Modesty Quotes

He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good. (Confucius)
Modesty: the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it. View quote
Oliver Herford
Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue. View quote
Joseph Addison
Fidelity to conscience is inconsistent with retiring modesty. If it be so, let the modesty succumb. It can be only a false modesty which can be thus endangered. View quote
Harriet Martineau
I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes. View quote
Yves Saint-Laurent
Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of. View quote
Joseph Addison
I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty... But I am too busy thinking about myself. View quote
Edith Sitwell
Because Impudence is a Vice, it does not follow that Modesty is a Virtue; it is built upon Shame, a Passion in our Nature, and may be either Good or Bad according to the Actions perform'd from that Motive. View quote
Bernard Mandeville
Silence and modesty are very valuable qualities in conversation. View quote
Michel de Montaigne
Our life is half natural and half technological. Half-and-half is good. You cannot deny that high-tech is progress. We need it for jobs. Yet if you make only high-tech, you make war. So we must have a strong human element to keep modesty and natural life. (Nam June Paik)
The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savours less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues. View quote
William Hazlitt
Winning children (who appear so guileless) are children who have discovered how effective charm and modesty and a delicately calculated spontaneity are in winning what they want. View quote
Thornton Wilder
Thy modesty 's a candle to thy merit. View quote
Henry Fielding
I do not play games, but always just say what's on my mind. Ostentatious modesty - for fools. If a man afraid of your honesty, it means that he is not the one you need. View quote
Mila Kunis
Modesty died when clothes were born. View quote
Mark Twain
Some are blessed with musical ability, others with good looks. Myself, I was blessed with modesty. View quote
Roger Moore
To forgive and to be forgiven are the two points of holy magnificence and holy modesty; round these two centres the whole doctrine of largesse revolves. View quote
Charles Williams
In science, modesty and genius do not coexist well together. (In Washington, modesty and cleverness don't.) Einstein is perhaps the most famous exception to the rule. View quote
Charles Krauthammer
"Sex" is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other. View quote
Marquis de Sade
Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly overvalued by others. (William Hazlitt)
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. View quote
Kim Campbell
I don't think that modesty is the outstanding characteristic of contemporary politics, do you?" View quote
Edward Heath
Doth perfect beauty stand in need of praise at all? Nay; no more than law, no more than truth, no more than loving kindness, nor than modesty. View quote
Marcus Aurelius
Teach your children to work, teach your daughters modesty, teach all the virtue of economy. And if not make them saints, at least make them Christians. View quote
António de Oliveira Salazar