Asymmetry Quotes

• Asymmetry is the rhythmic expression of functional design.

  Jan Tschichold

  Expression, Design

  Jan Tschichold (1995). “The new typography: a handbook for modern designers”, Univ of California Pr

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• The asymmetry of time, the arrow that points from past to future, plays an unmistakable role in our everyday lives: it accounts for why we cannot turn an omelet into an egg, why ice cubes never spontaneously unmelt in a glass of water, and why we remember the past but not the future. And the origin of the asymmetry we experience can be traced all the way back to the orderliness of the universe near the big bang. Every time you break an egg, you are doing observational cosmology.

  Sean M. Carroll

  Time, Past, Arrows

  62 Copy quote

• Asymmetry is the rhythmic expression of funtional design. In addition to being more logical, asymmetry has the advantage that its complete appearance is far more optically effective than symmetry.

  Jan Tschichold

  Expression, Design, Appearance

  Jan Tschichold (1995). “The new typography: a handbook for modern designers”, Univ of California Pr

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• The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences. The universe is asymmetric.

  Louis Pasteur

  Life, Science, Mirrors

  "Works". "Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences", Vol. 1, June 1, 1874.

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• The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape our history.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Real, Rare Events, Tragedy

  Stephen Jay Gould (1993). “Eight little piggies: reflections in natural history”, Vintage

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• If you look at music, you see theme, variation, you see symmetry, asymmetry, you see structure, and these are related to skills in the real world.

  Dave Van Ronk

  Real, Skills, Looks

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• The universe is an asymmetrical entity. I am inclined to believe that life as it is manifested to us must be a function of the asymmetry of the universe or of the consequence of this fact. The universe is asymmetrical; for if one placed the entire set of bodies that compose the solar system, each moving in its own way, before a mirror, the image shown would not be superimposable on the reality.

  Louis Pasteur

  Life, Believe, Moving

  24 Copy quote

• For one to be free there must be at least two.

  Zygmunt Bauman

  Two

  Mark Davis, Zygmunt Bauman (2008). “Freedom and Consumerism: A Critique of Zygmunt Bauman's Sociology”, p.91, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

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• I worry because there is a basic asymmetry, an imbalance, between the two parties. For the Palestinians, it is about status and sovereignty, which could always be adjusted, while for Israel it is about security and trust. And security is something you can't adjust. If you make a mistake on the scrutiny issue, there is no going back.

  Abraham Foxman

  Mistake, Party, Israel

  17 Copy quote

• Why do we remember the past, but not the future?

  Stephen Hawking

  Past, Remember, Remembering The Past

  Stephen Hawking (2006). “The Theory Of Everything”, p.44, Jaico Publishing House

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• In what I like to call the Great Asymmetry, every spectacular incident of evil will be balanced by 10,000 acts of kindness, too often unnoted and invisible.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Positive, Kindness, Evil

  Stephen Jay Gould (2011). “I Have Landed”, p.393, Harvard University Press

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• Most of what we know about sales comes from a world of information asymmetry, where for a very long time sellers had more information than buyers. That meant sellers could hoodwink buyers, especially if buyers did not have a lot of choices or a way to talk back.

  Daniel H. Pink

  Leadership, Long, Choices

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• A missing arm might ruin your symmetry. Personal asymmetry where I come from is a big taboo and brings great shame on the family and sometimes even the whole village." "Do you then have to kill yourself over it or something?" "Goodness me, no! The family and village just have to learn to be ashamed--and nuts to them for being so oversensitive.

  Jasper Fforde

  Nuts, Missing, Arms

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• The vector equilibrium is the true zero reference of the energetic mathematics. Zero pulsation in the vector equilibrium is the nearest approach we will ever know to eternity and god: the zero phase of conceptual integrity inherent in the positive and negative asymmetries that propagate the differentials of consciousness.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Zero, Integrity, Negative

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• For one to be free there must be at least two. Freedom signifies a social relation, an asymmetry of social conditions: essentially it implies social difference--it presumes and implies the presence of social division. Some can be free only in so far as there is a form of dependence they can aspire to escape.

  Zygmunt Bauman

  Two, Differences, Division

  Zygmunt Bauman (1988). “Freedom”

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• My point taken further is that True and False (hence what we call "belief") play a poor, secondary role in human decisions; it is the payoff from the True and the False that dominates-and it is almost always asymmetric, with one consequence much bigger than the other, i.e., harboring positive and negative asymmetries (fragile or antifragile). Let me explain.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Taken, Play, Decision

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012). “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder”, p.259, Random House

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• I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.

  Chelsea Manning

  Military, War, Struggle

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• Graphic design, which evokes the symmetria of Vituvius, the dynamic symmetry of Hambidge, the asymmetry of Mondrian; which is a good gestalt, generated by intuition or by computer, by invention or by a system of coordinates, is not good design if it does not communicate.

  Paul Rand

  Design, Intuition, Gestalt

  "A designer's art". Book by Paul Rand, 1968.

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• The asymmetries of power that have shaped relations between the West and the rest of the world also exist in the realm of literary criticism.

  Pankaj Mishra

  Criticism, World, West

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The internet does not adhere to the inherent, necessary asymmetry of high-versus-low-art categorizations that we use in the cultural sector: in a banal sense, all photographs on the Web are orphans ready to be claimed.

  Charlotte Cotton

  Art, Doe, Use

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