Top 100 A Respectable Quotes
#1. Before the 20th century, the ulcer was not a respectable disease. Doctors would say, 'You're under a lot of stress.' Nineteenth-century Europe and America had all these crazy health spas and quack treatments.
Barry Marshall
#2. The docks were said to be quite tough, but there were pubs you didn't go into if you were a respectable ... but um, I never felt a sense of danger in Liverpool.
Derek Taylor
#3. Architecture is a discipline that takes time and patience. If one spends enough years writing complex novels one might be able, someday, to construct a respectable haiku.
Thom Mayne
#4. I like to assume that since I drive a car and maintain a respectable credit rating and rarely murder anyone and bury them in the back garden unless they really deserve it, that the fact that I hear voices wont unduly disturb anyone.
Robin McKinley
#5. A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.
Samuel Johnson
#6. I felt early on I wasn't going to be a respectable citizen.
Cormac McCarthy
#7. A felicitous but unproved conjecture may be of much more consequence for mathematics than the proof of many a respectable theorem.
Atle Selberg
#9. Because of the generation in which I came into the world, there were expectations. Of course there were expectations. It was something having to do with being a respectable Negro woman who would make the people in Baltimore proud.
Anna Deavere Smith
#10. Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver. S. H. It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through the dim, fog-draped streets.
Arthur Conan Doyle
#11. I see myself more as an ambassador of the game. And I hope to bring chess to a higher level in the United States. Making bigger tournaments, more interesting events. Making it a respectable profession for young people to be able to pursue in the future.
Maurice Ashley
#12. All great writers begin with a good leather binding and a respectable title.
James M. Barrie
#13. There is not a respectable system of civilization known to history whose foundations were not laid in the institution of domestic slavery.
Robert M. T. Hunter
#15. The extraordinary deference paid to physicians and their judgment preserved the idea that the woman's desire to end a pregnancy was not enough in itself, it had to be approved by a respectable authority figure, at the time almost always a man.
Katha Pollitt
#16. If he could not restore her to the status of a respectable woman, then Sohrab would make her into something else entirely, something hitherto unknown in their entire extended family, an educated woman, a professional woman.
Jasmin Darznik
#17. The camel is an ugly animal, seen from above. Its shoulders slope formless like a sack, its silly little ears and fluff of bleached curls behind them have a respectable, boarding-house look, like some faded neatness that dresses for propriety but never dressed for love.
Freya Stark
#18. A respectable soul of good quality costs entirely too much to maintain.
A.E. Marling
#19. People pay all that money to sit in a chair in the theater mainly because it is a respectable way to see and experience things they cannot see and experience in their own lives.
Elizabeth Ashley
#20. Translating is a respectable, valuable, creative and worthwhile use of a human brain.
David Bellos
#21. A good editor can make a respectable writer remarkable, just like a good parent helps a child become amazing.
Justin Alcala
#22. A respectable prison is still a prison.
V.E Schwab
#23. I fancy that the Hell of Too Many People would occupy a respectable place in the hierarchy of infernal regions.
J.B. Priestley
#24. His name tasted of fire and wings, of curling smoke, of subtlety and strength and the rasping whisper of scales. He eyed me and said stiffly, Don't land yourself into a boiling-pot, and as difficult as you may find it, try and present a respectable appearance.
Naomi Novik
#25. I don't know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it's enough to make one's flesh creep.
Joseph De Maistre
#26. I suggest we embrace the phrase, "I don't know." It seems to get a bad rap, but "I don't know" is a respectable answer when one "doesn't know
Guy P. Harrison
#27. The straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man.
Victor Hugo
#28. The best part? Probably being able to portray such a respectable, ethical, intelligent, strong woman. That's still pretty rare in our business, unfortunately.
Catherine Bell
#29. Confidence comes from within and as long as you are putting forth a respectable effort to take good care of yourself, you should feel confident about that path.
Stacy Keibler
#30. There is an odd quirk in the human mind that makes a fearful man prefer to go quietly to a wicked-looking, gnarled "witch" for a countercharm than to a respectable licensed sorcerer or an accredited priest of the Church.
Randall Garrett
#31. To travel across Spain and finally to reach Barcelona is like drinking a respectable red wine and finishing up with a bottle of champagne.
James A. Michener
#32. For the greatest fool and rascal in creation there is yet a worse condition; and that is, not to know it, but to think himself a respectable man.
George MacDonald
#33. What I intend to do is uphold a standard of intellectual seriousness on the right. [These books] should be written in a way that they are serious, soberly argued, well researched, and make a respectable case-agree or disagree.
Adam Bellow
#34. Your impression of him as a respectable man brings to my mind the work of a painter whose pictures show attractively at a distance but unpleasantly up close."
"I
John Bunyan
#35. Your little r changes the status of a single lady 'Ms' into a respectable lady 'Mrs'. Man, you make the difference!
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
#36. Once you break one taboo, others soon come thumgbling down. Once you start rolling downhill, you carry on rolling until you reach the lowest point. For someone with no aim in life and who has never known love, leading a respectable life seems utterly pointless and unbearable.
Rika Yokomori
#37. All Asian parents are into your children having a respectable, decent stable job. Acting was unimaginable to my parents.
Joan Chen
#38. Reviewing the day's lessons. Isn't it joyful? Friends come from far. Isn't it delightful? One has never been angry at other's misunderstanding. Isn't he a respectable man?
Confucius
#39. There is a respectable body of economic thought that holds that casino gambling is actually economically regressive to a state and a community.
Mario Cuomo
#40. I guess I'd always mocked the American accent. I didn't consider it a respectable dialect, but I was told that it was.
Callan McAuliffe
#41. I just didn't want to leave the Cowboys when they were down. I at least wanted them to get into a respectable position before anyone else took over.
Tom Landry
#42. I really thought I was quite a respectable lad, and might have been half inclined to boast that I was not like other boys, - untruthful, dishonest, disobedient, swearing, Sabbath-breaking, and so on. But, all of a sudden, I met Moses,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
#43. When she lives at his palace, the maiden niece of a bishop can pass for a respectable woman because, if she has a love affair, she is obliged to hoodwink her uncle.
Honore De Balzac
#44. Historical fiction is not only a respectable literary form; it is a standing reminder of the fact that history is about human beings.
Helen Cam
#45. Bunter!"
"Yes, my lord."
"Her Grace tells me that a respectable Battersea architect has discovered a dead man in his bath."
"Indeed, my lord? That's very gratifying."
"Very, Bunter. Your choice of words is unerring. I wish Eton and Balliol had done as much for me ...
Dorothy L. Sayers
#46. A respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul
Karl Lagerfeld
#47. Anna Wren was not for him. She was of a different class than he, and, moreover, she was a respectable widow from the village. She wasn't a sophisticated society lady who might consider a liaison outside of wedlock.
Elizabeth Hoyt
#48. A respectable person is invariably unrespectable within.
Osho
#49. Indoors was his place and there he'd moulder, a respectable pillar of society who has never had the chance to misbehave.
E. M. Forster
#50. Every paper published in a respectable journal should have a preface by the author stating why he is publishing the article, and what value he sees in it. I have no hope that this practice will ever be adopted.
Morris Kline
#51. I have no pretension whatever of that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere.
Jane Austen
#52. This conference is like a tour through the various levels of Hell, he thought. The only things missing are a respectable Virgil and hordes of people screaming.
Sylvain Reynard
#53. Being a gossip reporter just isn't a respectable job. It'll chew you up and spit you out.
Kim Cattrall
#54. The purpose of clothing, as best he could tell, was to keep one unembarrassed and at the right temperature. If an outfit served that purpose for a respectable period - twenty years, say - and at the lowest price available, then it was successful.
Tom Rachman
#55. I grew up thinking that renting is perfectly normal. And then, strangely enough, I never did buy a house. I live in New York City, and I'm still renting. My own personal narrative shows that it is possible to live a respectable life without ever having owned a home.
Edmund Phelps
#56. Oh dear gods. I think my underwear just fell off." "Nicole," Tina hissed. "Keep your comments to yourself! Be a respectable fucking lady, for fuck's sake!
T.J. Klune
#57. A wise man should marry a virgin of a respectable family even if she is deformed. He should not marry one of a low-class family, through beauty. Marriage in a family of equal status is preferable.
Chanakya
#58. Testing was never going to be fashionable, but you could hardly run a respectable software development shop with no testing effort at all.
Stephen Baxter
#59. There was no better path to autonomy for an ambitious young businesswoman than to be married off to a respectable corpse.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#60. I just can't fathom why anyone would stand on a ledge when there's a respectable amount of walking space right next to it.
Stephanie Perkins
#61. Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man.
Lord Chesterfield
#62. The lodgings were on the top floor next to the well-guarded premises of a respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good fences make good neighbors.
Terry Pratchett
#63. Are you sure it is trustworthy, Mellanie?"
"I'd be dead if it wasn't."
"yes. I suppose that does generate a respectable level of personsal confidence
Peter F. Hamilton
#64. I think you'll have to marry me, Miss Fielding."
"To save your reputation?"
Derek grinned, bending to kiss the flash of pale throat revealed by the robe. "Someone has to make a respectable man of me.
Lisa Kleypas
#65. And a respectable man must be a coward and a slave not only at the present time, owing to some accidental circumstances, but generally in all periods of time. That's a law of nature for all respectable people on earth.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#66. Daydreaming with pencil and paper is a respectable form of meditation.
John Howe
#67. Playing the good guy is tough because you know as well as I do, in real life, you have to watch your P's and Q's and conduct yourself in a respectable manner if you expect to have friends.
R. Lee Ermey
#68. We are in the realm not of logic but of wistfulness, and I must maintain that wistfulness is a respectable, serious condition. How, otherwise, to account for much of one's life?
Joseph O'Neill
#69. I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.
Jane Austen
#70. After eyeing her for a moment or two, he said: 'If you let this chance of achieving a respectable alliance slip, you are a bigger fool than I take you for, Hester!' Her eyes came round to his face, a smile quivered for an instant on her lips. 'No, how could that be, Papa?
Georgette Heyer
#71. Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before.
Jerome K. Jerome
#72. I believe journalism is coming to be regarded as quite a respectable occupation for gentlemen nowadays.
Anthony Trollope
#73. The essence of being a gentleman is to understand the way you're supposed to treat a respectable woman.
Ne-Yo
#74. For hardly any man dances when sober, unless he is insane. Nor does he dance while alone, nor at a respectable and moderate party. Dancing is the final phase of a wild party with fancy decorations and a multitude of delights.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
#75. Sometimes I want to clean up my desk and go out and say, "Respect me; I'm a respectable grown-up!" and other times I just want to jump into a paper bag and shake and bake myself to death.
Wendy Wasserstein
#76. We must take care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, in a respectable defensive posture.
George Washington
#77. One may as well preach a respectable mythology as anything else.
Mary Augusta Ward
#78. My father didn't think being an artist was a respectable or worthy goal for a man.
Richard Diebenkorn
#79. Only two bags, huh?" Helga was eighty, feisty, and the fastest knitter Elsie had ever seen. "We'll have to work on that. It's not a respectable stash until it has its own room.
Debora Geary
#80. I am not a conservative - neo or paleo. Conservatism is a respectable outlook ... I just do not happen to be that animal.
Allan Bloom
#81. You're a respectable woman, dearie, and her reputation is a woman's wealth."
"Her wealth," Tenar repeated in the same blank way; then she said it again: "Her wealth. Her treasure. Her hoard. Her value ...
Ursula K. Le Guin
#82. He couldn't, as a respectable master in an English public school, have taken us to a brothel. Yet how I wish he had! His introduction to sexual experience would, I feel sure, have been a masterpiece of tact; it might well have speeded up our development by a good five years.
Christopher Isherwood
#83. Doing the show. That 10 AM feeling when the doors open up. Forget about it! Also, my son coming home with a respectable grade on something that I know he's worked hard on. And good health excites me, too.
Wendy Williams
#84. My father knew the charming side of my mother, and my mother thought that he was attentive and pleasant and was an architect, which was a respectable profession, but I don't think that they actually got to know one another deeply.
Christopher Durang
#85. If you believe in living a respectable life, you believe in self-help which is the best help!
B.R. Ambedkar
#86. Understand that you, yourself, are no more than the composite picture of all your thoughts and actions. In your relationships with others, remember the basic and critically important rule: If you want to be loved, be lovable. If you want respect, set a respectable example!
Denis Waitley
#87. Even in the matter of stealing we must think of our own beam before our neighbour's mote. It is not easy to be honest. There is many a thief who is less of a thief than many a respectable member of society.
George MacDonald
#88. A struggle for liberty is in itself respectable and glorious ... When conducted with magnanimity, justice and humanity, it ought to command the admiration of every friend to human nature. But if sullied by crimes and extravagancies, it loses its respectability.
Alexander Hamilton
#89. I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting yourself. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation.
Tom Stoppard
#90. But they also awarded a quite respectable 55th place to Enoch Powell, thereby demonstrating that, for certain sections of the population, being an unpleasant racist constitutes no bar to greatness.
Marc Morris
#91. Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this
partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties.
Douglas Adams
#92. One of the mitigating benefits of children is that they make a Lego habit more respectable.
Jonathan V. Last
#93. Every woman, even the most respectable, had roses blooming under glass; lips cut with a knife; curls of Indian ink; there was design, art, everywhere; a change of some sort had undoubtedly taken place.
Virginia Woolf
#94. DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.
Ambrose Bierce
#95. One, I have a wonderful publisher, Black Sparrow Press; as long as they exist, they will keep me in print. And they claim they sell very respectable numbers of my books, so I guess, and it's true, every place I go, my books are in libraries and on bookshelves.
Diane Wakoski
#96. It has been lately urged in a very respectable quarter that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and religious liberty all over the globe, and especially over this continent - even by force, if necessary. It is a sad delusion.
John C. Calhoun
#97. One effect of benefit-cost analysis is to give any respectable engineer or economist a means for justifying almost any kind of project the national government wants to justify ... Exclusive reliance on benefit-cost analysis has been one of the greatest threats to wise decisions in water development.
Gilbert F. White
#98. War is not a means but an end. It makes violence respectable and makes sadists look like heroes.
Mary Horlock
#99. You know that deep down, a tiny part of that proper, respectable woman you are, wants to visit that reckless, sexy, uninhibited place inside you that's begging to get out. A place I can undoubtedly help you find.
K. Bromberg
#100. Jerkiness isn't as respectable as it used to be, not even in L.A. Which is why they had to build Vegas.
Ross Macdonald
