Quotes about difference
page 37

“For example, how great the difference was between our days. While my days were jam-packed with meaning, when each step opened a new opportunity, and when every opportunity filled me to the brim, in a way which now is actually incomprehensible, the meaning of his days was not concentrated in individual events but spread over such large areas that it was not possible to comprehend them in anything other than abstract terms.”

Karl Ove Knausgård (1968) Norwegian author

My Struggle -- Book 1 (2009)

Way

“Isn't it sad? In our world, women also don't support other women enough — how often do we really work together to make a difference? We are sometimes so vicious toward one another. We want to be independent women, but we really don't know who we are as women. It's about us taking control, because we tend to just blame. We complain about the world, but we are still not loving toward other women.”

Salma Hayek (1966) Mexican-American actress and producer

O interview (2003)

Love, Women, World, Sadness

“All religious leaders have the ability to help both the perpetrators—those who trap their fellow human beings in the net of human enslavement—as well as the victims who get caught in this net. They both need to be guided to the right path. Religious leaders should be prepared to fight this battle and uphold righteousness. This is not a war meant to kill. We need to be ready to fight a war to save the helpless from the grip of demonic minds. We don’t want a response born out of revenge due to perceived differences in caste, creed, religion, etc. Instead, we need to develop empathy, realizing the divinity within each person.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

From Amritanandamayi's Speech Against Human Trafficking and Slavery at the Vatican (2014)

War, Religion, Revenge, Help

“Later came 'the hour of solitude'. Inside my tiny bedroom-studio, I began my forty days in the desert; I do not know if they are over yet. With a desperate, feverish rage I took formal experimentation to maniacal levels. Each canvas was a battlefield where wounds multiplied ad infinitum. And then came the surprise. All that frenetic movement, all that gesticulation, all that unending dynamism, by dint of the scratches, blows, scars, divisions and subdivisions…. suddenly took a qualitative leap. My eye no longer perceived differences. Everything congealed in a uniform mass. What had been ardent ebullition transformed itself into static silence. It was like a great lesson in humility for the pride of my unbridled quest.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

1945 - 1970, A Report on the Wall' 1970

Solitude, Silence, Rage

“The Watchman falls "into" the trap of looking. The "spy" is a different person.... The spy must be ready to "move", must be aware of his entrances and exits. The watchman leaves his job & takes away no information. The spy must remember & must remember himself & his remembering. The spy designs himself to be overlooked. The watchman "serves" as a warning. Will the spy & the watchman ever meet? In a painting named SPY, will he be present? The spy stations himself to observe the watchman. If the spy is a foreign object, why is the eye not irritated? Is he invisible? When the spy irritates, we try to remove him. "Not spying, just looking"”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Watchman. Somewhere here, there is the question of "seeing clearly". Seeing what? According to what?
Book A (sketchbook), c 1965: as quoted in Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews, ed. Kirk Varnedoe, Moma New York, 1996, p. 60
1960s

Question, Painting, Personality

“Prejean, who got cosmetic surgery before the pageant, just spoke of 'how women can make a difference in the world.”

David Shuster (1967) American television journalist

Absolutely revolting. 5:20 PM - 12 May 09 http://twitter.com/DavidShuster/status/1774206676 On Twitter

Women, World

“But you can't ignore dense people-they're not unarmed; they're armed differently.”

Aaron C. Brown (1956) American financial analyst

Source: The Poker Face of Wall Street (2006), Chapter 8, The Games People Play, p. 231

People

“Our constitution is comparatively a new constitution. It is based largely on the model of the British Constitution. As such it has history if not ancestry, which may well go back to centuries. It is being worked I venture to presume, successfully and to the satisfaction of all concerned although within the short period of 10 years, it has had to undergo not less than 7 amendments…The constitution is largely founded on the British Constitution. There are certain differences which are obvious. The British Constitution is a unitary constitution in which the Parliament is supreme, having no other authority sharing its power of legislation except such as may be delegated. Our constitution is a federal constitution in which the powers and functions of the Union Parliament and the State Legislatures are clearly defined and the one has no power or right to encroach upon the rights and powers reserved to the other.”

Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963) Indian political leader

From his speech given on 28 November 1960 at laying the foundation-stone of the building of the Law Institute of India, in: p. 14
Presidents of India, 1950-2003

History

“To some extent, of course, we're all impostors—we all play roles when on the stage of life, presenting a different public self than the private self we share with intimates, and morphing both selves as circumstances demand. Displaying a facade and misleading our audience are defensive behaviors learned early.”

Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries (1942) Dutch academic

Source: The Leader on the Couch, 2011, p. 16

Life, Behavior, Learning

“In the Church which was founded at Corinth, St. Paul had special difficulties of the kind I have mentioned. In that flourishing commercial city, which through its shipping and situation, maintained a vital connexion between East and West, numerous crowds of people flocked together from all quarters, different in speech and in culture. As they mingled with the inhabitants, they produced, by contacts and contrasts, new and ever new differences. Even in the Church this differentiation endeavoured to make itself felt in sects and parties; and a kind of pagan wisdom made a special attempt to force itself forward as a teacher of truth. In his first letter to this church, from which the text I read is taken, St. Paul strongly combats this tendency.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Sermon Preached at Trinitatis Kirke, 1844, P. 162

Wisdom, People, Truth, Teachers

“When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, Sir, was then the primary object.”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Thursday, 5 June 1788), as contained in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan Elliot, published by the editor (1836), p. 65
1780s

Youth

“In the name of toleration, the believer is asked to associate on a common level of total acceptance with the atheist, the pervert, the criminal, and the adherents of other religions as though no differences existed.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 294

Religion

“It seems as if there are almost two different kinds of religion, one of which brutally divides, and one of which unites (or can unite). How do we tell them apart, and how might we begin to switch allegiance from the former to the latter?”

Ken Wilber (1949) American writer and public speaker

Why Do Religions Teach Love and Yet Cause So Much War?

Religion

“That in these times every serious person should not in his heart have felt some difliculty with the doctrines of the incarnation, I cannot helieve. We are not as we were. When Christianity was first published, the imagination of mankind presented the relation of heaven to earth very differently from what it does now.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Letter X
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Imagination, Time, Heart, Personality

“These differences of opinion were more in reference to policy than principle, and as Mr. Jefferson said in his inaugural, in 1801, after the heated contest preceding his election, that there might be differences of opinion without differences on principle, and that all, to some extent, had been Federalists and all Republicans; so it may now be said of us, that whatever differences of opinion as to the best policy in having a co-operation with our border sister slave States, if the worst came to the worst, that as we were all co-operationists, we are now all for independence, whether they come or not.”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

Sister

“The aversion of the first Christians to the images, inspired by the Pagan simulachres, made room, during the centuries which followed the period of the persecutions, to a feeling of an entirely different kind, and the images gradually gained their favour. Reappearing at the end of the fourth and during the course of the fifth centuries, simply as emblems, they soon became images, in the true acceptation of this word; and the respect which was entertained by the Christians for the persons and ideas represented by those images, was afterwards converted into a real worship. Representations of the sufferings which the Christians had endured for the sake of their religion, were at first exhibited to the people in order to stimulate by such a sight the faith of the masses, always lukewarm and indifferent. With regard to the images of divine persons of entirely immaterial beings, it must be remarked, that they did not originate from the most spiritualised and pure doctrines of the Christian society, but were rejected by the severe orthodoxy of the primitive church. These simulachres appear to have been spread at first by the Gnostics,—i. e., by those Christian sects which adopted the most of the beliefs of Persia and India. Thus it was a Christianity which was not purified by its contact with the school of Plato,—a Christianity which entirely rejected the Mosaic tradition, in order to attach itself to the most strange and attractive myths of Persia and India,—that gave birth to the images.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Source: A Treatise of Relics (1549), p. 13

People, School, Faith, Religion

“Part of the unknown reality, then, is hidden beneath language and the enforced pattern of accustomed words-so, for an exercise, look about your environment. Make up new, different 'words' for the objects that you see about you. Pick up any object, for example. Hold it for a few seconds, feel its texture, look at its color, and spontaneously give it a new name by uttering the sounds that come into your mind. See how the sounds bring out certain aspects of the object that you may not have noticed before. The new word will fit as much as the old one did. It may, in fact, fit better. Do this with many objects, following the same procedure. You can instead say the name of any object backwards. In such ways you break up to some extent the automatic patterning of familiar phrases, so that you can perceive the individuality that is within each object.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 726, p. 460
The “Unknown” Reality: Volume Two, (1979)

Color, Way, Feeling, Exercises

“I began to reconcile myself to my forlorn condition, but still I was not what I wished to be: the worst of all was, I had no friend; not a human being that understood me. I wrote daily to my friend Leisewitz; he resided in Hanover, and was just as unhappy as myself, except that he had some friends, and plenty of money. In this respect I was differently situated, and although in want of money to buy books, I was determined not to be any expense to my father. Some watches, snuff-boxes, and rings, presents I had received in Gottingen, soon found their way to the hands of Jews at half price. I was even, against my will, driven to the necessity of accepting small fees from mechanics and peasants. This cut me to the heart; but I could not help myself. The following circumstance, however, overcame me more than all: My father was a man of great knowledge and experience, but, like all old men, he remained faithful to the old method of practice. I visited many of his patients, and without telling me exactly what mode of treatment I was to pursue, he only observed, "You will act so and sohowever, I saw the patients had confidence in my father only, and not in me; they wished me to be his tool, and I therefore followed his mode of practice, and thus lost several of his patients, who could have been saved had I followed my own method.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Men, Money, Books, Faith

“Lueg and Palermo saw what was good, what was bad, in what I was painting. That became the basis of our relationship, that we shared an idea, a sensibility. With Sigmar Polke, it was different. Our relationship was based on being outrageous. I have difficulties with his work. He [Polke] refuses all values and criteria, and for that reason I could never talk to him seriously. He refuses to accept any borders, any limits.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

Idea, Painting

“The difference between a hacker and consumer is a consumer says, "I wish it would work this way." A hacker says, "I've got a screwdriver and a few minutes."”

Rael Dornfest (1950) American computer programmer

Boston Globe, Everyday Hackers, April 19, 2004.

Way

“The course of history does not include eternal problems, problems of essences or of dialectics; it only offers valorizations that differ from one culture to another and even from one individual to another. … What is opposed to time as well as eternity is our own valorization of the present. What does it matter that time passes and that its frontier wipes out our valorizations? No warrior has been shaken in his patriotism by the idea that, had he been born on the other side of the border, his heart would have beaten for the other side.”

Paul Veyne (1930) French historian

"The Final Foucault and His Ethics," Critical Inquiry, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Autumn, 1993)

History, Idea, Problem, Time

“Some intellectuals’ downplaying of objective reality and enduring criteria extends beyond social, scientific, or economic phenomena into art, music, and philosophy. The one over-riding consistency across all these disparate venues is the self-exaltation of the intellectuals. Unlike great cultural achievements of the past, such as magnificent cathedrals, which were intended to inspire kings and peasants alike, the hallmark of self-consciously “modern” art and music is its inaccessibility to the masses and often even its deliberate offensiveness to, or mockery of, the masses.
Just as a physical body can continue to live, despite containing a certain amount of microorganisms whose prevalence would destroy it, so a society can survive a certain amount of forces of disintegration within it. But that is very different from saying that there is no limit to the amount, audacity and ferocity of those disintegrative forces which a society can survive, without at least the will to resist.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Source: 2010s, Intellectuals and Society (2010), Ch. 22 : The Influence of Intellectuals

Art, Music, Reality, Past

“Lacan conceives the difference between the two deaths as the difference being real (biological) death and its symbolization, the settling of accounts the accomplishment of symbolic destiny (deathbed confession in Catholicism, for example). This gap can be filled in various ways; it can contain either sublime beauty or fearsome monsters: in Antigone's case, her symbolic death, her exclusion from the symbolic community of the city, precedes her actual death and imbues her character with sublime beauty, whereas the ghost of Hamlet's father represents the opposite case, - actual death unaccompanied by symbolic death, without a settling of accounts - which is why he returns as a frightful apparition until his debt has been repaid. This place between the two deaths, a place of sublime beauty as well as terrifying monsters, is the site of das Ding, of the real-traumatic Kernel in the midst of symbolic order.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

150
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Death, Beauty, Way, Communication

“Dots are just one example of an element in Lascaux art, and in all cave art… This is a profusion of nonrepresentational, geometric patterns. In addition to dots, there are grids and chevrons, curves and zigzags, and more. …The coincidence of these geometric motifs with representational images is one of the most puzzling aspects of Upper Paleolithic art. …images, six different kinds in all, are shimmering, incandescent, mercurial—and powerful. Called entoptic images—which means "within vision"—these phenomena are products of the basic neural architecture of the human brain.”

Richard Leakey (1944) Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician

Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human (1992)

Art

“And I got some other producers I’m working with right now. I got YK 808, I got Deedotwill, I got other up-and-coming artists. I stay working with different people. I like overlapping and vibing with different producers, and that’s just how I’ve always been, man. Even when I was with Three 6 Mafia. I used to always just search for new talent and work with new talented people. I just think that’s what it is. I love making music. I don’t like to stay in the same place -- I’m not that type of person. But I still keep my roots. I still keep my sound.”

Juicy J (1975) American rapper and record producer from Tennessee; co-founder of Three 6 Mafia

Juicy J Interview Rubba band Business Wiz Khalifa Juicy J https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8070920/juicy-j-interview-rubba-band-business-wiz-khalifa

Love, People, Music, Search

“For the people. And truly I desire their Liberty and Freedom as much as any Body whomsoever. But I must tell you, That their Liberty and Freedom, consists in having of Government; those Laws, by which their Life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having a share in government (Sir) that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things, and therefore until they do that, I mean, that you do put the people in that liberty as I say, certainly they will never enjoy themselves.
Sirs, It was for this that now I Have come here. If I would have given way to an Arbitrary way, for to have all Laws changed according to the power of the Sword, I needed not to have come here; and therefore, I tell you, (and I pray God it be not laid to your charge) That I Am the Martyr of the People.”

Charles I of England (1600–1649) monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland

On the scaffold before his execution. ( 30 January, 1649 http://anglicanhistory.org/charles/charles1.html).

Life, God, People, Law

“There can be no difference anywhere that doesn't make a difference elsewhere - no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere and somewhen.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture II, What Pragmatism Means
1900s, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907)

Truth

“Oh, that's a good question because what I would consider essential may be different than what my record company and the fans might have in mind. But when you do a retrospective of 20 years like this (album) and realize that you had so many hit singles, it's really an honor. There's a couple of songs that I wrote, one is called "Along Came You" for my daughter Emily; and the other, "Nayib's Song (I Am Here for Your) for my son. Both are in the 'slow disc.' I put them in even if they were not singles or hits because for me my being a mother is an essesntial part of who I am."”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

answer to question "The title of your new album is "The Essential Gloria Estefan. What is the essential Gloria Estefan?"
2006

Question, Parting, Daughters

“When I was young and walked along Breiðafjörður I never would have thought that such a wide variety of people inhabited the world. Here were many folk from the numerous city-states and counties of Italy: Milanese, Napolese and Sicilians, Sardinians, Savoyards, Venetians and Tuscans, along with the Romans themselves; here one could see the peoples of the six Spanish kingdoms: the Castilians, Aragonese, Catalans, Valencians, Majorcans, and Navarrans; gathered here were envoys from the different nations of the Empire, even from the nations that had adopted Luther's reforms: Bavarians, Germans and Croatians, Franconians, Westphalians, Rhinelanders, Saxons, Burgundians, Franks, Walloons, Austrians, and Styrians... I saw people from nations I knew nothing about, their countenances, the textures of their clothing, their grimy faces and their eyes filled with passion and tenacity. Most often, however, I found myself thinking about their countless feet, bare or in shoes, mostly certainly tired, yet somehow lively and hopeful; and the old crusade-dance that resounded through their musica: 'Fair are the fields, cloudless God's sky.' And suddenly I realized that Guðríður Þorbjarnardóttir was gone. Not a single Icelander remained.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Arnas describing a procession in Rome
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

God, People, World, Hope

“Magnets have an inherent quality that they can adhere to each other, so there are certain things you can do with magnets that you can't do with non-magnetic material. There are certain characteristic things you can do with very heavy things you can't do with very light things. By that, I mean it seems to me that very light things and very small things have a different characteristic way that they should be arranged, and big heavy things have a different characteristic way they should be arranged. That's subjective. I can't prove that to you. So my work is essentially combining particles – but again, combining particles according to the properties of individual particles, not imposing properties on the particles. These particles, of course, always work in a gravitational space and meet the plane of resistance that you always meet, as long as you aren't the center of the earth.”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Source: Artists talks 1969 – 1977, pp. 29-30

Way, Light

“A basic social arrangement in modern society is that the individual tends to sleep, play and work in different places with different co-participants, under different authorities, and without an over-all rational plan. The central feature of total institutions can be described as a breakdown of the barriers ordinarily separating these three spheres of life. First, all aspects of life are conducted in the same place and under the same central authority. Second, each phase of the member's daily activity is carried on in the immediate company of a large batch of others, all of whom are treated alike and required to do the same thing together. Third, all phases of the day's activities are tightly scheduled, with one activity leading at prearranged time into the next, the whole sequence of activities being imposed from above by a system of explicit formal rulings and a body of officials. Finally, the various enforced activities are brought together into a single rational plan purportedly designed to fulfil the official aims of the institution.”

Erving Goffman book Asylums

Source: 1950s-1960s, Asylums, 1961, p. 5-6

Life, Sleep, Time

“I tried. I tried so hard to empathize with all of your weaknesses. I implored every single one of you to just say "no," and all my empathy got was for you to love Jeff Hardy that much more than you already did. But this will not deter me. I will stay the course; I still believe in teaching you people the difference between right and wrong. (Audience chants "Hardy!") Oh, obviously it's gonna be challenging, listening to you people, and by the looks of some of you, it's gonna be a big challenge. But just like any other challenge that's come down the pipe in my lifetime, I'm gonna meet that challenge head on like a man, just like I did last week. Let's take a look. (Recap of Punk's assault on Hardy) See, now I know why you people love Jeff Hardy so much. It's because you are all just like him; and, in turn, Jeff Hardy is just like all of you. The reality is, none of you have the strength to be straight-edge. (Audience resumes chant) You gravitate towards Jeff because it's the easy way out: it's easier to weak like Jeff, because you sure can't be strong like me. Oh, you can boo all you want. I know why you boo, you know why you boo. It's because I tell the truth. And the truth sometimes hurts, doesn't it? For instance, what does it say on your prescription bottle of pills? "Take one every four hours"? Well, don't tell me you people don't gobble four, six, eight at a time like they were Pez. That is drug abuse—I don't do that. I also don't smoke, and those who do are stupid. You gotta be stupid to not listen to the Surgeon General, especially when he prints the warning label on the package of smokes. You gotta be a fool. And we can talk about those funny cigarettes, and you obviously know what I'm talking about because you cheer, and that's utterly sad. That's pathetic. I…I can't even wrap my head around you people cheering, 'cause when you smoke those funny cigarettes, not only is that hazardous to your health, it's also illegal. So those who have taken a puff, not only are you poisoning yourself, you're also breaking the law, so the vast majority of everybody here in this arena is a criminal. I am not a criminal—I never have been, and I never will be. Now let's talk about alcohol. I've saved the best poison for last, see because this is a gateway drug. Don't tell me not a single one of you here has ever said, "I'm gonna go out for one drink," and one leads to two, and two drinks leads to three, and then it's a double of this, and a shot of that, and then your head winds up in the toilet, night in and night out. Congratulations, that is alcoholism. And in my book, if you even take one drink, you're an alcoholic. So I understand why you people love Jeff Hardy so much, I understand why Jeff loves you—it's because you're all weak. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, you deserve better. This entire world deserves better. What you need is a leader. You need a strong leader who's gonna stand up in the face of adversity and just say "no."”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

You need a strong leader that's gonna carry the banner of the World Heavyweight Championship with honor, with pride, respect, dignity, integrity, and class. What you people need is a straight-edge World Heavyweight Champion. You need CM Punk.
August 7, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Love, People, Health, Alcohol

“In many ways, it (capitalism) resembles classic medieval feudalism, displaying the same tendency to create endless hierarchies of lords, vassals, and retainers. In other ways—notably in its managerialist ethos—it is profoundly different. And the whole apparatus, rather than replacing old-fashioned industrial capitalism, is instead superimposed on top of it, blending together in a thousand points in a thousand different ways. Hardly surprising, then, that the situation seems so confusing that even those directly in the middle don’t really know quite what to make of it.”

David Graeber book Bullshit Jobs

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018)

Way, Fashion

“We have very similar brains. But they come out in different personalities.”

Guy Berryman (1978) bassist

Chris Martin, on Berryman's reticence
Scaggs, Austin; Corbijn, Anton (2005-08-25), "COLDPLAY'S QUIET STORM". Rolling Stone. (981):40-46
About

Personality

“What comes out of the Trump White House is an ideological cacophony. Hiring different perspectives in business could well be a strength. But it's a weakness when politics and policy are in play. Needed to advance a political agenda is a team that shares the political philosophy underlying the agenda.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

" Trump's Phone Call To Putin https://mises.org/power-market/ilana-mercer-trumps-phone-call-putin," Mises Institute, Power & Market Blog, March 22, 2018. 2010s, 2018

Business, Housing

“Our senses are not receptors so much as reactors and makers of different modalities of space. Perhaps touch is not just skin contact with things, but the very life of things in the mind.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 256

Life, Sense

“You will often hear that Dada is a state of mind. You may be gay, sad, afflicted, joyous, melancholy or Dada. Without being literary, you can be romantic, you can be dreamy, weary, eccentric, a businessman, skinny, transfigured, vain, amiable or Dada… Dada is here, there and a little everywhere, such as it is, with its faults, with its personal differences and distinctions which it accepts and views with indifference.”

Tristan Tzara (1896–1963) Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist

1920s, Lecture on Dada', 1922

Sadness, Affliction, Personality, Indifference

“The tradition in Hinduism is that it is not open to any Hindu, whatever be the name and mental image of the Supreme Being he uses for his devotional exercises, to deny the existence of God that others worship. He can raise the name of his choice to that of the highest, but he can not deny the divinity or the truth of the God of other denominations. The fervor of his own piety just gives predominance to the name and form he gives for his own worship and contemplation, and he treats the other gods as deriving the divinity therefrom. This reduces all controversy to a devotional technique of concentration on a peculiar name and mental form or concrete symbol as representing the supreme being. It makes no difference in the contents of Vedanta to which all devotees equally subscribe… ‘just as all water raining from the skies goes to the ocean, worship of all gods go to Keshava.”

C. Rajagopalachari (1878–1972) Political leader

C. Rajagopalachari (1900) Hinduism, doctrine and way of life https://archive.org/stream/cu31924091600688#page/n37/mode/2up, p. 31; As quoted in [Rao, K.L. Seshagiri, Mahatma Gandhi And Comparative Religion, http://books.google.com/books?id=HSGWZ9mpNl4C&pg=PA110, 1 January 1990, Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 978-81-208-0767-9, 110–]

God, Truth, Exercises, Water

“The man was either foolish or fearless. Assuming there was a difference.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Chindi (2002), Chapter 10 (p. 139)

“Creationists and evolutionists, Christians and non-Christians, all have the same evidence—the same facts. Think about it: we all have the same earth, the same fossil layers, the same animals and plants, the same stars—the facts are all the same. The difference is in the way we all interpret the facts. And why do we interpret facts differently? Because we start with different presuppositions; these are things that are assumed to be true without being able to prove them. These then become the basis for other conclusions. All reasoning is based on presuppositions (also called axioms). This becomes especially relevant when dealing with past events.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

" What’s the best "proof" of creation? http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/wow/best-proof-of-creation", Answers in Genesis (March 18, 2010)

Way, Star, Thinking, Past

“If a, c are two different numbers, there are infinitely many different numbers lying between a, c.”

Richard Dedekind (1831–1916) German mathematician

p, 125
Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen (1872)

Lying

“Ever since the last great conflict the world has been putting a renewed emphasis, not on preparation to succeed in war, but on an attempt by preventing war to succeed in peace. This movement has the full and complete approbation of the American Government and the American people. While we have been unwilling to interfere in the political relationship of other countries and have consistently refrained from intervening except when our help has been sought and we have felt that it could be effectively given, we have signified our willingness to become associated with other nations in a practical plan for promoting international justice through the World Court. Such a tribunal furnishes a method of the adjustment of international differences in accordance with our treaty rights and under the generally accepted rules of international law. When questions arise which all parties agree ought to be adjudicated but which do not yield to the ordinary methods of diplomacy, here is a forum to which the parties may voluntarily repair in the consciousness that their dignity suffers no diminution and that their cause will be determined impartially, according to the law and the evidence. That is a sensible, direct, efficient, and practical method of adjusting differences which can not fail to appeal to the intelligence of the American people.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)

War, People, World, Peace

“Though sincerity and confidence have many points of resemblance, they have yet many points of difference. Sincerity is an openness of heart, which shows us what we are, a love of truth, a dislike to deception, a wish to compensate our faults and to lessen them by the merit of confessing them.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), I. On Confidence

Love, Truth, Confidence, Heart

“Above all, it's creative thinking that lies at the basis of discoveries. You must dare to think differently, see things from different sides, in order to come across fortuitous new ideas frequently. You should develop even the most stupid ideas and when you do this systematically, there will always come something useful out of it.”

Simon van der Meer (1925–2011) Dutch physicist

in De Libero van het CERN. Jaarboek 1985. Vereniging voor Technische Physica. TU Delft. p. 61.

Stupidity, Idea, Thinking

“Suppose you want to teach the "cat" concept to a very young child. Do you explain that a cat is a relatively small, primarily carnivorous mammal with retractible claws, a distinctive sonic output, etc.? I'll bet not. You probably show the kid a lot of different cats, saying "kitty" each time, until it gets the idea. To put it more generally, generalizations are best made by abstraction from experience. They should come one at a time; too many at once overload the circuits.”

Ralph P. Boas Jr. (1912–1992) American mathematician

[Can We Make Mathematics Intelligible?, The American Mathematical Monthly, 88, 10, 1981, 727–731, 10.2307/2321471]

Cats, Idea, Time

“!-- This is my most misunderstood book, and I have devoted some attention to trying to understand why. … --> I have been accused of having believed when I wrote Sex and Temperament that there are no sex differences … This, many readers felt, was too much. It was too pretty. I must have found what I was looking for. But this misconception comes from a lack of understanding of what anthropology means, of the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder, that which one would not have been able to guess.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Preface of 1950 edition of Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), p. xxvi 
[Anthropology demands] the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess.
As quoted in Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2012) by Carl C. Gaither and Alma E. Cavazos-Gaither
1950s

Books, Sex, Understanding

“I wanted work that didn't involve incredible assumptions about everything. I couldn't begin to think about the order of the universe or, the nature of American society. I didn't want work that was general or universal in the usual sense. I didn't want it to claim too much. Obviously the means and the structure couldn't be separate and couldn't even be thought of as two things joined. Neither word meant anything. A shape, a volume, a color, a surface is something itself. It shouldn't be concealed as part of a fairly different whole. The shapes and materials shouldn't be altered by their context.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Donald Judd (1967), in: Perspecta 11 (1967), p. 44; Quoted in: James Fitzsimmons (1979) Art International. Vol 23. p. 69
1960s

Color, Nature, Thinking, Sense

“As a general rule, you can predict what the secularist position on any issue will be once you know what the militant Islamist position is. From justifying terrorism to misrepresenting the Ayodhya evidence, the two are rarely very different.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Source: 2000s, Ayodhya, the Finale (2003)

“[Ramsay MacDonald was] a man of great stature, capable of inspiring massive affection and massive attack—a man who created and led a great party and who has become a legend in that party equally for the manner of his leaving it as for the years he gave its creation. … They drew their inspiration from Merrie England and dry statistics, they sang their widely differing battle songs, and Ramsay MacDonald had to fashion from the strains of Edward Carpenter's 'England Arise', from the 'Internationale', from 'Jerusalem', from the 'Red Flag', from 'These Things Shall Be', a new harmony. In 1906 in MacDonald's fortieth year, he saw the victory—the dawn of the new era.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at a luncheon in the House of Commons to commemorate the centenary of Ramsay MacDonald's birth (12 October 1966), quoted in The Times (13 October 1966), p. 12.
Prime Minister

Fashion, Victory

“When men and women agree, it is only in their conclusions; their reasons are always different.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Ch. VI: Free Society http://books.google.com/books?id=ICAsAAAAYAAJ&q=%22When+men+and+women+agree+it+is+only+in+their+conclusions+their+reasons+are+always+different%22&pg=PA148#v=onepage The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. II, Reason in Society

Women, Men

“I have no idea whether my grandfather took notice of everything in it, or nothing. If he believed at all, he was just like those theologians who store their theology somewhere in a locked compartment of the brain, or rather, perhaps, like those travelers who carry a bottle of iodine in their luggage and take care to keep it tightly corked in case it leaks and ruins their belongings. To be honest, I think my grandfather Björn of Brekkukot would not have been significantly different if he had lived here in Iceland in pagan times, or if his home had been somewhere in the world where people never read from Vídalín's Book of Sermons but believed instead in the bull Apis, or the god Ra, or the bird Colibri.... "A Bible that costs half a hen? Pshaw!"”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

God, People, Books, World

“I don't think the whole World Cup can rely on Theo Walcott but he can certainly come on and make a difference - and why not start him in a game or two? He is an interesting weapon because he can play wide and centrally. Then, once he is in front of the defender, nobody can catch him. He is a fantastic prospect.”

Theo Walcott (1989) English association football player

Arsène Wenger, manager of Arsenal FC, 2006 ( Source http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/11052006/3/walcott-start-england-wenger.html) About

World, Game, Thinking

“They (the Hindus) differ from us in religion… There is very little disputing about theological topics among themselves; at the most they fight with words, but they will never stake their soul or body or their property on religious controversy. … in all manners and usages they differ from us to such a degree as to frighten their children with us… and as to declare us to be devil’s breed and our doings as the very opposite of all that is good and proper, …. they call all foreigners as mleccha, i. e. impure, and forbid having any connection with them, be it by intermarriage or any other kind of relationship, or by sitting, eating, and drinking with them, because thereby they think, they would be polluted… They are not allowed to receive anybody who does not belong to them, even if he wished it, or was inclined to their religion.”

Al-Biruni (973–1048) Persian scholar and polymath

Alberuni, I, pp.19-20. quoted from K.S. Lal, Indian Muslims who are they, 1990
From Alberuni's India

Children, Religion, Soul, Drink

“Angels are those beings who have been on an earth like this, and have passed through the same ordeals that we are now passing through. They have kept their first estate far enough to preserve themselves in the Priesthood. They did not so violate the law of the Priesthood and condemn themselves to the sin against the Holy Ghost as to be finally lost. They are not crowned with the celestial ones. They are persons who have lived upon an earth, but did not magnify the Priesthood in that high degree that many others have done who have become Gods, even the sons of God. Human beings that pertain to this world, who do not magnify or are not capable of magnifying their high calling in the Priesthood and receive crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives, will also, when they again receive their bodies, become angels and will receive a glory. They are single, without families or kingdoms to reign over. All the difference between men and angels is, men are passing through the day of trial that angels have already passed through.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 9:102 (January 5, 1860)
1860s

Men, God, World, Family

“Dharma is the repository of the nation’s soul. If Dharma is destroyed, the Nation perishes. Any one who abandons Dharma, betrays the nation…… Since Dharma is supreme, our ideal of the State has been Dharma Rajya…… What constitutes the good of the people, Dharma alone can decide. Therefore a democratic government Jana Rajya must also be rooted in Dharma i. e. a Dharma Rajya… Since in the West injustice and atrocities were perpetrated, bitter conflicts and battles were fought in the name of religion, all these were en bloc listed on the debit side of Dharma also. We feel that in the name of Dharma also battles were fought. However battles of religion and battles of Dharma are two different things. Religion means a creed or a sect, it does not mean Dharma. Dharma is very wide concept. It is concerned with all aspects of life. It sustains the society. Even further, it sustains the whole world. That which sustains is Dharma.”

Deendayal Upadhyaya (1916–1968) RSS thinker and co-founder of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh

Quoted from Talreja, K. M. (2000). Holy Vedas and holy Bible: A comparative study. New Delhi: Rashtriya Chetana Sangathan.

Life, People, World, Religion

“Despite different cultures, middle-class youth all over the world seem to live their lives as if in a parallel universe. They get up in the morning, put on their Levi's and Nikes, grab their caps and backpacks, and Sony personal CD players and head for school.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies 1999

Youth, World, School, Universe

“Man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing.”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

In Search of the Miraculous (1949)

Death

“Swami Apasthanand is still there, he is very old now, but I had gone to see him and stayed with him for quite some time. But it is a different world, why get into it here.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2014, "GhoshanaPatra with Narendra Modi", 2014

World, Time

“There is a huge body of evidence to support the notion that me and the police were put on this earth to do extremely different things and never to mingle professionally with each other, except at official functions, when we all wear ties and drink heavily and whoop it up like the natural, good-humored wild boys that we know in our hearts that we are. … These occasions are rare, but they happen — despite the forked tongue of fate that has put us forever on different paths…”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

"Fear and Loathing in Elko" Rolling Stone (23 January 1992)
1990s

Fate, Boy, Drink, Support

“Boyle entertains the hypothesis of a universal matter, the concept of atoms of different shapes and sizes, and the possibility of existence of substances that might properly be called elements… The atomic theory as originally conceived by Democritus and Epicurus, developed by Lucretius, and resurrected by Gassendi from about 1647 on, was doubtless the source from which Boyle derived his ideas, …as he cites both Epicurus and Gassendi. Boyle, however… avoids any dogmatic assertion of these hypotheses. It is plain, however, that these atoms or "corpuscles" as he calls them are a constant element of his thought.”

John Maxson Stillman (1852–1923) American chemist

John Maxson Stillman, The Story of Alchemy and Early Chemistry (1924)

Idea, Universe

“Roger: No I don’t collect stem variations – the different colored bottom part – cause you can have one Pez dispenser that has a head and there will be the same head but the bottom will have a different color. I don’t collect those at all so mine are all different Pez dispensary heads, because the head is really the most collectible part. I’m trying to give you lessons on Pez dispensers… How dare you suggest I collect stem variations? Are they all duplicates? NO THEY’RE NOT DUPLICATES! That would be cheating.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Color, Parting, Cheating

“Our program was a scientific one it must be constantly changed at minor points to meet the continuous advance of science. And I maintain that no man – Marx, in spite of his comprehensive and deep intellect, as little as any other – can bring science to final perfection; and this position is for everyone who understands the nature of science a foregone conclusion. No socialist, therefore, has the right to condemn attacks on the theoretical ideas of the Marxian teachings or to excommunicate any one from the party because of such attacks. But it is wholly different when such attacks imply a complete overturning of our whole conception of society, as, for example, is the case with Bernstein. Then vigorous defense is in order. Far more dangerous than theoretical assaults are practical disavowals of our principles. Theoretical discussions interest only a comparatively small portion of our membership; whereas practical disavowal of principles and tactical offenses against the party program touch every party comrade and arouse the attention of every party comrade; and when they are not quickly checked and corrected they bring confusion into the whole party.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Idea, Understanding, Nature, Science

“… we’re not all the same. A common liberal refrain … is that differences between individuals are statistically more significant than those between cultural, ethnic, and racial groups. I don’t see why the fact of inter-individual differences would nullify inter-group variance. That’s liberal logic for you.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“The Kindness of (Caucasian) Strangers” http://barelyablog.com/the-kindness-of-caucasian-stangers, Barely A Blog, January 31, 2014. 2010s, 2014

“I'm accusing you of violating the laws of nature," he said, irritated at my failure to respond.
"Nature's virtue is intact," I reassured him. "I just know some different laws.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Dialog between Lord Barton and Lanik Mueller, after the latter performs a series of apparent miracles
[A Planet Called Treason, 1979, 1st Dell printing, 1980, July, Dell Publishing, New York, ISBN 0-440-16897-X, p. 240 of 299]

Law, Failure, Nature

“It was as if the whole western mind-training of individual differences had been made background instead of figure, so that you'd look at another human being and say, "Here we are." You'd see differences more as clothing, rather than as core stuff.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)

Training, Clothes

“Any minority’s right to be different must be respected, but the right of the majority must not be questioned.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

2011 - 2015

Question

“I have tried to answer the question which sent me to Samoa: Are the disturbances which vex our adolescents due to the nature of adolescence itself or to the civilization? Under different conditions does adolescence present a different picture?”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1920s, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), p. 6-7

Question, Nature

“Immediate reality is outside that window; so big it is, so much of it, everything entangled in everything else… What large thought Sabbath was struggling to express? Is he asking, "Whatever did happen to my own true life?" Was it taking place elsewhere? But how then can looking out of this window be so gigantically real? Well, that is the difference between the true and the real. We don't get to live in the truth. That's why Nikki ran away. She was an idealist, an innocent, touching, talented illusionist who wanted to live in the truth. Well, if you found it, kid, you're the first. In my experience the direction of life is toward incoherence—precisely what you would never confront. Maybe that was the only coherent thing you could think to do: die to deny incoherence.”

Philip Roth book Sabbath's Theater

Sabbath's Theater (1995)

Life, Truth, Thinking, Reality

“The sentiments of men often differ with regard to beauty and deformity of all kinds, even while their general discourse is the same … In all matters of opinion and science, the case is opposite: The difference among men is there oftener found to lie in generals than in particulars; and to be less in reality than in appearance.”

David Hume book Four Dissertations

Four Dissertations (1757)

Men, Lie, Beauty, Reality

“I think that natural sciences and capitalism are different aspects of the same thing. (…) Science is orientated against scientists, capitalism is oriented against businesses. These are processes that are in a relation of subjecting the elements within their domain to aggressive destructive criticism with some kind of selective criteria, which means they push things in a particular self-propelling direction.”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

"‘The Only Thing I Would Impose is Fragmentation’ Interview with Nick Land" https://syntheticzero.net/2017/06/19/the-only-thing-i-would-impose-is-fragmentation-an-interview-with-nick-land/ (2017)

Business, Nature, Thinking, Science

“There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Quoted by John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, The Use of Life, chapter IV: "Recreation" (1894).

Weather, Beauty, Peaceful

“What has caused confusion and misunderstanding about his Hinduism is the concept of sarva-dharma-samabhAva (equal regard for all religions) which he had developed after deep reflection. Christian and Muslim missionaries have interpreted it to mean that a Hindu can go aver to Christianity or Islam without suffering any spiritual loss. They are also using it as a shield against every critique of their closed and aggressive creeds. The new rulers of India, on the other hand, cite it in order to prop up the Nehruvian version of Secularism which is only a euphemism for anti-Hindu animus shared in common by Christians, Muslims, Marxists and those who are Hindus only by accident of birth. For Gandhiji, however, sarva-dharma-samabhAva was only a restatement of the age-old Hindu tradition of tolerance in matters of belief. Hinduism has always adjudged a man’s faith in terms of his AdhAra (receptivity) and adhikAra (aptitude). It has never prescribed a uniform system of belief or behavior for everyone because, according to it, different persons are in different stages of spiritual development and need different prescriptions for further progress. Everyone, says Hinduism, should be left alone to work out one’s own salvation through one’s own inner seeking and evolution. Any imposition of belief or behaviour from the outside is, therefore, a mechanical exercise which can only do injury to one’s spiritual growth. Preaching to those who have not invited it is nothing short of aggression born out of self-righteousness. That is why Gandhiji took a firm and uncompromising stand against proselytisation by preaching and gave no quarters to the Christian mission’s mercenary methods of spreading the gospel.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

Age, Faith, Religion, Behavior

“The charge that Luther adapted the translation to his theological opinions has become traditional in the Roman Church, and is repeated again and again by her controversialists and historians.
In both cases, the charge has some foundation, but no more than the counter-charge which may be brought against Roman Catholic Versions.
The most important example of dogmatic influence in Luther's version is the famous interpolation of the word alone in Rom. 3:28 (allein durch den Glauben), by which he intended to emphasize his solifidian doctrine of justification, on the plea that the German idiom required the insertion for the sake of clearness. But he thereby brought Paul into direct verbal conflict with James, who says (James 2:24), "by works a man is justified, and not only by faith" ("nicht durch den Glauben allein"). It is well known that Luther deemed it impossible to harmonize the two apostles in this article, and characterized the Epistle of James as an "epistle of straw," because it had no evangelical character ("keine evangelische Art").
He therefore insisted on this insertion in spite of all outcry against it. His defense is very characteristic. "If your papist," he says,
The Protestant and anti-Romish character of Luther's New Testament is undeniable in his prefaces, his discrimination between chief books and less important books, his change of the traditional order, and his unfavorable judgments on James, Hebrews, and Revelation. It is still more apparent in his marginal notes, especially on the Pauline Epistles, where he emphasizes throughout the difference between the law and the gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone; and on the Apocalypse, where he finds the papacy in the beast from the abyss (Rev. 13), and in the Babylonian harlot (Rev. 17). The anti-papal explanation of the Apocalypse became for a long time almost traditional in Protestant commentaries.
There is, however, a gradual progress in translation, which goes hand in hand with the progress of the understanding of the Bible. Jerome's Vulgate is an advance upon the Itala, both in accuracy and Latinity; the Protestant Versions of the sixteenth century are an advance upon the Vulgate, in spirit and in idiomatic reproduction; the revisions of the nineteenth century are an advance upon the versions of the sixteenth, in philological and historical accuracy and consistency. A future generation will make a still nearer approach to the original text in its purity and integrity. If the Holy Spirit of God shall raise the Church to a higher plane of faith and love, and melt the antagonisms of human creeds into the one creed of Christ, then, and not before then, may we expect perfect versions of the oracles of God.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

How Luther's theology may have influenced his translating

Love, God, Books, Faith

“The only company to have made a profit is the one in the tax haven, but because it’s in a tax haven, it doesn’t pay tax. This is how a company is able to generate revenue without having to pay tax anywhere. In tax havens, boundaries between what’s legal and illegal become very blurred. The recent leak on the Panama Papers revealed how international leaders, celebrities and businessmen from all over the world were using offshore companies to avoid making their assets public and, in some cases, potentially to dodge tax or hide illegal activities. Panama is where criminal capitalism and legal capitalism become one. … Today in the heart of Panama you can still find the money of Mexican Narcos and major European businessmen. Different origin, same advantages.”

Roberto Saviano (1979) Italian journalist, writer and essayist

Dirty Money in London event (2016)

Money, World, Heart

“Seems to me the only difference between your friends and your enemies is how long they stand around chatting before they shoot you.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

“Yes,” Vorkosigan agreed, “I could take over the universe with this army if I could ever get all their weapons pointed in the same direction.”

Chapter 4 (p. 60)
Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986)

“So how are you going to recognise God if He comes on earth? Are you going to ask to see His identity card or passport? See if it says, 'Name … God; Occupation … Generator, Operator, Destroyer'? That's foolish! Or are you going to recognise Him only if He fits your mental picture of Him -- what you have picked up from scriptures and other impressions, what you imagine Jesus or Krishna looked like? But even two Christians will have different impressions of what Jesus will look like. So what will be recognised by one will not be recognised by the other. But the test of the Perfect Master is that which is undeniable to everybody and that is the experience of Himself, which He can give, and that is the True Knowledge.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

from "The Sayings of Guru Maharaj Ji" - Published by Shri Hans Publications, 148-150 Lordship Lane, London SE22, Copyright Divine Light Mission 1974.
1970s

God, Imagination, Knowledge, Perfection

“So not only the world, but he himself, was different from what he had imagined.”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

continuity (13) “Multiply by a Million”
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

World, Imagination

“In all base schools of art, the craftsman is dependent for his bread on originality; that is to say, on finding in himself some fragment of isolated faculty, by which his work may be distinct from that of other men. We are ready enough to take delight in our little doings, without any such stimulus; — what must be the effect of the popular applause which continually suggests that the little thing we can separately do is as excellent as it is singular; and what the effect of the bribe, held out to us through the whole of life, to produce — it being also in our peril not to produce — something different from the work of our neighbors?”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Lecture II, section 32.
The Eagle's Nest (1872)

Life, Men, School, Art

“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 28
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

People, Courage, Success, Personality

“Two people may be at the same spot in manners and behaviour, and yet one may be getting better, and the other worse, which is the greatest of differences that could possibly exist between them.”

George MacDonald book The Princess and Curdie

The Princess and Curdie (1883)

People

“…it depends indeed on whether the immigrants are different, and different in important respects from the existing population. Clearly, if they are identical, then no change for the good or bad can be brought about by the immigration. But if they are different, and to the extent that they are different, then numbers clearly are of the essence and this is not wholly – or mainly, necessarily – a matter of colour. For example, if the immigrants were Germans or Russians, their colour would be approximately the same as ours, but the problems which would be created and the change which could be brought about by a large introduction of a bloc of Germans or Russians into five areas in this country would be as serious – and in some respects more serious – than could follow from an introduction of a similar number of West Indians or Pakistanis.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Any Questions?, BBC Radio (29 November 1968), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (London: Bellew, 1991), p. 395
1960s

Problem, Change, Dependency, Country

“Virtually, Finnish woods are stripped so bare, so sold out and first and foremost, so long way off from genuine diverse natural forest, that the resources of language will not permit excessive words. Finnish forest economy has been compared to the ravaging of rain forests. Nevertheless, the noteworthy difference is that there is a half or two thirds left from rain forests, but from Finnish forests there is left - excluding arctic Lapland - 0,6 per cent.”

Pentti Linkola (1932) Finnish ecologist

The Forest Covering Must Be Restored In Finland (1995)

Way, Nature

“Ah! why do women condescend to receive a degree of attention and respect from strangers different from that reciprocation of civility which the dictates of humanity and the politeness of civilization authorize between man and man? And why do they not discover, when, "in the noon of beauty's power", that they are treated like queens only to be deluded by hollow respect. Confined, then, in cages like the feathered race, they have nothing to do but to plume themselves, and stalk with mock majesty from perch to perch.”

Mary Wollstonecraft book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Ch. 4

Women, Beauty

“the reality beyond language is not completely reality, a reality that does not speak or say is not reality;
and the moment I say that, the moment I write, letter by letter, that a reality stripped of names is not reality, the names evaporate, they are air, they are a sound encased in another sound and in another and another, a murmur, a faint cascade of meanings that fade away to nothingness:
the tree that I say is not the tree that I see, tree does not say tree, the tree is beyond its name, a leafy, woody reality: impenetrable, untouchable, a reality beyond signs, immersed in itself, firmly planted in its own reality: I can touch it but I cannot name it, I can set fire to it but if I name it I dissolve it:
the tree that is there among the trees is not the tree that I name but a reality that is beyond names, beyond the word reality, it is simply reality just as it is, the abolition of differences and also the abolition of similarities;
the tree that I name is not the tree, and the other one, the one that I do not name and that is there, on the other side of my window, its trunk now black and its foliage still inflamed by the setting sun, is not the tree either, but, rather, the inaccessible reality in which it is planted:
between the one and the other there appears the single tree of sensation which is the perception of the sensation of tree that is vanishing, but
who perceives, who senses, who vanishes as sensations and perceptions vanish?”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: The Monkey Grammarian (1974), Ch. 9

Reality, Sense, Tree, Appearance

“The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time — not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Entry (1952)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

Time, Future

“There are no moderate Republicans left, with the exception of a few who would vote with us when it doesn't make any difference. It's the most rigid ideological party since before the Civil War. […] The bumper sticker I'm going to have printed up for Democrats this year is, "We're not perfect, but they're nuts."”

Barney Frank (1940) American politician, former member of the House of Representatives for Massachusetts

From his keynote speech at the Maine People's Alliance 30th anniversary Rising Tide awards dinner, June 9, 2012, held at Woodford's Congregational Church in Portland.
Quoted in [Koenig, Seth, June 10, 2012, http://bangordailynews.com/2012/06/10/politics/barney-frank-tackles-gay-marriage-defense-spending-in-portland-speech/, "Barney Frank tackles gay marriage, defense spending in Portland speech", Bangor Daily News, 2012-06-11]

War, Perfection

“We thought it would be enough to tell of the tidal wave of hatred which broke over the Jewish people for men everywhere to decide once and for all to put an end to hatred of anyone who is "different" — whether black or white, Jew or Arab, Christian or Moslem — anyone whose orientation differs politically, philosophically, sexually.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

Men, People

“It's not common, in our age, for someone to retire while still at the top, but I'm a man who needs a goal, and who wants to make a difference.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

Source: 2010s, Winter is Coming (2015), p. 136

Age

“Groups are grammatical fictions; only individuals exist, and each individual is different.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

The Robert Anton Wilson Website - RAW Thoughts, Robert Anton Wilson, 2016-06-03 http://www.rawilson.com/thoughts.html,

“I think so many of the objects we're surrounded by seem trivial. And I think that's because they're either trying to make a statement or trying to be overtly different. What we were trying to do was have a very honest approach and an exploration of materials and surface treatment. So much of what we try to do is get to a point where the solution seems inevitable: you know, you think "of course it's that way, why would it be any other way?"”

Jonathan Ive (1967) English designer and VP of Design at Apple

It looks so obvious, but that sense of inevitability in the solution is really hard to achieve.
In an interview in Icon Magazine (July 2003)

Way, Thinking, Sense

“I reject the notion that technology is a neutral thing, so I see it as creating new capabilities for humanity. But then, these capabilities can be an object of conflict. And if you analyse p2p technology, it can take different forms. These different forms are the function of the forces which control the technology. For example, in what I call “netarchical capitalism,” that is where you have proprietory platforms, business-owned entities creating p2p front-ends, because they want people to communicate with each other, but they combine it with controlled and hierarchical back-ends, where they control the design and your personal data, so that they are able to sell your attention. So, when we talk about peer-to-peer technology, we have to be very careful, not just look at the structure: computers organised in a peer network, humans organised in a peer network etc., but you have to look at governance and ownership as well.”

Michel Bauwens

Greens and Pirates: in Search of a New Majority for the Commons? https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/greens-and-pirates-in-search-of-a-new-majority-for-the-commons/, interview with Michel Bauwens by Adam Ostolski, Green European Journal, January 2014

People, Communication, Business, Personality

“I am admittedly insecure about my racial identity, an attitude that has much improved since my younger days when I absolutely abhorred it. Any attention paid to me being different was incredibly shameful…but the mirrors became too much…what a disappointing reality check!”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, HATING ONESELF

Disappointment, Reality

“The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics. The judgment of history leans heavily on the outcome of success or failure; it spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father.”

Saul D. Alinsky (1909–1972) American community organizer and writer

Source: Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), p. 34

History, Failure, Success

“There is no evidence that a majority of Israelis want a two-state formula. In fact, if we add up votes won by all parties implicitly or explicitly opposed to the two-state formula, we will have a whopping 75 per cent of Israelis. Thus what Netanyahu mastered enough courage to say aloud is what most Israelis think in silence. The picture is hardly different on the Palestinian side. To start with, the Palestinians are divided in at least three camps. In one camp we have Fatah and its allies who have never formally committed to a two-state formula but have dropped hints that they might accept such a solution as a first step toward liberating the rest of historic Palestine, that is to say, what is now Israel, later. The second camp is dominated by Hamas, which is committed to the destruction of Israel in no uncertain terms. However, Hamas does not want a Palestinian state either. As the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas is a pan-Islamist group dedicated to fighting for the creation of a global caliphate. In the third camp, there are more radical Palestinian groups, including the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, now the favored protégé of the Islamic Republic in Tehran. The IJLP leadership has repeatedly declared its support for a one-state formula sponsored by Iranian “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Who wants a two-state solution, anyway? http://nypost.com/2015/03/20/who-wants-a-two-state-solution-anyway/, New York Post (March 20, 2015). New York Post

Courage, Support, Thinking, Silence