Character Degradation Quotes

He that is good, will infallibly become better, and he that is bad, will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue and time are three things that never stand still.

With 'Nostromo', Joseph Conrad said that he had wanted to write a novel about the degradation of an idea. That's what we wanted to show in the case of Dustin Hoffman's character, Bernstein.

Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility.

In the struggle for supremacy the various political parties outdo each other in trickery, deceit, cunning, and shady machinations, confident that the one who succeeds is sure to be hailed by the majority as the victor. That is the only god--Success. As to what expense, what terrible cost to character, is of no moment.

Education should ennoble the students, but instead it is debasing them. Instead of shaping the young into diamonds, it is turning them into coals. It is not bringing transformation in them, It is not bestowing wisdom.

Whoever debases others is debasing himself.

This is the essential evil of vice, that it debases man.

No government can be strong and flourishing while the national character is weak and degraded. A government must flourish and decay with its subjects; and, when a prince makes a law or performs an action which has a tendency to injure the character or prosperity of the nation, he injures himself.