C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Self-respect
The truest self-respect is not to think of self.
Above all things, reverence yourself.
Self-respect,—the corner-stone of all virtue.
A man who is not ashamed of himself need not be ashamed of his early condition.
Who will adhere to him that abandons himself?
Let us respect gray hairs, but, above all, our own.
Content to do the best work he could, to preserve his own dignity, and leave the rest to future.
Self-respect is, next to religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices.
All must respect those who respect themselves.
Every man stamps his value on himself; the price we challenge for ourselves is given us.
Let a man use great reverence and manners to himself.
Self-respect governs morality: respect for others governs our behavior.
I care not so much what I am in the opinion of others as what I am in my own; I would be rich of myself and not by borrowing.
To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; and to have a deference for others governs our manners.
No more important duty can be urged upon those who are entering the great theater of life than simple loyalty to their best convictions.
Be noble-minded! Our own heart, and not other men’s opinions of us, forms our true honor.
When thou hast profited so much that thou respectest even thyself, thou mayst let go thy tutor.
A man can do without his own approbation in much society, but he must make great exertions to gain it when he lives alone.
I will have a care of being a slave to myself, for it is a perpetual, a shameful, and the heaviest of all servitudes; and this may be done by moderate desires.
It has been said that self-respect is the gate of heaven, and the most cursory observation shows that a degree of reserve adds vastly to the latent force of character.
The pious and just honoring of ourselves may be thought the radical moisture and fountain-head from whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues forth.
Have not too low thoughts of thyself. The confidence a man hath of his being pleasant in his demeanor is a means whereby he infallibly cometh to be such.
Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect. Be true to your own mind and conscience, your heart and your soul; so only can you be true to God.
Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man may clothe himself,—the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired. One of Pythagoras’ wisest maxims, in his Golden Verses, is that in which he enjoins the pupil to “reverence himself.”
Be and continue poor, young man, while others around you grow rich by fraud and disloyalty; be without place or power, while others beg their way upwards; bear the pain of disappointed hopes, while others gain theirs by flattery; forego the gracious pressure of the hand, for which others cringe and crawl. Wrap yourself in your own virtue, and seek a friend and your daily bread. If you have, in such a course, grown gray with unblenched honor, bless God and die.
It may be no less dangerous to claim, on certain occasions, too little than too much. There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself.