Standard

Famous quotes containing the word standard:

    Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievments must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person. If we are not capable of this examination, we may yet become one of the most distinguished and monumental failures in the history of nations.
    James Baldwin (1924–1987)

    An indirect quotation we can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for a strict standard of more and less; what is involved is evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an essentially dramatic act.
    Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

    A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size—take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one.
    Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)