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1 " Imagine a land where people are afraid of dragons. It is a reasonable fear: dragons possess a number of qualities that make being afraid of them a very commendable response. Things like their terrible size, their ability to spout fire, or to crack boulders into splinters with their massive talons. In fact, the only terrifying quality that dragons do not possess is that of existence.Now, the people of this land know about dragons because their leaders have warned them about them. They tell stories about cruel dragons with razor teeth and fiery breath. They recount legends of dragons hunting by night on silent wings. In short, the leaders make sure that the people believe in all the qualities of dragons, including that key quality of existence. And then they control the people — when they need to — with their fear of dragons. The people pay a dragon-slaying tax … everyone stays indoors after dark to avoid being snatched by swooping claws … and nobody ever strays out of bounds for fear of being eaten well and truly up. one. And so it is necessary from time to time to provide evidence: a burnt tree or two, a splintered rock, the mysterious absence of a villager. The population is controlled by the dragons in its collective mind. It’s contrived superstition, and it is possible because the people do not know enough about the way the world works to know that dragons do not exist. "
2 " The rule seemed to be that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. ... The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted to great women; indeed, it was often found sweet and commendable in him to choose a woman of no sort of greatness at all. "
― Dorothy L. Sayers , Gaudy Night (Lord Peter Wimsey, #10)
3 " That life can be a rich place, comprised of the highbrow and the lowdown, the casual and the ambitious, private reading and public sharing. As a parent in that landscape, you'll need to be sometimes traveling companion, sometimes guides, sometimes off in your own part of the forest. A relationship between readers is complicated and cannot be reduced to such " strategies" as mandatory reading aloud, a commendable family activity whose pleasure has been codified into virtue, transforming the nightly bedtime story into a harbinger of everybody's favorite thing: homework. "
4 " ...he possessed for attractive form of courage: bravery of a nervous man. After all, any rash fool can be a hero if he sets no value on his life or hasn't the wit to appreciate the danger. But to understand the risks, perhaps even to flinch at first, but then summon the strength to face them down--that is my opinion is the most commendable for of value... "
― Robert Harris , Conspirata (Cicero, #2)
5 " It’s amazing to me that it’s still considered a notable, commendable trait –‘Oh, she’s a well-known feminist’ –in a woman, or a girl, or a man, or a boy. That that is the unusual thing. Really, it should be the reverse. Rather than what seems like a minority having to spend time, energy, brain and heart explaining why they’re ‘into’ equality, the majority should be explaining why they’re not. You put the time into explaining why –in a world where every concept of justice, wisdom, progress and rightness is a human invention –we still prefer the human concept of ‘some people being inferior to others’ over ‘this is a vast, inky, cold, empty universe, and in it, we are the only humans that exist, all sharing a tiny milky green/ blue world, and faced with a multitude of problems, and an infinite capacity for joy, and should therefore try and stick together and accord each other some respect’. "
― Caitlin Moran , Moranifesto
6 " The commendable efforts of preachers to Europe is that Superstition regarding work and wealth was broken. Everybody now knows that wealth comes only from hard work, not from some superstitious beliefs. "
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7 " The commendable efforts of preachers to Europe is that people began to understand that wealth and success is not a matter of luck. "
8 " The commendable thing about life is that it is always one step ahead of you, no matter how much you do or how little. So you can only expect that if you give your best, life will only give/be better.P.S – To say that attitude matters is trivial. To know that attitude matters is mandatory. "
― Preeti Bhonsle
9 " Self-awareness - the commendable ability to be yourself without being a nuisance to someone else. "
10 " Certain portions of the earth, escaping utter destruction, become the seedbeds for replenishing the human race, and so it happens that on a world that is not young there are young populations having no culture, whose traditions were swept away in a debacle; they wander over the earth and gradually put aside the roughness of a nomadic existence and by natural inclunation submit to communities and associations; their mode of living is at first simple, knowking no guile and strange to cunning, called in its early stage the Golden Age. [16] The more these populations progress in civilization and employment of the arts, the more easily does the spirit of rivalry creep in, at first commendable but imperceptibly changing to envy; this, then, is responsible for all the tribulations that the race suffers in subsequent ages. So much for the vicissitudes that civilizations experience, of perishing and arising again, as the world goes on unchanged.[Chapter X - 15,16] "
11 " Imagine a land where people are afraid of dragons. It is a reasonable fear: dragons possess a number of qualities that make being afraid of them a very commendable response. Things like their terrible size, their ability to spout fire, or to crack boulders into splinters with their massive talons. In fact, the only terrifying quality that dragons do not possess is that of existence.Now, the people of this land know about dragons because their leaders have warned them about them. They tell stories about cruel dragons with razor teeth and fiery breath. They recount legends of dragons hunting by night on silent wings. In short, the leaders make sure that the people believe in all the qualities of dragons, including that key quality of existence. And then they control the people — when they need to — with their fear of dragons. The people pay a dragon-slaying tax … everyone stays indoors after dark to avoid being snatched by swooping claws … and nobody ever strays out of bounds for fear of being eaten well and tru "
12 " George Williams, the revered evolutionary biologist, describes the natural world as “grossly immoral.” Having no foresight or compassion, natural selection “can honestly be described as a process for maximizing short-sighted selfishness.” On top of all the miseries inflicted by predators and parasites, the members of a species show no pity to their own kind. Infanticide, siblicide, and rape can be observed in many kinds of animals; infidelity is common even in so-called pair-bonded species; cannibalism can be expected in all species that are not strict vegetarians; death from fighting is more common in most animal species than it is in the most violent American cities. Commenting on how biologists used to describe the killing of starving deer by mountain lions as an act of mercy, Williams wrote: “The simple facts are that both predation and starvation are painful prospects for deer, and that the lion's lot is no more enviable. Perhaps biology would have been able to mature more rapidly in a culture not dominated by Judeo-Christian theology and the Romantic tradition. It might have been well served by the First Holy Truth from [Buddha's] Sermon at Benares: “Birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is painful, death is painful...”” As soon as we recognize that there is nothing morally commendable about the products of evolution, we can describe human psychology honestly, without the fear that identifying a “natural” trait is the same as condoning it. As Katharine Hepburn says to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above. "
― Steven Pinker , The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
13 " The commendable efforts of preachers to Europe is that each worker no matter the level, knows he is participating in the process of creation with God hence the dignity. "
14 " We all do make mistakes…many times. What is commendable is that you try to find solutions. You just don’t give up. "
― Girdhar Joshi , Some Mistakes Have No Pardon
15 " Imagine that the keeper of a huge, strong beast notices what makes it angry, what it desires, how it has to be approached and handled, the circumstances and the conditions under which it becomes particularly fierce or calm, what provokes its typical cries, and what tones of voice make it gentle or wild. Once he's spent enough time in the creature's company to acquire all this information, he calls it knowledge, forms it into a systematic branch of expertise, and starts to teach it, despite total ignorance, in fact, about which of the creature's attitudes and desires is commendable or deplorable, good or bad, moral or immoral. His usage of all these terms simply conforms to the great beast's attitudes, and he describes things as good or bad according to its likes and dislikes, and can't justify his usage of the terms any further, but describes as right and good the things which are merely indispensable, since he hasn't realised and can't explain to anyone else how vast a gulf there is between necessity and goodness. "
― Plato , The Republic
16 " You are a Lightwood," Cecily said. " You stayed because you were loyal to your family name. It is not cowardice." " Wasn't it? Is loyalty still a commendable quality when it is misdirected?" Cecily opened her mouth, then closed it again. Gabriel was looking for her, his eyes shining in the moonlight. He seemed genuinely desperate to hear her answer. She wondered if he had anyone else to talk to. She could see how it might be terrifying to take one's moral qualms to Gideon; he seemed so staunch, as if he never questioned himself in his life and would not understand those who did." I think," she said, choosing her words with care, " that any good impulse can be twisted into something evil. Look at the Magister. He does what he does because he hates the Shadowhunters, out of loyalty to his parents, who cared for him, and who were killed. It is not beyond the realm of understanding. And yet nothing excuses the result. I think when we make choices-for each choice is individual of the choices we have made before-we must examine not only our reasons for making them but what result they will have, and whether good people will be hurt by our decisions. "