differences

Too often, we pour the energy needed for recognizing and exploring difference into pretending those differences are insurmountable barriers, or that they do not exist at all.

There were formerly horizons within which people lived and thought and mythologized. There are now no more horizons. And with the dissolution of horizons we have experienced and are experiencing collisions, terrific collisions, not only of peoples but also of their mythologies. It is as when dividing panels are withdrawn from between chambers of very hot and very cold airs: there is a rush of these forces together. And so we are right now in an extremely perilous age of thunder, lightning, and hurricanes all around. I think it is improper to become hysterical about it, projecting hatred and blame. It is an inevitable, altogether natural thing that when energies that have never met before come into collision__ach bearing its own pride__here should be turbulence. That is just what we are experiencing; and we are riding it: riding it to a new age, a new birth, a totally new condition of mankind__o which no one anywhere alive today can say that he has the key, the answer, the prophecy, to its dawn. Nor is there anyone to condemn here (__udge not, that you may not be judged!_). What is occurring is completely natural, as are its pains, confusions, and mistakes.

When we begin to see our differences as opportunities rather than threats, then we can work together.

There is no need to become unique. We already are unique. There is no need to become equal. We already are equal. The greatest tragedies of humankind have come from people trying to force sameness on the level we are different, and trying to become different on the level we are the same. Peace is a matter of recognizing what is already there, not creating something new.

to treat a human being as an animal - as a mere space-binder - because humans have certain animal propensities, is an error of the same type and grossness as to treat a cube as a surface because it has surface properties.

People _ teachers, other students, parents _ constantly made offhand comments that didn't mean much to them, but I read something else in their words. A hidden language that told me I was different. Or maybe I was so aware of my own difference that I was just looking to be offended by other people's words.

It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

Each of us is called upon to take a stand. So in these days ahead, as we examine ourselves and each other, our works, our fears, our differences, our sisterhood and survivals, I urge you to tackle what is most difficult for us all, self-scrutiny of our complacencies, the idea that since each of us believes she is on the side of right, she need not examine her position.

Sacrifice_ and __elf_ both begin with the same letter, but the spelling is way different after that.

Don't accentuate our differences,but instead focus on our similarities.

There was no single gay point of view. Like skin color or gender or any of those arbitrary, sometimes artificial, difference sexual orientation didn't make us all the same. But it did affect us. It had to.

At the end of the day, that's what a family is - a group of different people who accept each other.

Let us know our differences! Let us understand our differences! Let us know and understand that we are all different people with different differences! We all have different differences that are not all that different! Understanding is the matter! When we get to know and understand our differences well, we shall least spit on each other just because of our differences!

Perhaps we don__ progress, because there are so many views _ so many paths to peace and happiness _ that we get hung up on each path__ differences. Trying to sort out right from wrong when the rights mean so much to us that we can__ look at them objectively.

The surest way of ruining a youth is to teach him to respect those who think as he does more highly than those who think differently from him.

There is a different world on the other side of your present attitude.

Cripples are not the stuff of romance. Only Lord Byron, dragging his club foot, springs to mind as an exception to the rule, but such a failing in a man is regarded as interesting, even provocative, rather than disfiguring. Women must submit to a more exacting measure.

We try so hard because it is all we've ever known, I thought. We try to fit ourselves into this world so that we don't seem more different than different, an oddity in a sea of normality. We try because it is only instinct, but we obey because it is law.