Quotes about rank
page 5

“The colonization of the Southern economy by capitalists from the North gave lynching its most vigorous impulse. If Black people, by means of terror and violence, could remain the most brutally exploited group within the swelling ranks of the working class, the capitalists could enjoy a double advantage. Extra profits would result from the superexploitation of Black labor, and white workers’ hostilities toward their employers would be defused. White workers who assented to lynching necessarily assumed a posture of racial solidarity with the white men who were really their oppressors. This was a critical moment in the popularization of racist ideology.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Women, Race and Class (1983)

Men, Hostility, People

“The infidelity of the Gentile world, and that more especially of men of rank and learning in it, is resolved into a principle which, in my judgment, will account for the inefficacy of any argument, or any evidence whatever, viz.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

contempt prior to examination. A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794). As quoted or paraphrased in Anglo-Israel or, The British Nation: The Lost Tribes of Israel (1879) by Rev. William H. Poole. A similar statement apparently derived from this version has become widely attributed to Herbert Spencer, but there are no records of Spencer ever saying or writing it, the first known attributions to him occurring in 1922 as the epigraph to Le Roy Campbell's The True Function of Relaxation in Piano Playing: A Treatise on the Psycho-Physical Aspect of Piano Playing, With Exercises for Acquiring Relaxation: https://books.google.com/books?id=gjMuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance! That principle is condemnation before investigation". Variant: There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination.

Men, World, Learning

“The Tippoo himself led the defenders north of the breach. The Tippoo had cursed Gudin for blowing the mines too early and thus wasting its terrible destructive power, but now he tried to revive the defense by his personal example. He stood in the front rank of his soldiers while behind him a succession of aides loaded jewel-encrusted hunting rifles. One by one the rifles were given to the Tippoo who aimed and fired, aimed and fired, and redcoat after redcoat was struck down.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 351
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Tiger (1997)

Success, Personality

“Sharpe led the way towards the right hand door, all waiting done, all nervousness dispelled because the fight was on and there was nothing now but to win. This was the Sharpe who had saved Wellington's life at Assaye, who had hacked through the ranks to take an Eagle with Harper, who had gone, maddened, into the breach at Badajoz. This was the Sharpe whom Major General Nairn had only been able to guess at as he looked at the quiet, dark-haired man across the rug in Frenada.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 118
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Enemy (1984)

Life, Way, Waiting, Fight

“Some French ran for help to the British infantry. The red ranks opened up, helped them in, because all infantry feared that moment when the cavalry hit them at full charge. The British soldiers shouted at the French, told them to run to the British lines, and the red-coated men watched in awe what the Heavy Dragoons were doing and knew Fate could have decreed it otherwise and so they helped their enemy to escape the common enemy of all infantry.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, describing the effect of a successful British cavalry charge, p. 249
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

Men, Fate, Fear, Help

“This aspis was my father's and his father's before him. I have sworn before God to die before another man took this from my hand. He crossed to the ranks of Thespians, to a man, an obscure warrior among them. Into the fellow's grasp he placed the shield.”

Steven Pressfield Gates of Fire

Polynikes p. 405
Gates of Fire (1998)

God

“Lincoln seemed to me to be familiar with the name, character, and reputation of every officer of rank in the army and navy, and appeared to understand them better than some whose business it was to do so; he had many a good story to tell of nearly all, and if he could have lived to write the anecdotes of the war, I am sure he would have furnished the most readable book of the century. To me he was one of the most interesting men I ever met; he had an originality about him which was peculiarly his own, and one felt, when with him, as if he could confide his dearest secret to him with absolute security against its betrayal. There, it might be said, was 'God's noblest work an honest man,' and such he was, all through. I have not a particle of the bump of veneration on my head, but I saw more to admire in this man, more to reverence, than I had believed possible; he had a load to bear that few men could carry, yet he traveled on with it, foot-sore and weary, but without complaint; rather; on the contrary, cheering those who would faint on the roadside. He was not a demonstrative man, so no one will ever know, amid all the trials he underwent, how much he had to contend with, and how often he was called upon to sacrifice his own opinions to those of others, who, he felt, did not know as much about matters at issue as he did himself. When he did surrender, it was always with a pleasant manner, winding up with a characteristic story.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 283

Men, God, War, Secret

“In fact, their contempt for the native converts was deeper than that for their Hindu subjects. They had all along looked down upon the native converts as Ajlãf (low-born) and Arzãl (base-born) as compared to the Ashrãf (exalted) which distinctive designation they had reserved for themselves….. It was at this critical juncture that the frustrated fraternity of foreign Muslims took a very strategic step. They started swearing by a solidarity with the native Muslims whom they had despised so far. They let loose on the native Muslims an army of mercenary Mullahs recruited, mostly from their own ranks. These Mullahs went about broadcasting the message that ‘Islam was in danger’, and that ‘Hindus were out to enslave and exploit the Muslim minority’. It was in this manner that the residues of Islamic imperialism managed to ‘merge’ themselves with the native converts, and to present themselves at the head of a strong phalanx pitted against whatever historical forces threatened their unjust privileges. Hitherto, the haughty Ashrãf had stood strictly aloof from the abject Ajlãf and the despised Arzãl. Now all of a sudden the latter became the former’s ‘brothers in faith’. This was a tremendous transformation of the political scene in the second decade of the 20th century. … The British never attached more than a nuisance value to this noisy fraternity which had to be befriended or ignored according to the needs of British policy at any time. It was the national leadership which was impressed by this mobilisation of the ‘Muslim masses’ and the pathos of ‘Muslim plight’. They accepted not only separate electorates but also weightages for the ‘Muslim minority’ in many provinces.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

Faith, Strong, Time

“Today, we are ranked so poorly in achievement scores. The average high school graduate in Japan has a better knowledge of science and mathematics than the average Filipino college graduate.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

School, Mathematics, Knowledge, Science

“Do not wonder, if the common people speak more truly than those of high rank; for they speak with more safety.”
Ne mireris, si vulgus verius loquatur quam honoratiores; quia etiam tutius loquitur.

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Exempla Antithetorum, IX. Laus, Existimatio (Pro.) http://books.google.com/books?id=C9cQAAAAYAAJ&q=&quot;Ne+mireris+si+vulgus+verius+loquatur+quam+honoratiores+quia+etiam+tutius+loquitur&quot;&pg=PA692#v=onepage

People

“It is quite clear that if by sudden attack by an Enemy landed in strength our Dock-yards were to be destroyed our Maritime Power would for more than half a century be paralysed, and our Colonies, our commerce, and the Subsistence of a large Part of our Population would be at the Mercy of our Enemy, who would be sure to shew us no Mercy—we should be reduced to the Rank of a third Rate Power if no worse happened to us. That such a Landing is in the present State of Things possible must be manifest. No Naval Force of ours can effectually prevent it. … One night is enough for the Passage to our Coast, and Twenty Thousand men might be landed at any Point before our Fleet knew that the Enemy was out of Harbour. There could be no security against the simultaneous Landing of 20,000 for Portsmouth 20,000 for Plymouth and 20,000 for Ireland our Troops would necessarily be scattered about the United Kingdom, and with Portsmouth and Plymouth as they now are those Two dock yards and all they contain would be entered and burnt before Twenty Thousand Men could be brought together to defend either of them. … if these defensive works are necessary, it is manifest that they ought to be made with the least possible delay; to spread their Completion over 20 or 30 years would be Folly unless we could come to an agreement with a chivalrous Antagonist, not to molest us till we could inform him we were quite ready to repel his attack—we are told that these works might, if money were forthcoming be finished possibly in three at latest in four years. Long enough this to be kept in a State of imperfect Defence.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to Gladstone (15 December 1859), quoted in Philip Guedalla (ed.), Gladstone and Palmerston, being the Correspondence of Lord Palmerston with Mr. Gladstone 1851-1865 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1928), pp. 115-117.
1850s

Men, Money, Parting, Night

“Patrick Harper was an Ulsterman from Donegal and had been driven into the ranks of Britain's army by hunger and poverty. He was a huge man, four inches taller than Sharpe who was himself six feet tall. In battle Harper was an awesome figure, yet in truth he was a kind, humorous and easygoing man whose benevolence disguised his life's central contradiction, which was that he had no love for the king for whom he fought and for the country whose flag he defended, yet there were few better soldiers in all King George's army, and none who was more loyal to his friends.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 19
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

Love, Life, Hunger, Truth

“The utopian element in politics lies in the ability to disentangle the image of possible human association from forms of life that make people's material and moral ability depend on their acceptance of predetermined hierarchical and communal divisions. The struggle of this visionary politics is to deny the identification of society with a limited repertory of social forms. Such a repertory imprisons all experiments in practical collaboration, in self-expression and reconciliation, within a determinate scheme of ranks and divisions, of authoritative ideals, and of accepted contexts for the realization of these ideals.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: Plasticity Into Power: Comparative-Historical Studies on the Institutional Conditions of Economic and Military Success (1987), p. 12

Life, People, Communication, Dependency

“Though in a state of society some must have greater luxuries and comforts than others, yet all should have the necessaries of life; and if the poor cannot exist, in vain may the rich look for happiness or prosperity. The legislature is never so well employed as when they look to the interests of those who are at a distance from them in the ranks of society. It is their duty to do so: religion calls for it; humanity calls for it; and if there are hearts who are not awake to either of those feelings, their own interests would dictate it.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Rex v. Rusby (1800), Peake's N. P. Cases 192.

Life, Religion, Feeling, Heart

“People were soon talking only of my bons mots, and they esteemed my wit so highly that the clergy was forced to publish a decree that forbade anyone to believe I was capable of reason, and it expressly commanded everyone of all ranks to believe — no matter how intelligently I might act — that I was guided by instinct.”

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist

The Other World (1657)

People, Intelligence

“The discovery of the art of Printing unbarred afresh the gates of Heaven, and let in that flood of light, of knowledge, and of wisdom, which enabled men to emancipate themselves again from the slavery of superstition—to take their proper place in the ranks of created beings—and in ennobling themselves, in gradually exalting their understandings and amending their hearts, to pay at length the worthiest homage to the goodness of their common Parent, and prove themselves to be—as the Almighty himself originally formed them—inferior only to the Angels.”

Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet (1788–1856) Scottish metaphysician (1788–1856)

The History of Medicine, Surgery, and Anatomy, from the Creation of the World, to the Commencement of the Nineteenth Century (1831), Vol. 1

Wisdom, Men, Art, Angels

“[The Nazis] handed out billions in price subsidies to farmers…. As early as December 1939, a high-ranking financial administrator complained that the privileging of farmers ‘is in many case so grotesque that it can scarcely be kept secret from the rest of the populace, segments of which are being called on to make real sacrifices.”

Götz Aly (1947) German journalist, historian and social scientist

Source: Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2007), p. 55

Secret

“Contract Bridge is likely the most challenging card game extant; it is certainly the the most obsessive for its ranks of zealous followers. The initial progenitor of all Bridge forms is the game of Triumph, which gained currency about A. D. 1500. In the mid seventeenth century, Triumph evolved into Whist, a partnership game for four players. The change from Whist to Bridge occurred about 1886with a publication in London of a small pamphlet, titled Biritch or Russian Whist.”

Richard Arnold Epstein (1927) American physicist

Source: The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic (Revised Edition) 1977, Chapter Eight, Contract Bridge, p. 252

Game, Change, Partnership

“Most people would never connect abortion to radical Islam, but you're smarter than most people. Don't just take my words for it. Look at the numbers. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. America has, at last count, 320 million people: with so many illegals it is tough to get an accurate count. There are roughly four times as many Muslims as Americans. They keep adding to their ranks, and we keep importing illegals because our own people eliminate their babies. At this rate we will go the way of Europastan.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

Scorched Earth: Restoring the Country after Obama (2016)

People, World, Way, Time

“India is an old country, but a young nation; and like the young everywhere we are impatient. I am young, and I too have a dream. I dream of an India strong, independent and self-reliant and in the front rank of the nations of the world in the service of mankind.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

On his vision of India, in his address to the Joint meeting of the US Congress in Washington on 13 June 1985, in Emotional Impact: Passionate Leaders and Corporate Transformation (8 November 2000) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=G2QJfyzGRSIC&pg=PA97, p. 97 Quote

World, Dreams, Strong, Country

“Gaily! gaily! close our ranks!
Arm! Advance!
Hope of France!
Gaily! gaily! close our ranks!
Onward! Onward! Gauls and Franks!”

Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780–1857) French poet and chansonnier

Les Gaulois et François, C. L. Bett's translation; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 842.

Hope

“The number of mathematical students, increased as it has been of late years, would be much augmented if those who hold the highest rank in science would condescend to give more effective assistance in clearing the elements of the difficulties which they present. If any one claiming that title should think my attempt obscure or enormus, he must share the blame with me, since it is through his neglect that I have been enabled to avail myself of an opportunity to perform a task which I would gladly have seen confided to more skilful hands.”

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

Author's Preface
On the Study and Difficulties of Mathematics (1831)

Confidence, Mathematics, Thinking, Science

“This man more than superseded my every expectation I had…if you live with a man under duress (this is before the victory…) he is I think…he will rank in history with some of the greats.”

Errol Flynn (1909–1959) Australian actor

Source: Statement made by Errol Flynn about Fidel Castro in a TV interview on the Canadian TV program Front Page held in 1959. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=filBYa1AJEA

History, Thinking, Victory

“Organic systems are adapted to unstable conditions, when problems and requirements for action arise which cannot be broken down and distributed among specialist roles within a clearly defined hierarchy. Individuals have to perform their special tasks in the light of their knowledge of the tasks of the firm as a whole. Jobs lose much of their formal definition in terms of methods, duties, and powers, which have to be re¬defined continually by interaction with others participating in a task. Interaction runs laterally as much as vertically. Communication between people of different ranks tends to resemble lateral consultation rather than vertical command. Omniscience can no longer be imputed to the head of the concern.”

Tom Burns (1913–2001) British sociologist

Source: The Management of Innovation, 1961, p. 5-6

People, Communication, Knowledge, Problem

“By the way, our nightingale language ranks second in the world in its melodiousness.”

Yurii Andrukhovych book The Moscoviad

The Moscoviad
Source: The Moscoviad. Yuri Andrukhovych. Spuyten Duyvil, New York City. ISBN1933132523, p. 83

World, Way

“We cannot tell when they will try to come; we cannot be sure that in fact they will come at all; but no one should blind himself to the fact that a heavy full-scale invasion of this Island is being prepared with all the usual German thoroughness and method, and that it may be launched at any time now. … Therefore, we must regard the next week or so as a very important week for us in our history. It ranks with the days of the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel, and Drake was finishing his game of bowls; or when Nelson stood between us and Napoleon's Grand Army at Boulogne. We have read all about this in the history books; but what is happening now is on a far greater scale and of far more consequence to the life and future of the world and its civilization than these brave old days of the past. Every man and every woman will therefore prepare himself to do his duty, whatever it may be, with special pride and care.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (11 September 1940), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 778
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Life, Books, World, History

“People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah's ark carried dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it's about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Letter to the Editor, New York Times, December 21, 2006, 2010-12-07 http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2006/12/21/a-teacher-a-student-and-a-church-state-dispute, 2000s

People, Teachers

“I have to report that this motion picture is arguably the worst piece of cinematic crap I have ever experienced theatrically. Hyperbole, you wonder? I looked through my list of zero-star movies and couldn't find one entry (except the immortal Zombie vs. Mardi Gras, which was a straight-to-video release) that ranked as more difficult to endure. Words like abomination and travesty don't do this movie justice. Sitting through Freddy Got Fingered was one of the most depressing experiences in my 10 years of reviewing films. It's not even enjoyable on a campy level. It's just bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad - Directed By Tom Green.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1485 of Freddy Got Fingered (2001). Zero star reviews

Justice, Star

“Between Capitalism and Socialism there is no relationship of true and false. Both are instincts, and have the same historical rank, but one of them belongs to the Past, and one to the Future. Capitalism is a product of Rationalism and Materialism, and was the ruling force of the 19th century. Socialism is the form of an age of political Imperialism, of Authority, of historical philosophy, of superpersonal political imperative.”

Francis Parker Yockey book Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics

Source: Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics (1948), Chapter titled: Marxism, p. 84-85 Noontide Press edition.

Age, Past, Future, Falseness

“The rank of men, as established by the concurrent judgement of ages stands thus: heroes, legislators, orators, and poets. The most useful and, in my opinion, the most honourable is the legislator, which so far from being incompatible with the profession of law, is congenial to it. Generally, mankind admire most the hero; of all, the most useless, except when the safety of the nation demands his saving arm.”

Henry Lee III (1756–1818) American politician, governor and representative

Letter to his son, Charles Carter Lee, as quoted in R.E.Lee: A Biography (1934) by Douglas Southall Freeman, Vol. I, p.32.

Men, Age, Law

“In a community, the constitution of which provides for a legislator and a law, it is the concern of the legislator and of the laws given by him to ascertain the mediation through calculable and attainable rules and to prevent the terror of the direct and automatic enactment of values. That is a very complicated problem, indeed. One may understand why law-givers all along world history, from Lycurgus to Solon and Napoleon have been turned into mythical figures. In the highly industrialized nations of our times, with their provisions for the organization of the lives of the masses, the mediation would give rise to a new problem. Under the circumstances, there is no room for the law-giver, and so there is no substitute for him. At best, there is only a makeshift which sooner or later is turned into a scapegoat, due to the unthankful role it was given to play.
A jurist who interferes, and wants to become the direct executor of values should know what he is doing. He must recall the origins and the structure of values and dare not treat lightly the problem of the tyranny of values and of the unmediated enactment of values. He must attain a clear understanding of the modern philosophy of values before he decides to become valuator, revaluator, upgrader of values. As a value-carrier and value-sensitive person, he must do that before he goes on to proclaim the positings of a subjective, as well as objective, rank-order of values in the form of pronouncements with the force of law.”

Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) German jurist, political theorist and professor of law

"The Tyranny of Values" (1959)

World, Law, History, Communication

“Here I must inject a personal note—I never shed blood upon the field of Sidwell Friends, nor did I fight the battles of Yale Law. I am a miner's son, and my father was a self-made man who unmade himself during my youth. Education was not a family legacy, and my kin belonged to the United Mine Workers of America, not to Skull and Bones. My forebears fought this country's wars from the bottom ranks, and I began my own military career as a private. I have felt the full arrogance of those to whom much was given, and personally, wish that I might come to bury the elite, not to praise them. Yet, those who would rise need examples to emulate. It grates on me to write it, but our military needs a return of the nation's elite to the officer corps, to the extent that a traditional elite, with its spotty but essential ideals of service, still exists.”

Ralph Peters (1952) American military officer, writer, pundit

autobiographical aside from Beyond Terror, p. 319. Originally part of an essay entitled "Hucksters in Uniform" which appeared in the May 1999 edition of The Washington Monthly.
1990s, Hucksters in Uniform (1999)

War, Youth, Education, Family

“Anger be now your song, immortal one,
Akhilleus' anger, doomed and ruinous,
that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss
and crowded brave souls into the undergloom,
leaving so many dead men—carrion
for dogs and birds; and the will of Zeus was done.
Begin it when the two men first contending
broke with one another—the Lord Marshal
Agamémnon, Atreus' son, and Prince Akhilleus.
Among the gods, who brought this quarrel on?
The son of Zeus by Lêto. Agamémnon
angered him, so he made a burning wind
of plague rise in the army: rank and file
sickened and died for the ill their chief had done
in despising a man of prayer.”

Robert Fitzgerald (1910–1985) American poet, critic and translator

opening lines
The Iliad (1974)

Men, God, Dogs, Soul

“Some men like Jack and some like Jill
I'm glad I like them both but still
I wonder if this freewheeling
Really is an enlightened thing,
Or is its greater scope a sign
Of deviance from some party line?
In the strict ranks of Gay and Straight
What is my status: Stray? Or Great?”

Vikram Seth (1952) Indian writer

Dubious from 'Mappings' (Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1980). Repeated by Seth in online interview http://www.rediff.com/chat/vikchat.htm.

Men

“The contradictions between the enemy and us are antagonistic contradictions. Within the ranks of the people, the contradictions among the working people are non-antagonistic, while those between the exploited and the exploiting classes have a non-antagonistic aspect in addition to an antagonistic aspect.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 敌我之间的矛盾是对抗性的矛盾。人民内部的矛盾，在劳动人民之间说来，是非对抗性的；在被剥削阶级和剥削阶级之间说来，除了对抗性的一面以外，还有非对抗性的一面。

People

“He spent considerable time at his clubs; his favorite was the Stuyvesant, because, as he explained to me, its membership was drawn largely from the political and commercial ranks, and he was never drawn into a discussion which required any mental effort”

S. S. Van Dine book The Benson Murder Case

Source: The Benson Murder Case (1926), Ch. 1

Effort, Time

“The people of the Qur’an (those who recite and those who memorize the Qur’an) will be in the highest level (in Heaven) from amongst all of the people with the exception of the Prophets and Messengers. Thus, do not seek to degrade the people of the Qur’an, nor take away their rights, for surely they have been given a high rank by Allah.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Thawabul A’mal, Page 224
Shi'ite Hadith

People

“India is calling. Blood is calling to blood. Get up, we have no time to lose. Take up your arms! we shall carve our way through the enemy's ranks, or if God wills, we shall die a martyr's death. And in our last sleep we shall kiss the road that will bring our Army to Delhi. The road to Delhi is the road to Freedom. Chalo Delhi (March to Delhi).”

Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945) Indian nationalist leader and politician

As quoted in India Calling (1946) by himself and R. I. Paul, p. 5

Death, God, Way, Kiss

“With the ablest and most excellent men of his time, of high and of humbler rank, he maintained noble relations of mutual fidelity… As he himself never abandoned any of his partisans… but adhered to his friends--and that not merely from calculation--through good and bad times without wavering, several of these, such as Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Matius, gave, even after his death, noble testimonies of their attachment to him.]]The superintendence of the administration of justice and the administrative control of the communities remained in their hands; but their command was paralyzed by the new supreme command in Rome and its adjutants associated with the governor, and the raising of the taxes was probably even now committed in the provinces substantially to imperial officials, so that the governor was thenceforward surrounded with an auxiliary staff which was absolutely dependent on the Imperator in virtue either of the laws of the military hierarchy or of the still stricter laws of domestic discipline.”

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

Vol. 4, pt. 2, translated by W.P.Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2
Context: The system of administration was thoroughly remodelled. The Sullan proconsuls and propraetors had been in their provinces essentially sovereign and practically subject to no control; those of Caesar were the well-disciplined servants of a stern master, who from the very unity and life-tenure of his power sustained a more natural and more tolerable relation to the subjects than those numerous, annually changing, petty tyrants. The governorships were no doubt still distributed among the annually-retiring two consuls and sixteen praetors, but, as the Imperator directly nominated eight of the latter and the distribution of the provinces among the competitors depended solely on him, they were in reality bestowed by the Imperator. The functions also of the governors were practically restricted. His memory was matchless, and it was easy for him to carry on several occupations simultaneously with equal self-possession. Although a gentleman, a man of genius, and a monarch, he had still a heart. So long as he lived, he cherished the purest veneration for his worthy mother Aurelia... to his daughter Julia he devoted an honourable affection, which was not without reflex influence even on political affairs. With the ablest and most excellent men of his time, of high and of humbler rank, he maintained noble relations of mutual fidelity... As he himself never abandoned any of his partisans... but adhered to his friends--and that not merely from calculation--through good and bad times without wavering, several of these, such as Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Matius, gave, even after his death, noble testimonies of their attachment to him. The superintendence of the administration of justice and the administrative control of the communities remained in their hands; but their command was paralyzed by the new supreme command in Rome and its adjutants associated with the governor, and the raising of the taxes was probably even now committed in the provinces substantially to imperial officials, so that the governor was thenceforward surrounded with an auxiliary staff which was absolutely dependent on the Imperator in virtue either of the laws of the military hierarchy or of the still stricter laws of domestic discipline. While hitherto the proconsul and his quaestor had appeared as if they were members of a gang of robbers despatched to levy contributions, the magistrates of Caesar were present to protect the weak against the strong; and, instead of the previous worse than useless control of the equestrian or senatorian tribunals, they had to answer for themselves at the bar of a just and unyielding monarch. The law as to exactions, the enactments of which Caesar had already in his first consulate made more stringent, was applied by him against the chief commandants in the provinces with an inexorable severity going even beyond its letter; and the tax-officers, if indeed they ventured to indulge in an injustice, atoned for it to their master, as slaves and freedmen according to the cruel domestic law of that time were wont to atone.

Death, Men, Justice, Law

“I believe that it is an honor beyond measure that Bar Ilan University and the Rennert Center would deem it proper to cast me among the ranks of our greatest defenders and champions. I know I do not deserve this distinction. I certainly do not believe that I have earned it. But I do know that since childhood I have strived to emulate the image of the watchman-or watchwoman-on the walls of Zion. And I pledge that I will continue throughout my life to strive to earn the distinction you bestow on me tonight.”

Caroline Glick (1969) deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post

Reprinted in [Bitton-Jackson, Livia, Caroline B. Glick: Woman of Valor - A Shackled Warrior, http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/38244, The Jewish Press, February 18, 2009]
At the presentation for her Guardian of Zion Award from the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at Bar Ilan University where she delivered the keynote speech. (May 31, 2009)

Life, Universe, Childhood

“Both Abrams and Westmoreland would have been judged as authentic military "heroes" at a different time in history. Both men were outstanding leaders in their own right and in their own way. They offered sharply contrasting examples of military leadership, something akin to the distinct differences between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant of our Civil War period. They entered the United States Military Academy at the same time in 1932- Westmoreland from a distinguished South Carolina family, and Abrams from a simpler family background in Massachusetts- and graduated together with the Class of 1936. Whereas Westmoreland became the First Captain (the senior cadet in the corps) during their senior year, Abrams was a somewhat nondescript cadet whose major claim to fame was as a loud, boisterous guard on the second-string varsity football squad. Both rose to high rank through outstanding performance in combat command jobs in World War II and the Korean War, as well as through equally commendable work in various staff positions. But as leaders they were vastly different. Abrams was the bold, flamboyant charger who wanted to cut to the heart of the matter quickly and decisively, while Westmoreland was the more shrewdly calculating, prudent commander who chose the more conservative course. Faultlessly attired, Westmoreland constantly worried about his public image and assiduously courted the press. Abrams, on the other hand, usually looked rumpled, as though he might have slept in his uniform, and was indifferent about his appearance, acting as though he could care less about the press. The sharply differing results were startling; Abrams rarely receiving a bad press report, Westmoreland struggling to get a favorable one.”

Bruce Palmer Jr. (1913–2000) United States Army Chief of Staff

Source: The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984), p. 134

Men, War, World, Family

“Bull and bear-baiting is not encouraged by persons of rank and opulence in the present day; and when practiced, which rarely happens, it is attended only by the lowest and most despicable part of the people; which plainly indicates a general refinement of manners and prevalency of humanity among the moderns; on the contrary, this barbarous pastime was highly relished by the nobility in former ages, and countenanced by persons of the most exalted rank, without exception even of the fair sex.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 257
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Public entertainment

People, Age, Sex, Parting

“We want a society with neither castes nor ranks and you must not allow these ideas to grow within you!”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

1930s, From the film Triumph of the Will (1935)

Idea

“No sound of joy or sorrow
Was heard from either bank;
But friends and foes in dumb surprise,
With parted lips and straining eyes,
Stood gazing where he sank;
And when above the surges,
They saw his crest appear,
All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry,
And even the ranks of Tuscany
Could scarce forbear to cheer.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay book Lays of Ancient Rome

Horatius, st. 60
Lays of Ancient Rome (1842)

Appearance, Joy, Parting, Cry

“The idea of preaching the gospel to all nations alike, regardless of nationality, of internal divisions as to rank and color, complexion and religion, constituted the beginning of a new era in history. You cannot preach the gospel in its purity over the world, without proclaiming the doctrine of civil and religious liberty,— without overthrowing the barriers reared between nations and clans and classes of men,— without ultimately undermining the thrones of despots, and breaking off the shackles of slavery, — without making men everywhere free.”

Albert Barnes (1798–1870) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 289.

Men, World, Religion, Color

“I've come up through the ranks of this parliamentary party and let me tell you the principles that have guided me on that journey since my first election 25 years ago: Loyalty to the party, service to our country and a determination to always do my best for the people. They are principles that still guide me.”

Brian Cowen (1960) Irish politician

Loyalty to a fault over Molloy affair is costing Cowen dearly, Irish Independent, 26 September 2009, 2010-06-12 http://www.independent.ie/national-news/loyalty-to-a-fault-over-molloy-affair-is-costing-cowen-dearly-1897480.html, address to the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting in Athlone on 14 September 2009. 2009

People, Loyalty, Country

“If a gentleman, or an inferior thane, killed a stag in the king's forests, he was degraded from his rank; if a ceorl, or husbandman, committed the same offence, he was reduced to slavery; and if a slave killed one, he suffered death. Magistrates were appointed, in every county, or shire, to put these laws in execution, and under them were appointed inferior officers or gamekeepers, whose province it was to apprehend the offenders.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 9
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Hunting

Death, Law, Suffering

“Great Britain may certainly continue to uphold her envied supremacy, sustained by her coal, iron, capital, and skill, if, acting on the Baconian axiom, " Knowledge is Power," she shall diligently promote moral and professional culture among all ranks of her productive population.”

Andrew Ure (1778–1857) Scottish doctor and chemist

Source: The Philosophy of Manufactures, 1835, p. vii

Knowledge, Envy

“The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 123

Wolf, Drawing

“[El Instituto Técnico de la Construcción y del Cemento] had shown that it is possible in Spain to create organizations in which there exists a perfect harmony between different professions, between those above and those below; organizations in which everyone is able to live a life of high human rank, as gentlemen, a life of mutual respect and help and of maximum personal dignity.”

Eduardo Torroja (1899–1961) Spanish architect

Francisco Arredondo Verdú, La obra de Eduardo Torroja (1977) pp. 50-51, as quoted by Lino Camprubí, Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime (2014) p. 181.

Life, Help, Personality, Perfection

“Infinity is the land of mathematical hocus pocus. There Zero the magician is king. When Zero divides any number he changes it without regard to its magnitude into the infinitely small [great? ], and inversely, when divided by any number he begets the infinitely great [small? ]. In this domain the circumference of the circle becomes a straight line, and then the circle can be squared. Here all ranks are abolished, for Zero reduces everything to the same level one way or another. Happy is the kingdom where Zero rules!”

Paul Carus (1852–1919) American philosopher

"Logical and Mathematical Thought?" in The Monist, Vol. 20 (1909-1910), p. 69

Way, Mathematics, Change, Happiness

“The books of hawking assign to the different ranks of persons the sort of hawks proper to be used by them: and they are placed in the following order”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Rank of hunting birds

Books, Personality

“If Soviet society is to move forward with confidence toward our great goals, each new generation must rise to an ever-higher level of learning and general cultivation, occupational skill and civic activism. One might say that such is the law of societal progress. In the context of the scientific and technological revolution, under a virtual avalanche of information, this law imposes unwontedly high demands on both those who study and those who teach—from rank-and-file classroom teachers to government ministers.”

Konstantin Chernenko (1911–1985) Soviet politician

Quoted in "Soviet Education" - Page 109 - by International Arts and Sciences Press, M.E. Sharpe, Inc - Education - 1958

Law, Confidence, Study, Learning

“It is a high privilege to sit as a member of this convention. Those who exercise it have been raised to the rank of a true nobility. It is a mark of personal merit which did not come by right of birth but by right of conquest. No one can ever question your title as patriots. No one can ever doubt the place of affection and honor which you hold forevermore in the heart of the Nation. Your right to be here results from what you dared and what you did and the sacrifices which you made for our common country. It is all a glorious story of American enterprise and American valor.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Exercises, Birth, Question, Heart

“The slaving Poor are incapable of any Principles: Gentlemen may be converted to true Principles, by Time and Experience. The middling Rank of Men have Curiosity and Knowledge enough to form Principles, but not enough to form true ones, or correct any Prejudices that they may have imbib’d: And ’tis among the middling Rank, that Tory Principles do at present prevail most in England.”

David Hume book Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary

Part I, Essay 9: Of The Parties of Great Britain; final lines of this essay in the 1741 and 1742 editions of Essays, Moral and Political, they were not included in later editions.
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741-2; 1748)

Men, Knowledge, Time

“As when in fair weather herds of dolphins come up from the depths and sport in circles round a ship as it speeds along, now seen in front, now behind, now again at the side and delight comes to the sailors; so the Nereids darted upward and circled in their ranks round the ship Argo, while Thetis guided its course.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book IV. Homeward Bound, Lines 933–938 (tr. R. C. Seaton)

Sport, Speed, Weather

“The value and rank of a learned man is more than his knowledge.”

Ali al-Hadi (829–868) imam

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 3.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious

Knowledge, Learning

“The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite.”

Richard Dawkins book Unweaving the Rainbow

[1998, Unweaving the Rainbow, London, Allen Lane, 9780713992144, 18827466M, Preface]
Unweaving the Rainbow (1998)

Life, Music, Feeling, Passion

“Atomic war is bad but you know what’s even worse? Having had enough atomic wars that you can rank them in terms of horribleness.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

Review of Voodoo Planet: Solar Queen, book 3 by Andre Norton http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/oh-andre-norton-no, 2015 2010s

War

“Just imagine for a moment what life in this country might have been if women had been properly represented in Congress. Would a Congress where women in all their diversity were represented tolerate the countless laws now on the books that discriminate against women in all phases of their lives? Would a Congress with adequate representation of women have allowed this country to reach the 1970s without a national health care system? Would it have permitted this country to rank fourteenth in infant mortality among the developed nations of the world? Would it have allowed the situation we now have in which thousands of kids grow up without decent care because their working mothers have no place to leave them? Would such a Congress condone the continued butchering of young girls and mothers in amateur abortion mills? Would it allow fraudulent packaging and cheating of consumers in supermarkets, department stores and other retail outlets? Would it consent to the perverted sense of priorities that has dominated our government for decades, where billions have been appropriated for war while our human needs as a people have been neglected?”

Bella Abzug (1920–1998) American politician

Bella!, “February 7” section (1972)

Life, Women, War, People

“We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. Those who mean to form a solid republican government, ought to proceed to the confinges of another government. As long as offices are open to all men, and no constitutional rank is established, it is pure republicanism. But if we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

26 June 1787 per page 105 of "The Debates, Resolutions, and Other Proceedings, in Convention, on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Supplementary to the state Conventions" by Johnathan Elliot, published 1830 https://books.google.ca/books?id=-gtAAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA105 Debates of the Federal Convention (1787)

Men, Democracy

“You have power, rank, command, influence; we have wealth, the source both of our strength and weakness; the value of these toys, ten times multiplied, would not influence half so much as your slightest wish.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe (1819), Ch. 44, Rebecca speaking to Rowena.

Time, Wealth

“I am certain that Jesus understood the difficulty inherent in the act of loving one's enemy. He never joined the ranks of those who talk glibly about the easiness of the moral life. He realized that every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God. So when Jesus said "love your enemy," he was not unmindful of its stringent qualities. Yet he meant every word of it. Our responsibility as Christians is to discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to live it out in our daily lives.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)

Love, Life, God, Passion

“Had my lineage and rank been accompanied by only moderate success, I should have come to this city as friend rather than prisoner, and you would not have disdained to ally yourself peacefully with one so nobly born, the ruler of so many nations.”
Si quanta nobilitas et fortuna mihi fuit, tanta rerum prosperarum moderatio fuisset, amicus potius in hanc urbem quam captus venissem, neque dedignatus esses claris maioribus ortum, plurimis gentibus imperitantem foedere in pacem accipere.

Caratacus (15–54) British chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe

Tacitus Annales, Bk. XII, ch. 37; translation from The Annals of Imperial Rome, trans. Michael Grant, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1956] 1971) p. 267.

Success

“To hold the same views at forty as we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for a score of years, and take rank, not as a prophet, but as an unteachable brat, well birched and none the wiser. It is as if a ship captain should sail to India from the Port of London; and having brought a chart of the Thames on deck at his first setting out, should obstinately use no other for the whole voyage.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

Crabbed Age and Youth.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

“About the scientific revolution: it “outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes.””

Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979) British historian

The origins of modern science, 1300-1800, Bell (1949).

“Mr. Owen looked upon men through the spectacles of his own good-nature. He seldom took Lord Brougham's advice "to pick his men." He never acted on the maxim that the working class are as jealous of each other as the upper classes are of them. The resolution he displayed as a manufacturer he was wanting in as a founder of communities…. No leader ever took so little care as Mr, Owen in guarding his own reputation. He scarcely protested when others attached his name to schemes which were not his. The failure of Queenwood was not chargeable to him. When his advice was not followed he would say : "Well, gentlemen, I tell you what you ought to do. You differ from me. Carry out your own plans. Experience will show you who is right." When the affair went wrong then it was ascribed to him. Whatever failed under his name the public inferred failed through him. Mr. Owen was a general who never provided himself with a rear guard. While he was fighting in the front ranks priests might come up and cut off his commissariat. His own troops fell into pits against which he had warned them. Yet he would write his next dispatch without it occurring to him to mention his own defeat, and he would return to his camp without missing his army. Yet society is not so well served that it need hesitate to forgive the omissions of its generous friends. To Mr. Owen will be accorded the distinction of being a philosopher who devoted himself to founding a Science of Social Improvement and a philanthropist who gave his fortune to advance it. Association, which was but casual before his day, he converted into a policy and taught it as an art. He substituted Co-operation for coercion in the conduct ot industry and the willing co-operation of intelligence certain of its own reward, for sullen labour enforced by the necessity of subsistence, seldom to be relied on and never satisfied.”

George Holyoake (1817–1906) British secularist, co-operator, and newspaper editor

George Jacob Holyoake in The History of Co-operation in England (1875; 1902).

Men, Art, Intelligence, Communication

“Plainly he was one of those rare people who burn with an inner fire—but the inner fire that never failed in James Arm-of-the-Lord was a brand of woe and a torch of terror to the Unrighteous. Nor was it lessened by the fact that the ranks of the Unrighteous, in James’ estimation, included all those whose opinions in any way differed from his own.”

Gordon R. Dickson book Tactics of Mistake

Source: Tactics of Mistake (1971), Chapter 22 (p. 328)

People, Way

“Labeling a high-ranking wolf alpha emphasizes its rank in a dominance hierarchy. However, in natural wolf packs, the alpha male or female are merely the breeding animals, the parents of the pack, and dominance contests with other wolves are rare, if they exist at all. During my 13 summers observing the Ellesmere Island pack, I saw none. Thus, calling a wolf an alpha is usually no more appropriate than referring to a human parent or a doe deer as an alpha. Any parent is dominant to its young offspring, so "alpha" adds no information. Why not refer to an alpha female as the female parent, the breeding female, the matriarch, or simply the mother? Such a designation emphasizes not the animal's dominant status, which is trivial information, but its role as pack progenitor, which is critical information.”

L. David Mech (1937) American Biologist , Ecologist

Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals/alstat/. Canadian Journal of Zoology 77:1196-1203 (1999).

Nature, Parent, Wolf, Animals

“Well, I agree with him [Gilles Simon]. All those that play within the tennis world know how hard it is to enter the top-100 and there is a huge difference between the top players and all the others, or at least those who are a bit ‘lower in the rankings, so yes, I agree”

João Sousa (1989) Portuguese tennis player

On how prize money is distributed on the ATP Tour, during a 2015 November interview for an Italian tennis news website. Source: Exclusive: Joao Sousa criticises the distribution of prize money on the ATP Tour, Ubitennis.com, 4 November 2015 http://www.ubitennis.com/eng/blog/2015/11/04/exclusive-joao-sousa-criticises-the-distribution-of-prize-money-on-the-atp-tour/,

World

“Mary Parker Follett was a prominent business philosopher of the period, who agreed with Sheldon about the need to emphasize human factors in management, but placing greater stress on the need to develop a science of cooperation. According to Follett, what she called her 'Law of the Situation' could be a means for bridging the gap between an ideal of scientific management and the unilateral position that it seemed to involve in practice. In effect she was proposing the same collaboration between leaders and subordinates that was usually to be found between leaders of the same rank.”

Henry C. Metcalf (1867–1942) American business theorist

Book abstract
Dynamic administration, 1942

Law, Business, Science

“I was, of course, angry and disappointed to see this happen, and I am deeply troubled by what it foretells for free speech in India in the present, and steadily worsening, political climate… I do not blame Penguin Books, India. Other publishers have just quietly withdrawn other books without making the effort that Penguin made to save this book [The Hindus: An Alternative History]. Penguin, India, took this book on knowing that it would stir anger in the Hindutva ranks, and they defended it in the courts for four years, both as a civil and as a w:Lawsuitcriminal suit. They were finally defeated by the true villain of this piece – the Indian law that makes it a criminal rather than civil offense to publish a book that offends any Hindu, a law that jeopardizes the physical safety of any publisher, no matter how ludicrous the accusation brought against a book.”

Wendy Doniger (1940) American Indologist

Wendy Doniger, In: India: PEN protests withdrawal of best-selling book http://fleursdumal.nl/mag/category/news-events/page/12, Fleursdumal.org Her book [The Hindus: An Alternative History] became controversial and Dinanath Batra of Shiksha Bachao Andolan filed a case against the publisher, claiming that the book was offensive to Hindus and therefore in violation of Section 295A of the Indian penal code which prohibits ‘deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.'

Books, Law, Disappointment, History

“I had established an enviable scheme of life. I refused to dance attendance in the ante-chambers of the great. If anyone wanted something from me he had to ask. I was much run after, but if the person was not of rank, or a friend, I worked [painted] for nobody.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

letter to his friend Don Martín Zapater, c. 1789; from: Francisco Zapater y Gomez : Goya; Noticias biograficas, Zaragoza, 1868, La Perse Verencia; as quoted in Francisco Goya, Hugh Stokes, Herbert Jenkins Limited Publishers, London, 1914, p. 182
1780s

Life, Dance, Painting, Personality

“There is not in this country one rule by which the rich are governed, and another for the poor. No man has justice meted out to him by a different measure on account of his rank or fortune, from what would be done if he were destitute of both. Every invasion of property is judged of by the same rule; every injury is compensated in the same way; and every crime is restrained by the same punishment, be the condition of the offender what it may. It is in this alone that true equality can exist in society.”

Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet (1746–1800) British judge

Trial of O'Coigly and others (1798), 26 How. St. Tr. 1193.

Justice, Way, Country

“His early profession as a lawyer was abandoned to enter academic life. In this chosen field he attained the highest rank as an educator, and has left his impress upon the intellectual thought of the country. From the Presidency of Princeton University he was called by his fellow citizens to be the Chief Executive of the State of New Jersey. The duties of this high office he so conducted as to win the confidence of the people of the United States, who twice elected him to the Chief Magistracy of the Republic. As President of the United States he was moved by an earnest desire to promote the best interests of the country as he conceived them. His acts were prompted by high motives and his sincerity of purpose can not be questioned. He led the nation through the terrific struggle of the world war with a lofty idealism which never failed him. He gave utterance to the aspiration of humanity with an eloquence which held the attention of all the earth and made America a new and enlarged influence in the destiny of mankind.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Proclamation Upon the Death of Woodrow Wilson (1924)

Life, War, People, World

“With the advance of knowledge, therefore, prayer and sacrifice assume the leading place in religious ritual; and magic; which once ranked with them as a legitimate equal, is gradually relegated to the background and sinks to the level of a black art.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 7, Incarnate Human Gods.

Art, Knowledge

“Honestly, I spend very little time thinking about past events, and I certainly don't have them ranked in any way. I look back and think that I have done a lot of good work over the years, but I am much more excited about what the future holds.”

John D. Carmack (1970) American computer programmer, engineer, and businessman

When asked about the highlight of his career, Quoted in "John Carmack Interview, January 2006" http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/id_johncarmack_interview_jan05.asp Video Games Daily (2006-01-03)

Way, Thinking, Time, Past

“When Taylor began his efforts at the Midvale Steel Company in the 1880s, several members of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers were likewise interested in labor management. Industrial capitalism was running up against renewed resistance from the growing ranks of labor, still committed to a sense of work integrity and craftsmanship. Task management, or scientific management as it came to be called, began to take shape in the eighties as the way to break the worker's threatening resistance. The heart of this approach is the systematic reduction of work into discrete, routinized tasks, totally separated from any policy decisions about the job. … For capitalism to be firmly in control, it must monopolize information and techniques as surely as it controls the rest of the means of production. The worker must be permitted only to perform certain specific narrow tasks as planned by management.”

John Zerzan (1943) American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author

Source: Elements of Refusal (1988), p. 165

Way, Decision, Sense, Effort

“Although each of our armed services is unique and different, the U. S. Army holds a special position of significance and trust. Its ranks come from the people, the country's roots, and it is closest to the people. In foreign confrontations the United States is not committed until its land forces- its Army- is committed. And in the event of hostilities, the Army historically has borne the brunt of war, the human cost, taking the great bulk of the casualties. The Army as an institution knows this and has been traditionally reluctant to go to war, its leaders seeking to insure that war is truly necessary and that our civilian leaders exploit all other avenues before taking that final step.”

Bruce Palmer Jr. (1913–2000) United States Army Chief of Staff

Source: The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984), p. 209

Hostility, War, People, Country

“The narrow-minded and petty sticklers for the formalities which hedge rank and office are the true vulgarians, however observant they be of etiquette.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 34

“You say the right hon. baronet [Peel] is a traitor. It would ill become me to attempt his defence after the speech which he delivered last night—a speech, I will venture to say, more powerful and more to be admired than any speech which has been delivered within the memory of any man in this House. I watched the right hon. baronet as he went home last night, and for the first time I envied him his feelings. That speech was circulated by scores of thousands throughout the kingdom and throughout the world; and wherever a man is to be found who loves justice, and wherever there is a labourer whom you have trampled under foot, that speech will bring joy to the heart of the one, and hope to the breast of the other. You chose the right hon. baronet—why? Because he was the ablest man of your party. You always said so, and you will not deny it now. Why was he the ablest? Because he had great experience, profound attainments, and an honest regard for the good of the country. You placed him in office. When a man is in office he is not the same man as when in opposition. The present generation, or posterity, does not deal as mildly with men in government as with those in opposition. There are such things as the responsibilities of office. Look at the population of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and there is not a man among you who would have the valour to take office and raise the standard of Protection, and cry, "Down with the Anti-Corn Law League, and Protection for ever!" There is not a man in your ranks who would dare to sit on that bench as the Prime Minister of England pledged to maintain the existing law. The right hon. baronet took the only, the truest course—he resigned. He told you by that act: "I will no longer do your work. I will not defend your cause. The experience I have had since I came into office renders it impossible for me at once to maintain office and the Corn Laws."”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

The right hon. baronet resigned—he was then no longer your Minister. He came back to office as the Minister of his Sovereign and of the people.
Speech in the House of Commons (17 February 1846), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 148.
1840s

Love, Men, People, World

“No movement can claim to speak for all women unless it speaks for women who also face the consequences of racism, which places women of color overwhelmingly in the ranks of the working class and the poor. Race and class must be central to the project of women's liberation--not only in theory, but in practice--if it is to be meaningful to those women who are the most oppressed by the system.”

Sharon Smith (writer) (1956) American historian

A Marxist Case For Intersectionality (2017)

Women, Color

“I would hope that American managers - indeed, managers worldwide - continue to appreciate what I have been saying almost from day one: that management is so much more than exercising rank and privilege, that it is much more than "making deals."”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Management affects people and their lives.
Source: 1990s and later, Managing in a Time of Great Change (1995), p. 351

People, Hope, Exercises

“Doom am I, that causes worlds to perish, matured and here come forth to destroy the worlds; even apart from thee not one of the warriors drawn up in ranks opposing shall survive.”

W. Douglas P. Hill (1884–1962) British Indologist

Source: The Bhagavadgītā (1973), p. 163. (32.)

World

“Like a young eagle who has lent his plume
To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom,
See their own feathers pluck'd to wing the dart
Which rank corruption destines for their heart.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Corruption.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Heart

“I think murdering Iraqi union leaders is criminal, for example. And a lot of what the insurgents have done is criminal. But, you know, you rank the priorities. Our priority is to stop major war crimes, like Fallujah for example. So yeah, what the resistance is doing, one can also criticize, harshly in fact. But in any kind of ranking, even if we're on Mars, and certainly if we're in the United States, what is vastly more important is our own crimes, which are much worse, and they're ours.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2005, Interview by Doug Henwood, 2004

War, Thinking

“It's mind-boggling to consider that movies this bad are actually committed to film. The poor quality of The Pest in almost every category — humor, intelligence, creativity, and just plain entertainment value — ranks it somewhere between a bad infomercial and a local cable newscast. Rarely do I consider the act of seeing a movie to be a chore, but this kind of experience is the exception - Directed By Paul Miller.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/movies/p/pest.html of The Pest (1997). Zero star reviews

Intelligence

“It is not earthly rank, nor birth, nor nationality, nor religious privilege, which proves that we are members of the family of God; it is love, a love that embraces all humanity.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Thoughts From The Mount Of Blessing (1896) http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mb/mb.asp Ch. 3, "The Spirituality of the Law" http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mb/mb3.html, p. 75

Love, God, Family, Birth

“We want the mathematical genius - there is work for him. We want the literary genius - there is work for him, especially in my office. We want the scientific brain - there is more than enough work for him. We want the man of brains and we want the man of common sense and little brain. We want the man of initiative and the man of action, the methodical man and even the crank. We open our ranks widely to all.”

Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard (1873–1956) Royal Flying Corps commander and first Royal Air Force Chief of the Air Staff

Speech to the Cambridge University Aeronautical Society, April 1925 in Trenchard, Man of Vision (1962) p. 519

Mathematics, Sense

“I find wholly baffling the widespread belief today that the dropping of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was an immoral act, even possibly a war crime to rank with Nazi genocide.”

J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) British writer

"The End of My War", originally printed in the [London] Sunday Times (1995)
A User's Guide to the Millennium (1996)

War

“The enemies of the Soviet state calculate that the heavy loss we have borne will lead to disorder and confusion in our ranks. But their expectations are in vain: bitter disillusionment awaits them. He who is not blind sees that our party, during its difficult days, is closing its ranks still more closely, that it is united and unshakable.”

Lavrentiy Beria (1899–1953) Georgian Soviet NKVD police chief under fellow Georgian and Soviet leader Stalin

Quoted in “The Current Digest of the Soviet Press – Page 9 – by Joint Committee – World Politics – 1953

Loss

“We have been attempting to relieve ourselves and the other nations from the old theory of competitive armaments. In spite of all the arguments in favor of great military forces, no nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace or to insure its victory in time of war. No nation ever will. Peace and security are more likely to result from fair and honorable dealings, and mutual agreements for a limitation of armaments among nations, than by any attempt at competition in squadrons and battalions. No doubt this country could, if it wished to spend more money, make a better military force, but that is only part of the problem which confronts our Government. The real question is whether spending more money to make a better military force would really make a better country. I would be the last to disparage the military art. It is an honorable and patriotic calling of the highest rank. But I can see no merit in any unnecessary expenditure of money to hire men to build fleets and carry muskets when international relations and agreements permit the turning of such resources into the making of good roads, the building of better homes, the promotion of education, and all the other arts of peace which minister to the advancement of human welfare. Happily, the position of our country is such among the other nations of the world that we have been and shall be warranted in proceeding in this direction.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Men, Money, War, World

“If there has been any crime, it must be prosecuted. If there has been any property of the United States illegally transferred or leased, it must be recovered…. I propose to employ special counsel of high rank drawn from both political parties to bring such actions for the enforcement of the law. Counsel will be instructed to prosecute these cases in the courts so that if there is any guilt it will be punished; if there is any civil liability it will be enforced; if there is any fraud it will be revealed; and if there are any contracts which are illegal they will be canceled. Every law will be enforced. And every right of the people and the Government will be protected.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Calvin Coolidge, statement on the Teapot Dome scandal, The New York Times (January 27, 1924), p. 1. Quoted by Senator Edward Martin, address to the Mifflin County Republican Committee, Lewistown, Pennsylvania (January 25, 1952), Congressional Record (January 28, 1952), vol. 98, Appendix, p. A400.
1920s

People, Law, Fraud

“As far as country houses were concerned, the functions of the lower ranks within the hierarchy were now only those of respectful service to their superiors. They lived in the basement, or in subordinate wings to either side of the house. The main rooms were designed as the orderly setting for meetings between gentlemen, lords, and princes, who seldom forgot their rank. But behind the rigid etiquette which regulated their intercourse, continual jockeying for power, position and favours went on. The central government was a rich source of jobs and perquisites, which were distributed either by the king himself, or by his ministers and favourites. The main power of the court aristocracy now lay in its power of patronage; it was constantly being solicited for favours.”

Mark Girouard (1931) British architectural historian

Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History (1978)

Housing, Country

“Every time a Black Freedom Fighter is murdered or captured, the pigs try to create the impression that they have quashed the movement, destroyed our forces, and put down the Black Revolution. The pigs also try to give the impression that five or ten guerrillas are responsible for every revolutionary action carried out in amerika. That is nonsense. That is absurd. Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

To My People (July 4, 1973)

Life, Sister, Freedom, Suffering

“Legal issues aside, the American people and government should never abide the use of torture by our military or intelligence agencies. A decent society never accepts or justifies torture. It dehumanizes both torturer and victim, yet seldom produces reliable intelligence. Torture by rogue American troops or agents puts all Americans at risk, especially our rank-and-file soldiers stationed in dozens of dangerous places around the globe. God forbid terrorists take American soldiers or travelers hostage and torture them as some kind of sick retaliation for Abu Gharib.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Torture, War, and Presidential Powers, June 15, 2004 http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul185.html 2000s, 2001-2005

God, People, Travel, Intelligence

“The reformist project put in place by the U. P. enclosed itself within the bourgeois order…it aimed to forge an alliance with sectors of the bourgeoisie, it didn’t lean on the revolutionary organizations of the working class, in its own organs of popular power, it rejected an alliance with rank and file soldiers and sub officers in the armed forces, it sought to seal an alliance with the bourgeois faction. The reformist illusions allowed the ruling classes to prevail in the superstructure of the state from where it launched its reactionary counter offensive, by, firstly, leaning on industrialist federations, on the petty-bourgeoisie and finally on high-ranking officials of the Chilean Armed Forces…”

Miguel Enríquez (1944–1974) Chilean politician

Answer that Enriquez gave a press conference in October, 1973 when asked: "Accordance to your judgment: Why did the Popular Unity government collapse?"

“Let me first explain, then, what I mean by moral and moral science. A moral or ethical proposition, is a statement about a rank order of preference among alternatives, which is intended to apply to more than one person. A preference which applies to one person only is a taste. Statements of this kind are often called "value judgments." If someone says, "I prefer A to B," this is a personal value judgment, or a taste. If he says, "A is better than B," there is an implication that he expects other people to prefer A to B also, as well as himself. A moral proposition then is a "common value".”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1960s, Economics As A Moral Science, 1969, p. 1

People, Science, Personality

“This army has built up a system of political work which essential for the people's war and is aimed at promoting unity in its own ranks, unity with the friendly armies and unity with the people and at disintegrating the enemy forces and ensuring victory in battle.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On Coalition Government (1945)

War, People, Victory