Degree

Famous quotes containing the word degree:

    The world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young and everlastingly harp on the fact that they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution that would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curse of the world. Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don’t know what they are conserving.
    Robertson Davies (b. 1913)

    Some crimes get honor and renown by being committed with more pomp, by a greater number, and in a higher degree of wickedness than others. Hence it is that public robberies, plunderings, and sackings have been looked upon as excellencies and noble achievements, and the seizing of whole countries, however unjustly and barbarously, is dignified with the glorious name of gaining conquests.
    François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)

    Take but degree away, untune that string,
    And hark what discord follows!
    ...
    Force should be right, or, rather, right and wrong—
    Between whose endless jar justice resides—
    Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
    Then everything includes itself in power,
    Power into will, will into appetite;
    And appetite, an universal wolf,
    So doubly seconded with will and power,
    Must make perforce an universal prey,
    And last eat up himself.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)