honor Quotes

There are people who observe the rules of honor as we do the stars, from a very long way off.

No hunter of the sky should end his days as prey. Better to die on the wing than pinned to the ground.

“If any honor existed in war, he concluded, it was in fighting to protect others from harm.”

“To have a child is the greatest honor and responsibility that can be bestowed upon any living being.”

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

“I love the name of honour more than I fear death.”

“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!”

The wounds received in battle bestow honor, they do not take it away.

What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms . . . or the memory of a brother’s smile?

We are all honorable men here, we do not have to give each other assurances as if we were lawyers.

“The same honor waits for the coward and the brave. They both go down to Death.”

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor”

“The myth of the Tadpole Angel was complete. Now it could only grow and shape as legends are wont to do. Nothing I would ever do could change things. I had crossed the line to where only the greatest of the medicine men have ever been, perhaps even further, for not even the greatest were known by all the tribes and honored by all of the people. I had become a legend.”

“‘You see this scar on the top of my head?’ He tilted his head to show me. ‘I got that scar in Greene County, Alabama trying to register to vote in 1964. You see this scar on the side of my head? […] I got that scar in Mississippi demanding civil rights. […] These aren’t my scars, cuts and bruises. These are my medals of honor.‘”

“An assassin lives an honorable life.”

“I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it because – I don’t reckon my dad would’ve wanted them to become killers – just for you.”

“Though there is no playbook on how to navigate the path of life, if I do it with the grace and heart of the women before me, the I will have lived my life with honor.”

“No. No creature can be honorably required to go counter to the law of his nature -- the Law of God.”

“Now, we must have badly painted the character of our adventure seeker, or our readers must have already perceived that D’Artagnan was not an ordinary man; therefore, while repeating to himself that his death was inevitable, he did not make up his mind to die quietly, as one less courageous and less restrained might have done in his place.”

“I . . . looked in the mirror. . . . I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind. . . . And then I draped the large embroidered red scarf over my face and covered these thoughts up. But underneath the scarf I still knew who I was. I made a promise to myself: I would always remember my parents’ wishes, but I would never forget myself.”

“She’d shown him in a thousand ways that she was honorable and strong and generous and very human, maybe even more vividly human than anyone he’d ever known.”

“Lieutenant Kaffee, I believe in God, and in His son, Jesus Christ. And because I do, I can say this: Private Santiago isn’t dead because of a Code Red. He’s dead because he had no honor. He’s dead because he had no Code. And God was watching.”

“We didn’t join the Corps ‘cause we felt like it, we joined ‘cause it was a life decision. We wanted to live by a code, sir. And we found it in the Corps. And now you’re asking me to sign a piece of paper that says we have no honor. We have no Code. You’re asking us to say we’re not Marines.”

“There was not much difficulty in settling the matter once Eustace realised that everyone took the idea of a duel quite seriously and heard Caspian offering to lend him a sword, and Drinian and Edmund discussing whether he ought to be handicapped in some way to make up for his being so much bigger than Reepicheep.”

“I’d rather be killed fighting for Narnia than grow old and stupid at home and perhaps go about in a bath-chair and then die in the end just the same.”

“You don’t need to wear a patch on your arm to have honor.”

“If a man were really able to instruct mankind, to receive money for giving instruction would, in my opinion, be an honour to him.”

“It was from the success, not from the justice, of their enterprises, that they expected the honors of a triumph.”

“That public virtue, which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a different, but not less forcible nature—honor and religion.”

“But how can I not go on? They would want me to survive. . . to grow up and make something of my life, . . . to honor their memories.”

“You say we could lose our lives for this child? I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family.”

“No man shall say that I betrayed a brother.”

″‘If I should die,’ Dalinar said, ‘then I would do so having lived my life right. It is not the destination that matters, but how one arrives there.‘”

“It is honorable to help a friend in need.”

“A woman who cannot honor her own feelings will not find them honored by anyone else.”

“Romans, make way. The good Andronicus, Patron of virtue, Rome’s best champion, Successful in the battles that he fights, With honour and with fortune is return’d.”

“O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See How I convey my shame out of thine eyes, By looking back what I have left behind ‘Stroyed in dishonor.”

″...the Distinguished Intelligence Cross, the highest honor bestowed by the CIA. The award goes to clandestine service members for “a voluntary act or acts of extraordinary heroism involving the acceptance of existing dangers with conspicuous fortitude and exemplary courage.”

“And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth and meat and mead at my table, and pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you into dishonor. I swear it by the old gods and the new. Arise.” As she clasped [Brienne’s] hands between her own, Catelyn could not help but smile.”

“Although the operators fought the battle and by all accounts saved about twenty American lives, because they were neither CIA staffers nor active military personnel they were deemed ineligible for even higher awards, awards that went to other men who played smaller roles and never fired a shot.”

“we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your place. If the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense; and here, by this, is your brother saved, your honor untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it? ”

“What I was afraid of was that everyone present, from the insolent marker down to the lowest little stinking, pimply clerk in a greasy collar, would jeer at me and fail to understand when I began to protest and to address them in literary language. For of the point of honour – not of honour, but of the point of honour – one cannot speak among us except in literary language. You can’t allude to the “point of honour” in ordinary language. I was fully convinced (the sense of reality, in spite of all my romanticism!) that they would all simply split their sides with laughter.”

“And so he lived […] in apparent glory, honored by the world, but for all that usually in a melancholy mood, which grew increasingly so because no one was able to take it seriously.”

“The right man for you won’t see proving his love for you as a burden. For him ... it’s an honor.”

“When the soldier of a civilized power is killed in action his limbs are composed and his body is borne by friendly arms reverently to the grave. The wail of the fifes, the roll of the drums, the triumphant words of the Funeral Service, all divest the act of its squalor, and the spectator sympathises with, perhaps almost envies, the comrade who has found this honourable exit. ”

“When the soldier of a civilized power is killed in action his limbs are composed and his body is borne by friendly arms reverently to the grave. The wail of the fifes, the roll of the drums, the triumphant words of the Funeral Service, all divest the act of its squalor, and the spectator sympathises with, perhaps almost envies, the comrade who has found this honourable exit. ”

“Honor ‘AMERICA’ June 14 AT 4 p.m. Be proud of ‘Our Land & People’. Be part of the ‘LIVING FLAG’. Don’t let it be said that Lake Wobegon was ‘Too Busy’. Be on time. 4 p.m. ‘Sharp’.”

“I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, I won’t be laid-a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people and I require the same of them.”

“Everybody has laws he lives by, I expect. I have mine as well.”

“And if your life is a suitable exchange for my honor, why is my honor not a suitable exchange for your life?”

“He swung the ancient sword high and struck at the giant adder. He struck for Redwall!”

“When I am come to mine own again, I will always honor little children, remembering how that these trusted me and believed me in my time of trouble; whilst they that were older, and thought themselves wiser, mocked at me and held me for a liar.”

“There are, if I may so say, three powerful spirits, which have from time to time, moved on the face of the waters, and given a predominant impulse to the moral sentiments and energies of mankind. These are the spirits of liberty, of religion, and of honor.”

“Someday when we’re all free, all the third children, I’ll tell everyone about you. They’ll erect statues to you, and name holidays after you...”

″‘You gotta live for you and Dre now, you feel me? You can do everything he didn’t get a chance to do.’ I never thought of that. ‘Raise your son. Be the best father you can be,’ Shawn says. ‘That’s how you honor Dre. A’ight?‘”

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

“ ‘You have saved the planet!’ says the White Wizard. ‘We are very grateful. Please accept as your reward our highest honour, the Twin Crimson Cones of Tirnol Two.’ “

″ ‘What,’ cried I, ‘were you in the English army?’ ‘That was I,’ said Alan. ‘But I deserted to the right side at Prestonpans–and that’s some comfort.’ I could scarcely share this view: holding desertion under arms for an unpardonable fault in honour. But for all I was so young, I was wiser than say my thought. ‘Dear, dear,’ says I, ‘the punishment is death.’ ”

“It was his solemn duty to appear in the corridor once a week, and to gibber from the large oriel window on the first and third Wednesdays in every month, and he did not see how he could honourably escape from his obligations. It is quite true that his life had been very evil, but, upon the other hand, he was most conscientious in all things connected with the supernatural.”

″‘I am not yet a knight,’ said Tiuri, ‘but if I were, I would promise it on my honour as a knight.‘”

“Death is welcome when it comes; but to yield- never!”

“Maria, though decidedly vain and much too inquisitive, was possessed of the fine qualities of honour and courage and fastidiousness, and Miss Heliotrope was entirely made of love and patience.”

“I pray that our end may be in as good cause when it comes. For with the best of us the hour of death is an awful hour, and we may well pray, as every Sunday, to be delivered in it.”

“Honour binds a woman too, Rudolf. My honour lies in being true to my country and my House. I don’t know why God has let me love you; but I know that I must stay.”

“With these advantages their popularity as a body was very great- and it is only due to them to say that they bore their honours magnanimously, and distributed their kicks and favours with the strictest impartiality.”

″...when I paid you honor, I reaped no benefits, but now that I ill-treat you I am loaded with an abundance of riches.”

“You’ve got your grandfather’s spirit, if you haven’t his face. He was a fine man, my dear, but what is better, he was a brave and an honest one, and I was proud to be his friend.”

“Do not blacken your fame, and perish in dishonor!”

“Well,” returned Morrel, “it is a cruel thing to be forced to say, but, already used to misfortune, I must habituate myself to shame. I fear I shall be forced to suspend payment.”

“I shall expect you,” returned Morrel; “and I will pay you—or I shall be dead.”

“If I live, all would be changed; if I live, interest would be converted into doubt, pity into hostility; if I live I am only a man who has broken his word, failed in his engagements—in fact, only a bankrupt. If, on the contrary, I die, remember, Maximilian, my corpse is that of an honest but unfortunate man. Living, my best friends would avoid my house; dead, all Marseilles will follow me in tears to my last home. Living, you would feel shame at my name; dead, you may raise your head and say, ‘I am the son of him you killed, because, for the first time, he has been compelled to break his word.‘”

“Why have you caused me thus to fail in my word towards a gentleman like the count, who has all our lives in his hands?”

“I see; to your domestics you are ‘my lord,’ the journalists style you ‘monsieur,’ while your constituents call you ‘citizen.’ These are distinctions very suitable under a constitutional government. I understand perfectly.”

“I beseech you, madame,” replied Monte Cristo “not to spoil Ali, either by too great praise or rewards. I cannot allow him to acquire the habit of expecting to be recompensed for every trifling service he may render.”

“Now, I beg of you, don’t go off your head. It’s a month now that you have been thinking of this marriage, and you must see that it throws some responsibility on me, for it was at my house you met this young Cavalcanti, whom I do not really know at all.”

“I know you to be a man of honor.”

“I fight in the cause of honor.”

“A son ought not to submit to such a stain on his father’s honor.”

“Had it been possible to save you, I should have considered it another proof of God’s mercy, and I would again have endeavored to restore you, I swear by my father’s tomb.”

“I reasoned thus—money, time, and fatigue are nothing compared with the reputation and interests of a whole family; probabilities will not suffice, only facts will justify a deadly combat with a friend. If I strike with the sword, or discharge the contents of a pistol at man with whom, for three years, I have been on terms of intimacy, I must, at least, know why I do so; I must meet him with a heart at ease, and that quiet conscience which a man needs when his own arm must save his life.”

“Sir,” said he in a solemn tone, “I consider your glove thrown, and will return it to you wrapped around a bullet. Now leave me or I will summon my servants to throw you out at the door.”

“Edmond,” continued Mercédès, with her arms extended towards the count, “since I first knew you, I have adored your name, have respected your memory. Edmond, my friend, do not compel me to tarnish that noble and pure image reflected incessantly on the mirror of my heart. Edmond, if you knew all the prayers I have addressed to God for you while I thought you were living and since I have thought you must be dead!”

“I have done with the past, and accept nothing from it—not even a name, because you can understand that your son cannot bear the name of a man who ought to blush for it before another.”

I do not willingly enter into arithmetical explanations with an artist like you, who fears to enter my study lest she should imbibe disagreeable or anti-poetic impressions and sensations. But in that same banker’s study, where you very willingly presented yourself yesterday to ask for the thousand francs I give you monthly for pocket-money, you must know, my dear young lady, that many things may be learned, useful even to a girl who will not marry. There one may learn, for instance, what, out of regard to your nervous susceptibility, I will inform you of in the drawing-room, namely, that the credit of a banker is his physical and moral life; that credit sustains him as breath animates the body; and M. de Monte Cristo once gave me a lecture on that subject, which I have never forgotten. There we may learn that as credit sinks, the body becomes a corpse, and this is what must happen very soon to the banker who is proud to own so good a logician as you for his daughter.

“Tell your client that, although I am the insulted party, in order to carry out my eccentricity, I leave him the choice of arms, and will accept without discussion, without dispute, anything, even combat by drawing lots, which is always stupid, but with me different from other people, as I am sure to gain.”

Jurgis: (thoughts) Yes—told him that he ought to have sold his wife’s honor and lived by it!