80 Diffidence Quotes

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Famous Diffidence Quotes

He who asks with timidity invites a refusal. — Seneca

People are slow to claim confidence in undertakings of magnitude. — Ovid

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. — William Shakespeare

Cowardice, the dread of what will happen. — Epictetus

Excessive fear and self-doubt that were the greatest detractors of personal genius. — Robert Kiyosaki

The timid man calls himself cautious, the sordid man thrifty. — Publilius Syrus

If you don't have the confidence, it doesn't matter what you do, you're always second-guessing yourself. — Chris Jericho

Boldness is a mask for fear, however great. — F. L. Lucan

A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous. — Mary Wollstonecraft

Modesty is the graceful, calm virtue of maturity; bashfulness the charm of vivacious youth. — Mary Wollstonecraft

Too little confidence, and you're unable to act; too much confidence, and you're unable to hear. — John Maeda

Shyness is a condition foreign to the heart - a category, a dimension which leads to loneliness. — Pablo Neruda

Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short. - John Henry Newman

Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short. — John Henry Newman

Modesty; the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it. — Oliver Herford

Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age. — Aristotle

Short Diffidence Quotes

  • We are as often duped by diffidence as by confidence. — Lord Chesterfield
  • Chastity is oftener owing to diffidence and shame, than to fortitude of reason or virtue. — Norm MacDonald
  • A tardiness in nature, Which often leaves the history unspoke, That it intends to do. — William Shakespeare
  • Sickness is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state. — Alexander Pope
  • God is displeased at the diffidence of souls who love Him sincerely and whom He Himself loves. — Alphonsus Liguori
  • Diffidence is the better part of knowledge. — Charles Caleb Colton
  • Diffidence is a sort of false modesty. — William Makepeace Thackeray
  • Modesty and diffidence make a man unfit for public affairs; they also make him unfit for brothels. — Walter Savage Landor
  • I'm somewhat diffident about cuffing television on its rabbit ears for not being something else. — Edwin Diamond
  • I am a diffident man. I find it hard to carry on a conversation. — Clement Attlee

Diffidence Image Quotes

Difficulty Quotes

Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it. — Rene Descartes

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome. — Maya Angelou

Be grateful for challenges because... Had there been no difficulties and no thorns in the way, then [each woman and] man would have been in his primitive state and no progress made in civilisation and mental culture. — Anandi Gopal Joshi

There may be some difficulties during a period of adjustment. Specifically, picking up their life again and making their own truly independent decisions. — Rick Ross

Never give up prayer, and should you find dryness and difficulty, persevere in it for this very reason. God often desires to see what love your soul has, and love is not tried by ease and satisfaction. — John of the Cross

We know certainly that our God calls us to a holy life. We know that he gives us every grace, every abundant grace; and though we are so weak of ourselves, this grace is able to carry us through every obstacle and difficulty. — Elizabeth Ann Seton

Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity. From discord find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. — Albert Einstein

There is no difficulty that enough LOVE will not conquer, no disease that enough LOVE will not heal, no door that enough LOVE will not open, no gulf that enough LOVE will not bridge, no wall that enough LOVE will not throw down, no sin that enough LOVE will not redeem. — Emmet Fox

It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is fro+m among such individuals that all human failures spring. — Alfred Adler

Be patient. God is using today's difficulties to strengthen you for tomorrow. He is equipping you. The God who makes things grow will help you bear fruit. — Max Lucado

People Writing About Diffidence

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Read quotes by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare
quotes on success, death and love

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Read quotes by Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft
quotes on education, feminism and politics

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Read quotes by Seneca

Seneca
quotes on life, love and time

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Read quotes by Ovid

Ovid
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Read quotes by Epictetus

Epictetus
quotes on life, control and death

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Read quotes by Robert Kiyosaki

Robert Kiyosaki
quotes on opportunity, money and success

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More Diffidence Quotes

Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others are plain, honest and upright, like the broad faced sunflower and the hollyhock. — Henry Ward Beecher

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! — Yevgeny Yevtushenko

I loved you: and, it may be, from my soul The former love has never gone away, But let it not recall to you my dole; I wish not sadden you in any way. I loved you silently, without hope, fully, In diffidence, in jealousy, in pain; I loved you so tenderly and truly, As let you else be loved by any man. — Alexander Pushkin

Hitler frequently demonstrated diffidence and unease in dealings with individuals which contrasted diametrically with his self-confident mastery in exploiting the emotions of his listeners in the theatrical setting of a major speech. — Ian Kershaw

Frigidity is largely nonsense. It is this generation's catchword, one only vaguely understood and constantly misused. Frigid women are few. There is a host of diffident and slow-ripening ones. — Phyllis Mcginley

I’m more comfortable with myself than when I was younger. I hated myself then. Wait, I didn’t hate myself – that’s a strong word. But I was so diffident. I didn’t know how to act, for one. I had no confidence in that area or in myself at all, really. I had a big inner critic and still do. I just don’t listen to it so much. — Helena Bonham Carter

I am said to be difficult of acquaintance, unwilling to meet any one half way, and showing a social manner which is easy, not diffident, but formal and unresponsive, tending constantly to hold people off. — Albert J. Nock

Every reader should remember the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence, and suppose that the sense which is now weak was once forcible — Samuel Johnson

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. — Jane Austen

It is possible to tell things by a handshake. I like the "looking in the eye" syndrome. It conveys interest. I like the firm, though not bone crushing shake. The bone crusher is trying too hard to "macho it." The clammy or diffident handshake - fairly or unfairly - get me off to a bad start with a person. — George H. W. Bush

Modesty is related to diffidence, diffidence is related to shyness, Shyness is a synonym for timidity, timidity is a characteristic of the meek, the meek do not inherit the Earth, they serve those who are self confident and self assertive. — Dean Koontz

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. — Heinrich Harrer

Girls, like men, want to be petted, pitied, and made much of, when they are diffident, in low spirits, or in unrequited love. These are services which the weak cannot render to the strong and which the strong will not render to the weak, except when there is also a difference of sex. — George Bernard Shaw

Persons extremely reserved are like old enamelled watches, which had painted covers, that hindered your seeing what o'clock it was. — Robert Walpole

Whoever is wise is apt to suspect and be diffident of himself, and upon that account is willing to "hearken unto counsel"; whereas the foolish man, being in proportion to his folly full of himself, and swallowed up in conceit, will seldom take any counsel but his own, and for that very reason, because it is his own. — John Balguy

Submit your sentiments with diffidence. A dictatorial style, though it may carry conviction, is always accompanied with disgust. — George Washington

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

The future is like the daytime moon, a diffident but faithful companion, so elegant as to be almost invisible, an inconspicuous marvel. — Robert Grudin

The moment of crisis had come, and I must face it. My old fears, my diffidence, my shyness, my hopeless sense of inferiority, must be conquered now and thrust aside. If I failed now I should fail forever. — Daphne Du Maurier

Diffidence may check resolution and obstruct performance, but compensates its embarrassments by more important advantages; it conciliates the proud, and softens the severe; averts envy from excellence, and censure from miscarriage. — Samuel Johnson

Eloquence, to produce her full effect, should start from the head of the orator, as Pallas from the brain of Jove, completely armed and equipped. Diffidence, therefore, which is so able a mentor to the writer, would prove a dangerous counsellor for the orator. — Charles Caleb Colton

Praise is sometimes a good thing for the diffident and the despondent. It teaches them properly to rely on the kindness of others. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The true confidence which is faith in Christ, and the true diffidence which is utter distrust of myself--are identical. — Alexander Maclaren

If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me - I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction. — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

I have never had much confidence in my own work, and even now when I am assured (still much to my grateful surprise) that it has value for other people, I feel diffident, reluctant as it were to expose my world of imagination to possibly contemptuous eyes and ears. — J. R. R. Tolkien

Ira [Gershwin] was the shyest, most diffident boy we had ever known. In a class of lower east side rapscallions, his soft-spoken gentleness and low-keyed personality made him a lovable incongruity. He spoke in murmurs, hiding behind a pair of steel-rimmed glasses..Ira had a kid brother who wore high stiff collars, shirts with cuffs and went out with girls. — Yip Harburg

It may be remarked in general, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a feint, constrained kind of half-laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them; but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world. — Richard Steele

A man of truth must ever be confident, if he has also equal need to be diffident. — Mahatma Gandhi

The conduct of a man, who studies philosophy in this careless manner, is more truly sceptical than that of any one, who feeling inhimself an inclination to it, is yet so over-whelm'd with doubts and scruples, as totally to reject it. A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them. — David Hume

Every disastrous accident alarms us, and sets us on enquiries concerning the principles whence it arose: Apprehensions spring up with regard to futurity: And the mind, sunk into diffidence, terror, and melancholy, has recourse to every method of appeasing those secret intelligent powers, on whom our fortune is supposed entirely to depend. — David Hume

Writers are diffident creatures -- they need encouragement. — Agatha Christie

Diffidence and awkwardness are antidotes to love. — William Hazlitt

Very great personages are not likely to form very just estimates either of others or of themselves; their knowledge of themselves is obscured by the flattery of others; their knowledge of others is equally clouded by circumstances peculiar to themselves. For in the presence of the great, the modest are sure to suffer from too much diffidence, and the confident from too much display. — Charles Caleb Colton

Diffidence in an officer is a good mark because he will always endeavor to bring himself up to what he conceives to be the full line of his duty. — George Washington

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