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Degenerates Quotes

Browse 212 quotes about Degenerates.

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Degenerates Quotes

“Gossip is always a personal confession either of malice or imbecility, and the young should not only shun it, but by the most thorough culture relieve themselves from all temptation to indulge in it. It is a low, frivolous, and too often a dirty business. There are country neighborhoods in which it rages like a pest. Churches are split in pieces by it. Neighbors are made enemies by it for life. In many persons it degenerates into a chronic disease, which is practically incurable. Let the young cure it while they may.”

ShouldMayPersonsMadeCountryYoungCultureChurchEnemyPiecesDiseaseLowsRageNeighborCuresTemptationDirtyNeighborhoodGossipConfessionSplitsIndulgeMaliceThoroughIndulge InDegeneratesFrivolousPestsImbecilityDirty Business
Author:J. G. Holland
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“When Julian ascended the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the Grecian purity of taste, of manners and of religion. The emperor's prepossession was increased and justified by the discreet pride of his favourite.”

AgeHistoryPrideTasteEmbraceRewardsMannersPurityFavouriteThronesJustifiedImpatienceEmperorRoman EmpireDegeneratesDiscreet
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“There is a clear acknowledgement all over the world that we should not teach people to read and then to leave them without literature. For they would then relapse into a dreary and ultimately dangerous state of half-education, in which they would be easily satisfied by crude semi-pictorial approximations of the strip cartoon and by the abundant supply of degenerate literature which destroys, rather than promotes, a capacity to face the problems of the world with skill and courage”

PeopleWorldShouldStatesProblemWould BeFacesLiteratureHalfTeachClearDangerousSkillsCapacitySatisfiedCartoonCrudeDegeneratesDrearyAcknowledgementApproximationPictorialRelapse
Author:A. D. Patel
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“The aim of poetry, it appears, is to fill the mind with lofty thoughts--not to give it joy, but to give it a grand and somewhat gaudy sense of virtue. The essay is a weapon against the degenerate tendencies of the age. The novel, properly conceived, is a means of uplifting the spirit; its aim is to inspire, not merely to satisfy the low curiosity of man in man.”

MenGivingMindMeanAgeJoySpiritLiteratureNovelVirtueInspireWeaponsLowsAimCuriosityTendenciesUpliftingEssaysLoftyDegeneratesAmerican LiteratureGaudy
Book:H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series
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“As soon as an opinion becomes common it is sufficient reason for men to abandon it and to uphold the opposite opinion until that in its turn grows old, and they require to distinguish themselves by other things. Thus if they attain their goal in some art or science, we must expect them soon to cast it aside to acquire some fresh fame, and this is partly the reason why the most splendid ages degenerate so quickly, and, scarcely emerged from barbarism, plunge into it again.”

IfsMenArtReasonAgeTurnsGrowsGoalCommonOpinionFameOppositesCastsReason WhySufficientAcquireAbandonSplendidPlungeBarbarismDegenerates
Book:La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims
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“The house of representatives ... can make no law, which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.”

PeopleHumansWellsGovernmentTogetherLawPoliticalHousePoliticsInterestPolicyExampleMassTyrannyOperationsSentimentsStrongestRulersRepresentativesCommunionDegeneratesHouse Of Representatives
Author:James Madison
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“[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.”

MenGovernmentEyeWealthAbilityPleasureLibertyMoralVirtueDemocracyIntellectualPropertyWitEvery ManCrueltyReputationSecureAnarchyProperty RightsDegeneratesMouldWantonCapriciousSubordinationMoral Virtues
Author:John Adams
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“When the veil of fiction was rent, man shuddered before "Nature, red in tooth and claw." Nature had always been that and always will be, and the hands of man, even when he fashions and defends the noblest civilization, must forever be bloody hands, for this is a world in which only the strong and resolute nations survive, while the weak, especially the morally weak, who babble about brotherhood and peace, are biologically degenerate and doomed to extinction.”

MenWorldHandsStrongNationsFictionForeverFashionCivilizationRedWeakTeethBrotherhoodBloodyDoomedVeilsExtinctionClawsDegeneratesResoluteBrotherhood And PeaceBloody Hands
Author:Revilo P. Oliver
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“I cannot favour laws such as that of Idaho, which allows sterilization of 'mental defectives, epileptics, habitual criminals, moral degenerates, and sex perverts.' The last two categories here are very vague . . . The law of Idaho would have justified the sterilization of Socrates, Plato, Julius Caesar, and St. Paul.”

TwoLastsLawSexMoralCriminalsCategoriesVaguePlatoFavourJustifiedHabitualDegeneratesJuliusIdahoSterilizationEpileptics
Book:Bertrand Russell's Best
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“People who reject transcendent authority can no longer persuade one another through rational arguments; everything is reduced to personal opinion. Debates about ideas thus degenerate into power struggles; we're left with no moral standard by which to measure the common good. For that matter, how can there be a 'common good' without an objective standard of truth?”

PeopleIdeasMatterLeftCommonMoralOpinionStruggleAuthorityStandardsArgumentDebateObjectivesRationalRejectsTranscendentCommon GoodDegeneratesPower StrugglePersonal Opinions
Book:The Sky Is Not Falling: Living Feaerlessly in These Turbulent Times
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“In general, in America, every discourse in literature in 15 minutes degenerates into a conversation about ethics, morality and this and that. The Holocaust and the consequences of it. Well, I find it terribly boring, predictable and unimportant, because what matters about literature is esthetic achievement.”

WellsMatterAmericaLiteratureMinutesMoralityConversationAchievementEthicsConsequenceBoringHolocaustWhat MattersDiscoursePredictableUnimportantDegenerates
Author:Joseph Brodsky
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“I've had two great years, probably five good years. So I had 20 years of just kind of uncertainty and suffering and ego destruction and poverty. All these things. There's no way I'm ever going to catch up to the misery years. It's impossible... If I don't do anything dumb or I don't get a disease or something, and then I've got to five to eight years I think where it'll really be great and then it will start to degenerate like uranium, you know?”

IfsThinkingKnowsWayYearsKindTwoSufferingPovertyFiveImpossibleEgoDiseaseDestructionMiseryEightDumbUncertaintyDegeneratesUraniumGreat YearGood Years
Author:Louis C. K.
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“David Simon [the creator of The Wire] and I have a running controversy for years. It all stems from a telephone call I made to KPFA [Pacifica radio] when he was a guest there in the 90's on Chris Welche's show. He was going around the country with a Black kid from the Ghetto to promote something called The Corner - it was all about Blacks as degenerates selling drugs, etc.”

YearsMadeCountryShowsRunningKidsBlackDrugRadioCreatorCornersSellingEtcGuestsStemTelephonesControversyWireGhettoDegeneratesSelling Drugs
Author:Ishmael Reed
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“In living through this great epoch, it is difficult to reconcile oneself to the fact that one belongs to that mad, degenerate species that boasts of its free will. How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will. In such a place even I should be an ardent patriot!”

ShouldFactsWishDifficultWiseMadSpeciesOneselfIslandsFree WillPatriotBoastGood WillReconcileDegeneratesArdentEpoch
Book:The Ultimate Quotable Einstein
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“Investigation is a subtle process, requiring patience and fine analytical ability, as well as a skill in cultivating one's sources. When torture is condoned, these rare talented people leave the service, having been outstripped by less gifted colleagues with their quick-fix methods, and the service itself degenerates into a playground for sadists.”

PeopleWellsProcessAbilitySourceFineSkillsMethodTortureSubtleInvestigationGiftedColleaguesPlaygroundsDegeneratesCultivatingQuick Fixes
Author:Vladimir Bukovsky
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