Dishonorable Quotes

• Have you ever asked yourself why one person is honorable and another dishonorable; why one is honest, another dishonest; why one is moral, another immoral? Most individuals do not intend to be dishonest, dishonorable, or immoral. They seem to allow their characters to erode by a series of rationalizations, lies, and compromises. Then when grave temptation presents itself, they haven't the strength of character to do what they know to be right.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Honesty, Lying, Character

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• One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them.

  Thomas Sowell

  Trust, Failure, People

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• May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.

  Millard Fillmore

  Country, People, Presidential

  Letter to Henry Clay (11 November 1844); as quoted in "Presidential Wit from Washington to Johnson" edited by Bill Adler, 1966.

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• An honorable death is better than a dishonorable life.
  [Lat., Honesta mors turpi vita potior.]

  Tacitus

  Death, Honorable Death, Honorable

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• It is dishonorable to say one thing and think another; how much more dishonorable to write one thing and think another.

  Seneca the Younger

  Writing, Thinking, Deceit

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• ...even a tiny bit of deceit is dishonorable when it's used for selfish or cowardly reasons. - Mr. Penderwick

  Jeanne Birdsall

  Selfish, Deceit, Tiny

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• It is not enough to be well-intentioned; one must strive to put those intentions into action in a capable way. One must consider the effect his actions will have on others. Looked at like this, to persist in ignorance is itself dishonorable

  Andrew Cohen

  Ignorance, Literature, Way

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• There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

  Thomas Sowell

  Young, Mislead

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Controversial Essays”, p.89, Hoover Press

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• It is not strange... to mistake change for progress.

  Millard Fillmore

  Change, Mistake, Presidential

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• We know that priorities are amiss in the world when a man gets a military medal of honor for killing another man and a dishonorable discharge for loving one.

  Charlotte Bunch

  Military, Men, Justice

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• All who do evil and dishonorable things do them against their will.

  Plato

  Evil

  Plato (2010). “The Works of Plato: Charmides, Lysis, Other Dialogues and the Laws”, p.184, Cosimo, Inc.

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• If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible.

  Epictetus

  Mean, Victory, Invincible

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• Never suppose that in any possible situation or under any circumstances that it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing however slightly so it may appear to you... Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises, being assured that they will gain strength by exercise ... and that exercise will make them habitual.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Truth, Lying, Exercise

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.60, Rowman & Littlefield

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• A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Men, Order

  "LIFE" Magazine, Vol. 21, No. 6, (p. 48), August 5, 1946.

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• Since an intelligence common to us all makes things known to us and formulates them in our minds, honorable actions are ascribed by us to virtue, and dishonorable actions to vice; and only a madman would conclude that these judgments are matters of opinion, and not fixed by nature.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Truth, Lying, Honor

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• The best of lessons, for a good many people, would be to listen at a keyhole. It is a pity for such that the practice is dishonorable.

  Sophie Swetchine

  Practice, People, Good Man

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• Poverty is not dishonorable in itself, but only when it comes from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly.

  Plutarch

  Extravagance, Poverty, Poor

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• There is but one pride pardonable; that of being above doing a base or dishonorable action.

  Samuel Richardson

  Pride, Action

  Samuel Richardson (1793). “The History of Clarissa Harlowe: In a Series of Letters”, p.382

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• Neither I nor anyone else knows what a standard is. We all recognize a dishonorable act, but have no idea what honor is.

  Anton Chekhov

  Ideas, Honor, Standards

  Anton Chekhov's letter to A.N. Pleshcheev, April 9, 1889.

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• War crushes with bloody heel all justice, all happiness, all that is Godlike in man. In our age there can be no peace that is not honorable; there can be no war that is not dishonorable.

  Charles Sumner

  Crush, War, Men

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• It can be frustrating and even frightening to observe the success which sometimes comes to outlaws and rogues who seem to refute notions of universal justice. Every time we see a villain enjoying the fruits of dishonorable acts we find ourselves doubting the value of character and the validity of the virtues we have been taught. Thus, it takes character to believe in character, but that belief is always rewarded, often by material success, but always by the esteem it earns from those who matter.

  Michael Josephson

  Believe, Character, Justice

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• If in the past, after every lost war, the unlucky vanquished were divested forever of their honor and their equality of rights, the League of Nations would even now have to be satisfied with a whole series of non-equal and thus ultimately dishonorable and inferior nations.

  Adolf Hitler

  War, Past, Rights

  Source: nseuropa.wordpress.com

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• Screening telephone calls with a receptionist or the humbler answering machine is not a dishonorable thing to do. The warmest people in the world still need uninterrupted time to attend to their lives and should not be outwitted if they have made it obvious that they are not always available upon summons.

  Judith Martin

  People, Needs, Machines

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• Poverty is dishonorable, not in itself, but when it is a proof of laziness, intemperance, luxury, and carelessness; whereas in a person that is temperate, industrious, just and valiant, and who uses all his virtues for the public good, it shows a great and lofty mind.

  Plutarch

  Luxury, Mind, Use

  Plutarch (2013). “Plutarch's Lives”, p.280, Cosimo, Inc.

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• As for vegetables, I do not consider a plot of ground devoted to them worthy of the honorable name of garden. Vegetables are, of course, a part of gardening, but the least, the last, -for those who do not have to raise them, the most dishonorable part.

  Harrison Gray Otis Dwight

  Garden, Vegetables, Names

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