Modesty

“A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of. It heightens all the virtues which it accompanies; like the shades in paintings, it raises and rounds every figure, and makes the colours more beautiful, though not so glaring as they would be without it.”

“In short, if you banish modesty out of the world, she carries away with her half the virtue that is in it.”

“True modesty avoids everything that is criminal; false modesty everything that is unfashionable.”

“The good we do to others is spoilt unless we efface ourselves so completely that those we help have no sense of inferiority.”

“Evil does not approach us as pride any more, but on the contrary as slumber, lassitude, concealment of the "I." … It may make us so quickly contented, that any definitive fire will die down. The venomous, breathtaking frigid mist seems able … to harden hearts and fill them with envy, obduracy and resentment, with bloody scorn for the divine image and light, with all the causes of the only true original sin, which is not wanting to be like God.”

“Forgetting that their pride of spirit,”

“The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon.”

“Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit.”

“True intelligence very readily conceives of an intelligence superior to its own; and this is why truly intelligent men are modest.”

“Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.”

“On the contrary, modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.”

“Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.”

“Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

“He has told you, O man, what is good. And what is Jehovah requiring of you? Only to exercise justice, to cherish loyalty, and to walk in modesty with your God!”

“Longevity and short life, suffering and happiness — all aspects of human life depend on modesty in food and drink.”

“When presumptuousness comes, dishonor will follow, but wisdom is with the modest ones.”

“I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.”

“That one can be a great mind without noticing anything of it is an absurdity of which only hopeless incompetence can persuade itself, in order that it may regard the feeling of its own nothingness as modesty. … Goethe has said it bluntly: ‘Only good-for-nothings are modest.’ But even more incontestable would be the assertion that those who so eagerly demand modesty from others … are assuredly good-for-nothings, i.e. wretches entirely without merit.”

“Can it beAnd pitch our evils there?”

“Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.”

“A modest person seldom fails to gain the goodwill of those he converses with, because nobody envies a man who does not appear to be pleased with himself.”

“Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts; when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes.”

“Vain men delight in telling what honours have been done them, what great company they have kept, and the like, by which they plainly confess that these honours were more than their due, and such as their friends would not believe if they had not been told: whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honours below his merit, and consequently scorns to boast.”

“He saw her charming, but he saw not halfThe charms her downcast modesty conceal'd.”

“The person who exalts himself ... will be humbled, because a person who considers himself to be good, intelligent, and kind will not even try to become better, smarter, kinder. The humble person will be exalted, because he considers himself bad and will try to become better, kinder, and more reasonable.”

“Modesty is that feeling by which honorable shame acquires a valuable and lasting authority.”

“Modesty antedates clothes and will be resumed when clothes are no more.Modesty died when false modesty was born.”

“Immodest words admit of no defence;For want of decency is want of sense.”

“Like the violet, which alone To no looser eye betrayed.”

“Why, to hear Betsy Bobbet talk about wimmin's throwin' their modesty away, you would think if they ever went to the political pole, they would have to take their dignity and modesty and throw 'em against the pole, and go without any all the rest of their lives.”