Quotes about dignity

What was ignoble about the Kenilworth spectacle was that the poor dog had begun to hate its own nature. It no longer needed to be beaten. It was ready to punish itself. At that point it would have been better to shoot it.

It’s hard to talk like a human being when one hasn’t been treated like one for years!

You strip from me the laurel and the rose!

Take all! Despite you there is yet one thing

I hold against you all, and when, tonight,

I enter Christ's fair courts, and, lowly bowed,

Sweep with doffed casque the heavens' threshold blue,

One thing is left, that, void of stain or smutch,

I bear away despite you …

My panache.

I believe all Americans are born with certain inalienable rights. As a child of God, I believe my rights are not derived from the Constitution. My rights are not derived from any government. My rights are not denied by any majority. My rights are because I exist. They were given to me and each of my fellow citizens by our creator, and they represent the essence of human dignity....

It would not be absurd, but grotesque, to argue that since circumstances can be arranged under which behavior is quite predictable — as in a prison, for example, or the concentration-camp society "designed" above — therefore there need be no concern for the freedom and dignity of "autonomous man." When such conclusions are taken to be the result of a "scientific analysis," one can only be amazed at human gullibility.

Inferiority is not banal or incidental even when it happens to women. It is not a petty affliction like bad skin or circles under the eyes. it is not a superficial flaw in an otherwise perfect picture. It is not a minor irritation, nor it is it a trivial inconvenience, an occasional aggravation, or a regrettable but (frankly) harmless lapse in manners. It is not a "point of view" that some people with soft skins find "offensive." It is the deep and destructive devaluing of a person in life, a shredding of dignity and self-respect, an imposed exile from human worth and human recognition, the forced alienation of a person from even the possibility of wholeness or internal integrity.

These people must be helped to find themselves in this new world, but they must not know that they’re being helped. To let them know would destroy confidence and dignity, and human dignity is the keystone of any civilization.

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.

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

It's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn't hurt you.

Danforth: Do you mean to deny this confession when you are free?

Proctor: I mean to deny nothing!

Danforth: Then explain to me, Mr. Proctor, why you will not let —

Proctor: [With the cry of his whole soul] Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away — a man is not a piece of fruit.