Rectitude Quotes - Page 2

• The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Relief, Needs

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.142, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved, its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost.

  David Mamet

  Spiritual, Feelings, Cost

  David Mamet (2011). “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture”, p.53, Penguin

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• Permit me then to recommend from the sincerity of my heart, ready at all times to bleed in my country's cause, a Declaration of Independence, and call upon the world and the Great God who governs it to witness the necessity, propriety and rectitude thereof.

  Nathanael Greene

  Country, Heart, Independence

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• How dare you, unless you can hold up your own life as a model of rectitude, achievement, and halcyon happiness, open your mouth about the stubborn secrets of living?

  Celestine Sibley

  Achievement, Advice, Secret

  Celestine Sibley (1975). “Day by Day with Celestine Sibley”, Doubleday Books

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• O may I join the choir invisible of those immortal dead who live again in minds made better by their presence; live in pulses stirred to generosity, in deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn for miserable aims that end with self, in thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, and with their mild persistence urge men's search to vaster issues.

  George Eliot

  Stars, Persistence, Night

  "Oh May I Join the Choir Invisible" l. 1 (1867)

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• The crossroads where government meets enterprise can be an exciting crossroads. It can also be a corrupt crossroads. It requires moral rectitude to separate public service from private gain.

  David Brooks

  Government, Gains, Moral

  "The Gingrich Tragedy". Article by David Brooks, www.nytimes.com. December 8, 2011.

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• No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Men, America

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.301, Simon and Schuster

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• Liberal education develops a sense of right, duty and honor; and more and more in the modern world, large business rests on rectitude and honor as well as on good judgment.

  Charles William Eliot

  Education, Honor, World

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• No truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration, nor any more fully demonstrated by the experience of all ages, than that a deep sense and a due acknowledgment of the governing providence of a Supreme Being and the accountableness of men to Him as the searcher of hearts and righteous distributor of rewards and punishments are conducive equally to the happiness and rectitude of individuals and to the well being of communities.

  John Adams

  Inspiration, Heart, Men

  John Adams (2015). “The Works of John Adams Vol. 9: Letters and State Papers 1799 - 1811”, p.135, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Anyone who has undergone home repair lately knows that your everyday artisan uses language so loosely and makes false promises so glibly as to make your politicians, even the presidential candidate, seem like a model of accuracy and rectitude. 'Be there Wednesday at nine,' the workman will tell you. It is a lie. He is humoring you. He says it to silence you, the way you tell a child you will take it to Disneyland if it will stop crying.

  Mary McGrory

  Children, Lying, Home

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• Men want to be reminded, who do not want to be taught; because those original ideas of rectitude to which the mind is compelled to assent when they are proposed, are not always as present to us as they ought to be.

  Edmund Burke

  Teaching, Men, Ideas

  Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.2071, Delphi Classics

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• What acquaintance have the people at large with the arena of political rectitude, with the connections of kingdoms, the resources of national strength, the abilities of ministers, or even with their own dispositions?...I pay no regard whatever to the voice of the people: it is their duty to do what is proper, without considering what may be agreeable.

  Charles James Fox

  Voice, People, Political

  "The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume I" edited by J. Wright, (pp. 13-14), 1815.

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• The tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges, that as on one side, no local prejudices, or attachments; no seperate views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests: so, on another, that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality...

  George Washington

  Party, Character, Eye

  George Washington's Inaugural Address, www.archives.gov. April 30, 1789.

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• Just as animal research tells us that gluttony and sloth are side effects of a drive to accumulate body fat, it also says that eating in moderation and being physically active (literally, having the energy to exercise) are not evidence of moral rectitude. Rather, they're the metabolic benefits of a body that's programmed to remain lean.

  Gary Taubes

  Exercise, Animal, Sloth

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• By the laws of rectitude accused Persons, however atrocious their offences, are allowed to make their defence, and by a verdict of a Jury of their Peers, they are either convicted, or acquitted. I have some times thought that we Women are hardly dealt by since strictly speaking, we cannot legally be tried by our Peers, for men are not our Peers, and yet upon their breath our guilt or innocence depends— thus are our privileges in this, as in many other respects tyrannically abridged, and we are forced to yield to necessity.

  Judith Sargent Murray

  Men, Yield, Law

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• Do you know this Sanskrit Shloka: "Let those who are versed in the ethical codes praise or blame, let Lakshmi, the goddess of Fortune, come or go wherever she wisheth, let death overtake him today or after a century, the wise man never swerves from the path of rectitude." Let people praise you or blame you, let fortune smile or frown upon you, let your body fall today or after a Yuga, see that you do not deviate from the path of Truth.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Wise, Fall, Men

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• The obstacles to peace are in the minds and hearts of men.
  In the study of matter we can be honest, impartial, true. That is why we succeed in dealing with it. But about the things we care for — which are ourselves, our desires and lusts, our patriotisms and hates — we find a harder test of thinking straight and truly. Yet there is the greater need. Only by intellectual rectitude and in that field shall we be saved. There is no refuge but in truth, in human intelligence, in the unconquerable mind of man.

  Norman Angell

  Hate, Heart, Men

  Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. June 12, 1935.

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• For those of us who consider ourselves political moderates, life is a dispiriting slog, a sorry mix of rectitude and ineptitude.

  Joe Klein

  Sorry, Political, Ineptitude

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• The crown and glory of life is character. It is the noblest possession of a man, constituting a rank in itself, and an estate in the general good-will; dignifying every station, and exalting every position in society. It exercises a greater power than wealth, and secures all the honor without the jealousies of fame. It carries with it an influence which always tell; for it is the result of proved honor, rectitude, and consistency-qualities which, perhaps more than any other, command the general confidence and respect of mankind.

  Samuel Smiles

  Character, Exercise, Men

  Samuel Smiles (1884). “Happy Homes and the Hearts that Make Them. Or Thrifty People and why They Thrive”

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  I know not whether, in the eyes of the world, a brilliant death is not preferred to an obscure life of rectitude. Most men are remembered as they died, and not as they lived. We gaze with admiration upon the glories of the setting sun, yet scarcely bestow a passing glance upon its noonday splendor.

  Davy Crockett

  Eye, Men, World

  Davy Crockett (1834). “A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett ...”

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• Unskilled in sophistry and new to the darker ways of national politics, Grover Cleveland faced his accusers, his slanderers, and his judges, the sovereign people, conscious of the general rectitude of his life, and courageously determined to bear the burdens of his sins in so far as guilt was his.

  Grover Cleveland

  People, Judging, Guilt

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• There are some who live by every rule and cling tightly to their rectitude because they fear being swept away by a tempest of passion, and there are others who cling to the rules because they fear that there is no passion there at all, and that if they let go they would simply remain where they are, foolish and unmoved; and they could bear that least of all. Living a life of iron control lets them pretend to themselves that only by the mightiest effort of will can they hold great passions at bay.

  Philip Pullman

  Letting Go, Passion, Iron

  Philip Pullman (2009). “The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ”, p.61, Canongate Books

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• Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number than when it is to fall singly upon one.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Fall, Men, Numbers

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.86, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Just as the apparent openness of rectitude will have its hidden places where foul things moulder in the dark, so, in the shadowed lives of those outside the law may sometimes be found concealed honesty and naive ideals.

  William McIlvanney

  Honesty, Dark, Law

  William McIlvanney (2013). “Strange Loyalties (Laidlaw 3)”, p.157, Canongate Books

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• Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to moral rectitude have the slightest notion of what is actually written in it?

  Richard Dawkins

  Inspiration, People, Moral

  "The God Delusion". Book by Richard Dawkins, www.abc.net.au. 2006.

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