dignity, The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 277

277


Unless one has the tact to dodge the tasteless, one will not keep one’s taste for very long.   Taste wants dignity, but to purchase it, tact must spend dignity upon strategic humble gestures in order to protect dignity into the future.  An insistence upon one's absolute dignity in all events at all times quickly ends in a deeper shame than one could have thought possible, given one's aim.

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