Quotes About Generalization

I've lived with boys and girls, and I find that boys are generally cleaner than girls. Generally! This is a big generalization!

About Pierre de Fermat] It cannot be denied that he has had many exceptional ideas, and that he is a highly intelligent man. For my part, however, I have always been taught to take a broad overview of things, in order to be able to deduce from them general rules, which might be applicable elsewhere.

A stereotype becomes a stereotype when a significant percentage of the population appears to conform to it.

she also tended to see strangers not as individuals but as representatives of types. It was as though people did not walk around in the world as themselves, but as examples of kinds of people, the majority of whom they had never met.

But the Arabs and the Africans and the Hispanics—what had they contributed in the past five hundred years other than terrorism, bad music and crack cocaine?

NAXALT" fallacy, for "Not All [X] Are Like That." The NAXALT fallacy is the mistaken belief that because someone in the group lies at the extreme, the average does not exist.

A prejudice can be a lovely thing to have, which is exactly why so many people have them in the first place. A prejudice is a simplification: Every member of this group is exactly the same and therefore I never have to think about any of them. What a time-saver!

Beware the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

So the English approach to show business and their work is more - and this is a big generalization, I hasten to say - but it's more, they work on it as a craft job.

It's difficult in the media to talk about a complex issue when you don't have a lot of time without being general.

Generalization can allow us to reduce a problem to something more essential, resulting in an approach that embodies regularity across known examples, a regularity that is crisp, concise, and well grounded. However, too often generalization becomes a work item in itself, pulling in the opposite direction, adding to the complexity rather than reducing it.

If it's by an American it's certain to be filth. That's all they write about.

Specialization is for insects

As Korzybski said once (violating his own ideal of E-Prime) "Allness is an illness." In fact, the F-scale, invented by Adorno and used to measure fascist tendencies, does show a correlation between heavy use of "allness" statements and the fascist personality. Can you imagine a full page by any fascist (or any red fascist) without reckless generalizations about all members of some scapegoat group?

This is what scientists call a pragmatic statement. That is, it is not truth as known to the theoretician or the pure scientist in the ivory tower; it is a generalization useful to the troubleshooter dealing with actual events in the laboratory. (In this case, of course, the laboratory is the human head.)

The power of generalizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individual observations, is the only acquirement, for an immortal being, that really deserves the name of knowledge.

There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its least worthy members. Though manifestly unfair, this tendency has some justification. For the character and destiny of a group are often determined by its inferior elements.

It's impossible to generalize about sexuality - even one's own. The only way to keep it pure is to keep it unspoken. Keep it out of words. Words are not where sexuality lives. Without privacy, there is no ecstasy.

An aphorism is a generalization of sorts, and our present-day writers seem more at home with the particular.

Definitely in the West, we're all cast as the same now. Whether you're Indian, Pakistani, Arab, Iranian, Afghan or whatever, you just get thrown into this category. And nine times out of 10, you're depicted as bad.

It's very easy to say that men think about things more simply, but it kind of is true. And that's not actually a bad thing. Approaching things in a more logical, practical fashion. This is a massive generalisation, but women tend to think about things more first, then act afterwards.

Some Republicans are good, and some Republicans are bad. Some Democrats are good, and some Democrats are bad. There are good police, and there are bad police. There are good black people and bad black people. There are good white people and bad white people.

I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was all saloonkeepers are Democrats.