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Complexity Quotes

Browse 1197 quotes about Complexity.

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Complexity Quotes

“What makes a good follower? The single most important characteristic may well be a willingness to tell the truth. In a world of growing complexity leaders are increasingly dependent on their subordinates for good information, whether the leaders want to hear it or not. Followers who tell the truth and leaders who listen to it are an unbeatable combination.”

WorldWantWellsMayImportantTruthLeaderGrowingInformationCombinationCharacteristicsComplexityDependentTelling The TruthWillingnessFollowersSubordinatesUnbeatableGood Information
Book:The Essential Bennis
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“I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. It is virtually impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of the situation.”

ThinkingMenRealFactsProblemDifficultSituationClearImpossibleStreetsHe ManMassDifficultyPressesDistanceRadioEnormousComplexitySignificanceProblem Solving
Author:George C. Marshall
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“I think the next [21st] century will be the century of complexity. We have already discovered the basic laws that govern matter and understand all the normal situations. We don't know how the laws fit together, and what happens under extreme conditions. But I expect we will find a complete unified theory sometime this century. The is no limit to the complexity that we can build using those basic laws.”

ThinkingKnowsMatterHappensTogetherLawScienceNextSituationKnowledgeKnow HowConditionsCenturyTheoryFitLimitsNormalExtremesComplexity21st CenturyUnified
Author:Stephen Hawking
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“Now, in the development of our knowledge of the workings of Nature out of the tremendously complex assemblage of phenomena presented to the scientific inquirer, mathematics plays in some respects a very limited, in others a very important part. As regards the limitations, it is merely necessary to refer to the sciences connected with living matter, and to the ologies generally, to see that the facts and their connections are too indistinctly known to render mathematical analysis practicable, to say nothing of the complexity.”

ImportantMatterPlayFactsScienceNatureKnownKnowledgeDevelopmentConnectionsRegardMathematicsComplexesConnectedMathematicalLimitationAnalysisComplexityAssemblageInquirersMathematical Analysis
Author:Oliver Heaviside
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“Let us keep the discoveries and indisputable measurements of physics. But ... A more complete study of the movements of the world will oblige us, little by little, to turn it upside down; in other words, to discover that if things hold and hold together, it is only by reason of complexity, from above.”

IfsWorldLittlesReasonTogetherScienceTurnsStudyMovementDiscoveryPhysicsComplexityMeasurementUpside Down
Book:The Phenomenon of Man
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“Buddha says: Life should be simple, not complex. Life should be based on needs, not on desires. Needs are perfectly okay: you need food, you need clothes, you need a shelter, you need love, you need relationship. Perfectly good, nothing wrong in it. Needs can be fulfilled; desires are basically unfulfillable. Desires create complexity. They create complexity because they can never be fulfilled. You go on and on working hard for them, and they remain unfulfilled, and you remain empty.”

NeedsShouldHardDesireSimpleLove YouGoes OnClothesEmptyOkayComplexesComplexityShelterFulfilledNeed LovePerfectly Good
Author:Rajneesh
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“What shall I say! And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of Days has become an infant. He Who sits upon the sublime and heavenly Throne, now lies in a manger. And He Who cannot be touched, Who is simple, without complexity, and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men. He Who has broken the bonds of sinners, is now bound by an infant's bands. But He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness.”

MenHandsLyingSimpleWonderChristianitySubjectsBrokenBirthHonorBandGoodnessGloryBoundsAncientComplexityTouchedSinnerHeavenlyThronesSublimeHumiliationInfantAstonishmentInfamyIgnominy
Author:Saint John Chrysostom
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“The brain immediately confronts us with its great complexity. The human brain weighs only three to four pounds but contains about 100 billion neurons. Although that extraordinary number is of the same order of magnitude as the number of stars in the Milky Way, it cannot account for the complexity of the brain. The liver probably contains 100 million cells, but 1,000 livers do not add up to a rich inner life.”

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Author:Gerald Fischbach
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“Perhaps we humans are cosmic dwarfs; perhaps we are molecular giants. But there is no denying our mid-scale complexity. We humans live neither at the range of the infinitely small, nor at that of the infinitely large, but we might well live at the range of the infinitely complex. We live at the range of the most caring; we ourselves might embody the most capacity for caring.”

HumansWellsMightHumanityCapacityComplexesCaringScalesRangeGiantsComplexityCosmicDwarfs
Author:Holmes Rolston III
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“The mechanist is intimately convinced that a precise knowledge of the chemical constitution, structure, and properties of the various organelles of a cell will solve biological problems. This will come in a few centuries. For the time being, the biologist has to face such concepts as orienting forces or morphogenetic fields. Owing to the scarcity of chemical data and to the complexity of life, and despite the progresses of biochemistry, the biologist is still threatened with vertigo.”

KnowsStillsProblemFacesScienceForceKnowledgeProgressCenturyFieldsConceptsConstitutionStructurePropertyVariousSolveConvincedDespiteCellsDataComplexityChemicalsThreatenedPreciseScarcityOwingBiologistBiochemistryVertigo
Author:Andre Michel Lwoff
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“We regard as 'scientific' a method based on deep analysis of facts, theories, and views, presupposing unprejudiced, unfearing open discussion and conclusions. The complexity and diversity of all the phenomena of modern life, the great possibilities and dangers linked with the scientific-technical revolution and with a number of social tendencies demand precisely such an approach, as has been acknowledged in a number of official statements.”

Has BeensFactsScienceSocialViewsNumbersModernDangerPossibilityTheoryRevolutionDemandDiversityApproachAccountsRegardMethodStatementsTendenciesConclusionDiscussionAnalysisComplexityOfficialsLinkedModern Life
Book:Progress, coexistence, and intellectual freedom
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“One can truly say that the irresistible progress of natural science since the time of Galileo has made its first halt before the study of the higher parts of the brain, the organ of the most complicated relations of the animal to the external world. And it seems, and not without reason, that now is the really critical moment for natural science; for the brain, in its highest complexity-the human brain-which created and creates natural science, itself becomes the object of this science.”

WorldFirstsHumansMadeReasonMomentsSeemsScienceNaturalAnimalBrainStudyProgressCreationObjectsHigherHighestRelationComplicatedCriticalComplexityOrgansIrresistibleHaltHuman BrainNatural ScienceCritical Moments
Author:Ivan Pavlov
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“The earliest signs of living things, announcing as they do a high complexity of organization, entirely exclude the hypothesis of a transmutation from lower to higher grades of being. The first fiat of Creation which went forth, doubtlessly ensured the perfect adaptation of animals to the surrounding media; and thus, whilst the geologist recognizes a beginning, he can see in the innumerable facts of the eye of the earliest crustacean, the same evidences of Omniscience as in the completion of the vertebrate form.”

FirstsFactsEyeFormSciencePerfectAnimalMediaCreationHigherEvidenceOrganizationComplexityGradesHypothesisAdaptationLiving ThingsCompletionExclusionAnnouncingOmniscienceGeologistTransmutationVertebrates
Book:Siluria the History of the Oldest Known Rocks Containing Organic Remains, with a Brief Sketch of the Distribution of Gold Over the Earth by Roderick Impey Murchison
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“The fact that all normal children acquire essentially comparable grammars of great complexity with remarkable rapidity suggests that human beings are somehow specially designed to do this, with data-handling or 'hypothesis-formulating' ability of unknown character and complexity.”

HumansChildrenCharacterFactsLanguageHuman BeingsAbilityNormalDataComplexityAcquireRemarkableHypothesisGrammar
Book:The Boundaries of Babel: The Brain and the Enigma of Impossible Languages
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“A diverse ecosystem will also be resilient, because it contains many species with overlapping ecological functions that can partially replace one another. When a particular species is destroyed by a severe disturbance so that a link in the network is broken, a diverse community will be able to survive and reorganize itself... In other words, the more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be.”

AbleCommunityParticularBrokenFunctionSpeciesComplexesPatternsDestroyedComplexityLinksDiverseEcologySevereEcologicalResilientEcosystemsDisturbanceBiodiversityInterconnectionOverlapping
Author:Fritjof Capra
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“Civilization has ceased to be that delicate flower which was preserved and painstakingly cultivated in one or two sheltered areas of a soil rich in wild species ... Mankind has opted for monoculture; it is in the process of creating a mass civilization, as beetroot is grown in the mass. Henceforth, man's daily bill of fare will consist only of this one item.”

MenTwoProcessRichMankindFlowerCivilizationCreatingMassAreasBillsSpeciesComplexitySoilDelicateItemsBiodiversityMonocultureDelicate Flower
Book:Tristes Tropiques
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“The American ideal of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American ideal of masculinity. This idea has created cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, punks and studs, tough guys and softies, butch and faggot, black and white. It is an ideal so paralytically infantile that it is virtually forbidden - as an unpatriotic act - that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood”

IdeasGuyBlackWhiteBoysToughIdealsSexualityEvolveComplexityPunkRootedBlack And WhiteManhoodCowboyMasculinityForbiddenBad GuysGood GuyInfantileTough GuyUnpatrioticStuds
Author:James A. Baldwin
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“Too large a proportion of recent "mathematical" economics are mere concoctions, as imprecise as the initial assumptions they rest on, which allow the author to lose sight of the complexities and interdependencies of the real world in a maze of pretentious and unhelpful symbols.”

WorldRealLosesEconomicsSightMereInvestingSymbolsMathematicalComplexityAssumptionProportionReal WorldInitialsPretentiousMazes
Book:General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money
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“Given the complexity of interpersonal relationships and institutions and the complexity of co-ordination of the actions of many people, it is enormously unlikely that, even if there were one ideal pattern for society, it could be arrived at in an a priori fashion. And even supposing that some great genius did come along with a blueprint, who could have the confidence that it could work”

PeopleIfsActionGivenFashionGeniusIdealsEconomicsInstitutionsPatternsComplexityUnlikelyBlueprintsSupposingInterpersonalSupposing ThatOrdinationInterpersonal Relationship
Author:Robert Nozick
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“We are talking about an awesome power. It is the power to weave illusions that appear real as long as they last. That is the very core of the Fed's power. Of course not everyone is instinctively against this illusion-weaving power, and many even welcome it. Tragically, the innocent who understand little about the complexity of the monetary system suffer the most, while those who are in the know reap great profit whether the market is going up or down.”

KnowsLittlesLongRealLastsSufferingCoursesMoneyTalkingPowerEconomyIllusionEconomicsProfitCoreInnocentWelcomeComplexityFedsReapMonetaryWeavingMonetary System
Author:Ron Paul
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“An immune system of enormous complexity is present in all vertebrate animals. When we place a population of lymphocytes from such an animal in appropriate tissue culture fluid, and when we add an antigen, the lymphocytes will produce specific antibody molecules, in the absense of any nerve cells. I find it astonishing that the immune system embodies a degree of complexity which suggests some more or less superficial though striking analogies with human language, and that this cognitive system has evolved and functions without assistance of the brain.”

HumansCultureLanguageAnimalBrainProduceDegreesFunctionAddPopulationEnormousCellsComplexityAppropriateNervesSuperficialAssistanceAstonishingFluidImmuneMoleculesAnalogiesCognitiveTissuesImmune SystemHuman LanguageVertebratesAntibodies
Author:Niels Kaj Jerne
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“Foreign policy of a pluralistic democracy like the United States should be based on bipartisanship because bipartisanship is the means and the framework for formulating policies based on moderation and on the recognition of the complexity of the human condition. That has been the tradition since the days of Truman and Vandenberg all the way until recent times.”

WayShouldHumansMeanHas BeensStatesUnitedUnited StatesDemocracyConditionsPolicyTraditionRecognitionComplexityHuman ConditionForeign PolicyModerationFrameworkTrumanBipartisanship
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
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“In The Last of Her Kind, Sigrid Nunez once again creates characters of such depth and situations of such vivid moral complexity that reading these pages is like living them. Only as I closed the book did I sadly realize that Georgette and Ann weren't my neighbors. But happily I can revisit them again, and again, in this beautiful and absorbing novel.”

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Author:Margot Livesey
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