Synaptic summation is the technical term used in neurophysiology for those instances in which some neuron C is fired only by a combination of neurons A and B.

Rather, for all objects and experiences, there is a quantity that has optimum value. Above that quantity, the variable becomes toxic. To fall below that value is to be deprived.

Money is always transitively valued. More money is supposedly always better than less money.

There is a strong tendency in explanatory prose to invoke quantities of tension, energy, and whatnot to explain the genesis of pattern. I believe that all such explanations are inappropriate or wrong.

Number is different from quantity.

It is of first-class importance that our answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx should be in step with how we conduct our civilisation, and this should in turn be in step with the actual workings of living systems.

To think straight, it is advisable to expect all qualities and attributes, adjectives, and so on to refer to at least two sets of interactions in time.

Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions.

But epistemology is always and inevitably personal. The point of the probe is always in the heart of the explorer: What is my answer to the question of the nature of knowing?

It is, I claim, nonsense to say that it does not matter which individual man acted as the nucleus for the change. It is precisely this that makes history unpredictable into the future.

In the transmission of human culture, people always attempt to replicate, to pass on to the next generation the skills and values of the parents, but the attempt always fails because cultural transmission is geared to learning, not DNA.

Language commonly stresses only one side of any interaction.

Members of weakly religious families get, of course, no religious training from any source outside the family.

Synaptic summation is the technical term used in neurophysiology for those instances in which some neuron C is fired only by a combination of neurons A and B.

It is to the Riddle of the Sphinx that I have devoted fifty years of professional life as an anthropologist.

It is impossible, in principle, to explain any pattern by invoking a single quantity.

All experience is subjective.

Numbers are the product of counting. Quantities are the product of measurement. This means that numbers can conceivably be accurate because there is a discontinuity between each integer and the next.

A major difficulty is that the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx is partly a product of the answers that we already have given to the riddle in its various forms.

Logic can often be reversed, but the effect does not precede the cause.

Every move we make in fear of the next war in fact hastens it.

Official education was telling people almost nothing of the nature of all those things on the seashores, and in the redwood forests, in the deserts and in the plains.

If we pursue this matter further, we shall be told that the stable object is unchanging under the impact or stress of some particular external or internal variable or, perhaps, that it resists the passage of time.

Logic is a poor model of cause and effect.

Interesting phenomena occur when two or more rhythmic patterns are combined, and these phenomena illustrate very aptly the enrichment of information that occurs when one description is combined with another.

We do not know enough about how the present will lead into the future.

Some tools of thought are so blunt that they are almost useless others are so sharp that they are dangerous. But the wise man will have the use of both kinds.

What is the pattern that connects the crab to the lobster and the primrose to the orchid and all of them to me and me to you

The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself.

The meaning of your communication is the response you get.

Some tools of thought are so blunt that they are almost useless; others are so sharp that they are dangerous. But the wise man will have the use of both kinds.

Whatever the ups and downs of detail within our limited experience, the larger whole is primarily beautiful.

I love my curves.

The House Rules Committee is perhaps the free world's outstanding bureaucratic abomination - a tiny, airless closet deep in the labyrinth of the Capitol where some of the very meanest people on earth spend their days cleaning democracy like a fish.

Law is order, and good law is good order.

Trust your gut.

We don't necessarily always agree, but hopefully we make each other think, and that's what matters.

In relation to a writer most readers believe in the Double Standard they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like but he must never never be unfaithful to them.

Writers can feel pretty powerless in the big corporate world of publishing, but sometimes our greatest power is the ability to say 'no.'

I just keep fighting and try to be the last one standing.

To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.

It's good to have plans and dreams, but don't be surprised if God brings you somewhere else.

I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.

I have a big personality, and I think big personality plus blond hair makes me come across as glib. With dark hair, people look at your face more. Before, it was all about the hair.

The obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.

Pity is best taught by fellowship in woe.

I sometimes use a lot of light greens and greys when I feel there is sadness in the painting.

Losing a game is heartbreaking. Losing your sense of excellence or worth is a tragedy.

Excellence endures and sustains. It goes beyond motivation into the realms of inspiration.