“It is not easy to tear any event out of the context of the universe in which it occurred without detaching from it some factor that influenced it.”

—  Carroll Quigley

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 1, Scientific Method and the Social Sciences, p. 35

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 "It is not easy to tear any event out of the context of the universe in which it occurred without detaching from it some…" by Carroll Quigley?
Carroll Quigley photo
Carroll Quigley 79
American historian 1910–1977

Related quotes

J. Howard Moore photo

“Since impulses are simply sensations which have become motor, and since sensations are only tendencies from without become conscious, the nature of any being may be said to be the manner in which it correlates the tendencies which it contacts, or the manner in which a being, as a distinct and detached portion of the universe, reacts upon the rest of the universe.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Derivation of the Nature of Living Beings, p. 171

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world's greatest events are not produced, they happen.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

K 68
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

Gottlob Frege photo

“Since it is only in the context of a proposition that words have any meaning, our problem becomes this: To define the sense of a proposition in which a number-word occurs.”

Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) mathematician, logician, philosopher

Nur im Zusammenhange eines Satzes bedeuten die Wörter etwas. Es wird also darauf ankommen, den Sinn eines Satzes zu erklären, in dem ein Zahlwort vorkommt.
Gottlob Frege (1950 [1884]). p. 73

William Stanley Jevons photo

“Coal in truth stands not beside, but entirely above, all other commodities. It is the material source of the energy of the country—the universal aid—the factor in everything we do. With coal almost any feat is possible or easy; without it we are thrown back into the laborious poverty of earlier times.”

William Stanley Jevons book The Coal Question

The Coal Question (1865)

Buckminster Fuller photo

“There's a major pattern of energy in universe wherein the very large events, earthquakes, and so forth, occur in any one area of universe very much less frequently than do the small energy events. Around the Earth insects occur more often than do earthquakes. In the patterning of total evolutionary events, there comes a time, once in a while, amongst the myriad of low energy events, when a large energy event transpires and is so disturbing that with their general adaptability lost, the ultra-specialized creatures perish.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

1960s, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1963)

Dan Quayle photo

“We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.”

Dan Quayle (1947) American politician, lawyer

Cited to the Cleveland Plain Dealer (27 September 1990)

Starhawk photo

“Any creative work that is truly alive is influenced by a thousand chance factors in its generation.”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess (1979), p. 231

William Saroyan photo

“There is no such thing as a soldier. I see death as a private event, the destruction of the universe in the brain and in the senses of one man, and I cannot see any man's death as a contributing factor in the success or failure of a military campaign.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

The Resurrection of a Life (1935)
Context: I cannot see the war as historians see it. Those clever fellows study all the facts and they see the war as a large thing, one of the biggest events in the legend of the man, something general, involving multitudes. I see it as a large thing too, only I break it into small units of one man at a time, and see it as a large and monstrous thing for each man involved. I see the war as death in one form or another for men dressed as soldiers, and all the men who survived the war, including myself, I see as men who died with their brothers, dressed as soldiers. There is no such thing as a soldier. I see death as a private event, the destruction of the universe in the brain and in the senses of one man, and I cannot see any man's death as a contributing factor in the success or failure of a military campaign.

Tim Flannery photo

“Some time this century, the day will arrive when the human influence on the climate will overwhelm all natural factors.”

Tim Flannery book The Weather Makers

Source: The Weather Makers (2005), Chapter 32 (p. 284)

Alfred Jules Ayer photo

“"I exist" does not follow from "there is a thought now." The fact that a thought occurs at a given moment does not entail that any other thought has occurred at any other moment, still less that there has occurred a series of thoughts sufficient to constitute a single self. As Hume conclusively showed, no one event intrinsically points to any other. We infer the existence of events which we are not actually observing, with the help of general principle. But these principles must be obtained inductively. By mere deduction from what is immediately given we cannot advance a single step beyond. And, consequently, any attempt to base a deductive system on propositions which describe what is immediately given is bound to be a failure.”

Alfred Jules Ayer book Language, Truth, and Logic

Source: Language, Truth, and Logic (1936), p. 47.

Related topics