Quotes about degree
page 9

“The origins of secularism in the west may be found in two circumstances—in early Christian teachings and, still more, experience, which created two institutions, Church and State; and in later Christian conflicts, which drove the two apart. Muslims, too, had their religious disagreements, but there was nothing remotely approaching the ferocity of the Christian struggles between Protestants and Catholics, which devastated Christian Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and finally drove Christians in desperation to evolve a doctrine of the separation of religion from the state. Only by depriving religious institutions of coercive power, it seemed, could Christendom restrain the murderous intolerance and persecution that Christians had visited on followers of other religions and, most of all, on those who professed other forms of their own.Muslims experienced no such need and evolved no such doctrine. There was no need for secularism in Islam, and even its pluralism was very different from that of the pagan Roman Empire, so vividly described by Edward Gibbon when he remarked that "the various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful." Islam was never prepared, either in theory or in practice, to accord full equality to those who held other beliefs and practiced other forms of worship. It did, however, accord to the holders of partial truth a degree of practical as well as theoretical tolerance rarely paralleled in the Christian world until the West adopted a measure of secularism in the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

People, Truth, World, Religion

“Of all animals man only is endowed with reason, properly so called, so he only hath a will, and is capable of virtue and vice, rewards and punishments. Yet something bearing a resemblance to each of these, may also be found in brutes, especially such as are more perfect, and more capable of discipline. For there is in them a certain faculty that answers to reason, called by some an inferior degree of reason, whereby they not only consider in a manner what is pleasant and profitable, and search for the means of attaining them; but they likewise acknowledge a certain manner of living suitable to their nature prescribed to them by God, which has some affinity to virtue.”

Johannes Crellius (1590–1633) German theologian

Ethicae Christianae, Book II, Ch. 1; as quoted in Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697), London, 1737, Vol. 4, Ch. Rorarius, p. 905 https://books.google.it/books?id=JmtXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA905.

God, Search, Nature, Animals

“The impressions received by the two observers A0 and A would be alike in all respects. It would be impossible to decide which of them moves or stands still with respect to the ether, and there would be no reason for preferring the times and lengths measured by the one to those determined by the other, nor for saying that either of them is in possession of the "true" times or the "true" lengths. This is a point which Einstein has laid particular stress on, in a theory in which he starts from what he calls the principle of relativity, i. e., the principle that the equations by means of which physical phenomena may be described are not altered in form when we change the axes of coordinates for others having a uniform motion of translation relatively to the original system.
I cannot speak here of the many highly interesting applications which Einstein has made of this principle. His results concerning electromagnetic and optical phenomena …agree in the main with those which we have obtained… the chief difference being that Einstein simply postulates what we have deduced, with some difficulty and not altogether satisfactorily, from the fundamental equations of the electromagnetic field. By doing so, he may certainly take credit for making us see in the negative result of experiments like those of Michelson, Rayleigh and Brace, not a fortuitous compensation of opposing effects, but the manifestation of a general and fundamental principle.
Yet, I think, something may also be claimed in favour of the form in which I have presented the theory. I cannot but regard the ether, which can be the seat of an electromagnetic field with its energy and vibrations, as endowed with a certain degree of substantiality, however different it may be from all ordinary matter. …it seems natural not to assume at starting that it can never make any difference whether a body moves through the ether or not, and to measure distances and lengths of time by means of rods and clocks having a fixed position relatively to the ether.
It would be unjust not to add that, besides the fascinating boldness of its starting point, Einstein's theory has another marked advantage over mine. Whereas I have not been able to obtain for the equations referred to moving axes exactly the same form as for those which apply to a stationary system, Einstein has accomplished this by means of a system of new variables slightly different from those which I have introduced.”

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist

Source: The Theory of Electrons and Its Applications to the Phenomena of Light and Radiant Heat (1916), Ch. V Optical Phenomena in Moving Bodies.

Nature, Thinking, Change, Time

“As Locke sees, equality in authority entails denying to the legal system's administrators—and thus to the legal system itself—any powers beyond those possessed by private citizens:The law of nature is in that state put into every man's hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation…. For in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do.Lockean equality involves not merely equality before legislators, judges, and police, but, far more crucially, equality with legislators, judges, and police.”

Roderick Long (1964) American philosopher

"Equality: the Unknown Ideal" (2001)

Law, Nature, Perfection

“We have been in a process of attaining a great degree of luxury, degrees of luxury which distract us… and we are consumed with such matters as wrap-around octophonic sound in our automobiles and so forth, we are becoming quite sophisticated with respect to non-necessities. This has happened to nations in the past, and it is my belief that man can cope with adversity, and that his most difficult problem, is coping with prosperity.”

Jeremiah Denton (1924–2014) American Vietnam War POW and politician

Jeremiah http://www.pbs.org/video/alabama-public-television-documentaries-jeremiah/ (2015) 44:22.

Problem, Past

“New business concepts are always, always the product of lucky foresight… The essential insight doesn't come out of any dirigiste planning process; it comes form some cocktail of happenstance, desire, curiosity, ambition and need. But at the end of the day, there has to be a degree of foresight -- a sense of where new riches lie. So radical innovation is always one part fortuity and one part clearheaded vision.”

Gary Hamel (1954) American management expert

Source: Leading the Revolution, 2002, p. 23

Lie, Business, Sense, Parting

“The optimal scale of the economy is smaller, the greater (a) the degree of complementarity between natural and man-made capital; (b) our desire for direct experience of nature; and (c) our estimate of both the intrinsic and instrumental value of other species. The smaller the optimal scale of the economy, the sooner its physical growth becomes uneconomic.”

Herman E. Daly (1938) American economist

Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics: Essays. 1999, p. 20.

Optimism, Nature

“Jesus himself could not perform miracles where the people had not faith beforehand, and when sensible men, the learned and rulers of those times, demanded of him a miracle which could be submitted to examination, he, instead of granting the request, began to upbraid them; so that no man of this stamp could believe in him. It was not until thirty to sixty years after the death of Jesus, that people began to write an account of the performance of these miracles, in a language which the Jews in Palestine did not understand. And this was at a time when the Jewish nation was in a state of the greatest disquietude and confusion, and when very few of those who had known Jesus were still alive. Nothing then was easier for them than to invent as many miracles as they pleased, without fear of their writings being readily understood or refuted. It had been impressed upon all converts from the beginning that it was both advantageous and soul-saving to believe, and to put the mind captive under the obedience of faith; and consequently there was as much credulity among them as there was "pia fraud" or "deception from good motives" among their teachers; and both of these, as is well known, prevailed in the highest degree in the early Christian church.”

Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) German philosopher

Source: Fragments from Reimarus: Consisting of Brief Critical Remarks on the Object of Jesus and His Disciples as Seen in the New Testament, pp. 73–74

Death, Men, People, Fear

“Much of the skill of the true mathematical physicist and of the mathematical astronomer consists in the power of adapting methods and results carried out on an exact mathematical basis to obtain approximations sufficient for the purposes of physical measurements. It might perhaps be thought that a scheme of Mathematics on a frankly approximative basis would be sufficient for all the practical purposes of application in Physics, Engineering Science, and Astronomy, and no doubt it would be possible to develop, to some extent at least, a species of Mathematics on these lines. Such a system would, however, involve an intolerable awkwardness and prolixity in the statements of results, especially in view of the fact that the degree of approximation necessary for various purposes is very different, and thus that unassigned grades of approximation would have to be provided for. Moreover, the mathematician working on these lines would be cut off from the chief sources of inspiration, the ideals of exactitude and logical rigour, as well as from one of his most indispensable guides to discovery, symmetry, and permanence of mathematical form. The history of the actual movements of mathematical thought through the centuries shows that these ideals are the very life-blood of the science, and warrants the conclusion that a constant striving toward their attainment is an absolutely essential condition of vigorous growth. These ideals have their roots in irresistible impulses and deep-seated needs of the human mind, manifested in its efforts to introduce intelligibility in certain great domains of the world of thought.”

E. W. Hobson (1856–1933) British mathematician

Source: Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Section A (1910), pp. 285-286; Cited in: Moritz (1914, 229): Mathematics and Science.

Life, World, History, Intelligence

“It was, however, from Spain, and not from Arabia, that a knowledge of eastern mathematics first came into western Europe. The Moors had established their rules in Spain in 747, and by the tenth or eleven century had attained a high degree of civilisation.”

W. W. Rouse Ball (1850–1925) English mathematician

W. W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics (1888), Courier Dover, 1960, p. 164

Mathematics, Knowledge

“[H]ow much of the fundamentals of Astronomy may be obtained with the coarsest observation with the unaided eye. …the science which is thus obtained by personal observations is vastly superior (as far as it goes) to that which is obtained by any other method. …The knowledge …inferred from actual personal observation carries with it a degree of reality and certainty, as the veritable science of external objects, which nothing else can give.”

George Biddell Airy (1801–1892) English mathematician and astronomer

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)

Knowledge, Reality, Science, Personality

“Most fortunate Prince, we have known and seen how in the third year of your reign in the year of Our Lord 1498, in which your Highness ordered us to discover the Western region, a very large landmass with many large islands adjacent, extending 700 North of the Equator, and located beyond the greatness of the Ocean, has been discovered and navigated; this distant land is densely populated and extends 28º degrees on the other side of the Equator towards the Antarctic Pole. Such is its greatness and length that on either side its end has not been seen or known, so that it is certain that it goes round the whole globe.”

Duarte Pacheco Pereira (1460–1533) Portuguese explorer

Bemauenturado Príncipe, temos sabido e visto como no terceiro anno de vosso Reinado do hanno de nosso senhor de 1498, donde nos vossa alteza mandou descobrir a parte oucidental, passando alem ha grandeza do mar oceano, onde he achada a navegada hûa tão grande terra firme, com muitas e grandes ilhas ajacentes a ella, que se estende a setente graaos de ladeza da linha equinoçial contra ho pollo artico e posto que seja asaz fora, he grandemente pouorada, e do mesmo circulo equinocial torna outra vez e vay alem em vinte e oito graaos e meo de ladeza contra ho pollo antartico, e tanto se dilata sua grandeza e corre com muita longura, que de hûa parte nem da outra foy visto nem sabido ho fim e cabo della; pello qual segundo ha hordem que leua, he certo que vay en cercoyto por toda a Redondeza.
Esmeraldo de situ orbis [published between 1506 and 1508], Part I, ch. I, translated and edited by George Herbert Tinley Kimble, London: 1937, p. 12; Duarte Pacheco Pereira was most likely referring to the coast of Brazil.
Variant translations:
Your Highness sent us to discover towards the west, across the broad expansion of the ocean sea where there is found and sailed a very large mainland with many and large adjacent islands, which extends to 70°N of the equator to … 28º 50S.
As quoted in Diffie, Davison, Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire (1977), p. 451
In the third year of your reign, in the year of grace of 1498, Your Highness ordered me that I went on a discovery expedition, in the areas of the west, crossing the entire extension of the ocean sea, where there was found and rounded a great firm land...
As quoted in Silva Pinto Sagres (2002), p. 313

Distant

“Moses wasn’t the only one who could mangle his language. Fortunately, Moses recognized the call to serve something greater than himself. He answered the call, led his people, and history was made. You, too, will be called at some point. The question, as Mark aptly and artfully laid out, is: Will you be optimistic and hopeful, or pessimistic and cynical? Here are three reasons why you should be optimistic and hopeful. One, you are graduating from a great university. Your SMU degree will open the door to a wide variety of career options. Millions will never have had this opportunity. SMU has laid a foundation so you can reason, and continue to learn throughout your life. It has given you the tools to be productive citizens.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

Life, People, Hope, History

“Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one Supreme Head and King having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial Crown of the same, unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of Spirituality and Temporalty, be bounden and owe to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience.”

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485–1540) English statesman and chief minister to King Henry VIII of England

Cromwell's preamble to the Act in Restraint of Appeals, March 1533.

God, People, World, History

“The interior of the earth is extremely hot - several million degrees.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

From interview he gave to Conan O'Brien in The Tonight Show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns_4pzfOSTc on 11th November 2009. The real temperature in the inner core is about 9032 - 10832 ºF (5000-6000 ºC). <br class="br">Quotes from Interviews

“The ordinary person senses the greatness of the odds against him even without thought or analysis, and he adapts his attitudes unconsciously. A huge passivity has settled on industrial society. For people carried about in mechanical vehicles, earning their living by waiting on machines, listening much of the waking day to canned music, watching packaged movie entertainment and capsulated news, for such people it would require an exceptional degree of awareness and an especial heroism of effort to be anything but supine consumers of processed goods.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1950s, The Mechanical Bride (1951), p. 21

People, Music, Sense, Effort

“The same feeling [when Hartley saw a work of the American painter w:Albert Pinkham Ryder for the very first time in his life] came over me in the given degree as came out of the Emerson’s Essays when they were first given to me I I felt as I have read a page of the Bible in both cases. All my essential Yankee qualities we re brought forth out of this picture and if I needed to be stamped an American this was the first picture that had done this – for it had in it everything that I knew and had experienced about my own New England – even though I had never lived by the sea – it had in it the stupendous solemnity of a Blake, [English religious painter] picture and it had a sense of realism besides that bore such a force of nature itself as to leave me breathless.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

Quote in Somehow a Past, 1933-c, 1939, unpublished manuscript, Hartley Archive, Yale University; as cited in Marsden Hartley, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press, 1988, New York p. 26
1931 - 1943

Life, Feeling, Nature, Sense

“Making this crowd happy is the second easiest job you could ever have. First easiest… whoever gets to put Michael Jackson in a witness chair and create "reasonable doubt." How hard can that be? I don't even have a law degree and I think I could get Michael Jackson, y'know? I would just go, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury… there he is! That's all I have. Y'all get a good look at my boy? See if you think he's capable of anything out of the ordinary. There he is." But it's a tough thing to prosecute Michael Jackson, y'know? Because everyone's entitled to a jury of their peers! You could run the vacuum up and down the gene pool 24/7 without suckin' up this much of whatever that has become. He has no peers. He's peerless. So why am I pickin' on poor little mutated Michael Jackson? Because Michael Jackson is a cautionary tale for the rest of us, folks. Michael Jackson is what happens when you keep fixin' it until it's broke!”

Richard Jeni (1957–2007) American comedian

A Big, Steaming Pile Of Me

Law, Boy, Thinking, Happiness

“Were you born inhuman, or did you grow so by degrees — M. S., M. D., Ph. D…”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Falling Free (1988)

“It should be never absent from our recollection that there are now two distinct nations in China--the Chinese and the Tartars--whose characters essentially differ, notwithstanding their external appearance be nearly the same. They are both subject to the most absolute authority that can be vested in a Prince(Qianlong), but with this distinction--that to the Chinese it is a foreign tyranny, to the Tartar a domestic despotism. The latter consider themselves as in some degree partakers of their Sovereign's dominions over the former, and that imagination may, perhaps, somewhat console them under the pressure of his power upon themselves--like the house servants and house negroes belonging to a great landlord in Livonia or planter in Jamaica, who, though serfs themselves, look down upon the peasantry and field negroes as much their inferiors.”

George Macartney (1737–1806) British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat

Our First Ambassador to China (Biography, 1908)

Imagination, Appearance, Housing

“[American] conformism might approximate collectivism, not so much in economic respects, and not too much in political respects, but very much in the pattern of daily life and thought. Whether this will happen or not, and if it does to what degree, is partly dependent on the power of resistance in those who represent the opposite pole of the courage to be, the courage to be as oneself.”

Paul Tillich book The Courage to Be

Source: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 112

Life, Courage, Dependency

“The anxiety about death is met in two ways. The reality of death is excluded from daily life to the highest possible degree. The dead are not allowed to show that they are dead; they are transformed into a mask of the living. The other and more important way of dealing with death is the belief in a continuation of life after death, called the immortality of the soul. This is not a Christian and hardly a Platonic doctrine. Christianity speaks of resurrection and eternal life, Platonism of a participation of the soul in the transtemporal sphere of essences. But the modern idea of immortality means a continuous participation in the productive process.”

Paul Tillich book The Courage to Be

Source: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 110

Life, Death, Way, Soul

“I would by no means attempt to infer from hence, that the longitude found by observations of this sort may in all cases be depended upon within one degree; but I beg leave to observe, that whatever extraordinary circumstances may have concurred to produce so near an agreement in this particular case, the event is such as may give reason to hope, however great the difficulties of finding the longitude by this method seem to be, that they are not insuperable, or such as ought to deter those whom it most nearly concerns from attempting to remove them.”

James Bradley (1693–1762) English astronomer; Astronomer Royal

Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence (1832), To Mr. Cleveland Secretary of the Admiralty (April 14, 1760)

Hope, Dependency

“The Hellenistic world was international to a degree, polyglot and inspired by many religious faiths. …the Greek ideals were pagan and the Hellenistic age witnessed their death struggle against Asiatic and Egyptian mysteries, on the one side, and against Judaism, on the other.”

George Sarton (1884–1956) American historian of science

Preface.
A History of Science Vol.2 Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B.C. (1959)

Death, Age, World, Faith

“In the mean time I paid the strictest attention to my profession, and was so completely successful, that there was no patient of any consequence in Gottingen that I was not called in to; but as I was not allowed to make up prescriptions, not having taken my degree, and in order to avoid a heavy penalty, I was accompanied in my professional visits by Doctor Tolle, a man who knew the lectures of Schroder by heart, but did not understand them. I dictated to him what to prescribe, he took the fee, and was content. I had nothing but the honour, and plenty of good dinners. At last I took my degree as Doctor of Medicine, and resigned my patients to the care of Dr. Strohmeyer, which was the means of introducing him into practice. I left Gottingen full of honour, with tears in my eyes, at leaving behind me so many dear friends. Puffed up with pride, I arrived in Celle, but was received with coldness and pity. This was too much for mc; I could not brook the insult; but said to myself, "How can I expect to be otherwise received, when I consider my former conduct, and look back on the heedless manner in which I passed my boyish years?"”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My consolation was, that "I should be soon as happy here as I was in Gottingen" in the choice of my friends.
My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Penalty, Understanding, Tear, Time

“If we read History with any degree of thoughtfulness, we shall find that checks and balances of Profit and Loss have never been the grand agents with men, that they have never been roused into deep, thorough, all-pervading efforts by any computable prospect of Profit and Loss, for any visible, finite object; but always for some invisible and infinite one.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)

Men, History, Effort, Loss

“The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble. Let us keep our end in view, let us press forward to our goal. Let us not indulge in pride, nor give in to our sinful passions. Let us steadily exert ourselves to reach a higher degree of holiness till we shall finally arrive at a perfection of goodness which we seek and pursue as long as we live, but which we shall attain then only, when, freed from all earthly infirmity, we shall be admitted by God into his full communion.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 23.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God, Passion, Perfection, Sincerity

“Everyone who makes films has to be an athlete to a certain degree because cinema does not come from abstract academic thinking; it comes from your knees and thighs.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Herzog on Herzog (2002)

Thinking

“Since therefore, as well those degrees of heat that are not painful, as those that are, can exist in a thinking substance; may we not conclude that external bodies are absolutely incapable of any degree of heat whatsoever?”

George Berkeley book Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

Philonous to Hylas. Hylas replies with, "So it seems".
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)

Pain, Thinking

“We all have tremendous potential, and we all are blessed with gifts. Yet, the one thing that holds all of us back is some degree of self-doubt. It is not so much the lack of technical information that holds us back, but more the lack of self-confidence. Some are more affected than others.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Confidence, Self-confidence

“There is not a man or woman, who violates the covenants made with their God, that will not be required to pay the debt. The blood of Christ will never wipe that out, your own blood must atone for it; and the judgments of the Almighty will come, sooner or later, and every man and woman will have to atone for breaking their covenants. To what degree? Will they have to go to hell? They are in hell enough now. I do not wish them in a greater hell, when their consciences condemn them all the time. Let compassion reign in our bosoms. Try to comprehend how weak we are, how we are organized, how the spirit and the flesh are continually at war.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 3:247 (March 16, 1856)
1850s

God, War, Hell, Time

“The least that government can do for our athletes in general is to show that they have our support. We ask them to carry our flag and compete with the highest possible degree of sportsmanship and excellence while representing our country. Government should be able to ensure their safety.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Rappler http://www.rappler.com/nation/1550-outrage-over-attack-on-filipino-boxer <br class="br">2012

Support, Country

“It is universally agreed, that custom, in time, becomes a second nature, forcing men to use that, whether good or bad, to which they have been habituated; in fact, we see habit, in many instances, gain the ascendency over reason. This is so undeniably true, that, virtuous men, by keeping company with wicked, often fall into the same vicious course of life. Seeing and considering all this, I have decided to write on the vice of intemperance, in eating and drinking. Now, though all are agreed, that intemperance is the parent of gluttony, and sober living the offspring of abstemiousness, yet, owing to the power of custom, the former is considered a virtue, and the latter as mean and avaricious, and so many men are blinded and besotted to such a degree, that they come to the age of forty or fifty, burdened with strange and painful infirmities, which render them decrepit and useless, whereas, had they lived temperately and soberly, they would in all probability, have been sound and hearty, to the age of eighty and upwards.”

Luigi Cornaro (1484–1566) Italian philosopher

Discourses on the Sober Life

Life, Men, Pain, Age

“My own notion is that it is very unsportsmanlike ever to mention fraud. Accept anything. Then explain it your way. Anything that assimilates with one explanation, must have assimilable relations, to some degree, with all other explanations, if all explanations are somewhere continuous.”

Charles Fort (1874–1932) American writer

Source: The Book of The Damned (1919), Ch. 11 at resologist.net Ch. 11 at sacred-texts.com http://www.sacred-texts.com/fort/damn/damn11.htm

Way, Fraud

“The domination of becoming produces another sort of fragmentation, which may be called “presentism.” Allen Tate has made the point that many modern people to whom the word “provincial” is anathema are themselves provincials in the to an extreme degree. Indeed, modernism is in essence a provincialism, since it declines to look beyond the horizon of the moment, just as a countryman may view with suspicion whatever lies beyond his country.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 67.

People, Country

“A thousand trills and quivering sounds
In airy circles o'er us fly,
Till, wafted by a gentle breeze,
They faint and languish by degrees,
And at a distance die.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Ode on St. Cecilia's Day (1699), st. 6.

Flying

“Dear reader dearest inscrutable listener inscrutably harking or regrettably more likely not harking except in that chamber in me that posits you with me every moment I’m speaking or trying to speak
Dear reader who may or may not be with me I still remember how once you weren’t here at all so I’d make up a mythical listener and there were good sides to that because I myself could choose
the degree of your presence the level of your attention from zero to fifty but then before I knew it you were somehow actually with me though it’s still a mystery as to why you decided to join me.”

C.K. Williams (1936–2015) American poet and critic

"Dear Reader," New York Review of Books, May 21, 2015 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/05/21/dear-reader

“It is said that when the host is worthy, the guests become innumerable. Yu-tsun must consider you a worthy host. You ought to feel flattered."
"Enough," Pao-yu said impatiently. "I do not pretend to be worthy and I don't care to associate with such worthy people as he."
"Still the same Pao-yu," River Mist commented. "I should think you would be interested in the Examinations now that you are older and are ambitious to get a degree. Failing that, you ought to associate with officials, so as to learn something of the official world and acquire some friends to help you in the future. You will get nowhere if you spend your life among us.”

Wang Chi-chen (1899–2001)

Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), p. 158

Life, People, World, Feeling

“This program is not a place where personal opinion should be mixed up with ascertainable facts…It is not, I think, humanly possible for any reporter to be completely objective, for we are all to some degree prisoners of our education, travel, reading—the sum total of our experience.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

Introducing the first broadcast of "This is the News" (September 1947)

Education, Travel, Thinking, Reading

“Ill habits gather by unseen degrees —
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XV, The Worship of Aesculapius (1700), lines 155–156.

Sea

“And wonderful it is to see how the Ideal or Soul, place it in what ugliest Body you may, will irradiate said Body with its own nobleness; will gradually, incessantly, mould, modify, new-form or reform said ugliest Body, and make it at last beautiful, and to a certain degree divine!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Beauty, Soul

“When we attempt to understand the inmost nature of the outer world, we stand before it as before absolute darkness. There probably exists in nature, outside of ourselves, neither colour, odour, force, resistance, space, nor anything that we know as sensation. Light is produced by the excitement of the optic nerve, and it shines only in our brain; as to the excitement itself, there is nothing to prove that it is luminous; outside of us is profound darkness, or even worse, since darkness is the correlation of light. In the same way, all the sonorous excitements which assail us, the creakings of machines, the sounds of nature, the words and cries of our fellows are produced by excitements of our acoustic nerve; it is in our brain that noise is produced, outside there reigns a dead silence. The same may be said of all our other senses.

...In short, our nervous system, which enables us to communicate with objects, prevents us, on the other hand, from knowing their nature. It is an organ of relation with the outer world; it is also, for us, a cause of isolation. We never go outside ourselves. We are walled in. And all we can say of matter and of the outer world is, that it is revealed to us solely by the sensations it affords us, that it is the unknown cause of our sensations, the inaccessible excitant of our organs of the senses, and that the ideas we are able to form as to the nature and the properties of that excitant, are necessarily derived from our sensations, and are subjective to the same degree as those sensations themselves.”

Alfred Binet (1857–1911) French psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test

Source: The Mind and the Brain, 1907, p. 25

World, Way, Communication, Idea

“The true believer is in a high degree protected against the danger of certain neurotic afflictions, by accepting the universal neurosis he is spared the task of forming a personal neurosis.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Source: 1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927), Ch. 8

Affliction, Universe, Personality

“There are many degrees of Probable, some nearer Truth than others, in the determining of which lies the chief exercise of our Judgment.”

Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) Dutch mathematician and natural philosopher

Book 1, p. 10
Cosmotheoros (1695; publ. 1698)

Truth, Exercises

“My own position is somewhere in between. I am not sure that the economic arguments for an early step toward real union are very compelling. I have deep feelings, however, about the political necessity of creating in Western Europe an international framework which would bridge national sovereignties to such a degree as to give a different aspect to the German question by providing a home for the German people other than the national home and thus lifting German horizons beyond those national limits with which the Germans have shown themselves so incapable of coping.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

October 17-21, 1949
The Kennan Diaries

People, Feeling, Home, Question

“For instance, the blood of hibernating arctic squirrels may supercool to minus 3 degrees, when it would normally congeal. The supercooled blood still flows, since it remains a liquid, but the slightest disturbance will cause it to freeze, killing the squirrel; therefore, you should not disturb hibernating arctic squirrels.”

João Magueijo (1967) Portuguese scientist

pg. 113
Faster than the Speed of Light

“Ludwig's book is outstanding. It pulls together a mound of pertinent data, much of it new, into coherent patterns…Throughout the book the reader is offered a wealth of insights and serious questions…Ludwig's development of a Creative Achievement Scale [is] a valued contribution in its own right, allowing researchers a comprehensive objective tool for scoring subjects' degree of achievement… Ludwig has cleared up much of the confusion and opinionated muddleheadedness… that has been attached to the topic and the thinking regarding a relationship between psychopathology and creativity.”

Arnold M. Ludwig

Imagination, Cognition and Personality, review of The Price of Greatness.

Books, Question, Thinking, Wealth

“The Austrian a priori dogmatism (von Mises, especially; Hayek, to a lesser degree).”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

on question "In your mind, what has been the most misleading theoretical approach in economics?", in Karen Ilse Horn (ed.) Roads to Wisdom, Conversations With Ten Nobel Laureates in Economics (2009)
New millennium

“In the passage quoted here from Monteverdi's madrigal [Cruda amarilli, mm.9-19 and 24-30], one sees a tonality determined by the characteristic of the accord parfait on the tonic, by the sixth chord assigned to the third and seventh degrees, by the optional choice of the accord parfait or the sixth chord on the sixth degree, and finally, by the accord parfait, and above all, by the unprepared seventh chord (with major third) on the dominant.”

François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1871) Belgian composer

Joseph Fétis, (1844). Traité complet de la théorie et de la pratique de l'harmonie contenant la doctrine de la science et de l'art, 2d ed., p. 166. Brussels and Paris.

Quotes

“The world is rejuvenated, but as Heine so wittily remarked, it was rejuvenated by romanticism to such a degree that it became a baby again.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (1841), p. 304

World, Baby

“But Watson had one towering advantage over all of them: in addition to being extremely clever he had something important to be clever about. This is an advantage which scientists enjoy over most other people engaged in intellectual pursuits, and they enjoy it at all levels of capability. To be a first-rate scientist it is not necessary (and certainly not sufficient) to be extremely clever, anyhow in a pyrotechnic sense. One of the great social revolutions brought about by scientific research has been the democratization of learning. Anyone who combines strong common sense with an ordinary degree of imaginativeness can become a creative scientist, and a happy one besides, in so far as happiness depends upon being able to develop to the limit of one's abilities.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

1960s, Lucky Jim, 1968

People, Imagination, Sense, Strong

“A finished or even a competent reasoner is not the work of nature alone… education develops faculties which would otherwise never have manifested their existence. It is, therefore, as necessary to learn to reason before we can expect to be able to reason, as it is to learn to swim or fence, in order to attain either of those arts. Now, something must be reasoned upon, it matters not much what it is, provided that it can be reasoned upon with certainty. The properties of mind or matter, or the study of languages, mathematics, or natural history may be chosen for this purpose. Now, of all these, it is desirable to choose the one… in which we can find out by other means, such as measurement and ocular demonstration of all sorts, whether the results are true or not.
.. Now the mathematics are peculiarly well adapted for this purpose, on the following grounds:—
1. Every term is distinctly explained, and has but one meaning, and it is rarely that two words are employed to mean the same thing.
2. The first principles are self-evident, and, though derived from observation, do not require more of it than has been made by children in general.
3. The demonstration is strictly logical, taking nothing for granted except the self-evident first principles, resting nothing upon probability, and entirely independent of authority and opinion.
4. When the conclusion is attained by reasoning, its truth or falsehood can be ascertained, in geometry by actual measurement, in algebra by common arithmetical calculation. This gives confidence, and is absolutely necessary, if… reason is not to be the instructor, but the pupil.
5. There are no words whose meanings are so much alike that the ideas which they stand for may be confounded.
…These are the principal grounds on which… the utility of mathematical studies may be shewn to rest, as a discipline for the reasoning powers. But the habits of mind which these studies have a tendency to form are valuable in the highest degree. The most important of all is the power of concentrating the ideas which a successful study of them increases where it did exist, and creates where it did not. A difficult position or a new method of passing from one proposition to another, arrests all the attention, and forces the united faculties to use their utmost exertions. The habit of mind thus formed soon extends itself to other pursuits, and is beneficially felt in all the business of life.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

Source: On the Study and Difficulties of Mathematics (1831), Ch. I.

Life, Children, Truth, Education

“To apply the category of cause and effect means to find out which parts of nature stand in this relation. Similarly, to apply the gestalt category means to find out which parts of nature belong as parts to functional wholes, to discover their position in these wholes, their degree of relative independence, and the articulation of larger wholes into sub-wholes.”

Kurt Koffka (1886–1941) German psychologist

Kurt Koffka (1931), self-cited in: Kurt Koffka. Principles of Gestalt Psychology, 1935, p. 22

Nature, Parting

“Arabs rule but they do not administer. Their government is intensely individualistic, and is successful or unsuccessful according to the degree of fear and respect which the ruler commands, and his skill in dealing with individual men. Founded on an individual life, their government is impermanent and liable to end in chaos at any moment. To Arab tribesmen this system is comprehensible and acceptable, and its success of failure should not be measured in terms of efficiency and justice as judged by Western standards. To these tribesmen security can be bought too dearly by the loss of individual freedom.”

Wilfred Thesiger book Arabian Sands

Source: Arabian Sands (1959), p. 32.

Life, Men, Fear, Justice

“It is important to remember in this context that statism exists whenever there is a government which initiates force. The degree of statism, once the government has done so, is all that is in question. Once the principle of the initiation of force has been accepted, we have granted the premise of statists of all breeds, and the rest, as you have said so eloquently, is just a matter of time.”

Roy A. Childs, Jr. (1949–1992) American libertarian essayist and critic

“Objectivism and the State: An Open Letter to Ayn Rand,” 1969

Question, Time

“It might seem daunting to think that effort and chance, as much as innate talent, are what counts. But I find it encouraging because, while our genetic makeup is out of our control, our degree of effort is up to us. And the effects of chance, too, can be controlled to the extent that by committing ourselves to repeated attempts, we can increase our odds of success.”

Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk

Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 8, The Order In Chaos, p. 162

Thinking, Effort, Chance, Success

“He is firm in constitution, as in resolution; industrious, indefatigable, determined and persevering; fixed in opinion, and unbiased in judgment; not over accessible, but studious to reward merit. He is a rock against which the waves of calumny and malice, moved by the gusts of passion natural to envy, have dashed; have washed its sides: he is still immovable on his base. He is in some degree susceptible of adulation, as is every man who has an honest thirst for military fame. He endures fatigue and hardship with fortitude uncommon for a man of his years. I have seen him, in the most severe night of the winter of 1794, sleep on the ground, like his fellow-soldiers, and walk around the camp at four in the morning, with the vigilance of a sentinel.”

Anthony Wayne (1745–1796) Continental Army general

Major William Eaton, commander of the US Marines at Derna, 1806 ("...the Shores of Tripoli..."), of Wayne

Nature, Sleep, Passion, Winter

“If we pose the question in a soviet, communist fashion, then no republic will be offended. If we pose the question egotistically, it is necessary to answer directly- Azerbaijan will be hurt, Georgia to a lesser degree, and Armenia not at all… Who among you would get up and say that anything we get from the exchange of Baku oil should be refused to our Armenian comrades?”

Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze (1886–1937) Soviet politician

Quoted in "The Azerbaijani Turks: power and identity under Russian rule" - Page 115 - by Audrey L. Altstadt - History – 1992

Fashion, Question, Hurt

“When I compare myself, my being-myself, with anything else whatever, all things alike, all in the same degree, rebuff me with blank unlikeness.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) English poet

Comments on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola

“Language is an abominable misunderstanding which makes up a part of matter. The painters and the physicists have treated matter pretty well. The poets have hardly touched it. In March 1958, when I was living at the Beat Hotel, I proposed to Burroughs to at least make available to literature the means that painters have been using for fifty years. Cut words into pieces and scramble them. You'll hear someone draw a bow-string. Who runs may read, To read better, practice your running. Speed is entirely up to us, since machines have delivered us from the horse. Henceforth the question is to deliver us from that other so-called superior animal, man. It's not worth it to chase out the merchants: their temple is dedicated to the unsuitable lie of the value of the Unique. The crime of separation gave birth to the idea of the Unique which would not be separate. In painting, matter has seen everything: from sand to stuffed goats. Disfigured more and more, the image has been geometrically multiplied to a dizzying degree. A snow of advertising could fall from the sky, and only collector babies and the chimpanzees who make abstract paintings would bother to pick one up.”

Brion Gysin (1916–1986) Canadian artist

Cut-Ups: A Project for Disastrous Success.

Lie, Literature, Idea, Birth

“[P]robability as a measurable degree of certainty; necessity and chance; moral versus mathematical expectation; a priori an a posteriori probability; expectation of winning when players are divided according to dexterity; regard of all available arguments, their valuation, and their calculable evaluation; law of large numbers…”

Jacob Bernoulli book Ars Conjectandi

Ars Conjectandi (1713)

Law, Mathematics, Chance

“In other words, there are in administration things analogous to, if not identical with, the mechanical tracts or deterministic sequence, of physics. If, for example, it is decided by government to accomplish the purpose of providing compensation at given rates for men and women employed in industry who sustain injuries in connection with their occupations, the administrator can, like the engineer, estimate in advance the probable cost of such a design, indicate the types of officers and employees necessary to administer the design, and the administrative procedures appropriate to the whole process from beginning to end. And, as in the case of the hydro-electric engineer, the administrator, later sees the results of his operations and can compare them with his advance estimates. There are more variables and incalculables in human affairs than in hydroelectric affairs, but even so administration achieves pre-determined results with an approximation which is often amazing for its exactness. If administrative designs and estimates were not realized in practice with a high degree of exactness, both industry and government would collapse.”

Charles A. Beard (1874–1948) American historian

Source: Philosophy, Science and Art of Public Administration (1939), p. 661

Women, Men

“The field equations, in their most general form, contain a term multiplied by a constant, which is denoted by the Greek letter λ… sometimes called the "cosmical constant." This is a name without any meaning… We have, in fact, not the slightest inkling of what its real significance is. It is put in the equations in order to give them the greatest possible degree of mathematical generality, but, so far as its mathematical function is concerned, it is entirely undetermined: it may be positive or negative, it might also be zero.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932), Above is Beginning Quote of the Last Chapter: Relativity and Modern Theories of the Universe -->

Mathematics

“As Oliver Cromwell said to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you might be mistaken." Life and the affairs of the living are so tangled, the world not only stranger than we imagine but stranger than we can imagine, that all questions are conundrums, no answers "correct." Is it certain that parallel lines never meet? No. Does water freeze at 32 degrees Fahrenheit? Only probably. Shall I marry? Who can say? And yet the world's work must be done. One Oblomov is enough. Thus we learn a conventional certitude, acting as though all were light by blinking the shadow. A simple proof demonstrates that parallel lines do meet, but, on the assumption that they do not, the architect builds the skyscraper. Despite his knowledge of statistical mechanics, the engineer designs the refrigerator to maintain a constant temperature of 31 degrees. Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas [the heart has its reasons that reason does not know], and families are raised.”

Irving Younger (1932–1988) American lawyer

Some of My Life

Life, World, Family, Imagination

“I was… told by a person who had known him [future Emperor Nicholas II] intimately from his childhood, that, though courteous, his main characteristic was an absolute indifference to most persons and things about him, and that he never showed a spark of ambition of any sort. This was confirmed by what I afterward saw of him at court. He seemed to stand about listlessly, speaking in a good-natured way to this or that person when it was easier than not to do so; but on the whole, indifferent to all which went on about him. After his accession to the throne, one of the best judges in Europe, who had many opportunities to observe him closely, said to me, "He knows nothing of his empire or of his people; he never goes out of his house, if he can help it." This explains in some degree the insufficiency of his program for the Peace Conference at The Hague and for the Japanese War, which, as I revise these lines, is bringing fearful disaster and disgrace upon Russia.”

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) American politician

Source: Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White, Vol. 2 (1922), p. 10

War, People, Fear, Peace

“… it's time for the opening lecture in Test Design 101: Consider: a woman claims to be a musician. You seat her at a piano and demand that she prove her claim. She cannot play the piano, and you conclude that her claim has been invalidated. Hardly. You see, the lady is a cellist….
You cannot challenge a claimant to do something they've never claimed they can do. That's why, at the JREF, we design a protocol only after the applicant has clearly stated (a) what they can do, (b) under what conditions, and (c) with what expected degree of success. And, the applicant must find the protocol appropriate, fair, agreeable, and adequate to prove their claim.”

James Randi (1928) Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic

Swift, 21 October 2005, "Good Intentions" http://www.randi.org/jr/200510/102105herbs.html#11; about testing paranormal claims.

Time, Success

“Having now retrieved a little more of leasure, both for Delineation and Description, for a further elucidation of what I have said, I shall make it my third Attempt, to explain;
First, A Helioscope to look upon the body of the Sun, without any offence to the Observers eye.
Secondly, A way of shortening reflective and refractive Telescopes.
Thirdly, A way of using a Glass of any length, without moving the Tube.
Fourthly, An Instrument for taking the Diameters of the Sun, Moon and Planets, or for taking any other Distances, to five or ten Degrees, to the certainty of a Second. …
Fifthly, An Instrument for describing all manner of Dials, by the tangent projection.
Sixthly, The uses thereof;
1. For adjusting the Hand of a Clock, so as to make it move in the shadow of a Dial, whose style is parallel to the Axis: Or,
2. In the Azimuth of any Celestial Body, that is, in the shadow of the upright, or any other way inclining Style, upon any plain.
3. For making a Hand move according to the true æquation of Time.
4. For making all manner of Elliptical Dials, in Mr. Foster's way, &c.
5. For communicating a circular motion in a Curve Line, without any shaking: And for divers other excellent purposes.”

Robert Hooke (1635–1703) English natural philosopher, architect and polymath

A Description of Helioscopes, and Some Other Instruments https://books.google.com/books?id=KQtPAAAAcAAJ (1676)

Way, Communication, Time, Sun

“It is sufficiently evident from many circumstances, that the doctrine of the divinity of Christ did not establish itself without much opposition, especially from the unlearned among the Christians, who thought that it savoured of Polytheism, that it was introduced by those who had had a philosophical education, and was by degrees adopted by others, on account of its covering the great offence of the cross, by exalting the personal dignity of our Saviour.”

Joseph Priestley book An History of the Corruptions of Christianity

Part I : The History of Opinions Relating to Jesus Christ, § IV : Of the Difficulty with which the Doctrine of the Divinity of Christ was Established.
An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782)

Education, Christ, Personality

“By ‘successful socialization’ we mean the establishment of a high degree of symmetry between objective and subjective reality.”

Peter L. Berger book The Social Construction of Reality

Source: The Social Construction of Reality, 1966, p. 163

Reality, Success

“A people whom Providence hath cast together into one island or country are in effect one great body politic, consisting of head and members, in imitation of the body natural, as is excellently set forth in the statute of appeals, made 24 H. 8, c. 12, which stiles the King the supreme head, and the people a body politic (these are the very words), compact of all sorts and degrees of men, divided into spirituality and temporality. And this body never dies.”

Robert Atkyns (judge) (1621–1710) Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Speaker of the House of Lords

11 How. St. Tr. 1204.
Trial of Sir Edward Hales (1686)

Men, People, Nature, Country

“This (The launching of an invasion into Armenia) was itself hazardous; but the smallness of the number (of the army, not more than 15,000 men) might be in some degree compensated by the tried valour of the army consisting throughout of veterans. A much worse circumstance was the temper of the soldiers, to which Lucullus, in his high aristocratic fashion, had given far too little heed. Lucullus was an able general, and - according to the aristocratic standard - an upright and benevolent man, but very far from being a favorite with his soldiers. He was unpopular, as a decided adherent of the oligarghy; unpopular, because he had vigorously checked the monstrous usury of the Roman capitalists in Asia Minor; unpopular, on account of the toils and fatigues which he inflicted on his troops; unpopular, because he demanded strict discipline in his soldiers and prevented as far as possible the pillage of the Greek towns by his men, but withal caused many a waggon and many a camel to be alden with the treasures of the East for himself; unpopular too on account of his manner, which was polished, stately, Hellenising, not at all familiar, and inclining, wherever it was possible, to ease and pleasure. There was no trace in him of the charm which creates a personal bond between the general and the soldier.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, Pt. 1, Chpt 2. "Rule of the Sullan Restoration" Translated by W.P. Dickson
Beginning of the Armenian War
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 1

Men, Pleasure, Fashion, Personality

“On the justification for the war, it wasn't related to finding any particular weapon of mass destruction. In our judgment, it was much more fundamental. It was the removing of a regime that was hostile, that clearly had the intention of constructing weapons systems. … I think, frankly, that everybody knew the post-war situation was probably going to be more difficult than the war itself. Canada remains alienated from its allies, shut out of the reconstruction process to some degree, unable to influence events. There is no upside to the position Canada took.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

Maclean’s, August, 25, 2003: On the Iraq war.
2003

Hostility, War, Thinking

“Colonial possessions added to the prestige, and to a much lesser degree to the wealth, of Europe. But the primary cause of Western affluence and power is internal – the institutions of science, democracy, and capitalism acting in concert.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Two cheers for colonialism http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Two-cheers-for-colonialism-2799327.php (7 July 2002).

Democracy, Science, Wealth

“In that kitty of mine where people call me anpadh (illiterate), I do have a degree from Yale University as well, which I can bring out and show how Yale celebrated my leadership capacities.”

Smriti Irani (1972) Indian politician

Responding to critics saying that she is not qualified to be the Human Resource Minister, as quoted in " Smriti Irani claims she has degree from Yale University http://www.livemint.com/Politics/nOmCKp0bDGBTgrsytAy1NP/Smriti-Irani-claims-she-has-degree-from-Yale-University.html" Live Mint (10 August 2014)

People, Universe

“A true prophecy creates and systematically orients conduct toward one internal measure of value. In the face of this the "world" is viewed as material to be fashioned ethically according to the norm. Confucianism in contrast meant adjustment to the outside, to the conditions of the "world." A well-adjusted man, rationalizing his conduct only to the degree requisite for adjustment, does not constitute a systematic unity but rather a complex of useful and particular traits.”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Source: Religion of China (1915), p. 235

World, Fashion

“People are apt to forget that the coming of the Christ necessitates a period of intensive preparation by Him; He, too, works under law and is subject to control from various sources—just as are all human beings, but in a much lesser degree. His reappearance is conditioned and determined by the reaction of humanity itself; by that reaction He must abide. His work is subject also to certain phases of spiritual and cyclic timing and to impressions from sources to be found on higher levels than those upon which He normally works.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: The Reappearance of the Christ (1948), Chapter IV: The Work of the Christ Today and in the Future

People, Law, Time, Christ

“Paul Laurence Dunbar High School was established in 1870 in Washington, D. C., as the nation's first black public high school. From 1870 to 1955, most of its graduates went off to college, earning degrees from Harvard, Princeton, Williams, Wesleyan and others. As early as 1899, Dunbar students scored higher on citywide tests than students at any of the district's [three] white [high] schools. Its attendance and tardiness records were generally better than those of white schools. During this era of high achievement, there was no school violence. It wasn't racially integrated. It didn't have a big budget. It didn't even have a lunchroom or all those other things that today's education establishment says are necessary for black academic excellence.”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

"Educational excellence initiative" (15 August 2012)
2010s

Education, School

“Thank you for your kind invitation. As someone who has enjoyed visiting Russia in the past and can also claim a degree of Russian ancestry, it would make me happy to say yes. However, as a gay man, I must decline. I am deeply troubled by the current attitude toward and treatment of gay men and women by the Russian government. The situation is in no way acceptable, and I cannot in good conscience participate in a celebratory occasion hosted by a country where people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly. Perhaps, when and if circumstances improve, I'll be free to make a different choice.”

Wentworth Miller (1972) British-born American actor

Seth Adam (GLAAD's Senior Manager of Communications), Miller rejects Russian film festival invitation; 'As a gay man, I must decline' http://www.glaad.org/blog/wentworth-miller-rejects-russian-film-festival-invitation-gay-man-i-must-decline, Glaad.org, 21 Aug 2013.

Love, Women, Men, People

“When I was younger I think I showed off and I fed off the attention. And to a certain degree that has been satiated in this job, just in doing what I do. I think it's enough that I don't need to then push it.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

Grace Bradberry (October 21, 2000) "Playing with fire - Interview", The Times, p. Times Magazine 32.
2000s

Thinking

“It is because these characters depend to such a high degree on their own sense of integrity that for them, victory has nothing to do with happiness. It has more to do with a settling within oneself, a movement inward that makes them whole. Their reward is not happiness — a word that is central in Austen's novels but is seldom used in James's universe. What James's characters gain is self-respect.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

On Henry James and his novels
Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)

Sense, Universe, Victory, Dependency

“If there is to be peace in our industrial life, let the employer recognize his obligation to his employees - at least to the degree set forth in existing statutes.”

John L. Lewis (1880–1969) American labor leader

Labor and the Nation speech (September 3, 1937)

Life, Peace

“You do not reach the sublime by degrees; the distance between it and the merely beautiful is infinite.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël book Corinne

Bk. 4, ch. 3
Corinne (1807)

Beauty

“Self-satisfaction is scarcely unfamiliar in Europe. But the contemporary mood is something different: an apparently illimitable narcissism, in which the reflection in the water transfigures the future of the planet into the image of the beholder. What explains this degree of political vanity? Obviously, the landscape of the continent has altered in recent years, and its role in the world has grown. Real changes can give rise to surreal dreams, but they need to be calibrated properly, to see what the connections or lack of them might be.”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

"Depicting Europe", London Review of Books (20 September 2007)

World, Dreams, Mood, Water

“The current emphasis on price policy, as against price, as a proper object of study represents recent economic reflection on the significance of expectations, uncertainties, market control, and the position of price as one among many selling terms. Policy implies some degree of control over the course of events and, at the same time, the use of judgment as to the probable consequences of alternative lines of action. In perfect markets, whether monopolistic or competitive, price is hardly a matter of judgment and where there is no judgment there is no policy. The area of price policy, then, embraces the deliberative action of buyers and sellers able to influence price; that is to say, it covers practically the whole field of industrial prices.”

Edward S. Mason (1899–1992) American economist

Source: "Price and production policies of large-scale enterprise," 1939, p. 61

Study, Time, Perfection

“Ignorance is the mother of Devotion: A maxim that is proverbial, and confirmed by general experience. Look out for a people, entirely destitute of religion: If you find them at all, be assured, that they are but few degrees removed from brutes. What so pure as some of the morals, included in some theological system? What so corrupt as some of the practices, to which these systems give rise?”

David Hume The Natural History of Religion

Part XV - General corollary
The Natural History of Religion (1757)

People, Religion

“To the degree it is efficient, a spaceship is elegant and beautiful.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

The Cosmos as a Poem (2010)

Beauty

“ Such complicated and apparently unnecessary behavior leads philosophers, both amateur and professional, to ask over and over again, "Why can't human beings live simply and naturally?" Often the complexity of human life makes us look enviously at the relative simplicity of such lives as dogs and cats lead. But the symbolic process, which makes possible the absurdities of human conduct, also makes possible language and therefore all the human achievements dependent upon language. The fact that more things can go wrong with motorcars than with wheelbarrows is no reason for going back to wheelbarrows. Similarly, the fact that the symbolic process makes complicated follies possible is no reason for wanting to return to a cat-and-dog existence. A better solution is to understand the symbolic process so that instead of being its victims we become, to some degree at least, its masters. ”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), The Symbolic Process, p. 26

Life, Dogs, Behavior, Cats

“Congress ought to ensure that U. S. delegates continue to vigorously oppose the special agenda item targeting Israel; the one-sided resolutions; the council experts who subject Israel to irrational degrees of scrutiny and criticism; and the disproportionate amount of emergency special sessions that target Israel.”

Hillel Neuer Canadian activist

ISRAEL, THE PALESTINIANS, AND THE UNITED NATIONS: CHALLENGES FOR THE NEW ADMINISTRATION http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA13/20170202/105508/HHRG-115-FA13-Wstate-NeuerH-20170202.pdf, ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION FEBRUARY 2, 2017, pg. 14

“This Library afforded me the Means of Improvement by constant Study, for which I set apart an Hour or two each Day; and thus repair'd in some Degree the Loss of the Learned Education my Father once intended for me. Reading was the only Amusement I allow'd myself. I spent no time in Taverns, Games, or Frolics of any kind. And my Industry in my Business continu'd as indefatigable as it was necessary.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Part II, p. 64.
The Autobiography (1818)

Education, Game, Business, Study

“Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited degrees of kin;
And therefore no true saint allows
They shall be suffer'd to espouse.”

Samuel Butler (poet) Hudibras

Canto I, line 1293
Hudibras, Part III (1678)

“He who would win high spiritual degrees, must pass endless tests and examinations. But most are anxious only to bribe the examiner.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Karma

“To a degree which is difficult to determine, the esoteric impulse in twentieth-century music, literature and the arts reflects calculation. It looks to the flattery of academic and hermeneutic notice. Reciprocally, the academy turns towards that which appears to require its exegetic, cryptographic skills.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

Source: Real Presences (1989), I: A Secondary City, Ch. 6 (p. 38).

Art, Music, Literature, Appearance

“Against a strong kicker there are two ways to fight. If you are experienced, just go into their center and hit. But if you aren't, then back up. Each time the opponent misses, he will lose one degree of confidence. After a while you have more chances.”

Wong Shun Leung (1935–1997) martial artist

Wong Shun Leung's Ways to Beat a Good Kicker <br class="br">Kicking and Kneeing <br class="br">Source: Comments From Wong Shun Leung and Tsui Shan Ting, by Ray Van Raamsdonk http://www.springtimesong.com/wcqanda.htm

Way, Confidence, Strong, Chance