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Second Rate Quotes

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Second Rate Quotes

“When distinction of any kind, even intellectual distinction, is somehow resented as a betrayal of the American spirit of equal opportunity for all, the result must be just this terror of individualistic impulses setting us apart, either above or below our neighbours; just this determination to obey without questioning and to subscribe with passion to the conventions and traditions. The dilemma becomes a very real one: How can this sense of democratic equality be made compatible with respect for exceptional personalities or great minds? How can democracy, as we understand it today, with its iron repression of the free spirit, its monotonous standardisation of everything, learn to cherish an intellectual aristocracy without which any nation runs the risk of becoming a civilisation of the commonplace and the second-rate?”

AmericaCivilizationEqualityDistinctionConventionsIndividualismRepressionIntellectualismTraditionsSecond RateLost GenerationStandardisation
Book:America and the young intellectual
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“Newspapers. . . give us the bald, sordid, disgusting facts of life. They chronicle, with degrading avidity, the sins of the second-rate, and with the conscientiousness of the illiterate give us accurate and prosaic details. . .”

GivingFactsSinRateDetailsNewspapersAccurateDisgustingFacts Of LifeIlliterateDegradingChroniclesSecond RateConscientiousness
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays
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“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”

LifeInspirationalFirstsMotivationalHappinessSuccessPeaceTeacherSelf EsteemPositiveInspirational LifeConfidenceEmpowermentRateOneselfCaringActressesSingersVersionsEsteemBeing TrueBeing YourselfBullyingAbout YourselfWomen EmpowermentBe YouOriginalityGraduationBullyCarpe DiemBe True To YourselfTrue To YourselfBulliedBoost Self ConfidenceBeing MyselfGarlandsSecond RateFamous MotivationalFunny GraduationJust Being YouConfidence BoostingHigh School GraduationInspirations Being YourselfBoost Your ConfidenceInspirational GraduationBeing BulliedFunny CommencementAnti BullyingInspiring Self EsteemInspirational High School GraduationCollege GraduationOld HollywoodInspirational Self EsteemTrue To OneselfSchool GraduationConvocationBullying InspirationalInspirational Self ConfidenceAlways Be YourselfInspirational BullyingNot Being YourselfSelf StrengthCool GraduationMotivational GraduationBeing OriginalBeing Yourself And HappyHigh School Graduation SpeechHigh School CommencementGraduation Wishes
Author:Judy Garland
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“No academy could have given me all I discovered by getting my teeth into the exhibitions, the shop windows, and the museums of Paris . Beginning with the market - where, for lack of money, I bought only a piece of a long cucumber - the workman in his blue overall, the most ardent followers of Cubism , everything showed a definite feeling for proportion, clarity, an accurate sense of form, of a more painterly kind of painting, even in the canvases of second-rate artists.”

KindLongFeelingsFormArtistGivenPiecesPaintingWindowBlueRateTeethClarityParisProportionShopsMuseumsFollowersAccurateDefiniteAcademyArdentExhibitionsWorkmenSecond RateCucumbersCubismShop Windows
Author:Marc Chagall
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“You see only the productions of second-rate folk who are in a hurry to get wealth and fame. The true knowledge, the deadly knowledge, is still kept secret. But, believe me, my friend, it is there.”

BelieveStillsWealthSecretFameMy FriendsRateFolksProductionsBelieve In MeSecond RateTrue KnowledgeKept Secrets
Book:The Complete Works of John Buchan (Unabridged): Thriller Classics, Spy Novels, Supernatural Tales, Short Stories, Poetry, Historical Works, The Great War Writings, Essays, Biographies & Memoirs – All in One Volume
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“I wish and will continue to wish, that the German people should learn that by reason of practical examples afforded by their ability and work, they are not a second-rate or inferior people in comparison with others. On the contrary they are their equals according to all true standards of values and therefore entitled to equal rights in all respects.”

PeopleShouldReasonValuesWishAbilityRightsExampleEqualStandardsRateContraryPracticalsComparisonInferiorsEntitledEqual RightsSecond Rate
Author:Adolf Hitler
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“We admire predators - panthers, lions, tigers, even wolves. Maybe to be naturally thoughtful and hesitant to use violence is to be somehow second rate. To be in the middle of the social food chain. Especially if you're a man. This society thinks real men are violent.”

IfsThinkingMenRealUseSocialViolenceMiddleRateViolentAdmireChainsThoughtfulLionsTigersPredatorReal MenThis SocietySecond RateFood ChainHesitantPanthers
Book:The Longings of Women: A Novel
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“Latin America can no longer tolerate being a haven for United States liberals who cannot make their point at home, an outlet for apostles too "apostolic" to find their vocation as competent professionals within their own community. The hardware salesman threatens to dump second-rate imitations of parishes, schools and catechisms -- out-moded even in the United States -- all around the continent. The traveling escapist threatens further to confuse a foreign world with his superficial protests, which are not viable even at home.”

WorldStatesHomeSchoolAmericaCommunityUnitedUnited StatesHavensRateProtestLatinContinentsTolerateImitationSuperficialVocationOutletsApostlesCompetentLatin AmericaSalesmanDumpHardwareSecond RateParishApostolicEscapistsCatechism
Author:Ivan Illich
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“It is always the sign of the second-rate man when the decision merely meets the present situation. It is the left-over in a decision which gives it its greatest value. It is the carry-over in the decision which helps develop the situation in the way we wish it to be developed. The ablest administrators do not merely draw logical conclusions from the array of facts of the past which their expert assistants bring to them; they have a vision of the future.”

MenWayGivingFactsHelpingPastValuesLeftWishDecisionSituationVisionDrawsRateConclusionExpertsLogicalAssistantsAdministratorsSecond RateVisions Of The FuturePresent Situation
Book:Dynamic administration: the collected papers of Mary Parker Follett
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“I hope for so much from every book I read. And time and again, I find myself disappointed. I look across my bookshelves and see hundreds of titles which in my memory seem merely mediocre or second-rate. Only occasionally does a novel appear for which I feel a lasting passion, a book that I think could in time become a classic.”

ThinkingFeelsLooksDoeBookSeemsPassionMemoriesNovelRateTitlesClassicLastingDisappointedMediocreBookshelvesSecond Rate
Author:John Boyne
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“Second-rate knowledge, and middling talents, carry a man farther at courts, and in the busy part of the world, than superior knowledge and shining parts.”

MenWorldKnowledgeTalentCourtShiningRateBusySuperiorsSecond Rate
Book:The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author
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“My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses–the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions–which the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own way.”

WayShouldUseBlackNaturalRichConcernTraditionTragedyMirrorsRateTongueFlyingBrandsNativeAbandonHeritageAssociationTailsVelvetImpliedIdiomSecond RateBackdropDocileIllusionists
Book:The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated
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“Although most informed balletomanes would place artistry above technique, artistry without a strong technique is a flaccid, bloodless thing indeed, whereas technique without much artistry can still dazzle us in the manner of the circus or sports arena translated to a higher plane. Though the perfect blend of the two elements is the consummation devoutly to be wished, the real enemy of good ballet is not the slight preponderance of one or the other but the prevalence of pantomime--the turning of dance into second-rate theater.”

StillsTwoRealStrongSportsPerfectEnemyHigherElementsTheaterRateTechniquePlanesBalletArenaCircusArtistryDazzleSecond RatePantomime
Author:John Simon
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“We will never get great art from women if their education exposes them only to the second-rate and if the idea of greatness itself is denied. Greatness is not a white male trick. Every important world civilization has defined its artistic tradition in elitist terms of distinction and excellence.”

IfsWorldArtImportantIdeasTermWhiteGreatnessCivilizationTraditionExcellenceMalesRateTricksDefinedArtisticDistinctionDeniedGreat ArtElitistSecond Rate
Book:Vamps & Tramps: New Essays
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“World class is a phrase used by provincial cities and second-rate entertainment events, as well as a wide variety of insecure individuals, to assert that they are not provincial or second-rate, thereby confirming that they are.”

WorldWellsUsedIndividualCitiesClassEventsRateEntertainmentWideVarietyPhrasesInsecureWorld ClassSecond Rate
Book:The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense
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“It's a very obsessive profession that you need to stay obsessed to get anywhere, and it's very easy for us to get obsessed and then nothing else matters. I was reading Somerset Maugham's novella, Moon and Sixpense, about this artist based on Gauguin's life. It was so beautifully written. You must be first rate because second rate you might not survive. If you're an accountant, you'll survive second rate. If you chance it big, you may not get anywhere.”

IfsNeedsFirstsMayMatterBigsMightArtistReadingEasyChanceWrittenMoonRateProfessionObsessedObsessiveAccountantsSecond Rate
Author:Joan Chen
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“It was important to me to change the narrative. It's important because it has an impact on everything you do. It doesn't matter who you are or what business you are running. You would always be seen as some African from the bush trying to run a bank. But we do these things successfully and we shouldn't be seen as second rate. That is the message that we are putting out there.”

TryingImportantMatterRunningMessagesImpactWho You AreRateNarrativeSecond Rate
Author:Mo Abudu
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“China is the center of the Asian energy security grid, which includes the Central Asian states and Russia. India is also hovering around the edge, South Korea is involved, and Iran is an associate member of some kind. If the Middle East oil resources around the Gulf, which are the main ones in the world, if they link up to the Asian grid, the United States is really a second-rate power. A lot is at stake in not withdrawing from Iraq.”

IfsWorldKindStatesEnergyUnitedUnited StatesMiddleSecurityInvolvedMembersResourcesIndiaSouthRateIraqEdgesChinaOilEastRussiaIranLinksStakesMiddle EastAssociatesAsianKoreaGridsSecond RateHoveringSouth KoreaWithdrawingEnergy Security
Author:Noam Chomsky
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