Deference Quotes

• The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all others, charity.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Positive, Forgiveness, Respect

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• Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.

  William Shenstone

  Compliment, Indirect, Elegant

  William Shenstone (1764). “The Works, in Verse and Prose”, p.254

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• Gentlemen, be courteous to the old maids, no matter how poor and plain and prim, for the only chivalry worth having is that which is the readiest to to pay deference to the old, protect the feeble, and serve womankind, regardless of rank, age, or color.

  Louisa May Alcott

  Color, Gentleman, Age

  Louisa May Alcott (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Louisa May Alcott (Illustrated)”, p.604, Delphi Classics

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• Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Merit, Esteem, Eminence

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• If we wish our civilization to survive we must break with the habit of deference to great men.

  Karl Popper

  Men, Civilization, Wish

  Karl Popper (2012). “The Open Society and its Enemies”, p.33, Routledge

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• Great men always pay deference to greater.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Greatness, Men, Pay

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• People who expect deference resent mere civility.

  Mason Cooley

  People, Civility, Resent

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• A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.

  William Hazlitt

  Self, Gentleman, Return

  William Hazlitt (1845). “Table Talk: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things”

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• Islam in its origins is just as shady and approximate as those from which it took its borrowings. It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or "surrender" as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Teaching, Arrogance, Islam

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.129, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Among well bred people a mutual deference is affected, contempt for others is disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation maintained without vehemence, without interruption, without eagerness for victory, and without any airs of superiority.

  David Hume

  Air, People, Victory

  David Hume (1870). “Essays, Literary, Moral, and Political”, p.463

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  I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.

  William Penn

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind.

  Edward Gibbon

  Plato, School, Exercise

  Edward Gibbon (1840). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1”, p.55

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• Let us not live a life … that would bring regret. … It is not going to matter very much how much money you made, what kind of a house you lived in, what kind of a car you drove, the size of your bank account—any of those things. What is going to matter is that dear woman who has walked with you side by side as your companion through all of the years of life and those children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and their faithfulness and their looking to you … with respect and love and deference and kindness.

  Gordon B. Hinckley

  Children, Kindness, Regret

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• The president's need for complete candor and objectivity from advisers calls for great deference from the courts.

  Warren E. Burger

  Objectivity, President, Needs

  Warren E. Burger (1984). “Significant Supreme Court Opinions of the Honorable Warren E. Burger: Chief Justice of the United States”

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• [F]riends praise your abilities to the skies, submit to you in argument, and seem to have the greatest deference for you; but, though they may ask it, you never find them following your advice upon their own affairs; nor allowing you to manage your own.

  William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

  Sky, Advice, May

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• The disquieting thing about newscaster-babble or editorial-speak is its ready availability as a serf idiom, a vernacular of deference. "Mr. Secretary, are we any nearer to bringing about a dialogue in this process ?

  Christopher Hitchens

  Availability, Speak, Process

  Christopher Hitchens (2014). “For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports”, p.252, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• The feeling of right or wrong is the beginning of wisdom.

  Mencius

  Feelings

  "The Mencius". 2A:6, as translated by Wing-tsit Chan in "A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy", p. 65, 1963.

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• Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.

  William Shenstone

  Doe, Intimacy, Sensitive

  William Shenstone (1764). “The Works in Verse and Prose, of William Shenstone, Esq;: Essays on men, manners, and things. A description of The Leasowes, the seat of the late William Shenstone, Esq. Verses to Mr. Shenstone”, p.207

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• [God] arranged that the boy Samuel should be chosen but instead of teaching him directly He had him, turn once or twice to an old man. This youngster, to whom He had granted a direct encounter with Himself, had nevertheless to go for instruction to someone who had offended God, and all because that person was an old man. He decided that Samuel was most worthy of a high calling and yet He made him submit to the guidance of an old man so that once summoned to a divine ministry he might learn humility and might himself become for all the young a model of deference.

  John Cassian

  Christian, Teaching, Humility

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• The death of deference seems to be general at the moment, so everybody has to earn their reputation and trust all over again. You don't just get it by virtue of being a professor or a politician or anybody else.

  Duncan Green

  Reputation, Moments, Politician

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• The bonds between ourselves and another person exists only in our minds. Memory as it grows fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we want to be duped and which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we dupe other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.

  Marcel Proust

  Memories, Lying, Men

  Marcel Proust (2010). “In Search Of Lost Time, Vol 5: The Captive & The Fugitive”, p.515, Random House

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• The Superior Man has nothing to compete for. But if he must compete, he does it in an archery match, wherein he ascends to his position, bowing in deference. Descending, he drinks the ritual cup.

  Confucius

  Character, Men, Archery

  "The Analects". Book by Confucius,

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• The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Wish, Desire

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2006). “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, p.59, Penguin UK

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• It is superfluous to try by the standards of theory, a part of the constitution which is allowed on all hands to be the result not of theory, but "of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable" . . . the equal vote allowed to each state, is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual states, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty.

  James Madison

  Hands, Political, Trying

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• The condition of leadership adds new degrees of solitariness to the basic solitude of mankind. Every order that we issue increases the extent to which we are alone, and every show of deference which is extended to us separates us from our fellows.

  Thornton Wilder

  Leadership, Order, Issues

  Thornton Wilder (1987). “The ides of March”, HarperCollins

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