“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“And the whole [is] greater than the part.”
Καὶ τὸ ὅλον τοῦ μέρους μεῖζον
ἐστιν
Elements, Book I, Common Notion 8 (5 in certain editions)
Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Η 1045a 8–10: "… the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts … [πάντων γὰρ ὅσα πλείω μέρη ἔχει καὶ μὴ ἔστιν οἷον σωρὸς τὸ πᾶν]"
Euclid’s Elements
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Euclid6
Greek mathematician, inventor of axiomatic geometry -323–-285 BCRelated quotes
“A part is greater than the whole;
By hints are mysteries told.”
Lucy Larcom (1824–1893) American teacher, poet, author
Poems (1869), A Strip of Blue (1870)
Context: A part is greater than the whole;
By hints are mysteries told.
The fringes of eternity, —
God's sweeping garment-fold,
In that bright shred of glittering sea,
I reach out for and hold.
Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa
Holism and Evolution (1926)
Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian
Source: The Alphabet of Grace
“The half is greater than the whole.”
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) American pastor
Hesiod, in Works and Days
Misattributed
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman
1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)
Context: The theory that each race of men has some special faculty, some peculiar gift or quality of mind or heart, needed to the perfection and happiness of the whole is a broad and beneficent theory, and, besides its beneficence, has, in its support, the voice of experience. Nobody doubts this theory when applied to animals or plants, and no one can show that it is not equally true when applied to races. All great qualities are never found in any one man or in any one race. The whole of humanity, like the whole of everything else, is ever greater than a part. Men only know themselves by knowing others, and contact is essential to this knowledge. In one race we perceive the predominance of imagination; in another, like the Chinese, we remark its almost total absence. In one people we have the reasoning faculty; in another the genius for music; in another exists courage, in another great physical vigor, and so on through the whole list of human qualities. All are needed to temper, modify, round and complete the whole man and the whole nation.
“The whole is simpler than its parts.”
Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) physicist
Quoted by Irving Fisher in "The Applications of Mathematics to the Social Sciences," Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 36, 225-243 (1930). Full article http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.bams/1183493954 <br class="br">Attributed