Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
john actonPoker teaches self-reliance, self-control, self-respect, self-denial, and independence. But when cards are wild or are given fictitious authority, the noble game is robbed of its romance, grace and stimulation and degenerates into a gambling scheme.
henry fountain ashurstPosterity always degenerates till it becomes our ancestors.
horace walpoleEvery thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
Aristocracy has three successive ages, the age of superiorities, the age of privileges, and the age of vanities ; having passed out of the first, it degenerates in the second, and dies away in the third.
françois-rené de chateaubriandIt is when it is contended that "in a democracy right is what the majority makes it to be" that democracy degenerates into demagoguery.
friedrich hayekHow rare it is to come across a piece of writing that is unambiguous, unqualified, and also unblurred by understatements or subtleties, and yet at the same time urbane and tolerant. It is a vice of the scientific method when applied to human affairs that it fosters hemming and hawing and a scrupulousness that easily degenerates into obscurity and meaninglessness.
Eric HofferEvery thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
I have found no better expression than "religious" for confidence in the rational nature of reality, insofar as it is accessible to human reason. Whenever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism.
Somebody once declared that the only two political theories that are completely consistent are anarchy and totalitarianism. Anarchy fully embraces the concept of self, totalitarianism fully rejects that concept. Statism always degenerates into totalitarianism.
In periods that are wanting in inspiration piety always assumes the character of caution. It degenerates from a free and joyful devotion to a melancholy and anxious slavery.
A game of cricket is at work from the first ball to the last in shaping an outline or design for itself. Sometimes the design degenerates into dullness and incompetence, but design there always is, and there is an interest even in the tracing of the course and impulse of its failures.
dudley carew