Tom Henderson

“Think of it! We could have gone on longing for one another and pretending not to notice forever. This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“But today’s society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual’s value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler’s program, that is to say, ‘mercy’ killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer. Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn't bother me. It's other people doing the calling that bothers me.”
― Octavia E. Butler

“Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.”
― Aristotle