Generalities Quotes - Page 3

• I really think there's a difference between how men critics see things than how women tend to. And I don't want to make that - it's not a generality and I don't want to say that, but I just feel - I know I do the same thing. There are certain things that I just am not that interested in. Certain kinds of films - I just don't enter them.

  Meryl Streep

  Men, Thinking, Differences

  "Meryl Streep: The Fresh Air Interview". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. December 19, 2014.

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• I understand what a normal political speech is. You get up there, tell a few jokes, you have the flags behind you, and you speak for 10 or 15 minutes in broad generalities.

  Bernie Sanders

  Political, Flags, Speech

  "Bernie Sanders on politics, Clinton and guns". Interview with Dan Roberts, www.theguardian.com. December 18, 2015.

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• I'm not interested in details that might get someone into trouble. I'm more interested in generalities rather than the particulars, as a journalist would be. Names, dates and times don't interest me at all. I'm interested in feelings and emotions. Most people are game, once they realize that you're on the level as far as that's concerned and you're not about exposing them, then they feel quite free to talk about it. Police officers and social workers are no exception.

  Irvine Welsh

  Games, Names, People

  Interview With Veronica Bond, gapersblock.com. October 15, 2008.

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• It [destroying Twin Towers] was a leap into another realm - the realm of crazy abstractions and mythological generalities, involving people who have hijacked Islam for their own purposes. It's important not to fall into that trap and to try to respond with a metaphysical retaliation of some sort.

  Edward Said

  Crazy, Fall, People

  Source: www.progressive.org

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• Some bolder spirits, indeed, might be expected to despise the cautious moderation of these timid reasoners, and to pronounce decisively, that the Bible was a forgery, while the generality, professing to believe it genuine, should, less consistently, be satisfied with remaining ignorant of its contents, and when pressed, should discover themselves by no means to believe many of the most important particulars contained in it.

  William Wilberforce

  Believe, Mean, Ignorant

  William Wilberforce (1820). “Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians ...: Contrasted with Real Christianity ...”, p.237

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• This [terrorists attacks on 9/11] was part of nothing. It was a leap into another realm - the realm of crazy abstractions and mythological generalities, involving people who have hijacked Islam for their own purposes. It's important not to fall into that trap and to try to respond with a metaphysical retaliation of some sort.

  Edward Said

  Crazy, Fall, People

  Source: www.progressive.org

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• Americans, [John Adams] wrote in 1780, believed that their "revolution is as much for the benefit of the generality of Mankind in Europe, as for their own."

  Gordon S. Wood

  Europe, Benefits, Revolution

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• Yet it would be unfair to the generality of our kind to ascribe to their intellectual and moral weakness the gradual divergence of Buddhism and Christianity from their primitive patterns. For it should not be forgotten that by their glorification of poverty and celibacy both these religions struck straight at the root not merely of civil society but of human existence. The blow was parried by the wisdom or the folly of the vast majority of mankind, who refused to purchase a chance of saving their souls with the certainty of extinguishing the species.

  James G. Frazer

  Buddhism, Blow, Roots

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• To criticize mathematics for its abstraction is to miss the point entirely. Abstraction is what makes mathematics work. If you concentrate too closely on too limited an application of a mathematical idea, you rob the mathematician of his most important tools: analogy, generality, and simplicity. Mathematics is the ultimate in technology transfer.

  Ian Stewart

  Technology, Ideas, Simplicity

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• They are the best physicians, who being great in learning most incline to the traditions of experience, or being distinguished in practice do not reflect the methods and generalities of art.

  Francis Bacon

  Education, Art, Science

  The Advancement of Learning Bk IV, Ch. II

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• I shall venture to affirm, that there never was a popular religion, which represented the state of departed souls in such a light,as would render it eligible for human kind, that there should be such a state. These fine models of religion are the mere product of philosophy. For as death lies between the eye and the prospect of futurity, that event is so shocking to nature, that it must throw a gloom on all the regions which lie beyond it; and suggest to the generality of mankind the idea of Cerberus and Furies; devils, and torrents of fire and brimstone.

  David Hume

  Death, Lying, Philosophy

  David Hume, John Charles Addison Gaskin (1998). “Dialogues and Natural History of Religion”, p.127, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Heroism, or military glory, is much admired by the generality of mankind. They consider it as the most sublime kind of merit. Menof cool reflection are not so sanguine in their praises of it.

  David Hume

  Military, Reflection, Sublime

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.521, Delphi Classics

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• Just as a chemist "isolates" a substance from contaminations that distort his view of its nature and effects, so the work of art purifies significant appearance. It presents abstract themes in their generality, but not reduced to diagrams.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Art, Science, Views

  Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Visual Thinking”, p.273, Univ of California Press

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• The person who did most to give to analysis the generality and symmetry which are now its pride, was also the person who made mechanics analytical; I mean Euler.

  William Whewell

  Mean, Pride, Giving

  William Whewell (1847). “History of the Inductive Sciences: From the Earliest to the Present Time”, p.94

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• The generality of men have, like plants, latent properties, which chance brings to light.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Men, Light, Chance

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• The intellect of the generality of women serves more to fortify their folly than their reason.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Reason, Intellect, Folly

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• The generality of friends puts us out of conceit with friendship; just as the generality of religious people puts us out of conceit with religion.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Friends, Religious, People

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• Conventions of generality and mathematical elegance may be just as much barriers to the attainment and diffusion of knowledge as may contentment with particularity and literary vagueness... It may well be that the slovenly and literary borderland between economics and sociology will be the most fruitful building ground during the years to come and that mathematical economics will remain too flawless in its perfection to be very fruitful.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Years, Perfection, Contentment

  "Samuelson's Foundations: The Role of Mathematics in Economics". Journal of Political Economy, Volume 56, June 1948.

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• Beware how you contradict prejudices, even knowing them to be such, for the generality of people are much more tenacious of their prejudices than of anything belonging to them.

  Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

  Knowing, People, Prejudice

  Susan Edmonstone Ferrier (1841). “The inheritance, by the author of Marriage. By the author of 'Marriage'. Revised by the author”, p.6

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• One feature which will probably most impress the mathematician accustomed to the rapidity and directness secured by the generality of modern methods is the deliberation with which Archimedes approaches the solution of any one of his main problems.

  Thomas Little Heath

  Problem, Modern, Method

  Archimedes, Sir Thomas Little Heath (2002). “The Works of Archimedes”, p.6, Courier Corporation

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• Scientists themselves are of surprisingly little help. They find it difficult to talk of what they do because they tend to assume detailed knowledge is required for generalities to be understood. They find it hard to grasp the concept of the meaning of their work, assuming this to be a debate that takes place at a lower level than the specialized discussions with their colleagues. When they do generalize, - or "popularize" as it is usually called with a noticeable degree of contempt - they tend to reveal a startling philosophical naiveté.

  Bryan Appleyard

  Philosophical, Levels, Littles

  Bryan Appleyard (2004). “Understanding the Present: An Alternative History of Science”, p.18, Tauris Parke Paperbacks

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• Campaigns are fun. Campaigns are police escorts, they're airplanes, they're crowds, they're balloons, they're bands, a lot of fun. You speak in vague generalities. You get applause for slogans. And then governing comes. And governing is tedious and it's difficult an it's time-consuming and it demands your attention. And policy isn't vague generalities. It's specifics and it's based on knowledge.

  Mark Shields

  Fun, Airplane, Police

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• For parlor use, the vague generality is a life saver.

  George Ade

  Life, Communication, Vagueness

  George Ade (1901). “Forty Modern Fables”, p.44, Library of Alexandria

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• Euclid avoids it [the treatment of the infinite]; in modern mathematics it is systematically introduced, for only then is generality obtained.

  Arthur Cayley

  Infinite, Modern, Euclid

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• Generalities don't count and won't help you in football.

  Knute Rockne

  Soccer, Football, Helping

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