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cc8c329
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Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.
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understanding
reality
princess-irulan
order
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Frank Herbert |
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397d3c4
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Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.
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order
perception
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José Saramago |
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da39a3e
|
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nature
quailty
freedom
goodness
choice
beauty
inspiration
science
darkness
motivational
hope
intelligence
life
inspirational
marie-lu
intimate
american-dream
dedication
watchmen
meaning-of-life
order
hardship
pure
harmony
evil
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Terry Pratchett |
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02aeca1
|
The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.
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fate
self-determination
fear
life
order
ignorance
superstition
secrets
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Cormac McCarthy |
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ce6fabe
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It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a facade of order - and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order.
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science
order
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Douglas R. Hofstadter |
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5723e5e
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I like it that order exists somewhere even if it shatters near me.
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patterns
chaos
order
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Elizabeth Moon |
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31f3fd9
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Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are...condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one - that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it'll just be a shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we'd know that we were lost. A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty - and, by which definition, a philosopher - dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; his two-fold security.
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spontaneity
order
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Tom Stoppard |
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35c5537
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The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless.
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utility
wittgenstein
order
method
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Umberto Eco |
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083ff62
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-Mikhail?...Try making suggestions next time, or just plain asking. You go do whatever it is you're doing, and I'll go search you extensive library for a book on manners. -You will not find it. -Why am I not surprised?
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library
suggest
order
manners
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Christine Feehan |
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0936a27
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There are people like Senhor Jose everywhere, who fill their time, or what they believe to be their spare time, by collecting stamps, coins, medals, vases, postcards, matchboxes, books, clocks, sport shirts, autographs, stones, clay figurines, empty beverage cans, little angels, cacti, opera programmes, lighters, pens, owls, music boxes, bottles, bonsai trees, paintings, mugs, pipes, glass obelisks, ceramic ducks, old toys, carnival masks, and they probably do so out of something that we might call metaphysical angst, perhaps because they cannot bear the idea of chaos being the one ruler of the universe, which is why, using their limited powers and with no divine help, they attempt to impose some order on the world, and for a short while they manage it, but only as long as they are there to defend their collection, because when the day comes when it must be dispersed, and that day always comes, either with their death or when the collector grows weary, everything goes back to its beginnings, everything returns to chaos.
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death
hobbies
collecting
order
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José Saramago |
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2a57c93
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Disorder is inherent in stability. Civilized man doesn't understand stability. He's confused it with rigidity. Our political and economic and social leaders drool about stability constantly. It's their favorite word, next to 'power.' 'Gotta stabilize the political situation in Southeast Asia, gotta stabilize oil production and consumption, gotta stabilize student opposition to the government' and so forth. Stabilization to them means order, uniformity, control. And that's a half-witted and potentially genocidal misconception. No matter how thoroughly they control a system, disorder invariably leaks into it. Then the managers panic, rush to plug the leak and endeavor to tighten the controls. Therefore, totalitarianism grows in viciousness and scope. And the blind pity is, rigidity isn't the same as stability at all. True stability results when presumed order and presumed disorder are balanced. A truly stable system expects the unexpected, is prepared to be disrupted, waits to be transformed.
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rigidity
stability
totalitarianism
order
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Tom Robbins |
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a47079c
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Order and disorder', said the speaker, 'they each have their beauty.
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order
disorder
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Orson Scott Card |
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fb51beb
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In times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings--artists, scientists, clowns and philosophers--to create order. In times such as ours, however, when there is too much order, too much management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relive the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption.
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doubt
disruption
system
order
revolution
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Tom Robbins |
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6f987f5
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No wonder so many adults long to return to university, to all those deadlines--ahhh, that structure! Scaffolding to which we may cling! Even if it arbitrary, without it, we're lost, wholly incapable of separating the Romantic from the Victorian in our sad, bewildering lives...
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life
structure
order
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Marisha Pessl |
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53fbeb3
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What sort of world is it at all? Men on the moon and men spinning round the earth like it might be midges round a lamp, and there's not no attention paid to earthly law nor order no more.
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world
order
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Anthony Burgess |
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bc5e250
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Eros has degenerated; he began by introducing order and harmony, and now he brings back chaos.
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order
eros
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George Eliot |
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7b1ed9c
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If the library in the morning suggests an echo of the severe and reasonable wishful order of the world, the library at night seems to rejoice in the world's essential, joyful muddle.
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library
world
order
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Alberto Manguel |
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551ee50
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For what are myths if not the imposing of order on phenomena that do not possess order in themselves? And all myths, however they differ from philosophical systems and scientific theories, share this with them, that they negate the principle of randomness in the world.
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order
randomness
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Stanisław Lem |
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ed64e3d
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The librarian was explaining the benefits of the Dewey decimal system to her junior--benefits that extended to every area of life. It was orderly, like the universe. It had logic. It was dependable. Using it allowed a kind of moral uplift, as one's own chaos was also brought under control. 'Whenever I am troubled,' said the librarian, 'I think about the Dewey decimal system.' 'Then what happens?' asked the junior, rather overawed. 'Then I understand that trouble is just something that has been filed in the wrong place. That is what Jung was explaining of course--as the chaos of our unconscious contents strive to find their rightful place in the index of consciousness.
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libraries
life
dewey-decimal
jung
filing
order
logic
librarians
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Jeanette Winterson |
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111e38a
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She was a woman with a broom or a dust- pan or a washrag or a mixing spoon in her hand. You saw her cutting piecrust in the morning, humming to it, or you saw her setting out the baked pies at noon or taking them in, cool, at dusk. She rang porcelain cups like a Swiss bell ringer to their place. She glided through the halls as steadily as a vacuum machine, seeking, finding, and setting to rights. She made mirrors of every window, to catch the sun. She strolled but twice through any garden, trowel in hand, and the flowers raised their quivering fires upon the warm air in her wake. She slept quietly and turned no more than three times in a night, as relaxed as a White glove to which, at dawn, a brisk hand will return. Waking, she touched people like pictures, to set their frames straight.
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woman
fixing
setting-right
order
gardening
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Ray Bradbury |
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a4e2ed2
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During the day, the library is a realm of order.
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order
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Alberto Manguel |
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bc8ad80
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Has it ever occurred to any of you that all this is simply one grand misunderstanding? Since you're not here to learn anything, but to be taught so you can pass these tests, knowledge has to be organized so it can be taught, and it has to be reduced to information so it can be organized do you follow that? In other words this leads you to assume that organization is an inherent property of the knowledge itself, and that disorder and chaos are simply irrelevant forces that threaten it from the outside. In fact it's exactly the opposite. Order is simply a thin, perilous condition we try to impose on the basic reality of chaos...
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education
order
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William Gaddis |
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e35ca3c
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Man has one name, and many more than two natures. But the essential two are these: that he shall strive to impose order on chaos, and that he shall strive to take advantage of chaos... A third element of man's nature is this: that he shall not understand what he is doing.
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understanding
pattern
order
human-nature
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John Brunner |
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274d288
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The clown is a creature of chaos. His appearance is an affront to our sense of dignity, his actions a mockery of our sense of order. The clown (freedom) is always being chased by the policeman (authority). Clowns are funny precisely because their shy hopes lead invariably to brief flings of (exhilarating?) disorder followed by crushing retaliation from the status quo. It delights us to watch a careless clown break taboos; it thrills us vicariously to watch him run wild and free; it reassures us to see him slapped down and order restored. After all, we can condone liberty only up to a point. Consider Jesus as a ragged, nonconforming clown--laughed at, persecuted and despised--playing out the dumb show at his crucifixion against the responsible pretensions of authority.
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freedom
jesus
clown
chaos
order
disorder
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Tom Robbins |
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d6b99db
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Insofar as we appreciate order, it is when we perceive it as being accompanied by complexity, when we feel that a variety of elements has been brought to order--that windows, doors and other details have been knitted into a scheme that manages to be at once regular and intricate. (p184)
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complexity
chaos
order
building
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Alain de Botton |
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0ac145c
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...that once were urgent and necessary for an orderly world and now were buried away, gathering dust and of no use to anyone.
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clutter
dust
order
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Patricia A. McKillip |
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e397eac
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If you do not keep on sorting your books, your books unsort themselves
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bookshelf
order
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Georges Perec |
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f4f4ea7
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He woke up blinking with a slight pain in his head and opened his eyes upon a world boiling in chaos in which everything was in proper order.
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order
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Joseph Heller |
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a72baf9
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Douglas has more books- and comic books- than anyone I know. Still, if you wanted to borrow one, and took it down off the shelf and forgot to mention it to him, Douglas would notice right away it was missing, even though there are maybe a thousand other ones that look exactly like it right on the shelf beside it. Douglas is one of those books people
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reading
order
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Meg Cabot |
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12413eb
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Let all things be done in order, with right and decency. Those things are worth a man's life or two. Life without would be a hell, indeed.
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order
right
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Richard Llewellyn |
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90790a6
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And gradually it dawned on him, if a dawning can take place in total blackness, that his life has consisted of a run of rehearsals for a play he had failed to take part in. And that what he needed to do from now on, if there was going to be a now on, was abandon his morbid quest for order and treat himself to a little chaos, on the grounds that while order was demonstrably no substitute for happiness, chaos might open the way to it.
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life
order
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John le Carré |
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b7eb87e
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"And suddenly he became almost lyric. "For three thousand years the Common Man has been fended off from the full and glorious life he might have had, by Make Believe. For three thousand years in one form or another he has been asking for an unrestricted share in the universal welfare. He has been asking for a fair dividend from civilisation. For all that time, and still it goes on, the advantaged people, the satisfied people, the kings and priests, the owners and traders, the gentlefolk and the leaders he trusted, have been cheating him tacitly or deliberately, out of his proper share and contribution in the common life. Sometimes almost consciously, sometimes subconsciously, cheating themselves about it as well. When he called upon God, they said 'We'll take care of your God for you', and they gave him organised religion. When he calls for Justice, they say 'Everything decently and in order', and give him a nice expensive Law Court beyond his means. When he calls for order and safety too loudly they hit him on the head with a policeman's truncheon. When he sought knowledge, they told him what was good for him. And to protect him from the foreigner, so they said, they got him bombed to hell, trained him to disembowel his fellow common men with bayonets and learn what love of King and Country really means. "All with the best intentions in the world, mind you. "Most of these people, I tell you, have acted in perfect good faith. They manage to believe that in sustaining this idiot's muddle they are doing tremendous things -- stupendous things -- for the Common Man. They can live lives of quiet pride and die quite edifyingly in an undernourished, sweated, driven and frustrated world. Useful public servants! Righteous self-applause! Read their bloody biographies!"
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humanity
order
humankind
justice
power
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H.G. Wells |
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d58f7c0
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"I was waiting for you," said Gregory. "Might I have a moment's conversation?" "Certainly. About what?" asked Syme in a sort of weak wonder. Gregory struck out with his stick at the lamp-post, and then at the tree. "About this and this," he cried; "about order and anarchy. There is your precious order, that lean, iron lamp, ugly and barren; and there is anarchy, rich, living, reproducing itself--there is anarchy, splendid in green and gold." "All the same," replied Syme patiently, "just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree."
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light
life
order
|
G.K. Chesterton |
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c87f936
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Why did every human concern clog itself up in a tangle of routines, formalities, disciplines, imperatives? Why couldn't one be free? Really free? Guarding one's freedom, wasn't freedom at all. Why couldn't one win one's freedom for good and all, and get on with life?
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routine
order
|
H.G. Wells |
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c447bce
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Chaos is God's body. Order is the Devil's chains.
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god
skeeter
chaos
order
devil
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John Updike |
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f6a0e65
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(As Plato:) There is nothing superstitious about forcing bad consequences for the hubris of paternalistic utopianism. Humanity should never be frozen into a vision of the best. A creative society must be willing to tolerate some degree of instability because creativity is inherently unstable.
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predictability
order
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Rebecca Goldstein |
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0f3162c
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If you did not keep your yard in reasonable order, then your whole life would be similarly untidy. A messy yard told Mma Ramotswe everything she needed to know about its owner.
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untidiness
yards
messiness
order
|
Alexander McCall Smith |
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1ca748a
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In the presence of Esch, values have hidden their faces. Order, loyalty, sacrifice--he cherishes all these words, but exactly what do they represent? Sacrifice for what? Demand what sort of order? He doesn't know. If a value has lost its concrete content, what is left of it? A mere empty form; an imperative that goes unheeded and, all the more furious, demands to be heard and obeyed. The less Esch knows what he wants, the more furiously he wants it. Esch: the fanaticism of the era with no God. Because all values have hidden their faces, anything can be considered a value. Justice, order--Esch seeks them now in the trade union struggle, then in religion; today in police power, tomorrow in the mirage of America, where he dreams of emigrating. He could be a terrorist or a repentant terrorist turning in his comrades, or a party militant or a cult member a kamikaze prepared to sacrifice his life. All the passions rampaging through the bloody history of our time are taken up, unmasked, and terrifyingly displayed in Esch's modest adventure.
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sacrifice
esch
sleepwalkers
imperative
broch
cult
post-modern
modern
certainty
purpose-of-life
order
symbolic
existentialism
fanaticism
novel
values
loyalty
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Milan Kundera |
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09da160
|
What drove such people to their sinister occupations? Spite? Certainly, but also the desire for order. Because the desire for order tries to transform the human world into an inorganic reign in which everything goes well, everything functions as a subject of an impersonal will. The desire for order is at the same time a desire for death, because life is a perpetual violation of order. Or, inversely, the desire for order is a virtuous pretext by which man's hatred for man justifies its crimes.
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|
czech
thanatos
totalitarianism
order
sinister
will
novel
|
Milan Kundera |
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100de7f
|
he snapped when I answered. I glanced at Tori's back, a half mile away. A growl. He knew better than to answer. Despite my lack of defensive superpowers, I'd gotten myself-- and Tori-- out of plenty of scrapes. Sometimes, knowing you don't have the skills to fight can be a bonus. With Tori, overconfidence equals lack of caution and, yes, as Derek would say, common sense. I said. A louder growl. I said. He grumbled something I couldn't hear and probably didn't want to.
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|
not-there
take-care-of
derek
order
|
Kelley Armstrong |
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d7da82d
|
I stopped short and sighed as Derek stepped up behind me, arms sliding around my waist. I leaned back against him and relaxed. he said, bending to my ear. There was no trace of anger in his voice now. Now it was his turn to sigh.
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derek
order
listening
|
Kelley Armstrong |
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60f68a8
|
I am still making order out of chaos by reinvention
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reinvention
order
|
John le Carre |
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b6c5408
|
Nothing was simple, certainly not simplification.
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poverty
simplification
order
simple
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Colum McCann |