Quotes about complexity
page 15

“[A] party requires party spirit, and party spirit is the product of a very complex sentiment, which is slow to grow and hard to sustain, and which thrives best where it can be nourished by historic memories.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

‘The English Extreme Left’, The Spectator (12 August 1876), p. 8

Memory

“[...] engine is the material expression of any indefinite function of any degree of generality and complexity.”

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) English mathematician, considered the first computer programmer

As quoted by Rosen, Kenneth H. (2013). Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 9780071315012. p.29.

“We are living in such a complex world, [and] we believed that it is necessary for Chinese to be. The important thing is that they can't.”

Hu Xijin (1960) Chinese journalist

我们就生活在这样一个复杂的世界中，我们认为中国人没必要因为给那些西方精英讲不通而懊恼。重要的是，他们拿新疆问题发难起不了什么实际作用，这些攻击是很热闹，但又很虚无的一堆泡沫。

社评：西媒不断炒作“新疆文件”意欲何为？

Global Times

2019-11-26

https://opinion.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnKo0mf
Quote, 2010s

World

“Human beings face ever more complex and urgent problems, and their effectiveness in dealing with these problems is a matter that is critical to the stability and continued progress of society”

Douglas Engelbart (1925–2013) American engineer and inventor

Source: Program On Human Effectiveness, 1996, https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/library/extra4/sloan/mousesite/Archive/Post68/PrHumanEffectiveness.html

Problem

“Sciences are like powerful drugs, which suit the strong and exhaust the weak. Likewise, complex sciences enrich a vigorous mind, and keep it off evil, but exhaust the mediocre mind.”

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

ibid

Strong, Science, Evil

“I often use the same harmonies as pop music because the complexity of what I do is elsewhere.”

Ennio Morricone (1928–2020) Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor

Music

“Relationships can be so complex, especially during a pandemic.”

Chris Carmack (1980) American actor and model

Chris Carmack and Wife Erin Slaver Continue Making Beautiful Music Together — Despite a Pandemic https://people.com/music/chris-carmack-wife-erin-slaver-life-on-eris-release-new-music/ (December 18, 2020)

“I do not underestimate the obstacles which the Congress will face in enacting such legislation. No one will be satisfied. Everyone will have his own approach, his own bill, his own reduction. A high order of restraint and determination will be required if the possible is not to wait on the perfect. But a nation capable of marshaling these qualities in any dramatic threat to its security is surely capable, as a great free society, of meeting a slower and more complex threat to our economic vitality. This Nation can afford to reduce taxes, we can afford a temporary deficit, but we cannot afford to do nothing. For on the strength of our free economy rests the hope of all free nations. We shall not fail that hope, for free men and free nations must prosper and they must prevail.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Men, Hope, Waiting, Perfection

“An all-too-common reaction to something like racism is to hate the act so much you dismiss the person. But in [American History X] you're forced to confront the complexity of the character and his tragedy - and the fact, which people don't want to recognise, that someone like him can come out of a normal middle-class home.”

Edward Norton (1969) american actor

" Edward Norton is up for an Oscar. But who is he? https://web.archive.org/web/20190324033705/https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/mar/19/awardsandprizes" (archived), theguardian.com, 19 March 1999.

Hate, People, Home, History

“I need not tell you that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

The Marshall Plan Speech (1947)

People, World, Making love, Peace

“As technology progresses and globalization grows more pervasive, the world-system becomes ever more complex and more tightly coupled, so that a catastrophic breakdown has to be expected sooner or later.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

Source: Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How (2015), p. 49

World

“One of the most important axioms is, that as the quantity of any commodity, for instance, plain food, which a man has to consume, increases, so the utility or benefit derived from the last portion used decreases in degree. The decrease in enjoyment between the beginning and the end of a meal may be taken as an example. And I assume that on an average, the ratio of utility is some continuous mathematical function of the quantity of commodity. This law of utility has, in fact, always been assumed by political economists under the more complex form and name of the Law of Supply and Demand. But once fairly stated in its simple form, it opens up the whole of the subject.”

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) English economist and logician

Letter to his brother (1 June 1860), published in Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons (1886), edited by Harriet A. Jevons, his wife, p. 151. https://archive.org/details/cu31924074297254/page/n168/mode/1up

Law, Food, Mathematics

“Suffice it to say that from the pure "gun" side of it, the Five-seveN is a fascinating design that deserves a place in modern gun collections, and which has written a fascinating and complex chapter in the evolution of modern handguns.”

Massad Ayoob (1948) American firearms and self-defence instructor

Defensive Handguns - The FN Five-seveN (2010)

“The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Wisdom, Problem

“I suggest that scientific knowledge, though logically more articulate and far more complex, is of this sort. The books and teachers from whom it is acquired present concrete examples together with a multitude of theoretical generalizations. Both are essential carriers of knowledge, and it is therefore Pickwickian to seek a methodological criterion that supposes the scientist can specify in advance whether each imaginable instance fits or would falsify his theory.”

Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) American historian, physicist and philosopher

"Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?", Criticism and the growth of knowledge edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (1970)

Books, Imagination, Knowledge, Teachers

“Arrogance complicates words, because it believes that intelligence is only for the chosen few. Elegance transforms complex thoughts into something that everyone can understand.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), About Elegance

Intelligence, Understanding

“We know who we are. People cling to these firm ideas [about gender] because it makes people feel safe. But if we could just celebrate all the wonderful complexities of people, the world would be such a better place.”

Ellen Page (1987) Canadian actress

Elliot Page Is Ready for This Moment https://time.com/5947032/elliot-page/, 16 March 2021 <br class="br">2021

People, World, Feeling, Idea

“Preventing and fighting corruption and waste is an important, urgent and long-term task of extreme difficulty and complexity. To enhance the efficiency of the work, timely detection, investigation and handling of offences plays a decisive role.”

Trần Đại Quang (1956–2018) 8th President of Vietnam

"Re-elected President Tran Dai Quang gives media interview" in Nhân Dân https://en.nhandan.vn/politics/domestic/item/4492502-re-elected-president-tran-dai-quang-gives-media-interview.html (26 July 2016)

Decision, Time, Fight

“There are four billion people in the world. A world that has grown so complex and uncaring with systems and brutalization of individuals because of the inertia produced by those systems’ perpetuation of self, that merely to live is to be assaulted daily by circumstances.”

Harlan Ellison book Shatterday

The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge (1978), in Terry Carr (ed.), The Year's Finest Fantasy: Volume 2, p. 83 (originally published in Analog, August 1978)

People, World

“The prison industrial complex is much more than the sum of all the jails and prisons in this country. It is a set of symbiotic relationships among correctional communities, transnational corporations, media conglomerates, guards' unions, and legislative and court agendas.”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Six

Communication, Country

“Growing up as a woman in Korea was tough, but was also a gift at the same time. If I were a Korean man, or a white male in the States, I would not have been able to make this film. You got to experience complex human emotions because you were going through a lot of things.”

Kim Bora (1981) South Korean director

As quoted in "Coming of Age in Korea: Kim Bora Discusses "House of Hummingbird"" in Mubi (27 April 2019) https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/coming-of-age-in-korea-kim-bora-discusses-house-of-hummingbird

Time

“The chief difficulty of the spiritual life is to maintain a simple, qualitative, heavenly position in a complex, quantitative, earthly setting.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2016, La conscience de l’Absolu, Hozhoni, 20, 978-2-37241-020-5]
Spiritual life, Outline

Life

“Human beings are of course unique. They have, perched between their ears, the most complicated biological machine on the planet. But complexity is not everything, and it is not the goal of evolution. Every species on the planet is unique. Uniqueness is a commodity in oversupply.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 2 “Species” (p. 25)

“The world is a complex place. In our struggles to simplify and understand, we often identify some bugbear and then make it responsible for all evils.”

Stephen Jay Gould book An Urchin in the Storm

Source: An Urchin in the Storm (1987) "Utopia, Limited", p. 218

World, Understanding, Evil

“Just as no one is quite so stupid as to nullify biology completely, so too does no one deny some flexibility in the translation of genes into complex behaviors.”

Stephen Jay Gould book An Urchin in the Storm

Source: An Urchin in the Storm (1987) "Nurturing Nature", p. 152

Stupidity, Behavior

“Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms such as you have named...but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Friday

Source: Friday (1982), Chapter 23 (p. 242)

Loss, Personality

“Let us take off our life’s complex covering of rapacity and greed, since it is ugly in God’s sight and condemned, and let us put on, as the elect of God, compassion, humility, modesty and meekness.”

Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) Monk and archbishop

Source: Predestination? On Why God Made Those Who Would Perish

Life, God

“Our communities must face daily not a few difficulties of an economic order; above all, however, they must be able to react to an inferiority complex in the face of an oppressive Muslim majority, which makes them feel oppressed and can make them think that they are the "infidels."”

Martin Kmetec (1956) Slovenian Catholic archbishop

Source: Benedict XVI's Visit to Turkey: the Context https://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=3827 (November 2006)

Feeling, Communication, Thinking

“Critiques of the prison industrial complex undertaken by abolitionist activists and scholars are very much linked to critiques of the global persistence of racism. Antiracist and other social justice movements are incomplete with attention to the politics of imprisonment.”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Five

Justice

“I would love to write more children’s books. I think children can understand complex things so long as you explain them in words they can wrap themselves around.”

Padma Lakshmi (1970) Indian-born American author, actress, model, television host and executive producer

Source: "What I’ve Learned: Padma Lakshmi" in Esquire https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a37862708/padma-lakshmi-what-ive-learned-interview-2021/ (2 November 2021)

Love, Children, Books, Understanding

“The notion of a prison industrial complex insists on understandings of the punishment process that take into account economic and political structures and ideologies, rather than focusing myopically on the individual criminal conduct and efforts to "curb crime."”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Five

Understanding, Effort

“Life, we now know, is nothing but a vast array of coordinated chemical reactions. The “secret” to that coordination is the breathtakingly complex set of instructions inscribed—again, chemically—in our DNA.”

James D. Watson (1928) American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist.

Coda: Our Genes and Our Future (p. 430)
Source: DNA: The Story of the Genetic Revolution (2003/2017)

Life, Secret

“Our demand for restraint in foreign policy must be stronger than defense contractor lobbyists. Our demand for criminal justice reform must be stronger than the prison-industrial complex.”

Ro Khanna (1976) U.S. Representative from California

Source: Twitter post https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/1078674237311860736 (28 December 2018)

Justice

“We support the complex approach that has been initiated in connection with sustainable energy for all, sustainable consumption and production, the elimination of hunger, and ensuring urban infrastructure development.”

Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine

Source: "Speech at the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly" https://undocs.org/en/A/67/PV.9 (26 September 2012)

Hunger, Support

“My family history is made of migration; it’s something that’s part of my own complexity.”

Mati Diop (1982) French actress and film director

Source: On her family background that includes an immigrant parent in “Atlantics director Mati Diop: ‘As a mixed-race girl, there’s a visible and invisible side of you'” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/nov/09/atlantics-director-mati-diop-as-a-mixed-race-girl-theres-always-a-visible-and-invisible-side-of-you in The Guardian (2019 Nov 9)

Family, History, Parting

“Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Misattributed

“When self-willed microunits combine to form and sustain a durable macrounit, certain freedoms of action are curtailed.
This is the basic process of Organization.
The more numerous and erratic the microunits, the more complex must be the structure and function of the macrounit—hence the more pervasive and restricting the details of Organization.”

Jack Vance (1916–2013) American mystery and speculative fiction writer

Dodkin’s Job (p. 7)
Short fiction, Future Tense (1964)

Freedom

“‘A diffusion or migration of a culturally complex ‘Indo-Aryan‘ people into South Asia is not described by the archaeological record.‘”

Jim G. Shaffer (1944) American archaeologist

Source: Shaffer (1999:245), quoted in The Languages of Harappa. Witzel, Michael. Feb. 17, 2000.

People

“Breathing is really a very complex activity. It does not only consist of taking in air, absorbing oxygen from it and letting it out again as carbonic acid gas! The breathing has a tremendous effect on the character, determining the mood, courage, strength of purpose, health and inspiration from day to day.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter XV The Essential Science of Breathing

Health, Mood, Courage

“I fundamentally believe that disinformation becomes so easy to generate, because complexity overwhelms knowledge, that it's in people's interests, if you will, over the next decade, to build disinformation-generating systems. This is true for corporations, for marketing, for governments, and so forth."”

Eric Schmidt (1955) software engineer, businessman

Source: Eric Schmidt in dialogue with Julian Assange, June 2011 c.f When Google Met Wikileaks, p. 174

People, Knowledge

“I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. With the laugh comes the tears and in developing motion pictures or television shows, you must combine all the facts of life — drama, pathos and humor.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

Source: Year unknown, published in 2004, How to Be Like Walt : Capturing the Magic Every Day of Your Life (2004), Ch. 1 : It All Started with a Boy, p. 16

Life, Tear

“Research. Trial strategy. Debate. As a lawyer, these are the complex areas in which you thrive. But when it comes to building a sustainable business, your education—and experience—can’t guarantee your success.”

Reza Torkzadeh Author and Lawyer

The Lawyer As CEO: Stay Competitive, Attract Better Talent, and Get Your Clients Results (While Building the Law Firm of the Future) (2022),

Education, Business, Success

“While we bicker day-to-day about this politician or that one, the true power players like the military industrial complex are doing things like creating A.I. that will control our future world. By keeping us preoccupied with nonsense, they can build our prison in peace & quiet.”

Lee Camp (1980) American comedian, writer, and activist

Twitter, https://twitter.com/LeeCamp/status/1282306040504164352 (12 July 2020)

World, Peace, Future

“To write something long, sophisticated, and coherent means, at least in part, to become more complex, articulate, and deeper in personality.”

Jordan Peterson book Beyond Order

Source: Books, Beyond Order (2021), p. 185

Parting, Personality

“The human mind is a world apart. Complex, mysterious and never fully known. For this reason, it will always intrigue the soul, body and another mind.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La mente umana è un mondo a parte. Complesso, misterioso e mai conosciuto completamente. Per questo motivo, intrigherà sempre l'anima, il corpo ed un'altra mente.
Source: prevale.net

World, Soul

“The primary duty of humanity is a complex and philosophical question that has been debated for centuries. Some people believe that our duty is to serve a higher power or divine purpose, while others argue that our duty is to promote the well-being and happiness of all individuals in society. Ultimately, the answer depends on one's personal beliefs and values. However, it can be said that the core of our duty as human beings is to strive for a better world, one that promotes compassion, empathy and respect for all living beings. It is our responsibility to work towards a society where everyone has access to the basic necessities of life, where we protect the environment, and where we strive to understand and appreciate the diversity of our fellow human beings.

¹”

Titon Rahmawan

Life, Happiness, People, World

“Developers are drawn to complexity like moths to a flame often with the same result.”

Neal Ford

“Complexity stimulates desire.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La complessità stimola il desiderio.
Source: prevale.net

“Complex challenges attract curious minds and free spirits. The impossible becomes a source of inspiration, opportunity, and possibility, transforming every mission, deemed impossible, into an invaluable growth experience.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Le sfide complesse attraggono menti curiose e spiriti liberi. L'impossibile diventa fonte di ispirazione, opportunità e possibilità, trasformando ogni missione, ritenuta impossibile, in un'inestimabile esperienza di crescita.
Source: prevale.net

Quotes about complexity page 15

Quotes about complexity
page 15