Quotes about chaos
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“A schedule defends from chaos and whim. A net for catching days.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: The Writing Life

“The lions sing and the hills take flight.
The moon by day, and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule.”

Robert Jordan Lord of Chaos

Chant from a children’s game heard in Great Arvalon, the Fourth Age
(15 October 1994)
Source: Lord of Chaos

Fools, Singing, Sun, Night

“… blame is just a lazy person's way of making sense of chaos.”

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Source: All Families are Psychotic

Way, Sense, Personality

“I finally figured out that not every crisis can be managed. As much as we want to keep ourselves safe, we can't protect ourselves from everything. If we want to embrace life, we also have to embrace chaos.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Breathing Room

Life

“When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Intelligence

“Let chaos reign, then rein in chaos.”

Andrew S. Grove (1936–2016) Hungarian-born American businessman, engineer, and author

High Output Management

“I am in the middle of it: chaos and poetry; poetry and love and again, complete chaos. Pain, disorder, occasional clarity; and at the bottom of it all: only love; poetry. Sheer enchantment, fear, humiliation. It all comes with love”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Source: The Akhmatova Journals, Volume I: 1938-1941

Love, Pain, Fear

“Without sarcasm I sink into chaos.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

World

“Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

Quoted in New York Post (29 February 1960)
Letters and interviews

“In plain words, Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.”

Henry Adams book The Education of Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
Source: The Education of Henry Adams

Law, Dreams, Nature

“So we reach into the raging chaos, and we cling to it, and we tell ourselves it has meaning, and that the world is good, and we are not evil, and we will all go home in the end.”

Anne Rice The Tale of the Body Thief

Source: The Tale of the Body Thief

World, Home, Rage, Evil

“Life is nothing without a little chaos to make it interesting.”

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes book Demon in My View

Source: Demon in My View

Life

“And the mind that has conceived a plan of living must never lose sight of the chaos against which that pattern was conceived. That goes for societies as well as for individuals.”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Epilogue.
Source: Invisible Man (1952)

“What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

“Chaos is the penance for leisure.”

Amy Tan book The Bonesetter's Daughter

Source: The Bonesetter's Daughter

“In the space between chaos and shape there was another chance.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: The World and Other Places: Stories

Chance

“Chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Love, Life

“I have no idea how people function without near-constant internal chaos. I'd lose my mind.”

Dave Eggers book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Source: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

People, Idea

“Maybe innocence makes its way easiest through the elemental chaos of this world…”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

World, Way

“Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Life

“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

Charles Addams (1912–1988) Cartoonist

Flying

“Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Capricorn

Source: Tropic of Capricorn

Dead

“Reality had no gears, and you never knew what surprises would come spinning out of its chaos.”

Scott Westerfeld book Goliath

Variant: ... that was what kept the world interesting... reality had no gears, and you never knew what surprises would come spinning out of its chaos.
Source: Goliath

Reality

“It seems that the rebels found the chaos of transition more difficult to accept than the tyranny they had known before. They joyfully welcomed back authority-even oppressive authority-for it was less painful for them than uncertainty.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

Pain

“This is the biggest mistake I could think would save me. I wanted to give up the idea that I had any control. Shake things up. To be saved by chaos. To see if I could cope, I wanted to force myself to grow again. To explode my comfort zone.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Idea, Thinking

“We create order out of chaos, beauty and meaning out of ugly randomness.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Beauty

“Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

“Sweet mother of chaos," he breathed. "Rachel, you are indeed one of us. Have your time in the sun. You're worth the extra wait.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Black Magic Sanction

Time, Waiting, Sun

“Magnus began to be truly alarmed. Will's voice would have shaken, betraying that his cruelty had been part of his playacting, but his son's laugh was that of someone genuinely delighted by the chaos erupting all around him”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Midnight Heir

Parting

“We live in an old chaos of the sun.”

Wallace Stevens book Harmonium

"Sunday Morning"
Harmonium (1923)
Context: We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or an old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Context: We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or an old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Sun

“Chaos is a friend of mine.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Newsweek (9 December 1985)

“Life is divine Chaos. It's messy, and it's supposed to be that way.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Life, Way

“Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly facade.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

“Piper!” Frank yelled. “Counter those empousai! We need some chaos.”

“Thought you’d never ask.” She started catcalling at the female demons: “Your makeup is smeared! Your friend called you ugly! That one is making a face behind your back!”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

“Maybe this was how you stayed sane in wartime: a handful of noble deeds amid the chaos.”

Scott Westerfeld book Leviathan

Source: Leviathan

“Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.”

Stephen Sondheim (1930) American composer and lyricist

Art

“We grow in direct proportion to the amount of chaos we can sustain and dissipate”

Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003) physical chemist

Source: Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature

“War." Gorgon spits the word. "That is what they call it to give the illusion of honor and law. It is chaos. Madness and blood and the hunger to win. It has always been thus and shall always be so.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Hunger, War, Law, Madness

“Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Stupidity

“I urge you all today, especially today in these times of terrorism and chaos to love yourselves without reservation and to love each other without restraint. Unless you're into leather; then by all means, use restraints.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, The Notorious C.H.O. Tour

Love, Time

“With so much chaos, someone will do something stupid. And when they do, things will turn nasty”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

Stupidity

“Cosmos is a Greek word for the order of the universe. It is, in a way, the opposite of Chaos. It implies the deep interconnectedness of all things. It conveys awe for the intricate and subtle way in which the universe is put together.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

Way, Universe

“In chaos, there is fertility.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“Part of her revolted against the insanity of the rules. Part of her was grateful. In a world of chaos, any guidelines helped. And she knew that each day she remained alive,. One plus one plus one. The Devil's arithmetic…”

Jane Yolen (1939) American speculative fiction and children's writer

World, Help, Parting

“how can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites?”

Amy Tan (1952) American novelist

World

“I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos-especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom… Rather than starting inside, I start outside and reach the mental through the physical.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Freedom

“The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Feeling, Sense

“Real love is always chaotic. You lose control; you lose perspective. You lose the ability to protect yourself. The greater the love, the greater the chaos. It’s a given and that’s the secret.”

Jonathan Carroll book White Apples

Source: White Apples

Love, Secret

“I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,
Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend…”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

Night

“Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us.”

Steven Erikson book Midnight Tides

Source: Midnight Tides (2004)

“Writing, then, was a substitute for myself: if you don't love me, love my writing & love me for my writing. It is also much more: a way of ordering and reordering the chaos of experience.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Love, Way

“Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos, we see despite all the chaos.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Art, Help

“It will take time to restore chaos”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Time

“You invite things to happen. You open the door. You inhale. And if you inhale the chaos, you give the chaos, the chaos gives back.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Source: You Shall Know Our Velocity!

“A great deal of the chaos in the world occurs because people don't appreciate themselves.”

Chögyam Trungpa book Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

Source: Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

People, World

“I wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos that is life, pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality.”

Rabih Alameddine book Koolaids: The Art of War

Source: Koolaids: The Art of War

Life, Reality

“We choose to believe in Ma'at. We create order out of chaos, beauty out of ugly randomness. That's what Egypt is all about.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Beauty

“It is in the turmoil of chaos that we discover what, if anything, we are.”

Orson Scott Card book Shadow of the Hegemon

Source: Shadow of the Hegemon

“I cannot have chaos erupting around me until I am prepared for it. I am a collector. I am an observer. I don't participate. My resources, and my standing, must be secure before I can allow the uncertainty of war to crash down upon us.”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

War

“With the breakdown of the Medieval system, the gods of Chaos, Lunacy, and Bad Taste gained ascendancy.”

John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces

Source: A Confederacy of Dunces (1980, posthumous), Ch. 2, opening line

God

“Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Reality

“I for one like chaos. Chaos looks good on me.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

“Freedom is just chaos with better lighting”

Alan Dean Foster (1946) American fiction writer

Source: To the Vanishing Point

Freedom, Light

“That's exactly why nature always trumps gardens. Gardens are just reality pruned of chaos. What doesn't work you rip out.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Source: North of Beautiful

Nature, Reality

“Indecision is the source of chaos."

- Paris Skyle(Allies of the Night)”

Darren Shan Allies of the Night

Source: Allies of the Night

Indecision, Night

“Without access to true chaos, we'll never have true peace. Unless everything can get worse, it won't get any better.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Peace

“I had this wild thought that he was the only one in all this chaos who was just like me, and that was comforting and profound all at once.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

“[Horror fiction] shows us that the control we believe we have is purely illusory, and that every moment we teeter on chaos and oblivion.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

“You have to rise above the squabbling and chaos, and keep believing. You have to always keep your goals in mind.” -Hera, goddess of marriage”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Marriage

“This is insane," I said blankly. "I'm the instrument of an all-powerful primordial deity's wave of chaos and destruction."

"That's kind of extreme" said Dante jovially. "It's not like you work for Google or anything.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Dreams

“Often I'd take out my magnifying glass and stare into the chaos that was her face.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

“Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Memory, Passion

“I believe the common denominator of the Universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility and murder.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

"Grizzly Man" (2006)

Hostility, Universe

“Let us advance on Chaos and the Dark”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Self-Reliance

“Chaos is what we've lost touch with. This is why it is given a bad name. It is feared by the dominant archetype of our world, which is Ego, which clenches because its existence is defined in terms of control.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

World, Fear

“By the end of that first day, what I'd made was a big mess. But if chaos is a necessary step in the organization of one's universe, that I was well on my way.”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped

Way, Universe

“Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and the invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things, to which man must be obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Pleasure, World, Peace, Law

“It is a true, incorruptible purism... It is a religion that cannot be argued about. It has its saints, its disciples and its heretics. Modern life with its speed and tumult, dynamic and full of contrasts, beats furiously against this light, luminous, delicate structure, which emerges coldly from the chaos. Do not touch it, it is an accomplished fact. It had to be, it is there to stay.”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

quote, 1945
Quote, 1945 of Fernand Leger, in Abstract Painting, Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co., 1964, p. 33
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1940's

Life, Religion, Quotes, Light

“How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? How do you keep a wave upon the sand?' These words from The Sound of Music bring out the elusive nature of chaos. In life, most things cannot be captured for long. It is like trying to encapsulate time itself.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. vii.

Life, Music, Nature, Time

“We've been conditioned to avoid silence at all costs lest we be confronted with our own inner chaos.”

Skye Jethani

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

Silence

“"Such a perilous concentration of demons would create chaos all around it."
"War gathers on these borders," said Ista. "A greater concentration of chaos I can hardly imagine."”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

Source: World of the Five Gods series, Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 281

War, Imagination

“Let us watch this de Kooning [leading Abstract-Expressionist painter in New York] with his prematurely white hair making his great sleepwalker's movements, as though he was waiting in a dream to open bays of Biscay, to explode islands like pieces of orange or Parma violets, to tear continents from a cerulean blue split by oceans of Naples yellow.... if by good or by ill fortune, in the middle of this Dionysian demiurg the image of 'The Eternal Feminine should appear.. the least that might have happened to her would be that she should emerge (from all this chaos) wearing nothing but a little make-up.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Dali's comment on the 'Woman-paintings', c. 1960 [a.o. Woman-III ] of the American abstract-expressionist painter Willem de Kooning: (MPC 75); as cited in Dali and Me, Catherine Millet, (translated by Trista Selous), Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 8001 Zurich Switzerland, p. 135
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1951 - 1960

Dreams, Tear, Appearance, Waiting

“There can be only one way out of the chaos, in the social domain as in all others: the restoration of intellectuality, which would result in the formation once more of an elect.”

René Guénon (1886–1951) French metaphysician

Source: The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), p. 99

Way

“[Describing her visit to a slaughter facility in Pennsylvania] The floor was very slippery and the walls and everything else were covered with blood. Dried blood had formed a crust on the chains. I surely didn't want to fall down in all that blood and guts. The workers wore non-slip boots, yellow aprons, and helmets. It was a scene of controlled, mechanized chaos.”

Sue Coe (1951) British artist

Dead Meat, as quoted in A Plea for the Animals by Matthieu Ricard (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2016), p. 78 https://books.google.it/books?id=bTLuDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA78.

“It is not enough to accept a concept of order and live by it; that is cowardice, and such cowardice cannot result from freedom. Chaos must be faced. Real order must be preceded by a descent into chaos.”

Colin Wilson book The Outsider

Source: The Outsider (1956), Chapter Three, The Romantic Outsider

Freedom

“I always like to write three versions of a book. The first is always agony and chaos; no one could understand it. With the second you get the shape, it's more or less all right. I write both of those in longhand. The third draft I type out with two fingers: it's for refining of meaning, additions and subtractions. I think my novels usually begin with characters; you have them floating about in your head and it may be years before they get together in a situation. Characters interest me more than situations.”

Patrick White (1912–1990) English-born Australian writer

In The Making (1970)

Books, Understanding, Thinking

“Paranoia speaks to a deeper drive than fear. Paranoia is a defiant charge to a cold, unfeeling cosmos: “Hear me! I exist! I’m important!” Because after all, if someone is actually orchestrating the chaos of the universe against you personally, then you do matter. When no one seems to care anymore, at least “enemies” give you the comforting illusion that you count.”

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 1 “Operation: Cooperation!” (p. 31)

Fear, Universe, Personality

“Naturally, when considering the whole issue of who will live in Europe, one could argue that this problem will be solved by successful integration. The reality, however, is that we’re not aware of any examples of successful integration… In countering arguments for successful integration, we must also point out that if people with diverging goals find themselves in the same system or country, it won’t lead to integration, but to chaos. It’s obvious that the culture of migrants contrasts dramatically with European culture. Opposing ideologies and values cannot be simultaneously upheld, as they are mutually exclusive. To give you the most obvious example, the European people think it desirable for men and women to be equal, while for the Muslim community this idea is unacceptable, as in their culture the relationship between men and women is seen in terms of a hierarchical order. These two concepts cannot be upheld at the same time. It’s only a question of time before one or the other prevails. Of course one could also argue that communities coming to us from different cultures can be re-educated. But we must see – and Bishop Tőkés also spoke about this – that now the Muslim communities coming to Europe see their own culture, their own faith, their own lifestyles and their own principles as stronger and more valuable than ours. So, whether we like it or not, in terms of respect for life, optimism, commitment, the subordination of individual interests and ideals, today Muslim communities are stronger than Christian communities. Why would anyone want to adopt a culture that appears to be weaker than their own strong culture? They won’t, and they never will! Therefore re-education and integration based on re-education cannot succeed.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

Life, Women, Men, People

“"You must tell them that there must be a new union or there will be chaos," he [Shevardnadze] implored me. That evening, when I hosted republic leaders for dinner — a mixed group of presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers — I saw around the table and in the conversation a microcosm of the post-coup Soviet Union’s potential — and its problems. Whatever euphoria that they felt with their post-putsch independence declarations had given way to a marked degree of realism. "Independence sounds nice, but we have to live, and we have to be practical," observed the Prime Minister of Moldova, Valeriu Muravsky. That was the persistent theme that I heard from every one of the republic leaders, with the sole exception of the Georgian Prime Minister, Vissarion Gugushvili, though even he spoke of the need for economic cooperation once Georgian independence was recognized internationally.”

James Baker (1930) Former U.S. Secretary of State

The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace 1989-1992 (1995) by James Addison Baker, p. 531
1995

Way, Problem

“.. into this chaos [after the Bolshevik' revolution] came suprematism extolling the square [referring to the Squares of Malevich] as the very source of all creative expression, and then came communism and extolled work as the true source of man's heartbeat.”

El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect

Quote, 1920; in 'Suprematism in World Reconstruction,', El Lissitzky; as cited by Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers in El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, transl. Helene Aldwinckle and Mary Whittall (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1968), p. 327
1915 - 1925

Communication

“In the thousands of articles that made up the technical literature of chaos, few were cited more often than "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow." For years, no single object would inspire more illustrations, even motion pictures, than the mysterious curve depicted at the end, the double spiral that became known as the Lorenz attractor.”

James Gleick book Chaos: Making a New Science

Source: Chaos: Making a New Science, 1987, p. 52; as cited in: Joshua Keating, in " Can Chaos theory teach us anything about Foreign Policy http://ideas.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/23/can_chaos_theory_teach_us_anything_about_international_relations", at ideas.foreignpolicy.com, May 23rd 2013.

Literature

“[another part / version of Whistler's lecture:]
Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artist is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may be beautiful—as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he bring forth from chaos glorious harmony. To say to the painter, that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player, that he may sit on the piano. That Nature is always right, is an assertion, artistically, as untrue, as it is one whose truth is universally taken for granted. Nature is very rarely right, to such an extent even, that it might almost be said that Nature is usually wrong: that is to say, the condition of things that shall bring about the perfection of harmony worthy a picture is rare, and not common at all.”

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) American-born, British-based artist

1870 - 1903, his lecture 'Ten O'Clock' (1885)
Source: James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), Weinberg, H. Barbara, 'Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History'. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/whis/hd_whis.htm (April 2010)

Truth, Beauty, Music, Nature

“True civilization consists precisely of conventions, rituals, and modes of oblique communication whereby the chaos within and the void without may be expressed and contained within the harmonious consensus of shared social objectivity, thus maintaining our bubble of crafted reality, the necessary illusion.”

Norman Spinrad book The Void Captain's Tale

Source: The Void Captain's Tale (1983), Chapter 9 (p. 107)

Communication, Reality

“I adopt Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, therefore, subject to the production of proof that physiological species may be produced by selective breeding; just as a physical philosopher may accept the undulatory theory of light, subject to the proof of the existence of the hypothetical ether; or as the chemist adopts the atomic theory, subject to the proof of the existence of atoms; and for exactly the same reasons, namely, that it has an immense amount of primâ facie probability: that it is the only means at present within reach of reducing the chaos of observed facts to order; and lastly, that it is the most powerful instrument of investigation which has been presented to naturalists since the invention of the natural system of classification and the commencement of the systematic study of embryology.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

Source: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 128

Nature, Study, Light

“Not chaos-like together crush'd and bruis'd,
But as the world, harmoniously confus'd,
Where order in variety we see,
And where, though all things differ, all agree.”

Alexander Pope book Windsor Forest

Source: Windsor Forest (1713), Line 13.

World

“In Somalia, we know exactly what they had to gain because they told us. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell, described this as the best public relations operation of the Pentagon that he could imagine. His picture, which I think is plausible, is that there was a problem about raising the Pentagon budget, and they needed something that would be, look like a kind of a cakewalk, which would give a lot of prestige to the Pentagon. Somalia looked easy. Let's look back at the background. For years, the United States had supported a really brutal dictator, who had just devastated the country, and was finally kicked out. After he's kicked out, it was 1990, the country sank into total chaos and disaster, with starvation and warfare and all kind of horrible misery. The United States refused to, certainly to pay reparations, but even to look. By the middle of 1992, it was beginning to ease. The fighting was dying down, food supplies were beginning to get in, the Red Cross was getting in, roughly 80% of their supplies they said. There was a harvest on the way. It looked like it was finally sort of settling down. At that point, all of a sudden, George Bush announced that he had been watching these heartbreaking pictures on television, on Thanksgiving, and we had to do something, we had to send in humanitarian aid. The Marines landed, in a landing which was so comical, that even the media couldn't keep a straight face. Take a look at the reports of the landing of the Marines, it must've been the first week of December 1992. They had planned a night, there was nothing that was going on, but they planned a night landing, so you could show off all the fancy new night vision equipment and so on. Of course they had called the television stations, because what's the point of a PR operation for the Pentagon if there's no one to look for it. So the television stations were all there, with their bright lights and that sort of thing, and as the Marines were coming ashore they were blinded by the television light. So they had to send people out to get the cameramen to turn off the lights, so they could land with their fancy new equipment. As I say, even the media could not keep a straight face on this one, and they reported it pretty accurately. Also reported the PR aspect. Well the idea was, you could get some nice shots of Marine colonels handing out peanut butter sandwiches to starving refugees, and that'd all look great. And so it looked for a couple of weeks, until things started to get unpleasant. As things started to get unpleasant, the United States responded with what's called the Powell Doctrine. The United States has an unusual military doctrine, it's one of the reasons why the U. S. is generally disqualified from peace keeping operations that involve civilians, again, this has to do with sovereignty. U. S. military doctrine is that U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat. That's not true for other countries. So countries like, say, Canada, the Fiji Islands, Pakistan, Norway, their soldiers are coming under threat all the time. The peace keepers in southern Lebanon for example, are being attacked by Israeli soldiers all the time, and have suffered plenty of casualties, and they don't like it. But U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat, so when Somali teenagers started shaking fists at them, and more, they came back with massive fire power, and that led to a massacre. According to the U. S., I don't know the actual numbers, but according to U. S. government, about 7 to 10 thousand Somali civilians were killed before this was over. There's a close analysis of all of this by Alex de Waal, who's one of the world's leading specialists on African famine and relief, altogether academic specialist. His estimate is that the number of people saved by the intervention and the number killed by the intervention was approximately in the same ballpark. That's Somalia. That's what's given as a stellar example of the humanitarian intervention.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Responding to the question, "what did the United States have to gain by intervening in Somalia?", regarding Operation Provide Relief/Operation Restore Hope/Battle of Mogadishu.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, Sovereignty and World Order, 1999

People, World, Peace, Food