Theme
Humility
Modesty, perspective, and knowing your limits.
Every quote here is provenance-checked. AI will happily put a fake quote on a beautiful slide — these are the ones you can actually use, with the right name on them.
Ready for your slide
Verified quotes about humility
Each is traced to a real source and correctly credited. ✓ Free to use = public domain, cleared for commercial reuse. Open one for a paste-ready credit line and its reuse status.
“For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs”
“He knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know”
“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened”
“I exist as I am, that is enough”
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”
“In the highest antiquity, the people did not know that there were their rulers. In the next age they loved them and praised them. In the next they feared them; in the next they despised them. Their work was done and their undertakings were successful, while the people all said, 'We are as we are, of ourselves.'”
“Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens”
“The general who advances without coveting fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom”
“When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them”
“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance”
“Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it”
“Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents”
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance”
No public-domain quotes on this theme yet — try another, or use an in-copyright one with attribution.
Don’t get caught out
Commonly shared about humility — but misattributed
Popular humility lines that get pinned on the wrong name. If you use one, credit it correctly.
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”
ReallyAlexander Pope
“A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client”
ReallyAnonymous (an old law adage) · not Abraham Lincoln
“A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there”
ReallyOrigin unknown (anonymous) · not Charles Darwin
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt”
ReallyMaurice Switzer · not Abraham Lincoln
“By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher”
ReallySocrates · not Socrates
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself”
ReallyLeo Tolstoy
“He who knows not, and knows not he knows not, is a fool; shun him. He who knows not, and knows he knows not, is simple; teach him. He who knows, and knows not he knows, is asleep; awaken him. He who knows, and knows he knows, is wise; follow him”
ReallyAn anonymous proverb (documented as an “Arabic” / Oriental saying) · not Bruce Lee
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less”
ReallyC.S. Lewis · not C.S. Lewis
“I know that I know nothing”
ReallySocrates · not Socrates
“I'm not young enough to know everything”
ReallyJ. M. Barrie · not Oscar Wilde
“Know thyself”
ReallyThe Delphic maxim (Seven Sages of Greece) · not Socrates
“Know yourself and you will win all battles”
ReallySun Tzu
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love”
ReallyMother Teresa (Saint Teresa of Calcutta)
“Nothing is more common than the wish to be remarkable”
ReallyOliver Wendell Holmes Sr. · not William Shakespeare
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day”
ReallyAnonymous (traditional joke) · not A. A. Milne
“Pride comes before a fall”
ReallyThe Bible (Book of Proverbs)
“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco”
ReallyUnknown — an evolving anonymous joke (ancestor: James Quin) · not Mark Twain
“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit”
ReallyAttributed to “Father Strickland,” an English Jesuit (earliest documented, 1863)