Decency Quotes - Page 9

• If you must commit suicide ... always contrive to do it as decorously as possible; the decencies, whether of life or of death, should never be lost sight of.

  George Henry Borrow

  Suicide, Suicidal, Sight

  Lavengro Ch. XXIII

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• The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty- four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the sun revolves....Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it.

  Philipp Melanchthon

  Honesty, Moving, Eye

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• The death penalty exacts a terrible price in dollars, lives and human decency. Rather than tamping down the flames of violence, it fuels them while draining millions of dollars from more promising efforts to restore safety to our lives.

  Robert M. Morgenthau

  Flames, Safety, Effort

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• A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency - issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights - the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared with those who describe themselves as very religious.

  Gregory S. Paul

  Religious, Atheist, Children

  "Why do Americans still dislike atheists?". www.washingtonpost.com. April 29, 2011.

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• I had wished to find in philosophy and religion a remedy for my disgrace; I searched out an asylum to secure me from love... duty, reason and decency, which upon other occasions have some power over me, are here useless. The Gospel is a language I do not understand when it opposes my passion... but when love has once been sincere how difficult it is to determine to love no more! 'Tis a thousand times more easy to renounce the world than love. I hate this deceitful, faithless world; I think no more of it.

  Peter Abelard

  Love, Hate, Philosophy

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• As for plenty, we had not only for necessity, conveniency and decency, but for delight and pleasure to superfluity.

  Margaret Cavendish

  Delight, Pleasure, Plenty

  Margaret Cavendish (2000). “Paper Bodies: A Margaret Cavendish Reader”, p.42, Broadview Press

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• There are those without decency who must be fought without hesitation, without pity.

  Henri

  Pity, Hesitation

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• I respect a person that has had to fight and howl for his decency.

  Tennessee Williams

  Fighting, Howl, Persons

  Tennessee Williams (2009). “The Night of the Iguana”, p.105, New Directions Publishing

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• Western civilization, Christianity, decency are struggling for their very lives. In this worldwide civil war, race prejudice is our most dangerous enemy, for it is a disease at the very root of our democratic life.

  Mordecai

  War, Struggle, Race

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• I love our shared island, our shared Ireland and its core decency. I love it for its imagination and its celebration of the endless possibilities for our people.

  Michael D. Higgins

  Islands, People, Imagination

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The International Brigade was not formed to protect freedom and democracy. It was founded as a tool of of the Comintern, to promote the interests of the Soviet Union - and thereby of Joseph Stalin, the butcher of millions. It made political sense for the International Brigade to recruit non-communists - useful fools was what Lenin had called such people in an earlier manipulation of gullible decency - but of course most were then vetted by the NKVD, the Soviet Union's secret police.

  Kevin Myers

  War, People, Political

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• The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of human beings as things, as the mere instruments of power and ambition, is without a doubt the consequence of the decay of the belief in man as something more than an animal animated by highly conditioned reflexes and chemical reactions. For, unless man is something more than that, he has no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and there are no limitations upon his conduct which he is bound to obey.

  Walter Lippmann

  Ambition, Men, Animal

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.129, Harvard University Press

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• In other words, it was a struggle with himself. And the product of that struggle: anger, bitterness, resentment, envy or transformation, aspiration, hope, decency..the product of that struggle is the quality of your life and the nature of your soul.

  Emma Forrest

  Struggle, Envy, Soul

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• Until a few months ago we had a code of honor, and even the worst ruffians behaved with decency. You could leave your gold in a tent with no guard and no one would touch it, but now all that has changed. The law of the jungle rules, the only ideology is greed. Don't let yourself be parted from your weapons, and always travel in pairs or groups, because this is a land of thieves.

  Isabel Allende

  Law, Land, Greed

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• How shall Integrity face Oppression? What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception, Decency in the face of Insult, Self-Defense before Blows? How shall Desert and Accomplishment meet Despising, Detraction, and Lies? What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force? There are so many answers and so contradictory; and such differences for those on the one hand who meet questions similar to this once a year or once a decade, and those who face them hourly and daily.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Honesty, Integrity, Lying

  "The Ordeal of Mansart". Book by W. E. B. Du Bois, 1957.

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• Call it the Absolute, the Ideal, Perfection, Sanctity, Decency, or what you will, but strive toward it or you will smother in the morass.

  Austin O'Malley

  Perfection, Strive, Sanctity

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• You should have had the decency to die when you needed to." “Sorry,” I admitted. “I’ve been going through a bit of a rebellious streak. I swear it’s almost over.

  Ally Carter

  Sorry, Should Have, Almost Over

  Ally Carter (2013). “Gallagher Girls: United We Spy”, p.14, Hachette UK

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• Why only hate? Where does love remain? Or at least a little decency toward other people?

  Friedrich Kellner

  Life, Hate, People

  Friedrich Kellner (2017). “My Opposition”, p.65, Cambridge University Press

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• I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, "Please - a little less love, and a little more common decency."

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Life, Breakup, Fighting

  Kurt Vonnegut (2010). “Slapstick or Lonesome No More”, p.2, Random House

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• For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs-as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

  Charles Darwin

  Dog, Sacrifice, Order

  The Descent of Man ch. 21 (1871)

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• Comforts that were rare among our forefathers are now multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed, nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air, space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably cheap imitation of it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Air, Space, Long

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• Crowds can be frightening. They have a way of impressing the low, base taste upon their members. Watching the way thousands of people in his audience could not think for themselves, could not find the courage to allow their ordinary feelings of decency and taste to prevail, I understood better how demagogues are possible.

  Roger Ebert

  Thinking, People, Feelings

  Roger Ebert (2013). “I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie”, p.110, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• If men pride themselves on the fact that Jesus Christ was born of their sex, the answer is that this was necessary for the sake of decency, for if he had been a woman, it would have been impossible for Jesus to go out at all hours of the day and the night and mingle with the crowds to convert them and to help and save mankind, without creating a scandal.

  Marie de Gournay

  Jesus, Sex, Pride

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• Culture is the greatest barrier to your enlightenment, your education, and your decency.

  Terence McKenna

  Enlightenment, Culture, Barriers

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• Decency, not to dare to do that in public which it is decent enough to do in private.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Enough, Dare, Decent

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.613, 谷月社

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