Respectability Quotes

“Respectable people... What bastards!”
― Émile Zola, The Belly of Paris

“Let those who wish have their respectability- I wanted freedom, freedom to indulge in whatever caprice struck my fancy, freedom to search in the farthermost corners of the earth for the beautiful, the joyous, and the romantic.”
― Richard Halliburton

“It is common knowledge that a well-bred man should as far as possible have no face. That is to say, not so much be completely without one, but rather, should have a face and yet at the same time appear faceless. It should not stand out, just as a shirt made by a good tailor does not stand out. Needless to say, the face of a well-bred man should be exactly like that of other (well-bred) men and of course in no circumstances whatsoever should it alter. Naturally houses, trees, streets, sky and everything else in the world must satisfy the same conditions to have honor of being known as respectable and well-bred.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, Islanders & The Fisher of Men

“It was not only colored people who praised John, since they could not, John felt, in any case really know; but white people also said it, in fact had said it first and said it still. It was when John was five years old and in the first grade that he was first noticed; and since he was noticed by an eye altogether alien and impersonal, he began to perceive, in wild uneasiness, his individual existence.”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain

“The taxi driver felt that it was a good observation, and said he was planning to build for the future, too: he had some money on the horses, and if he won, he would buy his own taxicab, and really do well.

I felt very sorry. I told him that betting on the horses was a bad idea, but he insisted it was the only way he could do it. He had such good intentions, but his method was going to be luck.

I wasn't going to go on philosophizing, so he took me to a place where there was a steel band playing some great calypso music, and I had an enjoyable afternoon.”
― Richard Feynman

“Respectability is a curse; it is an "evil" that corrodes the mind and heart. It creeps upon one unknowingly and destroys love.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: First Series

“There is, let us confess it (and illness is the great confessional) a childish outspokenness in illness; things are said, truths blurted out, which the cautious respectability of health conceals.”
― Virginia Woolf, On Being Ill

“Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilisations of the past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his income would have corresponded. But in his day the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and proclaiming, “All men are equal — all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas,” and so he was obliged to assert gentility, lest he slip into the abyss where nothing counts, and the statements of Democracy are inaudible.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Don’t ”be yourself”, but work on yourself. Don’t ”be who you are”, but be who you ought. Don’t ”follow your dreams”, but face your realities. And don’t ”live your life”, but live a respectable life. Then you will find out that you cannot do everything, but at least you have to do something.”
― Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski

“The entrepreneurs are only about my age, probably younger, but they don't seem so. Their tailored clothes and unbending hairdos, their clipboards and laser pointers, make them seem like real grown-up people in a way I have never been.”
― Sara Baume, A Line Made By Walking

“The Commander of the British cruiser Cardiff, who happened to be an old friend, got wind of Olga's presence in town and invited her to his ship. After tea on board, the grand duchess was tactfully presented with a length of navy-blue cloth, enough to make clothing for the four members of her family, and she was relieved that they could be respectable again.”
― John Curtis Perry, The Flight of the Romanovs: A Family Saga

“Claiming the right to be nasty in resistance to gendered respectability politics is often done by women who continue to be positioned as respectable by the world at large. And the ‘respectability’ of bourgeois white women has been central to colonial narratives that construct us as superior to women marginalised by race and class. Affronts to this ‘respectability’ have justified fatal violence against men of colour. This position of race and class supremacy means that our anger may not always be as radical or transgressive as we might like.”
― Alison Phipps, Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism

“Respectability requires a form of restrained, emotionally neutral politeness that is completely at odds with any concept of normal human emotions.
The emotional labor required to be respectable, to never ruffle anyone’s feathers, to not get angry enough to challenge much less confront those who might have harmed you, is incredibly onerous precisely because it is so dehumanizing. Respectability requires not just a stiff upper lip, but a burying of yourself inside your own flesh in order to be able to maintain the necessary facade. It requires erasing your memory of how it felt to be hungry, cold, scared, and so on until all that is left is a placid surface to mask the raging maelstrom underneath. We talk about stress and illness, but
the stress of respectability is unparalleled. You muffle yourself over and over, until the screaming is in your veins, in your high blood pressure and lower life expectancy. And then as you look around, you realize that you didn’t even get the respect, the validation, or the comfort that you thought was waiting on the other side. You’ve pulled away from the messy, loud, emotional spaces that represent the less respectable side of you and your culture, but at what cost?”
― Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

“I’ve eight thousand pounds left me by your mother, to go to you.” That admission brought Daniel’s head whipping back around. “I see I have your full attention, boy.” By God, it was a fortune. Albeit a small one. But certainly enough funds to pay off the most pressing creditors and debt holders, and mayhap a fine mistress, and— “You can stop counting those coins in your head,” Lord Claremont snapped. “You won’t see a pence or pound until your sister weds.”
“Surely you require more than that.”
The older man chortled. “Indeed. I will have your sister wed a good gentleman. Not a miserable blighter like yourself who beds any willing woman.”
“Find the girl a companion and a proper suitor, who will make her an even better husband.” His uncle ticked off on his fingers. “I want your sister cultured. See she visits museums. The opera. Take her riding.”
Daniel shuddered.
“Egads, surely you aren’t expecting me—?”
“I don’t care if it’s you or the bloody companion. But someone must see to the girl. You do those things and the eight thousand entrusted me by your mother is yours.”
― Christi Caldwell, To Redeem a Rake