Diversity Of Thought Quotes

Humans are ideas; and ideas are uniquely human. ~ A.E. Samaan

Diversity of thought and culture and religion and ideas has been the strength of America. ~ Gary Locke

Diversity of thought is in demand, for boosting collective creativity and harnessing collective wisdom. ~ Pearl Zhu

I had worked for a number of organizations that struggled to create meaningful opportunities for people of color, but I had never heard anyone make an overt case in favor of assimilation - particularly at an organization that promoted diversity in its mission statements and messaging. Granted, many people of color on our team had grown suspicious of those statements, suspecting that the organization wanted our racial diversity without our diversity of thought and culture. ~ Austin Channing Brown

Hand me a shovel, he thought. I'm getting tired of digging this hole for myself with my bare hands. -Ben ~ Nora Roberts

I once read that if the folds in the cerebral cortex were smoothed out it would cover a card table. That seemed quite unbelievable but it did make me wonder just how big the cortex would be if you ironed it out. I thought it might just about cover a family-sized pizza: not bad, but no card-table. I was astonished to realize that nobody seems to know the answer. A quick search yielded the following estimates for the smoothed out dimensions of the cerebral cortex of the human brain.

An article in Bioscience in November 1987 by Julie Ann Miller claimed the cortex was a "quarter-metre square." That is napkin-sized, about ten inches by ten inches. Scientific American magazine in September 1992 upped the ante considerably with an estimated of 1 1/2 square metres; thats a square of brain forty inches on each side, getting close to the card-table estimate. A psychologist at the University of Toronto figured it would cover the floor of his living room (I haven't seen his living room), but the prize winning estimate so far is from the British magazine New Scientist's poster of the brain published in 1993 which claimed that the cerebral cortex, if flattened out, would cover a tennis court. How can there be such disagreement? How can so many experts not know how big the cortex is? I don't know, but I'm on the hunt for an expert who will say the cortex, when fully spread out, will cover a football field. A Canadian football field. ~ Jay Ingram

Getting started is the most difficult thing to do; once you file it out, they rest of the journey is as soft as the straw. Be a good beginner. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

You can't let him get away with this!" Penny shrieked.
Caine wasn't having it. "You stupid witch," he yelled back. "No one told you to let it go that far!"
"He was mine for the day," Penny hissed. She pressed a rag to her nose, which had started bleeding again.
"He tore his own eyes out. What did you think Quinn would do? What do you think Albert will do now?" He bit savagely at his thumb, a nervous habit.
"I thought you were the king!"
Caine reacted without thinking. He swung a hard backhand at her face. The blow did not connect, but the thought did. Penny flew backward like she'd been hit by a bus. She smacked hard against the wall of the office.
The blow stunned her, and Caine was in her face before she could clear her thoughts.
Turk came bursting in, his gun leveled. "What's happening?"
"Penny tripped," Caine said.
Penny's freckled face was white with fury.
"Don't," Caine warned. He tightened an invisible grip around her head and twisted it back at an impossible angle.
Then Caine released her.
Penny panted and glared. But no nightmare seized Caine's mind. "You'd better hope Lana can fix that boy, Penny."
"You're getting soft." Penny choked out the words.
"Being king isn't about being a sick creep," Caine said. "People need someone in charge. People are sheep and they need a big sheepdog telling them what to do and where to go. But it doesn't work if you start killing the sheep."
"You're scared of ~ Michael Grant

Have you ever thought about how weird it is? That, like, an infinite amount of time happened before we existed, and an infinite amount of time will happen after we're dead, and we're sitting here, living our lives, just a tiny blink of existence sandwiched between infinity? ~ Megan Jacobson

I am eternally, devastatingly romantic, and I thought people would see it because 'romantic' doesn't mean 'sugary.' It's dark and tormented - the furor of passion, the despair of an idealism that you can't attain. ~ Catherine Breillat

God forgives us, as - when - we forgive them who injure us - and ourselves. These last weeks I think I have understood what many times in the past I thought I knew - but we never know - we never reach the end of understanding - the understanding of God - the mystery of his love ... ~ Lucy Beckett

This kid came up with Napster, and before that, none of us thought of content protection. ~ Morgan Freeman

Billy didn't need someone to pour him his drinks, he needed someone to tell him that living isn't poetry. It isn't prayer. To tell him and convince him. And none of us could do it because every one of us thought that as long as Billy believed it was, as long as he kept himself believing it, then maybe it could still be true. ~ Alice McDermott

Okay,three things,and one of them has to be in French."
I was back in the weird squashy chair; Alex was flopped on the bed.This time, along with the lemon soda, there were two bags of Doritos on the floor between us. He'd had one waiting. I'd brought one.
"I don't think this is what Mademoiselle Winslow had in mind," I told him.
Truth: Despite all my good intentions to keep Frankie happy and my hopes down, I'd been looking forward to this all week, hoping Alex wouldn't forget. I'd thought up and rethought clever things I could say.
Further Truth: I didn't want to sound like I'd been looking forward to it all week and thinking up what I wanted to say.
Home truth: Yes, I am that pitiful. ~ Melissa Jensen

He said, "How can the inconsequence of your life not shame you?"
He said, "How do you not feel empty?"
I do, she thought as she pushed through the library doors and let them thud behind her. I do. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, don't harrass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us! ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

From Beckett's "The Unnamable":

"They love each other, marry, in order to love each other better, more conveniently, he goes off to the wars, he dies at the wars, she weeps, with emotion, at having loved him, at having lost him, yep, marries again, in order to love again..., more conveniently again, they love each other, you love as many times as necessary, as necessary in order to be happy, he comes back, the other comes back, from the wars, he didn't die at the wars after all, she goes to the station, to meet him, he dies in the train, of emotion, at the thought of seeing her again, having her again, she weeps, weeps again, with emotion again, at having lost him again, yep, goes back to the house, he's dead, the other is dead, the mother-in-law takes him down, he hanged himself, with emotion, at the thought of losing her, she weeps, weeps louder, at having loved him, at having lost him, there's a story for you, that was to teach me the nature of emotion, that's called emotion, what emotion can do, given favourable conditions, what love can do, well well, so that's emotion, that's love, and trains, and the nature of trains, and the meaning of... ~ Samuel Beckett

You must strive to become much less susceptible to influences outside of yourself and much more inclined to trust the instincts and feelings that lie within you. ~ Bob Proctor

Life meanwhile, the actual life of men with their real interests of health and sickness, labour and rest, with their interests of thought, science, poetry, music, love, affection, hatred, passion, went its way, as always, independently, apart from the political amity or enmity of Napoleon Bonaparte, and apart from all possible reforms. ~ Leo Tolstoy

[I]t's difficult to make people see that what you have been taught counts for nothing, and that the only things worth having are the things you find out for yourself. Also, that when so many brands of what Chesterton calls 'fancy souls' and theories of life are offered you, there is no sense in not looking pretty carefully to see what you are going in for. [...] It isn't a case of 'Here is the Christian religion, the one authoritative and respectable rule of life. Take it or leave it'. It's 'Here's a muddling kind of affair called Life, and here are nineteen or twenty different explanations of it, all supported by people whose opinions are not to be sneezed at. Among them is the Christian religion in which you happpen to have been brought up. Your friend so-and-so has been brought up in quite a different way of thinking; is a perfectly splendid person and thoroughly happy. What are you going to do about it?' -- I'm worrying it out quietly, and whatever I get hold of will be valuable, because I've got it for myself; but really, you know, the whole question is not as simple as it looks. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

When I was a kid, I thought I had my life figured out. I knew where I was going. I was sure of whom I was and what I was. I was wrong. See, life is a journey of twist and turns that mold who we are; however, it is not the twist and turns which mold us, but rather, how we take and handle the twist and turns thrown at us. It was not until life threw me flat on my face that I truly discovered who I am and what I am. I am a perpetual work-in-progress. And you know what? I am quite all right with that. ~ Cristina Marrero

Sometimes I thought about my future, because Lynn said I should. She said it was hard to tell at this point, but someday, if I didn't go to Africa to study animals, I might be a beautiful genius tennis player. I didn't worry about it one way or another. I didn't care if I was a genius or if I was pretty or if I was good in sports. I just liked to listen to Lynn and to talk to Bera-Bera and to eat rice candies. The lady who used to live down the street could take all of her top teeth out of her mouth. She wasn't allowed to eat chewy candy. I could eat any kind of candy I wanted because I still had my baby teeth. If they rotted, I would simply grow more teeth. That was pretty great. ~ Cynthia Kadohata

Renly offered me a peach. At our parley. Mocked me, defied me, threatened me, and offered me a peach. I thought he was drawing a blade and went for mine own. Was that his purpose, to make me show fear? Or was it one of his pointless jests? When he spoke of how sweet the peach was, did his words have some hidden meaning?" The king gave a shake of his head, like a dog shaking a rabbit to snap its neck. "Only Renly could vex me so with a piece of fruit. He brought his doom on himself with his treason, but I did love him, Davos. I know that now. I swear, I will go to my grave thinking of my brother's peach. ~ George R.R. Martin

And that was when it really came home to me what I was about to do. I was going to rob a bank, committing the additional crime of arson in the process, and if I got caught I'd go to prison.
Well, I thought, go on selling second-hand jalopies for another forty years and maybe somebody'll give you a testimonial and a forty-dollar watch. ~ Charles Williams

A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which surrounds it. Most have beauty of outline merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a stranger; but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their spirit and fragrance. ~ Henry David Thoreau

What words she had thought to write on the face of the moon were washed away from her as she submerged, trying to disturb no one, nothing. Trying not so much as to interrupt a current, even trying not to shatter into soft-edged platelets the green moon in the reflection. Trying to sidestep having any influence at all, now and till the end of her life. ~ Gregory Maguire

In all things there must be order, but it must of such a kind as is possible to observe ... to see a man burnt for doing as he thought right, harms the people, for this is a matter of conscience. ~ William The Silent

As he kissed her back, she thought about what happily-ever-afters were about, and decided that true love didn't mean effortless, and ever-after wasn't about cruise control. You started with the attraction, and then you opened your heart and your soul - but all that, which was no small thing, just got you to first base. There were many, many other trips to take to deeper levels of greater acceptance and understanding. That was where you found the happy. And the ever-after was the work you were always willing to put in to stay close, to learn, and to grow as people together. I ~ J.R. Ward

Achievement of any kind is the crown of effort,the diadem of thought.By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity, righteousness, and well-directed thought a man ascends.By the aid of animality,indolence,impurity,corruption,and confusion of thought a man descends. ~ James Allen

Black would trust her with his secrets. He would protect hers. But did she trust him with her heart? Could she?
She thought of Wendell, and no longer felt any remorse for her feelings. She did not love him. Her heart had been taken two years ago, by a stranger she thought she had conjured up in the atmosphere of her imagination.
He had asked her to trust him - and there was only one way she knew how. She reached into the wardrobe and pulled out the crimson gown.
No regrets. No seduction. No scandal. Only love. ~ Charlotte Featherstone

I've wanted this for so long."
Emmaline thought that a lovely thing to say. "We barely know each other."
"No. We've known each other forever, my dearest one, always known the other of us was out there somewhere in the world, waiting. We only just happened to meet today. ~ Kasey Michaels

Perhaps he didn't commit suicide then because he couldn't conceive of a method that fit the pure and intense feelings he had toward death. But method was beside the point. If there had been a door within reach that led straight to death, he wouldn't have hesitated to push it open, without a second thought, as if it were just a part of ordinary life. For better or for worse, though, there was no such door nearby. ~ Haruki Murakami

Of all the things we share, the most central is not in the liturgical or theological or canonical dimensions of the religion. It is in the realm of our personal​ search and experience of God.
I have danced in a Sufi fikre, sat for hours in a Zen Buddhist tea ceremony, been part of a Hindu puja, attended Shabbat services in multiple Jewish synagogues, and never, in any of those moments of worship, did I doubt these people were just as deeply involved in the search for God as I am. And that God was with us all.

And why not?

God is everywhere, they told us as children. But the question never goes away: Yes, but - where is God for me? I don't feel God. I don't hear God. I don't know how to know God. So God is surely in all these other places where the consciousness of God is also real, as well. But as much as I knew, even as a child, that it had to be true, that God was everywhere, still God was nowhere in particular in life. And, though I did not know it at the time, and so struggled through the thought of god for night after night in life, in that reality was all I needed to know about the search for God.

It was years, of course, before I realized that I was looking for Something rather than for Everything, and so I found nothing because I was looking for the wrong thing. And that is the kind of seeking that causes all the pain. ~ Joan Chittister,

We have thought of peace as passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences ... From War to Peace is not from the strenuous to the easy existence; it is from the futile to the effective, from the stagnant to the active, from the destructive to the creative way of life ... The world will be regenerated by the people who rise above these passive ways and heroically seek, by whatever hardship, by whatever toil, the methods by which people can agree. ~ Mary Parker Follett

It was brilliant. Why I hadn't thought of that was beyond me. I carefully took stock of the surroundings and discovered a small worn path to the right of the gaming area. ~ Alexia Purdy

the battle-memes of the invading alien consciousness aided by the thought processes and shared knowledge of the by now obviously completely overwhelmed ship. With ~ Iain M. Banks

People come to L.A. because they're chasing that dream of a better life. That's why I came here, because I thought it would be a place where I would find other people like me; people who wanted to write, people who had a dream of being something else. And that proved to be true. ~ Robert Crais