Dignity

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Freedom for me is to live with dignity. ~ Manal al-Sharif
Every human being has dignity and value no matter what. ~ George W. Bush

Dignity is a term used in moral, ethical, and political discussions to signify that a being has an innate right to respect and ethical treatment. It is an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights.

Quotes

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  • Otium cum dignitate
    • Ease with dignity.
    • Cicero, Oratio Pro Publio Sextio, Chapter XIV, also quoted in The International Encyclopedia of Prose And Poetical Quotations From The Literature of The World, p. 190
  • Facilius crescit dignitas quam incipit.
    • Dignity increases more easily than it begins.
    • Seneca the Elder, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, chapter CI, also quoted in The International Encyclopedia of Prose And Poetical Quotations From The Literature of The World, p. 190
  • Remember this, — that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.
    • Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Chapter 4, p. 32, also quoted in The International Encyclopedia of Prose And Poetical Quotations From The Literature of The World, p. 190
  • Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority.
  • Remember this, — that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.
  • By indignities men come to dignities.
  • Dignity is like air … When there’s enough of it, you don’t notice it... When there’s a lack of [it], you suffocate.
    When you’re full of dignity, you can focus on other things like your goals, your interests, anything. When you feel humiliated..., your brain focuses huge amounts of attention on your humiliation. You obsess on how people don’t appreciate your human value.
  • Washington absorbed, and later came to personify what you might call the dignity code. The code was based on the same premise as the nation's Constitution — that human beings are flawed creatures who live in constant peril of falling into disasters caused by their own passions. Artificial systems have to be created to balance and restrain their desires.
    The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested — to endeavor to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its followers to be reticent — to never degrade intimate emotions by parading them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate — to distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm.
  • Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from any larger set of rules or ethical system.
    But it's not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and the other traits associated with dignity. The cultural effects of his presidency are not yet clear, but they may surpass his policy impact. He may revitalize the concept of dignity for a new generation and embody a new set of rules for self-mastery.
  • It is terrifying to see how easily, in certain people, all dignity collapses. Yet when you think about it, this is quite normal since they only maintain this dignity by constantly striving against their own nature.
  • Where is there dignity unless there is also honesty?
  • I wish you all the pleasurable excitement one can have without hurting others and one's own dignity.
    • Norbert Elias in "Portret van een socioloog", VPRO (23 April 1975).
  • Dignity is naturally an "aristocratic" virtue, best demonstrated in adverse circumstances, in bearing of suffering, in facing death, childbirth, or the guillotine. Dignity as an attitude is also something personal and not collective. Democratism never liked dignity. Nothing infuriates the howling mob more than dignity.
  • 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, as quoted in Letters of H. L. Mencken (1961) edited by Guy J. Forgue, p. xiii.
  • Nonviolence is a constant awareness of the dignity and humanity of oneself and others. It seeks truth and justice. It renounces violence, both in method and in attitude. It is a courageous acceptance of active love and goodwill as the instruments with which to overcome evil and transform both oneself and others. It is the willingness to undergo suffering rather than inflict it. It excludes retaliation and flight.
    • Wallace Floyd Nelson, as quoted in Seeds of Peace : A Catalogue of Quotations‎ (1986) by Jeanne Larson and Madge Micheels-Cyrus, p. 169.
  • Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this.
All our dignity consists then in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor to think well; this is the principle of morality.
  • Blaise Pascal, Pensées, #347, W. F. Trotter, trans. (New York: 1958)
  • It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.
    • Blaise Pascal, Pensées, #348, W. F. Trotter, trans. (New York: 1958)
  • The demeaning of dignity is almost the only reason for a fight.
  • Nothing is more significant than dignity for adults and children. Everything is related to dignity. The important thing is that there is the highest price for each man and for all men together. This price is - the truth. Therefore all people crave it. People need others to appreciate them by the very highest dignity, by the truth. The genuine price of a man is the truth about him.
  • There is a boundary between good and evil. Good — is good, evil — is evil, and there is a line between them. It is called the truth. Everything that is higher than this line — is goodness, the extolling of human dignity. Everything that is lower — is evil, destroying human dignity, decreasing its price.
  • Man — is his dignity.
  • Let's remember our goal. It is not to reeducate the teacher; it is not to express fair anger, it is not "to show everyone that…" No! We need that the sense of dignity remains in our son or daughter — here is our goal!
  • [H]uman dignity is innate... Human dignity cannot be taken away by the government... The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.
  • Dissent... is a right essential to any concept of the dignity and freedom of the individual; it is essential to the search for truth in a world wherein no authority is infallible.
    • Norman Thomas, as quoted in The Quotable Rebel (2005) by Teishan Latner, p. 360.
  • Let us hold fast the great truth, that communities are responsible, as well as individuals; that no government is respectable which is not just. Without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society.
    • Daniel Webster, An Address Delivered at the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument: June 17, 1843 (1843).

"Privacy law in Australia” (2005)

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"Privacy law in Australia”, Carolyn Doyle, Mirko Bagaric – (2005)

  • The concept of dignity is said to underpin not only the righ to privacy, but also a large array of other rights. Globally, it is the ideal which over the past half-century has been most frequently invoked in a bid to shore up a larrge number of rights claims.
    • p.27
  • At the international law level, numerous instruments employ the notion of dignity, often according it cardinal status.The concept of dignity gained considerable currency, apparently, as a result of the egregious and widespread abuses that occurred during the Second World War. “The idea of human dignity was decisively strengthened by developments after the Second World War. After the terrible crimes and contempt towards mankind by the Naxis, there was a sudden surge for stronger protection of human dignity”. The preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted shortly after the War, states:
    Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.
    In this regard it has been noted that “it is the concept and term of 'the Inherent Dignity' that carries the whole burden of being the fountainhead fron which the equal rights of man follows which leads us back to the diestic or theistic worldview”.
    The concept is invoked in several other articles of the document Article 1 provides “All human being are born fee and equal in “dignity” and rights” (emphasis added). Article 22 states:
    Everyone , as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organizationa dn resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultueral rights indispensable for his “dignity” and the free development of his personality [emphasis added[.
    Article 23(3) provides:
    Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself andhis familyan existence worthy of “human dignity”, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection [emphasis added].
    • J Eckert, “Legal Roots of Human Dignity in German Law” in Kretzmer and Ecckart (2002), op cit, pp 41, 52.; Y Arieli, “The Emergence o the Doctrine of the Human Dignity of Man” in Kretzmer and Eckart (2002), op cit, pp 1, 8.; quoted on p.28
  • The preamble to the “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides:
    The States Parties to the present Covenant, considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the “inherent dignity” and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, recognizing that these rights derive from the “inherent dignity” of the human person.
    Article 13 states:
    The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to education. They agree that education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its “dignity”, and shall strengthen the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
    • pp.28-29
  • Article 10(1) states that “all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person”.
    • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as quoted on p.29
  • There are also numerous State constitutions which employ the notion of human dignity.
    For example, s 1 of the Finnish Constitution provides: “Finland is a sovereign Republic, the constitution of which shall guarantee the inbiolabilit of human dignity”. The Constitution of South Africa states that the State is founded on 'Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights”.
    Article 1 of the 1949 German Constitution or Basic Law provides that “the dignity of an shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority.”
    Article 1 of the Brazilian Constitution specifies that Brazil is “a Democratic State and is founded [“inter alia”] on … the dignity of the individual”.
    Article 20 of the Angolan Constitution specifies that the “State shall respect and protect the human person and uman dignity”.
    Article 23 of the Belgian Constitution links the right of everyone to “lead a life in conformity with human dignity” to economic, social and cultural rights.
    Article 6 of the Bulgarian Constitution provides: “All persons are born free and equal in dignity and rights”.
    Article 1 of the Peruvian Constitution of 1993 reads: “The protection of the “human person” and respect for his”dignity” are the supreme goal of society and the State”.
    And the Hungarian Constitutional Court has described the right to dignity and the right to life as the source and essential content of all other rights.
    • E Davidsson, “The Concept of Human Dignity an Economic Sanctions”; A Chaskalson, “Human Dignity as a Constitutional Valu” in Kretzmer and ckart (2002), pp 133, 136; Part 1 of the Constitution Act 1982, Schedule B Canada Act 1982 (UK) c 11; as quoted on p.30
  • Dignity is not expressly mentioned in the US Constitution or the “Canadian Charter of Rigts and Freedoms”. Nevertheless, the courts in the United States have invoked the notion in a bid to justify concrete rights and protections – such as the privilege against self-incrimination and the freedom from cruel punishment – while in Canada it has been declared that the genesis of the rights and freedoms in the Canadian Charter is “respect for the inherent dignity of persons.”. Similarly, the Constitutions of Sweden, Portugal, Spain and Greeze either describe dignity as the basis of political order or place the guarantee of dignity at the head of basic rights.
    The influence of dignity on rights discourse and on the development of rights-based elgal and constitutinal treatment is so pronounced that it has acquired “a resonance that leads it to be invoked widely as a legal and moral ground for protest against degrading and abusive treatment. No other ideal seems so clearly accepted as a universal social good”.
    • Chaskalson (2002), p.7 “Charter of Rights and Freedoms” provison 15(1) ; O Schachter, “Human Dignity as Normative Concept” (19830 77 American Journal of International Law 848; as quoted on p. 30-31
  • According to Shcachter (at 849), persons subject to any one of the following conditions are effectively denied their inherent human dignity: (a) persons subject to a life in abject destitution; (b) persons subject to humiliating or degrading conditions of existence; (c) persons whose exercie of basic rights is made dependent upon the benevolence of or arbitrary power by others (as distinct from obtaining their basic entitleents as of right); (d) persons subject to egregious forms of discrimination; and (e) persons denied the capacity to assert their [legal] claims to basic rights.
    • Footnote 51, p.30
  • However, as is noted by Klaus Dicke, despite the widespread reference to the notion of dignity, its “legitimizing function .. can only be translated into political or legal reasoning if a set of regulative principles, governing the relationship between dignity and righs, is applied”. In order for dignity to provide meaningful guidance to judges, law-makers (or anyone else) regarding the scope, acceptance and development of concrete rights, including the right to privacy, a number of matters need to be resolved, including the meaning and justification of dignity.
    • p.31
  • [P]erhaps the most widely utilised argument by pro-euthanasia advocates is that allowing a patient to die in pain against his or her wishes is undignified. Dworkin turns the notion of dignity on its head by suggesting that even though it is dignity that makes life inherently valuable it is also the reason euthanasia should be permissible. He states that a true appreciation of dignity requires respect for individual freedom and the ability for each to make his or her own moral decisions, because freedom is necessary for self-respect, and therefore it follows euthanasia should be available on request.58 Thus, on the one hand he contends that by virtue of the dignity we all have, life is “intrinsically” valuable. This of its self seems contradictory since something cannot have intrinsic worth if its value is derived from something else. But he then contends that by the very reason of a constituent element of dignity (freedom) it is then permissible to destroy that which is inherently precious.59
    • R Dworkin, “Life's Dominion: An Argument about Abortion and Euthanasia (1993) p 239; as quoted on D Beyleveld and R Brownsword, “Human Dignity in Bioethics and Biolaw” (2001).p.33
  • In the most sophisticated modern-day examination of dignity, Beyleveld and Brownsword also contend:
    [T]he right to choose is a basic expression of one's dignity; and there is no more fundamental expression of one's dignity than the right to make life-saving or life-terminating choice. Dignity, in other words, is embedded in the right to choose itself, irrespective of the aprticular choice that one makes.60
    In this regard, dignity is being used both as a behicle to justify something as being important and then also as a means to extinguish it and thereby detract from its importance in the most direct fashion possible.
  • D Beyleveld and R Brownsword, “Human Dignity in Bioethics and Biolaw” (2001). p.242; p.33
  • The fundamental dispute between the conception of dignity taken by the Linacre Centre and Kant on the one hand, and by Dworkin and Beyleveld and Brownsword on the other, comes down to whether human dignity is an empowering notion, conferring rights and individual interests, or whether it is a constraint.
    The dispute in our view is insoluble. This is because the concept at the heart of the debate, dignity, has no clear meaning.61 Joel Feinberg uses the term dignity in a normative sense:
    Respect for persons may simply be respect for their rights, so that there canno be the one without the other; and what is called human dignity may simply be the recognizable capacity to assert claims. To respect a person then or think of him as possessed of human dignity is tot hink of hm as a potetial maker of claims.62
    • Summer (1987) pp.8-9; J Fienberg, “The Nature and Value of Human Rights” (1970) 4 Journal of Value Inquiry 243 at 252-253; as quoted on p.34
  • Feldman argues, correctly in our view, that because the central core meaning of dignity is not clear, there are dangers in using it as a value from which to develop specific rights.63 He points out that dignity can be used as an instrument of legal paternalism:
    Classical liberal notions such as autonomy depend on the state respecting the right of individuals to choose both the desirable ends of their own lives and (within certain limits) the means by which they pursue those ends. The presence of dignity, by contrast .. is determined objectively, at least in part. A government, court or tribunal concerned with dignity need not defer to the subjective judgment of an indiviual as to what is good for him or her. Instead it is open to public authorities to make their own assessments as the demands of dignity and the kinds of existence or activity whicch are conducive to it.64
    An example of the paternalistic use of dignity is the French case in which the Conseil d'Etat upheld orders made by local authorities in Versailles and Marseilles banning dwarf throwing competitions on the grounds that such spectacles were an affront to human dignity.65
    • Feldman pp 697-703; Feldman, p 700; pp.34-35

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 194.
  • Remember this,—that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.
  • Otium cum dignitate.
    • Ease with dignity.
    • Cicero, Oratia Pro Publio Sextio, XLV.
  • The dignity of truth is lost
    With much protesting.
  • * * * With grave
    Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd
    A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
    Deliberation sat, and public care;
    And princely counsel in his face yet shone
    Majestic, though in ruin: sage he stood,
    With Atlantéan shoulders, fit to bear
    The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look
    Drew audience and attention still as night
    Or summer's noontide air.
  • We have exchanged the Washingtonian dignity for the Jeffersonian simplicity, which was in truth only another name for the Jeffersonian vulgarity.
    • Bishop Henry C. Potter, Address at the Washington Centennial Service, New York (April 30, 1889).
  • Facilius crescit dignitas quam incipit.
    • Dignity increases more easily than it begins.
    • Seneca the Younger, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, CI.
  • True dignity abides with him alone
    Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
    Can still suspect, and still revere himself,
    In lowliness of heart.
    • William Wordsworth, lines left upon a seat in a Yew Tree; same idea in Beattie, Minstrel, II, Stanza 12.
  • Revere thyself, and yet thyself despise.
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