A Quote by Sydney Smith
Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect.
Related Quotes
Manners are the shadows of virtues; the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love, and respect.
There is a yearning for people to return to elementary moral virtues, such as integrity and commitment. We distrust people who have no centering of values. We greatly respect businessmen, for example, if they display those virtues, even if we don't necessarily agree with the people.
Our virtues themselves are not free and floating qualities over which we retain a permanent control and power of disposal; they come to be so closely linked in our minds with the actions in conjunction with which we have made it our duty to exercise them that if we come to engage in an activity of a different kind, it catches us off guard and without the slightest awareness that it might involve the application of those same virtues.
People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to the other, more instantly negotiable virtues.... character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source from which self-respect springs.
Manners or etiquette ('accessibility, affability, politeness, refinement, propriety, courtesy, and ingratiating and captivating behavior') call for no large measure of moral determination and cannot, therefore, be reckoned as virtues. Even though manners are no virtues, they are a means of developing virtue.... The more we refine the crude elements in our nature, the more we improve our humanity and the more capable it grows of feeling the driving force of virtuous principles.
Qualities like love and compassion are not just abstract virtues that are the property of saints and adepts. Anyone can develop these qualities in themselves by doing spiritual practices. As the Buddha said, Come and see.
I have developed a deep respect for animals. I consider them fellow living creatures with certain rights that should not be violated any more than those of humans.
The most satisfactory thing in all this earthly life is to be able to serve our fellow-beings-first, those who are bound to us by ties of love, then the wider circle of fellow-townsmen, fellow-countrymen, or fellow-men. To be of service is a solid foundation for contentment in this world.
There is in us a lyric germ or nucleus which deserves respect; it bids a man to ponder or create; and in this dim corner of himself he can take refuge and find consolations which the society of his fellow creatures does not provide.
The Utopians feel that slaughtering our fellow creatures gradually destroys the sense of compassion, which is the finest sentiment of which our human nature is capable.
Among all life forms, there are creatures with charisma and creatures without. It's one of those ineffable qualities we can't quite define, but we all seem to respond similarly to.
Both our senses and our passions are a supply to the imperfection of our nature; thus they show that we are such sort of creatures as to stand in need of those helps which higher orders of creatures do not.
When our neighbor's personality possesses harsh qualities, we show our love by not voluntarily provoking those qualities in any way. Past experience shows us what upsets a person, so in their presence we are careful not to do or say those things that cause anger. We are self-effacing.
The definitions of humanism are many, but let us here take it to be the attitude of those men who think it an advantage to live in society, and, at that, in a complex and highly developed society, and who believe that man fulfills his nature and reaches his proper stature in this circumstance. The personal virtues which humanism cherishes are intelligence, amenity, and tolerance; the particular courage it asks for is that which is exercised in the support of these virtues. The qualities of intelligence which it chiefly prizes are modulation and flexibility.
There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
We ought to deal kindly with all, and to manifest those qualities which spring naturally from a heart tender and full of Christian charity; such as affability, love and humility. These virtues serve wonderfully to gain the hearts of men, and to encourage them to embrace things that are more repugnant to nature.
Related Authors
Aiden Wilson Tozer Quotes
American
Priest
Billy Graham Quotes
American
Priest
Charles Spurgeon Quotes
British
Priest
Gordon B. Hinckley Quotes
American
Priest
Henri Nouwen Quotes
Dutch
Priest
Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
American
Priest
Joel Osteen Quotes
American
Priest
John C. Maxwell Quotes
American
Priest
John Piper Quotes
American
Priest
Max Lucado Quotes
American
Priest
Pema Chodron Quotes
American
Priest
Pope Benedict XVI Quotes
German
Priest
Pope Francis Quotes
Argentinian
Priest
Rajneesh Quotes
Indian
Priest
Swami Vivekananda Quotes
Indian
Priest
Thomas S. Monson Quotes
American
Priest