Classification Quotes

• It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Knowledge, Simple, Arbitrary

  "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Will Fitzgerald, 1952.

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• All classifications in this world lack sharp boundaries, and all transitions are gradual.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Transition, World, Boundaries

  Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, Anne Applebaum (2007). "The Gulag Archipelago Volume 2: An Experiment in Literary Investigation", Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

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• A classification is a definition comprising a system of definitions.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Definiciones

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• Science is the systematic classification of experience.

  George Henry Lewes

  Science, Experience, Systematic

  George Henry Lewes (1891). “The Physical Basis of Mind: Being the Second Series of Problems of Life and Mind”

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• In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

  Desmond Tutu

  Country, Children, Rights

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• Me preguntaréis para qué sirven la clasificación, la ordenación y la sistematización. Le respondo: el orden y la simplificación son los primeros pasos hacia el dominio de un tema; el verdadero enemigo es lo desconocido.

  Thomas E. Mann

  Order, Enemy, Firsts

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• The classifications made by philosophers and psychologists are like trying to classify clouds by their shape.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Clouds, Trying, Shapes

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• Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of the organized life.

  H. G. Wells

  Life, History, Curse

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• On those remote pages [of 'a certain Chinese encyclopedia'] it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f ) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Dog, Distance, Flower

  "The Analytical Language of JohnWilkins" (1942) (translation by Ruth L. C. Simms)

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• I think people are as individual as snowflakes, they kinda look alike but no two are the exactly the same, and all classification is the root of prejudice.

  Craig Ferguson

  Thinking, Two, Roots

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• Without the discovery of uniformities there can be no concepts, no classifications, no formulations, no principles, no laws; and without these no science can exist.

  Clyde Kluckhohn

  Science, Discovery, Law

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• Reality is infinitely diverse, compared with even the subtlest conclusions of abstract thought, and does not allow of clear-cut and sweeping distinctions. Reality resists classification.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Cutting, Reality, Doe

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• To be beyond any existing classification has always pleased me.

  Boyd Rice

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• La lengua es la legislación, el habla es su código. No vemos el poder que hay en el discurso porque olvidamos que todo discurso es una clasificación, y que todas las clasificaciones son opresivas.

  Roland Barthes

  Habla, Lenguaje, Olvido

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• The higher the classification of secrecy, the quicker you will report it.

  George P. Shultz

  Secrecy, Higher, Reports

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• Los cuerpos naturales se dividen en tres reinos de la naturaleza: el mineral, el vegetal y el animal. Los minerales crecen, las plantas crecen y viven, los animales crecen, viven y sienten.

  Carl Linnaeus

  Naturaleza, Ciencia, Animal

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• La nomenclatura, el otro fundamento de la botánica, debe proporcionar los nombres tan pronto como se haga la clasificación... Si los nombres son desconocidos el conocimiento de las cosas también perece... Para un solo género, un solo nombre.

  Carl Linnaeus

  Knowledge, Science, Names

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• Lo primero que hace el intelecto con un objeto es clasificarlo junto con otra cosa. Pero cualquier objeto que es infinitamente importante para nosotros y despierta nuestra devoción nos parece también como si debiera ser sui generis y único. Probablemente un cangrejo se llenaría de un sentimiento de indignación personal si pudiera oírnos clasificarlo sin preámbulos ni disculpas como un crustáceo, y así disponer de él. No soy tal cosa", diría, "soy YO, sólo YO".

  William James

  Science, Apology, Unique

  William James (2013). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.9, Courier Corporation

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• Should we even have the classification system? Why shouldn't these things be open? There are things you want to keep secret, like the characteristics of your latest fighter plane or something like that.

  Noam Chomsky

  Secret, Want, Fighter

  Entrevista con Jegan Vincent de Paul, chomsky.info. 15 de agosto de 2012.

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• Physics admits of a lovely unification, not just at the level of fundamental forces, but when considering its extent and implications. Classifications like "optics" or "thermodynamics" are just straitjackets, preventing physicists from seeing countless intersections.

  Ted Chiang

  Lovely, Fundamentals, Levels

  Ted Chiang (2016). “Arrival (Stories of Your Life MTI)”, p.52, Vintage

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• It is once again the vexing problem of identity within variety; without a solution to this disturbing problem there can be no system, no classification.

  Roman Jakobson

  Identity, Problem, Solutions

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• Perhaps as good a classification as any of the main types is that of the three lusts distinguished by traditional Christianity - the lust of knowledge, the lust of sensation, and the lust of power.

  Irving Babbitt

  Lust, Three, Christianity

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• And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, "Use it well, use it wisely.

  John Steinbeck

  Hands, Eden, Soldier

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.25, Penguin

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• Taxonomy (the science of classification) is often undervalued as a glorified form of filing-with each species in its folder, like a stamp in its prescribed place in an album; but taxonomy is a fundamental and dynamic science, dedicated to exploring the causes of relationships and similarities among organisms. Classifications are theories about the basis of natural order, not dull catalogues compiled only to avoid chaos.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Order, Dull, Causes

  Stephen Jay Gould (1990). “Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History”, p.98, W. W. Norton & Company

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• From the first dawn of life, all organic beings are found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed in groups under groups. This classification is evidently not arbitrary like the grouping of stars in constellations.

  Charles Darwin

  Inspiración, Vida, Estrellas

  Charles Darwin (1861). “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”, p.358

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