Quotes about variety (669 quotes, page 7)

“The hidden significance of these fables which is sometimes thought to have been detected, the ethics running parallel to the poetry and history, are not so remarkable as the readiness with which they may be made to express a variety of truths.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Sunday
Context: The hidden significance of these fables which is sometimes thought to have been detected, the ethics running parallel to the poetry and history, are not so remarkable as the readiness with which they may be made to express a variety of truths. As if they were the skeletons of still older and more universal truths than any whose flesh and blood they are for the time made to wear. It is like striving to make the sun, or the wind, or the sea symbols to signify exclusively the particular thoughts of our day. But what signifies it? In the mythus a superhuman intelligence uses the unconscious thoughts and dreams of men as its hieroglyphics to address men unborn. In the history of the human mind, these glowing and ruddy fables precede the noonday thoughts of men, as Aurora the sun's rays. The matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.

Truth , History

“He looks with impartial eye upon the endless variety of systems, maintained with equal confidence and self-sufficiency, by men of equal ability and honesty. He is weary of wandering over the world, and of finding every petty race wedded to its own opinions; claiming the monopoly of Truth; holding all others to be in error, and raising disputes whose violence, acerbity and virulence are in inverse ratio to the importance of the disputed matter.”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870), Note I : Hâjî Abdû, The Man
Context: He looks with impartial eye upon the endless variety of systems, maintained with equal confidence and self-sufficiency, by men of equal ability and honesty. He is weary of wandering over the world, and of finding every petty race wedded to its own opinions; claiming the monopoly of Truth; holding all others to be in error, and raising disputes whose violence, acerbity and virulence are in inverse ratio to the importance of the disputed matter. A peculiarly active and acute observation taught him that many of these jarring families, especially those of the same blood, are par in the intellectual processes of perception and reflection; that in the business of the visible working world they are confessedly by no means superior to one another; whereas in abstruse matters of mere Faith, not admitting direct and sensual evidence, one in a hundred will claim to be right, and immodestly charge the other ninety-nine with being wrong.
Thus he seeks to discover a system which will prove them all right, and all wrong; which will reconcile their differences; will unite past creeds; will account for the present, and will anticipate the future with a continuous and uninterrupted development; this, too, by a process, not negative and distinctive, but, on the contrary, intensely positive and constructive. I am not called upon to sit in the seat of judgment; but I may say that it would be singular if the attempt succeeded. Such a system would be all-comprehensive, because not limited by space, time, or race; its principle would be extensive as Matter itself, and, consequently, eternal. Meanwhile he satisfies himself, — the main point.

Men , Truth , World , Error

“I became mentally bifocal, and so I learned early to understand that there is no such condition in human affairs as absolute truth. There is only truth as people see it, and truth, even in fact, may be kaleidoscopic in its variety.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Source: My Several Worlds (1954), p. 52
Context: I became mentally bifocal, and so I learned early to understand that there is no such condition in human affairs as absolute truth. There is only truth as people see it, and truth, even in fact, may be kaleidoscopic in its variety. The damage such perception did to me I have felt ever since, although damage may be too dark a word, for it merely meant that I could never belong entirely to one side of any question. To be a Communist would be absurd to me, as absurd as to be entirely anything and equally impossible. I straddled the globe too young.

People , Truth , Understanding , Learning

“Monotony and dryness are lurking enemies which may be vanquished by variety.”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)
Context: Variety.... Movement, contrast, and accent all contribute to variety... the spice of life... Monotony and dryness are lurking enemies which may be vanquished by variety.

“That member is then capable of the greatest variety of motions; it can compel the most varied instruments to execute the most diverse tasks.”

Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) physicist and physiologist

"On the Conservation of Force" (1862), p. 280
Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)
Context: The external work of man is of the most varied kind as regards the force or ease, the form and rapidity, of the motions used on it, and the kind of work produced. But both the arm of the blacksmith who delivers his powerful blows with the heavy hammer, and that of the violinist who produces the most delicate variations in sound, and the hand of the lacemaker who works with threads so fine that they are on the verge of the invisible, all these acquire the force which moves them in the same manner and by the same organs, namely, the muscles of the arm. An arm the muscles of which are lamed is incapable of doing any work; the moving force of the muscle must be at work in it, and these must obey the nerves, which bring to them orders from the brain. That member is then capable of the greatest variety of motions; it can compel the most varied instruments to execute the most diverse tasks.

“Let me be clear: the upcoming Majles elections in Iran is nothing but a sham, and the Iranian people – whether they are compelled by a variety of reasons to take part, or whether they are able to withstand enormous pressure and boycott the elections – know full well that, no matter who gets into the next Majles, they are unlikely to truly represent their will, desire and vision for Iran. Consequently, the next Majles will continue to remain a mere pawn in the hands of the “Supreme Leader” and his cohorts.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

"Iran and the Future of the Middle East" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=250&page=4, Georgetown University, Jan. 30, 2008.
Speeches, 2008-2009

People , Parting

“Friends, this body is so impermanent, fragile, unworthy of confidence, and feeble. It is so insubstantial, perishable, short-lived, painful, filled with diseases, and subject to changes. Thus, my friends, as this body is only a vessel of many sicknesses, wise men do not rely on it. This body is like a ball of foam, unable to bear any pressure. It is like a water bubble, not remaining very long. It is like a mirage, born from the appetites of the passions. It is like the trunk of the plantain tree, having no core. Alas! This body is like a machine, a nexus of bones and tendons. It is like a magical illusion, consisting of falsifications. It is like a dream, being an unreal vision. It is like a reflection, being the image of former actions. It is like an echo, being dependent on conditioning. It is like a cloud, being characterized by turbulence and dissolution. It is like a flash of lightning, being unstable, and decaying every moment. The body is ownerless, being the product of a variety of conditions.”

Vimalakirti

Chapter 2 http://www.fodian.net/world/0475_02.html
Vimalakirti Sutra, Robert Thurman's translation, 1991

Tree , Confidence , Pain , Dependency

“This world is a strange world. We have to learn many lessons. One of the disciples of the Lord Jesus betrayed the Lord. Many obstacles will come to the growing aspirant at every step. We will have to show our strength. Do not be agitated by little things. Be cheerful. Smile. Walk boldly. Think and feel that nothing has happened. Don’t worry about little things. You have to do many great actions yet. Prakriti is preparing you in a variety of ways. Feel this. Be grateful to the Lord.”

Swami Sivananda (1887–1963) Indian philosopher

You Cannot Get Away From Evil
Autobiography of Swami Sivananda

Smile , Learning , Thinking , Way

“The dictionary doesn’t have individual contributions. It’s like building a cathedral. The workers are unknown. But one of the things I tend to do is suggest that it might be interesting to have examples of things that aren’t from France. If it’s a wind, which we worked on recently, does it always have to be the mistral? What about the winds of elsewhere? How about zephyrs or siroccos? In French, there exists an enormous variety of classifications, proverbs, and witticisms about winds. There are winds that push ships as well as winds that come from the gut—the noisy, bodily winds of Rabelais. All shadings have to be in the dictionary.”

Dany Laferrière (1953) Haitian Canadian novelist and journalist

On working on a French-language dictionary as part his duties at the Académie française in “Dany Laferrière, The Art of Fiction No. 237” https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7040/dany-laferriere-the-art-of-fiction-no-237-dany-laferriere in The Paris Review (Fall 2017)

Relation ships

“And what is it in us that is mellowed by civilization? All it does, I’d say, is to develop in man a capacity to feel a greater variety of sensations. And nothing, absolutely nothing else. And through this development, man will yet learn how to enjoy bloodshed. Why, it has already happened.... Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Notes from Underground

Part 1, Chapter 7 (page 23)
Notes from Underground (1864)

Feeling , Learning

“This evolution toward noise-sound is only possible today. The ear of an eighteenth century man never could have withstood the discordant intensity of some of the chords produced by our orchestras (whose performers are three times as numerous); on the other hand our ears rejoice in it, for they are attuned to modern life, rich in all sorts of noises. But our ears far from being satisfied, keep asking for bigger acoustic sensations. However, musical sound is too restricted in the variety and the quality of its tones. Music marks time in this small circle and vainly tries to create a new variety of tones... We must break at all cost from this restrictive circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds.”

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter

Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 6

Music , Life , Time

“Nature is interested in only two things—to survive and to reproduce one like itself. Anything you superimpose on that, all the cultural input, is responsible for the boredom of man. So we have varieties of religious experience. You are not satisfied with your own religious teachings or games; so you bring in others from India, Asia or China. They become interesting because they are something new. You pick up a new language and try to speak it and use it to feel more important. But basically, it is the same thing.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Description: from U.G Krishnamurti
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

Game , Feeling , Nature

“The preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power. But there is also a constructive reason. The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government. … Government can never duplicate the variety and diversity of individual action.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Introduction, pp. 2-3
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

Science , Literature , Painting , Freedom

“In some respects all this variety is probably good, productive of difference and dialogue and so on. But it can also be confusing and stressful for the average citizen. Short of signing on to a particular mass ideology and patronizing only those partisan news sources that ratify what you want to believe, it is increasingly hard to determine which sources to pay attention to and how exactly to distinguish real information from spin.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

"Host: Deep into the mercenary world of take-no-prisoners political talk radio." The Atlantic, April 2005.
Essays

“We have been entertained with a great variety of phrases, to avoid calling this sort of people a mob. Some call them shavers, some call them geniuses. The plain English is, gentlemen, most probably a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and mulattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tars.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1770s, Boston Massacre trial (1770)

People , Boy

“I’d call them dangerously loopy heretics who are well down the slippery slope to hell, Bob. A hell of their own creation, even if you don’t believe in the literal sulfur-and-brimstone variety presided over by a big red guy with horns and cloven hooves. Which these people very likely do, but they think they’re on the side of the angels, which makes them doubly bad.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Apocalypse Codex (2012), Chapter 12, “With a Bible and a Gun” (p. 240)

Hell , Bad luck , People , Thinking

“In their phenomena of life the inhabitants of the earth display endless variety. They swim in the waters, soar in the skies, squeeze among the rocks, clamber among the trees, scamper over the plains, and glide among the grounds and grasses. Some are born for a summer, some for a century, and some flutter their little lives out in a day. They are black, white, blue, golden, all the colours of the spectrum. Some are wise and some are simple; some are large and some are microscopic; some live in castles and some in bluebells; some roam over continents and seas, and some doze their little day-dream away on a single dancing leaf. But they are all the children of a commion mother and the co-tenants of a common world. Why they are here in this world rather than some place else; why the world in which they find themselves is so full of the undesirable; and whether it would not have been better if the ball on which they ride and riot had been in the beginning sterilised, are problems too deep and baffling for the most of them. But since they are here, and since they are too proud or too superstitious to die, and are surrounded by such cold and wolfish immensities, what would seem more proper than for them to be kind to each other, and helpful, and dwell together as loving and forbearing members of One Great Family?”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"Conclusion", pp. 324–325
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Ethical Kinship

Family , Tree , Sea , Making love

“Man is a talkative and religious ape. He is an ape, but with a much greater amount of enterprise and with a greater likelihood of being found in every variety of climate. Like the anthropoid, man has a bald face and an obsolete tail. But he is distinguished from his arboreal relative by his arrogant bearing, his skilled larynx, and especially by the satisfaction he experiences in the contemplation of the image which appears when he looks in a mirror.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"Man an Animal", p. 17
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Physical Kinship

Appearance

“Of all the varieties of media bias, the deepest is the bias against relevance. The more important the issue, the less it is discussed.”

George Monbiot (1963) English writer and political activist

"Stop eating fish. It’s the only way to save the life in our seas" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/09/seas-stop-eating-fish-fishing-industry-government, The Guardian, 9 May 2019.

“My literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in belief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Letter to George Müller (1923), Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, Mencken: The American Iconoclast, Oxford University Press, (2005) pp. 105-106, first published in Autobiographical Notes, 1941
1920s

Idea , Freedom

“The responsibility for dividing the world rests squarely on the shoulders of the Kremlin. We do not give up hope of reuniting the world, but it can only be done if the Communists give up their ideological imperialism, their attempt to bring the whole world into line, to confine every single person within the straitjacket of Marx-Leninism. We in the Labour movement do not believe in this dead dull uniformity. On the contrary, we believe that variety is of the essence of a free society.”

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

Speech in Glasgow (10 April 1949), quoted in The Times (11 April 1949), p. 4
Prime Minister

World , Personality , Hope , Dead

“Not the least among the arguments whose consideration should dispose us to welcome among us the peoples of all countries, nationalities and colors, is the fact that all races and varieties of men are improvable. This is the grand distinguishing attribute of humanity, and separates man from all other animals. If it could be shown that any particular race of men are literally incapable of improvement, we might hesitate to welcome them here. But no such men are anywhere to be found, and if they were, it is not likely that they would ever trouble us with their presence.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

The fact that the Chinese and other nations desire to come and do come is a proof of their capacity for improvement and of their fitness to come.
1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Country , People , Animals , Color

“The sacred books of the East are the best evidence for the greatness of their authors, for who in later days or in modern times can even approach the spiritual sublimity of their religious thought, the intellectual splendour of their philosophy, the breadth and purity of their ethic? And when we find that these books contain teachings about God, man, and the universe identical in substance under much variety of outer appearance, it does not seem unreasonable to refer to them to a central primary body of doctrine. To that body we give the name Divine Wisdom, in its Greek form: THEOSOPHY.”

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

Source: The Ageless Wisdom (1897)

God , Time , Universe , Appearance

“A crisis is taking place in the contemporary world in a variety of forms, cutting across the realms of culture, ethics, politics, and so forth. At the ground of these problems is the fact that the essence of being human has turned into a question mark for humanity itself.”

Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990) Japanese philosopher

Source: The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1990), p. 188

World , Problem , Question

“My Instrument being fixed, I immediately began to observe such Stars as I judged most proper to give me light into the Cause of the Motion… There was Variety enough of small ones; and not less than twelve, that I could observe through all the Seasons of the Year; they being bright enough to be seen in the Day-time, when nearest the Sun. I had not been long observing, before I perceived, that the Notion we had before entertained of the Stars being farthest North and South, when the Sun was about the Equinoxes, was only true of those that were near the solstitial Colure: And after I had continued my Observations a few Months, I discovered what I then apprehended to be a general Law, observed by all the Stars, viz.”

James Bradley (1693–1762) English astronomer; Astronomer Royal

That each of them became stationary, or was farthest North or South, when they passed over my Zenith at six of the Clock, either in the Morning or Evening. I perceived likewise, that whatever Situation the Stars were in with respect to the cardinal Points of the Ecliptick, the apparent Motion of every one tended the same Way, when they passed my Instrument about the same Hour of the Day or Night; for they all moved Southward, while they passed in the Day, and Northward in the Night; so that each was farthest North, when it came about Six of the Clock in the Evening, and farthest South when it came about Six in the Morning.
A Letter from the Reverend Mr. James Bradley Savilian Proffesor of Astronomy at Oxford, and F.R.S. to Dr. Edmund Halley, Astronom. Reg. &c. giving an Account of a New Discovered Motion of the Fix'd Stars. Philosophical Transactions (Jan 1, 1727) 1727-1728 No. 406. vol. XXXV. pp. 637-661 http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/35/399-406/637.full.pdf+html.

Time , Law , Light , Sun

“Having conflicting goals, dedicating resources to unconnected targets, and accommodating incompatible interests are the luxuries of the rich and powerful, but they make for bad strategy. Despite this, most organizations will not create focused strategies. Instead, they will generate laundry lists of desirable outcomes and, at the same time, ignore the need for genuine competence in coordinating and focusing their resources. Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does.”

Richard Rumelt (1942) American economist

Source: Good Strategy Bad Strategy, 2011, p. 20

Bad luck , Time , Making love

“The case is a simple one. A mere increase in the variety of our material consumption relieves the strain imposed upon man by the limits of the material universe, for such variety enables him to utilise a larger proportion of the aggregate of matter. But in proportion as we add to mere variety a higher appreciation of those adaptations of matter which are due to human skill, and which we call Art, we pass outside the limits of matter and are no longer the slaves of roods and acres and a law of diminishing returns.”

J.A. Hobson (1858–1940) English economist, social scientist and critic of imperialism

So long as we continue to raise more men who demand more food and clothes and fuel, we are subject to the limitations of the material universe, and what we get ever costs us more and benefits us less. But when we cease to demand more, and begin to demand better, commodities, more delicate, highly finished and harmonious, we can increase the enjoyment without adding to the cost or exhausting the store. What artist would not laugh at the suggestion that the materials of his art, his colours, clay, marble, or what else he wrought in, might fail and his art come to an end? When we are dealing with qualitative, i.e. artistic, goods, we see at once how an infinite expenditure of labour may be given, an infinite satisfaction taken, from the meagrest quantity of matter and space. In proportion as a community comes to substitute a qualitative for a quantitative standard of living, it escapes the limitations imposed by matter upon man. Art knows no restrictions of space or size, and in proportion as we attain the art of living we shall be likewise free.
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production (1906), Ch. XVII Civilisation and Industrial Development

Universe , Law , Art

“He excels in description of forests and the hermitages of sages. Nature, in all its aspects and varieties — trees, mountains, rivers, clouds, dawn, sunset, had a great fascination for him. His sketches of some of the sages have a deft touch and they dwell on the greatness of penance and the sublimity of a spiritual life of self-realisation.”

Vālmīki Legendary Indian poet, author of the Ramayana

Source: The Epic Civilization, p. 51.

Tree , Mountain , Nature , Self-confidence

“He suggests that mates should practice a variety of sexual postures in order to prevent mechanicality and predictability and to enhance the pleasure. He also points out the erotozones of a woman’s body and how different erotozones are awakened at different times according to the lunar influence.”

Vātsyāyana Indian logician

Source: Literary Vision, p. 164

Pleasure , Time

“Discover how Kapoor’s continual experimentation with structure and medium has led him to work with a wide variety of materials from clay, fibreglass and paint pigment, to steel and wax, creating beautiful, strange and intriguing works that counter conventional ideas of art.”

Anish Kapoor (1954) British contemporary artist of Indian birth

The Museum of Contemporary Art on Kapoor’s first major exhibition in Australia.
Exhibition: Anish Kapoor

Idea , Beauty , Painting , Art

“What is more, Bhimsen was as much at home in encapsulating the classical mode as in toying with the lighter variety of music. While his alap, bhadat and bandish in the classical mode sported a proportioned, balanced and serene majesty of the melodic range, the lighter Bhava Geet, Thumri, Abhang and Dasapadas were redolent with discreet lyrical flavour.”

Bhimsen Joshi (1922–2011) Indian vocalist

Critique

Music , Home , Sport

“One important remark has been made, that a comparatively small variety of species is found in the older rocks, although of some particular ones the remains are very abundant…”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 60

“In the astronomical and physical division of the work, will be found a general rule for determining the correction on account of aberration; a comparison of observations on the figure of the earth; a table of the order of electrical excitation; a chart of the variation of the compass, and of the trade winds; formulae for finding the heat of summer and winter; remarks on the theory of the winds; and a comparative table of all the mechanical properties of a variety of natural bodies.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Preface
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)

Summer , Winter , Nature

“This creature, this Baab, with his spiritual weapons, was in the end found guilty on fifty-five counts of murder, on twenty-one counts of attempted murder, on thirty counts of assault and battery, and a variety of lesser offences.”

Heinrich Baab (1908) German Gestapo officer

Edward Crankshaw

“Today, we are all saddened by the loss of Brooke Astor, a quintessential New Yorker and one of the great philanthropists of our time. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers were the beneficiaries of Mrs Astor’s good will and kind nature, many unaware of the origins of the donations. Her contributions reached a wide variety of causes; The New York Public Library, and the entire city, would not be what they are today without her gracious support.”

Brooke Astor (1902–2007) Socialite, writer, Philanthropist

Michael Bloomberg, New York City mayor
Brooke Astor, First Lady of New York, dies at 105 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2257401.ece Times Online (August 14, 2007)

Support , Loss , Time , Nature

“He knows all the vulnerable spots of the human anatomy as well as the most erudite surgeon in the business and has a greater variety of effective blows than any fighter who ever lived.”

Bob Fitzsimmons (1863–1917) British boxer

Sandy Griswold ring historian, Dec 24, 1904 National Police Gazette.http://coxscorner.tripod.com/fitz.html

Business

“The thing that distinguishes social systems from physical or even biological systems is their incomparable (and embarrassing) richness in special cases. Generalizations in the social sciences are mere pathways which lead through a riotous forest of individual trees, each a species unto itself. The social scientist who loses this sense of the essential individuality and uniqueness of each case is all too likely to make a solemn scientific ass of himself, especially if he thinks that his faceless generalizations are the equivalents of the rich variety of the world.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Boulding (1958) "Evidences for an Administrative Science: A review of the Administrative Science Quarterly, volumes 1 and 2". In Administrative Science Quarterly. vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 14
1950s

Tree , Thinking , Sense , World

“After this was done I reached in under my left armpit in approved American gangster fashion and produced my ugly little automatic. Without a further word I placed it on the front desk of my Steinway and proceeded with my concert. Every note was heard and, in a sense, I suppose I opened up the way in Hungary for modern music of a non-Bartó k– Kodá ly variety.”

George Antheil (1900–1959) American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor

Music , Lying , Sense , Way

“There was nothing like a museum for calming the mind, for putting the problems of everyday life in their true perspective. Here, surrounded by the infinite variety and wonder of Nature, he was reminded of truths he had forgotten. He was only one of a million million creatures that shared this planet Earth. The entire human race, with its hopes and fears, its triumphs and its follies, might be no more than an incident in the history of the world.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Death and the Senator

Death and the Senator, p. 744
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Fear , History , Hope , Nature

“I Photo Elfed all day for a variety of Santas and it struck me that many of the parents don't allow their children to speak at all. A child sits upon Santa's lap and the parents say, 'All right now, Amber, tell Santa what you want. Tell him you want a Baby Alive and My Pretty Ballerina and that winter coat you saw in the catalog.'
The parents name the gifts they have already bought. They don't want to hear the word 'pony' or 'television set,' so they talk through the entire visit, placing words in the child's mouth. When the child hops off the lap, the parents address their children, each and every time, with, 'What do you say to Santa?'
The child says, 'Thank you, Santa.'”

David Sedaris book Barrel Fever

It is sad because you would like to believe that everyone is unique and then they disappoint you every time by being exactly the same, asking for the same things, reciting the exact same lines as though they have been handed a script.
All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to the fingerprints.
Essay, "Santaland diaries" - p.233-234, 235
Barrel Fever (1994)

Baby , Time , Photo , Children

“This age proclaims the sovereignty of the citizen, and the inviolability of life; it crowns the people, and consecrates man. In art, it possesses all varieties of genius,—writers, orators, poets, historians, publicists, philosophers, painters, sculptors, musicians; majesty, grace, power, force, splendour, colour, form, style; it renews its strength in the real and in the ideal, and bears in its hand the two thunderbolts, the true and the beautiful. In science it accomplishes unheard-of miracles; it makes of cotton salt petre, of steam a horse, of the voltaic battery a workman, of the electric fluid a messenger, of the sun a painter; it waters itself with subterranean streams, pending the time when it shall warm itself with the central fire; it opens upon the two infinites those two windows, the telescope upon the infinitely great, the microscope upon the infinitely little, and it finds stars in the first abyss, and insects in the second, which prove to it the existence of God... It annihilates time, it annihilates space, it annihilates suffering; it writes a letter from Paris to London, and has an answer in ten minutes; it cuts off a man's leg, the man sings and smiles.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Conclusion, Part Second, II
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Singing , God , Time , Sun

“[O]ur purpose is to give a presentation of geometry... in its visual, intuitive aspects. With the aid of visual imagination we can illuminate the manifold facts and problems... beyond this, it is possible... to depict the geometric outline of the methods of investigation and proof, without... entering into the details... In this manner, geometry being as many-faceted as it is and being related to the most diverse branches of mathematics, we may even obtain a summarizing survey of mathematics as a whole, and a valid idea of the variety of problems and the wealth of ideas it contains. Thus a presentation of geometry in large brushstrokes... and based on the approach through visual intuition, should contribute to a more just appreciation of mathematics by a wider range of people than just the specialists.”

David Hilbert Geometry and the Imagination

Preface
Geometry and the Imagination (1952)

Imagination , Wealth , People , Problem

“[A]rchitecture is more than a stage for the acting out of these performances. It offers a space for other social groups and kinds of social interactions. It is also important to remember that in examples such as the country house it was home to a large number of residents representing a variety of interests.”

Dana Arnold (1961) Middlessex uni prof

Source: Reading Architectural History (2002), Ch. 4 : A class performance : Social histories of architecture

Home , Housing , Country

“Architectural History is more than just the study of buildings. Architecture of the past and the present remains an essential emblem of a distinctive social system and set of cultural values, and as a result it has been the subject of study of a variety of disciplines.”

Dana Arnold (1961) Middlessex uni prof

Source: Reading Architectural History (2002), Ch. 1 : Reading the past : What is architectural history?

Past , Study , History

“When I was starting in the game industry, it wasn't uncommon to be the only woman on the entire team...I always felt welcome and I never felt awkward. In my years at Nintendo, I have come to discover that when there are women in a variety of roles on the project, you get a wider [range] of ideas.”

Aya Kyogoku (1981) Video game director

March 19, 2014 Animal Crossing: New Leaf director says team diversity, communication core to its success https://www.polygon.com/2014/3/19/5526678/animal-crossing-new-leaf-diversity-aya-kyogoku

Idea , Game , Women

“Telecenters are facilities where the general public can access computers for free. The computers are usually equipped with a variety of open source, and sometimes closed source, software and are connected to the internet. Some Telecenters offer computer lectures and workshops to communities in order to improve social and technical skills. Such activities are an attempt to promote use of the technology to fulfill individual and community needs, increasing human capital and employment. The government, NGOs, and the private sector operate Telecenter units.”

David Nemer

(p. 66)
Favela Digital- The other side of technology. (2013)

Communication

“Empty. Barren. These were the true conditions of the Universe, she thought; life, and variety, and energy, were isolated aberrations.”

Stephen Baxter book Ring

Source: Ring (1994), Chapter 18 (p. 743)

Universe , Life

“In other words, gurus generalize from their own experience. Some gurus are inclined to believe that all humanity should accept their vision: others allege that, when the last trump sounds, their own followers will be saved, whilst the majority of mankind will remain unredeemed. This apparently arrogant assumption is closely connected with certain features of personality displayed by a variety of gurus.”

Anthony Storr (1920–2001) English psychiatrist

Introduction (p. XII–XIII)
Feet of Clay; Saints, Sinners, and Madmen: A Study of Gurus (1996, 1997)

Personality

“Learn to measure the people you deal with by the depth of their soul, and if possible associate as much as you can with those of the expansive variety.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

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

Soul , People , Learning

“Wine making is an artistic creation in which you deal with a variety of styles, colors, and inspiration therefore good wine, like good art, can evoke emotions, sensations and create an experience which leaves a lasting impression.”

Giovanni Morassutti (1980) Italian actor, theatre director and cultural entrepreneur.

Stated in the description of Video artwork Ribolla https://artelaguna.world/videoart/ribolla.30318/ , Arte Laguna World https://artelaguna.world/. Also quoted on visual art work Sauvignon https://www.wikiart.org/en/giovanni-morassutti/sauvignon, Series Wine & Art https://www.wikiart.org/en/giovanni-morassutti/all-works#!#filterName:Series_wine-art,resultType:masonry, Wikiart.org (28 April, 2020) https://www.wikiart.org/

Wine , Making love , Color , Art

“I've tried several varieties of sex. Going down on a woman gives me a stiff neck, going down on a man gives me lockjaw, and conventional sex gives me claustrophobia.”

Tallulah Bankhead (1902–1968) American actress

Tallulah, Darling: A Biography of Tallulah Bankhead (1980)

Sex

“Eternity! thou pleasing dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act V, scene i
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Change

“Moving beyond orientalism finally presupposes moving beyond the culture of domination and the politics of coercion that have nurtured orientalism in all its varieties, and been nurtured by it in turn.”

Sheldon Pollock (1948) American linguist

(Pollock 1993:117), quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins.

“[Only federalism] allows democratic control and can punish abuses of power. Only federalism can guarantee respect for national character and regional variety. ... The springtime of Europe is still before us.”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

Speech to the European Parliament (19 January 1995), quoted in The Times (20 January 1995), p. 11
President of the European Commission

“Some have certain common places, and themes, wherein they are good and want variety; which kind of poverty is for the most part tedious, and when it is once perceived, ridiculous.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Discourse

Parting

“And on the basis of criteria of this kind tribals were hacked off from Hindu society. One has but to read the descriptions of Animism which were relied upon to notice that they could well be describing a variety of Hindus.”

Arun Shourie book Missionaries in India

Source: Missionaries in India, 1994

Animals , Reading

“We know with certainty that never could man have acquired the sciences and arts by himself guided only by his natural abilities and without the benefit of instruction. (This applies, e.g., to) medicine, the knowledge of the physiological temperaments, the diseases and their causes, in all their numerous varieties, and the invention of adequate treatment and cure of each of them by drugs or preparations, which could never have been actually tried out. For how could anyone test every prescription on every disease since this would take tens of thousands of years and necessitate the examination of every sick person in the world?”

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

Regarding the role of experiment and observation, Ibn Hazm: Kitab al-fisal fi’l-milal wa-l-ahwa wa-l-nihal, 5 parts in two vols; Cairo, 1899 and 1903; Vol I, p. 72.

Personality , Art , Knowledge , Nature

“Diversions come and go. Pleasure never lasts. Variety loses its meaning. But you will always be able to choose what you are willing to sacrifice, what you are willing to give up.”

Mark Manson book Everything Is Fucked

Pleasure

“Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me during life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading... Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history,—with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him.”

John Herschel (1792–1871) English mathematician, astronomer, chemist and photographer

Address on the opening of the Eton Library (1833) as quoted in A History of Inventions, Discoveries and Origins (1846) by John Beckmann, Tr. William Johnston, Vol. 1, frontispiece. https://archive.org/details/historyofinventi01unse/page/n5/mode/2up

Reading , History , Happiness , Books

“When one sees, the variety and abundance of beautiful and bloodless fruits that gorge the markets of civilisation and considers the amount of art available for cooking and compounding this abundance, and considers, too, what might be still further accomplished in the production and preparation of foods by scientific attention to the matter, it seems so strange, so sad, and so frightful, that man, elected by the accidents of evolution to be the model and schoolmaster of the world, and adapted so signally to a guiltless diet, should continue to perpetrate in the daylight of the twentieth century the barbarous, blood-sucking atrocities of the reptile.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), Is Man a Plant-Eater?, p. 130

Food , Beauty , Art , World

“[S]ince vegetal fat is identical chemically with animal fat, and vegetal protein with animal protein, since these substances are found abundantly in non-flesh products, and since the only other food substances used by man (starch and sugar) are not found except in plants and plant products, it may be asserted positively that from the standpoint of food-supply there is no reason why man should prey when he eats. The plant world contains all of the compounds necessary for human alimentation, it contains them abundantly, it contains them in forms of the highest delicacy and the greatest variety and economy, and it contains them in a much more prime condition than they are found in the diseased tissues of our mistreated servants.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), What Shall We Eat?, pp. 92–93

World , Animals , Disease , Food

“I’m not sure there’s really that much of a separation between imagination and reality when it comes to creatures. My inspiration is almost always from something nature has created. Nature is relentless and astonishingly diverse in the amount and variety of life it presents. It’s really what parts you put together and how far from reality you want to go when you design creatures.”

Chris Walas (1955) American special effects artist and film director

Imagination , Reality , Life , Parting

“There was no intention of differentiating genres or fields. I was always involved in a variety of projects—depending on timing and circumstance. I’d like to continue challenging myself in various ways, such as movies, dramas and plays.”

Park So-dam (1991) South Korean actress

As quoted in "Parasite Star Park So-dam on Life Since the Oscars and New Korean Drama Record of Youth" in Time Magazine (16 September 2020) https://time.com/5889002/park-sodam-parasite-record-of-youth-interview/

Dependency , Time , Way