Differences Quotes

“The surest way of ruining a youth is to teach him to respect those who think as he does more highly than those who think differently from him.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

“I am not better than you because of my religion, color, culture, education, status, wealth, etc. I am not, and neither are you, I must accept, and so should you, that there are differences between us that we were born into. Why do we focus on these differences? Put your hand in mine and let us accept that our differences should not come in the way of us uniting for the basic human values that we share: compassion, peacefulness, respect, honesty, innocence, humbleness and sympathy. Does a baby born here smile differently from a baby born anywhere in the world? Do they cry any differently? We may not speak the same language and we may not live the same lifestyle, but a smile I put on my face when I see you puts a smile on your face before you can even think of it. Now, THAT is powerful. I hope that every sense of arrogance or greed in my heart is deviated to a sense of humility, so the wall of ignorance to the real issues in the world can be shattered by the common rights that I share with all of my brothers and sisters in humanity.”
― Najwa Zebian, Mind Platter

“Each of us is called upon to take a stand. So in these days ahead, as we examine ourselves and each other, our works, our fears, our differences, our sisterhood and survivals, I urge you to tackle what is most difficult for us all, self-scrutiny of our complacencies, the idea that since each of us believes she is on the side of right, she need not examine her position.”
― Audre Lorde, I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings

“The problem with the ‘herd’ is that our voice is never ‘heard’.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“We all come from different paths in life but we can find common ground.”
― Nanette Mathews

“I can only imagine that future generations will consider us to have been barbaric for our intolerance of differences.”
― Cathy Burnham Martin, The Bimbo Has Brains: And Other Freaky Facts

“You can flip a coin to change its face, but it remains the same coin.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“It’s easy to rebuke each other’s opinions, but can we honor each other’s pain? Can we make the effort to see beyond the portraits we’ve painted of one another, and to connect to the humanity that thrives beneath our own assumptions? Can we be relentless in our desire to tear down walls, and to build bridges? Can we be brave and stay committed to the conversations that need to be had?
The only thing I know about these questions is that I need to replace the we with I, and begin to answer them from there.
One thing I know for sure: I want to become the example I wish to see in others. That's a good place to start.
Another thing I know for sure: I love you. You're beautiful. You rock.”
― Scott Stabile

“to treat a human being as an animal - as a mere space-binder - because humans have certain animal propensities, is an error of the same type and grossness as to treat a cube as a surface because it has surface properties.”
― Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering

“Human colour is the colour I'm truly interested in, the colour of your humanity. May the size of your heart and the depth of your soul be your currency. welcome aboard my Good Ship. Let us sail to the colourful island of misex identity. You can eat from the cooking pot of mixed culture and bathe in the cool shade of being mixed-race. There is no need for a passport. There are no borders. We are all citizens of the world. Whatever shade you are, bring your light, bring your colour, bring your music and your books, your stories and your histories, and climb aboad. United as a people we are a million majestic colours, together we are a glorious stained-glass window. We are building a cathedral of otherness, brick by brick and book by book. Raise your glass of rum, let's toast to the minorities who are the majority. There's no stopping time, nor the blurring of lines or the blending of shades. With a spirit of hope I leave you now. I drink to our sameness and to our unique differences. This is the twenty-first century and we share this, we live here, in the future. It is a beautiful morning, it is first light on the time of being other, so get out from that shade and feel the warmth of being outside.
You tick: Other.”
― Salena Godden

“There were formerly horizons within which people lived and thought and mythologized. There are now no more horizons. And with the dissolution of horizons we have experienced and are experiencing collisions, terrific collisions, not only of peoples but also of their mythologies. It is as when dividing panels are withdrawn from between chambers of very hot and very cold airs: there is a rush of these forces together. And so we are right now in an extremely perilous age of thunder, lightning, and hurricanes all around. I think it is improper to become hysterical about it, projecting hatred and blame. It is an inevitable, altogether natural thing that when energies that have never met before come into collision—each bearing its own pride—there should be turbulence. That is just what we are experiencing; and we are riding it: riding it to a new age, a new birth, a totally new condition of mankind—to which no one anywhere alive today can say that he has the key, the answer, the prophecy, to its dawn. Nor is there anyone to condemn here (”Judge not, that you may not be judged!”). What is occurring is completely natural, as are its pains, confusions, and mistakes.”
― Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By

“People I had never seen before flocked in, their faces showing a longing you never saw for cake. People's eyes lit up for a cupcake, cake seemed to signal celebration. But their eyes got filmy, watery, misty when we handed them a slice of pie. Pie was memory. Nostalgia. Pie made people recall simpler, maybe happier times.”
― Judith Fertig, The Memory of Lemon

“Through understanding, people will be able to see their similarities before differences.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“There is no bitterness in Wind In His Hair's heart," he began. "Our minds may choose different paths, but some part of every heart will always be as one. All my life I have been a warrior, and I will not change. I will not die as anything else.
"The whites have taken much from me. They have taken my brothers, my wives, my children. Now they want to take me off the earth upon which I walk. Maybe they will kill me now, and if they do, so be it. I will not take their hands. I will keep my ponies' tails tied up for war."

- Wind In His Hair”
― Michael Blake, The Holy Road

“You are to use this one life to make a difference in your world. You are to invest your time and not waste it.”
― Sunday Adelaja, How To Become Great Through Time Conversion: Are you wasting time, spending time or investing time?

“We gradually accepted each other with our strengths and weaknesses. And now, I think, we have started to enjoy our differences more”
― Swati Kumar, The Great Indian Dilemma

“Our differences are reasons to celebrate.”
― Orly Wahba, Kindness Boomerang: How to Save the World (and Yourself) Through 365 Daily Acts

“Sacrifice” and “self” both begin with the same letter, but the spelling is way different after that.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Although Daisy was still an innocent, she understood enough of sexual matters to be aware that one's body could respond to a man without any involvement of the heart. As she had once responded to Cam Rohan. It disconcerted her to realize she was drawn to Matthew Swift in that same way. Such different men, one romantic, one reserved. One a handsome young gypsy who had stirred her imagination with exotic possibilities... one a man of business, hard-eyed and ambitious and pragmatic.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Scandal in Spring

“Just as mind rises up and rebels at un unskillful attempt to subdue it in meditation, a relationship will fall apart if the partners are not respectful of each other's differences. <...> Separateness and connection make each other possible; they are not mutually exclusive.”
― Mark Epstein, Going to Pieces without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness

“Celebrate differences, give love, and more love. Anything short is a rigidity that cuts both ways and spawns odium and ire”
― Val Uchendu

“Laugh to be refreshed, discover to be surprised, accept and celebrate differences to be happy”
― Val Uchendu

“We could choose to celebrate our differences, rather than over-analyze them. This might help us become more realistic about the generalizations to which we subscribe. For example, consider this. If women are the overemotional ones, why do so many bar fights break out between men? Such brawls do not spring from logical, calm places.”
― Cathy Burnham Martin, The Bimbo Has Brains: And Other Freaky Facts

“If differences can be hidden, perhaps there aren't differences at all”
― Mohsin Hamid, Moth Smoke

“The differences have poison within it, which bites, and signs its sign. Conversely, antipathy echoes and claps, as thunders that rain or not rain; however, in a both ways that blow over.”
― Ehsan Sehgal

“We were more alike than any of the others, neither of us quite human and both hated by the two species we drifted between.”
― Kevin Reaver, Outcast

“Our differences are beautiful, yet sometimes connection requires us to focus on our similarities, like the fact that we are all trying, all struggling, all wanting to be seen and to be loved. Perhaps if we start there, with this basic understanding of what it means to be alive, we will grow in our connection to one another and learn to love the beautiful differences that embody our improbable human reality.”
― Scott Stabile

“I think back to the parties Aimee and I planned, and how all those tuxedos and ball gowns weren't really that much different, costumewise, than some of these getups. Not as elaborate or out there, to be sure, but not so different. After all, is an hour at Bobbi Brown for the perfect party makeup that much of a stretch from an hour putting on a Klingon forehead or Spock ears? Is searching for the perfect dress, shoes, bag, wrap, jewelry so much different from the perfect jumpsuit, ray gun, ammo belt, and communicator? And unlike most of the regular parties we did, these people are way open to each other and the experience. There don't seem to be gaggles of people standing back to judge the other gaggles. And while a lot of the subsets do seem to flock together, Star Wars over here, Lord of the Rings over there, I haven't overheard one snarky comment about someone's costume. None of the women here, in all of their variety of shapes and sizes, seem to be doing anything other than squeeing at each other and praising how gorgeous they are. And everyone seems to just own themselves. I've been at hundreds of events looking at a sea of black dresses because everyone thinks it is slimming. But today I've seen a riot of color and skin. Including a 350-pound raven-haired vixen in a chain-mail corset, with cleavage you could park a hovercraft in, surrounded by a coterie of clearly smitten men. I wanted to high-five her.”
― Stacey Ballis, Out to Lunch

“The sisters' voices were almost identical, laughing mezzos tuned in childhood to the same pitch and timbre. To the ear, they were twins; to the eye, nothing alike. Emily was tall and slender with her hair cropped short. She wore a pinstriped suit, elegant slacks, tiny, expensive glasses. She was an MBA, not a programmer, and it showed. Magnified by her glasses, her hazel eyes were clever, guarded, and also extremely beautiful. Her features were delicate, her fingers long and tapered. She scarcely allowed her back to touch her chair, while Jess curled up with her legs tucked under her. Jess was small and whimsical. Her face and mouth were wider than Emily's, her cheeks rounder, her eyes greener and more generous. She had more of the sun and sea in her, more freckles, more gold in her brown hair. She would smile at anyone, and laugh and joke and sing. She wore jeans and sweaters from Mars Mercantile, and her hair... who knew when she'd cut it last?”
― Allegra Goodman, The Cookbook Collector

“This was as true and sweet as ice cream in December. We each had our different priorities. If you held them lightly and used a plastic spoon they were nothing to get stuck on.”
― Rhoda Janzen, Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?: A Mennonite Finds Faith, Meets Mr. Right, and Solves Her Lady Problems