Degree Quotes - page 71
I remember having terrible nightmares during the trial, feeling that the police were misunderstanding things badly because they insisted that Sutcliffe had a moral stand. To me it was clear his crimes expressed a simple, virulent loathing of the female which did not need fancy explanations like those arrived at by the police. The thing is that most people in the book are not what ordinary people would describe as outcasts; they are ordinary men. That was why it was important to end up with the Ripper. Because what is important about him is that he is not different; it's only a question of degree.
I don't go along with the idea that all men are rapists or that they are the product of Original Sin, rather that we have a culture which supports and encourages misogyny and what we have to face is that a sizeable number of men hold very strange and perverted views about women.
Joan Smith
I was an "other," as people call now. But you know, everybody's other than everybody else...I used what was called the "sissy test" - you know, look at your fingernails; if you do it a certain way, you're a butch or a femme. But it turned into a little bit of a look back when I made up a dance based on the quotidian humiliations of junior high school - that age, that degree of development and that confusion and annoyance that happens.
Mark William Morris
With all my wiry power and strength, I am prone at times to bodily sufferings, connected chiefly with the digestive organs, of no common degree or king. I do not regret the sufferings and peculiaties of my physical constitution. They have taught me, and continue to teach me, that which I think nothing else could have developed. It is a force and control put upon me by Providence which I must obey. And the effects of this continual disciple of facts are mighty. They tame the in the best sense of that word, and they fan into existence a pure, bright, holy, unselfish flame within that sheds cheerfulness and light on many.
- Ever yours truly. "A. A. Lovelace."
Ada Lovelace
The question arises: why, in a world so well endowed, does hunger exist to such degree? Why, with food enough and more for all, do millions still sadly starve and bring disgrace on man's divinity? By what law do men assume the right to mark those who shall live and those who must die? From what complacent depths are such judgements made? ...Man, of his own free will, must choose the path to future glory: the path of brotherhood and love, justice and sharing... The signs are there for all to see: the signs of the new time, when hunger will be no more.
Benjamin Creme
Who will be able to trust his doctor any more? He may report his patient as 'unproductive' and receive instructions to kill him. It is impossible to imagine the degree of moral depravity, of general mistrust that would then spread even through families if this dreadful doctrine is tolerated, accepted and followed.
Clemens August Graf von Galen
The defendant Sauckel, Plenipotentiary General for the Utilization of Labor, is authority for the statement that "out of 5,000,000 foreign workers who arrived in Germany, not even 200,000 came voluntarily." It was officially reported to defendant Rosenberg that in his territory "recruiting methods were used which probably have their origin in the blackest period of the slave trade." Sauckel himself reported that male and female agents went hunting for men, got them drunk, and "shanghaied" them to Germany. These captives were shipped in trains without heat, food, or sanitary facilities. The dead were thrown out at stations, and the newborn were thrown out the windows of moving trains. Sauckel ordered that "all the men must be fed, sheltered, and treated in such a way as to exploit them to the highest possible extent at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure."
Fritz Sauckel
Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning. It is the lifting of a burden or the canceling of a debt. The words "I will forgive you, but never forget what you have done" never explain the real nature of forgiveness. Certainly one can never forget, if that means erasing totally for his mind. But when we forgive, we forget in the sense that the evil deed is no longer a mental block impeding a new relationship. Likewise, we can never say, "I will forgive you, but I won't have anything further to do with you." Forgiveness means reconciliation, a coming together again. Without this, no man can ever love his enemies. The degree to which we are able to forgive determines the degree to which we are able to love our enemies.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Let the entire system of government be strengthened, and let the balance of power be drawn up in such a manner that it will be permanent and incapable of decay because of its own tenuity. Precisely because no form of government is so weak as the democratic, its framework must be firmer, and its institutions must be studied to determine their degree of stability ... unless this is done, we will have to reckon with an ungovernable, tumultuous, and anarchic society, not with a social order where happiness, peace, and justice prevail.
Simón Bolívar
It is said in one of the admonitions of the Lord, "As your Father in Heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect.” The Savior, I suppose, did not expect that any human creature could be perfect as the Father in Heaven; but He said, "As your Father in Heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect.” He set that up as a standard, and he who did most towards reaching that standard, attained the highest degree of moral perfection. So I say in relation to the principle that all men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature. Let us then turn this government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it.et us stand firmly by each other. If we do not do so we are turning in the contrary direction, that our friend Judge Douglas proposes-not intentionally-as working in the traces tend to make this one universal slave nation.
Abraham Lincoln
How could I bring myself to be a Conservative? They offer me neither food nor drink-neither intellectual nor spiritual consolation. I should not be amused or excited or edified. That which is common to the atmosphere, the mentality, the view of life... promotes neither my self-interest nor the public good. It leads nowhere; it satisfies no ideal; it conforms to no intellectual standard; it is not even safe, or calculated to preserve from spoilers that degree of civilisation which we have already attained.
John Maynard Keynes
There is an obscurum per obscurius problem as well. In order to know whether or not giraffes are taller than ants we must first know (a) whether or not there is a consensus that giraffes are taller than ants, and (b) if there is, whether or not the communication that produces that consensus was free, open, and undistorted. But isn't it obvious that it is easier to determine whether or not giraffes are taller than ants than it is to determine either (a) or (b)? Or, to put it another way, wouldn't any skeptical doubts about our ability to determine even something so obvious as that giraffes are taller than ants also be more than sufficient to wipe out any hope of being able to know about the outcome, and degree of openness, of any process of public communication?
David Detmer
