"The Blindmen and the Elephant", a poem based on ancient parables of blind men and an elephant.
“And so these men of Hindustan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong. So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!”
"The Blindmen and the Elephant".
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John Godfrey Saxe 24
American poet 1816–1887Related quotes
“So many men, so many opinions: to each his own way.”
Quot homines tot sententiae: suus cuique mos.
Act II, scene 4, line 14 (454).
Variant translations:
There are as many opinions as there are people: each has his own view.
There are as many opinions as there are people: each has his own correct way.
There are as many opinions as there are people: everyone has their own way of doing things.
Phormio
“Disputants often fare poorly when they each act greedily and deceptively.”
Part V, Chapter 25, Ethical and Moral Issues, p. 345.
The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982)
On what she hopes The Girl Who Smiled Beads accomplishes in “A moment on ‘Oprah’ made her a human rights symbol. She wants to be more than that.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/a-moment-on-oprah-made-her-a-human-rights-symbol-she-wants-to-be-more-than-that/2018/04/18/f394dd0c-3d98-11e8-a7d1-e4efec6389f0_story.html in The Washington Post (2018 Apr 19)
“Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself.”
This is almost always attributed to US Ambassador Francis Meehan http://www.nndb.com/people/060/000121694/, though without citations, and only very rarely to Patton.
Misattributed
“What are their thoughts to you or me, so long as we are satisfied with ourselves — and each other.”
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XII : A Tête-à-tête and a Discovery; Gilbert to Helen
The Australians: Insiders and Outsiders on the National Character since 1770 (2007)