Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. O that estates, degrees, and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain. Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree; Murder, stern murder in the dir'st degree, Throng to the bar, crying all, 'Guilty!, guilty!
Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.
Gradually we come to admit that Shakespeare understands a greater extent and variety of human life than Dante; but that Dante understands deeper degrees of degradation and higher degrees of exaltation.
Unpleasant, even dangerous, qualities can be found in every nation and every individual: it is cruel to demand that the Jew be an exception. In him, these qualities may even be dangerous and revolting to an unusual degree; and perhaps the young stock-exchange Jew is altogether the most disgusting invention of mankind.
Although man is not armed by nature nor is naturally swiftest in flight, yet he has something better by far—reason. For by the possession of this function he exceeds the beasts to such a degree that he subdues. … You see, therefore, how much the gift of reason surpasses mere physical equipment.
Love for God is the farthest reach of all stations, the sun of the highest degrees, and there is no station after that of love, except its fruit and its consequences.
The fact that seasoned politicians can say such ridiculous things - and get away with it - illustrates the degree to which the new dogma... has swept through the left-of-centre governing classes.