Quote

Nice is a pallid virtue. Not like honesty or courage or perseverance. On the other hand, in a nation notably lacking in civility, there is much to be said for nice.

Molly Ivins

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Molly Ivins
Age: 62 †
Born: 1944
Born: August 30
Died: 2007
Died: January 31
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
Monterey
California
Nice
Civility
Nations
Lacking
Hands
Perseverance
Much
Honesty
Like
Courage
Nation
Pallid
Virtue
Notably
Hand
Niceness

More quotes by Molly Ivins

Image
no one has ever accused Texas of being in the vanguard of social progress. This is the most macho state in the U.S. of A. By lore, legend, and fact, Texas is 'hell' on women and horses.
Molly Ivins
Image
How the American right managed to convince itself that the programs to alleviate poverty are responsible for the consequences of poverty will someday be studied as a notorious mass illusion.
Molly Ivins
Image
What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.
Molly Ivins
Image
Sometimes I think Texas exists as a reality check for those who might wander too far toward the precious.
Molly Ivins
Image
In city rooms and in the bars where newspeople drink, you can find out what's going on. You can't find it in the papers.
Molly Ivins
Image
Although a life-long fashion dropout, I have absorbed enough by reading Harper's Bazaar while waiting at the dentist's to have grasped that the purpose of fashion is to make A Statement. My own modest Statement, discerned by true cognoscenti, is, Woman Who Wears Clothes So She Won't Be Naked.
Molly Ivins
Image
The advantage of being able to identify sin is that you can go out and do it, and enjoy it.
Molly Ivins
Image
Many a time freedom has been rolled back - and always for the same sorry reason: fear.
Molly Ivins
Image
He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes.
Molly Ivins
Image
We often seem to be swimming through such a miasma of sexual violence - in advertising, television programming, heavy metal, rap, films, and worst of all, in the home - that even First Amendment absolutists sometimes daydream about how nice it would be to have government-as-nanny just outlaw all this effluent.
Molly Ivins
Image
Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life - it gave me me. It provided me the time and experience and failures and triumphs and friends who helped me step into the shape that had been waiting for me all my life.
Molly Ivins
Image
I don't so much mind that newspapers are dying - it's watching them commit suicide that pisses me off.
Molly Ivins
Image
I'm sorry that government involves filling out a lot of forms. ... I'm sorry myself that we're not still on the frontier, where we could all tote guns, shoot anything that moved and spit to our hearts' content. But we live in a diverse and crowded country, and with civilization comes regulation.
Molly Ivins
Image
I think provincialism is an endemic characteristic with mankind, I think everybody everywhere is provincial, but it is particularly striking with Texans, and we tend to be very Texcentric.
Molly Ivins
Image
I know vegetarians don't like to hear this, but God made an awful lot of land that's good for nothing but grazing.
Molly Ivins
Image
As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can't drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in office.
Molly Ivins
Image
Manners are just a formal expression of how you treat people.
Molly Ivins
Image
It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.
Molly Ivins
Image
Being slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant - it tends to get worse.
Molly Ivins
Image
Either we figure out how to keep corporate cash out of the political system or we lose the democracy.
Molly Ivins