Quotes about Comparison

Any grading system is meaningless.  Every attempt to compare cultures with the intention of determining which is the most developed will never be anything other than one more bullshit projection of Western culture's hatred of its own shadows.  There is one way to understand another culture.  Living it.  Move into it, ask to be tolerated as a guest, learn the language.  At some point understanding may come.  It will always be wordless.  The moment you grasp what is foreign, you will lose the urge to explain it.  To explain a phenomenon is to distance yourself from it.

Corliss had never once considered the fate of library books. She'd never wondered how many books go unread. She loved books. How could she not worry about the unread? She felt like a disorganized scholar, an inconsiderate lover, an abusive mother, and a cowardly soldier.

Fantastic truths perish slower... Sappho's moon will survive the moon of Armstrong.  Different computations are necessary.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

Any comparison diminishes the expressive qualities of the terms of the comparison.

If, as some say, evil lies in the hearts not the institutions of men, then there's hardly a distinction worth making between, say, Hitler's Germany and Rebecca's Sunnybrook Farm.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date