Abject Quotes - page 5
Great feelings take with them their own universe, splendid or abject. They light up with their passion an exclusive world in which they recognize their climate. There is a universe of jealousy, of ambition, of selfishness or generosity. A universe - in other words a metaphysic and an attitude of mind.
Albert Camus
We describe a Monarch by designating the territory of which he is Monarch. To say that he is Monarch of a certain territory and his other realms and territories is as good as to say that he is king of his kingdom. We have perpetrated a solecism in the title we are proposing to attach to our Sovereign and we have done so out of what might almost be called an abject desire to eliminate the expression "British." The same desire has been felt-though not by any means throughout the British Commonwealth-to eliminate this word before the term "Commonwealth." ... Why is it, then, that we are so anxious, in the description of our own Monarch, in a title for use in this country, to eliminate any reference to the seat, the focus and the origin of this vast aggregation of territories? Why is it that this "teeming womb of royal Kings," as Shakespeare called it, wishes now to be anonymous?
Enoch Powell
The pleasant surprise that awaits the visitor to Calcutta is this: it is poor and crowded and dirty, in ways which are hard to exaggerate, but it is anything but abject. Its people are neither inert nor cringing. They work and they struggle, and as a general rule (especially as compared with ostensibly richer cities such as Bombay) they do not beg. This is the city of Tagore, of Ray and Bose and Mrinal Sen, and of a great flowering of culture and nationalism. There are films, theaters, university departments and magazines, all of a high quality. The photographs of Raghubir Singh are a testament to the vitality of the people, as well as to the beauty and variety of the architecture. Secular-leftist politics predominate, with a very strong internationalist temper: hardly unwelcome in a region so poisoned by brute religion. When I paid my own visit to the city some years ago, I immediately felt rather cheated by the anti-Calcutta propaganda put out by the Muggeridges of the world.
Christopher Hitchens
Growing up in the Pico/Union barrio of downtown Los Angeles in the 1970's was to be born into abject poverty and violence. And even that fed into telling stories and finding ways of surviving. I can see now that I was always a playwright, I just didn't know or have the language for it then.
Luis Alfaro
Without doubt, the greatest hindrance to change is the present state of mass consciousness. The masses of humanity are deeply fearful of changes the outcome of which they cannot foresee... Nowhere is this more obvious than in the political field. Millions today live in conditions of abject misery and abuse, exploited by tyrants masquerading as their leaders. Yet the people, for the most part, suffer in silence, fearful that resistance will make the unbearable even worse.
Benjamin Creme
It is difficult to fathom the level of economic and social degradation occurring today in Venezuela under chavismo, the movement founded by the late leftist firebrand Hugo Chávez, who died of cancer three years ago. What began as a war against the "squalid” oligarchy in order to build what he called "21st-century socialism” - cheered on as he was by many leftists from abroad - has collapsed into an unprecedented heap of misery and conflict.
Unsurprisingly, Chávez was incapable of reinventing socialism as anything other than a prescription for abject failure. Ultimately, all he wound up bequeathing to his people is this century's longest national train wreck.
Hugo Chávez
In his State of the Union address on February 6, 2019, Donald Trump said: We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom-and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime, whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair. Trump's ridiculous comment was not considered controversial, because the Western media, including the anti-Trump outlets like the New York Times, have spent many years conveying a lie: that Venezuela had been very prosperous and democratic until Hugo Chávez, and then his successor Nicolás Maduro, came along and ruined everything. If readers believe that, then they may indeed wonder, "Why shouldn't the US government help Venezuelans return to that prosperous state?”.
Hugo Chávez
