Chaos Quotes - Page 21

• What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Mean, Men, Race

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky (2006). “Crime and Punishment”, p.61, ReadHowYouWant.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I write because it is while I'm writing that I feel most connected to why we're here. I write because silence is a heavy weight to carry. I write to remember. I write to heal. I write to let the air in. I write as a practice of listening.

  Andrea Gibson

  Writing, Air, Practice

  16 Copy quote

• Depression is like slashing at ghosts. Of course it's tempting to finally cut something real.

  Joey Comeau

  Real, Cutting, Ghost

  4 Copy quote

• Never mistake a clear view for a short distance.

  Paul Saffo

  Mistake, Distance, Views

  "Six Rules for Effective Forecasting". "HBR IdeaCast" with Cathy Olofson, hbr.org.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Creativity is the ability to identify self-imposed constraints, remove them, and explore the consequences of their removal.

  Russell L. Ackoff

  Creativity, Self, Ability

  Russell L. Ackoff (1986). “Management in Small Doses”, Wiley

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do Something Small But Useful Now.

  Bob Bemer

  6 Copy quote

• I see the world in very fluid, contradictory, emerging, interconnected terms, and with that kind of circuitry I just don't feel the need to say what is going to happen or will not happen.

  Jerry Brown

  Justice, Needs, World

  18 Copy quote

• A true noun, an isolated thing, does not exit in nature. Things are only the terminal points, or rather the meeting points of actions, cross sections cut through actions, snapshots. Neither can a pure verb, an abstract motion, be possible in nature. The eye sees noun and verb as one, things in motion, motion in things.

  Ernest Fenollosa

  Eye, Cutting, Doe

  Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound, Jonathan Stalling, Lucas Klein (2008). “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry: A Critical Edition”, p.82, Fordham Univ Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Probe the universe in a myriad of points. ... He is a wise man who has taken many views; to whom stones and plants and animals and a myriad of objects have each suggesting something, contributed something.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Taken, Animal

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.5, David M Gross

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The motto of science is not just Pauca but rather Plurima ex paucissimis - the most out of the least.

  Mario Bunge

  Justice, Motto, Complexity

  "The Myth of Simplicity: Problems of Scientific Philosophy". Book by Mario Bunge, 1963.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The human mind can appreciate the One only by seeing it first in the Many.

  Joseph Wood Krutch

  Appreciate, Mind, Firsts

  Joseph Wood Krutch (2010). “The Desert Year”, p.268, University of Iowa Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is important is that complex systems, richly cross-connected internally, have complex behaviours, and that these behaviours can be goal-seeking in complex patterns.

  William Ross Ashby

  Goal, Important, Behaviour

  William Ross Ashby (1956). “An Introduction to Cybernetics. (1. Publ.)”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Unity is plural and, at a minimum, is two.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Two, Unity, Complexity

  R. Buckminster Fuller “Utopia or Oblivion: The Prospects for Humanity”, Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• O Marvelous! What new configuration will come next? I am bewildered with multiplicity.

  William Carlos Williams

  Next, Complexity, Marvelous

  William Carlos Williams (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams”, p.36, New Directions Publishing

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Each portion of matter may be conceived of as a garden full of plants, and as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of the plant, each member of the animal, each drop of its humors, is also such a garden or such a pond.

  Gottfried Leibniz

  Animal, Garden, Ponds

  9 Copy quote

• Every explicit duality is an implicit unity.

  Alan Watts

  Unity, Duality, Complexity

  Alan Watts (2017). “Psychotherapy East & West”, p.126, New World Library

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only way out is spiritual, intellectual, and emotional revolution in which, finally, we learn to experience first hand the interloping connections between person and person, organism and organism, action and consequence.

  Gregory Bateson

  Spiritual, Emotional, Hands

  77 Copy quote

• To understand the whole it is necessary to understand the parts. To understand the parts, it is necessary to understand the whole. Such is the circle of understanding.

  Ken Wilber

  Circles, Understanding, Complexity

  Ken Wilber (2004). “The Simple Feeling of Being: Visionary, Spiritual, and Poetic Writings”, p.200, Shambhala Publications

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you take care of the little things, the big things take care of themselves.

  Renford Reese

  Religion, Care, Littles

  7 Copy quote

• Pay attention to minute particulars. Take care of the little ones. Generalization and abstraction are the plea of the hypocrite, scoundrel, and knave.

  William Blake

  Hypocrite, Hypocrisy, Attention

  26 Copy quote

• The object of our lives is to look at, listen to, touch, taste things. Without them, - these sticks, stones, feathers, shells, - there is no Deity.

  Reginald Horace Blyth

  Smell, Religion, Looks

  Reginald Horace Blyth (1948). “Zen in English literature and oriental classics”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• When we look for things there is nothing but mind, and when we look for mind there is nothing but things.

  Alan Watts

  Mind, Religion, Looks

  Alan Watts (1989). “The way of Zen”, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Art can make chaos seductive.

  Mason Cooley

  Art, Seductive

  5 Copy quote

• Before abstraction everything is one, but one like chaos; after abstraction everything is united again, but this union is a free binding of autonomous, self-determined beings. Out of a mob a society has developed, chaos has been transformed into a manifold world.

  Novalis

  Self, World, Unions

  "Blüthenstaub". Book by Novalis, 1798.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Before the land rose out of the ocean, and became dry land, chaos reigned; and between high and low water mark, where she is partially disrobed and rising, a sort of chaos reigns still, which only anomalous creatures can inhabit.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Ocean, Land, Water

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.768, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source