"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."
— Harry S. Truman

"He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter."
— Margery Williams Bianco (The Velveteen Rabbit)

"Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your rainment.
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.
Some of you say 'It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear.'
And I say, 'Ay, it was the north wind, but shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.'
And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.
And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"Modesty is the citadel of beauty and virtue."
— Demades

"Modesty answers not the crude how of femininity, but the beautiful why."
— Wendy Shalit (A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue)

"Saatnya angin berbau asin datang dari laut.
Hari ini, aku akan bermain gekkin untukmu.
Suara denting senar melebur bersama udara, meresap dalam panca indera.
Terlihat seperti wewangian apakah nada-nada ini...
Dengan terlahirnya lagu ini, keberadaanmu mendapatkan makna baru.
Kalau bersedia, bernyanyilah bersamaku. Masih ada waktu sebelum gelap.
Waktu yang paling indah."
— Hitoshi Ashinano (Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (volume 4), Cafe Alpha)

"You have swept up tea leaves from the tatami mats;
hand peeled sun dried Japanese squash seeds;
cleaned the floors with the water that was used to clean the rice;
and finally you used your frequent super saver point card to save a few bucks,
to buy some nikuman to eat!!

Lucu Lucu book 3 ch.19 p.12"
— Asari Yoshitoo

"Unaffected modesty is the sweetest charm of female excellence, the richest gem in the diadem of her honor."
— Noah Webster (The Noah Webster 1828 Dictionary with King James Bible in Libronix CD)

""There is probably no better or more reliable measure of whether a woman has spent time in ugly duckling status at some point or all throughout her life than her inability to digest a sincere compliment. Although it could be a matter of modesty, or could be attributed to shyness- although too many serious wounds are carelessly written off as "nothing but shyness"- more often a compliment is stuttered around about because it sets up an automatic and unpleasant dialogue in the woman's mind.

If you say how lovely she is, or how beautiful her art is, or compliment anything else her soul took part in, inspired, or suffused, something in her mind says she is undeserving and you, the complimentor, are an idiot for thinking such a thing to begin with. Rather than understand that the beauty of her soul shines through when she is being herself, the woman changes the subject and effectively snatches nourishment away from the soul-self, which thrives on being acknowledged."
"
— Clarissa Pinkola Estés