Quotes & Sayings About Badges

If you are a police dog, where's your badge? — James Thurber

Dangerous. Reckless. Foolish. Mad. The words were beginning to feel more like badges of pride than blows. Downstairs, — V.E Schwab

Well done, Mica," Phoenix congratulated him. "You've just earned your baby-jiggling badge. Be sure to unlock all the infant services badges. — Ronel Van Tonder

Half a dozen badges slid out of the metal chute where returned coins usually appeared. Hermione scooped them up and handed them mutely to Harry over Ginny's head; he glanced at the topmost one. HARRY POTTER RESCUE MISSION — J.K. Rowling

Lipstick is the red badge of courage. — Man Ray

Flaws weren't pariah; foibles were badges of character. Not something to be brushed away in Photoshop. — Peter Tieryas

Having a bunch of medals and badges doesn't necessarily mean you've achieved anything, you've got to do something beyond yourself to make a difference in life. Seek to be consequential in whatever you do. — Paula Broadwell

She strutted into the room, armour-plated in white linen, belligerent as a battleship. The bib of her apron, starched rigid as a board, curved against a formidable bosom on which she wore her nursing badges like medals of war. — P.D. James

We make enemies, sometimes through no fault of our own, and sometimes our enemies become badges of honor. — Susan Rieger

The world of books continued to send him messages. Bharati Mukherjee and Clark Blaise wrote from America to tell him that people were making I AM SALMAN RUSHDIE button badges and proudly wearing them as a sign of their solidarity. He wanted one of those badges. Maybe Joseph Anton could wear a badge in solidarity with the person he both was and was not. Gita Mehta told him by telephone, a little waspishly, that "The Satanic Verses is not your Lear. Shame is your Lear. — Salman Rushdie

He also loved the city itself. Coming to and leaving Cousin Joe's, he would gorge himself on hot dogs and cafeteria pie, price cigarette lighters and snap-brim hats in store windows, follow the pushboys with their rustling racks of furs and trousers. There were sailors and prizefighters; there were bums, sad and menacing, and ladies in piped jackets with dogs in their handbags. Tommy would feel the sidewalks hum and shudder as the trains rolled past beneath him. He heard men swearing and singing opera. On a sunny day, his peripheral vision would be spangled with light winking off the chrome headlights of taxicabs, the buckles on ladies' shoes, the badges of policemen, the handles of pushcart lunch-wagons, the bulldog ornaments on the hoods of irate moving vans. This was Gotham City, Empire City, Metropolis. Its skies and rooftops were alive with men in capes and costumes, on the lookout for wrongdoers, saboteurs, and Communists. Tommy — Michael Chabon

Whether our feet are compressed in iron shoes, our faces hidden with veils and masks; whether yoked with cows to draw the plow through its furrows, or classed with idiots, lunatics and criminals in the laws and constitutions of the State, the principle is the same; for the humiliations of the spirit are as real as the visible badges of servitude. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

I was racking up prescription slips like Boy Scout badges. What didn't I have? — Jason Diamond

People who talk a lot about their victimization make me uncomfortable. It's as if they use their suffering as weapons or badges of some kind. — Joy Kogawa

Do not simplify. Do not worry about failure. Failure is a badge of honour. It means you risked failure. — Charlie Kaufman

He leaned down and cupped her face in his hand. "Every one of the men on my team has scars. And you know what those scars are?" Heaving a shaky breath, she shook her head. "They're proof of survival. They're badges of honor. They're marks of strength." Shane swallowed hard. "You don't have to show me, Crystal. But you do need to know there's nothing on your body I won't love and respect. Because it's you." The words reached into her chest and soothed her heart. — Laura Kaye

We were scarecrows in blue uniforms. After a grand total of five days of blackboard instruction and fifty rounds at the NYPD firing range, my new police academy classmates and I were standing out on the sidewalks of central Brooklyn pretending to be police officers. They gave us badges. They gave us handcuffs. They gave us guns - standard police-issue Smith & Wesson .38 Specials. They told us, "Good luck." In early July 1966, riots had broken out in East New York, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Brownsville, Brooklyn. Hundreds of angry young men were roaming the streets and throwing bottles and rocks. Already they had injured police officers and attempted to flip over a radio car. On one corner, police found eighteen Molotov cocktails. The borough commander was calling for reinforcements - and fast. — Ray Kelly

Many political scientists used to assume that people vote selfishly, choosing the candidate or policy that will benefit them the most. But decades of research on public opinion have led to the conclusion that self-interest is a weak predictor of policy preferences. Parents of children in public school are not more supportive of government aid to schools than other citizens; young men subject to the draft are not more opposed to military escalation than men too old to be drafted; and people who lack health insurance are not more likely to support government-issued health insurance than people covered by insurance.35 Rather, people care about their groups, whether those be racial, regional, religious, or political. The political scientist Don Kinder summarizes the findings like this: "In matters of public opinion, citizens seem to be asking themselves not 'What's in it for me?' but rather 'What's in it for my group?' "36 Political opinions function as "badges of social membership."37 — Jonathan Haidt

War is a kind of superstition, the pageantry of arms and badges corrupts the imagination of men. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Merit badges are these little patches you get for learning how to do all sorts of manly stuff. — Jeff Kinney

Change a virtue in its circumstances find it becomes a vice; change a vice in its circumstances, and it becomes a virtue. Regard the same quality from two sides; on one it is a fault, on the other a merit. The essential of a man is found concealed far below these moral badges. — Hippolyte Taine

Classically, very few people have considered that cleanliness is next to godliness. A rank loincloth and hair in an advanced state of matted entanglement have generally been the badges of office of prophets whose injunction to disdain earthly things starts with soap. — Terry Pratchett

I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Apparently they're going to bring in Super Asbos. But Asbos already sound too cool. Teenagers see them as a badge of honour. They should call them Gaybos or Bender Badges. — Frankie Boyle

At one stopover on the train journey home, Hans told his sister Inge later, he saw a young girl with the Star of David on her breast; she was repairing tracks on the line, along with other people with yellow badges on their clothes. Her face was pallid, sunken in; her eyes, beyond grief and terror. Impulsively, Hans thrust his rations in her hand. She looked up at him, then at his uniform. She threw the packet of food to the ground.
He scooped it up, wiped off the dust, and picked a daisy growing by the side of the tracks. He placed the package, with the daisy on top, at her feet. He said, "I would have liked to give you a little pleasure." He boarded the train.
When he looked back, the girl was standing there, watching the train disappear, the flower in her hair. — Jud Newborn

She was my assignment."
"From The Eye?"
"No, from the Boy Scouts. That Witch Dating badge just kept eluding me."
"Well, you must have at least three Total Douchebag badges by now, so that has to count for something. — Rachel Hawkins

Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don't need to show me thier badges. I know these guys very well. — Elizabeth Gilbert

A cop lost his temper and rushed into the crowd to seize an agitator ... and that was the last we saw of him for about three minutes. When he emerged, after a dozen others had rushed in to save him, he looked like some ragged hippie ... the mob had stripped him of everything except his pants, one boot, and part of his coat. His hat was gone, his gun and gunbelt, all his badges and police decorations ... he was a beaten man and his name was Lennox. I know this because I was standing beside the big plainclothes police boss who was shouting, Get Lennox in the van! — Hunter S. Thompson

I have met convicted child molesters before. They don't waer badges or brands or tattoos announcing their vice. It's hidden under a soft, grandfatherly smile; it's tucked in the pocket of a buttoned down shirt. They look the rest of us, and that's what makes it so frightening - to know that these beasts move among us, and we are none the wisest.
They have girlfriends and wives who have loved them, unaware. — Jodi Picoult

A slut isn't a person, it's in the eye of the beholder. Like beauty, or an annoying eyelash. We decide who a girl is based on something she's done (or even just rumoured to have done) and then brand her with it as if it's a permanent part of her identity. Guys, on the other hand, get to wear their relationships and 'conquests' like medals or badges of honour, which are much easier to take off, and hurt a lot less. — Laura Bates

I think good-looking people seldom make good television. And American television studios almost concede before they start: 'Well, it won't be good, but at least it'll be good-looking. We'll have nice-looking girls in tight shirts with F.B.I. badges and fit-looking guys with lots of hair gel vaulting over things.' — Hugh Laurie

I've done my coaching badges, I've got my Pro Licence, but I enjoy what I'm doing now. I'm also the elite performance director of the Welsh FA. The main thing for me was always Liverpool Football Club and my country, Wales - and I'm lucky enough to still be involved with both of them. — Ian Rush

Before 'Cagney and Lacey,' we didn't follow officers home to find out what they did when they took their badges off and emptied their guns. So the idea that these women also had lives outside of work was really interesting to play. — Tyne Daly

I'm not going to allow anybody to hold a badge up over me or a cross or any other power symbol and say I'm going to kill you and you're just going to kneel down to me because I'm the law. — Ice-T

In the city one clings to nostalgic and unreal signs of community, takes forced refuge in codes, badges and coteries; the city's life, of surfaces and locomotion, usually seems too dangerous and demanding to live through with any confidence. — Jonathan Raban

In theory at any rate each militia was a democracy and not a hierarchy . It was understood that orders had to be obeyed, but it was also understood that when you gave an order you gave it as comrade to comrade and not as superior to inferior. There were officers and NCOs, but there was no military rank in the ordinary sense; not titles, no badges, no heel-clicking and saluting. They had attempted to produce within the militias a sort of temporary working model of the classless society. — George Orwell

They flank me - depression on my left, loneliness on my right. They don't need to show their badges. I know these guys very well ... Then they frisk me. They empty my pockets of any joy I had been carrying there. Depression even confiscates my identity; but he always does that. — Elizabeth Gilbert

As I was saying...They train these girls to be like tiny ninjas. They have to earn special badges for the survival skills that they learn, kinda like how we teach the cadets. Now to balance out all the weapons training and harshness of wilderness survival, they also teach them to bake cookies. — Alanea Alder

Surgery has warped the faces of every woman over thirty; they don't look younger, just not quite human in a way society has decided to pretend not to see. Half of the people are talking more to the holograms from their rings or badges than they are to the people around them. What conversation I can hear is mostly gossip: who's shagging who, who's making money, who's losing it, who's not invited to the next party like this. Maybe the technology is different, but the shallowness of the scene is probably universal. So this is the life my father escaped when he chose to go into science, to leave Great Britain and join Mom in California. He was even smarter than I knew. — Claudia Gray

The Detective was different. Not that he wasn't a good man; Willie had heard enough about him to understand that he was the kind who didn't like to turn away from another's pain, the kind who couldn't put a pillow over his ears to drown out the cries of strangers. Those scars he had were badges of courage, and Willie knew that there were others hidden beneath his clothes, and still more deep inside, right beneath the skin and down to the soul. No, it was just that whatever goodness was there coexisted with rage and grief and loss. — John Connolly

The badge of honesty is simplicity. — Novalis

Badges mean nothing in themselves, but they mark a certain achievement and they are a link between the rich and the poor. For when one girl sees a badge on a sister Scout's arm, if that girl has won the same badge, it at once awakens an interest and sympathy between them. — Juliette Gordon Low

Twitter is sort of version of labeling, except with 140 characters instead of a labelmaker. It's the way of calling things out for what they are, wearing badges. Twitter is like the new Scarlet Letter. — Carrie Brownstein

Until competency management platforms gain widespread acceptance, "badges" or "stackable credentials" are unlikely to gain much traction. The notion that educated adults, like the boy and girl scouts they once were, will prefer to flaunt a collection of badges testifying to skills they have demonstrated is flawed for one reason. While degrees are validated by a single institution with a recognizable form (i.e., colleges and universities), who is validating a collection of badges? Who vouches that a student has demonstrated a given skill? Although many visionary organizations are seeking to enter this market, outside of IT none currently has the ability or credibility to authenticate such credentials in a way that would be acceptable to a critical mass of employers and students. — Ryan Craig

The stars above Italian clubs' badges shows you how many times they have won the Gazetta. — David James

Franklin was the best known of the Founding Fathers. His death could not go without some sort of official notice. The House of Representatives, after listening to a brief tribute by James Madison, voted to wear badges of mourning for two months and then got on with business. — Edmund Morgan

Without that
courage, an officer is just another person in the crowd of badges. Demonstrating
courage takes practice. Many police professionals have the knowledge and ability
to lead. Yet, they may choose not to exercise their leadership skills - not to do the
right thing - because they fear losing the rewards that conformity provides (such — P.J. Ortmeier

Awards are merely the badges of mediocrity. — Charles Ives

What does Daddy say about people's opinions?"
"Not to listen to what they say and to form my own 'pinions."
"Except for ... ?"
"'Cept for strangers with candy, and the weatherman on TV, and police that won't show you their badges, and people who don't like music, 'cause we can't trust those people."
I laugh. "You forgot boys who want to date you. You should always trust your daddy's opinion on them. — J.M. Darhower

Community as belonging ...
In many groups of people and clubs of all sorts (political, sports, leisure, liberal professions, etc.) people find a sense of security. They are happy to find others like themselves. They receive comfort one from another, and they encourage one another in their ways. But frequently there is a certain elitism. They are convinced that they are better than others. And, of course, not everyone can join the club; people have to qualify. Frequently these groups give security and a sense of belonging but they do not encourage personal growth. Belonging in such groups is not for becoming.
You can often tell the people who belong to a particular club, group or community by what they wear, especially on feast days, or by their hairstyle, their jargon or accent or by badges and colours of some sort. Grouping seems to need symbols which express the fact that they are one tribe, one family, one group. — Jean Vanier

I've often wondered what alliances and affinities might arise without those badges of right and left. For example, the recent American militia movements were patriarchal, nostalgic, nationalist, gun-happy, and full of weird fantasies about the UN, but they had something in common with us: they prized the local and feared its erasure by the transnational. The guys drilling with guns might've been too weird to be our allies, but they were just the frothy foam on a big wave of alienation, suspicion and fear from people watching their livelihoods and their communities go down the tubes. — Rebecca Solnit

The Girl Guides kept up their activities as well, giving Elizabeth an unexpectedly democratic experience when refugees from London's bomb-ravaged East End were taken in by families on the Windsor estate and joined the troop. The girls earned their cooking badges, with instruction from a castle housekeeper, by baking cakes and scones (a talent Elizabeth would later display for a U.S. president) and making stew and soup. With their Cockney accents and rough ways, the refugees gave the future Queen no deference, calling her Lilibet, the nickname even daughters of aristocrats were forbidden to use, and compelling her to wash dishes in an oily tub of water — Sally Bedell Smith

Don't get me started on the little airplane name badges, Natalie grumbled. — Peter Lerangis

I enjoy my wrinkles and regard them as badges of distinction - I've worked hard for them! — Maggie Kuhn

The Beats are really nothing more than a troop of malevolent Boy Scouts trying to earn badges for cultural arson. — Carlene Bauer

I think the most enduring lesson I was taught through my experiences of being a Girl Scout was that I was a member of a larger community. I out-grew my uniforms and badges years ago, but the memories of visiting nursing homes or organizing Earth Day tree plantings or my summers camping with girls from all different backgrounds will stay with me always. — Natalie Merchant

Ideas on earth were badges of friendship or enimity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enimity. — Kurt Vonnegut

This felt so fucking good, the two of them out somewhere, flashing badges, heading to confront someone with a gun.
"I miss this," he admitted.
Ty glanced at him, an eyebrow raised. He cracked a smile. "Me too."
"I want this back," Zane added before he could think the better of it.
Ty blinked rapidly, turning to face him. "Me too. — Abigail Roux

Sometimes it was hard for me to connect the boy I knew - the skinny smart kid who collected lead soldiers and pursued Boy Scout merit badges - with the phenomenally successful man he'd become. But sooner or later, when we were together, some remark would inevitably trigger childhood memories and then we'd be off, zipping down a path that existed now only for the two of us. — Alice Steinbach

Indeed, the whole point of the man bun, I have surmised, is to assert a high proficiency at yoga. There are no yoga-achievement badges, no coloured belts like judo, so the male yoga expert needs some other kind of visible symbol. — Russell Smith

You'll still get guys with an array of badges to demonstrate their importance, but that just excludes people. I think fandom is more inclusive now. — Charles Stross

Vibrato is the badge of tonal maturity. — Gerald Fischbach

I am convinced that one can buy in Harrods of London a kit that allows an enterprising Englishman to create a British school anywhere in the third world. It comes with black robes, preprinted report cards for Michaelmas, Lent, and Easter terms, as well as hymnals, Prefect Badges, and a syllabus. Assembly required. — Abraham Verghese

We have entered the era of the 'imperial' former presidency with lavish libraries, special staffs and benefits, around-the-clock Secret Service protection for life and other badges of privilege. — Lawton Chiles

Without their uniforms, they were probably nobodies, rejects. Give a man a uniform. Give him a few sparkly badges, a purpose, a gun ... and suddenly, he was no longer just another kid trying to make it through life without being ridiculed. Suddenly, he was a part of something. Something important. Something powerful. Something greater than he could ever be on his own. It was amazing how empowering the group could be. — Kelseyleigh Reber

This fucking city is full of nothing but thugs, money grubbing porn-bitches, and hustlers. I'm calling the police." Ex fumed as he struggled to pull his cell from his pocket.

If Syn weren't so damn angry it would've been funny as shit the way the man's jaw dropped when God and Day both pulled their gold badges out from under their shirts. Day smiled that sinister grin and kneeled in front of them, speaking in an official tone, "911, what is your emergency? — A.E. Via

Instead, the lesson is that false beliefs, once they've become culturally entrenched - once they've become tribal badges of honor - are very difficult to change, and changing them is no longer simply a matter of educating people. — Joshua D. Greene

Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges. — Katharine Hepburn

I am gonna go into my coaching badges after my England days are finished and I have the time on my international break. — Steven Gerrard

The opprobrium of assholes is a badge of honor. — Norman Spinrad

Paltry affectation, strained allusions, and disgusting finery are easily attained by those who choose to wear them; they are but too frequently the badges of ignorance or of stupidity, whenever it would endeavor to please. — Oliver Goldsmith

And while a bald head and a looped ribbon were seen as badges of courage and hope, her reluctant vocabulary and vanishing memories advertised mental instability and impending insanity. Those with cancer could expect to be supported by their community. Alice expected to be an outcast. — Lisa Genova

The campfires provide enough plain old regular visible light to show this sorry affair for what it is: a bunch of demented Boy Scouts, a jamboree without merit badges or hygiene. — Neal Stephenson

I don't care what anyone says, every girl needs to have a good long cry once in a while. The kind that weakens you, swells your eyes shut, and strips away every shred of emotion from your body until the pain subsides. The pain of ... whatever. Death, heartbreak, solitude, desire, jealousy. All the crap that becomes a badge of honor among women - like those little merit badges Girl Scouts have sewn on their uniforms, only these badges are stitched across our hearts. — Dannika Dark

Aiden stepped forward. "We would like to negotiate."
The ninja with metal in her mouth looked up. "What's negotiate?"
Aiden leaned back and winked at him. "Evasive answering. They are professionals. Look, she has the most badges, she is clearly their leader."
He then leaned down and got right in the ninja's face. "We want your cookies. — Alanea Alder

History is filled with examples of men and women who rendered highly effective performance without the conventional badges of accomplishment in terms of certificates, diplomas, or degrees. Diplomas and tests are useful servants, but Congress has mandated the commonsense proposition that they are not to become masters of reality. — Warren E. Burger

Vimes had believed all his life that the Watch were called coppers because they carried copper badges, but no, said Carrot, it comes from the old word cappere, to capture. — Terry Pratchett

Wrinkles ought to be worn as a badge of honour, as a mark of survival if not wisdom. — Mal Fletcher

exists. Why all these speeches and monuments. Tradition is the crown of the tyrant. I eye all the Golds in their badges and Sigils and standards, all worn to legitimize corrupt reign, and to alienate the people. Make them feel they watch a species beyond their comprehension. — Pierce Brown

Scars are badges of honors. They tell people you've lived a full life — Lizzy Ford

We could choose to be a nation that extends care, compassion, and concern to those who are locked up and locked out or headed for prison before they are old enough to vote. We could seek for them the same opportunities we seek for our own children; we could treat them like one of "us." We could do that. Or we can choose to be a nation that shames and blames its most vulnerable, affixes badges of dishonor upon them at young ages, and then relegates them to a permanent second-class status for life. That is the path we have chosen, and it leads to a familiar place. — Michelle Alexander

walked down the hill and stuck out my thumb, standing in the same spot where I had stood when I hitchhiked to high school. My clothes and gear were in my official Boy Scout backpack, a big old thing on an aluminum rack, with my sleeping bag and pup tent lashed to it. I'd been a serious Boy Scout - I joined at 12, after my failed Little League career, and took to it immediately, racking up merit badges and making it all the way to Eagle Scout. I knew first aid, how to start a fire in the rain, how to make a mean camp stew, and lots of other useful stuff. And I didn't mind sleeping outside, which was a good thing, since there was no way I could afford motels. My official Boy Scout sheath knife, a serious piece of business with a leather-wrapped handle and a five-inch blade, was also in the pack; I'd move it into my boot by the end of the first day. — David Noonan

I'm a star: SHERIFF BADGE. — Nicki Minaj

I've started doing my coaching badges, I'd like to be a manager one day. — Wayne Rooney

My tattoos, like most people's, were reminders, badges of personal experiences. Yes, I might wear them on my skin for the world to see, but their meaning was a little too personal. — N.R. Walker

Other people collected friends like badges but Lana chose only one - and that friendship was pinned so close to her heart that removing it had left behind a jagged tear. — Lucy Clarke

I wear glasses myself. As an affectation, as a badge of high intellect and to see with. — Simon Munnery

The keeping of an idle woman is a badge of superior social status. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Heroes don't always wear capes, badges, or uniforms. Sometimes, they support those who do. — Andrea Randall

The transformation of Christ's bodily scars into badges of glory shows us what happens, even in this life, to our souls when we lovingly and trustingly offer our sufferings to Christ and unite them to His. He turns "deformity" into "dignity". — Peter Kreeft

Someone came in all Starfleet badges today. Not on my shift, sadly.'
'Fascist,' Leon had said. 'Why are you so prejudiced against nerds?'
'Please,' Billy said. 'That would be a bit self-hating, wouldn't it?'
'Yeah, but you pass. You're like, you're in deep cover,' Leon said. 'You can sneak out of the nerd ghetto and hide the badge and bring back food and clothes and word of the outside world. — China Mieville

Old as carbon," Nix agreed. "And so powerful I'm working on my demigoddess badges. — Kresley Cole

Kago did not know that human beings could be as easily felled by a single idea as by cholera or the bubonic plague. There was no immunity to cuckoo ideas on Earth. *** And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: "Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I wanted to see if I could pick up some of those sticker badges you give out to kids. I like to give Jay a hard time about his little man-crush on you."
Her uncle's laugh filled his cramped office. "You're terrible, Vi. You act more like your aunt Kat every day. Has she been giving you lessons?" But he was already reaching into his desk drawer and pulling out a stack of the foil stickers. He slid them across the desk. "How's he ever gonna stop being so jumpy around me if you don't stop teasing him?"
This time Violet's smile was genuine. "Give him time, Uncle Stephen; he'll relax. He's just grateful, that's all. — Kimberly Derting

We don't need no stinking badges! — John Belushi

She walked right on past, ignoring him just like she chose to ignore the way nature had tagged her with those outsized badges of femininity, just like she was above him, and sex, and everything else that's weak and of the flesh. — Ken Kesey

This is what I say about the scorn of the media elite: I wear their scorn as a badge of honor. — Dan Quayle

...spells of incarceration or exile were almost badges of honour for Enlightenment writers. — Kate Berridge

I made no secret of the fact I'd love to stay in football and to do that, you need badges. I'm starting them and that's the next step for me - to continue this next season. — Alan Shearer

Some bruises you wear like badges of honour: when you got it playing rugby, or quad racing, or falling off something while drunk, no opportunity is lost to show off a good contusion. A bruise inflicted by someone else, however, is a whole other story: it's like a big flashing arrow marking you out as punchable, and before long there'll be boys queuing up to add bruises of their own, as if they'd just been waiting for somebody to show them it could be done. — Paul Murray