Distinction Quotes - Page 28

In this crazy world, there's an enormous distinction between good times and bad, between sorrow and joy. But in the eyes of God, they're never separated. Where there is pain, there is healing. Where there is mourning, there is dancing. Where there is poverty, there is the kingdom.

Henri Nouwen

Encouragement, Pain, Crazy

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To begin with, our knowledge grows in spots. The spots may be large or small, but the knowledge ever grows all over... What you first gain from them is probably a small amount of new information, a few new definitions, or distinctions, or points of view. But while these special ideas are being added, the rest of your knowledge stands still, and only gradually will you 'line up' your previous opinions with the novelties I am trying to instil, and modify to some slight degree their mass.

William James

Educational, Ideas, Views

"Writings, 1902-1910".

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I ask you what is the taste of your mouth all you can do is to say: it is neither sweet nor bitter, nor sour nor astringent; it is what remains when all these tastes are not. Similarly, when all distinctions and reactions are no more, what remains is reality, simple and solid.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Spiritual, Wisdom, Sweet

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Ours is supposed to be a government in which classes and distinctions melt into a harmonious whole. Until we reach this ideal of government, we will be a distracted, contentious people.

Timothy Thomas Fortune

Government, Class, People

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And here we come to the vital distinction between the advocacy of temperance and the advocacy of prohibition. Temperance and self-control are convertible terms. Prohibition, or that which it implies, is the direct negation of the term self-control. In order to save the small percentage of men who are too weak to resist their animal desires, it aims to put chains on every man, the weak and the strong alike. And if this is proper in one respect, why not in all respects? Yet, what would one think of a proposition to keep all men locked up because a certain number have a propensity to steal?

Felix Mendelssohn

Strong, War, Animal

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To me, a philosopher who says that the distinction between human and nonhuman depends on whether you have a white or a black skin, and a philosopher who says that the distinction between human and nonhuman depends on whether or not you know the difference between a subject and a predicate, are more alike than they are unlike.

J. M. Coetzee

Animal, White, Differences

J M Coetzee (2015). “Elizabeth Costello”, p.111, Random House

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In a novel, the author gives the leading character intelligence and distinction. Fate goes to less trouble: mediocrities play a part in great events simply from happening to be there.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Writing, Character, Fate

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There is a distinction between what may be called a problem and what may be considered an exercise. The latter serves to drill a student in some technique or procedure, and requires little if any, original thought... No exercise, then, can always be done with reasonbable dispatch and with a miniumum of creative thinking. In contrast to an exercise, a problem, if it is a good one for its level, should require though on the part of the student.

Howard Whitley Eves

Teaching, Math, Exercise

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Taking into account these distinctions, in harmony with the Magisterium of my Predecessors[81] and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person.

Pope John Paul II

Law, Abortion, Catholic

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If Confucius can serve as the Patron Saint of Chinese education, let me propose Socrates as his equivalent in a Western educational context - a Socrates who is never content with the initial superficial response, but is always probing for finer distinctions, clearer examples, a more profound form of knowing. Our concept of knowledge has changed since classical times, but Socrates has provided us with a timeless educational goal - ever deeper understanding.

Howard Gardner

Educational, Teaching, Knowing

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Man has reason, discrimination and free-will such as it is. The brute has no such thing. It is not a free agent, and knows no distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil. Man, being a free agent, knows these distinctions, and when he follows his higher nature, shows himself far superior to the brute, but when he follows his baser nature can show himself lower than the brute.

Mahatma Gandhi

Men, Evil, Agents

Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas Gandhi, Homer A. Jack (2005). “The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi”, p.43, Courier Corporation

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Populists believe in conspiracies, and one of the most enduring is that a secret group of international bankers and capitalists, and their minions, control the world's economy. Because of my name and prominence as the head of the Chase for many years, I have earned the distinction of the "conspirator in chief" from these people.

David Rockefeller

Believe, Power, Years

David Rockefeller (2011). “Memoirs”, p.368, Random House

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Beneath multiple specific and individual distinctions, beneath innumerable and incessant transformations, at the bottom of the circular evolution without beginning or end, there hides a law, a unique nature participated in by all beings, in which this common participation produces a ground of common harmony.

Zhuangzi

Science, Unique, Law

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A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.

Ambrose Bierce

Men, Self, Feet

Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2410, Delphi Classics

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The ability to speak well is the shortcut to distinction.

Dale Carnegie

Shortcuts, Speak, Ability

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When you go back to your environment and you deal with employees... do you inspire people or do you make them feel fear? Do you make them feel confident or incompetent? I think that distinction really marks the leader.

Liz Murray

Leadership, Respect, Thinking

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Women are not forgiven for aging. Robert Redford's lines of distinction are my old-age wrinkles.

Jane Fonda

Women, Memorable, Wrinkles

"Jane's wrinkled but Fonda herself now". "The Sydney Morning Herald" Newspaper, December 22, 1985.

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Punishments of unreasonable severity, especially where indiscriminately afflicted, have less effect in preventing crimes, and amending the manners of a people, than such as are more merciful in general, yet properly intermixed with due distinctions of severity.

William Blackstone

Punishment, People, Hell

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The great thing about being the only species that makes a distinction between right and wrong is that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along.

Douglas Adams

Crazy, Mad, Great Things

Douglas Adams, Mark Carwardine (2011). “Last Chance to See”, p.61, Ballantine Books

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In America, no other distinction between man and man had ever been known but that of persons in office exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals. Among these last, the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar.

Thomas Jefferson

Exercise, Men, Rights

Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.40, Modern Library

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One nation is to another what one individual is to another; with this melancholy distinction perhaps, that the former with fewer of the benevolent emotions than the latter, are under fewer restraints also from taking undue advantage of the indiscretions of each other.

James Madison

Emotion, Melancholy, Individual

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, J.R. Pole (2005). “The Federalist”, p.335, Hackett Publishing

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We manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing that we do. There are many crimes which are the creation of man himself, the wrongfulness of which is put down to their divergence from habit, custom, or tradition. But cruelty is not of these. It is a fundamental sin, and admits of no argument or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, its protest against cruelty is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us - in fact, anyone who does not join in is dubbed a crank.

Rabindranath Tagore

Karma, Nice, Heart

"The Complete Works of Rabindranath Tagore".

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Temperance is love surrendering itself wholly to Him who is its object; courage is love bearing all things gladly for the sake of Him who is its object; justice is love serving only Him who is its object, and therefore rightly ruling; prudence is love making wise distinction between what hinders and what helps itself.

Saint Augustine

Wise, Love Is, Justice

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There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable.

William Hazlitt

Integrity, Men, Ideas

William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.700, Delphi Classics

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I've set a clear doctrine: America makes no distinction between the terrorists and the countries that harbor them. If you harbor a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorists, and you're an enemy of the United States of America.

George W. Bush

Country, America, Enemy

George W. Bush's address on terrorism in Washington, D.C., georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov. February 24, 2006.

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