The recognition of human dignity in yourself and in others is compatible neither with subordination, nor patronage, nor with one person being a benefactor to another.
Everyone can demand respect but he must likewise respect his neighbor.
No human being can be an instrument or an aim. This is what constitutes his dignity. And just as he cannot let others use him for any price (which would be repulsive to his dignity), he likewise has no right to retreat from his duty to respect all people equally, i.e. he is obligated to truly acknowledge the dignity of the title of the human being in every person and so must express this respect in relation to every person.
— Kant
In their reasonings about the good of the working class, the representatives of the authorities take a tone of condescending patronage. The people who know the true value of labor find this tone more insulting than direct expressions of contempt, for in all their statements one can detect the notion that poverty is a natural condition of laboring people, which they have to suffer everywhere where there is no favorable patronage. No one even hints at the idea that landowners and capitalists need patronage. They tell us that they can take care of themselves; only the poor workers need patronage.
— Henry George
The patronage of the masses has always been a pretext for violence—the justification for monarchy, aristocracy and all manner of privileges. But is there a single example in the history of the world when the patronage of the working masses in a monarchy or a republic did not mean their oppression? The patronage, which the people who held legislative power offered to the laborers, was in the best case the kind of patronage that a man offers to cattle. He supports it only so that he can later make use of its strength and its meat.
— Henry George
The smallest, most insignificant things contribute to the formation of character.
Do not say that small things are trifles. Only a truly moral person can see the full meaning of small things.
There are believers who have a habit of bowing at the feet of everyone they interact with. They say that they are doing this because the spirit of God dwells within every human being. However strange this custom may be, its foundation is profoundly true.
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say “I think,” “I am.”
— Emerson
By serving another, a person should know that he is not obeying, nor patronizing, nor acting benevolently, but is doing his duty—not before another human being, but before the eternal law.
