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Servility Quotes

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Servility Quotes

“Always, in the bygone days, men would tell me with great certainty what I should do and then, if I hesitated, would tell me again, towering over me, smelling of cigars and mouthwash, superior smirks creeping over their huge-pored faces, and then I would, often, nearly always--well, I would do it. I would do whatever that man had asked me to do, within reason, seeing this as a form of kindness on my part, so as not to force the poor fellow, who no doubt had a lot on his mind, to, uh, raise his voice or otherwise become, well, frustrated. Frustrated with me. The Frenchman was frowning. It was always their disappointment that got me. Even more so than their anger.”

MenWomenAngerDisappointmentGenderObedienceMisogynySuperiorityServilityDocility
Book:Vigil
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“I had often doubted; now I was convinced: there were still noble beings among us in whose hearts knowledge of the higher order was preserved and perpetuated. A lofty example enjoins us to follow, and I swore before this head that for all the future I would cast my lot with the solitary and free rather than the triumphant and servile.”

CultureLeadershipFreedomNobilityTotalitarianismServilityAnarchExamples
Book:On the Marble Cliffs
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“As he speaks, his eyes slither warily from one of us to another, reminding me of the Time Warner executives I once lunched with years ago, who seemed poised at all times between arrogance and deference, nervously calculating which to project. A line from a Robert Lowell poem comes to mind: “a savage servility/slides by on grease.”

PoetryBusinessArroganceExecutivesSavageryDeferenceServilityRobert Lowell
Book:Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
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“By comparison with our ideas of liberation, emancipation and individual autonomy, which exhaust themselves chasing their own shadows, how much more subtle, and proud at the same time, is the idea, which still survives in oriental wisdom, that someone else has control over your life, is planning it, determining it, satisfying it, according to the terms of an electoral pact by which you agree to stand down, when things are going against you, from something which, in any case, does not belong to you and which it is much more pleasant to enjoy without constantly having to take responsibility for it at every waking moment. There is nothing to prevent you, in return, from looking after someone else’s life—something people are often more skilled at than looking after their own—and so on, from one person to the next, with each of us being relieved of the burden of living, truly free and no longer exposed to their own madness, but only to the ritual or romantic intervention of the other in the process of their own life. The ultimate achievement is to live beyond the end, by any means whatever.”

SlaveryServilitySurveillance SocietyScanners
Book:Cool memories
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“This business of petty inconvenience and indignity, of being kept waiting about, of having to do everything at other people’s convenience, is inherent in working-class life. A thousand influences constantly press a working man down into a passive role. He does not act, he is acted upon. He feels himself the slave of mysterious authority and has a firm conviction that ‘they’ will never allow him to do this, that, and the other. Once when I was hop-picking I asked the sweated pickers (they earn something under sixpence an hour) why they did not form a union. I was told immediately that ‘they’ would never allow it. Who were ‘they’? I asked. Nobody seemed to know, but evidently ‘they’ were omnipotent.”

HopsLabourWorking ClassTrade UnionsServilityWage Labour
Book:The Road to Wigan Pier
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“Preferential tributes of respect in words and manners even to those who have no authority in the State - reverences, obeisances (compliments) and courtly phrases marking with the utmost precision every distinction in status (something altogether different from courtesy, which must also be reciprocal) - the Du, Er, Ihr and Sie, or Ew. Wohledeln, Hochedeln, Hochedelgeborenen, Wohlgeborenen (ohe, iam satis est!) as forms of address, a pedantry in which the Germans seem to outdo any other people in the world (except possibly the Indian castes): does not all this prove that there is a widespread propensity to servility in men? But one who makes himself a worm cannot complain if people step on him.”

EthicsServilityFormalities
Book:The Doctrine of Virtue: Part 2 of The Metaphysic of Morals
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“Для российского обывателя телевизор — это источник «правильной» позиции, ретрансляция которой оберегает от соприкосновения с госмашиной. Нечто вроде комсомольского значка на лацкане пиджака — эдакий знак публичной лояльности, который подобно оберегу защищает тебя от опричнины. В государстве, где люди не могут влиять на власть, телевизионная риторика выполняет роль компаса. Она показывает тебе — как нужно высказываться по тем или иным темам, чтобы не навлечь на себя беду. Тот, кто ее ретранслирует — вовсе не обязательно ее разделяет. Это лишь коллективное пение гимна на утреннем поднятии флага: правильное выражение лица и патриотическая поза защищают от обвинений в нелояльности, которые могут закончиться житейскими проблемами.”

MediaLoyaltyRussiaTvServility
Author:Павел Казарин
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“Таков уж русский человек: страсть сильная зазнаться с тем, который бы хотя одним чином был его повыше, и шапочное знакомство с графем или князем для него лучше всяких тесных дружеских отношений.”

RelationshipsSatireServility
Book:Мертвые души. Избранное
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“The self-discipline of the Social Democracy is not merely the replacement of the authority of bourgeois rulers with the authority of a socialist central committee. The working class will acquire the sense of the new discipline, the freely assumed self-discipline of the Social Democracy, not as a result of the discipline imposed on it by the capitalist state, but by extirpating, to the last root, its old habits of obedience and servility.”

SelfStatesLastsSocialResultsClassDemocracyHabitDisciplineAuthorityRootsObedienceAcquireCapitalistRulersSocialistCommitteesSelf DisciplineWorking ClassBourgeoisReplacementsOld HabitsServilitySocial Democracy
Author:Rosa Luxemburg
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“Christians believe themselves to be the aristocracy of heaven upon earth, they are admitted to the spiritual court, while millions of men in foreign lands have never been presented. They bow their knees and say they are 'miserable sinners,' and their hearts rankle with abominable pride. Poor infatuated fools! Their servility is real and their insolence is real but their king is a phantom and their palace is a dream.”

MenBelieveHeartRealDreamEarthChristianSpiritualHeavenPoorMillionsAtheismLandPrideFoolKingsCourtPositive AtheismMiserableKneesSinnerBowsPalacesAristocracyPhantomsInsolenceInfatuatedServilityForeign Lands
Book:The Martyrdom of Man
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“In this hour I would ask of the Lord God only this: that, as in the past, so in the years to come He would give His blessing to our work and our action, to our judgement and our resolution, that He will safeguard us from all false pride and from all cowardly servility, that he may grant to us to find the straight path which His Providence has ordained for the German people, and that he may ever give us the courage to do the right, never to falter, never to yield before any violence, before any danger.”

PeopleGivingYearsMayActionPastAsksHoursLordPathViolenceDangerPrideBlessingJudgementResolutionGrantsYieldProvidenceOur ActionsCowardlyLord GodServilityStraight PathFalse Pride
Book:The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939
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“Let it be signified to me through any channelthat the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, andin sixty days it will be accomplished. ...penned in the language of truth, and divested of those expressions of servility which would persuade his majesty that we are asking favors and not rights.”

StatesWould BeLanguageUnitedUnited StatesRightsExpressionRevolutionAskingPossessionFavorsAccomplishedSixtyFloridaDesirableMajestyServility
Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.”

MindReligionReligiousAtheismPerspectiveAtheistNobleSeparationEnterpriseSecularFoundingBondageChurch And StateSeparation Of Church And StateOur Founding FathersAtheisticFounding Fathers ChristianPhilosophy Of ReligionUs Founding FathersClergyIndolenceFounding Fathers ReligionSeparation Between Church And StateShacklesFounding Fathers ReligiousReligion GodReligious LibertyFounding Fathers Anti ReligionFounding Fathers Of AmericaFounding AmericaAmerican Founding FathersFounding Fathers AtheistReligious PhilosophyDeismChristianity From Founding FathersChristian AtheistReligion ChristianPhilosophy And ReligionChristian RightAgainst ReligionAnti ReligionFaith ReligionServilityFree ThinkersReligious TruthSecular SocietyChristian Persecution
Book:Selected Writings of James Madison
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“Only yesterday I was no different than them, yet I was saved. I am explaining to you the way of life of a people who say every sort of wicked thing about me because I sacrificed their friendship to gain my own soul. I left the dark paths of their duplicity and turned my eyes toward the light where there is salvation, truth, and justice. They have exiled me now from their society, yet I am content. Mankind only exiles the one whose large spirit rebels against injustice and tyranny. He who does not prefer exile to servility is not free in the true and necessary sense of freedom.”

PeopleWayDoeDifferentSoulLightEyeSpiritualSpiritLeftJusticeDarkMy OwnPathMankindGainsSalvationInjusticeSavedYesterdayTyrannyWickedRebelExileExplainingDuplicityTruth And JusticeServilityWicked Things
Author:Khalil Gibran
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“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”

LifeEducationBrokenHeartbreakPrioritiesHealBrokeHeartacheBreakupBroken HeartAllowingHinduismNot Giving UpHeartbrokenHeartbreakingHeart BreakFunny RelationshipBreak Your HeartHeart BrokeBreaking My HeartTop PrioritiesGiving Up Is Not An OptionBroke My HeartHeart BreakingSad LifeServilityBeing BrokenMy Heart Is BrokenBroken LoveLove And Broken HeartSad Breaking HeartHeart Breaking LoveLove HealsSad Heart BreakBreaking Heart In LoveBroken Heart LoveHeartbreaking LoveLove And HeartbreakHeal A Broken HeartSad Broken HeartBreaking Someone
Author:Mark Twain
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“The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies - socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor - and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food.”

HumansWarDreamMovingLinesPoorPartyDemocracyRichPlansEconomicPolicyActivityMajorsCapitalismWesternBottomEndlessSocialismForeign PolicyDevotedDecencyBottom LineMcdonaldsDemocracies HaveHuman ActivityEconomic PolicyBusiness PlanParliamentaryCorporatismServilityEndless War
Author:John Pilger
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“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.... During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.”

MindHas BeensReligionReligiousChristianityAtheismCenturyIgnorancePrideConstitutionFruitAtheistNobleTrialsEnterpriseBigotryEstablishmentSuperstitionsFifteenSecularPersecutionFoundingBondageChurch And StateSeparation Of Church And StateOur Founding FathersFounding Fathers ChristianPhilosophy Of ReligionUs Founding FathersClergyIndolenceFounding Fathers ReligionSeparation Between Church And StateShacklesFounding Fathers ReligiousReligion GodFederalistFounding Fathers Anti ReligionFounding Fathers Of AmericaFounding AmericaFederalist PapersAmerican Founding FathersFounding Fathers AtheistReligious PhilosophyDeismChristianity From Founding FathersReligion And PoliticsChristian AtheistReligion ChristianPhilosophy And ReligionReligion And GovernmentFaith ReligionServilityReligious PersecutionReligious BigotryChristianity And GovernmentChristian Persecution
Author:James Madison
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“I am beginning with the young. We older ones are used up. Yes, we are old already. We are rotten to the marrow. We have no unrestrained instincts left. We are cowardly and sentimental. We are bearing the burden of a humiliating past, and have in our blood the dull recollection of serfdom and servility. But my magnificent youngsters! Are there finer ones anywhere in the world? Look at these young men and boys! What material! With them, I can make a new world.”

MenWorldLooksI CanPastYoungUsedLeftNationsBoysBloodMaterialsInstinctBurdenYoung ManDullNew WorldMagnificentSentimentalRottenRecollectionCowardlyYoungstersHumiliatingMarrowServility
Author:Adolf Hitler
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“The first element of greatness is fundamental humbleness (this should not be confused with servility); the second is freedom from self; the third is intrepid courage, which, taken in its widest interpretation, generally goes with truth; and the fourth-the power of love-although I have put it last, is the rarest.”

ShouldFirstsSelfLastsTakenGreatnessElementsThirdsFundamentalsConfusedInterpretationFourthPower Of LoveHumblenessServility
Book:Autobiography
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“In spite of what moralists say, the, animals are scarcely less wicked or less unhappy than we are ourselves. The arrogance of the strong, the servility of the weak, low rapacity, ephemeral pleasure purchased by great effort, death preceded by long suffering, all belong to the animals as they do to men.”

MenLongScienceDeathSufferingStrongPleasureAnimalEffortLowsWeakUnhappyArroganceWickedSpiteEphemeralMoralistGreat EffortLong SufferingServility
Author:Georges Cuvier
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