Comparison Quotes
More Comparison Quotes
Though I was satisfied that I was on the verge of perhaps a magnificent find, probably one of the missing tombs that I had been seeking for many years, I was much puzzled by the smallness of the opening in comparison with those of other royal tombs in the valley.
howard carter— Diary, 5 November 1922
O, that her hand, In whose comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure The cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of sense Hard as the palm of ploughman.
william shakespeare— William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida (c. 1602), Act I, scene 1, line 55.
Reality is apparent when one ceases to compare. There is "what is" only when there is no comparison at all, and to live with what is, is to be peaceful.
bruce lee— Striking Thoughts (2000, pg. 19)
The exploration of oneself is usually also an exploration of the world at large, of other writers, a process of comparison with oneself with others, discoveries of kinships, gradual illumination of one's own potentialities.
colin wilson— Colin Wilson, The Outsider, p. 231 (1956)
'When you say ''hill'', 'the Queen interrupted, 'I could show you hills, in comparison with which you'd call that a valley.' 'No, I shouldn't,' said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last: 'a hill can't be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense.' The Red Queen shook her head.'You may call it ''nonsense'' if you like,' she said,'but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!'
Lewis Carroll— 1871Through the Looking-Glass, ch.2,'The Garden of Live Flowers'.
He is an Australian artist like Sidney Nolan is an Australian artist – beyond comparison, beyond genre, beyond dispute.
Ed St. John— ARIA Awards Committee Chairman on Nick Cave
There is no such thing as absolute cost of labour; it is all a matter of comparison. Every one gets the most which he can for his exertions; some can get little or nothing, because they have not sufficient strength, knowledge or ingenuity; others get much, because they have, comparatively speaking, a monopoly of certain powers.
william stanley jevons— Preface To The Second Edition, p.31
Whatever part of the animal fabric whatever series of muscles, whatever viscera might be selected for comparison the result would be the same the lower Apes and the Gorilla would differ more than the Gorilla and the Man.
thomas henry huxley— Ch.2, p.101
As to spelling the very frequent word though with six letters instead of two, it is impossible to discuss it, as it is outside the range of common sanity. In comparison such a monstrosity as phlegm for flem is merely disgusting.
George Bernard Shaw— The Author (Summer 1944)
To charge all unmerited praise with the guilt of flattery, and to suppose that the encomiast always knows and feels the falsehood of his assertions, issurely to discover great ignorance of human nature and human life. In determinations depending not on rules, but on experience and comparison, judgement is always to some degree subject to affection.Very near to admiration is the wish to admire.
— 1779-81 Lives of the English Poets,'Halifax'.
Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison.
Heinrich Heine— Lutetia; or, Paris. From the Augsberg Gazette, 12, VII (1842)
By this time trapped inside the drug's reverie I could have sprayed out Michelangelo's Last Judgement on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. A yacht would be a beggar's handcart by comparison.
ralph steadman— The America's Cup, p. 55
Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison.
— Heinrich Heine, in Lutetia; or, Paris. From the Augsberg Gazette, 12, VII (1842)
The notion of good, which generally speaking, appears later than the notion of pure duty, particularly in the case of the child, is perhaps the final conscious realization of something that is the primary condition of the moral life the need for reciprocal affection. And since moral realism is, on the contrary, the result of constraint exercised by the adult on the child, it may perhaps be a secondary growth in comparison to the simple aspiration after good, while still remaining the first notion to be consciously realized when the child begins to reflect upon morality and to attempt formulation.
jean piaget— The Moral Judgment of the Child, Chapter 2: "Adult Constraint and Moral Realism" (1932).
Her cheeks so rare a white was on, No daisy makes comparison; (Who sees them is undone); For streaks of red were mingled there, Such as are on a Cath'rine pear, (The side that's next the Sun).
Sir John Suckling— A Ballad Upon a Wedding, Stanza 10.
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.
— John Stuart Mill in Utilitarianism, Ch. 2
Of Henryson as of Chaucer it can be said that the picturesque detail owes its effectiveness to the solidity and seriousness of what it grows from. Henryson's Fables (like La Fontaine’s – they deserve the comparison) do more than present types of human beings in animal guises and animals comically behaving like human beings; they build up a total and consistent society, both rendered and criticized.
Robert Henryson— Patrick Cruttwell, in Boris Ford (editor) Medieval Literature: Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982) p. 326.
A man's thinking goes on within his consciousness in a seclusion in comparison with which any physical seclusion is an exhibition to public view.
ludwig wittgenstein— Pt II, p. 189
Money appears as measure (in Homer, e.g. oxen) earlier than as medium of exchange, because in barter each commodity is still its own medium of exchange. But it cannot be its own or its own standard of comparison.
karl marx— Notebook I, The Chapter on Money, p. 93
What determinate events is, beside national, dynastic and particular egoism, the instinct of domination and conquest, in one word, forceBold text. Judging by the history of humanity, harms that men have had to suffer, harms ("les maux", Fr.) that men have to suffer by their nature are minute in comparison ("en regard", Fr.) to these they inflict to each others. The most fantastic imagination might not ("ne saurait", Fr.) fabricate ("forger", Fr) some cruelties, injustices and perfidies (or perfidiousnesses) that men have not exceeded in practice.
african spir— p. 55 (Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937))
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. [...] A full-grown horse or dog, is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason ?, nor Can they talk ? but, Can they suffer?
jeremy bentham— Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Ch. 17, p. 309: Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence
Vastly inferior as this Court is to the House of Commons, considered as a body in the State, and amenable as its members may be for illconduct in their office to its animadversions and certainly are to its impeachment before the Lords, yet, as a Court of law, we know no superior but those Courts which may revise our judgments for error; and in this respect there is no common term of comparison between this Court and the House.
— Coleridge, J., Stockdale v. Hansard (1837), 3 St. Tr. (N. S.) 931. "I have yet to learn that this Court is to be restrained by the dignity or the power of anybody, however exalted, from fearlessly, though respectfully, examining their reasonableness and justice, where the rights of third parties, in litigation before us, depend upon their validity". Coleridge, J., id.
A servant of the Crown ought not to be placed at a disadvantage in comparison with other subjects.
— Field, J., Hennessy v. Wright (1888), L. R. 21 Q. B. D. 513.
When we come to a comparison of heaven and earth, then we may indeed not only forget all about the present life, but even despise and scorn it.
john calvin— Page 74 (Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life)
Any comparison between the military dictatorship and democracy can only come from those who does not value the Brazilian democracy.
dilma rousseff— Responding to Senator José Agripino Maia - former member of ARENA, ruling party of the military dictatorship - in a Senate hearing. He suggested that, for having lied when she was interrogated by the political police, she could also have been lying about the leak of data of Fernando Henrique Cardoso's personal expenditures. YouTube video
From a long view of the history of mankind seen from, say, ten thousand years from now there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will pale into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important scientific event of the same decade.
richard feynman— volume II; lecture 1, "Electromagnetism"; section 1-6, "Electromagnetism in science and technology"; p. 1-11
It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.
john stuart mill— Ch. 2 (Ch. V: Applications)
I made a comparison at table some time since, which has often been quoted, and received many compliments. It was that of the mind of a bigot to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it contracts.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858) p. 128.
— Note: This quote is frequently attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who did use it from time to time, but was not its author.
