing. Look at the stock market. There are about 10,000 stocks. But there are 20,000 managed stock funds, the majority of which can’t beat a stock-picking monkey with a dartboard. You have a 1-in-10,000 chance of randomly picking the best stock in the world and a 1-in-20,000 chance of randomly picking the best stock expert.

First, self-praise if blameless if you do it in defending yourself against slander or accusation.... For at such a time, one not only escapes pretension and emptiness, and ostentatiousness in saying something solemn about oneself, but one also shows strength of will and greatness of character.

There is a fable of a king who asked his wisest advisers to reduce to one word all the knowledge in the many volumes in the palace library. After years of toil the scholars brought the king a piece of paper on which was written the single word "maybe."