Modesty Quotes

We have collected and put the best modesty quotes from around the world. Enjoy reading these insights and feel free to share this page on your social media to inspire others.

May these modesty quotes inspire you to never give up and keep working towards your goals. Who knows—success could be just around the corner.

Modesty is often used as synonym of humility and an antonym of boastfulness; a modest person does not draw attention to their own real or supposed accomplishments and desirable attributes. Terms related to “modesty” in this sense include “shyness“, and “simplicity“. Related usages occur to describe modes of dress and deportment that are not considered ostentatious or alluring, or some object or attribute that is, in fact, not very desirable; a “modest dwelling” would describe a hut rather than a palace.

Bible Verses About Modesty

Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. – Genesis 3:21

The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. – Deuteronomy 22:5

Then out came a woman to meet him, dressed like a prostitute and with crafty intent. – Proverbs 7:10

As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion. – Proverbs 11:22

Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. – Proverbs 31:25

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. – Proverbs 31:30

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defiles the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. – 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. – 1 Corinthians 10:31

and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, – 1 Corinthians 12:23

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. – 1 Timothy 2:9-10

That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. – Titus 2:4-5

Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing.
I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes,
but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. – 1 Timothy 2:8-10

Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, – 1 Timothy 3:2

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes.
Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. – 1 Peter 3:3-4

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. – Romans 12:2

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. – Matthew 5:28

Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. – Matthew 23:12 NIV

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. – 1 Peter 3:3

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16:7

Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. – Luke 17:1

See also

The Virtue of Modesty Haya (Modesty) Modesty : An Overview Modesty: Stories on Modesty I Modesty: Stories on Modesty II Muhammad’s Modesty A Return To Modesty Tzniut, Modesty in Judaism Shyness

What Is Humility? Humility As A Virtue Humility Is Piety Tawadu (Humility) Humility Quotes Shyness Simplicity Simple Living Divine Simplicity

Modesty Is …

Modesty and chastity are twins. – Anna Brownell Jameson

Modesty and conscientiousness receive their reward only in novels. In life they are exploited and then shoved aside. – Erich Maria Remarque

Modesty and dew love the shade. – Alphonse de Lamartine

Modesty and diffidence make a man unfit for public affairs; they also make him unfit for brothels. – Walter Savage Landor

Modesty and fashion can totally go hand in hand. – Anonymous

Modesty and humility are the sobriety of the mind, as temperance and chastity are of the body. – Benjamin Whichcote

Modesty and reverence are no less virtues of freemen than the democratic feeling which will submit neither to arrogance nor to servility. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Modesty and taste are questions of latitude and education; the more people know,—the more their ideas are expanded by travel, experience, and observation,—the less easily they are shocked. The narrowness and bigotry of women are the result of their circumscribed sphere of thought and action. – Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Modesty and unselfishness – these are the virtues which men praise – and pass by. – Andre Maurois

Modesty answers not the crude how of femininity, but the beautiful why. – Wendy Shalit

Modesty antedates clothes and will be resumed when clothes are no more. Modesty died when clothes were born. Modesty died when false modesty was born. – Mark Twain

Modesty becomes a young man. – Plautus

Modesty died when clothes were born. – Mark Twain

Modesty empowers some. Different things empower different women and it’s not your place to tell her which one it is’. – Agnes Horvath

Modesty forbids what the law does not. – Seneca the Younger

Modesty has no limit — the more the better. – Thomas V. Morris

Modesty in a man is never to be allowed as a good quality, but a weakness, if it suppresses his virtue, and hides it from the world, when he has at the same time a mind to exert himself. – Sir Richard Steele

Modesty in an actor is as fake as passion in a call girl. – Jackie Gleason

Modesty in dress and language and deportment is a true mark of refinement and a hallmark of a virtuous Latter-day Saint woman. – Ezra Taft Benson

Modesty in human beings is praised because it is not a matter of nature, but of will. – Lactantius

Modesty in woman is a virtue most deserving, since we do all we can to cure her of it. – Joseph Addison

Modesty in woman veils in some measure homeliness. – William Scott Downey

Modesty in women has two special advantages,–it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness. – Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

Modesty is a bright dish-cover, which makes us fancy there is something very nice underneath it. – Douglas William Jerrold

Modesty is a diamond setting to female beauty. – Fanny Kemble

Modesty is a great paradox. Though an immodest woman creates insatiable curiosity in a guy, it is the modest girl whose heart he most desires. – Dannah Gresh

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops. – Maya Angelou

Modesty is a learned affectation. It’s no good. Humility is great, because humility says, ‘There was someone before me. I’m following in somebody’s footsteps.’ – Maya Angelou

Modesty is a quality in a lover more praised by the women than liked. – Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Modesty is a shining light; it prepares the mind to receive knowledge and the heart for truth. – Francois Guizot

Modesty is a sweet song-bird no open cage-door can tempt to flight. – Hafiz

Modesty is a valuable merit … in people who have no other, and the appearance of it is extremely useful to those who have … – Ada Leverson

Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue. – John Kenneth Galbraith

Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public. – John Adams

Modesty is a virtue that shows love to others and brings glory to God through appropriate dress. – Tim Challies

Modesty is agreeable; extreme bashfulness is ridiculous. – Anonymous

Modesty is always beautiful. – G.K. Chesterton

Modesty is an act of love, is a heart issue, is leading where I want to go in life, glorifies God rather than self, is a guard to virtue, is a sign post for what I believe, is freeing, is obedience to God. – Narelle Worboys

Modesty is an ornament, yet people get on better without it. – German Proverb

Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds. – Amos Bronson Alcott

Modesty is fear. – Anonymous

Modesty is good. But not when it comes at the cost of honesty. – Kangana Ranaut

Modesty is great, and quietness is nice, but sometimes it’s much more fun to be decadent. – Robin Standefer

Modesty is hardly to be described as a virtue. It is a feeling rather than a disposition. It is a kind of fear of falling into disrepute. – Aristotle

Modesty is humility expressed in dress. – C. J. Mahaney

Modesty is invisibility. Never forget it. To be seen to be seen is to be penetrated. What you must be girls, is impenetrable. – Margaret Atwood

Modesty is invisibility… Never forget it. To be seen – to be seen – is to be… penetrated. What you must be girls, is impenetrable. – Margaret Atwood

Modesty is like the snow: when it melts it is gone forever. – American Proverb

Modesty is more than a fashion statement, it’s a daily decision to dress like the child of God you are. – Anonymous

Modesty is more than just a hemline, it is an interior disposition that influences not only our dress, but our thoughts and actions. – Leah Darrow

Modesty is my best quality. – Jack Benny

Modesty is not one of my virtues. – Alan King

Modesty is not one of my virtues. At the time, virtue was not one of my virtues. – Frank W. Abagnale

Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue. – Joseph Addison

Modesty is not possible in performance in the Caribbean – and that’s wonderful. – Derek Walcott

Modesty is not really about clothing guys, or your body. It’s about Jesus, and we need to be glorifying Him in everything we do – including how we dress. – Emily Susanne

Modesty is of no use to a beggar. – Homer

Modesty is only arrogance by stealth. – Terry Pratchett

Modesty is policy, no less than virtue. – William Gilmore Simms

Modesty is really a way of thinking about God, about men, and about ourselves. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Modesty is related to diffidence, diffidence is related to shyness, Shyness is a synonym for timidity, timidity is a characteristic of the meek, the meek do not inherit the Earth, they serve those who are self confident and self assertive. – Dean Koontz

Modesty is required of both men and women. – Ms. Elturk

Modesty is silent when it would be improper to speak; the humble, without being called upon, never recollects to say anything of himself. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

Modesty is that feeling by which honorable shame acquires a valuable and lasting authority. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Modesty is the appendage of sobriety, and is to chastity, to temperance, and to humility as the fringes are to a garment. – Jeremy Taylor

Modesty is the artifice of actors, similar to passion in call girls. – Jackie Gleason

Modesty is the beauty of women. – Anonymous

Modesty is the bridesmaid of concord; she not only hangs her garland on the door of the nuptial chamber, but she bestrews with refreshing herbs the whole apartment, every day of life. – Anonymous

Modesty is the chastity of merit, the virginity of noble souls. – Delphine de Girardin

Modesty is the citadel of beauty and virtue. – Demades

Modesty is the clothing of talent. – Pierre Véron

Modesty is the color of virtue. – Diogenes

Modesty is the conscience of the body. – Honore de Balzac

Modesty is the delicate form of hypocrisy. – Remy de Gourmont

Modesty is the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it. – Oliver Herford

Modesty is the graceful, calm virtue of maturity; bashfulness the charm of vivacious youth. – Mary Wollstonecraft

Modesty is the highest elegance. – Coco Chanel

Modesty is the key to success. – Paul the Apostle

Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a real confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others. – William Hazlitt

Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise. – Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

Modesty is the only sure bait when you are fishing for praise. – Unknown

Modesty is the proof that morality is sexy. – Wendy Shalit

Modesty is the richest ornament of a woman … the want of it is her greatest deformity. – Charles Caleb Colton

Modesty is the true citadel of beauty and virtue. – Demades

Modesty is the way you deal with beauty not the way you avoid it. – Tariq Ramadan

Modesty is to merit what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out. – Jean de La Bruyère

Modesty is to merit, as shades to figures in a picture, giving it strength and beauty. – Jean de la Bruyere

Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out. – Jean de la Bruyere

Modesty isn’t always a virtue; it can be a hindrance; a careful measure of personal pride builds confidence and ensures success. – Wayne Gerard Trotman

Modesty isn’t one of my strong suits. – Paul Greengard

Modesty isn’t about covering up our bodies because their bad, modesty isn’t about hiding ourselves… it’s about revealing our dignity. – Jessica Rey

Modesty isn’t about hiding your body, it’s about revealing your dignity. – Jessica Rey

Modesty isn’t how you hide your beauty, it’s how you handle it. – The Full Time Girl

Modesty makes large amends for the pain it gives those who labor under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy person in their favor. – William Shenstone

Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense. – Jonathan Swift

Modesty means admitting the possibility of error, subsuming the self for the good of the whole, remaining open to surprise and the gifts that only failure can bring. There are many ways to practice it. Try taking up golf. Or making your own bagels. Or raising a teenager. – Nancy Gibbs

Modesty means to be free from undue familiarity, from indecency, from lewdness, pure in thought and conduct. Speaking of modest apparel, it means decent, seemly. The opposite of modesty is conceit, boldness, immodesty, brazenness, lewdness. – Elisabeth Elliot

Modesty must be worn inside out. – Reagan Ramm

Modesty needs to come from the heart. – David K. Bernard

Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts; when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes. – Richard Steele

Modesty once extinguished knows not how to return. – Seneca the Younger

Modesty once lost, never returns into favour. – Publilius Syrus

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

Modesty sets off one newly come to honour. – George Herbert

Modesty shields a man from mortifications and disappointments, which assail the self-conceited man in every direction; a modest man conciliates the esteem even of an enemy and a rival; he disarms the resentments of those who feel themselves most injured by his superiority; he makes all pleased with him by making them at ease with themselves. – George Crabbe

Modesty shines like a clean river, and everyone wants a swig from it. – Vu Do, Blood for a Butcher and Other Septic Stories

Modesty should accompany youth. – Plautus

Modesty should be typical of the success of a champion. – Major Taylor

Modesty teaches us to speak of the ancients with respect, especially when we are not very familiar with their works. Newton, who knew them practically by heart, had the greatest respect for them, and considered them to be men of genius and superior intelligence who had carried their discoveries in every field much further than we today suspect, judging from what remains of their writings. More ancient writings have been lost than have been preserved, and perhaps our new discoveries are of less value than those that we have lost. – Francis Atterbury

Modesty used to be considered a natural female attribute. No more. – Linda Chavez

Modesty was designed by Providence as a guard to virtue, and that it might be always at hand it is wrought into the mechanism of the body. It is likewise proportioned to the occasions of life, and strongest in youth when passion is so too. – Jeremy Collier

Modesty was made for the ugly. – Theophile Gautier

Modesty, diffidence, and being reserved are good qualities, but only in personal relationships, not when it comes to marketing. – Raghavendra Hunasgi

Modesty, if it were to be recommended for nothing else, this were enough, that the pretending to little leaves a man at ease; whereas boasting requires a perpetual labour to appear what he is not. – Alexander Pope

Modesty, if you consider it, is the most unforgivable sort of falsehood: it’s a lie that does damage to no one but yourself. – Meredith Duran

Modesty, that perennial flower planted instinctively in the human breast, blooms therein only as continence guards and virtue keeps. – Amos Bronson Alcott

Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world. – Miguel de Cervantes

Modesty. Growth. Achievement awaits the noble person. – Stephanie Sandler

Modesty: the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it. – Oliver Herford

Modesty? Yeah I do believe in it…because, I won’t throw away my standards to meet the world’s. – Anonymous

A clean and well-cared for appearance should be maintained. Hair styles should be clean and neat, avoiding extreme styles. Mens’ hair should be trimmed above the collar, leaving the ears uncovered. If worn, mustaches should be neatly trimmed. Earrings for men are unacceptable, and beards are not acceptable, except for certified medical reasons. – Harold B. Lee

A drunkard is the annoyance of modesty; the trouble of civility; the spoil of wealth; the distraction of reason. He is the brewer’s agent; the tavern and ale house benefactor; the beggar’s companion; the constable’s trouble; his wife’s woe; his children’s sorrow; his neighbor’s scoff; his own shame. In short he is a tub of swill, a spirit of unrest, a thing below a beast, and a monster of a man. – Thomas Adams

A false modesty is the meanest species of pride. – Edward Gibbon

A farmer is dependent on too many things outside his control; it makes for modesty. – Bharati Mukherjee

A feminist is someone who loathes being a woman and who dislikes the chief feminine characteristics. – Gilbert K. Chesterton

a fundamental quality in the female tradition . . . 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

A gentleman considers justice to be essential in everything. He practices it according to the principles of propriety. He brings it forth in modesty and faithfully completes it. This is indeed a gentleman. – Confucius

A girl’s modesty is first noted by her external presentation, but if it’s not followed by the confidence of internal modesty, she still forfeits the power of her virtue. – Dannah Gresh

A good youth ought to have a fear of God, to be subject to his parents, to give honor to his elders, to preserve his purity; he ought not to despise humility, but should love forbearance and modesty. All these are an ornament to youthful years. – Saint Ambrose

A good, meaningful life doesn’t just happen. It is the product of humility, sacrifice and hard work. – Dr. T.P.Chia

A great man is always willing to be little. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

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. – Joseph Addison

A lifestyle of modesty does not take a break during the summer. – Unknown

A lot of men who have accepted – or had imposed upon them in boyhood – the old English public school styles of careful modesty in speech, with much understatement, have behind their masks an appalling and impregnable conceit of themselves. – J. B. Priestley

A man who insults the modesty of a woman, as good as tells her that he has seen something in her conduct that warranted his presumption. – Samuel Richardson

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle. – Benjamin Franklin

A modest demeanor arouses thoughts of seduction. – Mason Cooley

A modest garden contains, for those who know how to look and to wait, more instruction than a library. – Henri Frederic Amiel

A modest little person, with much to be modest about. – Winston S. Churchill

A modest man is usually admired—if people ever hear of him. – E. W. Howe

A modest man never talks of himself. – Jean de la Bruyere

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. – Richard Steele

A modest, godly woman will dress modestly. . . The one who is simple and unpretending in her dress and in her manners shows that she understands that a true woman is characterized by moral worth. – Ellen G. White

A person who is extremely modest can successfully cross big rivers. – Chinese Proverb

A sarcastic person has a superiority complex that can be cured only by the honesty of humility. – Lawrence G. Lovasik

A seed has to get buried in the soil for its real form as a plant to emerge. Only through modesty and humility can we grow. Pride and conceit will only destroy us. Live with the firm attitude, ‘I am everyone’s servant.’ Then the whole universe will bow down to us. – Mata Amritanandamayi

A seeming modesty is a surer evidence of vanity than a moderate degree of assurance. – Andrew Ure

A spontaneous act of generosity, performed with unselfish grace is an example of moral beauty, as are certain acts of courage; genuine modesty is a possible example, as is selfless love. Although moral beauty is a natural gift, it is nevertheless more likely to emerge and flourish in societies that appreciate and encourage it. – Yi-Fu Tuan

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions. – Confucius

A true genius admits that he/she knows nothing. – Albert Einstein

A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself. – Jean de la Bruyère

A whale is harpooned only when it sprouts. – Henry Hillman

A woman who focuses on worshipping God will consider carefully how she is dressed because her heart will dictate her wardrobe and appearance. – John MacArthur

A woman’s most prized possession isn’t her hair or beauty, it is her modesty. – Unknown

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

Adam and Eve entered the world naked and unashamed – naked and pure-minded. And no descendant of theirs has ever entered it otherwise. All have entered it naked, unashamed, and clean in mind. They entered it modest. They had to acquire immodesty in the soiled mind, there was no other way to get it. … The convention miscalled “modesty” has no standard, and cannot have one, because it is opposed to nature and reason and is therefore an artificiality and subject to anyone’s whim – anyone’s diseased caprice. – Mark Twain

Adornment, what a science! Beauty, what a weapon! Modesty, what elegance! – Coco Chanel

After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and immutable example unto all posterity, for the moderation and required modesty in a lawful marriage, ordained the number of six times a day as a lawful, necessary and competent limit. – Michel de Montaigne

All modesty aside, I think I’m good at reading scripts. The way I read a script is as fast as I can, all in one sitting, and I don’t read many of the stage directions. I only read enough stage directions to let me know where I am, because they’re always so verbose and mostly horseshit. So I only read the dialogue, which allows me to see the movie in my mind’s eye in real time. – William H. Macy

All the children of the great men in Persia are brought up at court, where they have an opportunity of learning great modesty, and where nothing immodest is ever heard or seen. – Xenophon

Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Ambition is never modest. If modesty means to have middling success, then I can only say: I’m not interested. – Emmanuel Macron

An age that melts in unperceiv’d decay, And glides in modest innocence away. – Samuel Johnson

An arrogant man whose arrogance we see from his own behaviour is more tolerable than a humble man whose humility we hear of from his own mouth. – Mokokoma Mokhonoana

An immodestly dressed woman is giving away something that doesn’t belong to her. This principle of ownership means that you and I are not free to dress in any way we please. We’re accountable to God. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

An inferiority complex is when the ego is frustrated; whereas, humility is when the ego is rejected. – Radhanath Swami

And Modesty, who, when she goes, Is gone for ever. – Walter Savage Landor

And personally, I’ve lost my thirst for vengeance. – Janet Morris

And that is enough to raise your thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex forever will also drown her pride… Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. – C. S. Lewis

And the meek shall inherit the earth. – Geddy Lee

Anthony: Now lower your dress a little- Roslynn: Anthony! Anthony: This is no time for offended modesty… You’re the distraction. Roslynn: Och, well, in that case. Anthony: That’s quite low enough, my dear… Roslynn: I was only trying to help, Anthony: Commendable, but we want the chap to ogle you, not bust his breeches. – Johanna Lindsey

Any woman may act the part of a coquette successfully who has the reputation without the scruples of modesty. If a woman passes the bounds of propriety for our sakes, and throws herself unblushingly at our heads, we conclude it is either from a sudden and violent liking, or from extraordinary merit on our parts, either of which is enough to turn any man’s head who has a single spark of gallantry or vanity in his composition. – William Hazlitt

Anything was better than nothing. Half- full was better than empty. Ignorance was the lowest form of humiliation and suffering. – Becca Fitzpatrick

Architecture is a rare collective profession: it’s always exercised by groups. There is an essential modesty, which is a complete contradiction to the notion of a star. – Rem Koolhaas

As a Buddhist, I was trained to be tolerant of everything except intolerance. I was brought up not only to develop the spirit of tolerance but also to cherish moral and spiritual qualities such as modesty, humility, compassion, and, most important, to attain a certain degree of emotional equilibrium. – U Thant

As in all his subsequent dealings with France, Ho Chi Minh’s demands were a model of modesty. – Wilfred Burchett

As paradoxical as it may seem a great sculptor is as much a colourist as the best painter, or rather the best engraver. He plays so skillfully with all the resources of relief, he blends so well the boldness of light with the modesty of shadow, that his sculptures please one, as much as the most charming etchings. – Auguste Rodin

As those that pull down private houses adjoining to the temples of the gods, prop up such parts as are contiguous to them; so, in undermining bashfulness, due regard is to be had to adjacent modesty, good-nature and humanity. – Plutarch

As to modesty and decency, if we are simians we have done well, considering: but if we are something else-fallen angels-we have indeed fallen far. – Clarence Day

As we make our way toward the finish line that some of us have already crossed, I never thought I’d get a Grammy Award. In fact, I was always touched by the modesty of their interest. – Leonard Cohen

As you know, shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming. – Trevanian

Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming modesty, clear the way for merit, that would otherwise be discouraged by difficulties… – Lord Chesterfield

At heart a truly modest man, he had nevertheless the modest man’s pride in his modesty in the face of achievement. – Pearl S. Buck

At least I have the modesty to admit that lack of modesty is one of my failings. – Hector Berlioz

Atticus Finch is, you know, he was just his whole – the business of his modesty and his ability to see tomorrow and to try to buttress his knowledge of what was coming for his kids was something that I’ll never – as a father I’m not able to do. – James McBride

Authentic love always assumes the mystery of modesty, even in its expression, because actions speak louder than words. Unlike a feigned love, it feels no need to set a conflagration. – Honore de Balzac

Authentic love is obviously something good… When we love, we become most fully ourselves, most fully human… People often think they are being loving when actually they are being possessive or manipulative. People sometimes treat others as objects to satisfy their own needs… How easy it is to be deceived by the many voices in our society that advocate a permissive approach to sexuality, without regard for modesty, self-respect or the moral values that bring quality to human relationships! This is worship of a false god. Instead of bringing life, it brings death. – Pope Benedict XVI

Avoid failing, not only against purity, but even against the least rules of an exact modesty. – Paul of the Cross

Bashfulness is not becoming to maidenhood, though modesty always is. – Margaret of Valois

Be a constant outrage to modesty There is nothing to fear: modesty is exercised only among the blind. – Jean Maurice Eugne Clment Cocteau

Be like a river in generosity and giving help. Be like a sun in tenderness and pity. Be like night when covering other’s faults. Be like a dead when furious and angry. Be like earth in modesty and humbleness. Be like a sea in tolerance. Be as you are or as you look like. – Rumi

Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear. – Rumi

Be merciful, moderate, and modest. – Laozi

Be modest in your dress, actions, and character. – Anonymous

Be modest! It is the kind of pride least likely to offend. – Jules Renard

Be modest, be respectful of others, try to understand. – Lakhdar Brahimi

Be neat, Philothea; let nothing be negligent about you. It is a kind of contempt of those with whom we converse, to frequent their company in uncomely apparel; but, at the same time, avoid all affectation, vanity, curiosity, or levity in your dress. Keep yourself always, as much as possible, on the side of plainness and modesty, which, without doubt, is the greatest ornament of beauty, and the best excuse for the want of it. – Saint Francis de Sales

Be not too great a niggard in the commendations of him that professes thy own quality: if he deserve thy praise, thou hast discovered thy judgment; if not, thy modesty: honor either returns or reflects to the giver. – Francis Quarles

Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet; In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet. – Mary Wortley Montagu

Be pure and simple, and love all because all are one. Live a sincere life; be natural, and be honest with yourself. Honesty will guard you against false modesty and will give you the strength of true humility. Spare no pains to help others. Seek no other reward than the gift of Divine Love. – Meher Baba

Be smart, but never show it. – Louis B. Mayer

Beautiful colors exist, though we do not realize it, and are glimpsed behind the veil that modesty has drawn over them. – Paul Gauguin

Beauty has so many charms, one knows not how to speak against it; and when it happens that a graceful figure is the habitation of a virtuous soul, when the beauty of the face speaks out the modesty and humility of the mind, and the justness of the proportion raises our thoughts up to the heart and wisdom of the great Creator, something may be allowed it,–and something to the embellishments which set it off; and yet, when the whole apology is read, it will be found at last that beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes the plainest. – Laurence Sterne

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 performed from that motive. – Bernard de Mandeville

Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding; and those who are conscious of their inferiority have the modesty not to talk; when they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous; but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects. – Samuel Johnson

Before taking up the subject of modesty, it may perhaps be necessary to inquire whether there is such a thing. Is it anything in a woman but well understood coquetry? – Honoré de Balzac

Being humble means recognizing that we are not on earth to see how important we can become, but to see how much difference we can make in the lives of others. – Gordon B. Hinckley

Below the knee, halfway down the arm, and two finger widths below the collarbone. – Pope Pius XII

Beyond fashion and its demands, there are higher and more pressing laws, principles superior to fashion, and unchangeable, which under no circumstances can be sacrificed to the whim of pleasure or fancy, and before which must bow the fleeting omnipotence of fashion. These principles have been proclaimed by God, by the Church, by the Saints, by reason, by Christian morality. – Pope Pius XII

Bling is over. Red carpet covered with rhinestones is out. I call it ‘the new modesty.’ – Karl Lagerfeld

Blushes are the rainbow of modesty. – Bill Vaughan

Bragging about yourself violates norms of modesty and politeness – and if you were really competent, your work would speak for itself. – Adam Grant

Breath, dreams, silence, invincible calm, you triumph. – Paul Valéry

But by no manner of means are women to be allotted to uncover and exhibit any part of their person, lest both fall,-the men by being excited to look, they by drawing on themselves the eyes of the men. – Clement of Alexandria

But how can you know anything of the impression made on others? Who can assure you that others do not draw therefrom incentives to evil? You do not know the depths of human frailty. . . Oh, how truly was it said that if some Christian women could only suspect the temptations and falls they cause in others with modes of dress and familiarity in behavior, which they unthinkingly consider as of no importance, they would be shocked by the responsibility which is theirs. – Pope Pius XII

But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing to keep in. Therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express myself. You must know of me, then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I called Roderigo. – William Shakespeare

But I should say that kindliness, and sincerity, and if I may say so–modesty–are worth far more to a man, to a husband, than all the wit and beauty in the world. – Daphne du Maurier

But lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with. – George Washington

But my relief that David Auburn’s Proof is less about its ballyhooed higher mathematics than the fragility of life and love was matched by my delight in his fine and tender play. (…) Proof surprises us with its aliveness and intelligent modesty, and we have not met these characters before. – John Heilpern

But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those that we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves. – Lawrence Anthony

But still remember, if you mean to please, To press your point with modesty and ease. – William Cowper

By Allah no one is our Shīah except that he has piety for Allah (guards himself against sin) and obeys him. They (the Shīah) are not known and recognized except for their humility, modesty, fear of Allah, trustworthiness, plenty of remembrance of Allah, fasting, service, kindness to the parents, looking after the poor neighbours and afflicted people, mentioning them with nothing except goodness and beneficence; and they are the trustees for their tribes in all the affairs. – al-Baqir, Muhammad

By choosing to be in His kingdom, we separate—not isolate—ourselves from the world. Our dress will be modest, our thoughts pure, our language clean. – Elder Robert D. Hales

By God, Mr. Chairman, at this moment I stand astonished at my own modesty. – Robert Clive

By speaking of greater forces than we can possibly invoke, and by confronting us with greater spans of time than we can possibly envisage, mountains refute our excessive trust in the man-made. They pose profound questions about our durability and the importance of our schemes. They induce, I suppose, a modesty in us. – Robert Macfarlane

By the virtue of modesty the devout person governs all his exterior acts. With good reason, then, does St. Paul recommend this virtue to all and declare how necessary it is and as if this were not enough he considers that this virtue should be obvious to all. – Pio of Pietrelcina

Can it be That modesty may more betray our sense Than woman’s lightness? Having waste ground enough, Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary And pitch our evils there? – William Shakespeare

Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie? I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth; the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. . . . Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If. – William Shakespeare

Carefully observe the natural laws in operation in the world around you, and live by them. From following them, you will learn the morality of modesty, moderation, compassion, and consideration (not just one society’s rules and regulations), the wisdom of seeing things as they are (not of merely collecting “facts” about them), and the happiness of being in harmony with the Way (which has nothing to do with self-righteous “spiritual” obsessions and fanaticism). And you will live lightly, spontaneously, and effortlessly. – Benjamin Hoff

Carry your bag by yourself; carry your umbrella by yourself; open your door by yourself; light your own candle! Do your job by yourself! Don’t use others! Don’t behave like a king, don’t behave like a queen! Be humble! – Mehmet Murat ildan

Christian mothers, if only you knew the future of distress and peril, of shame ill-restrained, that you prepare for your sons and daughters in imprudently accustoming them to live hardly clothed and in making them lose the sense of modesty, you should be ashamed of yourselves and of the harm done the little ones whom heaven entrusted to your care, to be reared in Christian dignity and culture. – Pope Pius XII

Classy is when a women has everything to flaunt, but chooses not to show it. – Hugo Chavez

Conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty. – Louisa May Alcott

Confidence, as opposed, to modesty and distinguished from decent assurance, proceeds from self-opinion, and is occasioned by ignorance and flattery. – Jeremy Collier

Conjuring is a profession in which no one errs through excess of modesty. – Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin

Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate; they too have this quality in common, that they are expressed by the same color. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Courtesy matches water because of its humble modesty. Wisdom matches fire because of its brilliance. – Stories Old and New: A Ming Dynasty Collection

Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways. – Franz Boas

Darkness spoils modesty: no man blushes in the dark. – Benjamin Whichcote

Diffidence is a sort of false modesty. – William Makepeace Thackeray

Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light or look the world in the face. – Marcus Aurelius

Do not make yourself the subject of remarks either by being overdressed or by dressing in a lax, untidy manner. Act as though you knew that the eye of heaven is upon you, and that you are living under the approbation or disapprobation of God. – Ellen G. White

Do not mistake humility for stupidity. – Unknown

Do not try to seem wise to others. – Epictetus

Don’t allow false modesty, doubts or unbelief prevent you from accepting God’s favor. The door of mercy stands wide open. – Aiden Wilson Tozer

Don’t let success go to your head. Remember; when success comes, walk in humility. – Bill Newman

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. – Marcus Aurelius

Dress how you want other women to dress around your husband. – Kim Doebler

Dress how you want to be addressed. – Bianca Frazier

Dress in such a way as to bring out the best in yourself and those around you. Avoid extremes in clothing and appearance, including tattoos and piercings. – Thomas S. Monson

Dressing modestly doesn’t mean I lack confidence, it means I’m so confident I don’t need to reveal my body to the world because I’d rather reveal my mind. – Unknown

Dressing modestly is about knowing your self-worth and acknowledging that you don’t need to give anything to the world. – Blaze Ann

Dressing modestly is my way of telling the world I don’t play by your rules – I play by God’s rules. – Unknown

Dressing modestly isn’t looking outdated, it’s respecting yourself…and looking killer at the same time! – Clothed In Glory

Egotism is true modesty. In religious enquiry each of us can speak only for himself. – John Henry Newman

Either we must speak as we dress, or dress as we speak. Why do we profess one thing and display another? The tongue talks of chastity, but the whole body reveals impurity. – St. Jerome

Elizabeth lifted her skirt, disregarding modesty, and delivered a swift kick to the creature’s head. – Seth Grahame-Smith

Endless effort, endless humility, endless modesty. – Rain

Even though one is well advanced in virtue, should he stop mortifying himself, he soon would lose his modesty and virtue – just as fertile soul quickly becomes dry and arid and produces nothing but thorns and thistles if it is not cultivated. – John Climacus

Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast. – Logan Pearsall Smith

Every trait of beauty may be referred to some virtue, as to innocence, candor, generosity, modesty, or heroism. St. Pierre To cultivate the sense of the beautiful, is one of the most effectual ways of cultivating an appreciation of the divine goodness. – Christian Nestell Bovee

Every trait of beauty may be traced to some virtue, as to innocence, candor, generosity, modesty, and heroism. – Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

Every young woman should dress well, that is, neatly, tastefully, modestly, whether she be rich or poor. Conspicuous dressing is vulgar. True refinement avoids anything showy and flashy: it never dresses better than it can afford, and yet it is always well dressed, even in simple muslin or plain calico. – J.R. Miller

Everyone is shy – it is the inborn modesty that makes us able to live in harmony with other creatures and our fellows. Achievement comes not by denying shyness but, occasionally, by setting it aside and letting pride and perspiration come first. – Kirkpatrick Sale

Everyone, either from modesty or egotism, hides away the best and most delicate of his soul’s possessions; to gain the esteem of others, we must only ever show our ugliest sides; this is how we keep ourselves on the common level. – Gustave Flaubert

Everything precious is covered! A woman modestly dressed is like a pearl in its shell. – Anonymous

Everything that is exquisite hides itself. – Philibert Joseph Roux

Excusations, cessions, modesty itself well governed, are but arts of ostentation. – Francis Bacon

Extreme vanity sometimes hides under the garb of ultra modesty. – Anna Brownell Jameson

False modesty can be worse than arrogance. – David Mitchell

False modesty is an attempt to tear yourself down. True humility focuses more on build up others. – Tony Dungy

False modesty is better than none. – Vilhjalmur Stefansson

False modesty is the masterpiece of vanity: showing the vain man in such an illusory light that he appears in the reputation of the virtue quite opposite to the vice which constitutes his real character; it is a deceit. – Jean de la Bruyere

False modesty is the most decent of all deceptions. – Nicolas Chamfort

False modesty is the most decent of all lies. – Nicolas Chamfort

False modesty is the refinement of vanity. It is a lie. – Jean de la Bruyere

Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendour of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury were honoured; the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the capital of the East. – Edward Gibbon

Fashions fade, style is eternal. – Yves Saint Laurent

Fear is a spirit that keeps you sitting, Boldness helps you to stand. Humility reminds us when to sit again, Pride never sits only stands. – Marlon Carrillo

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. – Harriet Martineau

Fie, thou dishonest Satan! I call thee by the most modest terms; for I am one of those gentle ones that will use the devil himself with courtesy: sayest thou that house is dark? – William Shakespeare

Fight against yourself, recover yourself to decency, to modesty, to freedom. And, in the first place, condemn your actions; but when you have condemned them, do not despair of yourself. For both ruin and recovery are from within. – Epictetus

First and foremost, the monk should own nothing in this world, but he should have as his possessions solitude of the body, modesty of bearing, a modulated tone of voice, and a well-ordered manner of speech. He should be without anxiety as to his food and drink, and should eat in silence. – Saint Basil

For many, the hijab represents modesty, piety and devotion to God, and I truly respect that. But the hijab should not be used as a means of applying social pressure on people. – Queen Rania of Jordan

For me, you have to have some kind of modesty. – Alek Wek

For this is hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver. Thus passed with the lonesome one months and years; his wisdom meanwhile increased and caused him pain by its abundance. – Friedrich Nietzsche

For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink. – Neil Armstrong

For those women sin against God when they rub their skin with ointments, stain their cheeks with rouge, and make their eyes prominent with antimony. To them, I suppose, the artistic skill of God is displeasing! – Tertullian

For what is modesty but hypocritical humility, by means of which, in a world swelling with vile envy, a man seeks to beg pardon for his excellences and merits from those who have none? For whoever attributes no merit to himself because he really has none is not modest, but merely honest. – Arthur Schopenhauer

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. – Stefan Zweig

Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean. And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind? – Kahlil Gibran

Frequent not the company of immodest persons, especially if they be also impudent, as is generally the case; …these corrupted souls and infected hearts scarcely speak to any, either of the same or a different sex, without causing them to fall in some degree from purity; they have poison in their eyes and in their breath, like basilisks. On the contrary, keep company with the chaste and virtuous; often meditate upon and read holy things; for the word of God is chaste, and makes those also chaste that delight in it. – Saint Francis de Sales

Friends are helpful not only because they will listen to us, but because they will laugh at us; Through them we learn a little objectivity, a little modesty, a little courtesy; We learn the rules of life and become better players of the game. – Will Durant

From the time of the flood to the present period, not one man ever derived any benefit from modesty, and not one woman any harm from it. – Unkonwn

Gaming is the destruction of all decorum; the prince forgets at it his dignity, and the lady her modesty. – Jean le Rond d’Alembert

Gay and costly apparel directly tends to create and influence lust…. The fact is plain and undeniable, it has the effect both on the wearer and beholder. You kindle a flame, which, at the same time consumes both yourself and your admirers. – John Wesley

Generally speaking, the greater a woman’s beauty, the greater her modesty. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others…By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves. – Gordon B. Hinckley

Generosity always wins favor, particularly when accompanied by modesty. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Generosity wins favour for everyone, especially when it is accompanied by modesty. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Genuine wisdom is usually conspicuous through modesty and silence. – Napoleon Hill

God looks at the heart, and we shouldn’t judge by appearance . . . but we still live on the earth, and everyone here looks at the exterior, because only God sees the interior. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Good taste is the modesty of the mind; that is why it cannot be either imitated or acquired. – Emile de Girardin

Grace imitates modesty, as politeness imitates kindness. – Joseph Joubert

Grateful daughters of God guard their bodies carefully, for they know they are the wellsprings of life, and they reverence life. They don’t uncover their bodies to find favor with the world. They walk in modesty to be in favor with their Father In Heaven. They know he loves them dearly. – Margaret D. Nadauld

Gratefully accepting the proffered honor, [to inscribe a new legal work to him] I give the leave, begging only that the inscription may be in modest terms, not representing me as a man of great learning, or a very extraordinary one in any respect. – Abraham Lincoln

Great artists are modest almost as seldom as they are faithful to their wives. – H. L. Mencken

Great is the strife between beauty and modesty. – Ovid

Great men never make bad use of their superiority. They see it and feel it and are not less modest. The more they have, the more they know their own deficiencies. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Great men suffer hours of depression through introspection and self-doubt. That is why they are great. That is why you will find modesty and humility the characteristics of such men. – Bruce Barton

Great minds tend toward banality. It is the noblest effort of individualism. But it implies a sort of modesty, which is so rare that it is scarcely found except in the greatest, or in beggars. – Andre Gide

Great Modesty often hides great Merit. – Benjamin Franklin

Growing up, I was taught that a woman should lower her gaze so that men could never know her thoughts. The so-called modesty of Arab women is, in fact, a war tactic. – Fatema Mernissi

Ha! for a divine and lordly manor, there is nothing like solid ground. – Francois Rabelais

Had this author [Sir W Drummond Academical Questions, chap. iii.], instead of inveighing against the guilt and absurdity of atheism, demonstrated its falsehood, his conduct would have, been more suited to the modesty of the skeptic and the toleration of the philosopher. – Percy Bysshe Shelley

Hank, this is great.” “Yes.” He said it simply, openly. There was no flattered pleasure in his voice, and no modesty. This, she knew, was a tribute to her, the rarest one person could pay another: the tribute of feeling free to acknowledge one’s own greatness, knowing that it is understood. – Ayn Rand

Haughtiness invites losses while modesty brings profits. – Mun Kin-Chok

Have you heard that modesty is an attractive traits? Only to ugly people. – Cassandra Clare

Having a low opinion of yourself is not modesty. It’s self-destruction. Holding your uniqueness in high regard is not egotism. It’s a necessary precondition to happiness and success. – Bobbe Sommer

He had somehow, with all his modesty, the rare faculty of controlling his superiors as well as his subordinates. He outfaced Stanton, captivated the President, and even compelled acquiescence or silence from that dread source of paralyzing power, the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. – Joshua Chamberlain

He seems determined to make a trumpet sound like a tin whistle. – Aneurin Bevan

He slowed down a bit more. “Gaia, how do you know these things?” She shrugged. “I’m smart.” “And modest, too.” “Modesty is a waste of time,” she pronounced. “I’ll keep that in mind. – Francine Pascal

He takes the greatest ornament from friendship, who takes modesty from it. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

He who obeys with modesty appears worthy of being some day a commander. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good. – Confucius

He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others. – William Hazlitt

Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn. – Oliver Goldsmith

here was a silence between them for a moment, and she wondered if all women, when in love, were torn between two impulses, a longing to throw modesty and reserve to the winds and confess everything, and an equal determination to conceal the love forever, to be cool, aloof, utterly detached, to die rather than admit a thing so personal, so intimate. – Daphne du Maurier

His constant fight is with the Nafs (self-interest), the root of all disharmony and the only enemy of man. By crushing this enemy man gains mastery over himself; this wins for him mastery over the whole universe, because the wall standing between the self and the Almighty has been broken down. Gentleness, mildness, respect, humility, modesty, self-denial, conscientiousness, tolerance and forgiveness are considered by the Sufi as the attributes which produce harmony within one’s own soul as well as within that of another. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

His modesty amounts to deformity. – Margot Asquith

Holiness has never been the driving force of the majority. It is, however, mandatory for anyone who wants to enter the kingdom. – Elisabeth Elliot

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. – Thomas Jefferson

Honor modesty more than your life. – Aeschylus

How beautiful is modesty! It winneth upon all beholders; but a word or a glance may destroy the pure love that should have been for thee. – Martin Farquhar Tupper

How beautiful then is modesty and what a gem among virtues it is. – Bernard of Clairvaux

How can one liberate the many? By first liberating his own being. He does this not by elevating himself, but by lowering himself. He lowers himself to that which is simple, modest, true; integrating it into himself, he becomes a master of simplicity, modesty, truth. – Laozi

How many girls there are who do not see any wrongdoing in following certain shameless styles like so many sheep. They certainly would blush if they could guess the impression they make and the feelings they evoke in those who see them. – Pope Pius XII

How many times, have I had to seat women whom I received at audiences next to me, rather than facing me, in order to avoid general embarrassment? Nothing should compel us to suffer such trials. It puts the nerves of men and the modesty of women to a severe test. – Habib Bourguiba

How many young girls there are who do not see any wrongdoing in following certain shameless styles like so many sheep. They certainly would blush if they could guess the impression they make and the feelings they evoke in those who see them. Do they not see the harm resulting from excess in certain gymnastic exercises and sports not suitable for virtuous girls? What sins are committed or provoked by conversations which are too free, by immodest shows, by dangerous reading. How lax have consciences become, how pagan morals! – Pope Pius XII

How shall we praise the magnificence of the dead, The great man humbled, the haughty brought to dust? – Conrad Aiken

How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of nature! – Arthur Conan Doyle

Humble is such a lonely word. – KakSri

Humble people don’t get offended easily. – Radhanath Swami

Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all. – William Temple

Humility is no substitute for a good personality. – Fran Lebowitz

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. – C. S. Lewis

Humility is the ability to give up your pride and still retain your dignity. – Vanna Bonta

Humility is the first step towards learning. You can’t learn until you are humble enough to realize there is something for you to learn. – Robert Kiyosaki

Humility is the most difficult of all virtues to achieve; nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of self. – T.S. Eliot

Humility is the mother of many virtues because from it obedience, fear, reverence, patience, modesty, meekness and peace are born. He who is humble easily obeys everyone, fears to offend anyone, is at peace with everyone, is kind with all. – Thomas of Villanova

Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else. – Madeleine L’Engle

Humility is to make a right estimate of one’s self. It is no humility for a man to think less of himself than he ought, though it might rather puzzle him to do that. – Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Humility means accepting reality with no attempt to outsmart it. – David Richo

Humility reminds you that in order to receive value, you must create value in equal measure. – Ralph Marston

Humility stands wise while ego stumbles with pride. – Anonymous

Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot. – Thomas Moore

I always believe that greatness comes with kindness, humility brings compassion, and modesty brings balance. – Rashmi Bhola

I am afraid that old women are more skeptical in their most secret heart of hearts than any man: they believe in the superficiality of existence as in its essence, and all virtue and profundity is to them merely a veil over this “truth,” a most welcome veil over a pudendum–and so a matter of decency and modesty, and nothing else. – Friedrich Nietzsche

I am by far your superior, but my notorious modesty prevents me from saying so. – Erik Satie

I am no more humble than my talents require. – Oscar Levant

I am not aware that I have deserved any notoriey, and I have no taste for its buzz. – Alfred Nobel

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

I am thinking of the onion again. . . . Not self-righteous like the proletarian potato, nor a siren like the apple. No show-off like the banana. But a modest, self-effacing vegetable, questioning, introspective, peeling itself away, or merely radiating halos like ripples. – Erica Jong

I believe in clear-cut positions. I think that the most arrogant position is this apparent, multidisciplinary modesty of “what I am saying now is not unconditional, it is just a hypothesis,” and so on. It really is a most arrogant position. I think that the only way to be honest and expose yourself to criticism is to state clearly and dogmatically where you are. You must take the risk and have a position. – Slavoj Žižek

I call not that virginity a virtue, which resideth onely in the bodies integrity; much less if it be with a purpose of perpetually keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice. – But I call that Virginity a virtue which is willing and desirous to yield it self upon honest and lawfull terms, when just reason requireth; and until then, is kept with a modest chastity of body and mind. – John Donne

I can feel like a hag some days if I want! And I can tell everybody how insecure I am if I want! Or I can be pretty and pretend to think I’m a hag out of fake modesty-I can do that if I want, too. Because you, Livingston, are not the boss of me and what kind of girl I become. – E. Lockhart

I come from a background where you don’t show off the good things you do. It’s modesty. – Mesut Ozil

I definitely was always expected and encouraged to be a songwriter from a very young age, … But really it’s because, as a child, I thought I was Judy Garland. And when I started out, I was a little nuts. I thought I was a classic, legendary superstar when only 10 people knew who I was. I feel in some ways that my confidence is misinterpreted as arrogance, which is understandable. But I’ve also always thought that false modesty is evil. – Rufus Wainwright

I do not believe in sex distinction in literature, law, politics, or trade – or that modesty and virtue are more becoming to women than to men, but wish we had more of it everywhere. – Belva Lockwood

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. – Mila Kunis

I do plead with the mothers of Zion to undertake modesty in dress. We may like to follow the fashion, but let us follow it in modesty. The most precious thing that a girl has is her modesty and if she preserves this in dress, in speech, in action, it will arm, and protect her as nothing else will. But let her lose her modesty, and she becomes a victim of those who pursue her, as the hare is of the hound; and she will not be able to stand unless she preserves her modesty. – L. Tom Perry

I do regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general to be aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for modesty to be natural of any other woman. – Jane Austen

I don’t deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it. – Flannery O’Connor

I don’t like false modesty. – Dominic Holland

I don’t like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can’t do it. – Ernest Hemingway

I don’t look in the mirror; don’t like what I see; never have. I am not my idea of a beauty. Never was. This is not false modesty. I’ve just never been enamoured of my face, which of course is magnified umpteen times on screen. – Lauren Bacall

I don’t think anyone who genuinely embraced sincerity, charity and modesty could be intolerant or divisive. – Julian Baggini

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

I don’t think that modesty is the outstanding characteristic of contemporary politics, do you? – Edward Heath

I entered Excessive Modesty Mode. Nothing is stupider and more ineffective than Excessive Modesty Mode. It is a mode in which you show that you’re modest by arguing with someone who is trying to compliment you. Essentially, you are going out of your way to try to convince someone that you’re a jerk. – Jesse Andrews

I go to therapy once a week, that helps a lot. I have a really supportive family. I have two little kids, I’m married, I live close to my parents, my brother and his wife. I don’t socialize a lot. I work and I have my kids, basically. I’m just, I would say, with all false modesty aside, I’m ruthlessly efficient with my time. – Mark Duplass

I grew up in South Jamaica, Queens, in New York. My parents were very religious churchgoing people. They were very strict. I was never really allowed to indulge in anything vain. Modesty always. I have three brothers and two sisters, so everything was on a budget. – Wynter Gordon

I grew up on all of the great spy movies and TV series of the Sixties – not just Bond, but Derek Flint and the Avengers and Modesty Blaise and the Man from UNCLE and on and on. Every time I sit down to work on Cinderella, I’m writing a love letter to all of those characters. – Chris Roberson

I had not yet acquired the experience which gives modesty. – Jules Breton

I have a most peaceable disposition. My desires are for a modest hut, a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, very fresh milk and butter, flowers in front of my window and a few pretty trees by my door. And should the good Lord wish to make me really happy, he will allow me the pleasure of seeing about six or seven of my enemies hanged upon those trees. – Heinrich Heine

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

I have huge legs, and I never show them – not because of false modesty, I’m just not comfortable. – Cheyenne Jackson

I have no concept of modesty anymore. – Margot Robbie

I have no modesty. Modesty is a learned affectation. It’s like decal stuck up on a person. – Maya Angelou

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. – Yves Saint Laurent

I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty. But I am too busy thinking about myself. – Edith Sitwell

I hope the World War II generation doesn’t lose that quality that made them so appealing: their modesty, and the way they are always looking forward and seldom back. – Tom Brokaw

I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way – I hope it never will. – Arnold Schwarzenegger

I like a cook who smiles out loud when he tastes his own work. Let God worry about your modesty; I want to see your enthusiasm. – Robert Farrar Capon

I like working fast, but I got to the age where the real difference between television and the movies is, I’m not smart enough to be in the movies. It’s a very political world. In all modesty, I can say that I’m a much better actor, but that doesn’t matter. – William Devane

I like working on one – camera. This is not false modesty, but I don’t think I’m very good at three – camera. And it’s not that I’m nervous, but I just sort of feel like my collar is too small, or my clothes don’t fit. I don’t understand what that is. And I don’t understand the format: There’s an audience in front of you that you’re playing to, but there are also these cameras. – Jeffrey Tambor

I love the man that is modestly valiant, that stirs not till he most needs, and then to purpose. A continued patience I commend not. – Owen Feltham

I mean no film is beyond criticism, but I think we’ve made a very modest movie. – Walter Hill

I possess every good quality, but the one that distinguishes me above all is modesty. – Charles Richet

I prefer honest arrogance to hypocritical modesty. – Frank Lloyd Wright

I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires. – Khalil Gibran

I really like the idea of modesty. By the time I got into music, I was already wearing the scarf all the time, and it’s really personal to me, my Muslim beliefs, so I decided to keep it and find a way to work around it. I don’t see it as a restriction or limitation – I can still be me and get into music and be an entertainer. – Yuna

I say the same of humility and of all the virtues; the wiles of the devil are terrible, he will run a thousand times round hell if by so doing he can make us believe that we have a single virtue which we have not. And he is right, for such ideas are very harmful, and such imaginary virtues, when they come from this source, are never unaccompanied by vainglory; just as those which God gives are free both from this and from pride. – Teresa of Avila

I see no point in being modest about things you know you do well. It doesn’t indicate humility so much as hypocrisy or lack of perception. – Louise Dickinson Rich

I suppose that by this time they had finished their dressing. Roger Scurvilegs tells us nothing on such important matters; no doubt from modesty. “Next morning they rose,” he says, and disappoints us of a picture of Udo brushing his hair. – A. A. Milne

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

I think ‘modesty’ is a beautiful word today – and a beautiful attitude. – Alber Elbaz

I think in the world of indie music there’s this sort of false modesty. – Alex Kapranos

I think people who lack humility are really annoying. – Emily VanCamp

I think some modesty actually serves me by just accepting that I am an instrument. I’m not trying to match up to an ideal as some kind of challenge. It’s more like I use the family tree of music and song that I feel has fit me as an encouragement; like it’s a bed to rest in rather than a challenge to try to better myself over, to try to. – Mirah

I think that few people are aware how early it is right to respect the modesty of an infant. – Harriet Martineau

I think that for the highest achievements nowadays… need to have the stable as a rock scientific base. And also need to own modesty. – Alexander Alekhine

I understood, by dint of digging into my memories, that modesty helped me to shine, humility helped me to triumph and virtue to oppress. – Albert Camus

I was born modest; not all over, but in spots. – Mark Twain

I was on stage last night, and I gave a medical report about Donald Trump. I said he was hospitalized for an attack of modesty. – Mort Sahl

I was raised in a very Middle Eastern household, and modesty was very important, and dressing to not be desirable or provocative was very important. – Tan France

I went to Catholic high school, so my being in this [the craft] is not going to make my grandmother very happy. It’s funny, because I was the only one who is Catholic in it. You have this thing in mass where you have to genuflect before you go into the pew, so I said you have to do this [for a scene] and they said why, and I said because you have to; I don’t know why, it’s a rule. Or like instinct. It’s funny they set in a Catholic school. I went to St. Ignatius College Prep – “Where Modesty is our Policy.” – Robin Tunney

I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm. – Jean-Paul Sartre

I will say I was a lot bigger as Superman. A lot bigger. I’m not saying how much. It’s modesty about the weight – I’ve always been worried about my weight – but I also don’t want to invite that debate: ‘Henry weighs this, so he’s the perfect Superman.’ Or, ‘Henry doesn’t weigh this, and therefore he’s not believable in the role.’ – Henry Cavill

I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity – all I hope for in my clothes. – Yves Saint Laurent

I’ll tell you something about Glenn McGrath – he was a much better bowler than me. This is not false modesty. – James Anderson

I’m a religious woman. And I feel I have responsibility. I have no modesty at all. I’m even afraid of it – it’s a learned affectation and it’s just stuck on me like decals. Now I pray for humility because that comes from inside out. – Maya Angelou

I, too, learned, because I followed him in everything, except that I, always more modest and prudent, jumped off halfway down the staircase, or slid down bit by bit, braking constantly. – Italo Calvino

If a women can go to the beach and wear nothing, then why can’t she also wear everything. – Malala Yousafzai

If a young lady has that discretion and modesty without which all knowledge is little worth, she will never make an ostentatious parade of it, because she will rather be intent on acquiring more than on displaying what she has. – Hannah More

If guys practiced self-control, ‘modesty’ wouldn’t be such a huge deal. – Zach Hunter

If I determine to live my life for the glory of God—that will affect why I wear what I wear. It will make me think about what I wear. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

If I only had a little humility, I would be perfect. – Ted Turner

If modesty and candor are necessary to an author in his judgment of his own works, no less are they in his reader. – Sarah Fielding

If modesty disappeared, so would exhibitionism. – Mason Cooley

If more girls would start respecting themselves guys would have no choice but to respect girls. You can’t act like a rock and expect to be treated like a diamond. – Holly Summerall

If some people are right, artists are put into this world not to practice their art, but to talk about it. And judging by the flattering invitations many a humble climber will receive to pontificate from the lowest rung but one of the ladder, humanity is in a dangerously receptive frame of mind, and artists a race devoid of either modesty or sense of humor. – Ethel Smyth

If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization. – Robert Green Ingersoll

If the general attitude of Canadians toward their mighty neighbor to the south could be distilled into a single phrase, that phrase would probably be “Oh, shut up.” The Americans talked too much, mainly about themselves. Their torrid love affair with their own history and legend exceeded-painfully-the quasi-British Canadian idea of modesty and self-restraint. … They were forever busting their buttons in spasms of insufferable yahoo pride or all too publicly agonizing over their crises. – Bruce McCall

If the Lord counts the natural beauty of the body inferior to that of the soul, what thinks He of spurious beauty, rejecting utterly as He does all falsehood? – Clement of Alexandria

If the savior stood beside us, would we feel comfortable in the clothing we wear or would we want to hide? – Carol F. McConkie

If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth they have not often let their presence be known. – W. E. B. Du Bois

If there’s one quality I hate in a woman, it’s modesty. Besides making me, with my trombone mouth, feel vaguely uncouth, I think it’s a chickenshit response to the demands of the marketplace, or the universe, not that I can tell them apart. – Emily Carter

If thou hast wit and learning, add to it wisdom and modesty. – Benjamin Franklin

If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes. – Thomas More

If you are aware of your humility, then you are arrogant. – Ibn Ata Allah

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

If you aren’t humble, whatever empathy you claim is false and probably results from some arrogance or the desire to control. But true empathy is rooted in humility and the understanding that there are many people with as much to contribute in life as you. – Anand Mahindra

If you wish to be loved, be modest; if you wish to be admired, be proud; if you wish both, combine external modesty with internal pride. – Will Durant

Immodest and attractive is easy. Modest and repulsive is easy too. But modest and attractive is an art form. – Douglas Wilson

Immodest clothing includes short shorts and skirts, tight clothing, shirts that do not cover the stomach, and other revealing attire. … Women should wear clothing that covers the shoulder and avoid clothing that is low-cut in the front or the back or revealing in any other manner. … Men should also maintain modesty in their appearance. All should avoid extremes in clothing, appearance, and hairstyle. Always be neat and clean and avoid being sloppy or inappropriately casual in dress, grooming, and manners. Ask yourself, ‘Would I feel comfortable with my appearance if I were in the Lord’s presence?’ – For the Strength of Youth (pamphlet, 2001), 14–16.

Immodest words admit of no defense, For want of decency is want of sense. – Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon

Implied Subjection, but requir’d with gentle sway, And by her yielded, by him best receiv’d, Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay. – John Milton

Impoliteness is frequently the sign of an awkward modesty that loses its head when surprised and hopes to conceal this with rudeness. – Friedrich Nietzsche

In a king, modesty would be a sign of weakness. – Jose Saramago

In a nation of celebrity worshipers, amid followers of the cult of personality, individual modesty becomes a heroic quality. I find heroism in the acceptance of anonymity, in the studied resistance to the normal American tropism toward the limelight. – Shana Alexander

In a way, a certain amount of self-criticism is a good thing, because it keeps you humble. Realizing that no matter what success you’ve achieved, you can still make enemies makes you humble, too. – Lynn Johnston

In all modesty, my summing up of 1955-6 and 1956-7 must be that no club in the country could live with Manchester United. – Matt Busby

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. – Kim Campbell

In all your movements, let nothing be evident that would offend the eyes of another. – Saint Augustine

In connection with death, or birth, or love, modesty is only a rather puerile self-consciousness. – Margaret Deland

In general, one must have value oneself in order freely and willingly to acknowledge value in another. This is the basis for the requirement that modesty accompany all merits, as well as the disproportionately loud praise for this virtue which alone, among all its sisters, is always added to the praise of anyone distinguished in some way by the person who dares to praise him, so as to conciliate the worthless and silence their wrath. For what is modesty if not false humility which someone with merits and advantages in a world teeming with perfidious envy uses to beg the pardon of those who have none? Someone who does not lay claim to merit because he in fact has none is being honest, not modest.– Arthur Schopenhauer

In honoring the Wright Brothers, it is customary and proper to recognize their contribution to scientific progress. But I believe it is equally important to emphasize the qualities in their pioneering life and the character in man that such a life produced. The Wright Brothers balanced sucess with modesty, science with simplicity. At Kitty Hawk their intellects and senses worked in mutual support. They represented man in balance, and from that balance came wings to lift a world. – Charles Lindbergh

In life humility is not a handicap, arrogance is not a strength. – Dr T.P.Chia

In matters of dress we wish neither silk nor rags,” President Hinckley said. “We seek for the clean look, call it a wholesome look, the bright and happy look of young men and women who walk with a sense of who they are, of what is expected of them, and of what they may become. – Daniel H. Ludlow

In my acquaintance with John Rawls, I found him to be a simple and honest man, who just by chance also happened to be the greatest moral philosopher of the twentieth century. I would like to think that I could emulate at least his modesty – his refusal to exaggerate his perception of himself and his place in the larger scheme of things – even if my work never compares with his in its importance. – Allen W. Wood

In my experience, men who respond to good fortune with modesty and kindness are harder to find than those who face adversity with courage. – Cyrus the Great

In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the women. They have their night meetings and prayer parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus, in terms as amatory and carnal, as their modesty would permit them to use a mere earthly lover. – Thomas Jefferson

In our small chess community in Marylebone it would be mock modesty on my part to deny that I have built up for myself a considerable name without ever actually having won a single game. Even the best players are sometimes beaten, and that is precisely what happens to me. – Stephen Potter

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; . . . . Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English. – William Shakespeare

In reality, humility means nothing other than complete honesty about yourself. – William Countryman

In San Francisco, vulgarity, “bad taste,” ostentation are regarded as a kind of alien blight, an invasion or encroachment from outside. In Los Angeles, there is so much money and power connected with ostentation that is no longer ludicrous: it commands a kind of respect. For if the mighty behave like this, then quiet good taste means that you can’t afford the conspicuous expenditures, and you become a little ashamed of your modesty and propriety. – Pauline Kael

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. – Charles Krauthammer

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

In the fall of 1973, Erica Jong assaulted the last surviving bastions of old-fashioned modesty with her ‘Fear of Flying.’ – Alistair Horne

In the modesty of fearful duty, I read as much as from the rattling tongue of saucy and audacious eloquence. – William Shakespeare

In the Western standards of modesty, there are different guidelines. – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Indecency in anything spoils it. And modesty in anything adorns it. – Ibn Majah

‘Infidel’ is a term of reproach, which Christians and Mohammedans, in their modesty, agree to apply to those who differ from them. – Thomas Huxley

Inflation is lower and more stable and the real business cycle fluctuations are more modest. – Martin Feldstein

Intellectual modesty is humility as to what I know; intellectual humility is modesty as to what I do not know. – Tariq Ramadan

Is it possible that God permitted the violets of modesty, that grow and shed their perfume in the maiden’s heart, to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of lust? If this was the order of God, what, under the same circumstances, would have been the command of a devil? – Robert G. Ingersoll

Islam doesn’t try to destroy cultures; it cleans them up. You can keep your language but get rid of your racist speech. You can keep your style of cooking, but get rid of alcohol. You can keep your cultural dresses, but keep your modesty on the highest level. – Nouman Ali Khan

It does not suit all persons to be modest; none but great men ought to be so. – Stanislaw II

It is a common teaching of the Saints that one of the principal means of leading a good and exemplary life is certainly modesty and the mortification of the eyes. Just as there is nothing better than modesty to preserve devotion in a soul and to edify one’s neighbor, so too, there is nothing worse than immodesty and licentious glances to expose a person to the danger of becoming lax and loose in morals. – Alphonsus Rodriguez

It is a little learning, and but a little, which makes men conclude hastily. Experience and humility teach modesty and fear. – Jeremy Taylor

It is always the secure who are humble. – Gilbert Keith Chesterton

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. – Harry Truman

It is easy for somebody to be modest, but it is difficult to be modest when one is a nobody. – Jules Renard

It is modesty that lends an all-conquering charm to everything human here below–to the king, to the queen, to the archbishop, prime minister, duchess, and the dairymaid. Without modesty there can be no royal dignity, no sense of a holy calling, no eloquence, no real refinement, no natural delicacy. Devoid of modesty there can be no manly bearing, no nobility of nature, no charm, no grace; no beauty in maidenhood. Modesty, when worn by women, is the gem that dazzles all others, and leads captive the noblest specimens of the opposite sex; it eclipses every art and every wile; all bodily beauty, as it is of the soul. The humble maiden clad in modesty, walks abroad with an air of queenly dignity, which cannot be approached by many an occupant of a throne; and as she passes along through gardens and fields filled with the choicest flowers of earth, she, with the bloom of heavenly modesty on her cheek, lends a charm to all around, and makes it as complete as any earthly picture can be. Man, without modesty, thou art but a beast. Woman, without modesty, every charm of thy nature is gone; all the light of thy soul; and the beauty of thy body has vanished. – T. Augustus Forbes Leith

It is often found that modesty and humility not only do no good, but are positively hurtful, when they are shown to the arrogant who have taken up a prejudice against you, either from envy or from any other cause. – Niccolo Machiavelli

It is often the case with a new idea that when it comes knocking on society’s door with modesty and the best premises for its existence, there is a tremendous outcry from inside. – Isak Dinesen

It is only the first obstacle which counts to conquer modesty. – Bill Vaughan

It is pleasing to the Lord when we bathe our bodies and put on clean clothing, however inexpensive the clothing may be. We should dress in such a way that we might comfortably attend a sacrament meeting or a gathering that is proper and dignified. – Russell M. Nelson

It is proper to leave an abundance of modesty, rather than gold to children. – Unknown

It is right to love beauty and to desire it; but God desires us to love and seek first the highest beauty, that which is imperishable. No outward adorning can compare in value or loveliness with that “meek and quiet spirit.” – Ellen G. White

It is strange that modesty is the rule for women when what they most value in men is boldness. – Ninon de L’Enclos

It is the desire for success that prevents humility; and without humility how can there be understanding? – Jiddu Krishnamurti

It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature’s God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word. – Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

It isn’t false modesty when I say this, but although I am supposed to be a famous person it doesn’t mean anything to me. I just sit at home and work. – Gyorgy Ligeti

It might be said that society speaks through the clothing it wears. Through its clothing it reveals its secret aspirations and uses it, at least in part, to build or destroy its future. – Pope Pius XII

It rarely adds anything to say, “In my opinion” – not even modesty. Naturally a sentence is only your opinion; and you are not the Pope. – Paul Goodman

It seems disrespectful to me to see ladies in church in very short skirts or skimpy, sleeveless tops. I would imagine that it could be distracting to men who are trying to keep their minds on God. – Elisabeth Elliot

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

It was the Almighty who decreed that men and women must cover their nakedness by wearing proper and modest clothing. No amount of rationalizing can change God’s laws. No amount of fashion designing can turn immodesty into virtue, and no amount of popularity can change sin into righteousness. – Mark E. Petersen

It’s a great lesson in modesty that you realize you’re illiterate in a field that you think you’re an expert in. – Wim Wenders

It’s far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help. – Judith Martin

It’s going to be fun to watch and see how long the meek can keep the earth once they inherit it. – Kin Hubbard

It’s not much of a tail, but I’m sort of attached to it. – A.A. Milne

It’s a man’s job to respect a woman, but it is a woman’s job to give him something to respect. – Unknown

It’s easy to show skin. It takes bravery to show humility, vulnerability, compassion, heart, kindness, and self-respect. – Mandy Hale

I’m just an average woman with average concerns. – Aishwarya Rai

Jealousy isn’t a pleasant quality, but if it isn’t overdone (and if it’s combined with modesty), apart from its inconvenience there’s even something touching about it. – Milan Kundera

Journalists ask me, ‘Why don’t you ever talk about sex in your performances?’ True, I don’t talk about sex – not in my personal life and not in my professional life. This is modesty. – Gad Elmaleh

Just remember, when someone has an accent, it means that he knows one more language than you do. – Sidney Sheldon

Just wake up everyday really humbled by the fact that there is so much you don’t know, dream big. – Unknown

Justice is a moral virtue, merely because it has that tendency to the good of mankind, and indeed is nothing but an artificial invention to that purpose. The same may be said of allegiance, of the laws of nations, of modesty, and of good manners. All these are mere human contrivances for the interest of society. – David Hume

Karate aims to build character, improve human behavior, and cultivate modesty; it does not, however, guarantee it. – Yasuhiro Konishi

Kindness, tolerance, integrity, modesty, generosity – these are attributes that events permit us. They are our holiday moods, and we are as proud of them as of the fine clothes we have hung away to wear on occasions. – Ben Hecht

Knowledge is a matter of science and no dishonesty or conceit whatsoever is permissible. What is required is definitely the reverse – honesty and modesty. – Mao Zedong

Lack of modesty breeds contempt. – Dorothy Dunnett

Ladies, being modest not only shows your obedience to God, but it also shows men to love you for the right reasons.

Ladies, let’s dress to impress God, not men.

Larry Summers is to modesty what Madonna is to Chastity. – Paul Gigot

Learning gives us a fuller conviction of the imperfections of our nature; which one would think, might dispose us to modesty. – Jeremy Collier

Let God’s grace be the mosque, and devotion the prayer mat. Let the Quran be the good conduct. Let modesty be compassion, good manners fasting, you should be a Muslim the like of this. Let good deeds be your Kaaba and truth be your mentor. Your Kalma be your creed and prayer, God would then vindicate your honour. – Guru Nanak

Let us be absolutely clear about one thing: we must not confuse humility with false modesty or servility. – Paulo Coelho

Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent. – William Shenstone

Let your modesty be a sufficient incitement, yea, an exhortation to everyone to be at peace on their merely looking at you. – Ignatius of Loyola

Liberal education, which consists in the constant intercourse with the greatest minds, is a training in the highest form of modesty. … It is at the same time a training in boldness. … It demands from us the boldness implied in the resolve to regard the accepted views as mere opinions, or to regard the average opinions as extreme opinions which are at least as likely to be wrong as the most strange or least popular opinions. – Leo Strauss

Life is a long lesson in humility. – James Matthew Barrie

Loquacity storms the ear, but modesty takes the heart. – Robert South

Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Coke when he was boasting, The less you speak of your greatness, the more shall I think of it. – William Shakespeare

Lord, where we are wrong, make us willing to change; where we are right, make us easy to live with. – Peter Marshall

Love knows nothing of modesty. – Honore de Balzac

Maidenly modesty is like aquavitæ, which keeps in perfect condition as long as it is tightly stoppered, but, if the air gets to it, evaporates at once. – Antonio Simeone Sografi

Mainly through sins of impurity, do the forces of darkness subjugate souls. – Pope Pius XII

Make it a goal that when a guy looks at you, he will notice the light of Christ in your eyes, and the radiance of your smile, rather than being distorted by the outline of your body. – Unknown

Make no display of your talents or attainments; for every one will clearly see, admire, and acknowledge them, so long as you cover them with the beautiful veil of modesty. – Nathanael Emmons

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

Man offers himself to God. He stands before Him like the canvas before the painter or the marble before the sculptor. At the same time he asks for His grace, expresses his needs and those of his brothers in suffering. Such a type of prayer demands complete renovation. The modest, the ignorant, and the poor are more capable of this self-denial than the rich and the intellectual. – Alexis Carrel

Many a peacock hides his peacock tail from all eyes–and calls it his pride. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Many men who do creditable things refuse to let it be known. This is a mistake. While we all admire modesty, nevertheless there is a great national need to do everything possible to bring home to the rank and file of the people that all employers and all wealthy men are not grinding, mercenary, selfish skinflints, but that many of them take delight in doing helpful things for others … Shortcomings of employers are constantly paraded. Why not let the public become acquainted with the better side which most present-day employers possess? – B. C. Forbes

Me and modesty don’t mix. – Melvin Van Peebles

Men are not inspired to protect women who are naked, but instead to conquer and violate them; they want to protect those who are clothed. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Men like to flirt with, and sometimes even date a wild child, but those women aren’t usually first on their lists for marriage or motherhood. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Men sometimes feel injured by praise because it assigns a limit to their merit; few people are modest enough not to take offense that one appreciates them. – Luc de Clapiers

Men who have flattered themselves into this opinion of their own abilities, look down on all who waste their lives over books, as a race of inferior beings condemned by nature to perpetual pupilage, and fruitlessly endeavouring to remedy their barrenness by incessant cultivation, or succour their feebleness by subsidiary strength. They presume that none would be more industrious than they, if they were not more sensible of deficiences; and readily conclude, that he who places no confidence in his own powers owes his modesty only to his weakness. – Samuel Johnson

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

Merit is nearly always accompanied by modesty. – The Freemason’s Repository

Modest about our national pride – and inordinately proud of our national modesty. – Ian Hislop

Modest expression is a beautiful setting to the diamond of talent and genius. – Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Mr. Attlee is a very modest man. Indeed he has a lot to be modest about. – Winston Churchill

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. – Arthur Conan Doyle

My modesty has prevented me from declaring from the house top that the message of non-co-operation, nonviolence and swadeshi is a message to the world. – Mahatma Gandhi

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. – Albert Einstein

Never forget the favors done for you. Always forget the favors you’ve done for others. – Omar Suleiman

NEVER forget where you came from it might save you from where you could end up. – Unknown

Newton (that proverb of the mind), alas! Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent, That he himself felt only like a youth Picking up shells by the great ocean—Truth – George Gordon Byron

No age, sex, or condition is above or below the absolute necessity of modesty; but without it one is vastly beneath the rank of man. – Bernard Barton

No American worth his salt should go around looking for a root. I advance this in all modesty, as a not unreasonable opinion. – Wyndham Lewis

No amount of rationalizing can change God’s laws. No amount of fashion designing can turn immodesty into virtue, and no amount of popularity can change sin into righteousness. – Spencer W. Kimball

No doubt, when modesty was made a virtue, it was a very advantageous thing for the fools, for everybody is expected to speak of himself as if he were one. – Arthur Schopenhauer

No education can be of true advantage to young women but that which trains them up in humble industry, in great plainness of living, in exact modesty of dress. – William Law

No girl who is well bred, ‘kind, and modest, is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want of manners, or of heart. – John Ruskin

No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it. It is only with your own knowledge that you can deal. It is only your own knowledge that you can claim to possess or ask others to consider. Your mind is your only judge of truth – and if others dissent from your verdict, reality is the court of final appeal. Nothing but a man’s mind can perform that complex, delicate, crucial process of identification which is thinking. Nothing can direct the process but his own judgment. Nothing can direct his judgment but his moral integrity. – Ayn Rand

No modest man ever did or ever will make a fortune. – Mary Wortley Montagu

No sex, age, or condition is above or below the absolute necessity of modesty; but without it one vastly beneath the rank of man. – Bruce Barton

No truly great person ever thought themselves so. – William Hazlitt

Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected. – William Safire

None of the adults I knew ever touched in public, much less kneaded each others flesh. – Maureen Howard

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

Nor do we accept, as genuine the person not characterized by this blushing bashfulness, this youthfulness of heart, this sensibility to the sentiment of suavity and self-respect. Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds. None are truly great without this ornament. – Amos Bronson Alcott

Not stepping over the bounds of modesty. – William Shakespeare

Not that I had any special reason for hating school. Strange as it may seem to my readers, I was not unpopular there. I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable. – Max Beerbohm

Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable. – Sir Richard Steele

Nothing can ever overcome that one enormous sex (female) superiority that even the male child is born closer to his mother than to his father. – Gilbert K. Chesterton

Nothing is cute enough to compensate for how modesty feels. – Unknown

Nothing is mine, I have only nothing but it is enough, it is beautiful and it is all mine. Do I even walk about in my own skin or is it something I have borrowed to spare my modesty? – Katherine Anne Porter

Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it. – Joseph Addison

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

Nothing is worse than a beautiful girl fishing for compliments by saying how gross she is. On the flip side, I find genuine humility and modesty attractive. – Chris Evans

Nothing more enhances authority than silence. It is the crowning virtue of the strong, the refuge of the weak, the modesty of the proud, the pride of the humble, the prudence of the wise, and the sense of fools. To speak is to . . . dissipate one’s strength; whereas what action demands is concentration. Silence is a necessary preliminary to the ordering of one’s thoughts. – Charles de Gaulle

Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, in fact, of our modesty. – Louis Kronenberger

Nudity empowers some and modesty empowers others. – Erika Alm

Of all people who engage in controversy, we, who are called Calvinists, are most expressly bound by our own principles to the exercise of gentleness and moderation. – John Newton

Of course you will insist on modesty in the children, and respect to their teachers, but if the boy stops you in your speech, cries out that you are wrong and sets you right, hug him! – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Of lies, false modesty is the most decent. – Nicolas Chamfort

Often, our laws and policies reflect patriarchal biases that can trap men in stereotypes – for example, the idea of guarding the modesty of a woman serves neither men nor women nor any other gender – instead, it comes from the same strong patriarchal framework that we need to confront and reject. – Rohini Nilekani

One cannot be humble and aware of oneself at the same time. – Madeleine L’Engle

One day, a daughter of Aristotle, Pythias by name, was asked what color pleased her most. She replied, “The color with which modesty suffuses the face of simple, inoffensive men. – Joseph Joubert

One is vain by nature, modest by necessity. – Pierre Reverdy

One of the problems with sex education… is that it also strips kids – especially girls – of their modesty to have every detail of anatomy, physiology and condom usage made explicit. – James Dobson

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… – Christopher Hitchens

One who has an inferiority complex can never be really humble, but can only have false modesty or false humility. – Sri Chinmoy

One who is unassuming in dealing with people exhibits his arrogance all the more strongly in dealing with things (city, state, society, age, mankind). That is his revenge. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Only when painting isn’t painting can there be an affront to modesty. – Pablo Picasso

Original love never appears in pure form, but in manifold veils and shapes, such as confidence, humility, reverence, serenity, asfaithfulness and modesty, as gratefulness; but primarily as longing and wistful melancholy. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Ornaments were invented by modesty. – Joseph Joubert

Our clothing, while modest and simple, should be of good quality . . . It should be chosen for durability rather than display. – Ellen G. White

Our dress affects not only our thoughts and actions but also the thoughts and actions of others. – Tad R. Callister

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

Parents and leaders should give early help to the blase girl who is often overpainted and underdressed. She is the picture of an unhappy girl whose physical adornments, to her thinking, don’t invite adequate attention. Heaven help the girl who gets the kind of attention she is seeking by being overpainted and underdressed! She will rue the day, of course, when she gets the kind of attention her flagrant invitation is giving. – Mark E. Petersen

Pastime passing excellent, if it he husbanded with modesty. – William Shakespeare

People seem very arrogant when they say ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’, but in practice we all believe we’re right. We have a staggering arrogance in our own belief. That can be tempered by not being 100% certain; by being provisional. No matter what the debate is, very few people have the modesty to suspend judgement on a whole range of things; most intelligent people have an opinion and are expected to have an opinion by other people – but it always requires making a personal judgement that goes way-beyond your expertise. We do it all the time. – Julian Baggini

people think I’m being modest, but it’s quite the opposite: I’m thinking that I would do better today and so much better tomorrow. – Jean-Paul Sartre

People used to blush when they were ashamed. Now they are ashamed if they blush. Modesty has disappeared and a brazen generation with no fear of God before its eyes mocks at sin. We are so fond of being called tolerant and broadminded that we wink at sin when we ought to weep. – Vance Havner

Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. – C. S. Lewis

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers, and as the human heart, imagining itself alone and unwatched, feels most deeply in the night-time, so seems it as if the flowers, in musing modesty, await the mantling eventide ere they give themselves up wholly to feeling… – Heinrich Heine

Playing in the same team as Sachin is a huge honour. His balance of mind, shrewd judgment, modesty and, above all, his technical brilliance make him my all-time hero. You can’t get a more complete cricketer than Sachin. He has everything that a cricketer needs to have. – Rahul Dravid

Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired. – Lord Chesterfield

Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak brain giddy. – Owen Feltham

Praise thyself never. – Seneca the Younger

Pride divides the men, humility joins them. – Socrates

Pride makes us artificial and humility make real. – Thomas Merton

Prostitutes dress obviously, so as to draw attention. It’s their business, isn’t it? The last thing that a Christian woman is thinking of is being like a prostitute. – Elisabeth Elliot

Prudery is the hypocrisy of modesty. – Unknown

Raise your hands & touch your toes. If anything shows, go change your clothes. – Unknown

Rare is agreement between beauty and modesty. – Latin Proverb

Real modesty flows from the inside out, and in proportion to how much a person understands her own greatness and uniqueness. – Wendy Shalit

Real modesty, however, is a constant and desirable quality. It is based not on fashion but on appropriateness. – Wendy Shalit

Remember that with her clothes a woman puts off her modesty. – Herodotus

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded. – Fyodor Dostoevsky

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

Seek the truth in all fields, and in that search you will need at least three virtues: courage, zest and modesty. The ancients put that thought in the form of a prayer. They said, “From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth – O God of truth, deliver us. – Hugh B. Brown

Several country towns, within my observation, have at least a dozen taverns. Here the time, the money, the health and the modesty, of most that are young and of many old, are wasted. Here diseases, vicious habits, bastards and legislators are frequently spawned. – John Adams

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. – Marquis de Sade

She that hath a wise husband must entice him to an eternal dearness by the veil of modesty and the grave robes of chastity, the ornament of meekness, and the jewels of faith and charity. She must have no painting but blushings; her brightness must be purity, and she must shine round about with sweetness and friendship; and she shall be pleasant while she lives, and desired when she dies. – Jeremy Taylor

She told me that her body was sacred and shouldn’t be exposed for all eyes to see. I liked the idea of living behind so much fabric. It would be a comfortable feeling. – Laura Resau

She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. she was beautiful, for her ability to make people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul. – F Scott Fitzgerald

Shine without guilt. Modesty was invented by the mediocres who think you should be the same as them. – Paulo Coelho

Shout out to all the beautiful women who don’t need to dress half naked to get a man’s attention…stay classy! – Unknown

Silence and modesty are very valuable qualities in conversation. – Michel de Montaigne

Silence, along with modesty, is a great aid to conversation. – Michel de Montaigne

Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations. – Paul Rand

Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either. – Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

So great is the modesty of your mind and face, Sophronius that I wonder you should ever have become a father. – Marcus Aurelius

So many Irish actors overplay that modesty because they’re afraid people will judge them and say, ‘The state of yer man, he thinks he’s great,’ or whatever. – Jack Reynor

So rare is the union of beauty with modesty. – Decimus Junius Juvenalis

So they, who climb to wealth, forget / The friends in darker fortunes tried. / I copied them–but I regret / That I should ape the ways of pride. – William C. Bryant

So what are you really wearing?” The words left her mouth before she could consider them. She winced. He didn’t seem to mind; in fact, he flashed her one of his brief smiles. “And if I said nothing at all?” “Then I would point out that sometimes, if you look at something out of the corner of your eye, you can see right through glamour,” she returned. That brought surprised laughter. “What a relief to us both then that I am actually wearing exactly what you saw me in this afternoon. Although one might point out that in that outfit, your last concern should be my modesty. – Holly Black

Some are blessed with musical ability, others with good looks. Myself, I was blessed with modesty. – Roger Moore

Some of the most frantic lies on the face of life are told with modesty and restraint; for the simple reason that only modesty and restraint will save them. – Gilbert K. Chesterton

Some people would rather die in their pride, than live in their humility. – Anthony Liccione

Some pretend want of power to make a competent return; and you shall find in others a kind of graceless modesty, that makes a man ashamed of requiting an obligation, because it is a confession that he has received one. – Seneca the Younger

Something beautiful can happen to people when their world falls apart: humility, nobility and wisdom emerge just when our knees hit the floor. – Marianne Williamson

Sometimes the best virtue learned on the battlefield is modesty. – David Halberstam

Sometimes when you write a thing you think, ‘Oh, this is good’, and it’s not a modesty or an immodesty thing, you just… it’s just the same with anything; when you write a piece you just figure, ‘Oh yeah, I’m on a roll here. This is good; I’m getting the hang of this’. Some pieces are better than others. – Paul McCartney

Spite of all modesty, a man must own a pleasure in the hearing of his praise. – George Farquhar

Stage charm guarantees in advance an actor’s hold on the audience, it helps him to carry over to large numbers of people his creative purposes. It enhances his roles and his art. Yet it is of utmost importance that he use this precious gift with prudence, wisdom, and modesty. It is a great shame when he does not realize this and goes on to exploit, to play on his ability to charm. – Constantin Stanislavski

Starting young means dressing your daughter modestly now. Don’t put her in skimpy outfits when she’s little expecting her to change her look once she grows up. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Strive not with your superiors in argument, but always submit your judgment to others with modesty. – George Washington

Style is to see beauty in modesty. – Andree Putman

Suit the action to the word: the word to the action: with this special observance that you overstep not the modesty of nature. – William Shakespeare

Surely modesty never hurt any cause; and the confidence of man seems to me to be much like the wrath of man. – John Tillotson

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. – Antonio de Oliveira Salazar

Teenagers, especially girl ones, seem like the perfect canary-in-the-coal-mine characters to me. They capture American culture and its perversion, its hypocrisy – how absorbed we are with youth and beauty and sexualized imagery, for instance, while preaching abstinence and modesty. – Antonya Nelson

That is the consolation of a little mind you have the fun of changing it without impeding the progress of mankind. – Frank Moore Colby

That it is a bad thing to be tortured and starved, humiliated or hurt, is not an opinion; it is a fact. That it is better for people to be loved and attended to, rather than hated or neglected, is again a plain fact, not a matter of opinion. – G. J. Warnock

That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty. – Marcus Aurelius

That’s why an artist must be a warrior and, like all warriors, artists over time acquire modesty and humility. They may, some of them, conduct themselves flamboyantly in public. But alone with the work they are chaste and humble. They know they are not the source of the creations they bring into being. They only facilitate. They carry. They are the willing and skilled instruments of the gods and goddesses they serve. – Steven Pressfield

The affected modesty of most women is a decoy for the generous, the delicate, and unsuspecting; while the artful, the bold, and unfeeling either see or break through its slender disguises. – William Hazlitt

The allure of immodesty is not in what is seen but what is not seen. Modesty issues a challenge for one man to romantically earn your virtue. – Dannah Gresh

The beauty of modesty … a virtue the world doesn’t have much truck with: one ordinary flower in a vase, as opposed to a bouquet. – Anne Lamott

The beauty of the soul is wrapped in modest fashion. – Lailah Gifty Akita

The body should be bedecked naturally and without affectation, with simplicity, with neglect rather than nicety, not with costly and dazzling apparel, but with ordinary clothes, so that nothing be lacking to honesty and necessity, yet nothing be added to increase its beauty. – Ambrose

The business of the state trying to legislate modesty is relatively both an infantile and ridiculous procedure. Of course, it is true that the more things are secreted the more intriguing they become, because it is always the forbidden that has the strongest appeal. Nudity is a state of fact – lewdity a state of mind. – Paul Outerbridge

The chief recommendation is modesty, then dutiful conduct toward parents, then affection for kindred. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

The Church is the house of God. It is forbidden for men to enter with bare arms or in shorts. It is forbidden for women to enter in trousers, without a veil on their head, in short clothing, low necklines, sleeveless or immodest dresses. – Pio of Pietrelcina

The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people’s virtues. – William Hazlitt

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. – Mark Twain

The darts of love are blunted by maiden modesty. – Miguel de Cervantes

The daughter-in-law of Pythagoras said that a woman who goes to bed with a man ought to lay aside her modesty with her skirt, and put it on again with her petticoat. – Michel de Montaigne

The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity. – Max Beerbohm

The diabolical work that has taken place since the legalization of abortion is that it has destroyed, in those tragic women who have allowed their child to be murdered, their sense for the sacredness of maternity. Abortion not only murders the innocent; it spiritually murders women… the wound created in their souls is so great that only God’s grace can heal it. The very soul of a woman is meant to be maternal. – Alice von Hildebrand

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

The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue. – Confucius

The first of all virtues is innocence; the next is modesty. If we banish modesty out of the world, she carries away with her half the virtue that is in it. – Joseph Addison

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. – William Shakespeare

The girl who chooses to be modest chooses to be respected. – Howard W. Hunter

The good of our soul is more important than that of our body; and we have to prefer the spiritual welfare of our neighbor to our bodily comforts. . . If a certain kind of dress constitutes a grave and proximate occasion of sin, and endangers the salvation of your soul and others, it is your duty to give it up. – Pope Pius XII

The good we do to others is spoilt unless we efface ourselves so completely that those we help have no sense of inferiority. – Honore de Balzac

The gravest events dawn with no more noise than the morning star makes in rising. All great developments complete themselves in the world and modestly wait in silence, praising themselves never, and announcing themselves not at all. We must be sensitive, and sensible, if we would see the beginnings and endings of great things. That is our part. – Henry Ward Beecher

The great majority of people in England and America are modest, decent and pure-minded and the amount of virgins in the world today is stupendous. – Barbara Cartland

The greatest greatness and the greatest humility go hand in hand naturally and without effort. – Naosherwan Anzar

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes. – Winston Churchill

The greatest ornament of an illustrious life is modesty and humility, which go a great way in the character even of the most exalted princes. – Napoleon Bonaparte

The greatest treasure you can leave your children is a sense of modesty and the advice to follow virtuous persons. – Theognis of Megara

The Hours is in fact a lovely triumph. Cunningham honors both Mrs. Dalloway and its creator with unerring sensitivity, thanks to his modesty of intention and his sovereignly affecting prose…. With his elliptical evocation of Mrs. Dalloway, he has managed to pay great but quiet tribute — reminding us of the gorgeous, ferocious beauty of what endures. – Gail Caldwell

The hunger and thirst for knowledge, the keen delight in the chase, the good humored willingness to admit that the scent was false, the eager desire to get on with the work, the cheerful resolution to go back and begin again, the broad good sense, the unaffected modesty, the imperturbable temper, the gratitude for any little help that was given – all these will remain in my memory though I cannot paint them for others. – Frederic William Maitland

The impudence of the sinner displeases God as much as the modesty of the penitent gives him pleasure. – Saint Bernard

The inclination to self-depreciation, to freely accepting being robbed, being duped, and being swindled, could be the modesty of a god among men. – Friedrich Nietzsche

The less you reveal, the more people can wonder. – Emma Watson

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

The magnificently humble. The enormously small. The meaningfully ridiculous. Robert Walser’s work often reads like a dazzling answer to the question, How immense can modesty be? – Rivka Galchen

The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig leaf. – Mark Twain

The modest man has everything to gain, and the arrogant man everything to lose; for modesty has always to deal with generosity, and arrogance with envy. – Antoine Rivarol

The modest person is usually admired, if people ever hear of them. – E. W. Howe

The modest youth somehow knows just what to do for the cameras. – Mason Cooley

The modesty of women, which, in its most primitive form among animals, is based on sexual periodicity, is, with that periodicity, an essential condition of courtship. – Havelock Ellis

The modesty with which he wore his scientific fame repeatedly reminded me of the trees that bend low with the burden of ripening fruits; it is the barren tree that lifts its head high in an empty boast. – Unknown

The moment you say ‘I know everything’ is the end of your growth. – Sharon Lee

The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing. – Voltaire

The more we cling to virtues like humility, selflessness, modesty, and purity, the more beautiful we become – not only in His eyes, but also in the eyes of others. You can’t airbrush that. – Kylie Bisutti

The most insidious of sophisms are usually repeated to justify immodesty and seem to be the same everywhere. – Pope Pius XII

The most intelligent people disguise the fact that they are intelligent. Wise men do not wear name tags. The more people talk about their own skills, the more desperate they are—their work should speak for itself. – Tsugumi Ohba

The multitude will hardly believe the excessive force of education, and in the difference of modesty between men and women, ascribe that to nature, which is altogether owing to early instruction: Miss is scarce three years old, but she’s spoke to every day to hide her leg, and rebuked in good earnest if she shows it; whilst little Master at the same age is bid to take up his coats, and piss like a man. – Bernard de Mandeville

The notion that boys are unable to control themselves is a scary message. If men can’t control themselves, they must be dangerous. This negative perception is a heavy burden for young women. Young men may also learn to doubt whether they really can control their sexual feelings. In this way, well-intentioned teachers and leaders remove from these young men the responsibility that is rightfully theirs. – Laura M. Brotherson

The poem is at last between two persons instead of two pages. In all modesty, I confess that it may be the death of literature as we know it. – Frank O’Hara

The power of modesty is so great that a tender woman betrays herself with her lover rather by deeds than by words. – Stendhal

The power of one hundred proud men cannot influence the world as much as of one humble servant of God. – Tom Krause

The pride of woman, natural to her, never sleeps until modesty is gone. – Joseph Addison

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

The proud man can learn humility, but he will be proud of it. – Mignon McLaughlin

The rapid, sweeping deterioration of values is characterized by a preoccupation-even an obsession-with the procreative act. Abstinence before marriage and fidelity within it are openly scoffed at-marriage and parenthood ridiculed as burdensome, unnecessary. Modesty, a virtue of a refined individual or society, is all but gone. – Boyd K. Packer

The reward for modesty and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life. – Jacob Neusner

The sage never seems to know his own merits, for only by not noticing them can you call others’ attention to them. – Baltasar Gracian

The second sweetest set of three words in English is “I don’t know”. – Carol Travis

The sordid meal of the Cynics contributed neither to their tranquillity nor to their modesty. Pride went with Diogenes into his tub; and there he had the presumption to command Alexander the haughtiest of all men. – Henry Home, Lord Kames

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions. – Confucius

The thing I hate most is false modesty. The artists who are, like, “Oh, you know, I’m really not that good. Oh, I can’t believe I’m here.” I find it vaguely sinister, even. – Rufus Wainwright

The thunder of false modesty was deafening. – Sebastian Faulks

The trend towards pure art betrays not arrogance, as is often thought, but modesty. Art that has rid itself of human pathos is a thing without consequence. – Jose Ortega y Gasset

The truth is a young maiden as modest as she is beautiful, and therefore she is always seen cloaked. – Umberto Eco

The way a woman carries herself and the way she dresses ought to promote the following types of words: modesty, discretion, wisdom, beauty, elegance and refinement, but not sensuality, luxury, extravagance. – Paul Washer

The way we dress affects the way we think, the way we feel, the way we act, & the way others react to us. – Judith Rasband

The wearing of costly array is directly opposite to being adorned with good works. Nothing can be more evident than this; for the more you lay out on your own apparel, the less you have left to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to lodge the stranger, to relieve those that are sick and in prison. – John Wesley

The whole question of pornography seems to me a question of secrecy. Without secrecy there would be no pornography. But secrecy and modesty are two utterly different things. Secrecy has always an element of fear in it, amounting very often to hate. Modesty is gentle and reserved. Today, modesty is thrown to the winds, even in the presence of the grey guardians. But secrecy is hugged, being a vice in itself. And the attitude of the grey ones is: Dear young ladies, you may abandon all modesty, so long as you hug your dirty little secret. – D. H. Lawrence

The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God…or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world. – Elisabeth Elliot

The wisest man could ask no more of fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, Safe from the many, honored by the few; Nothing to court in Church, or World, or State, But inwardly in secret to be great. – James Russell Lowell

The woman and the soldier who do not defend the first pass will never defend the last. – Henry Fielding

There are as many kinds of modesty as there are races. To the English woman it is a duty; to the French woman a propriety. – Hippolyte Taine

There are many agreements across the so-called “world religions,” at a certain level of abstraction. But when it comes to applying them in concrete situations they may lead to incompatible decisions. As an example, some people think that Christian ideas of sexual modesty suggest that homosexuals should be locked up, some people think that they mean that the churches should recongize gay marriages. But everyone believes in sexual modesty. I think there are universal moral truths, whether or not everyone accepts them. Here’s one very low level but important one: it’s very bad to torture people. – Kwame Anthony Appiah

There are no better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity, modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit; and there is no true beauty without the signatures of these graces in the very countenance. – Arthur Helps

There are twenty-four characters in this book named Max. Let there be an end to this silly business of authors never giving their own names to characters in their novels. False modesty, faugh! – Max Shulman

There are two kinds of beauty, one being of the soul and the other of the body, That of the soul is revealed through intelligence, modesty, right conduct, Generosity and good breeding, all of which qualities may exist in an ugly man; And when one’s gaze is fixed upon beauty of this sort and not upon that of the body, Love is usually born suddenly and violently. – Miguel de Cervantes

There is a false modesty, which is vanity; a false glory, which is levity; a false grandeur, which is meanness; a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery. – Jean de la Bruyere

There is a grey blur, and a green blur. I try to stay on the grey one. – Joey Dunlop

There is a lot of talk in conservative circles about judicial modesty and deferring to the political branches. That view of judging often overlooks the important role that courts have in protecting people’s rights. But if there was ever a time to defer, it is when Congress is protecting voting rights in the exact way the Constitution directs it to. – Adam Cohen

There is a proud modesty in merit. – John Dryden

There is a sad forgetfulness of Christian modesty, especially in the life and dress of women. – Alice von Hildebrand

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 an initial modesty in Liberalism. Liberalism was not originally a doctrine of “man is the king.” No, it was a very modest attempt to build a space where people could live together without slaughtering one another. – Slavoj Žižek

There is greatness in the fear of God, contentment in faith of God, and honour in humility. – Abu Bakr

there is more to this hijab than the whole modesty thing. These girls are strangers to me but I know that we all felt an amazing connection, a sense that this cloth binds us in some kind of universal sisterhood. – Randa Abdel-Fattah

There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit. – Ronald Reagan

There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty. – Louisa May Alcott

There is nothing in the female sex more graceful or becoming than Modesty. It adds charm to their beauty, and gives a new softness to their sex. Without it simplicity and innocence appear rude; reading and good sense, masculine; wit and humour, lascivious. This is so necessary a quality for pleasing, that the loose part of the sex, whose study it is to ensnare men’s hearts, never fail to support the appearance of what they know is essential to that end. – Wellins Calcott

There speaks the man of truly noble ways, Who will not listen to the words of praise. In modesty averse, and with deaf ears, He acts as though the others were his peers. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There was a tremendous modesty in the man as he spoke, a quietness and dignity. There was a simplicity and honesty and unselfconsciousness, and a tremendous peace. – Walter Russell

There’s a proud modesty in merit; averse from asking, and resolved to pay ten times the gifts it asks. – John Dryden

There’s nothing sweeter than a real friend: Not only is he prompt to lend— An angler delicate, he fishes The very deepest of your wishes, And spares your modesty the task His friendly aid to ask. A dream, a shadow, wakes his fear, When pointing at the object dear. – Jean de La Fontaine

These principles have been proclaimed by God, by the Church, by the Saints, by Christian reason and morals. – Pope Pius XII

These principles with due regard to time and place, must, in accordance with Christian prudence, be applied to all schools, particularly in the most delicate and decisive period of formation, that, namely, of adolescence; and in gymnastic exercises and deportment special care must be had of Christian modesty in young women and girls which is so gravely impaired by any kind of exhibition in public. – Pope Pius XI

These, then, are the qualities of my ideal diplomatist. Truth, accuracy, calm, patience, good temper, modesty and loyalty. They are also the qualities of an ideal diplomacy. But, the reader may object, you have forgotten intelligence, knowledge, discernment, prudence, hospitality, charm, industry, courage and even tact. I have not forgotten them. I have taken them for granted. – Harold Nicolson

Things that are in “bad taste” are often renegade and rebellious. They go against the status quo, and the laws of decorum and modesty. And that can be really thrilling. – Margaret Cho

This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Those who attempt nothing themselves think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal. – Samuel Johnson

Those who glory in their looks – not in their hearts – dress to please others. – Clement of Alexandria

Those who remain humble in triumph are more likely to remain confident under duress. – Alan Robert Neal

Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect are the qualities which make a real gentleman or lady. – Thomas Huxley

Thy modesty’s a candle to thy merit. – Henry Fielding

To acknowledge our faults when we are blamed, is modesty; to discover them to one’s friends in ingenuousness, is confidence; but to preach them to all the world, if one does not take care, is pride. – Confucius

To be humble to superiors is a duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness. – Benjamin Franklin

To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty. – Eliezer Yudkowsky

To dye oneself with paints in order to have a rosier or a paler complexion is a lying counterfeit. – Saint Augustine

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. – Charles Williams

To Islamize doesn’t make sense to me. But to center, but to have intellectual empathy and modesty – all these dimensions are important on how we look at truth. – Tariq Ramadan

To not be modest about it, you’ll find that with only a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians that I’ve worked with have done their best work by far with me. – David Bowie

To recognize our bias toward error should teach us modesty and reflection, and to forgive it should help us avoid the inhumanity of thinking we ourselves are not as fallible as those who, in any instance, seem most at fault. Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again. – Marilynne Robinson

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

To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject. – William Hazlitt

To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man’s value, is pusillanimity and cowardice. – Michel de Montaigne

To test a modest man’s modesty do not investigate if he ignores applause, find out if he abides criticism. – Franz Grillparzer

To the devil with false modesty. – Stephen King

To those who know and understand the plan of salvation, defiling the body is an act of rebellion [see Mosiah 2:36–37] and a denial of our true identity as sons and daughters of God. – Elder David A. Bednar

True beauty is internal and spiritual. We ought to honor God through the way we dress, but our outward appearance should be a reflection of an inward spirit that’s pure and submissive to Christ. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

True beauty of dress consists in its simplicity . . . What do these devotees of fashion gain? Only the satisfaction of being admired, like a butterfly. – Ellen G. White

True humility doesn’t seek happiness in the recognition of others, and in that way, has no one to feel inferior to. – Unknown

True humility is more like self-forgetfulness than false modesty. – C. S. Lewis

True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. – C.S. Lewis

True it is that covetousness is rich, modesty starves. – John Milton

True modesty and true pride are much the same thing: both consist in setting a just value on ourselves – neither more nor less. – William Hazlitt

True modesty avoids everything that is criminal; false modesty everything that is unfashionable. – Joseph Addison

True modesty conceals whatever is offensive to decency; false modesty, that which is disagreeable to fashion: the one is silent and natural, the other protrusive and impertinent. – Norman MacDonald

True modesty does not consist in an ignorance of our merits, but in a due estimate of them. – Augustus William Hare

True modesty shines like a lamp afar Among the vices of this dusky world, And is the very pattern of true worth. – Charles Waddie

True piety admits no other rule than that whatsoever things have been faithfully received from our fathers the same are to be faithfully consigned to our children; and that it is our duty, not to lead religion whither we would, but rather to follow religion whither it leads; and that it is the part of Christian modesty and gravity not to hand down our own beliefs or observances to those who come after us, but to preserve and keep what we have received from those who went before us. – Vincent of Lerins

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

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

Until you have suffered much in your heart, you cannot learn humility. – Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person. – Horace

Vanity as an impulse has without doubt been of far more benefit to civilization than modesty has ever been. – William E. Woodward

Very few men can speak of Nature, for instance, with any truth. They overstep her modesty, somehow or other, and confer no favor.They do not speak a good word for her. Most cry better than they speak, and you can get more nature out of them by pinching than by addressing them. The surliness with which the woodchopper speaks of his woods, handling them as indifferently as his axe, is better than the mealy-mouthed enthusiasm of the lover of nature. Better that the primrose by the river’s brim be a yellow primrose, and nothing more, than that it be something less. – Henry David Thoreau

Virtue which shuns, the day. – Joseph Addison

Was it a bad thing or good? Who can say? Cosimo’s life was so far out of the ordinary, mine so orderly and modest, and yet our childhood was spent together, both of us indifferent to the adults’ obsessions, as we sought pathways different from those trodden by other people. – Italo Calvino

Wash out your ego every once in a while, as cleanliness is next to godliness not just in body but in humility as well. – Terri Guillemets

We all know that the ‘divine glory of the ego’ is socially a great nuisance; we all do actually value our friends for modesty, freshness, and simplicity of heart. Whatever may be the reason, we all do warmly respect humility – in other people. – Gilbert K. Chesterton

We are all something, but none of us are everything. – Blaise Pascal

We are much mistaken if we think that men are always brave from a principle of valor, or women chaste from a principle of modesty. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We are told truly that meekness and modesty are the rich and charming garments of the soul. The less showy our outward attire is, the more distinctly and brilliantly does the beauty of these inner garments shine. – William Penn

We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility. – Rabindranath Tagore

We did not lack modesty—on the contrary—but something urgently drove us to defy modesty together as immodestly as possible. – Georges Bataille

We do not very often come across opportunities for exercising strength, magnanimity, or magnificence; but gentleness, temperance, modesty, and humility, are graces which ought to colour everything we do. There may be virtues of a more exalted mould, but… these are the most continually called for in daily life. – Saint Francis de Sales

We don’t have to eat the best food to survive: a basic diet will get us through. We wear clothes to stay warm and hide our modesty, they don’t need to be the latest designer collection. – Laura Whitmore

We lament, too, the destruction of purity among women and young girls as is evidenced by the increasing immodesty of their dress and conversation and by their participation in shameful dances. – Pope Pius XI

We live in a highly competitive world – and we Indians have to struggle to catch up. So modesty is necessary, even if there is also a need for a certain amount of national pride. When it comes down to it, we have managed our country’s economy poorly for long enough. There is really no reason to now think that we can conquer the world. – Ratan Tata

We must admit that today conformity is on the Left. To be sure, the Right is not brilliant. But the Left is in complete decadence, a prisoner of words, caught in its own vocabulary, capable merely of stereotyped replies, constantly at a loss when faced with truth, from which it nevertheless claimed to derive its laws. The Left is schizophrenic and needs doctoring through pitiless self-criticism, exercise of the heart, close reasoning, and a little modesty. – Albert Camus

We must be educated in inner human modesty, so we can recognize that we are not, even for a moment, complete as human beings. Instead, we continue to develop from birth until death. We must recognize that every day of life has a special value, that it is not without purpose that we must learn to live through our thirties right after we have just gone through our twenties. We need to learn that each new day and each new year offers continual revelation. – Rudolf Steiner

We must learn a new modesty. We have stormed the heavens, but succeeded only in building fog upon fog, a mist which will not support anybody who earnestly desires to stand upon it. What is valid seems so insignificant that it may be seriously doubted whether anlaysis is at all possible. – Hermann Weyl

We must not confuse humility with false modesty or servility. – Paulo Coelho

We must practice modesty, not only in our looks, but also in our whole deportment, and particularly in our dress, our walk, our conversation, and all similar actions. – Alphonsus Liguori

We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds. – Jean Rostand

We need modesty not only in the way we dress; we need intellectual modesty. – Tariq Ramadan

We together must create a culture in which modesty flourishes. There must be a place where women are safe and accepted for who they are rather than for what they look like. – R. Kent Hughes

We will unconditionally worship Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, partly because we approve of their well-mannered modesty. They are non-threatening, good hearted blokes – the boys we take home to Momma. – Barkha Dutt

We wound our modesty and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them. – William Shakespeare

Wear modest, clean clothing. Your clothing doesn’t need to be new and [it] should have some fashion of course, but [it] should be clean, modest, and neat. Be dignified in your outward manner and in your inward morality. – Bruce R. McConkie

Wearing a low-cut, cleavage-revealing top is called suggestive. What does it suggest? That there is more than what you now see, and I may let you look closer since I’m already willing to give you this much of a peek. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Well, when I was six years old I decided, not that I was going to be, but with my usual modesty, that I was a writer. – Edward Albee

What can be found equal to modesty, uncorrupt faith, the sister of justice, and undisguised truth? – Horace

What does God think of spurious beauty, rejecting utterly as He does all falsehood? – Clement of Alexandria

What is beauty, but an extension of modesty? – Boonaa Mohammed

What is modesty but inverted pride? – Chinua Achebe

What is modesty? Is it not a sense of excellence so deep and true that the observance of duty appears a natural thing? Is it not so sincere a desire for what is excellent, that what is wanting is much more perceptible than what is already obtained? Is it not so pure a love for what is good, that it forgets the reward reserved for merit, in the approbation of others? – Unknown

What we are saying is we have to be smart about the ideology that is putting this idea into the world that a woman must be defined by her idea of modesty, that she is the vessel for honor in a community. And I believe that we have to be very pragmatic, too, about the consequence of this. Women in Iran and Saudi Arabia are jailed, punished and harassed if they don’t cover themselves legally, according to the standard of those countries. So the consequences for many women is oftentimes very dark. – Asra Nomani

What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. – G.K. Chesterton

Whatever is born is the work of God. So whatever is plastered on, is the devil’s work…. How unworthy of the Christian name it is to wear a fictitious face – you on whom simplicity in every form is enjoined! You, to whom lying with the tongue is not lawful, are lying in appearance. – Tertullian

When a girl covers herself up, you reveal more of yourself to us because you reveal to us there’s more to you girls than just your bodies. – Jason Evert

When a modest man praises himself, people listen. – Mason Cooley

When a woman has lost her chastity she will shrink from nothing. – Tacitus

When a women veils her body in modesty she is not hiding herself from men; She is revealing her dignity to them! – Jason Everet

When blessed with wealth, let them withdraw from the competition of vanity and be modest, retiring from ostentation, and not be the slaves of fashion. – William Wilberforce

When considering the stature of an athlete or for that matter any person, I set great store in certain qualities which I believe to be essential in addition to skill. They are that the person conducts his or her life with dignity, with integrity, courage, and perhaps most of all, with modesty. These virtues are totally compatible with pride, ambition, and competitiveness. – Donald Bradman

When entering on new ground we must not be afraid to express even risky ideas so as to stimulate research in all directions. As Priestley put it, we must not remain inactive through false modesty based on fear of being mistaken. – Claude Bernard

When modesty has once perished, it will never revive. – Seneca the Younger

When one remains modest, not after praise but after blame, then is he really so. – Jean Richter

When science discovers the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it. – Bernard Baily

When she was thrown into the air by a savage bull in the amphitheatre at Carthage, her first thought and action when she fell to the ground was to rearrange her dress to cover her thigh, because she was more concerned for modesty than pain. – Pope Pius XII

When the gratitude that many owe to one discards all modesty, then there is fame. – Friedrich Nietzsche

When virtue and modesty enlighten her charms, she is beautiful as the stars of heaven. – Richard Wiggins

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

When women oppose themselves to the projects and ambition of men, they excite their lively resentment; if in their youth they meddle with political intrigues, their modesty must suffer. – Madame de Stael

When writing about oneself, one must strive to be truthful. Truth is more important than modesty. – Roald Dahl

When you are modest, you can avoid misfortune; when you are respectful, others will love you; when you are loyal, others will stay with you; and, when you are trustworthy, others will rely on you. – Liu Xiang

When you know who you are, you won’t have false modesty. – Sunday Adelaja

When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one’s energy, that one’s modesty, another’s generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we’re practically showered with them. It’s good to keep this in mind. – Marcus Aurelius

Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants the worst is a slave in power. – Robert Green Ingersoll

Whenever I’m around some who is modest, I think, ‘Run like hell and all of fire.’ You don’t want modesty, you want humility. – Maya Angelou

Where the Greeks had modesty, we have cant; where they had poetry, we have cant; where they had patriotism, we have cant; where they had anything that exalts, delights, or adorns humanity, we have nothing but cant, cant, cant. – Thomas Love Peacock

Wherever valor true is found, true modesty will there abound. – W. S. Gilbert

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. – Marietta Holley

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. – Thornton Wilder

With a woman of sophistication, class and modesty and refinement, I become a totally tongue-tied buffoon. I can’t even look her straight in the face. – Iain Glen

With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy. – Arthur Schopenhauer

With people with only modest ability, modesty is mere honesty; but with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy. – Schopenhauer

With pride, there are many curses. With humility, there come many blessings. – Ezra Taft Benson

With sincere modesty, if there is such a thing, I have never thought of legacy at all. I am always grateful if people like what I have done. A legacy is something no one can forsee. – Tom Glazer

With this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature. – William Shakespeare

Without doubt modesty is nothing less than a holy feeling; and without doubt the person whose rule of modesty has been transgressed feels the same sort of wound that he would feel if something made holy to him by his religion had suffered a desecretation. I say “rule of modesty” because there are about a million rules in the world, and this makes a million standards to be looked out for. – Mark Twain

Without false modesty, I feel that, when I’m on the stage, I’m the king, the boss of the situation. – Vladimir Horowitz

Without modesty, woman is devoid of beauty and culture. Humility, purity of thought and manners, meekness, surrender to high ideals, sensitivity, sweetness of temper – the peculiar blend of all these qualities is modesty. It is the most invaluable of all jewels for women. – Sathya Sai Baba

Without secrecy there would be no pornography. But secrecy and modesty are two utterly different things. – D. H. Lawrence

Women’s modesty generally increases with their beauty. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Women, modesty means you have beauty and power. And you use that to teach men how to love you for the right reasons. – Jason Evert

Would ye, O my sisters, really possess modesty . . . ye must acquire that soberness of mind, which the exercise of duties, and the pursuit of knowledge, alone inspire, or ye will remain in a doubtful dependent situation, and only be loved whilst ye are fair! – Mary Wollstonecraft

Wrap thyself in the decent veil that the arts or the graces weave for thee, O human nature! It is only the statue of marble whose nakedness the eye can behold without shame and offence! – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

You are amazingly beautiful, because you don’t show how much potential you truly have. – Mariel Avila

You can dress attractively without being immodest. Within the Lord’s guidelines, there is room for you to be lively, vibrant, and beautiful in both you dress and in your actions. – Thomas S. Monson

You cannot limit the power of your modesty to just what you wear. It is also controlled or forfeited by where you are willing to go with guys, why you go there, and how you act. – Dannah Gresh

You cannot, I repeat, successfully acquire it and preserve your modesty at the same time. – Seneca the Younger

You carry your snare everywhere and spread your nets in all places. You allege that you never invited others to sin. You did not indeed, by your words, but you have done so by your dress and your deportment. – Saint John Chrysostom

You do not become smarter by blowing your own horn. You become smarter by being humble. – Dr. T.P.Chia

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

You find in some a sort of graceless modesty, that makes them ashamed to requite an obligation. – Seneca the Younger

You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty. – Louisa May Alcott

You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit. – Jane Austen

You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know. – Oscar Wilde

You little know what you have done, when you have first broke the bounds of modesty; you have set open the door of your fancy to the devil, so that he can, almost at his pleasure ever after, represent the same sinful pleasure to you anew; he hath now access to your fancy to stir up lustful thoughts and desires, so that when you should think of your calling, of your God, or of your soul, your thoughts will be worse than swinish, upon the filth that is not fit to be named. If the devil here get in a foot, he will not easily be got out. – Richard Baxter

You must always strive to be the best, but you must never believe that you are. – Juan Manuel Fangio

You must be respectful and assenting, but without being servile and abject. You must be frank, but without indiscretion, and close, without being costive. You must keep up dignity of character, without the least pride of birth, or rank. You must be gay, within all the bounds of decency and respect; and grave, without the affectation of wisdom, which does not become the age of twenty. You must be essentially secret, without being dark and mysterious. You must be firm, and even bold, but with great seeming modesty. – Lord Chesterfield

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

You must have the modesty of saying, this is a bloody good idea but I probably won’t believe it in five years’ time. – Stuart Hall

You were created as a masterpiece and you are one of God’s expressions of beauty. Short, tall, thin, thick, freckles, big eyes, small ones . . . it doesn’t matter. – Dannah Gresh

You wonderful girls, dress modestly and keep yourselves physically clean. Be cheerful and happy. Be positive about life. Then the Holy Spirit will cause you to be more beautiful and attractive. And when a faithful priesthood bearer comes to carry you away on his white horse-which might be an ’84 Ford-to the temple, you will be prepared in every way.’ – F. Melvin Hammond

Your dresses should be tight enough to show you’re a women and loose enough to show you’re a lady. – Edith Head

Your enemy wants to strip you, make sport of you, and merchandise your body, but your heavenly Father wants to clothe you with beauty, strength, dignity and honor that will endure. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Trace Science, then, with Modesty thy guide,
First strip off all her equipage of Pride,
Deduct what is but Vanity or Dress,
Or Learning’s Luxury or idleness,
Or tricks, to show the stretch of the human brain
Mere curious pleasure or ingenious pain. – Alexander Pope

Chastity prays for me, piety sings,
Innocence sweetens my last black breath,
Modesty hides my thighs in her wings,
And all the deadly virtues plague my death! – Dylan Thomas

Love and meekness, lord,
Become a churchman better than ambition:
Win straying souls with modesty again,
Cast none away. – William Shakespeare

They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin. – William Shakespeare

Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers’ oaths. – William Shakespeare

True modesty is a discerning grace
And only blushes in the proper place;
But counterfeit is blind, and skulks through fear,
Where ’tis a shame to be asham’d t’ appear:
Humility the parent of the first,
The last by vanity produc’d and nurs’d. – William Cowper

Talking of successful rackets
modesty deserves a mention.
Exclamation marks in brackets
never fail to draw attention. – Piet Hein

The trend of fashions is not in itself evil. It flows spontaneously from the social nature of man, in accordance with an impulse which inclines him to keep in harmony with his fellow men, and with the way of acting of those amongst whom he lives. God does not ask you to live outside your times, so careless of the exigencies of fashion as to render yourselves ridiculous, by dressing in a way opposed to the common tastes and practices of your contemporaries.

In following fashion, virtue lies in the middle course. What God asks of you is to remember always that fashion is not, and cannot be, the ultimate rule of conduct for you, that beyond fashion and its demands, there are higher and more pressing laws, principles superior to fashion, and unchangeable, which under no circumstances can be sacrificed to the whim of pleasure or fancy, and before which must bow the fleeting omnipotence of the idol of fashion. – Pope Pius XII

Modesty Quotes From Wikiquote

• 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.
  • Ernst Bloch, Man on His Own (1959), B. Ashton, trans. (1970), p. 62

• Forgetting that their pride of spirit,

Their exultation in their trial,

Detracts most largely from the merit

Of all their boasted self-denial.

• Lord Byron, “Granta” (1806), Poetical Works, Volume 1

• There is a modesty of the feelings as well as of the body. It protests, for example, against the voyeuristic explorations of the human body in certain advertisements, or against the solicitations of certain media that go too far in the exhibition of intimate things. Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies. The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another. Everywhere, however, modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man. It is born with the awakening consciousness of being a subject. Teaching modesty to children and adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person.
  • Catechism of the Catholic Church 2523-2524

• 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.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life (1860).

• Thy modesty’s a candle to thy merit.
  • Henry Fielding, Tom Thumb the Great (1730), Act I, scene 3, line 8.

• True intelligence very readily conceives of an intelligence superior to its own; and this is why truly intelligent men are modest.
  • André Gide, “An Unprejudiced Mind,” Pretexts, J. O’Brien, ed. (1964) pp. 311-312

• Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
  Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.
  • Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770), line 329.

• On the contrary, modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.
  • Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer (1771), act I scene I.

• Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.
  • Jean de La Bruyère, The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (1688), Chapter II, Section 17.

• Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
  • Matthew 23:12 NIV.

• 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!
  • Micah 6:8

• Longevity and short life, suffering and happiness — all aspects of human life depend on modesty in food and drink.
  • Namboku Mizuno, Food Governs Your Destiny, introduction, p. 20.

• I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
  • Paul of Tarsus, 1 Corinthians 4:9-13 ESV

• When presumptuousness comes, dishonor will follow, but wisdom is with the modest ones.
  • Proverbs 11:2

• I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.
  • Jean-Paul Sartre, in The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), Act 4, sc. 5

• 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.
  • Arthur Schopenhauer, cited in Karl Kraus, “Self Admiration,” 1908, Helene Scher, trans., No Compromise (New York: 1977), p. 28

• Can it be
  That modesty may more betray our sense
  Than woman’s lightness? Having waste ground enough,
  Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary
  And pitch our evils there?
  • William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603), Act II, scene 2, line 167.

• Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty.
  • William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act IV, scene 2, line 27.

• La verecondia delle donzelle è come l’acquavite. È perfetta sine a tanto che si tiene ben chiusa, ma se prende l’aria, vela subito via.
  • Translation: Maidenly modesty is like aquavitæ, which keeps in perfect condition as long as it is tightly stoppered, but, if the air gets to it, evaporates at once.
  • Antonio Simeone Sografi, Olivo e Pasquale, Act I., Sc. VII. — (Pasquale.). Translation reported in Harbottle’s Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 349.

• 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.
  • Richard Steele, The Guardian No. 24 (8 April 1713).

• Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts; when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes.
  • Richard Steele, The Tatler No. 217 (29 August 1710).

• 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.
  • Jonathan Swift, “Thoughts on Various Subjects”

• He saw her charming, but he saw not half
  The charms her downcast modesty conceal’d.
  • James Thomson, The Seasons, Autumn (1730), line 229.

• 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.
  • Leo Tolstoy, Path of Life, M. Cote, trans. (2002), p. 110

• Maximum ornamentum amicitiæ tollit, qui ex ea tollit verecundiam.
  • He takes the greatest ornament from friendship, who takes modesty from it.
  • Cicero, De Amicitia, XX.

• Modesty is that feeling by which honorable shame acquires a valuable and lasting authority.
  • Cicero, Rhetorical Invention, Book II, Section LVI.

• Modesty antedates clothes and will be resumed when clothes are no more.
  Modesty died when clothes were born.
  Modesty died when false modesty was born.
  • Mark Twain, Memoranda. Paine’s Biography of Mark Twain, Volume III, p. 1513.

• Immodest words admit of no defence;
  For want of decency is want of sense.
  • Wentworth Dillon, Essay on Translated Verse, line 113.

• Like the violet, which alone
  Prospers in some happy shade,
  My Castara lives unknown
  To no looser eye betrayed.
  • William Habington, Castara (1634). In Elton’s ed, p. 166.

• 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.
  • Marietta Holley, My Opinions and Betsy Bobbet’s.

• Cui pudor et justitiæ soror incorrupta fides nudaque veritas quando ullum inveniet parem?
  • What can be found equal to modesty, uncorrupt faith, the sister of justice, and undisguised truth?
  • Horace, Carmina, I. 24. 6.

• Adolescentem verecundum esse decet.
  • Modesty becomes a young man.
  • Plautus, Asinaria, V. 1. 8.

• Wenn jemand bescheiden bleibt, nicht beim Lobe, sondern beim Tadel, dann ist er’s.
  • When one remains modest, not after praise but after blame, then is he really so.
  • Jean Paul Richter, Hesperus, 12.

• Da locum melioribus.
  • Give place to your betters.
  • Terence, Phormio, III. 2. 37.