In the same way that we need statesmen to spare us the abjection of exercising power we need scholars to spare us the abjection of learning.
Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.
Open markets offer the only realistic hope of pulling billions of people in developing countries out of abject poverty while sustaining prosperity in the industrialized world.
Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals love an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.
With everything that is complex we learn. If you don't learn then it's an utter and abject failure. If you do learn and you're able to apply that to the next situation then you take away a measure of success.
When I go to the clinic next and sit with a tube in my arm and watch the poison go in I'm in an attitude of abject passivity. It doesn't feel like fighting at all it just feels like submitting.
For a long time I really struggled with the idea of being an actor because I really felt that I should be in the Peace Corps.