Retrograde Quotes

• There is a period of life when we go back as we advance.
  [Fr., Il est un terme de la vie au-dela duquel en retrograde en avancant.]

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Progress, Periods

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• Let us strive to improve ourselves, for we cannot remain stationary; one either progresses or retrogrades.

  Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise du Deffand

  Inspirational, Life, Progress

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• All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.

  Edward Gibbon

  Wisdom, Growth, Doe

  'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' (1776-88) ch. 71

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• Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

  Winston Churchill

  Strong, Queens, Fall

  "The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (Volume II)". Book by Winston Churchill, 1899.

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• The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

  Winston Churchill

  Children, Men, Law

  Winston Churchill (2012). “Churchill: The Power of Words”, p.50, Da Capo Press

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• There are three classes of men; the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Ignorance, Men, Class

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• How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is a fateful fatalistic apathy.

  Winston Churchill

  Dog, Men, Muslim Faith

  "The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (Volume II)". Book by Winston Churchill, 1899.

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• Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

  Winston Churchill

  Muslim Faith, Agriculture, Religion Of Islam

  Winston Churchill (2012). “Churchill: The Power of Words”, p.50, Da Capo Press

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• No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.

  Winston Churchill

  Muslim Faith, Islam, Stronger

  "The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (Volume II)". Book by Winston Churchill, 1899.

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• Reflection is not the evil; but a reflective condition and the deadlock which it involves, by transforming the capacity for action into a means of escape from action, is both corrupt and dangerous, and leads in the end to a retrograde movement.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Mean, Reflection, Evil

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• In the year 1456 ... a Comet was seen passing Retrograde between the Earth and the sun... Hence I dare venture to foretell, that it will return again in the year 1758.

  Edmond Halley

  Years, Return, Sun

  Edmond Halley (1706). “Miscellanea Curiosa: Being a Collection of Some of the Principal Phaenomena in Nature, Accounted for by the Greatest Philosophers of this Age : Together with Several Discourses Read Before the Royal Society, for the Advancement of Physical and Mathematical Knowledge”, p.342

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• I can be in the worst PMS, Mercury in retrograde, most awful circumstance - and then if my girlfriends and I are giggling about it, everything's okay.

  Alanis Morissette

  Girlfriend, Pms, Mercury

  Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. May 25, 2013.

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• The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.

  John Quincy Adams

  Fall, Men, Omnipotence

  John Quincy Adams (1876). “Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848”, p.63

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• I think it would be frankly a retrograde thing for Pauline Hanson to be elected to the Senate.

  George Brandis

  Thinking, Would Be, Senate

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• The United States Supreme Court, once a reliable if ultimate recourse for progressive and even revolutionary grievances, has become a retrograde wellspring for enormous economic and social distress.

  June Jordan

  Law, Justice, United States

  June Jordan (1992). “Technical Difficulties: African-American Notes on the State of the Union”, Pantheon

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• The Sopranos' is filled with really retrograde humor. Bathroom humor, falls, stupid puns, bad jokes - infantile, adolescent stuff, but it makes me laugh.

  David Chase

  Stupid, Fall, Laughing

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• Why has America's fringe left been making common cause with the Taliban, whose views on such matters as women's rights and separation of church and state are appallingly retrograde by anyone's standards? One reason may be that the Taliban seem to have mastered the language of victimhood, sounding like denizens of some college ethnic-studies department.

  James Taranto

  College, Rights, Views

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• Whatever prestige the bourgeoisie may today be willing to grant to fragmentary or deliberately retrograde artistic tentatives, creation can now be nothing less than a synthesis aiming at the construction of entire atmospheres and styles of life. . . . A unitary urbanism — the synthesis we call for, incorporating arts and technologies — must be created in accordance with new values of life, values which we now need to distinguish and disseminate. . . .

  Gil J Wolman

  Art, Technology, Style

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• To me it's no accident that all the symphony orchestras around the world tune up to the note A. And A is 440 cycles, except in Germany where it's 444. But the universe is 450 cycles. So what I'm trying to say is, I think it's God's voice, melody especially. Counterpoint, retrograde inversion, harmony... that's the science and the craft.

  Quincy Jones

  Thinking, Voice, Symphony

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• think there's a culture of Silicon Valley that seems to have the attitude that you can have it both ways, that you can be an insurgent but also, ultimately, it's paid for by advertising, when in fact advertising is totally retrograde. Now that's an industry we should be disrupting, and maybe you disrupt it by funding public media. None of this is technological destiny; there are only social choices.

  Astra Taylor

  Attitude, Destiny, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

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• There's a number of hip-hop artists who are highly talented but politically retrograde.

  Cornel West

  Artist, Numbers, Hip Hop

  "Cornel West, 'Living And Loving Out Loud'". "Talk of the Nation" with Neal Conan, www.npr.org. October 29, 2009.

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• The prerequisite of contrapuntal art, more conspicuous in the work of Bach than in that of any other composer, is an ability to conceive a priori of melodic identities which when transposed, inverted, made retrograde, or transformed rhythmically will yet exhibit, in conjunction with the original subject matter, some entirely new but completely harmonious profile.

  Glenn Gould

  Art, Identity, Matter

  "Song: 'So You Want To Write A Fugue'". 1997.

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