Honors Quotes

“It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.”
― Mark Twain

“I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely years.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“I think being condemned to death is the only real distinction," said Mathilde. "It is the only thing which cannot be bought.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“What infinite heart's-ease
Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!
And what have kings, that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idle ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? what are thy comings in?
O ceremony, show me but thy worth!
What is thy soul of adoration?
Art thou aught else but place, degree and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd
Than they in fearing.
What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?
Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That play'st so subtly with a king's repose;
I am a king that find thee, and I know
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running 'fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
But, like a lackey, from the rise to set
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night
Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,
Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
And follows so the ever-running year,
With profitable labour, to his grave:
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country's peace,
Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages.”
― William Shakespeare, Henry V

“I didn't give it much thought back then. I just wanted to get all the words straight and collect my A.”
― Gayle Forman, Just One Day

“A woman who walks with God honors Him in the way she manages her home.”
― Elizabeth George

“God honors and blesses people of action beyond expectations.”
― Sunday Adelaja

“If you shouldn’t blame yourself for minor things you did or didn’t do when someone dies, how can you start giving yourself credit for tiny things you did when something really good happens?”
― Mark Rogerson, This Moonless Sky

“Napoléon: - Tu recevras donc un sabre d'honneur.
Mariolle: - C'est que... j'en ai déjà un, sire.
Napoléon: - Une carabine d'honneur alors.
Mariolle: - Ça aussi, j'en ai une !
Napoléon: - Dans ce cas, tu mérites la légion !
Mariolle: - C'est que, mon Empereur, vous me l'avez épinglée sur le poitrail à Boulogne.
Napoléon: - Mais alors, que veux-tu, bougre de barbu ?
Mariolle: - Je veux un bain chaud.”
― Sébastien Latour, 1815: De man die 'merde' riep in Waterloo

“To me, honors don't matter; they only differentiate people and therefore they distract from the equality purpose. It goes the efforts all people to be regarded as equals backwards.”
― Maria Karvouni

“Don't forget, Bertil. Today's honors must be greeted with the same reserve as yesterday's disgraces.”
― Roxanne Moreil, L'âge d'or. Volume 1

“The things that hadn't happened, the honors not bestowed, had never bothered me earlier in my career, when time felt like a field without a visible horizon--but now that dark line had appeared in the distance and the story I had always told myself about my own limitless prospects was breaking down; not yet was starting to feel more like not ever.”
― Laura van den Berg, I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories