Quotes about pattern
page 6

H. G. Wells photo
Kurien Kunnumpuram photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
William Foote Whyte photo
Jeremy Hardy photo

“You can inherit male-pattern baldness from your mother's father, but not a tendency to fight in the First World War.”

Jeremy Hardy (1961–2019) British comedian

The News Quiz, BBC Radio 4, October 1998 (rebroadcast on BBC 7, 6 June 2006)

Buckminster Fuller photo

“A pattern has an integrity independent of the medium by virtue of which you have received the information that it exists. Each of the chemical elements is a pattern integrity. Each individual is a pattern integrity. The pattern integrity of the human individual is evolutionary and not static.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

Pattern Integrity 505.201 http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/p0400.html#505
1970s, Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975), "Synergy" onwards

Fritz Leiber photo
David Brin photo
Shinji Mikami photo

“During the time when we were making it, my personal feeling was that Resident Evil was not a game that should be made into a series. This is because horror tends to have strong patterns that are easy to get used to, meaning they're easy to get tired of. I never thought that the game would become such a huge hit.”

Shinji Mikami (1965) Japanese video game designer

Resident Evil Creator Shinji Mikami Reflects on the Series' Roots https://www.gamespot.com/articles/resident-evil-creator-shinji-mikami-reflects-on-th/1100-6435918/ (March 22, 2016)

Timothy McVeigh photo
Desmond Morris photo
Gino Severini photo
Peter Singer photo
Ben Stein photo
Boutros Boutros-Ghali photo
Yasunari Kawabata photo

“A death was more than an ending; it was like pulling a thread from a richly patterned cloth.”

First measure “The Lady Margaret” (p. 17)
Pavane (1968)

“He was an iconoclast. But even in this category he defies classification. For, he fits no pattern, and is beyond all norm. He sought no followers, he shunned confederates, he hewed no tablets to replace those which he had shattered.”

Tobias Dantzig (1884–1956) American mathematician

Henri Poincaré, Critic of Crisis: Reflections on His Universe of Discourse (1954), Ch. 1. The Iconoclast

Desmond Morris photo
Brian W. Aldiss photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“Metaphor has traditionally been regarded as the matrix and pattern of the figures of speech.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 231

William Foote Whyte photo
Timothy McVeigh photo
Luther H. Gulick photo
Betty Friedan photo

“Others follow patterns; we alone are unpredictable.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Al Gore photo
Paul Tillich photo
Waheeda Rehman photo
H. Havelock Ellis photo
Michael Moorcock photo
Jacques Derrida photo

“Although Saussure recognized the necessity of putting the phonic substance between brackets ("What is essential in language, we shall see, is foreign to the phonic character of the linguistic sign" [p. 21]. "In its essence it [the linguistic signifier] is not at all phonic" [p. 164]), Saussure, for essential, and essentially metaphysical, reasons had to privilege speech, everything that links the sign to phone. He also speaks of the "natural link" between thought and voice, meaning and sound (p. 46). He even speaks of "thought-sound" (p. 156). I have attempted elsewhere to show what is traditional in such a gesture, and to what necessities it submits. In any event, it winds up contradicting the most interesting critical motive of the Course, making of linguistics the regulatory model, the "pattern" for a general semiology of which it was to be, by all rights and theoretically, only a part. The theme of the arbitrary, thus, is turned away from its most fruitful paths (formalization) toward a hierarchizing teleology:… One finds exactly the same gesture and the same concepts in Hegel. The contradiction between these two moments of the Course is also marked by Saussure's recognizing elsewhere that "it is not spoken language that is natural to man, but the faculty of constituting a language, that is, a system of distinct signs …," that is, the possibility of the code and of articulation, independent of any substance, for example, phonic substance.”

Source: Positions, 1982, p. 21

Tanith Lee photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“Parallels, spirals, and reflections are some of my favorite literary patterns.”

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

"Putting It Together" p. 20
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)

Philip K. Dick photo
Willa Cather photo
Roger A. Pielke photo

“The claim by the IPCC that an imposed climate forcing (such as added atmospheric concentrations of CO2) can work through the parameterizations involved in the atmospheric, land, ocean and continental ice sheet components of the climate model to create skillful global and regional forecasts decades from now is a remarkable statement. That the IPCC states that this is a ‘much more easily solved problem than forecasting weather patterns just weeks from now’ is clearly a ridiculous scientific claim.”

Roger A. Pielke (1946) American meteorologist

"A Short Summary of Why Skillful Climate Prediction Is Much More Difficult than Skillful Weather Prediction," Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog (2007-05-23) http://climatesci.org/2007/05/23/a-short-summary-of-why-skillful-climate-prediction-is-much-more-difficult-than-skillful-weather-prediction/

“The biological organism and the social persona are profoundly different social constructions. The different systems of social practices, including discourse practices, through which these two notions are constituted, have their meanings, and are made use of, are radically incommensurable. The biological notion of a human organism as an identifiable individual unit of analysis depends on the specific scientific practices we use to construct the identity, the boundedness, the integrity, and the continuity across interactions of this unit. The criteria we use to do so: DNA signatures, neural micro-anatomy, organism-environment boundaries, internal physiological interdependence of subsystems, external physical probes of identification at distinct moments of physical time -- all depend on social practices and discourses profoundly different from those in terms of which we define the social person.
The social-biographical person is also an individual insofar as we construct its identity, boundedness, integrity, and continuity. But the social practices and discourses we deploy in these constructions are quite different. We define the social person in terms of social interactions, social roles, socially and culturally meaningful behavior patterns. We construct from these notions of the personal identity of an individual the separateness and independence of that individual from the social environment with which it transacts, the internal unity or integrity of the individual as a consistent persona, and the continuity of that persona across social interactions.”

Jay Lemke (1946) American academic

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 68

Jane Roberts photo
Elizabeth Loftus photo
Glen Cook photo
Paul Krugman photo
Italo Calvino photo
Russell L. Ackoff photo

“Against human opposition the machine usually emerges victorious, since individual patterns tend to be not random but a function of emotions and previous training and experience.”

Richard Arnold Epstein (1927) American physicist

Source: The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic (Revised Edition) 1977, Chapter Four, Coins, Wheels, And Oddments, p. 90

Margaret Mead photo

“Our humanity rests upon a series of learned behaviors, woven together into patterns that are infinitely fragile and never directly inherited.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

As quoted in Familiar Medical Quotations (1968) by Maurice Benjamin Strauss, p. 288
1960s

John Buchan photo
Joseph Nye photo

“The international system consists not only of states. The international political system is the pattern of relationships among the states.”

Joseph Nye (1937) American political scientist

Source: Understanding International Conflicts: An Introduction to Theory and History (6th ed., 2006), Chapter 2, Origins of the Great Twentieth Century Conflicts, p. 34.

George F. Kennan photo

“We must be very careful when we speak of exercising "leadership" in Asia. We are deceiving ourselves and others when we pretend to have answers to the problems, which agitate many of these Asiatic peoples. Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3 of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction…
In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to 'be liked' or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague — and for the Far East — unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

VII. Far East
Memo PPS23 (1948)

Johannes Grenzfurthner photo
Margaret Mead photo
Aldous Huxley photo
Lyndall Urwick photo
Victor Villaseñor photo
Paul Davies photo
Julian Huxley photo
Robert Denning photo

“Texture and pattern should function as a surprise.”

Robert Denning (1927–2005) American interior designer

Patricia Volk, " The Sweet Smell of Excess http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/style/tmagazine/08texcess.html", The New York Times (October 8, 2006; retrieved October 4, 2007).

Harper Lee photo
Plutarch photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“I am a pattern watcher. (p. 311)”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011)

Albert Einstein photo

“The basic laws of the universe are simple, but because our senses are limited, we can't grasp them. There is a pattern in creation.”

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

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 10

Margaret Mead photo
Béla H. Bánáthy photo

“Science focuses on the study of the natural world. It seeks to describe what exists. Focusing on problem finding, it studies and describes problems in its various domains. The humanities focus on understanding and discussing the human experience. In design, we focus on finding solutions and creating things and systems of value that do not yet exist.
The methods of science include controlled experiments, classification, pattern recognition, analysis, and deduction. In the humanities we apply analogy, metaphor, criticism, and (e)valuation. In design we devise alternatives, form patterns, synthesize, use conjecture, and model solutions. \
Science values objectivity, rationality, and neutrality. It has concern for the truth. The humanities value subjectivity, imagination, and commitment. They have a concern for justice. Design values practicality, ingenuity, creativity, and empathy. It has concerns for goodness of fit and for the impact of design on future generations.”

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

Source: Designing Social Systems in a Changing World (1996), p. 34-35, as cited in Alexander Laszlo and Stanley Krippner (1992) " Systems Theories: Their Origins, Foundations, and Development http://archive.syntonyquest.org/elcTree/resourcesPDFs/SystemsTheory.pdf" In: J.S. Jordan (Ed.), Systems Theories and A Priori Aspects of Perception. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1998. Ch. 3, pp. 47-74.

Charles Stross photo
Andrew Sega photo
Camille Paglia photo
Manuel Zelaya photo

“Past and future are but two aspects of behavior, the past being the persistent modifications in the behaving organism, and the future the controlling direction or pattern imposed upon the unfolding behavior according to those persistent modifications.”

Lawrence K. Frank (1890–1968) American cyberneticist

Lawrence Kelso Frank (1948) Society as the Patient: Essays on Culture & Personality. p. 351; as cited in: Betsy Caton Goss (1991) Accounting quality and dispersion of financial analysts. p. 15

Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Robert Charles Wilson photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Marianne Moore photo

“I tend to write in patterned arrangement with rhymes.. I try to secure an effect of flowing continuity and the correspondence between verse and music.”

Marianne Moore (1887–1972) American poet and writer

Oxford Anthology of American Literature 1938
Prose

Robert Crumb photo
Anna Yesipova photo
Henry Van Dyke photo

“As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

This may be misattributed. It appears to be a direct and original quote from "Individuality and encounter: a brief journey into loneliness and sensitivity groups" by Dr Clark E Moustakas (1971 p15, prev 1968)
Attributed

Martin Gardner photo

“A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?”

Martin Gardner (1914–2010) recreational mathematician and philosopher

The Dover Math and Science Newsletter http://www.doverpublications.com/mathsci/0516/d/ May 16, 2011

Bill Mollison photo
Whittaker Chambers photo