Modesty Quotes - Page 24

• 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

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

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Beauty, Women, Greater

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• I have a supermarket full of ideas and the challenge is how many ideas can I get in my cart before I'm gone. When you're doing it, you're not focused on success. It's not a matter of modesty. You're simply trying to get all the things done that you want to get done in your life.

  George Lucas

  Ideas, Challenges, Trying

  "Cinematic Phenomenon". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 19, 1999.

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• I don't think modesty is a very good virtue, if it is a virtue at all. A modest person will drop the modesty in a minute. It's a learned affectation.

  Maya Angelou

  Thinking, Virtue, Minutes

  "Maya Angelou on Integrity", www.achievement.org.

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• 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”

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• 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

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• 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”

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• 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

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• 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

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• Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.

  John Adams

  Virtue, Thrive

  John Adams, Robert Joseph Taylor, Gregg L. Lint (1989). “Papers of John Adams”

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• 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

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• Modesty is the proof that morality is sexy.

  Wendy Shalit

  Sexy, Morality, Proof

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• Two kinds of people live a life without care: one kind are extremely worthy of praise, the other kind are extremely worthy of criticism. The first are those who care nothing for the pleasures of the world and the second (i.e. those who are deserving of criticism) care nothing for haya or modesty.

  Ibn Hazm

  Wisdom, Islamic, Two

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• Abundance is an expansion of energy. Abundance is a form of gratitude, a generosity, a modesty, a bow toward others - what we can give, what we can share, rather than what we can take.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Gratitude, Generosity, Giving

  "Exclusive: Terry Tempest Williams On Sacred Rage, Abundance, and the Upcoming White House Tar Sands Pipeline Action". Interview with Jerry Cope, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 17, 2011.

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• True humility is more like self-forgetfulness than false modesty.

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Humility, Self

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• Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.

  Richard Steele

  Beauty, Wit

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• 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

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• 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.

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• I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with 'you' in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Ideas, Mind

  Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.299, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• If you are going to be courageous, an example for all those who are ready to step into their power, then you must be willing to show the world all of who you are. You must have the guts to throw off the chains of modesty and mediocrity in order to be the light that the world needs.

  Debbie Ford

  Life, Order, Light

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• Modesty is the way you deal with beauty not the way you avoid it.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Inspirational, Beauty, Humility

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• We need modesty not only in the way we dress; we need intellectual modesty.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Intellectual, Dresses, Needs

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