Modesty Quotes - Page 23

• Modesty is great, and quietness is nice, but sometimes it's much more fun to be decadent.

  Robin Standefer

  Fun, Nice, Sometimes

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• If you wish to be loved, be modest; if you wish to be admired, be proud; if you wish both, combine external modesty with internal pride.

  Will Durant

  Love, Pride, Wish

  Will Durant (1929). “The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny”, Garden City, N.Y. : Garden City Publishing Company

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• A lot of men who have accepted - or had imposed upon them in boyhood - the old English public school styles of careful modesty in speech, with much understatement, have behind their masks an appalling and impregnable conceit of themselves.

  J. B. Priestley

  School, Men, Style

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• Not that I had any special reason for hating school. Strange as it may seem to my readers, I was not unpopular there. I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.

  Max Beerbohm

  Hate, School, Boys

  Sir Max Beerbohm (1970). “Selected prose”

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• An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away.

  Samuel Johnson

  Age, Decay, Innocence

  Samuel Johnson (1811). “The Poetical Works of Samuel Johnson: Collated with the Best Editions”, p.27

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• Implied Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway, And by her yielded, by him best receiv'd,- Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.

  John Milton

  Sweet, Pride, Delay

  John Milton, Henry John Todd (1852). “The Poetical Works of John Milton: With Notes of Various Authors; and with Some Account of the Life and Writings of Milton, Derived Principally from Original Documents in Her Majesty's State-paper Office”, p.72

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• The wisest man could ask no more of fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, Safe from the many, honored by the few; Nothing to court in Church, or World, or State, But inwardly in secret to be great.

  James Russell Lowell

  Fate, Simple, Men

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• It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature's God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word.

  Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

  Real, Discovery, Progress

  Henry St John's letter to Alexander Pope, as quoted in "The Work of Lord Bolingbroke: With a Life, Prepared Expressly for this Edition, Containing Additional Information Relative to His Personal and Public Character, Selected from the Best Authorities. In Four Volumes. Volume III", 1841.

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• Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie? I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth; the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. . . . Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If.

  William Shakespeare

  Peace, Lying, Order

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 5, sc. 4, l. [108]

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• Humility is the mother of many virtues because from it obedience, fear, reverence, patience, modesty, meekness and peace are born. He who is humble easily obeys everyone, fears to offend anyone, is at peace with everyone, is kind with all.

  Thomas of Villanova

  Mother, Humble, Humility

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• The body should be bedecked naturally and without affectation, with simplicity, with neglect rather than nicety, not with costly and dazzling apparel, but with ordinary clothes, so that nothing be lacking to honesty and necessity, yet nothing be added to increase its beauty.

  Ambrose

  Honesty, Clothes, Simplicity

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• 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

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• In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; . . . . Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.

  William Shakespeare

  Peace, War, Humility

  William Shakespeare (1996). “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare”, p.496, Wordsworth Editions

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• In the modesty of fearful duty, I read as much as from the rattling tongue of saucy and audacious eloquence.

  William Shakespeare

  Tongue, Duty, Fearful

  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1595-6) act 5, sc. 1, l. 100

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• It's a great lesson in modesty that you realize you're illiterate in a field that you think you're an expert in.

  Wim Wenders

  Thinking, Experts, Lessons

  "Director Wim Wenders PINA Interview". Roundtable interview, collider.com. December 21, 2011.

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• 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.

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• Original love never appears in pure form, but in manifold veils and shapes, such as confidence, humility, reverence, serenity, asfaithfulness and modesty, as gratefulness; but primarily as longing and wistful melancholy.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Humility, Serenity, Veils

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• Adam and Eve entered the world naked and unashamed - naked and pure-minded. And no descendant of theirs has ever entered it otherwise. All have entered it naked, unashamed, and clean in mind. They entered it modest. They had to acquire immodesty in the soiled mind, there was no other way to get it. ... The convention mis-called "modesty" has no standard, and cannot have one, because it is opposed to nature and reason and is therefore an artificiality and subject to anyone's whim - anyone's diseased caprice.

  Mark Twain

  Mind, Naked, World

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• 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

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• Modesty in an actor is as fake as passion in a call girl.

  Jackie Gleason

  Girl, Passion, Fake

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• Many men who do creditable things refuse to let it be known. This is a mistake. While we all admire modesty, nevertheless there is a great national need to do everything possible to bring home to the rank and file of the people that all employers and all wealthy men are not grinding, mercenary, selfish skinflints, but that many of them take delight in doing helpful things for others ... Shortcomings of employers are constantly paraded. Why not let the public become acquainted with the better side which most present-day employers possess?

  B. C. Forbes

  Selfish, Mistake, Home

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• Modesty in women has two special advantages,--it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Two, Special, Veils

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• The whole question of pornography seems to me a question of secrecy. Without secrecy there would be no pornography. But secrecy and modesty are two utterly different things. Secrecy has always an element of fear in it, amounting very often to hate. Modesty is gentle and reserved. Today, modesty is thrown to the winds, even in the presence of the grey guardians. But secrecy is hugged, being a vice in itself. And the attitude of the grey ones is: Dear young ladies, you may abandon all modesty, so long as you hug your dirty little secret.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Attitude, Hate, Dirty

  D. H. Lawrence (1966). “Selected Poems of D.h. Lawrence”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• Without secrecy there would be no pornography. But secrecy and modesty are two utterly different things.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Two, Would Be, Different

  D. H. Lawrence, James T. Boulton (2004). “D. H. Lawrence: Late Essays and Articles”, p.243, Cambridge University Press

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• 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

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