quotations about honor
A great and honorable character is a safe provision for every event and every turn of fortune.
MENANDER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Honor was never taking the easy way when it was also the wrong one. Never telling a falsehood unless the truth was painful and unnecessary, or a lie was necessary to save others. Never manipulating the truth to serve only yourself. Protecting the weak and helpless; standing fast even when fear made you weak. Keeping your word.
MERCEDES LACKEY
Exile's Honor
Honor prudently declined, often comes back with increased lustre.
LIVY
attributed, Day's Collacon
Every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Benedict Arnold, Sep. 14, 1775
Men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition, by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude, wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us.
FRANÇOIS RABELAIS
Gargantua
Honor is only fictitious honesty.
D. B. TOWER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Man
Honour ... remains awake in us like a last lamp in a temple that has been laid to waste.
ALFRED DE VIGNY
Servitude et grandeur militaires
Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessity for hall-porters.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Heretics
Honor ought to be given to virtue and not to riches.
ANACHARSIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Give me, kind Heaven, a private station,
A mind serene for contemplation:
Title and profit I resign:
The post of honor shall be mine.
JOHN GAY
Fables
Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
Honor -- it was transitory and subjective, and often directly opposed to practicality.
AMANDA DOWNUM
The Bone Palace
The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
You wear your honor like a suit of armor ... You think it keeps you safe, but all it does is weigh you down and make it hard for you to move.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN
A Game of Thrones
Honor is a fool's prize. Glory is of no use to the dead.
DREW KARPYSHYN
Path of Destruction
Be strong. Live honorably and with dignity. When you don't think you can, hold on.
JAMES FREY
A Million Little Pieces
In whom the love of honor and praise is innate, are those who are elevated most above the brutes, and who are justly named men, and not merely human beings.
XENOPHON
Hiero
The winning of honor, is but the revealing of a man's virtue and worth, without disadvantage. For some in their actions, do woo and effect honor and reputation, which sort of men, are commonly much talked of, but inwardly little admired. And some, contrariwise, darken their virtue in the show of it; so as they be undervalued in opinion. If a man perform that, which hath not been attempted before; or attempted and given over; or hath been achieved, but not with so good circumstance; he shall purchase more honor, than by effecting a matter of greater difficulty or virtue, wherein he is but a follower. If a man so temper his actions, as in some one of them he doth content every faction, or combination of people, the music will be the fuller. A man is an ill husband of his honor, that entereth into any action, the failing wherein may disgrace him, more than the carrying of it through, can honor him. Honor that is gained and broken upon another, hath the quickest reflection, like diamonds cut with facets. And therefore, let a man contend to excel any competitors of his in honor, in outshooting them, if he can, in their own bow. Discreet followers and servants, help much to reputation. Omnis fama a domesticis emanat. Envy, which is the canker of honor, is best extinguished by declaring a man's self in his ends, rather to seek merit than fame; and by attributing a man's successes, rather to divine Providence and felicity, than to his own virtue or policy.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Honor And Reputation", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by good examples, or a refined education.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, No. 161