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Complexity Quotes

Browse 1197 quotes about Complexity.

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Complexity Quotes

“Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life.”

KnowsMeanRealityAbleCoursesUnderstandingLosesGreaterDegreesComplexityPreciseConstructsFathom
Book:The Rings of Saturn
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“Animals! the object of insatiable interest, examples of the riddle of life, created, as it were, to reveal the human being to man himself, displaying his richness and complexity in a thousand kaleidoscopic possibilities, each of them brought to some curious end, to some characteristic exuberance.”

MenHumansEndsInterestHuman BeingsAnimalExamplePossibilityObjectsThousandCuriousCharacteristicsComplexityRichnessRiddleInsatiableExuberance
Book:The street of crocodiles and other stories
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“People who hold important positions in society are commonly labelled "somebodies," and their inverse "nobodies"-both of which are, of course, nonsensical descriptors, for we are all, by necessity, individuals with distinct identities and comparable claims on existence. Such words are nevertheless an apt vehicle for conveying the disparate treatment accorded to different groups. Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored.”

PeopleImportantDifferentCoursesIndividualExistenceGroupsIdentityPositionClaimsInvisibleTreatedComplexityTreatmentVehicleNeverthelessIgnoredSingularityNonsensicalInverseConveying
Author:Alain de Botton
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“We imagined ourselves as the Sons of Liberty with a mission to preserve, protect, and project the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll. We feared that the music which had given us sustenance was in danger of spiritual starvation. We feared it losing its sense of purpose, we feared it falling into fattened hands, we feared it floundering in a mire of spectacle, finance, and vapid technical complexity.”

HandsSpiritualSpiritPurposeFallGivenLibertyRocksDangerSonProtectProjectsLosingMissionsFinancePreservesRevolutionaryComplexityRock And RollStarvationSustenanceVapidFloundering
Book:Just Kids
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“I believe it was the great ogre philosopher Gary who observed that complexity is, generally speaking, an illusion of conscious desire. All things exist in as simple a form as necessity dictates. When a thing is labeled 'complex,' that's just a roundabout way of saying you're not observant enough to understand it.”

WayBelieveEnoughFormDesireI BelieveSimpleIllusionConsciousAll ThingsComplexesPhilosopherComplexityGaryObservant
Book:In the Company of Ogres
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“Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. The little we do understand, that grain of sand our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever.”

KnowsFeelsMindHeartLittlesMadeI CanIdeasEnoughChristianForeverCapableGod LoveComplexitySandBreakfastGrainGod KnowsMajestyDwellingChristian FaithTotalityGraspingGood GodPancakesOthernessGrains Of Sand
Book:Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God
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“We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and rational faculties that make us both just and wise. We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil.”

PeopleWantBelieveHumansEvilQualityMoralWiseHuman NatureEssentialsGoodnessPressureBoundariesRationalTemptationRejectionComplexityGood And EvilFacultyHuman ExperienceSimplifyUnchangingAppraisalComplexity Of Human
Author:Philip Zimbardo
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“That [American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant.”

PeopleImportantEnergySpeakCasesIssuesSourceComfortAnxietyReactionsIgnorantClarityComplexityInabilityDependencyImportant IssuesExceptionalismAmerican Exceptionalism
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
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“Most Americans are close to total ignorance about the world. They are ignorant. That is an unhealthy condition in a country in which foreign policy has to be endorsed by the people if it is to be pursued. And it makes it much more difficult for any president to pursue an intelligent policy that does justice to the complexity of the world.”

PeopleIfsWorldDoeCountryDifficultPresidentJusticeConditionsPolicyIgnoranceIntelligentIgnorantPursueComplexityForeign PolicyPursuedUnhealthy
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
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“Truth is always stranger than fiction. We craft fiction to match our sense of how things ought to be, but truth cannot be crafted. Truth is, and truth has a way of astonishing us to our knees. Reminding us, that the universe does not exist to fulfill our expectations. Because we are imperfect beings who are self-blinded to the truth of the world’s stunning complexity, we shave reality to paper thin theories and ideologies that we can easily grasp – and we call them truths. But the truth of a sea in all it’s immensity cannot be embodied in one tidewashed pebble.”

WorldWayDoeSelfRealityUniverseFictionSeaTheoryOughtTruth IsPaperExpectationsStrangerIdeologyCraftsKneesComplexityImperfectAstonishingRemindingBlindedStunningPebblesImmensityStranger Than Fiction
Author:Dean Koontz
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“There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world -- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. That's all there is to it. Everything else is fun and games. If an activity is not grounded in "to love" or "to learn" it does not have value.”

IfsWorldLooksDoePurposeValuesGamesFunBeautyGreaterMysteryBearsActivityWitnessEnjoymentComplexityGroundedRiddle
Author:Anne Rice
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“There were profound reasons for his attachment to the sea: he loved it because as a hardworking artist he needed rest, needed to escape from the demanding complexity of phenomena and lie hidden on the bosom of the simple and tremendous; because of a forbidden longing deep within him that ran quite contrary to his life's task and was for that very reason seductive, a longing for the unarticulated and immeasurable, for eternity, for nothingness. To rest in the arms of perfection is the desire of any man intent upon creating excellence; and is not nothingness a form of perfection?”

MenReasonFormLyingDesireArtistSimpleSeaArmsNeededCreatingPerfectionTasksEternityLongingExcellenceProfoundContraryRanComplexityAttachmentNothingnessForbiddenBosomsSeductiveDeep WithinHardworking
Author:Thomas Mann
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“We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm--a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven.”

LittlesSelfUniverseHeavenStarsMinutesCreaturesComplexityHostOrganismsMarvelousHypothesisLiving CreaturesFathomMicrocosm
Book:Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution
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“One person looks around and sees a universe created by a god who watches over its long unfurling, marking the fall of sparrows and listening to the prayers of his finest creation. Another person believes that life, in all its baroque complexity, is a chemical aberration that will briefly decorate the surface of a ball of rock spinning somewhere among a billion galaxies. And the two of them could talk for hours and find no great difference between one another, for neither set of beliefs make us kinder or wiser.”

BelieveLooksPersonsLongTwoFallUniverseBeliefHoursDifferencesPrayerWatchesRocksCreationListeningBallsSurfaceBillionsComplexityChemicalsWiserFinestGalaxySpinningKinderSparrowsAberrationBaroque
Author:Mark Haddon
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“The man is a humbug — a vulgar, shallow, self-satisfied mind, absolutely inaccessible to the complexities and delicacies of the real world. He has the journalist's air of being a specialist in everything, of taking in all points of view and being always on the side of the angels: he merely annoys a reader who has the least experience of knowing things, of what knowing is like. There is not two pence worth of real thought or real nobility in him. But he isn't dull.”

MenWorldMindTwoRealSelfSidesViewsKnowingAirReaderAngelPoint Of ViewSatisfiedJournalistComplexityDullReal WorldAnnoyingShallowVulgarNobilitySpecialistsDelicacyInaccessibleHumbugKnowing Things
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.”

PeopleWellsLooksRealMovingStuffTreeCreaturesSummerStandingDown AndSouthChaosWinterPhysicsStuckLikesComplexityGeographyFashionableMeteorology
Book:Feet of Clay: A Novel of Discworld
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“However, a good life consists of more than simply the totality of enjoyable experiences. It must also have a meaningful pattern, a trajectory of growth that results in the development of increasing emotional, cognitive, and social complexity.”

SocialGrowthResultsBusinessEmotionalDevelopmentExperiencePatternsMeaningfulComplexityGood LifeEnjoyableTotalityCognitiveTrajectory
Book:Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning
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“The formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from, and a prior task to, the discussion of the great, difficult, ethical controversies of the day. First things first. And planting the ideas of virtue, of good traits in the young, comes first. In the moral life, as in life itself, we take one step at a time. Every field has its complexities and controversies. And so does ethics. And every field has its basics. So too with values.”

PeopleFirstsDoeIdeasDifferentCharacterYoungValuesDifficultMoralStepsVirtueFieldsEthicsTasksDiscussionComplexityEthicalTraitsControversyFormationBasicsOne Step At A TimeFirst Things FirstMoral Life
Author:William Bennett
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“Creationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life-yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammarabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.”

SchoolScienceNamesInterestStudyDesignCreationChangedEvolutionTenIntelligentIncludingAppearanceMythCodeComplexityNativeNative AmericanCommandmentsScience And ReligionPublic SchoolTen CommandmentsTheoristsJargonIntelligent DesignCreation Myths
Author:Michael Shermer
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“Primates stand at a turning point in the course of evolution. Primates are to the biologist what viruses are to the biochemist. They can be analysed and partly understood according to the rules of a simpler discipline, but they also present another level of complexity: viruses are living chemicals, and primates are animals who love and hate and think.”

ThinkingScienceHateCoursesAnimalLevelsEvolutionDisciplineUnderstoodComplexityChemicalsVirusesTurning PointsLove And HateBiologistPrimates
Author:Alison Jolly
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“After having produced aquatic animals of all ranks and having caused extensive variations in them by the different environments provided by the waters, nature led them little by little to the habit of living in the air, first by the water's edge and afterwards on all the dry parts of the globe. These animals have in course of time been profoundly altered by such novel conditions; which so greatly influenced their habits and organs that the regular gradation which they should have exhibited in complexity of organisation is often scarcely recognisable.”

ShouldFirstsLittlesDifferentScienceCoursesWaterAnimalNovelEnvironmentAirConditionsEvolutionHabitShould HaveEnvironmentalEdgesComplexityDryOrgansGlobesVariationAlteredOrganisationDifferent Environments
Author:Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
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“There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.”

WayFirstsTwoDifficultSimpleDesignHumorousProgramMethodObviousWittyComplicatedOne WayCodeComplexityProgrammingSoftwareEngineeringTwo WaysProgrammersComputer ProgrammingComputer ScienceDeficiencyProgramming LanguagesComputer LanguageDevelopersSoftware EngineeringSoftware DesignComputer ProgrammersSoftware DevelopmentComputer SoftwareSimplicity In DesignFunny ComputerProgramming FunnySimplicity And EleganceSimple And ComplexProgress And Development
Author:Tony Hoare
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“A wider of more altruistic attitude is very relevant in today's world. If we look at the situation from various angles, such as the complexity and inter-connectedness of the nature of modern existence, then we will gradually notice a change in our outlook, so that when we say 'others' and when we think of others, we will no longer dismiss them as something that is irrelevant to us. We will no longer feel indifferent.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldFeelsLooksHelpingWisdomTodayNatureChangeExistenceAttitudeSituationWiseModernWise WordsWords Of WisdomVariousHelping OthersIndifferenceComplexityRelevantIndifferentAltruismAngleIrrelevantOutlookRelevanceNoticingCaring For OthersConnectednessInterconnectedInterconnectednessToday's WorldDismissal
Author:Dalai Lama
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“When Galileo discovered he could use the tools of mathematics and mechanics to understand the motion of celestial bodies, he felt, in the words of one imminent researcher, that he had learned the language in which God recreated the universe. Today we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, the wonder of God's most devine and sacred gift.”

GodUseBodyTodayScienceUniverseLanguageFeltUnderstandingWonderToolsMathematicsSacredComplexityAweMechanicCelestialResearchersHensCelestial Bodies
Author:William J. Clinton
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