Quotes about honor
page 7

Ezra Koenig photo
Wilhelm Liebknecht photo
Leon M. Lederman photo
Francis Escudero photo

“On this note, Mr. President, distinguish colleagues, it is my distinct honor and privilege to nominate Senator Ralph Recto as our President Pro Tempore.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Speech: Nomination of Senator Ralph Recto as Senate Pro Tempore (2013 July 22) http://www.chizescudero.com/index.php/media-room/item/716-nomination-of-senator-ralph-recto-as-senate-pro-tempore
2013, Speech: Nomination of Senator Ralph Recto as Senate Pro Tempore

Francis Bacon photo
John Paul Jones photo
Cesar Chavez photo
Tammy Smith photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Robert Barron (bishop) photo
William Faulkner photo
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi photo
Pierce Brown photo
Hildegard of Bingen photo
Johnny Carson photo
Orson Welles photo

“Thank you, Donald, for that well-meant but rather pedestrian introduction. Regarding yourself, I quote from the third part of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Act Two, Scene One. Richard speaks, "Were thy heart as hard as steel/ As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds/ I come to pierce it, or to give thee mine." To translate into your own idiom, Donald; you're a yo-yo. Now I direct my remarks to Dean Martin, who is being honored here tonight… for reasons that completely elude me. No, I'm not being fair to Dean because - this is true - in his way Dean, and I know him very well, has the soul of a poet. I'm told that in his most famous song Dean authored a lyric which is so romantic, so touching that it will be enjoyed by generations of lovers until the end of time. Let's share it together. [Opens a songsheet for Dean's "That's Amore" and reads in a monotone] "When the moon hits your eye/ Like a big pizza-pie/ That's amore" Now, that's what I call 'touching', Dean. It has all the romanticism of a Ty-D-Bol commercial. "When the world seems to shine/ Like you've had too much wine/ That's amore" What a profound thought. It could be inscribed forever on a cocktail napkin. Hey, there's more. "Tippy-tippy-tay/ Like a gay tarantella" Like a gay tarantella? Apparently, Dean has a 'side Dean' we know nothing about. "When the stars make you drool/ Just like a pasta fazool…. Scuzza me, but you see/ Back in old Napoli/ That's amore" No, Dean; that's infermo, Italian for "sickened". Now, lyrics like that - lyrics like that ought to be issued with a warning: a song like that is hazardous to your health. Ladies and gentlemen… [motions to Dean] you are looking at the end result!”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Speech given at a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast. Viewable here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlKR0i-51S4.

Haruki Murakami photo
Nathanael Greene photo
Samuel Adams photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Camille Paglia photo
Huldrych Zwingli photo
John McCain photo

“While I don't in any way question your honor, your patriotism or your service to our country, I do question some of the decisions, the judgments you’ve made over the past two and a half years. During that time things have gotten markedly and progressively worse.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

To General George Casey in his confirmation hearing as the nominee for Army Chief of Staff, before the Senate Armed Services Committee (1 February 2007) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16915520/
2000s, 2007

Barbara W. Tuchman photo
Alexander Acosta photo

“I am deeply grateful and honored for the opportunity to serve my country. I thank the President and his staff for their confidence in me and I am eager to work tirelessly on behalf of the American worker”

Alexander Acosta (1969) 27th and current United States Secretary of Labor

President Donald J. Trump Nominates R. Alexander Acosta to be Secretary of Labor https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/16/president-donald-j-trump-nominates-r-alexander-acosta-be-secretary-labor

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
George W. Bush photo
George W. Bush photo
Paul of Tarsus photo

“Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honor— not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways.”

1 Thessalonians 4:4-5 (as quoted in New Living Translation http://biblehub.com/nlt/1_thessalonians/4.htm)
First Epistle to the Thessalonians

Felix Frankfurter photo

“I know of no title that I deem more honorable than that of Professor of the Harvard Law School.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

Of Law and Life and Other Things: Papers and Address of Felix Frankfurter (1965).
Other writings

Robert P. George photo
Henry Rollins photo

“Someone who would go across a desert that can kill you, to get to another country? You want to be an American *that* bad? 'Cause I've never had to lift my damn finger to be an American. I'm honored to share a country with you.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Interview with Pharrel Williams for the Reserve Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTekl1AFNm4&t=41s at youtube.com

Thomas Jefferson photo

“I have ever deemed it more honorable and profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

As quoted in The Life and Writings of Thomas Jefferson : Including All of His Important Utterances on Public Questions (1900) by Samuel E. Forman, p. 429
Posthumous publications

José Ortega Y Gasset photo
William Ellery Channing photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Susan Sontag photo
Herbert Hoover photo

“When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

Quoted in the New York Times (9 August 1964)

“Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald http://fitzgerald.narod.ru/critics-eng/trilling-fsf.html
The Liberal Imagination (1950)

David Lloyd George photo
John Adams photo
George W. Bush photo
George Will photo

“There is an elegant memorial in Washington to Jefferson, but none to Hamilton. However, if you seek Hamilton's monument, look around. You are living in it. We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton's country, a mighty industrial nation with a strong central government.”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Restoration: Congress, Term Limits and the Recovery of Deliberative Democracy, Simon & Schuster (c. 1992), Chapter 2, p. 167 : ISBN 0029347130
1990s

Mary McCarthy photo
Bill Hybels photo

“Communist writers likewise maintain that the Judaic-Christian code of ethics is "class" morality. By this they mean that the Ten Commandments and the ethics of Christianity were created to protect private property and the property class. To show the lengths to which Communist writers have gone to defend this view we will mention several of their favorite interpretations of the Ten Commandments. They believe that "Honor thy Father and thy Mother" was created by the early Hebrews to emphasize to their children the fact that they were the private property of their parents. "Thou shalt not kill" was attributed to the belief of the dominant class that their bodies were private property and therefore they should be protected along with other property rights. "Thou shalt not commit adultery" and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" were said to have been created to implement the idea that a husband was the master of the home and the wife was strictly private property belonging to him. This last line of reasoning led to some catastrophic consequences when the Communists came into power in Russia. In their anxiety to make women "equal with men" and prevent them from becoming private property, they degraded womankind to the lowest and most primitive level. Some Communist leaders advocated complete libertinism and promiscuity to replace marriage and the family.”

The Naked Communist (1958)

Stuart Kauffman photo

“Evolution is not just "chance caught on the wing". It is not just a tinkering of the ad hoc, of bricolage, of contraption. It is emergent order honored and honed by selection.”

Stuart Kauffman (1939) American biophysicist

Source: The origins of order: Self-organization and selection in evolution (1993), p. 644

John Dewey photo
Nelson Mandela photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“On the question if he would honor the results of the election should he lose:
"We're going to have to see. We're going to see what happens. We're going to have to see."”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

In an interview with the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/01/us/politics/donald-trump-interview-bill-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0; Trump Appears to Back Off Pledge to Support Clinton If She Wins http://www.nbcnews.com/card/trump-appears-back-pledge-support-clinton-if-she-wins-n657866, NBC News (30 September 2016)
2010s, 2016, September

Ernestine Rose photo

“What rights have women? … [they are] punished for breaking laws which they have no voice in making. All avenues to enterprise and honors are closed against them. If poor, they must drudge for a mere pittance—if of the wealthy classes, they must be dressed dolls of fashion—parlor puppets…”

Ernestine Rose (1810–1892) American feminist activist

At the Social Reform Convention, Boston (1844), quoted in Kolmerten, Carol A., The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999, p. 49.

Phil Brooks photo

“Before you cut me off, Raven, the reason I hate you, the reason in my heart of hearts why I hate you, is I did not know any better when I was a little kid. When my dad came home smelling like beer. I thought it was a hard day’s work he was doing. I did not realize he was out at a bar. I did not realize ‘work’ meant ‘unemployment office.’ I did not think it was strange for someone to come home and take an Old Style up into the shower. I did not think it was strange for somebody to pass out. I thought an Old Style, a pack a day, was the norm. Raven, my father is exactly like you. Since day one of Ring of Honor, where fighting spirit is supposed to be revered, things are not supposed to be this way! I’d shake your hand like a normal man, but the thing is, I don’t respect you! I hate you! I hate you for everything you have pissed away! Everything I have scrapped and clawed for that I haven’t even earned yet! That you got handed to you and you flushed down the toilet! For what? For pills? For booze? For alcohol? For women? I’m born of your poison society. So, on the seventeenth of July, I will become a monster to fight the monsters of the world! Your time in Ring of Honor will be done. That is a promise. This is true! This is real! This is straight edge!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Ring of Honor: WrestleRave '03. June 28th, 2003.
Promo aimed at Raven after a tag team match with Colt Cabana against Raven and Christopher Daniels
Ring of Honor

André Maurois photo
George W. Bush photo
Guru Tegh Bahadur photo

“One who is not perturbed by misfortune, who is beyond comfort, attachment and fear, who considers gold as dust. He neither speaks ill of others nor feels elated by praise and shuns greed, attachments and arrogance. He is indifferent to ecstasy and tragedy, is not affected by honors or humiliations. He renounces expectations, greed. He is neither attached to the worldliness, nor lets senses and anger affect him. In such a person resides God.”

Guru Tegh Bahadur (1621–1675) The ninth Guru of Sikhism

Guru Tegh Bahadur, Sorath 633 (Translated by Gopal Singh), Tegh Bahadur (Translated by Gopal Singh) (2005). Mahalla nawan: compositions of Guru Tegh Bahādur-the ninth guru (from Sri Guru Granth Sahib): Bāṇī Gurū Tega Bahādara. Allied Publishers. pp. xxviii–xxxiii, 15–27. ISBN 978-81-7764-897-3.

Gloria Estefan photo
Henry Cabot Lodge photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Ernest Hemingway photo

“Get it straight. Your boy you lose. Love you lose. Honor has been gone for a long time. Duty you do.
Sure and what's your duty? What I said I'd do. And all the other things you said you'd do?”

Pt. 2: Cuba (a few paragraphs from the end). The 'boy' is Thomas Hudson's last surviving son, Tom, a fighter pilot who was killed in action.
Islands in the Stream (1970)

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux photo

“Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return.”

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711) French poet and critic

L'honneur est comme une ile escarpée et sans bords ;
On n'y peut plus rentrer dès qu'on en est dehors.
Satire 10, l. 167
Satires (1716)

Thomas Carlyle photo
Kit Carson photo

“Shortly after the ignominious expulsion of the Texas invaders, General J. H. Carleton was appointed to the command of this Department, and with the greatest promptitude he turned his attention to the freeing of the Territory from these lawless savages. To this great work he brought many years' experience and a perfect knowledge of the means to effect that end. He saw that the thirty (30) millions of dollars expended and the many lives lost in the former attempts at the subjugation, would not have been profitless, had not there been something radically wrong in the policy pursued. He was not long in ascertaining that treaties were as promises written in sand. nor in discovering that they had no recognized 'Head' authority to represent them; that each chief's influence and authority was immediately confined to his own followers or people; that any treaty signed by one or more of these chiefs had no binding effect on the remainder, and that there were a large number of the worst characters who acknowledged no chief at all. Hence it was that on all occasions when treaties were made, one party were continuing their depredations, whilst the other were making peace. And hence it was apparent that treaties were absolutely powerless for good. He adopted a new policy, i. e., placing them on a reservation (the wisdom of which is already manifest); a new era dawned on New Mexico, and the dying hope of the people was again revived; never more I trust, to meet with disappointment. He first organized a force against the Mescalero Apaches, which I had the honor to command. After a short and inexpensive campaign, the Mescaleros were placed on their present reservation.”

Kit Carson (1809–1868) American frontiersman and Union Army general

Letter to General James Henry Carleton (May 17, 1864)

James Madison photo
Confucius photo
André Maurois photo

“The best way to honor friends who have died is to treat our living ones with equal affection.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Happiness

Cormac McCarthy photo
Nathan Bedford Forrest photo
Michelle Obama photo

“Being your First Lady has been the greatest honor of my life, and I hope I've made you proud.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, Farewell Speech (2017)

Albert Einstein photo

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Commonly quoted on the internet, and also in recent books such as Planetary Survival Manual by Matthew Stein (2000), p. 51.
Stein's book is the earliest published source located with that precise version of the quote, but the quote can be found in earlier Usenet posts such as this one from 1995 http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.ascii/msg/d9f6ec3887950a0d?hl=en, and other published variants of the quote using the words "sacred gift" can be found earlier. A Google Books search http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search?q=%22sacred+gift%22+einstein with the date range restricted to 1900-1990 shows only a handful in the 1980s and 1970s, and several of them attribute it to The Metaphoric Mind by Bob Samples (1976), which also seems to be the earliest published variant. Samples does not provide an exact quote, but writes on p. 26: "Albert Einstein called the intuitive or metaphoric mind a sacred gift. He added that the rational mind was a faithful servant. It is paradoxical that in the context of modern life we have begun to worship the servant and defile the divine." It seems as if the last sentence about worshipping the servant is just Samples' own comment (though in later variants it became part of the supposed quote), while the earlier sentences only paraphrase something that Samples claims Einstein to have said. Einstein had many quotes about the value of intuition and imagination, but the specific word "gift" can be found in a comment remembered by János Plesch in the section Attributed in posthumous publications, "When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge." So, Bob Samples might have been paraphrasing that comment. Likewise Einstein had a number of quotes about the intellect being secondary to intuition, but the language of the intellect "serving" can be found in a quote from the Out of My Later Years (1950) section, "And certainly we should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve; and it is not fastidious in its choice of a leader."
Misattributed

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner photo

“I feel honored to belong to a generation that was a propitious victim of state terrorism.”

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (1953) Argentine politician and ex President of Argentina

On signing the quoted in An article in the web site of Disappeared Persons 06/02/2007 by http://www.desaparecidos.org/bbs/archives/003331.html (6 February 2007)
Unsourced, 2007

Horace photo

“It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country.”
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

Horace book Odes

Book III, ode ii, line 13
Odes (c. 23 BC and 13 BC)

Neil Cavuto photo

“Part of the problem with service in this country is we don't honor it like we once did. There's nothing wrong or evil about having a bad day. There's everything wrong with making others have to have it... with you.”

Neil Cavuto (1958) American television presenter

"Why do we tolerate awful people?" http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/neilcavuto/2004/05/29/11852.html, townhall.com, (May 29, 2004).

Frederick Douglass photo
Octavia E. Butler photo
Clarence Darrow photo
Tom Tancredo photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Charles Péguy photo
Michel Aflaq photo
David Dixon Porter photo

“I was much disappointed at seeing those who had once belonged to the United States navy excelled in matters of honor and propriety by the officers of another corps.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 56

Thomas Brooks photo
Yoji Shinkawa photo

“He best honors God who makes his intellect as like God as possible.”

Quintus Sextius Roman philosopher

Sentences of Sextus

Woodrow Wilson photo

“Some men who are not real men love other things about themselves, but the real man believes that his honor is dearer than his life; and a nation is merely all of us put together, and the nation's honor is dearer than the nation's comfort and the nation's peace and the nation's life itself.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Speech in Cleveland http://books.google.com/books?id=o3j10P6YFZIC&pg=PA1090&dq=%22nation's+honor+is+dearer+than+the+nation's+comfort%22 (January 1916)
1910s

Phil Hartman photo

“Judge: Did you hear that, Mr. Cirroc?
Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer: (on cellphone) I'm sorry your honor, I was listening to the magic voices coming out of your modern invention.”

Phil Hartman (1948–1998) Canadian American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic artist

On Saturday Night Live, More Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer

Barbara Roberts photo
George S. Patton IV photo
Glen Cook photo
J. J. Abrams photo
Lucy Lawless photo

“Up until I came here this week, and I met so many women and young girls who feel, to use their word - and I'm a bit embarrassed, but it's a good word - empowered, by watching. I realized this isn't a burden, this is an honor.”

Lucy Lawless (1968) New Zealand actress

Christy Slewinski, New York Daily News (September 29, 1996) "Lucy Lawless is a Star on the Strength of 'Xena'", The Seattle Times, p. 21.

Farah Pahlavi photo
Empedocles photo

“From such honor and such a height of fortune am I, thus fallen to earth, cast down amongst mortals.”

Empedocles (-490–-430 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

fr. 119
Purifications

Pat Conroy photo