respect Quotes

“Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.”

“Our work is to get to the place where we like ourselves and are concerned when we judge ourselves too harshly or allow others to silence us. The wilderness demands this level of self-love and self-respect.”

“Good manners are an admission that everybody is so tender that they have to be handled with gloves. Now, human respect—you don’t call a man a coward or a liar lightly, but if you spend your life sparing people’s feelings and feeding their vanity, you get so you can’t distinguish what should be respected in them.”

So all my opinions—I would not say political, but private opinions—are confined to three feelings: I love my father, I respect Monsieur Morrel and I adore Mercédès.

“Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path.”

“All the jungle is thine, and thou canst kill everything that thou art strong enough to kill; but for the sake of the bull that bought thee thou must never kill or eat any cattle young or old. That is the Law of the Jungle.”

“I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and my femininity. And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.”

“Show respect for those in power, but don’t follow them blindly.”

“Respect the past; you never know how it may affect you.”

“No matter what, you don’t talk back to your parents, teachers, elders.”

“While Horton chased after, with groans, over stones that tattered his toenails and battered his bones, and begged, ‘Please don’t harm all my little folks, who have as much right to live as us bigger folks do!‘”

“Would that I were still young and strong as I was in those days, for then some one of you swineherds would give me a cloak both out of good will and for the respect due to a brave soldier; but now people look down upon me because my clothes are shabby.”

We deserve some respect. You deserve some respect. You are important to other people, as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world. You are, therefore, morally obliged to take care of yourself. You should take care of, help and be good to yourself the same way you would take care of, help and be good to someone you loved and valued. You may therefore have to conduct yourself habitually in a manner that allows you some respect for your own Being—and fair enough. But every person is deeply flawed. Everyone falls short of the glory of God. If that stark fact meant, however, that we had no responsibility to care, for ourselves as much as others, everyone would be brutally punished all the time. That would not be good. That would make the shortcomings of the world, which can make everyone who thinks honestly question the very propriety of the world, worse in every way. That simply cannot be the proper path forward.

“And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. ’Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people?”

A person who cannot control his words shows that he cannot control himself, and is unworthy of respect.

“Could we just settle down and have some compassion and respect for ourselves? Could we stop trying to escape from being alone with ourselves? What about practicing not jumping and grabbing when we begin to panic? Relaxing with loneliness is a worthy occupation.″

“The principle here is that a new generation owes a measure of thanks to every member of the previous generation. Our elders planted fields and fought in wars; they advanced the arts and sciences, and generally made sacrifices on our behalf. So by their efforts, however humble, they have earned a measure of our gratitude and respect.”

“Everyone has an idea of heaven, as do most religions, and they should all be respected. The version represented here is only a guess, a wish, in some ways, that my uncle and others like him - people who felt unimportant here on Earth- realize, finally, how much they mattered and how they were loved.”

“Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.”

“It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”

″‘The new one is the most beautiful of all; he is so young and pretty.’ And the old swans bowed their heads before him.”

“Sir, I honor and respect the personal dignity of any man who respects my dignity. I am indeed indebted to you. And I always pay my debts. If it is your custom that this knife remain sheathed here, then it is so ordered—by me. And if there is any other way we may honor the man who died in our service, you have but to name it.”

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

“And maybe now you’ll start treating everybody with respect. Not just the people you think are important.”

“As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings. Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands and so he ate with kings and elders. ”

“In the matter of religion there was a growing feeling that there might be something in it after all, something vaguely akin to method in the overwhelming madness. The growing feeling was due to Mr. Brown, the white missionary, who was very firm in restraining his flock from provoking the wrath of the clan…Mr. Brown preached against such excess of zeal…so Mr. Brown came to be respected even by the clan, because he trod softly on its faith.”

“With a father like Unoka, Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young men had. He neither inherited a barn nor a title, nor even a young wife. But in spite of these disadvantages, he had begun even in his father’s lifetime to lay the foundations of a prosperous future. It was slow and painful. But he threw himself into it like one possessed. And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father’s contemptible life and shameful death. ”

“‘If they wanted to claim their son, why didn’t they respect the life he chose to live? How come they never came to visit? Or supported his music?’”

“If you are mighty and powerful, then gain respect through knowledge and through your gentleness of speech. Don’t order things except as it is fitting. The one who provokes others gets into trouble. Don’t be haughty lest you be humbled. But also, don’t be mute lest you be chided.”

″ When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom.”

″ When he smiled he showed a row of strong white teeth. ‘God never made a finer woman than my mother and my daddy’s heart was pure gold,’ he said.”

“ ‘In my time,’ said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, ‘children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!’ she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. ‘Wouldn’t that make a picture now?’ ”

″‘You, our friend, our intelligence, our invisible protector’, said he, ‘accept this commission; you have merited it more than any of us by your wisdom and your counsels...‘”

“Bravery is always respected, even in an enemy.”

“I want people to be allowed to make jokes about, and discuss, anything they want. I don’t think people should be ostracized for doing so.”

“This is Abraham’s grandson, Jacob. He is our honored guest and has come a very long way to be here. I hope you will treat him accordingly.”

“I realized it wasn’t just my grandfather’s life that Miss Peregrine had saved, but mine, too, and my father’s.”

“LaBoeuf said, ‘There is something in what she says, Cogburn. I think she has done fine myself. She has won her spurs, so to speak. That is just my personal opinion.’ ”

“We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her God-given potential.”

“Across the grey hillside above them – grey, for the heather was not yet in bloom – without noise, and without looking at them, and shining as if he were in bright sunlight though the sun had in fact gone in, passed with slow pace the hugest Lion that human eyes have ever seen. In describing the scene Lucy said afterwards, ‘He was the size of an elephant,’ though at another time she only said, ‘The size of a cart-horse.’ But it was not the size that mattered. Nobody dared to ask what it was. They knew it was Aslan.”

“When agreements are made according to what is right, what is spoken can be made good. When respect is shown according to what is proper, one keeps far from shame and disgrace. When the parties upon whom a man leans are proper persons to be intimate with, he can make them his guides and masters.”

“When you know and respect your Inner Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don’t belong.”

“To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients - care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”

“aOh, I see . . . I don’t count here no more. You ain’t got to say excuse me to your daddy. All of a sudden you done got so grown that your daddy don’t count around here no more. . . . You done got so grown to where you gonna take over. . . . You gonna wear my pants.”

“I’m sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I respect.”

“Your job is to bow as low as you can, and don’t look them in the eye.”

“I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me.”

“Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes, in accordance with the root of the word (respicere = to look at), the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his individuality and uniqueness.”

“Love is spiritual. It’s about self-sacrifice and commitment. And discipline. You cannot have true love without discipline. And respect. When you lose the respect of your spouse, you’ve lost everything.”

“If we spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect – people we really enjoy being on the bus with and who will never disappoint us – then we will almost certainly have a great life, no matter where the bus goes.”

“It was a friendship founded on many common tastes and interests, on mutual like and admiration of each for what the other was, and an attitude of respect which allowed unhampered expression of opinion even on those rare subjects which aroused differences of views and of belief. It was, therefore, the kind of friendship that can exist only between two men.”

″‘I’d bow, but I might fall over,’ I say to Queen Elara, and immediately I wish I could call back the words. She’s a Silver, I can’t talk to her that way. She could put me in the stocks, take away my rations, punish me, punish my family. No, I realize in my growing horror. She’s the queen. She could just kill me. She could kill us all.”

“The breaking of so great a thing should make A greater crack. ”

“Being listened to and heard is one of the greatest desires of the human heart. And those who learn to listen are the most loved and respected.”

“But it was a criminal power, to be feared but not respected.”

“As the bee collects nectar and departs without injuring the flower, or its colour or scent, so let a sage dwell in his village.”

“The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.”

“This is not obsession. It’s respect. I’m living out her last requests.”

″‘Seems strange. I thought they’d dislike us even more.’ ‘Maybe it’s hard to respect someone you’re cheating,’ said Marda.”

“It is precisely because they did love themselves-- because each one’s need to maintain his own respect for himself was more important to him than his popularity with others-- because his desire to win or maintain a reputation for integrity and courage was stronger than his desire to maintain his office.”

“How much more respectable is the woman who earns her own bread by fulfilling any duty, than the most accomplished beauty!”

“Love is something else entirely. It is caring. It is arguing with curiosity—It is giving an inch when the other seems certainly wrong—it is teasing, it is empathy, it is respect, it is a moment of quiet smiling admiration each morning.”

″ One of the most disappointing things that you, as a woman, could ever go through is falling in love with a man that can’t love you and respect you because he hasn’t learned to love and respect himself yet.”

“Always pitiful when any human being falls into a condition hardly more respectable than that of an animal. How much more pitiful it is when the person who falls has had all the advantages!”

“As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

“After a few words touching (Bartleby’s) qualifications, I engaged him, glad to have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey and the fiery one of Nippers.”

“I was always half-eaten away by the respect and happiness when I opened the door for Leah.”

“People treat you with as much, or as little respect as you allow them to.”

“There are things that I canna tell you, at least not yet. And I’ll ask nothing of ye that ye canna give me. But what I would ask of ye—when you do tell me something, let it be the truth. And I’ll promise ye the same. We have nothing now between us, save—respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies. Do ye agree?”

“I think we had better start thinking about the poem ‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.’ I think it might embarrass Stuart to hear mice mentioned in such a belittling manner.”

“just as I was maturing in my own understanding, she, too, was moving closer and closer to that point where she was in the right place at the right time, with the right understanding to accomplish the task that had been assigned to her. In this respect there is no doubt in my mind that she had always been the right person”

“To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients - care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”

“Respect to those who do achieve greatness, and respect to those who are chasing that elusive feeling.”

“I will not try to convince you to love me, to respect me, to commit to me. I deserve better than that; I AM BETTER THAN THAT...Goodbye.”

“A man with a full stomach and the respect of his fellows had no business to scold about anything that he might think to be wrong in the ways of the universe, or even with the ways of society. Let the unfortunates rail; the others may play marbles.”

“If we want people to fully show up, to bring their whole selves including their unarmored, whole hearts—so that we can innovate, solve problems, and serve people—we have to be vigilant about creating a culture in which people feel safe, seen, heard, and respected.”

“Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.”

“Here’s the thing,” I would say. “Most people, wherever they’re from, whatever they look like, are looking for the same thing. They’re not trying to get filthy rich. They don’t expect someone else to do what they can do for themselves. “But they do expect that if they’re willing to work, they should be able to find a job that supports a family. They expect that they shouldn’t go bankrupt just because they get sick. They expect that their kids should be able to get a good education, one that prepares them for this new economy, and they should be able to afford college if they’ve put in the effort. They want to be safe, from criminals or terrorists. And they figure that after a lifetime of work, they should be able to retire with dignity and respect.”

“Love without peace will leave you with nothing but chaos. A peaceful love cannot exist without balance and respect. Expect nothing and your spirit will accept all of the goodness that’s meant for you in this life.”

“There is no love without respect. There isn’t much truth if spoken without genuine honesty.”

“She was a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect.”

“It’s an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater lustre to our colours, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn’t destroy us, if it doesn’t burn away the optimism and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.”

“Matt is to be treated with respect, just as though I were here in his place. He is to be educated, well fed, and entertained. He is not to be mistreated.”

“Neither of the girls had ever heard of a poor working boy with three names. ‘You’re not making it up?’ Cilla asked, almost respectfully. ‘I’ve heard tell of folk with three names, but I never saw one before.’ ”

“And when Thorkell came to the village, men were silent until he gave them word to speak. Even the old warriors, men who had killed bears in the high summer on the mountain tops.”

“So they respected his name when he got one. And his name was ‘Jock’.”

“For him, rules were about politeness and respect and ensuring the survival of a civilized society.”

She governed her house cunningly and firmly, knew when to give credit, when to be stern and when to let things pass. All the resident young men spoke of her as The Madam.

“It won’t break,” whispered Pooh comfortingly, “because you’re a Small Animal, and I’ll stand underneath, and if you save us all, it will be a Very Grand Thing to talk about afterwards, and perhaps I’ll make up a Song, and people will say ‘It was so grand what Piglet did that a Respectful Pooh Song was made about it.’

“And when he stays in Australia fifteen years, as Mr. Mark says, and as I know for myself for five years, he has his reasons. And a respectably brought-up girl doesn’t ask what reasons.”

We might have been friends in another world—you and I, and I and she.

“You don’t go to school to criticize the master.”

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it!”

“Don’t be dismal or fret, but do your duty and you’ll get your reward, as good Mr. Brooke has, by being respected and loved.”

Mr. Tudor’s uncle had married an English lady who was third cousin to a living lord, and Amy regarded the whole family with great respect, for in spite of her American birth and breeding, she possessed that reverence for titles which haunts the best of us—that unacknowledged loyalty to the early faith in kings which set the most democratic nation under the sun in ferment at the coming of a royal yellow-haired laddie, some years ago, and which still has something to do with the love the young country bears the old, like that of a big son for an imperious little mother, who held him while she could, and let him go with a farewell scolding when he rebelled.

Gentlemen, which means boys, be courteous to the old maids, no matter how poor and plain and prim, for the only chivalry worth having is that which is the readiest to pay deference to the old, protect the feeble, and serve womankind, regardless of rank, age, or color.

“He is the most estimable, the most trustworthy creature in the world, and I will venture to say, there is not a better seaman in all the merchant service.”

“M. Noirtier tenderly loves his granddaughter, Mademoiselle de Villefort; it is she who has nursed and tended him for six years, and has, by her devoted attention, fully secured the affection, I had almost said the gratitude, of her grandfather, and it is but just that she should reap the fruit of her devotion.”

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

“I am broken-hearted,” said Albert. “Listen, Beauchamp! I cannot thus, in a moment relinquish the respect, the confidence, and pride with which a father’s untarnished name inspires a son. Oh, Beauchamp, Beauchamp, how shall I now approach mine? Shall I draw back my forehead from his embrace, or withhold my hand from his? I am the most wretched of men.”

“He may be too proud to let any one take him out of a place that he is competent to fill, and fills well and with respect.”

I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity in him.

I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thanklessness to Joe, as through the brazen impostor Pumblechook. The falser he, the truer Joe; the meaner he, the nobler Joe.

“Dear boy!” he said, putting his arm on my shoulder, as he took his seat. “Faithful dear boy, well done. Thankye, thankye!”

Gregor did not go into the room, but leant against the inside of the other door which was still held bolted in place. In this way only half of his body could be seen, along with his head above it which he leant over to one side as he peered out at the others. Meanwhile the day had become much lighter; part of the endless, grey-black building on the other side of the street—which was a hospital—could be seen quite clearly with the austere and regular line of windows piercing its façade; the rain was still falling, now throwing down large, individual droplets which hit the ground one at a time. The washing up from breakfast lay on the table; there was so much of it because, for Gregor’s father, breakfast was the most important meal of the day and he would stretch it out for several hours as he sat reading a number of different newspapers. On the wall exactly opposite there was photograph of Gregor when he was a lieutenant in the army, his sword in his hand and a carefree smile on his face as he called forth respect for his uniform and bearing. The door to the entrance hall was open and as the front door of the flat was also open he could see onto the landing and the stairs where they began their way down below.

The interests of his regiment took an important place in Vronsky’s life, both because he was fond of the regiment, and because the regiment was fond of him. They were not only fond of Vronsky in his regiment, they respected him too, and were proud of him; proud that this man, with his immense wealth, his brilliant education and abilities, and the path open before him to every kind of success, distinction, and ambition, had disregarded all that, and of all the interests of life had the interests of his regiment and his comrades nearest to his heart.

I have a great value for Benwick; and when one can but get him to talk, he has plenty to say.

“Knowing that I have no right to speak here, I ask your leave.”

“He has eaten our food. He has slept with us. He has driven game for us. He has broken no word of the Law of the Jungle.”

“Also, I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a bull is little, but Bagheera’s honor is something that he will perhaps fight for,” said Bagheera in his gentlest voice.

Give him honor, my lords!

Honoured sir, honoured sir, you know every man ought to have at least one place where people feel for him!

“But he came quite tipsy, and asked for three bottles again, and then he lifted up one leg, and began playing the pianoforte with one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable house, and he ganz broke the piano, and it was very bad manners indeed and I said so.”

“You should respect the dead, at least!”

“I would not marry him if I were not firmly convinced that I can respect him.”

“Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.”

“The beautiful Cunegonde having heard the old woman’s history, paid her all the civilities due to a person of her rank and merit.”

After filling for three years the post of president of one of the government boards at Moscow, Stepan Arkadyevitch had won the respect, as well as the liking, of his fellow-officials, subordinates, and superiors, and all who had had business with him. The principal qualities in Stepan Arkadyevitch which had gained him this universal respect in the service consisted, in the first place, of his extreme indulgence for others, founded on a consciousness of his own shortcomings; secondly, of his perfect liberalism—not the liberalism he read of in the papers, but the liberalism that was in his blood, in virtue of which he treated all men perfectly equally and exactly the same, whatever their fortune or calling might be; and thirdly—the most important point—his complete indifference to the business in which he was engaged, in consequence of which he was never carried away, and never made mistakes.

He did not in his heart respect his mother, and without acknowledging it to himself, he did not love her, though in accordance with the ideas of the set in which he lived, and with his own education, he could not have conceived of any behavior to his mother not in the highest degree respectful and obedient, and the more externally obedient and respectful his behavior, the less in his heart he respected and loved her.