Polarization Quotes

• There is too much at stake for us to surrender to the politics of polarization.

  Brad Henry

  Too Much, Surrender, Stakes

  68 Copy quote

• I agree that it is not just the extremists who harbor bad thoughts or engage in bad acts, but they are usually the source of the polarization and try to keep education and communication of the main stream from moving forward.

  Joichi Ito

  Moving, Communication, Trying

  64 Copy quote

• In addition to the decline in competition, American politics today is characterized by a growing ideological polarization between the two major political parties.

  Thomas E. Mann

  Party, Two, Political

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• If Greece had gone through a very normal political life, I may have not been in politics. But just the fact that I lived through huge upheavals and very difficult struggles and polarization and the barbarism of dictatorships - that made me feel that we had to change this country.

  George Papandreou

  Country, Struggle, Political

  58 Copy quote

• The rotation of the polarization plane is extraordinarily small in all gases, thus also in sodium vapour.

  Pieter Zeeman

  Sodium, Vapour, Rotation

  56 Copy quote

• I see people who talk about America, and then undermine it by not paying attention to its soul, to its poetry. I see polarization, reductionism and superficiality.

  Azar Nafisi

  America, People, Soul

  54 Copy quote

• At the start of his second term, one wonders less about Obama's fitness than his willingness: Why doesn't he do more to build and maintain the relationships required to govern in era of polarization?

  Ron Fournier

  Eras, Wonder, Term

  52 Copy quote

• As the 2012 elections approach the finish line, the chatter among columnists and political reporters is about upcoming books that take readers inside the campaigns, cutting-edge efforts to micro-target voters on Internet social applications, the enormous money flowing through super-PACs, and extreme political polarization.

  Juan Williams

  Book, Cutting, Effort

  52 Copy quote

• Polarization affects families and groups of friends. Its a paralyzing situation. A civil war of opinion.

  Mick Jagger

  War, Groups, Opinion

  24 Copy quote

• The root cause of all the problems we have in the world today is ignorance of course. But most, polarization.

  Maya Angelou

  Ignorance, Roots, World

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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• The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them - the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you. This is nonconstructive. It does not get our message across. It condemns us to permanent minority status.

  Carl Sagan

  Stupid, Believe, People

  21 Copy quote

• The degree of polarization that currently exists in Washington is such where I think it's fair to say if I presented a cure for cancer, getting legislation passed to move that forward would be a nail-biter.

  Barack Obama

  Cancer, Moving, Thinking

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• When politicians start talking about large groups of their fellow Americans as 'enemies,' it's time for a quiet stir of alertness. Polarizing people is a good way to win an election, and also a good way to wreck a country.

  Molly Ivins

  Country, Winning, Talking

  Molly Ivins (2010). “You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You”, p.141, Vintage

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• Any classification according to a singular identity polarizes people in a particular way, but if we take note of the fact that we have many different identities - related not just to religion but also to language, occupation and business, politics, class and poverty, and many others - we can see that the polarization of one can be resisted by a fuller picture. So knowledge and understanding are extremely important to fight against singular polarization.

  Amartya Sen

  Knowledge, Fighting, Class

  213 Copy quote

• Whenever there is polarization, there is an unhappy tendency to think the truth lies somewhere in between.

  Gayle Rubin

  Truth, Lying, Thinking

  Gayle Rubin (2011). “Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader”, p.174, Duke University Press

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• The garden reconciles human art and wild nature, hard work and deep pleasure, spiritual practice and the material world. It is a magical place because it is not divided. The many divisions and polarizations that terrorize a disenchanted world find peaceful accord among mossy rock walls, rough stone paths, and trimmed bushes. Maybe a garden sometimes seems fragile, for all its earth and labor, because it achieves such an extraordinary delicate balance of nature and human life, naturalness and artificiality. It has its own liminality, its point of balance between great extremes.

  Thomas Moore

  Life, Spiritual, Art

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• The young-old polarization and the male-female polarization are perhaps the two leading stereotypes that imprison people.

  Susan Sontag

  Two, People, Males

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• My heart aches for less divisiveness, less polarization Less mindless partisanship, which at times sounds almost hateful to the ear of Americans. How we conduct ourselves and how we treat you, Judge Roberts, can be a great start toward reconciliation in our country.

  Tom Coburn

  Country, Heart, Judging

  9 Copy quote

• The world is polarized. The middle class becomes smaller. The polarization makes the difference between rich and the poor big. This is true.

  Pope Francis

  Class, Differences, World

  "Pope says his economic message isn't class warfare, it's church doctrine". Press conference, www.cnn.com. July 14, 2015.

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• New York has a tremendous number of people but the quality of its politics is unspeakable. By contrast, in a smaller township, I find there's a great deal of social awareness, less of a sense of powerlessness, less of a polarization of economic life.

  Murray Bookchin

  New York, Numbers, People

  Source: robertgraham.wordpress.com

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• Historically, it appears that society has capitalized on what is at most a degree of difference between the sexes in order to institutionalize the polarization of aggression.

  Freda Adler

  Sex, Order, Differences

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• And they are much more skeptical of the very idea of having immigration limits, whereas the public - again, independents and Democrats, as well as Republicans, although not necessarily all in the same proportions - have a much stronger sense of the American government and American law having responsibility to Americans specifically rather than to people around the world. So the polarization is up versus down, not really right versus left.

  Mark Krikorian

  Responsibility, Government, Law

  "A Closer Look At Obama Administration's Controversial Deportation Plans". "All Things Considered" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. December 26, 2015.

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• There is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps.

  Pope Francis

  Brother, Two, Evil

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• Labels such as, 'evangelical', 'fundamental', 'charismatic', 'liberal' contribute to polarization and produce a climate of implied or outspoken distrust. Respectful dialogue becomes virtually impossible. What we desperately need to offset this disunity and distrust is a new and cleansing theology of communication.

  Robert H. Schuller

  Religious, Self Esteem, Communication

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• From where many of us in the U.K. sit, American politics is hopelessly polarized. All kinds of issues get bundled up into two great heaps. The rest of the world, today and across the centuries, simply doesn't see things in this horribly oversimplified way.

  N. T. Wright

  Two, America, Issues

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