Modesty Quotes

Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.

S. L. Clemens

A modest man never talks of himself.

Jean de La Bruyère

With people of only moderate ability modesty is mere honesty but with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

Schopenhauer

Modesty is the conscience of the body.

Honoré de Balzac

Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.

Lord Chesterfield

Modesty died when false modesty was born.

S. L. Clemens

The proper name for the thing is modesty; but as we live in an age of prejudice and must not call things by their right names, we will yield to a more modern nomenclature and call it dignity.

G.K. Chesterton

Remember, there are more people in the world than yourself. Be modest! You have not yet invented nor thought anything which others have not thought or invented before. And should you really have done so, consider it a gift of heaven which you are to share with others.

Robert Schumann

Reading leads to knowing more. Knowing more leads to arrogance. Reading further leads to humbleness.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Modesty is only arrogance by stealth.

Terry Pratchett

Life humbles the rich by giving them problems that money can’t resolve, or, dissolve.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

To be modest in speaking truth is hypocrisy. TM-ST-95

Kahlil Gibran

Like it or not, we are trendsetters. Just as every fashion model ever to strut the runway, we affect the minds of others by what we wear. With usch power it's vital to question ourselves: 'Am I an example of Christ-centeredness? Or have I just gotten comfortable in the "Christian routine" and forgotten why I've chosen to live this way?

Hannah Farver

Pantaloons were often worn tight as paint and were not a great deal less revealing, particularly as they were worn without underwear. . . . Jackets were tailored with tails in the back, but were cut away in front so that they perfectly framed the groin. It was the first time in history that men's apparel was consciously designed to be more sexy than women's.

Bill Bryson

Victorian rigidities were such that ladies were not even allowed to blow out candles in mixed company, as that required them to pucker their lips suggestively. They could not say that they were going "to bed"--that planted too stimulating an image--but merely that they were "retiring." It became effectively impossible to discuss clothing in even a clinical sense without resort to euphemisms. Trousers became "nether integuments" or simply "inexpressibles" and underwear was "linen." Women could refer among themselves to petticoats or, in hushed tones, stockings, but could mention almost nothing else that brushed bare flesh.

Bill Bryson

When David Markson wrote in June to complain about an author's getting an award he though should have been his, Wallace gently warned him away from the pitfall of envy: "Mostly I try to remember how lucky I am to be able to write, and doubly, triply lucky I am that anyone else is willing to read it, to say nothing of publishing it. I'm no pollyanna - this keeping-the-spirits-up shit is hard work, and I don't often do it well. But I try... Life is good

D.T. Max

Unaffected modesty is the sweetest charm of female excellence, the richest gem in the diadem of her honor.

Noah Webster

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.

Oliver Goldsmith

Every writer on this planet THINKS he is a great writer (why waste your entire life writing when you believe you are mediocre?) but its deemed socially unacceptable to actually speak out such thoughts. So, modesty is always a public concept and not an inner one. For that reason alone 'modesty' can actually be said to be the product of a large ego, for the ego is primarily concerned with survival and society rewards this dishonesty and tends to punish honesty (see Camus)

Martijn Benders

There is always more goodness in the world than there appears to be because goodness is of its very nature modest and retiring.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

There is always more goodness in the world than there appears to be, because goodness is of its very nature modest and retiring.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

- Why you?- (...) I’m the best.- Modest of you.- I am the best. Modesty has nothing to say about it.

Paul Hoffman

I love luxury. And luxury lies not in richness and ornateness but in the absence of vulgarity. Vulgarity is the ugliest word in our language. I stay in the game to fight it.

Coco Chanel

In a gentle way, you can shake the world

Mahatma Gandhi

We can all participate in the heritage of man. We all can help to preserve it. And we can all make our own modest contribution to it.We must not as for more.

Karl R. Popper

That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit.

Jane Austen

Modesty was hardly a priority in her mind until now. Now she had been cast from Hell and again knew shame.

Thomm Quackenbush

The crux of my argument is this—we cannot truly understand what we should put on, say, or do, without looking at our behavior in relationship to Christ. In Christ, decency in behavior and dress is far larger than the particulars of modesty. By the world’s standards, modesty is a rule passed down from generation to generation which involves choosing a garment that submits to a certain standard set by a mother or community, one that constantly changes.” – Stacie Parlee-Johnson (Ch. 9, A Theology of Modesty)

Rosalie De Rosset

I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.

Vladimir Nabokov

The earth is large and old enough to teach us modesty.

Hans Cloos

An elephant does not need to pick a fight to let the whole jungle know of its strength.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Life is the greatest author of us all, for it writes the very best and very worst of all tales & stories...

Andrè Michael Pietroschek

Consider an achievement accidental if it is not coupled with modesty. Because if the achiever had endeavoured for it, it would certainly have killed their pride.

Raheel Farooq

For when a woman resists an unwelcome passion, she is obeying to the full the law of her sex; the initial gesture of refusal is, so to speak, a primordial instinct in every female, and even if she rejects the most ardent passion she cannot be called inhuman. But how disastrous it is when fate upsets the balance, when a woman so far overcomes her natural modesty as to disclose her passion to a man, when, without the certainty of its being reciprocated, she offers her love, and he, the wooed, remains cold and on the defensive! An insoluble tangle this, always; for not to return a woman's love is to shatter her pride, to violate her modesty. The man who rejects a woman's advances is bound to wound her in her noblest feelings. In vain, then, all the tenderness with which he extricates himself, useless all his polite, evasive phrases, insulting all his offers of mere friendship, once she has revealed her weakness! His resistance inevitably becomes cruelty, and in rejecting a woman's love he takes a load of guild upon his conscience, guiltless though he may be. Abominable fetters that can never be cast off!

Stefan Zweig

The best protection against rape, stalking, and domestic violence is to raise men who both understand that women are different, and would never dare take advantage of this difference.

Wendy Shalit

Sometimes you must agree with someones opinion for the sake of being polite and modest, but within you, you know that you are not foolish and crazy.

Michael Bassey Johnson

With a modest amount of looks and talent and more than a modicum of serendipity, I've managed to stretch my 15 minutes of fame into more than half a century of good fortune.

Robert Vaughn

Modesty, not temper.

George Eliot

The Marquesa would even have been astonished to learn that her letters were very good, for such authors live always in the noble weather of their own minds and those productions which seem remarkable to us are little better than a day's routine to them.

Thornton Wilder

I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did. It has always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this reason, I retained my modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise I got, the more I tried to deserve.

Charles Dickens

You don’t want modesty, you want humility. Humility comes from inside out. It says someone was here before me and I’m here because I’ve been paid for. I have something to do and I will do that because I’m paying for someone else who has yet to come.

Maya Angelou

Unlike Kim Cardassian or Donald Trump, Montaigne regarded the inward glance as an adventure in self-effacement not self infatuation. He was a charming and perceptive critic of his own foibles, especially alert to his weakness for inconsistency.

Danny Heitman

I've never met a soldier who knew he was a hero. It's not false modesty. They simply decide to do something that they know they must do, usually for there comrades, because if they don't, those people will suffer in some way. For them, that compulsion is far stronger than any fear. The fact we find it exceptional is a sad indictment of the human race. I'd like to live in a world of heroes. If we did, there would be no wars.

Karen Traviss

O Woman - Allah has made you the Queen of Piety and Modesty, Don't belittle yourself to be the slave of unlawful admiration and mortal fame & fortune.

Ayisha Tabbassum

But if modesty is interpreted not as diffidence or self-effacingness, but as non-overweening, a realistic assessment of the job to be done and one's ability to do it, then you might say the chief virtue of excellent artists is their modesty...But knowing your limits and going to them isn't arrogance. It's greatness of spirit.

Ursula K Le Guin

To write about him is to write about Greatness. To discuss him is todiscuss Intellectual Brilliance. To think of him is to think of Modesty,Simplicity and Lucidity. To remember him is to remember Nationalism atits finest hour. He was not one of those who merely achieved greatnessnor certainly one of those upon whom greatness was thrust-he was infact born great.

Munindra Misra

When virtue and modesty enlighten her charms, the lustre of a beautiful woman is brighter than the stars of heaven, and the influence of her power it is in vain to resist.

Akhenaton

Most insensible, corrupt, cheap, disrespectful young girls run after bad, rude, cocky, nonsensical boys, but a mature, educated, thoughtful, virtuos lady opts for a wise, well breed, experienced, humble, modest gentleman.

Michael Bassey Johnson

The prudent man always studies seriously and earnestly to understand whatever he professes to understand, and not merely to persuade other people that he understands it; and though his talents may not always be very brilliant, they are always perfectly genuine. He neither endeavours to impose upon you by the cunning devices of an artful impostor, nor by the arrogant airs of an assuming pedant, nor by the confident assertions of a superficial and imprudent pretender. He is not ostentatious even of the abilities which he really possesses. His conversation is simple and modest, and he is averse to all the quackish arts by which other people so frequently thrust themselves into public notice and reputation.

Adam Smith

A great man is always willing to be little.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pop stars AREN'T cool. Cheating on your husband or your wife isn't cool. Having no modesty with your body and no self-respect is NOT cool. It doesn't matter how pretty someone's voice is, or if they SAY they are Christian, God calls us to modesty and faithfulness, so we need to be careful to not idolize anyone that goes way off of what God wants.

Lisa Bedrick

If you lose your integrity, you will also lose your identity, your sensitivity and your dignity. Integrity is honesty, modesty and security in all kinds of weather. It should be our priority!

Israelmore Ayivor

The little respect paid to chastity in the male world is, I am persuaded, the grand source of many of the physical and moral evils that torment mankind, as well as of the vices and follies that degrade and destroy women; yet, at school, boys infallibly lose that decent bashfulness, which might have ripened into modesty at home.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Love, forgiveness, modesty, humility and gratitude are most important virtues in life.

P. Remes

f you are too good to look after God’s trash, you are not good enough to look after God’s treasure.

Matshona Dhliwayo

One way of keeping your dreams alive is to keep it to yourself. It can save you and protect your dreams to a greater extent.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Stars shine so they can see the world, not so the world can see them.

Matshona Dhliwayo

[A Letter to the Culture that Raised Me] I'm not here to be on display. And my body is not for public consumption. I will not be reduced to an object, or a pair of legs to sell shoes. I'm a soul, a mind, a servant of God. My worth is defined by the beauty of my soul, my heart, my moral character. So I won't worship your beauty standards, and I don't submit to your fashion sense. My submission is to something higher.

Yasmin Mogahed

Don't make noise, rather give people good reasons to make noise about you.

Unarine Ramaru

If vulgarity is a game that begins by excluding women, but ultimately excludes men from themselves, modesty is the game both can play. It begins as a woman’s game – one, interestingly, where she appears to lose, to be ‘missing out’ – but really she invites a man to relate to her in a way that is both uniquely human and ultimately more erotic. So modesty maysuperficially seem just to be a woman’s game because it is one she must begin, but in playing it she invites men to relate to her in a different way, a way that ultimately means that the men win, too, because they are no longer cut off from adult masculinity.

Wendy Shalit

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Modesty Quotes

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