Quotes about denominator
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Helen Keller photo

“The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next. Mere tolerance has given place to a sentiment of brotherhood between sincere men of all denominations.”

Optimism (1903)
Context: The idea of brotherhood redawns upon the world with a broader significance than the narrow association of members in a sect or creed; and thinkers of great soul like Lessing challenge the world to say which is more godlike, the hatred and tooth-and-nail grapple of conflicting religions, or sweet accord and mutual helpfulness. Ancient prejudice of man against his brother-man wavers and retreats before the radiance of a more generous sentiment, which will not sacrifice men to forms, or rob them of the comfort and strength they find in their own beliefs. The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next. Mere tolerance has given place to a sentiment of brotherhood between sincere men of all denominations.

James Anthony Froude photo

“Numerically this is the largest class of believers, with very various denominations indeed; bearing the names of every faith beneath the sky, and composing the conservative elements in them, and therefore commonly persons of much weight in established systems.”

Confessions Of A Sceptic
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: Belief is the result of the proportion, whatever it he, in which the many elements which go to make the human being are combined. In some the grosser nature preponderates; they believe largely in their stomachs, in the comforts and conveniences of life, and being of such kind, so long as these are not threatened, they gravitate steadily towards the earth. Numerically this is the largest class of believers, with very various denominations indeed; bearing the names of every faith beneath the sky, and composing the conservative elements in them, and therefore commonly persons of much weight in established systems. But they are what I have called them: their hearts are where I said they were, and as such interests are commonly selfish, and self separates instead of unites, they are not generally powerful against any heavy trial. Others of keener susceptibility are yet volatile, with slight power of continuance, and fly from attraction to attraction in the current of novelty. Others of stronger temper gravitate more slowly, but combine more firmly, and only disunite again when the idea or soul of the body into which they form dies out, or they fall under the influence of some very attractive force indeed. It may be doubted, indeed, whether a body which is really organised by a living idea can lose a healthy member except by violence.

Thomas Henry Huxley photo

“When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1880s, Agnosticism (1889)
Context: When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain "gnosis," — had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble.
So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of "agnostic." It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. To my great satisfaction the term took.

Aristotle photo
William Carey (missionary) photo

“Many can do nothing but pray, and prayer is perhaps the only thing in which Christians of all denominations can cordially, and unreservedly unite; but in this we may all be one, and in this the strictest unanimity ought to prevail.”

William Carey (missionary) (1761–1834) English Baptist missionary and a Particular Baptist minister

Sect. V : An Enquiry into the Duty of Christians in general, and what Means ought to be used, in order to promote this Work.
An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians (1792)
Context: Many can do nothing but pray, and prayer is perhaps the only thing in which Christians of all denominations can cordially, and unreservedly unite; but in this we may all be one, and in this the strictest unanimity ought to prevail. Were the whole body thus animated by one soul, with what pleasure would Christians attend on all the duties of religion, and with what delight would their ministers attend on all the business of their calling.
We must not be contented however with praying, without exerting ourselves in the use of means for the obtaining of those things we pray for. Were the children of light, but as wise in their generation as the children of this world, they would stretch every nerve to gain so glorious a prize, nor ever imagine that it was to be obtained in any other way.

Robert H. Jackson photo
Robbert Dijkgraaf photo

“The last two years have seen the emergence of a beautiful new subject in mathematical physics. It manages to combine a most exotic range of disciplines: two-dimensional quantum field theory, intersection theory on the moduli space of Riemann surfaces, integrable hierarchies, matrix integrals, random surfaces, and many more. The common denominator of all these fields is two-dimensional quantum gravity or, more general, low-dimensional string theory.”

Robbert Dijkgraaf (1960) Dutch mathematical physicist and string theorist

[1992, Intersection Theory, Integrable Hierarchies and Topological Field Theory by Robbert Dijkgraaf, Fröhlich J., ’t Hooft G., Jaffe A., Mack G., Mitter P.K., Stora R. (eds.), New Symmetry Principles in Quantum Field Theory, NATO ASI Series (Series B: Physics), vol. 295, 95–158, Springer, Boston, MA, 10.1007/978-1-4615-3472-3_4]

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo
C. Wright Mills photo
James Madison photo
John Jay photo

“Similar sentiments have hitherto prevailed among all orders and denominations of men among us. To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people; each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.”

As a nation we have made peace and war: as a nation we have vanquished our common enemies: as a nation we have formed alliances, and made treaties, and entered into various compacts and conventions with foreign States.
1780s, The Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 2 (1787)

Joseph Strutt photo
Jens Stoltenberg photo

“Although I am not a member of any denomination, I do believe that there is something greater than man. Some call it God, others call it something else. For me, it's about understanding that we humans are small in relation to nature, in relation to the powers that are bigger and stronger than man can ever comprehend. I find that in a church.”

Jens Stoltenberg (1959) Norwegian politician, 13th Secretary-General of NATO, 27th Prime Minister of Norway

As quoted in "Man må tro at det nytter" http://www.bt.no/nyheter/--Man-ma-tro-at-det-nytter-2633333.html (31 December 2011), by Erik Fossen and Håvard Bjelland, BT (in Norwegian)
2010s

Joseph Goebbels photo
William Cobbett photo

“It has long been a fashion amongst you, which you have had the complaisance to adopt at the instigation of a corrupt press, to call every friend of reform, every friend of freedom, a Jacobin, and to accuse him of French principles. ... What are these principles?—That governments were made for the people, and not the people for governments.—That sovereigns reign legally only by virtue of the people's choice.—That birth without merit ought not to command merit without birth.--That all men ought to be equal in the eye of the law.—That no man ought to be taxed or punished by any law to which he has not given his assent by himself or by his representative.—That taxation and representation ought to go hand in hand.—That every man ought to be judged by his peers, or equals.—That the press ought to be free. ... Ten thousand times as much has been written on the subject in England as in all the rest of the world put together. Our books are full of these principles. ... There is not a single political principle which you denominate French, which has not been sanctioned by the struggles of ten generations of Englishmen, the names of many of whom you repeat with veneration, because, apparently, you forget the grounds of their fame. To Tooke, Burdett, Cartwright, and a whole host of patriots of England, Scotland and Ireland, imprisoned or banished, during the administration of Pitt, you can give the name of Jacobins, and accuse them of French principles. Yet, not one principle have they ever attempted to maintain that Hampden and Sydney did not seal with their blood.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘To the Merchants of England’, Political Register (29 April 1815), pp. 518–19
1810s

Ulysses S. Grant photo

“There was no time during the rebellion when I did not think, and often say, that the South was more to be benefited by its defeat than the North. The latter had the people, the institutions, and the territory to make a great and prosperous nation. The former was burdened with an institution abhorrent to all civilized people not brought up under it, and one which degraded labor, kept it in ignorance, and enervated the governing class. With the outside world at war with this institution, they could not have extended their territory. The labor of the country was not skilled, nor allowed to become so. The whites could not toil without becoming degraded, and those who did were denominated 'poor white trash.'”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

The system of labor would have soon exhausted the soil and left the people poor. The non-slaveholders would have left the country, and the small slaveholder must have sold out to his more fortunate neighbor. Soon the slaves would have outnumbered the masters, and, not being in sympathy with them, would have risen in their might and exterminated them. The war was expensive to the South as well as to the North, both in blood and treasure, but it was worth all it cost.

Ch. 41
1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885)

Walter Reuther photo

“We live in a world in which the common denominator that binds the human family together has been reduced to its simplest fundamental term—human survival.”

Walter Reuther (1907–1970) Labor union leader

Address before the special constitutional convention of the United Auto Workers, Detroit, Michigan, January 22, 1958, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 214 This is our goal—a world of peace, freedom, and social justice for all people everywhere.

Ottobah Cugoano photo

“Slavery is an evil of the first magnitude, ... and contrary to all the genuine principles of Christianity, and yet carried on by men denominated thereby.”

Ottobah Cugoano (1757–1791) African abolitionist in England

Source: Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787), p. 24

“We try to educate the people as a Christian community. We have meetings and prayer time together. In this way, we do not judge things in terms of majority or minority in relationship to the other Christian denominations, because we work together so that all Christians may be one.”

Camillus Archibong Etokudoh (1949) Nigerian catholic priest

“A growing Church that participates in the nation's progress”: Nigerian Bishops comment (9 March 2009) Fides News Agecny http://www.fides.org/en/news/23120-AFRICA_NIGERIA_A_growing_Church_that_participates_in_the_nation_s_progress_Nigerian_Bishops_comment