“That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art.”

—  John Locke

This statement has been attributed to John A. Locke, but John Locke did not have a middle name. The words "dynamic," "boring" and "repetitive," found in this quote, were not yet in use in Locke's time. (See The Online Etymology Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/abbr.php.) John A. Locke is listed on one site as having lived from 1899 to 1961; no more information about him was available.
Misattributed

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update April 11, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art." by John Locke?
John Locke photo
John Locke 144
English philosopher and physician 1632–1704

Related quotes

Robert Burton photo

“The Devil himself, which is the author of confusion and lies.”

Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy

Section 4, member 1, subsection 3.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III

Steve Keen photo

“Why do economists persist in modelling the economy with static tools when dynamic ones exist; why do they treat as stationery an entity which is forever changing?”

Steve Keen (1953) Australian economist

Source: Debunking Economics - The Naked Emperor Of The Social Sciences (2001), Chapter 8, Let's Do The Time Warp Again, p. 177

Steve Keen photo

“If financial markets aren't efficient, then what are they? According to the 'fractal market hypothesis', they are highly unstable dynamic systems that generate stock prices which appear random, but behind which lie deterministic patterns.”

Steve Keen (1953) Australian economist

Source: Debunking Economics - The Naked Emperor Of The Social Sciences (2001), Chapter 11, Finance And Economic Breakdown, p. 243

David Orrell photo

“Perfect order is boring, perfect randomness is boring, but complex systems are interesting.”

David Orrell (1962) Canadian mathematician

Source: The Other Side Of The Coin (2008), Chapter 4, Right Versus Left, p. 131

Marie-Louise von Franz photo

“Number, as it were, lies behind the psychic realm as a dynamic ordering principle, the primal element of which Jung called spirit.”

Marie-Louise von Franz (1915–1998) Swiss psychologist and scholar

Source: Psyche and Matter (1992), p. 216
Context: Number, as it were, lies behind the psychic realm as a dynamic ordering principle, the primal element of which Jung called spirit. As an archetype, number becomes not only a psychic factor, but more generally, a world-structuring factor. In other words, numbers point to a background reality in which psyche and matter are no longer distinguishable.

Gino Severini photo

“The truth lies somewhere between these two aesthetics [static Cubism and dynamic Futurism]. The 'pure form' of w:Ingres led inevitably to a life-less Platonism; the lyricism and Romanticism of Eugène Delacroix no longer tailed with our cerebral and geometric age.... as in all great ages, today's artwork must be the synthesis of these two things”

Gino Severini (1883–1966) Italian painter

quote, 1917
In the 'Preface' of the exhibition catalogue, Photo Secession Gallery, New York, March 1917

Evelyn Waugh photo

“Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.”

Evelyn Waugh book Decline and Fall

Decline and Fall (1928)

Wilhelm Reich photo

“The absolute and static were even taken over by such dynamically oriented psychological schools as the Freudian in the form of the permanent unconscious ideas. In Jung, the unconscious psychic life was enlarged to the static "racial unconscious" and to the static "collective unconscious". Along with the static viewpoint, these psychologies took over the idea of guilt, even after their separation from philosophy. In so doing, they fell into a cul de sac from which there was no way out.”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

On Jungian psychology, in Ch. 2 : "The Two Basic Pillars of Human Thinking: "God" and "Ether".
Ether, God and Devil (1949)

Alfred North Whitehead photo

“The theme of Cosmology, which is the basis of all religions, is the story of the dynamic effort of the World passing into everlasting unity, and of the static majesty of God's vision, accomplishing its purpose of completion by absorption of the World's multiplicity of effort.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Pt. V, ch. II, sec. V.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)

W. Brian Arthur photo

“This paper has attempted to go beyond the usual static analysis of increasing-returns problems by examining the dynamical process that 'selects' an equilibrium from multiple candidates, by the interaction of economic forces and random 'historical events'. It shows how dynamically, increasing returns can cause the economy gradually to lock itself in to an outcome not necessarily superior to alternatives, not easily altered, and not entirely predictable in advance.”

W. Brian Arthur (1946) American economist

p, 128
Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns and Lock-in by Historical Events, (1989)

Related topics