Respectable Quotes - Page 9

• People pay all that money to sit in a chair in the theater mainly because it is a respectable way to see and experience things they cannot see and experience in their own lives.

  Elizabeth Ashley

  People, Pay, Way

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• Hell is both sides of the tomb, and a devil may be respectable and wear good clothes.

  Charles Henry Parkhurst

  Clothes, Devil, May

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• Fortune has dealt with me rather too well. I have known little struggle, not much poverty, many generosities. Now and then I have, for my books or myself, been somewhat warmly denounced -- there was one good pastor in California who upon reading my Elmer Gantry desired to lead a mob and lynch me, while another holy man in the state of Maine wondered if there was no respectable and righteous way of putting me in jail.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Reading, Struggle, Book

  Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Sinclair Lewis (1931). “Why Sinclair Lewis got the Nobel prize”

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• I have always liked reading biographies. It is the ideal literary genre for someone too prim, like me, to acknowledge a gossipy interest in the living - don't you hate gossips, aren't they too awful? - but avid for any nuggets from the private lives of the dead because that is perfectly respectable, an altogether worthy and informative way of spending one's time.

  Jill Tweedie

  Hate, Reading, Avid

  Jill Tweedie (1980). “It's only me: pieces from a column”, Robson Books Limited

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• Nail up some indecency in plain sight over your door; from that time forward you will be rid of all respectable people,the most insupportable folk God has created.

  Paul Gauguin

  Doors, Sight, People

  Paul Gauguin (1985). “The Intimate Journals of Paul Gauguin”, p.3, Routledge

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• Since the Greeks the predominant attitude of thinkers towards intellectual activity was to glorify it insofar as (like aesthetic activity) it finds its satisfaction in itself, apart from any attention to the advantages it may procure. Most thinkers would have agreed with Renan's verdict that the man who loves science for its fruits commits the worst of blasphemies against that divinity. The modern clercs have violently torn up this charter. They proclaim the intellectual functions are only respectable to the extent that they are bound up with the pursuit of concrete advantage.

  Julien Benda

  Attitude, Men, Greek

  "Treason of the Intellectuals". Book by Julien Benda, pp. 151-152, 1927.

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• I'm so respectable I'm getting scared ... I must be doing something wrong.

  Malvina Reynolds

  Scared

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• Backup dancers are completely respectable. They're the studio musicians of dance.

  Mike Birbiglia

  Dancer, Musician, Backup

  "Mike Birbiglia Talks About 'I'm In The Future Also' Tour". Washington Post Live Q&A, www.washingtonpost.com. October 07, 2009.

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• there is that wish, in the name of democracy, to level down, because high cultural standards are despised and rejected, and even feared, in our Western Democracies. Don't let anyone else have what I've not got, or can't enjoy! - is the secret theory. A very large number of writers in the British and American popular press profess to be preaching democracy when in fact they are only trying to make envy respectable!

  Ann Bridge

  Numbers, Names, Envy

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• Sometimes I ask myself if writing novels is even respectable.

  Lorrie Moore

  Writing, Sometimes, Novel

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• I think we ought to decide that man-hating is not only respectable but honorable. To be a misandrist a woman needs considerable ingenuity, originality, and resilience. A misogynist requires no such resources.

  Joanna Russ

  Hate, Men, Thinking

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• In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and manufactures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their subsistence from the dexterity or labour of their hands, are commonly the most prolific, the most useful, and, in that sense, the most respectable part of the community.

  Edward Gibbon

  Hands, Cities, History

  Edward Gibbon (1846). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.113

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• [The English] find ill-health not only interesting but respectable and often experience death in the effort to avoid a fuss.

  Pamela Frankau

  Ill Health, Interesting, Effort

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• It appears to me that our sex is only discussed publicly in a derogatory manner. The respectable woman is doomed to anonymity.

  Karen Essex

  Sex, Derogatory, Doomed

  Karen Essex (2008). “Stealing Athena: A Novel”, p.146, Anchor

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• One, I have a wonderful publisher, Black Sparrow Press; as long as they exist, they will keep me in print. And they claim they sell very respectable numbers of my books, so I guess, and it's true, every place I go, my books are in libraries and on bookshelves.

  Diane Wakoski

  Book, Numbers, Long

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• Greenwich Village always had its share of mind readers, but there are many more these days, and they seem to have moved closer to the mainstream of life in the city. What was crazy 10 years ago is now respectable, even among the best-educated New Yorkers.

  Aravind Adiga

  Crazy, Years, Cities

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• Artists put as much vitality and delight into their saintliness and escape out as most men do their escapes into similar places from respectable existence.

  Wyndham Lewis

  Artist, Men, Vitality

  Wyndham Lewis (1914). “Blast”, Kraus Reprint Corp.

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• My father didn't think being an artist was a respectable or worthy goal for a man. He hoped I would see my way to more serious work and would find myself turning towards medicine, law, or business.

  Richard Diebenkorn

  Father, Men, Thinking

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• There's no way in the world you're going to make a political party respectable unless you keep it out of office.

  Will Rogers

  Party, Office, Political

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• I used to think that once a writer became a man of letters, if only for a half hour, he was done for. And here I am now, at the very moment of such an odious, though respectable, danger.

  Dylan Thomas

  Men, Thinking, Here I Am

  Dylan Thomas (1968). “Quite Early One Morning”, p.113, New Directions Publishing

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• Claiming my right to follow whethersoever science should lead... it is as respectable to be modified monkey as modified dirt.

  Thomas Huxley

  Respect, Thinking, Monkeys

  "Huxley: From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest". Book by Adrian Desmond (p. 253), 1994.

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• There is a certain cowardice, a certain weakness, rather, among respectable folk. Only brigands are convinced-of what? That they must succeed. And so they do succeed.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Inspirational, Weakness, Succeed

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• But I intend to make you respectable.

  Elizabeth Hoyt

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• Gambling has held human beings in thrall for millennia. It has been engaged in everywhere, from the dregs of society to the most respectable circles.

  Peter L. Bernstein

  Gambling, Circles, Dregs

  Peter L. Bernstein (2012). “Peter L. Bernstein Classics Collection: Capital Ideas, Against the Gods, The Power of Gold and Capital Ideas Evolving”, p.321, John Wiley & Sons

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• There is yet another illusion, that it is important to be respectable, to be loved and appreciated, to be important. Many say we have a natural urge to be loved and appreciated, to belong. That’s false. Drop this illusion and you will find happiness. We have a natural urge to be free, a natural urge to love, but not to be loved.

  Anthony de Mello

  Important, Finding Happiness, Appreciated

  Anthony De Mello (2011). “Awareness: Conversations with the Masters”, p.112, Image

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