Generalization Quotes

• It is reckless to make broad generalizations about any group of people.

  Roger Ebert

  People, Groups, Reckless

  Roger Ebert (2012). “Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2013: 25th Anniversary Edition”, p.589, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• All generalizations are false, including this one.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Truth, Inspirational Life

  Attributed in "A Short Course in Intellectual Self Defense" by Mark Twain, Seven Stories Press, (p. 61), January 4, 2011.

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• To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess.

  William Blake

  Merit, Idiot, Distinction

  "Annotations to The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds" (ca. 1798 - 1809)

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• The true enemy of man is generalization.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Men, Enemy

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• The problem with labels is that they lead to stereotypes and stereotypes lead to generalizations and generalizations lead to assumptions and assumptions lead back to stereotypes. It’s a vicious cycle, and after you go around and around a bunch of times you end up believing that all vegans only eat cabbage and all gay people love musicals.

  Ellen DeGeneres

  Believe, Gay, People

  "Seriously... I’m Kidding". Book by Ellen DeGeneres, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 4, 2011.

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• Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of the organized life.

  H. G. Wells

  Life, History, Curse

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• Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Men, Justice, Observation

  "World Politics: Trend and Transformation, 2013 - 2014 Update Edition". Book by Charles Kegley, p. 494, January 3, 2013.

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• No one sees further into a generalization than his own knowledge of detail extends.

  William James

  Details

  Arthur Kendall Getman, John Dewey, William James, Werrett Wallace Charters, Ralph M. Stewart (1937*). “Contributions of Ten Leading Americans to Education”

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• Pay attention to minute particulars. Take care of the little ones. Generalization and abstraction are the plea of the hypocrite, scoundrel, and knave.

  William Blake

  Hypocrite, Hypocrisy, Attention

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• Without a rigorous, self-critical discourse, one risks lapsing into pious platitudes and unexamined generalizations.

  Stephen Batchelor

  Self, Risk, Discourse

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• Every generalization is dangerous, especially this one.

  Mark Twain

  Danger, Dangerous

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• We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.

  Eric Hoffer

  Assuming, Contagious

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• Intellectuals ... regard over-simplification as the original sin of the mind and have no use for the slogans, the unqualified assertions and sweeping generalizations.

  Aldous Huxley

  Mind, Use, Unqualified

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2002). “Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948”, Ivan R. Dee Publisher

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• A mathematician who can only generalise is like a monkey who can only climb up a tree, and a mathematician who can only specialise is like a monkey who can only climb down a tree. In fact neither the up monkey nor the down monkey is a viable creature. A real monkey must find food and escape his enemies and so must be able to incessantly climb up and down. A real mathematician must be able to generalise and specialise.

  George Polya

  Real, Math, Tree

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• All generalizations, with the possible exception of this one, are false.

  Kurt Gödel

  Exception

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• People forget that stereotypes aren’t bad because they are always untrue. Stereotypes are bad because they are not always true. If we allow ourselves to judge another based on a stereotype, we have allowed a gross generalization to replace our own thinking.

  George Takei

  Thinking, People, Judging

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• An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Mean, Thinking, Ideas

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Thomas Malcolm Knox (1952). “The philosophy of right: The philosophy of history”

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• For my part I distrust all generalizations about women, favorable and unfavorable, masculine and feminine, ancient and modern; all alike, I should say, result from paucity of experience.

  Bertrand Russell

  Women, Masculine And Feminine, Ancient

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.65, Routledge

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• The thing that distinguishes social systems from physical or even biological systems is their incomparable (and embarrassing) richness in special cases. Generalizations in the social sciences are mere pathways which lead through a riotous forest of individual trees, each a species unto itself. The social scientist who loses this sense of the essential individuality and uniqueness of each case is all too likely to make a solemn scientific ass of himself, especially if he thinks that his faceless generalizations are the equivalents of the rich vareity of the world.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Thinking, Tree, Individuality

  "Evidences for an Administrative Science: A review of the Administrative Science Quarterly, volumes 1 and 2". Administrative Science Quarterly. Volume 3, No. 1, p. 14, 1958.

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• To minds of a certain cast there is nothing so captivating as simplification and generalization.

  Thomas Malthus

  Mind, Captivating, Certain

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings”, p.243, Penguin UK

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• Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularity is indispensable to the creations of the imagination.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Imagination, Advancement, Creation

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• The highest of generalizations is the synergetic integration of truth and love.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Life, And Love, Integration

  R. Buckminster Fuller (1982). “Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking”, p.619, Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller

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• Generalizations, like brooms, ought not to stand in a corner forever; they ought to sweep as a matter of course.

  John Lukacs

  Forever, Matter, Brooms

  John Lukacs (1990). “Confessions of an original sinner”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

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• Even the recognition of an individual whom we see every day is only possible as the result of an abstract idea of him formed by generalization from his appearances in the past.

  James G. Frazer

  Past, Ideas, Recognition

  "Complexity and the Arrow of Time". Book by Charles H. Lineweaver, Paul C. W. Davies, and Michael Ruse, p. 243, 2013.

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• Only the great generalizations survive. The sharp words of the Declaration of Independence, lampooned then and since as 'glittering generalities,' have turned out blazing ubiquities that will burn forever and ever.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Ubiquity, Forever, Independence

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1911). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Lectures and biographical sketches”

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