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Baseness Quotes

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Baseness Quotes

“8 April 1891 The obscenity of nostrils and mouths; the ignominious cupidity of smiles and women encountered in the street; the shifty baseness on every side, as of hyenas and wild beasts ready to bite: tradesmen in their shops and strollers on their pavements. How long must I suffer this? I have suffered it before, as a child, when, descending by chance to the servant's quarters, I overheard in astonishment their vile gossip, tearing up my own kind with their lovely teeth. This hostility to the entire race, this muted detestation of lynxes in human form, I must have rediscovered it later while at school. I had a repugnance and horror for all base instincts, but am I not myself instinctively violent and lewd, murderous and sensual? Am I any different, in essence, from the members of the riotous and murderous mob of a hundred years ago, who hurled the town sergeants into the Seine and cried, 'String up the aristos!' just as they shout 'Down with the army!' or 'Death to the Jews!”

ArmyViolentSensualServantBeastGossipDecadenceFrench RevolutionJewsClass WarfareMisanthropyObscenityBasenessDecadentMurderousLewdBase Instincts
Book:Monsieur de Phocas
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“Advertizing, television and film all wield mighty powers to visually seduce us, while much fine art leaves us indifferent, confused or, at worst, repulsed. There is a desperate need for creative Christians to redeem the visual arena from both forms of excess, cutting through all the false glamour, tawdry baseness and dense obfuscation.”

NeedsArtChristianFilmFormCultureChristianityCreativeCuttingWorstTelevisionFineConfusedVisualsDesperateExcessIndifferentArenaGlamourFine ArtsDenseSeducingBasenessObfuscation
Author:John Walford
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“The true Christians are the true citizens, lofty of purpose, resolute in endeavor, ready for a hero's deeds, but never looking down on their task because it is cast in the day of small things; scornful of baseness, awake to their own duties as well as to their rights, following the higher law with reverence, and in this world doing all that in their power lies, so that when death comes they may feel that humanity is in some degree better because they lived.”

WorldFeelsWellsMayChristianLawLyingPurposeHumanityChristianityRightsThis WorldReadyDutyHeroHigherCitizensDegreesTasksCastsFollowingDeedsAwakeEndeavorReverenceSmall ThingsLoftyResoluteLooking DownBasenessHigher Law
Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“What [Nietzsche] calls slave morality is to him purely spite-morality; and this spite-morality gave new names to all ideals. Thus impotence, which offers no reprisal, became goodness; craven baseness became humility; submission to him who was feared became obedience; inability to assert one's self became reluctance to assert one's self, became forgiveness, love of one's enemies. Misery became a distinction”

SelfNamesEnemyHumilityMoralityOffersGoodnessIdealsMiserySlaveObedienceSpiteDistinctionSubmissionInabilityImpotenceReluctanceBasenessForgiveness LoveReprisal
Book:Friedrich Nietzsche (English Edition)
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“The tyrant, who in order to hold his power, suppresses every superiority, does away with good men, forbids education and light, controls every movement of the citizens and, keeping them under a perpetual servitude, wants them to grow accustomed to baseness and cowardice, has his spies everywhere to listen to what is said in the meetings, and spreads dissension and calumny among the citizens and impoverishes them, is obliged to make war in order to keep his subjects occupied and impose on them permanent need of a chief.”

MenWantNeedsDoeSaidWarLightOrderGrowsSubjectsMovementCitizensMeetingsSpreadChiefsPermanentGood ManTyrantsCowardicePerpetualSuperiorityAccustomedSpyObligedServitudeCalumnyDissensionBaseness
Author:Aristotle
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“Is it just or reasonable, that most voices against the main end of government should enslave the less number that would be free? more just it is, doubtless, if it come to force, that a less number compel a greater to retain, which can be no wrong to them, their liberty, than that a greater number, for the pleasure of their baseness, compel a less most injuriously to be their fellow-slaves. They who seek nothing but their own just liberty, have always right to win it and to keep it, whenever they have power, be the voices never so numerous that oppose it.”

IfsShouldEndsGovernmentWould BeWinningForceVoicePleasureNumbersLibertyGreaterFellowsSlaveReasonableBaseness
Author:John Milton
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“No language can fitly express the meanness, the baseness, the brutality, with which the world has ever treated its victims of one age and boasts of the next. Dante is worshipped at that grave to which he was hurried by persecution. Milton, in his own day, was "Mr. Milton, the blind adder, that spit his venom on the king's person"; and soon after, "the mighty orb of song." These absurd transitions from hatred to apotheosis, this recognition just at the moment when it becomes a mockery, saddens all intellectual history.”

WorldPersonsMomentsAgeSongNextLanguageKingsIntellectualHatredVictimBlindGravesTreatedAbsurdRecognitionTransitionPersecutionBoastBrutalitySpitMockeryMeannessMiltonVenomBasenessOrbsApotheosisAdders
Book:Literature and life, lects
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“Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd; Or dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave, Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool. But for one end, one much-neglected use, Are riches worth your care; (for nature's wants Are few, and without opulence supplied;) This noble end is, to produce the soul; To show the virtues in their fairest light; To make humanity the minister Of bounteous Providence; and teach the breast The generous luxury the gods enjoy.”

WantSoulEndsUseShowsLightCareHumanityEnjoyChanceTeachVirtueProduceFoolLuckyGuiltRichesNobleLuxuryMinistersGenerousBreastsSunshineProvidenceNeglectedShieldsKnavesBasenessOpulence
Author:John Armstrong
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“I condemn Christianity; I bring against the Christian Church the most terrible of all accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions; it seeks to work the ultimate corruption, the worse possible corruption. The Christian Church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul.”

SoulChristianLyingValuesLeftChurchReligiousChristianityTerribleIntegrityMouthsUltimateCorruptionAccusationDepravityChristian ChurchWorthlessnessBasenessAccusers
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche
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“Conscience, the sense of right, the power of perceiving moral distinctions, the power of discerning between justice and injustice, excellence and baseness, is the highest faculty given us by God, the whole foundation of our responsibility, and our sole capacity for religion. ...God, in giving us conscience, has implanted a principle within us which forbids us to prostrate ourselves before mere power, or to offer praise where we do not discover worth.”

GivingWholeGivenJusticeResponsibilityMoralPrinciplesOffersHighestConscienceCapacityPraiseFoundationExcellenceMereInjusticeDistinctionFacultySoleReligion GodDiscerningBasenessJustice And Injustice
Author:William Ellery Channing
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“Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns; children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware, that they carry their anger rather with scorn, than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury, than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.”

IfsMenGivingWellsKindMayChildrenDoneSeemsLawSubjectsWeaknessSickAngerFolksInjuryReignScornBaseness
Book:Works
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“A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live; a society where all were seers could live even more fully. But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go: to stay here is death.”

StillsEndsSimpleAchieveMassExtinctionUglinessSuperficialitySeersBaseness
Book:A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis
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