Quotes about similarity
page 10

“Across widely varying cultures on five continents, the traumatic consequences of prostitution were similar.”

Melissa Farley (1942) American psychologist

"Prostitution and Trafficking in 9 Countries: Update on Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder" in Journal of Trauma Practice 2 (2003) http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/c-prostitution-research.html, p. 33-74; co-written with A. Cotton, J. Lynne, S. Zumbeck, T. Spiwak, M. E. Reyes, D. Alvarez , U Sezgin
Context: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), commonly occurs among prostituted women, and is indicative of their extreme emotional distress. PTSD is characterized by anxiety, depression, insomnia, irritability, flashbacks, emotional numbing, and hyperalertness. In nine countries, we found that sixty-eight percent of those in prostitution met criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD, a prevalence that was comparable to battered women seeking shelter, rape survivors seeking treatment, and survivors of state-sponsored torture. Across widely varying cultures on five continents, the traumatic consequences of prostitution were similar.

Haile Selassie photo

“In time of war it suits the enemy to aim his guns at adorned shields, ornaments, silver and gold cloaks, silk shirts and all similar things. Whether one possesses a jacket or not, it is best to wear a narrow-sleeved shirt with faded colours.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Instructions to military units (19 October 1935).
My Life and Ethiopia's Progress (1976)
Context: In time of war it suits the enemy to aim his guns at adorned shields, ornaments, silver and gold cloaks, silk shirts and all similar things. Whether one possesses a jacket or not, it is best to wear a narrow-sleeved shirt with faded colours. When we return, with God's help, you can wear your gold and silver decorations then. Now it is time to go and fight. We offer you all these words of advice in the hope that no great harm should befall you through lack of caution. At the same time, We are glad to assure you that in time of war We are ready to shed Our blood in your midst for the sake of Ethiopia's freedom...

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad photo
Antonie Pannekoek photo
Mian Muhammad Shafi photo
Gilbert Murray photo
Benjamin Bratt photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
Arundhati Roy photo
Robert Sheckley photo
Swami Sivananda photo
Posidonius photo
Franz Bardon photo
Krystal Ball photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Koenraad Elst photo
Koenraad Elst photo
Rick Yune photo
Michael Foot photo
Charles Stross photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Joy Harjo photo
John Jay photo

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

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

Jair Bolsonaro photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo
Peter Singer photo

“When my ability to reason shows me that the suffering of another being is very similar to my own suffering and matters just as much to that other being as my own suffering matters to me, then my reason is showing me something that is undeniably true.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

... The perspective on ourselves that we get when we take the point of view of the universe also yields as much objectivity as we need if we are to find a cause that is worthwhile in a way that is independent of our own desires. The most obvious such cause is the reduction of pain and suffering, wherever it is to be found.
p. 238 http://books.google.com/books?id=BoDMBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT238
Writings on an Ethical Life (2000)

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar photo

“These our well-meaning but unthinking friends take their dreams for realities. That is why they are impatient of communal tangles and attribute them to communal organizations. But the solid fact is that the so-called communal questions are but a legacy handed down to us by centuries of a cultural, religious and national antagonism between the Hindus and the Moslems. When time is ripe you can solve them; but you cannot suppress them by merely refusing recognition of them. It is safer to diagnose and treat deep-seated disease than to ignore it. Let us bravely face unpleasant facts as they are. India cannot be assumed today to be a unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main; the Hindus and the Moslems, in India. And as it has happened in many countries under similar situation in the world the utmost that we can do under the circumstances is to form an Indian State in which none is allowed any special weightage of representation and none is paid an extra-price to buy his loyalty to the State. Mercenaries are paid and bought off, not sons of the Motherland to fight in her defence.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

V.D. Savarkar: Hindu Rashtra Darshan, quoted in part in Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p.332

Frederick Douglass photo
Annie Besant photo
Friedrich Engels photo
Giacomo Leopardi photo
Dave Barry photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Imran Khan photo
Elizabeth Warren photo
Jim Henson photo
Tulsidas photo
Jo Freeman photo

“A highly competent Bitch often deprecates herself by refusing to recognize her own superiority…. Bitches are among the most unsung of the unsung heroes of this society. They are the pioneers, the vanguard, the spearhead. Whether they want to be or not this is the role they serve just by their very being. Many would not choose to be the groundbreakers for the mass of women for whom they have no sisterly feelings but they cannot avoid it. Those who violate the limits, extend them; or cause the system to break…. Their major psychological oppression is not a belief that they are inferior but a belief that they are not…. Like most women they were taught to hate themselves as well as all women. In different ways and for different reasons perhaps, but the effect was similar. Internalization of a derogatory self-concept always results in a good deal of bitterness and resentment. This anger is usually either turned in on the self —making one an unpleasant person or on other women — reinforcing the social cliches about them. Only with political consciousness is it directed at the source — the social system…. We must be strong, we must be militant, we must be dangerous. We must realize that Bitch is Beautiful and that we have nothing to lose. Nothing whatsoever.”

Jo Freeman (1945) writer, lawyer

The BITCH Manifesto (Fall, 1968, © 1969) http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/bitch.htm, as accessed Aug. 22, 2010 (also published as Joreen, The Bitch Manifesto, in Notes From the Second Year (N.Y.: Shulamith Firestone & Anne Koedt, 1970))

Sadik Kaceli photo

“Similar people, artists like Kaceli, ennoble the human race, overall, and our Albanian race, in particular.”

Sadik Kaceli (1914–2000) Albanian artist

Source: Eli Xoxa, Monografi: Kaceli

Russell Brand photo

“When people are content, they are difficult to maneuver. We are perennially discontent and offered placebos as remedies. My intention in writing this book is to make you feel better, to offer you a solution to the way you feel. I am confident that this is necessary. When do you ever meet people that are happy? Genuinely happy? Only children, the mentally ill, and daytime television presenters. My belief is that it is possible to feel happier, because I feel better than I used to. I am beginning to understand where the solution lies, primarily because of an exhausting process of trial and mostly error. My qualification to write a book on how to change yourself and change the world is not that I’m better than you, it’s that I’m worse. Not that I’m smarter, but that I’m dumber: I bought the lie hook, line, and sinker. My only quality has been an unwitting momentum, a willingness to wade through the static dissatisfaction that has been piped into my mind from the moment I learned language. What if that feeling of inadequacy, isolation, and anxiety isn’t just me? What if it isn’t internally engineered but the result of concerted effort, the product of a transmission? An ongoing broadcast from the powerful that has colonized my mind? Who is it in here, inside your mind, reading these words, feeling that fear? Is there an awareness, an exempt presence, gleaming behind the waterfall of words that commentate on every event, label every object, judge everyone you come into contact with? And is there another way to feel? Is it possible to be in this world and feel another way? Can you conceive, even for a moment, of a species similar to us but a little more evolved, that have transcended the idea that solutions to the way we feel can be externally acquired? What would that look like? How would that feel—to be liberated from the bureaucracy of managing your recalcitrant mind. Is it possible that there is a conspiracy to make us feel this way?”

Revolution (2014)

Alfred Korzybski photo

“The map is not the territory … The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map…”

Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950) Polish scientist and philosopher

Edition:Institute of General Semantics, 1995, p. 58.
Science and Sanity (1933)

John Barrymore photo
Lou Reed photo
Jimmy Carter photo
Julio Cortázar photo
Julio Cortázar photo
Richard Sherman (American football) photo
Ethan Allen photo
Daniel Abraham photo

“Holden couldn’t tell if she was melancholy or solving a complex engineering problem in her head. Those looks were confusingly similar.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 5 (p. 56)

Jacinda Ardern photo
Thomas Hylland Eriksen photo
Lauren Ornelas photo

“Whether we’re talking about human or nonhuman animals, the abuses in our food system are similar—living beings are treated as commodities for profit.”

Lauren Ornelas American activist

"ACE Interviews: Lauren Ornelas" https://animalcharityevaluators.org/blog/ace-interviews-lauren-ornelas/ by Erika Alonso, AnimalCharityEvaluators.org (July 13, 2017).

Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Edward Carson, Baron Carson photo
Ray Bradbury photo
David Pearce (philosopher) photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Annie Besant photo

“There is a Path which leads to that which is known as Initiation, and through Initiation to the Perfecting of Man; a Path which is recognized in all the great religions, and the chief features of which are described in similar terms in every one of the great faiths of the world. You may read of it in the Roman Catholic teachings as divided into three parts: (1) The Path of Purification or Purgation; (2) the Path of Illumination; and (3) the Path of Union with Divinity. You find it among the Mussulmans in the Sufi — the mystic — teachings of Islam, where it is known under the names of the Way, the Truth and the Life. You find it further eastward still in the great faith of Buddhism, divided into subdivisions, though these can be classified under the broader outline. It is similarly divided in Hinduism; for in both those great religions, in which the study of psychology, of the human mind and the human constitution, has played so great a part, you find a more definite subdivision. But really it matters not to which faith you turn; it matters not which particular set of names you choose as best attracting or expressing your own ideas; the Path is but one; its divisions are always the same; from time immemorial that Path has stretched from the life of the world to the life of the Divine.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Honoré de Balzac photo

“Crime and madness have some similarity. Seeing the prisoners of the Conciergerie in the courtyard, or seeing the mad in the garden of a nursing home, it's the same thing. Both walk around, avoiding each other, glancing at each other at least singularly, atrociously, according to their thoughts of the moment, never cheerful or serious; because they know each other or they fear each other. The expectation of a condemnation, remorse, anxieties give walkers in the courtyard a worried and a haggard look of madmen. Consummate criminals alone have an assurance which resembles the tranquility of an honest life, the sincerity of a pure conscience.”

et Misères des courtisanes (The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans) (1837-1847), part IV. La dernière Incarnation de Vautrin (The Last Incarnation of Vautrin) https://books.google.ca/books?id=ajtOAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=Splendeurs+et+Mis%C3%A8res+des+Coutisanes+Sc%C3%A8nes+de+la+Vie+parisienne&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiq69XJuJTvAhXrMlkFHcxvDVgQ6AEwCHoECAEQAg#v=onepage&f=falseSplendeurs, "Le Préau de la Conciergerie" ("The Courtyard of the Conciergerie") (chapter title).
Original: (fr) Le crime et la folie ont quelque similitude. Voir les prisonniers de la Conciergerie au préau, ou voir des fous dans le jardin d'une maison de santé, c'est une même chose. Les uns et les autres se promènent en s'évitant, se jettent des regards au moins siguliers, atroces, selon leurs pensées du moment, jamais gais ni sérieux ; car ils se connaissent ou ils se craignent. L'attente d'une condamnation, les remords, les anxiétés donnent aux promeneurs du préau l'air inquiet et hagard des fous. Les criminels consommés ont seuls une assurance qui ressemble à la tranquillité d'une vie honnête, à la sincérité d'une conscience pure.

Walter Cronkite photo

“Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

Chris Hedges photo

“My attitude toward becoming a vegan was similar to Augustine’s attitude toward becoming celibate — “God grant me abstinence, but not yet.””

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

But with animal agriculture as the leading cause of species extinction, water pollution, ocean dead zones and habitat destruction, and with the death spiral of the ecosystem ever more pronounced, becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species. It is one that my wife — who was the engine behind our family’s shift — and I have made.
"Saving the Planet, One Meal at a Time", Truthdig https://www.truthdig.com/articles/saving-the-planet-one-meal-at-a-time/ (10 November 2014)
2010s

Benjamin Creme photo
Viktor Pinchuk photo
Sade Adu photo

“Most things around are very similar in every respect, the music and the way people look. In order to be in a band, you have to have certain colors in your hair—still! Our image is striking because it is different, not because it is particularly outstanding.”

Sade Adu (1959) English singer-songwriter

On the appeal of her band in “Sade: Our 1985 Interview” https://www.spin.com/featured/sade-diamond-life-interview-may-1985/ in SPIN (2019 Jul 20)
Music

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Liu Wen (model) photo

“I was studying tourism at college and wanted to travel the world as a tour guide – that was my dream! But actually sometimes modeling feels quite similar, because I travel so much – probably even more than tour guiding.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "Liu Wen Talks Style, Diversity And What It Means To Be China’s First Supermodel" in Marie Claire https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/fashion-news/liu-wen-interview-china-s-first-supermodel-talks-style-diversity-and-her-mango-campaign-15375 (3 March 2016)

Aesop Rock photo
Angela Davis photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
John McDonnell photo

“My fear is that if we did have another referendum, we might get the same or similar result and the country will still be divided. Somehow we have got to try and bring the country back together again.”

John McDonnell (1951) British politician (born 1951)

Source: Labour could form minority government without election - McDonnell https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46288429 BBC News (21 November 2018)

Michel Henry photo
Michel Henry photo
Umberto Eco photo

“The basic principle [of hermetic drift semiotics] is not only that the similar can be known through the similar but also that from similarity to similarity everything can be connected with everything else, so that everything can be in turn either the expression or the content of any other thing.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

U. Eco (1990), The limits of Intepretation, as quoted in Thomas A. Sebeok, Jean Umiker-Sebeok (2020), The Semiotic Web 1991: Biosemiotics https://books.google.it/books?id=NUK0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA53.

“Very often we (cosplayers) are subject to harsh criticism when we do not look similar enough to movie or anime characters, and body-shaming is very commonly experienced by many cosplayers. I got a comment saying 'I'm too fat for Jinx.'”

Rikka Blurhound Malaysian cosplayer and nutritionist

Rikka Blurhound (2022) cited in " Malaysian Cosplayer Shares Her Painful But Passionate Journey Cosplaying Over The Years https://says.com/my/lifestyle/malaysian-cosplayer-badass-transformation-from-nutritionist-to-arcane-jinx" on SAYS, 13 April 2022.

David Attenborough photo

“Penguins underwater look somewhat like dolphins, and indeed the two families have similar evolutionary histories.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

"Fishing for a Living"
The Life of Birds (1998)

Leszek Kolakowski photo

“Pragmatism starts from assumptions similar to those of empiriocriticism, but differs from the latter by its striking formulations, loose aphorisms, and analytical unscrupulousness.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Source: The Alienation of Reason (1966), Chapter Seven, Pragmatism and Positivism, p. 166

Tara Westover photo
Prevale photo

“Every traitor, sooner or later will always the one similar on his way.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Ogni traditore, prima o poi troverà sempre un suo simile sulla sua strada.
Source: prevale.net