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Modest Quotes

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Modest Quotes

“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.”

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Book:Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence
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“As nearly as possible in the spirit of Matthew Salinger, age one, urging a luncheon companion to accept a cool lima bean, I urge my editor, mentor and (heaven help him) closest friend, William Shawn, genius domus of The New Yorker, lover of the long shot, protector of the unprolific, defender of the hopelessly flamboyant, most unreasonably modest of born great artist-editors to accept this pretty skimpy-looking book.”

LoveLongBookHelpingAgeSpiritArtistHeavenBornAcceptingGeniusLoversShotsUrgesCompanionEditorsMentorClosestModestBeansNew YorkersGreat ArtistDefendersMatthewProtectorClosest FriendsFlamboyantSalingerLong Shots
Author:J. D. Salinger
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“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”

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Author:Gustave Flaubert
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“To be gentle and kind, modest and truthful, to be full of faith and integrity, doing no wrong is of God; goodness sheds a halo of loveliness around every person who possesses it, making their countenances beam with light, and their society desirable because of its excellency. They are loved of God, of holy angels, and of all the good earth, while they are hated, envied, admired, and feared by the wicked.”

KindPersonsLightEarthIntegrityHolyGoodnessAngelHatedGentleWickedTruthfulShedModestDesirableBeamCountenanceEnviedLovelinessHalosGood Earth
Book:Journal of Discourses
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“I am not shy about admitting my modest talents. For example, I am happy to admit that I am better than average at clever remarks, and I also have a flair for getting people to like me. But to be perfectly fair to myself, I am ever-ready to confess my shortcomings, too, and a quick round of soul-searching forced me to admit that I had never been any good at all at breathing water. As I hung there from the seat belt, dazed and watching the water pour in and swirl around my head, this began to seem like a very large character flaw.”

PeopleSoulCharacterSeemsWaterTalentExampleReadySmartFairsRoundsAverageCleverLike MeBreathingSeatsShyFlawsHungModestBeltsRemarksSoul SearchingShortcomingsAdmittingFlairSwirlsDazedSeat BeltsCharacter Flaws
Author:Jeff Lindsay
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“I love the performance of a craft, whether it is modest or mean-spirited, yet I walk away when discussions of it begin - as if one should ask a gravedigger what brand of shovel he uses or whether he prefers to work at noon or in moonlight. I am interested only in the care taken, and those secret rehearsals behind it. Even if I do not understand fully what is taking place.”

IfsShouldMeanUseCareAsksWalksSecretBehindsTakenPerformancesCraftsBrandsDiscussionModestMoonlightRehearsalNoonSpiritedShovelsMean SpiritedGravediggers
Book:Divisadero
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“The Photograph is an extended, loaded evidence — as if it caricatured not the figure of what it represents (quite the converse) but its very existence ... The Photograph then becomes a bizarre (i)medium(i), a new form of hallucination: false on the level of perception, true on the level of time: a temporal hallucination, so to speak, a modest (o)shared(i) hallucination (on the one hand 'it is not there,' on the other 'but it has indeed been'): a mad image, chafed by reality.”

IfsHandsRealityFormSpeakLevelsExistenceFiguresPerceptionEvidenceMadPhotographMediumsModestBizarreLoadedConversesHallucinations
Author:Roland Barthes
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“Happiness--a small-scale, endearing, harmonious happiness--surely dwelt here beneath the low-powered lamps in the tiny rooms of these houses. A small-scale happiness and a modest harmony: let a man cry out, let him rage, let him howl with grief with all the power of which he was capable, what more than these could he ever hope to gain in this life?”

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Book:The waiting years
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“What most of us must be involved in--whether we teach or write, make films, write films, direct films, play music, act, whatever we do--has to not only make people feel good and inspired and at one with other people around them, but also has to educate a new generation to do this very modest thing: change the world.”

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Author:Howard Zinn
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“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.”

WorldNaturalHalfRegardAccomplishmentAccomplishedModestyModest
Book:Making Sense of Persuasion! a Students Guide to Austen's (Includes Study Guide, Biography, and Modern Retelling)
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“Lord, if I thought you were listening, I'd pray for this above all: that any church set up in your name should remain poor, and powerless, and modest. That it should wield no authority except that of love. That it should never cast anyone out. That it should own no property and make no laws. That it should not condemn, but only forgive.”

IfsShouldLawNamesChurchPoorLordListeningPrayingAuthorityForgivingPropertyCastsModestPowerless
Book:The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
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“Cemeteries in Bohemia are like gardens. The graves are covered with grass and colourful flowers. Modest tombstones are lost in the greenery. When the sun goes down, the cemetery sparkles with tiny candles... no matter how brutal life becomes, peace always reigns in the cemetery. Even in wartime, even in Hitler's time, even in Stalin's time.”

MatterLostSunFlowerGardenTinyGravesGrassCoveredCandleBrutalModestReignCemeterySparkleTombstoneWartimeUnbearable Lightness Of BeingColourfulBohemiaGreenery
Author:Milan Kundera
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“Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway. Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.”

MayTwoEndsReasonPlayJobsValuesHateEnjoyComfortWasteMajorityTemptationModestYou Like It
Author:Adrian Tan
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“Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.”

FirstsStatesFallHotDanceLegsGravesSuitsFasterRepentancePaceModestRepentScotchHastyWooing
Book:Much Ado About Nothing: Revised Edition
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“Musings The little poets sing of little things: Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings; Lovers who kissed and then were made as one, And modest flowers waving in the sun. The mighty poets write in blood and tears And agony that, flame-like, bites and sears. They reach their mad blind hands into the night, To plumb abysses dead to human sight; To drag from gulfs where lunacy lies curled, Mad, monstrous nightmare shapes to blast the world. [click on the thumbnail by Jack "King" Kirby]”

WorldWritingHumansLittlesMadeHandsLyingNightSunBloodTearsPoetFlowerKingsLoversShapesSightBlindMadQueensFlamesNightmareLittle ThingsCheerBitesDragAgonyModestAbyssMonstrousBlastClicksPuppetsMusingsLunacySears
Book:The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard
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“Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”

MenInspirationalFeelsFacesLawSpiritSpiritualityUniverseInvolvedHumbleConvincedPursuitSuperiorsManifestModestScience And ReligionTheismScience ReligionSuperior ManThinking ManGod And ScienceScience GodThinking God
Book:Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives
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“Human groupings have one main purpose: to assert everyone’s right to be different, to be special, to think, feel and live in his or her own way. People join together in order to win or defend this right. But this is where a terrible, fateful error is born: the belief that these groupings in the name of a race, a God, a party or a State are the very purpose of life and not simply a means to an end. No! The only true and lasting meaning of the struggle for life lies in the individual, in his modest peculiarities and in his right to these peculiarities.”

PeopleThinkingWayFeelsHumansMeanDifferentEndsStatesTogetherLyingPurposeOrderWinningNamesIndividualBeliefBornPartyRaceStruggleSpecialTerribleErrorsLastingPurpose Of LifeModestMeans To An End
Author:Vasily Grossman
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“Edward can do everything, right?" I explained. Jasper snickered and Esme gave Edward a reproving look. "I hope you haven't been showing off-it's rude," she scolded. "Just a bit," he laughed freely. "He's been too modest actually," I corrected. "Well, play for her," Esme encouraged. "You just said showing off was rude," he objected. "There are exceptions to every rule," she replied.”

WellsLooksSaidPlayBitsCan DoHavensExceptionLaughedModestRudeShowing OffScolded
Author:Stephenie Meyer
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“I remained a socialist for several years, even after my rejection of Marxism; and if there could be such a thing as socialism combined with individual liberty, I would be a socialist still. For nothing could be better than living a modest, simple, and free life in an egalitarian society.”

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Author:Karl Popper
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“However modest one may be in one's demand for intellectual cleanliness, one cannot help feeling, when coming into contact with the New Testament, a kind of inexpressible discomfiture: for the unchecked impudence with which the least qualified want to raise their voice on the greatest problems, and even claim to be judges of such things, surpasses all measure. The shameless levity with which the most intractable problems (life, world, God, purpose of life) are spoken of, as if they were not problems at all but simply things that these little bigots knew!”

IfsWorldWantKindMayLittlesHelpingFeelingsProblemPurposeVoiceAtheismJudgingDemandIntellectualClaimsRaisesAtheistContactPurpose Of LifeModestTestamentQualifiedNew TestamentCleanlinessBigotsShamelessLevityImpudence
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth.”

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Author:C. S. Lewis
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“A modest dress is a very good thing, if it be the genuine indication of a humble heart, and is to instruct; but it is a bad thing if it be the hypocritical disguise of a proud ambitious heart, and is to deceive. Let men be really as good as they seem to be, but not seem to be better than really they are.”

IfsMenHeartSeemsProudDressesGood ThingsVery GoodHumbleGenuineBad ThingsAmbitiousDeceivingDisguiseModestIndicationHypocriticalHumble Heart
Book:Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: Volume IV-IV - Joel to Malachi
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“Yes, there are plenty of heroes and heroines everywhere you look. They are not famous people. They are generally obscure and modest people doing useful work, keeping their families together and taking an active part in the health of their communities, opposing what is evil (in one way or another) and defending what is good. Heroes do not want power over others.”

PeopleWayWantLooksTogetherEvilCommunityHeroActiveOne WayPlentyModestObscureOpposingHeroinesFamily TogetherPower Over OthersHeroes And HeroinesGood Hero
Author:Edward Abbey
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