
“Knowledge leads to unity, and Ignorance to diversity.”
Saying 368
Râmakrishna : His Life and Sayings (1898)
Source: Attributed to Cyrus the Great, in Strategic Management : A New View of Policy and Planning, by Charles W. Hofer (1979), p. 163. Hofer does not cite any particular source, but this quote is frequently cited in literature written by and for American businessmen.
“Knowledge leads to unity, and Ignorance to diversity.”
Saying 368
Râmakrishna : His Life and Sayings (1898)
The Sun My Heart (1996)
Context: There is no phenomenon in the universe that does not intimately concern us, from a pebble resting at the bottom of the ocean, to the movement of a galaxy millions of light years away. Walt Whitman said, "I believe a blade of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars...." These words are not philosophy. They come from the depths of his soul. He also said, "I am large, I contain multitudes." This might be called a meditation on "interfacing endlessly interwoven." All phenomena are interdependent. When we think of a speck of dust, a flower, or a human being, our thinking cannot break loose from the idea of unity, of one, of calculation. We see a line drawn between one and many, one and not one. But if we truly realize the interdependent nature of the dust, the flower, and the human being, we see that unity cannot exist without diversity. Unity and diversity interpenetrate each other freely. Unity is diversity, and diversity is unity. This is the principle of interbeing.
Address before the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi, India, April 5, 1956, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 133 If the peoples of great nations can work, sacrifice, fight, and die together because they share common fears and common hatreds in war, why can we not find a way to tap the great spiritual reservoir that lies deep within each of us and get people and nations working, sacrificing, and building together in peacetime because they share common hopes and common aspirations.
“The unity and diversity of organisms become apparent even at the cellular level.”
Principles of Biochemistry, Ch. 1 : The Foundations of Biochemistry
“In God, absolute unity is absolute multiplicity, absolute identity is absolute diversity”
De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) (1440)
Context: In God, absolute unity is absolute multiplicity, absolute identity is absolute diversity; absolute actuality is absolute potentiality
Nobel Address (1991)
Context: Today, peace means the ascent from simple coexistence to cooperation and common creativity among countries and nations.
Peace is movement towards globality and universality of civilization. Never before has the idea that peace is indivisible been so true as it is now.
Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.
And, ideally, peace means the absence of violence. It is an ethical value.
Source: The Art of War, Chapter I · Detail Assessment and Planning
Divided Belgium has a new King Philippe http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/10193295/Divided-Belgium-has-a-new-King-Philippe.html, Telegraph (July 21, 2013)
Hartshorne (1955) "The functional approach in political geography". In Annals of the Association of American Geographers, p. 181