“Everything that is harmoniously constituted is knit together out of opposites…”

—  Nicomachus

Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic (1926)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Everything that is harmoniously constituted is knit together out of opposites…" by Nicomachus?
Nicomachus photo
Nicomachus 22
Ancient Greek mathematician 60–120

Related quotes

Heraclitus photo

“Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.”

Heraclitus (-535) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

As translated by Philip Wheelwright in Heraclitus (1959) https://archive.org/details/heraclitus00whee
Disputed

Ray Charles photo

“Affluence separates people. Poverty knits 'em together.”

Ray Charles (1930–2004) American musician

Roughing It, p. 155
Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)
Context: Affluence separates people. Poverty knits 'em together. You got some sugar and I don't; I borrow some of yours. Next month you might not have any flour; well, I'll give you some of mine.
That's how my band made it. We swam through a lot of shit together, we swallowed a lot of pride, but we managed to do what we needed to do.

Bruce Lee photo

“One should be in harmony with, not in opposition to, the strength and force of the opposition.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 20
Context: One should be in harmony with, not in opposition to, the strength and force of the opposition. This means that one should do nothing that is not natural or spontaneous; the important thing is not to strain in any way.

Wassily Kandinsky photo

“Opposites and contradictions, that is our harmony.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

German original: Gegensätze und Widerspruche, dass ist unsere Harmonie.
short quote, 1911; as cited in schönberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter, by Klaus Kropfinger; ed. Konrad Boehmer; published by Routledge (imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informal company), 2003, p. 9, note 1
1910 - 1915

Howard Bloom photo

“Opposites work together in the very opposite of the way they seem… They work together in teams.”

Howard Bloom (1943) American publicist and author

Brace Yourself: The Five Heresies
The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates (2012)

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 1 : A tough mind and a tender heart
Context: The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are usually not realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony. The philosopher Hegel said that truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in the emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.

Jerome photo

“O death that dividest brothers knit together in love, how cruel, how ruthless you are so to sunder them!”
O mors quae fratres dividis, et amore societos, crudelis ac dura dissocias.

Jerome (345–420) Catholic saint and Doctor of the Church

Letter 60; Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001.htm
Letters

Robin Sloan photo

“I feel a little whirl of dislocation—the trademark sensation of the world being more closely knit together than you expected.”

Robin Sloan (1979) American writer

Source: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (2012), Chapter 16 “Codex Vitae” (p. 141)

Tony Kushner photo
Richard Bach photo

“The opposite of loneliness, it's not togetherness. It is intimacy.”

The Bridge Across Forever (1984)

Related topics