A Quote by Nicolas Chamfort

False modesty is the most decent of all lies.

Nicolas Chamfort

Quote Topics

Decent False False Modesty Lies Modesty Most

Quote Author

Nicolas Chamfort
French - Writer
April 6, 1741 - April 13, 1794

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

Some of the most frantic lies on the face of life are told with modesty and restraint; for the simple reason that only modesty and restraint will save them.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

There have to be moments when you glimpse something decent, something life-affirming even in the most twisted character. That's where the real art lies. See, I always suspect characters who are painted as lovely, decent human beings. I would always question where the darkness lies.

Martin McDonagh

There is a false modesty, which is vanity; a false glory, which is levity; a false grandeur, which is meanness; a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery.

Jean de la Bruyere

One who has an inferiority complex can never be really humble, but can only have false modesty or false humility.

Sri Chinmoy

True modesty avoids everything that is criminal; false modesty everything that is unfashionable.

Joseph Addison

Modesty means to be free from undue familiarity, from indecency, from lewdness, pure in thought and conduct. Speaking of modest apparel, it means decent, seemly. The opposite of modesty is conceit, boldness, immodesty, brazenness, lewdness.

Elisabeth Elliot

The thing I hate most is false modesty. The artists who are, like, "Oh, you know, I'm really not that good. Oh, I can't believe I'm here." I find it vaguely sinister, even.

Rufus Wainwright

The thing I hate most is false modesty. The artists who are, like, 'Oh, you know, I'm really not that good. Oh, I can't believe I'm here.' I find it vaguely sinister, even.

Rufus Wainwright

I do plead with the mothers of Zion to undertake modesty in dress. We may like to follow the fashion, but let us follow it in modesty. The most precious thing that a girl has is her modesty and if she preserves this in dress, in speech, in action, it will arm, and protect her as nothing else will. But let her lose her modesty, and she becomes a victim of those who pursue her, as the hare is of the hound; and she will not be able to stand unless she preserves her modesty.

L. Tom Perry

I don't like false modesty.

Dominic Holland

To the devil with false modesty.

Stephen King

In science, modesty and genius do not coexist well together. (In Washington, modesty and cleverness don't.) Einstein is perhaps the most famous exception to the rule.