Servile Quotes - page 2

Scotland and Ireland were virtually disfranchised; Edinburgh and Glasgow, the two largest cities of Scotland, had each a constituency of only thirty-three members. A majority of the members of the House of Commons were elected by six thousand voters. This state of affairs afforded ready opportunities for the moneyed aristocracy to buy seats in Parliament, by the purchase of a few voters in rotten boroughs ; and also enabled the ministry to secure a servile majority in the Commons. The corruption resulting from these conditions, as exhibited in the latter half of the eighteenth century, can hardly be realized by the present generation. They afford, however, an illustration of the universal truth, that a government which does not draw its inspiration of liberty, justice, and morality from the people will soon become both tyrannical and corrupt. (James A. Garfield)

Becoming more callous and hardened when God thunders verbally from heaven, they obstinately persist in their rebellion. It is only when actually smitten by his hand that they are forced, whether they will or not, to fear. This fear the sacred writers term servile, and oppose to the free and voluntary fear which becomes sons.

John Calvin

You shall not pile, with servile toil, Your monuments upon my breast, Nor yet within the common soil Lay down the wreck of power to rest, Where man can boast that he has trod On him that was "the scourge of God.”.

Edward Everett

My leading idea was the establishment of a journal removed alike from servile partisanship on the one hand and from gagged, mincing neutrality on the other.

Horace Greeley

It is one of the paradoxes of journalism: The more servile a reporter is toward his sources, the more authoritative he can appear in print.

Andrew Ferguson

People who wish to salute the free and independent side of their evolutionary character acquire cats. People who wish to pay homage to their servile and salivating roots own dogs.

Anna Quindlen

For the ancients, unending labour was the mark of a slave. The labours of Sisyphus are a punishment. In working for progress we submit to a labour no less servile.

John N. Gray

I am forced to transpose until finally my picture may seem completely changed when, after successive modifications, the red has succeeded the green as the dominant color. I cannot copy nature in a servile way, I must interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture – when I have found the relationship of all the tones the result must be a living harmony of tones, a harmony not unlike that of a musical composition.

Henri Matisse

This man is freed from servile bands, Of hope to rise, or fear to fall; Lord of himself, though not of lands, And leaving nothing, yet hath all.

Lord Byron

Servants, when their lords no longer sway, Their minds no more to righteous courses bend. Half that man's virtue doth Zeus take away, Whom he surrenders to the servile day.

Homer

It is truly not the merit of the school if we do not come out selfish. Each sort of corresponding pride and every wind of covetousness, eagerness for office, mechanical and servile officiousness, hypocrisy, etc., is bound as much with extensive knowledge as with elegant, classical education, and since this whole instruction exercises no influence of any sort on our ethical behavior, it thus frequently falls to the fate of being forgotten in the same measure as it is not used: one shakes off the dust of the school. (Max Stirner)

First melted off the hope of youth Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew And then experience told me truth In mortal bosoms never grew 'Twas grief enough to think mankind All hollow servile insincere But worse to trust to my own mind And find the same corruption there.

Emily Brontë

So hopelessly incapable was I of understanding better folk that I did not even know how to keep a servile tongue in my head. In a flash there appeared before my mind the difference between the two worlds in which we lived, this woman and I; although I was staying under her roof we were such poles apart from one another that it was only with half justification possible to classify us together as human beings; we were both vertebrates, certainly, even mammals, but there all resemblance ended; any human society of which both of us were members was merely an empty phrase.

Halldór Laxness

Only that position can impart dignity in which we do not appear as servile tools but rather create independently within our circle.

Karl Marx

Capital acquires a dynamic of its own and the leading members of society are quite simply its most loyal servants, its most servile courtiers.

John Holloway

Being God, I must choose My words carefully. People, I've noticed, tend to hang on to My every remark. It gets annoying, this servile and sycophantic streak in Homo sapiens sapiens. There's a difference, after all, between tasteful adulation and arrant toadyism, but they just don't get it.

James K. Morrow

Then there is the common and fundamental justification of government that it exists to protect citizens against the anarchic jungle that would otherwise threaten their lives and property. Such archaic or sterile views show no appreciation of democide's existence and all its related horrors and suffering. They are inconsistent with a regime that stands astride society like a gang of thugs over hikers they have captured in the woods, robbing all, raping some, torturing others for fun, murdering those they don't like, and terrorizing the rest into servile obedience. This exact characterization of many past and present governments, such as Idi Amin's Uganda, hardly squares with conventional political science.

Rudolph Rummel

Aristocrats (among Hebrews and Greeks) often had harems that included women of common or even servile origin, as well as well-born aristocratic ladies. Normally, the successors would be chosen from the sons born by ladies; but on occasion those born by servile or common wives achieved the ascendency. In the latter case, tradition could dwell on the phenomenon as "worthy of saga."

Cyrus H. Gordon

This is the fantasy of every woman - to hold at our feet servile and tame slaves, like in Roman times. And the worse we treat them, the more passionate they become.

Thalia

That we are to stand by the President right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Charlie Sheen

That servile path thou nobly dost decline
Of tracing word by word, and line by line;
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue
To make translations, and translators too;
They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame,
True to his sense, but truer to his fame. (John Denham)

Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.

Thomas Paine

[Nehru's] animus against Hinduism was derived from his love for Communism. He knew next to nothing about Buddhism; the only reason be hailed it as well as its hero, Ashoka, was that in his perception Buddhism was a 'revolt' against 'reactionary' Brahminism. Had he known the truth about Buddhism, he would have dropped it like a hot potato. The same psychology made him fall for Islam. Otherwise he was equally ignorant of, and equally indifferent to all religions. The Secularism which he espoused was not borrowed from the modem West. For him, it was only a smokescreen for Hindu-baiting. The fashion was picked up fast by a servile intelligentsia and became a national cult.

Sita Ram Goel

The time comes in the life of each of us when we realize that death awaits us as it awaits others, that we will receive at the end neither preference nor exemption. It is then, in that disturbed moment, that we know life is an adventure with an ending, not a succession of bright days that go on forever. Sometimes the knowledge come with the repudiation and quick revolt that such injustice awaits us, sometimes with fear that dries the mouth and closes the eyes for an instant, sometimes with servile weariness, an acquiescence more dreadful than fear. The knowledge that my own end was near came with pain, and afterwards astonishment, with the conventional heart attack, from which, I've been told, I've made an excellent recovery.

William March

Irreverence is a very servile parasite of reverence; and has starved with its starving lord.

G. K. Chesterton

Previous
1
2 (Current)
3
4
Next