Best 234 quotes in «modesty quotes» category

True it is that covetousness is rich, modesty starves.

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

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

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.

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.

When a modest man praises himself, people listen.

When modesty has once perished, it will never revive.

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

Wherever valor true is found, true modesty will there abound.

A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness. Imperial Hotel note paper, Tokyo Japan, 1922

Accepting help shames only the arrogant.

Adela Rogers St. Johns, always the journalist closest to Gable, wrote that “The King is dead. Long live the King. There has been no successor, nor will be. The title died with him.” She recalled that Gable once told her, “I don’t believe I’m king of anything, but I know why they like to think I am. I’m not much of an actor, but I’m not bad unless it’s one of those things outside my comprehension. I work hard. I’m no Adonis, and I’m as American as the telephone poles I used to climb to make a living. So men don’t get sore if their women folks like me on the screen. I’m one of them, they know it, so it’s a compliment to them. They see me broke, in trouble, scared of things that go bump in the night, but I come out fighting. They see me making love to Jean Harlow or Claudette Colbert, and they say, ‘If he can do it, I can do it,’ and figure it’ll be fun to go home and to make love to their wives.

A flower does not use words to announce its arrival to the world; it just blooms.

A society which sees her modesty or her "hang-ups" as a problem is necessarily a society which will not be able to get him to commit. Conversely, a society which respected modesty, or what now goes by "hang-ups", was one in which men were obligated.

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

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

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.

Failure to sleep with someone is now an act of hostility, whereas it was once understood to be part of the natural process of searching for one’s mate.

At that moment, noticing that his embroidered handkerchief was revealing part of its coloured edging, he thrust it back into his pocket with a startled glance, like a prudish but not innocent woman concealing bodily charms which in her excessive modesty she sees as wanton.

Be humble as you learn, confident as you teach, and modest when you have mastered both.

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

Don’t climb a mountain to look down on people below, but to get a clearer view of the stars above.

Encouraged to act immodestly, a woman exposes her vulnerability and she then becomes, in fact, the weaker sex. A woman can argue that she is exactly the same as a man, she may deny having any special vulnerability, and act accordingly, but I cannot help noticing that she usually ends up exhibiting her feminine nature anyway, only this time in victimhood, not in strength.

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

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

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

Humility is even more pleasing in people in whom arrogance would be understandable.

Girls...only lift the veil over your body to the spouse who is worthy to see the glory of that unveiled mystery.

He was a faithful servant, and made himself so valuable to those who employed him that they will find it hard to fill his place. He was a good husband and father, so tender, wise, and thoughtful, that Laurie and I learned much of him, and only knew how well he loved his family, when we discovered all he had done for them, unsuspected and unassisted.

Humans are the most important entity in the universe … only to most people.

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

If you have power, be just; wealth, be generous; knowledge, be wise; titles, be humble; and life, be grateful.

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

I'm at the mall the other day and there's a 'brow bar.' To get your eyebrows shaped inside the makeup department. Right by the door where everyone is coming and going, can you imagine? There is no feminine mystique left. Remember how we were taught not to have our Mary Janes so polished that a boy could see up our dresses? Now they wear their underwear instead of clothes. No need for boys to peek any longer.

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

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

I'm a good knitter, and I'm proud of it. 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.

I love how the landscape gives the impression of vast space and intimacy at the same time: the thin brown line of a path wandering up an immense green mountainside, a plush hanging valley tucked between two steep hillsides, a village of three houses surrounded by dark forest, paddy fields flowing around an outcrop of rock, a white temple gleaming on a shadowy ridge. The human habitations nestle into the landscape; nothing is cut or cleared beyond what is requires. Nothing is bigger than necessary. Every sign of human settlement repeat the mantra of contentment: “This is just enough.

In a simple wooden hut, you can create great universal ideas because the seed of the great ideas often grows and develops in the land of modesty!

Intelligence could be more briliant within modesty.

It seems to be the fashion nowadays for a girl to behave as much like a man as possible. Well, I won't! I'll make the best of being a girl and be as nice a specimen as I can: sweet and modest, a dear, dainty thing with clothes smelling all sweet and violety, a soft voice, and pretty, womanly ways. Since I'm a girl, I prefer to be a real one!

It doesn’t take long for your fortunes to turn. One second you’re fluttery as a bird, the next you’re on the ground with your wings clipped.

It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it can be proved by the simplest of all tests. No ruler would deliberately dress up in the recognized fetters of a slave; no judge would would appear covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be safely impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes of female dignity. The whole world is under petticoat government; for even men wear petticoats when they wish to govern.

It's like the old question, "Do you lock your house to keep people out, or to protect what's inside?" Should a person act modestly and dress modestly in order to prevent intrusion from the outside, undesirable things from happening, or to preserve and maintain what is inside: the delicate and sensitive ability to have and maintain an intimate relationship.

Modesty is fear.

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

Modesty is a reflex, arising naturally to help a woman protect her hopes and guide their fulfillment -specifically, this hope for one man. (...) Along with this hope comes a certain vulnerability, because every time a man fails to stick by us, our hopes are, in a sense, dashed. This is where modesty fits in. For modesty armed this special vulnerability -not to oppress women, but with the aim of putting them on an equal footing with men. The delay modesty created not only made it more likely that women could select men who would stick by them, but in turning lust into love, it changed men from uncivilized males who ran after as many sexual partners as they can get to men who really wanted to stick by one woman.

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

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

Modesty, not temper.