Fritjof Capra Quotes

#1. The term "paradigm," from the Greek paradeigma ("pattern"), was used by Kuhn to denote a conceptual framework shared by a community of scientists and providing them with model problems and solutions

Fritjof Capra

#2. Tektology was the first attempt in the history of science to arrive at a systematic formulation of the principles of organization operating in living and nonliving systems.

Fritjof Capra

#3. Understanding of life begins with the understanding of patterns.

Fritjof Capra

#4. In the words of a Zen poem, At dusk the cock announces dawn; At midnight, the bright sun.

Fritjof Capra

#5. The influence of modern physics goes beyond technology. It extends to the realm of thought and culture where it has led to a deep revision in man's conception of the universe and his relation to it

Fritjof Capra

#6. Whenever we look a life, we look at networks.

Fritjof Capra

#7. In the end, the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity.

Fritjof Capra

#8. The mystic and the physicist arrive at the same conclusion; one starting from the inner realm, the other from the outer world. The harmony between their views confirms the ancient Indian wisdom that Brahman, the ultimate reality without, is identical to Atman, the reality within.

Fritjof Capra

#9. Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science but man needs both.

Fritjof Capra

#10. The complexity and efficiency of the physicist's technical apparatus is matched, if not surpassed, by that of the mystic's consciousness - both physical and spiritual - in deep meditation.

Fritjof Capra

#11. In modern physics, the universe is experienced as a dynamic inseparable whole which always includes the observer in an essential way.

Fritjof Capra

#12. Whenever we look at life, we look at networks.

Fritjof Capra

#13. Zen phrase says The instant you speak about a thing you miss the mark.

Fritjof Capra

#14. The more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be.

Fritjof Capra

#15. A page from a journal of modern experimental physics will be as mysterious to the uninitiated as a Tibetan mandala. Both are records of enquiries into the nature of the universe.

Fritjof Capra

#16. The elements of life are dynamic patterns of mass and energy, events rather than objects.

Fritjof Capra

#17. Systems thinking is "contextual," which is the opposite of analytical thinking. Analysis means taking something apart in order to understand it; systems thinking means putting it into the context of a larger whole.

Fritjof Capra

#18. At the deepest level of ecological awareness you are talking about spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness is an understanding of being imbedded in a larger whole, a cosmic whole, of belonging to the universe.

Fritjof Capra

#19. Both the physicist and the mystic want to communicate their knowledge, and when they do so with words their statements are paradoxical and full of logical contradictions.

Fritjof Capra

#20. When the concept of human spirit is understood as the mode of consciousness in which the individual feels connected to the Cosmos as a whole, it becomes clear that ecological awareness is spiritual in its deepest sense.

Fritjof Capra

#21. As long as we do science, some things will always remain unexplained.

Fritjof Capra

#22. The double role of living systems as parts and wholes requires the interplay of two opposite tendencies: an integrative tendency to function as part of a larger whole, and a self-assertive, or self-organizing tendency to preserve individual autonomy (see Chapter 7).

Fritjof Capra

#23. Whenever the essential nature of things is analysed by the intellect, it must seem absurd or paradoxical. This has always been recognized by the mystics, but has become a problem in science only very recently.

Fritjof Capra

#24. This state of affairs is not inevitable. Humans were able to employ science and law to transform common holdings into a commodity and then into capital; we also have the ability to reverse this path, transforming some of our now overabundant capital into renewed commons.

Fritjof Capra

#25. For children, most importantly, being in the garden is something magical.

Fritjof Capra

#26. This exceptional ability to interconnect observations and ideas from different disciplines lies at the very heart of Leonardo's approach to learning and research.

Fritjof Capra

#27. The parallels to modern physics [with mysticism] appear not only in the Vedas of Hinduism, in the I Ching, or in the Buddhist sutras, but also in the fragments of Heraclitus, in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, or in the teachings of the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan.

Fritjof Capra

#28. From the systems point of view, it is evident that one of the main obstacles to organizational change is the - largely unconscious - embrace by business leaders of the mechanistic approach to management.

Fritjof Capra

#29. Patterns cannot be weighed or measured. Patterns must be mapped.

Fritjof Capra

#30. The phenomenon of emergence takes place at critical points of instability that arise from fluctuations in the environment, amplified by feedback loops.

Fritjof Capra

#31. Modern physics had shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic matter. For modern physicists ... Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter.

Fritjof Capra

#32. [O]rganizations need to undergo fundamental changes, both in order to adapt to the new business environment and to become ecologically sustainable.

Fritjof Capra

#33. Ecology and spirituality are fundamentally connected, because deep ecological awareness, ultimately, is spiritual awareness.

Fritjof Capra

#34. Subatomic particles do not exist but rather show 'tendencies to exist', and atomic events do not occur with certainty at definite times and in definite ways, but rather show 'tendencies to occur'.

Fritjof Capra

#35. In the words of Heisenberg, What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Fritjof Capra

#36. Throughout the living world, we find living systems nesting within other living systems.

Fritjof Capra

#37. Before the 1940s the terms "system" and "systems thinking" had been used by several scientists, but it was Bertalanffy's concepts of an open system and a general systems theory that established systems thinking as a major scientific movement

Fritjof Capra

#38. Genuine mental health would involve a balanced interplay of both modes of experience, a way of life in which one's identification with the ego is playful and tentative rather than absolute and mandatory, while the concern with material possessions is pragmatic rather than obsessive.

Fritjof Capra

#39. Religion is the organized attempt to understand spiritual experience, to interpret it with words and concepts, and to use this interpretation as the source of moral guidelines for the religious community.

Fritjof Capra

#40. Knowledge cannot be separated from a certain way of life which becomes its living manifestation. To acquire mystical knowledge means to undergo a transformation; one could even say that the knowledge is the transformation.

Fritjof Capra

#41. The basic pattern of life is a network. Whenever you see life, you see networks. The whole planet, what we can term 'Gaia' is a network of processes involving feedback tubes. Humans are part of the larger whole, Gaia.

Fritjof Capra

#42. During periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight.

Fritjof Capra

#43. With the subsequent strong support from cybernetics , the concepts of systems thinking and systems theory became integral parts of the established scientific language, and led to numerous new methodologies and applications
systems engineering, systems analysis, systems dynamics, and so on.

Fritjof Capra

#44. One of the key insights of the systems approach has been the realization that the network is a pattern that is common to all life. Wherever we see life, we see networks.

Fritjof Capra