Common Denominator Quotes - Page 4

• The evils of mankind are caused, not by the primary aggressiveness of individuals, but by their self-transcending identification with groups whose common denominator is low intelligence and high emotionality.

  Arthur Koestler

  Self, Evil, Groups

  37 Copy quote

• Even if you're not a parent, you have parents and you've been in those situations where there's a certain kind of goodbye - nothing this extreme exists, but I think that's what everyone holds onto, that common denominator that runs through this that everyone can understand.

  Jonathan Nolan

  Goodbye, Running, Thinking

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Think of it: the lowest common denominator in being digital is not your operating system, modem, or model of computer. It's a tiny piece of plastic, designed decades ago by Bell Labs' Charles Krumreich, Edwin Hardesty, and company, who thought they were making an inconspicuous plug for a few telephone handsets. Not in their wildest dreams was Registered Jack 11 - a modular connector more commonly known as the RJ-11 - meant to be plugged and unplugged so many times, by so many people, for so many reasons, all over the world.

  Nicholas Negroponte

  Dream, Thinking, People

  "RJ-11". Nicholas Negroponte's letter to WIRED Ventures Ltd., web.media.mit.edu. April 1, 1998.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Is an institution always a man's shadow shortened in the sun, the lowest common denominator of everybody in it?

  Randall Jarrell

  Men, Shadow, Sun

  1954 Pictures from an Institution, pt.5, ch.9.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Now, the big box office successes are superhero stories. It seems there's a lowest common denominator mentality, in terms of movies that are almost purely visual, that anyone can understand anywhere in the world. Good robot, bad robot: they fight. You don't need to know anything apart from that. And then we can make toys that look like that robot - and sell those toys or video games.

  Terence Winter

  Fighting, Games, Office

  6 Copy quote

• There is an enormous pressure placed on gay novelists because they are the only spokespeople. The novelist's first obligation is to be true to his own vision, not to be some sort of common denominator or public relations man to all gay people.

  Edmund White

  Gay, Men, People

  Publishers Weekly, September 24, 1982.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I always go to the lowest common denominator for that ingredient. So if I think squash, I try to think what it means to me -- and if it doesn't mean anything to me, I'm not gonna do well when I cook it. So [squash] means to me: fall, maple syrup, cinnamon, and things just come into your head so you can narrow the vortex and make it a bit smaller and you go with something because there's no time.

  Geoffrey Zakarian

  Fall, Mean, Thinking

  5 Copy quote

• It's all nonsense to say that the Fifteenth Century can't possibly speak to the Twentieth, because it is the Fifteenth and not the Twentieth, and because those two Centuries haven't got a Common Denominator. They have. It's Human Nature.

  Frederick Rolfe

  Two, Common, Human Nature

  "Don Tarquinio" by Frederick Rolfe, London: Chatto and Windus, (p. x), 1941.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Demagoguery enters at the moment when, for want of a common denominator, the principle of equality degenerates into the principle of identity.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Atheism, Identity, Principles

  62 Copy quote

• No matter who weaves in and out of your life, regardless of the quality of those deep friendships and familyships, I'm the only common denominator at this point who's been with me the whole time. And there's this sense of trying to make sense of that ultimate solitude. It's not a negative or even a positive. It's just a fact.

  Feist

  Solitude, Trying, Quality

  4 Copy quote

• Both therapy and friendship possessed the common denominator of discovering a self.

  Dorothy Gilman

  Self, Common, Discovering

  Dorothy Gilman (1967). “Uncertain Voyage”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The best places to live, work, and visit are those places that are willing to uphold their standards in the face of pressure to allow lowest common denominator development... Successful communities understand that when they say no to development that is contrary to the long-term health of their community, they will almost always get better development in its place.

  Ed McMahon

  Nature, Smart, Successful

  5 Copy quote

• This Western culture of ours tends to sacrifice the full range of experience to a lower common denominator that's acceptable to more people; we end up with McDonald's instead of real food, Holiday Inns instead of homes, and USA Today instead of news and cultural analysis. And we do that with the rest of our lives.

  Kate Bornstein

  Real, Home, Holiday

  8 Copy quote

• The art of detection is finding a common denominator for the fractions of a case.

  Elsa Barker

  Art, Common, Problem

  4 Copy quote

• The common denominator is that we have guys who are really hungry to show what they can do.

  Andre Iguodala

  Nba Championships, Guy, Common

  8 Copy quote

• So much of the humor on new sitcoms plays to the lowest common denominator. Wit isn't nearly given as much attention as slipping on a banana peel. So much of the writing is so coarse, so obvious that it doesn't provide a shock, never mind a laugh. What makes something funny is alluding to it without laying it out explicitly. You let the audiences fill in the gaps and that's where the laughs come.

  Betty White

  Writing, Play, Laughing

  7 Copy quote

• The idea of direct action against the evil that you want to overcome is a kind of common denominator for anarchist ideas and anarchist movements. I think one of the most important principles of anarchism is that you cannot separate means and ends. Anarchism requires means and ends to be in line with one another. I think this is in fact one of the distinguishing characteristics of anarchism.

  Howard Zinn

  Mean, Thinking, Direct Action

  "Rebels Against Tyranny". Interview with Ziga Vodovnik, www.counterpunch.org. May 12, 2008.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• As God took me through the journey that became the Bible study Breaking Free, He taught me to look for a common denominator among the things that triggered my destructive habits.

  Beth Moore

  Journey, Looks, Taught

  Beth Moore (2010). “So Long, Insecurity: You've Been a Bad Friend to Us”, p.151, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am convinced that in the arts, committees are useless. What is necessary are people like Karajan, [fellow recording producer John] Culshaw and me; we know not only how to achieve the best artistic results but how to attract the public and carry out the whole operation with carefully chosen collaborators. Democracy is fatal for the arts; it leads only to chaos or the achievement of new and lower common denominators of quality.

  Walter Legge

  Art, People, Achievement

  6 Copy quote

• There are common denominators that unite all members of al-Nahda: There is no one in al-Nahda who doubts about Islam There is no one in al-Nahda that believes in extremist views of Islam.

  Rashid al-Ghannushi

  Believe, Views, Doubt

  "Rached Ghannouchi: the FP interview". Interview with Marc Lynch, foreignpolicy.com. December 5, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• ... we have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and providing for their bundance. Whatever we do, we are supposed to do for the sake of "making a living;" such is the verdict of society, and the number of people, especially in the professions who might challenge it, has decreased rapidly. The only exception society is willing to grant is to the artist, who, strictly speaking, is the only "worker" left in a laboring society.

  Hannah Arendt

  Art, Work, Numbers

  27 Copy quote

• Maybe I'm too close to the two Democrats to be against either one. I went to law school with Barack Obama and worked in the Clinton White House, so I have connections and allegiances to both candidates. [...] But I cannot remain silent any longer while my own senator destroys the Democratic Party, and her own reputation, in a desperate and degrading effort to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It's time for Senator Clinton to act like a leader that I know she can be. Hillary Clinton not only needs to defend Barack Obama, she needs to apologize to him.

  Keith Boykin

  Party, School, White

  "Clinton Owes Obama An Apology" by Keith Boykin, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 26, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The thing is to be brave and move the audience with you, instead of cater to the lowest common denominator, you know, slipping on a banana peel and falling on your ass. You got to move the audience a little further ahead in terms of their appreciation of what is comedy. It's complicated.

  Mel Brooks

  Appreciation, Moving, Fall

  "Mel Brooks on how to play Hitler, and how he almost died making Spaceballs". Interview with Steve Heisler, www.avclub.com. December 13, 2012.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• In organizations where nothing much happens regardless of whether you do something exceptional or just show up in the morning, the best people lose heart and motivation is reduced near the lowest common denominator.

  Judith M Bardwick

  Morning, Motivation, Heart

  Judith M. Bardwick (1995). “Danger in the Comfort Zone: From Boardroom to Mailroom--how to Break the Entitlement Habit That's Killing American Business”, p.5, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• David Shi (historian of the simple life) describes the common denominator among the various approaches to simpler living as the understanding that the making of money and the accumulation of things should not smother the purity of the soul, the life of the mind, the cohesion of the family, or the good of the society.

  Duane Elgin

  Simple, Understanding, Soul

  4 Copy quote