Modesty Quotes - Page 23

• But my relief that David Auburn's Proof is less about its ballyhooed higher mathematics than the fragility of life and love was matched by my delight in his fine and tender play. (...) Proof surprises us with its aliveness and intelligent modesty, and we have not met these characters before.

  John Heilpern

  Life And Love, Character, Intelligent

  4 Copy quote

• Doth perfect beauty stand in need of praise at all? Nay; no more than law, no more than truth, no more than loving kindness, nor than modesty.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Beauty, Kindness, Law

  "Meditations". Book by Marcus Aurelius. Book IV, 20,

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Modesty is the richest ornament of a woman ... the want of it is her greatest deformity.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Women, Ornaments, Want

  Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.139

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Any woman may act the part of a coquette successfully who has the reputation without the scruples of modesty. If a woman passes the bounds of propriety for our sakes, and throws herself unblushingly at our heads, we conclude it is either from a sudden and violent liking, or from extraordinary merit on our parts, either of which is enough to turn any man's head who has a single spark of gallantry or vanity in his composition.

  William Hazlitt

  Women, Vanity, Coquette

  4 Copy quote

• The affected modesty of most women is a decoy for the generous, the delicate, and unsuspecting; while the artful, the bold, and unfeeling either see or break through its slender disguises.

  William Hazlitt

  Women, Break Through, Slender

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.475

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In science, modesty and genius do not coexist well together. (In Washington, modesty and cleverness don't.) Einstein is perhaps the most famous exception to the rule.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Exception To The Rule, Together, Genius

  "An Age-old Puzzle, Solved Modestly". articles.chicagotribune.com. July 05, 1993.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is modesty but inverted pride?

  Chinua Achebe

  Pride, Inverted

  Chinua Achebe (1988). “A Man of the People”, p.11, Heinemann

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Vanity as an impulse has without doubt been of far more benefit to civilization than modesty has ever been.

  William E. Woodward

  Vanity, Civilization, Doubt

  William E. Woodward (1946). “George Washington: The Image and the Man”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing is so much coveted by a young man as the reputation of being a genius; and many seem to feel that the want of patience for laborious application and deep research is such a mark of genius as cannot be mistaken: while a real genius, like Sir Isaac Newton, with great modesty says, that the great and only difference between his mind and the minds of others consisted solely in his having more patience.

  John Todd

  Real, Men, Differences

  John Todd (1856). “The student's manual: designed”, p.23

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Only when painting isn't painting can there be an affront to modesty.

  Pablo Picasso

  Art, Painting, Affront

  Denis Thomas, Pablo Picasso (1975). “Picasso and his art”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nonsense prevails, modesty fails Grace and virtue turn into stupidity While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts They still think they're the gods of antiquity If something you missed didn't even exist It was just an ideal is it such a surprise?

  Elvis Costello

  Thinking, Stupidity, Leader

  Song: All This Useless Beauty, Album: All This Useless Beauty, 1996

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mere bashfulness without merit is awkward; and merit without modesty, insolent. But modest merit has a double claim to acceptance, and generally meets with as many patrons as beholders.

  Joseph Addison

  Acceptance, Awkward, Merit

  Joseph Addison (1856). “The works of ... Joseph Addison, with notes by R. Hurd”, p.118

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a proud modesty in merit.

  John Dryden

  Proud, Merit

  John Dryden, C. B., Esquire Charles BATHURST (1852). “Selections from the poetry of Dryden, including his plays and translations. [The editor's preface signed: C. B., i.e. Charles Bathurst.]”, p.129

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Modesty is policy, no less than virtue.

  William Gilmore Simms

  Virtue, Policy

  4 Copy quote

• Modesty is the proof that morality is sexy.

  Wendy Shalit

  Sexy, Morality, Proof

  7 Copy quote

• 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

• Science offends the modesty of all real women. It makes them feel as though it were an attempt to peek under their skin--or, worseyet, under their dress and ornamentation!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Real, Women, Science

  8 Copy quote