importance quotes

The man who offers a bribe gives awaya little of his own importance; the bribe once accepted, he becomes the inferior, like a man who has just paid for a woman.

- (Henry) Graham Greene
  The Comedians, pt.1, ch.4.

Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.

- Aldous Leonard Huxley
  Beyond the Mexique Bay.

I think modern educational theorists are inclined to attachtoomuch importancetothenegative virtue of not interfering with children, and too little to the positive merit of enjoying their company.

- Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
  In Praise of Idleness,'Education and Discipline'.

Ce serait diminuer leur importance que de croire qu'ils ne servent qu'a'   garantir la liberte  ; ils maintiennent la civilisation. It would diminish the importance [of newspapers] to believe that they only serve to guarantee freedom; they maintain civilization.

- Alexis Charles Henri Cle  rel de Tocqueville
^40  De la De  mocratie en Ame  rique (Democracy in America), vol.2, pt.2, ch.6.