Quotes About Respectability

we would be a far more respectable family if our motto had been "I sit quietly in the corner and mind my own business.

Oh, my dear, this is worse than I expected! A strange girl is always a bore among good friends, but one can generally manage her. But a girl who writes books - why, it isn't respectable! And you can't snub that sort of people; they're unsnubbable.

Respectable means rich, and decent means poor. I should die if I heard my family called decent.

I never deal in transformations, for they are not honest, and no respectable sorceress likes to make things appear to be what they are not.

The devil's most devilish when respectable.

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

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

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

When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.

Maybe my ploy had worked. I wore a respectable shirt that buttoned down the front, only - whoops! – I must have forgotten to fasten the button over my cleavage. No respectable girl would wear her shirt open that low. (Cough.)

In the midst of these fine gentlemen with their great names and their ancient traditions of respectability, the two women sat face to face, exchanging tender glances, triumphant and supreme in the tranquil abuse of their sex, and their open contempt for the male. And the gentlemen applauded them.

Likewise, Oscar Wilde asked an English journalist to look over 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' before publication: "Will you also look after my 'wills' and 'shalls' in proof. I am Celtic in my use of these words, not English." Wilde's novel upset virtually every code of late Victorian respectability, but he had to get his modal auxiliaries just right.

Other major world religions are still centered in the same general geographic area from which they originated except for Christianity. Even more intriguing, the center of Christian growth continues to move. Why? This author suggests that Christian principles bring prosperity but then the prosperity brings a temptation to chase stability and respectability. Thus, Christian growth moves to an area where people are desperate enough to trust Christ alone.

There's this responsibility you feel to present a certain thing that kind of respectability politics. I think that became the only accepted way of defining black culture. I started to become too aware of 'How does this look?' instead of 'Who are these characters?'

I wish more women would come into films and give it the respectability it deserves.

History teaches us that, whatever we say, racists will always distort the words of mainstream politicians to make themselves sound more respectable.

I'm not sure what I'd do with you if you were respectable.

Far from rejecting outright any hierarchy of success or failure, philosophy instead reconfigures the judging process, lending legitimacy to theidea that themainstream value system may unfairly consign some people to disgrace and others to respectability.

Qui ti volevo, caro il mio signore di buona famiglia. Un borghese, sei, ecco la questione, schifosamente borghese, con la testa piena di pregiudizi borghesi, orgoglioso della tua rispettabilità borghese. Cosa vuoi che se ne facesse la Laide della tua rispettabilità borghese? E tu cos'eri per lei?

Vera chuckled and thought this woman wasn't so different from her after all. They were in the same business. Clearing unpleasantness from the streets so that respectable people could continue their daily lives in blissful ignorance.

From the moment we were first dumped in Jamestown and had our teeth checked before getting sold off and later considered three-fifths of a human being, an abundance of 'likability' hasn't been something blacks have had to stockpile. Instead, it's been a centuries-long battle for respectability.

Something about this deep domesticity and respectability pleased Washington, who was never cut out for a gallivanting, footloose life. Martha gave him a secure, happy base for the myriad activities of a busy career. She was his dear companion, trusted adviser, and confidante long after lust faded, and they delighted in each other's company.

The first great break-through—or, rather, breakdown—of society's nudity/lewdity guilt-by-association was the now-famous Marilyn Monroe calendar. Marilyn's respectability when she died was based principally upon her economic status, which is, in the final analysis, the only type our society really respects.

she told Mary Lou about the curse that had plagued the women in her family for generations. Wild girls, they were called. Temptresses. Witches. Girls of fearless sexual appetite, who needed to run wild under the moon. The world feared them. They had to hide their desires behind a veneer of respectability.