# Quotes about diversity - Quotes: 13 - Authors: 11 - Broader topic: [Quotes about society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md) - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity - JSON version (same data): https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.json ## Quotes > Every worm to his taste; > > Some prefer to eat nettles. [Junichiro Tanizaki](https://www.leafyquotes.com/junichiro-tanizaki.md) · [Some Prefer Nettles](https://www.leafyquotes.com/junichiro-tanizaki/some-prefer-nettles.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/junichiro-tanizaki/some-prefer-nettles/every-worm-to-his.md) Topics: [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > All my life I had hated machines.  I could remember how bitterly at school I had resented reading the news that someone had flown across the Atlantic or travelled through the Sahara in a car. I had realized even then that the speed and ease of mechanical transport must rob the world of all diversity. [Wilfred Thesiger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger.md) · [Arabian Sands](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger/arabian-sands.md) · p. 259 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wilfred-thesiger/arabian-sands/all-my-life.md) Topics: [technology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology.md), [technological progress](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technological-progress.md), [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > "We have heard stories about white men who make the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true." [said Obierika] > > "There is no story that is not true," said Uchendu. "The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others. We have albinos among us. Do you not think that they came to our clan by mistake, that they have strayed from their way to a land where everybody is like them?" [Chinua Achebe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe.md) · [Things Fall Apart](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe/things-fall-apart.md) · p. 130 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe/things-fall-apart/we-have-heard.md) Topics: [culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/culture.md), [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > ’Because it means the end of innovation,’ Malcolm said. ‘This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they’ll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big continent, and their evolution slows down. Now, for our own species, evolution occurs mostly through our behavior. We innovate new behavior to adapt. And everybody on earth knows that innovation only occurs in small groups. Put three people on a committee and they may get something done. Ten people, and it get harder. Thirty people, and nothing happens. Thirty million, it becomes impossible. That’s the effect of mass media—it keeps anything from happening. Mass media swamps diversity. It makes every place the same… Regional differences vanish. All differences vanish. In a mass-media world, there’s less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas. People worry about losing species diversity in the rain forest. But what about intellectual diversity—our most necessary resource. That’s disappearing faster than trees. [Michael Crichton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton.md) · [The Lost World](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-lost-world.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-lost-world/because-it-means.md) Topics: [media](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/media.md), [creativity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/creativity.md), [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races. [Mark Twain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain.md) · [Pudd'nhead Wilson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/puddnhead-wilson.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/puddnhead-wilson/it-were-not.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > We all know- or at least we are told continually- that we are a divided people. And we know there's a degree of truth in it. We have too often allowed our differences to prevail among us. We have too often allowed ambitious men to play off those differences for political gain. We have too often retreated behind our differences when no one really tried to lead us beyond them. But all our differences hardly measure up to the values we all hold in common... I am running for the Senate because... I want to make the system work again, and I am convinced that is what all Americans really want. [Joe Biden](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joe-biden.md) · [Promises to Keep](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joe-biden/promises-to-keep.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joe-biden/promises-to-keep/we-all-know.md) Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > Being women together was not enough. We were different. > > Being gay-girls together was not enough. We were different. > > Being Black together was not enough. We were different. > > Being Black women together was not enough. We were different. > > Being Black dykes together was not enough. We were different.Each of us had our own needs and pursuits, and many different alliances. Self-preservation warned some of us that we could not afford to settle for one easy definition, one narrow individuation of self. At the Bag, at Hunter College, uptown in Harlem, at the library, there was a piece of the real me bound in each place, and growing.It was a while before we came to realize that our place was the very house of difference rather the security of any one particular difference. [Audre Lorde](https://www.leafyquotes.com/audre-lorde.md) · [Zami: A New Spelling of My Name](https://www.leafyquotes.com/audre-lorde/zami-a-new-spelling-of-my-name.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/audre-lorde/zami-a-new-spelling-of-my-name/being-women-together.md) Topics: [identity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity.md), [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > Isn’t it noteworthy in the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus does not give a straightforward answer to the question "Who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29). Surely he could have provided a catalog of those whom the scribe could love as himself as the law required. He does not. Instead, he tells a story. It is as if Jesus wanted among other things to point out that life is a bit more complex; it has too many ambivalences and ambiguities to allow always for a straightforward and simplistic answer. > > This is a great mercy, because in times such as our own — times of change when many familiar landmarks have shifted or disappeared — people are bewildered; they hanker after unambiguous, straightforward answers. We appear to be scared of diversity in ethnicities, in religious faiths, in political and ideological points of view. We have an impatience with anything and anyone that suggests there might just be another perspective, another way of looking at the same thing, another answer worth exploring. There is a nostalgia for the security in the womb of a safe sameness, and so we shut out the stranger and the alien; we look for security in those who can provide answers that must be unassailable because no one is permitted to dissent, to question. There is a longing for the homogeneous and an allergy against the different, the other. > > Now Jesus seems to say to the scribe, "Hey, life is more exhilarating as you try to work out the implications of your faith rather than living by rote, with ready-made second-hand answers, fitting an unchanging paradigm to a shifting, changing, perplexing, and yet fascinating world." Our faith, our knowledge that God is in charge, must make us ready to take risks, to be venturesome and innovative; yes, to dare to walk where angels might fear to tread. [Desmond Tutu](https://www.leafyquotes.com/desmond-tutu.md) · [God Is Not A Christian](https://www.leafyquotes.com/desmond-tutu/god-is-not-a-christian.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/desmond-tutu/god-is-not-a-christian/isnt-it-noteworthy.md) Topics: [faith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith.md), [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > In manufacturing, we try to stamp out variance. With people, variance is everything. [Jack Welch](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-welch.md) · [Jack](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-welch/jack.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-welch/jack/in-manufacturing-we-try.md) Topics: [leadership](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/leadership.md), [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > A diverse community is a resilient community, capable of adapting to changing situations. [Fritjof Capra](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra.md) · [The Web of Life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-web-of-life.md) · p. 303 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-web-of-life/a-diverse-community.md) Topics: [community](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/community.md), [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > The remarkable thing about the Diversity cult is that all the circumstances of the actual human world refute its tenets, wherever we look. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that there has never been an ideology so heartily and jealously embraced by all the main institutions of a society, that was at the same time so obviously at odds with the evidence of our senses. It is as if the entire Western world had committed itself to the belief that human beings can fly by flapping their arms. [John Derbyshire](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire.md) · [We Are Doomed](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed/the-remarkable-thing.md) Topics: [ideas](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas.md), [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > By holding firmly to a pessimistic, realistic view of what is and is not possible in a society of different ethnicities, we might have maintained the principles of a free republic, and saved ourselves much trouble and expense. In the world at large, diversity causes nothing but problems. [John Derbyshire](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire.md) · [We Are Doomed](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed/by-holding-firmly.md) Topics: [pessimism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/pessimism.md), [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md) > The happy talkers tell us that diversity is a boon, making our society stronger and better. Our own lying eyes tell us that it is the source of continual trouble; not merely the solitary "hunkering down" that Robert Putnam discovered, but rancor, disorder, litigation, and violence. [John Derbyshire](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire.md) · [We Are Doomed](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-derbyshire/we-are-doomed/the-happy-talkers.md) Topics: [diversity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/diversity.md)