Morphology Quotes

• I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.

  Frantz Fanon

  Mean, Civilization, Support

  Frantz Fanon (1967). “Black Skin, White Masks”, p.17, Pluto Press

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• We must consider the distinctive characters and the general nature of plants from the point of view of their morphology , their behavior under external conditions, their mode of generation, and the whole course of their life.

  Theophrastus

  Nature, Character, Views

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• The obese is in a total delirium. For he is not only large, of a size opposed to normal morphology: he is larger than large. He no longer makes sense in some distinctive opposition, but in his excess, his redundancy.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Normal, Excess, Size

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• A sound does not view itself as thought, as ought, as needing another sound for its elucidation, as etc.; it has not time for any consideration--it is occupied with the performance of its characteristics: before it has died away it must have made perfectly exact its frequency, its loudness, its length, its overtone structure, the precise morphology of these and of itself.

  John Cage

  Views, Sound, Doe

  John Cage (2010). “Silence: Lectures and Writings”, p.28, Wesleyan University Press

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• To speak...means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.

  Frantz Fanon

  Mean, Civilization, Support

  Frantz Fanon (1967). “Black Skin, White Masks”, p.17, Pluto Press

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• Goethe died in 1832. As you know, Goethe was very active in science. In fact, he did some very good scientific work in plant morphology and mineralogy. But he was quite bitter at the way in which many scientists refused to grant him a hearing because he was a poet and therefore, they felt, he couldn't be serious.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Facts, Serious, Way

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• Doubtless many can recall certain books which have greatly influenced their lives, and in my own case one stands out especially-a translation of Hofmeister's epoch-making treatise on the comparative morphology of plants. This book, studied while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, was undoubtedly the most important factor in determining the trend of my botanical investigation for many years.

  Douglas Houghton Campbell

  Book, Science, Years

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• We are bored in the city, there is no longer any Temple of the Sun.

  Ivan Chtcheglov

  Cities, Bored, Temples

  Guy Debord, Ivan Chtcheglov, Asger Jorn, Raoul Vaneigem, Mustapha Khayati (2014). “Situationism: A Compendium”, p.3, Bread and Circuses Publishing

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• Morphology happens over time. It's not necessarily a bad thing.

  Jimenez Lai

  Bad Things, Happens

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Phylogeny and ontogeny are, therefore, the two coordinated branches of morphology. Phylogeny is the developmental history [Entwickelungsgeschichte] of the abstract, genealogical individual; ontogeny, on the other hand, is the developmental history of the concrete, morphological individual.

  Ernst Haeckel

  Science, Hands, Two

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• The idea of morphology of languages is something that I'm really interested in.

  Jimenez Lai

  Ideas, Language

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• For it is not cell nuclei, not even individual chromosomes, but certain parts of certain chromosomes from certain cells that must be isolated and collected in enormous quantities for analysis; that would be the precondition for placing the chemist in such a position as would allow him to analyse [the hereditary material] more minutely than [can] the morphologists ... For the morphology of the nucleus has reference at the very least to the gearing of the clock, but at best the chemistry of the nucleus refers only to the metal from which the gears are formed.

  Theodor Boveri

  Enormous Quantities, Cells, Would Be

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• All organs of an animal form a single system, the parts of which hang together, and act and re-act upon one another; and no modifications can appear in one part without bringing about corresponding modifications in all the rest.

  Georges Cuvier

  Animal, Together, Form

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• The existence of these patterns [fractals] challenges us to study forms that Euclid leaves aside as being formless, to investigate the morphology of the amorphous. Mathematicians have disdained this challenge, however, and have increasingly chosen to flee from nature by devising theories unrelated to anything we can see or feel.

  Benoit Mandelbrot

  Nature, Science, Challenges

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• There is no gene "for" such unambiguous bits of morphology as your left kneecap or your fingernail. [...] Hundreds of genes contribute to the building of most body parts and their action is channeled through a kaleidoscopic series of environmental influences: embryonic and postnatal, internal and external. Parts are not translated genes, and selection doesn't even work directly on parts.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Environmental, Body, Action

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History”, p.91, W. W. Norton & Company

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• I claim that many patterns of Nature are so irregular and fragmented, that, compared with Euclid - a term used in this work to denote all of standard geometry - Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity ... The existence of these patterns challenges us to study these forms that Euclid leaves aside as being "formless," to investigate the morphology of the "amorphous."

  Benoit Mandelbrot

  Science, Challenges, Different

  The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 91, No. 9, (p. 594), November 1984.

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• When I think of organizations, I think of the capabilities an organization has more than its morphology or structure. The ability of an organization to have a shared purpose and the ability for employees to be productive are critical capabilities for most organizations today.

  Dave Ulrich

  Thinking, Organization, Purpose

  Interview with Bob Morris, bobmorris.biz. August 19, 2011.

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• We are bored in the city, there is no longer any Temple of the Sun. Between the legs of the women walking by, the dadaists imagined a monkey wrench and the surrealists a crystal cup. That's lost. We know how to read every promise in faces-the latest stage of morphology. The poetry of the billboards lasted twenty years. We are bored in the city, we really have to strain to still discover mysteries on the sidewalk billboards, the latest state of humor and poetry.

  Ivan Chtcheglov

  Years, Cities, Bored

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• Since nothing can exist that does not fulfil the conditions which render its existence possible, the different parts each being must be co-ordinated in such a way as to render possible the existence of the being as a whole, not only in itself, but also in its relations with other beings, and the analysis of these conditions often leads to general laws which are as certain as those which are derived from calculation or from experiment.

  Georges Cuvier

  Law, Doe, Different

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• A famous anecdote concerning Cuvier involves the tale of his visitation from the devil—only it was not the devil but one of his students dressed up with horns on his head and shoes shaped like cloven hooves. This frightening apparition burst into Cuvier's bedroom when he was fast asleep and claimed:
  'Wake up thou man of catastrophes. I am the Devil. I have come to devour you!'
  Cuvier studied the apparition carefully and critically said,
  'I doubt whether you can. You have horns and hooves. You eat only plants.

  Georges Cuvier

  Men, Shoes, Doubt

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• Look, "Gender trouble" includes a critique of the idea that there are two ideal bodily forms, two ideal morphologies: the masculine and the feminine. I want to suggest that today the intersex movement is very engaged with criticizing that idea.

  Judith Butler

  Ideas, Two, Looks

  Source: ilga.org

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• We did not purify... We saw some particles but they did not have the morphology [shape] typical of retroviruses. They were very different... What we did not have, as I have always recognized it, is that it was truly the cause of AIDS.

  Luc Montagnier

  Typical, Different, Shapes

  "Did Luc Montagnier Discover HIV?". Interview with Djamel Tahi, July 1997.

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