Daily Inspiration Quote by John Kenneth Galbraith

Galbraith’s jab lands because it’s aimed at a moral reflex that conveniently props up hierarchy. “Modesty” is usually treated as civic glue: don’t brag, don’t take up space, don’t act like you’re special. Galbraith, an economist who spent his career watching power justify itself with pieties, calls that bluff. By labeling modesty “vastly overrated,” he’s not endorsing narcissism so much as puncturing a social rule that often rewards the already-secure and disciplines everyone else.

The line works as a piece of elite skepticism. Modesty is praised most loudly in people who are expected to defer: juniors, outsiders, women, the poor, the ones asking for a seat at the table. Meanwhile institutions that actually shape outcomes - corporations, governments, professional guilds - rarely operate modestly. They project certainty, competence, inevitability. Galbraith’s subtext: in a world governed by confidence games and manufactured consensus, modesty can be less virtue than self-sabotage.

There’s also a specifically technocratic sting here. Mid-century economics and policy culture often treated expertise as neutral and disinterested, a kind of intellectual modesty. Galbraith knew how that posture could camouflage ideology, or soften the edges of accountability. Calling modesty overrated is a nudge toward candor: say what you want, name who benefits, stop hiding behind polite understatement.

It’s a witty provocation with a moral purpose: not “be louder,” but “stop treating quietness as goodness.”