Quotes & Sayings About Human Dignity

I'm interested in this humbler approach, one that is more accepting of human foibles, and indeed sees dignity and peace as emerging more from that acceptance than from any method of transcending the human condition. — Thomas Moore

For too long the development debate has ignored the fact that poverty tends to be characterized not only by material insufficiency but also by denial of rights. What is needed is a rights-based approach to development. Ensuring essential political, economic and social entitlements and human dignity for all people provides the rationale for policy. These are not a luxury affordable only to the rich and powerful but an indispensable component of national development efforts. — Kofi Annan

It's amazing what sometimes gets accomplished via an initially jarring but ultimately harmless shift in thinking. Is cutting the organs out of a dead man and stitching them into someone else barbaric and disrespectful, or is it a straightforward operation to save multiple lives? Does crapping into a Baggie while sitting 6 inches away from your crewmate represent a collapse of human dignity or a unique and comic form of intimacy? — Mary Roach

If we're told that human ain't the highest among creatures,
then it'd be difficult to raise human dignity into current level. — Toba Beta

Personalism's insistence that only personality-finite and infinite-is ultimately real strengthened me in two convictions: it gave me metaphysical and philosophical grounding for the idea of a personal God, and it gave me a metaphysical basis for the dignity and worth of all human personality. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Divine Justice demands that the rights of both sexes should be equally respected since neither is superior to the other in the eyes of Heaven. Dignity before God depends, not on sex, but on purity and luminosity of heart. Human virtues belong equally to all! — Abdu'l- Baha

The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this ... — William Wordsworth

That is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition of her survival, yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weak and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn. — Pope John Paul II

In the anarchist milieu, communism, individualism, collectivism, mutualism and all the intermediate and eclectic programmes are simply the ways considered best for achieving freedom and solidarity in economic life; the ways believed to correspond more closely with justice and freedom for the distribution of the means of production and the products of labour among men. Bakunin was an anarchist, and he was a collectivist, an outspoken enemy of communism because he saw in it the negation of freedom and, therefore, of human dignity. — Errico Malatesta

Freedom is not an abstaction, nor is a little of it enough. A little more is not enough either. Having less, being less, empoverished in freedom and rights, women then invariably have less self-respect: less self-respect than any human being needs to live a brave and honest life. — Andrea Dworkin

We all need to treat each other with human dignity and respect — Madonna

I think that whether someone is a Christian or not, the idea that a human life has dignity and intrinsic worth should be clear enough. — Mike Huckabee

Respect for life and for the dignity of the human person also extends to the rest of creation, which is called to join man in praising God. — Pope John Paul II

The Founders believed, and the Conservative agrees, in the dignity of the individual; that we, as human beings, have a right to live, live freely, and pursue that which motivates us not because man or some government says so, but because these are God-given natural rights. — Mark R. Levin

Others may take away your means of support, they may take away your opportunity to grow and may even cause you to doubt your self-worth. But only you can give away your dignity, only you can give away your voice to proclaim who you really are, and only you can give away those pieces of your soul that make you human and determine your character. — Tonny K. Brown

Skepsis. I am a true skeptic, born under the noble sign of skepsis, the sign of the man who knows that all astrology is absolutely and without reservation the bullest of bullsh*t that ever there was. It is a senseless delusion that does not even have the benefit of being harmless fun. It is a harmful bore. Harmful to the human spirit, harmful to the dignity and wonder of the real universe and the real power of the mind to think for itself. I hate astrology with a fervor that is almost frightening. - Stephen Fry (when asked what sign he would be if he could create his own zodiac) — Stephen Fry

We can talk about human dignity, but where is it? — Michael Novak

No life lacks grandeur if you claim it as your own. — Marty Rubin

We have retreated from the perennial values. I don't think that we need any new values. The most important thing is to try to revive the universally known values from which we have retreated.
As a young man, I really took to heart the Communist ideals. A young soul certainly cannot reject things like justice and equality. These were the goals proclaimed by the Communists. But in reality that terrible Communist experiment brought about repression of human dignity. Violence was used in order to impose that model on society. In the name of Communism we abandoned basic human values. So when I came to power in Russia I started to restore those values; values of "openness" and freedom. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Reorientation means an emphasis on the dignity of man, not on the sanctity of property. It means the creation of a society where human misery and poverty are repugnant to that society, not an indication of laziness or lack of initiative. The creation of new values means the establishment of a society based on free people, not free enterprise. — Stokely Carmichael

We find these joys to be self evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving "village." And to pursue a life of purpose.
We affirm our duty to nourish and nurture the young, to honour their caring ideals as the heart of being human. To recognize the early years as the foundation of life, and to cherish the contribution of young children to human evolution.
We commit ourselves to peaceful ways and vow to keep from harm or neglect these, our most vulnerable citizens. As guardians of their prosperity we honour the bountiful Earth whose diversity sustains us. Thus we pledge our love for generations to come. — Raffi Cavoukian

I define sustainable history as a durable progressive trajectory in which the quality of life on this planet or other planets is premised on the guarantee of human dignity for all at all times and under all circumstances. — Nayef Al-Rodhan

The most painful part of street life is the loss of dignity, and that sends people over the edge. Dignity is the glue that holds the mind, body, and spirit together, and once that is gone, the person breaks apart, held together only by skin. Street life corrodes the decency that lines the soul of every wakeful human. — Kristina Wandzilak

We should not fool ourselves. When the Quran says wa la qad karamna Bani Adam ["we have honored the Children of Adam"] so yes we should all be free but this should not mean that we must act against the dignity of human beings. — Tariq Ramadan

Assuredly there is but one way in which to achieve what is not merely difficult but utterly against human nature: to love those who hate us, to repay their evil deeds with benefits, to return blessings for reproaches. It is that we remember not to consider men's evil intention but to look upon the image of God in them, which cancels and effaces their transgressions, and with its beauty and dignity allures us to love and embrace them. — John Calvin

The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman's life, to her well-being and dignity," she said simply. "It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices. — Irin Carmon

In the final analysis, poverty means death: lack of food and housing, the inability to attend properly to health and education needs, the exploitation of workers, permanent unemployment, the lack of respect for one's human dignity, and unjust limitations placed on personal freedom in the areas of self-expression, politics, and religion. — Gustavo Gutierrez

The message of the United States is not nuclear power. The message of the United States is a spiritual message. It is the message of human ideals; it is the message of human dignity; it is the message of the freedom of ideas, speech, press, the right to assemble, to worship, and the message of freedom of movement of people. — Hubert H. Humphrey

Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being's suffering. Nothing. Not a career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we're going to survive with dignity. — Audrey Hepburn

IT SEEMS DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE, but there was once a time when human beings did not feel the need to share their every waking moment with hundreds of millions, even billions, of complete and utter strangers. If one went to a shopping mall to purchase an article of clothing, one did not post minute-by-minute details on a social networking site; and if one made a fool of oneself at a party, one did not leave a photographic record of the sorry episode in a digital scrapbook that would survive for all eternity. But now, in the era of lost inhibition, it seemed no detail of life was too mundane or humiliating to share. In the online age, it was more important to live out loud than to live with dignity. Internet followers were more treasured than flesh-and-blood friends, for they held the illusive promise of celebrity, even immortality. Were Descartes alive today, he might have written: I tweet, therefore I am. — Daniel Silva

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government's ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish submission to those who hold power. That is what is really preached wherever patriotism is championed. Patriotism is slavery. — Leo Tolstoy

Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

If there is a thread that unites all of our work, whether it's in Iowa or whether it's in Maryland or whether it's among our young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, I believe that it's the thread of human dignity. — Martin O'Malley

Human Dignity has gleamed only now and then and here and there, in lonely splendor, throughout the ages, a hope of the better men, never an achievement of the majority. — James Thurber

It is the fight for a new economy, a new energy system, a new democracy, a new relationship to the planet and to each other, for land, water, and food sovereignty, for Indigenous rights, for human rights and dignity for all people. When climate justice wins we win the world that we want. We can't sit this one out, not because we have too much to lose but because we have too much to gain. . . . We are bound together in this battle, not just for a reduction in the parts per million of CO2, but to transform our economies and rebuild a world that we want today. — Naomi Klein

The search for truth is, as it always has been, the noblest expression of the human spirit. Man's insatiable desire for knowledge about himself, about his environment and the forces by which he is surrounded, gives life its meaning and purpose, and clothes it with final dignity ... And yet we know, deep in our hearts, that knowledge is not enough ... Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral purposes, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes- dust and ashes that will bury the hopes and monuments of men beyond recovery. — Raymond B. Fosdick

The more i live, the more i realize what strange creatures human beings are. some of them might just as well have a hundred legs, like a centipede, or six, like a lobster. the human consistency and dignity one has been led to expect from one's fellow-man seem actually non-existent. one doubts if they exist to any startling degree even in oneself. — D.H. Lawrence

No longer can democracy and freedom be fully and truly secure in one country, or even in a group of countries; their defence in a world saturated with injustice and inhabited by billions of humans denied human dignity will inevitably corrupt the very values they are meant to defend. — Zygmunt Bauman

I am free. I am one of the few free people in this country of utterly transparent slavery. A slavery covered by a sloppy coat of contemporary varnish. I have fought a long and bloodless battle for this pitiable personal freedom. I fought for my freedom against the temptations, ambitions, and appetites witch drive everyone blindly on the slaughterhouse. To the so-called modern slaughterhouse for human dignity, honor, and for something else, too, which we forgot about a long time ago. — Tadeusz Konwicki

The differences between the two sexes is one of the important conditions upon which we have built the many varieties of human culture that give human beings dignity and stature. — Margaret Mead

I like my human experience served up with a little silence and restraint. Silence makes experience go further and, when it does die, gives it that dignity common to a thing one had touched and not ravished. — Djuna Barnes

In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 1948) in most solemn form, the dignity of a person is acknowledged to all human beings; and as a consequence there is proclaimed, as a fundamental right, the right of free movement in search for truth and in the attainment of moral good and of justice, and also the right to a dignified life. — Pope John XXIII

Human beings are not property. On the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, let us reaffirm the inherent dignity of all men, women and children. And let us redouble our efforts so that the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - 'no one shall be held in slavery or servitude' - ring true. — Kofi Annan

Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence. — Ayn Rand

America must remain, at any cost, the custodian of freedom, human dignity and economic security. The United States must be strong, so that no nation may dare attack. — Louis B. Mayer

We stand in need of such reflections to comfort us for the loss of some illustrious characters, which in our eyes might have seemed the most worthy of the heavenly present. The names of Seneca, of the elder and the younger Pliny, of Tacitus, of Plutarch, of Galen, of the slave Epictetus, and of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, adorn the age in which they flourished, and exalt the dignity of human natures. — Edward Gibbon

If Republicans are aiming for the heart, for compassion, the last thing they should do is abandon the sanctity of life. Instead, they should tell Americans that they believe in the dignity and value of every human being, from the defenseless unborn child, to the newborn with a disability, to the 90-year-old dealing with dementia. — Gary Bauer

Human dignity begins to assert itself only at the point where man is distinguishable from the beast by pity for it. — Richard Wagner

All human life-from the moment of conception and through all subsequent stages-is sacred, because human life is created in the image and likeness of God. Nothing surpasses the greatness or dignity of a human person ... If a person's right to life is violated at the moment in which he is first conceived in his mother's womb, an indirect blow is struck also at the whole moral order. — Pope John Paul II

The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well-being. — Emma Goldman

The Millennium Development Goals were a pledge to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity, and free the world from extreme poverty. The MDGs, with eight goals and a set of measurable time-bound targets, established a blueprint for tackling the most pressing development challenges of our time. — Ban Ki-moon

Bless, O Lord of the centuries and the millennia, the daily work by which men and women provide bread for themselves and their loved ones. We also offer to your fatherly hands the toil and sacrifices associated with work, in union with your Son Jesus Christ, who redeemed human work from the yoke of sin and restored it to its original dignity. — Pope John Paul II

The language of science - and especially of a science of man - is, necessarily, anti-individualistic, and hence a threat to human freedom and dignity. — Thomas Szasz

His Holiness brings a wealth of experience to this exalted office. The United Nations and the Holy See share a strong commitment to peace, social justice, human dignity, religious freedom and mutual respect among the world's religions. — Kofi Annan

The most obscene symbol in human history is the Cross; yet in its ugliness it remains the most eloquent testimony to human dignity. — R.C. Sproul

Take the life issue. This issue requires a president and an administration leading our nation to understand the importance of life. This whole faith-based initiative really ties into a larger cultural issue that we're working on. It begins to affect the life issue, as well as the human dignity issue, because when you're talking about welcoming people of faith to help people who are disadvantaged and are unable to defend themselves, the logical step is also those babies. — George W. Bush

Collective freedom provides the basic conditions for people to narrate their own lives, hold power accountable, and embrace a capacious notion of human dignity. — Henry Giroux

The best place for discovering what a man is is the heart of the desert. Your plane has broken down, and you walk for hours, heading for the little fort at Nutchott. You wait for the mirages of thirst to gape before you. But you arrive and you find an old sergeant who has been isolated for months among the dunes, and he is so happy to be found that he weeps. And you weep, too. In the arching immensity of the night, each tells the story of his life, each offers the other the burden of memories in which the human bond is discovered. Here two men can meet, and they bestow gifts upon each other with the dignity of ambassadors. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

In this image (watching sensual murder through a peephole) Lorrain embodies the criminal delight of decadent art. The watcher who records the crimes (both the artist and consumer of art) is constructed as marginal, powerless to act, and so exculpated from action, passive subject of a complex pleasure, condemning and yet enjoying suffering imposed on others, and condemning himself for his own enjoyment. In this masochistic celebration of disempowerment, the sharpest pleasure recorded is that of the death of some important part of humanity. The dignity of human life is the ultimate victim of Lorrain's art, thrown away on a welter of delighted self-disgust. — Jennifer Birkett

It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to other human beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of a contact and what happens then. — Ingmar Bergman

There is often talk of human rights, but it is also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor, so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick who have no medicine, of those whose rights to life and human dignity have been denied. — Fidel Castro

Historical omission points toward a culture's subconscious beliefs that some people matter less than others. — Aurin Squire

Ut when one human creature dies a whole world of hope and memory and feeling dies with him. To be robbed of the dignity of a natural death is a terrible deprivation. — Robertson Davies

There is a profound difference between fighting to avoid death and fighting in order to live. Men who fight to avoid death preserve their dignity and one and all - men, women and children - defend it jealously, tenaciously, fiercely ... When men fight to avoid death they cling with a tenacity born of desperation to all that constitutes the living and eternal part of human life, the essence, the noblest and purest element of life: dignity, pride, freedom of conscience. They fight to save their souls. But after the liberation men had to fight in order to live ... It is a humiliating, horrible thing, a shameful necessity, a fight for life. Only for life. Only to save one's skin. — Curzio Malaparte

Frankl discovered that a human being's fundamental dignity lies in his capacity to choose his response to any situation - his response-ability. — Fred Kofman

Simple life Ethos
If you must judge. Let your moral beacon guide you to a decision you can live with,
If you feel generous, give with humility so others could live with dignity,
If you became aware of injustice, your inaction or silence are part of it,
Living life without courage, is like living without honour,
If your arrogance started to control your behavior, then it's time for you to stratify to heaven where there are no earthly human beings
Never live behind the rocks. Always move to find comfort in brighter places, and
Always deem yourself to be courageous when others call upon you....... — Husam Wafaei

Everyone in the world worth being nice to. Because God never creates inferior human beings, each person deserves respect and dignity. — Ben Carson

We have only one heart, and the same wretchedness which leads us to mistreat an animal will not be long in showing itself in our relationships with other people. Every act of cruelty towards any creature is contrary to human dignity. — Pope Francis

It violates right order whenever capital so employs the working or wage-earning classes as to divert business and economic activity entirely to its own arbitrary will and advantage, without any regard to the human dignity of the workers, the social character of economic life, social justice, and the common good. — Pope Pius XI

This is a generation that is really detached from the core, human values that lead to dignity. — Shmuley Boteach

Human dignity can be achieved only in the field of ethics, and ethical achievement is measured by the degree in which our actions are governed by compassion and love, not by greed and aggressiveness. — Arnold J. Toynbee

In his book "Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift", Paul Rahe writes, "Human dignity is bound up with taking responsibility for conducting one's own affairs." But today the state cocoons "one's own affairs" so thoroughly as to remove almost all responsibility from modern life, and much of human dignity with it. And, if personal consequences have been all but abolished, societal consequences are harder to dodge ... A society of children cannot survive, no matter how all-embracing the government nanny. — Mark Steyn

Sexual and reproductive health and rights are universal human rights!They are an indivisible part of the broader human rights and development equation. Their particular power resides in the fact that they deal with the most intimate aspects of our identities as individuals and enable human dignity, which is dependent on control of our bodies, desires and aspirations. — Babatunde Osotimehin

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity - even under the most difficult circumstances - to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal — Viktor E. Frankl

Peace is never long preserved by weight of metal or by an armament race. Peace can be made tranquil and secure only by understanding and agreement fortified by sanctions. We must embrace international cooperation or international disintegration. Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human dignity. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics. — Bernard Baruch

No one who has ever known what it is to lose faith in a fellow-man whom he has profoundly loved and reverenced, will lightly say that the shock can leave the faith in the Invisible Goodness unshaken. With the sinking of high human trust, the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to believe in our own better self, since that also is part of the common nature which is degraded in our thought; and all the finer impulses of the soul are dulled. — George Eliot

Human dignity is independent of national borders. We must always defend the interests of the poor and the persecuted in other countries. — Kjell Magne Bondevik

Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life - to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity. — Archibald MacLeish

In reality, there is a single integral community of the Earth that includes all its component members whether human or other than human. In this community every being has its own role to fulfill, its own dignity, its own inner spontaneity. Every being has its own voice. Every being declares itself to the entire universe. Every being enters into communion with other beings.

In every phase of our imaginative, aesthetic, and emotional lives we are profoundly dependent on this larger context of the surrounding world. — Thomas Berry

The anything-goes passiveness of the religious and political Left is matched by the preachy moralism of the religious and political Right. The person who uncritically embraces any party line is guilty of an idolatrous surrender of her core identity as Abba's Child. Neither liberal fairy dust nor conservative hardball addresses our ragged human dignity. — Brennan Manning

I think that it's always appropriate for Americans and for American foreign policy to make clear why we feel that self-government is most compatible with peace, the well-being of people, and human dignity. — Jeane Kirkpatrick

I think that's deeply rooted in Muslim consciousness, the idea of not submitting to anything other than God. "You can abuse me, but you're not going to win me over. But if you treat me with respect and dignity, I'm going to fall in love with you. I'm going to sing your praises all over the world because you're powerful and you treated me with human dignity." — Hamza Yusuf

On my recent trip to Israel, I had the opportunity to visit Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust memorial, and reaffirm our collective responsibility to confront anti-Semitism, prejudice, and intolerance across the world. On this Yom Hashoah, we must accept the full responsibility of remembrance, as nations and as individuals-not simply to pledge "never again," but to commit ourselves to the understanding, empathy and compassion that is the foundation of peace and human dignity. — Barack Obama

We tend to suffer from the illusion that we are capable of dying for a belief or theory. What Hagakure is insisting is that even in merciless death, a futile death that knows neither flower nor fruit has dignity as the death of a human being. If we value so highly the dignity of life, how can we not also value the dignity of death? No death may be called futile. — Yukio Mishima

The protection of human rights to promote the dignity of the individual is too important a matter for symbolic gestures alone. It is only through the pursuit of practical and effective efforts to promote human rights that we show our real commitment to the welfare of individuals and society. — Alexander Downer

The calculated killing of a human being by the state involves, by its very nature, an absolute denial of the executed person's humanity. The most vile murder does not, in my view, release the state from constitutional restraint on the destruction of human dignity. — William J. Brennan

If we want a free and peaceful world, if we want to make the deserts bloom and man grow to greater dignity as a human being - we can do it. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Pierre-Jean Jouve writes: "poetry is a soul inaugurating form". The soul inaugurates. Here it is the supreme power. It is human dignity. Even if the "form" was already well-known, previously discovered, carved from "commonplaces", before the interior poetic light was turned upon it, it was a mere object for the mind. But the soul comes and inaugurates the form, dwells in it, takes pleasure in it. — Gaston Bachelard

When we struggle for human rights, for freedom, for dignity, when we feel that it is a ministry of the church to concern itself for those who are hungry, for those who have no schools, for those who are deprived, we are not departing from God's promise. He comes to free us from sin, and the church knows that sin's consequences are all such injustices and abuses. The church knows it is saving the world when it undertakes to speak also of such things. — Oscar A. Romero

Within the soul of America is freedom of mind and spirit in man. Here alone are the open windows through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit. Here alone is human dignity not a dream but an accomplishment. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it is more full in realization here than any other place in the world. — Herbert Hoover

Success in L.A. is completely arbitrary. One day you're the brilliant genius of life, the next day people act like there's a bad smell when you approach. Lots of expensive, late-model cars are offered in the L.A. Times every day by people who have suddenly begun to smell bad. The stakes are just too high for human dignity. — Cynthia Heimel

I believe in only one thing and that thing is human liberty. If ever a man is to achieve anything like dignity, it can happen only if superior men are given absolute freedom to think what they want to think and say what they want to say. I am against any man and any organization which seeks to limit or deny that freedom ... the superior man can be sure of freedom only if it is given to all men. — H.L. Mencken

Human dignity is the same for all human beings: when I trample on the dignity of another, I am trampling on my own. — Pope Francis

Purpose! Purposes are for animals with a hell of a lot more dignity than the human race! Just hop on that strange torpedo and ride it to wherever it's going — Tom Robbins

In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I think there is a contempt for the human dignity of people who were enslaved. You couldn't see them as fully human and so you didn't respect their desire to be connected to a family and a place. That was the only way you could tolerate and make sense of lynching and the terror that lynching represented. — Bryan Stevenson

In this world, only those people who have fallen to the lowest degree of humiliation, far below beggary, who are not just without any social consideration but are regarded by all as being deprived of that foremost human dignity, reason itself - only those people, in fact, are capable of telling the truth. All the others lie. — Simone Weil

Authentic religion teaches one to imagine the other
to consider another's vulnerability and humanity. The beginning of ethics is this trancendent imagination' (Ingrid Mattson). The message, she said, to be expounded by preacher and politician alike is that all human beings possess a God-given dignity. — Gustav Niebuhr

But on Kwajalein, the guards sought to deprive them of something that had sustained them even as all else had been lost: dignity. This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind. — Laura Hillenbrand