Social Shame Quotes

‘Crowning’ the landlords and parading them through the villages. This sort of thing is very common. A tall paper-hat is stuck on the head of one of the local tyrants or evil gentry, bearing the words ‘Local tyrant so-and-so’ or ‘So-and-so of the evil gentry’. He is led by a rope and escorted with big crowds in front and behind. Sometimes brass gongs are beaten and flags waved to attract people's attention. This form of punishment more than any other makes the local tyrants and evil gentry tremble. Anyone who has once been crowned with a tall paper-hat loses face altogether and can never again hold up his head. Hence many of the rich prefer being fined to wearing the tall hat. But wear it they must, if the peasants insist.

'You, too, can be the President,' every American kid is told. But one unintended consequence of this belief, it is that, as a result of our being a meritocracy, if you have not succeeded, you are of lesser merit. It is shameful to be a failure in this country.

The disgrace of others often keeps tender minds from vice.

Whistleblowers are moral narcissists who dread living with the corrupted self more than being shunned by others.

There's no scandal like rags, nor any crime so shameful as poverty.

We have to recognize that it is a very, very painful thing for people to be exposed to their social community, to be exposed in the world, as not what they would have wanted to be seen as. This is very painful and difficult for people.

Poverty is bitter, but it has no harder pang than that it makes men ridiculous.

Would we Read, in the ancient Histories, how zealous the more discreet Pagans were to maintain Schools among them; it might put us Christians to the Blush, among whom 'tis common for Schools to starve and sink;

In America, the word art has become like the word adultery. It's this big scarlet letter. When you say you're an artist, people are like, "Ugh."

The Woman had once been supreme; in France she still seemed potent, not merely as a sentiment but as a force; why was she unknownin America? for evidently America was ashamed of her, and she was ashamed of herself, otherwise they would not have strewn fig-leaves so profusely all over her. When she was a true force, she was ignorant of fig-leaves, but the monthly-magazine-made American female had not a feature that would have been recognized by Adam. The trait was notorious, and often humorous, but anyone brought up among Puritans knew that sex was sin. In any previous age, sex was strength.

Regardless of any thing that I've done that people might think, 'Oh, well, that deserved a scarlet letter,' that's not how it works.

Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game.

Of the woes Of unhappy poverty, none is more difficult to bear Than that it heaps men with ridicule.

The suffering inflicted, and more often than not on the most vulnerable sectors of society, demeans all of us as humanity. That it is invariably women, children, the aged and disabled who suffer in these conflicts stands to the added shame of humankind.

Any show that has 'party non-invite' as its central conflict drums up the operatic high drama of a good Russian novel. It's the 'Real Housewives' Crime and Punishment:' first the horror of a non-invitation, and then the shattering aftermath.

Indeed, I was so afraid to dishonour my friends and family by my indiscreet actions, that I rather chose to be accounted a fool, than to be thought rude or wanton.

Poverty is, except where there is an actual want of food and raiment, a thing much more imaginary than real. The shame of poverty--the shame of being thought poor--it is a great and fatal weakness, though arising in this country, from the fashion of the times themselves.

Public downfalls are more painful and humiliating than private ones.

In Afghan culture, you don't date - you marry. Even talking to boys before marriage brings great shame to your family.

There is no crime in the cynical American calendar more humiliating than to be a sucker.

By vulgarity I mean that vice of civilization which makes man ashamed of himself and his next of kin, and pretend to be somebody else.

People have no right to make fools of themselves, unless they have no relations to blush for them.

We were on welfare when we were kids. Thanks for reminding me of that.

As soon as the people fix one Shame of the World, another turns up.

The practical question, then, is what to do with the children. Tolerate them at home we will not. Let them run loose in the streets we dare not until our streets become safe places for children, which, to our utter shame, they are not at present, though they can hardly be worse than some homes and some schools.