Quotes About Complexity

The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa'. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.

Only with the greatest of simplifications, for the sake of convenience, can we say Africa. In reality, except as a geographical term, Africa doesn't exist.

Primitive does not mean stupid.

And at the risk of answering the same question the same way over and over: it's not a fucking binary. It would be easier for a lot of people if it were, but it just bloody well ain't, and nothing any of us does can make it that way. Please take a deep breath. Or,

The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple.

A wonderful discovery, psychoanalysis. Makes quite simple people feel they're complex.

To perceive how language works, what pitfalls it conceals, what its possibilities are, is to comprehend a crucial aspect of the complicated business of living the life of a human being.

It was hard, to be stripped of the cold comforts of her simple atheistic faith in middle-age. The more so as the evidence seemed to lead to the conclusion that all the religions were true, including the ones that flatly contradicted each other.

If a man has to make a woman the center of his love, why should he integrate animality into this sacred human emotion?...Is love incompelete without it?...Is love the name of physical excersize ?

She could crowd a thousand thoughts into her head, but it was, at that moment like a strainer -- the more she tried to fill up every little corner, the more emptiness there was.

Dünyan?n en basit, en zavall?, hatta en ahmak adam? bile, insan? hayretten hayrete dü?ürecek ne müthi? ve kar???k bir ruha maliktir. Niçin bunu anlamaktan bu kadar kaç?yor ve insan dedikleri mahluku anla??lmas? ve hakk?nda hüküm verilmesi en kolay ?eylerden biri zannediyoruz?

Kendilerinde bir ?eyler bulundu?unu vehmeden bütün acizlerin hiç ?a?madan bu basit çareye: Karanl?k ve kar???k olmak suretiyle derin ve manal? görünmek hilesine ba?vurduklar?n? unutuyoruz.

For even the most wretched and simple-minded man could be a surprise, even a fool could have a soul whose torments were a constant source of amazement. Why are we so slow to see this, and why do we assume that it is the easiest thing in the world to know and judge another?

Choices that you make out of inability are not life solutions. An inability to be joyful by your own nature can make the simplest issues in life seem like highly complex problems. Right now being peaceful and joyful is made out to be the most significant problem in human existence. In pursuit of human happiness, we are ripping the planet apart.

When he came home at night to his children, he may have been tired and poor and overwhelmed, but he was alive. He was his own boss. He was responsible for his own decisions and direction. His work was complex: it engaged his mind and imagination. And in his work, there was a relationship between effort and reward.

The burden shouldn't be on the artist to make things the public understands, nor should it be on the museum to show only things that are understandable.

I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what kind of creature Curzon Dax was, to weave so tangled a web.

How beautifully Plato put it. Whenever you want to talk about people, it's best to take a bird's-eye view and see everything all at once—of gatherings, armies, farms, weddings and divorces, births and deaths, noisy courtrooms or silent spaces, every foreign people, holidays, memorials, markets—all blended together and arranged in a pairing of opposites.

This advice—be clear about whom you serve—appears straightforward, but it is surprising how many leaders allow their answer to be vague, imprecise, or, most damaging of all, complex.

Sometimes people are beautiful.

Hatred would have been easier. With hatred, I would have known what to do. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love.

It's impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because of what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavors, in the air or on the tongue, half-colors, too many.

No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.

Where to start is the problem, because nothing begins when it begins and nothing's over when it's over, and everything needs a preface: a preface, a postscript, a chart of simultaneous events.