“Crime, like virtue, has its degrees;
And timid innocence was never known
To blossom suddenly into extreme license.”
Ainsi que la vertu, le crime a ses dégrés;
Et jamais on n'a vu la timide innocence
Passer subitement à l'extrême licence.
Hippolyte, act IV, scene II.
Phèdre (1677)
Original
Hippolyte à Thésée : Ainsi que la vertu, le crime a ses degrés; Et jamais on n'a vu la timide innocence
Phèdre
Variant: Ainsi que la vertu, le crime a ses dégrés;
Et jamais on n'a vu la timide innocence
Passer subitement à l'extrême licence.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Jean Racine 15
French dramatist 1639–1699Related quotes
“Crimes, like Virtues, are their own Rewards.”
The Inconstant (1702), Ori, Act iv, Sc. 2.
“We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime — the crime of extremism.”
1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Context: But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime — the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
“Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness.”
Mutation. A Sonnet
Last words http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0823.html (April 15, 1920)
Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
“The inherent contradiction of human life has now reached an extreme degree of tension”
Source: A Letter to a Hindu (1908), VI
Context: The inherent contradiction of human life has now reached an extreme degree of tension: on the one side there is the consciousness of the beneficence of the law of love, and on the other the existing order of life which has for centuries occasioned an empty, anxious, restless, and troubled mode of life, conflicting as it does with the law of love and built on the use of violence. This contradiction must be faced, and the solution will evidently not be favourable to the outlived law of violence, but to the truth which has dwelt in the hearts of men from remote antiquity: the truth that the law of love is in accord with the nature of man. But men can only recognize this truth to its full extent when they have completely freed themselves from all religious and scientific superstitions and from all the consequent misrepresentations and sophistical distortions by which its recognition has been hindered for centuries.
Source: The Living Brain (1953), p. 82 : Description of the behavior of his first autonomous turtle robots, called Tortoise or Machina speculatrix.
Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 89
