Modesty Quotes - Page 20

• 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

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• 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.

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• 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

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• Modesty is a learned affectation. It's no good. Humility is great, because humility says, 'There was someone before me. I'm following in somebody's footsteps.'

  Maya Angelou

  Humility, Compassion, Following

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• You cannot limit the power of your modesty to just what you wear. It is also controlled or forfeited by where you are willing to go with guys, why you go there, and how you act.

  Dannah Gresh

  Guy, Limits, Where You Are

  Dannah Gresh (2005). “Secret Keeper: The Delicate Power of Modesty”, p.68, Moody Publishers

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• To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Humble, Rationality, Fallibility

  "Twelve Virtues of Rationality". Personal Website, yudkowsky.net.

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• Modesty is only arrogance by stealth.

  Terry Pratchett

  Arrogance, Stealth

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• 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.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Reflection, Thinking, Errors

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• When writing about oneself, one must strive to be truthful. Truth is more important than modesty.

  Roald Dahl

  Writing, Important, Truthful

  Roald Dahl (2009). “Boy: Tales of Childhood”, p.41, Penguin

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• there is more to this hijab than the whole modesty thing. These girls are strangers to me but I know that we all felt an amazing connection, a sense that this cloth binds us in some kind of universal sisterhood.

  Randa Abdel-Fattah

  Girl, Sisterhood, Connections

  Randa Abdel-Fattah (2014). “Does My Head Look Big in This?”, p.25, Scholastic UK

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• 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

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• People seem very arrogant when they say 'I'm right and you're wrong', but in practice we all believe we're right. We have a staggering arrogance in our own belief. That can be tempered by not being 100% certain; by being provisional. No matter what the debate is, very few people have the modesty to suspend judgement on a whole range of things; most intelligent people have an opinion and are expected to have an opinion by other people - but it always requires making a personal judgement that goes way-beyond your expertise. We do it all the time.

  Julian Baggini

  Believe, Intelligent, People

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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

  Seneca the Younger

  Revive

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

  John Henry Newman

  Religious, Enquiry, Speak

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• 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

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• Modesty once lost, never returns into favour.

  Publilius Syrus

  Return, Favour, Lost

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• 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

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• I'm just a weapon of the god.

  Janet Morris

  Honesty, Humility, Weapons

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• 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

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• I don't think that modesty is the outstanding characteristic of contemporary politics, do you?

  Edward Heath

  Thinking, Characteristics, Outstanding

  Edward Heath's comment in the House of Commons, December 1988.

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• Modesty sets off one newly come to honour.

  George Herbert

  Honour

  George Herbert, Christopher Harvey, George Gilfillan (1857). “The poetical works of George Herbert”, p.324

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• Architecture is a rare collective profession: it's always exercised by groups. There is an essential modesty, which is a complete contradiction to the notion of a star.

  Rem Koolhaas

  Stars, Groups, Essentials

  "The NS Interview: Rem Koolhaas, architect". Interview with Samira Shackle, www.newstatesman.com. May 16, 2012.

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• It is often the case with a new idea that when it comes knocking on society's door with modesty and the best premises for its existence, there is a tremendous outcry from inside.

  Isak Dinesen

  Ideas, Doors, Cases

  Isak Dinesen, Karen Blixen (1987). “On Modern Marriage and Other Observations”

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• Christian mothers, if only you knew the future of distress and peril, of shame ill-restrained, that you prepare for your sons and daughters in imprudently accustoming them to live hardly clothed and in making them lose the sense of modesty, you should be ashamed of yourselves and of the harm done the little ones whom heaven entrusted to your care, to be reared in Christian dignity and culture.

  Pope Pius XII

  Christian, Daughter, Mother

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• Every young woman should dress well, that is, neatly, tastefully, modestly, whether she be rich or poor. Conspicuous dressing is vulgar. True refinement avoids anything showy and flashy: it never dresses better than it can afford, and yet it is always well dressed, even in simple muslin or plain calico.

  J.R. Miller

  Simple, Rich Or Poor, Dresses

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