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There Are Two Kinds Of People In The World
...The kind that puts everyone into two groups, and everyone else.

This phrase is always followed by a contrast of those who fit a description, and "those who do not."

See also And Zoidberg, where this trope is modified into a more insulting form. Contrast Not So Different.

Examples:

Anime and Manga
  • In the ninth Pokemon movie, the Big Bad says this phrase constantly, changing the actual contrast based on the current situation.
  • A variation appears in Outlaw Star:
    Hilda: Well, it's just like it is with the stars; there are bright ones, and there are those that are dim.
  • This trope is essentially part of the Idiosyncratic Episode Naming of the anime version of World Destruction.
  • Parodied in Mr. Fullswing, where Amakuni says that there are two kinds of people in this world... those with clothes and those without. While that's, like, technically true, it means absolutely nothing.
  • Dragonball Z: "There are only two kinds of people: those who obey Freiza, and those who do not obey Freiza!"

Comic Books
  • Preacher includes a scene where it is suggested that a person who likes Laurel and Hardy and hates Charlie Chaplin is a "stand up guy" while a person who prefers Chaplin "probably rapes sheep".
    • This is supposed to parody a Tarantino line about whether you prefer Elvis to the Beatles.
  • From Y The Last Man:
    Alter: There are only two kinds of people, those above the earth and those beneath it. Which side do you choose?

Film
  • Blondie and Tuco from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly have this kind of thing going:
    Tuco: There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend. Those with a rope around their neck, and the people who have the job of doing the cutting.
    • Blondie does a Call Back to this after unloading Tuco's gun so that he could kill Angel Eyes in the final showdown:
      Blondie: There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend. Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.
  • Obi-Wan's infamous line in Episode 3, "Only the Sith deal in absolutes!" combines this with bizarre hypocrisy.
  • From the movie Dirty Work:
    Mitch: There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who get stomped on and those who do the stomping.
    Kathy: Where did you come up with that theory?
    Mitch: That famous guy said it. What's his name? Oh yeah, Jesus!
    • Probably this is from Lenin's slightly politer 'there are two kinds of people in this world: who and whom [those who do and those to whom it is done]'
  • My Big Fat Greek Wedding. "There are two kinds of people in the world... Greeks... and people who wish they were Greeks."
  • Team America World Police has three kinds of people in the world: dicks, pussies, and assholes.
    • It seems that Parker and Stone are a bit more "ha ha only serious" than they originally let on, there. You can see the same speech given by another libertarian luminary, Bill Whittle. He calls it TRIBES, and the three groups are "wolves", "sheep" and "sheepdogs", respectively, but it's the same basic idea.
  • Who can forget the classic line in "What About Bob" by the titular character himself?: "There are two types of people in this world: Those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don't. My ex-wife loves him."
  • In Saturday Night Fever, there are two types of "girls", according to John Travolta's character. "You gotta decide now, Sandy. Are you gonna put out? You're either gonna be a nice girl or a cunt."
  • In the Brazilian film Tropa de Elite (a.k.a. The Elite Squad) the (arguably) protagonist/narrator says cops only have two options: corrupt themselves, or go to war.
    • Omit themselves, corrupt themselves or go to war, quoting the movie. It was more of a There Are Three Kinds of Cops in Brazil.
  • In the Japanese movie Swing Girls, a jock-ish minor character seems to start all his sentences this way, leaving the protagonists on the negative end, of course. It isn't until the swing band's penultimate performance that he changes his mind.
  • In The Longest Day during the battle for Omaha Beach, a ranking character dealing with getting the men off the beach and past the bunkers gives a variation on this trope: "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach! The dead and those that are going to die!"
  • The infinitely preachy, So Bad Its Good film The Butter Cream Gang has the main characters ex-best friend say this line after he falls under a bad influence. "There are two people in the world: Your friends and your enemies." He doesn't seem to have anything in mind about people he's never met.

Literature
  • Subverted in Harry Potter, where Sirius Black points out that the world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters when Harry's suspecting Dolores Umbridge of being a Death Eater.
    • Double-subverted when Umbridge ends up working for Voldemort's puppet Ministry of Magic.
  • When he was about ten years old, this troper read a Pokemon novelisation which promisingly opened stating that there are two types of people in the world: people who catch and train Pokémon themselves and people who try to steal other people's Pokémon. Even at the time, this troper's immediate reaction was: "What about those people who sit around and have no interest in Pokémon whatsoever?"
  • Obligatory Discworld reference, from The Truth:
    It is said that there are two types of people in the world: those who look at a glass that is exactly half full and say, "This is glass is half full," and those who look at the same glass and say, "This glass is half empty." But the world is ruled by the people who look at the glass and say, "Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full. And I had a bigger glass!"
  • This parody of David Brooks.
  • Foucaults Pendulum claims there four kinds of people in the world: "cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics."

Live Action TV
  • Red Dwarf, "Meltdown": When Rimmer is inspecting the troops, he tells St. Francis: "There's only two kinds from Assisi, steers and queers — which are you, boy?"
    • Which is, of course, homage to Full Metal Jacket in reference to things that come from Texas.
    • Detritus gives the same line a go in Men At Arms: "Only ... twoer things come from Slice Mountain, rocks an' ... an' other kinds of rocks!"
  • Smallville, Fever. Chloe's dad told her [offscreen] there are two kinds of girls, the ones you grow out of, and the ones you grow into. Well, the second part is straightforward enough, but there are girls you can grow out of in the Smallville 'verse? Who knew kryptonite infections could be so kinky?

Music
  • "Two kinds of people in this world. Winners, losers." - Lindsey Buckingham, "Go Insane".
  • "There's only two types of people in the world. The ones that entertain, and the ones that observe". Britney Spears, "Circus".
  • Subverted slightly by the Flight of the Concords introduction to the song "A Kiss is Not a Contract": "There are two kinds of people in the world. I'm one kind..." "And I'm the other."
  • The Magnetic Fields song "Two Kinds Of People".
    There are two kinds of people: A) My love and I, B) Other.

Radio

Real Life
  • "There are two types of vessels - submarines and targets".
  • "There are two kinds of aircraft - stealth aircraft and targets".
  • "The world is divided into those who have read The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings and those who are going to read them." - The Sunday Times.
  • "There is three kind of people in the world: those who can count, and the others."
  • Slight modification: there's a tale floating around Parris Island (the US Marine Corps training facility) that during the height of the Vietnam War a Drill Instructor asked his squad of new recruits if they had any questions. One recruit asked the rather naive question of what the squads chances of going overseas were, with the DI giving the following answer.
    "There are three types of Marines. Those who are overseas, those who have been overseas, and those who are going overseas. So I'd say your chances are pretty damn good."
  • "There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those that understand binary, and those that don't."
    • "There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those that understand trinary, those that don't, and those who mistook it for binary."
      • And so on.
  • In "Our Dumb World" (an atlas put out by the people at The Onion), the entry on Canada divides Canadians into two groups: the polite ones, and the ones who are too polite to point out that they've been placed in the wrong group.
  • There is a tendency for many to divide women into two kinds. This has various names. The Madonna-whore complex is a technical term for something specific. A more common idea is either you are a good girl or a slut. Of course, some people think sluts are good. Men don't seem to be judged in this fashion.

Theatre

Video Games
  • A disgruntled cook in Jade Empire says it in a way that I still like to say loudly during motivational speeches: "In this world, there are heroes, and there are people who clap as heroes walk by." Guess which one you are? No, seriously, guess. It says a lot about you.
  • Team Fortress 2 example: "There are two sorts of men in this world: the sort with blood pouring out of a hole in their heads, and the sort holding the Ambassador."

Webcomics
  • To a Maharassa, there are three kinds of people in the world: family to protect, bitches to sex up, and prey.

Western Animation
  • In It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown's party invitation prompts Lucy to say there are two kinds of people; people to invite and people not to invite. She assumes Charlie Brown was put on the wrong list.
  • In Transformers Generation One, there's Barricade who firmly believes there are only two kinds of mechanoids: Decepticons and losers.
  • According to Peter Griffin of Family Guy:
    There are two kinds of people in this world, Chris. There are bullies and there are nerds. And there are hot Asian chicks. They'll do what you want. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You better believe it, buddy. They will do what you want because they know, they know what you want. Oh, oh, oh, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you. I won't hurt you. Me big American man.
  • Obligatory The Simpsons reference: Homer's "Only two types of guy wear Hawaiian shirts - gay guys and big fat party animals! And Bart doesn't look like a big fat party animal to me!" Made even funnier by Marge's pointing out that that logic presumably makes it fine for him to wear them...
    • Probably a Matt Groening reference.
    • When Homer goes to college, he immediately separates into two groups: Jocks and Nerds. And then puts himself in the Jock category.
  • When Two Face threatened to release a binary poison on Gotham in Batman The Animated Series he claimed there would be two kinds of people in Gotham: The dying and the dead.
  • Parodied in "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000" of South Park when Cartman is sent to juvie. When asked one reason why he shouldn't be beat up, Cartman says he's just like everyone else. The main guy says there are two types of kids: those who like Animaniacs and those who don't. Despite getting the right answer about not liking Animaniacs, the situation isn't improved much as there are no friends in prison.


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