Quotes About Dignity

Stuart is conscientious about names. He believes they are important to a person's self-respect and, to Stuart, there is nothing more important than that.

It was, he thought, his gesture against the whole pro-euthanasia movement that talked so glibly of choice without realising the fire with which one played when tinkering with fragile taboos against killing others. Yes, he thought, Mrs Bates's life did not seem to amount to much, but to her it was all she had.

Such men knew their worth, but did not flaunt it. Such men could look anybody in the eye without flinching; even a poor man, a man with nothing, could stand upright in the presence of those who had wealth or power. People did not know, Mma Ramotswe felt, just how much we had in those days—those days when we seemed to have so little, we had so much. She

We are all human, she would say. Men particularly. You must not be ashamed.

The real art in going through life with dignity and with a modicum of happiness was to accept what you were, and, at the same time, to accept others—and to love them all equally. That was hard, and for some people it was impossible, but you had to try. We were all brothers and sisters, after all, and should embrace one another as such. That seemed so obvious, and yet there were people who refused to accept it, and made others unhappy because of their refusal.

but then where would one end if one started to compose a list of the wrongs that this world had seen? Better perhaps, thought Mma Ramotswe, to make a list of those things that were right with the world, of people who had made life better for other people, or who had done what they had been called to do with honour and without complaint.

wrong to think the less of another for what he or she was. There was no moral obligation to like others, nor necessarily to enthuse over them, but we did have to recognize their equal worth.

you did not look for a winner who would take everything; you found a way of allowing people to save face; you found a way of healing rather than imposing.

What a sad reflection that was on the way we ordered our affairs, that anybody should feel that they were just something. Everybody was significant; everybody was as valuable as everybody else. If we stopped thinking that, then any attempt at morality would be built on sand.

Never be put off by rudeness, Mma," she whispered. "It is the rude person who is rude, not you.

A man could be a hereditary ruler, or an elected president, but not be a gentleman, and that would show in his every deed. But if you had a leader who was a gentleman, with all that this meant, then you were lucky indeed.

If people came at you and started to scratch you, then of course you had the right to sit on them. Even Nelson Mandela, she told herself, who was a good and gentle man, would have agreed with that.

The real art in going through life with dignity and with a modicum of happiness was to accept what you were, and, at the same time, to accept others—and to love them all equally.

It was all a question of face, she decided: you had to leave room for face to be saved.

Take care of your clothes when they're new, but your honour from a tender age.

As a Minnesota agency nurse said, "We are not just bed-making, drink-serving, poop-wiping, medication-passing assistants. We are much more.

It is the nurse who holds the hand of a patient without a family, who talks to them while they take their last breaths, who aches for them while they die alone. It is the nurse who cleans the patient's body, wipes away the blood and fluids, and closes his eyes. It is the nurse who says good-bye to the patient for the last time," she said.

What I've loved most after you, is myself: that is, my dignity and that strength which made me superior to other men. That Strength was my life. You've broken it with a word, so I must die.

I am a Count, Not a Saint.

Who you pretends you is, you comes to be. The nigger that bows to the Master on the street, who acts the fool, who forgets who he am, that man a slave. He shuts his bible, he deserves to be a slave

We see no reason why a sustainable world needs to leave anyone living in poverty. Quite the contrary, we think such a world would have to provide material security to all its people.

A mouse slid out from under his hat and scrambled down his sleeve, across his lap, and down to the floor. Nothing,' said Fenworth, 'should distract from a wizard's dignity.

at my age, if I were sexually harassed, I'd send the guy flowers

It is people who are important, not the masses.