Uniformity Quotes - Page 6

• [The] first postulate of the Principle of Uniformity, namely, that the laws of nature are invariant with time, is not peculiar to that principle or to geology, but is a common denominator of all science. In fact, instead of being an assumption or an ad hoc hypothesis, it is simply a succinct summation of the totality of all experimental and observational evidence.

  M. King Hubbert

  Science, Law, Principles

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• With the rise of industrialism, words like 'normal' and 'defective,' words that had once only been used to refer to things, began to be used to refer to people. ... In the industrial age, a new degree of uniformity was expected of people. The rhythms and pacing of life could no longer be organic. People became expected to function like things.

  Anne Finger

  People, Age, Degrees

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• The simplicity and uniformity of rural occupations, and their incessant practice, preclude any anxieties and agitations of hope and fear, to which employments of a more precarious and casual nature are subject.

  William Falconer

  Practice, Simplicity, Anxiety

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• America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Happiness, Lying, America

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• Perhaps even more than constituted authority, it is social uniformity and sameness that harass the individual most. His very "uniqueness," "separateness" and "differentiation" make him an alien, not only in his native place, but even in his own home. Often more so than the foreign born who generally falls in with the established.

  Emma Goldman

  Fall, Home, Native Place

  Alphonso Lingis, Emma Goldman (1996). “Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader”, Humanities Press International

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• Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity.

  Eric Hoffer

  Equality, Fraternity, Spoiled

  Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

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• To require conformity in the appreciation of sentiments or the interpretation of language, or uniformity of thought, feeling, or action, is a fundamental error in human legislation -- a madness which would be only equaled by requiring all men to possess the same countenance, the same voice or the same stature.

  Josiah Warren

  Appreciation, Men, Errors

  Josiah Warren (1849). “Equitable Commerce: A New Development of Principles for the Harmoneous Adjustment and Regulation of the Pecuniary,intellectual,and Moral Intercourse of Mankind,proposed as Elements of New Society”, p.5

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• Footballers today are forced to conform to a bodily aesthetic that in its rigidity and uniformity makes fashion models look as varied as snowflakes. This wasn't always so. Up until the 1980s most teams in all divisions had a couple of fat ones, a couple of little ones, at least one bandy one, one completely covered in hair, two weaklings and a chap with no neck. This was an era when you didn't need names on the backs of shirts in order to tell who's who, you could clearly identify them with your eyes half shut from the other side of the pitch.

  Danny Baker

  Soccer, Football, Fashion

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• Perhaps even more than constituted authority, it is social uniformity and sameness that harass the individual most.

  Emma Goldman

  Individual, Social, Authority

  Alphonso Lingis, Emma Goldman (1996). “Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader”, Humanities Press International

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• The proper method for hastening the decay of error, is not, by brute force, or by regulation which is one of the classes of force, to endeavour to reduce men to intellectual uniformity; but on the contrary by teaching every man to think for himself.

  William Godwin

  Teaching, Men, Thinking

  William Godwin, Luke White (bookseller.) (1793). “An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice: And Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness”, p.375

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• The superiority of the Greeks seems not so much the result of climate and society, as of the simplicity of their end and the uniformity of their means.

  Henry Fuseli

  Mean, Simplicity, Greek

  1789 Aphorisms on Art, no.148 (published 1831).

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• In primitive society, where uniformity of occupation is the rule, and the distribution of the community into various classes of workers has hardly begun, every man is more or less his own magician; he practices charms and incantations for his own good and the injury of his enemies.

  James G. Frazer

  Men, Practice, Class

  "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion". Book by James G. Frazer, 1890.

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• Happiness has this essential difference from what is commonly called pleasure, that virtue forms its basis, and virtue being the offspring of reason, may be expected to produce uniformity of effect.

  Ann Radcliffe

  Differences, Essentials, May

  Ann Radcliffe (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)”, p.124, Delphi Classics

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• The wisdom of the ignorant somewhat resembles the instinct of animals; it is diffused in but a very narrow sphere, but within the circle it acts with vigor, uniformity, and success.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Wisdom, Animal, Circles

  Oliver Goldsmith (1856). “The Miscellaneous Works: Letters from a citizen of the world, to his friend in the East. A familiar introduction to the study of natural history”, p.323

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• Many are really virtuous who cannot explain what virtue is . . . But the powers themselves in reality perform their several operations with sufficient constancy and uniformity in persons of good health whatever their opinions be about them . . .

  Francis Hutcheson

  Reality, Ethics, Opinion

  Francis Hutcheson (1769). “An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections”, p.7

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• The whole realm of thought and opinion is utterly unsuited to public control; it ought to be as free, and as spontaneous as is possible. The state is justified in insisting that children shall be educated, but it is not justified in forcing their education to proceed on a uniform plan and to be directed to the production of a dead level of glib uniformity.

  Bertrand Russell

  Children, Levels, Uniforms

  Bertrand Russell, Richard A. Rempel (1995). “Pacifism and Revolution, 1916-18”, p.261, Psychology Press

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• Although mathematical notation undoubtedly possesses parsing rules, they are rather loose, sometimes contradictory, and seldom clearly stated. [...] The proliferation of programming languages shows no more uniformity than mathematics. Nevertheless, programming languages do bring a different perspective. [...] Because of their application to a broad range of topics, their strict grammar, and their strict interpretation, programming languages can provide new insights into mathematical notation.

  Kenneth E. Iverson

  Perspective, Different, Topics

  "Math for the Layman" by Kenneth E. Iverson, Ch. 10, §D, www.cs.trinity.edu. 1999.

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• The people who must never have power are the humorless. To impossible certainties of rectitude they ally tedium and uniformity

  Christopher Hitchens

  People, Allies, Impossible

  Christopher Hitchens (2011). “Arguably”, p.15, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• It is advertising that enthrones the customer as king. This infuriates the socialist...[it is] the crossing of the boundary between West Berlin and East Berlin. It is Checkpoint Charlie, or rather Checkpoint Douglas, the transition from the world of choice and freedom to the world of drab, standard uniformity.

  Enoch Powell

  Kings, East Berlin, Choices

  The Daily Telegraph, April 29, 1967.

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• It will be found, as men grow more tolerant in their instincts,
  that many uniformities now insisted upon are useless and even harmful.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Useless, Instinct

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Political Ideals”, p.23, Bertrand Russell

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• Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim.

  Mary Parker Follett

  Unity, Aim

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

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• It would be wrong to interpret the growth of British national consciousness in this period in terms of a new cultural and political uniformity being resolutely imposed on the peripheries of the island by its centre. For many poorer and less literate Britons, Scotland, Wales and England remained more potent rallying calls than Great Britain, except in times of danger from abroad. And even among the politically educated, it was common to think in terms of dual nationalities, not a single national identity.

  Linda Colley

  Thinking, Islands, Scotland

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• All forms of books make a valuable contribution to education and the dissemination of culture and information. The diversity of books and editorial content is a source of enrichment that we must support through appropriate public policies and protect from uniformity.

  Irina Bokova

  Book, Diversity, Support

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• Is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than that of face and stature.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Faces, Opinion, Conformity

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• Bipartisan democracy presupposes the individual, whose welfare is identical with that of the community in which he lives, the absence of coherent social classes, a basic uniformity of interest throughout.

  Learned Hand

  Class, Community, Democracy

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