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Lowliness

noun
1.
The state of being humble and unimportant.  Synonyms: humbleness, obscureness, unimportance.
2.
A position of inferior status; low in station or rank or fortune or estimation.  Synonyms: low status, lowness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Lowliness" Quotes from Famous Books



... character of Jesus. Behold his lowliness, his meekness, gentleness, and tender compassion. Have they any beauty? and would you love to have them grace your own soul? then draw them down from the skies in all their glorious fulness by the fervent prayer ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr

... kind of gentle pride in your religion or your virtue or your fastidiousness? In a word, you have not been as excellent an Elder Son as your brother has been a Younger. You have not corresponded with your graces as he has corresponded with his. You have never yet been capable of sufficient lowliness to come home (which is so much harder than to remain there), or of sufficient humility to begin for the first time to work with all your heart only ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson

... daughter of thy Son, Created beings all in lowliness Surpassing, as in height, above them all, Term by th' eternal counsel pre-ordain'd, Ennobler of thy nature, so advanc'd In thee, that its great Maker did not scorn, Himself, in his own work enclos'd to dwell! For ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... emanation of the Spirit of the Age. Had he lived in any other period of the world, he would never have been heard of. As it is, he has some difficulty to contend with the hebetude of his intellect, and the meanness of his subject. With him "lowliness is young ambition's ladder;" but he finds it a toil to climb in this way the steep of Fame. His homely Muse can hardly raise her wing from the ground, nor spread her hidden glories to the sun. He has "no figures nor no fantasies, which busy passion draws in the brains of men:" ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... was not slow in following his example. Both entered the Cistercian order, and led holy lives, avoiding all preferment—a difficult matter for Waltheof, stepson to one king and cousin to another. His brother Simon took such offence at his lowliness, that he actually threatened to burn down the convent of Waldon, where Waltheof was living, because he thought it shame to see a descendant of Siward a common monk in a ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... her in the beautiful words of the Magnificat, that we sing at Vespers while the priest incenses the altar. (3) The Nativity, or birth of Our Lord, which reminds us how He was born in a stable, in poverty and lowliness. (4) The Presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple. According to the law of Moses, the people were obliged to bring the first boy born in every family to the temple in Jerusalem and offer him to God. Then they gave some offering to buy him ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead

... in the doctrine of the Stoic long before the advent of Jesus. But these tenets were very far from being anticipations of Christ's morality. Cynic poverty of spirit was but the poor-spiritedness of apathy. Stoic meekness was merely the indifference of oblivion. But the humility and lowliness of heart, the mercifulness and peace-seeking which Christ inculcated were essentially powers of self-restraint, not negative but positive attitudes to life. The motive was not apathy but love. These qualities were based ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... heard of his miracles. He was not ready yet to declare that the son of the carpenter was the Christ, the Son of God. When we remember the common Jewish expectations regarding the Messiah, and then the lowliness of Jesus and the high rank of Nicodemus, we may understand that it required courage and deep earnestness of soul for this "master in Israel" to come at all to the peasant rabbi from Galilee as a seeker after truth and light. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... I will remain here for the consecrated until to-morrow morning. It oft happens that the lofty even must come down, and the brilliant obscure themselves. To-day I must descend from my spiritual height, and humble myself in the dust of lowliness. When the unholy and unconsecrated essay to behold that which they should not with their earthly eyes; they must be blinded with earthly dust, and for those which are not worthy of miracles, we must sometimes condescend to jugglers' ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... had with the public need was the theme it offered to contemplation, the philosophy of history which it introduced into the western world, and the delicious unfathomable mysteries into which it launched the fancy. Here, too, the figure of Christ was the centre for all eyes. Its lowliness, its simplicity, its humanity were indeed, for a while, obstacles to its acceptance; they did not really lend themselves to the metaphysical interpretation which was required. Yet even Greek fable was not without its Apollo tending flocks and its Demeter mourning for her lost child and serving ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... led to the erection of this simple monument reaches its highest and sacredest instance in the institution of the Lord's Supper, in which Jesus, with wonderful lowliness, condescends to avail Himself of material symbols in order to secure a firmer place in treacherous memories. He might well have expected that such stupendous love could never be forgotten; but He 'knoweth our frame,' and trusts ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... virtues that Surmount, And natural graces that extinguish art; * * * * * And, which is more, she is not so divine, So full-replete with choice of all delights, But, with as humble lowliness of mind, She is content to be ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... scenes of the most peculiar and diversified description, to which we can find no parallel in the history of man, the effect of which no ordinary mind could have borne. These were, in general, connected with that lowliness and debasement to which he submitted for the benefit of our sinful race; but occasionally, as at his birth, his baptism, and transfiguration, there burst forth some bright rays of glory from behind the dark cloud of his humanity, which proved his possession ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various

... Sincerity and lowliness of spirit have been often commended, as when the Pythian Apollo rebuked the pompous sacrifice offered at his shrine by a rich Magnesian, and said that he preferred the simple cake and frankincense of a pious Achaean which was offered in humbleness ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... and to generals of the army, who dwell in every country; may your peace be great! I write this to you to inform you, that although I rule over many nations, over the inhabitants of land and sea, yet I am not proud of my power, but will rather walk in lowliness and meekness of spirit all my days, in order to provide for you great peace. Unto all who dwell under my dominion, unto all who seek to carry on business on land or on sea, unto all who desire to export goods from one nation to the other, from one people ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... to her heart, and some of the sayings of wise men from the East who came to visit him when he was a baby. She could not understand all the mystery of it; she did not see how it was going to be brought to pass. He was a child of poverty and lowliness; not rich, nor learned, nor powerful. But with God all things were possible. The choosing and calling of the eternal Father were more than everything else. It was fixed in her heart that somehow ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... remembrance to make the long days sweet?' She looked very proudly upon him, smiling all the time; she put her hands up and crowned his head with them. 'Oh, my dear life, my pride and my master,' said Jehane, 'let all come to me that must come now; I am rich above all my desires, and my lowliness has been of no account with God. Now let ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... to interpret the little story, and the man, who had thought that his parents' mixed marriage was a common subject for gossip in the hotel—which it was—sprang to his feet, The future still held the moment when someone would enlighten her as to the lowliness ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... hue, Cruel, still flying, false, fair, funeral, To cross, to shame, bewitch, deceive, and kill My first proceedings in their flowing bloom. My worthless pen fast chained to my will, My erring life through an uncertain doom, My thoughts that yet in lowliness do mount, My heart the subject of her tyranny; What now remains but her severe account Of murder's crying guilt, foul butchery! She was unhappy in her cradle breath, That given was to be ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith

... of Parker and Ann Clare, commonly called "the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet," was born at Helpstone, near Peterborough, on the 13th of July, 1793. The lowliness of his lot lends some countenance to the saying of "Melancholy" Burton, that "poverty is the Muses' patrimony." He was the elder of twins, and was so small an infant that his mother used to say of him that "John might have been put into ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... which is at once the counterfeit and the ruin of true discipline. Under Elizabeth and her ministers, a brave and a shrewd man was certain of promotion, let his rank or his age be what they might; the true honor of knighthood covered once and for all any lowliness of birth; and the merchant service (in which all the best sea-captains, even those of noble blood, were more or less engaged) was then a nursery, not only for seamen, but for warriors, in days when Spanish and Portuguese traders (whenever ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... the great truths he is to utter, humble himself with a very well turned phrase, and mention his unworthiness in a way so very becoming, that the air of the pretty gentleman is preserved, under the lowliness of the preacher. ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... midst of His people. And what have I seen instead? Luxury, corruption, unspeakable abominations — abominations such as I may not dare to speak in thy pure ears, such as I would not have believed had not mine own eyes seen, mine own ears heard. Where is the poverty, the lowliness, the meekness, the chastity of the sons of the Church? Ah, God in Heaven only knows; and let it be our solemn rejoicing that He does know where His own faithful children are to be found, for assuredly man would miserably fail if he were sent forth to find and to gather them. Leaving those lands ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... the final clauses of our text which state the double purpose of God in sending His Son. He became one with us that we might become one with Him. The two elements of this double purpose are stated in the reverse order to the two elements of Christ's lowliness. The redemption of them that were under law is presented as the reason for His being born under law, and our reception of the 'adoption of sons' is the purpose of the Son's being sent and born of a woman. The order in which Paul here deals with the two parts of the divine ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... ingenuity and skill than those which engage the attention of the other portion of their fellow-creatures, are less favourable to the engendering of self-conceit and sufficiency so utterly at variance with that lowliness of spirit which constitutes the best foundation of piety. The sneerers and scoffers at religion do not spring from amongst the simple children of nature, but are the excrescences of overwrought refinement, and though their baneful influence has indeed penetrated to ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... is yet powerless in comparison with the divine wisdom of the soul, which is the love towards God, in the keeping of his commandments.... Hast thou been covetous, profane one? Be thou meek and pious and serve in all lowliness the glorious creator; if thou art not determined to do that, thou art employed in trying ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.—EPH. iv. ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... lovelier privilege of bringing the power and charm of art within the reach of the humble and the poor; and as the magnificence of past ages failed by its narrowness and its pride, ours may prevail and continue, by its universality and its lowliness. ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... think that those may justly be thrown out of their ministry, who were either appointed by them, or afterwards chosen by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole church; and who have with all lowliness and innocency ministered to the flock of Church, in peace, and without self-interest, and were for a ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... himself with except the roll of bank-notes that he has just produced from his breast-pocket. One and all, the players are levelled by the invisible presence of the goddess they are courting. Well, the visible presence of the judge in a court of law oppresses us with a yet keener sense of lowliness and obliteration. He crouches over us, visible symbol of the majesty of the law, and we wilt to nothingness beneath him. And when I say 'him' I include the whole judicial bench. Judges vary, no doubt. Some are young, others old, by the calendar. ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... Similarly it is the Son of Man who after his exaltation shall come "in the glory of his Father with the holy angels" (Mark viii. 38). In these typical cases the title expresses Jesus' consciousness of heavenly authority as well as self-sacrificing ministry, of coming exaltation as well as present lowliness; and the suffering and death which were the common lot of other sons of men were appointed for this Son of Man by a divine necessity. The name is, therefore, more than a substitute for the personal pronoun; it expresses ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees

... poverty. On 6th day evening R.B. addressed us in such a way as proved to me that the Divine word is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The chief purport was the necessity of a willingness to learn daily of the great Teacher meekness and lowliness and faithfulness in the occupation of the talents intrusted; "for where much is given, much will be required." Yesterday his parting "salutation of brotherly love" was such as cannot be effaced from my memory; and oh, I pray that it may not ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... heavy, but less hard. Slowly had the power of Violet's meekness and lowliness been stealing into her affections and undermining her pride. Perhaps the direct attacks of Percy, though strongly resisted, had in reality given a shock which prepared the way for the silent effect of sweetness and forbearance. At any rate, she was now sincerely sorry for the sin as well ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... royal brow, And have the courage of our pride, Audacity becomes you now, Be splendidly self-satisfied, No land from lowliness and dearth Has won to eminence on earth That was not ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... for dear little Winnie? Oh! there is no space there for a murmuring, grasping spirit, to take the good gifts handed out by a wise and loving father, and to use them with a grateful feeling is all that the righteous poor can wish. Even in their lowliness are they often the objects of envy to the harassed and care-ridden rich, who would willingly forego all their superfluous gains for one ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... Wealth and honours are what men desire; but do not go from the Way, to keep them. Lowliness and want are hated by men; but do not go from the Way, ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius

... as favourable to reform of registration as from Radicals, and several Tories stood up to speak in favour of the measure. Opposition was really left to poor Mr. Webster, of St. Pancras; but, then, everybody knew what poor Mr. Webster meant, and nothing could better express the lowliness of the Tory party than that opposition to anything should be led by the hapless representative of St. Pancras. The consequence of all this was that the Registration Bill passed in the course of a few hours—the debate illumined by an excellent maiden speech from our John Burns—delivered ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... unto my heart. I, I am leading thee. Think not of him As he were one and I were one; in him Thou wilt find me, for he and I are one. Learn thou to worship at his lowly shrine, And see that God dwelleth in lowliness." ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... of poverty he overcame in early manhood. A high religious enthusiasm enabled him to overcome it, but his instinctive dislike of the lowly life—intellectual lowliness as well as physical—gathered within these cottages, seemed to have returned again. He asked himself if he were wanting in natural compassion, and if all that he had of goodness in him were a debt ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... obsess him so that not even the ministrations of his aunt nor the obeisances of that pleasant girl, the name of whose boots was Fairybell, could give him any comfort or wean him from a contemplation which sprawled gloomily between him and his duties to the traffic. If he had not discovered the lowliness of her quality his course might have been simple and straightforward: the issue, in such an event, would have narrowed to every man's poser—whether he should marry this girl or that girl? but the arithmetic whereby such matters are elucidated would at the last have eased his perplexity, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... them the 'Star of Bethlehem,' as, if exposed to the moon on the eve of the Epiphany, it would become wondrous fair to view, and like unto the star of the Saviour; and with the first glory of the sun, it would return to its lowliness.' ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... sins on one side of the balance, and in the other scale the Passion of Thy Son, the last will outweigh the first. For what sin can be so great, that the innocent blood of Thy Son has not washed it out? What pride, or disobedience, or lust, is so unchecked or so rebellious, that such lowliness, obedience, and poverty cannot abolish it? O merciful Father, accept the deeds of Thy beloved Son, and forgive the errors of Thy wicked servant. For the innocent blood of our brother Abel crieth to Thee from the Cross, not for vengeance, but for grace and mercy, saying, "Father, forgive ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded: the lowliness of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty has magnified me: and holy is his Name. And his mercy is on them that fear him: throughout all generations. He hath showed strength with his ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare

... produce the formal fable or allegory. In Tolstoy's story are two historical characters of so pronounced individuality that their names always suggest definite ideas—Croesus, riches and worldly greatness; Solon, wisdom and worldly poverty and lowliness. These ideas are brought into conflict, and the outcome allows us to see which is the basic one in Tolstoy's theory of life. Who is the happy warrior? One would merely have to quote some words from the story to have an answer. And if the reader feels the force of ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... change shall be accomplished by the Messiah, chaps. iv., ix., xi., xxxiii. 17, who proceeds from the house of [Pg 8] David, chap. ix. 6 (7), lv. 3, but only after it has sunk down to the utmost lowliness, chap. xi. 1. With the human, He combines the divine nature. This appears not only from the names which are given to Him in chap. ix. 5 (6), but also from the works which are assigned to Him,—works by far exceeding human power. He rules over the whole earth, according ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... converting the heathen natives from the error of their superstitions, although they have had numerous difficulties to overcome. They went out, in the strength of the Lord, resolved to do nothing in strife or vain-glory, but all in lowliness of mind, esteeming others better than themselves: and they succeeded notwithstanding the numerous hindrances; for the work was of God, and He gave them power to do all things without murmuring, in order to attain the salvation of ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... through Jesus Christ | our Lord. Amen. | | During the vacancy of a Pastoral Charge. | | O God, who knowest the needs of thy people in every place; Look | graciously at this time on this church and congregation; and | give to them a faithful pastor, who may serve before thee in | all diligence and lowliness of heart, and, by thy blessing, | bring many souls to the joys of thine eternal kingdom; through | Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. | | This prayer may also be used at meetings of Patrons during a | vacancy. | | For those about to be confirmed. | | O God, ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... a lady of high degree, So much in love with the vanity And foolish pomp of this world of ours? Or was it Christian charity, And lowliness and humility, The richest and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... the whale And made no bones of it. The tale That Ananias told He swore was true. He had no doubt That Daniel laid the lions out. In short, he had all holiness, All meekness and all lowliness, And was with ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... of faith, And whispered in the maiden's heart, "Rise up, and look from where thou art, And scatter with unselfish hands Thy freshness on the barren sands And solitudes of Death." O beauty of holiness, Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness! O power of meekness, Whose very gentleness and weakness Are like the yielding, but irresistible air! Upon the pages Of the sealed volume that I bear, The deed divine Is written in characters of gold, That never shall grow old, But all through ages Burn ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... of accident, and the slave of events. It is in the power of her acquaintance, her servants, but chiefly of her enemies, and all her comforts lie at the mercy of others. So far from being willing to learn of him who was meek and lowly, she considers meekness as the want of a becoming spirit, and lowliness as a despicable and vulgar meanness. And an imperious woman will so little covet the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, that it is almost the only ornament she will not be solicitous to wear. But resentment ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... lowliness, and courtesy, And seemliness, and faithful company, And dread of shame that will not do amiss; For he that faithfully Love's servant is, Rather than be disgraced, would chuse ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... presentiment which has been with me all my life—all my life as Pope, at all events. The blessed God who abases and lifts up has thought fit to raise my lowliness to the most sublime dignity that exists on earth, but I have always lived in the fear that some day I should be torn down from it, and the Church ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... there, thou didst renew the questions, and I did not withhold the truth. I told thee of the lowliness and simple ways of Jesus—how He was clothed—how the out-doors was temple sufficient for Him. I told thee of His preaching to the multitude on the shore of the Galilean sea—I told of His praying in the garden of Gethsemane—I told of the attempt to make a King of Him whether He ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... something of the Divinity there is in beauty, that, in its intenser forms, repels with all its winningness, until the lowliness of love looks through it. ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon

... lave my mouth, for which my tears do not suffice, so parched and torrid is it within." Well wist the scholar by her voice how spent she was; he also saw a part of her body burned through and through by the sun; whereby, and by reason of the lowliness of her entreaties, he felt some little pity for her; but all the same he made answer:—"Nay, wicked woman, 'tis not by my hands thou shalt die; thou canst die by thine own whenever thou art so minded; and to ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... that bore upon the subject of humility; he gained the attention of all. Then he enlarged more particularly on the necessity of curbing and bridling and keeping down the spirit, until it attained that lowliness to which Our Saviour alludes in the very first of the beatitudes; and finally went through that Saviour's life, as the great example for all men, of meekness, gentleness, and humility—the interest ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... again most perrumptallee beg leave, in all lowliness by the grace and blessin of God in his infinit goodness and ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... us to join ourselves to Him, to unite our weakness to His strength, our ignorance to His wisdom, our unworthiness to His merits. God's providence is the school in which we are to learn the meekness and lowliness of Jesus. The Lord is ever setting before us, not the way we would choose, which seems easier and pleasanter to us, but the true aims of life. It rests with us to co-operate with the agencies which Heaven employs in the work of conforming our characters to the divine ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... expressing it is a revelation to me, and the leaden-heeled and labored utterance, together with the general bearing of my volunteer host, is not less striking; if meekness, lowliness, and humbleness, permeating a person's every look, word, and action, constitute worthiness, then is our Armenian friend beyond a doubt the worthiest of men. Laboring under the impression that he is Mr. Binns' "Ingilisin ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... first the loftier trees and then the blossoming magnolias, and lastly the green lowliness of the gentle vines; until all above is in a glow of new-born radiance, whilst all beneath the leaves still is ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... very thing which he wanted was a representation with real figures of one of those pictures of the scene in the stable—a sacred exhibition such as at this holy season good Christians delight to offer to the divine Mother and her Child, of the manner in which she, in her seeming lowliness, was honored first by the shepherds and afterward ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... like a thunder-clap. The commander's summons which brings a man from the rear rank and sets him in the van of a storming-party may well make its receiver shrink. It was not cowardice which prompted Moses' answer, but lowliness. His former impetuous confidence had all been beaten out of him. Time was when he was ready to take up the role of deliverer at his own hand; but these hot days were past, and age and solitude and communion with God had mellowed him into humility. His ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... could not resist the temptation to make a slighting allusion to Marie-Anne, and to the lowliness of the marquis's former tastes. She found an opportunity to say that she furnished Marie-Anne with work to aid her ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... is nothing in your lot in life which crosses and humbles you; if there is nothing in your circumstances which compels you to see that this life is not for self-indulgence and self-gratification, then still you must win participation in your Lord's glory by accepting His lowliness and heavenliness of mind. It is not to outward success that you are called in His kingdom, it is to inward victory. You are called to meekness, and lowliness, and mercy; to the losing of your life in this world, that ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods

... fallen into the hands of a barbarian. I answered him with all the pride which my high rank and noble sentiment could inspire. I had always heard it affirmed that Heaven stamped on persons of my condition a mark of grandeur, which, with a single word or glance, could reduce to the lowliness of the most profound respect those rash and forward persons who presume to deviate from the rules of politeness. I spoke like a queen, but was treated like a maidservant. The Hircanian, without even deigning to speak ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... of rest for men is in treading in Christ's footsteps. 'Learn of Me,' it is the secret of tranquillity. We have done with passionate hot desires,—and it is these that breed all the disquiet in our lives—when we take the meekness and the lowliness of the Master for our pattern. The river will no longer roll, broken by many a boulder, and chafed into foam over many a fall, but will flow with even foot, and broad, smooth ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... contemplative, rather than of an active life. Accordingly, while the highest good of the old religions consisted in magnanimity, bodily strength, and all those other qualities which make men brave, our religion places it in humility, lowliness, and contempt for the things of this world; or if it ever calls upon us to be brave, it is that we should be brave to suffer rather than ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... thus I loved Him, and he me, till love begot The lowliness which now approved Nothing but that which I was not, Blest was the pride of feeling so Subjected to a girl's soft reign. She was my vanity, and, oh, ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore

... of God, the Divine Dark, represents the utmost that human consciousness can do of itself towards the achievement of union with Reality. To some it brings joy and peace, to others fear: to all a paradoxical sense of the lowliness and greatness of the soul, which now at last can measure itself by the august standards of the Infinite. Though the trained and diligent will of the contemplative can, if control of the attention be really ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill

... speed, her warmth and light; Speed, to describe whose swiftness Number failes. So spake our Sire, and by his count'nance seemd Entring on studious thoughts abstruse, which Eve 40 Perceaving where she sat retir'd in sight, With lowliness Majestic from her seat, And Grace that won who saw to wish her stay, Rose, and went forth among her Fruits and Flours, To visit how they prosper'd, bud and bloom, Her Nurserie; they at her coming sprung And toucht by her fair tendance ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... very still: I like them for their lowliness and peace. Homeward-bound burghers pass me now and then, but these companies are pedestrians, make little noise, and are soon gone. So well do I love Villette under her present aspect, not willingly would I re-enter under a roof, but that I am bent on pursuing my strange ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... curve, more convex at the springing, is used for the lower side, giving an exquisite variety to the form of the whole leaf; so that one of the chief elements in the beauty of every subordinate leaf throughout the tree, is made to depend on its confession of its own lowliness and subjection. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... dissolved into silence. How distinctly he could see that face, sculptured with all the delicacy of a Florentine cameo; that yellow hair of hers, full of captive sunshine; those eyes, giving forth the velvet-bloom of heartsease; those slender brown hands which defied the lowliness of her birth, and those ankles the beauty of which not even the clumsy sabots could conceal! He knew a duchess whose line of blood was older than the Capets' or the Bourbons'. Was not nature the great Satirist? To give nobility to that duchess ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... proof, That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; 13 forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye: 14 and above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... what true. About all that can be disengaged from this cloud of illusive witnesses is that Springfield wondered why Mary Todd married Lincoln. He was still poor; so poor that after marriage they lived at the Globe Tavern on four dollars a week. And the lady had been sought by prosperous men! The lowliness of Lincoln's origin went ill with her high notions of her family's importance. She was downright, high-tempered, dogmatic, but social; he was devious, slow to wrath, tentative, solitary; his very appearance, then as afterward, was against him. ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... abasement, however, the Congregation of the Lord rises to the highest glory, inasmuch as the dominion returns to the old Davidic race, iv. 8. From the little Bethlehem, the native place of David, where his race, sunk back again into [Pg 424] the lowliness of private life, has resumed its seat, a new and glorious Ruler proceeds, born, and at the same time eternal, and clothed with the fulness of the glory of the Lord, v. 1, 3 (2, 4), by whom Jacob obtains truth, and Abraham mercy, vii. 20, compared with John i. 17; by whom the Congregation ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... on earth a Babe was born In lowliness, as on this morn,— And tabernacled here below, Lessons of brotherhood ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper

... he flung himself almost blindly into their enthusiasms and their hates. But loyal as he was to his friends, he was yet more loyal to his verse. His vanity never led him to literary self-sufficiency; no artist ever showed a truer lowliness before the ideal of his art; no poet ever corrected so much, or so invariably bettered his work by each correction. One of his finest characteristics, indeed, was his high sense of literary dignity. From the first he carried on the work of ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green

... strength to the assurance, for the facts of the Christian life are such as to demand, both by its greatness and by its littleness, by its loftiness and by its lapses into lowliness, by the floodtide of devotion that sometimes sweeps rejoicingly over the mud-shoals and by the ebb that sometimes leaves them all black and festering, a future life wherein what was manifestly meant to be, and capable of being, dominant, supreme, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... will have eternal riches, let him build the house of his mind on the footstone of lowliness; not on the highest hill where the raging wind of trouble blows, or the rain of ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... love and in devotion, the more she increased in sorrow and contrition, in lowliness[147] and meekness, and in holy dread of our Lord Jesu, and in knowledge of her own frailty. So that if she saw any creature be punished or sharply chastised, she would think that she had been more worthy to be chastised than that creature was, for her ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various

... the garden of the cottage, which, low-roofed, seemed to submit to the majesty of nature, and cower amidst the venerable remains of forgotten time. Flowers, the children of the spring, adorned her garden and casements; in the midst of lowliness there was an air of elegance which spoke the graceful taste of the inmate. With a beating heart I entered the enclosure; as I stood at the entrance, I heard her voice, melodious as it had ever been, which before I saw her assured me of ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... infirmities. This cannot be an unbecoming temper, in those who are commanded to "work out their salvation with fear and trembling." It prompts to constant and earnest prayer. It produces that sobriety, and lowliness and tenderness of mind, that meekness of demeanor and circumspection in conduct, which are such eminent characteristics of ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... Gospels, yet it makes no difference to the faith of the believer, since all things in all of them are declared by one Supreme Spirit, concerning the nativity, the passion, the resurrection, His intercourse with His disciples, and His two advents, the first in despised lowliness, which is already past, the second with the magnificence of kingly power, which is yet to come. What wonder then, if John so boldly puts forward each statement in his Epistle ([Greek: tais epistolais]) [189:3] also saying of himself, "What we have seen with our eyes and heard with ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... humility, humbleness; meekness, lowness; lowliness, lowlihood^; abasement, self-abasement; submission &c 725; resignation. condescension; affability &c (courtesy) 894. modesty &c 881; verecundity^, blush, suffusion, confusion; sense of shame, sense of disgrace; humiliation, mortification; let down, set down. V. be humble ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... weakness, and to work its wonders by the might of gentle, self-sacrificing love. But, though he dimly saw, he perfectly adored. He felt himself unworthy (literally, insufficient) to be the slave who untied (or, according to Matthew, 'bore') his lord's sandals. How beautiful is the lowliness of that strong nature! He stood erect in the face of priests and tetrarchs, and furious women, and the headsman with his sword, but he ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... almost unheeding the gentle gesture of the hand extended to raise her, the Greek knelt upon the floor, and, with an appearance of mingled timorousness and humility, laid her lips upon the gathered fingers; but now there appeared to be no natural warmth or glow in the pressure or real savor of lowliness in the attitude, but rather a forced and studied obsequiousness. For the instant AEnone paused, as though uncertain how to act. Then, fearing to betray her doubts, and hoping that her startled instinct ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... order that those who have confidence in you may not be deceived; this is a piece of advice I give you." Francis, delighted at what he had heard, dismounted, kissed the man's feet, thanked him, acknowledging the great mercy of God, who had been pleased to cast His eyes on the lowliness of His servant. Although this advice came from a poor countryman, it was nevertheless the very best that could be given to a saint. So true it is that no one should be despised, and that the most simple-minded persons often say more sensible and more spiritual ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... the master of Europe, whom emperors and kings gladly called "brother," could now proudly remember his past; he had now risen so high that he no longer had cause to deny his humble origin; this very lowliness had now become a new triumph of ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... Lander; "we might have spared ourselves the mortification of a refusal. We never experienced a more stinging sense of our own humbleness and imbecility than on such occasions, and never had we greater need of patience and lowliness of spirit. In most African towns and villages we have been regarded as demigods, and treated in consequence with universal kindness, civility, and veneration; but here, alas, what a contrast! we are classed with the most degraded and despicable of mankind, and are become slaves ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... The texts suggested are now before me, and I shall quote a few of them. 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' Mat. v. 5.—'I therefore, the prisoner of the LORD, beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called; with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.' Ephes. v. [iv.] 1, 2.—'And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.' Col. iii. 14.—'Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not, charity vaunteth not itself, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... such I left The assured condition of my lowliness,— The laughing days, the peaceful nights, the joys Of a small, quiet home—for such I risked Thy peace, my daughter. Abject, crouching slaves! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various

... world, the world would love his own."—John, xv, 19. "His form had not yet lost all her original brightness."—Milton. "No one will answer as if I were their friend or companion."—Steele, Spect., No. 534. "But in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves."— Philippians, ii, 3. "And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour."—Zechariah, viii, 17. "For every tree is known by his own fruit."—Luke, vi, 44. "But she ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... he, "thou shalt arise from thy never-to-be-lamented-sufficiently-lowliness; thou shalt leave the homely occupations of that rude boor unto whom it beseemeth thee to give the appellation of father, and shalt attain to the-all-to-be-desired greatness of my love, even as the resplendent sun condescends to shine down ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... thou for honours, reader? Call to mind That glory's voice is impotent to pierce The silence of the tomb! but virtue blooms Even on the wreck of life, and mounts the skies. So gird thy loins with lowliness, and walk With Cowper on ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... might move The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, Thou! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love; 60 True dignity abides with him alone Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, Can still suspect, and still revere himself, In lowliness of heart. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... may be seen that none of the elders quite approved of this budding affection. Mrs. Challoner, who belonged to a good old family, found it hard to forgive the Maynes' lowliness of birth; and though she liked Dick, she thought Nan could do better for herself. Mr. Mayne pooh-poohed the whole thing so entirely that the women could only speak ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... strength in forbearance, which makes manners noble. Low may he bow, not with loss, but with access of dignity, who bows with an elevated and ascending heart: there is nothing loftier, nothing less allied to abject behavior, than this grand lowliness. The worm, because it is low, cannot be lowly; but man, uplifted in token of supremacy, may kneel in adoration, bend in courtesy, and stoop in condescension. Only a great pride, that is, a great and reverential repose in one's own being, renders possible a noble humility, which is a great ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... not to have forsaken you. Ought I? I do not know, even now. Who can tell me what is right? Who can lead me out of this frightful labyrinth? If I did wrong in seeking you, I humbly ask the pardon of God, and if I did wrong in abandoning you, I ask forgiveness in all lowliness and meekness ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... Shepherd brings His wandering sheep back home. "I will bring them ... to their own land." We return from the land of pride to the home of lowliness, from hard indifference to gracious sympathy, from the barrenness of sin to the beauty of holiness. We come back to God's beautiful "lily-land" of eternal light ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... of whom Sir Henry Wotton—that knew him well in his youth, and had studied him in his age—gives this true character; "That he was a man of reverend and sacred memory, and of the primitive temper; such a temper, as when the Church by lowliness of spirit did flourish in highest examples of virtue." And ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... Geraldine was studying elocution, and she wore a scarlet cape and hood, and she was going on the stage by and by. I acknowledged that her sense of superiority was well-founded, and retired farther into my corner, for the first time conscious of my shabbiness and lowliness. ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... is the chief reason for our dislike of it. This lowliness of origin should not be distasteful to us. Nothing about Abraham Lincoln seems to us more wonderful than that a man who towered head and shoulders above his generation, indeed above most generations of men, in his fineness of life, in his nobility of purpose, in the integrity of his ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... wicked men Do thou with might restrain— God save the poor! Raise thou their lowliness, Succor thou their distress, Thou whom the meanest bless! God ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz

... "That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber upward turns his face."—Bucke's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... the crown on her head than to live robbed of her crown in lowliness and in a, subject condition. Thus thought Marie Antoinette, as at the close of that dreadful day she went to rest; this was her prayer as she ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... honour," he said, "thou hast reason on thy side, good juvenal—nevertheless, I spoke not as in ridicule of the roof which relieves me, but rather in your own praise, to whom, if this roof be native, thou mayst nevertheless rise from its lowliness; even as the lark, which maketh its humble nest in the furrow, ascendeth towards the sun, as well as the eagle which buildeth her ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... for hatred, gentleness for ill-treatment, and remain silent when attacked. So shall you transmute all your selfish desires into the pure gold of Love, and self will disappear in Truth. So will you walk blamelessly among men, yoked with the easy yoke of lowliness, and clothed with ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen

... that could mean; but yet she caught at something of the sense. "Walk worthy," she understood that; and guessed what "vocation" stood for. Ay! that was just it, and that was just what Daisy was not doing. The next words, too, were plain enough. "With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther

... ways, yet still be Consular. Therefore we have thought fit to bestow on the Illustrious and Magnificent Patrician Maximus, the Primiceriatus which is also called Domesticatus, from this fourteenth Indiction, that the lowliness of the honour may be raised by the merit of the wearer. He is an Anicius, sprung from a family renowned throughout the whole world. He is also honoured with the affinity of our own illustrious race. Receive him, welcome him, rejoice at these nuptials, which bind me closer to you, now ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... perform this ceremony, but was sharply reproved by Mrs Varden, who insisted on her undergoing it that minute. For pride, she said with great severity, was one of the seven deadly sins, and humility and lowliness of heart were virtues. Wherefore she desired that Dolly would be kissed immediately, on pain of her just displeasure; at the same time giving her to understand that whatever she saw her mother do, she might safely do herself, without being at the trouble of any reasoning ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... well was Fred'rick loved and well deserv'd, His voice was ever sweet, and on his lips Attended ever the alluring grace Of gentle lowliness and ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... lowliness From his Lord's cradle, patience from His Cross; Whom poor men's eyes and hearts consent to bless; To whom, for Christ, ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble



Words linked to "Lowliness" :   low status, status, inferiority, obscureness, lower status, obscurity, unimportance, lowness, high status, lower rank, position



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