Degeneration Quotes - Page 2

• In the case of European towns, the passing of centuries provides an enhancement; in the case of American towns, the passing of years brings degeneration. It is not simply that they have been newly built; they were built so as to be renewable as quickly as they were put up, that is, badly.

  Claude Levi-Strauss

  Years, Enhancement, Towns

  Claude Levi-Strauss (2012). “Tristes Tropiques”, p.96, Penguin

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• The injurious agent in cigarettes comes principally from the burning paper wrapper. The substance thereby formed is called "acrolein." It has a violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. Unlike most narcotics, this degeneration is permanent and uncontrollable. I employ no person who smokes cigarettes.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Science, Boys, Cells

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• It is not dirt but the fear of dirt which is the sign of man's degeneration, and it is dangerous to judge a man's physical and moral sanity by outside standards.

  Lin Yutang

  Men, Judging, Dirt

  Yutang Lin (1939). “My country and my people”

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• The degeneration of the revolution in Russia does not pass from the revolution for communism to the revolution for a developed kind of capitalism, but to a pure capitalist revo­lution. It runs in parallel with world-wide capitalist domination which, by successive steps, eliminates old feudal and Asiatic forms in various zones. While the historical situation in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries caused the capitalist revolution to take liberal forms, in the twentieth century it must have totalitarian and bureaucratic ones.

  Amadeo Bordiga

  Running, Russia, Historical

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• Everyone fixes up their face if it’s not ideal, you know? That’s because of the race-mixing. For example, a Russian marries an Armenian. They have a kid, a cute girl, but she has her dad’s nose. She goes and files it down a little, and it’s all good. Ethnicities are mixing now, so there’s degeneration, and it didn’t used to be like that. Remember how many beautiful women there were in the 1950s and 1960s, without any surgery? And now, thanks to degeneration, we have this.

  Valeria Lukyanova

  Cute, Beautiful, Girl

  "This is Not a Barbie Doll. This Is an Actual Human Being." by Michael Idov, www.gq.com. July 12, 2017.

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• Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and contrary to the spirit of chemistry.... if mathematical analysis should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry -- an aberration which is happily almost impossible -- it would occasion a rapid and widespread degeneration of that science.

  Auguste Comte

  Analysis, Aberration, Spirit

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• When hope is taken away from a people, moral degeneration follows swiftly thereafter.

  Pearl S. Buck

  Hope, Taken, People

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• The mind in its foolishness thinks that it is working in this body. Why should I be bound by one system of nerves, and put the Ego only in one body, if the mind is omnipresent? There is no reason why I should.[Source]
  The root of that degeneration is egotism - to think that one is just as great as any other, indeed!

  Swami Vivekananda

  Thinking, Roots, Ego

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• It would be wrong to assume that one must stay with a research programme until it has exhausted all its heuristic power, that one must not introduce a rival programme before everybody agrees that the point of degeneration has probably been reached.

  Imre Lakatos

  Would Be, Heuristics, Research

  Imre Lakatos, John Worrall, Gregory Currie (1980). “The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Volume 1: Philosophical Papers”, p.68, Cambridge University Press

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• In a world where so much seems to be hidden by the smoke of falsity and moral degeneration, we Americans must grasp firmly the ideals which have made this country great. We must reaffirm the basic human values that have guided our forefathers. A revival of old-fashioned patriotism and a grateful acknowledgment of what our country has done for us would be good for all our souls.

  Manton S. Eddy

  Country, Grateful, Soul

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• It is thought that the virus is a degeneration from a more complex life form. It may at one time have been capable of independent life. Now has fallen to the borderline between living and dead matter. It can exhibit living qualities only in a host, by using the life of another-the renunciation of life itself, a falling towards inorganic, inflexible machine, towards dead matter

  William S. Burroughs

  Fall, Independent, Quality

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader”, p.167, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Ageing destroys youth, sickness destroys health, degeneration of life destroys all excellent qualities and death destroys life. Even if you are a great runner, you cannot run away from death. you cannot stop death with your wealth, through your magic performances or recitation of mantras or even medicines. Therefore, it is wise to prepare for your death.

  Dalai Lama

  Death, Wise, Running

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• The too perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence.

  H. G. Wells

  Perfect, Movement, Size

  H. G. Wells (2016). “H. G. Wells The Dover Reader”, p.41, Courier Dover Publications

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• This faith in themselves was in the hearts of our ancestors, this faith in themselves was the motive power that pushed them forward and forward in the march of civilisation, and if there has been degeneration, if there has been defect, mark my words, you will find that degeneration to have started on the day our people lost faith in themselves.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Faith, Heart, People

  Swami Vivekananda, Vivekananda Kendra (2009). “Swami Vivekananda's Rousing Call to Hindu Nation”, p.91, Vivekananda Kendra

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• Socialism crushes human rights, builds the state, impinges on the liberty of conscience, and breeds social, cultural, and economic degeneration.

  Llewellyn Rockwell

  Crush, Rights, Liberty

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• I am convinced that 1941 will be the crucial year of a great New Order in Europe. The world shall open up for everyone. Privileges for individuals, the tyranny of certain nations and their financial rulers shall fall. And last of all this year will help to provide the foundations of a real understanding among peoples, and with it the certainty of conciliation among nations. . . . Those nations who are still opposed to us will some day recognize the greater enemy within. Then they will join us in a combined front, a front against Jewish exploitation and racial degeneration.

  Adolf Hitler

  Real, Fall, Order

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• There is a big difference to someone being born with vision loss, to a kid having vision loss, to a senior having macular degeneration and losing their sight.

  Marla Runyan

  Senior, Kids, Loss

  Source: visionlossresources.org

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• As for the Jews, their explanation of anti-Semitism is more characteristic yet. In addition to the usual cliche, "with hatred and savagery" - naturally with no motive, they do not care to discuss motives - according to them, anti-Semitism is a madness, an intellectual degeneration, an affliction of the spirit.

  A. C. Cuza

  Hatred, Intellectual, Usual

  "Ştiinţa antisemitismului ("The Science of Anti-Semitism")". "Apararea Nationala" ("The National Defense") No. 16, Nov. 15, 1922.

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• It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

  Charles Dickens

  Baby, Answers, World

  Charles Dickens (1839). “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby”, p.347

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• From the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the commonwealth; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  May, Riches, Talent

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.18

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• I think middle-age is the best time, if we can escape the fatty degeneration of the conscience which often sets in at about fifty.

  William Ralph Inge

  Thinking, Age, Fifty

  William Ralph Inge (1932). “More Lay Thoughts of a Dean”

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• It is not till it is discovered that high individual incomes will not purchase the mass of mankind immunity from cholera, typhus, and ignorance, still less secure them the positive advantages of educational opportunity and economic security, that slowly and reluctantly, amid prophecies of moral degeneration and economic disaster, society begins to make collective provision for needs which no ordinary individual, even if he works overtime all his life, can provide himself.

  R. H. Tawney

  Educational, Ignorance, Opportunity

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• Symbolism is no mere idle fancy or corrupt degeneration: it is inherent in the very texture of human life.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Life, Symbolism, Fancy

  Alfred North Whitehead (1985). “Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect”, p.61, Fordham Univ Press

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• In a healthy nation there is a kind of dramatic balance between the will of the people and the government, which prevents its degeneration into tyranny.

  Albert Einstein

  Government, People, Healthy

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• I've got what my ma had, macular degeneration, which you get when you get old.

  Judi Dench

  "Dame Judi: My battle to save my eyesight" by Alun Palmer, www.mirror.co.uk. February 18, 2012.

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