Quotes about difference

A collection of quotes on the topic of difference, other, people, doing.

Quotes about difference

“In my opinion, and beyond the different definitions about this literary genre or the absurd academic discrepancies about its constitution or taxonomy, the story is above all an experiential art.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Grupo Ígneo. Interview. https://grupoigneo.com/blog/jose-baroja-el-cuento-es-un-trago-breve/

Art

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

love, Love, Life, People

“Think different and then again.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Thinking

“They laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at them because they're all the same.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

“I'm not crazy, my reality is just different than yours.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Reality

“Being different means you are extraordinary”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

“People in general, not just girls, but people who are younger are obviously extremely impressionable. And I do think it’s important. There's obviously a lot of different body images that are thrown around in society in general. Some things look like they’re more acceptable and some things are made to feel like they’re unacceptable. So, I think it’s very important that it empowers people in general. I think that anytime you can make someone who potentially might not feel as great about themselves as they should, feel better about themselves, I think that’s always a positive thing.”

Harry Styles (1994) English singer, songwriter, and actor

Interview with Polish website Plejada (25 November 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNqJC-ZSseU&t=552

People, Feeling, Girl, Thinking

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

World

“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Motivational, For women, Success, Inspirational

“What I do when I write is that I'll do a raggedy, rough version just to hear the chorus, just to see how much I like the chorus. If it works for me that way when it's raggedy, then I'll know it will just work… Listen to that, that's at home. Janet, Randy, Me… Janet and I are going "Whoo, Whoo… Whoo, Whoo…" I do that same process with every song. It's the melody, it's the melody that's most important, If the melody can sell me, then I'll go to the next step. The idea is to transcribe from what's in your mentality onto tape. If you take a song like "Billie Jean," Where the bass line is the prominent, dominant piece, the protagonist of the song, the main driving riff that you hear, getting the character of the riff to be just the way you want it to be, that takes a lot of time. Listen, you're hearing four basses on there, doing four different personalities, and that's what gives it character, but it takes a lot of work.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On listening to an early version of Billie Jean on an iPhone
Ebony interview (2007)

Way, Home, Idea, Time

“She helped me feel like I could take risks with the music, which you’re often told not to do. When you watch her, you see that it makes a difference. From now on, I am not going to be afraid to individualize my performances to the max. I won’t be afraid of liberties, if the score permits them. I know I can do it.”

Megan Marie Hart (1983) American opera singer

on Marilyn Horne's influence; 2005, as quoted by Zachary Lewis https://solokeyboard.typepad.com/Music2005Final.doc and edited into the Oberlin Review article The Marilyn Horne Experience http://www2.oberlin.edu/con/connews/2006/of_note.html#3

Music, Help, Making love, Feeling

“I never said to be like me, I say to be like you and make a difference.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Variant: I never said to be like me, I say be yourself and make a difference.

“Teachers have to be learners. They have to treat each new group of students as a different group, fresh and unknown. Teachers often perceive new students as being the same as those in the previous group and apply the same practice to them. If teachers are learners, they will study the new group of students in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses, then teach them accordingly.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Teacher

Study, Teachers

“The difference between where you are now and where you want to be is your reasoning capacity and actions.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Quoted from his first book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Success_and_Failure_Based_on_Reason_and_Reality, "Success and Failure Based on Reason and Reality" https://www.amazon.co.uk/SUCCESS-FAILURE-BASED-REASON-REALITY/dp/9970983903/ on Amazon, (July 2018)

“Whenever I was asked what I wanted my first impulse was to answer "Nothing." The thought went through my mind that it didn't make any difference, that nothing was going to make me happy.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

Third Notebook: Part One
Source: No Longer Human

Happiness

“At this point I have a request for our fans. If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us - leave us the fuck alone! Don't come to our shows and don't buy our records.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Incesticide liner notes (1992)

People, Hate, Women, Way

“Can you imagine how terrible it is when you've got everything and you're still desperately lonely? That is awful beyond words.
I'm so powerful on stage that I seem to have created a monster. When I'm performing I'm an extrovert, yet inside I'm a completely different man.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

As quoted in "Rock On Freddie" (1985).

Imagination

“Optics is an example of the different ways a human is able to see things in the world. The same goes for the color of a person's skin and even though optics present that there are differences in color, these do not state that they should necessarily be treated as different.”

Edward Bouchet (1852–1918) African American academic

Unsourced

World, Color, Way, Personality

“I didn’t grow up in a man’s man world. I grew up with my mum and my sister. But I definitely think in the last two years, I’ve become a lot more content with who I am. I think there’s so much masculinity in being vulnerable and allowing yourself to be feminine, and I’m very comfortable with that. Growing up you don’t even know what those things mean. You have this idea of what being masculine is and as you grow up and experience more of the world, you become more comfortable with who you are. Today it’s easier to embrace masculinity in so many different things. I definitely find – through music, writing, talking with friends and being open – that some of the times when I feel most confident is when I’m allowing myself to be vulnerable. It’s something that I definitely try and do.”

Harry Styles (1994) English singer, songwriter, and actor

In conversation with Timothée Chalamet for i-D Magazine (2 November 2018) https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/evwwma/harry-styles-interviews-timothee-chalamet-photos

Confidence, Time, Music, Self-confidence

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Source: Our Dead Behind Us: Poems

“Montserrat Caballé is sensational. She has that same kind of emotion as Aretha Franklin. The way she delivers a song is so very natural. It's a very different gift.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"I am the Champion" by Nick Ferrari in The Sun (19 July 1985).

Way, Nature

“You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same.”

Jonathan Davis (1971) Heavy metal singer, frontman for Korn

Also sometimes attributed to Kurt Cobain
Variant: You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same.

“Everybody's at war with different things… I'm at war with my own heart sometimes.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Vibe magazine interview (February 1996)

War, Heart

“I just like having fun. It's a very good release, rock music, but you know you say that I am a different person on stage and that same thing could be said of anyone going out to do his job. It's my work, and I'm very serious about it, getting it right - when we began, we approached it the way we did because we were not prepared to be out-of-work musicians, ever. We said either take it on as a serious commodity or don't do it at all.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"The Man Who Would Be Queen" in Melody Maker (2 May 1981) http://www.queenarchives.com/index.php?title=Freddie_Mercury_-_05-02-1981_-_Melody_Maker.

Music, Way, Personality

“Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.”

Alan Rickman (1946–2016) English film, television and stage actor

Interview: Alan Rickman on "Nobel Son" http://www.ifc.com/2008/12/alan-rickman-on-nobel-son by Aaron Hillis, IFC.com (4 December 2008)

Books, World, Music, Change

“Most Holy Father, there are many who, on bringing their feeble judgment to bear on what is written concerning the great achievements of the Romans — the feats of arms, the city of Rome and the wondrous skill shown in the opulence, ornamentation and grandeur of their buildings — have come to the conclusion that these achievements are more likely to be fables than facts. I, however, have always seen — and still do see —things differently. For, bearing in mind the divine quality of the ancients' minds as revealed in the remains still to be seen among the ruins of Rome, I do not find it unreasonable to believe that much of what we consider impossible seemed, to them, exceedingly simple.”

Raphael (1483–1520) Italian painter and architect

Quote from a letter of Raphael Sanzio to pope Leo X (c. 1519); Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, cod. it. 37b; translated as 'The Letter to Leo X by Raphael and Baldassare Castiglione, c.1519', by Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks, Palladio's Rome: A Translation of Andrea Palladio's Two Guidebooks to Rome; Yale University Press, New Haven, 2006, pp. 179-92

“Every Difference is a Likeness too.”

Diane Arbus (1923–1971) American photographer and author

“I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn't identify with any of the guys at all. None of them liked art or music, they just wanted to fight and get laid. It was many years ago but it gave me this real hatred for the average American macho male.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

As quoted in Melody Maker (1991-09-14).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

Art, Music, Guy, Fight

“Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Source: Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey

Love

“From an ethical point of view the price difference is grotesque and from a political point of view, it represents a lack of respect, as though a sick Brazilian is inferior.”

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (1945) Brazilian politician, 35th president of Brazil

"Brazil to break Aids drug patent" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6626073.stm, BBC News, 4 May 2007

“Sometimes, I sit back and look at life from a different angle. Don't know if I'm God's child, or I'm Satan's angel.”

50 Cent (1975) American rapper, actor, businessman, investor and television producer

I'm Supposed to Die Tonight
Song lyrics, The Massacre (2005)

Life, God, Angels

“We are all citizens of one world, we are all of one blood. To hate people because they were born in another country, because they speak a different language, or because they take a different view on this subject or that, is a great folly. Desist, I implore you, for we are all equally human…. Let us have but one end in view: the welfare of humanity.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

World, Hate, People, Country

“Live your life, listen to your music way to loud, be crazy and as different as you want to be and always remember you are not alone.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

Way, Life, Music

“There is a difference between a passion and a fucking meltdown.”

Nicki Minaj (1982) Trinidadian-born American singer, rapper and actress

Source: Queen Radio Episode 8, September 10th, 2018

Passion

“Each of us has a particular way of looking at the world, of interpreting events and the actions of people around us. This is our attitude, and it determines much of what happens to us in life. If our attitude is essentially fearful, we see the negative in every circumstance. We stop ourselves from taking chances. We blame others for mistakes and fail to learn from them. If we feel hostile or suspicious, we make others feel such emotions in our presence. We sabotage our career and relationships by unconsciously creating the circumstances we fear the most. The human attitude, however, is malleable. By making our attitude more positive, open, and tolerant of other people, we can spark a different dynamic—we can learn from adversity, create opportunities out of nothing, and draw people to us. We must explore the limits of our willpower and how far it can take us.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 8 : Change Your Circumstances by Changing Your Attitude
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Life, Chance, Drawing, Hostility

“A genius separates himself from things which are not useful nor beneficial. While you are eager to try new technologies—A genius is thinking about how to invent something totally different that will be used by all.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Thinking

“The planet is ruled under different calendars, according to the country and religion in which you wish to practice.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Religion, Country

“Difference is the one thing that we all have in common.”

Mckenna Grace (2006) American child actress

McKenna Grace [citation needed]

“People tend to associate anyone who looks and behaves differently with illegal or immoral activity.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

People

“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something… My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Variant: My faith demands - this is not optional - my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.

Life, Faith, Chance

“We make each other alive; it doesn't make a difference if it hurts.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Hurt

“Dr. Watson's summary list of Sherlock Holmes's strengths and weaknesses:

"1. Knowledge of Literature: Nil.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil.
4. Knowledge of Politics: Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology: Practical but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound.
8. Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic.
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

Law, Literature, Knowledge, Appearance

“I'm not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Variant: I'm not crazy. My reality is just different than yours.

Reality

“Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Thom Merrilin
(15 October 1991)

For women, Women, Men, Fools

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

(1981) Audre Lorde, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism”

For women

“By eating meat we share the responsibility of climate change, the destruction of our forests, and the poisoning of our air and water. The simple act of becoming a vegetarian will make a difference in the health of our planet.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology

Health, Water, Change

“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Happy, Happiness

“It makes no difference how many peaks you reach if there was no pleasure in the climb.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Pleasure

“[Hindustan] is a wonderful country. Compared with our countries it is a different world; its mountains, rivers, jungles and deserts, its towns, its cultivated lands, its animals and plants, its peoples and their tongues, its rains, and its winds, are all different. …Once the water of Sind is crossed, everything is in the Hindustan way, land, water, tree, rock, people and horde, opinion and custom.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

People, World, Way, Mountain

“The will for victory which gives a commander the strength to see a grave crisis through is something very different from Hitler's will, which in the last analysis stemmed from a belief in his own 'mission'. Such a belief makes a man impervious to reason and leads him to think that his own will can operate even beyond the limits of hard reality - whether these consist in the presence of far superior enemy forces, in the conditions of space and time, or merely in the fact that the enemy also happens to have a will of his own.”

Erich von Manstein (1887–1973) German general

Lost Victories, Hitler As Supreme Commander

Thinking, Reality, Time, Victory

“Aristotle compared the mind of man to a blank tablet on which nothing was written, but on which all things could be engraved. … There is, however, this difference, that on the tablet the writing is limited by space, while in the case of the mind, you may continually go on writing and engraving without finding any boundary, because, as has already been shown, the mind is without limit.”
Aristoteles hominis animum comparavit tabulae rasae, cui nihil inscriptum sit, inscribi tamen omnia possint. … Hoc interest, quod in tabula lineas ducere non licet, nisi quousque margo permittat: in mente usque et usque scribendo, et sculpendo, terminum nusquam invenies quia (ut ante monitum) interminabilis est.

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

The Great Didactic (Didactica Magna) (Amsterdam, 1657) [written 1627–38], as translated by M. W. Keatinge (1896).
Cf. Aristotle, De anima, III, 4, 430a: "δυνάμει δ' οὕτως ὥσπερ ἐν γραμματείῳ ᾧ μηθὲν ἐνυπάρχει ἐντελεχείᾳ γεγραμμένον· ὅπερ συμβαίνει ἐπὶ τοῦ νοῦ."

“I know myself, and I have such a sense of religion that I shall never do anything which I would not do before the whole world; but I am alarmed at the very thoughts of being in the society of people, during my journey, whose mode of thinking is so entirely different from mine (and from that of all good people). But of course they must do as they please. I have no heart to travel with them, nor could I enjoy one pleasant hour, nor know what to talk about; for, in short, I have no great confidence in them. Friends who have no religion cannot be long our friends.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (Mannheim, 2 February 1778), from The letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769-1791, translated, from the collection of Ludwig Nohl, by Lady [Grace] Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1865, digitized 2006) vol. I, # 91 (p. 164) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0SGwLiCNxu7qZ5ch&id=KEgBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22The+letters+of+Wolfgang+Amadeus+Mozart,+1769-1791%22&hl=en#PRA1-PA164,M1

People, World, Religion, Travel

“I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, July 6 2001 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_18_1.MP3 <br class="br">2000s

“Music comes first; lyrics are secondary. Most of my lyrics are contradictions. I'll write a few sincere lines, and then I'll have to make fun of [them]. I don't like to make it too obvious, because if it is too obvious, it gets really stale. You shouldn't be in people's faces 100% all the time. We don't mean to be really cryptic or mysterious, but I just think that lyrics that are different and weird and spacey paint a nice picture. It's just the way I like art.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Date unknown, but appears on Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!.
Interviews (1989-1994), Video

People, Art, Music, Way

“We are all different — but we share the same human spirit. Perhaps it's human nature that we adapt — and survive.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Official Trailer
Hawking (2013)

Nature

“Nazism says that women are absolutely equal to men. But they're different. And thank god for the difference.”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

undated

Women, Men, God

“I tend to have a very analytical mind, I'm constantly thinking about how things can be better or different.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

Thinking

“We must preserve the sense of unity and the sense of diversity and multiplicity. We must recognize that the One and the Many are the same thing viewed from different angles. The One is the Many. The One is manifested only in and through the Many. It has no separate existence apart from the Many. Equally the Many are the One. Even during their temporary separation, they are always part of the One, and always united with the One. Every one of us is always part of the One, and can unite with the One at any time we choose”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2

Sense, Time, Parting

“This is what you love. This is your obsession, I know what it's like to be different. Embrace it.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

“We think to survive but reason to prosper in life, for one to draw the difference between the two requires reason.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Drawing, Thinking, Life

“We must take into consideration the opinions of others; simply because we all look at the world through different lenses.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

World

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

Motivational, Success, Deep, Inspirational

“We all have same beginning (BIRTH), and we will have same ending (DEATH). So how different can we be?”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Death, Birth

“I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

World, Feeling, Question, Thinking

“Ignore the critics… Only mediocrity is safe from ridicule. Dare to be different!”

Dita Von Teese (1972) American burlesque dancer, model and actress

“A different language is a different vision of life.”

Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker

Life

“If there's any message to my work, it is ultimately that it's OK to be different, that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Variant: If there's any message, it is ultimately that it's okay to be different; that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.

Color, Question

“Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

History

“Rose once told me about this poem she’d read. There was this line, ‘If your eyes weren’t open, you wouldn’t know the difference between dreaming and waking.’ You know what I’m afraid of? That someday, even with my eyes open, I still won’t know.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Dreams, Reading

“You are water
I’m water
we’re all water in different containers
that’s why it’s so easy to meet
someday we’ll evaporate together.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

Variant: We're all water from different rivers,
That's why it's so easy to meet,
We're all water in this vast, vast ocean,
Someday we'll evaporate together.

Water

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

Dogs

“Your beautiful don't let anyone tell you different”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Beauty

“There is a difference between a thing and talking about a thing.”

Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics

“I am different, not less.”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

“The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Silence

“When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Variant: When you love someone you let them take care of you.
Source: Handle with Care

Love

“We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

“Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

With Love (1999)

“What a difference it makes to come home to a child!”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Home

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Dawn

Man verdirbt einen Jüngling am sichersten, wenn man ihn anleitet, den Gleichdenkenden höher zu achten, als den Andersdenkenden.
The Dawn, Sec. 297

Youth, Way, Thinking

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Source: An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (2005), p. 86
Source: War Talk

Art, Music, Literature, Joy

“You know the difference between a tornado and divorce in the South? Nothing! Somebody's losing a trailer.”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Weapons of Self Destruction (2010)

“I see every director as a different brand. That way, it’s easy for me to compartmentalise my work. So I can easily switch from one film to the other and refresh myself when I hit a mental block. I don’t want my music to sound like a pastiche of other works. So I stop listening to my songs once the audio for a film is released. When I unwind, it’s usually with jazz.”

Yuvan Shankar Raja (1979) Indian musician

Yuvan Unplugged (2009)

Music, Way

“The only difference between "propaganda" and "education," really, is in the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is education. The advocacy of what we don't believe in is propaganda.”

Edward Bernays (1891–1995) American public relations consultant, marketing pioneer

Source: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), p. 212

Education

“I can't explain why I shine and no one else shines. I think everybody shines in different things.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Interview on the set of Gang Related (1996)

Thinking

“His two eyes are different," says Lasse Hallstrom, who directed Leo in what may be his best movie, What's Eating Gilbert Grape. "The left eye is very soft and empathetic. The right eye is more analyzing. One eye oozes warmth, while the other is more penetrating. One eye is psyche, the other is intellect.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

Danny Boyle (The Face, February 2000)
About

“Modernity is one of the most delicate and vital issues confronting us, the people of non-European countries and Islamic societies. A more important issue is the relationship between an imposed modernization and genuine civilization. We must discover if modernity as is claimed is a synonym for being civilised, or if it is an altogether different issue and social phenomenon having no relation to civilisation at all. Unfortunately modernity has been imposed on us, the non-European nations, in the guise of civilization.”

Ali Shariati (1933–1977) Iranian academic and activist

Source: Reflections of Humanity, (1984), p. 17: Second paragraph.

People, Country

“(on the Indian presence in his country): "Let us not ignore the fact that there is another community settled here in our midst. I refer to the Indians. They have increased more rapidly than we. They have become producers on our soil. They are continuously striving to better themselves. Although they are a different race, yet we are each a unit in the British Empire. They have shouldered many burdens that have helped Fiji onward. We have derived much money from them by way of rents. A large proportion of our prosperity is derived from their labour."”

Lala Sukuna (1888–1958) Chief of Lau and civil servant in Fiji

1936 speeches to the Great Council of Chiefs

Money, Way, Communication, Help

“It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.”

Diogenes of Sinope (-404–-322 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy

Stobaeus, iii. 3. 51
Quoted by Stobaeus

Madness

“My opponent asks her supporters to recite a three word loyalty pledge. It reads, "I'm with her." I choose to recite a different pledge. My pledge reads, "I’m with you – the American people." I am your voice. So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for a better future, I say these words to you tonight: I’m with you, and I will fight for you, and I will win for you. To all Americans tonight, in all of our cities and towns, I make this promise: We will make America proud again, we will make America strong again, we will make America safe again, and we will Make America Great Again! God bless you and good night! I love you!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, 2016 Republican National Convention (21 July 2016)

Love, God, People, Dreams

“Because I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary, that eagles should be crows.”

Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man

Quoted in Vine Deloria, God Is Red: A Native View of Religion. Golden, Colo: Fulcrum Pub, 2003, cited to Virginia Armstrong, I have spoken; American history through the voices of the Indians. Chicago, Sage Books, 1971.

Heart

“I should be judged as a captain who went from Spain to the Indies to conquer a people numerous and warlike, whose manners and religion are very different from ours, who live in sierras and mountains, without fixed settlements, and where by divine will I have placed under the sovereignty of the King and Queen our Lords, an Other World, whereby Spain, which was reckoned poor, is become the richest of countries.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

Letter to Doña Juana de Torres (October 2015)

People, World, Religion, Mountain

“Somewhere, the deepest desire for us all is to be appreciated, to be loved, to be seen as somebody of value. But not just seen — and Aristotle makes a difference between being admired and being loved. When you admire people, you put them on pedestals. When you love people, you want to be together. So really, the first meeting I had with people with disabilities, what touched me was their cry for relationship.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

On Being, The Wisdom of Tenderness (transcript) http://www.onbeing.org/program/wisdom-tenderness/transcript/1369 Interview with Krista Tippett, December 24, 2009 <br class="br">From interviews and talks

Love, People, Cry

“Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves.”

Texe Marrs (1944–2019) American writer

The text by Texe Marrs titled "All Hail the Jewish Master Race" was published before 2004 https://web.archive.org/web/20031217191553/http://texemarrs.com/112003/jewish_master_race.htm (allegedly 25 November 2003 https://web.archive.org/web/20031205052353/http://www.rense.com/general45/master.htm) and claimed "In his memoirs of his years in the White House, former President Jimmy Carter wrote that there could have been peace between the Arabs and the Israelis had it not been for the bigoted, Nazi-like racial views of Israeli's Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Begin, Carter recalled, believed the Jews were a Master Race, a holy people superior to Egyptians and Arabs." No source is provided regarding the Jimmy Carter claim. <br class="br">Misattributed to Menachem Begin. Attributed in page 208 of Oil Crisis by Colin John Campbell in 2005 https://books.google.ca/books?id=VaGCbpbzjRwC&pg=PA208

God, Animals

“When we were children, we often played war. We had a fine collection of lead soldiers. My brothers would take different countries: Xavier had Italy; Pierre, Germany. Or they would swap around. Well, I, gentlemen, always had France.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

Reminiscing during an ocean voyage to Tahiti, quoted in The Atlantic, November 1960
Early life

War, Children, Country

“… And I, who timidly hate life, fear death with fascination. I fear this nothingness that could be something else, and I fear it as nothing and as something else simultaneously, as if gross horror and non-existence could coincide there, as if my coffin could entrap the eternal breathing of a bodily soul, as if immortality could be tormented by confinement. The idea of hell, which only a satanic soul could have invented seems to me to have derived from this sort of confusion - a mixture of two different fears that contradict and contaminate each other.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., number 168
The Book of Disquiet

Life, Death, Hate, Fear

“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) <br class="br">Arithmetica (c. 250 AD)

“Hay smells different to lovers and horses.”

Stanisław Jerzy Lec book Unkempt Thoughts

p, 125
Unkempt Thoughts (1957)

Lovers, Horse

“I didn't say that the Jews are inferior. I didn't even maintain they are a race. I merely saw that the mixture of different cultures didn't work.”

Alfred Rosenberg (1893–1946) German architect and politician

January 12, 1946. Quoted in "Nuremberg Diary" - Page 120 - by G. M. Gilbert - History - 1995