Modest Quotes - Page 19

• Now the pessimist proper is the most modest of men. ... under no circumstances does he presume to imagine that he, a mere unit of pain, can in any degree change or soften the remorseless words of fate.

  Agnes Repplier

  Pain, Fate, Men

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• My mother is the one who taught me to be a lady by her actions. I observed the way that she dressed and the way that she carried herself. And both my grandmothers, they were women of very modest means. But they were also ladies.

  Michele Bachmann

  Mother, Mean, Way

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• The larger the ego, the less the need for other egos around. The more modest, humble, and self-effacing we feel, the more we suffer from solitude, feeling ourselves inadequate company.

  Barbara Holland

  Humble, Self, Ego

  Barbara Holland (1996). “One's Company: Reflections on Living Alone”

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• Art and Entertainment are the same thing, in that the more deeply and genuinely entertaining a work is, the better art it is. To imply that Art is something heavy and solemn and dull, and Entertainment is modest but jolly and popular, is neo-Victorian idiocy at its worst.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Art, Dull, Entertainment

  Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Wood (1980). “The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction”, p.232, Ultramarine Publishing

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• The Chinese have an excellent proverb: "Be modest in speech, but excel in action.

  Horace Mann

  Chinese, Speech, Action

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• The breakdown of our language, evident in the misuse, i.e., the misunderstanding of nouns and adjectives, is most grave, though perhaps not so conspicuous, in the handling of prepositions, those modest little connectives that hold the parts of a phrase or a sentence together. They are the joints of any language, what make it, literally, articulate.

  Mary McCarthy

  Together, Adjectives, Phrases

  Mary McCarthy (1985). “Occasional prose”, Harcourt

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• Think boldly. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. Don't miss small details, keep your eyes open and be modest in everything except your aims.

  Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

  Life, Mistake, Eye

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• Our children, Edward, Agnes, and little Mary, promise well; their education, for the time being, is chiefly committed to me; and they shall want no good thing that a mother's care can give.
  Our modest income is amply sufficient for our requirements; and by practising the economy we learnt in harder times, and never attempting to imitate our richer neighbours, we manage not only to enjoy comfort and contentment ourselves, but to have every year something to lay by for our children, and something to give to those who need it.
  And now I think I have said sufficient.

  Anne Bronte

  Mother, Children, Book

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.743, Penguin

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• You, that have toiled during youth, to set your son upon higher ground, and to enable him to begin where you left off, do not expect that son to be what you were, - diligent, modest, active, simple in his tastes, fertile in resources. You have put him under quite a different master. Poverty educated you; wealth will educate him. You cannot suppose the result will be the same.

  Anna Letitia Barbauld

  Son, Simple, Higher Ground

  Anna Letitia Barbauld (2001). “Anna Letitia Barbauld: Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.384, Broadview Press

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• I think you keep two sets of books. In one set, you record the truth -- how well you are really doing. This is the secret set -- just for you and loved ones. In the other set are more modest entries and statements, and these are for public consumption!

  Helen Gurley Brown

  Book, Thinking, Two

  Helen Gurley Brown (2000). “I'm Wild Again: Snippets from My Life and a Few Brazen Thoughts”, p.113, Macmillan

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• Orthodox criticism ... is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented, having the most imagination and sympathy, these are the first ones to get killed off.

  Brenda Ueland

  Helping Others, People, Imagination

  Brenda Ueland (2013). “If You Want to Write”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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• I was born modest, but it didn't last.

  Mark Twain

  Lasts, Moral, Manners

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.281, Courier Corporation

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• He was the meekest of his sex, the mildest of little men. He sidled in and out of a room, to take up the less space. He walked as softly as the Ghost in Hamlet, and more slowly. He carried his head on one side, partly in modest depreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybody else.

  Charles Dickens

  Sex, Character, Men

  Charles Dickens (1858). “The Personal History of David Copperfield ... With Frontispiece by H. K. Browne”, p.6

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• But grant, the virtues of a temp'rate prime
  Bless with an age exempt from scorn or crime;
  An age that melts with unperceived decay,
  And glides in modest Innocence away

  Samuel Johnson

  Age, Decay, Innocence

  Samuel Johnson, Niall Rudd (1981). “Johnson's Juvenal: London and The Vanity of Human Wishes”, Bloomsbury Academic

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• If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
  One cordial in this melancholy vale,
  'T is when a youthful, loving, modest pair
  In other's arms breathe out the tender tale

  Robert Burns

  Heaven, Arms, Pairs

  Robert Burns, Robert Chambers (1838). “The Poetical Works of Robert Burns. To which are Now Added, Notes Illustrating Historical, Personal, and Local Allusions. [The Editor's Preface Signed: R. C., I.e. Robert Chambers.]”, p.42

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• ... Kindness, sweetest of the small notes in the world's ache, most modest & gentle of the elements entered man before history and became his daily connection, let no man tell you otherwise.

  Carl Rakosi

  Kindness, Men, Connections

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• I would be the last to deny that the greatest scientific pioneers belonged to an aristocracy of the spirit and were exceptionally intelligent, something that we as modest investigators will never attain, no matter how much we exert ourselves. Nevertheless ... I continue to believe that there is always room for anyone with average intelligence ... to utilize his energy and ... any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain, and that even the least gifted may, like the poorest land that has been well-cultivated and fertilized, produce an abundant harvest.

  Santiago Ramon y Cajal

  Believe, Intelligent, Men

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• Give me the compliments. I love compliments. I was born modest, but it wore off.

  Val Kilmer

  Giving, Compliment, Born

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• You must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.

  William Shakespeare

  Order, Limits, Moderation

  William Shakespeare, Keir Elam (2008). “Twelfth Night: Third Series”, p.171, A&C Black

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• When a modest man praises himself, people listen.

  Mason Cooley

  Men, People, Modesty

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• The modest youth somehow knows just what to do for the cameras.

  Mason Cooley

  Cameras, Modesty, Youth

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• A modest demeanor arouses thoughts of seduction.

  Mason Cooley

  Seduction, Modesty, Demeanor

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• Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one's own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people's, preserve dignity.

  Doug Stanhope

  People, Acquiescence, Dignity

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• And I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes. For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do.

  Paul the Apostle

  Clothes, Hair, Gold

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• Great artists are modest almost as seldom as they are faithful to their wives.

  H. L. Mencken

  Artist, Wife, Faithful

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