Put your dignity above your head and your heart under your feet so tha — Dignity

"Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from any larger set of rules or ethical system. But its not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and the other traits associated with dignity. The cultural effects of his presidency are not yet clear, but they may surpass his policy impact. He may revitalize the concept of dignity for a new generation and embody a new set of rules for self-mastery."

"Dignity is naturally an "aristocratic" virtue, best demonstrated in adverse circumstances, in bearing of suffering, in facing death, childbirth, or the guillotine. Dignity as an attitude is also something personal and not collective. Democratism never liked dignity. Nothing infuriates the howling mob more than dignity."

"Nonviolence is a constant awareness of the dignity and humanity of oneself and others. It seeks truth and justice. It renounces violence, both in method and in attitude. It is a courageous acceptance of active love and goodwill as the instruments with which to overcome evil and transform both oneself and others. It is the willingness to undergo suffering rather than inflict it. It excludes retaliation and flight."

"The fundamental dispute between the conception of dignity taken by the Linacre Centre and Kant on the one hand, and by Dworkin and Beyleveld and Brownsword on the other, comes down to whether human dignity is an empowering notion, conferring rights and individual interests, or whether it is a constraint. The dispute in our view is insoluble. This is because the concept at the heart of the debate, dignity, has no clear meaning.61 Joel Feinberg uses the term dignity in a normative sense: Respect for persons may simply be respect for their rights, so that there canno be the one without the other; and what is called human dignity may simply be the recognizable capacity to assert claims. To respect a person then or think of him as possessed of human dignity is tot hink of hm as a potetial maker of claims.62"

"Feldman argues, correctly in our view, that because the central core meaning of dignity is not clear, there are dangers in using it as a value from which to develop specific rights.63 He points out that dignity can be used as an instrument of legal paternalism: Classical liberal notions such as autonomy depend on the state respecting the right of individuals to choose both the desirable ends of their own lives and (within certain limits) the means by which they pursue those ends. The presence of dignity, by contrast .. is determined objectively, at least in part. A government, court or tribunal concerned with dignity need not defer to the subjective judgment of an indiviual as to what is good for him or her. Instead it is open to public authorities to make their own assessments as the demands of dignity and the kinds of existence or activity whicch are conducive to it.64 An example of the paternalistic use of dignity is the French case in which the Conseil dEtat upheld orders made by local authorities in Versailles and Marseilles banning dwarf throwing competitions on the grounds that such spectacles were an affront to human dignity.65"

"Dignity is like air … When there’s enough of it, you don’t notice it... When there’s a lack of [it], you suffocate. When you’re full of dignity, you can focus on other things like your goals, your interests, anything. When you feel humiliated..., your brain focuses huge amounts of attention on your humiliation. You obsess on how people don’t appreciate your human value."