#hierarchy

In a world of democracies, in a world where the great projects that have set humanity on fire are the projects of the emancipation of individuals from entrenched social division and hierarchy; in such a world individuals must never be puppets or prisoners of the societies or cultures into which they have been born. ↗

— Roberto Unger

#born #cultures #democracies #division #emancipation

Decide that you like college life. In your dorm you meet many nice people. Some are smarter than you. And some, you notice, are dumber than you. You will continue, unfortunately, to view the world in exactly these terms for the rest of your life. ↗

— Lorrie Moore

#hierarchy #education

One needs to know what the hierarchy of values are from which one takes inspiration, and in a democratic society this is the subject of continuous democratic debate. ↗

— Rocco Buttiglione

#debate #democratic #democratic society #hierarchy #inspiration

Noting that Huckleberry Finn was originally both valued and reviled because it shows the reader that the accepted moral code and social hierarchy is not always correct. ↗

— Robert Vaughan

#always #because #both #code #correct

It won't do away with hierarchy totally, but the principal leader will be the person who most exemplifies the kind of organization and behavior required who is best able to create the conditions such organizations require. ↗

— Dee Hock

#away #behavior #best #conditions #create

We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides. ↗

— Saint Ignatius

#appears #believe #black #church #decides

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. ↗

— Laurence J. Peter

#every #hierarchy #his #incompetence #level

The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent. ↗

— Ben Kingsley

#certain extent #class #extent #hierarchy #like

But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#capitalism #dishonest #hierarchy #honest #labor

There are people who are destined to taste only the poison in things, for whom any surprise is a painful surprise and any experience a new occasion for torture. if someone were to say to me that such suffering has subjective reasons, related to the individual's particular makeup, i would then ask; is there an objective criterion for evaluating suffering? who can say with precision that my neighbor suffers more than i do or that jesus suffered more than all of us? there is no objective standard because suffering cannot be measured according to the external stimulation or local irritation of the organism, but only as it is felt and reflected in consciousness. alas, from this point of view, any hierarchy is out of the question. each person remains with his own suffering, which he believes absolute and unlimited. how much would we diminish our own personal suffering if we were to compare it to all the world's sufferings until now, to the most horrifying agonies and the most complicated tortures, the mostcruel deaths and the most painful betrayals, all the lepers, all those burned alive or starved to death? nobody is comforted in his sufferings by the thought that we are all mortals, nor does anybody who suffers really find comfort in the past or present suffering of others. because in this organically insufficient and fragmentary world, the individual is set to live fully, wishing to make of his own existence an absolute. ↗

— Emil Cioran

#pain #poison #suffering #suffering-hierarchy #death