Clarence Day Quotes

Modesty and chastity are twins

If only for the sake of elegance, I try to remain morally pure.

Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed.

Sincerity is the norm of Heaven and the law of our nature. China and the West agree on this point, for without sincerity, no human prince could ever found a state, and no earthly teacher could ever establish a religion.

Man is born for uprightness. If a man lose his uprightness and yet live, his escape from death is mere good fortune.

Man is born with uprightness. If one loses it, he will be lucky if he escapes with his life.

Every man has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum.

I would never describe Charlotte as a prude - maybe at the start, but that was in comparison to the other girls. She wasn't willing to do the stuff they were doing - and I mean, thank goodness!

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

They talk like angels but they live like men.

I consider myself to be very correct and proper: an upright citizen.

No age, sex, or condition is above or below the absolute necessity of modesty; but without it one is vastly beneath the rank of man.

What is permissible is not always honorable.

I do not believe with the Rochefoucaults and the Montaignes that fourteen out of fifteen men are rogues. I believe a great abatement from that proportion may be made in favor of general honesty.

We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.

In some ways, 'decency' is a hazy concept; we know it when we see it.

And one of the elders of the city , said , speak to us of good and evil. And he answered : You are good in countless ways , and you are not evil when you are not good .

Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.

True modesty avoids everything that is criminal; false modesty everything that is unfashionable.

Virtue and decency are so nearly related that it is difficult to separate them from each other but in our imagination.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

Modesty in human beings is praised because it is not a matter of nature, but of will.

I choose goodness... I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one. I will be overlooked before I will boast. I will confess before I will accuse. I choose goodness.

A man must not be without shame, for the shame of being without shame is shamelessness indeed.