“Each part in itself constitutes the whole to which it belongs.”

—  José Saramago , book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 68 (Vintage 2003)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 2, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Each part in itself constitutes the whole to which it belongs." by José Saramago?
José Saramago photo
José Saramago 138
Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in … 1922–2010

Related quotes

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel photo
Freeman Dyson photo

“A point has no existence by itself. It exists only as a part of the pattern of relationships which constitute the geometry of Euclid.”

Source: Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 2 : Butterflies and Superstrings, p. 17
Context: Euclid... gave his famous definition of a point: "A point is that which has no parts, or which has no magnitude." …A point has no existence by itself. It exists only as a part of the pattern of relationships which constitute the geometry of Euclid. This is what one means when one says that a point is a mathematical abstraction. The question, What is a point? has no satisfactory answer. Euclid's definition certainly does not answer it. The right way to ask the question is: How does the concept of a point fit into the logical structure of Euclid's geometry?... It cannot be answered by a definition.

Ervin László photo

“Systems at each level of integration function as wholes with respect to their parts and parts with respect to higher level wholes.”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

Source: Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972), p. 67.

Aristotle photo
John Buchan photo
Russell L. Ackoff photo

“Parts and wholes evolve in consequence of their relationship, and the relationship itself evolves.”

Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist

The Dialectical Biologist (1985), co-written with Richard Levins, Introduction, p. 3.
Context: Parts and wholes evolve in consequence of their relationship, and the relationship itself evolves. These are the properties of things that we call dialectical: that one thing cannot exist without the other, that one acquires its properties from its relation to the other, that the properties of both evolve as a consequence of their interpenetration.

Walter Bagehot photo

Related topics