Humility vs Modesty

Humility is listed as one of the seven holy virtues. Practising humility helps us stay down-to-earth and keeps false pride at bay.

The problem is that humility is often confused with modesty. That's because modesty often poses as humility. But such humility is nothing but false modesty as it is usually social in context and hence external. True humility is an acknowledgement to the self of our limitations and hence it is an internal concept.

Humility, therefore, is inward-looking, and concerned only with the self. Modesty, on the other hand, is outward-looking, and is concerned with others.

What's more, modesty is pretentious. Acting modest is pretending to be less than what you really are — and we act modest to gain control over others. British-born American writer, artist and illustrator Oliver Herford once said, "Modesty is the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it." In other words, modesty consists of belittling one's own talents and accomplishments for the sake of receiving praise or adulation from others.

Humility, in contrast, means acknowledging our intrinsic self-worth. It does not mean self-criticism. It only means not drawing unnecessary attention to self. When we’re humble, we neither eulogise our virtues, nor do we make ourselves out to be worthless. In other words, humility does not mean refusing to recognise our strengths — our gifts, talents, and abilities. It means that while we declare our strengths to others, we also remain aware of our weaknesses and acknowledge them to self and others.

So, being humble means being authentic to self, while acting modest implies being inauthentic to others. I suppose it is no accident, then, that we use the verb "act" for modesty.

Irish writer and scholar C S Lewis once said, "Perfect humility dispenses with modesty." Aim for perfect humility and modesty will have no scope. Then you can be authentic to yourself and others.