A Quote by Gregory Bateson

Science sometimes improves hypotheses and sometimes disproves them. But proof would be another matter and perhaps never occurs except in the realms of totally abstract tautology. We can sometimes say that if such and such abstract suppositions or postulates are given, then such and such abstract suppositions or postulates are given, then such and such must follow absolutely. But the truth about what can be perceived or arrived at by induction from perception is something else again.

Gregory Bateson

Quote Topics

About Absolutely Abstract Again Another Arrived Else Except Follow Given Hypotheses Matter Must Never Occurs Perceived Perception Perhaps Proof Realms Say Science Something Something Else Sometimes Tautology Them Then Totally Truth Would Would Be

Quote Author

Gregory Bateson
British - Scientist
May 9, 1904 - July 4, 1980

There are several kinds of truths, and it is customary to place in the first order mathematical truths, which are, however, only truths of definition. These definitions rest upon simple, but abstract, suppositions, and all truths in this category are only constructed, but abstract, consequences of these definitions ... Physical truths, to the contrary, are in no way arbitrary, and do not depend on us.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

I guess I have no motivation to make an abstract painting, even if they sometimes read as abstract. I think, with abstraction, it's easy to fall into a sort of pastiche.

Joe Bradley

I can never fathom it when people say things like "I can't understand abstract art!" Or: "Abstract art is junk!" Or: "Abstract art isn't as valid as realism!"

Derek R. Audette

Sometimes I have these abstract ideas and then lose track of myself.

Julia Stiles

One of the things I like about music is it's an abstract art, totally abstract, where you can convey an emotion, which I find amazing.

Bernard Sumner

To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter. To abstract in art is to separate certain fundamentals from irrelevant material which surrounds them.

Ben Shahn

In enabling mechanism to combine together general symbols in successions of unlimited variety and extent, a uniting link is established between the operations of matter and the abstract mental processes of the most abstract branch of mathematical science.

Ada Lovelace

Sometimes there's a lot of tangents because I forget what I'm going to say so much. Sometimes there's very little tangents and stuff for some reason, and then some nights it's all tangents and I can't find my way, and then sometimes I wind up just talking about something completely extemporaneously and then never mention it again ever. It's just completely different.

Janeane Garofalo

We must trust infinitely to the beneficent necessity which shines through all laws. Human nature expresses itself in them as characteristically as in statues, or songs, or railroads, and an abstract of the codes of nations would be an abstract of the common conscience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The artist must ask you to think of the world in a different way, and sometimes it's a more abstract way; sometimes it's a completely different kind of colouring.

William Lipscomb

I don't know why you'd want to say your work comes from nature, because art is related to perception, not nature. All abstract artists try to tell you that what they do comes from nature, and I'm always trying to tell you that what I do is completely abstract. We're both saying something we want to be true.

Roy Lichtenstein

Abstraction is itself an abstract word and has no single meaning ... Every word in our language is abstract, because it represents something else.

Eric Maisel

I was an abstract expressionist before I had seen any abstract expressionist paintings. I started when I was a kid and continued just doing abstract stuff all through high school.

Dennis Hopper

Abstract art is only painting. And what's so dramatic about that? There is no abstract art. One must always begin with something. Afterwards one can remove all semblance of reality; there is no longer any danger as the idea of the object has left an indelible imprint.

Pablo Picasso

There is no such thing as abstract art, or else all art is abstract, which amounts to the same thing. Abstract art no more exists than does curved art yellow art or green art.