Plurality Quotes

Quotes tagged as "plurality" Showing 1-14 of 14
G.I. Gurdjieff
“Man has no individual i. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small "i"s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, "i". And each time his i is different. just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion.”
G.I. Gurdjieff

Hannah Arendt
“The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility──of being unable to undo what one has done──is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. Both faculties depend upon plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no man can forgive himself and no one can be bound by a promise made only to himself.”
Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

“Wisdom is justified by all her children.
Luke 7:35”
Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version

James Joyce
“Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle's to be. Northmen's thing made southfolk's place but howmulty plurators made eachone in per-son? Latin me that, my trinity scholard, out of eure sanscreed into
oure eryan! Hircus Civis Eblanensis! He had buckgoat paps on him, soft ones for orphans. Ho, Lord! Twins of his bosom. Lord save us! And ho! Hey? What all men. Hot? His tittering daugh-ters of. Whawk?
Can't hear with the waters of. The chittering waters of. Flitter-ing bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone ahome?
What Thom Malone? Can't hear with bawk of bats, all thim liffey-ing waters of. Ho, talk save us! My foos won't moos. I feel as old as yonder elm. A tale told of Shaun or Shem? All Livia's daughter-
sons. Dark hawks hear us. Night! Night! My ho head halls. I feel as heavy as yonder stone. Tell me of John or Shaun? Who wereShem and Shaun the living sons or daughters of? Night now!
Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm! Night night! Telmetale of stem or stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night!”
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

Azar Nafisi
“One of the most wonderful things about Pride and Prejudice is the variety of voices it embodies. There are so many different forms of dialogue: between several people, between two people, internal dialogue and dialogue through letters. All tensions are created and resolved through dialogue. Austen's ability to create such multivocality, such diverse voices and intonations in relation and in confrontation within a cohesive structure, is one of the best examples of the democratic aspect of the novel. In Austen's novels, there are spaces for oppositions that do not need to eliminate each other in order to exist. There is also space - not just space but a necessity - for self-reflection and self-criticism. Such reflection is the cause of change. We needed no message, no outright call for plurality, to prove our point. All we needed was to reach and appreciate the cacophony of voices to understand its democratic imperative. There was where Austen's danger lay.”
Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

William Sieghart
“You want to lash out at the parts of your self that seem to hold you back. At moments like that, it's important to be able to sit down and speak gently within yourself, as if saying a prayer or reading a poem. Whichever part of you is unhappy, reassure it: accept your many selves, and allow them to speak both to you and to each other.”
William Sieghart, The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope

John G. Stackhouse Jr.
“Beyond the family or particular Christian tradition, how much effort do we make to consider what the Mennonites or the Episcopalians, the Baptists or the Pentecostals, the Methodists or the Presbyterians have to say to the rest of us out of their DIFFERENCES, as well as out of the affirmation in common with other Christians? As I suggested earlier, our patterns of ecumenicity tend to bracket out our differences rather than to celebrate and capitalize upon them. Finding common ground has been the necessary first step in ecumenical relations and activity. But the next step is to acknowledge and enjoy what God has done elsewhere in the Body of Christ. And if at the congregational level we are willing to say, 'I can't do everything myself, for I am an ear: I must consult with a hand or an eye on this matter,' I suggest that we do the same among whole traditions. If we do not regularly and programmatically consult with each other, we are tacitly claiming that we have no need of each other, and that all the truth, beauty, and goodness we need has been vouchsafed to us by God already. Not only is such an attitude problematic in terms of our flourishing, as I have asserted, but in this context now we must recognize how useless a picture this presents to the rest of society. Baptists, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics failing to celebrate diversity provide no positive examples to societies trying to understand how to celebrate diversity on larger scales.”
John G. Stackhouse Jr., Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World

J. Krishnamurti
“Do you not know that when you love someone, you love the whole of mankind? Do you not know how dangerous it is to love man? Then, there is no barrier, no nationality; then, there is no craving for power and position, and things assume their values. Such a man is a danger to society.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti

“u blg gw org Kristiani.. benar!..
tp kl pernyataan u gw sama dengan Pastor Robert Morey..
"jari_tengah" gw buat u & Dr. Robert!..”
Maylanie Citra Liem

Arindam Mukherjee
“A rainbow looks good because the colours demonstrate restrain. Otherwise it would be an ugly blob.”
Arindam Mukherjee

Dani Rodrik
“The world is better served by syncretic economists and policymakers who can hold multiple ideas in their heads than by ‘one-handed’ economists who promote one big idea regardless of context.”
Dani Rodrik

Northrop Frye
“But it is not easy to find any language capable of expressing the unity of this higher intellectual universe, Metaphysics, theology, history, law, have all been used, but all are verbal constructs, and the further we take them, the more clearly their metaphorical and mythical outlines show through. Whenever we construct a system of thought to unite earth with heaven, the story of the Tower of Babel recurs: we discover that after all we can’t quite make it, and that what we have in the meantime is a plurality of languages.”
Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism

Valentin Rasputin
“What do we mean by individuality? It is a unified plurality, an enlargement of one's possibilities and their subordination to the principal purpose that determines all. Without a purpose, individuality does not exist.”
Valentin Rasputin, Siberia on Fire: Stories and Essays

Talking about yourself as a plural is actually more accurate than referring to yourself as
“Talking about yourself as a plural is actually more accurate than referring to yourself as 'I,' because it includes all of you, not just the one personality who is speaking at that moment.”
Karen Marshall, Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide to Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder