90 Respect Quotes To Inspire

Respect is a fundamental aspect of human interaction that transcends boundaries, cultures, and ages. It forms the backbone of relationships and communities, fostering an environment of understanding, empathy, and mutual appreciation. This collection of the top 90 respect quotes has been thoughtfully curated to inspire you, offering timeless wisdom from diverse voices across history and around the world. Whether you're seeking motivation to cultivate more respect in your personal life, or looking to inspire those around you, these quotes are sure to touch your heart and enrich your perspective. Join us as we explore these profound expressions of respect that remind us of the importance of valuing others and ourselves.

1. “I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim—so modestly and so humbly—to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world.” - Christopher Hitchens

2. “Taro taught me that people respect spirit, but even cowards don't respect cowards.” - David Mitchell

3. “Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point 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.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

4. “There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. “Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous. I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency'.” - Kurt Vonnegut

6. “One race,Many cultures,One place.” - Geoffrey M. Gluckman

7. “What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.” - Robert F. Kennedy

8. “If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love our friends for their sakes rather than for our own.” - Charlotte Brontë

9. “Respect is a close relative of tolerance, and both go a long way to prevent and alleviate the negative interactions between and among people. Respect was a member of each Lakota household during the free-roaming buffalo-hunting days on the northern plains.” - Joseph M. Marshall III

10. “Many times when we help we do not really serve. . . . Serving is also different from fixing. One of the pioneers of the Human Potential Movement, Abraham Maslow, said, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' Seeing yourself as a fixer may cause you to see brokenness everywhere, to sit in judgment of life itself. When we fix others, we may not see their hidden wholeness or trust the integrity of the life in them. Fixers trust their own expertise. When we serve, we see the unborn wholeness in others; we collaborate with it and strengthen it. Others may then be able to see their wholeness for themselves for the first time.” - Rachel Remen

11. “One day Wallace was fishing in the Irvine when Earl Percy, the governor of Ayr, rode past with a numerous train. Five of them remained behind and asked Wallace for the fish he had taken. He replied that they were welcome to half of them. Not satisfied with this, they seized the basket and prepared to carry it off. Wallace resisted, and one of them drew his sword. Wallace seized the staff of his net and struck his opponent's sword from his hand; this he snatched up and stood on guard, while the other four rushed upon him. Wallace smote the first so terrible a blow that his head was cloven from skull to collar-bone; with the next blow he severed the right arm of another, and then disabled a third. The other two fled, and overtaking the earl, called on him for help; "for," they said, "three of our number who stayed behind with us to take some fish from the Scot who was fishing are killed or disabled."How many were your assailants?" asked the earl.But the man himself," they answered; "a desperate fellow whom we could not withstand."I have a brave company of followers!" the earl said with scorn. "You allow one Scot to overmatch five of you! I shall not return to seek for your adversary; for were I to find him I should respect him too much to do him harm.” - G. A. Henty

12. “What we need most right now, at this moment, is a kind of patriotic grace - a grace that takes the long view, apprehends the moment we're in, comes up with ways of dealing with it, and eschews the politically cheap and manipulative. That admits affection and respect. That encourages them. That acknowledges that the small things that divide us are not worthy of the moment; that agrees that the things that can be done to ease the stresses we feel as a nation should be encouraged, while those that encourage our cohesion as a nation should be supported.” - Peggy Noonan

13. “I keep what I know about Sarah Lynn and Lawrence to myself. I also remind myself that even if Sarah Lynn does have a scary strict father, that doesn't release her from the responsibility of treating others with respect. Abuse of power is wrong, no matter the context, no matter the history.What is "power" anyway? Power is an ego trip. Power is a way to rise yourself up by lowering others, and I want nothing of it.” - Lauren Myracle

14. “When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.” - Mark Twain

15. “Touching your cap to the squire may be damn bad for the squire, but it's damn good for you.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

16. “A respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul” - Karl Lagerfeld

17. “How would your life be different if…You stopped making negative judgmental assumptions about people you encounter? Let today be the day…You look for the good in everyone you meet and respect their journey.” - Steve Maraboli

18. “Respect the young and chastise your elders. It's about time the world was set aright.” - Vera Nazarian

19. “Fight only in direst needNot for lust or petty greedHonor those that do give birthRespect them well for their full worth” - Anne McCaffrey

20. “Good human work honors God's work. Good work uses no thing without respect, both for what it is in itself and for its origin. It uses neither tool nor material that it does not respect and that it does not love. It honors nature as a great mystery and power, as an indispensable teacher, and as the inescapable judge of all work of human hands. It does not dissociate life and work, or pleasure and work, or love and work, or usefulness and beauty. To work without pleasure or affection, to make a product that is not both useful and beautiful, is to dishonor God, nature, the thing that is made, and whomever it is made for. This is blasphemy: to make shoddy work of the work of God. But such blasphemy is not possible when the entire Creation is understood as holy and when the works of God are understood as embodying and thus revealing His spirit. (pg. 312, Christianity and the Survival of Creation)” - Wendell Berry

21. “The truest form of love is how you behave toward someone, not how you feel about them.” - Steve Hall

22. “I respect you as a person too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs.” - Johann Hari

23. “Anyone who teaches me deserves my respect, honoring and attention.” - Sonia Rumzi

24. “It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters,” - Amit Ray

25. “He had all the attributes of a perfect man, and, in my opinion, no finer personality ever existed.{Edison's opinion of the great Robert Ingersoll}” - thomas edison

26. “Respect toward others can't be imposed.It's a blessing...or learning the hard way.” - Toba Beta

27. “It is when we think we can act like God, that all respect is lost, and I think this is the downfall of peace. We lie if we say we do not see color and culture and difference. We fool ourselves and cheat ourselves when we say that all of us are the same. We should not want to be the same as others and we should not want others to be the same as us. Rather, we ought to glory and shine in all of our differences, flaunting them fabulously for all to see! It is never a conformity that we need! We need not to conform! What we need is to burst out into all these beautiful colors!” - C. JoyBell C.

28. “Timothy bit the inside of his lip and pretended to nod sagely. Things were starting to sound a little far-fetched again. "Man," he said, "that's... that's rough. I've heard that being a dragon servant totally stinks. I think I saw a talk show about that once. 'I'm a dragon servant and I want respect,' or something like that.” - Adrienne Kress

29. “At the same time believers realise that the defects they see in one another are tests from Allah. For this reason they don't call attention to these defects, but compensate for them by acting positively. They carefully avoid the slightest action, facial expression or word that would suggest ridicule.” - Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar)

30. “Reverence is an emotion that we can nurture in our very young children, respect is an attitude that we instill in our children as they become school-agers, and responsibility is an act that we inspire in our children as they grow through the middle years and become adolescents.” - Zoe Weil

31. “I am rather disturbed by the fact that so many people—who are neither medical professionals nor trans themselves—would want to hear all of the gory details regarding transsexual physical transformations, or would feel that they have any right to ask us about the state of our genitals.” - Julia Serano

32. “It is offensive that so many people feel that it is okay to publicly refer to transsexuals as being “pre-op” or “post-op” when it would so clearly be degrading and demeaning to regularly describe all boys and men as being either “circumcised” or “uncircumcised.” - Julia Serano

33. “Mama says that satisfaction isn't what I should search for. Respect is. Respect?I detest that word. Probably because in this world you have to respect the wrong people for the wrong reasons.” - Melina Marchetta

34. “You cannot give out one frequency, that of disrespect, and expect respect to flow toward you. Neither can you hold on to your biases, prejudices, and negative thinking toward something, and expect that something positive will return to you.” - Stephen Richards

35. “When I look at a person, I see a person - not a rank, not a class, not a title.” - Criss Jami

36. “If you've treated your girlfriend without respect, taken advantage of her, or cheated on her, your actions have taught her that she has no value. Needless to say, this is a serious, serious injury. If you don't try to make it right, she might start to believe the lie you've told her and spend the rest of her life thinking she deserves poor treatment.” - Josh Shipp

37. “A true gentleman is one that apologizes anyways, even though he has not offended a lady intentionally. He is in a class all of his own because he knows the value of a woman's heart.” - Shannon Alder

38. “Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.” - Margaret Thatcher

39. “Oh! What honour for the female sex! It is perfectly obvious that God has special regard for it when all these wretched people who destroyed the whole Kingdom – now recovered and made safe by a woman, something that 5000 men could not have done – and the traitors [have been] exterminated. Before the event they would scarcely have believed this possible.” - Christine de Pizan

40. “Understanding your dog and knowing how to control him, develop his potentials, and resolve behavior problems, emotional conflicts and frustrations are no less essential than love and respect.” - Michael W. Fox

41. “...when I see you here amidst all this, I realise that I proposed to a very small part of you. I thought I was giving you a home and a position, but here I see that I am taking you away from so much.” - Daisy Goodwin

42. “People can have their opinions about everything in the world, but people's opinions end where the tip of my nose begins. Your opinions of others can only go so far as to where their own shoreline is. The world is for your taking, but other people are not. One is only allowed to have an opinion of me, if that person is done educating him/herself on everything about me. Before people educate themselves on everything about you, they're not allowed to open their venomous mouthes and have an opinion about you.” - C. JoyBell C.

43. “There are other grounds for believing that gays and lesbians should be respected and protected from oppression: their right to privacy and freedom of actionand expression; the "victimless" nature of homosexual relations; and the many valuable contributions that gays and lesbians make to society.” - Simon LeVay

44. “You have a unique gift to offer this world. Be true to yourself, be kind to yourself, read and learn about everything that interests you and keep away from people who bring you down. When you treat yourself kindly and respect the uniqueness of those around you, you will be giving this world an amazing gift... YOU!” - Steve Maraboli

45. “The best protection against rape, stalking, and domestic violence is to raise men who both understand that women are different, and would never dare take advantage of this difference.” - Wendy Shalit

46. “Any time your life is at stake and you can't find even one woman to come forward and say, 'This is a good man,' your problem isn't what kind of woman THEY are. Your problem is what kind of men YOU are.” - Pearl Cleage

47. “Fights begin and end with handshakes.” - Cameron Conaway

48. “You're not supposed to laugh at your own father. Ever.” - Jeannette Walls

49. “Respect is a really powerful magic too, you know.” - Jefferson Smith

50. “When we love and respect people, revealing to them their value, they can begin to come out from behind the walls that protect them.” - Jean Vanier

51. “Nothing of real worth can ever be bought. Love, friendship, honour, valour, respect. All these things have to be earned.” - David Gemmell

52. “Respect is not creative ... Chanel is an institution, and you have to treat an institution like a whore — and then you get something out of her.” - Karl Lagerfeld

53. “There is no doubt, that in this world, there are all sorts of people who look nice, but are empty inside; who do not feel either moral or spiritual aspirations in addition to the physical gifts with which nature blessed them ... But Corneliu Codreanu, his magnificient physique corresponds to an exceptional inner wholeness. Exclamations of admiration from men left him indifferent. Praise angered him. He had only a fighter's greatness and the ambition of great reformers... The characteristic of his soul was goodness. If you want to penetrate the initial motive which prompted Corneliu Codreanu to throw in a fight so hard and almost desperate, the best answer is that he did it out of compassion for suffering people. His heart bled with thousands of injuries to see the misery in which peasants and workers struggled. His love for the people - unlimited! He was sensitive to any suffering the working masses endured. He had a cult for the humble, and showed an infinite attention to their aspirations and their hopes. The smallest window, the most trivial complaint, were examined with the same seriousness with which he addressed grave political problems.” - Horia Sima

54. “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.

55. “Wazazi wetu ni watu wa kuheshimu kuliko kitu chochote. Wanaweza kuona tusipoweza kuona – nyuma na mbele ya tarehe zetu za kuzaliwa.” - Enock Maregesi

56. “Respect the dead, learn from them, do not follow or avenge them.” - Evan Meekins

57. “We can't change the world by shouting, but our words can have meaning if we give them enough respect.” - Evan Meekins

58. “His Majesty, may he live forever and prosper greatly...His Majesty, may sun finches warble sweet melodies in his ear...His Majesty, may orchids bloom in the wake of his passing...His Majesty, may minstrels compose epics at the sound of his glorious name...His Majesty, may his magnificent sword shatter the breasts of his enemies...” - Rae Carson

59. “The best gifts one can give to someone are not things, the best ones to offer are a little Time, Love, Care and Respect.” - Venkat Desireddy

60. “Are you crazy? The last thing you want to do is make a scene." "Well, I'm gonna make a movie if you don't show me some respect.” - Sister Souljah

61. “If I were to vote, I would intentionally vote for the goofiest candidate. It is my theory that when the people can outwit the leader, the more respected their voices will be.” - Criss Jami

62. “Any titles, money, or privilege you inherit are actually hindrances. They delude you into believing you are owed respect.” - Robert Greene

63. “You can demand courtesy but you have to earn respect.” - Lawrence Goldstone

64. “I'm a peasantI'm the muzhikA pest you're destined to play the musicAnd yes it's pleasant to say it's beauty I'mIndebted to rest respecting it truly” - Criss Jami

65. “I don't think you comprehend the depth of my feeling for you. It goes beyond wanting to be near you, or protect you. I want you to be happy, and I want you to be treated with respect.” - Sylvain Reynard

66. “You don't treat the so-called little people poorly, because we don't have any little people here! The trainers, the managers, the secretaries, the people who work in the dorms and cafeterias and classroom buildings are all professionals, and they're all important or they wouldn't be working for Michigan football.” - Bo Schembechler

67. “Boys seek attention, men demand respect.” - Habeeb Akande

68. “He who wants a rose must respect her thorn.” - Andre Gide

69. “Politeness [is] a sign of dignity, not subservience.” - Theodore Roosevelt

70. “One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.” - Bryant McGill

71. “Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from indigestion or anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions, such complex and real actuality, such events, even a whole world of events, woven into such a plot, with such unexpected details from the most exalted matters to the last button on a cuff, as I swear Leo Tolstoy has never invented.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

72. “Men make their own happiness, and a man may be respected even though only a slave.” - G.A. Henty

73. “Some people like living in black and white worlds. Let them stay there. Appreciate all the colors you see in your world though.” - Ashly Lorenzana

74. “Death, in its certainty, is exacting its due respect and repose before it takes my hand.” - Susan Abulhawa

75. “A respectful woman is a righteous woman.” - Habeeb Akande

76. “One can show no greater respect than to weep for a stranger.” - José Saramago

77. “A girl's body was a prize. It had to be more than asked for. It had to be earned, worshipped, and avowed.” - Leanna Renee Hieber

78. “We all deserve to be treated with nothing but respect. In order to command respect from others, we must first and foremost respect ourselves.” - Julie-Anne

79. “If you wish to live in harmony, you must respect every person and, in non-essential matters, yield!” - Dada J.P. Vaswani

80. “Respect Death and You Live In Life” - Christopher Thames

81. “Respect is the lifeblood of progress, and the safe harbour of humanity's great aspirations” - Bryant McGill

82. “Love and respect changes everything.” - Bryant McGill

83. “Be beautiful if you can, wise if you want to, but be respected - that is essential.” - Anna Gould

84. “Don't go the distance trying to fit in the crowd and be accepted by others. Accept and respect yourself first. Loving thyself also goes with this."-Elizabeth's Quotes” - Elizabeth E. Castillo

85. “Kindness is a currency that can cover a multitude of interpersonal debts.” - George Alexiou

86. “We must stop treating the environment possessively, and as an expendable commodity.” - Bryant McGill

87. “I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.” - George Bernard Shaw

88. “We must resist impulses to attack people, their credibility or their nature, and focus only on sharing our own positive creations, contributions, ideas and solutions.” - Bryant McGill

89. “Place your allegiance and respect in what is everlasting and real, not in the transitory and false.” - Bryant McGill

90. “You could refer to me as god and the odd curtsey wouldn’t go a miss either” - R.S. Burnett