A Quote by Michel de Montaigne

To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.

Michel de Montaigne

Quote Topics

Cowardice Current Folly Less Man Modesty Oneself Pay Really Speak Speak Less Take Than Value Which

Quote Author

Michel de Montaigne
French - Philosopher
February 28, 1533 - September 13, 1592

To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.

Michel de Montaigne

A child's death is really of less value than an adult's. I mean, what could you really accomplish in a year? Not much, and that's not even talking about, you know, pay-wise.

Zach Braff

Very few men can speak of Nature, for instance, with any truth. They overstep her modesty, somehow or other, and confer no favor.They do not speak a good word for her. Most cry better than they speak, and you can get more nature out of them by pinching than by addressing them. The surliness with which the woodchopper speaks of his woods, handling them as indifferently as his axe, is better than the mealy-mouthed enthusiasm of the lover of nature. Better that the primrose by the river's brim be a yellow primrose, and nothing more, than that it be something less.

Henry David Thoreau

Is this not true--That in proportion to the value of their estates the extremely wealthy pay far less taxes than those of moderatemeans? Compare the amount paid by millionaires with the amount paid by ordinary citizens. I believe that in proportion to their estates they pay less than half as much as ordinary citizens, whereas they ought to pay more.

Rutherford B. Hayes

The reign of terror to which France submitted has been more justly termed "the reign of cowardice." One knows not which most to execrate,--the nation that could submit to suffer such atrocities, or that low and bloodthirsty demagogue that could inflict them. France, in succumbing to such a wretch as Robespierre, exhibited, not her patience, but her pusillanimity.

Charles Caleb Colton

Modesty teaches us to speak of the ancients with respect, especially when we are not very familiar with their works. Newton, who knew them practically by heart, had the greatest respect for them, and considered them to be men of genius and superior intelligence who had carried their discoveries in every field much further than we today suspect, judging from what remains of their writings. More ancient writings have been lost than have been preserved, and perhaps our new discoveries are of less value than those that we have lost.

Francis Atterbury

It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I have endeavoured to show that the ability to pay taxes depends, not on the gross money value of the mass of commodities, nor on the net money value of the revenue of capitalists and landlords, but on the money value of each man's revenue compared to the money value of the commodities which he usually consumes.

David Ricardo

Fidelity to conscience is inconsistent with retiring modesty. If it be so, let the modesty succumb. It can be only a false modesty which can be thus endangered.

Harriet Martineau

I feel that it is no less interesting to be a trainer than to play oneself. I even take greater delight in the tournament successes of my lads than I do in my own.

Mark Dvoretsky

For what is there more hideous than avarice, more brutal than lust, more contemptible than cowardice, more base than stupidity and folly?

Marcus Tullius Cicero

If to talk to oneself when alone is folly, it must be doubly unwise to listen to oneself in the presence of others.

Baltasar Gracian

Modesty and reverence are no less virtues of freemen than the democratic feeling which will submit neither to arrogance nor to servility.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The current disfavor into which socialism has fallen has spurred.... the frenzy to proclaim oneself a liberal. Many writers today have recourse to the strategem of inventing for oneself a liberalism according to one's own tastes and passing it off as an evolution from past ideas.

Ralph Raico

The current generation now sees everything clearly, it marvels at the errors, it laughs at the folly of its ancestors, not seeing that this chronicle is all overscored by divine fire, that every letter of it cries out, that from everywhere the piercing finger is pointed at it, at this current generation; but the current generation laughs and presumptuously, proudly begins a series of new errors, at which their descendants will also laugh afterwards.