Decency Quotes

• Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.

  Pablo Casals

  Courage, Peace, Kindness

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The thin and precarious crust of decency is all that separates any civilization, however impressive, from the hell of anarchy or systematic tyranny which lie in wait beneath the surface .

  Aldous Huxley

  Lying, Civilization, Waiting

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• This is why I say that the individual's most potent weapon is a stubborn belief in the triumph of common decency.

  Paul Rusesabagina

  Common Decency, Triumph, Stubborn

  Paul Rusesabagina (2009). “An Ordinary Man: The True Story Behind Hotel Rwanda”, p.130, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need a prosperity of kindness and decency.

  Caroline Kennedy

  Life, Appreciation, Kindness

  "THE DEMOCRATS: THE KENNEDY FACTOR; 40 Years Later, Invoking Spirit of New Frontier" by Adam Nagourney, www.nytimes.com. August 16, 2000.

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• If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

  Jerry Seinfeld

  Funny, Humor, Be Kind

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• Decency is indecency's conspiracy of silence

  George Bernard Shaw

  Silence, Conspiracy

  'Man and Superman' (1903) 'Maxims: Decency'

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• Morals are private. Decency is public.

  Rita Mae Brown

  Moral, Privacy

  Rita Mae Brown (2011). “Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual”, p.84, Bantam

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• Aspire to decency. Practice civility toward one another. Admire and emulate ethical behavior wherever you find it. Apply a rigid standard of morality to your lives; and if, periodically, you fail ­ as you surely will adjust your lives, not the standards.

  Ted Koppel

  Inspiring, Practice, Morality

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  It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Honesty, Hate

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• God's most lordly gift to man is decency of mind.

  Aeschylus

  Men, Mind

  Aeschylus (2013). “Aeschylus II: The Oresteia”, p.51, University of Chicago Press

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• Ethics, decency and morality are the real soldiers

  Kiran Bedi

  Real, Soldier, Ethics

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• No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.

  Eric Hoffer

  Kindness, Government, Ill Will

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.

  Robert Kennedy

  Eye, Blow, Speaks Out

  Remarks before the Joint Defense Appeal of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith, Chicago, Illinois, June 21, 1961.

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• Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Law

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• Decency and tolerance, to be of any value, must be capable of withstanding the severest strain.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Tolerance, Strain, Withstanding

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• My cares and my inquiries are for decency and truth, and in this I am wholly occupied.

  Horace

  Truth, Inquiry, Care

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• When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.

  Samuel Johnson

  Kindness, Littles, Return

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.95

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• The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Politics, Kind, Individualism

  Theodore Roosevelt (1951). “The Square Deal, 1901-1905”

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• If someone lacked decency or respect, I didn't allow that person to stay in my world.

  Gabrielle Union

  World, Persons, Ifs

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• We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. The closer we get to mass incarceration and extreme levels of punishment, the more I believe it's necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice, and-perhaps-we all need some measure of unmerited grace.

  Bryan Stevenson

  Believe, Compassion, Punishment

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• Some things transcend politics and policy and the lust for power. Truth, honesty, integrity, decency and fairness are immutable values. They are the ethical substance of life. They ought to be cherished. To sell them out is to sell one's soul.

  Michael Short

  Leadership, Honesty, Integrity

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• A better politics is one where we appeal to each other’s basic decency instead of our basest fears.

  Barack Obama

  Appeals

  Sixth Presidential State of the Union Address, delivered 20 January 2015

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• Immodest words admit of no defence, For want of decency is want of sense.

  Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon

  Want, Modesty, Defence

  'Essay on Translated Verse' (1684) l. 113

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• Decency renders all things tolerable.

  Joseph Marie, baron de Gerando

  All Things, Tolerable

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• You must be respectful and assenting, but without being servile and abject. You must be frank, but without indiscretion, and close, without being costive. You must keep up dignity of character, without the least pride of birth, or rank. You must be gay, within all the bounds of decency and respect; and grave, without the affectation of wisdom, which does not become the age of twenty. You must be essentially secret, without being dark and mysterious. You must be firm, and even bold, but with great seeming modesty.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Character, Gay, Dark

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