Degenerates Quotes - Page 2

• All in all, the League of Nations is not inevitably bound, as some maintain from time to time, to degenerate into an impotent appendage of first one, then another of the competing great powers

  Hjalmar Branting

  League, Firsts, Competing

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• How rare it is to come across a piece of writing that is unambiguous, unqualified, and also unblurred by understatements or subtleties, and yet at the same time urbane and tolerant. It is a vice of the scientific method when applied to human affairs that it fosters hemming and hawing and a scrupulousness that easily degenerates into obscurity and meaninglessness.

  Eric Hoffer

  Writing, Vices, Obscurity

  "Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook" by Tom Bethell in Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

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• The boys at school are so degenerate that it makes one feel pessimistic about the future of the male gender in general.

  Regina Doman

  School, Boys, Males

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• Where flowers degenerate man cannot live.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Flower, Men

  "The table talk and opinions of Napoleon Buonaparte" by Napoleon Bonaparte, (p. 148), 1868.

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• We have either to progress or to degenerate. Our ancestors did great things in the past, but we have to grow into a fuller life and march beyond even their great achievements.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Past, Achievement, Progress

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1118, Manonmani Publishers

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• When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Technology, Gossip

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.221, Graphic Arts Books

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• Everything must degenerate into work if anything is to happen.

  Peter Drucker

  Action, Happens, Ifs

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• Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas without eating a chicken fried steak.

  Larry McMurtry

  Texas, Eating, Steak

  Larry McMurtry (1983). “In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas”

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• TO worship God even for the sake of salvation or any other reward is equally degenerate. Love knows no reward. Give your love unto to God, but do not ask anything in return even from Him through pray.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Giving, Rewards, Sake

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Bhakti Yoga: The Yoga of Love and Devotion”, p.72, Advaita Ashrama (A publication branch of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math)

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• All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals.

  John Quincy Adams

  Struggle, Government, Politics

  John Quincy Adams (2017). “John Quincy Adams: Diaries 1779-1821”, p.564, Library of America

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• We are in a degenerate state of self-government. In fact, even to use the words self-government, is not only an exaggeration, it's a lie. It's a big lie!

  Jerry Brown

  Lying, Government, Self

  Speech at International Transpersonal Association Conference in Santa Clara, California, June 10, 1995.

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• The person who still blushes is not yet a degenerate.

  Neil Young

  Morality, Persons, Stills

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• A writer of story books! What kind of business in life-what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation-may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Book, May, Might

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850). “The Scarlet Letter”, p.17

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• Exceptionally hard decisions can deplete your energy to the point at which you finally cave in. If you mentally crumble and degenerate into negative thinking, you'll magnify the problem to the point where it can haunt you.

  John C. Maxwell

  Leadership, Thinking, Decision

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• Prayer and action...can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation.

  Henri Nouwen

  Prayer, Manipulation, Action

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2017). “You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Hachette UK

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• The worst crimes are not committed by evil degenerates, but by decent and intelligent people taking 'pragmatic' decisions.

  Colin Wilson

  Intelligent, People, Evil

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• ... the community suffers nothing very terrible if its cobblers are bad and become degenerate and pretentious; but if the Guardians of its laws and constitution, who alone have the opportunity to bring it good government and prosperity, become a mere sham, then clearly it is completely ruined.

  Plato

  Opportunity, Government, Law

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• Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise,- Such men as live in these degenerate days.

  Homer

  Strong, Men, Two

  Homer (1836). “Homer”, p.294

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• I see the angel Moroni, standing atop the temple, as a shining symbol of [our] faith. I love Moroni, because in a degenerate society, he remained pure and true. He is my hero. He stood alone. I feel somehow he stands atop the temple today, beckoning us to have courage, to remember who we are and to be worthy to enter the holy temple, to 'arise and shine forth,' to stand above the worldly clamor and to, as Isaiah prophesied, 'Come to the mountain of the Lord'-the holy temple.

  Elaine S. Dalton

  Hero, Angel, Shining

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• In any case, his religious teaching consisted mostly in more or less vague ethical remarks, an obscure mixture of ideals of English gentlemanliness and his favorite notions of personal hygiene. Everybody knew that his class was liable to degenerate into a demonstration of some practical points about rowing, with Buggy sitting on the table and showing us how to pull an oar.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Religious, Teaching

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.106, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Just as the body has its progress and decadence, so also has the mind, and, therefore, the mind is not the soul, because the soul can neither decay nor degenerate.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Soul, Mind, Progress

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Jnana Yoga: The Yoga of Knowledge”, p.102, editionNEXT.com

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• He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Rivers, Despair

  Henry David Thoreau, Carl Hovde (1980). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.334, Princeton University Press

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• I think 26 is the turning point. I’ve got to make up for 10 years of living like a degenerate. I’ve suddenly become conscious of being unhealthy. You’ve spent every bit of free time since [the age of ] 15 in a pub. And suddenly you’re like, ‘Oh God, I don’t want to be this grey ghost sitting there with a pot belly. I’ve got to get it together.

  Robert Pattinson

  Thinking, Years, Age

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• We now demand the light artillery of the intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused - in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible. On the other hand, the lightness of the artillery should not degenerate into pop-gunnery - by which term we may designate the character of the greater portion of the newspaper press - their sole legitimate object being the discussion of ephemeral matters in an ephemeral manner.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Character, Light, Hands

  Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Parker Willis, James Russell Lowell, Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1857). “The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe: Literati”, p.499

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• One has to make a decision when a condition is likely to degenerate if nothing is done.

  Peter Drucker

  Entrepreneur, Decision, Done

  Peter Drucker (2012). “Management”, p.383, Routledge

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