The degree of liberty or tyranny in any government is, it follows, in large degree a reflection of the relative determination of the subjects to be free and their willingness and ability to resist efforts to enslave them.
I believe that Judaism was an improvement on polytheism; Christianity was an improvement on Judaism (to some degree and in some departments only); that Protestantism is an improvement on Catholicism; that Mormonism is an improvement on Protestantism. So I give Joseph Smith credit as an innovator and as a smart fellow.
But man has other needs as well: emotional needs. These, too, are few, but every bit as important as his physical requirements, yet not so simple. If they aren't met, they can be as devastating as physical hunger, as uncomfortable as a lack of shelter, as incapacitating as thirst. The frustration, isolation and anxiety brought about by unmet emotional needs can, like physical privation, produce death or a degree of living death - neurosis and psychosis.
The faculty of memory cannot be separated from the imagination. They go hand in hand. To one degree or another, we all invent our personal pasts. And for most of us those pasts are built from emotionally colored memories.
To the degree it is efficient, a spaceship is elegant and beautiful.
I think that people like the Howard Sterns, the Bill O'Reillys and to a lesser degree the bin Ladens of the world are making a horrible contribution.
I am not the center of the universe. And it's a lesson that I keep having to learn; it's my ongoing work, I'd say. And being in a career that is predicated on a degree of self-absorption, that is a tricky thing to negotiate sometimes.
To some degree we all find life difficult, perplexing, and oppressive. Even when it goes well, as it may for a time, we worry that it probably won't keep on that way.
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
I think I have a degree of confidence, but I also have terrible insecurity, like anybody does.
When you're rapping, you do have to perform to a certain degree, but not every rapper is necessarily a gifted actor.
I have a journalism degree, but I'd rather be the person who is being written about rather than the person who is writing.
Earning my college degree. It was a promise I made to my parents. I understand that football is only a certain time in my life, and my degree will help me sustain my life well past football. I was so proud of that, and the amount of work I put into it.
In ancient times there was no public education, except that of the forum, the theater, and the street, and the general degree of illiteracy was very high. . . . the early men of science were left very much to themselves and such a phrase as "the scientific culture of Alexandria in the third century B. C. " does not cover any reality. In a sense, this is still true today; the real pioneers are so far ahead of the crowd (even a very literate crowd) that they remain almost alone.
Eventually, I want to finish my degree.
If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y
I believe that to some degree there are situational and psychological laws of cause-and-effect, but I don't believe there's some Über-soul who doles out "justice. "
Success and failure in our own national economy will hang upon the degree to which we are able to work with races and nations whose social order and whose behavior and attitudes are strange to us.
Well, if it's naive to want peace instead of war, let 'em make sure they say I'm naive. Because I want peace instead of war. If they tell me they want war instead of peace, I don't say they're naive, I say they're stupid. Stupid to an incredible degree to send young people out to kill other young people they don't even know, who never did anybody any harm, never harmed them. That is the current system. I am naive? That's insane.
All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Dayis devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.