Men are respectable only as they respect.
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
I don't know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it's enough to make one's flesh creep.
I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.
Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.
Unless you give yourself to some great cause you haven't even begun to live.
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.
Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.
I do assure you, Sir, that I have no pretension whatever of that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.
A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.
Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man.
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.
For the greatest fool and rascal in creation there is yet a worse condition; and that is, not to know it, but to think himself a respectable man.
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.
The people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they're the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals.
I think you'll have to marry me, Miss Fielding." "To save your reputation?" Derek grinned, bending to kiss the flash of pale throat revealed by the robe. "Someone has to make a respectable man of me.
I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidatesas the only available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been bought.
A respectable man may love madly, but not foolishly.
Reviewing the day's lessons. Isn't it joyful? Friends come from far. Isn't it delightful? One has never been angry at other's misunderstanding. Isn't he a respectable man?
or simply:
