Generalities Quotes - Page 5

• The opinion I have of the generality of women--who appear to me as children to whom I would rather give a sugar plum than my time, forms a barrier against matrimony which I rejoice in.

  John Keats

  Children, Women, Giving

  John Keats (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of John Keats (Illustrated)”, p.752, Delphi Classics

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• The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security.

  Hugo Black

  Military, Real, Government

  "New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713". Concurring opinion, 1971.

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• Only the great generalizations survive. The sharp words of the Declaration of Independence, lampooned then and since as 'glittering generalities,' have turned out blazing ubiquities that will burn forever and ever.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Ubiquity, Forever, Independence

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1911). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Lectures and biographical sketches”

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• Reality deals in specifics under the guise of generalities. Literature does the contrary.

  Alberto Manguel

  Reality, Doe, Literature

  Alberto Manguel (2010). “A Reader on Reading”, p.106, Yale University Press

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• Even before string theory, especially as physics developed in the 20th century, it turned out that the equations that really work in describing nature with the most generality and the greatest simplicity are very elegant and subtle.

  Edward Witten

  Nature, Simplicity, Physics

  "Viewpoints on String Theory: Edward Witten". "NOVA" interview, www.pbs.org. July 2003.

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• Its Constitution--the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence.

  Rufus Choate

  Independence, Oratory, Constitution

  Letter to Maine Whig State Central Committee, 9 Aug. 1856

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• Ambiguity lurks in generality, and may thus become an instrument of severity.

  Felix Frankfurter

  May, Instruments, Ambiguity

  "McComb v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 336 U.S. 187". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. February 14, 1949.

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• Our mathematics of the last few decades has wallowed in generalities and formalizations.

  Hermann Weyl

  Lasts, Mathematics, Decades

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• The book-worm wraps himself up in his web of verbal generalities, and sees only the glimmering shadows of things reflected from the minds of others.

  William Hazlitt

  Book, Reading, Mind

  William Hazlitt (1845). “Table Talk: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things”, p.46

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• What profound reward you must glean from studying the world so closely....Too many people turn away from small wonders, I find. There is so much more potency to be found in detail than generalities, but most souls cannot train themselves to sit still for it.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  People, Profound, Soul

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• The generality have considered that disease is but a confused and disordered effort in Nature, thrown down from her proper state, and defending herself in vain.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Nature, Confused, Effort

  Thomas Sydenham, Robert Gordon Latham (1848). “The Works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D.”, p.16

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• Our amended Constitution is the lodestar for our aspirations. Like every text worth reading, it is not crystalline. The phrasing is broad and the limitations of its provisions are not clearly marked. Its majestic generalities and ennobling pronouncements are both luminous and obscure. This ambiguity of course calls forth interpretation, the interaction of reader and text. The encounter with the Constitutional text has been, in many senses, my life's work.

  William J. Brennan

  Reading, Law, Encounters

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• God is basic Fact. He must not be thought of as a featureless generality. He is the most concrete thing there is.

  C. S. Lewis

  Facts, Concrete

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• War is a generality, so are the inevitabilities of war, including death.

  Marguerite Duras

  War, Including, Inevitability

  Marguerite Duras (1986). “La douleur”, HarperCollins

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• It is told of Faraday that he refused to be called a physicist; he very much disliked the new name as being too special and particular and insisted on the old one, philosopher, in all its spacious generality: we may suppose that this was his way of saying that he had not over-ridden the limiting conditions of class only to submit to the limitation of a profession.

  Lionel Trilling

  Science, Class, Names

  Lionel Trilling, Leon Wieseltier (2009). “The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent: Selected Essays”, p.425, Northwestern University Press

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• We should work toward a universal linked information system, in which generality and portability are more important than fancy graphics techniques and complex extra facilities.

  Tim Berners-Lee

  Important, Technique, Fancy

  "Information Management: A Proposal". www.w3.org. March 1989.

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• The generality of men expend the early part of their lives in contributing to render the latter part miserable.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Men, Miserable, Latter

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• We meet With few utterly dull and stupid souls: the sublime and transcendent are still fewer; the generality of mankind stand between these two extremes: the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Stupid, Two, Support

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• No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels. Broadly, we can afford to sink those sorts of knowledge which continue to be true regardless of changes in the environment, but we must maintain in an accessible place all those controls of behavior which must be modified for every instance. The economics of the system, in fact, pushes organisms toward sinking into the unconscious those generalities of relationship which remain permanently true and toward keeping within the conscious the pragmatic of particular instances.

  Gregory Bateson

  Levels, Matter, Facts

  "Steps to an Ecology of Mind". Book by Gregory Bateson, 1972.

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• Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

  David Hume

  Teacher, Passion, Reflection

  David Hume (2012). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p.127, tredition

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• We can no longer oversimplify. We can no longer build lazy and false stereotypes: Americans are like this, Russians are like that, a Jew behaves in such a way, a Negro thinks in a different way. The lazy generalities - 'You know how women are ... Isn't that just like a man?' The world cannot be understood from a single point of view.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Men, Thinking, Views

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1995). “What I Hope to Leave Behind: The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt”, Carlson Pub

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• Philosophy is explicitness, generality, orientation and assessment. That which one would insinuate, thereof one must speak.

  Ernest Gellner

  Philosophy, Assessment, Speak

  Ernest Gellner (1959). “Words and Things: A Critical Account of Linguistic Philosophy and a Study in Ideology”

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• We shall be less apt to admire what this World calls Great, shall nobly despise those Trifles the generality of Men set their Affections on, when we know that there are a multitude of such Earths inhabited and adorned as Well as our own.

  Christiaan Huygens

  Men, World, Earth

  Christiaan Huygens (1722). “The Celestial Worlds Discover'd, Or, Conjectures Concerning the Inhabitants, Plants and Productions of the Worlds in the Planets”, p.13

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• In a very real sense, the Constitution is our compact with history . . . [but] the Constitution can maintain that compact and serve as the lodestar of our political system only if its terms are binding on us. To the extent we depart from the document's language and rely instead on generalities that we see written between the lines, we rob the Constitution of its binding force and give free reign to the fashions and passions of the day.

  Alex Kozinski

  Fashion, Real, Passion

  "It Is a Constitution We Are Expounding: A Debate" by A. Kozinski & J.D. Williams, Utah L. Rev. 978, at 980, 1989.

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• For the rich men without scruple drew the estate into their own hands, excluding the rightful heirs from their succession; and all the wealth being centred upon the few, the generality were poor and miserable. Honourable pursuits, for which there was no longer leisure, were neglected; the state was filled with sordid business, and with hatred and envy of the rich.

  Plutarch

  Men, Hands, Envy

  Plutarch (2000). “The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Volume II: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.450, Modern Library

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