Indignity Quotes - Page 3

• Ridiculous to think what indignities I would suffer in silence, if I knew that I was to be rewarded with an oversize bucket of hot water," the magus said as he settled into the bath the servants had filled for him.

  Megan Whalen Turner

  Thinking, Water, Silence

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• We now undertake that we cannot rest while millions of our people suffer the pain and indignity of poverty in all its forms.

  Nelson Mandela

  Pain, People, Suffering

  Nelson Mandela (2003). “Nelson Mandela: from freedom to the future : tributes and speeches”, Jonathan Ball Publishers

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• What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to p*ss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?

  Steve Buscemi

  Retirement, Years, Office

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• To live in poverty is to live with constant uncertainty, to accept galling indignities, and to expect harassment by the police, welfare officials and employers, as well as by others who are poor and desperate.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Expectations, Police, Poverty

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1989). “FEAR OF FALLING”, Pantheon

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• There is dignity in your being even if there's indignity in what you're doing.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Dignity, Ifs

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• I remember nothing of this, no ambulance rides, nothing. Nothing between switching out the bedside lamp and the sudden indignity of rebirth: the slaps, the brightness, the tubing, the speed, the urgent insistence that I be choked back into breathing life. I have felt so sorry for babies ever since.

  Stephen Fry

  Baby, Sorry, Breathing Life

  Stephen Fry (1997). “Moab is My Washpot”, Random House (UK)

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• I take comfort that aging happens to everybody. It's part of life. Aging offers great lessons in dignity, since the indignity wins in the end. Yes, it bothers me when I have lines or puffiness or droops. But it connects me with the human race. Like weather bringing people together, aging brings people together.

  Diane Lane

  Winning, Race, Weather

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• It seems quite proper to fear achievement, which, after all, is proof that you've successfully moved an experience from the delightfully anticipated future into the forever and sadly lost past. Avoid as long as you can the ultimate indignity: a lifetime achievement award.

  Terry Rossio

  Past, Awards, Long

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• The indignity of it!-
  With everything blooming above me,
  Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses,
  Whole fields lovely and inviolate,-
  Me down in the fetor of weeds,
  Crawling on all fours,
  Alive, in a slippery grave.

  Theodore Roethke

  Weed, Rose, Lovely

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.71, Anchor

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• Of the many things we have done to democracy in the past, the worst has been the indignity of taking it for granted.

  Max Lerner

  Past, Democracy, Done

  Max Lerner (1939). “It is Later Than You Think: The Need for a Militant Democracy”, p.87, Transaction Publishers

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• Boredom is the keynote of poverty - of all its indignities, it is perhaps the hardest of all to live with - for where there is no money there is no change of any kind.

  Moss Hart

  Boredom, Poverty, Kind

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• It is a dear and lovely disposition, and a most valuable one, that can brush away indignities and discourtesies and seek and find the pleasanter features of an experience.

  Mark Twain

  Optimistic, Lovely, Disposition

  Mark Twain (2010). “Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review”, p.62, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• I can spare a dime, brother, but in these morally inflationary times, a dime goes a lot farther if it's demanding work rather than adding to the indignity of relief.

  Phil Ochs

  Brother, Relief, Dimes

  Interview with Michael Ross, 1969.

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• Up with life. Stamp out all small and large indignities. Leave everyone alone to make it without pressure. Down with hurting. Lower the standard of living. Do without plastics. Smash the servo-mechanisms. Stop grabbing. Snuff the breeze and hug the kids. Love all love. Hate all hate.

  John D. MacDonald

  Hurt, Hate, Kids

  JOHN D. MACDONALD (1971). “A TAN AND SANDY SILENCE”

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• [Humans'] capacity to intervene, to compare, to judge, to decide, to choose, to desist makes them capable of acts of greatness, of dignity, and, at the same time, of the unthinkable in terms of indignity.

  Paulo Freire

  Greatness, Judging, Dignity

  Paulo Freire (2000). “Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage”, p.53, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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• No day-to-day mishaps or indignities can really compromise your sense of self after you've survived a deep tragedy.

  Kelsey Grammer

  Grief, Loss, Self

  "Kelsey Grammer: What I've Learned" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. December 15, 2009.

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• What you accomplish in life is limited only by your imagination and the fear of reprisal. Life is too fleeting and unrewarding to have to live with the added anus of indignity. The denial of one's inevitable demise is what causes most of the astringent blandness in the world. When your existence ends most certainly in death, there is no such thing as 'going too far'. There are no 'lines' you should fear to cross except the finish line. Playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you could do.

  Jim Goad

  Imagination, Playing It Safe, Fleeting

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• There are real indignities and real problems when all facets of life are controlled –when to get up, to eat, to shower-and chemicals are put inside our bodies against our will.

  Judi Chamberlin

  Real, Body, Problem

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• The problem was money and the indignities of life without it. Every stroller, cell phone, Yankees cap, and SUV he saw was a torment. He wasn't covetous, he wasn't envious. But without money he was hardly a man.

  Jonathan Franzen

  Men, Phones, Cells

  Jonathan Franzen (2001). “The Corrections: A Novel”, p.105, Macmillan

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• Later on Lady Maccon was to describe that particular day as the worst of her life. She had neither the soul nor the romanticism to consider childbirth magical or emotionally transporting. So far as she could gather it mostly involved pain indignity and mess. There was nothing engaging or appealing about the process. And as she told her husband firmly she intended never to go through it again.

  Gail Carriger

  Pain, Husband, Soul

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• If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is. Each must find out for himself, and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes. If he succeeds he will continue to grow in spite of all indignities.

  Gordon Allport

  Adversity, Responsibility, Men

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• Lord, please restore to us the comfort of merit and demerit. Show us that there is at least something we can do. Tell us that at the end of the day there will at least be one redeeming card of our very own. Lord, if it is not too much to ask, send us to bed with a few shreds of self-respect upon which we can congratulate ourselves. But whatever you do, do not preach grace. Give us something to do, anything; but spare us the indignity of this indiscriminate acceptance.

  Robert Farrar Capon

  Acceptance, Self, Giving

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• It's not the cost (although that pinches), or the time (though that grinds). After a while, it's the sheer galling indignity of being asked to prove, pay, and prove all over again that you're a worthy parent. Any true parent will tell you that that is impossible to prove in advance.

  Scott Simon

  Parent, Cost, Pay

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• Justice has often been forged from fires of indignities and prejudices suffered. Our triumphs that celebrate the freedom of choice are hallowed. We have arrived upon another moment in history when 'We the People' becomes more inclusive, and our freedom more perfect.

  Arenda L. Wright Allen

  Gay, Fire, People

  "Read the Incredibly Moving Opinion From the Judge Who Just Struck Down Virginia’s Gay-Marriage Ban" by Mariah Blake, www.motherjones.com. February 14, 2014.

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• To the proud the slightest repulse or disappointment is the last indignity.

  William Hazlitt

  Disappointment, Proud, Lasts

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.473

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