#Human Dignity Quotes

“When I contemplate the natural dignity of man; when I feel (for Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honor and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon.”

“There is purpose and worth to each and every life.”

“At the southern tip of the continent, a rich reward is in the making, an invaluable gift is in the preparation, for those who suffered in the name of all humanity when they sacrificed everything - for liberty, peace, human dignity and human fulfillment.The value of our shared reward will and must be measured by the joyful peace which will triumph, because of the common humanity that bonds both black and white into one human race, will have said to each one of us that we shall all live like the children of paradise.”

“Now we are in the second term of the government of a united nation and the government has done very well. One thing they have done, one thing people could not be blind to, was the achievement this government has made in giving human beings dignity, which they did not enjoy before. They now have dignity.”

“My work will be finished if I succeed in carrying conviction to the human family that every man or woman, however weak in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and liberty.”

“Abject poverty is demeaning, is an assault on the dignity of those that suffer it. In the end it demeans us all. It makes the freedom of all of us less meaningful.”

“Human dignity demands courage to defend oneself.”

“Some Socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a State computer. We believe they should be individuals. We are all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is like anyone else, however much the Socialists may pretend otherwise. We believe that everyone has the right to be unequal but to us every human being is equally important.”

“Our first duty to liberty is to keep our own. But it is also our duty - as Europeans - to keep alive in the Eastern as well as the Western half of our continent those ideas of human dignity which Europe gave to the world. Let us therefore resolve to keep the lamps of freedom burning bright so that all who look to the West from the shadows of the East need not doubt that we remain true to those human and spiritual values that lie at the heart of European civilization.”

“No one can ride on the back of a man unless it is bent.”

“Of all the multitudes who throughout history have spoken for human dignity in times of great suffering and loss, no voice is more compelling than that of Anne Frank.”

“The most unequivocal sign of contempt for man is to regard everybody merely as a means to one's own ends, or of no account whatever.”

“Not only do I pray for it, on the score of human dignity, but I can clearly forsee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principle.”

“A man only has the right to look down at another when he helps him to lift himself up.”

“I have learned that a man has the right and obligation to look down at another man, only when that man needs help to get up from the ground.”

“In the eyes of God, a child on the other side of the border is no less worthy of love and compassion than my own child. We - we can't distinguish between them in terms of their worth and their inherent dignity and that they're deserving of shelter and love and education and opportunity. We can't isolate ourselves. We can't hide behind a wall.”

“Though no one would want to be sold as a slave, it is perhaps even more galling to be a sort of utility slave whom no one will buy.”