Dignity cannot wait for better times.

The line asserts that human dignity is not a luxury to be postponed until conditions improve; it is an immediate moral claim. It pushes back against the common logic of crisis management—"first stability, then rights"—by insisting that respect, safety, and humane treatment must be built into responses to war, poverty, displacement, or political upheaval from the outset. The aphoristic phrasing also implies urgency and agency: waiting for “better times” can become a way of normalizing indignity. In a humanitarian or civic context, it reads as a principle for policy and personal conduct alike: act now to preserve dignity, even when resources are scarce or circumstances are chaotic.