Quotes About Self-effacement

When you live a life devoid of ritual and convention, with honesty and self-effacement, then you are on the road to freedom.

I'm beneath notice. As it should be. [...] then I'm gone as if I've never been here. And soon, it will be as though I never were. I am going to join Lola in the memory hole. It is my proper place. It is where I deserve to be consigned. [...] Once she forgets me, maybe then she can remember. And that, more than anything, will count as me doing something productive.

The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every deviltry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain which might have made or marred the destiny of nations—that's the man! But so aloof is he from general suspicion, so immune from criticism, so admirable in his management and self-effacement, that for those very words that you have uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge with your year's pension as a solatium for his wounded character.

in touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept the powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.

Great Modesty often hides great Merit.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was 'call attention to yourself,' or 'think you were smart.' My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson's disease.

This is why it's hard to talk about winning awards. You can't do it without sounding like a tool.

I'm not interested in promoting myself or revealing to total strangers anything about me. That's not my job.

Most often the little man makes himself even smaller than he already is, so as not to be seen.

I've always been one to shy away from the publicity, the limelight, whatever you want to call it. I prefer to be in the background.

Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance.

I was used to being perceived as having a good attitude. Self-control, self-effacement, self-denial. People like this, especially in girls.

She had effaced herself, when he first knew her; she had made herself small, pretending there was less of her than there really was. ...he would have liked her to have nothing of her own but her pretty appearance. She had too many ideas for herself, but that was what one married for, to share them with someone else.

I'm quite modest. I don't want to tell people I'm a leader.

Always try to be modest, and be proud of it!

I'm not driven by fame or success. I'm quite a shy, introverted person, and I could easily melt away into the background.

If you're successful, you must express a modest appearance.

If modesty disappeared, so would exhibitionism.

rather than the other; because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."b

It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.

Modesty: the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.

I'm uncomfortable with the limelight. I'm not the type to go to the places where I know I'll be seen. I'd rather keep a low profile.

I feel a bit uncomfortable talking about awards.

I've got no desire to be famous myself.