Effacing Quotes & Sayings

I think growing up in Indiana prepares anyone for a life in comedy. I do feel like there is a certain kind of self-effacing cynicism among all Hoosiers. — Jim Gaffigan

Waited for sleep, that gentle mockery of death, to take me. I longed for its effacing grace. But its peace eluded me, and I rose from the bed, my head pounding from the salty torrent of my tears and the ache deep in my stomach. — Rick Yancey

The self-effacing person is soothing and gracious, while the self-promoting person is fragile and jarring. Humility is freedom from the need to prove you are superior all the time, but egotism is a ravenous hunger in a small space - self-concerned, competitive, and distinction-hungry. Humility is infused with lovely emotions like admiration, companionship, and gratitude. — David Brooks

In many ways, I've chosen to be plain, almost too plain, too self-effacing. Like, if I record a vocal and I don't like the way it sounds, I would have them turn it up and take the reverb off it to make it as plain as possible. — Ben Folds

dishonor is like a scar on a tree, which time, instead of effacing, only helps to enlarge." Mencius — Inazo Nitobe

My work is really abject and self-effacing sometimes. I mean, it's big and overwrought, but it's just paper dolls, and it's kind of silly. — Kara Walker

All I can see when I look at him is a belt swinging toward Tobias, and the butt of a gun slamming into Caleb's jaw. I don't care that he hurt Caleb
I would have done it, too
but that he is simultaneously a man who knows how to hurt people and a man who parades around as the self-effacing leader of Abnegation, suddenly makes me so angry I can't see straight.
Especially because I chose him. I chose him over Tobias.
"Your brother is a traitor," says Marcus as we turn a corner. "He deserved worse. There's no need to look at me that way."
"Shut up!" I shout, shoving him hard into the wall. He is too surprised to push back. "I hate you, you know that! I hate you for what you did to him, and I am not talking about Caleb." I lean close to his face and whisper, "And while I may not shoot you myself, I will definitely not help you if someone tries to kill you, so you'd better hope to God we don't get into that situation. — Veronica Roth

They possess the self- effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don't need to prove anything to the world: — David Brooks

If by chance I seated myself to write, she very slyly, very tenderly, seeking protection and caresses, would softly take her place on my knee and follow the comings and goings of my pen - sometimes effacing, with an unintentional stroke of her paw, lines of whose tenor she disapproved. — Pierre Loti

There is ugliness of mass production and consumerism, the banality of advertising. Although it claims to do just the opposite, it's predicated on disempowering and effacing persons. — Stephanie Mills

I am thinking of the onion again ... Not self-righteous like the proletarian potato, nor a siren like the apple. No show-off like the banana. But a modest, self-effacing vegetable, questioning, introspective, peeling itself away, or merely radiating halos like ripples. — Erica Jong

My readers often say to me, 'If we lived next door to each other, we'd be best friends.' That is precisely what I wanted to say to smart, funny, self-effacing Ellen McCarthy after I finished reading The Real Thing. I loved every lesson laid out in a book that wouldn't dare to call itself a field guide to marriage but amounts to as much on every page. This is a deeply useful little book. — Kelly Corrigan

The thing you fail to grasp is that people are not basically good. We are basically selfish. We shove and clamour and cry for adoration, and beat down everyone else to get it. Life is a competition of prattling peacocks enraptured in inane mating rituals. But for all our effacing and self-importance, we are all slaves to what we fear most. You have so very much to learn. Here. Let me teach you. — Christopher Nolan

Nothing is better than music; when it takes us out of time, it has done more for us than we have the right to hope for: it has broadened the limits of our sorrowful life, it has lit up the sweetness of our hours of happiness by effacing the pettinesses that diminish us, bringing us back pure and new to what was, what will be, what music has created for us. — Nadia Boulanger

Now try these Drivetime talismans on for size: organized chaos ... wild discipline ... reverent blasphemy ... self-effacing grandiosity ... fanatic moderation ... selfish gifts ... twisted calm ... garish elegance ... insane poise ... ironic sincerity ... blasphemous prayers ... orgiastic lucidity ... aggressive sensitivity ... convoluted simplicity ... macho feminism. Homework Discuss what is wetter than water, stronger than love, and more exotic than trust. — Rob Brezsny

A curious thing happened: the terrains of England began to impinge on my consciousness, altering, then effacing, the world outside the library window ... I was wrapped in a pleasurable dreaminess. I was in a better place. If true life existed elsewhere, then I had almost found it. — Garry Disher

Too many people are confusing charisma with autocrat, fat cat. So I think we have to be a little more sophisticated when we hold up or tear down these stereotypes. Whether we call it charisma or not, a leader cannot be self-effacing to the point of being wimpy. — Noel Tichy

Why were there no words that spoke positively about being concerned about the self? Why was there only negative connotation in terms like "selfish", "self-interested", "self-centred", "self-obsessed" and so on? Why was it so much better to be without a self: "selfless", "self-sacrificing", "self-effacing", etc? — A.J. Dalton

Sometimes you don't even notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful, they are also reserved. They possess the self-effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don't need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline. They radiate a sort of moral joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly. They are silent when unfairly abused. They are dignified when others try to humiliate them, restrained when others try to provoke them. But they get things done. They perform acts of sacrificial service with the same modest everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the groceries. They are not thinking about what impressive work they are doing. They are not thinking about — David Brooks

I'm drawn to girls with a certain self-effacing, humorous quality and an innate independence and point of view. I love the notion of never taking yourself too seriously or being too put together. — Chris Benz

The people in Miami are so different from anywhere else I've been in America. They're so down to earth, really friendly, and quite self-effacing, with a good sense of humor. I'm not saying other parts of America don't have a sense of humor, but Miami maybe has to have a really good sense of humor for lots of different reasons, and it works. It works for me. — Tracey Emin

Evan Handler is not only a fine actor, he's a damn good writer. It's Only Temporary is wise and funny and as righteously indignant as it is endearingly self-effacing. In what may be a literary first, the book actually left me wanting more. — Meghan Daum

Do you remember when I told you that I sometimes believe that you're not real? That I imagined you just to hurt myself?" Reed says softly with a bitterly self-effacing laugh that has nothing to do with humor. "I know now that you have to be real. This kind of pain cannot exist if you were imaginary," Reed's sexy voice breathes. I feel like I could reach out and touch him, he feels that close to me. "I know you exist, but you're like a sunset to me now - beautiful and so distant that no matter how fast I fly, I cannot reach you. You are always on the next horizon," Reed says sadly, and my breath catches in my throat as an unbelievable ache throbs in my chest. "Tel me where you are. I wil meet you
wherever you are in the world. I wil be there. Just you and me, I swear it. We don't have to endanger anyone else
we'l make sure Buns and Brownie and Zephyr are safe. Just you and me, I promise ... I wil meet you anywhere at anytime ... I wil ... — Amy A. Bartol

When he thought of her, it rather amazed him, that he had let that girl with her violin go. Now, of course, he saw that her self-effacing proposal was quite irrelevant. All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them. Love and patience- if only he had had them both at once- would surely have seen them both through. — Ian McEwan

The larger the ego, the less the need for other egos around. The more modest, humble, and self-effacing we feel, the more we suffer from solitude, feeling ourselves inadequate company. — Barbara Holland

Oh! weep not that our beauty wears Beneath the wings of Time; That age o'erclouds the brow with cares That once was raised sublime ... But mourn the inward wreck we feel As hoary years depart, And Time's effacing fingers steal Young feelings from the heart! — Robert Montgomery

More than half of my life is past; I have left only the time I need for turning the rest of it to account and for effacing my errors by my virtues. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[he] was a quiet, self-effacing boy - like a shy guest at the party of his own life. — Arnaldur Indridason

Past, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy ... Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one-the knowledge and the dream. — Ambrose Bierce

Nanny Ogg was about to say: What? You mean not compliant and self-effacing like what you is, Esme? But she stopped herself. You didn't juggle matches in a fireworks factory. — Terry Pratchett

My heart tells me to stop right here, to offer quiet benediction and call it the end. But the truth won't allow it. Because there is no end, happy or otherwise. Nothing is fixed, nothing solved. the facts, such as they are, finally spin off into the void of things missing, the inconclusiveness of us. Who are we? Where do we go? The ambiguity may be dissatisfying, even irritating, but this is a love story. There is no tidiness. Blame it on the human heart. One way or another, it seems, we all perform vanishing tricks, effacing history, locking up our lives and slipping day by day into the graying shadows. Our whereabouts are uncertain. All secrets lead to the dark, and beyond teh dark there is only maybe. — Tim O'Brien

You should never try irony or self-effacing humour. — Tim Robbins

It's self-effacing, it's hard-luck, the shtetl stories. All those Coasters things are an amalgam of Yiddish and black humor. — Jerry Leiber

Most of all the actor will love the boys and girls, the men and women, who sit in the cheapest seats, in the very last row of the top gallery. They have given more than they can afford to come. In the most self-effacing spirit of fellowship they are listening to catch every word, watching to miss no slightest gesture or expression. To save his life the actor cannot help feeling these nearest and dearest. He cannot help wishing to do his best for them. He cannot help loving them best of all. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

There is ample reason to question whether low self-esteem is to blame for violence. Think of the obnoxious, hostile, or bullying people you have known - were they humble, modest, and self-effacing? (That's mainly what low self-esteem is like.) Most of the aggressive people I have known were the opposite: conceited, arrogant, and often consumed with thoughts about how they were superior to everyone else. — Roy F. Baumeister

Unhappily, law is by no means confined to its own department. Nor is it merely in some indifferent and debatable views that it has left its proper sphere. It has done more than this. It has acted in direct opposition to its proper end; it has destroyed its own object; it has been employed in annihilating that justice which it ought to have established, in effacing amongst Rights, that limit which was its true mission to respect; it has placed the collective force in the service of those who wish to traffic, without risk, and without scruple, in the persons, the liberty, and the property of others; it has converted plunder into a right, that it may protect it, and lawful defense into a crime, that it may punish it. — Anonymous

I think I have great responsibility, and when I do my music, when I try to relate to my audience, I just try to do it in an honest fashion, you know, just try to be as earnest as possible and sometime it may be self-effacing. Sometimes it may be finger-pointing. Sometimes it may be beautiful, and sometime it may be ugly. — Q-Tip

Women are always self-effacing and self-denying. There's a term that enrages me, and I always used to swear that I'd never play characters described that way. The term is "long-suffering." — Helen Mirren

Compared to high-profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good-to-great leaders seem to have come from Mars. Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy - these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They — James C. Collins

After all, Christmastide is the time of year for warming brandies, for assertive burgundies and meaty Medoc wines, and for gladsome whiskies. And an Islay malt: well, this is the octave of St Andrew, and you will doubtless recall that he is not only the patron saint of Alba, of Scotland, but was also a fisherman. How better to toast my favorite apostle (he being all the things I personally am not, starting with humble and self-effacing) than with the sea-salty dram of an Islay whisky? — Markham Shaw Pyle

In regards to being a fashion aficionado, there's a certain amount of taking yourself seriously in the professional world. The self-effacing person can't completely go down the serious road. But I design, and love when things are beautiful. — St. Vincent

Avdotya Romanovna's beauty and education had impressed him; her helpless situation had excited him beyond all measure. Here there was even more than he had dreamed of: the girl who had appeared was proud, full of character, virtuous, superior to him in education and upbringing (he sensed this), and yet this creature would view him with servile gratitude all her life for his noble deed, reverentially effacing herself before him, and he would have unlimited and exclusive power over her! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Miss Fielding had no fears of ultimate survival, even in beauty. When she passed on, she would draw after her every trailing mist of herself, effacing herself so completely that even after her death, even after her bones, which she could not help, were gone, she would be a bother to no one, would intrude on no mind. — Shirley Jackson

A geek is a person, male or female, with an abiding, obsessive, self-effacing, even self-destroying love for something besides status — D. B. Weiss

Dexter is modest, even self-effacing, and certainly aware of the limits of his considerable talent. But if there was a limit to what I could discover on the computer, I had not found it yet. I sat back down and went to work. — Jeff Lindsay

What I see as specially English is the charm - everyone is so polite. Being restrained is part of the charm. And I love the sense of humour - it takes me back to Australia. The English are great at making fun of themselves. They're so self-effacing. — Danielle De Niese

One thing Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't is self-effacing. Everything has to be the biggest. His money, his muscles, his movies and his machines. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

It is not merely the brevity by which the haiku isolates a particular group of phenomena from all the rest; nor its suggestiveness, through which it reveals a whole world of experience. It is not only in its remarkable use of the season word, by which it gives us a feeling of a quarter of the year; nor its faint all-pervading humour. Its peculiar quality is its self-effacing, self-annihilative nature, by which it enables us, more than any other form of literature, to grasp the thing-in-itself. — Reginald Horace Blyth

Being humble does not mean being weak, reticent, or self-effacing. It means recognizing principle and putting it ahead of self. It means standing firmly for principle, even in the fact of opposition. — Stephen Covey

But the older priestesses had explained to her, as they gathered in the courtyard, that the Moon God was effacing the brightness of the Goddess, and she ran out with them joyously to join in the shrieks of the women to frighten him away. Later it had been explained to her how the sun and moon moved, and why, now and again, one of them crossed the face of the other; that it was in the way of nature, and the common people's beliefs about the face of the Gods were symbols which these people, at the current state of their evolution, needed to visualize the great truths. Some day all men and women would know the inner truths, but now they needed them not. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

What I call Professionalism someone else might call the Artist's Code or the Warrior's Way. It's an attitude of egolessness and service. The Knights of the Round Table were chaste and self-effacing. Yet they dueled dragons. — Steven Pressfield

A society notorious for effacing the boundary which once separated the private from the public, for making it a public virtue and obligation to publicly expose the private, and for wiping away from public communication anything that resists being reduced to private confidences, together with those who refuse to confide them. — Zygmunt Bauman

They were self-effacing people who constantly asked questions and had the ability to confront the most brutal answers - that is, to look failures in the face, even their own, while maintaining faith that they would succeed in the end. — Carol S. Dweck

Until self-effacing men return again to spiritual leadership, we may expect a progressive deterioration in the quality of popular Christianity year after year till we reach the point where the grieved Holy Spirit withdraws - like the Shekinah from the temple. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

... Some people, under a nervous and self-effacing manner, conceal a great deal of vanity and self-satisfaction. — Agatha Christie

Those who are silent, self-effacing and attentive become the recipients of confidences. — Thornton Wilder