Idiom evoking hard work yet modest

[nq:1]Hello! I need an idiom which evokes the meaning of a person who works hard and is very serious, yet remains unpretentious and modest.[/nq]
"conscientious" covers the first part, but you'd have to add "modest" to bring in the second meanings.
"industrious" comes close, but you could be industrious and flamboyant at the same time.
How about "punctilious"? This has a hint of complet

[nq:2]Hello! I need an idiom which evokes the meaning of a person who works hard and is very serious, yet remains unpretentious and modest.[/nq]
[nq:1]"conscientious" covers the first part, but you'd have to add "modest" to bring in the second meanings. "industrious" comes close, ... The word evokes a clerk sitting at a desk with a pen and paper, carefully and quietly doing his job.[/nq]
T

[nq:1]Hello! I need an idiom which evokes the meaning of a person who works hard and is very serious, yet remains unpretentious and modest. thanks in advance,[/nq]
'British to the core'

John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply

In our last episode,
,
the lovely and talented andrew
broadcast on alt.usage.english:
[nq:2]"conscientious" covers the first part, but you'd have to add ... a pen and paper, carefully and quietly doing his job.[/nq]
[nq:1]Those are adjectives not idioms.[/nq]
And so is "earnest," which is what comes to my mind immediately, but which admittedly doesn't quite cover the requir

[nq:1]I need an idiom which evokes the meaning of a person who works hard and is very serious, yet remains unpretentious and modest.[/nq]
sedulous as a bee? assiduous as an ant?

[nq:1]I need an idiom which evokes the meaning of a person who works hard and is very serious, yet remains unpretentious and modest.[/nq]
I think "salt of the earth" has the connotations you want.

-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom

[nq:2]I need an idiom which evokes the meaning of a person who works hard and is very serious, yet remains unpretentious and modest.[/nq]
[nq:1]I think "salt of the earth" has the connotations you want.[/nq]
That doesn't give me any sense of working hard (or at all) - it just means a jolly good fellow.

David
==

david56 filted:
[nq:2]I think "salt of the earth" has the connotations you want.[/nq]
[nq:1]That doesn't give me any sense of working hard (or at all) - it just means a jolly good fellow.[/nq]
For me it also evokes Rome salting the ground at Carthage..r

[nq:1]I need an idiom which evokes the meaning of a person who works hard and is very serious, yet remains unpretentious and modest.[/nq]
If your readers know Orwell's book Animal
Farm, call this person Boxer.

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)

[nq:2]I think "salt of the earth" has the connotations you want.[/nq]
[nq:1]That doesn't give me any sense of working hard (or at all) - it just means a jolly good fellow.[/nq]
The origin of the phrase is Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. According to the Gospel of Matthew, he says to his followers, mainly fishermen and other simple working people, "Ye are the salt of the Earth." These people w