1.
To be humane, we must ever be ready to pronounce that wise, ingenious and modest statement 'I do not know'.
Galileo Galilei
To demonstrate kindness, we must always be willing to admit our lack of knowledge with the sagacious, inventive, and unassuming words 'I am not sure.'
2.
The awareness of our own strength makes us modest.
Paul Cezanne
3.
Nobody who takes on anything big and tough can afford to be modest.
Orson Welles
4.
True gastronomy is making the most of what is available, however modest.
Claudia Roden
6.
No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it.
John Galt
7.
If architects weren't arrogant, they wouldn't be architects. I don't know a modest good architect.
Philip Johnson
8.
True intelligence very readily conceives of an intelligence superior to its own; and this is why truly intelligent men are modest.
Andre Gide
10.
Sometimes the most modest changes can bring about enormous effects.
Malcolm Gladwell
11.
Though their life was modest, they believed in eating well.
James Joyce
12.
Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.
Paul Theroux
13.
Be modest in speech, but excel in action.
Horace
14.
It is modest of the nightingale not to require anyone to listen to it; but it is also proud of the nightingale not to care whether any one listens to it or not.
Soren Kierkegaard
15.
To be modest means that you have something to be modest about.
Grace Paley
16.
The request of industry to government is as modest as that of Diogenes to Alexander: Get out of my light.
Jeremy Bentham
18.
I have the modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry.
Craig Venter
19.
I would put forward a modest proposition that we were very much better governed by Henry VIII than we are by King Gordon.
David Starkey
20.
My strengths—which are really quite modest—are limited to me, but with my weaknesses the possibilities are boundless.
Jason Gray
21.
A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.
Oliver Goldsmith
22.
Mr. Attlee is a very modest man. Indeed he has a lot to be modest about.
Winston Churchill
25.
It is hard to be modest at times like these so I won't even try...you are all shite!
Noel Gallagher
27.
It well becomes a young man to be modest.
Plautus
28.
A modest demeanor arouses thoughts of seduction.
Mason Cooley
29.
Modest fame is not to be despised by the highest characters.
[Lat., Modestiae fama neque summis mortalibus spernenda est.]
Tacitus
30.
The annoying thing about being modest is that you can't brag about it.
Gene Brown
33.
Reagan is both too fatalistic and too modest to be a crudaser. He doesn't have that darkness around the eyes of a George McGovern.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
36.
The extraordinary thing about my mother, she's so modest about me.
George Gershwin
38.
The blushing beauties of a modest maid.
John Dryden
39.
Give me a little peace.
A little? Why so modest? How about eternal peace? Now, there's a thought.
James Goldman
42.
Be merciful, moderate, and modest.
Laozi
43.
I grew up very modest, and I never forget that.
Ronnie Dunn
45.
It is a modest creed, and yet Pleasant if one considers it, To own that death itself must be, Like all the rest, a mockery.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
46.
The global conservation organisations are doing everything they can on modest budgets. They essentially promote setting aside reserves and parks around the world.
E. O. Wilson
47.
Those who employ their modest talents as best they can do make a contribution to a better human future.
Allen W. Wood
49.
Artists are modest. They know they're not doing the work; they're just taking dictation.
Steven Pressfield
50.
Forgot the blush that virgin fears impart
To modest cheeks, and borrowed one from art.
William Cowper