Degrees Quotes - Page 29

• Wickedness comes to its height by degrees. He that dares say of a less sin, Is it not a little one? will ere long say of a greater, Tush, God regards it not!

  Anne Bradstreet

  Long, Littles, Height

  Anne Bradstreet, Jeannine Hensley (1967). “The Works of Anne Bradstreet”, p.278, Harvard University Press

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• Doth not this Æthereal Medium in passing out of Water, Glass, Crystal, and other compact and dense Bodies into empty Spaces, grow denser and denser by degrees, and by that means refract the Rays of Light not in a point, but by bending them gradually in curve Lines? And doth not the gradual condensation of this Medium extend to some distance from the Bodies, and thereby cause the Inflexions of the Rays of Light, which pass by the edges of dense Bodies, at some distance from the Bodies?

  Isaac Newton

  Distance, Mean, Space

  Sir Isaac Newton (1730). “Opticks:: Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light”, p.324

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• We have all in some degree become anarchistic.

  Lionel Trilling

  "The Portable Matthew Arnold " by Lionel Trilling, Viking Press, 1949.

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• Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe. The painter's art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by Painting, must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can ever have.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Art, Blow, Curiosity

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1842). “The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.142

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• Anti-intellectualism ... has been present in some form and degree in most societies; in one it takes the form of the administering of hemlock, in another of town-and-gown riots, in another of censorship and regimentation, in still another of Congressional investigations.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Hemlock, Gowns, Towns

  Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.20, Vintage

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• Daily life is a comprimised blend of posturing for the sake of role-playing and of varying degrees of self-revelation. Under stressful conditions even the "true" self cannot be precisely defined, as Erving Goffman observes. ...Little wonder that the identity crisis is a major source of modern neuroticism, and that the urban middle class aches for a return to a simpler existence.

  E. O. Wilson

  Self, Class, Identity

  "On Human Nature". Book by E. O. Wilson, 1978.

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• No one in this earthly prison of the body has sufficient strength of his own to press forward with a due degree of watchfulness, and the great majority [of Christians] are kept down with such great weakness that they stagger and halt and even creep on the ground, and so make very slight advances.

  John Calvin

  Christian, Body, Weakness

  John Calvin, Henry Van Andel (2004). “Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life”, p.22, Baker Books

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• I certainly wouldn't compare the rewards of watching one's children grow and mature with that of money piling up at the box office. Both are pleasant, but to varying degrees. As the old saying goes, you can't take an audience home with you. You can't depend on the loyalty of fans, who, after all is said and done, are just faceless people one seldom sees. And few stars have their fans forever. But a child is forever. That bond and relationship is timeless and doesn't depend on your looks, age or popularity at the moment.

  Julie Andrews

  Loyalty, Stars, Children

  Saturday Evening Post, February 1980.

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• To the degree to which they correspond to the given reality, thought and behavior express a false consciousness, responding to and contributing to the preservation of a false order of facts. And this false consciousness has become embodied in the prevailing technical apparatus which in turn reproduces it.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Reality, Order, Facts

  Herbert Marcuse (2012). “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”, p.145, Beacon Press

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• A man convicted of murder is twenty times more likely than a woman convicted of murder to receive the death penalty. Since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty, 120 men and only 1 woman have actually been executed. The woman, from North Carolina, said she preferred to be executed. In North Carolina, a man who commits second-degree murder receives a sentence on average of 12.6 years longer than a woman who commits second-degree murder.

  Warren Farrell

  Men, Average, Years

  "The Myth of Male Power". Book by Warren Farrell, 1993.

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• [The doctrine of air] I was led into in consequence of inhabiting a house adjoining to a public brewery, where I at first amused myself with making experiments on the fixed air [carbon dioxide] which I found ready made in the process of fermentation . When I removed from that house I was under the necessity of making the fixed air for myself; and one experiment leading to another, as I have distinctly and faithfully noted in my various publications on the subject, I by degrees contrived a convenient apparatus for the purpose, but of the cheapest kind.

  Joseph Priestley

  Air, House, Firsts

  "Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley". Book by John Towill Rutt., 1831.

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• Harvey was not content merely to gather knowledge; he digested and arranged it under the guidance of the faculties which compare and reason. ... Harvey appears to have possessed, in a remarkable degree, the power of persuading and conciliating those with whom he came in contact. In the whole course of his long life we hear nothing either of personal enemies or personal enmities ... one of the great men whom God, in virtue of his eternal laws, bids to appear on earth from time to time to enlighten, and to ennoble mankind.

  William Harvey

  Men, Law, Long

  "The Works of William Harvey, M.D". Book by Robert Willis, "The Life of Harvey", 1847.

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• One of the most important axioms is, that as the quantity of any commodity, for instance, plain food, which a man has to consume, increases, so the utility or benefit derived from the last portion used decreases in degree. The decrease in enjoyment between the beginning and the end of a meal may be taken as an example.

  William Stanley Jevons

  Taken, Men, Important

  William Stanley Jevons (1973). “Papers and correspondence of William Stanley Jevons”

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• I'm the least-educated person in my immediate family. My two other brothers have multiple advanced degrees, and I only have one. [...] Actually, now that I've got a Nobel Prize, I feel equal.

  Steven Chu

  Brother, Two, Nobel

  Interview with Spencer Michels in "The NewsHour" on PBS, May 2, 2007.

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• How a designer gets from thought to thing is, at least in broad strokes, straightforward: (1) A designer conceives a purpose. (2) To accomplish that purpose, the designer forms a plan. (3) To execute the plan, the designer specifies building materials and assembly instructions. (4) Finally, the designer or some surrogate applies the assembly instructions to the building materials. What emerges is a designed object, and the designer is successful to the degree that the object fulfills the designer's purpose.

  William A. Dembski

  Successful, Purpose, Designer

  William A. Dembski (2006). “No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased Without Intelligence”, p.11, Rowman & Littlefield

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• People write or speak sentences in order to produce an effect, and the success of a sentence is measured by the degree to which the desired effect has been achieved.

  Stanley Fish

  Writing, Order, People

  "How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One". Book by Stanley Fish, 2011.

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• Our world is integrated to an unprecedented degree, while the global political awakening is injecting into interstate relations an intense amount of tension, emotion, even irrationality, which could cumulatively produce circumstances that preclude an effective and genuinely shared universal response to new global problems.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Our World, Political, Awakening

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• I love the book signings, you know, because I get to talk to real people, and a staggering number of people have said something very specific to me. "The Family Leave Law saved my family," or "Made our lives better," or, "The education aid that you provided made it possible for me to go to college." One man at 50 years of age got his college degree.

  William J. Clinton

  Real, Book, College

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• Latin American countries are part of the West and that it is reasonable to expect a certain degree of openness in their societies that we do not demand of, say, China or Vietnam.

  Mark Falcoff

  Country, Latin, Vietnam

  "Post-Fidel Plans for U.S.-Cuba Relations, Migration Policy". Live chat, www.washingtonpost.com. August 2, 2007.

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• The Only cure for nihilism is for liberal democratic societies - their electorates, their judiciary, and their political leadership- to insist that force is legitimate only to the degree that it serves defensible poltical goals. Thus implies a constant exercise of due diligence.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Exercise, Goal, Political

  "The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror". Book by Michael Ignatieff, April 2004.

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• My opinion is that we have, in the person of Da Free John, a Spiritual Master and religious genius of the ultimate degree. I assure you I do not mean that lightly. I am not tossing out high-powered phrases to 'hype' the works of Da Free John. I am simply offering to you my own considered opinion: Da Free John's teaching is, I believe, unsurpassed by that of any other spiritual Hero, of any period, of any place, of any time, of any persuasion.

  Ken Wilber

  Spiritual, Religious, Believe

  "Scientific Proof of the Existence of God Will Soon Be Announced by the White House". Book by Da Free John, December 1, 1980.

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• To estimate the value of Newton's discoveries, or the delight communicated by Shakespeare and Milton, by the price at which their works have sold, would be but a poor measure of the degree in which they have elevated and enchanted their country; nor would it be less grovelling and incongruous to estimate the benefit which the country has derived from the Revolution of 1688, by the pay of the soldiers, and all other payments concerned in effecting it.

  Thomas Malthus

  Country, Discovery, Soldier

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1836). “Principles of political economy considered with a view to their practical application”, p.49

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• Another longstanding foreign policy flaw is the degree to which special interests dictate the way in which the "national interest" as a whole is defined and pursued.... America's important historic relationship with Israel has often led foreign policy decision-makers to defer reflexively to Israeli security assessments, and to replicate Israeli tactics, which, as the war in Lebanon last summer demonstrated, can turn out to be counter-productive.

  Samantha Power

  Summer, War, Israel

  Interview with in Molly Lanzarotta, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, March 14, 2007.

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• All of our lives are governed by a certain degree of faith in bullshit.

  Dan Simmons

  Faith, Bullshit, Certain

  Dan Simmons (2009). “Carrion Comfort”, p.480, Macmillan

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• One of the best programmers I ever hired had only a High School degree; he's produced a lot of great software, has his own news group, and made enough in stock options to buy his own nightclub.

  Peter Norvig

  School, Groups, News

  "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years". norvig.com. 2001.

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