39 Inspirational Dignity Quotes

In a world where self-respect and integrity are paramount, finding inspiration can sometimes feel like an uphill battle. Whether you're navigating personal challenges or striving to uplift others, embracing the power of dignity can be transformative. This collection of 39 carefully selected quotes is designed to inspire and remind you of the inherent strength and grace that come with maintaining one's dignity. Through the wisdom of renowned thinkers, leaders, and visionaries, these quotes offer a beacon of hope and a source of motivation for anyone seeking to live with honor and purpose. Join us on this journey to explore the profound impact of dignity in our lives and the lives of those around us.

1. “No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.” - Booker T. Washington

2. “I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said 'I want to be let alone!' There is all the difference.” - Greta Garbo

3. “The dignity of man was everywhere tissue-paper thin.” - Dick Francis

4. “It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity - and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.” - Mary Wollstonecraft

5. “When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.” - Virginia Woolf

6. “Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves.” - Dave Eggers

7. “I was like you once, long time ago. I believed in the dignity of man. Decency. Humanity. But I was lucky. I found out the truth early, boy. And what is the truth, Stark? It's all very simple. There's no such thing as the dignity of man. Man is a base, pathetic and vulgar animal.” - Charles G. Finney

8. “If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance (...); as great as a man, some think even greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out [in his History of England], she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room.” - Virginia Woolf

9. “Chastity ... has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest.” - Virginia Woolf

10. “What the trees can do handsomely-greening and flowering, fading and then the falling of leaves-human beings cannot do with dignity, let alone without pain.” - Martha Gellhorn

11. “My husband would do anything for me ...' It's degrading. No human being ought to have such power over another.""It's a very real power, Harriet.""Then ... we won't use it. If we disagree, we'll fight it out like gentlemen. We won't stand for matrimonial blackmail.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

12. “A Man Without Honoris Worse than Dead.” - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

13. “Since art is considered a noble field, art should be used to promote all that is good and noble, and in a noble fashion.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

14. “Death seemed to lose its terrors and to borrow a grace and dignity in sublime keeping with the life that was ebbing away.” - Charles Bracelen Flood

15. “He made a good salary but he did not flaunt it. He’d been raised in Chicago proper by a Lithuanian Jewish mother who had grown up in poverty, telling stories, often, of extending a chicken to its fullest capacity, so as soon as a restaurant served his dish, he would promptly cut it in half and ask for a to-go container. Portions are too big anyway, he’d grumble, patting his waistline. He’d only give away his food if the corners were cleanly cut, as he believed a homeless person would just feel worse eating food with ragged bitemarks at the edges – as if, he said, they are dogs, or bacteria. Dignity, he said, lifting his half-lasagna into its box, is no detail.” - Aimee Bender

16. “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.” - William Shakespeare

17. “Las mujeres se presentan francas y risueñas, comprendiendo muy bien que no es preciso ser mojigatas para ser virtuosas” - Ignacio Manuel Altamirano

18. “As for my own part I care not for death, for all men are mortal; and though I be a woman yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had. I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am indeed endowed with such qualities that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom.” - Elizabeth I

19. “No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.""I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you."She stood on the hearth; she was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling."And I ask in what sense that young man is worthy of me?” - Charlotte Brontë

20. “Men were created before women. ... But that doesn't prove their superiority – rather, it proves ours, for they were born out of the lifeless earth in order that we could be born out of living flesh. And what's so important about this priority in creation, anyway? When we are building, we lay foundations on the ground first, things of no intrinsic merit or beauty, before subsequently raising up sumptuous buildings and ornate palaces. Lowly seeds are nourished in the earth, and then later the ravishing blooms appear; lovely roses blossom forth and scented narcissi.” - Moderata Fonte

21. “What's that?""The laundry basket?""No, next to it.""I don't see anything next to it.""It's my last shred of dignity. It's very small.” - John Green

22. “True hospitality is marked by an open response to the dignity of each and every person. Henri Nouwen has described it as receiving the stranger on his own terms, and asserts that it can be offered only by those who 'have found the center of their lives in their own hearts'.” - Kathleen Norris

23. “What do you think dignity's all about?'The directness of the inquiry did, I admit, take me rather by surprise. 'It's rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir,' I said. 'But I suspect it comes down to not removing one's clothing in public.” - Kazuo Ishiguro

24. “Yes, there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer, and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of those lines of old Goethe: 'Schade, daß die Natur nur einen Menschen aus dir schuf; Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff.'” - Arthur Conan Doyle

25. “There was hardly a touch of earth in her love for Clare. To her sublime trustfulness he was all that goodness could be—knew all that a guide, philosopher, and friend should know. She thought every line in the contour of his person the perfection of masculine beauty, his soul the soul of a saint, his intellect that of a seer. The wisdom of her love for him, as love, sustained her dignity; she seemed to be wearing a crown. The compassion of his love for her, as she saw it, made her lift up her heart to him in devotion. He would sometimes catch her large, worshipful eyes, that had no bottom to them looking at him from their depths, as if she saw something immortal before her.” - Thomas Hardy

26. “His August Majesty chided the bureaucrats for failing to understand a simple principle: the principle of the second bag. Because the people never revolt just because they have to carry a heavy load, or because of exploitation. They don't know life without exploitation, they don't even know that such a life exists. How can they desire what they cannot imagine? The people will rvolt only when, in a single movement, someone tries to throw a second burden, a second heavy bag, onto their backs. The peasant will fall face down into the mud - and then spring up and grab an ax. He'll grab an ax, my gracious sir, not because he simply can't sustain this new burden - he could carry it - he will rise because he feels that, in throwing the second burden onto his back suddenly and stealthily, you have tried to cheat him, you have treated him like an unthinking animal, you have trampled what remains of his already strangled dignity, taken him for an idiot who doesn't see, feel, or understand. A man doesn't seize an ax in defense of his wallet, but in defense of his dignity, and that, dear sir, is why His Majesty scolded the clerks. For their own convenience and vanity, instead of adding the burden bit by bit, in little bags, they tried to heave a whole big sack on at once.” - Ryszard Kapuściński

27. “Without dignity, identity is erased.” - Laura Hillenbrand

28. “I am leaving now; but know, Katerina Ivanovna, that you indeed love only him. And the more he insults you, the more you love him. That is your strain. You precisely love him as he is, you love him insulting you. If he reformed, you would drop him at once and stop loving him altogether. But you need him in order to continually contemplate your high deed of faithfulness, and to reproach him for his unfaithfulness. And it all comes from your pride. Oh, there is much humility and humiliation in it, but all of it comes from pride.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

29. “The only real conflict you will ever have in your life won’t be with others, but with yourself.” - Shannon L. Alder

30. “ألا إن شرف الهلاك خير من نذالة الحياة” - مصطفى صادق الرافعي

31. “إن مس استقلال دولة من الدول العظمى قد يكون احياناً أيسر وأهون من مس استقلال نفس من النفوس الكبيرة!” - مصطفى صادق الرافعي

32. “These are the few ways we can practice humility:To speak as little as possible of one's self.To mind one's own business.Not to want to manage other people's affairs.To avoid curiosity.To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully.To pass over the mistakes of others.To accept insults and injuries.To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked.To be kind and gentle even under provocation.Never to stand on one's dignity.To choose always the hardest.” - Mother Teresa

33. “المرأة (المفكرة) ليست بالضرورة بشعة، ولا عجوزًا، ولا عانسًا، ولا يائسة. إنها أنثى أخرى مثلي ومثلكِ، تحب الحياة كما نحبها، لكنها أكثر وعيًا في هذا الحب، لذا فإن سلوكها يتخذّ صورة الدفاع عن أهم ما في الحياة: الكرامة.” - غادة السمان

34. “How can anyone love someone who is less than a full person, unless love itself is domination per se?” - Andrea Dworkin

35. “Class never runs scared.It is sure-footed and confident.It can handle anything that comes along.Class has a sense of humor.It knows a good laugh is the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations.Class never makes excuses.It takes its lumps and learns from past mistakes.Class knows that good manners are nothing more than a series of small, inconsequential sacrifices.Class bespeaks an aristocracy that has nothing to do with ancestors or money.Some wealthy “blue bloods” have no class, while individuals who are struggling to make ends meet are loaded with it.Class is real.It can’t be faked.Class never tried to build itself by tearing others down.Class is already up and need not strive to look better by making others look worse.Class can “walk with kings and keep it’s virtue and talk with crowds and keep the common touch.” Everyone is comfortable with the person who has class because that person is comfortable with himself.If you have class, you’ve got it made.If you don’t have class, no matter what else you have, it doesn’t make any difference.” - Ann Landers

36. “و بُلْغَةُ العارِ عند الجوع تلفِظُها نفسٌ لها عن قبولِ العار ردَّاعُ” - إبراهيم طوقان

37. “By disobeying immoral orders, that individual preserves the institution's highest rank - dignity.” - Bryant McGill

38. “Because of our interconnectedness we all know that extreme poverty and exclusionary practices are violations against the basic dignity of people.” - Bryant McGill

39. “Was she acting entirely consciously? No: women are always sincere, even in the midst of their most shocking duplicities, because it is always some natural emotion which dominates them. Perhaps, having given this young man such a hold on her, by having openly demonstrated her affection for him, Delphine was merely responding to a sense of personal dignity, which led her either to revoke any concessions she might have made or, at least, to enjoy suspending them. Even at the very moment when passion seizes her, it is perfectly natural for a Parisian woman to delay her final fall, as a way of testing the heart of the man into whose hands she is about to deliver herself and her future!” - Honoré de Balzac