Quotes about difference
page 63

David Lloyd George photo

“Personally I am a sincere advocate of all means which would lead to the settlement of international disputes by methods such as those which civilization has so successfully set up for the adjustment of differences between individuals.
But I am also bound to say this — that I believe it is essential in the highest interests, not merely of this country, but of the world, that Britain should at all hazards maintain her place and her prestige amongst the Great Powers of the world. Her potent influence has many a time been in the past, and may yet be in the future, invaluable to the cause of human liberty. It has more than once in the past redeemed Continental nations, who are sometimes too apt to forget that service, from overwhelming disaster and even from national extinction. I would make great sacrifices to preserve peace. I conceive that nothing would justify a disturbance of international good will except questions of the gravest national moment. But if a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be treated where her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no account in the Cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at Mansion House (21 July 1911) during the Agadir Crisis, quoted in The Times (22 July 1911), p. 7
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Marco Girolamo Vida photo

“I sing the form of war, the bloodless plain,
Armies of ivory, and a mock campaign;
How two bold kings in different armour veil'd,
One black, one white, for conquest fought the field.”

Ludimus effigiem belli, simulataque veris Praelia, buxo acies fictas, et ludicra regna, Ut gemini inter se reges albusque, nigerque Pro laude oppositi certent bicoloribus armis.

Vida's Game of Chess https://books.google.com/books?id=IGMIAAAAQAAJ, opening lines
Compare:
Of armies on the chequer'd field array'd,
And guiltless war in pleasing form display'd;
When two bold kings contend with vain alarms,
In ivory this, and that in ebon arms.
William Jones, Caïssa; Or, The Game of Chess.
Scacchia Ludus (1527)

Narendra Modi photo
Tom Lehrer photo
Eric R. Kandel photo
Don Soderquist photo

“Your attitude affects everyone around you. Attitude is contagious, and a positive attitude can make the difference between a task completed with excellence and one done with shoddy workmanship.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 58.
On Doing Things Right

Ephraim Mirvis photo
Richard Courant photo
Omar Khayyám photo

“Whoever thinks algebra is a trick in obtaining unknowns has thought it in vain. No attention should be paid to the fact that algebra and geometry are different in appearance. Algebras (jabbre and maqabeleh) are geometric facts which are proved by propositions five and six of Book two of Elements.”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

As quoted in "A Paper of Omar Khayyam" by A.R. Amir-Moez in Scripta Mathematica 26 (1963). This quotation has often been abridged in various ways, usually ending with "Algebras are geometric facts which are proved", thus altering the context significantly.

Clement Attlee photo
Harry Truman photo

“I am not worried about the Communist Party taking over the Government of the United States, but I am against a person, whose loyalty is not to the Government of the United States, holding a Government job. They are entirely different things. I am not worried about this country ever going Communist. We have too much sense for that.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Responding to a question at his press conference (February 28, 1947); reported in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1947, p. 191

Orson Pratt photo

“We planted our crops in the spring, and they came up, and were looking nicely, and we were cheered with the hopes of having a very abundant harvest. But alas! it very soon appeared as if our crops were going to be swallowed up by a vast horde of crickets, that came down from these mountains-crickets very different to what I used to be acquainted with in the State of New York. They were crickets nearly as large as a man's thumb. They came in immense droves, so that men and women with brush could make no headway against them; but we cried unto the Lord in our afflictions, and the Lord heard us, and sent thousands and tens of thousands of a small white bird. I have not seen any of them lately. Many called them gulls, although they were different from the seagulls that live on the Atlantic coast. And what did they do for us? They went to work, and by thousands and tens of thousands, began to devour them up, and still we thought that even they could not prevail against so large and mighty an army. But we noticed, that when they had apparently filled themselves with these crickets, they would go and vomit them up, and again go to work and fill themselves, and so they continued to do, until the land was cleared of crickets, and our crops were saved. There are those who will say that this was one of the natural courses of events, that there was no miracle in it. Let that be as it may, we esteemed it as a blessing from the hand of God; miracle or no miracle, we believe that God had a hand in it, and it does not matter particularly whether strangers believe or not.”

Orson Pratt (1811–1881) Apostle of the LDS Church

Journal of Discourses 21:276-277 (June 20,1880)
Pratt describes the event in which seagulls disposed of swarms of crickets that were destroying their crops.
Miracle of the seagulls and crickets

Vanna Bonta photo
Nicholas Wade photo
Yehuda Ashlag photo
Basil of Caesarea photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Debito Arudou photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“One of the most natural of reactions during the war was intolerance. But the inevitable disregard for the opinions and feelings of minorities is none the less a disturbing product of war psychology. The slow and difficult advances which tolerance and liberalism have made through long periods of development are dissipated almost in a night when the necessary war-time habits of thought hold the minds of the people. The necessity for a common purpose and a united intellectual front becomes paramount to everything else. But when the need for such a solidarity is past there should be a quick and generous readiness to revert to the old and normal habits of thought. There should be an intellectual demobilization as well as a military demobilization. Progress depends very largely on the encouragement of variety. Whatever tends to standardize the community, to establish fixed and rigid modes of thought, tends to fossilize society. If we all believed the same thing and thought the same thoughts and applied the same valuations to all the occurrences about us, we should reach a state of equilibrium closely akin to an intellectual and spiritual paralysis. It is the ferment of ideas, the clash of disagreeing judgments, the privilege of the individual to develop his own thoughts and shape his own character, that makes progress possible. It is not possible to learn much from those who uniformly agree with us. But many useful things are learned from those who disagree with us; and even when we can gain nothing our differences are likely to do us no harm. In this period of after-war rigidity, suspicion, and intolerance our own country has not been exempt from unfortunate experiences. Thanks to our comparative isolation, we have known less of the international frictions and rivalries than some other countries less fortunately situated. But among some of the varying racial, religious, and social groups of our people there have been manifestations of an intolerance of opinion, a narrowness to outlook, a fixity of judgment, against which we may well be warned. It is not easy to conceive of anything that would be more unfortunate in a community based upon the ideals of which Americans boast than any considerable development of intolerance as regards religion. To a great extent this country owes its beginnings to the determination of our hardy ancestors to maintain complete freedom in religion. Instead of a state church we have decreed that every citizen shall be free to follow the dictates of his own conscience as to his religious beliefs and affiliations. Under that guaranty we have erected a system which certainly is justified by its fruits. Under no other could we have dared to invite the peoples of all countries and creeds to come here and unite with us in creating the State of which we are all citizens.”

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

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Clement Attlee photo

“Looking back today over the years, we may well be proud of the work which our fellow citizens have done in India. There have, of course, been mistakes, there have been failures, but we can assert that our rule in India will stand comparison with that of any other nation which has been charged with the ruling of a people so different from themselves.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1947-07-10/debates/584499a6-8830-4426-be23-7215df06d57e/IndianIndependenceBill#2442 in the House of Commons (10 July 1947).
1940s

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan photo
Anne Murray photo

“What you saw was what you got. There was no difference from me on stage and me sitting here talking to you.”

Anne Murray (1945) Canadian singer

When asked to explain how she became so synonymous with her country.
The Globe and Mail interview (2017)

Nicholas Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford photo

“We should remember that the last time global temperature was 5C different from today, the Earth was gripped by an ice age. So the risks are immense and can only be sensibly managed by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which will require a new low-carbon industrial revolution.”

Nicholas Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford (1946) British economist and academic

"Climate change is here now and it could lead to global conflict" http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/13/storms-floods-climate-change-upon-us-lord-stern, The Guardian (14 February 2014).

Mark Rothko photo
Roger Manganelli photo
Fred Rogers photo

“It's our insides that make us who we are, that allow us to dream and wonder and feel for others. That's what's essential. That's what will always make the biggest difference in our world.”

Fred Rogers (1928–2003) American television personality

Commencement Address at Middlebury College May, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20030906163501/http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/pubaff/general_info/addresses/Fred_Rogers_2001.htm

Emile Coué photo
Joseph Strutt photo
Gustav Radbruch photo
Mao Zedong photo

“Two types of social contradictions - those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people themselves confront us. The two are totally different in their nature.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People

Donald J. Trump photo
Haile Selassie photo

“In the history of the human race, those periods which later appeared as great have been the periods when the men and the women belonging to them had transcended the differences that divided them and had recognized in their membership in the human race a common bond.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Address at Haile Selassie I University http://www.jah-rastafari.com/selassie-words/show-jah-word.asp?word_id=radhakrishan (now Addis Ababa University) honoring Indian President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (13 October 1965)

Hillary Clinton photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Li Hongzhi photo
Colleen Fitzpatrick photo
Maddox photo
Mary McCarthy photo
Margot Fonteyn photo

“The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.”

Margot Fonteyn (1919–1991) English ballerina

As quoted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations‎ (1988) by James Beasley Simpson; also quoted in Running on Empty: Meditations for Indispensable Women (1992) by Ellen Sue Stern, p. 235
Paraphrased variants: The most important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative, and the second disastrous.
Take your work seriously, but never yourself.

Charles Dickens photo

“Your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another when you do differ.”

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 54, Mr. Bucket to Mademoiselle Hortense

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
R. Nagaswamy photo
Joseph Beuys photo

“There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently.”

[Robert Evans, 2002, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303353, The Kid Stays in the Picture, Documentary, Highway Films]
The unreliable narrator

Carl Linnaeus photo
Rex Stout photo
Alan Guth photo
Steven Pinker photo
Henry Adams photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“While people are engaged in creating a totally different world, they always form vivid images of the preceding world.”

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. 21

Akira Ifukube photo
George F. Kennan photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
John Desmond Bernal photo

“At different stages in the educational process different changes are required. In schools the chief need is for a general change in the attitude towards science, which should be from the beginning an integral part and not a mere addition, often an optional addition, to the curriculum. Science should be taught not merely as a subject but should come into all subjects. Its importance in history and in modern life should be pointed out and illustrated. The old contrast, often amounting to hostility, between scientific and humane subjects need to be broken down and replaced by a scientific humanism. At the same time, the teaching of science proper requires to be humanized. The dry and factual presentation requires to be transformed, not by any appeal to mystical theory, but by emphasizing the living and dramatic character of scientific advance itself. Here the teaching of the history of science, not isolated as at present, but in close relation to general history teaching, would serve to correct the existing atmosphere of scientific dogmatism. It would show at the same time how secure are the conquests of science in the control they give over natural processes and how insecure and provisional, however necessary, are the rational interpretations, the theories and hypotheses put forward at each stage. Past history by itself is not enough, the latest developments of science should not be excluded because they have not yet passed the test of time. It is absolutely necessary to emphasize the fact that science not only has changed but is continually changing, that it is an activity and not merely a body of facts. Throughout, the social implications of science, the powers that it puts into men's hands, the uses they could make of them and those which they in fact do, should be brought out and made real by a reference to immediate experience of ordinary life.”

John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971) British scientist

Source: The Social Function of Science (1939), p. 246 : How such a method of teaching could become an integral part of general education is sketched by H. G. Wells' British Association address, "The Informative Content of Education," reprinted in World Brain (Mathuen, 1938).

Helen Keller photo
Eric Metaxas photo
Herbert Spencer photo
Vinko Vrbanić photo
João Magueijo photo
Hassan Rouhani photo
Kate Bush photo
Noah Porter photo
Gregory of Nyssa photo
Howard Gardner photo

“Anything that is worth teaching can be presented in many different ways. These multiple ways can make use of our multiple intelligences.”

Howard Gardner (1943) American developmental psychologist

Howard Gardner, cited in: Laurie Myers, ‎Joseph Will (2015), Whole Family Learning: Experiences Living and Teaching In China. p. 16

Charles Krauthammer photo

“Obama’s NASA budget perfectly captures the difference between Kennedy's liberalism and Obama's. Kennedy's was an expansive, bold, outward-looking summons, Obama's is a constricted inward-looking call to retreat. Fifty years ago, Kennedy opened the New Frontier. Obama has just shut it.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Column, February 12, 2010, "Closing the New Frontier" http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer021210.php3#.U4HLMMJOWUl at jewishworldreview.com.
2010s, 2010

Paul Klee photo
Frederik Pohl photo
Bill Maher photo
Julie Taymor photo
Gloria Estefan photo

“When you sing in English and Spanish, it's two completely different forms of expression and... even the people who don't speak Spanish love to hear me sing in Spanish.”

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

iTunes interview (released June 2, 2007)
2007, 2008

Thomas Kuhn photo
Diogenes of Sinope photo

“Boasting, like gilded armour, is very different inside from outside.”

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

Stobaeus, iii. 22. 40
Quoted by Stobaeus

Camille Paglia photo
Vitruvius photo
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq photo

“What is a constitution? It is a booklet with twelve or ten pages. I can tear them away and say that tomorrow we shall live under a different system. Today, the people will follow wherever I lead. All the politicians including the once mighty Mr. Bhutto will follow me with tails wagging.”

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (1924–1988) 6th President of Pakistan

Speaking to an Iranian Newspaper in September 1977, as quoted in Pakistan, a Dream Gone Sour http://www.defencejournal.com/dec98/pakdream.htm (1997) by Roedad Khan.

Marc Maron photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“I have read your speech and I must frankly say, with much regret as there is little in it that I can agree with, and much from which I differ. You lay down broadly the Doctrine of Universal Suffrage which I can never accept. I intirely deny that every sane and not disqualified man has a moral right to a vote—I use that Expression instead of “the Pale of the Constitution”, because I hold that all who enjoy the Security and civil Rights which the Constitution provides are within its Pale—What every Man and Woman too have a Right to, is to be well governed and under just Laws, and they who propose a change ought to shew that the present organization does not accomplish those objects…[Your speech] was more like the Sort of Speech with which Bright would have introduced the Reform Bill which he would like to propose than the Sort of Speech which might have been expected from the Treasury bench in the present State of Things. Your Speech may win Lancashire for you, though that is doubtful but I fear it will tend to lose England for you. It is to be regretted that you should, as you stated, have taken the opportunity of your receiving a Deputation of working men, to exhort them to set on Foot an Agitation for Parliamentary Reform—The Function of a Government is to calm rather than to excite Agitation.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to William Ewart Gladstone (12 May 1864), quoted in Philip Guedalla (ed.), Gladstone and Palmerston, being the Correspondence of Lord Palmerston with Mr. Gladstone 1851-1865 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1928), pp. 281-282.
1860s

Cornel West photo
Adam Schaff photo
Chris Christie photo

“I stood on the stage and watched Marco in rather indignantly, look at Governor Bush and say, someone told you that because we’re running for the same office, that criticizing me will get you to that office. It appears that the same someone who has been whispering in old Marco’s ear too. So the indignation that you carry on, some of the stuff, you have to also own then. So let’s set the facts straight. First of all, I didn’t support Sonia Sotomayor. Secondly, I never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood. Third, if you look at my record as governor of New Jersey, I have vetoed a 50-caliber rifle ban. I have vetoed a reduction this clip size. I vetoed a statewide I. D. system for gun owners and I pardoned, six out-of-state folks who came through our state and were arrested for owning a gun legally in another state so they never have to face charges. And on Common Core, Common Core has been eliminated in New Jersey. So listen, this is the difference between being a governor and a senator. See when you’re a senator, what you get to do is just talk and talk and talk. And you talk so much that nobody can ever keep up with what you’re saying is accurate or not. When you’re a governor, you’re held accountable for everything you do. And the people of New Jersey, I’ve seen it. And the last piece is this. I like Marco too, and two years ago, he called me a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed. That was before he was running against me. Now that he is, he’s changed his tune. I’m never going to change my tune. I like Marco Rubio. He’s a good guy, a smart guy, and he would be a heck of a lot better president than Hillary Rodham Clinton would ever be.”

Chris Christie (1962) 55th Governor of New Jersey, former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey

Full Transcript of the Sixth Republican Debate in Charleston http://time.com/4182096/republican-debate-charleston-transcript-full-text/, Time (14 January 2016).

“There’s a big difference between keeping the peace, which is something folks do pretty well themselves, and enforcing the law, which is another thing altogether.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

Ceres, Chapter Fourteen http://www.bigheadpress.com/lneilsmith/?page_id=202, 2009.

Satoru Iwata photo
Charles Lyell photo

“I assume that a precisely defined, verifiable, executable, and translatable UML is a Good Thing and leave it to others to make that case… In the summer of 1999, the UML has definitions for the semantics of its components. These definitions address the static structure of UML, but they do not define an execution semantics. They also address (none too precisely) the meaning of each component, but there are "semantic variation points" which allow a component to have several different meanings. Multiple views are defined, but there is no definition of how the views fit together to form a complete model. When alternate views conflict, there is no definition of how to resolve them. There are no defined semantics for actions…
To determine what requires formalization, the UML must distinguish clearly between essential, derived, auxiliary, and deployment views. An essential view models precisely and completely some portion of the behavior of a subject matter, while a derived view shows some projection of an essential view…
All we need now is to make the market aware that all this is possible, build tools around the standards defined by the core, executable UML, and make it so…”

Stephen J. Mellor (1952) British computer scientist

Mellor in Andy Evans et al. (1999) " Advanced methods and tools for a precise UML http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.115.2039&rep=rep1&type=pdf." UML’99—The Unified Modeling Language. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. p. 709-714.