Uniformity Quotes

• The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

  James Madison

  Government, Diversity, Politics

  The Federalist no. 10 (1788)

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• What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Hypocrite, Errors

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

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• Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Differences, Office

  Thomas Jefferson, Jean M. Yarbrough (1963). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.128, Hackett Publishing

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• Without the discovery of uniformities there can be no concepts, no classifications, no formulations, no principles, no laws; and without these no science can exist.

  Clyde Kluckhohn

  Science, Discovery, Law

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• Unity has never meant uniformity.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Unity

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011). “Why We Can't Wait”, p.99, Beacon Press

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• The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.

  John F. Kennedy

  Freedom, Diversity, Unity

  Kennedy, John F. (1964). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963”, p.15, Best Books on

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• A well-made salad must have a certain uniformity; it should make perfect sense for those ingredients to share a bowl.

  Yotam Ottolenghi

  Perfect, Salad, Ingredients

  "Yotam Ottolenghi's end-of-winter salad recipes" by Yotam Ottolenghi, www.theguardian.com. March 9, 2012.

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• Uniformity is not nature's way; diversity is nature's way.

  Vandana Shiva

  Nature, Diversity, Brotherhood

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• Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed.

  Mary Parker Follett

  Differences, Diversity, Unity

  Mary Parker Follett (1918). “The New State: Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government”, p.39, Penn State Press

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• ... let us unite, not in spite of our differences, but through them. For differences can never be wiped away, and life would be so much the poorer without them. Let all human races keep their own personalities, and yet come together, not in a uniformity that is dead, but in a unity that is living.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Race, Differences, Personality

  Rabindranath Tagore (1994). “The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore: A miscellany”, p.712, Sahitya Akademi

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• To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason. Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature, and for uniformity in general, is to suppose them results of evolution.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Law, Mind, Excellence

  "The Architecture of Theories". The Monist, Volume I, No. 2, p. 161, January 1891.

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• Equivalence signifies uniformity and thus immobility.

  Viktor Schauberger

  Viktor Schauberger, Callum Coats (2000). “The Energy Evolution – Harnessing Free Energy from Nature: Volume 4 of Renowned Environmentalist Viktor Schauberger’s Eco-Technology Series”, p.56, Gill & Macmillan Ltd

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• There is no greater stupidity or meanness than to take uniformity for an ideal.

  George Santayana

  Stupidity, Meanness, Ideals

  George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.59, 谷月社

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• Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details, which must be attended to if rules have to be adapted to different men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men to the same rule.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Details, Different

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1863). “Democracy in America”, p.363

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• It is no great advantage to possess a quick wit, if it is not correct; the perfection is not speed but uniformity.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Quick Wit, Perfection, Speed

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• Woman's sexuality is disruptive of the dully mechanical workaday world, in which efficiency means uniformity. The problems of woman's entrance into the career system spring from more than male chauvinism. She brings nature into the social realm, which may be too small to contain it.

  Camille Paglia

  Spring, Mean, Careers

  Camille Paglia (2011). “Vamps & Tramps: New Essays”, p.52, Vintage

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• Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.

  Francis Bacon

  Home, House, Looks

  'Essays' (1625) 'Of Building'

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• In everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth

  Yoshida Kenko

  Interesting, Giving, Feelings

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• Do away with curriculum. Do away with segregation by age. And do away with the idea that there should be uniformity of all schools and of what people learn.

  Seymour Papert

  School, Ideas, People

  "Sunday Interview - Seymour Papert/ Computers in the Lives of Our Children/ an Mit Mathematician and Philosopher Is Exploring How Technology Can Educate the Next Generation - and Their Parents". www.sfgate.com. February 2, 1997.

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• The diversity of mankind is a basic postulate of our knowledge of human beings. But if mankind is diverse and individuated, then how can anyone propose equality as an ideal? Every year, scholars hold Conferences on Equality and call for greater equality, and no one challenges the basic tenet. But what justification can equality find in the nature of man? If each individual is unique, how else can he be made 'equal' to others than by destroying most of what is human in him and reducing human society to the mindless uniformity of the ant heap?

  Murray Rothbard

  Unique, Men, Years

  Murray N. Rothbard (2009). “Man, Economy, and State, Scholar's Edition”, p.1309, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• Uniformity, in its motives, its goals, its far-ranging consequences, is the natural enemy of poetry, not to mention the enemy of trees, the soil, the exemplary life therein.

  C.D. Wright

  Goal, Tree, Enemy

  C.D. Wright (2012). “Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil”, p.29, Copper Canyon Press

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• If you make people uniform, you can control them. If you teach people to read, and think, and question things, you lose control. So, the best idea is to separate people if you wish to maintain a monetary system. It's called divide and conquer. By dividing people, they're not a threat, you can control them.

  Jacque Fresco

  Reading, Thinking, Ideas

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• Philosophical argument, trying to get someone to believe something whether he wants to believe it or not, is not, I have held, a nice way to behave towards someone; also it does not fit the original motivation for studying or entering philosophy. That motivation is puzzlement, curiousity, a desire to understand, not a desire to produce uniformity of belief. Most people do not want to become thought-police. The philosophical goal of explanation rather than proof not only is morally better, it is more in accord with one's philosophical motivation.

  Robert Nozick

  Motivation, Philosophy, Nice

  Robert Nozick (1981). “Philosophical Explanations”, p.13, Harvard University Press

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• What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions. Life is plurality, death is uniformity. By suppressing differences and pecularities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death. The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us. Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life

  Octavio Paz

  Views, Civilization, Differences

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• We must move from ... the primacy of technology toward considerations of social justice and equity, from the dictates of organizational convenience toward the aspirations ofself realization and learning, from authoritarianism and dogmatism toward more participation, from uniformity and centralization toward diversity and pluralism, from the concept of work as hard and unavoidable, from life as nasty, brutish, and short toward work as purpose and self~fulfillment, a recognition of leisure as a valid activity in itself.

  Warren G. Bennis

  Moving, Technology, Justice

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