“We must get rid of the silly, sloppy idea that all people are equal in capacity.”

—  Ray Lyman Wilbur

"Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, A Gentleman and a Scholar", Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1949

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

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We must get rid of the silly, sloppy idea that all people are equal in capacity." by Ray Lyman Wilbur?
Ray Lyman Wilbur photo
Ray Lyman Wilbur 3
President of Stanford University 1875–1949

Related quotes

Adlai Stevenson photo

“We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Speech to the United Parents Association, as quoted in The New York Times (6 April 1958)

Northrop Frye photo

“The Great Code was a silly and sloppy book. It was also a work of very great genius. The point is that genius is not enough. A book worthy of God and of Helen [Frye's wife] must do better than that.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

1:160
"Quotes", Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2002)

Samuel Butler photo

“An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Incoherency of New Ideas
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

Ibram X. Kendi photo

“I think most Americans, without recognizing it, say and believe both racist and antiracist ideas. What I'm seeking to do is get them to recognize those racist ideas, get them to essentially get rid of them and essentially strive to be antiracist, strive to see the racial groups as equals.”

Ibram X. Kendi (1982) American author and historian

On his views of the American mentality regarding race in “Ibram X. Kendi's Latest Book: 'How To Be An Antiracist'” https://www.npr.org/2019/08/13/750709263/ibram-x-kendis-latest-book-how-to-be-an-antiracist in NPR (2019 Aug 13)

Abraham Pais photo

“I knew all the time I was going to get through the war. It was completely irrational, a silly idea, but I was not going to lie down and get myself killed. I was going to get out of it.”

Abraham Pais (1918–2000) American Physicist

Source: To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue (2000), p. 50

“You can't get rid of evil. We can't, and I feel that so intensely. All the idiots that keep coming into the world and wrecking people's lives.”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

NOW interview (2004)
Context: You can't get rid of evil. We can't, and I feel that so intensely. All the idiots that keep coming into the world and wrecking people's lives.
And it is such an abundance of idiocy that you lose courage, okay? That you lose hope — I don't want to lose hope. I get through every day — I'm pretty good — I work. I sleep. I sing. I walk. But, I'm losing hope.

Diophantus photo

“If we arrive at an equation containing on each side the same term but with different coefficients, we must take equals from equals until we get one term equal to another term. But, if there are on one or on both sides negative terms, the deficiencies must be added on both bides until all the terms on both sides are positive. Then we must take equals from equals until one term is left on each side.”

Diophantus Arithmetica

As quoted by Thomas Little Heath, Diophantos of Alexandria: https://books.google.com/books?id=ABkPAAAAIAAJ A Study in the History of Greek Algebra (1885)
Arithmetica (c. 250 AD)

Norman Mailer photo

“I love the idea of a left conservative because it gets rid of political cant. We're stifling in it.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

TIME interview (1991)
Context: I love the idea of a left conservative because it gets rid of political cant. We're stifling in it. One of the diseases of the right is self-righteousness. I do believe that America's deepest political sickness is that it is a self-righteous nation.
One of the diseases of the left is political correctness. If you're out of power for too long, then you just get worse and worse about how important your own ideas are.

Tony Blair photo

“What amazes me is how many people are happy for Saddam to stay. They ask why we don't get rid of Mugabe, why not the Burmese lot. Yes, let's get rid of them all. I don't because I can't, but when you can you should.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Michael Ignatieff, "Why Are We In Iraq? (And Liberia? And Afghanistan?)", New York Times, 5 September, 2003.
2000s

P. D. Ouspensky photo

“Two things can get people to make efforts: if people want to get something, or if they want to get rid of something. Only, in ordinary conditions, without knowledge, people do not know what they can get rid of or what they can gain.”

P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) Russian esotericist

The Fourth Way (1958)

Related topics