“The old and oft-repeated proposition "Totum est majus sua parte" [the whole is larger than the part] may be applied without proof only in the case of entities that are based upon whole and part; then and only then is it an undeniable consequence of the concepts "totum" and "pars". Unfortunately, however, this "axiom" is used innumerably often without any basis and in neglect of the necessary distinction between "reality" and "quantity", on the one hand, and "number" and "set", on the other, precisely in the sense in which it is generally false.”

— Georg Cantor

"Über unendliche, lineare Punktmannigfaltigkeiten" in Mathematische Annalen 20 (1882)  Quoted in "Cantor's Grundlagen and the paradoxes of Set Theory" by William W. Tait

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Georg Cantor 27

mathematician, inventor of set theory 1845–1918

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Arthur D. Hall (1925–2006) American electrical engineer

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“The whole, though larger than any of its parts, does not necessarily obscure their separate identities.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Writing for the court, United States v. Powers, 307 U.S. 214 (1939)
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“In all the previous cases of wholes, we have nowhere been able to argue from the parts of the whole. Compared to its parts, the whole constituted by them is something quite different, something creatively new, as we have seen. Creative evolution synthesises from the parts a new entity not only different from them, but quite transcending them. That is the essence of a whole. It is always transcendent to its parts, and its character cannot be inferred from the characters of its parts.”

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Peter Coad & Ed Yourdon (1991, p. 1); cited in: Sten Carlsson and Benneth Christiansson. (1999) " The Concept of Object and its Relation to Human Thinking: Some Misunderstandings Concerning the Connection between Object-Orientation and Human Thinking http://www.vits.org/publikationer/dokument/289.pdf." Informatica, Lith. Acad. Sci. 10.2. p. 147-160.

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Source: Object-oriented design (1991), p. 1; cited in: Sten Carlsson and Benneth Christiansson. (1999) " The Concept of Object and its Relation to Human Thinking: Some Misunderstandings Concerning the Connection between Object-Orientation and Human Thinking http://www.vits.org/publikationer/dokument/289.pdf." Informatica, Lith. Acad. Sci. 10.2. p. 147-160.

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