Degrade Quotes

• Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, . . . neither persons nor property will be safe.

  Frederick Douglass

  Ignorance, Justice, Black History

  Speech on the twenty-fourth anniversary of emancipation in the District of Columbia,Washington, D.C., Apr. 1886

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• I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Mean, Safe Haven

  "Obama outlines ISIS strategy: Airstrikes in Syria, more U.S. forces". Nationally televised address, edition.cnn.com. September 11, 2014.

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• Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

  Emily Bronte

  Love, Romantic, Anniversary

  Wuthering Heights ch. 9 (1847)

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• He shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he is more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

  Emily Bronte

  Soulmate, I Love Him, Handsome

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.425, Penguin

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• War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

  John Stuart Mill

  Military, War, Patriotic

  "The Contest in America", Fraser's Magazine, February 1862.

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• There is only one way to degrade mankind permanently and that is to destroy language.

  Northrop Frye

  Way, Language, Mankind

  Northrop Frye (2014). “The Northrop Frye Quote Book”, p.195, Dundurn

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• Let's make two things clear: Isil is not "Islamic." No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of Isil's victims have been Muslim. And Isil is certainly not a state.

  Barack Obama

  Islamic, Safe Haven, Two

  "Is It ISIS or ISIL? That Depends On Who You're Asking". "All Things Considered" with Arun Rath, wskgnews.org. September 14, 2014.

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• People degrade themselves in order to make machines seem smart all the time.

  Jaron Lanier

  Smart, Order, People

  Jaron Lanier (2010). “You Are Not a Gadget”, p.32, Vintage

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• I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

  Robert Byrd

  Patriotic, Fighting, Race

  "An Unlikely Friendship: President Obama and Senator Byrd" by Eve Zibel, www.foxnews.com. June 28, 2010.

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• Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire

  Emily Bronte

  Fire, Soul, Lightning

  Wuthering Heights ch. 9 (1847)

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• We will send an additional 475 service members to Iraq. As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission - we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq. But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment.

  Barack Obama

  War, Safe Haven, Iraq

  President Obama's Speech on Combating ISIS and Terrorism, www.cnn.com. September 10, 2014.

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• Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Sex, Women, Thinking

  A Vindication of the Rights of Woman ch. 4 (1792)

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• This is American leadership at its best: We stand with people who fight for their own freedom, and we rally other nations on behalf of our common security and common humanity.

  Barack Obama

  Islamic, Fighting, Safe Haven

  Statement by the President on ISIL, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. September 10, 2014.

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• This is a core principle of my presidency - if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

  Barack Obama

  Safe Haven, America, Principles

  Source: www.today.com

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• The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Workout, Children

  Thomas Jefferson, Jean M. Yarbrough (1963). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.130, Hackett Publishing

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• There are two ways to become famous. Degrade yourself or have talent. The first way is easier.

  Gary Janetti

  Two, Way, Firsts

  Twitter post from Jan 28, 2014

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• The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

  George Orwell

  Humility, Fools Day, Aggravation

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• wealth means power: the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade.

  Emma Goldman

  Crush, Mean, Wealth

  Emma Goldman (1969). “Anarchism: And Other Essays”, p.54, Courier Corporation

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• One degrades oneself sometimes in the effort not to be lonely.

  John Fowles

  Lonely, Effort, Sometimes

  2003 After a late night socializing. In The Journals: Volume1, 24 Dec 1950.

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• What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant well-being, and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money.

  John Ruskin

  Wealth, Certain, Well Being

  John Ruskin (19??). “Works”

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• Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us: we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows.

  Octavio Paz

  Truth, Believe, Thinking

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• Then my verse I dishonor, my pictures despise, my person degrade and my temper chastise; and the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame; and my talents I bury, and dead is my fame.

  William Blake

  Despair, Talent, Shame

  William Blake, W. H. Stevenson (2007). “Blake: The Complete Poems”, p.491, Pearson Education

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• But to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you-the social reformers-see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Freedom, Men, Essence

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• It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority. Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree.

  James Madison

  Religion, Atheism, May

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.

  George Sand

  Aggravation, Charity, Philanthropy Giving

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