65 Indignity Quotes On Success In Life

These indignity quotes will inspire you. Indignity, treatment, or circumstances that cause one to feel shame or to lose one’s dignity.

A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging indignity quotes, indignity sayings, and indignity proverbs.

Best Indignity Quotes

1. “I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, Henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.” ~ Nelson Mandela
2. “There is a touch of divinity even in brutes, and a special halo about a horse, that should forever exempt him from indignities.” ~ Herman Melville
3. “The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal – that you can gather votes like box tops – is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.” ~ Adlai E. Stevenson

4. “Moral contempt is a far greater indignity and insult than any kind of crime.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

5. “Indignation must always be the answer to indignity. Reality is not destiny.” ~ Eduardo Galeano
6. “Writing about the indignities of old age: the daunting stairway to the restaurant restroom, the benefits of a wheelchair in airports and its disadvantages at cocktail parties, giving the user what he described as a child’s-eye view of the party and a crotch-level view of the guests. Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn’t ready to appear ridiculous.” ~ John Mortimer
7. “They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions. (v)” ~ Elie Wiesel

8. “Whoever debases others is debasing himself.” ~ James A. Baldwin

9. “We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success.” ~ Nelson Mandela
10. “There has been enough suffering in our country, there has been enough of children whose dreams die before they have a chance to grow and there has been enough of our elders who, having served their nation, are forced into indignity in their old age.” ~ John Kufuor
11. “We must not let the actions or words of others determine our responses. Magnanimous people make the choice to respond to the indignities of others based upon their own principles and their own value system rather than their moods or anger.” ~ Stephen Covey

12. “By indignities men come to dignities.” ~ Francis Bacon

13. “With patience and calm, persistence and stoicism, good handwriting and careful labeling, they would meet persecution, indignity, and hardship head-on.” ~ Michael Chabon
14. “Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment” ~ Henry David Thoreau
15. “The ultimate indignity is to be given a bedpan by a stranger who calls you by your first name.” ~ Maggie Kuhn

16. “To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.” ~ George Santayana

17. “What is the natural reaction when told you have a hopeless mental illness? That diagnosis does you in; that, and the humiliation of being there. I mean, the indignity you’re subjected to. My God.” ~ Kate Millett
18. “Thresholds of pain, indignity and incapacity are entirely personal.” ~ Polly Toynbee
19. “I sometimes think that when he was at Harvard Law School, Mr. Obama cut class the day they got to the separation of powers, ’cause he seems to consider it not just an inconvenience but an indignity that, although he got 270 electoral votes and therefore gets to be president, he didn’t get everything.” ~ George Will

20. “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.” ~ Nelson Mandela

21. “Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.” ~ Nelson Mandela
22. “We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom. We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success. We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world. Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world. Let freedom reign.” ~ Nelson Mandela
23. “The masculine imagination lives in a state of perpetual revolt against the limitations of human life. In theological terms, one might say that all men, left to themselves, become gnostics. They may swagger like peacocks, but in their heart of hearts they all think sex an indignity and wish they could beget themselves on themselves. Hence the aggressive hostility toward women so manifest in most club-car stories.” ~ W. H. Auden

24. “I wouldn’t go out of my way to experience the indignity of middle-age just because it might be good meat for a story.” ~ Roddy Doyle

25. “I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative.” ~ Hilaire Belloc
26. “How hard a thing is life to the lowly and yet how human and real is it? And all this life and love and strife and failure, – is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day? The answer lies in each of us. For somewhere in your past … somewhere some 100 years ago?there rose from the smoldering ashes of slavery?a proud and humble family who suffered and struggled with life. A family who found the strength to endure all the indignities of life in America, and that family had the hope for a taste of her bounties in the future.” ~ W. E. B. Du Bois
27. “Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

28. “I can’t minimize the terror factor. As you get older you get more and more frightened because the terrible indignities of old age become closer to you.” ~ Woody Allen

29. “My kids hear me behind my door, giggling like an idiot, and they roll their eyes at the blatant indignity of it all.” ~ Berkeley Breathed
30. “The small irritations or indignities that we experience are nothing compared to what a previous generation experienced… It’s one thing for me to be mistaken for a waiter at a gala. It’s another thing for my son to be mistaken for a robber and to be handcuffed or, worse, if he happens to be walking down the street and is dressed the way teenagers dress.” ~ Barack Obama
31. “The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities.” ~ John Locke

32. “The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse.” ~ Francis Bacon

33. “There are real indignities and real problems when all facets of life are controlled –when to get up, to eat, to shower-and chemicals are put inside our bodies against our will.” ~ Judi Chamberlin
34. “What you accomplish in life is limited only by your imagination and the fear of reprisal. Life is too fleeting and unrewarding to have to live with the added anus of indignity. The denial of one’s inevitable demise is what causes most of the astringent blandness in the world. When your existence ends most certainly in death, there is no such thing as ‘going too far’. There are no ‘lines’ you should fear to cross except the finish line. Playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you could do.” ~ Jim Goad
35. “One thing I’ve learned, in the face of all kinds of indignities, domestic workers take so much pride in their work and love the children they care for.” ~ Ai-jen Poo

36. “I was growing tired of all the fussing and prevaricating, of the stolen hours and the secret rendez-vous; of the small indignities and broad discomfort that are part and parcel of adultery.” ~ Vicki Baum

37. “[Humans’] capacity to intervene, to compare, to judge, to decide, to choose, to desist makes them capable of acts of greatness, of dignity, and, at the same time, of the unthinkable in terms of indignity.” ~ Paulo Freire
38. “We now undertake that we cannot rest while millions of our people suffer the pain and indignity of poverty in all its forms.” ~ Nelson Mandela
39. “When you are insulted by someone or humiliated, guard against angry thoughts, lest they arouse a feeling of irritation, and so cut you off from love and place you in the realm of hatred. You should know that you have been greatly benefited when you have suffered deeply because of some insult or indignity; for by means of the indignity self-esteem has been driven out of you.” ~ Maximus the Confessor

40. “Your grandparents did not endure the indignities of a steerage journey to Ellis Island so that you could stand outside a discothèque and beg a wallpaper designer to take you in with him.” ~ Fran Lebowitz

41. “He thus reaps the full fruits which result from his toil and labors with the incentive of free enterprise to maximize his effort to achieve increasing production. Representing over a half of Japan’s total population, the agriculture workers have become an invincible barrier against the advance of socialistic ideas which would relegate all to the indignity of state servitude.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
42. “nobody ever dies of an indignity.” ~ Elizabeth Bowen
43. “What you accomplish in life is limited only by your imagination and the fear of reprisal. Life is too fleeting and unrewarding to have to live with the added anus of indignity. The denial of one’s inevitable demise is what causes most of the astringent blandness in the world. When your existence ends most certainly in death, there is no such thing as ‘going too far’. There are no ‘lines’ you should fear to cross except the finish line. Playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you could do.” ~ Jim Goad

44. “There is dignity in your being even if there’s indignity in what you’re doing.” ~ Tariq Ramadan

45. “If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is. Each must find out for himself, and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes. If he succeeds he will continue to grow in spite of all indignities.” ~ Gordon Allport
46. “He thus reaps the full fruits which result from his toil and labors with the incentive of free enterprise to maximize his effort to achieve increasing production. Representing over a half of Japan’s total population, the agriculture workers have become an invincible barrier against the advance of socialistic ideas which would relegate all to the indignity of state servitude.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
47. “To live in poverty is to live with constant uncertainty, to accept galling indignities, and to expect harassment by the police, welfare officials and employers, as well as by others who are poor and desperate.” ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

48. “Ridiculous to think what indignities I would suffer in silence, if I knew that I was to be rewarded with an oversize bucket of hot water,” the magus said as he settled into the bath the servants had filled for him.” ~ Megan Whalen Turner

49. “Justice has often been forged from fires of indignities and prejudices suffered. Our triumphs that celebrate the freedom of choice are hallowed. We have arrived upon another moment in history when ‘We the People’ becomes more inclusive, and our freedom more perfect.” ~ Arenda L. Wright Allen
50. “The problem was money and the indignities of life without it. Every stroller, cell phone, Yankees cap, and SUV he saw was a torment. He wasn’t covetous, he wasn’t envious. But without money he was hardly a man.” ~ Jonathan Franzen
51. “Anger can offer a sense of indignity to replace a sense of shame, and offer a voice-raised above others-which can finally be heard. Those voices are most effective when they are raised in unison, when they have mercy as well as anger behind them, and when, instead of roaring at the anger of old pain, they sing about the glorious possibilities of a future where anger has a smaller house than hope.” ~ Gina Barreca

52. “Boredom is the keynote of poverty – of all its indignities, it is perhaps the hardest of all to live with – for where there is no money there is no change of any kind.” ~ Moss Hart

53. “I strongly believe that we can create a poverty-free world, if we want to…. In that kind of world, [the] only place you can see poverty is in the museum. When school children will be on a tour of the poverty museum, they will be horrified to see the misery and indignity of human beings. They will blame their forefathers for tolerating this inhuman condition to continue in a massive way.” ~ Muhammad Yunus
54. “Yet who can say how our souls have been stamped by witnessing such a cruel drama? All souls are hostages to their human envelopes, but souls must decay and suffer at such indignity, don’t you agree?” ~ Gregory Maguire
55. “Later on Lady Maccon was to describe that particular day as the worst of her life. She had neither the soul nor the romanticism to consider childbirth magical or emotionally transporting. So far as she could gather it mostly involved pain indignity and mess. There was nothing engaging or appealing about the process. And as she told her husband firmly she intended never to go through it again.” ~ Gail Carriger

56. “Of the many things we have done to democracy in the past, the worst has been the indignity of taking it for granted.” ~ Max Lerner

57. “Lord, please restore to us the comfort of merit and demerit. Show us that there is at least something we can do. Tell us that at the end of the day there will at least be one redeeming card of our very own. Lord, if it is not too much to ask, send us to bed with a few shreds of self-respect upon which we can congratulate ourselves. But whatever you do, do not preach grace. Give us something to do, anything; but spare us the indignity of this indiscriminate acceptance.” ~ Robert Farrar Capon
58. “It’s not the cost (although that pinches), or the time (though that grinds). After a while, it’s the sheer galling indignity of being asked to prove, pay, and prove all over again that you’re a worthy parent. Any true parent will tell you that that is impossible to prove in advance.” ~ Scott Simon
59. “Up with life. Stamp out all small and large indignities. Leave everyone alone to make it without pressure. Down with hurting. Lower the standard of living. Do without plastics. Smash the servo-mechanisms. Stop grabbing. Snuff the breeze and hug the kids. Love all love. Hate all hate.” ~ John D. MacDonald

60. “I can spare a dime, brother, but in these morally inflationary times, a dime goes a lot farther if it’s demanding work rather than adding to the indignity of relief.” ~ Phil Ochs

61. “What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to p*ss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn’t you consider that to be insane?” ~ Steve Buscemi
62. “I remember nothing of this, no ambulance rides, nothing. Nothing between switching out the bedside lamp and the sudden indignity of rebirth: the slaps, the brightness, the tubing, the speed, the urgent insistence that I be choked back into breathing life. I have felt so sorry for babies ever since.” ~ Stephen Fry

63. “No day-to-day mishaps or indignities can really compromise your sense of self after you’ve survived a deep tragedy.” ~ Kelsey Grammer

64. “It seems quite proper to fear achievement, which, after all, is proof that you’ve successfully moved an experience from the delightfully anticipated future into the forever and sadly lost past. Avoid as long as you can the ultimate indignity: a lifetime achievement award.” ~ Terry Rossio
65. “The indignity of it!-
    With everything blooming above me,
    Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses,
    Whole fields lovely and inviolate,-
    Me down in the fetor of weeds,
    Crawling on all fours,
    Alive, in a slippery grave.” ~ Theodore Roethke

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