Difference Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

In talking with people, don't begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasizing - and keep on emphasizing - the things on which you agree. Keep emphasizing, if possible, that you are both striving for the same end and that your only difference is one of method and not of purpose.

If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. … It is absurd to say our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people.

One lesson we learn early, that in spite of seeming difference, men are all of one pattern. We readily assume this with our mates, and are disappointed and angry if we find that we are premature, and that their watches are slower than ours. In fact, the only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Intolerance of groups is often, strangely enough, exhibited more strongly against small differences than against fundamental ones.

The difference between sex and death is, with death you can do it alone and nobody's going to make fun of you.

My principles, and those always received by the republicans, do not admit to removing any person from office merely for a difference of political opinion. Malversations in office, and the exerting of official influence to control the freedom of election are good causes for removal.

Thomas Jefferson

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

The humiliating difference between laymen and clergymen must disappear, and equality spring from true liberty.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats.

Bertrand Russell

In proportion as our own mind is enlarged we discover a greater number of men of originality. Commonplace people see no difference between one man and another.

The difference between coarse and refined abuse is as the difference between being bruised by a club, and wounded by a poisoned arrow.

Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them.

Abraham Lincoln

In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as "we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology". The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion. This is one point.
Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

There is an essential difference between the decease of the godly and the death of the ungodly. Death comes to the ungodly man as a penal infliction, but to the righteous as a summons to his Father's palace. To the sinner it is an execution, to the saint an undressing from his sins and infirmities. Death to the wicked is the King of terrors. Death to the saint is the end of terrors, the commencement of glory.

Charles Spurgeon

There is a fundamental difference between the Jewish idea of creation and that of Islam. The creation according to Islam is not a unique act in a given time but a perpetual and constant event; and God supports and sustains all existence at every moment by His will and His thought. Outside His will, outside His thought, all is nothing, even the things which seem to us absolutely self-evident such as space and time. Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine will.

Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the One who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.

Today, more than ever, it is critical for American citizens to understand the difference between the free-market capitalism that made our country great and the corporate cronyism that is now corrupting our political process, strangling democracy and devouring our national treasures.

Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr.

The real difference of interests, lay not between large and small, but between the Northern and Southern states. The institution of slavery and its consequences formed a line of discrimination.

It is an amazing thing, the difference to one's powers of concentration a pair of comfortable shoes can make.

In inorganic chemistry the radicals are simple; in organic chemistry they are compounds—that is the sole difference.

Jean-Baptiste Dumas

You're trying to be tricky. What's morality?" "It's the difference between what's right and what you can rationalize." "Must be a human thing." "Exactly.

Christopher Moore

People are definitely a company's greatest asset. It doesn't make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.

Every American must believe in the promise of America. And to reach this noble, necessary goal, there is a role for government. America doesn't need more big government, and we've learned that more money is not always the answer. If a program is failing to serve people, it makes little difference if we spend twice as much or half as much. The measure of true compassion is results.