Quotes About Values

There is a marked decline in something we value. It's the destruction of civility, said the Duke. Twenty years ago, people may have had their differences of opinion - of course they did- but they did not abuse one another for it. They respected those with whom they disagreed. They spoke courteously.

The poem had said something about being grateful for the small scale, for the local, for the minor things that gave meaning to life. And Angus was right: these things were being forgotten in the headlong rush into globalisation, which drained identity out of life, rendered it distant, impersonal.

Things I'll never do. You would not feel uncomfortable reading that list, as you will have already admitted that these are things you do not want to do—and will not do.

these people had a house on a beach and sat on a marble terrace, which must have cost heaven knows what to import and they looked out at the sea. And there were no books in their house, not a single book. Not one..They had a daughter...who was as empty-headed as the parents and although they tried to do something about her education, nothing much got in. She had a baby, and the baby had nothing much in its head either.

It was a stark choice: shoes or food; beauty or sustenance; the sensible or the self-indulgent. I'll take the shoes, she said firmly.

Yes, but not in chairs that don't belong to us," countered Mma Makutsi. "That's the trouble with this country, Mma—there are too many people sitting down in other people's chairs.

Moral codes were not designed to be selective, nor indeed were they designed to be questioned. You could not say that you would observe this prohibition but not that. I shall not commit theft -- certainly not -- but adultery is another matter: wrong for other people, but not for me.

It is undoubtedly the case that the practice of the virtues makes one happier. We've somewhat lost sight of that essential truth, now that we, as a society, admire selfishness and vanity so much.

now: he had a kind wife who had a very good government job and he had a house with new furniture, purchased on his wife's salary, and a car that went with his wife's job. All of that was far more important than being noticed by women, and yet, and yet…

It was all very well occupying the moral high ground on electoral reform, but what really mattered, she thought, was how you treated your mother.

She wouldn't disapprove of people who gave up philosophy or literary theory to do ordinary things. Maybe not, mused Maggie. If we eat pies, then we should never, not for one moment, look down on the making of them.

It did not matter in the least what bed you were born in: what counted was what you were inside. People in England, she suspected, sometimes just did not grasp that and that was a pity: their society was more stratified than Scotland's; they needed to read Robert Burns's A Man's a Man for a' That, she felt, because that said all that had to be said on that subject. If you understood what Burns was saying in that poem, then you understood how Scotland felt—at heart.

they are dazzled by all the money that they are being offered. That is what money does, Mma Ramotswe—you must have seen that. Sometime we need to look the other way when people put money in front of our noses. We have to look at the other things we can see so the money doesn't hide them.

Morality is for everyone and that is what

Yet she was determined that when she married she would not forget who she was and who her people were. She would not affect any airs.

There's no excuse," said Isabel firmly. "Biscuits are trivial, but lies are not.

a list of people who drive Mercedes-Benzes, and he checks to see if they have made up for it by being kind to people.

The problem was, of course, that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded of this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them and they would call that the right thing.

The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing.

Wise people had been replaced in the public estimation by that curious category of people—celebrities—who were, for the most part, shallow people not known for their wisdom. Where were the Nelson Mandelas of this world of celebrity?

A society that undermined its teachers and their authority only dug away at its own sure foundations.

She is a good housemother, that one," said Mma Ramotswe. Mma Potokwane agreed. "Whenever I hear people say that the country is going to the dogs—and there are such people, you know, Mma…

You can't have a cohesive society without a shared culture.

The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing. That's how most people thought.