“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“A miracle is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A miracle is when one plus one equals a thousand.”
Source: The Alphabet of Grace
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Frederick Buechner67
Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian 1926Related quotes
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.
“Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not melt in one's bath.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
“One Whitman is miracle enough, and when he comes again it will be the end of the world.”
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist
“Some Lines from Whitman”, p. 119
Poetry and the Age (1953)
Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa
Holism and Evolution (1926)
“The only possible idea of India is that of a nation greater than the sum of its parts.”
Shashi Tharoor (1956) Indian politician, diplomat, author
The Hindu, "Strengthening Indianness ", Sunday, Jan 19, 2003, Available Online http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2003/01/19/stories/2003011900240300.htm <br class="br">2000s
Aryabhata (476–550) Indian mathematician-astronomer
Roger Cooke in: The history of mathematics: a brief course http://books.google.co.in/books?id=z-ruAAAAMAAJ, Wiley, 7 October 1997, p. 207.
“A system is more than the sum of its parts; it is an indivisible whole.”
Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist
It loses its essential properties when it is taken apart. The elements of a system may themselves be systems, and every system may be part of a larger system.
Ackoff (1973) "Science in the Systems Age: beyond IE, OR and MS." in: Operations Research Vol 21, pp. 664.
1970s