Ali ibn Abi Talib Quotes

I'd ask people to keep in mind the idea that if you really understand something, it's even more important for you to consider the possibility of your wrongness. Even if it takes someone dumber than you to point that out.

Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error.

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.

To recognize our bias toward error should teach us modesty and reflection, and to forgive it should help us avoid the inhumanity of thinking we ourselves are not as fallible as those who, in any instance, seem most at fault. Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again.

Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm. Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, few doubtingly of scepticism.

A man who has humility will have acquired in the last reaches of his beliefs the saving doubt of his own certainty.

Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their own strength.

Some of the best advice I was ever given was: 'Don't believe your own hype.'

Wisdom is keeping a sense of fallibility of all our views and opinions.

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence - beginning with one's own.

I don't think I'm a particularly good writer, and I'm not terribly insightful.

I'm not much of an analyzer or a psychologist.

I'm not perfect at all.

I thought I was so much smarter than everybody. And I'm not.

If I were to say at any point that I feel really confident or really in control, that would be a mistake. Because I don't. I always see where I didn't do things the right way.

I truly believed that other people in my position didn't make mistakes; I couldn't see that everybody makes them, even people with great experience.

A certain degree of intellectual humility is a good thing.

I'm never impressed with myself!

Without insecurities, I think one becomes a little bit of an idiot.

I'm not one of these people who thinks I know all the answers.

I'm not a perfect player.

When as smart as you think you are is as wrong as you turn out to be, your life can fall out from under you.

I have never been 100% confident that I am right about anything.

I don't really think of myself as stupid - but then, who does?

I think it's very important to keep in the back of your mind: 'What if I'm wrong?'