Complexity Quotes - Page 9

• So their combinations with themselves and with each other give rise to endless complexities, which anyone who is to give a likely account of reality must survey.

  Plato

  Plato, Reality, Giving

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• It is simply not for us to judge each other. The Lord has reserved that right for Himself, because only He knows our hearts and understands the varying circumstances and complexities of our lives.

  Sheri L. Dew

  Heart, Judging, Lord

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• So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is compromised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication.

  Garth Stein

  Communication, People, Ignorant

  Garth Stein (2008). “The Art of Racing in the Rain”, Harper

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• To be a student required a peculiar kind of capitulation, a willingness not simply to do as one is told, but to surrendor the movements of one's soul to the unknown complexities of another's. A willingness, not simply to be moved, but to be remade.

  R. Scott Bakker

  Soul, Peculiar, Movement

  R. Scott Bakker (2010). “The Judging Eye: One (The Aspect-Emperor Trilogy)”, p.257, The Overlook Press

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• I'm trying to set out the passion and complexity of this sport. Many people think it's a dumb activity: stand on the gas and turn left. In fact, it's probably one of the most complex sports in existence.

  Janet Guthrie

  Sports, Passion, Thinking

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• The Constitution. . . illustrates the complexity of the American system: that it serves the interests of a wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers, to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the blacks, the Indians, the very poor whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law--all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity.

  Howard Zinn

  Law, People, Support

  Howard Zinn (2015). “A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present”, p.99, Routledge

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• One of the things that we were trying to do with this show was the complexities of relationships and love. There is both passion and longing and a bittersweet quality to it that is a part of life.

  Tim Burton

  Passion, Trying, Quality

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• 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.

  W. G. Sebald

  Mean, Reality, Understanding

  W. G. Sebald (2016). “The Rings of Saturn”, p.106, New Directions Publishing

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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.

  Patti Smith

  Spiritual, Fall, Son

  Patti Smith (2010). “Just Kids”, p.245, A&C Black

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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.

  Donald Miller

  Christian, Heart, Ideas

  Donald Miller (2007). “Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God”, p.117, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• It {Darwin's theory of evolution] was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

  Douglas Adams

  Religious, Silly, Ignorance

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• The complexity embedded in the different levels of meaning that go along with the words "I love you" ought to be a whole mindfuck of a video game

  Rachel Cohn

  Love You, Games, Different

  Rachel Cohn, David Levithan (2014). “Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List”, p.9, Egmont UK

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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.

  Philip Zimbardo

  Wise, Believe, People

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• It is unmatched in its ability to think, to communicate, and to reason. Most striking of all, it has a unique awareness of its identity and of its place in space and time. Welcome to the human brain, the cathedral of complexity.

  Peter Coveney

  Unique, Thinking, Space

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• The depth of any story is proportionate to the protagonist's commitment to their goal, the complexity of the problem, and the grace of the solution.

  Steve House

  Commitment, Goal, Grace

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• The job of the artist is not to resolve or beautify, but to hold complexities, to see and make clear.

  Toi Derricotte

  Jobs, Artist, Resolve

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• A liberal education will impart an awareness of the amazing and precious complexity of human relationships. Since those relationships are violated more often out of insensitiveness than out of deliberate intent, whatever increases sensitiveness of perception and understanding humanizes life.

  Sidney Hook

  Understanding, Perception, Awareness

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• In private many scientists admit that science has no explanation for the beginning of life... Darwin never imagined the exquisitely profound complexity that exists even at the most basic levels of life.

  Michael Behe

  Profound, Levels, Scientist

  "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution". Book by Michael Behe, 1996.

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• Nothing can be created out of nothing.

  Lucretius

  Preparation

  De Rerum Natura bk. 1, l. 155

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• Complexity is not a cause of confusion. It is a result of it.

  Jeff Hawkins

  Confusion, Understanding, Confusing

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• The charnel ground is that great graveyard in which the complexities of samsara and nirvana lie buried.

  Chogyam Trungpa

  Life, Nature, Lying

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• One way to explain the complexity and unpredictability of historical systems, despite their ultimate determinacy, is to note that long chains of causation may separate final effects from ultimate causes lying outside the domain of that field of science.

  Jared Diamond

  Lying, Long, Historical

  Jared Diamond (2017). “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies”, p.393, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Increasing consciousness = increasing complexity.

  Ken Wilber

  Consciousness

  Ken Wilber, Terry Patten, Adam Leonard, Marco Morelli (2008). “Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening”, p.78, Shambhala Publications

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• Major Trends [is] the canonical modern work on the nature and history of Jewish mysticism. For a sophisticated understanding, not only of the dynamics of Jewish mysticism, but of the exquisite complexities of Jewish history and tradition, Major Trends is a major port of entry through which one must pass.

  Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi

  Understanding, Trends, Dynamics

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• In the midst of the complexities of modern life, with all its pressures, the spirit of man needs to refresh itself by communion with unspoiled nature. In such surroundings- occasional as our visits may be- we can achieve that kind of physical and spiritual renewal that comes alone from the wonder of the natural world.

  Laurance Rockefeller

  Spiritual, Men, Needs

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