Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries, let alone revising their categories.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (b. 1960) Lebanese-American essayist, statistician, risk analyst, aphorist
The Black Swan, Part 1, ch. 1 “The Apprenticeship of an Empirical Skeptic” (2007)
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Quotations about:
classification
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
There may be said to be two classes of people in the world: those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not.
Robert Benchley (1889-1945) American humorist, columnist, actor, wit
Of All Things, ch. 20 “The Most Popular Book of the Month” (1921)
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However, the divisions of the sciences which we employ include not only things which have been noticed and discovered but also things that until now have been missed but should be there. For in the intellectual as in the physical world, there are deserts as well as cultivated places.
[Partitiones tamen Scientiarum adhibemus eas, quae non tantum jam inventa et nota, sed hactenus omissa et debita, complectantur. Etenim inveniuntur in globo intellectuali, quemadmodum in terrestri, et culta pariter et deserta.]
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Instauratio Magna [The Great Instauration], “Distributo Operis [Plan of the Work]” (1620) [tr. Silverthorne (2000)]
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(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:But we also employ such a division of the sciences as will not only embrace what is already discovered and known, but what has hitherto been omitted and deficient. For there are both cultivated and desert tracts in the intellectual as in the terrestrial globe.
[tr. Wood (1831)]In classing the sciences, we comprehend not only the things already invented and known, but also those omitted and wanted; for the intellectual globe, as well as the terrestrial, has both its frosts and deserts.
[tr. Wood/Devey (1844)]In laying out the divisions of the sciences however, I take into account not only things already invented and known, but likewise things omitted which ought to be there. For there are found in the intellectual as in the terrestrial globe waste regions as well as cultivated ones.
[tr. Spedding (1858)]
The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it the representative of a whole class.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
Public Opinion, ch. 10 “The Detection of Stereotypes,” sec. 9 (1922)
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This ideal University of Life … would never take the importance of culture for granted. It would know that culture is kept alive by a constant respectful questioning — not by an excessive and snobbish attitude of respect. Therefore, rather than leaving it hanging why one was reading Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary, an ideal course covering nineteenth-century literature would ask plainly “What is it that adultery ruins in a marriage?” Students in the ideal University of Life would end up knowing much the same material as their colleagues in other institutions, they would simply have learned it under a very different set of headings.
Alain de Botton (b. 1969) Swiss-British author
“Reclaiming the Intellectual Life for Posterity,” Liberal Education (Spring 2009)
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Observe the invincible tendency of the mind to unify. It is a law of our constitution that we should not contemplate things apart without the effort to arrange them in order with known facts and ascribe them to the same law.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1836)
By “nationalism” I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled “good” or “bad.” But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Notes on Nationalism” (May 1945)
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What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.
Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) English author, translator
Speech (1938), “Are Women Human?” to a Women’s Society
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Collected in Unpopular Opinions (1946).
ARMY OFFICER: Dr. Aoki, as a zoologist what would you say the beast is? Would you say it’s a bird, or is it a reptile?
DR. AOKI: I would like to say there isn’t any recorded history of it. Let’s just call it a monster.
Niisan Takahashi (1926-2015) Japanese screenwriter [高橋 二三, b. Yukito Takahashi]
Gamera vs. Gyaos [Gamera tai Gyaosu] (1967)