Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.
Jacob BronowskiRead
When Coleridge tried to define beauty, he returned always to one deep thought; beauty, he said, is unity in variety! Science is nothing else than the search to discover unity in the wild variety of nature,-or, more exactly, in the variety of our experience. Poetry, painting, the arts are the same search, in Coleridge's phrase, for unity in variety.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Beauty is found in the balance between different elements, and both science and art explore this concept.
In this quote, Jacob Bronowski reflects on Coleridge's view that beauty arises from finding a cohesive connection amid diverse elements. He suggests that both science and the arts are fundamentally engaged in the quest to uncover this harmony, emphasizing that whether through empirical exploration or creative expression, the pursuit of understanding unity amidst variety defines fundamental human experience.
Themes
BeautyUnityVarietyScienceArtExperience
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about creativity, this quote could illustrate the connection between scientific inquiry and artistic expression.
More from Jacob Bronowski
All quotes →There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy.
Jacob BronowskiRead
To me the most interesting thing about man is that he is an animal who practices art and science and in every known society practices both together.
Jacob BronowskiRead
A man becomes creative, whether he is an artist or scientist, when he finds a new unity in the variety of nature. He does so by finding a likeness between things which were not thought alike before.
Jacob BronowskiRead
The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline.
Jacob BronowskiRead
The basis for poetry and scientific discovery is the ability to comprehend the unlike in the like and the like in the unlike.
Jacob BronowskiRead
Similar quotes
Some writers can only deal with childhood experience, because it's complete. For another kind of writer, life goes on, and he's able to keep processing that as well.
V. S. NaipaulRead
I just kind of conjured them up out of my subconscious and put them in order of ascending peculiarity.
Edward GoreyRead
The film is made in the editing room. The shooting of the film is about shopping, almost. It's like going to get all the ingredients together, and you've got to make sure before you leave the store that you got all the ingredients. And then you take those ingredients and you can make a good cake - or not.
Philip Seymour HoffmanRead
Plays, especially great plays, yield their secrets over a long period of time. You can't read it three times and say, 'OK, I got it. I know what's happening.'
Mike NicholsRead
When he moves, a streetlight stabs him, and the words flow out like blood.
Markus ZusakRead
When you use film, you use accidents, but there aren't any accidents with digital photography. I don't mind that it's easy. But I do mind that there is a sort of consensus with the camera and the subject and the light, and you look at something, and you photograph it, and you get what you see.
William KleinRead