Dignity Quotations

Quotes regarding Dignity:

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, in Meditations, IV, 32

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)

It is terrifying to see how easily, in certain people, all dignity collapses. Yet when you think about it, this is quite normal since by constantly striving against their own nature.
- Albert Camus Notebooks 1935-1942, Ch. III, p.142

Where is there dignity unless there is also honesty?
- Cicero, in 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)

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

The demeaning of dignity is almost the only reason for a fight.
- Simon Soloveychik in Parenting for Everyone, Book 1, Pt. 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, Pt. 2, Ch. 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, Pt. 2, Ch. 10

Man — is his dignity.
- Simon Soloveychik in Parenting for Everyone, Book 2, Pt. 3, Ch. 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, Pt. 2, Ch. 17

To assert dignity is to lose it.
- Nero Wolfe in The League of Frightened Men (1935) by Rex Stout

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, in An Address Delivered at the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument: June 17, 1843 (1843)