If you don't believe in God, all you have to believe in is decency. Decency is very good. Better decent than indecent. But I don't think it's enough. — Harold MacMillan
The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency. — Theodore Roosevelt
Decency never goes out of style. Kindness is always cool. Helpfulness is still hip. — Robin S. Sharma
Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
Decency and tolerance, to be of any value, must be capable of withstanding the severest strain. — Mahatma Gandhi
Justice consists of doing no one injury, decency in giving no one offense. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
God's most lordly gift to man is decency of mind. — Aeschylus
Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed. — Francois de la Rochefoucauld
Be modest, be respectful of others, try to understand. — Lakhdar Brahimi
Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect are the qualities which make a real gentleman or lady. — Thomas Huxley
Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead. — Kurt Vonnegut
Ethics, decency and morality are the real soldiers — Kiran Bedi
…there's no question of heroism in all this. It's a matter of common decency. That's an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is - common decency. — Albert Camus
Short Being Decent Quotes
Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it. — Christopher Hitchens
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
A better politics is one where we appeal to each other’s basic decency instead of our basest fears. — Barack Obama
As a general thing, an individual who is neat in his person is neat in his morals. — Josh Billings
Good manners make any man a pleasure to be with. Ask any woman. — Peter Mayle
Top 10 Being Decent Quotes
When people appear to be something other than good and decent, it is only because they are reacting to stress, pain, or the deprivation of basic human needs such as security, love, and self-esteem. — Abraham Maslow
So if people have an opportunity for a decent job, a decent education, a decent health care system and security, I know that forceful migration will be reduced to zero. —
The poor prey on one another because their lives offer no hope and communicate the tragic message to these human beings that they have no possibility to attain a decent standard of living. — Thabo Mbeki
With 20 hours of focused effort, most people can be pretty decent at something. The problem is that most people spend years waiting to do the first hour. — Alex Hormozi
Coffee better be halfway decent for us, because if not, I am dying young. — Will Bulsiewicz
Reality may not be the best of all possible worlds, but it's still the only place where you can get a decent steak. — Woody Allen
A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments. — Fyodor Dostoevsky
Decent people should ignore politics, if only they could be confident that politics would ignore them — William F. Buckley, Jr.
A decent and manly examination of the acts of government should not only be tolerated, but encouraged. — William Henry Harrison
If you ever want to be a decent player, you have to be able to use both feet without stopping to think about it. — Pele
Being Decent Image Quotes
Life is very short. If people aren't decent, kind, accountable, responsible, or responsive, man up and get rid of them.
Decent Human Being Quotes
There are people who've said that I'm being brave for being openly supportive of gay marriage, gay adoption... With all due respect, I humbly dissent. I am not being brave, I'm a decent human being... Love is a human experience, not a political statement — Anne Hathaway
Don't try to be spiritual. That is only a word in the dictionary. Make it your goal to become a normally functioning individual. Let these principles shape you according to your real nature of a simple, decent, honest, unafraid human being. — Vernon Howard
I'm more than ever of the opinion that a decent human existence is possible today only on the fringes of society, where one then runs the risk of starving or being stoned to death. In these circumstances, a sense of humor is a great help. — Hannah Arendt
I feel that the dormant goodwill in people needs to be stirred. People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence. — Vaclav Havel
Our only reliable source of strength is the goodness of our hearts. Our only foundation for coming to terms with the suffering of the times is our innate need to be decent human beings. — Sakyong Mipham
Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted. — Isaiah Berlin
Oh, it's always the same,' she sighed, 'if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it. — W. Somerset Maugham
If someone mistakes your kindness for weakness, that's their fault - not yours. And it's OK to be a decent human being in this life. — Jeremy Piven
I shall strive not to be guilty of adding any fuel to the flames of hatred and passion which, if continued to be fed, promise to burn up whatever is left by the war of decent human feeling in Europe. — Eamon de Valera
I get tested for HIV twice a year.... One has to be socially aware. It's part of being a decent human to be tested for STDs. It's just disgusting behaviour when people don't. It's so irresponsible. — Scarlett Johansson
Being A Decent Person Quotes
I am more worried about being a good person than being the best football player in the world — Lionel Messi
USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion. — Ambrose Bierce
I believe in good, having morals, be a decent person. — Taylor Momsen
Because it’s no longer enough to be a decent person. It’s no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself. — Joss Whedon
Saying something is 'too bad' is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your business and not be interested anymore. It's a lot worse than 'too bad.' It's against everything decent and natural. — Isaac Asimov
When you have to play a character that seems to be a relatively decent person and seems to be like yourself, I think the trick in that kind of character, so that you don't become a cliche, is to find where their weaknesses are. — Jennifer Beals
I think the challenge is, in fashion everybody wants to get rich and famous and it's easy to get rich and famous by being a bad person. But the challenge is to achieve your goals-whatever they are-while staying a decent human being. That's where it came from. — Katharine Hamnett
Thinking that being a good, decent, respectable person will mean that others will see you as weak, vulnerable, and easy to manipulate. — Paulo Coelho
A person may be totally unimaginative and have the social vision of a mole, and we still call him a decent man. — Margaret Halsey
Everyone who knew [Barack] Obama from being in Hyde Park knew he was the smartest guy in any room he walked into; a decent, compassionate, lovely person; pragmatic, middle-of-the-road and ambitious. — Bill Ayers
Looking Decent Quotes
When you're finally up on the moon, looking back at the earth, all these differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend and you're going to get a concept that maybe this is really one world and why the hell can't we learn to live together like decent people? — Frank Borman
Kids are always infatuated with the action in Martial Arts Films. Let me tell you, there is nothing better for kids than the Arts. That is what kept me straight and decent. I always had a place to go. That was the dojo. I always had something to look forward to doing. — Thomas Ian Griffith
When it's over I just want to be able to look in the mirror and say, 'Well, you were a half-decent player.' — Paul Scholes
My mother was a great woman. To look at her from the suffering she had gone through to bring us up - 20 children: 6 girls and 14 boys, but still she taught us to be decent and to respect ourselves, and that is one of the things that has kept me going, even after she passed. — Fannie Lou Hamer
I only have to do three things to look halfway decent. Curl my eyelashes, fill in my eyebrows and put some lipstick on. — Courteney Cox
I didn't look up and say, "Oh, man, if I learn how to play a guitar I could make not much money, but I'd make a decent living like Eric Clapton or somebody." There wasn't nothing like that out there. — Buddy Guy
I'm the complete opposite of every clean cut, decent-looking guy you could ever think of. Yet, I have the biggest heart in the world. — A. J. McLean
We say we are trying to buy into businesses with excellent economics, run by honest and able people at a decent price. We buy very few securities, so we look at it as "focused" investing. — Warren Buffett
The gross profits in many workouts appear quite small. It's a little like looking for parking meters with some time left on them. However, the predictability coupled with a short holding period produces quite decent average annual rates of return after allowance for the occasional substantial loss. — Warren Buffett
When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don't see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy. — Joseph Heller
What You Deserve Quotes
Being single doesn't mean your weak. It means your strong enough to wait for what you deserve. — Niall Horan
In this life, it's not what you hope for, it's not what you deserve - it's what you take! — Tom Cruise
You can't wait around for destiny to give you what you think you deserve, you have to earn it, even if you think you've paid your dues. — Slash
Don't let anyone ever make you feel you don't deserve what you want. — Heath Ledger
Apply specific knowledge with leverage and eventually, you will get what you deserve. — Naval Ravikant
The only thing you deserve is what you earn — Tom Brands
You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. — American Proverbs
You sign an agreement; you make a contract, you live up to it. You never get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate. You got a right to say yay or nay. — Don King
Eventually you will get what you deserve. — Naval Ravikant
What You Get Is What You Deserve Quotes
I get that you're scared and that you've been hurt. But doing what is easy and safe is no way to live, and a life without passion and love is so far beneath what you deserve. — Kiersten White
I got at a very early age, the idea that the safest way to try and get what you want, is to try and deserve what you want.
It’s such a simple idea, it’s the golden rule so to speak. You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end. — Charlie Munger
Nobody knows what you want except you. And nobody will be as sorry as you if you don't get it. Wanting some other way to live is proof enough of deserving it. Having it is hard work, but not having it is sheer hell. — Lillian Hellman
The safest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want. — Charlie Munger
Justice is getting what you deserve.
Mercy is not getting what you deserve.
And grace is getting what you absolutely don't deserve.
...... benign good will. unprovoked compassion. the unearnable gift — Cathleen Falsani
Is Fate getting what you deserve, or deserving what you get? — Jodi Picoult
By and large, life will give you what you deserve and it doesn't give a damn what you like. So it is up to you to take full responsibility to connect what you want with what you need to do to get it, and then to do those things. — Ray Dalio
Many people know what they want to have, but have no idea of who they want to be. Getting 'things' simply will not fulfill you. Only living and doing what you believe is 'the right thing' will give you that sense of inner strength that we all deserve. — Tony Robbins
Men will treat you the way you let them. There is no such thing as 'deserving' respect; you get what you demand from people. — Tucker Max
Being Decency Quotes
Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice. — John Adams
We cannot change the way the world is, but by opening ourselves to the world as it is, we may find that gentleness, decency and bravery are available - not only to us, but to all human beings. — Chogyam Trungpa
Our goal is not just an environment of clean air and water and scenic beauty. The objective is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human beings and all other living creatures. — Gaylord Nelson
In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining…. We demand this fraud be stopped. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
In addition to fines, violators of decency standards could be required to air public service announcements serving educational and informational needs of children. — Charles W. Pickering
It should be clear that the death penalty does just the opposite of promoting decency and respect for life. It dehumanizes people and promotes murder. It can never be applied fairly. — John Morrison
If you can't say anything nice, at least have the decency to be vague. — Susan Andersen
The basic goal of labor will not change. It is - as it has always been, and I am sure always will be - to better the standards of life for all who work for wages and to seek decency and justice and dignity for all Americans. — George Meany
A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself. The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss. — John Kennedy Toole
Gratitude is the beginning of civility, of decency and goodness, of a recognition that we cannot afford to be arrogant. We should walk with the knowledge that we will need help every step of the way. — Gordon B. Hinckley
Decent Man Quotes
There are two races of men in this world but only these two: the race of the decent man and the race of the indecent man. — Viktor E. Frankl
I'm for the poor man - all poor men, black and white, they all gotta have a chance. They gotta have a home, a job, and a decent education for their children. 'Every man a king' - that's my slogan. — Huey Long
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. — H. L. Mencken
No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man. — H. L. Mencken
Everybody now seems to be talking about democracy. I don't understand this. As I think of it, democracy isn't like a Sunday suit to be brought out and worn only for parades. It's the kind of a life a decent man leads, it's something to live for and to die for. — Dalton Trumbo
President Eisenhower was a fine general and a good, decent man, but if he had fought World War II the way he fought for civil rights, we would all be speaking German now. — Roy Wilkins
The state remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men. — H. L. Mencken
Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody — except bad people. — Charlton Heston
There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind. — Fyodor Dostoevsky
The point of nonviolence is to build a floor, a strong new floor, beneath which we can no longer sink. A platform which stands a few feet above napalm, torture, exploitation, poison gas, A and H bombs, the works. Give man a decent place to stand. — Joan Baez
Decent Quotes
A new era will dawn in Africa, when the impoverished masses of a nation rise up to rescue their right to a decent life from the hands of the ruling oligarchies. — Che Guevara
Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. — Nelson Mandela
As for the Republicans -- how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, [and] steel their emotions against decent human sympathy. — H. P. Lovecraft
No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country... By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level - I mean the wages of decent living. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life, and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect. — Temple Grandin
That should stay in the hands of the private sector so that they scientists earn their keep serving others with goods of better quality at better prices, as decent people do. — Javier Milei
If we lived in an even somewhat decent and sane society the Epstein child sex ring would be the lead story everyday. ABC would have seen mass firings for the coverup and all of the powerful people associated would be relentlessly hassled by the press to explain their involvement. — Dave Smith
Thinking in generations also means enabling our young to have a decent standard of living. — Paul Tsongas
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 largest challenge that we face, from my perspective, is the ability to continue moving forward so the agency will have a single mission: that is, to provide decent, safe, and affordable housing. — Alphonso Jackson
Americans of good-will, the nice decent church people, the well-meaning liberals, the good hearted souls who themselves wouldn't lynch anyone, must begin to realize that they have to be more than passively good-hearted, more than church goingly Christian, and much more than word-of-mouth in the liberalism. — Langston Hughes
And I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes. For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do. — Paul the Apostle
The practice of assertiveness: being authentic in our dealings with others; treating our values and persons with decent respect in social contexts; refusing to fake the reality of who we are or what we esteem in order to avoid disapproval; the willingness to stand up for ourselves and our ideas in appropriate ways in appropriate contexts. — Nathaniel Branden
The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial. ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all. — Edward Abbey
Resveratrol had a decent benefit when the mice were obese and sedentary. The mice that were fed a lean diet and resveratrol lived significantly longer than other treated mice as well as those that had no healthy diet and no resveratrol. So resveratrol is not an excuse to be lazy or eat whatever you want. — David Sinclair
But if the life will not be easy, it will be rich and satisfying. For every young American who participates in the Peace Corps-who works in a foreign land-will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace. — John F. Kennedy
We all have limitations. I don't have the right genes to be an Olympic weightlifter. I don't have the right genetics to be an Olympic sprinter. Or gymnast. Sure, if I trained my whole life, perhaps I could have become fairly decent in those sports. — Jocko Willink
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. — C. S. Lewis
Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely. Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely. — Adam Michnik
Any decent society has to be built on trust and love and the intelligent use of information and feelings. Education involves being able to practice those things as you struggle to build a decent society that can be nonviolent. — Myles Horton
Plenty of kind, decent, caring people have no religious beliefs, and they act out of the goodness of their hearts. Conversely, plenty of people who profess to be religious, even those who worship regularly, show no particular interest in the world beyond themselves. — John C. Danforth
Be proud to be a decent American rather than a wanker whipping up fear. — Michael D. Higgins
The civil rights situation is like a pregnancy. It will get worse, I believe, before it gets better. What the usual pregnancy comes to is a decent baby. That is what we all hope will be the end product of this stress. It is customary, at the end of a pregnancy, to have for your pains a decent baby. — Gwendolyn Brooks
Try to be forgotten. Go live in the country. Stay in mourning for two years, then remarry, but choose somebody decent. — Alexander Pushkin
Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all men are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all men and all countries — not until then shall we, with a certain degree of justification, be able to speak of mankind as civilized. — Albert Einstein
The bravest and most noble are not those who take up arms, but those who are decent despite everything; who improve what it is in their power to improve, but do not imagine themselves to be saviours. In their humble struggle is true heroism. — Theodore Dalrymple
To others, the universe seems decent because decent people have welded eyes. That is why they fear lewdness. They are never frightened by the crowing of a rooster or when strolling under a starry heaven. In general, people savor the "pleasures of the flesh" only on the condition that they may be insipid. — Georges Bataille
Are we to regard the world of nature simply as a storehouse to be robbed for the immediate benefit of man? ... Does man have any responsibility for the preservation of a decent balance in nature, for the preservation of rare species, or even for the indefinite continuance of his race? — Kenneth E. Boulding
Somewhere deep down there's a decent man in me, he just can't be found. — Eminem
If a guy is a good athlete, he'll end up being a pretty decent golfer if he just takes it up. But you never master it; even the best players in the world never master the game. — Jack Nicklaus
In Conclusion
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