“What is this televisual mastery of Reagan's? It is a celebration of good intentions and unexceptional abilities. His style is one of hammy self-effacement, a wry dismay at his own limited talents and their drastic elevation.”

Introduction
The Echo of Greece (1957)

Civilization in the United States (1888), p. 177

Emerson Fittipaldi, after Alonso took his record as Formula One's youngest champion. http://www.theage.com.au/news/motorsport/former-recordholder-hails-alonso/2005/09/26/1127586768600.html

1980s, A Dream Deferred (1989)
Context: We as Americans memorialize and honor symbols of heroic deeds done on the battlefields of war and violence. So should we honor those cosmic travelers who have given their lives for the struggle for peace and justice. We have thousands of monuments to men at war, at long last we have the opportunity to celebrate the life of a man of peace who was one of our own. This accomplishment is a moment of triumph—but not for Martin Luther King Jr., he wouldn’t have cared one way or other, his was a very self-effacing spirit.

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 50

Summations, Chapter 52
Context: In our intent we abide in God, and faithfully trust to have mercy and grace; and this is His own working in us. And of His goodness He openeth the eye of our understanding, by which we have sight, sometime more and sometime less, according as God giveth ability to receive. And now we are raised into the one, and now we are suffered to fall into the other.
And thus is this medley so marvellous in us that scarsely we know of our self or of our even-Christian in what way we stand, for the marvellousness of this sundry feeling.

Variant: I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century