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Diffidence Quotes

Browse 47 quotes about Diffidence.

Diffidence Quotes

“Nothing is as irritating to a shy man as a confident girl.”

MenTryingHumorFunnyTogetherQuotesGirlCan DoCouragePositiveHumourJokesHumorousSelf ConfidenceNervousManShySatireGirlsRetiringAnnoyingAphorismEmbarrassedQuotationsIntrovertJokeInsecureHilariousAssuredBoldnessEmbarrassmentSelf ConsciousReservedAphorismsCursedShynessSelf ConsciousnessTroublesomeIrritatingConfidentObnoxiousRepressedIrritationTimidityAssertivenessPoiseIntroversionIntrovertedTiresomeAssertiveSelf ConfidentAphoristAphoristsSelf ReliantSelf AssuranceLack Of ConfidenceInfuriatingMettleDiffidenceExtrovertAggravatingBashfulReticenceReserveBashfulnessNerveTimidWithdrawnAnnoySelf AssuredDiffidentBothersomeIrritatePhlegmaticReticentSheepishPhlegmSelf EffacingAplombAt EaseImperturbableMaddeningMousySelf PossessionExtrovertedInhibitedUnperturbedUnruffledCoolheadedCoynessFaroucheGallingIrksomeLevelheadedSelf PossessedTimorousUnconfidentVexingDemurenessExasperatingMousinessNettlesomePeskyPoisedReservednessSheepishnessTimidnessTimorousnessVexatious
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“A world full of "certainties" All the plans, all the vanities. Where black covers the white Suited in "confidence"- the constant fight. A million roads I dream to take One destination, knowing not I turn where. A green veil covers for two years, some two decades. But the "plan" awaits, new roads to make. I pant, I struggle, I do my best While they say, "You are, dear, but so inadequate".”

PeopleLifeSchoolCertainProcessBlackWhiteEducationStrugglePlansDreamsSocietyPrideConfidenceProtectExpectationsLiesProtectionPlanningCertaintyCorporateUncertaintyArroganceInterviewsFightBestAmbitiousUncertainDemonsInadequateNot Good EnoughWork Life BalanceAspirationsAmbitionsCollege LifeMbaDream JobDiffidenceStart UpRealitiesCorporate LifeNot EnoughConfidence Vs ArroganceUnplannedCampus LifeBlack SuitFirmsInner FightDream CompanyGroup DiscussionsJob LifeSuit UpSuited Up
Author:Sanhita Baruah
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“Eloquence, to produce her full effect, should start from the head of the orator, as Pallas from the brain of Jove, completely armed and equipped. Diffidence, therefore, which is so able a mentor to the writer, would prove a dangerous counsellor for the orator.”

ShouldAbleBrainEffectsDangerousProduceProveMentorEloquenceOratorsDiffidenceCounsellors
Book:Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“Diffidence in an officer is a good mark because he will always endeavor to bring himself up to what he conceives to be the full line of his duty.”

LinesDutyMarkEndeavorOfficersDiffidence
Book:The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts
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“Very great personages are not likely to form very just estimates either of others or of themselves; their knowledge of themselves is obscured by the flattery of others; their knowledge of others is equally clouded by circumstances peculiar to themselves. For in the presence of the great, the modest are sure to suffer from too much diffidence, and the confident from too much display.”

CharacterFormSufferingToo MuchCircumstancesPeculiarDisplayModestFlatteryCloudedGreat PersonDiffidence
Book:Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
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“Diffidence may check resolution and obstruct performance, but compensates its embarrassments by more important advantages; it conciliates the proud, and softens the severe; averts envy from excellence, and censure from miscarriage.”

MayImportantProudAdvantagePerformancesExcellenceEnvyChecksResolutionSevereEmbarrassmentCensureAvertMiscarriageDiffidence
Book:The beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: consisting of maxims and observations, moral, critical, and miscellaneous: to which are now added biographical anecdotes of the doctor, selected from the works of Mrs. Piozzi;--his Life, recently published by Mr. Boswell, and other authentic testimonies; also his will, and the sermon he wrote for the late Doctor Dodd
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“Submit your sentiments with diffidence. A dictatorial style, though it may carry conviction, is always accompanied with disgust.”

MayStyleConvictionSentimentsSubmitDisgustingDiffidence
Book:pt. III. Private letters from the time Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Army to that of his inauguration as president of the United States: December, 1783-April, 1789
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“Every disastrous accident alarms us, and sets us on enquiries concerning the principles whence it arose: Apprehensions spring up with regard to futurity: And the mind, sunk into diffidence, terror, and melancholy, has recourse to every method of appeasing those secret intelligent powers, on whom our fortune is supposed entirely to depend.”

MindReligionSecretPrinciplesDependsSpringIntelligentRegardMethodFortuneTerrorAccidentsMelancholyAlarmsApprehensionRecourseEnquiryDiffidence
Book:An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion
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“It may be remarked in general, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a feint, constrained kind of half-laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them; but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world.”

MenWorldKindMayPersonsNaturalHalfLaughingHonestFoolLaughterWitDiffidence
Book:The Guardian, with Notes, and General Indexes: Complete in One Volume
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“So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.”

MenFirstsChildrenPersonsDifferentUseThreeNamesNationsCausesOpinionWifeViolenceMastersGloryReflectionGainsDirectThirdsSafetyCompetitionProfessionReputationPrincipalQuarrelsTriflesCattleNature Of ManKindredDifferent OpinionsDiffidence
Book:Leviathan, Parts I and II
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“I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others; there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure--if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence.”

IfsGivingBelieveDesireCertainPleasureEmotionEventsProtectEssentialsCapableWeaknessSelfishnessTendernessEagernessUnselfishnessDiffidence
Book:The Moon and Sixpence
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“Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, "grace" metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, "Why don’t you say what you mean?" We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections - whether from diffidence or some other instinct.”

PeopleThinkingWayMeanToo MuchGraceOne ThingPoetGoes OnInstinctMetaphorHintsParablesDiffidence
Author:Robert Frost
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“The cruelest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator. And how many loves have perished because, from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame which withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, at the critical point of the relation, has but hung his head and held his tongue?”

MenLifeMayLyingHoursRoomsEmotionSilencePrideLoversRelationShameCriticalTongueTeethSatSpiteBetrayDaringHungDisloyalDiffidence
Book:The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Letters and Essays (Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, containing Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, Catriona and A Child's Garden of Verses
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“Nevertheless, he must be cautious in believing and acting, and must not inspire fear of his own accord, and must proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence does not render him incautious, and too much diffidence does not render him intolerant. From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved.”

BelieveDoeArtWarHumanityActingToo MuchInspireAriseNeverthelessPrudenceArt Of WarAccordCautiousBe CautiousDiffidenceToo Much Confidence
Author:Niccolo Machiavelli
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“Every reader should remember the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence, and suppose that the sense which is now weak was once forcible”

ShouldRememberReadingReaderWeakInjuryDefectsSeemingChasmsDiffidenceCandour
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius
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