Behave ordinarily, which is odd enough already, so any display beyond the ordinary is excessive.
The proverb makes ordinariness the standard rather than the floor, which inverts the assumption behind most self-presentation advice. Where it holds, conspicuous ambition reads as a failure of judgement rather than as drive, and the effective move in a meeting is understatement.
In practice
- A pitch that opens with the strongest claim lands worse than one that opens with the limitation.
- A newcomer who matches the room's register is heard, and one who exceeds it is discounted before the content arrives.
- Standing
- A close relative of the Law of Jante; the Dutch version is more often quoted approvingly than as a complaint.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- Proverbs that recur across cultures