Modesty quotes
224 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"My dear Watson," said [Sherlock Holmes], "I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers."
"Conceit spoils the finest genius?and the great charm of all power is modesty."
"The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig-leaf."
"Modesty is the highest elegance"
"I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside modesty — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"The convention missionaries call "modesty" has no standard, and cannot have one, because it is opposed to nature and reason and is therefore an artificiality and subject to anybody's whim - anybody's diseased caprice."
"'Infidel' is a term of reproach, which Christians and Mohammedans, in their modesty, agree to apply to those who differ from them."
"Modesty is the conscience of the body."
"Modesty died when clothes were born."
"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."
"In all modesty, we must admit that governments are not always the best doctors when it comes to diagnosing economic ailments and prescribing the right treatment."
"Modesty is only arrogance by stealth."
"Genuine wisdom is usually conspicuous through modesty and silence."
"Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either."
"I prefer honest arrogance to hypocritical modesty."
"To be humble to superiors is a duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness."
"He takes the greatest ornament from friendship, who takes modesty from it. [Lat., Maximum ornamentum amicitiae tollit, qui ex ea tollit verecudiam.]"
"Women's modesty generally increases with their beauty."
"Mr. Attlee is a very modest man. Indeed he has a lot to be modest about."
"Strive not with your superiors in argument, but always submit your judgment to others with modesty."
"This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver."
"Modesty antedates clothes and will be resumed when clothes are no more."
"The good we do to others is spoilt unless we efface ourselves so completely that those we help have no sense of inferiority."
"Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds."
"Praise thyself never."
