Quotes About Diffidence

Modesty and diffidence make a man unfit for public affairs; they also make him unfit for brothels.

For them that evening war wasn't politics or geography or the mobilisation of forces. It was, as they entered their houses, a special diffidence in the eyes of some of their women. It was a sharper etching of objects around them, as if a film had been scraped from their eyeballs. It was how the kettle was a comfort, the battered chair luxurious, the collapsing of a coal-husk in the fire inexpressibly elegiac.

Later in the morning a messenger brought Mr Reeder to the chief's office, and he arrived with that ineffable air of apology and diffidence which gave the uninitiated such an altogether wrong idea of his calibre.

Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge.

Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.

It must here be explained that my innate diffidence forbade me to aspire to the Grade of Magus in any full sense. Such beings appear only in every two thousand years or so.

phase, before the restoration of epaulettes. And in Grant there was a genuine diffidence.

I do not! Sam was suddenly and thoroughly angry; suddenly free of whatever diffidence he had before this formal society. I never was much of a flag-waver. I don't suppose America is perfect, not by a long shot. I know we have plenty of fools and scoundrels, and I don't mind roasting them. But if you'll excuse me for differing with you-

Sad, shocking, horrible, yes," underlining each word, "but..." (Oliver often said that but was his favorite word, a kind of etymological flip of the coin, for it allowed consideration of both sides of an argument, a topic, as well as a kind of looking-at-the-bright-side that was as much a part of his nature as his diffidence and indecisiveness.)

Whence come those mysterious influences which change our happiness into discouragement, and our self-confidence into diffidence?

Yet, to the wigwam audience in Decatur, Lincoln presented a strange figure. He didn't seem euphoric, or triumphant, or even pleased. To the contrary, said a man named Johnson, observing from the convention floor, "I then thought him one of the most diffident and worst plagued men I ever saw.

He hid his strength beneath unusual weakness, The diffidence of a solitary man: Where he was weak he recognised your mother's power, And yielded to it.

She sought to be eloquent in her garments, and to make up for her diffidence of speech by a fine frankness of costume

Give me a mystery - just a plain and simple one - a mystery which is diffidence and silence, a slim little bare-foot mystery: give me a mystery - just one!

Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.

Sickness is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state.

What a dichotomy she was! She seemed timid until he spoke derisively of her title, and then she spoke in an icy ferocity. A few minutes later, with a few words artfully couched to sound like a threat, he once again reduced her to diffidence. If he was not careful, this woman would fascinate him.

But many of women's body scars have a very different context, and thus an emotional power all their own. Stretch marks and Cesarean incisions from giving birth are very different from accident, war, and fight scars. They evoke courage without violence, strength without cruelty, and even so, they're far more likely to be worn with diffidence than bragging. That gives them a moving, bittersweet power, like seeing a room where a very emotional event in our lives once took place.

My friend Kurt Maix once described this diffidence as Fear's friendly sister, the right and necessary counterweight to that courage that urges men skyward, and protects them from self-destruction.

He was, besides, the child of a doting grandmother, whose too solicitous attention to him soon taught him a sort of diffidence in himself, with a disposition to overrate his own importance, which is one of the very worst consequences that children deduce from over-indulgence.

Without any display of doing more than the rest, or any fear of doing too much, he was always true to her interests and considerate of her feelings, trying to make her good qualities understood, and to conquer the diffidence which prevented them from being more apparent; giving her advice, consolation, and encouragement.

Edward Ferrars was not recommended to their good opinion by any peculiar graces of person or address. He was not handsome, and his manners required intimacy to make them pleasing. He was too diffident to do justice to himself; but when his natural shyness was overcome, his behaviour gave every indication of an open, affectionate heart.

the modesty and diffidence that the penniless, unemployed Standish had brought aboard were now no longer to be seen; and the assurance of a monthly income and a settled position had developed a displeasing and often didactic loquacity. He was also, of course, incompetent.

In spite of all that is said, and more especially written, about the crabbed New Englander, New Englanders, like all ordinary people, are nice. Their manner of proffering a favor is sometimes on the crusty side, but that is much more often diffidence than surliness.