Zealous, yet modest. [ Beattie ]
Merit was ever modest known. [ Gay ]
A young man ought to be modest. [ Plaut ]
Modest humility is beauty's crown. [ Schiller ]
Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower. [ Burns ]
It becomes a young man to be modest. [ Plaut ]
The blushing beauty of a modest maid. [ Dryden ]
She listen'd with a flitting blush.
With downcast eyes, and modest grace,
For well she knew I could not choose
But gaze upon her face. [ Coleridge ]
The blushing cheek speaks modest mind.
The lips befitting words most kind,
The eye does tempt to love's desire,
And seems to say 'tis Cupid's fire. [ Harrington ]
On their own merits modest men are dumb. [ George Colman ]
With countenance demure, and modest grace. [ Spenser ]
Women commend a modest man but like him not. [ Proverb ]
He bore a simple wild-flower wreath:
Narcissus, and the sweet brier rose;
Vervain, and flexile thyme, that breathe
Rich fragrance; modest heath, that glows
With purple bells; the amaranth bright.
That no decay, nor fading knows.
Like true love's holiest, rarest light;
And every purest flower, that blows,
In that sweet time, which Love most blesses,
When spring on summer's confines presses. [ Thomas Love Peacock ]
Forgot the blush that virgin fears impart
To modest cheeks, and borrowed one from art. [ Cowper ]
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. [ William Shakespeare ]
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn. [ Oliver Goldsmith ]
The love of praise, however concealed by art
Reigns, more or less, and glows, in every heart:
The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modest shun it, but to make it sure. [ Young ]
A modest man at court is the silliest wight breathing. [ Proverb ]
Be modest without diffidence, proud without presumption. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
That which makes wise men modest, makes fools unmannerly. [ Proverb ]
Women that are the least bashful are often the most modest. [ Colton ]
You must confine yourself within the modest limits of order. [ William Shakespeare ]
Modest assurance, good humour, and prudence, make a gentleman. [ Proverb ]
Men should allow others excellences, to preserve a modest opinion of their own. [ Barrow ]
Cultivate habits of neatness, and let your attire be simple, modest, and becoming. [ Mrs. Willard ]
In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in manhood just, and in old age prudent. [ Socrates ]
Avoid all exaggeration, and be sober, modest, and truthful in all your observations. [ G. Mogridge ]
Bid the cheek be ready with a blush, modest as Morning when she coldly eyes the youthful Phoebus. [ William Shakespeare ]
True merit, wherever found, is ever modest, just as the well-filled heads of grain are always bent. [ Charles Dickens ]
Knowledge, wit, and courage alone excite our admiration; and thou, sweet and modest Virtue, remainest without honors. [ J. J. Rousseau ]
Prudery is often immodestly modest; its habit is to multiply sentinels in proportion as the fortress is less threatened. [ G. D. Prentice ]
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 ]
There are attractions in modest diffidence above the force of words. A silent address is the genuine eloquence of sincerity. [ Goldsmith ]
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. [ Feltham ]
Beauty in a modest woman is like fire at a distance, or like a sharp sword; neither doth the one burn, nor the other wound those that come not too near them. [ Cervantes ]
By gold all good faith has been banished; by gold our rights are abused: the law itself is influenced by gold, and soon there will be an end of every modest restraint. [ Propertius ]
Women who are the least bashful are not unfrequently the most modest; and we are never more deceived than when we would infer any laxity of principle from that freedom of demeanor which often arises from a total ignorance of vice. [ Colton ]
Who can describe the transports of a heart truly parental on beholding a daughter shoot up like some fair and modest flower, and acquire, day after day, fresh beauty and growing sweetness, so as to fill every eye with pleasure and every heart with admiration? [ Fordyce ]
So long as thou art ignorant, be not ashamed to learn : he that is so fondly modest, not to acknowledge his own defects of knowledge, shall in time, be so foully impudent to justify his own ignorance; ignorance is the greatest of all infirmities, and, justified, the chiefest of all follies. [ Quarks ]
The sovereign good of man is a mind that subjects all things to itself and is itself subject to nothing; such a man's pleasures are modest and reserved, and it may be a question whether he goes to heaven, or heaven comes to him; for a good man is influenced by God Himself, and has a kind of divinity within him. [ Seneca ]
Charms which, like flowers, lie on the surface and always glitter, easily produce vanity; hence women, wits, players, soldiers, are vain, owing to their presence, figure and dress. On the contrary, other excellences, which lie down like gold and are discovered with difficulty, leave their possessors modest and proud. [ Richter ]
Among all the accomplishments of youth there is none preferable to a decent and agreeable behavior among men, a modest freedom of speech, a soft and elegant manner of address, a graceful and lovely deportment, a cheerful gravity and good-humor, with a mind appearing ever serene under the ruffling accidents of human life. [ Watts ]
The devil does not stay long where music is performed. Music is the best balsam for a distressed heart; it refreshes and quickens the soul. Music is a governess which makes people milder, meeker, more modest and discreet. Yes, my friends, music is a beautiful, glorious gift of God, and next to theology, I give it the highest place and the highest honor. [ Martin Luther ]
All things are engaged in writing their history. The planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain; the river, its channel in the soil; the animal, its bones in the stratum; the fern and leaf, their modest epitaph in the coal. The falling drop makes its sculpture in the sand or the stone. Not a foot steps into the snow or along the ground, but prints, in characters more or less lasting, a map of its march. Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memories of its fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds, the sky of tokens, the ground is all memoranda and signatures, and every object covered over with hints which speak to the intelligent. [ Emerson ]