Individual Differences Quotes

I have it in my mind that classification is a necessary condition of the working of the mental implement but that it is a departure from the objective truth of things, that classification is very serviceable for the practical purposes of life but a very doubtful preliminary to those fine penetrations the philosophical purpose, in its more arrogant moods, demands. All the peculiarities of my way of thinking derive from that.

I submit to you that syllogism is based on classification, that all hard logical reasoning tends to imply and is apt to imply a confidence in the objective reality of classification. Consequently in denying that I deny the absolute validity of logic. Classification and number, which in truth ignore the fine differences of objective realities, have in the past of human thought been imposed upon things. [...] The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it.

It was about this difficulty that the mind of Plato played a little inconclusively all his life. For the most part he tended to regard the idea as the something behind reality, whereas it seems to me that the idea is the more proximate and less perfect thing, the thing by which the mind, by ignoring individual differences, attempts to comprehend an otherwise unmanageable number of unique realities. ~ H.G. Wells

Isolating oneself into a narrowly defined victim group promotes a view of others as irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst, which eventually only leads to further alienation. Gangs, extremist political parties, and religious cults may provide solace, but they rarely foster the mental flexibility needed to be fully open to what life has to offer and as such cannot liberate their members from their traumas. Well-functioning people are able to accept individual differences and acknowledge the humanity of others. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

I believe when we look different and carry something different, people are going to see that and want it too. ~ Britt Nicole

The average bright young man who is drafted hates the whole business because an army always tries to eliminate the individual differences in men. ~ Andy Rooney

This principle of unity of the whole along with respect for individual differences is symbolized in the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. ~ Norman Lamm

This preservation of favourable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. ~ Charles Darwin

The problem of individual differences and group differences would not be made to disappear by abolishing tests. One cannot treat a fever by throwing away the thermometer. ~ Arthur Jensen

In order to arrive to a more realistic view of society, it must be recognized that there are individual differences that cannot be eradicated by the most rigid curriculum, and that various individuals will choose different educational curricula if allowed to do so. ~ Carl Eckart

Snowflakes fascinate me ... Millions of them falling gently to the ground ... And they say that no two of them are alike! Each one completely different from all the others ... The last of the rugged individualists! ~ Charles M. Schulz

It will place a high value on communal life, more open leadership structures, and the contribution of all the people of God. It will be radical in its attempts to embrace biblical mandates for the life of locally based faith communities without feeling as though it has to reconstruct the first-century church in every detail. We believe the missional church will be adventurous, playful, and surprising. Leonard Sweet has borrowed the term "chaordic" to describe the missional church's inclination toward chaos and improvisation within the constraints of broadly held biblical values. It will gather for sensual-experiential-participatory worship and be deeply concerned for matters of justice-seeking and mercy-bringing. It will strive for a type of unity-in-diversity as it celebrates individual differences and values uniqueness, while also placing a high premium on community. ~ Michael Frost

I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort, where we overlap. ~ Ani DiFranco

Democracy is a small hard core of common agreement, surrounded by a rich variety of individual differences. ~ James Bryant Conant

Fashion is like food! Some people like sushi, others think hamburgers are divine! People like different things! ~ Michael Kors

Sigmund Freud once asserted, "Let one attempt to expose a number of the most diverse people uniformly to hunger. With the increase of the imperative urge of hunger all individual differences will blur, and in their stead will appear the uniform expression of the one unstilled urge." Thank heaven, Sigmund Freud was spared knowing the concentration camps from the inside. His subjects lay on a couch designed in the plush style of Victorian culture, not in the filth of Auschwitz. There, the "individual differences" did not "blur" but, on the contrary, people became more different; people unmasked themselves, both the swine and the saints. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

See God in everyone. It is deception to teach by individual differences and karma. ~ Neem Karoli Baba

We cannot safely assume that other people's minds work on the same principles as our own. All too often, others with whom we come in contact do not reason as we reason, or do not value the things we value, or are not interested in what interests us. ~ Isabel Briggs Myers

Saints and ordinary folks are the same from the start. Inquiring about a difference is like asking to borrow string when you've got a good strong rope. Every Dharma is known in the heart. ~ Hsu Yun

Testifying has helped me understand that one individual's behavior and actions make a difference. That my actions are important to people other than myself. ~ Anita Hill

To be irreplaceable you have to be different. ~ Coco Chanel

... I've seen the world tell us with wars and real estate developments and bad politics and odd court decisions that our lives don't matter. That may be because we are too many. Architecture and application form, modern life says that with so many of us we can best survive by ignoring identity and acting as it individual differences do not exist. Maybe the narcissism academics condemn in creative writers is but a last reaching for a kind of personal survival. Anyway, as a sound psychoanalyst once remarked to me dryly, narcissism is difficult to avoid. When we are told in dozens of insidious ways that our lives don't matter, we may be forced to insist, often far too loudly, that they do. ~ Richard Hugo

It's one thing to say you think someone "hung the moon" but that generally means you are blind and deluded, and then the relationship fails because they say you changed, when really, they never saw you at all ... The real test is if someone sees all your flaws or blemishes or individual differences, and they still think you hung the moon. ~ Kelli Jae Baeli

They [progressives] are men and women who tend to believe that the human being is perfectible and social progress predictable, and that the instrument for effecting the two is reason; that truths are transitory and empirically determined; that equality is desirable and attainable through the action of state power; that social and individual differences, if they are not rational, are objectionable, and should be scientifically eliminated; that all people and societies strive to organize themselves upon a rationalist and scientific paradigm. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

What distinguishes us one from another is our dreams ... and what we do to make them come about. ~ Joseph Epstein

Socialism , whether it's the 'soft tyranny' of the EuroAmerican management state or the murderously repressive forms taken by Hitler , Stalin , Mao , or Pol Pot, is all about disindividuation , a steady, relentless erasure of the individual differences among us, everything that makes us who we are. 'Everybody in, nobody out!' is the marching mantra of militant collectivized medicine, but it accurately describes all other aspects of collectivism , as well. No alternatives allowed, no choices, no individualism , no individuality , and ultimately, no individuation . ~ L. Neil Smith

Children need both latitude of expression and firmly enforced limits on their behaviors, in a blend that results in calm, patientmanagement. The key to success is to tailor the rearing environment to the developmental level of the child
what she or he can handle
and to individual differences among children. ~ Sandra Scarr

Children are just different from one another, especially in temperament. Some are shy, others bold; some active, others quiet; some confident, others less so. Respect for individual differences is in my view the cornerstone of good parent-child relationships. ~ Sandra Scarr

Just as it is certain that one leaf is never totally the same as another, so it is certain that the concept "leaf" is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects. This awakens the idea that, in addition to the leaves, there exists in nature the "leaf": the original model according to which all the leaves were perhaps woven, sketched, measured, colored, curled, and painted
but by incompetent hands, so that no specimen has turned out to be a correct, trustworthy, and faithful likeness of the original model. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Growing marriages aren't determined by how much you have in common but by how graciously you deal with your differences. ~ Rick Warren

What changes with fame is the perceptions of the individual rather than the individual. ~ Julia Roberts

The religious utopian hides his pride behind the mask of humility; he recognizes God alone; he does not recognize ministers or sacraments since he puts himself in place of both. He ministers his own religious needs and he consecrates his inner self as a place of worship more worthy of receiving God than the churches. He substitutes his own sentiments and emotions for doctrine, because doctrines are man-made speculations unable to comprehend God's essence. He considers the sacramental, ceremonial and generally institutional aspects of religion as rigid and expendable molds which are adequate for the unthinking who need strong sensations and impressions to sustain their faith. He, on the other hand, puts his trust in his own individual inspiration, strengthens his faith through direct and permanent contact with the divine and so rises as a pure spirit to the level of a "truer" religion.

The secular utopian also displays excessive pride. He believes that societies of the past were based on error since they yielded to the political principle of organization and hierarchy. The goal of the utopian is to create a society in its pristine purity, as it were, unsullied by laws and magistrates, functioning through its members' natural good will and cooperativeness. Laws, institutions, symbols, flags, armies, disciplines, patriotic encouragement and the like will all be abolished because, for pure social beings, their inner motivation of social living - togetherness - is quite ~ Thomas Molnar

Thoughtout life, we all live our lives assuming two roles, the role of a slave and the role of a master. It only depend on an individual which role he assumes first ~ Nathanael Kanyinga

The State must act as the guardian of a millennial future in the face of which the wishes and the selfishness of the individual must appear as nothing and submit. ~ Adolf Hitler

My personal favorite version of the game, Speed Scrabble, is played with tiles only. Each player selects seven tiles. At the call to start, each player turns over his or her tiles. Using these letters, the player creates an individual grid of six letters, with two or possibly three intersecting words, selecting one letter to pass along. The first player to finish calls out the word switch, passes the rejected tiles to the player at the right, and turns over two new tiles from the general pile. Each player then incorporates the new tiles into his or her grid, always rejecting one to pass along at the word switch. Obvious rejects are Q and Z, which usually get passed around. The game is played until the tiles are depleted and one person calls out the word finished. If no one has any questions about the winner's grid, the points on the tiles are added up. Losers deduct the number of points of the unused letters. Each round takes about fifteen or twenty minutes max... ~ Michelle Arnot

It is precisely because neither individuals nor small groups can be fully self-sufficient that cooperation is necessary to human survival and flourishing. ~ Tom G. Palmer

Man is not made for society, but society is made for man. No institution can be good which does not tend to improve the individual. ~ Margaret Fuller

Being a better dialectician meant not only being skillful at invention or at denouncing tricks in reasoning. Before anything else, it meant knowing how to dialogue, together with all the demands that this entails: recognizing the presence and the rights of one's interlocutor, basing one's replies on what the interlocutor admits he knows, and therefore agreeing with him at each stage of the discussion. Above all, it meant submitting oneself to the demands and norms of reason and the search for truth; finally, it meant recognizing the absolute value of the Good. It therefore meant leaving behind one's individual point of view, in order to rise to a universal viewpoint; and it meant trying to see things within the perspective of the All and the deity, thereby transforming one's vision of the world and one's own inner attitude. ~ Pierre Hadot

Ole Golly: You know what? You're an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it's gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life. ~ Louise Fitzhugh

Many people don't understand the difference between a vocation and your own idea about something. A vocation is a call-one you don't necessarily want. The only thing I ever wanted to be was an actress. But I was called by God. ~ Dolores Hart

What's the difference between my wife and a terrorist? You can negotiate with a terrorist. ~ Frank Carson

In its individual manifestation the character of a man's anima is as a rule shaped by his mother. If he feels that his mother had a negative influence on him, his anima will often express itself in irritable, depressed moods, uncertainty, insecurity, and touchiness. (If, however he is able to overcome the negative assaults on himself, they can serve to reinforce his masculinity.) Within the soul of such a man the negative mother-anima figure will endlessly repeat this theme: "I am nothing. Nothing makes any sense. With others it's different, but for me ... I enjoy nothing." These "anima moods" cause a sort of dullness, a fear of disease, of impotence, or of accidents. The whole of life takes on a sad and oppressive aspect. Such dark moods can even lure a man to suicide, in which case the anima becomes a death demon. She appears in this role in Cocteau's film Orphee. ~ C. G. Jung

I am impressed when music matters, when genres are broken, when spirits are lifted, when people make a difference, and when people are true to themselves. ~ Nelly Furtado

As our appreciation of happiness in relationship increases, we take notice of the things that tend to take us away from this feeling. One major catalyst taking us away is the need to be right. An opinion that is taken too seriously sets up conditions that must be met first before you can be happy. In relationships, this might sound like 'You must agree with or see my point of view in order for me to love and respect you.' In a more positive feeling state, this attitude would seem silly or harmful. We can disagree, even on important issues, and still love one another - when our own thought systems no longer have control over our lives and we see the innocence in our divergent points of view.

The need to be right stems from an unhealthy relationship to your own thoughts. Do you believe your thoughts are representative of reality and need to be defended, or do you realize that realities are seen through different eyes? Your answer to this question will determine, to a large extent, your ability to remain in a positive feeling state.

Everyone I know, who has put positive feeling above being right on their priority list has come to see that differences of opinion will take care of themselves. ~ Richard Carlson

Finally, and even more seriously, I fear a return to the international climate that prevailed in the 1920s and 30s, when the United States withdrew from the global stage and countries everywhere pursued what they perceived to be their own interests without regard to larger and more enduring goals. When arguing that every age has its own Fascism, the Italian writer and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi added that the critical point can be reached "not just through the terror of police intimidation, but by denying and distorting information, by undermining systems of justice, by paralysing the education system, and by spreading in a myriad subtle ways nostalgia for a world where order reigned." If he is right (and I think he is), we have reason to be concerned by the gathering array of political and social currents buffeting us today - currents propelled by the dark underside of the technological revolution, the corroding effects of power, the American president's disrespect for truth and the widening acceptance of dehumanising insults, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism as being within the bounds of normal public debate. We are not there yet, but these feel like signposts on the road back to an era when Fascism found nourishment and individual tragedies were multiplied millions-fold. ~ Madeleine K. Albright

Peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. ~ Barack Obama

The ideal society has yet to be built - one which balances nicely collective well-being and individual well-being. ~ Peace Pilgrim

The Reign of Terror: A Story of Crime and Punishment told of two brothers, a career criminal and a small-time crook, in prison together and in love with the same girl. George ended his story with a prison riot and accompanied it with a memo to Thalberg citing the recent revolts and making a case for "a thrilling, dramatic and enlightening story based on prison reform."

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Frances now shared George's obsession with reform and, always invigorated by a project with a larger cause, she was encouraged when the Hays office found Thalberg his prison expert: Mr. P. W. Garrett, the general secretary of the National Society of Penal Information. Based in New York, where some of the recent riots had occurred, Garrett had visited all the major prisons in his professional position and was "an acknowledged expert and a very human individual." He agreed to come to California to work with Frances for several weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas for a total of kr 4,470.62 plus expenses. Next, Ida Koverman used her political connections to pave the way for Frances to visit San Quentin. Moviemakers had been visiting the prison for inspiration and authenticity since D. W. Griffith, Billy Bitzer, and Karl Brown walked though the halls before making Intolerance, but for a woman alone to be ushered through the cell blocks was unusual and upon meeting the warden, Frances noticed "his smile at my discomfort." Warden James Hoolihan started testing her right away by inviting ~ Cari Beauchamp

A final point is the fact that discrimination based on presumed inborn and immutable characteristics (race) tends to be stronger and more inflexible than ethnic discrimination which is not based on 'racial' differences. Members of a presumed race cannot change their assumed inherited traits, while ethnic groups can change their culture and, ultimately, ~ Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Love is the bridge that leads from the I sense to the We, and there is a paradox about personal love. Love of another individual opens a new relation between the personality and the world. The lover responds in a new way to nature and may even write poetry. Love is affirmation; it motivates the yes responses and the sense of wider communication. Love casts out fear, and in the security of this togetherness we find contentment, courage. We no longer fear the age-old haunting questions: "Who am I?" "Why am I?" "Where am I going?" - and having cast out fear, we can be honest and charitable. ~ Carson McCullers

Beth feels likes this storm. Constant and persistent as a whole, but the more I get close and try to clutch the individual drops of rain, the more the water falls out of my hands. ~ Katie McGarry

What was it about the differences in others that scared some people so much? ~ Malorie Blackman

I don't know why I've always loved makeup so much. It helps me get ready for my day and the stage. It really does make a huge difference. We're just so lucky as women to be able to wear it. If you're having a bad day you can change that. Guys don't have a choice and just have to face the world like that. Could you imagine? ~ Gwen Stefani

I suppose being fierce is a very good thing, and a very cool thing. But more than fierce, I think I'm a strong person and a strong individual. And that's what I take with me every day. ~ Johnny Weir

...personal experiences are probably the most convincing reason to believe for any individual who has had them. ~ Lewis N. Roe

We found out that, contrary to what many people thought, in the immune system, genes can change during the life cycle of the individual. ~ Susumu Tonegawa

Families can also be divided into subgroups with different values, perspectives, and and communication styles, even if a subgroup consists of only one individual. ~ David Bedrick

We want the world to focus on children whose lives have been devastated by AIDS. The millions of children who are missing their parents; their childhood, their future but most importantly, they are missing YOU. Everyone can make a real difference. Your voice is needed in a global movement that can change their world. ~ Pierce Brosnan

I don't know that it makes any difference whether it's at this time or a hundred years before or a hundred years later. I think always it's a matter of simply listen[ing] to what is going on around you and in your own experience. Try to understand what's happening, or if not to understand it, at least to appreciate the reality of it. ~ Frederick Buechner

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. ~ Thomas Carlyle

A handgun ban is not realistically enforceable. Confiscating guns would require house-to-house searches and alienate the very individuals whose compliance is essential to the success of any regulation. If gun ownership were prohibited, organized crime would step in to provide the firearms that will continue to be procured with criminal intent. ~ Don Kates

Men are excessively ruthless and cruel not as a rule out of malice but from outraged righteousness. How much more is this true of legally constituted states, invested with all this seeming moral authority of parliaments and congresses and courts of justice! The destructive capacity of an individual, however vicious, is small; of the state, however well-intentioned, almost limitless. Expand the state and the destructive capacity necessarily expands too. Collective righteousness is far more ungovernable than any individual pursuit of revenge. That was a point well understood by Woodrow Wilson, who warned: 'Once lead this people into war and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. ~ Paul Johnson

International force. Finally, these issues are tackled both at the individual ~ Pierangelo Isernia

I think people always appreciate somebody else's informed educated opinion. To the degree that anybody with a computer can offer a journalistic point of view whether or not they have a degree, it sort of alters the validity of you have to place on anyone's individual comment. ~ Seth Green

Ken always says that his job is to create the best team possible, not to shepherd the careers of individual athletes. ~ Patrick Lencioni

Never be silent! Make your opinions known, and do not fear retribution for speaking your mind! The only ones who will aggressively try to silence you are the ones who do not respect the liberties and rights of the individual. Those people deserve our contempt, and when you draw them out of the shadows by exercising your civil right to freedom of speech, they will expose themselves for what they truly are. ~ Derek R. Audette