“We are the result of processes much more complicated than the small aspects of our lives and societies over which we have some control.”

—  Lee Smolin , book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity

Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (2000)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We are the result of processes much more complicated than the small aspects of our lives and societies over which we ha…" by Lee Smolin?
Lee Smolin photo
Lee Smolin 52
American cosmologist 1955

Related quotes

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“The society in which we live is the result of our psychological state.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

1st Public Talk, Berkeley, California (3 February 1969)
1960s

William Glasser photo

“We almost always have choices, and the better the choice, the more we will be in control of our lives.”

William Glasser (1925–2013) American psychiatrist

Choice Theory (1997)

Terry Brooks photo

“We live out our lives as we are meant to live them-with some choice, with some chance, but mostly as a result of the persons we are.”

Terry Brooks The Druid of Shannara

Source: The Druid of Shannara

Sigmund Freud photo

“Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

A Philosophy of Life (Lecture 35)
1930s, "New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis" https://books.google.com/books/about/New_Introductory_Lectures_on_Psycho_anal.html?id=hIqaep1qKRYC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false (1933)

P. D. Ouspensky photo

“Under the conditions of modern life we have more control over our thoughts, and in connection with this there is a special method by which we may work on the development of our consciousness using that instrument which is most obedient to our will; that is, our mind, or the intellectual centre. In order to understand more clearly what I am going to say, you must try to remember that we have no control over our consciousness. When I said that we can become more conscious, or that a man can be made conscious for a moment simply by asking him if he is conscious or not, I used the words "conscious" or "consciousness" in a relative sense. There are so many degrees of consciousness and every higher degree means "consciousness" in relation to a lower degree. But, if we have no control over consciousness itself, we have a certain control over our thinking about consciousness, and we can construct our thinking in such a way as to bring consciousness. What I mean is that by giving to our thoughts the direction which they would have in a moment of consciousness, we can, in this way, induce consciousness.”

P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) Russian esotericist

Fourth Lecture, p. 74.
The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution (1950)

Starhawk photo

“When power relations of domination are no longer the norm in society, and when men assume truly equal shares of all aspects of childrearing, perhaps we will be able to fully reclaim the nurturing aspects of the God. Until then, let us hope some men will begin this process by the way they lead their lives.”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess (1979)

William Howard Taft photo

“We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their enforcement.”

William Howard Taft (1857–1930) American politician, 27th President of the United States (in office from 1909 to 1913)

Source: Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers (Columbia University Press, 1916), Chapter 6.

“If we feel less threatened today, if we feel as though we live in a non-violent society, it is only because we have ceded so much power over our daily lives to the state. Some call this reason, but we might just as well call it laziness. A dangerous laziness, it would seem, given how little most people say they trust politicians.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

Violence is Golden
A Sky Without Eagles (2014)

Lulu Wang photo

“We all have different aspects of ourselves, and who we are to different people in our lives, at different stages of our lives.”

Lulu Wang (1983) Asian-American filmmaker

As quoted in "The Farewell writer-director Lulu Wang on the joys of laughing at human nature" in The Verge (17 July 2019) https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/17/20696611/the-farewell-writer-director-lulu-wang-interview-awkwafina

Maxim Gorky photo

“Processing the human raw material is naturally more complicated than processing lumber.”

Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian and Soviet writer

The I.V.Stalin White Sea - Baltic Sea Canal (1934)

Related topics