#abstract

The propensity to excessive simplification is indeed natural to the mind of man, since it is only by abstraction and generalisation, which necessarily imply the neglect of a multitude of particulars, that he can stretch his puny faculties so as to embrace a minute portion of the illimitable vastness of the universe. But if the propensity is natural and even inevitable, it is nevertheless fraught with peril, since it is apt to narrow and falsify our conception of any subject under investigation. To correct it partially - for to correct it wholly would require an infinite intelligence - we must endeavour to broaden our views by taking account of a wide range of facts and possibilities; and when we have done so to the utmost of our power, we must still remember that from the very nature of things our ideas fall immeasurably short of the reality. ↗

— James George Frazer

#generalisation #knowledge #science #art

To those who have exhausted politics, nothing remains but abstract thought. ↗

— Honore de Balzac

#abstract thought #exhausted #nothing #politics #remains

Height, width, and depth are the three phenomena which I must transfer into one plane to form the abstract surface of the picture, and thus to protect myself from the infinity of space. ↗

— Max Beckmann

#depth #form #height #i #infinity

The more chaos there is, the more science holds on to abstract systems of control, and the more chaos is engendered. ↗

— William Irwin Thompson

#chaos #control #engendered #holds #more

The minute I start to talk about acting, I realize that I can't. You know, it's an abstract thing, a little bit mysterious even if you do it for a living. ↗

— Christopher Walken

#abstract #acting #bit #even #i

Everything will be all right - you know when? When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction and see it as a drawing they made themselves. ↗

— Dag Hammarskjold

#drawing #everything #just #know #made

We have wasted our spirit in the regions of the abstract and general just as the monks let it wither in the world of prayer and contemplation. ↗

— Alexander Herzen

#contemplation #general #just #monks #our

The longer mathematics lives the more abstract - and therefore, possibly also the more practical - it becomes. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#also #becomes #lives #longer #mathematics

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. ↗

— Pablo Picasso

#abstract art #always #art #must #reality

The love of the famous, like all strong passions, is quite abstract. Its intensity can be measured mathematically, and it is independent of persons. ↗

— Susan Sontag

#famous #independent #intensity #like #love