Decency Quotes - Page 4

• Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Agency, Government

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• Too great a display of delicacy can and does sometimes infringe upon de-cency.

  Honore de Balzac

  Doe, Delicacy, Sometimes

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• September 11 was, and remains, above all an immense human tragedy. But September 11 also posed a momentous and deliberate challenge not just to America but to the world at large. The target of the terrorists was not only New York and Washington but the very values of freedom, tolerance and decency which underpin our way of life.

  Tony Blair

  New York, America, Challenges

  "Attacks Remembered: In quotes". news.bbc.co.uk. September 11, 2002.

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• ...I believe deeply that we canot solve the challenges of your time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have differnt stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren. This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people.

  Barack Obama

  Hope, Children, Believe

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• Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish.

  Thurgood Marshall

  Freedom, Democracy, Today

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• A woman without a degree of decency and delicacy is unsexed.

  Charlotte Mary Yonge

  Degrees, Delicacy

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• Our concern for human rights comes to the fore when there are gross violations of human decencies. Then other countries, including China, must recognize that this affects the American attitude towards their country. But towards what precise institutions will it evolve? I think we ought to leave something to history.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Country, Attitude, Thinking

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. Our moral sense dictates a clearcut preference for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights. We do not seek to intimidate, but it is clear that a world which others can dominate with impunity would be inhospitable to decency and a threat to the well-being of all people.

  Jimmy Carter

  Freedom, Fate, Rights

  Jimmy Carter's Inaugural Address, January 20, 1977.

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• That survival instinct, that will to live, that need to get back to life again, is more powerful than any consideration of taste, decency, politeness, manners, civility. Anything. It's such a powerful force.

  Danny Boyle

  Powerful, Survival, Needs

  "127 Hours: Director Danny Boyle Says You’d Cut Your Hand Off, Too". Interview with Mary Anne Potts, adventureblog.nationalgeographic.com. November 4, 2010.

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• A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her.

  W. C. Fields

  Funny, Drinking, Book

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• If once a woman breaks through the barriers of decency, her ease is desperate; and if she goes greater lengths than the men, and leaves the pale of propriety farther behind her, it is because she is aware that all return is prohibited, and by none so strongly as by her own sex.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Sex, Men, Break Through

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• The way Trump talks about Obama: presidents don't do that! What we're seeing now is a whole new level of vulgarity. I'm really hoping that it's not the rule from here on out. It's really distressing for me to witness this. I really hope we don't have to throw all decency out the window, just because Trump's president.

  David Sedaris

  President, Window, Witness

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• There's no dignity, no decency, or health today for men that haven't got a job. All other things depend on work today.

  Nevil Shute

  Jobs, Men, Today

  Nevil Shute (1991). “Ruined City”

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• The difference between smartphones and cigarettes is this: a cigarette robs 10 minutes from your lifespan, but at least has the decency to wait and withdraw all that time in bulk as you near the end of your life - whereas a smartphone steals your time in the present moment, by degrees. Five minutes here. Five minutes there. Then you look up and you're 85 years old.

  Charlie Brooker

  Years, Differences, Smartphones

  "Apple's software updates are like changing the water in a fish tank. I'd rather let the fish die" by Charlie Brooker, www.theguardian.com. September 22, 2014.

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• I am inspired by my mother's faith and the teaching I receive under the leadership of Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer. I am also inspired by hard work and powerful people who have maintained a sense of integrity, decency, and kindness. Love really inspires me.

  Erica Tazel

  Mother, Powerful, Kindness

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• The basic goal of labor will not change. It is - as it has always been, and I am sure always will be - to better the standards of life for all who work for wages and to seek decency and justice and dignity for all Americans.

  George Meany

  Dignity Of Work, Justice, Goal

  Archie Robinson, George Meany (1981). “George Meany and his times: a biography”, Simon & Schuster

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

  Susan Andersen

  Nice, Say Anything, Vague

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• Honesty is nothin' compared to decency.

  Jackie Mason

  Honesty

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• The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies.

  William Faulkner

  Mother, Dream, Art

  In Paris Review Spring 1956, p. 30

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• The common bond of humanity and decency that we share is stronger than any conflict, any adversity. Fighting for your convictions is important. But finding peace is paramount. Knowing when to fight and when to seek peace is wisdom. Ubuntu was right.

  Wes Moore

  Adversity, Fighting, Ubuntu

  Wes Moore (2010). “The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates”, p.168, Spiegel & Grau

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• Personally, I'm tired of hearing the whole have-you-no-decency routine from people who have made quite clear that they possess none themselves.

  Glenn Reynolds

  Tired, People, Political

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• The more our feelings diverge, the more deeply felt they are, the greater is our obligation to grant the sincerity and essential decency of our fellow citizens on the other side.

  Edward Kennedy

  Feelings, Essentials, Citizens

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• The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. Its evil effects must be plain enough to everyone. All it accomplishes is (a) to throw a veil of sanctity about ideas that violate every intellectual decency, and (b) to make every theologian a sort of chartered libertine. No doubt it is mainly to blame for the appalling slowness with which really sound notions make their way in the world.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religious, Ideas, Evil

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.80, Vintage

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• To go fishing is the chance to wash one's soul with pure air, with the rush of the brook, or with the shimmer of sun on blue water. It brings meekness and inspiration from the decency of nature, charity toward tackle-makers, patience toward fish, a mockery of profits and egos, a quieting of hate, a rejoicing that you do not have to decide a darned thing until next week. And it is discipline in the equality of men - for all men are equal before fish.

  Herbert Hoover

  Hate, Inspiration, Men

  Herbert Hoover (1946). “Addresses Upon the Road: World War II, 1941-1945”

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• To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self-congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes.

  Clifford Geertz

  Life, Nature, Congratulations

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