Quotes about complexity
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“[Speaking about the US military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy] The health of a democracy is directly dependent on hearing the voices of its individual citizens. Silence is destructive. What could mar our safety more than this restrictive policy that requires its citizens' silence? What could mar our safety more than this restrictive policy that quietly attacks its own citizens' very selfhood out of fear? What keeps us truly unsafe as a country on a day-to-day basis is our inability to look inside and experience ourselves as a multitude, as a complexity. And as sure as I'm standing here, things are not always black or white, but sometimes they can be both.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Acceptance speech for The Center Orange County's "Torch Bearer" Award, Santa Ana, California (5 June 2010) http://jennifer-beals.com/media/speeches/oc_gala.html.

Health, Fear, Democracy, Silence

“The general, and at the same time dynamic, type of analysis still remains an unwritten chapter of economic theory, the claims of innumerable “model-builders” notwithstanding… The … theoretical approach, based on the combination of the complexities of a general interdependent system with the simplifying assumptions of static analysis, constitutes the background of this investigation.”

Wassily Leontief (1906–1999) Russian economist

Source: Structure of American economy, 1919-1929, 1941, p. 33, as cited in: Drejer, Ina. " The Role of Technological Linkages in a Leontief Scheme-From Static Structures to Endogenous Evolution of Technical Coefficients http://www.druid.dk/uploads/tx_picturedb/dw1999-340.pdf." Preparado para: DRUID Winter Conference, Holte (enero 1999). 1998.

Time

“If we wanted to establish the reality of a social system as a complex of mutually dependent elements, why not begin by studying a system small enough so that we could, so to speak, see all the way around it, small enough so that all the relevant observations could be made in detail and at first hand?”

George C. Homans (1910–1989) American sociologist

The Human group, 1950

Way, Reality, Study, Dependency

“At first our pupil had merely sensations, now he has ideas; he could only feel, now he reasons. For from the comparison of many successive or simultaneous sensations and the judgment arrived at with regard to them, there springs a sort of mixed or complex sensation which I call an idea. The way in which ideas are formed gives a character to the human mind. The mind which derives its ideas from real relations is thorough; the mind which relies on apparent relations is superficial. He who sees relations as they are has an exact mind; he who fails to estimate them aright has an inaccurate mind; he who concocts imaginary relations, which have no real existence, is a madman; he who does not perceive any relation at all is an imbecile. Clever men are distinguished from others by their greater or less aptitude for the comparison of ideas and the discovery of relations between them. Simple ideas consist merely of sensations compared one with another. Simple sensations involve judgments, as do the complex sensations which I call simple ideas. In the sensation the judgment is purely passive; it affirms that I feel what I feel. In the percept or idea the judgment is active; it connects, compares, it discriminates between relations not perceived by the senses. That is the whole difference; but it is a great difference. Nature never deceives us; we deceive ourselves.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book Emile, or On Education

Emile, or On Education (1762), Book III

Men, Way, Feeling, Spring

“I never take offence at any genuine effort to wrest the truth or deduce a rational set of values from the confused phenomena of the external world. It never occurs to me to look for personal factors in the age-long battle for truth. I assume that all hands are really trying to achieve the same main object—the discovery of sound facts and the rejection of fallacies—and it strikes me as only a minor matter that different strivers may happen to see a different perspective now and then. And in matters of mere preference, as distinguished from those involving the question of truth versus fallacy, I do not see any ground whatever for acrimonious feeling. Knowing the capriciousness and complexity of the various biological and psychological factors determining likes, dislikes, interests, indifferences, and so on, one can only be astonished that any two persons have even approximately similar tastes. To resent another's different likes and interests is the summit of illogical absurdity. It is very easy to distinguish a sincere, impersonal difference of opinion and tastes from the arbitrary, ill-motivated, and irrational belittlement which springs from a hostile desire to push another down and which constitutes real offensiveness. I have no tolerance for such real offensiveness—but I greatly enjoy debating questions of truth and value with persons as sincere and devoid of malice as I am. Such debate is really a highly valuable—almost indispensable—ingredient of life; because it enables us to test our own opinions and amend them if we find them in any way erroneous or unjustified.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Robert E. Howard (7 November 1932), in Selected Letters 1932-1934 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 102
Non-Fiction, Letters

Life, Hostility, Truth, Age

“The allegations against Fidia cannot be true. The process for awarding Nobel prizes is so complex that it cannot be corrupted.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012) Italian neurologist

Rebutting allegations that the pharmaceutical company Fidia had paid for her to get her Nobel prize. Quoted in Obituary in The Guardian

“We would know far more about life’s complexities if we applied ourselves to the close study of its contradictions instead of wasting so much time on similarities and connections, which should anyway, be self-explanatory.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 15 (Vintage 2003)

Life, Study, Time

“Regarding social order, Fukuyama writes, "The systematic study of how order, and thus social capital, can emerge in spontaneous and decentralized fashion is one of the most important intellectual developments of the late twentieth century." He correctly attributes the modern origins of this argument to F. A. Hayek, whose pioneering contributions to cognitive science, the study of cultural evolution, and the dynamics of social change put him in the forefront of the most creative scholars of the 20th century. But Hayek's views about the "spontaneity" of social order remain controversial. In their extreme form, they imply that all deliberate efforts to manipulate social order — social engineering — are doomed to failure because the complex nature of our cultural heritage makes a complete understanding of the human condition impossible.
Hayek was certainly correct that we have, at best, a very imperfect understanding of the human landscape, but "spontaneous" it is not. What distinguishes human evolution from the Darwinian model is the intentionality of the players. The mechanism of variation in evolutionary theory (mutation) is not informed by beliefs about eventual consequences. In contrast, human evolution is guided by the perceptions of the players; their choices (decisions) are made in the light of the theories the actors have, which provide expectations about outcomes.”

Douglass C. North (1920–2015) American Economist

Douglass North in "Orders of the Day" in Reason (November 1999) http://reason.com/archives/1999/11/01/orders-of-the-day, a review of The Great Disruption : Human Nature and the Reconstruction of Social Order (1999) by Francis Fukuyama

Fashion, Failure, Understanding, Nature

“Facing the immense complexity of modern social and industrial conditions, there is need to use freely and unhesitatingly the collective power of all of us; and yet no exercise of collective power will ever avail if the average individual does not keep his or her sense of personal duty, initiative, and responsibility.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Foreword http://www.bartleby.com/55/100.html 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913) Context: Facing the immense complexity of modern social and industrial conditions, there is need to use freely and unhesitatingly the collective power of all of us; and yet no exercise of collective power will ever avail if the average individual does not keep his or her sense of personal duty, initiative, and responsibility. There is need to develop all the virtues that have the state for their sphere of action; but these virtues are as dust in a windy street unless back of them lie the strong and tender virtues of a family life based on the love of the one man for the one woman and on their joyous and fearless acceptance of their common obligation to the children that are theirs. There must be the keenest sense of duty, and with it must go the joy of living; there must be shame at the thought of shirking the hard work of the world, and at the same time delight in the many-sided beauty of life.

Exercises, Sense, Personality

“As we begin to understand complex systems, we begin to understand that we’re part of an ever-changing, interlocking, non-linear, kaleidoscopic world.”

W. Brian Arthur (1946) American economist

W. Brian Arthur in: Mitchell M. Waldrop (2004) Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos http://books.google.nl/books?id=VP9TWZtVvq8C&pg=PA333. p. 333

World, Understanding, Change, Parting

“Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos”

H.P. Lovecraft book From Beyond

"From Beyond" Written November 16, 1920, published June 1934 in The Fantasy Fan, 1
Fiction
Context: What do we know … of the world and the universe about us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have.

Idea, Nature, Sense

“We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law — no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2012, Sandy Hook Prayer Vigil (December 2012)
Context: Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children, all of them, safe from harm?
Can we claim, as a nation, that we’re all together there, letting them know they are loved and teaching them to love in return?
Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?
I’ve been reflecting on this the last few days, and if we’re honest with ourselves, the answer’s no. We’re not doing enough. And we will have to change. Since I’ve been president, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by mass shootings, fourth time we’ve hugged survivors, the fourth time we’ve consoled the families of victims.
And in between, there have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country, almost daily reports of victims, many of them children, in small towns and in big cities all across America, victims whose — much of the time their only fault was being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law — no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this.
If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that — then surely we have an obligation to try.

World, Law, Evil, Change

“It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Pt. I, ch. 2, sec. 2.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Context: Creativity is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact. It is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the universe conjunctively. It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity.

Nature

“It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself, and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve. If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great and complex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem in terms of its own pettiness. If I have a little mind and I think of God, the God of my thinking will be a little God, though I may clothe him with grandeur, beauty, wisdom, and all the rest of it.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Sixth Talk in New Delhi (31 October 1956) http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=570&chid=4889&w=%22It+seems+to+me+that+the+real+problem+is+the+mind+itself%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 561031, Vol. X, p. 155 1950s Context: It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself, and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve. If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great and complex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem in terms of its own pettiness. If I have a little mind and I think of God, the God of my thinking will be a little God, though I may clothe him with grandeur, beauty, wisdom, and all the rest of it. It is the same with the problem of existence, the problem of bread, the problem of love, the problem of sex, the problem of relationship, the problem of death. These are all enormous problems, and we approach them with a small mind; we try to resolve them with a mind that is very limited. Though it has extraordinary capacities and is capable of invention, of subtle, cunning thought, the mind is still petty. It may be able to quote Marx, or the Gita, or some other religious book, but it is still a small mind, and a small mind confronted with a complex problem can only translate that problem in terms of itself, and therefore the problem, the misery increases. So the question is: Can the mind that is small, petty, be transformed into something which is not bound by its own limitations?

Wisdom, God, Beauty, Problem

“A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

Byzantium http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1455/, st. 1 The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933) Context: The unpurged images of day recede; The Emperor’s drunken soldiery are abed; Night resonance recedes, night walkers’ song After great cathedral gong; A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains All that man is, All mere complexities, The fury and the mire of human veins.

“In our complex industrial civilization of today the peace of righteousness and justice, the only kind of peace worth having, is at least as necessary in the industrial world as it is among nations.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Nobel lecture (1910)
Context: In our complex industrial civilization of today the peace of righteousness and justice, the only kind of peace worth having, is at least as necessary in the industrial world as it is among nations. There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships.

World, Peace, Justice

“The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will and sentiment.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

The Mike Wallace Interview (1958)
Context: The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will and sentiment. Nonetheless, the human situation is so, and this is why I think that the Christian faith is right as against simple forms of secularism. That it believes that there is in man a radical freedom, and this freedom is creative but it is also destructive — and there's nothing that prevents this from being both creative and destructive. That's why history is not an answer to our problem, because history complicates, enlarges every problem of human existence.

World

“Whereas the personal unconscious consists for the most part of "complexes", the content of the collective unconscious is made up essentially of "archetypes".”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Source: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1934), p. 42-43
Context: Whereas the personal unconscious consists for the most part of "complexes", the content of the collective unconscious is made up essentially of "archetypes". The concept of the archetype, which is an indispensable correlate of the idea of the collective unconscious, indicates the existence of definite forms in the psyche which seem to be present always and everywhere. Mythological research calls them 'motifs'; in the psychology of primitives they correspond to Levy-Bruhl's concept of "representations collectives," and in the field of comparative religion they have been defined by Hubert and Mauss as 'categories of the imagination'... My thesis, then, is as follows: In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals.

Parting, Personality

“Two things alone remained to him in which he now put any trust: dogs and nature; an elk-hound and a rose bush. The world, in all its variety, life in all its complexity, had shrunk to that. Dogs and a bush were the whole of it.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando: A Biography (1928), Ch. 2
Context: At the age of thirty, or thereabouts, this young Nobleman had not only had every experience that life has to offer, but had seen the worthlessness of them all. Love and ambition, women and poets were all equally vain. Literature was a farce. The night after reading Greene's Visit to a Nobleman in the Country, he burnt in a great conflagration fifty-seven poetical works, only retaining 'The Oak Tree', which was his boyish dream and very short. Two things alone remained to him in which he now put any trust: dogs and nature; an elk-hound and a rose bush. The world, in all its variety, life in all its complexity, had shrunk to that. Dogs and a bush were the whole of it.

Life, World, Dogs, Nature

“We are all, always, the desire not to die. This desire is as immeasurable and varied as life's complexity, but at bottom this is what it is: To continue to be, to be more and more, to develop and to endure. All the force we have, all our energy and clearness of mind serve to intensify themselves in one way or another. We intensify ourselves with new impressions, new sensations, new ideas. We endeavour to take what we do not have and to add it to ourselves. Humanity is the desire for novelty founded upon the fear of death. That is what it is.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XIV
Context: What am I? I am the desire not to die. I have always been impelled — not that evening alone — by the need to construct the solid, powerful dream that I shall never leave again. We are all, always, the desire not to die. This desire is as immeasurable and varied as life's complexity, but at bottom this is what it is: To continue to be, to be more and more, to develop and to endure. All the force we have, all our energy and clearness of mind serve to intensify themselves in one way or another. We intensify ourselves with new impressions, new sensations, new ideas. We endeavour to take what we do not have and to add it to ourselves. Humanity is the desire for novelty founded upon the fear of death. That is what it is.

Life, Death, Fear, Way

“As complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning and meaningful statements lose precision.”

Lotfi A. Zadeh (1921–2017) Electrical engineer and computer scientist

“Pushing one’s limits beyond the current level permits difficult tasks to become less complex.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2006

“But when there’s a vacuum in our democracy, when we don’t vote, when we take our basic rights and freedoms for granted, when we turn away and stop paying attention and stop engaging and stop believing and look for the newest diversion, the electronic versions of bread and circuses, then other voices fill the void. A politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment takes hold. And demagogues promise simple fixes to complex problems. They promise to fight for the little guy even as they cater to the wealthiest and the most powerful. They promise to clean up corruption and then plunder away. They start undermining norms that ensure accountability, try to change the rules to entrench their power further. And they appeal to racial nationalism that’s barely veiled, if veiled at all.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2018, Speech at the University of Illinoise Speech (2018)

Fear, Guy, Democracy, Problem

“The political worshipers of routine, incapable of surveying the historical process in its complexity, in its internal clashes and contradictions, imagined to themselves that history was preparing the way for the Socialist order simultaneously and systematically on all sides, so that concentration of production and the development of a Communist morality in the producer and the consumer mature simultaneously with the electric plough and a parliamentary majority.”

Leon Trotsky book Terrorism and Communism

Source: Terrorism and Communism (1920), Ch. 1

Way, Imagination, History

“I am excited about this role in Savdhaan India. I have never been a part of a project like this in my career. Saundarya was a complex character to play and I cannot wait to see the audience reaction for my work on the show. I would define my character in Savdhaan India as the ‘mysterious girl.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

On her role in Savdhaan India mini crime thriller series https://dbpost.com/sukirti-kandpal-excited-about-her-role-in-special-crime-series-of-savdhaan-india/ On her shows

Girl, Waiting, Parting

“As an administrator, once an applicant met the minimum requirements, such as, education and experience; the attributes I sought the most included determination, persistence, and the unwavering pursuit to succeed. However, those personality traits were difficult to assess without a complex selection process.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1988

Education, Personality

“It should be noted first and foremost that any nation, any people with the great goal of building a free and just life of a just society in its country, is going through a difficult, thorny and complex path of development.”

Shavkat Mirziyoyev (1957) President of Uzbekistan (2016-present)

Interview with the Editor-in-Chief of the «Yangi Uzbekiston» https://thediplomaticinsight.com/interview-president-of-the-republic-of-uzbekistan-shavkat-mirziyoyev/ (19 August 2021)

Life, People, Country

“We depend on nature not only for our physical survival. We also need nature to show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. We got lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating–lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Chapter 7 Nature

World, Way, Home, Nature

“The complexity of the world is not revealed by its simplification in human mind.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

World

“Out of unmeasurable Complexities; one requires the ability to streamline and become Simple in Life…
In order to effectively and efficiently
address issues in our internal life
and ineluctably,
deal with
external forces that rip us open.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life

This quote waiting for review.

“Literature that hurts is often the one that best tells a complex truth.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: https://www.mundoclasico.com/articulo/45227/entrevista-intrapersonal-confrontada-omar-jerez-con-jose-baroja

Truth, Literature, Hurt

“Justice demands integrity. It’s to have a moral universe — not only know what is right or wrong but to put things in perspective, weigh things. Justice is different from violence and retribution; it requires complex accounting.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Justice, Universe

“God has given to every one of us more than fourteen billion cells and connections in our brain. Now why would God give us such a complex organ system unless He expects us to use it?”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big (1996), p. 154

God

“Welcome to the wonderful world of jealousy, he thought. For the price of admission, you get a splitting headache, a nearly irresistable urge to commit murder, and an inferiority complex. Yippee.”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

World, Jealousy

“Nature is orderly. That which appears to be chaotic in nature is only a more complex kind of order.”

Gary Snyder (1930) American poet

Nature, Appearance

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), Chapter VI: "Difficulties on Theory", page 189 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=207&itemID=F373&viewtype=image Source: The Origin of Species

Success

“I like to stretch my mind by reading and writing and watching educational TV shows like The Bachelor to learn the complex mating rituals of heterosexuals.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

Education, Learning, Reading

“Are you making fun of my hero complex?'

Yeah.”

Linda Howard (1950) American writer

Source: Mr. Perfect

“No one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and incomprehensible. Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Source: On the Gods and Other Essays

God, Science

“The machinery of the world is far too complex for the simplicity of men.”

Jorge Luis Borges Dreamtigers

Source: Dreamtigers

Men, World

“Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.”

Harvey Pekar (1939–2010) writer

Life

“What is the point of trying to put down on paper emotions that are too complex, too huge, too overwhelming to be confined by an alphabet?

Love isn't the only word that fails.

Hate does, too.”

Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller

Source: The Storyteller

Love, Hate

“When we become expert in something, our tastes grow more esoteric and complex.”

Malcolm Gladwell book Blink

Source: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious. To become oblivious in dreams was impossible now, at least till night-time; it was impossible to return to that music sung by carafe-women; and so one had to become oblivious in the dreams of life.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Pt. 1, ch. 2
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Life, Women, Dreams, Music

“Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

People, Effort

“Aye Oedipus, yir a complex fucker right enough”

Irvine Welsh book The Acid House

Source: The Acid House

“A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

World

“Complex problems do not demand complex solutions.”

Charles Allen Kollar

Solution-Focused Pastoral Counseling: An Effective Short-Term Approach for Getting People Back on Track

Problem

“Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.”

Michael Palin (1943) British comedian, actor, writer and television presenter

"Letter from London" (18 September 2003) http://palinstravels.co.uk/static-51?topic=1752&forum=12 Context: Contrary to what the politicians and religious leaders would like us to believe, the world won’t be made safer by creating barriers between people. Cries of “They’re evil, let’s get ‘em” or “The infidels must die” sound frightening, but they’re desperately empty of argument and understanding. They’re the rallying cries of prejudice, the call to arms of those who find it easier to hate than admit they might be not be right about everything. Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.

People, World, Hope, Future

“There was no solution, save that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insolvable: One must live in the needs of the day--that is, forget oneself.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Life, Question, Universe, Forgetting

“I have an inferiority complex, but it’s not a very good one.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“One of the things that we were trying to do with this show was the complexities of relationships and love. There is both passion and longing and a bittersweet quality to it that is a part of life.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Source: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride: An Invitation to the Wedding

Love, Life, Passion, Parting

“Down there between our legs, it's like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system. Who designed that?”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Source: Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

“… the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

“I'm for open-mindedness and tolerance. I'm against any form of fanaticism, fundamentalism or zealotry, and this certainty of 'We have the truth.' The truth is far too large and complex. Nobody has the truth.”

Philip Pullman (1946) English author

Truth

“Silence was not the absence of sound but was itself a sound that could be loud or soft, soothing or disturbing, complex or simple.”

Julius Lester (1939–2018) American author

Source: The Autobiography of God

Silence

“None of us truly knows what we'll do when the circumstances become so overwhelming and complex that we can't even tell right from wrong.”

Lurlene McDaniel (1944) American writer

Source: Breathless

“Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.”

Pete Seeger (1919–2014) American folk singer

Fools

“The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

Life, Truth, Way

“The brain weighs only three pounds, yet it is the most complex object in the solar system.”

Michio Kaku (1947) American theoretical physicist, futurist and author

Source: The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind

“The complexity embedded in the different levels of meaning that go along with the words "I love you" ought to be a whole mindfuck of a video game”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Love, Game

“People were just too complex to reduce to simple personality traits.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

People, Personality

“Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“I'd hate to find out that the universe really wasn't conspiring against me. It would jerk the rug out from under my persecution complex.”

Jim Butcher book Grave Peril

Source: Grave Peril

Hate, Jerk, Universe

“Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain's simulation of the world becomes so complex that it must include a model of itself.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene

World

“They think that intelligence is about noticing things are relevant (detecting patterns); in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant (avoiding false patterns)”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

World, Intelligence, Thinking, Falseness

“Anyone who has lived through it, or those who are now living through it, knows that caring about an addict is as complex and fraught and debilitating as addiction itself.”

David Sheff Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

Source: Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

“When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

The Tao of Who?
Source: The Tao of Pooh (1982)

Life, Secret, Way

“Human beings, viewed as behaving systems, are quite simple. The apparent complexity of our behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which we find ourselves.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Source: 1960s-1970s, The Sciences of the Artificial, 1969, p. 53.

Behavior, Time

“Complex things are easy to do. Simplicity's the real challenge.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“Actually, orcas aren't quite as complex as scientists imagine. Most killer whales are just four tons of doofus dressed up like a police car.”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Source: Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

Cars, Imagination

“Someone, I was beginning to suspect, had a bit of a gangster complex.
It wasn't really very hard to figure out who. I mean, I was guessing it wasn't Christopher's aunt Jackie.”

Meg Cabot book Being Nikki

Source: Being Nikki

“The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Love, Art, Science

“A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed cormulas about good and evil.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)

Life, Sense, Evil

“Every poem holds the unspeakable inside it. The unsayable… The thing that you can't really say because it's too complicated. It's too complex for us. Every poem has that silence deep in the center of it.”

Marie Howe (1950) American writer

Silence

“Sometime reality is too complex. Stories give it form.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

Reality

“The world is not that black and white, Rachel. There are no moral absolutes. It is complex.”

Emily Giffin Something Borrowed

Source: Something Borrowed

World

“I don't see why human people make such a heavy trip out of sex. It isn't anything complex, it is simply the best thing in life, even better than food.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Friday

Source: Friday

Life, People, Food, Sex

“I think I gave Alec a complex about what kind of fighter he was, just because he wanted to live.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Thinking

“Everyone is a little bitter. We're born bitter. The personality itself is really just a very complex defense mechanism. A reaction to the first time someone said, "No you can't.”

Marc Maron (1963) Comedian

Source: Attempting Normal

Time, Personality

“Books may look like nothing more than words on a page, but they are actually an infinitely complex imaginotransference technology that translates odd, inky squiggles into pictures inside your head.”

Jasper Fforde book The Well of Lost Plots

Source: The Well of Lost Plots

Books

“Ah, art! Ah, life! The pendulum swinging back and forth, from complex to simple, again to complex. From romantic to realistic, back to romantic.”

Ray Bradbury book The October Country

Source: The October Country

Life, Art

“You're screening your calls?"
"Why not? It saves me from conversations with idiots."
"Is that an insult?" His voice dropped into a deep growl.
"You're not an idiot," I told him. "You're just a deadly psychopath with a god complex.(…)”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

God

“The complexities of cause and effect defy analysis.”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“In New York, people are unhappy on purpose, because unhappiness makes them seem more complex; in Washington DC it just sort of works out that way.”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

People, Way

“Baloney is just salami with an inferiority complex.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

“When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large, scientific method in most cases fails us. One need only think of the weather, in which case prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible. Nevertheless no one doubts that we are confronted with a causal connection whose causal components are in the main known to us.
Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s, Science and Religion (1941)

Nature, Thinking, Weather

“The Bishop goes on to the human eye, asking rhetorically, and with the implication that there is no answer, 'How could an organ so complex evolve?' This is not an argument, it is simply an affirmation of incredulity.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Source: The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design

“As the man said, for every complex problem there’s a simple solution, and it’s wrong.”

Umberto Eco book Foucault's Pendulum

Source: Foucault's Pendulum

Problem

“This was her life. Not the life she had once dreamed of, not a life her younger self would ever have imagined or desired, but the life she was living, with all its complexities. This was her life, built with care and attention, and it was good.”

Kim Edwards book The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Source: The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Life, Dreams, Imagination

“Everyone was a rose but even more complex than a mere flower. Everyone was made up of infinitely layered petals. And everyone had something indescribably precious at the heart of their being.
No one was shallow. Not really.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: A Secret Affair

Flowers, Heart

“He was a simple man who had no inferiority complex about his lack of education, and even more amazing no superiority complex because he had succeeded despite that lack.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Education

“It would disappear forever from her memory of Lydia, the way memories of a lost loved one always smooth and simplify themselves, shedding complexities like scales.”

Celeste Ng book Everything I Never Told You: A Novel

Source: Everything I Never Told You

Love, Way, Memory

“So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is compromised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

People, Communication

“What we think of as ‘Physical beauty’ is almost certainly a tag for a complex of useful survival characteristics. Smartness—intelligence—among them.”

Robert A. Heinlein book I Will Fear No Evil

Source: I Will Fear No Evil (1970), Chapter 2, p. 35

Beauty, Intelligence, Thinking

“Assigning central importance to the aesthetic in human experience may seem to be a radical inversion, placing what is usually considered secondary and peripheral at the center of the human world as its nourishing source. Isn’t this an ingenuous simplification of the vast range and complexity of experience?”

Arnold Berleant (1932) American philosopher

Sensibility and Sense: The Aesthetic Transformation of the Human World (2010), Introduction

World

“An inherent paradox of intellectual activity is that reflection (i. e. the phase were a research project is trying to process a complex problem) can be very time-consuming. Unfortunately, it is only when researchers are driven by a sense of urgency that they can make real progress.”

Éric Pichet (1960) economist

Source: The Epistemology of Social Science (2011), p. 53.

Problem, Sense, Time

“The transition to a GUI, and eventually to one close to a Macintosh, was a far greater step than refinements since. Some of these are just simple alternatives, which can't be over-valued due to increasing the complexity of having less consistency in how things are done. Others of these are more akin to rearranging the furniture. The great change was in becoming a modern GUI machine. In that sense, virtually every machine is a 'Macintosh' now.”

Steve Wozniak (1950) American inventor, computer engineer and programmer

Explaining his comment that now "Every PC is a Macintosh", "Letters-General Questions Answered" p. 105 http://www.woz.org/letters/general/105.html Woz.org files

Guy, Sense, Change

“Against the average user, anything works; there's no need for complex security software. Against the skilled attacker, on the other hand, nothing works.”

Bruce Schneier (1963) American computer scientist

The Fallacy of Trusted Client Software, Schneier, Bruce, 2001-08, Cryptogram newsletter, 2018-08-12 https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2000/08/the_fallacy_of_trust.html, Digital Rights Management

“A referendum is little more than a "rumour of choice." The idea behind the mechanism, ever since its first modern manifestations two centuries ago under Napoleon, has been to replace democracy with the sensation of democracy. That is: to replace the slow, complex, eternally unclear continuity of democracy, and all the awkwardness of citizen participation, with something clear and fast which allows those in power to impose their agenda. Through an apparently simple question with a one-syllable answer, those who ask can get a blank cheque from the citizenry; that is, if they choose their moment well and come up with a winning question.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

Reflections of a Siamese Twin (1997)

Democracy, Idea, Question

Quotes about complexity page 2

Quotes about complexity
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