Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2
“It is really intolerable that we can say only one thing at a time; for social behavior displays many features at the same time, and so in taking them up one by one we necessarily do outrage to its rich, dark, organic unity.”
Source: Social behavior: Its Elementary Forms, 1961, p. 114
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George C. Homans 7
American sociologist 1910–1989Related quotes
Unity and Multitude
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VI - Mind and Matter
Context: We can no longer separate things as we once could: everything tends towards unity; one thing, one action, in one place, at one time. On the other hand, we can no longer unify things as we once could; we are driven to ultimate atoms, each one of which is an individuality. So that we have an infinite multitude of things doing an infinite multitude of actions in infinite time and space; and yet they are not many things, but one thing.
As quoted in Unleashing Intellectual Capital (2000) by Charles Ehin, p. 99
regarding Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, quoted in [2004-05-12, GOP senator labels abused prisoners 'terrorists', CNN, http://articles.cnn.com/2004-05-11/politics/inhofe.abuse_1_naked-prisoners-iraqi-prisoners-james-inhofe]
Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964)
“So much easier is it to do many things than to do one thing for a long time continuously.”
Adeo facilius est multa facere quam diu.
Book I, Chapter XII, 7; translation by H. E. Butler
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)
As quoted in "It's Monica Mania" by Richard Corliss in TIME (10 March 2003) http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1004378,00.html