October 28, 2025

[Definition of] Modesty: the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.

Oliver Herford (1863–1935), American writer, The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.96

On a scale of one (awful) to ten (excellent), how do you score on modesty so defined?

This is the “studied nonchalance” that Baldassare Castiglione wrote of in The Book of the Courtier (published in 1549). He called it sprezzatura.