Modesty and unselfishness - these are virtues which men praise - and pass by.

Maurois’s aphorism points to a common social hypocrisy: people publicly admire modesty and selflessness as ideals, yet in practice they often reward visibility, assertiveness, and self-promotion. The dash creates a pause that mimics a moral inventory—these are the virtues everyone claims to value—followed by the sting in the tail: they are “praised” in words but “passed by” in action. The line can be read as both a critique of society’s incentive structures and a warning to the virtuous that moral worth does not guarantee recognition. It also suggests that genuine modesty may be structurally disadvantaged because it does not advertise itself.