Quotes About Categorization

All wisdom is rooted in learning to call things by the right name. When things are properly identified, they fall into natural categories and understanding becomes orderly.

When counting, try not to mix chickens with blessings.

As to the 1,150,000,000 of the colored world, they are divided, as already stated, into four primary categories: yellows, browns, blacks, and reds.

What is it to be white? It does mean something to be Norwegian. It means something to be Polish or German or Spanish. But 'white' is simply a catchall for 'light-skinned person.' It doesn't really mean anything.

Species can be recognized by their morphological characteristics and songs.

My life has always been compartmentalized into different aspects. I have my speed skating Olympic pursuits, I have my personal life and have my business life and have my entertainment - TV - Hollywood - whatever have you - always compartmentalizing every aspect of my life.

I love organization, so I split my clothes into two closets according to seasons.

I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character... by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none.

The problem of the librarian is that books are multi-dimensional in their subject matter but must be ordered on one-dimensional shelves.

And this all fits very well with the modern way of thinking about stuff in which all you need to do, in order to attain a sense of personal accomplishment and earn the accolades of your peers, is to demonstrate an ability to slot new examples of things into the proper intellectual pigeon-holes.

First of all, as you know, there are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide everyone into two kinds of people and those who don't. But actually, there are three kinds of people in the world: those who are good at math and those who aren't.

'Divergent' is a story about people who don't fit into a category - that is a big part of the message - but it's also about conformity and forcing people into these simple archetypes. At the end of the day, humans don't exist like that. We're multifaceted.

The thing that we need to move on from is any time you meet somebody, we always say, 'Oh, this is my friend so-and-so. And, you know, he's a Republican.' You know, we always label each other as a liberal or as a conservative or as a Democrat or as a Republican.

I've been typed as historical fiction, historical women's fiction, historical mystery, historical chick lit, historical romance - all for the same book.

I believe that the development of language - of naming, categorization, conceptualization - destroys our ability to see as we age.

There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics.

All our precontact simulations categorized you as a Down-to-Clown Unflappable Guy Who Can Handle This Sort of Thing No Problem with a high probability of Being Actually into It All the Way.

place those files into a subdirectory of the directory containing the source file, named doc-files.

A prime justification for surveillance—that it's for the benefit of the population—relies on projecting a view of the world that divides citizens into categories of good people and bad people. In that view, the authorities use their surveillance powers only against bad people, those who are "doing something wrong," and only they have anything to fear from the invasion of their privacy.

Every text participates in one or several genres, there is no genreless text; there is always a genre and genres, yet such participation never amounts to belonging.

But once you divide the world into categories, into an "us" versus "them," then you immediately become a "them" and lose touch with who you really are. And

Now, as then, we find ourselves bound, first without, then within, by the nature of our categorization. And escape is not effected through a bitter railing against this trap; it is as though this very striving were the only motion needed to spring the trap upon us. We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet it is precisely through our dependence on this reality that we are most endlessly betrayed.

I think I underestimated the way people bracket you.

I think putting labels on people is just an easy way of marketing something you don't understand.