Binary Thinking Quotes

Roosevelt loved the subtleties of human relations ... He was sensitive to nuances in a way that Harry Truman never was and never would be. Truman, with his rural Missouri background, and partly too, because of the limits of his education, was inclined to see things in far simpler terms, as right or wrong, wise or foolish. He dealt little in abstractions. ~ David McCullough

But dividing the mind into "biological" and "psychological" is as fallacious as classifying light as a particle or a wave. The natural world makes no promise to align itself with preconceptions that humans find parsimonious or convenient. (167) ~ Thomas Lewis

What I am sure of, though, is that accepting people outside the gender binary has less to do with the idea of specific non-binary genders, and a lot more to do with working away from the binary thinking in general. That we get better at seeing beyond us and them, valid and invalid, natural and unnatural, good and bad, and instead communicate the fullness of who we are to each other, respectfully, with compassion. ~ C.N. Lester

human beings have a strong dramatic instinct toward binary thinking, a basic urge to divide things into two distinct groups, with nothing but an empty gap in between. We love to dichotomize. Good versus bad. Heroes versus villains. My country versus the rest. Dividing the world into two distinct sides is simple and intuitive, and also dramatic because it implies conflict, and we do it without thinking, all the time. ~ Hans Rosling

It's the binary of normative/transgressive that's unsustainable, along with the demand that anyone live a life that's all one thing. ~ Maggie Nelson

The people in their overwhelming majority are so feminine by nature and attitude that sober reasoning determines their thoughts and actions far less than emotion and feeling.

And this sentiment is not complicated, but very simple and all of a piece. It does not have multiple shadings; it has a positive and a negative; love or hate, right or wrong, truth or lie, never half this way and half that way, never partially, or that kind of thing. ~ Adolf Hitler

There's even less acceptance of bisexuality than homosexuality. Binary thinking still holds strong sway with the general population, and the exclusive homosexual is more understandable to the average person than is an individual who wanders the Kinsey scale with apparent - and alarming - abandon. ~ Martin Duberman

Any black person who clings to the misguided notion that white people represent the embodiment of all that is evil and black people all that is good remains wedded to the very logic of Western metaphysical dualism that is the heart of racist binary thinking. Such thinking is not liberatory. Like the racist educational ideology it mirrors and imitates, it invites a closing of the mind. ~ Bell Hooks

Binary approach is an obsolete school of thought in the process of structuring human perception towards reality. True nature of the reality fits better with spectrum approach. ~ Toba Beta

Smart thinking is to know what you think and why you think it. ~ Toni Sorenson

If you're facing a season of trials, don't allow the enemy to have a field day by putting negative thoughts in your mind. Let go of stinking thinking. Instead of turning away from God in anger or confusion, run into His loving arms where He will comfort you. ~ Dana Arcuri

Think of it! A second chamber selected by the Whips. A seraglio of eunuchs. ~ Michael Foot

I'm not suggesting that teachers never tell the truth, only that it isn't necessary to do it all the time. Since coming to one's own conclusions is mostly how we learn, the real job of a teacher is to force students to come to sensible conclusions by confronting what they already believe with stuff that is antithetical to those beliefs. A confused person has only 2 choices. Admit he is confused and doesn't care, or resolve the confusion. Resolving the confusion invloves thinking. Teachers can encourage thinking by making sure students have something confusing to think about. ~ Roger Schank

Time itself is a gift-curse. Time says: 'Look here! Here is a precious moment to do something with!' Then as soon as you try to grasp the moment, it's gone. And you haven't done anything. And while you're thinking about that, there is another moment, and then it too is gone. Cruel, like an eternal game of pass-the-parcel. ~ J.T. Lawrence

Your dog thinks you're a god. Your cat thinks the dog's an asshole. ~ George Carlin

I couldn't help thinking how well Cain had prospered after killing his brother: he founded the first city
and, although we don't like to talk about it all that much, we are all his children. ~ Philip Gourevitch

I think what Lawrence did was provide an assurance that gay and lesbian couples could live openly in society as free people and start families and raise families and participate fully in their communities without fear. And two things flowed from that, I think. One is that has brought us to the point where we understand now in a way even that we did not fully understand in Lawrence, that gay and lesbian people and gay and lesbian couples are full and equal members of the community. ~ Donald Verrilli Jr.

When I'm actually writing by hand, I get more of a sense of the rhythm of sentences, of syntax. The switch to the computer is when I actually start thinking about lines. That's the workhorse part. At that point, I'm being more mathematical about putting the poem on the page and less intuitive about the rhythm of the syntax. ~ Natasha Trethewey

People think the Beatles know what's going on. We don't. We're just doing it. ~ John Lennon

Think what a great world revolution will take place when ... [there are] millions of guys all over the world with rucksacks on their backs tramping around the back country ... ~ Jack Kerouac

I found that most people don't really want to know the truth. There are plenty of people who want to know the truth on their terms or require that the truth be contained within certain boundaries of comfort. But truth can never be known this way. You have to seek truth from a place of not knowing, and that can be a very threatening place because we think we already know the truth or we are afraid of what the truth might be. ~ Jim Palmer

Abandoning who people think you are and becoming who you really are is a simple concept, but sometimes it is very hard to do. It isn't easy to give up others' ideas of who you are. Yet the key to success is to discover your uniqueness and to exploit it. Your authentic persona, either personal or corporate, is the key to your prosperity. ~ Larry Winget

You might as well like yourself; just think about all the time you're gonna have to spend with you. ~ Jerry Lewis

Without thinking it through, I reached out and took her hand in mine, wrapping our fingers around each other's. Kisa gasped and said, "Luka, what are you doing?"
I shrugged. "Holding your hand."
"Why?" Kisa whispered, staring at my thumb stroking her skin. She was so soft.
"Because I have to," I answered honestly, and she seemed to stop breathing for several minutes before exhaling, her long eyelashes fluttering when she looked at me.
"Okay," she whispered, and something warm spread in my chest and down to my stomach. "I…I like it."
I smiled and Kisa blushed again. "Me too. I'm going to hold your hand all the time now. I'm never going to let go. ~ Tillie Cole

I'll be going to bed having nightmares of Sachin just running down the wicket and belting me back over the head for six. He was unstoppable. I don't think anyone, apart from Don Bradman, is in the same class as Sachin Tendulkar. He is just an amazing player. ~ Shane Warne

I will not vote for a candidate who thinks you can 'pray away the gay;' I will not vote for a candidate who thinks that he has more rights to my uterus than I do; I will not vote for a candidate who thinks that it's okay to dump toxic waste in the ocean. ~ Sophia Bush

I am very lucky to have people who care about me and care about my music. I think it would be irresponsible to not show them as much love back as they show me. ~ Hoodie Allen

Participating in a gun buyback program because you think that criminals have too many guns is like having yourself castrated because you think your neighbors have too many kids. ~ Clint Eastwood

We look at mountains and call them eternal, and they seem ... but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, starts fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes. ~ George R R Martin

If you meet a girl who has slept with 100 guys, you will think something of her you wouldn't think of a guy who slept with 100 girls. ~ Lizzy Caplan

Raking a hand through his hair, he forced his attention to the text she'd left on the coffee table, refusing to dwell on the disconcerting fact that a part of him had taken one look at the lass in such proximity to his bed and said simply: Mine ~ Karen Marie Moning

I don't leave the house without thinking of how to represent myself. ~ Taylor Momsen

But is all this true?" said Brutha.
Didactylos shrugged. "Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork."
"You mean you don't KNOW it's true?" said Brutha.
"I THINK it might be," said Didactylos. "I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about. ~ Terry Pratchett

I think that collectivization was an erroneous and unsuccessful measure and it was impossible to admit the error. To conceal the failure people had to be cured, by every means of terrorism, of the habit of thinking and judging for themselves, and forced to see what didn't exist, to assert the very opposite of what their eyes told them. ~ Boris Pasternak

My career started young and I was really ambitious, and then I had success and I hung out with people who were much older. I think I might have been temporally misplaced, so I thought I was 40. It was a premature midlife crisis. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Being in the ring became my reality, and, in my reality, I'd think I was someone special. ~ Mike Tyson

People who try to boss themselves always want (however kindly) to boss other people. They always think they know best and are so stern and resolute about it they are not very open to new and better ideas. ~ Brenda Ueland

Studying the text with other people reduces the impact of sin on our thinking. ~ Tim Chester

I hate everything that does not relate to literature, conversations bore me (even when they relate to literature), to visit people bores me, the joys and sorrows of my relatives bore me to my soul. Conversation takes the importance, the seriousness, the truth, out of everything I think. ~ Franz Kafka

We try to use obvious Canadian touches whenever we can, and I'm really proud of the way we use Vancouver for its production value. Nobody is pretending that we're not shooting in Canada, which is really important to me. The other wonderful thing is that ABC has bought us, but they air us after CTV has had the full season air on Canadian television. That's another thing that I think is really a nod towards the importance of us acknowledging our own industry. ~ Kristin Lehman

There are three things you must remember about a woman. Never take her for granted. Never think you know what she is thinking. And never think you know what she will do in a given situation. A woman is like smoke. She will curl seductively around you one moment, burn your eyes the next, tickle your throat until you cough, and then poof! She is gone. She is a mirage. She is a thunderstorm. She is a sailboat on a sunny mirrored lake. She will run when you reach for her, and come to you when you wish her away. You can solve a problem. You can analyze logic. You can explain how vapor turns into water. But you cannot understand the mind of a woman. And do you know why? Because she does not understand herself."
"Then what do you do?"
"You love her and deal with her in all honesty. You earn her trust. And then you trust the Almighty, who made women the way they are, believing that He knew what He was doing."
"What if that doesn't help?"
"Blame Him. ~ Elaine Coffman

The chief consideration for a good painter is to think out the whole of his picture, to have it in his head as a whole ... so that he may then execute it with warmth and as if the entire thing were done at the same time. ~ Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

When you go to a power spot, and you think negative or depressing thoughts they tend to grow stronger. Whereas, if you think more positive, happier thoughts, they tend to increase in strength. ~ Frederick Lenz

My poor mom really wants me to meet someone. I think she wanted to believe the Ryan Gosling rumor more than anybody, ~ Michelle Williams

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would! ~ George Carlin

Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible ~ Cherie Carter-Scott

No doubt some of the euphoria about the Internet's egalitarian promise was overstated, and some advocates did veer into genuine Net utopianism at times. But the people I was interested in were not evangelists for the Internet itself. For them, the Internet was not a cure-all; it was a role model. It wasn't the solution to the problem, but a way of thinking about the problem. One ~ Steven Johnson

I have heard that stiff people lose something of their awkwardness under high ceilings, and in spacious halls. I think, sculptureand painting have an effect to teach us manners, and abolish hurry. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I do think it's fascinating to see a play where everybody's sort of, in various ways, uprooted, and you see the older generation, the parents, whose faith has been something concrete that has guided them through a specific set of hurdles and circumstances. ~ Stephen Karam

I don't think we ever sat down in the early days and said "hey lets be a band that wears make up". I think it was just natural for us. We grew up loving stuff like Alice Cooper, Kiss, The Misfits, and the more theatrical stuff. I always loved rock stars. I loved David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, and these people that were larger than life and iconic. I think that is what we always wanted to do. ~ Andy Biersack

I think it's good to be passionate, and I think it's even good to be obsessed about a show. Why not? I think it's great! ~ Matthew Davis

Every man should have laws of his own, I should think; commandments of his own, for every man has a different set of circumstances wherein to work - or worry. ~ Gilbert Parker