Quotes About Rank

Normally and generally men are judged by their ability to produce—except in war, when they are ranked according to their ability to destroy.

By around 480, as he put it, 'now that the old degrees of official rank are swept away . . . the only token of nobility will henceforth be a knowledge of letters'; the official hierarchy had gone, only traditional Roman culture survived.

As an English production it does not rank high. It might get by at Princeton but certainly not at Harvard.

It occurred to him that what he had taken for a perfect impossibility—that he had not lived his life as one should—might in fact be the truth. It occurred to him that those scarcely detected impulses to struggle against what the people of highest social rank considered good, those feeble tendencies that he barely noticed and immediately suppressed, might in fact be what was real, and everything else what was false.

Social rank has always been one of the pricier commodities sold in the great American department store, and the ceaseless revision of what constitutes society gives rise to the great American comedy that has been playing continuous performances since the beginning of the Republic. As one generation of parvenu rich acquires the means to buy the patents of nobility, it looks down upon the next generation of arrivistes as clubfooted upstarts.

Unlike the majority of the writers of his age, La Rochefoucauld was an aristocrat; and this fact gives a peculiar tone to his work.

Not that I mean the least fling against men who have won a great fleet action - it is right and proper that THEY should be peers - but when you look at the mass of titles, tradesmen, dirty politicians, moneylenders...why, I had as soon be plain Jack Aubrey - Captain Jack Aubrey, for I am as proud as Nebuchadnezzar of my service rank, and if ever I hoist my flag, I shall paint HERE LIVES ADMIRAL AUBREY on the front of Ashgrove Cottage in huge letters.

Or take me,' said Jack. 'I am called captain, but really I am only a master and commander.

our lietenants knew those splotches in the rafters / were splotches of gangrene and gore / and opportunity was "rife" rather than "ripe." / The rank and file had fallen silent / since we'd held out the idea of heaver or the hereafter.

O-6, a Navy captain, right below a rear admiral lower half. That had been what his brother had meant by the term "salt." A captain in the Navy was of equal rank with a major in the Army, a senior officer.

Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire.

Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man, And they in France of the best rank and station Are of a most select and generous chief in that.

A man will perhaps tolerate an offensive word applied to himself, but will be infuriated if his nation, his rank, or his profession is insulted.

I deeply believe that leaders, whatever their profession, are wrong to allow distinctions of rank to flourish within their organizations. Living together on equal terms helps people develop deeper bonds and creates a common conscience.

Until it knows its rank for certain, the animal lives a life of unbearable anarchy.

Those who cannot adopt or compete in the dominant status order — closely associated with the acquisition of knowledge and the mastery of complex cultural performances — make opposition to this order a badge of pride and recognition. The proliferation of conspiracy theories is an indicator of this process. People make themselves believe in them, because it induces them into an alternative world of status and rank.

Music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts - as the one which, more than any other, ministers to the human spirit.

I know he has a consort he favors, though she is of low rank.

Certainly, envy is no monopoly of the poor; it makes itself felt in all sections of society; it haunts the court, the library, the barrack-room, even the sanctuary; it is provoked in some unhappy souls by the near neighbourhood of any superior rank or excellence whatever.

Admired as a saint, defined by my rank. Combined with my strength, my time and my length.

colonel, was outranked by both Puller and Litzenberg. But no one seemed concerned with the insignia

In the world of thought a man's rank is determined, not by his average work, but by his highest achievement.

Publications such as Forbes and Fortune continually rank Georgia cities as among the best places to live, work and run a business.