ULYSSES: O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,
The enterprise is sick. How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogeneity and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, scepters, laurels,
But by degree stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet

Troilus and Cressida, Act 1, sc. 3, l. 105ff (1.3.105-114) (1602)
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