Word: modeste
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...idealize his accomplishments. I suggest we take a more sober view and remember that although Americans-and indeed the rest of the world-owe Reagan a debt of gratitude for his leadership in the closing days of the cold war, we must also recall his gutting of an already modest social safety net, pillaging of the national Treasury through irresponsible deficit spending and setting the stage for the Taliban's rise to power through his Administration's shortsighted support of the Afghan mujahedin. Christopher J. Hughey Neuilly-sur-Seine, France...
...America that its visionary third President wouldn't find troubling, in need of improvement or just plain horrifying. The peaceful republic that Jefferson wished for and did what he could to usher into being--a collection of independent gentleman farmers, moderately prosperous and highly educated, living under a thrifty, modest government that was legally bound not to meddle in their affairs, be they commercial, domestic or religious, and which staunchly resisted foreign "entanglements"--seems now like a large-scale version of Monticello, the grand but quixotic hilltop sanctuary that Jefferson never quite finished building and couldn't afford to pass...
...fact, these 18th century figures were extraordinary men, products of a peculiar moment in our history when the forces of aristocracy and democracy were nicely balanced. Although almost all of them were men of relatively modest origins, they were unabashed elitists who had a contempt for electioneering and popular politics. They rejected blood and family as sources of status, however, and were eager to establish themselves by principles that could be acquired through learning and education. They struggled to internalize the new, Enlightened Man--made standards that had come to define what Jefferson called the "natural aristocracy"--politeness, sociability, compassion...
Knightley isn't being modest. She just doesn't believe in kidding herself. Of the acting challenge presented by King Arthur, she says, "I had to work out physically quite a bit, but pretty much it's scream a lot and enjoy being painted blue." (Her Guinevere wears so much blue war paint that she looks like the world's most ferocious Smurf.) Knightley is similarly dismissive of her breakthrough role in Bend It Like Beckham and her beatific cameo in Love Actually. Few actresses talk as frankly about the artistic limits of their work or as exuberantly about their...
...Your father sent me to Israel for free!” he proclaimed. I quickly explained that my father didn’t even send me to Israel for free, but I could tell he and his friend just thought I was being modest...