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Decency Quotes

Browse 448 quotes about Decency.

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Decency Quotes

“To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self-congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes.”

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Author:Clifford Geertz
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“...I believe deeply that we canot solve the challenges of your time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have differnt stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren. This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people.”

PeopleWantBelieveLooksMayChildrenStoriesTogetherMovingHopeBeliefI BelieveUnderstandingChallengesPerfectCommonWords Of WisdomOur ChildrenUnionsSolveGenerosityGrandchildrenDecencyBetter FutureUnyielding
Author:Barack Obama
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“Tira: Whatever you're thinkin' you're wrong. I only like him like a brother. You ain't got nothin' to worry about. . . . Say listen you. A better dame than you once called me a liar and they had to sew her up in twelve different places. You're lucky I'm a little more refined than I used to be. And if you was as much a lady as I am, you'd get out of here before I get real sore. Alicia: You haven't a streak of decency in you. Tira: I don't show my good points to strangers. I'll trouble you to scram.”

IfsLittlesDifferentRealShowsUsedWorryTroubleHavensBrotherLuckyStrangerUsed To BeLiarsTwelveDecencyGet RealDifferent PlaceRefinedStreaksDames
Author:Mae West
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“Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.”

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Author:Isaac Asimov
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“We want character but without unyielding conviction; we want strong morality but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame; we want virtue but without particular moral justifications that invariably offend; we want good without having to name evil; we want decency without the authority to insist upon it; we want more community without any limitations to personal freedom. In short, we want what we cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it.”

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Author:James Davison Hunter
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“Life and study have persuaded me of the openness of history. There is no inevitability in history. Thinking about what might have happened, what could have happened, is a necessary element in trying to understand what did happen. And if, as I believe, individual acts of decency and courage make a difference, then they need to be recorded and remembered.”

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Book:Five Germanys I Have Known
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“The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty- four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the sun revolves....Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it.”

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Author:Philipp Melanchthon
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“September 11 was, and remains, above all an immense human tragedy. But September 11 also posed a momentous and deliberate challenge not just to America but to the world at large. The target of the terrorists was not only New York and Washington but the very values of freedom, tolerance and decency which underpin our way of life.”

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Author:Tony Blair
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“A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency - issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights - the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared with those who describe themselves as very religious.”

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Author:Gregory S. Paul
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“I had wished to find in philosophy and religion a remedy for my disgrace; I searched out an asylum to secure me from love... duty, reason and decency, which upon other occasions have some power over me, are here useless. The Gospel is a language I do not understand when it opposes my passion... but when love has once been sincere how difficult it is to determine to love no more! 'Tis a thousand times more easy to renounce the world than love. I hate this deceitful, faithless world; I think no more of it.”

ThinkingWorldLoveReasonPhilosophyAgeHatePassionLanguageEasyDifficultDutyThousandI HateDetermineSecureOccasionsUselessSincereRemedyDecencyMy PassionDisgraceRenounceAsylumsDeceitfulPhilosophy And ReligionFaithless
Author:Peter Abelard
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“The International Brigade was not formed to protect freedom and democracy. It was founded as a tool of of the Comintern, to promote the interests of the Soviet Union - and thereby of Joseph Stalin, the butcher of millions. It made political sense for the International Brigade to recruit non-communists - useful fools was what Lenin had called such people in an earlier manipulation of gullible decency - but of course most were then vetted by the NKVD, the Soviet Union's secret police.”

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Author:Kevin Myers
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“The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of human beings as things, as the mere instruments of power and ambition, is without a doubt the consequence of the decay of the belief in man as something more than an animal animated by highly conditioned reflexes and chemical reactions. For, unless man is something more than that, he has no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and there are no limitations upon his conduct which he is bound to obey.”

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Book:The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy
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“A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her.”

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Author:W. C. Fields
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“To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit. To find that answer, we need only look within ourselves. When we listen to the better angels of our nature, we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things--such as goodness, decency, love, kindness. Greatness comes in simple trappings.”

NeedsLooksSpiritSimpleAnswersKindnessGreatnessGoodnessAngelCrisisCelebrateDecencySimple ThingsBasic Things
Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1969
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“I believe that poverty is often the result of inappropriate behavior - out-of-wedlock births, dropping out of school, crime and drugs - which should not be rewarded. But often it isn't, and common decency requires that we take care of the least of these.”

ShouldBelieveCareSchoolI BelieveResultsCommonPovertyCrimeBirthDrugBehaviorTake CareDecencyDroppingInappropriateWedlockDropping OutCommon DecencyInappropriate BehaviorDropping Out Of School
Author:Joe Klein
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