Best 82 quotes in «decency quotes» category

Regardfulness is the minimum expression of decency.

Success from the financial and from the prestige point of view . . . is not enough; what matters even more is . . . adherence to high moral and aesthetic standards." — as quoted in "High Financier" by Niall Ferguson

REJECT THE LIES AND VIOLENCE. STAND FOR LOVE, TRUTH, DECENCY AND THE COMMON GOOD.

Survival wasn't nearly as hard as he'd thought once he left decency behind.

The character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is the most horrid that can be imagined. If those accounts be true, he was the wretch that first began and carried on wars on the score or on the pretence of religion; and under that mask, or that infatuation, committed the most unexampled atrocities that are to be found in the history of any nation. Of which I will state only one instance: When the Jewish army returned from one of their plundering and murdering excursions, the account goes on as follows (Numbers xxxi. 13): 'And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, 'Have ye saved all the women alive?' behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, 'kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women- children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for Yourselves.' Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world have disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to find a greater than Moses, if this account be true. Here is an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers, and debauch the daughters. Let any mother put herself in the situation of those mothers, one child murdered, another destined to violation, and herself in the hands of an executioner: let any daughter put herself in the situation of those daughters, destined as a prey to the murderers of a mother and a brother, and what will be their feelings? In short, the matters contained in this chapter, as well as in many other parts of the Bible, are too horrid for humanity to read, or for decency to hear.

That girl never did have the decency to be wrong an appropriate amount of the time.

The best place for discovering what a man is is the heart of the desert. Your plane has broken down, and you walk for hours, heading for the little fort at Nutchott. You wait for the mirages of thirst to gape before you. But you arrive and you find an old sergeant who has been isolated for months among the dunes, and he is so happy to be found that he weeps. And you weep, too. In the arching immensity of the night, each tells the story of his life, each offers the other the burden of memories in which the human bond is discovered. Here two men can meet, and they bestow gifts upon each other with the dignity of ambassadors.

Thank you very much, once again, I bow, I kneel, I serve, C. van de Kerkhof, I appreciate very decent people.

The crux of my argument is this—we cannot truly understand what we should put on, say, or do, without looking at our behavior in relationship to Christ. In Christ, decency in behavior and dress is far larger than the particulars of modesty. By the world’s standards, modesty is a rule passed down from generation to generation which involves choosing a garment that submits to a certain standard set by a mother or community, one that constantly changes.” – Stacie Parlee-Johnson (Ch. 9, A Theology of Modesty)

The decent people are famous and known with their virtual decency, but not their shape or the dress.

Virtue signaling' is a phrase the dim and bigoted use when they want to discount other people expressing the idea that it would be nice if we could all be essentially and fundamentally decent to each other.

The fact is that men who know nothing of decency in their own lives are only too ready to launch foul slanders against their betters and to offer them up as victims to the evil deity of popular envy.

The maid told him that a girl and a child had come looking for him, but since she didn't know them, she hadn't cared to ask them in, and had told them to go on to Mers. "Why didn't you let them in?" asked Germain angrily. "People must be very suspicious in this part of the world, if they won't open the front door to a neighbor." "Well, naturally!" replied the maid. "In a house as rich as this, you have to keep a close watch on things. While the master's away I'm responsible for everything, and I can't just open the door to anyone at all." "That's a mean way to live," said Germain; "I'd rather be poor than live in fear like that. Good-bye to you, miss, and good-bye to this horrible country of yours!

... [T]he other lesson history has taught us - that tyranny and oppression are no match for compassion ... that the fanatical shouts of the bullies of the world are invariably silenced by the unified voices of decency that rise up to meet them.

There’s nothing more poisonous to a community than rumors and gossips. They taint the good character of those who effortlessly stand out. They provide mediocre individuals with a means to become relevant. They set in like gangrene and eat away at the sense of decency that differentiates humans from animals.

Traumatic events destroy the sustaining bonds between individual and community. Those who have survived learn that their sense of self, of worth, of humanity, depends upon a feeling of connection with others. The solidarity of a group provides the strongest protection against terror and despair, and the strongest antidote to traumatic experience. Trauma isolates; the group re-creates a sense of belonging. Trauma shames and stigmatizes; the group bears witness and affirms. Trauma degrades the victim; the group exalts her. Trauma dehumanizes the victim; the group restores her humanity. Repeatedly in the testimony of survivors there comes a moment when a sense of connection is restored by another person’s unaffected display of generosity. Something in herself that the victim believes to be irretrievably destroyed---faith, decency, courage---is reawakened by an example of common altruism. Mirrored in the actions of others, the survivor recognizes and reclaims a lost part of herself. At that moment, the survivor begins to rejoin the human commonality...

there’s no better system than our own morality, not law, not science, not religion… just decency.

There was also the Argument of Increasing Decency, which basically held that cruelty was linked to stupidity and that the link between intelligence, imagination, empathy and good-behaviour-as-it-was-generally-understood – i.e. not being cruel to others – was as profound as these matters ever got.

What they, in their innocence, cannot comprehend is that a properly constituted, healthy, decent man never writes, acts, or composes.

When approaching me in public, do not be rude. Say please. Introduce yourself. Have manners. Be considerate. Otherwise you'll be disappointed.

When a political opponent resorts to the racist card, it's a sure sign of moral bankruptcy: there's no decent argument left in the armoury.

Decency renders all things tolerable.

Yet decency nagged at their reluctant hearts; and they acknowledged that, too, in unconscious phrases -- 'I fail to understand...', 'I cannot bring myself to overlook...', 'Tolerance is all very well up to a point...' -- as if they had tried the ways of magnanimity but found them too exigent.

You asked me questions nobody ever asked me before. You knew that I was a murderer two times over, but you treated me like a man...

You may say, it was admiration. I do not think, it is all, about decency.

Decency is indecency's conspiracy of silence

Decency, not to dare to do that in public which it is decent enough to do in private.

When we insult others, it says nothing about them but it shows how vulgar we are.

... You can say what you want, whatever makes you feel better, but it's just noise. You are what you do." "It's not that simple." "It's exactly that simple. People like to believe it's complicated to feel better about what they do. Anybody who thinks it's complicated is just avoiding what that one simple principle tells them about themselves.

At least, the sun had the decency to stay the hell away from us.

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

Culture is the greatest barrier to your enlightenment, your education, and your decency.

I believe in an ultimate decency of things.

Honesty is nothin' compared to decency.

No one's so old that he mayn't with decency hope for one more day.

Immodest words admit of no defence, For want of decency is want of sense.

I surround myself with positive, productive people of good will and decency.

I value peace, too, when it is not bought at the price of fundamental decencies.

Knowledge and power in the city; peace and decency in the country.

Morals are private. Decency is public.

My cares and my inquiries are for decency and truth, and in this I am wholly occupied.

Being told you are wrong or insulted, gives you an opportunity to practice decency and having a non-response internally.

Nothing is more heart-breaking than the demise of decency.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

All these years! All this time with us -- have you learned nothing?! You only live by the grace of our clan's tenet of forgiveness! Your judgement is shit! Rectitude is the bone that gives firmness and stature. Without decency, neither talent nor learning can make the human frame into a samurai.

Almost everything you think is sacred, good and decent, is a lie and an all-out assault against truth and decency.

Because, if you stop to think of it, the three Rules of Robotics are the essential guiding principles of a good many of the world’s ethical systems. Of course, every human being is supposed to have the instinct of self-preservation. That’s Rule Three to a robot. Also every ‘good’ human being, with a social conscience and a sense of responsibility, is supposed to defer to proper authority; to listen to his doctor, his boss, his government, his psychiatrist, his fellow man; to obey laws, to follow rules, to conform to custom—even when they interfere with his comfort or his safety. That’s Rule Two to a robot. Also, every ‘good’ human being is supposed to love others as himself, protect his fellow man, risk his life to save another. That’s Rule One to a robot. To put it simply—if Byerley follows all the Rules of Robotics, he may be a robot, and may simply be a very good man.

silence is not weakness and decency is not pride

There are those without decency who must be fought without hesitation, without pity.

There's a sort of decency among the dead, a remarkable discretion: you never find them making any complaint against the doctor who killed them!