Degenerates Quotes - Page 2

• If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Night, Men, Wife

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.174, Oxford University Press

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• How rare it is to come across a piece of writing that is unambiguous, unqualified, and also unblurred by understatements or subtleties, and yet at the same time urbane and tolerant. It is a vice of the scientific method when applied to human affairs that it fosters hemming and hawing and a scrupulousness that easily degenerates into obscurity and meaninglessness.

  Eric Hoffer

  Writing, Vices, Obscurity

  "Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook" by Tom Bethell in Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

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• We have either to progress or to degenerate. Our ancestors did great things in the past, but we have to grow into a fuller life and march beyond even their great achievements.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Past, Achievement, Progress

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1118, Manonmani Publishers

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• The boys at school are so degenerate that it makes one feel pessimistic about the future of the male gender in general.

  Regina Doman

  School, Boys, Males

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• Where flowers degenerate man cannot live.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Flower, Men

  "The table talk and opinions of Napoleon Buonaparte" by Napoleon Bonaparte, (p. 148), 1868.

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• When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Technology, Gossip

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.221, Graphic Arts Books

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• TO worship God even for the sake of salvation or any other reward is equally degenerate. Love knows no reward. Give your love unto to God, but do not ask anything in return even from Him through pray.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Giving, Rewards, Sake

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Bhakti Yoga: The Yoga of Love and Devotion”, p.72, Advaita Ashrama (A publication branch of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math)

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• Everything must degenerate into work if anything is to happen.

  Peter Drucker

  Action, Happens, Ifs

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• Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas without eating a chicken fried steak.

  Larry McMurtry

  Texas, Eating, Steak

  Larry McMurtry (1983). “In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas”

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• We are in a degenerate state of self-government. In fact, even to use the words self-government, is not only an exaggeration, it's a lie. It's a big lie!

  Jerry Brown

  Lying, Government, Self

  Speech at International Transpersonal Association Conference in Santa Clara, California, June 10, 1995.

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• All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals.

  John Quincy Adams

  Struggle, Government, Politics

  John Quincy Adams (2017). “John Quincy Adams: Diaries 1779-1821”, p.564, Library of America

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• The person who still blushes is not yet a degenerate.

  Neil Young

  Morality, Persons, Stills

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• Exceptionally hard decisions can deplete your energy to the point at which you finally cave in. If you mentally crumble and degenerate into negative thinking, you'll magnify the problem to the point where it can haunt you.

  John C. Maxwell

  Leadership, Thinking, Decision

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• Prayer and action...can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Manipulation, Action

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2017). “You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Hachette UK

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• A writer of story books! What kind of business in life-what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation-may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Book, May, Might

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850). “The Scarlet Letter”, p.17

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• The worst crimes are not committed by evil degenerates, but by decent and intelligent people taking 'pragmatic' decisions.

  Colin Wilson

  Intelligent, People, Evil

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• ... the community suffers nothing very terrible if its cobblers are bad and become degenerate and pretentious; but if the Guardians of its laws and constitution, who alone have the opportunity to bring it good government and prosperity, become a mere sham, then clearly it is completely ruined.

  Plato

  Opportunity, Government, Law

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• We should not permit tolerance to degenerate into indifference.

  Margaret Chase Smith

  Tolerance, Indifference, Permit

  Margaret Chase Smith (1972). “Declaration of Conscience”

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• I admit to having worn suede and leather pants myself for a while, but you just never feel clean, and it's degenerate, anyway, to wear animal skins.... So I went back to bluejeans after my degenerate period.

  Andy Warhol

  Animal, Leather Pants, Skins

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• A film in which the speech and sound effects are perfectly synchronized and coincide with their visual image on the screen is absolutely contrary to the aims of cinema. It is a degenerate and misguided attempt to destroy the real use of the film and cannot be accepted as coming within the true boundaries of the cinema.

  Paul Rotha

  Real, Sound, Cinema

  Paul Rotha, Robert Kruger, Duncan J. Petrie (1999). “A Paul Rotha Reader”, p.60, University of Exeter Press

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• I would rather be a transformed ape than a degenerate son of Adam.

  Paul Broca

  Son, Apes, Adam

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• Prejudice is not bigotry or superstition, although prejudice sometimes may degenerate into these. Prejudice is pre-judgment, the answer with which intuition and ancestral consensus of opinion supply a man when he lacks either time or knowledge to arrive at a decision predicated upon pure reason.

  Russell Kirk

  Men, Decision, Intuition

  Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.38, Regnery Publishing

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• The activities of these parasites and degenerates gave rise to Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism, Pointillism, Constructivism, Orphism, Surrealism, Dada, and also Impossibleism, Supersurrealism, Dynamic Double-Dog Realism, Ishkabibbleism, and Mama, which is like Dada only nicer.

  Daniel Pinkwater

  Dog, Mama, Parasites

  Daniel Pinkwater (2012). “Bushman Lives!”, p.70, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• One has to make a decision when a condition is likely to degenerate if nothing is done.

  Peter Drucker

  Entrepreneur, Decision, Done

  Peter Drucker (2012). “Management”, p.383, Routledge

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• The profession to which we belong, once venerated...-has become corrupt and degenerate to the forfeiture of its social position.

  Nathaniel Chapman

  Dark, Age, Medical

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