Distinction Quotes

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. (Albert Einstein)
The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone. View quote
James Baldwin
An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men. View quote
Thomas Fuller
Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain - at least in a poor country like Russia - and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect. View quote
Leon Trotsky
I'm the only person of distinction who has ever had a depression named for him. View quote
Herbert Hoover
They envy the distinction I have won; let them therefore, envy my toils, my honesty, and the methods by which I gained it. View quote
Sallust
The possession of wealth confers honor; it is an invidious distinction. View quote
Thorstein Veblen
If he really thinks there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons. View quote
Samuel Johnson
Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed. View quote
John Searle
Who is to say what is real and what is not? «Real» is a distinction of a naïve mind, I think. We're getting beyond that. View quote
Terence McKenna
To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess. (William Blake)
Commanded love of all men indiscriminately is an obliteration of distinction between love and hate, and therefore is not love at all. View quote
Benjamin Tucker
There isn't any distinction between a reader and a writer - reading is so much a part of it. View quote
Dermot Healy
There's a fundamental distinction between strategy and operational effectiveness. View quote
Michael E. Porter
There are good books and there are bad books, period, that's the distinction. View quote
Norton Juster
A philosopher is, no doubt, entitled to examine even those distinctions that are to be found in the structure of all languages... in that case, such a distinction may be imputed to a vulgar error, which ought to be corrected in philosophy. View quote
Thomas Reid
You need to be real enough to be believable, but you don't necessarily have to be real enough to be real. There is a distinction. View quote
Bradley Whitford
I think it is important for all those young out there, who someday hope to play real football, where you throw it and kick it and run with it and put it in your hands, a distinction should be made that football is democratic, capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist sport. View quote
Jack Kemp
There are things in American culture that want to wipe the class distinction. Blue jeans. Ready-made clothes. Coca-Cola. View quote
Leslie Fiedler
The distinction between the old and the new formulations consisting in the incorporation of the concept of the rate of chemical reactions is so great that it immediately asserted itself in the objective development of catalysis. View quote
Wilhelm Ostwald
It has pleased no less than surprised me that of the many studies whereby I have sought to extend the field of general chemistry, the highest scientific distinction that there is today has been awarded for those on catalysis. (Wilhelm Ostwald)
Music [is] a science peculiarly productive of a pleasure that no state of life, publick or private, secular or sacred; no difference of age or season; no temper of mind or condition of health exempt from present anguish; nor, lastly, distinction of quality, renders either improper, untimely, or unentertaining. View quote
Samuel Pepys
An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: "There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important." This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter. View quote
William James
Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS. View quote
Thomas Paine
But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind. View quote
Thomas Paine