Decent Life Quotes

• In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice.

  Nelson Mandela

  Hunger And Poverty, Hunger Poverty, Justice

  Twitter post from Jan 21, 2016

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  Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life . . .

  Nelson Mandela

  Justice, Overcoming, Fundamentals

  Nelson Mandela (2012). “Notes to the Future: Words of Wisdom”, p.141, Simon and Schuster

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• Can we really believe that we are living a good life, an ethically decent life if we don't do anything serious to help reduce poverty around the world and help save the lives of children or adults who are likely to die if we don't increase the amount of aid we are giving.

  Peter Singer

  Children, Good Life, Believe

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• Income inequality has no necessary connection with poverty, the lack of material resources for a decent life, such as adequate food, shelter, and clothing. A society with great income inequality may have no poor people, and a society with no income inequality may have nothing but poor people.

  Robert Higgs

  People, Connections, Income

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• I decided that I was ready to assume this position when I discovered that the chance to save the country was very meager. I was prepared to sacrifice myself for this country and its 90 million people. They want food, fuel and electricity and yearn for a decent life. Any president who does not pay attention to such details or is unable to provide the minimum level of stability should leave office.

  Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

  Country, Sacrifice, People

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• There is not way that you can have a decent life as a man if you aren't awake and aware every moment. Show up for your own life. Don't pass your days in a stupor, content to swallow whatever watery ideas modern society may bottle feed you through the media, satisfied to slumber through life in an instant gratification sugar coma. The most extraordinary gift you've been given is your own humanity, which is about consciousness. So honor that consciousness.

  Eustace Conway

  Men, Media, Ideas

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• If there is a God, you owe him far more than a morally decent life.

  Timothy Keller

  If There Is A God, Decent, Ifs

  Timothy Keller (2013). “Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life's Biggest Questions”, p.30, Penguin

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• Like the character I played in Jekyll, we all have different masks we put on for different occasions. As much as we all want to lead decent lives, we're also attracted by the idea that something dark may lurk within us.

  James Nesbitt

  Character, Dark, Ideas

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

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• These are things I'd never seen before, they were very disturbing and they were very compelling to try and do something to change the situation for the animals. Farm animals are providing us with the food to stay alive, so I think we really owe them a decent life while they are alive.

  Jan Cameron

  Animal, Thinking, Trying

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• We owe them [animals] a decent life and a decent death, and their lives should be as low-stress as possible. That's my job. I wish animals could have more than just a low-stress life and a quick, painless death. I wish animals could have a good life, too, with something useful to do. People were animals, too, once, and when we turned into human beings we gave something up. Being close to animals brings some of it back.

  Temple Grandin

  Jobs, Good Life, Stress

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• The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.

  John Holdren

  Design, Challenges, Essentials

  "White House Science Adviser Advocated 'De-Development' of the United States" by Christopher Neefus, www.cnsnews.com. July 28, 2009.

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• The great question for our time is, how to make sure that the continuing scientific revolution brings benefits to everybody rather than widening the gap between rich and poor. To lift up poor countries, and poor people in rich countries, from poverty, to give them a chance of a decent life, technology is not enough. Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich.

  Freeman Dyson

  Country, Technology, Rich Countries

  "Progress In Religion". Freeman Dyson's Acceptance Speech for the Templeton Prize at the Washington National Cathedral, www.edge.org. May 16, 2000.

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• A new era will dawn in Africa, when the impoverished masses of a nation rise up to rescue their right to a decent life from the hands of the ruling oligarchies.

  Che Guevara

  Hands, Oligarchy, Eras

  Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.170, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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• don't let anything make you believe that there are not as many decent men in the world as women, and they're just as decent. Life isn't worth living unless you know that - and it's true.

  Dorothy Canfield Fisher

  Believe, Men, World

  Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1915). “The Bent Twig”

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• It is important that our relationship with farm animals is reciprocal. We owe animals a decent life and a painless death. I have observed that the people who are completely out of touch with nature are the most afraid of death.

  Temple Grandin

  Nature, Animal, People

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• Sufi poetry is, in a sense, self-help poetry about how to live a decent life, how to deal with your mortality.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Self, Helping, Sufi

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• There was no way to have a decent life and to be gay. So I was terrified that I was going to be caught, and I had already experienced quite a bit of bullying. And, you know, I just thought that only misery lay ahead, and that if I - when I got caught that would be the solution. I wish I could say that was a thing of the past. But, you know, it's not.

  Cleve Jones

  Bullying, Gay, Past

  "LGBTQ Activist Cleve Jones: 'I'm Well Aware How Fragile Life Is'". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, kccu.org. November 29, 2016.

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• Sustainable development is not an option! It is the only path that allows all of humanity to share a decent life on this, one planet. Rio+20 gives our generation the opportunity to choose this path.

  Sha Zukang

  Opportunity, Our Generation, Giving

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• The proclamation of the Gospel is destined primarily to the poor, to those who often lack the essentials for a decent life. The good news is first announced to them, that God loves them before all others and comes to visit them through the acts of charity that the disciples of Christ carry out in his name.

  Pope Francis

  Names, Essentials, News

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• Of all the characteristics needed for both a happy and morally decent life, none surpasses gratitude. Grateful people are happier, and grateful people are more morally decent.

  Dennis Prager

  Gratitude, Grateful, People

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• For half of the world's population, roughly three billion people around the world living on less than two dollars a day, an election is at best a means, not an end; a starting point, not deliverance. These people are looking less for an "electocracy" than for the basic elements that for most of us define a decent life--food, shelter, electricity, basic health care, education for their children, and the ability to make their way through life without having to endure corruption, violence, or arbitrary power.

  Barack Obama

  Children, Mean, Two

  Barack Obama (2007). “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream”, p.317, Canongate Books

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• They were two lovely choices. One of them meant giving up every chance of a decent life forever...and the other one scared me out of my mind.

  Frederik Pohl

  Giving Up, Two, Choices

  "Gateway". Book by Frederik Pohl, April 1977.

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• What was wrong with me? I had a decent life. I was healthy. I wasn't starving or maimed by a land mine or orphaned. Yet somehow, it wasn't enough. I had a hole in me, and everything I took for granted slipped through it like sand. I felt like I had swallowed yeast, like whatever evil was festering inside me had doubled in size.

  Jodi Picoult

  Land, Evil, Healthy

  Jodi Picoult (2012). “The Jodi Picoult Collection #4: Change of Heart, Handle with Care, and House Rules”, p.788, Simon and Schuster

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• You need to remember that. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Lying, Needs, Never Let Me Go

  Kazuo Ishiguro (2009). “Never Let Me Go”, p.74, Faber & Faber

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