Complexity Quotes

“But fear of making mistakes can itself become a huge mistake, one that prevents you from living, for life is risky and anything less is already a loss.”
― Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

“The vanity of intelligence is that the intelligent man is often more committed to 'one-upping' his opponent than being truthful. When the idea of intelligence, rather than intelligence itself, becomes a staple, there is no wisdom in it.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Being a reactionary is not about believing in certain solutions, but about having an acute sense of the complexity of the problems.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a una texto implícito: Selección

“Happiness lies in simplicity
Complexity brings anxiety.”
― Debasish Mridha

“The only simple truth is that there is nothing simple in this complex universe. Everything relates. Everything connects”
― Johnny Rich, The Human Script

“We're very familiar with the idea that some things are so complex they're beyond our comprehension. This not only keeps us solving and experimenting but also distracted. Many things are really so simple we can't see them under our big noses.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Extreme right-wingers are known for giving God a bad name; extreme left-wingers are known for giving God a weak name. He's not as simple as conservative versus liberal, old versus new. His wings are balanced. God is both and neither.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Life has its beauty in its simplicity.
Ugliness raises her head with complexity.”
― Debasish Mridha

“I was frightened of so many things, in my vanity, that ultimately i couldn't protect myself any other way. Try not to be like that, okay? Be sure to keep your tummy warm, try to relax, both your heart and your body, try not to get flustered.
Live like a flower. You have that right. It's something you can achieve, for sure, in your lifetime. And it's enough.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, The Lake

“There is risk, known and unknown, in all aspects of life. We often consider the loss of life the only serious risk. Unless we are genuinely aware, we calculate the danger arising from our own physical and emotional states and from external conditions based on incomplete information. If we believe we can manage those risks, we accept them. Whether these choices are born of delusion or reality comes out in the end.”
― Mark Twight, Kiss or Kill: Confessions of a Serial Climber

“Simple works, complex fails.”
― Timothy Ferriss

“Any thing or behavior too complex to understand becomes a phenomenon that could be termed spiritual or magical.”
― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

“Even when the truth is in fact simple, simplicity is still relative.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“The ultimate singularity is the Big Bang, which physicists believe was responsible for the birth of the universe. We are asked by science to believe that the entire universe sprang from nothingness, at a single point and for no discernible reason. This notion is the limit case for credulity. In other words, if you can believe this, you can believe anything. It is a notion that is, in fact, utterly absurd, yet terribly important. Those so-called rational assumptions flow from this initial impossible situation. Western religion has its own singularity in the form of the apocalypse, an event placed not at the beginning of the universe but at its end. This seems a more logical position than that of science. If singularities exist at all it seems easier to suppose that they might arise out of an ancient and highly complexified cosmos, such as our own, than out of a featureless and dimensionless mega-void.”
― Terence McKenna, True Hallucinations

“Creativity isn't meant to introduce complexity it is expected to add simplicity.”
― Amit Kalantri

“A culture capable of imagining complexly is a humble culture. It acts, when it has to act, as late in the game as possibl, and as cautiously, because it knows its girth and the tight confines of the china shop it's blundering into. And it knows that no matter how well prepared it is -- no matter how ruthlessly it has held its projections up to intelligent scrutiny -- the place it is headed for is going to very different from the place it imagined. The shortfall between the imagined and the real, multiplied by the violence of one's intent, equals the evil one will do.”
― George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone

“The depth of any story is proportionate to the protagonist's commitment to their goal, the complexity of the problem, and the grace of the solution.”
― Steve House, Beyond the Mountain

“We may train ourselves to be adaptable as possible, to respond appropriately in each situation, but the ideal of controlling the outcome or steering events as they occur must be relinquished. Chaos rules it all.”
― mark twight, Kiss or Kill: Confessions of a Serial Climber

“Today even the attitude of the Southern whites toward the blacks is not, as so many assume, in all cases the same; the ignorant Southerner hates the Negro, the workingmen fear his competition, the money-makers wish to use him as a laborer, some of the educated see a menace in his upward development, while others—usually the sons of the masters—wish to help him to rise.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“The artist is often misunderstood because, stepping outside himself and holding most details in great tension, he's about as complex as a shape-shifter; or a head with faces on all sides, but not necessarily in the negative connotation as one being two-faced usually implies. For instance, to be misunderstood can mean to be improperly deemed a troublemaker when that is not one's true intent: you see, to troublemakers, the artist knows that the peacemaker may seem like a troublemaker; therefore he may, whether in honesty or in jest, at times, present himself as a troublemaker for perceptual, artistic flair. But then to the artless peacemakers, because of this they will interpret him as a troublemaker. This is why the artist has so few allies. To the troublemakers he's a troublemaker, yet still the peacemakers a troublemaker.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“try to visualize all the streams of human interaction, of communication. All those linking streams flowing in and between people, through text, pictures, spoken words and TV commentaries, streams through shared memories, casual relations, witnessed events, touching pasts and futures, cause and effect. Try to see this immense latticework of lakes and flowing streams, see the size and awesome complexity of it. This huge rich environment. This waterway paradise of all information and identities and societies and selves.”
― steven hall, The Raw Shark Texts

“Life is just so interesting and complicated and beautiful. Every day, every interaction is different. There’s so much floating around that I would find it really hard to get bored. I’m interested in creating in some way or another, whether it’s photography or writing or just walking through the world.”
― Alejandro Escovedo

“Simple foods connect with your body's needs in complex ways.”
― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

“In a world of increasing complexity, the simple man walks alone. Knowing his ways are not of the world. Refusing to complicate and confuse those things which he knows to be true. Love is that which he seeks. Fear he flings aside. To stand tall before his creator and know that he is blessed beyond measure.”
― Sean Fairburn

“Complexity, therefore, results in flexibility. Increasing complexity always increases capability and adaptability.”
― Jacob Lund Fisker, Early Retirement Extreme: A Philosophical and Practical Guide to Financial Independence

“The Internet is dumb. The Internet, with all its access to brain research, anthropology journals, social studies networks, and biographies and autobiographies, can't begin to map the complexity of our lives, or how we each affect others.”
― Dee Williams

“Although science is not easy in complex human systems, we cannot afford to throw our hands in the air and give up. It may take decades, but it is a game worth playing and winning.”
― Paul Gibbons, The Science of Successful Organizational Change: How Leaders Set Strategy, Change Behavior, and Create an Agile Culture

“On account of its scale and complexity, the world will always outstrip the capacity of any single body to ask fertile questions of it.”
― Alain de Botton, The News: A User's Manual

“Every leader is different. Every bench is different. Every business is different. So while the complexities change, the work of coaching stays the same keep your clients at the center of the work, push them to use their strengths more and to temper their weaknesses, and illuminate blind spots because these are what really get in the way.”
― Stacy Feiner, Talent Mindset

“While the Bible does speak clearly on many matters—you'd have to be deaf not to hear the condemnations of murder, stealing, adultery, greed, etc.—there are, in fact, many questions at the margins of each of these, for which there are not clear answers. If you are not a pastor it's easier to maintain the comforting illusion that these hard cases are rare. But they are not.”
― Ken Wilson, A Letter to My Congregation: An Evangelical Pastor's Path to Embracing People Who Are Gay, Lesbian and Transgender in the Company of Jesus