“Perhaps in the time of our humiliation, when everything seems a failure, we are making the best kind of progress.”

Suggesting that unseen growth may occur precisely when progress seems absent · Letter to a friend in Texas, 1 December 1873

• Growth
• Humility
• Perseverance

“To say that I was surprised and ashamed is to put it mildly.”

A candid expression of embarrassment and self-awareness · Letter to Joshua Bennett, May 17, 1925

• Emotion
• Experience
• Humility

“There being scarce any spectacle more pleasing to God and Man then to see the proud humbled.”

A characteristic Marvellian pleasure in seeing arrogance brought low · The Rehearsal Transpros'd: The Second Part

• Humility
• Justice
• Power

“After all, it is easier to adapt yourself to foreign ways than to adapt them to you.”

A concise lesson in humility and flexibility while encountering another culture · From Gretna Green to Land's End

• Change
• Culture
• Humility

“When the critic reaches this exalted frame of mind his slight usefulness is gone.”

Arguing that criticism loses value once the critic begins to regard himself as infallible · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Character
• Criticism
• Humility

“To place a man in permanent absolute control of a certain number of pages, in which to express his opinions, is to place him in a position of great personal danger.”

Warning that unchecked authority to judge others can distort a critic's sense of his own importance · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Character
• Criticism
• Humility

“I am still writing verse, but have done nothing worthy to send you... I sincerely doubt whether I should ever write a poem of any length.”

A revealing moment of artistic self-doubt from a poet still developing his voice · Letter to Laurence Binyon, Oxford period

• Humility
• Poetry
• Writing

“The lot of the novelist is, in fact, hard—but not harder than that of any other man.”

Refusing to romanticise the difficulties of the writer’s profession · The English Novel

• Humility
• Work
• Writing

“I may be perfectly wrong in almost everything that I say. If I am, that is the end of me.”

A characteristically dry acknowledgement of the risks of literary judgement · Author’s Apology, The English Novel

• Criticism
• Humility
• Humour

“My standpoint has changed in many ways here — I think I may say: broadened.”

Original: Mein Standpunkt hat sich hierin mannigfach verändert – ich darf wohl sagen: erweitert. — A succinct acknowledgement that intellectual growth can mean widening one's outlook · Letter to Christian Schmitt, 1902 (German)

• Change
• Humility
• Learning

“I am astonished and delighted at once. I can hardly have deserved it: my military qualities are certainly not exceptional. I owe it chiefly to the captain's kindness.”

Original: Ich bin verwundert und beglückt zugleich. Habe es wohl kaum verdient: meine militärischen Qualitäten sind ja nicht exorbitant. Ich danke es wesentlich der Güte des Hauptmanns. — His modest and faintly ironic response to receiving the Iron Cross · War diary, 1 October 1914 (German)

• Character
• Humility
• War

“I was utterly mistaken. Indeed, it was not long before I discovered that he had qualities which were superior to my own.”

A candid admission of prejudice corrected by acquaintance · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Humility
• Truth

“The following trifles are the production of a simple, untutored Muse, with which I amused myself.”

Presenting his early poems with characteristic modesty and self-awareness · Preface to Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect

• Humility
• Poetry