Dignity Quotes

We have collected and put the best Dignity Quotes. Enjoy reading these insights and feel free to share this page on your social media to inspire others.

May these Dignity Quotes on many subjects inspire you to never give up and keep working towards your goals. Who knows—success could be just around the corner.

Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights. The term may also be used to describe personal conduct, as in “behaving with dignity”.

Human dignity is the recognition that human beings possess a special value intrinsic to their humanity and as such are worthy of respect simply because they are human beings.

Dignity Quotes

Dignity is appreciated by dignity, the pot of dried fish is known to the dog. – Tamil proverb

Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, learning french or collecting scarves. – Dave Eggers

Dignity has no price … When someone starts making small concessions, in the end life loses all meaning. – José Saramago

Dignity had always gotten us through. It was a choice, and not always the easy one, but the people I respected most in life made it again and again, every single day. – Michelle Obama

Darling, a true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best. – Robert A. Heinlein

But clay and clay differs in dignity,
Whose dust is both alike. – William Shakespeare

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. – Universal Declaration of Human Rights

All celebrated people lose dignity upon close inspection. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them. – Aristotle

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine. – Charles Dickens

Our dignity is not in what we do, but in what we understand. – George Santayana

I think the tragic feeling is invoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing — his sense of personal dignity. – Arthur Miller

There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others however humble. – Washington Irving

Without dignity, identity is erased. In its absence, men are defined not by themselves, but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live. – Laura Hillenbrand

It’s my last shred of dignity. It’s very small. – John Green

Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself. – George Santayana

A wise man has dignity without pride; a fool has pride without dignity. – Confucius

We all, we all wear dignity
It covers the strong the weak
We all, we all wear dignity
Even the last, the lost, the least. – Relient K, “The last, the lost, the least”

Dignity Quotes

Where is there dignity unless there is also honesty? – Cicero

The dignity of man was everywhere tissue-paper thin. – Dick Francis

There is nothing more dignified than a corpse. – Evan Esar

Dignity is often a veil between us and the real truth of things. – Edwin Percy Whipple

There is dignity in your being even if there’s indignity in what you’re doing. – Tariq Ramadan

Dignity is the reward of obeying your heart. – Wes Fesler

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. – Nelson Mandela

The friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the other’s dignity to the point of not really wanting anything from him. – Cyril Connolly

The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting. – Ben Jonson

I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living. – John D. Rockefeller

The dignity of the individual demands that he be not reduced to vassalage by the largesse of others. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Humility is the ability to give up your pride and still retain your dignity. – Vanna Bonta

Dignity of human nature requires that we must face the storms of life. – Mahatma Gandhi

Our dignity is not in what we do, but what we understand. – George Santayana

Human rights rest on human dignity. The dignity of man is an ideal worth fighting for and worth dying for. – Robert Maynard

Dignities are faces; no two are the same. – Rex Stout

Dignity is not negotiable. Dignity is the honor of the family. – Vartan Gregorian

We must build a new world, a far better world one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected. – Harry S. Truman

Human dignity is better served by embracing knowledge. – John Charles Polanyi

Be strong. Live honorably and with dignity. When you don’t think you can, hold on. – James J. Frey

Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man’s soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it. – Laura Hillenbrand

There is a lot of dignity in having the ability to confront the inconsequence of reality. – Martin Esslin

Dignity and pride are not only two different feelings, but, in some ways, opposites. You can step on your pride to preserve your dignity. You can destroy your dignity because of your pride. – Luigina Sgarro

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. – Abraham Joshua Heschel

When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him. – Bayard Rustin

Each of us, face to face with other men, is clothed with some sort of dignity, but we know only too well all the unspeakable things that go on in the heart. – Luigi Pirandello

When we make mistakes, we simply say sorry. And saying the words would cost us our pride most of the time. – RSCruz

Dignity is a perfume; those who use it are scarcely conscious of it. – Christina of Sweden

Dignity will only happen when you realize that having someone in your life doesn’t validate your worth. – Shannon L. Alder

There’s a dignity in consequences. – James S.A. Corey

Dignity Quotes

The maintenance of the just mean, the knowledge of how far we may indulge our inclination to pleasure without a sacrifice of human dignity, is clearly not the result of easy drifting but calls for an exercise of judgment and an effort of the will. – Michel de Montaigne

I was you once, long time ago. I believed in the dignity of man. Decency. Humanity. But I was lucky. I found out the truth early, boy…. There’s no such thing as the dignity of man. Man is a base, pathetic and vulgar animal. – Charles Grandison Finney

Personal dignity is to be measured with the yardstick of one’s conscience, not with that of other people’s judgement. – Fausto Cercignani

It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up an atom; by thought I comprehend the world. – Blaise Pascal

Human dignity is other values identifiable by its bearer (the human being), and other dignities of concrete types (senatorial dignity, priestly dignity, maternal dignity) determined or specified in the ideal realm by the kind of its bearers. – Mette Lebech

The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away. – Clarence Thomas

It is terrifying to see how easily, in certain people, all dignity collapses. Yet when you think about it, this is quite normal since they only maintain this dignity by constantly striving against their own nature. – Albert Camus

Dignity is often a veil between us and the real truth of things. – Edwin Percy Whipple

If you make a fool of yourself, you can do it with dignity, without taking your pants down. And if you do take your pants down, you can still do it with dignity. – William Shatner

I try to walk in a straight line
An imitation of dignity
From despair to where
From despair to where. – Manic Street Preachers

Dignity Quotes

Place confers no dignity upon some men; a balloon, the higher they rise the smaller they look. – G. D. Prentice

The generous mind adds dignity to every act, and nothing misbecomes it. – Plutarch

One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered. – Michael J. Fox

Human dignity is the same for all human beings: when I trample on the dignity of another, I am trampling on my own. – Pope Francis

Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity. – Herbert Hoover

No power on this earth can destroy the thirst for human dignity. – Nelson Mandela

When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights. – Gilbert K. Chesterton

We need to realize that poverty doesn’t only consist of being hungry for bread, but rather it is a tremendous hunger for human dignity. We need to love and to be someone for someone else. – Mother Teresa

What an extraordinary time to be alive. We’re the first people on our planet to have real choice: we can continue killing each other, wiping out other species, spoiling our nest. Yet on every continent a revolution in human dignity is emerging. It is re-knitting community and our ties to the earth. So we do have a choice. We can choose death; or we can choose life. – Frances Moore Lappé

success in L.A. is completely arbitrary. One day you’re the brilliant genius of life, the next day people act like there’s a bad smell when you approach. Lots of expensive, late-model cars are offered in the L.A. Times every day by people who have suddenly begun to smell bad. The stakes are just too high for human dignity. – Cynthia Heimel

America must remain, at any cost, the custodian of freedom, human dignity and economic security. The United States must be strong, so that no nation may dare attack. – Louis B. Mayer

Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. And a good life does not mean just good food, good clothes, good shelter. These are not sufficient. A good motivation is what is needed: compassion, without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their rights and human dignity. – Dalai Lama

This is a debate about our understanding of human dignity, what it means to be a member of the human family, even though tiny, powerless and unwanted. – Henry Hyde

In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish enthrallment to those in power. – Leo Tolstoy

Dostoevky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity – all this is difficult to admire. – Vladimir Nabokov

If we are to be as a shining city upon a hill, it will be because of our ceaseless pursuit of the constitutional ideal of human dignity. – William J. Brennan

Human rights, human freedoms… and human dignity have their deepest roots somewhere outside the perceptible world… while the state is a human creation, human beings are the creation of God. – Vaclav Havel

With Othello, Shakespeare posed this problem of a black man in a white society in the role that he’s playing. And Shakespeare gave Othello such dignity – he came not from – as he said – not from hate but from honor, from a sense of his own human dignity. And to me, to my mind, there could be no greater character played. – Paul Robeson

Hungry not only for bread – but hungry for love. Naked not only for clothing – but naked of human dignity and respect. Homeless not only for want of a home of bricks – but homeless because of rejection. – Mother Teresa

Poverty arises and persists where corruption is endemic and enterprise is stifled, where basic fairness provided by the rule of law is absent. In such circumstances, poverty is an assault against human dignity, and in that assault lies the natural seed of human anger. – Colin Powell

[Jehovah is] certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty. – Mikhail Bakunin

Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness. – Edward Bulwer-Lytton

… In contrast to the “banality of evil,” which posits that ordinary people can be responsible for the most despicable acts of cruelty and degradation of their fellows, I posit the “banality of heroism,” which unfurls the banner of the heroic Everyman and Everywoman who heed the call to service to humanity when their time comes to act. When that bell rings, they will know that it rings for them. It sounds a call to uphold what is best in human nature that rises above the powerful pressures of Situation and System as the profound assertion of human dignity opposing evil. – Philip Zimbardo

Love for others and respect for their rights and their human dignity, irrespective of who or what they are, no matter what religion – or none – that they choose to follow, will bring about real change and set in motion proper relationships. With such relationships built on equality and trust, we can work together on so many of the threats to our common humanity. – Mairead Corrigan

Human dignity … is derived from a sense of independence. – Maria Montessori

Contrary to what certain governments say, human rights are universal. Arbitrary detention, torture and discrimination hurt the human dignity of anybody, whatever his or her country of origin, religion, descent, or any other ground. – Shirin Ebadi

I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity. – Alexis de Tocqueville

There is, however, a somber point in the social outlook of Americans. Their sense of equality and human dignity is mainly limited to people of white skin…. The more I feel like an American, the more the situation pains me. – Albert Einstein

It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of human history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens. – Ronald Reagan

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. – Eleanor Roosevelt

‎In today’s materialistic world there is a risk of people becoming slaves to money, as though they were simply cogs in a huge money-making machine. This does nothing for human dignity, freedom, and genuine well-being. Wealth should serve humanity, and not the other way around. – Dalai Lama

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them. – Aristotle

I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, human liberty as the source of national action, the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. – John F. Kennedy

Everything on earth is beautiful, everything — except what we ourselves think and do when we forget the higher purposes of life and our own human dignity. – Anton Chekhov

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it. – Mikhail Bakunin

Human rights rest on human dignity. The dignity of man is an ideal worth fighting for and worth dying for. – Robert C. Maynard

We lose dignity if we tolerate the intolerable. – Dominique de Menil

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dignity Quotes

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world … Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. – Eleanor Roosevelt

If our free society is to endure, and I know it will, those who govern must recognize that the Framers of the Constitution limited their power in order to preserve human dignity and the air of freedom which is our proudest heritage. – William J. Brennan

For us democracy is a question of human dignity. And human dignity is political freedom, the right to freely express opinion and the right to be allowed to criticise and form opinions. Human dignity is the right to health, work, education and social welfare. Human dignity is the right and the practical possibility to shape the future with others. These rights, the rights of democracy, are not reserved for a select group within society, they are the rights of all the people. – Olof Palme

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home. – Eleanor Roosevelt

Let us never cease to feel compassion for those in want. Let us never tire of helping victims of injustice and oppression. He who puts his faith in the restoration of human dignity cannot be wrong. – Poul Hartling

Peace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting. Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education, as well as freedom and human dignity – a steadily better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering and long-starved, forgotten peoples of the world, the underprivileged and the undernourished, must begin to realize without delay the promise of a new day and a new life. – Ralph Bunche

Love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. – Nelson Mandela

Human Dignity has gleamed only now and then and here and there, in lonely splendor, throughout the ages, a hope of the better men, never an achievement of the majority. – James Thurber

There can be no real growth without healthy populations. No sustainable development without tackling disease and malnutrition. No international security without assisting crisis-ridden countries. And no hope for the spread of freedom, democracy and human dignity unless we treat health as a basic human right. – Gro Harlem Brundtland

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. – Isaac Asimov

The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well-being. – Emma Goldman

Life is not a matter of place, things or comfort; rather, it concerns the basic human rights of family, country, justice and human dignity. – Imelda Marcos

It is easy to romanticize poverty, to see poor people as inherently lacking agency and will. It is easy to strip them of human dignity, to reduce them to objects of pity. This has never been clearer than in the view of Africa from the American media, in which we are shown poverty and conflicts without any context. – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life . . . – Nelson Mandela

For too long the development debate has ignored the fact that poverty tends to be characterized not only by material insufficiency but also by denial of rights. What is needed is a rights-based approach to development. Ensuring essential political, economic and social entitlements and human dignity for all people provides the rationale for policy. These are not a luxury affordable only to the rich and powerful but an indispensable component of national development efforts. – Kofi Annan

Work is about more than making a living, as vital as that is. It’s fundamental to human dignity, to our sense of self-worth as useful, independent, free people. – William J. Clinton

Human dignity is independent of national borders. We must always defend the interests of the poor and the persecuted in other countries. – Kjell Magne Bondevik

Democracy is the absolute value that makes for human dignity, as well as the only road to sustained economic development and social justice. – Kim Dae-Jung

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. – Nelson Mandela

We speak here of the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and non-violence, racism and human dignity, oppression and repression and liberty and human rights, poverty and freedom from want. – Nelson Mandela

Not only do I pray for it, on the score of human dignity, but I can clearly forsee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principle. – George Washington

The love of liberty and the sense of human dignity are the basic elements of the Anarchist creed. – Federica Montseny

..the United States is subject to the scrutiny of a candid world … what the United States does, for good or for ill, continues to be watched by the international community, in particular by organizations concerned with the advancement of the rule of law and respect for human dignity. – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Peace, to have meaning for many who have only known suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health and education, as well as freedom and human dignity. – Ralph Bunche

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person…Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world. – Eleanor Roosevelt

We’ve got to take back the ideal of justice, we’ve got to take back this principle of human dignity. We’ve got to take it back from vengeance, from hatred, we’ve got to say: look, we’re all in this together. We are human beings. – David Kaczynski

How I wish everyone had decent work! It is essential for human dignity. – Pope Francis

In our struggle against racial segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, I came to see at a very early stage that a synthesis of Gandhi’s method of nonviolence and the Christian ethic of love is the best weapon available to Negroes for this struggle for freedom and human dignity. It may well be that the Gandhian approach will bring about a solution to the race problem in America. His spirit is a continual reminder to oppressed people that it is possible to resist evil and yet not resort to violence. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

So what we’re talking about here is human rights. The right to live like a human. The right to live, period. And what we’re facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality. – Bono

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. – Nelson Mandela

Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Democracy is not an end in itself, but a means to achieve the sacred promises of human dignity, justice and peace. – Alfred Maurice de Zayas

What is at stake is human dignity. If a man is not accorded respect he cannot respect himself and if he does not respect himself, he cannot demand it. – Cesar Chavez

I ask everyone with political responsibility to remember two things: human dignity and the common good. – Pope Francis

One achieves true human dignity only when one serves. Only he is great who subjects himself to taking part in the achievement of a great task. – Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera

American values are not just about America, but they speak to the human dignity, the God-given spark that resides in each and every person across the world. – Hillary Clinton

In the minds and hearts of the American people, there is a great hunger for peace based on a universal recognition of the values of freedom and human dignity. – Hubert H. Humphrey

The message of the United States is not nuclear power. The message of the United States is a spiritual message. It is the message of human ideals; it is the message of human dignity; it is the message of the freedom of ideas, speech, press, the right to assemble, to worship, and the message of freedom of movement of people. – Hubert H. Humphrey

So often times we see these films that erode human dignity…films that deny the transcendent moral order of the moral universe. They’re always eroding natural affections for families. Fathers betray their commitments, children’s are always portrayed as brats and disobedient, marriages are always in crisis and struggle. I think (for) most of us, that’s not the lives we live. We’re always being challenged, we always have challenges but we love our families, we love our spouse, we love our children. – Jason Jones

We need a free economy not only for the renewed material prosperity it will bring, but because it is indispensable to individual freedom, human dignity and to a more just, more honest society. – Margaret Thatcher

I absolutely believe that America has a responsibility, and the privilege of helping defend freedom and promote the principles that make the world more peaceful. And those principles include human rights, human dignity, free enterprise, freedom of expression, elections. – Mitt Romney

Technology that pollutes can also cleanse, production that amasses can also distribute justly, on condition that the ethic of respect for life and human dignity, for the rights of today’s generations and those to come, prevails. – Pope John Paul II

Government does best when it helps people help themselves. Human dignity is found not in a handout but in being able to do for one’s self. – Trent Lott

In the Bible poverty is a scandalous condition inimical to human dignity and therefore contrary to the will of God. – Gustavo Gutiérrez

As Americans we place special emphasis on human dignity, justice and freedom. WE measure as good of bad that which meets these goals. Those high ideas have survived and flourished on this soil for two centuries since the Founding Fathers planted them because we have sustained a general public enlightenment through a free and universal public school system. – Henry Clausen

Last year, [Pope Francis] was asked about his secret to happiness. He said slow down. Take time off. Live and let live. Don’t proselytize. Work for peace. Work at a job that offers basic human dignity. Don’t hold on to negative feelings. Move calmly through life. Enjoy art, books and playfulness. – Timothy Egan

We must teach our children that the preservation of liberty, and of an order of society conducive to human dignity, requires that a free people retain the moral and material means to discipline its own government, should the temptation to tyranny take root. – Alan Keyes

Take the life issue. This issue requires a president and an administration leading our nation to understand the importance of life. This whole faith-based initiative really ties into a larger cultural issue that we’re working on. It begins to affect the life issue, as well as the human dignity issue, because when you’re talking about welcoming people of faith to help people who are disadvantaged and are unable to defend themselves, the logical step is also those babies. – George W. Bush

The worst part about prostitution is that you’re obliged not to sell sex only, but your humanity. That’s the worst part of it: that what you’re selling is your human dignity. Not really so much in bed, but in accepting the agreement – in becoming a bought person. – Kate Millett

In an age of interdependence, global citizenship – based on trust and sense of shared responsibility – is a crucial pillar of progress. At a time when more than one billion people are denied the very minimum requirements of human dignity, business cannot afford to be seen as the problem. Rather, it must work with governments and all other actors in society to mobilize global science, technology and knowledge to tackle the interlocking crises of hunger, disease, environmental degradation and conflict that are holding back the developing world. – Kofi Annan

Nationality started as something natural, but we should not be restrained by the old politics that make up these clear lines. It should have its own way of evolving. In some places, it will evolve slower and in others, faster. It’s like the mountains, the ocean and the rivers. It has its own geological forms. Societies cannot be flat. But during change, human rights, human dignity and free speech have to be protected. Otherwise, we’ll be going backward. – Ai Weiwei

Is there an aesthetic “fit” in my work between God and the world? The “I’ in my poems has from the beginning identified himself as Catholic, and my books certainly can be read as presenting a Catholic theology “in a very particular sense.” Catholicism is a faith morally identified with the human struggle for human dignity and justice. It is a vision of the world incarnationally rooted in the senses, a faith of and in spoken and written words – Scripture, “the Word of God,” the Logos. – Lawrence Joseph

India has sanctioned phenomenal injustices for years and years and years. And normalized it. There is no understanding of what it means to be born into a class that has been denied basic human dignity for generations and generations. – Sarnath Banerjee

In a revolutionary age talk of equality may well have represented a passion to provide full human dignity to those who had previously been denied it by systems of political and economic domination; but in the present age it softens the spiritual requirements that are an essential ingredient in human dignity. Thus the slogans of equality serve not so much to elevate individuals to the dignity of being human as to free them from the responsibility of rising to this vocation. – Merold Westphal

Peace is never long preserved by weight of metal or by an armament race. Peace can be made tranquil and secure only by understanding and agreement fortified by sanctions. We must embrace international cooperation or international disintegration. Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human dignity. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics. – Bernard Baruch

The principles of the SPD have remained the same for 150 years: democracy, human dignity, justice and inclusion. We will never change those principles. – Martin Schulz

It is the system itself that, that is incapable of producing freedom for the twenty-two million Afro-Americans. Just like a chicken can’t lay a duck egg, a chicken can’t lay a duck egg, because the system of the chicken isn’t constructed in the way to produce a duck egg. And just as that chicken system can’t produce, is not capable to, of producing a duck egg, the political and economic system of this country is absolutely incapable of producing freedom and justice and equality and human dignity for the twenty-two million Afro-Americans. – Malcolm X

Dignity Quotes

Humility is the ability to give up your pride and still retain your dignity. – Vanna Bonta

Dignity consists not in possessing honours, but in the consciousness that we deserve them. –  Aristotle

Human dignity has gleamed only now and then and here and there, in lonely splendour, throughout the ages, a hope of the better men, never an achievement of the majority. – James Thurber

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me. – Jane Austen

There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others however humble. – Washington Irving

The degree in which a poet’s imagination dominates reality is, in the end, the exact measure of his importance and dignity. – George Santayana

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. – Booker T. Washington

What should move us to action is human dignity: the inalienable dignity of the oppressed, but also the dignity of each of us. We lose dignity if we tolerate the intolerable. –  Dominique De Menil

By a lie, a man… annihilates his dignity as a man. – Immanuel Kant

Other famous man, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate. Action is the dignity of greatness. – Jose Marti

Dignity does not float down from heaven it cannot be purchased nor manufactured. It is a reward reserved for those who labour with diligence. – Bill Hybels

I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves. – Mary Wollstonecraft

We believe in the dignity of every life, the possibility of every mind, the divinity of every soul. This is our true north. – Elizabeth dole

It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind’s dignity. – William Ellery Channing

Place confers no dignity upon some men; like a balloon, the higher they rise the smaller they look. – G. D. Prentice

The dignity of the individual demands that he be not reduced to vassalage by the largesse of others. – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity. – Herbert Hoover

Staying silent is like a slow-growing cancer to the soul and a trait of a true coward. There is nothing intelligent about not standing up for yourself. You may not win every battle. However, everyone will at least know what you stood for you. – Shannon l. Alder

The dignity of labour depends not on what you do, but how you do it. – Edwin Osgood Grover

Dignity is not negotiable. Dignity is the honour of the family. – Vartan Gregorian

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. – Abraham Joshua Heschel

The dignity of man was everywhere tissue-paper thin. – Dick Francis

All labour that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dignity Quotes

Natural dignity of mind or manners can never be concealed; it ever commands our respect: assumed dignity, or importance, excites our ridicule and contempt. – Joseph Bartlett

To possess dignity is to be worthy of respect. Worthy of high esteem. Absorb this: you are worthy of respect. – Beth Moore

All celebrated people lose dignity upon close inspection. – Napoleon Bonaparte

The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others. – Dag Hammarskjold

Mediocrity requires aloofness to preserve its dignity. – Charles G. Dawes

What people regard as vanity—leaving great works, having children, acting in such a way as to prevent one’s name from being forgotten—I regard as the highest expression of human dignity. – Paulo Coelho

One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered. – Michael j. Fox

The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within – strength, courage, dignity. – Ruby Dee

The most important human endeavour is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. – Albert Einstein

We must reach out our hand in friendship and dignity both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy. – Arthur Ashe

Dignity: the doomed man’s final refuge. – Max Frisch

Dignity of human nature requires that we must face the storms of life. – Mahatma Gandhi

Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tragedy in life normally comes with betrayal and compromise, and trading on your integrity and not having dignity in life. That’s really where failure comes. – Tom Cochrane

Every life deserves a certain amount of dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it. – Rick Bragg

Dignity is to have a dream, a strong one, which gives you a vision, a world where you have a place, where whatever it is you have to contribute makes a difference. – Fatema Mernissi

A truly american sentiment recognizes the dignity of labour and the fact that honour lies in honest toil. – Grover Cleveland

There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no one independence quite so important, as living within your means. –  Calvin Coolidge

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud. – Coco Chanel

The quest for freedom, dignity, and the rights of man will never end. – William J. Brennan

A wise man has dignity without pride; a fool has pride without dignity. – Confucius

Dignity is the reward of obeying your heart. – Wes Fesler

Dignity Quotes

But today’s society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual’s value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of hitler’s program, that is to say, ‘mercy’ killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer. Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch. – Viktor E. Frankl

Be strong. Live honourably and with dignity. When you don’t think you can hold on. – James Frey

Dignity has no price. When someone begins to give small concessions, in the end, life loses its meaning. – Jose Saramago

The ideal man assumes the accidents of life with grace and dignity, making the most of the circumstances. – Aristotle

Things have a price and these can be for sale, but people have dignity, which is invaluable and is worth much more than things. – Pope Francisco

Those who can speak of simple things with depth, of great things with dignity and moderate things with temperance are eloquent. – Cicero

Any man or institution that tries to deprive me of my dignity will fail. – Nelson Mandela

Where is the dignity unless there is honesty? – Cicero

The dignity of the individual consists in not being reduced to vassalage by the largeness of others. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The dignity of human nature requires that we face the storms of life. – Mahatma Gandhi

Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. – Albert Einstein

There are two types of pride, the good and the bad. “Good pride” represents our dignity and our self-love. “Bad pride” is a mortal sin of superiority that reeks of presumption and arrogance. – John C. Maxwell

No race can prosper until it learns that there is as much dignity in working the field as there is in writing a poem. – Booker T. Washington

By lying, man annihilates his dignity as a man. – Immanuel Kant

I am an example of what is possible when girls from the beginning of their lives are loved and raised by the people around them. I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life, who taught me about strength and dignity. – Michelle Obama

I prefer to be alone with dignity, than in a relationship where I sacrifice my self-esteem. – Mandy Hale

Dignity means that I deserve the best treatment I can receive. – Maya Angelou

Knowing when to retire is wisdom. Being able to do things is courage. To move away with your head held high is dignity. – Unknown author

Never commit who you are to someone. If they do not want you the way you are, it is better that they leave you, than lose your identity. – Unknown author

Dignity is the ability to stay strong and with your head held high while facing adversity while being able to revere the elders and crawl with the children. Dignity is to stand firm in your beliefs without closing your mind to another opinion. – Mychal Wynn

At stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator. – Saint John Paul II, Solicitude Rei Socialis

For, by his Incarnation, he, the son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man. Vatican II

Dear friends, it is certainly necessary to give bread to the hungry – this is an act of justice. But there is also a deeper hunger, the hunger for a happiness that only God can satisfy, the hunger for dignity. There is neither real promotion of the common good nor real human development when there is ignorance of the fundamental pillars that govern a nation, its non-material goods: life, which is a gift of God, a value always to be protected and promoted; the family, the foundation of coexistence and a remedy against social fragmentation; integral education, which cannot be reduced to the mere transmission of information for purposes of generating profit; health, which must seek the integral well-being of the person, including the spiritual dimension, essential for human balance and healthy coexistence; security, in the conviction that violence can be overcome only by changing human hearts. – Pope Francis

Dignity Quotes

  • Freedom for me is to live with dignity, and if my dignity and freedom is controlled by a man, I will never be free.
    • Manal al-Sharif, as quoted in Saudi women ‘still enslaved’, says activist as driving ban ends (22 June 2018) by Heba Kanso, Thomson Reuters Foundation.
  • All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
    • Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  • Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority.
    • Article 1 (1) of the German Grundgesetz
  • Remember this, — that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.
    • Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, IV, 32.
  • By indignities men come to dignities.
    • Francis Bacon “Of Great Place”.
  • Dignity is air … When there’s enough of it, you don’t notice it… When there’s a lack of [it], you suffocate.
    When you’re full of dignity, you can focus on other things your goals, your interests, anything. When you feel humiliated…, your brain focuses huge amounts of attention on your humiliation. You obsess on how people don’t appreciate your human value.
  • Aigul Aubanova in “Dignity What’s That, Sam?” chapter 3. It’s All About Dignity).
  • Washington absorbed, and later came to personify what you might call the dignity code. The code was based on the same premise as the nation’s Constitution — that human beings are flawed creatures who live in constant peril of falling into disasters caused by their own passions. Artificial systems have to be created to balance and restrain their desires.
    The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested — to endeavor to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its followers to be reticent — to never degrade intimate emotions by parading them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate — to distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm.

    • David Brooks in “In Search of Dignity” in The New York Times (6 July 2009).
  • Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from any larger set of rules or ethical system.
    But it’s not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and the other traits associated with dignity. The cultural effects of his presidency are not yet clear, but they may surpass his policy impact. He may revitalize the concept of dignity for a new generation and embody a new set of rules for self-mastery.

    • David Brooks in “In Search of Dignity” in The New York Times (6 July 2009).
  • Respect for human dignity and individual freedoms reaffirms a core tenet of civilized people everywhere.
    • George W. Bush, Proclamation 7513 (December 2001)
  • Every human being has dignity and value no matter what their citizenship papers say.
    • George W. Bush, speech on immigration (May 2006)
  • It is terrifying to see how easily, in certain people, all dignity collapses. Yet when you think about it, this is quite normal since they only maintain this dignity by constantly striving against their own nature.
    • Albert Camus Notebooks 1935-1942, Chapter III, p. 142.
  • Personal dignity is to be measured with the yardstick of one’s conscience, not with that of other people’s judgement.
    • Fausto Cercignani in: Brian Morris, Quotes we cherish. Quotations from Fausto Cercignani, 2014, p. 13.
  • The best therapy for the imaginary invalid is very simple, but rarely applied. The subject should be taken to a place where people must bear atrocious sufferings and the loss of all human dignity.
    • Fausto Cercignani in: Brian Morris, Simply Transcribed. Quotations from Writings by Fausto Cercignani, 2014, quote 46.
  • Where is there dignity unless there is also honesty?
    • Cicero, Ad Atticum VII, xi.
  • I wish you all the pleasurable excitement one can have without hurting others and one’s own dignity.
    • Norbert Elias in “Portret van een socioloog”, VPRO (23 April 1975).
  • I believe in only one thing and that thing is human liberty. If ever a man is to achieve anything dignity, it can happen only if superior men are given absolute freedom to think what they want to think and say what they want to say. I am against any man and any organization which seeks to limit or deny that freedom … the superior man can be sure of freedom only if it is given to all men.
    • H. L. Mencken, as quoted in Letters of H. L. Mencken (1961) edited by Guy J. Forgue, p. xiii.
  • Nonviolence is a constant awareness of the dignity and humanity of oneself and others. It seeks truth and justice. It renounces violence, both in method and in attitude. It is a courageous acceptance of active love and goodwill as the instruments with which to overcome evil and transform both oneself and others. It is the willingness to undergo suffering rather than inflict it. It excludes retaliation and flight.
    • Wallace Floyd Nelson, as quoted in Seeds of Peace : A Catalogue of Quotations‎ (1986) by Jeanne Larson and Madge Micheels-Cyrus, p. 169.
  • Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this.
All our dignity consists then in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor to think well; this is the principle of morality.

  • Blaise Pascal, Pensées, #347, W. F. Trotter, trans. – New York: 1958)
  • It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.
    • Blaise Pascal, Pensées, #348, W. F. Trotter, trans. – New York: 1958)
  • Anything which is accomplished through making other people afraid is wrong. Anything which deprives other people of their dignity is wrong.
    • Alexander D. Shimkin, American civil rights worker and journalist, from Alex Shimkin oral history interview (cassette tape and transcript), 1965, Box 3, Folder 56, Archive no. 0050, Project South, SC 066, Stanford University Archives, Stanford, Calif.
  • The demeaning of dignity is almost the only reason for a fight.
    • Simon Soloveychik in Parenting for Everyone, Book 1, Part 1, Ch. 34.
  • Nothing is more significant than dignity for adults and children. Everything is related to dignity. The important thing is that there is the highest price for each man and for all men together. This price is – the truth. Therefore all people crave it. People need others to appreciate them by the very highest dignity, by the truth. The genuine price of a man is the truth about him.
    • Simon Soloveychik in Parenting for Everyone, Book 1, Part 2, Chapter 34.
  • There is a boundary between good and evil. Good — is good, evil — is evil, and there is a line between them. It is called the truth. Everything that is higher than this line — is goodness, the extolling of human dignity. Everything that is lower — is evil, destroying human dignity, decreasing its price.
    • Simon Soloveychik in Parenting for Everyone, Book 2, Part 2, Chapter 10.
  • Man — is his dignity.
    • Simon Soloveychik in Parenting for Everyone, Book 2, Part 3, Chapter 9.
  • Let’s remember our goal. It is not to reeducate the teacher; it is not to express fair anger, it is not “to show everyone that…” No! We need that the sense of dignity remains in our son or daughter — here is our goal!
    • Simon Soloveychik in Parenting for Everyone, Book 3, Part 2, Chapter 17.
  • To assert dignity is to lose it.
    • Nero Wolfe in The League of Frightened Men (1935) by Rex Stout
  • [H]uman dignity is innate… Human dignity cannot be taken away by the government… The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.
    • Clarence Thomas, opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges (26 June 2015)
  • Dissent… is a right essential to any concept of the dignity and freedom of the individual; it is essential to the search for truth in a world wherein no authority is infallible.
    • Norman Thomas, as quoted in The Quotable Rebel (2005) by Teishan Latner, p. 360.
  • Let us hold fast the great truth, that communities are responsible, as well as individuals; that no government is respectable which is not just. Without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society.
    • Daniel Webster, An Address Delivered at the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument: June 17, 1843 (1843).
  • Otium cum dignitate.
    • Ease with dignity.
    • Cicero, Oratia Pro Publio Sextio, XLV.
  • The dignity of truth is lost
    With much protesting.

    • Ben Jonson, Catiline, Act III, scene 2.
  • * * * With grave
    Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem’d
    A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
    Deliberation sat, and public care;
    And princely counsel in his face yet shone
    Majestic, though in ruin: sage he stood,
    With Atlantéan shoulders, fit to bear
    The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look
    Drew audience and attention still as night
    Or summer’s noontide air.

    • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book II, line 300.
  • We have exchanged the Washingtonian dignity for the Jeffersonian simplicity, which was in truth only another name for the Jeffersonian vulgarity.
    • Bishop Henry C. Potter, Address at the Washington Centennial Service, New York (April 30, 1889).
  • Dignity increases more easily than it begins.
    • Seneca the Younger, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, CI.
  • Let none presume
    To wear an undeserved dignity.

    • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act II, scene 9, line 39.
  • True dignity abides with him alone
    Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
    Can still suspect, and still revere himself,
    In lowliness of heart.

    • William Wordsworth, lines left upon a seat in a Yew Tree; same idea in Beattie, Minstrel, II, Stanza 12.
  • Revere thyself, and yet thyself despise.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), VI. 128.

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