Degrading Quotes - Page 2

• Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire

  Emily Bronte

  Fire, Soul, Lightning

  Wuthering Heights ch. 9 (1847)

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• There are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely-or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.

  Oscar Wilde

  Hypocrisy, World, Demand

  Oscar Wilde (2000). “The Plays of Oscar Wilde”, p.187, Wordsworth Editions

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• He shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he is more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

  Emily Bronte

  Soulmate, I Love Him, Handsome

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.425, Penguin

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• If advertising has invaded the judgment of children, it has also forced its way into the family, an insolent usurper of parental function, degrading parents to mere intermediaries between their children and the market. This indeed is a social revoluation in our time!

  Jules Henry

  Children, Business, Parent

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• There is not a more disgusting spectacle under the sun than our subserviency to British criticism. It is disgusting, first, because it is truckling, servile, pusillanimous--secondly, because of its gross irrationality. We know the British to bear us little but ill will--we know that, in no case do they utter unbiased opinions of American books . . . we know all this, and yet, day after day, submit our necks to the degrading yoke of the crudest opinion that emanates from the fatherland.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Book, Ill Will, Criticism

  Edgar Allan Poe (2016). “Complete Works Of Edgar Allan Poe: The New Raven Edition”, p.1708, ShandonPress

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• What plethora of material goods can possibly atone for a waking life so humanly belittling, if not degrading, as the push-button tasks left to human performers?

  Lewis Mumford

  Buttons, Waking Life, Tasks

  Lewis Mumford (1970). “The myth of the machine”

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• There is nothing unholy or degrading about sexuality in itself, for by that means men and women join in a process of creation and in an expression of love

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Marriage, Mean, Men

  Spencer W. Kimball (1982). “The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, Twelfth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”

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• I would have to point out in the strongest terms the autocracy of the Liberal structure and the cowardice of its members. I have never seen in all my examination of politics so degrading a spectacle as that of all these Liberals turning their coats in unison with their Chief, when they saw the chance to take power.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Coats, Examination, Saws

  "Cite libre" Journal, April 1963.

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• For them it's out-of-date and outmoded to perform miracles; teaching the people is too like hard work, interpreting the holy scriptures is for schoolmen and praying is a waste of time; to shed tears is weak and womanish, to be needy is degrading; to suffer defeat is a disgrace and hardly fitting for one who scarcely permits the greatest of kings to kiss the toes of his sacred feet; and finally, death is an unattractive prospect, and dying on a cross would be an ignominious end.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Kings, Teaching, Hard Work

  Desiderius Erasmus (1986). “Literary and Educational Writings: Panegyricus and Philippum Austriaeducem. Moriae encomium. Dialogus Julius exclusus e coelis. Institutio principis christiani. Querela pacis”

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• With my union project in my hand, from town to town, from one end of France to the other, to talk to the workers who do not know how to read and to those who do not have the time to read....I will go find them in their workshops; in their garrets and even, if needed, in their taverns, and there, face to face with their poverty, I will compel them, in spite of themselves, to escape from this frightful poverty which is degrading and killing them.

  Flora Tristan

  Hands, Taverns, Unions

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• The art of politics, under democracy, is simply the art of ringing it. Two branches reveal themselves. There is the art of the demagogue, and there is the art of what may be called, by a shot-gun marriage of Latin and Greek, the demaslave. They are complementary, and both of them are degrading to their practitioners. The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. The demaslave is one who listens to what these idiots have to say and then pretends that he believes it himself.

  H. L. Mencken

  Art, Latin, Believe

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• Fate! This four letter little word gave the biggest harm to mankind! We must totally get rid of this degrading concept of primitiveness!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Fate, Four, Letters

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• Political correctness is a concept invented by hard-rightwing forces to defend their right to be racist, to treat women in a degrading way and to be truly vile about gay people. They invent this idea of people who are politically correct, with a rigid, monstrous attitude to life so they can attack. But we have all had to learn to modify our language. That's all part of being a decent human being.

  Clare Short

  Attitude, Gay, Ideas

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• The sight of one's own heart is degrading; people are not meant to look inward - that's why they've been given bodies, to hide their souls.

  Shirley Jackson

  Heart, Sight, People

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• Profanity is filthiness. A person is known as much by his language as he is by the company he keeps...Filthiness in any form is degrading and soul-destroying and should be avoided.

  Joseph Fielding Smith

  Soul, Language, Form

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• My greatest hope is that we transcend the most fearful thing, which is that we are rapidly degrading the ecological systems on this planet that support everything we are doing and all life on it.

  Edward Norton

  Support, Planets, Fearful

  Interview with Bennett Miller, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 3, 2014.

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• A consumer society is about simplfying and degrading the consumer as well as the product.

  William S. Burroughs

  Wells, Consumers, Products

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• Some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Husband, Intellect

  1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, introduction.

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• Politics is a damn expensive business. I had one hell of a time trying to raise money as a candidate. I had to put a second mortgage on our house to get that campaign started, and I ended up spending over $300,000 to get elected. I believe that public financing of federal election campaigns is the only thing that will insure good candidates and save the two-party system. It is the most degrading thing in the world to go out with your hat in your hand and beg for money, but that's what you have to do if you haven't got your own resources.

  Joe Biden

  Party, Believe, Hands

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• Maybe I'm too close to the two Democrats to be against either one. I went to law school with Barack Obama and worked in the Clinton White House, so I have connections and allegiances to both candidates. [...] But I cannot remain silent any longer while my own senator destroys the Democratic Party, and her own reputation, in a desperate and degrading effort to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It's time for Senator Clinton to act like a leader that I know she can be. Hillary Clinton not only needs to defend Barack Obama, she needs to apologize to him.

  Keith Boykin

  Party, School, White

  "Clinton Owes Obama An Apology" by Keith Boykin, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 26, 2008.

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• I abhor the word "consumer." Consumers, unlike citizens, have no implicit duties, obligations, or responsibilities to the common good. It's a degrading term. The use of it degrades the public discussion.

  James Howard Kunstler

  Responsibility, Citizens, Use

  Source: www.raisethehammer.org

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• When I think about what we now know about Donald Trump and what he's been doing for 30 years, he sure has spent a lot of time demeaning, degrading, insulting, and assaulting women.

  Hillary Clinton

  Thinking, Insulting, Demeaning

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• There's no reason in the world why black [people] should not be regarded as an attribute that is not degrading but is positive. There's no reason in the world why any person should think that white is degrading.

  John Hope Franklin

  Thinking, White, People

  Source: v1.sahistory.org.za

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• Michael Bloomberg is a sensible guy. He's just privileged. He's a goddamn billionaire, and he or his family members have never had to deal with anything as remotely degrading as stop and frisk. So he has no point of reference.

  Talib Kweli

  Guy, Billionaire, Sensible

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• In the morning I had decided that henceforth I only cared for easy loves. It is so degrading to have to persuade people into liking one, or one's works.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Morning, People, Easy

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

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