Assessing Worthiness

Sunday, November 25, 2018 – Assessing Worthiness

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness. ~ Immanuel Kant

Human rights are not worthy of the name if they do not protect the people we don’t like as well as those we do. ~ Trevor Phillips

It’s not our job to play judge and jury, to determine who is worthy of our kindness and who is not. We just need to be kind, unconditionally and without ulterior motive, even – or rather, especially – when we’d prefer not to be. ~ Josh Radnor

Respect for another man’s opinion is worthy. It is the realization that any opinion is valuable, for it is the sign of a rational being. ~ Sargent Shriver

The doubt of an earnest, thoughtful, patient and laborious mind is worthy of respect. In such doubt may be found indeed more faith than in half the creeds. ~ John Lancaster Spalding

For this reason the gentleman will employ a man on a distant mission and observe his degree of loyalty, and will employ him close at hand and observe his degree of respect. He will hand him troublesome affairs and observe how well he manages them, will suddenly ask his advice and observe how wisely he answers. He will exact some difficult promise from him and see how well he keeps it, turn over funds to him and see with what benevolence he dispenses them, inform him of the danger he is in and note how faithful he is to his duties. He will get him drunk with wine and observe how well he handles himself, and place him in mixed company and see what effect beauty has upon him. By applying these nine tests, you may determine who the unworthy man is. ~ Confucius

It is easier to appear worthy of a position one does not hold, than of the office which one fills. ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition. ~ Abraham Lincoln

It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men. ~ Jean Rostand

There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill, to create. ~ Charles Baudelaire

The most splendid achievement of all is the constant striving to surpass yourself and to be worthy of your own approval. ~ Denis Waitley

To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children. ~ Pablo Picasso

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve. ~ Joseph Joubert

Deserve your dream. ~ Octavio Paz

Be friendly to everyone. Those who deserve it the least need it the most. ~ Bo Bennett

I deserve all the love you can spare me. And I want a lot more than I deserve. ~ Dashiell Hammett

I deserve respect for the things I did not do. ~ Dan Quayle

I didn’t kill anyone that didn’t deserve killing in the first place. ~ Mickey Cohen

I don’t deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it. ~ Flannery O’Connor

I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either. ~ Jack Benny

Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, ‘I’m not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth.’ Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, ‘Yes, I deserve it.’ ~ Maya Angelou

Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen. ~ Mort Sahl

And he gave it for his opinion that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. ~ Jonathan Swift

America gets the politicians they deserve. That’s it. And you keep struggling. ~ Al Lewis

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. ~ H. L. Mencken

Any man who does not like dogs and want them about does not deserve to be in the White House. ~ Calvin Coolidge

I was no chief and never had been, but because I had been more deeply wronged than others, this honor was conferred upon me, and I resolved to prove worthy of the trust. ~ Geronimo

If one is to be called a liar, one may as well make an effort to deserve the name. ~ A. A. Milne

It is only too clear that man is not at home in this universe, and yet he is not good enough to deserve a better. ~ Perry Miller

Some people obtain fame, others deserve it. ~ Doris Lessing

Wouldn’t it be much worse if life was fair and all the terrible things that happen to us come because actually deserve them? So now I take comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the Universe. ~ Marcus Cole

To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don’t deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. To hell with them! ~ Louis-Ferdinand Celine

You end up as you deserve. In old age you must put up with the face, the friends, the health, and the children you have earned. ~ Judith Viorst

You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself and how little I deserve it. ~ William Gilbert

Sometimes we deny being worthy of praise, hoping to generate an argument we would be pleased to lose. ~ Cullen Hightower

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. ~ Michel Montaigne

If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve it. ~ Immanuel Hermass von Fichte

If you are worthy of its affection, a cat will be your friend but never your slave. ~ Theophile Gautier

In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty. ~ Saint Augustine