Holism Quotes

A well-made turtleneck sweater will keep you warm, cozy, and protected from the cold. Your gums do the same thing for your teeth. ~ Nadine Artemis

The whole is more than the sum of its parts. ~ Aristotle.

The world is more than the sum of its suffering. ~ Deepak Chopra

Humanity's "progress of knowledge" and the "evolution of consciousness" have too often been characterized as if our task were simply to ascend a very tall cognitive ladder with graded hierarchical steps that represent successive developmental stages in which we solve increasingly challenging mental riddles, like advanced problems in a graduate exam in biochemistry or logic. But to understand life and the cosmos better, perhaps we are required to transform not only our minds but our hearts. For the whole being, body and soul, mind and spirit, is implicated. Perhaps we must go not only high and far but down and deep. Our world view and cosmology, which defines the context for everything else, is profoundly affected by the degree to which all out faculties–intellectual, imaginative, aesthetic, moral, emotional, somatic, spiritual, relational–enter the process of knowing. How we approach "the other," and how we approach each other, will shape everything, including out own evolving self and the cosmos in which we participate. ~ Richard Tarnas

I see myself today as Sitting Bull trying to bring a voice of Easternism, holism, community-based thinking to a very Western culture. ~ Joel Salatin

The birds are us, you and me. We need to balance the eagle and condor that is inside every one of us. Put aside the judgments of the eagle, give opportunity and prosperity to the holism of the condor. Shift the power structures that hold the eagle dominant and the condor marginalized ~ Jodi Aman

Historically, holism had been a break from the reductionist methods of science. Holism (...) is a way of viewing the universe as a web of interactions and relationships. Whole systems (and the universe can be seen as an overarching system of systems) have properties beyond those of their parts. All things are, in some sense, alive, or a part of a living system; the real world of mind and matter, body and consciousness, cannot be understood by reducing it to pieces and parts. 'Matter is mind' – this is perhaps the holists' quintessential belief. The founding theories of holism had tried to explain how mind emerges from the material universe, how the consciousness of all things is interconnected.

The first science, of course, had failed utterly to do this. The first science had resigned human beings to acting as objective observers of a mechanistic and meaningless universe. A dead universe. The human mind, according to the determinists, was merely the by-product of brain chemistry. Chemical laws, the way the elements combine and interact, were formulated as complete and immutable truths. The elements themselves were seen as indivisible lumps of matter, devoid of consciousness, untouched and unaffected by the very consciousnesses seeking to understand how living minds can be assembled from dead matter. The logical conclusion of these assumptions and conceptions was that people are like chemical robots possessing no free will. No wonder the human race, during the Holoc ~ David Zindell

Cyborgs are not reverent; they do not re-member the cosmos. They are wary of holism, but needy for connection- they seem to have a natural feel for united front politics, but without the vanguard party. The main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. ~ Donna J. Haraway

Holism is when two plus two equals infinity. ~ Rob Bell

I want to use this practice:
Whenever I express my views, thoughts or anything I deeply believe, I will welcome any opposing view or thought. I will listen with caring attention to what the other says, accepting it no matter how different or antagonistic it seems to be.
I will also deeply and sincerely thank them.
I will abstain from feeling accused or judged.
I will acknowledge the other as my shadow, an integral part of me who has accepted to relate with me.
I believe that a vision in order to manifest requires its opposite, the other polarity.
If my vision is truly holistic, I am not in a condition to oppose any alternative vision.
I intend to learn to accept what appears to be opposite, no matter how unpleasant or contrary it is. I believe that only in the paradox of this acceptance, in releasing the urge to be right, unity can be experienced and manifested.
I have tried all other options, and they have not worked, and this is the only I have left.
And for this purpose I am open to be patient, promoting the gestation of this healing process, for I know that all is one. ~ Franco Santoro

Teeth are alive, and given the proper environment, they can regenerate; this is why internal factors that nourish the teeth are so important. ~ Nadine Artemis

The opposite of reductionism, holism - the idea that the only legitimate explanations are in terms of higher-level systems - is an even greater error than reductionism. ~ Anonymous

The properties of mind are not purely mental: They are shaped in crucial ways by the body and brain and how the body can function in everyday life. The embodied mind is thus very much of this world. Our flesh is inseparable from what Merleau-Ponty called the "flesh of the world" and what David Abram refers to as "the-more-than-human-world." Our body is intimately tied to what we walk on, sit on, touch, taste, smell, see, breathe, and move within. Our corporeality is part of the corporeality of the world. ~ George Lakoff

We have been trained to think of patterns, with the exception of those of music, as fixed affairs. It is easier and lazier that way but, of course, all nonsense. In truth, the right way to begin to think about the pattern which connects is to think of it as primarily (whatever that means) a dance of interacting parts and only secondarily pegged down by various sorts of physical limits and by those limits which organisms characteristically impose. ~ Gregory Bateson

Nature is not dumb. Humanity is dumb when we can't hear or when we forget how to communicate with nature. Nature is very much alive. Intelligent living beings and vibrant energies are all over the planet. ~ Sun Bear