Quotes about entity
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Mahmoud al-Zahar photo
Jane Roberts photo
Ernst von Glasersfeld photo

“As a metaphor - and I stress that it is intended as a metaphor - the concept of an invariant that arises out of mutually or cyclically balancing changes may help us to approach the concept of self. In cybernetics this metaphor is implemented in the ‘closed loop’, the circular arrangement of feedback mechanisms that maintain a given value within certain limits. They work toward an invariant, but the invariant is achieved not by a steady resistance, the way a rock stands unmoved in the wind, but by compensation over time. Whenever we happen to look in a feedback loop, we find the present act pitted against the immediate past, but already on the way to being compensated itself by the immediate future. The invariant the system achieves can, therefore, never be found or frozen in a single element because, by its very nature, it consists in one or more relationships - and relationships are not in things but between them.
If the self, as I suggest, is a relational entity, it cannot have a locus in the world of experiential objects. It does not reside in the heart, as Aristotle thought, nor in the brain, as we tend to think today. It resides in no place at all, but merely manifests itself in the continuity of our acts of differentiating and relating and in the intuitive certainty we have that our experience is truly ours.”

Ernst von Glasersfeld (1917–2010) German philosopher

Source: Cybernetics, Experience and the Concept of Self, 1970, pp.186-7 cited in: Vincent Kenny (2010) Remembering Ernst von Glasersfeld http://www.oikos.org/vonen.htm at oikos.org, retrieved Oct 11, 2012.

Giordano Bruno photo

“Everything that makes diversity of kinds, of species, differences, properties… everything that consists in generation, decay, alteration and change is not an entity, but a condition and circumstance of entity and being, which is one, infinite, immobile, subject, matter, life, death, truth, lies, good and evil.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

Cause, Principle, and Unity (1584)
Variant: Everything that makes diversity of kinds, of species. differences, properties, everything that consists in generation, decay, alteration and change, is not an entity, but condition and circumstances of entity and being, which is one, infinite, immobile, subject, matter, life, soul, truth and good.

Jeremy Rifkin photo
Johannes Grenzfurthner photo
Russell Brand photo

“An internal combustion engine is 'clearly' a system; we subscribe to this opinion because we know that the engine was designed precisely to be a system. It is, however, possible to envisage that someone (a Martian perhaps) totally devoid of engineering knowledge might at first regard the engine as a random collection of objects. If this someone is to draw the conclusion that the collection is coherent, forming a system, it will be necessary to begin by inspecting the relationships of the entities comprising the collection to each other. In declaring that a collection ought to be called a system, that is to say, we acknowledge relatedness. But everything is related to everything else. The philosopher Hegel enunciated a proposition called the Axiom of Internal Relations. This states that the relations by which terms are related are an integral part of the terms they relate. So the notion we have of any thing is enriched by the general connotation of the term which names it; and this connotation describes the relationship of the thing to other things… [There are three stages in the recognition of a system]… we acknowledge particular relationships which are obtrusive: this turns a mere collection into something that may be called an assemblage. Secondly, we detect a pattern in the set of relationships concerned: this turns an assemblage into a systematically arranged assemblage. Thirdly, we perceive a purpose served by this arrangement: and there is a system.”

Anthony Stafford Beer (1926–2002) British theorist, consultant, and professor

Source: Decision and control: the meaning of operational research and management cybernetics, 1966, p. 242.

Fred Brooks photo

“There is no single cause for any disturbance of the total organism, whether this be expressed as a behavior pattern often labeled psychiatric entity, or a physical disturbance classified as a somatic disease.”

Roy R. Grinker, Sr. (1900–1993) American psychiatrist and neurologist

Grinker and Robbins (1954) cited in: Eugene Frederick Hahn (1956) Stuttering: significant theories and therapies. p. 17

Jane Roberts photo

“The process by which civilization, as an abstract entity distinct from the societies in which it is embodied, dies or is reborn is a very significant one.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 8, Canaanite and Minooan Civilizations, p. 266

Mao Zedong photo

“All contradictory things are interconnected; not only do they coexist in a single entity in given conditions, but in other given conditions, they also transform themselves into each other. This is the full meaning of the identity of opposites. This is what Lenin meant when he discussed "how they happen to be (how they become) identical--under what conditions they are identical, transforming themselves into one another."”

Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung, pp. 121
On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 一切矛盾着的东西,互相联系着,不但在一定条件之下共处于一个统一体中,而且在一定条件之下互相转化,这就是矛盾的同一性的全部意义。列宁所谓“怎样成为同一的(怎样变成同一的),——在怎样的条件之下它们互相转化,成为同一的”,就是这个意思。

Francis Escudero photo
Rem Koolhaas photo
Béla H. Bánáthy photo

“The learner is the key entity and occupies the nucleus of the systems complex of education.”

Béla H. Bánáthy (1919–2003) Hungarian linguist and systems scientist

Source: Systems Design of Education (1991), p. 96

Hassan Nasrallah photo

“As we see, this is an illegal state; it is a cancerous entity and the root of all the crises and wars and cannot be a factor in bringing about a true and just peace in this region. Therefore, we cannot acknowledge the existence of a state called Israel, not even far in the future, as some people have tried to suggest. Time does not cancel the legitimacy of the Palestinian claim.”

Hassan Nasrallah (1960) Secretary General of Hezbollah

On Egyptian television, February 6, 2000
Quote, 2000
Source: Britain Israel Communication & Research Centre http://www.bicom.org.uk/publications/terrorism/s/1870/sheikh-hassan-nasrallah-quotes-from-the-leader-of-hezbollah/

Naomi Klein photo

“When we lack the ability to talk back to entities that are culturally and politically powerful, the very foundations of free speech and democratic society are called into question.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

Source: No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies 1999, Chapter Eight, "Corporate Censorship"

Margaret Thatcher photo
Richard Stallman photo

“If the users don't control the program, the program controls the users. With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the "owner" of the program, that controls the program—and through it, exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an instrument of unjust power.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

Free Software Is Even More Important Now (September 2013) https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html
2010s

Cormac McCarthy photo
Michel Foucault photo
Carl Schmitt photo
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo
Clement Attlee photo

“I take it to be a fundamental assumption that whatever post-war international organisation is established, it will be our aim to maintain the British Commonwealth as an international entity, recognised as such by foreign countries. … If we are to carry our full weight in the post-war world with the US and USSR, it can only be as a united British Commonwealth.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

'The Relations of the British Commonwealth to the Post-War International Political Organisation' (June 1943), quoted in Correlli Barnett, The Lost Victory: British Dreams, British Realities 1945–1950 (Pan, 1995), p. 51.
War Cabinet

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Monte Melkonian photo
Johannes Grenzfurthner photo
Germaine Greer photo

“Now this structure of hope (among other things) is also what distinguishes philosophy from the special sciences. There is a relationship with the object that is different in principle in the two cases. The question of the special sciences is in principle ultimately answerable, or, at least, it is not un-answerable. It can be said, in a final way (or some day, one will be able to say in a final way) what is the cause, say, of this particular infectious disease. It is in principle possible that one day someone will say, "It is now scientifically proven that such and such is the case, and no otherwise." But […] a philosophical question can never be finally, conclusively answered. […] The object of philosophy is given to the philosopher on the basis of a hope. This is where Dilthey's words make sense: "The demands on the philosophizing person cannot be satisfied. A physicist is an agreeable entity, useful for himself and others; a philosopher, like the saint, only exists as an ideal." It is in the nature of the special sciences to emerge from a state of wonder to the extent that they reach "results." But the philosopher does not emerge from wonder.
Here is at once the limit and the measure of science, as well as the great value, and great doubtfulness, of philosophy. Certainly, in itself it is a "greater" thing to dwell "under the stars."”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

But man is not made to live "out there" permanently! Certainly, it is a more valuable question, as such, to ask about the whole world and the ultimate nature of things. But the answer is not as easily forthcoming as for the special sciences!
The Dilthey quote is from Briefwechsel zwischen Wilhelm Dilthey und dem Grafen Paul Yorck v. Wartenberg, 1877–1897 (Hall/Salle, 1923), p. 39.
Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, pp. 109–111

Yusuf Qaradawi photo
Jorge Majfud photo
John Gray photo
Rand Paul photo

“A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin. It is unenlightened and ill-informed to promote discrimination against individuals based on the color of their skin. It is likewise unwise to forget the distinction between public (taxpayer-financed) and private entities.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

Letter to the editor, Bowling Green Daily News, 2002-05-30
Rand Paul in '02: I may not like it, but 'a free society' will allow 'hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin'
Right Now
Washington Post
2010-05-20
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/rand_paul_in_2002_i_may_not_li.html

Happy Rhodes photo
C. D. Broad photo
Steve Keen photo

“Why do economists persist in modelling the economy with static tools when dynamic ones exist; why do they treat as stationery an entity which is forever changing?”

Steve Keen (1953) Australian economist

Source: Debunking Economics - The Naked Emperor Of The Social Sciences (2001), Chapter 8, Let's Do The Time Warp Again, p. 177

Jane Roberts photo
Mao Zedong photo

“Within the ranks of the people, democracy is correlative with centralism and freedom with discipline. They are the two opposites of a single entity, contradictory as well as united, and we should not one-sidedly emphasize one to the denial of the other. Within the ranks of the people, we cannot do without freedom, nor can we do without discipline; we cannot do without democracy, nor can we do without centralism. This unity of democracy and centralism, of freedom and discipline, constitutes our democratic centralism. Under this system, the people enjoy extensive democracy and freedom, but at the same time they have to keep within the bounds of socialist discipline.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 民主自由都是相对的,不是绝对的,都是在历史上发生和发展的。在人民内部,民主是对集中而言,自由是对纪律而言。这些都是一个统一体的两个矛盾着的侧面,它们是矛盾的,又是统一的,我们不应当片面地强调某一个侧面而否定另一个侧面。在人民内部,不可以没有自由,也不可以没有纪律;不可以没有民主,也不可以没有集中。这种民主和集中的统一,自由和纪律的统一,就是我们的民主集中制。在这个制度下,人民享受着广泛的民主和自由;同时又必须用社会主义的纪律约束自己。这些道理,广大人民群众是懂得的。

Jane Roberts photo
Aron Ra photo
Jane Roberts photo
Rand Paul photo
Salman Rushdie photo

“I don't think there is a need for an entity like God in my life.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Salman Rushdie — Talking with David Frost (1993)

Jesús Huerta de Soto photo
Aron Ra photo
Luis A. Ferré photo

“Industry is not a collection of machines and tools and buildings. It is a social entity that has the responsibility of realizing the happiness of those who work in it.”

Luis A. Ferré (1904–2003) American politician

Quoted by TIME Magazine on May 11, 1962 Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,939385,00.html

Denis Diderot photo
Richard Taruskin photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Robert Fulghum photo
Chuck Klosterman photo
Atal Bihari Vajpayee photo

“India is not a piece of land, but a living entity.”

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924–2018) 10th Prime Minister of India

As quoted in Agnohotri, V. (2018). Urban Naxals: The making of Buddha in a traffic jam. Also quoted in Kashmir integral part of India, Article 370 should be scrapped: Vijay Rupani https://indianexpress.com/elections/gujarat-assembly-elections-2017/kashmir-integral-part-of-india-article-370-should-be-scrapped-vijay-rupani-4934767/ Indian Express.

J. Bradford DeLong photo

“The Good Economist Hayek is the thinker who has mind-blowing insights into just why the competitive market system is such a marvelous societal device for coordinating our by now 7.2 billion-wide global division of labor. Few other economists imagined that Lenin’s centrally-planned economy behind the Iron Curtain was doomed to settle at a level of productivity 1/5 that of the capitalist industrial market economies outside. Hayek did so imagine. And Hayek had dazzling insights as to why. Explaining the thought of this Hayek requires not sociology or history of thought but rather appreciation, admiration, and respect for pure genius.The Bad Economist Hayek is the thinker who was certain that Keynes had to be wrong, and that the mass unemployment of the Great Depression had to have in some mysterious way been the fault of some excessively-profligate government entity (or perhaps of those people excessively clever with money–fractional-reserve bankers, and those who claim not the natural increase of flocks but rather the interest on barren gold). Why Hayek could not see with everybody else–including Milton Friedman–that the Great Depression proved that Say’s Law was false in theory, and that aggregate demand needed to be properly and delicately managed in order to make Say’s Law true in practice is largely a mystery. Nearly everyone else did: the Lionel Robbinses and the Arthur Burnses quickly marked their beliefs to market after the Great Depression and figured out how to translate what they thought into acceptable post-World War II Keynesian language. Hayek never did.
My hypothesis is that the explanation is theology: For Hayek, the market could never fail. For Hayek, the market could only be failed. And the only way it could be failed was if its apostles were not pure enough.”

J. Bradford DeLong (1960) American economist

Making Sense of Friedrich A. von Hayek: Focus/The Honest Broker for the Week of August 9, 2014 http://equitablegrowth.org/making-sense-friedrich-von-hayek-focusthe-honest-broker-week-august-9-2014/ (2014)

Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo

“Development of an organism from a single germ cell into a multicellular entity is a self-organizing system from any point of view and I wish to contend that this self-organizing system is a subsystem of the self-organizing system called 'evolution.”

Gordon Pask (1928–1996) British psychologist

Source: An Approach to Cybernetics (1961), p. 103-104, partly cited in: Darren Tofts, Annemarie Jonson, Alessio Cavallaro (2004) Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History.

Dora Russell photo
Mark Satin photo
Stjepan Mesić photo

“If the current division of Bosnia Herzegovina into two entities does not function, it will not function with divisions into three entities.”

Stjepan Mesić (1934) Former Croatian and Yugoslav president

President: Dodik Carries Out Milosevic's Politics, Dalje, 28 February 2009, 17 January 2013 http://www.javno.com/en-croatia/president--dodik-carries-out-milosevics-politics_238621, When asked if the solution for Croatians in Bosnia Herzegovina is to create a third entity.

Donald J. Trump photo

“Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American people. The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election. For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interests, they partner with these people that don't have your good in mind. The political establishment that is trying to stop us is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration and economic and foreign policies that have bled our country dry. The political establishment has brought about the destruction of our factories and our jobs as they flee to Mexico, China and other countries all around the world. It's a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities. The only thing that can stop this corrupt machine is you. The only force strong enough to save our country is us. The only people brave enough to vote out this corrupt establishment is you, the American people. I'm doing this for the people and the movement and we will take back this country for you and we will make America great again. I'm Donald Trump and I approve this message.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Closing argument for America (4 November 2016)
Source: 2010s, 2016, November, Lines recycled from Trump's campaign rally in West Palm Beach, FL (10/13/2016)

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Francis Escudero photo
Ethan Hawke photo
Jane Roberts photo

“The classical concept of 'physical entity', be it particle, wave, field or system, has become a problematic concept since the advent of relativity theory and quantum mechanics. The recent developments in modern quantum mechanics, with the performance of delicate and precise experiments involving single quantum entities, manifesting explicit non-local behavior for these entities, brings essential new information about the nature of the concept of entity.”

Diederik Aerts (1953) Belgian theoretical physicist

Aerts, D. (1998). " The entity and modern physics: the creation-discovery view of reality. http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/aerts/publications/1998EntModPhys.pdf" In E. Castellani (Ed.), Interpreting Bodies: Classical and Quantum Objects in Modern Physics (pp. 223-257). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Matthew Good photo
Edward O. Wilson photo
Aron Ra photo
Eduard Bernstein photo

“The fact of the modern national States or empires not having originated organically does not prevent their being organs of that great entity which we call civilised humanity, and which is much too extensive to be included in any single State. And, indeed, these organs are at present necessary and of great importance for human development. On this point Socialists can scarcely differ now. And it is not even to be regretted, from the Socialist point of view, that they are not characterised purely by their common descent. The purely ethnological national principle is reactionary in its results. Whatever else one may think about the race-problem, it is certain that the thought of a national division of mankind according to race is anything rather than a human ideal. The national quality is developing on the contrary more and more into a sociological function. But understood as such it is a progressive principle, and in this sense Socialism can and must be national. This is no contradiction of the cosmopolitan consciousness, but only its necessary completion, The world-citizenship, this glorious attainment of civilisation, would, if the relationship to national tasks and rational duties were missing, become a flabby characterless parasitism. Even when we sing "Ubi bene, ibi patria," we still acknowledge a "patria," and, therefore, in accordance with the motto, "No rights without duties"; also duties towards her.”

Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932) German politician

Bernstein, Eduard. "Patriotism, Militarism and Social-Democracy." (Originally published as: "Militarism." Social Democrat. Vol.11 no.7, 15 July 1907, pp.413-419.) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1907/07/patriotism.htm

Samuel Butler (poet) photo

“Where entity and quiddity,
The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly.”

Samuel Butler (poet) (1612–1680) poet and satirist

Canto I, line 145
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Christopher Hitchens photo
Eric Holder photo
Ingrid Newkirk photo
Hassan Nasrallah photo

“Even if [an agreement] is signed we will continue to view [Israel] as an illegitimate and illegal entity”

Hassan Nasrallah (1960) Secretary General of Hezbollah

Al-Hayat, January 2, 2000
Quote, 2000
Source: Britain Israel Communication & Research Centre http://www.bicom.org.uk/publications/

Ze Frank photo

“Any individual entity that pretends to understand the rules that guide this space is under an illusion.”

Ze Frank (1972) American online performance artist

"The Show" (www.zefrank.com/theshow/)

Richard Holbrooke photo
Alain de Botton photo
Albert Einstein photo