This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"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, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
"Your greatness is measured by your kindness - Your education and intellect by your modesty - Your ignorance is betrayed by your suspicions and prejudices - Your real caliber is measured by the consideration and tolerance you have for others." - William J. H. Boetcker, fully William John Henry Boetcker
"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 Bruyère
"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 Bruyère
"Faith, modesty, humbleness, endeavor and wisdom are the great sources of strength to him who is seeking Enlightenment. Among these, wisdom is the greatest of all and the rest are but aspects of wisdom." - Buddha, Gautama Buddha, or The Buddha, also Gotama Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha and Buddha Śākyamuni NULL
"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 Shepard Day, Jr.
"By virtue, integrity, perseverance and true modesty it is poss" - Charles Noel Douglas
"Good taste is the modesty of the mind; that is why it cannot be either imitated or acquired." - Madame Émile de Girardin, Delphine de Girardin, née Gay
"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
"In building a firm foundation for Success, here are a few stones to remember: The wisdom of preparation. The value of confidence. The worth of honesty. The privilege of working. The discipline of struggle. The magnetism of character. The radiance of health. The forcefulness of simplicity. The winsomeness of courtesy. The attractiveness of modesty. The inspiration of cleanliness. The satisfaction of serving. The power of suggestion. The buoyancy of enthusiasm. The advantage of initiative. The virtue of patience. The rewards of co-operation. The fruitfulness of perseverance. The sportsmanship of losing. The joy of winning." - Rollo C. Hester
"Suffering is a great teacher. Suffering teaches you the limitations of your power; it reminds you of the frailty of your health, the instability of your possessions, and the inadequacy of your means which have only been lent to you and must be returned as soon as the Owner desires it. Suffering visits you and teaches you the nothingness of your false greatness. It teaches you modesty." - Samson Raphael Hirsch
"Extreme vanity sometimes hides under the garb of ultra modesty." - Anna Jameson
"Modesty cannot be taught, it must be born." - Publius Syrus
"Never teach false modesty. How exquisitely absurd to teach a girl that beauty is of no value, dress of no use! Beauty is of value; her whole prospects and happiness in life may often depend upon a new gown or a becoming bonnet: if she has five grains of common sense she will find this out. The great thing is to teach her their proper value." - Sydney Smith
"It is a little learning, and but a little, which makes men conclude hastily. Experience and humility teach modesty and fear." - Jeremy Taylor
"This is a property of the rational soul, love of one’s neighbor, and truth and modesty, and to value nothing more than itself, which is also the property of Law. Thus then right reason differs not at all from the reason of justice." - Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
"Those two fatal words, Mind and Thine..."Do not forget, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "that 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, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
"Silence and modesty are very valuable qualities in the art of conversation." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"Faith is wealth! Obedience is wealth! Modesty also is wealth! Hearing is wealth, and so is Charity! Wisdom is sevenfold riches." - Dhammapada NULL
"With time modesty dies away in man." - Aeschylus NULL
"Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Find manners are the mantle of fair minds." - Amos Bronson Alcott
"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 his ornament." - Amos Bronson Alcott
"In an age remarkable for good reasoning and bad conduct, for sound rules and corrupt manners, when virtue fills our heads, but vice our hearts; when those who would fain persuade us that they are quite sure of heaven, appear in no greater hurry to go there than other folks, but put on the livery of the best master only to serve the worst; in an age when modesty herself is more ashamed of detection than delinquency; when independence of principle consists in having no principle on which to depend; and free thinking, not in thinking freely, but in being free from thinking; in an age when patriots will hold anything except their tongues; keep anything except their word; and lose nothing patiently except their character; to improve such an age must be difficult; to instruct it dangerous; and he stands no chance of amending it who cannot at the same time amuse it." - Charles Caleb Colton
"To acknowledge our faults when we are blamed, is modesty; to discover them to one's friends, in ingenuousness, is confidence; but to proclaim them to the world, if one does not take care, is pride." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"Sickness is the mother of modesty, as it puts us in mind of our mortality, and while we drive on heedlessly in the full career of worldly pomp and jollity, kindly pulls us by the ear, and brings us to a sense of our duty." - Edmund Burke
"Modesty is a shining light; it prepares the mind to receive knowledge, and the heart for truth." - François Guizot, fully François Pierre Guillaume Guizot
"Where there's no modesty there's no honor." - German Proverbs
"To make the people fittest to choose, and the chosen fittest to govern, will be to mend our corrupt and faulty education , to teach the people faith, not without virtue, temperance, modesty, sobriety, parsimony, justice; not to admire wealth or honor; to hate turbulence and ambition; to place every one his private welfare and happiness in the public peace, liberty and safety." - John Milton
"Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue." - Joseph Addison
"Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it." - Joseph Addison
"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
"True modesty avoids everything that is criminal; false modesty everything that is unfashionable." - Joseph Addison
"Let women only acquire knowledge and humanity, and love will teach them modesty." - Mary Wollstonecraft
"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, Napoleon I
"Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues." - Oliver Goldsmith
"Loquacity storms the ear, but modesty takes the heart." - Thomas Fuller
"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, fully William James "Will" Durant
"Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who understands values himself is justly undervalued by others." - William Hazlitt
"The modest man has everything to gain, and the arrogant man has everything to lose; for modesty has always to deal with generosity, and arrogance with envy." - Antoine de Rivarol, also known as Comte de Rivarol
"I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm." - Jean-Paul Sartre
"Confidence, as opposed, to modesty and distinguished from decent assurance, proceeds from self-opinion, and is occasioned by ignorance and flattery" - Jeremy Collier
"No better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity, modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit; no true beauty without the signature of these graces in the very countenance." - John Ray or Wray