Diversity Quotations

5 of 8 from Rob Kall's personal Quotation database

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Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.

William Blake

 

It is one of the prime glories of the human mind that the same idea or experience is never absorbed in precisely the same way by any two individuals who may be exposed to it.

In this sense, each human being is a process-- a filtering process of retention or rejection, absorption or loss. The process gives him individuality. It determines whether he justifies the gift of human life or whether he lives or dies without having been affected by the beauty of wonder and the wonder of beauty, without having had any real awareness of kinship or human fulfillment.

There is a question, however, whether any individual is capable of recognizing and defining the essence of his own individuality. Can a camera photograph itself? In a mirror perhaps, but even the mirror sees only the outside of the box. A mind that attempts to perceive itself uses the tools of language and logic. But the material with which it deals is beyond mere words or reason. The marrow of human thought or personality eludes its own product, human analysis-- even with the most advanced scientific instrumentation.

The essential philosophic quest in the world is for integration-- which is to say, the need to bring together rational philosophy, spiritual belief, scientific knowledge, personal experience, and direct observation into an organic whole.

Norman Cousins, The Celebration of Life

 

There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.

Montaigne, Of the Resemblance of Children to Their Fathers

 

The ae half of the world thinks thither daft.

Scott, Red gauntlet

 

 If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.

MARGARET MEAD

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