Modesty Quotes - Page 22

• Spite of all modesty, a man must own a pleasure in the hearing of his praise.

  George Farquhar

  Men, Hearing, Praise

  William. II Congreve William Wycherley (John Vanbrugh and Farquhar George), William. II Wycherley, William Congreve, George Farquhar, John Vanbrugh (1840). “Dramatic Works with Biographical and Critical Notices by Leigh Hunt. - London, Moxon 1840”, p.599

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• True modesty and true pride are much the same thing: both consist in setting a just value on ourselves - neither more nor less.

  William Hazlitt

  Pride, Settings, Values

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1481, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Many a peacock hides his peacock tail from all eyes--and calls it his pride.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Eye, Pride, Tails

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.270, Modern Library

  65 Copy quote

  Show source

• Praise thyself never.

  Seneca the Younger

  Praise, Thyself

  9 Copy quote

• Some pretend want of power to make a competent return; and you shall find in others a kind of graceless modesty, that makes a man ashamed of requiting an obligation, because it is a confession that he has received one.

  Seneca the Younger

  Men, Want, Return

  5 Copy quote

• Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming modesty, clear the way for merit, that would otherwise be discouraged by difficulties...

  Lord Chesterfield

  White, Way, Merit

  "Manners and speech or maxims extracted from Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son". Book by Lord Chesterfield, 1884.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• You must be respectful and assenting, but without being servile and abject. You must be frank, but without indiscretion, and close, without being costive. You must keep up dignity of character, without the least pride of birth, or rank. You must be gay, within all the bounds of decency and respect; and grave, without the affectation of wisdom, which does not become the age of twenty. You must be essentially secret, without being dark and mysterious. You must be firm, and even bold, but with great seeming modesty.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Character, Gay, Dark

  9 Copy quote

• Wrap thyself in the decent veil that the arts or the graces weave for thee, O human nature! It is only the statue of marble whose nakedness the eye can behold without shame and offence!

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Art, Eye, Grace

  5 Copy quote

• Bashfulness is not becoming to maidenhood, though modesty always is.

  Margaret of Valois

  Becoming, Bashfulness

  4 Copy quote

• Modesty once lost, never returns into favour.

  Publilius Syrus

  Return, Favour, Lost

  5 Copy quote

• The sordid meal of the Cynics contributed neither to their tranquillity nor to their modesty. Pride went with Diogenes into his tub; and there he had the presumption to command Alexander the haughtiest of all men.

  Henry Home, Lord Kames

  Pride, Men, Meals

  Henry Home (lord Kames.) (1818). “Introduction to the art of thinking, to which is prefixed an original life of the author”, p.80

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Egotism is true modesty. In religious enquiry each of us can speak only for himself.

  John Henry Newman

  Religious, Enquiry, Speak

  6 Copy quote

• When modesty has once perished, it will never revive.

  Seneca the Younger

  Revive

  4 Copy quote

• We are much mistaken if we think that men are always brave from a principle of valor, or women chaste from a principle of modesty.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Men, Thinking, Bravery

  4 Copy quote

• They may seize
  On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand
  And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
  Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
  Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.

  William Shakespeare

  Kissing, Blessing, Thinking

  William Shakespeare, James Boswell, Edward Capell, Alexander Pope, George Steevens (1821). “The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare”, p.148

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• We must be educated in inner human modesty, so we can recognize that we are not, even for a moment, complete as human beings. Instead, we continue to develop from birth until death. We must recognize that every day of life has a special value, that it is not without purpose that we must learn to live through our thirties right after we have just gone through our twenties. We need to learn that each new day and each new year offers continual revelation.

  Rudolf Steiner

  New Year, Years, New Day

  Rudolf Steiner (2006). “Education as a Force for Social Change”, p.231, SteinerBooks

  146 Copy quote

  Show source

• Larry Summers is to modesty what Madonna is to Chastity.

  Paul Gigot

  Summer, Chastity, Larry

  "The World According to Larry" by Moises Naim, foreignpolicy.com. November 11, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love and meekness, lord,
  Become a churchman better than ambition:
  Win straying souls with modesty again,
  Cast none away.

  William Shakespeare

  Ambition, Winning, Soul

  William Shakespeare (2013). “Making Sense of Henry VIII! a Students Guide to Shakespeare's Play (Includes Study Guide, Biography, and Modern Retelling)”, p.237, BookCaps Study Guides

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• These, then, are the qualities of my ideal diplomatist. Truth, accuracy, calm, patience, good temper, modesty and loyalty. They are also the qualities of an ideal diplomacy. But, the reader may object, you have forgotten intelligence, knowledge, discernment, prudence, hospitality, charm, industry, courage and even tact. I have not forgotten them. I have taken them for granted.

  Harold Nicolson

  Loyalty, Taken, Quality

  "Diplomacy". Book by Harold George Nicolson, chapter 3, p. 126, 1939.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Had this author [Sir W Drummond Academical Questions, chap. iii.], instead of inveighing against the guilt and absurdity of atheism, demonstrated its falsehood, his conduct would have, been more suited to the modesty of the skeptic and the toleration of the philosopher.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Guilt, Atheism, Philosopher

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2015). “The Necessity of Atheism”, p.12, Booklassic

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have no modesty. Modesty is a learned affectation. It's like decal stuck up on a person.

  Maya Angelou

  Stuck Up, Stuck, Persons

  Source: www.npr.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Self, Stupidity, Pay

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.274, Stanford University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Generally speaking, the greater a woman's beauty, the greater her modesty.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Beauty, Women, Greater

  6 Copy quote

• It was modesty that invented the word "philosopher" in Greece and left the magnificent overweening presumption in calling oneselfwise to the actors of the spirit--the modesty of such monsters of pride and sovereignty as Pythagoras, as Plato.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Wisdom, Plato, Philosophical

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2010). “The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs”, p.294, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man is at his furthest remove from the animal as a child, his intellect most human. With his fifteenth year and puberty he comes astep closer to the animal; with the sense of possessions of his thirties (the median line between laziness and greediness), still another step. In his sixtieth year of life he frequently loses his modesty as well, then the septuagenarian steps up to us as a completely unmasked beast: one need only look at the eyes and the teeth.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Children, Eye, Men

  5 Copy quote