The eternal is omniembracing and permeative; and the temporal is linear. This opens up a very high order of generalizations of generalizations. The truth could not be more omni-important, although it is often manifestly operative only as a linear identification of a special-case experience on a specialized subject.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Truth exists in both universal patterns and specific experiences.
- In plain terms
- Big truths apply everywhere but show up in small cases.
- What can you take from it?
- Look for universal patterns in small cases.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What universal patterns do you see?
- How do they apply locally?
Another view
Universal truths often fail at human scale.
More from Buckminster Fuller
A pattern has an integrity independent of the medium by virtue of which you have received the information that it exists. Each of the chemical elements is a pa…
Permalink to quote #53 Truth is cosmically total: synergetic. Verities are generalized principles stated in semimetaphorical terms. Verities are differentiable. But love is omniembra…
Permalink to quote #55 The explicable requires the inexplicable. Experience requires the nonexperienceable. The obvious requires the mystical. This is a powerful group of paired conc…
Permalink to quote #52
Related quotes
The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or thing, having an independent existence of its own; and if no …
John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill quote #6 The venerability, reliability, and utility of truth is something which a person demonstrates for himself from the contrast with the liar, whom no one trusts an…
Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich Nietzsche quote #20 The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability. We say that a sentence is factually signif…
Alfred AyerAlfred Ayer quote #1