101 Respect Quotes And Powerful Sayings About Respect

Respect is something that everyone deserves but not everyone receives. If you’re struggling to gain respect from others, check out these 101 respect quotes and powerful sayings to turn you in the right direction.

Try asking yourself if the people you are not receiving respect from are even worth keeping in your life. If the answer is no, let them go and find people who value you.

Pay close attention to the way you treat yourself as well. One of the most common reasons people lack respect is because they have none for themselves.

These quotes inspire you to respect others, and most importantly, to respect yourself.

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1. “Life is too short to waste your time on people who don’t respect, appreciate, and value you.” — Roy T. Bennett

2. “Respect yourself and others will respect you.” — Confucius

3. “Men are respectable only as they respect.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

4. “Respect is a two-way street, if you want to get it, you’ve got to give it.” — R.G. Risch

5. “If we lose love and self-respect for each other, this is how we finally die.” — Maya Angelou

6. “I firmly believe that respect is a lot more important, and a lot greater, than popularity.” — Julius Erving

7. “If you have some respect for people as they are, you can be more effective in helping them to become better than they are.” — John W. Gardner

8. “Tolerance only for those who agree with you is no tolerance at all.” — Ray Davis

9. “One of the sincerest forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.” — Bryant H. McGill

10. “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me, all I ask is that you respect me as a human being.” — Jackie Robinson

11. “Treat people the way you want to be treated. Talk to people the way you want to be talked to. Respect is earned, not given.” — Hussein Nishah

12. “He who loves others is constantly loved by them. He who respects others is constantly respected by them.” — Mencius

13. “How people treat you is their karma. How you react is yours.” — Wayne W. Dyer

14. “Respecting someone indicates the quality of your personality.” — Mohammad Sakhi

15. “There is no respect for others without humility in one’s self.” — Henri Amiel

16. “I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one’s self-respect.” — Mahatma Gandhi

17. “To get down to the quick of it, respect motivates me, not success.” — Hugh Jackman

18. “If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

19. “It is the way one treats his inferiors more than the way he treats his equals which reveals one’s real character.” — Charles Bayard Mitchell

20. “Respect is one of life’s greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to If you don’t have that.” — Marilyn Monroe

21. “It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect an individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.” — Harvey Milk

22. “We don’t need to share the same opinion as others, but we need to be respectful.” — Taylor Swift

23. “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” — Dr. Seuss

24. “Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.” — Laurence Sterne

25. “We should all consider each other as human beings, and we should respect each other.” — Malala Yousafzai

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26. “Have a big enough heart to love unconditionally, and a broad enough mind to embrace the differences that make each of us unique.” — D. B. Harrop

27. “Most good relationships are built on mutual trust and respect.” — Mona Sutphen

28. “Respect is one of the greatest expressions of love.” — Miguel Angel Ruiz

29. “Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.” — Albert Einstein

30. “Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?” — Confucius

31. “Respect commands itself and it can neither be given nor withheld when it is due.” — Eldridge Cleaver

32. “Respect begins with this attitude: I acknowledge that you are a creature of extreme worth.” — Gary Chapman

33. “The only true disability is the inability to accept and respect differences.” — Comic Strip Mama

34. “Respect depends on reciprocity.” — Nyang Proverb

35. “Deal with yourself as an individual worthy of respect and make everyone else deal with you the same way.” — Nikki Giovanni

36. “Mutual respect is the foundation of genuine harmony.” — Dalai Lama

37. “The only way to teach respect is to model it.” — Todd Whitaker

38. “To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.” — Bono

39. “Respect a man, he will do the more.” — James Howell

40. “Never take a person’s dignity, it is worth everything to them, and nothing to you.” — Frank Barron

41. “You will never gain anyone’s approval by begging for it. When you stand confident in your own worth, respect follows.” — Mandy Hale

42. “Respect comes in two unchangeable steps: giving it and receiving it.” — Edmond Mbiaka

43. “If a person loves you but doesn’t respect you then it cannot be real love. It is not possible to love them without respecting them.” — Amit Kalantri

44. “In the end, those who demean others only disrespect themselves.” — D.B. Harrop

45. “When I look at a person, I see a person — not a rank, not a class, not a title.” — Criss Jami

46. “The idea of respect is more than just being polite.” — Bruce Glassman

47. “Respect means recognizing that all people are entitled to basic human dignity.” — Bruce Glassman

48. “We do not earn respect. It is given as a gift. What we do with it is up to us.” — Tod Whitaker

49. “True friends will respect one another’s viewpoints without letting differences in opinion affect the relationship.” — Robert Arp

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50. “Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue.” — John Herschel

51. “If I lose my honor, I lose myself.” — Shakespeare

52. “Our own heart, and not other men’s opinion forms our true honor.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

53. “Respect is the appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique.” — Annie Gottlieb

54. “They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.” — Mahatma Gandhi

55. “Respect is for those who deserve it, not for those who demand it.” — Paulo Coelho

56. “A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness.” — African Proverb

57. “Make improvements, not excuses. Seek respect, not attention.” — Roy T. Bennett

58. “When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.” — Lao Tzu

59. “You can’t respect yourself if you’re afraid to be who you are.” — Amber Heard

60. “As we grow as unique persons, we learn to respect the uniqueness of others.” — Robert Schuller

61. “If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.” — Michael Bassey Johnson

62. “He that respects himself is safe from others, he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

63. “If you live what you believe you will always have the respect of others.” — Dale Murphy

64. “I don’t wait for people to give me respect, I always give them respect.” — Mariano Rivera

65. “With me, what you see is what you get. I try to treat everyone with respect.” — Dustin Johnson

66. “Respect for another man’s opinion is worthy. It is the realization that any opinion is valuable, for it is the sign of a rational being.” — Sargent Shriver

67. “The only thing I command is respect.” — Kyrie Irving

68. “Respecting people is an important part of life, whether it’s the person doing janitorial work or the person above you. It doesn’t matter who you are: I’m going to respect you.” — Andy Reid

69. “I just feel like if I do good work, then people should respect me for the work I do.” — Scott Cann

70. “Respect other people regardless of the level they are at or the level you are at. When you hand out respect you get it back.” — Erik Estrada

71. “Women absolutely deserve respect.” — Aretha Franklin

72. “I think the way to keep a friendship is to respect that everybody is different.” — Emma Bunton

73. “Respect is the word I want. You have to earn it. You give, and you get it in return, that’s how I see it.” — Joe Torre

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74. “My one thing is respect. I don’t care about anything else. You should respect everyone around you — the people who work for you, peers. Be classy. — Charli XCX

75. “Your peers will respect you for your integrity and character, not your possessions.” — David Robinson

76. “Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” — Abraham Joshua Heschel

77. “Show respect even to people who don’t deserve it; not as a reflection of their character, but as a reflection of yours.” — Dave Willis 

78. “Respect has nothing to do with who is right and who is wrong. It has to do with allowing space for someone else’s opinion.” — Jackie Viramontez

79. “The key is to learn respect and honor the complications of other people’s lives.” — Goldie Hawn

80. “Respect everyone, even your enemies and competition.” — John Cena

81. “The biggest ingredient in a best friend is someone whose actions you respect and who you can truly be yourself around.” — Renee Olstead

82. “If you don’t stand for something, how can anyone respect what you do.” — Miranda Lambert

83. “Show respect to all people but grovel to none.” — Tecumseh

84. “We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It’s our basic human right.” — Aretha Franklin

85. “Treat everyone with respect and kindness. Period. No exceptions.” — Kiana Tom

86. “Respect for the rights of others means peace.” — Benito Juarez

87. “All sides must learn to respect each other.” — Reuven Rivlin

88. “When we respect everyone around us, we are in peace with everybody around us.” — Don Miguel Ruiz

89. “I believe no matter who you are, respect yourself, respect others.” — Mo Farah

90. “I always have tried to treat people with respect, the way I want to be treated.” — Derek Jeter

91. “Respect is what we owe, love, what we give.” — Phillip James Bailey

92. “He who wants a rose, must respect the thorn.” — Persian Proverb

93. “Respect is how to treat everyone.” — Richard Branson

94. “Tolerance implies a respect for another person, not because he is wrong or even because he is right, but because he is a human.” — John Cogley

95. “Respect is one of the most important things you can teach a child.” — Catherine Pulsifer

96. “Awe and respect are two different things.” — Oliver Reed

97. “Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis of all morality.” — Frank Herbert

98. “Life is short, we should respect every moment of it.” — Orhan Pamuk

99. “Only those who respect the personality of others can be of real use to them.” — Albert Schweitzer

100. “This is the final test of a gentleman: His respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.” — William Lyon Phelps

101. "Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power." — Clint Eastwood

102. “I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.” — Albert Einstein

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Lindsey Matthews is a writer who covers love and relationships, news, and pop-culture topics.