Sentence examples for of diffidence from inspiring English sources

Personally, he gave a misleading impression of diffidence and delicacy.

This legendary shyness is probably a mixture of diffidence, indifference, and perhaps disillusion.

Partly because of diffidence about its hereditary members, the current House of Lords rarely exercises its full powers.

What might this curious combination of diffidence and cheek come up with for his debut European gig?

He wears oval wire-rimmed glasses, speaks softly and exudes an air of diffidence that masks a fierce determination.

President Obama, whether out of diffidence or inexperience, has not shown a comparable audacity or mastery of political leverage.

Toby Jones does a chilling Hitchcock imitation, though his accent sounds a tiny bit too Cockney and his tone is missing just that bit of plummy innocence, just that lag of calculating diffidence — of instinctive dramatic timing — behind the wicked humor; he sounds too overtly villainous.

So when David Miliband feels obliged to argue that Europe can aspire only to be a regional power, not a great power (which might conflict with US interests), this reflects less a long tradition of transatlantic amity than a degree of British diffidence in the face of Washington that has arisen since 1945.

We simply cannot believe that a creative artist might, out of respectable diffidence, fight shy of fame.

Yet he may fail nonetheless, in part because of the regrettable diffidence of his European peers, but mainly because of how toxic his past grandstanding has made him in their eyes.

He had the pleasing smell of a man who smokes, and an air of a certain diffidence, of a natural aristocratic dignity; and he was, I realize now, the first teacher I ever had who was at home in literature, for he was himself a part of it.