Van Wyck Brooks Quotes

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

I've never been a much of a glamour girl.

I don't like to make a big splash anyway.

I have never been one for the over-the-top.

Humility and knowledge in poor clothes excel pride and ignorance in costly attire.

I'm no genius.

Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom.

No age, sex, or condition is above or below the absolute necessity of modesty; but without it one is vastly beneath the rank of man.

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen.

The beauty of modesty ... a virtue the world doesn't have much truck with: one ordinary flower in a vase, as opposed to a bouquet.

The Truth never flaunted a sign.

A simple garb is the proper costume of the vulgar; it is cut for them, and exactly suits their measure, but it is an ornament for those who have filled up their lives with great deeds. I liken them to beauty in dishabille, but more bewitching on that account.

The sage wears coarse clothes, concealing jade.

Talent, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be obscure and unostentatious.

Fairest and best adorned is she Whose clothing is humility.

I'm more interested in being good than being famous.

I've always gone for the more understated look.

The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

I'm not much of a show-off.

I was the most subtle person in the world.

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.

I can make a lord, but only God can make a gentleman.

There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.