Respectability Quotes

• My life has been one long descent into respectability.

  Mandy Rice-Davies

  Long, Descent, Has Beens

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

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• Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on the trivial and the mediocre.

  Walter Lippmann

  Intelligent, Soul, Bent

  Walter Lippmann, Julien C. Sprott (2015). “Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest”, p.137, University of Wisconsin Pres

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• In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Faith, Desire, Economics

  The New York Times Magazine, June 07, 1970.

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• A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.

  Billy Graham

  Family, Respect, Children

  105 Copy quote

• It is not pleasant to have a stranger doubt your respectability.

  Maud Younger

  Doubt, Stranger, Pleasant

  14 Copy quote

• I know how easy it is for some minds to glide along with the current of popular opinion, where influence, respectability, and all those motives which tend to seduce the human heart are brought to bear.

  Benjamin F. Wade

  Heart, Mind, Bears

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• Having the courage to live within one's means is respectability.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Respect, Mean

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• The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

  Thomas Hardy

  Evil, Impossible, Framed

  Thomas Hardy (2016). “FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (British Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel”, p.120, e-artnow

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• I will be as harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice... I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.

  William Lloyd Garrison

  Justice, Retreat, Excuse

  The Liberator, 1 Jan. 1831 (first issue)

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• Here in America, marriage still has a mystical, intangible power: It is a passport to adulthood and respectability and to a certain extent citizenship. Any relationship less than "married" is considered temporary and not worthy of honor.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  America, Honor, Married

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• It is also, I would guess, a universal that in all societies people value respectability granted to them.

  Kenneth Lee Pike

  People, Granted, Universal

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• In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Respect, Mean, Numbers

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.125, Oxford University Press

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• Satan mostly employs comparatively moral instruments and the language of ethics to give his aims an air of respectability.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Air, Giving, Ethics

  Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi”

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• You are all alike, you respectable people. You can't tell me the bursting strain of a ten-inch gun, which is a very simple matter;but you all think you can tell me the bursting strain of a man under temptation. You daren't handle high explosives; but you're all ready to handle honesty and truth and justice and the whole duty of man, and kill one another at that game. What a country! What a world!

  George Bernard Shaw

  Country, Honesty, Gun

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated): Including Renowned Titles like Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, The Inca Of Perusalem, Macbeth Skit, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion”, p.1455, e-artnow

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• Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.

  Samuel Johnson

  Respect, Giving, Attention

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana; or supplement to Boswell; being Anecdotes and sayings of Dr. Johnson, etc”

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• In the ordinary church, it is suppressed by respectability, by a desire to appear better than we really are.

  E. Stanley Jones

  Church, Desire, Ordinary

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• Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.

  Samuel Johnson

  Respect, Giving, Advantage

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales”, p.32

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• Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Sarcastic, Respect, Mean

  George Bernard Shaw (2004). “Fanny's First Play”, p.85, 1st World Publishing

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• I shall be glad when you have strangled the invincible respectability that dogs your steps.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Dog, Steps, Invincible

  D. H. Lawrence, George J. Zytaruk, James T. Boulton (2002). “The Letters of D. H. Lawrence”, p.352, Cambridge University Press

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• The shades of respectability begin to close about the greying head.

  Mason Cooley

  Literature, Shade

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• No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.

  Lin Yutang

  Men, Respectable

  Lin Yutang (1940). “With Love and Irony”

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• The Cape Town is considerably increased within the last eight years. Its respectability with regard to strength has kept pace with its other enlargements and rendered it very secure against any attempt which is not made with considerable force.

  William Bligh

  Eight, Years, Lasts

  William Bligh (2009). “The Voyage of the Bounty”, p.31, BoD – Books on Demand

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• The inquiry in England is not whether a man has talents and genius, but whether he is passive and polite and a virtuous ass and obedient to noblemen's opinions in art and science. If he is, he is a good man. If not, he must be starved.

  William Blake

  Respect, Art, Men

  William Blake (1988). “William Blake”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• 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.

  Samuel Johnson

  Respect, Selfish, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana: Or, Supplement to Boswell: Being Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson”, p.416

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• The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out.

  Oscar Wilde

  Respect, Dying, Young

  Oscar Wilde (2014). “The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar Wilde”, p.65, Courier Corporation

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