DISTINCTION

Related Subjects: Definitions, Dignity, Greatness, Honor, Superiority

1. Confucius was once asked: "What must a man do in order to be considered distinguished?"
   
   "What do you mean by the term distinguished?" inquired Confucius.
   
   "One whose fame fills his own private circle and the state at large," was the reply.
   
   "That," said Confucius, "is notoriety, not distinction. The man of fine distinction is simple, honest, and a lover of justice and duty."—EDWARD W. BOK, The Americanization of Edward Bok
   

2. It is no act of common passage, but
   A strain of rareness.—SHAKESPEARE, Cymbeline
   

3. A fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him.—SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing
   

4. All our distinctions are accidental. Beauty and deformity, though personal qualities, are neither entitled to praise or censure; yet it so happens that they color our opinion of those qualities to which mankind have attached importance.—J. G. ZIMMERMAN