Decency Quotes

Knowledge and power in the city; peace and decency in the country. ~ Mason Cooley

Your own brain ought to have the decency to be on your side! ~ Terry Pratchett

The total effect of Orwell's work is an effect of paradox. He was a humane man who communicated an extreme of inhuman terror; a man committed to decency who actualised a distinctive squalor. ~ Raymond Williams

As to modesty and decency, if we are simians we have done well, considering: but if we are something else-fallen angels-we have indeed fallen far. ~ Clarence Day

The only goal is the decency of means. ~ Stefan Themerson

We want character but without unyielding conviction; we want strong morality but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame; we want virtue but without particular moral justifications that invariably offend; we want good without having to name evil; we want decency without the authority to insist upon it; we want more community without any limitations to personal freedom. In short, we want what we cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it. ~ James Davison Hunter

Decency is the essence of morality, It spreads out like the scent of a rose and shows to world your elegance and graciousness. ~ Nighat Hafiz

WE END UP with the following situation: on the one hand, we have a news agenda dominated by reports of the workings of a highly complicated social science that wrestles with problems of near cosmic scale and incomprehensible difficulty, upon which it periodically delivers pronouncements at once pessimistic and resigned; and on the other hand, we have a host of inchoate, naive, innocent, impassioned but powerful longings that are carefully concealed and mostly go unmentioned for fear of sacrificing claims to decency and adult seriousness. ~ Alain De Botton

In times of crisis not one should be counted special. Everyone was human therefore equal to the same misery and misfortune and good luck as everyone else. What happened to the whole 'we gotta stick together' motto? When hard times came-a-knocking, people baled on good sense and decency. ~ Shelly Crane

I was blessed with suck in the form of the traditional Snow White coloring: skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as coal. In the cartoons and the storybooks, they make it look almost cute. Of course, when artists and animators design a Snow White, they essentially give their incarnation of my story a spray tan and some neutral lip liner. A true seven-oh-nine was nowhere near as marketable as those animated darlings. We're too pale, and our lips are too red, and we look like something out of a horror movie that didn't have the decency to stay on the screen. ~ Seanan McGuire

Courtesy is one's own affair, but decency is a debt to life ~ Rex Stout

There's nothing more poisonous to a community than rumors and gossips. They taint the good character of those who effortlessly stand out. They provide mediocre individuals with a means to become relevant. They set in like gangrene and eat away at the sense of decency that differentiates humans from animals. ~ Wiss Auguste

Youth and beauty fade. Human decency doesn't. ~ Colleen Hoover

With a foreign policy appropriately rooted in some sense of humanitarian decency, the Central African crisis will not be easily ignored by American policymakers. It screams for remedy. ~ Michael Johns

He wondered about the people in houses like those. They would be, for example, small clerks, shop-assistants, commercial travellers, insurance touts, tram conductors. Did they know that they were only puppets dancing when money pulled the strings? You bet they didn't. And if they did, what would they care? They were too busy being born, being married, begetting, working, dying. It mightn't be a bad thing, if you could manage it, to feel yourself one of them, one of the ruck of men. Our civilization is founded on greed and fear, but in the lives of common men the greed and fear are mysteriously transmuted into something nobler. The lower-middle-class people in there, behind their lace curtains, with their children and their scraps of furniture and their aspidistras - they lived by the money-code, sure enough, and yet they contrived to keep their decency. The money-code as they interpreted it was not merely cynical and hoggish. They had their standards, their inviolable points of honour. They 'kept themselves respectable' - kept the aspidistra flying. Besides, they were alive. They were bound up in the bundle of life. They begot children, which is what the saints and the soul-savers never by any chance do.

The aspidistra is the tree of life, he thought suddenly. ~ George Orwell

Without manners, violence enters the room. Without the decency of imagination, narcissism leads. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

The best way ah knew tae strike a chord without compromising too much tae the sickening hypocrisy, perversely peddled as decency, which fills the room, is tae stick tae the clichés. ~ Irvine Welsh

Because you didn't and someone did, and that has made all the difference! So either have the courage to ask her out prior, or have the decency to watch her with someone else. ~ Sarvesh Jain

A real gentleman is as polite to a little girl as to a woman. ~ Louisa May Alcott

You know something? I'm decent! There isn't a great deal of decency in the world, especially in our business, and I'm one of the few really decent ladies around. ~ Judy Garland

Rules are rules, yet still
trumped always by kindness and human decency. ~ Sarah Ockler

A better politics is one where we appeal to each other's basic decency instead of our basest fears. ~ Barack Obama

I believe that we should die with decency so that at least decency will survive. ~ Dag Hammarskjold

People were so often mean that when they weren't, there was a tendency to bestow sainthood upon them. Aster did not reward common decency with her affection. ~ Rivers Solomon

I didn't know the history of this world or how it interacted with the history of mine. Oric, Sabrina, all of them had tried to tell me that my rules didn't apply here, that my laws of decency meant nothing. The culture was medieval or perhaps an "enlightened" plutocracy. The wars of Napoleon could be a living memory for their elders. Their social system could be traced back to Genghis Khan for all I knew. It ~ Daniel Potter

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.

One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. ... [This] convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency. that they should have this immunity is an outrage. There is nothing in religious ideas, as a class, to lift them above other ideas. On the contrary, they are always dubious and often quite silly. Nor is there any visible intellectual dignity in theologians. Few of them know anything that is worth knowing, and not many of them are even honest. ~ H.L. Mencken

I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes ... Wretched flocks of maids labor so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body. ~ Seneca The Younger

She had dispersed. She was the garden at Prem Nivas (soon to be entered into the annual Flower Show), she was Veena's love of music, Pran's asthma, Maan's generosity, the survival of some refugees four years ago, the neem leaves that would preserve quilts stored in the great zinc trunks of Prem Nivas, the moulting feather of some pond-heron, a small unrung brass bell, the memory of decency in an indecent time, the temperament of Bhaskar's great-grandchildren. Indeed, for all the Minsisster of Revenue's impatience with her, she was his regret.
And it was right that she should continue to be so, for he should have treated her better while she lived, the poor, ignorant, grieving fool. ~ Vikram Seth

And I maintain, Detective Halse," said Inspector Fry doggedly, "that the civil unrest which allowing this message to remain in view would foment is against the principles of conscience and of British decency. Are you against the principles of British decency, Detective? ~ Lyndsay Faye

Hope is a constant companion in this life. It is the one thing that neither cruel nature, God, nor other men can wrench from us. Health, wealth, beloved brothers and sisters, children, friends, the past, the future - all can be stolen from us as easily as an unguarded purse. But our greatest treasure, hope, remains. It is a sturdy little motor within, purring, ticking, driving us on when reason would suggest surrender. It is both the most pathetic and noblest thing about us, the most absurd and the most admirable quality we possess, for as long as we have hope, we also have the capacity for love, for caring, for decency. ~ Dean Koontz

What use is decency when we have been thrust into this peril - treading about without even a corset! Are we to be judged? ~ Gordon Dahlquist

Decency: the inexplicable: the ground of all ethics. Things we do not do. We do not stare when the soul leaves the body, but veil our eyes with tears or cover them with our hands. We do not stare at scars, which are places where the soul has struggled to leave and been forced back, closed up, sewn in. ~ J.M. Coetzee

Social Note: I have sought escape in the Prytania on more than one occasion, pulled by the attractions of some technicolored horrors, filmed abortions that were offenses against any criteria of taste and decency, reels and reels of perversion and blasphemy that stunned my disbelieving eyes, the shocked my virginal mind, and sealed my valve. ~ John Kennedy Toole

Young people are moving away from feeling guilty about sleeping with somebody to feeling guilty if they are *not* sleeping with someone. ~ Margaret Mead

If you believe in learning, you believe in inquiry.
If you believe in education, you believe in literacy.
If you believe in knowledge, you believe in curiosity.
If you believe in understanding, you believe in practicality.
If you believe in reason, you believe in sanity.
If you believe in wisdom, you believe in sagacity.
If you believe in dreams, you believe in fantasy.
If you believe in diligence, you believe in prosperity.
If you believe in exellence, you believe in mastery.
If you believe in brilliance, you believe in longevity.
If you believe in wealth, you believe in luxury.
If you believe in justice, you believe in liberty.
If you believe in tolerance, you believe in equality.
If you believe in respect, you believe in courtesy.
If you believe in manners, you believe in civility.
If you believe in honor, you believe in decency.
If you believe in culture, you believe in history.
If you believe in tradition, you believe in stability.
If you believe in order, you believe in harmony.
If you believe in time, you believe in eternity.
If you believe in fate, you believe in destiny.
If you believe in life, you believe in reality.
If you believe in permanance, you believe in infinity.
If you believe in virtue, you believe in morality.
If you believe in peace, you believe in humanity.
If you believe in love, you believe in divinity.
If you believe in Go ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

The most painful part of street life is the loss of dignity, and that sends people over the edge. Dignity is the glue that holds the mind, body, and spirit together, and once that is gone, the person breaks apart, held together only by skin. Street life corrodes the decency that lines the soul of every wakeful human. ~ Kristina Wandzilak

What you had to have is usually tabulated as follows: luck; the ability to adapt, immediately and radically; a talent for inconspicuousness; solidarity with another individual or with a group; the preservation of decency ("the people who had no tenets to live by - of whatever nature - generally succumbed" no matter how ruthlessly they struggled); the constantly nurtured conviction of innocence (an essential repeatedly emphasised by Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago); immunity to despair; and, again, luck. ~ Martin Amis

All right, so there he is, our representative to the world, Mr. Western Civilization, in codpiece and pantyhose up there on the boards, firing away at the rapt groundlings with his blank verses, not less of a word-slinger and spellbinder than the Bard himself and therefore not to be considered too curiously on such matters as relevance, coherence, consistency, propriety, sanity, common decency. ~ Marvin Mudrick

Standing as a witness means many things. It encompasses the way we act, how we speak, and how we dress. When you are considering a young man as a companion, you would do will to follow the advice given some years ago by President David O. McKay: He must never "attempt to take advantage of [you. If] ... he shows [any] inclination to use you as a convenience or as a means of gratification, then you may [be sure] he is not prompted by love." It is very natural for young men and women to be attracted to each other, but they should be attracted in God-given ways rather than questionable ways, such as immodest dress. God-given attractions include your inner beauty, charm, decency, and goodness. ~ James E. Faust

But that is the way of life, and that was but one of the first times, among no few to come, that I was taught a useful lesson about how appearances trump truth, and how villains hide their vices behind masks of piety, honour, and decency. And that to denounce evildoers without proof, attack them with weapons, trust blindly in reason or justice, is often the fastest road toward one's own perdition, while the scoundrels who use influence or money as a shield remained untouched. ~ Arturo Perez Reverte

But I am not discouraged. I do not despair for our country. I believe tonight, as I always have, that the essential decency, compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail. ~ Jimmy Carter

But you could've at least told me. Instead of dropping me like a one night stand, you could've had the decency to break up with me instead of leaving me wondering for years ... ~ Gayle Forman

That's why you have to like a guy like Charles Manson. Say what you will about Manson - he's one of the only people with the decency to look like a dangerous maniac the first time you meet him. ~ Richard Jeni

Perhaps what you call conventionality, I call decency. ~ Dodie Smith

In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes. I fear to see the consequences of the Court's practice of substituting its own concepts of decency and fundamental justice for the language of the Bill of Rights as its point of departure in interpreting and enforcing that Bill of Rights. ~ Hugo Black

There is a bedrock decency to people in the Midwest. They are thoughtful and ready to help you if something needs to be done. ~ Shelley Fabares

Motherhood, to be sure, receives a great deal of sentimental adulation, but only if it is committed in accordance with rules which have been prescribed by a predominantly masculine society. Per se it is accorded no respect whatever. When it results from a sexual relationship which has been duly sanctioned by organized society, it is holy, no matter how much it may transgress the rules of decency, health, or common sense. Otherwise it is a sin meriting social ostracism for the mother and obloquy for the child - an ostracism and obloquy, significantly enough, in which the father does not share. ~ Suzanne La Follette

Nothing, indeed, is more revolting to English feelings than the spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or scars, and tearing away that "decent drapery" which time or indulgence to human frailty may have drawn over them; accordingly, the greater part of our confessions (that is, spontaneous and extra-judicial confessions) proceed from demireps, adventurers, or swindlers. ~ Thomas De Quincey

And I want you all to remember - that you must not dream yourselves back to the times before the war, but the dream for you all, young and old, must be to create an ideal of human decency, and not a narrow-minded and prejudiced one. That is the great gift our country hungers for, something every little peasant boy can look forward to, and with pleasure feel he is a part of - something he can work and fight for. ~ Lois Lowry

The most fundamental winning formula is to bet on human decency and be patient. ~ Robert Breault

If you have the indecency to steal my book, at least have the decency to write a review. ~ Grea Alexander

He approached the great glass barrier dividing the room, and the speaker at the end of the table. "Cyclops?" he whispered, stepping closer, clearing his tight throat, "Cyclops, it's me, Gordon."
The glow in the pearly lens was subdued. But the row of little lights still flashed--a complex pattern that repeated over and over like an urgent message from a distant ship in some lost code--ever, hypnotically, the same.
Gordon felt a frantic dread rise within him, as when, during his boyhood, he had encountered his grandfather lying perfectly still on the porch swing, and feared to find that the beloved old man had died.
The pattern of lights repeated, over and over.
Gordon wondered. How many people would recall, after the hell of the last seventeen years, that the parity displays of a great supercomputer never repeated themselves? Gordon remembered a cyberneticist friend telling him the patterns of light were like snowflakes, none ever the same as any other.
"Cyclops," he said evenly, "Answer me! I demand you answer--in the name of decency! In the name of the United St--"
He stopped. He couldn't bring himself to meet this lie with another. Here, the only living mind he would fool would be himself.
The room was warmer than it had seemed during his interview. He looked for, and found, the little vents through which cool air could be directed at a visitor seated in the guest chair, giving an impression of great cold just beyond the glass wall.
~ David Brin

Against such a background one can easily imagine the shock that must have gripped readers of The Times of London, who turned to their paper one morning in January 1882 and found a lengthy report on a parliamentary speech by the attorney general concluding with the unexpectedly forthright statement: "The speaker then said he felt inclined for a bit of fucking." Not surprisingly, it caused a sensation. The executives of The Times were so dumbstruck by this outrage against common decency that four full days passed before they could bring themselves to acknowledge the offense. ~ Anonymous

I thought you'd have the decency to change. But babe, I guess you didn't take that warning, cause I'm not about to look at your face again. ~ Avril Lavigne

Being insulted offers you an opportunity to practice decency and having a non-response internally. ~ Bryant McGill

Is he a scumbag in training?" Richard glanced at the gunman. "At least have the decency to hold the gun properly, you fool. If you don't know how, pass it to someone who does. I'm not going to suffer being shot at by anything less than a full- fledged lowlife. (Richard) ~ Ilona Andrews

Nevertheless, it is the Christian theory that it is only a regard for this Being -- partly a trembling fear and partly a kind of conciliation represented to be love -- that keeps the human race from roaring downhill to villainy and disaster. Nor are theologians daunted by the obvious fact that many open and even ribald skeptics are not going that way, but, on the contrary, show a considerably higher degree of virtue than the Christian average. Their answer ... is that the moral sense of every such blameless candidate for Hell 'is a kind of parasitic growth upon the otherworldliness of the society in which he lives.' ... Even men who should know better indulge in this confusion between the religious impulse and common decency. ... But this is surely going beyond the plain facts. A man may be truly religious without imagining God as good at all, and he may be good without believing that there is any moral order in the universe or even that God exists. Religion does not necessarily make men better citizens, whether of their neighborhoods or of the world. ~ H.L. Mencken

Capital punishment has probably been responsible for a good deal of human progress. The overwhelming majority of those executed were of the sort whose departures for bliss eternal improved the average intelligence and decency of the race. ~ H.L. Mencken

The thin and precarious crust of decency is all that separates any civilization, however impressive, from the hell of anarchy or systematic tyranny which lie in wait beneath the surface . ~ Aldous Huxley

People who don't know how to keep themselves healthy ought to have the decency to get themselves buried, and not waste time about it. ~ Henrik Ibsen

So permeating is your being
knowing no limits,
Yet a rose of decency blossoming
in the wild recklessness. ~ Harshita Gottipati

There are few things more discomfiting than a spontaneous outburst of genuine decency from someone you're determined to dislike for no good reason. ~ Gregory David Roberts

Feelings are just a fire in a field of stubble: it burns for a moment, and then all that's left is soot and ashes. Do you know what the main thing is - the thing a woman should look for in her man? She should look for a quality that's not at all exciting but that's rarer than gold: decency. ~ Amos Oz

In other words, it was a struggle with himself. And the product of that struggle: anger, bitterness, resentment, envy or transformation, aspiration, hope, decency..the product of that struggle is the quality of your life and the nature of your soul. ~ Emma Forrest

If you must commit suicide ... always contrive to do it as decorously as possible; the decencies, whether of life or of death, should never be lost sight of. ~ George Henry Borrow

The Indians , whom we call barbarous, observe much more decency and civility in their discourses and conversation, giving one another a fair silent hearing till they have quite done; and then answering them calmly, and without noise or passion. And if it be not so in this civiliz'd part of the world, we must impute it to a neglect in education, which has not yet reform'd this antient piece of barbarity amongst us. ~ John Locke

There's no dignity, no decency, or health today for men that haven't got a job. All other things depend on work today. ~ Nevil Shute

Anthropologist John Greenway has observed, Never in the entire history of the inevitable displacement of hunting tribes by advanced agriculturalists in the forty thousand generations of mankind has a native people been treated with more consideration, decency, and kindliness than the American Indians. The Mongoloids in displacing the first comers to Asia, the Negroes in displacing the aborigines in Africa, and every other group following the biological law of the Competitive Exclusion Principle thought like the Polynesian chief who once observed to a white officer, "I don't understand you English. You come here and take our land and then you spend the rest of your lives trying to make up for it. When my people came to these islands, we just killed the inhabitants and that was the end of it."[3] ~ Rousas John Rushdoony

And yet I have known the sea too long to believe in its respect for decency. An elemental force is ruthlessly frank ~ Joseph Conrad

Senator; you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? ~ Joseph N. Welch

I know I can't tell you what it's like to be gay. But I can tell you what it's not. It's not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity. ~ Armistead Maupin

Did freedom have to mean abolishing common decency? ~ Francine Rivers

Why only hate? Where does love remain? Or at least a little decency toward other people? Exactly the same as we behaved against the Jews, we now wish to do against all other people who are in our way, to smash, crush - yes, even exterminate. ~ Friedrich Kellner

I attended the public schools.And I have happy memories and strong memories of those days and good memories of the good sense and the decency of my friends and my neighbors. ~ Samuel Alito

He acted every part of an orator, and I could observe many periods of threatenings, and others of promises, pity, and kindness. I answered in a few words, but in the most submissive manner, lifting up my left hand, and both my eyes to the sun, as calling him for a witness; and being almost famished with hunger, having not eaten a morsel for some hours before I left the ship, I found the demands of nature so strong upon me, that I could not forbear showing my impatience (perhaps against the strict rules of decency) by putting my finger frequently to my mouth, to signify that I wanted food. The hurgo ~ Jonathan Swift

I understand the most profound and simplest Truth of all: Any time any of us reaches out, any time we pour even a drop of love, compassion, simple human decency (no matter how small; how seemingly insignificant) into the sea of earthly existence - we are, each and every one of us - the being called Mercy. ~ J.M. DeMatteis

An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. ~ Bryan Stevenson

But he, Siddhartha, was not a source of joy for himself, he found no delight in himself. Walking the rosy paths of the fig tree garden, sitting in the bluish shade of the grove of contemplation, washing his limbs daily in the bath of repentance, sacrificing in the dim shade of the mango forest, his gestures of perfect decency, everyone's love and joy, he still lacked all joy in his heart. Dreams and restless thoughts came into his mind, flowing from the water of the river, sparkling from the stars of the night, melting from the beams of the sun, dreams came to him and a restlessness of the soul, fuming from the sacrifices, breathing forth from the verses of the Rig-Veda, being infused into him, drop by drop, from the teachings of the old Brahmans. ~ Hermann Hesse

War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace. - Baba ~ Khaled Hosseini

She bade solitude good-bye. Good-bye to no schedule but whim; good-bye to her life among no things but her own and each always in place; good-bye to no real meals, good-bye free thought. The whole fat flock of them flapped away. But what was solitude for if not to foster decency? Her solitude always held open house. when was the last time anyone needed her? She was eager to do it, whatever it was. ~ Annie Dillard

There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the kind of random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

I have shaped and nourished my mind for years to hail all women on earth as my sisters and their problems as my problems. When I am engaged in a conversation with one of my sisters anywhere in the world, my eyes are not subconsciously driven to take a quick peek down her blouse. I belong to all women, all men, everywhere, as a brother. And being a brother calls for the responsibility of thinking, feeling and behaving like a brother, instead of a potential mate-hunter. Here I am by no means insinuating that all men should see all women as sisters, rather I am pointing out that all civilized men should at the very least have the decency to see women as persons, and not as objects of sexual gratification or as potential mating partners, because only then we shall succeed as a conscientious species to give a safe and non-predatory environment to our children. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The laws of decency enforce themselves. ~ Louise Colet

Make sure your decency, your humanity, is the last thing you give up. ~ Leonard Pitts Jr.

My father sits at the head of a table before the carcass of an enormous American turkey. What he is ashamed of is the one act of decency I have yet encountered in all the tales of our family's past. A young boy with a dead father and a dead friend bends down before a country dog and feeds it his butter sandwich. And I know that sandwich. Because he has made it for me. Two slices of that dark, unbleached Russian bread, the kind that tastes of badly managed soil and a peasant's indifference to death. On top of it, the creamiest, deadliest of American butter, slathered in thick feta-like hunks. And on top of that cloves of garlic, the garlic that is to give me strength, that is to clear my lungs of asthmatic gunk, and make of me a real garlic-eating strong man. At a table in Leningrad, and a table in deepest Queens, New York, the ridiculous garlic crunches beneath our teeth as we sit across from each other, the garlic obliterating whatever else we have eaten, and making us one. ~ Gary Shteyngart

One of the credos of my life is taken from Viktor Frankl, a Jewish survivor of Nazi concentration camps, who was a psychiatrist and author. In his highly influential book, Man's Search for Meaning, he related that after the war someone asked him if he 'hated the German race.' He responded that he did not because in his view, 'There are only two races, the decent and the indecent.' That is how I divide the world. Not between Muslim and non-Muslim, black and white, or American and non-American, but between the decent and indecent. The issues I raise about Islam are not about the decency of Muslims, but about whether Islam in its traditional Islamist configuration is more or less likely than the American value system to produce good societies. ~ Dennis Prager

If it weren't happening, he would have sworn that their reproduction speed alone violated the laws of thermodynamics - or at least common decency. The ~ Evan Currie

The International Brigade was not formed to protect freedom and democracy. It was founded as a tool of of the Comintern, to promote the interests of the Soviet Union - and thereby of Joseph Stalin, the butcher of millions. It made political sense for the International Brigade to recruit non-communists - useful fools was what Lenin had called such people in an earlier manipulation of gullible decency - but of course most were then vetted by the NKVD, the Soviet Union's secret police. ~ Kevin Myers

There are those without decency who must be fought without hesitation, without pity. ~ Henri

Do right simply because it is right. ~ Alex Treacher

Only today I really don't think that elevated feelings and suchlike are the main thing in life. Definitely not. Feelings are just a fire in a field of stubble: it burns for a moment, and then all that's left is soot and ashes. Do you know what the main thing is – the thing a woman should look for in her man? She should look for a quality that's not at all exciting but that's rarer than gold: decency. And maybe kindness too. Today, you should know this, I rate decency more highly than kindness. Decency is the bread, kindness is the butter. Or the honey. ~ Amos Oz

Something about doing a hateful and dangerous action for the sake of decency - for they knew that the fight was to be fought in blood and death without reward. They would get nothing but the unmarketable conscience of having done what they ought to do in spite of fear - something which wicked people have often debased by calling it glory with too much sentiment, but which is glory all the same. ~ T.H. White

He was in a beastly hole. But decency demanded that he shouldn't act in panic. He had a mechanical, normal panic that made him divest himself of money. Gentlemen don't earn money. Gentlemen, as a matter of fact, don't do anything. They exist. Perfuming the air like Madonna lilies. Money comes into them as air through petals and foliage. Thus the world is made better and brighter. And, of course, thus political life can be kept clean! ... So you can't make money. ~ Ford Madox Ford

I am not a member of the chamber of commerce for show business, believe me, but there are some really good people in the business, and [Tom] Hanks has this everyman decency onscreen, but he actually is that guy. ~ Kurt Fuller

Just what is it that academics have to fear if they stand up for common decency, instead of letting campus barbarians run amok? ~ Thomas Sowell

Buffett was a billionaire who drove his own car, did his own taxes, and still lived in a home he had bought in 1958 for $31,500. He seemed to answer to a deeply rooted, distinctly American mythology, in which decency and common sense triumphed over cosmopolitan guile, and in which an idealized past held firm against a rootless and too hurriedly changing present. ~ Roger Lowenstein

If we are lucky, we can find a moment on the 31st to take a deep breath and sit very still. We can focus on all that is right with the world and all that is wrong - on all the ways we have striven for personal decency in our lives and, alas, on all the ways we have failed. We can recall the people we have loved who we have lost, and ponder the friends and family who deserve more attention than we give them.

And maybe those are the only resolutions that matter: the ones that focus on others. ~ Chris Bohjalian

Wicked, to be sure." He repeated the word as though tasting it, his gaze now following her finger's progress. "Perhaps you'd better punish me."


Good Lord, what next? "Punish you, indeed." She advanced her finger just to the base of his erection and stopped. "Suppose I were to walk out of this room and leave you here alone until you remembered your decency. Would that be punishment enough?"


He smiled as though he were teaching her chess and she'd just made a clever move. "Maybe." His eyes came to her face, and wandered in leisurely, thorough fashion down her body and back to her still finger. "Or maybe you ought to touch yourself. Pleasure yourself, and force me to watch."


"Now I know beyond question that you've confused me with someone else." Aplomb had company: his every shameless utterance was waking strange--or not so strange--sensations that spiraled from her core on out. "And I doubt you would take it as punishment, quite."


"Darling, I would take it as torture." Again he twisted against his bonds, so much power at her mercy. "Because you'd taunt me with it, wouldn't you? You'd place yourself where I could nearly reach you. And you'd say things to inflame me, but never touch me at all. I'd have to lie here helpless, watching you give yourself what you won't take from me." He sucked in a breath. "Start now, if you would. ~ Cecilia Grant

The fact is that men who know nothing of decency in their own lives are only too ready to launch foul slanders against their betters and to offer them up as victims to the evil deity of popular envy. ~ Plutarch