Respectable Quotes - Page 13

• It is . . . [the citizens] choice, and depends upon their conduct, whether they will be respectable and prosperous, or contemptable and miserable as a Nation. This is the time of their political probation; this is the moment when the eyes of the World are turned upon them.

  George Washington

  Eye, Choices, Political

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1835). “Writings: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts”, p.441

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• There is not a respectable system of civilization known to history whose foundations were not laid in the institution of domestic slavery.

  Robert M. T. Hunter

  War, Civilization, Foundation

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• Thinking that being a good, decent, respectable person will mean that others will see you as weak, vulnerable, and easy to manipulate.

  Paulo Coelho

  Life, Mean, Thinking

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• A full-dressed ecclesiastic is a sort of go-cart of divinity; an ethical automaton. A clerical prig is, in general, a very dangerous as well as contemptible character. The utmost that those who thus habitually confound their opinions and sentiments with the outside coverings of their bodies can aspire to, is a negative and neutral character, like wax-work figures, where the dress is done as much to the life as the man, and where both are respectable pieces of pasteboard, or harmless compositions of fleecy hosiery.

  William Hazlitt

  Life, Character, Men

  William Hazlitt (1819). “Political essays, with sketches of public characters”, p.289

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• It pleased God to make one nation the medium of all His communications with mankind: This the nation of the Jews has done to a considerable degree in all ages As civilization extended, they by one means or another became most wonderfully dispersed through all countries; and at this day they are almost literally everywhere, the most conspicuous, and in the eye of reason and religion, the most respectable nation on the face of the earth.

  Joseph Priestley

  Country, Communication, Mean

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• Ninja should have the benevolence to protect men of justice
  since there are lots of good and respectable people in the
  world.

  Masaaki Hatsumi

  Men, Should Have, People

  Masaaki Hatsumi (1988). “Essence of Ninjutsu”, McGraw-Hill Education

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• I would never rep Versace. I can't stand her. I think she makes disgusting clothes. Calvin [Klein] is like, snore! Who wears Calvin Klein? I'm not dissing him. I think he's built an amazing, respectable business, but I would never want to work for Calvin Klein, ever.

  Kelly Cutrone

  Thinking, Clothes, Want

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• I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America... He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Silly, Eagles, Turkeys

  Franklin's Letter to His Daughter (excerpt), www.greatseal.com.

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• I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Country, Food, Character

  Letter to Sarah Bache, January 26, 1784.

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• Imagine, [Kriezler] said, that you enter a large, somewhat crumbling hall that echoes with the sounds of people mumbling and talking repetitively to themselves. All around you these people fall into prostrate positions, some of them weeping. Where are you? Sara’s answer was immediate: in an asylum. Perhaps, Kreizler answered, but you could also be in a church. In the one place the behavior would be considered mad; in the other, not only sane, but as respectable as any human activity can be.

  Caleb Carr

  Fall, Echoes, Talking

  Caleb Carr (2006). “The Alienist: A Novel”, p.157, Random House

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• It is at least scientifically respectable to postulate that at the centre of a black hole the laws of nature no longer apply. Since most scientists are just a bit religious and most religious are seldom wholly unscientific we find humanity in a comical position. His scientific intellect believes in the possibility of miracles inside a black hole while his religious intellect believes in them outside it.

  William Golding

  Religious, Believe, Law

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• Our society allows people to be absolutely neurotic and totally out of touch with their feelings and everyone else's feelings, and yet be very respectable.

  Ntozake Shange

  People, Feelings, Our Society

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• Beauty—or the desire to be beautiful—is in itself a dangerous motivation. Someone (I forgot who) once said, ‘Does the person who loves someone for their beauty really love them?’ So don’t focus on beauty ... a respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul. It is the sum of our experiences that makes us interesting, and having been through a time in your life in which you were in a bad place (or what you perceived as a bad place) physically, can be useful. It can even be necessary.

  Karl Lagerfeld

  Beautiful, Motivation, Interesting

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• Man's respect for knowledge is one of his most peculiar characteristics. Knowledge in Latin is scientia, and science came to be the name of the most respectable kind of knowledge.

  Imre Lakatos

  Latin, Men, Names

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• If I created a new depravity I would be a priestess, while my imitators would founder, after my reign, in abominable filth...Don't you think that proud men, copying Satan, are more guilty than the Satan of the Bible, who invented pride? Is Satan not respectable because of his unprecedented and divinely inspired sin?

  Rachilde

  Pride, Men, Thinking

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• A respectable person is invariably unrespectable within.

  Rajneesh

  Persons

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• I believe journalism is coming to be regarded as quite a respectable occupation for gentlemen nowadays.

  Anthony Trollope

  Believe, Gentleman, Occupation

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• The orator, who may be silent without danger, may praise without difficulty and without reluctance; and posterity will confess that the character of Theodosius might furnish the subject of a sincere and ample panegyric. The wisdom of his laws and the success of his arms rendered his administration respectable in the eyes both of his subjects and of his enemies. He loved and practised the virtues of domestic life, which seldom hold their residence in the palaces of kings.

  Edward Gibbon

  Kings, Eye, Character

  Edward Gibbon (2000). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II: A.D. 395 to A.D. 1185 (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.47, Modern Library

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• To the love of pleasure we may therefore ascribe most of the agreeable, to the love of action we may attribute most of the useful and respectable, qualifications. The character in which both the one and the other should be united and harmonised would seem to constitute the most perfect idea of human nature.

  Edward Gibbon

  Character, Ideas, History

  Edward Gibbon (1846). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.488

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• the less you respect, the less respectable you are; the less you honor, the less in you is to be honored. There are those 'whom not to know argues one's self unknown,' so if you have no reverence in a world where there is so much that is noble and venerable, then there will be something terrible lacking in your own character.

  Julia McNair Wright

  Appreciation, Character, Self

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• Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Religious, Philosophical, Hands

  Sydney J. Harris (1985). “Pieces of Eight Pa”, Mariner Books

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• Human beings thought with their hands. It was their hands that were the answer of curiosity, that felt and pinched and turned and lifted and hefted. There were animals that had brains of respectable size, but they had no hands and that made all the difference.

  Isaac Asimov

  Animal, Hands, Differences

  Isaac Asimov (2012). “Foundation's Edge”, p.71, Spectra

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• I wrote without much effort; for I was rich, and the rich are always respectable, whatever be their style of writing.

  Jane Austen

  Writing, Effort, Style

  Jane Austen (1906). “Letters”

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• If the modern spirit, whatever that may be, is disinclined towards taking the Lord's word at its face value (as I hear is the case), we may observe that Isaiah's testimony to the character of the masses has strong collateral support from respectable Gentile authority. Plato lived into the administration of Eubulus, when Athens was at the peak of its jazz-and-paper era, and he speaks of the Athenian masses with all Isaiah's fervency, even comparing them to a herd of ravenous wild beasts.

  Albert J. Nock

  Strong, Plato, Character

  "Isaiah's Job". The Atlantic Monthly, June 1936.

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• Who is respectable when thinking himself alone and free from observation will be so before the eye of all the world.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Eye, Thinking, World

  "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

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