“In the Mahabharata, the ceremony for the oath of a new king includes the admonition: 'Be like a garland-maker, O king, and not like a charcoal burner.' The garland symbolizes social coherence; it is a metaphor for dharmic diversity in which flowers of many colors and forms are strung harmoniously for the most pleasing effect. In contrast, the charcoal burner is a metaphor for the brute-force reduction of diversity into homogeneity, where diverse living substances are transformed into uniformly lifeless ashes.”

— Rajiv Malhotra , book Indra's Net

Indra's Net (2014)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Rajiv Malhotra 33

Indian-American entrepreneur and author 1950

Harold Powers (1928–2007) American academic

Harold Powers, "Language Models and Musical Analysis", p.54-55.

“But O the truth, the truth! the many eyes
That look on it! the diverse things they see!”

George Meredith (1828–1909) British novelist and poet of the Victorian era

A Ballad of Fair Ladies in Revolt https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-ballad-of-fair-ladies-in-revolt/ st. 16 (1883).

“I understand the task of sociology to be description and determination of the historical-psychological origin of those forms in which interactions take place between human beings. The totality of these interactions, springing from the most diverse impulses, directed toward the most diverse objects, and aiming at the most diverse ends, constitutes "society."”

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

Source: Superiority and Subordination as Subject-matter of Sociology (1896), p. 167

“Unfairness builds character and brings diversity to the otherwise homogeneous and isotropic existence.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

“He will know that for all men to be alike is the death of life in man, and yet perceive harmony that transcends all diversities and in which diversity finds its richness and significance.”

Howard Thurman (1899–1981) American writer

The Search For Common Ground : An Inquiry Into The Basis Of Man's Experience Of Community (1971), p. 6
Context: In the conflicts between man and man, between group and group, between nation and nation, the loneliness of the seeker for community is sometimes unendurable. The radical tension between good and evil, as man sees it and feels it, does not have the last word about the meaning of life and the nature of existence. There is a spirit in man and in the world working always against the thing that destroys and lays waste. Always he must know that the contradictions of life are not final or ultimate; he must distinguish between failure and a many-sided awareness so that he will not mistake conformity for harmony, uniformity for synthesis. He will know that for all men to be alike is the death of life in man, and yet perceive harmony that transcends all diversities and in which diversity finds its richness and significance.

“Excluded by my birth and tastes from the social order, I was not aware of its diversity. I wondered at its perfect coherence, which rejected me.”

Jean Genet book The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal (1949)

“I think this is a department that reflects the city and reflects it not only in the makeup of the personnel — which is the most diverse department in the city by far — but also in the diversity of our thought and the recognition that policing is a very complicated social contract with the people that live in this city, and that social contract requires action on both parts.”

Charlie Beck (1953) Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department

Quoted in: December 5, 2014, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck earns good reviews; tough challenges lie ahead, Los Angeles Daily News, August 9, 2014, Brenda Gazzar http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20140809/lapd-chief-charlie-beck-earns-good-reviews-tough-challenges-lie-ahead,

“In all living nature (and perhaps also in that which we consider as dead) love is the motive force which drives the creative activity in the most diverse directions.”

P. D. Ouspensky book Tertium Organum

Tertium Organum (1922)
Context: Generally speaking, the significance of the indirect results may very often be of more importance than the significance of direct ones. And since we are able to trace how the energy of love transforms itself into instincts, ideas, creative forces on different planes of life; into symbols of art, song, music, poetry; so can we easily imagine how the same energy may transform itself into a higher order of intuition, into a higher consciousness which will reveal to us a marvelous and mysterious world.
In all living nature (and perhaps also in that which we consider as dead) love is the motive force which drives the creative activity in the most diverse directions.

“Don't speak about diversity and just have us there because you want to make it look like it's diverse. Meaningful representation, that's what it's all about, where the characters have real hopes and dreams and lives and it's very sincere to the culture.”

Michelle Yeoh (1962) Malaysian-born actress of Chinese ethnicity

"Michelle Yeoh Hopes Crazy Rich Asians Will Turn the Trickle of Diversity in Hollywood "Into a Stream" " in Harper's Bazaar (27 August 2018) https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a22794930/michelle-yeoh-crazy-rich-asians-interview/

“I’ll not assert that it was a diversion which prevented a war, but nevertheless, it was a diversion.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

Apollo 11 40th anniversary celebration (2009), Armstrong discussed how the space race functioned politically Neil Armstrong's Giant Leap http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/139479, by Chris Higgins, in Mental Floss (25 August 2012)

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Rajiv Malhotra 33

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