Respectable Quotes - Page 15

• An honest, sensible, humane man, . . . laboring to do good rather than be rich, to be useful rather than make a show, living in modest simplicity . . . is really the most respectable man in society, [and] makes himself and all about him most happy.

  John Adams

  Money, Men, Simplicity

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• I felt early on I wasn't going to be a respectable citizen.

  Cormac McCarthy

  House, Citizens, Felt

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• Let us hold fast the great truth, that communities are responsible, as well as individuals; that no government is respectable which is not just. Without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society.

  Daniel Webster

  Government, Law, Giving

  Daniel Webster, Edwin Percy Whipple (2001). “The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster”, p.150, Beard Books

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• It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.

  Samuel Butler

  Wise, Father, Pregnancy

  Samuel Butler (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)”, p.4176, Delphi Classics

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• I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself.

  Tom Stoppard

  Writing, Play, Way

  Tom Stoppard, Paul Delaney (1994). “Tom Stoppard in Conversation”, p.49, University of Michigan Press

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• Daydreaming with pencil and paper is a respectable form of meditation.

  John Howe

  Drawing, Meditation, Paper

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• No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.

  James Madison

  Government, Order, Long

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2003). “The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus”, p.305, Cambridge University Press

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• I dont see why people are so snooty about Channel Five. It has some respectable documentaries about the Second World War. It also devotes considerable airtime to investigations into lap-dancing, and other related and vital subjects

  Boris Johnson

  War, Dancing, People

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• It startled him even more when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smart-ass.

  Douglas Adams

  Smart, Science, Lynching

  Douglas Adams (2009). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.57, Pan Macmillan

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• Translating is a respectable, valuable, creative and worthwhile use of a human brain.

  David Bellos

  Creative, Brain, Use

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• The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Art, Ymca, World

  Prejudices, First Series ch. 16 (1919)

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• I'm a relatively respectable citizen. Multiple felon perhaps, but certainly not dangerous.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Epic, Fear And Loathing, Citizens

  "Fictional character: Raoul Duke". "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", www.imdb.com. 1998.

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  A respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul

  Karl Lagerfeld

  Fashion, People, Soul

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• The straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man.

  Victor Hugo

  Men, Lines, Optical Illusions

  Victor Hugo (2010). “The Works of Victor Hugo”, p.1969, BookCaps Study Guides

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• There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have relinquished belief only with regret. To this I reply: who wishes that there was a permanent, unalterable celestial despotism that subjected us to continual surveillance and could convict us of thought-crime, and who regarded us as its private property even after we died? How happy we ought to be, at the reflection that there exists not a shred of respectable evidence to support such a horrible hypothesis.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Regret, Reflection

  Christopher Hitchens (2007). “The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever”, p.17, Hachette UK

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• When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.

  Oscar Wilde

  Respect, Men, Names

  Oscar Wilde (2014). “Epigrams and Aphorisms”, p.57, BoD – Books on Demand

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• Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. ... Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Law, Long, People

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• I trust and believe that the time spent in this voyage ... will produce its full worth in Natural History; and it appears to me the doing what little we can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue.

  Charles Darwin

  Believe, Knowledge, Science

  Charles Darwin (1902). “Charles Darwin: His Life in an Autobiographical Chapter and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters”, p.267, Library of Alexandria

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• To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist; he must abandon the subjective line; he must know that dungheaps play a very respectable part in a landscape, and that evil passions are as inherent in life as good ones.

  Anton Chekhov

  Passion, Writing, Play

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• Respectable men and women content with the good and easy living are missing some of the most important things in life. Unless you give yourself to some great cause you haven't even begun to live.

  William P. Merrill

  Life, Men, Giving

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• One thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.

  George MacDonald

  Spiritual, Passion, Selfishness

  George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.2664, Delphi Classics

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• Architecture is a discipline that takes time and patience. If one spends enough years writing complex novels one might be able, someday, to construct a respectable haiku.

  Thom Mayne

  Patience, Time, Writing

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• You must be respectable, if you will be respected.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Ifs

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.197, Oxford University Press

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• A gathering of Democrats is more sweaty, disorderly, offhand, and rowdy than a gathering of Republicans; it is also likely to be more cheerful, imaginative, tolerant of dissent, and skillful at the game of give-and-take. A gathering of Republicans is more respectable, sober, purposeful, and businesslike than a gathering of Democrats; it is also likely to be more self-righteous, pompous, cut-and-dried, and just plain boring.

  Clinton Rossiter

  Cutting, Self, Games

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• The rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families.

  George Eliot

  Gout, Rich, Accepting

  George Eliot (2014). “Silas Marner”, p.18, Lulu Press, Inc

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