ABASEMENT, n. A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of wealth or power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing an employer. - Ambrose Bierce
I drank to drown my pain, but the damned pain learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good behavior. - Frida Kahlo
A decent life, even a short life, will always be far better than an exceptionally long life lived in ruin. - Steven J. Carroll
No decent man would ever strike a woman or a child. - Ellen J. Barrier
Income inequality has no necessary connection with poverty, the lack of material resources for a decent life, such as adequate food, shelter, and clothing. A society with great income inequality may have no poor people, and a society with no income inequality may have nothing but poor people. - Robert Higgs
The greatest threat to peace is the barrage of rightist propaganda portraying war as decent, honorable, and patriotic. - Jeannette Rankin
Write about the thing that scares you most or your most private confession and you'll never have a problem coming up with decent fiction. - Don Roff
Everyone who gets sleepy at night should have a simple decent place to lay their heads, on terms they can afford to pay.
The notion of picking one time of year to be decent to other people is obscene because it's actually validating the notion of being miserable wretches the rest of the year. - Pam Davis
I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect. - Temple Grandin
There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent. - Mahatma Gandhi
I hate what you represent."... "Power without conviction." Isana replied, her tone lifeless, matter of fact. "Ambition without conscience. Decent folk suffer at the hands of those like you. - Jim Butcher
We all care intensely for the narrative of our own life and very much want it to be a good story, with a decent hero. - Daniel Kahneman
America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world. - Dinesh D'Souza
Mark Twain said the difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and the lightning bug, and people think he was good, right ? Didn't write any decent characters, as far as I can tell, but otherwise fine. - Adam Rex
So you’re going to horrible places and meeting horrible people and you’re complaining about it? Live your life like a decent person. Go to the grocery store, buy your own food, take care of yourself. If you live a responsible life, you’ll run into responsible people, he said. - Aziz Ansari
People are always asking me what my lyrics mean. Well I say what any decent poet would say if you dared ask him to analyse his work: if you see it, darling, then it's there. - Freddie Mercury
A filthy mouth will not utter decent language. - Chinese Proverb
A decent man would stand out like a cactus on an ice floe. - Timothy Egan
What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow. - A.A. Milne
To recap: it is possible to put decent information into a Government Machine, have ordinary, good people running the thing, and a reasonable system in place, and still get utter idiocy out of the dispenser?""More than possible. Likely. - Nick Harkaway
Happiness is inseparably connected with decent, clean behavior. - Boyd K. Packer
It is the imagination that argues for the Divine Spark within human beings. It is literally a decent of the World's Soul into all of us. - Terence McKenna
There is a kind of virtue that lies not in extraordinary actions, not in saving poor orphans from burning buildings, but in steadfastly working for a world where orphans are not poor and buildings comply with decent fire codes. - Randy Cohen
PLUNDER, v. To take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft. To effect a change of ownership with the candid concomitance of a brass band. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity. - Ambrose Bierce
In the absences of a decent time machine, fiction remains the most sturdy vehicle for visiting other eras. - Tom Nolan
When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once. - Samuel Butler
HAVING NEVER taken a decent holiday before, I decided on a trip to Thailand, booked a flight and flew out the following week. Mate, I loved it. The friendly people, the food, the females! - Simon Palmer
I ain't got no Visa, I ain't got no Red American Express, We can't go nowhere exotic, It don't matter 'cause I'm decent and Loyal. - Genereux Philip
When you're finally up at the moon looking back on earth,all those differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend, and you're going to get a concept that maybe this really is one world and why the hell can't we live together like decent people? - Frank Borman
We should always assist our friends and enemies in order to create a decent social environment. - Saaif Alam
I have always derived indescribable pleasure from leading a decent woman to the edge of sin and leaving her there to live between the temptation and the fear of that sin. - Edmond de Goncourt
If you are really bored with life, just meet a decent magician and have a close up magic show, he will restore inspiration in your life. - Amit Kalantri
We are turning against boys and forgetting a simple truth: that the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal, decent males is responsible for much of what is right in the world. - Christina Hoff Sommers
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. - H.L. Mencken
Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then--we elected them. - Lily Tomlin
ABRIDGE, v.t. To shorten. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. --Oliver Cromwell - Ambrose Bierce
USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion. - Ambrose Bierce
A person who says every person has a right to a decent education may not actually mean people should be robbed to support bad schools or all children should be forced into a prison-like building for 12 years. - Jeffrey Tucker
So long as atrocities remain remote, abstract, they will be tolerated, even by decent people. - Howard Zinn
Decent people should ignore politics, if only they could be confident that politics would ignore them - William F. Buckley Jr.
Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run around with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be strengthened. - Stanley Walker
Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life."[ Live 8 Concert, Mary Fitzgerald Square, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2 July 2005] - Nelson Mandela
If you only write when inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you'll never be a novelist. - Neil Gaiman
I started to find out the path to the HELL in a decent way. Then I realized that now it's been called SOCIETY, and I'm already part of it. - Balakoteswara Panchakshari
Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent natural regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it. - Frank Herbert
Because it’s no longer enough to be a decent person. It’s no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself. - Joss Whedon
When I lay my head on the pillow at night I can say I was a decent person today. That's when I feel beautiful. - Drew Barrymore