“Iconography becomes even more revealing when processes or concepts, rather than objects, must be depicted—for the constraint of a definite “thing” cedes directly to the imagination. How can we draw “evolution” or “social organization,” not to mention the more mundane “digestion” or “self-interest,” without portraying more of a mental structure than a physical reality? If we wish to trace the history of ideas, iconography becomes a candid camera trained upon the scholar's mind.”

— Stephen Jay Gould , book Eight Little Piggies

"A Tale of Three Pictures", p. 428
Eight Little Piggies (1993)

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Stephen Jay Gould 274

American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002

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“A system is a set of objects with relationships between the … in may be described generally as a complex of elements or components directly or indirectly related in a causal network, … Also, we are mainly interested in systems within which some process is continually going on, including an interchange with an environment across the boundary. It is generally agreed that when we deal with the more open system with a highly flexible structure, the distinction between the boundaries and the environment becomes a more and more arbitrary matter, dependent upon the purpose of the observer.”

Arthur D. Hall (1925–2006) American electrical engineer

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“Total physical and mental inertia are highly agreeable, much more so than we allow ourselves to imagine.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

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Context: Total physical and mental inertia are highly agreeable, much more so than we allow ourselves to imagine. A beach not only permits such inertia but enforces it, thus neatly eliminating all problems of guilt. It is now the only place in our overly active world that does.

“There are more things, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

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Original: (la) Plura sunt, quae nos terrent quam quae premunt, et saepius opinione quam re laboramus.

“We will give two practical Courses of self-training, mental and physical, with which we can fit ourselves to become successful pioneers for the new age.”

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“The organism—in isolation nothing but a separate pole of "meaningless" subjective processes—becomes a Self by embarking with others upon the construction of an "objective" and moral universe of meaning. Thereby the organization transcends its biological nature.
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Source: The invisible religion, 1967, p. 48

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“The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes, and the more deadened you become to reality”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

“The medieval imagery and iconography is so good for the imagination.”

Terry Gilliam (1940) American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe

As quoted in "Terry Gilliam reflects to Dreams about the making of Dr Parnassus" by Phil Stubbs http://www.smart.co.uk/dreams/parntgrf.htm
Context: We read Dover Books, because you can steal from them. The medieval imagery and iconography is so good for the imagination. Trying to describe the world, trying to describe the cosmos, trying to put it down in neat orderly fashion, unlike reality. And it always seems to stick in one's mind more than reality does.

“If you were capable of thinking of an object from more than one point of view, you could imagine it doing all sorts of things. For Mother, consciousness was becoming more than just a tool for lying.”

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

Source: Evolution (2002), Chapter 11 “Mother’s People” section I (p. 337)

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Stephen Jay Gould 274

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