“The totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts.”
Book VIII, 1045a.8–10
Cf. Euclid, Elements, Book I, Common Notion 5: "τὸ ὅλον τοῦ μέρους μεῖζον. [The whole is greater than the part.]"
Metaphysics
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Aristotle230
Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder o… -384–-321 BCRelated quotes
David Bohm (1917–1992) American theoretical physicist
"On the Intuitive Understanding of Nonlocality as Implied by Quantum Theory", Foundations of Physics Vol 5 (1975)
Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian
German versions of the Bible that preceded the Luther Bible
Source: In the royal library of Munich there are 21 MSS. of German versions of the Gospels and Epistles. The Gospels for the year were printed about 25 times before 1518; the Psalter about 13 times before 1513. See besides the works of Panzer, Kehrein, Keller, Haupt, above quoted, Alzog, Die deutschen Plenarien im 15. und zu Anfang des 16. Jahrh., Freiburg-i-B., 1874.
Kurt Koffka (1886–1941) German psychologist
Source: Principles of Gestalt Psychology, 1935, p. 176
Context: Even these humble objects reveal that our reality is not a mere collocation of elemental facts, but consists of units in which no part exists by itself, where each part points beyond itself and implies a larger whole. Facts and significance cease to be two concepts belonging to different realms, since a fact is always a fact in an intrinsically coherent whole. We could solve no problem of organization by solving it for each point separately, one after the other; the solution had to come for the whole. Thus we see how the problem of significance is closely bound up with the problem of the relation between the whole and its parts. It has been said: The whole is more than the sum of its parts. It is more correct to say that the whole is something else than the sum of its parts, because summing is a meaningless procedure, whereas the whole-part relationship is meaningful.
Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa
Source: Holism and Evolution (1926), p. 342
“You oughta be thankful, a whole heaping lot,
For the places and people you're lucky you're not!”
Dr. Seuss book Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
The last sentence of this statement is often misquoted as "You oughta be thankful, a whole heaping lot, / For the people and places you're lucky you're not!"
Source: Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (1973)
Context: It’s a troublesome world. All the people who're in it
are troubled with troubles almost every minute.
You oughta be thankful, a whole heaping lot,
For the places and people you're lucky you're not!
“Music for me is something I prefer to keep away form the whole business part of my life.”
Milla Jovovich (1975) Ukrainian-born american model and actress
Interview 2
Context: Music for me is something I prefer to keep away form the whole business part of my life. I feel like everything I do, in a way, has some sort of business around it. So with my music I can have my privacy. If people don’t have to pay for it then I think they can be a little more open to new ideas.
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist
Pt. II, The Knowable; Ch. XIV, Summary and Conclusion
First Principles (1862)
