2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)
Context: It was Adam Smith, the father of free-market economics, who once said, “They who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.” And for those of you who don’t speak old-English let me translate. It means if you work hard, you should make a decent living. If you work hard, you should be able to support a family.
“Respectable means rich, and decent means poor. I should die if I heard my family called decent.”
Crotchet Castle, chapter III (1832).
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Thomas Love Peacock 10
English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Comp… 1785–1866Related quotes
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Warren, Michigan (August 11, 2016)
“A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.”
1770, p. 182
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
(from vol 2, letter 13: 29 Nov 1778, to Mr S___ in Madras) [this Mr S___ was Julius Soubise, former London playboy, who slowly made a new life for himself in India after fleeing England in 1777 due to a rape accusation]
“Trade is a proper and decent relationship, with dignity and respect on both sides.”
44 min 10 sec, On civil behavior when encountering the uncontacted Biami tribe https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsynjb?start=2640
A Blank on the Map (1971)
“The work we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.”
1830s, Boswell's Life of Johnson (1832)
A Little Conserva-tive (1936)
Context: For more than a quarter of a century I have been known, in so far as I was known at all, as a radical. It came about in this way: I was always interested in the rerum cognoscere causas, liking to get down below the surface of things and examine their roots. This was purely a natural disposition, reflecting no credit whatever on me, for I was born with it.... Therefore when the time came for me to describe myself by some convenient label, I took one which marked the quality that I thought chiefly differentiated me from most of the people I saw around me. They habitually gave themselves a superficial account of things, which was all very well if it suited them to do so, but I preferred always to give myself a root-account of things, if I could get it. Therefore, by way of a general designation, it seemed appropriate to label myself a radical. Likewise, also, when occasion required that I should label myself with reference to particular social theories or doctrines, the same decent respect for accuracy led me to describe myself as an anarchist, an individualist, and a single-taxer.