# Pattern

A pattern is a discernible regularity in the world or in an artificial design. As such, at least some of the elements of a pattern repeat in predictable ways.
Arranged alphabetically by author or source: A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

## A

* From rainbows, river meanders, and shadows to spider webs, honeycombs, and the markings on animal coats, the visible world is full of patterns that can be described mathematically.
** John A. Adam, in Mathematics in Nature: Modeling Patterns in the Natural World, Princeton University Press, 2006
* 12:45, Restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature.
** Darren Aronofsky, in lines for "Maximillian Cohen" in π (1998)
* Human beings fall easily into despair, and from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting, that revealed an underlying pattern, and gave us a sense that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value.
** Karen Armstrong, as quoted in "An Ecology for the Fourth Pillar : Imaginal Learning for Social Sustainability in AVE" by Peter Willis, in Rethinking Work and Learning: Adult and Vocational Education for Social Sustainability (2008), p. 34
* Complexity is looking at interacting elements and asking how they form patterns and how the patterns unfold. It’s important to point out that the patterns may never be finished. They’re open-ended. In standard science this hit some things that most scientists have a negative reaction to. Science doesn’t like perpetual novelty.
** W. Brian Arthur, in "Coming from Your Inner Self", a conversation with W. Brian Arthur, Xerox PARC, (16 April 1999), by Joseph Jaworski, Gary Jusela, and C. Otto Scharmer.

## B

* A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed...It feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.
** Richard Bach, in Robert W. Mitchell Awakening Word, AuthorHouse, 2011, p. 23
* When all factors pertaining to colour and pattern change are considered it is the wide ranging common chameleon Chaamaeleo chamaeleon, that is the most variable of all. More than one hundred colour and pattern variations have been recorded for it.
** Richard D. Barlett (1938), in Chameleons: Everything about Selection, Care, Nutrition, Diseases, Breeding, and Behavior, Barron's Educational Series, 1995, p. 7
* However, it is not only the males that use color and pattern to advertise sexuality — and other moods. The colors and patterns of the females are also indicators.
** Richard D. Barlett (1938), in "Chameleons: Everything about Selection, Care, Nutrition, Diseases, Breeding, and Behavior", p. 35
* A pattern is a guide or a model. Patterns are used in sewing and knitting, in wood and metalworking, and in a wide variety of other productive pursuits, activities, and jobs. Patterns help to avoid waste and unwanted deviations and facilitate uniformity that is appropriate and beneficial.
** David A. Bednar, in Melissa Merrill Elder Bednar Teaches Women the Spiritual Pattern of Small and Simple Things, Official Web site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4 May 2011
* Woman was given to man as an helpmeet. That complementary association is ideally portrayed in the eternal marriage of our first parents - Adam and Eve. They labored together; they had children together; they prayed together; and they taught their children the gospel together. This is the pattern God would have all righteous men and women imitate.
** Ezra Taft Benson, in The Honored Place of Woman, lds.org
* Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.
** Edward de Bono, in Dennis M. Adams, Mary Hamm Redefining Education in the Twenty-first Century: Shaping Collaborative Learning in the Age of Information, Charles C Thomas Publisher, 1 January 2005

## C

* Patterns permeate nature at all levels of organization. From molecules in a cell to organs in a cell to organs in a body, from animals in a colony to ecosystems in the biosphere, patterns exists everywhere. But patterns are also the realm of art and human enterprise. Thus, we recognize a sense of universality embedded In patterns, which have permeated human culture through an inner necessity to comprehemd natural phenomenon.
** Werner Callebaut and Diego Rasskin-Gutman in [http://books.google.co.in/books?id=xfW6mmAJWjwC&pg=PA181 Modularity: Understanding the Development and Evolution of Natural Complex Systems (2005), p. 181
* I see Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality. By Christ I mean not only Jesus; in other times and places, other planets, there may be other Lords of the Dance. But Jesus is the one I know of first and best. I sing of the dancing pattern in the life and words of Jesus.
** Sydney Carter, in Green Print for Song (1974)

## D

* We make patterns, we share moments.
** Jenny Downham in:Before I Die, Random House, 4 September 2008, p. 266
* Because with alarming accuracy she’d been identifying patterns I was unaware of—this tic, that tendency, like the way I've mastered the language of intimacy in order to conceal how I felt— I knew I was in dangerof being terribly understood
** Stephen Dunn in: Brandon S. McLeod From Mount Fuji to Mint Juleps: The Collected Works of Joseph Cortezi, ProQuest, 2009, p. 15
* As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.
** Henry Van Dyke in: Dennis Merritt Jones The Art of Uncertainty: How to Live in the Mystery of Life and Love It, Penguin, 9 June 2011, p. 70

## E

* The sad pattern of lack of trust in God has persisted since the Creation.
** Henry B. Eyring in:Trust in God, Then Go and Do, The Church of Jesus Christ Latter day Saints

## F

* We are born with inherent patterns that are at natural at the invisible forces that shape the spiral of an ocean wave or the symmetry of a pinetree's branches.
** Donna Farhi, in Yoga Journal (November-December 1998), p. 87]
* Deep in the sea all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves and a new dance starts.Growing in size and complexity living things masses of atoms DNA, protein dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
** Richard Feynman, in "The Value of Science" (1955)
* The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
** Richard Feynman, in The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964), Vol. I, Lecture 3 : The Relation of Physics to Other Sciences, § 3-4, Astronomy, p. 3-6
* Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations wherever you come; that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone; whereby in them you may be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them to bless you.
** George Fox, in a statement of 1656, from The Works of George Fox (1831)

## G

* One gets to the heart of the matter by a series of experiences in the same pattern, but in different colors.
** Robert Graves in: Candia L Sanders Soul Rays: Discover the Vibratory Frequency of Your Soul: Discover the Vibratory Frequency of Your Soul, BalboaPress, 24 December 2013, p. 19

## H

* A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.
** G. H. Hardy, in A Mathematician's Apology (1941)
* The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s must be beautiful; the ideas like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.
** G. H. Hardy, in A Mathematician's Apology (1941)
* ...regard it in fact as the great advantage of the mathematical technique that it allows us to describe, by means of algebraic equations, the general character of a pattern even where we are ignorant of the numerical values which will determine its particular manifestation.
** Friedrich August von Hayek, in The Market and Other Orders, University of Chicago Press, 8 January 2014, p. 366

## J

* I've yet to find the exact word to describe the enjoyment that an evening spent riffling through old pattern books can bring.”
** Belinda Jeffrey, in One Long Thread, Univ. of Queensland Press, 2012, p. 55

## K

* It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern.
** Daniel Kahneman in:What Was I Thinking?: The Subconscious and Decision-Making, Xlibris Corporation, 2 May 2014, p. 178
* A consistent thinker is a thoughtless person, because he conforms to a pattern; he repeats phrases and thinks in a groove.
** Jiddu Krishnamurti in:Sayings of J. Krishnamurti, Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1 January 1996, p. 187

## L

* Some scientists believe climate change is the cause of unprecedented melting of the North Pole, and that effects these very uncertain weather patterns. I think we should listen to those scientists and experts.
** Dalai Lama, in India, China rivalry not good for Asia, says the Dalai Lama, The Economic Times, 20 February 2014
* When there is freedom from mechanical conditioning, there is simplicity. The classical man is just a bundle of routine, ideas and tradition. If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow — you are not understanding yourself.
** Bruce Lee, in Tao of Jeet Kune Do (1975)
* Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there.
** Bruce Lee, in Tao of Jeet Kune Do (1975)
* The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a pattern of systems.
** Bruce Lee, as quoted in Striking Thoughts : Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living (2000) edited by John Little, Part I : On First Principles, p. 3
* The pattern of the prodigal is: rebellion, ruin, repentance, reconciliation, restoration.
** Luke (15:17), in Jack Lenza God Is in the Business of Restoration You Are His Business, Holy Fire Publishing, 1 June 2012, p. 287

## M

* I claim that many patterns of Nature are so irregular and fragmented, that, compared with Euclid — a term used in this work to denote all of standard geometry — Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity … The existence of these patterns challenges us to study these forms that Euclid leaves aside as being "formless," to investigate the morphology of the "amorphous."
** Benoît Mandelbrot, as quoted in a review of The Fractal Geometry of Nature by J. W. Cannon in The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 91, No. 9 (November 1984), p. 594
* My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look back I see a pattern.
** Benoît Mandelbrot, as quoted in "A Fractal Life" by Valerie Jamieson in New Scientist (November 2004)
* People want to see patterns in the world. It is how we evolved. We descended from those primates who were best at spotting the telltale pattern of a predator in the forest, or of food in the savannah. So important is this skill that we apply it everywhere, warranted or not.
** Benoît Mandelbrot, in 'The (Mis)Behavior of Markets (2004) co-written wiith Richard L. Hudson, Ch. 12, p. 245
* 'Two-of-something' is just one example of a pattern, a very simple one. We can all think of other patterns, such as 'three-of something', or 'on-top-of-something' or 'bigger-than-something'. We all know how this works. The point we don't think about too often that patterns are very real but they are not part of the material world. We forget this, because we usually recognise patterns in connection with objects in the material world. We forget that the patterns themselves transcend the material world. The patterns are not material objects.
** Anthony Mannucci, in Embrace the Infinite: The Science of Spirituality, John Hunt Publishing, 2012, p. 47
* Discovery in mathematics is not a matter of logic. It is rather the result of mysterious powers which no one understands, and in which unconscious recognition of beauty must play an important part. Out of an infinity of designs, a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty's sake and pulls it down to earth.
** Marston Morse, attributed in Chaplin, Virginia. "Princeton & Mathematics: A Notable Record". Princeton Alumni Weekly (May 9, 1958).
* Human beings are pattern-seeking animals. It's part of our DNA. That's why conspiracy theories and gods are so popular: we always look for the wider, bigger explanations for things.”
** Adrian McKinty, in The Cold Cold Ground: Detective Sean Duffy 1, Profile Books, 5 January 2012, p. 185
* Pattern is a word that is synonymous with schemas (and their dynamic). They are the customary and often repeated way that a person behaves.
** Gerald J. Mozdzierz, et al.,, in “Principles of Counseling and Psychotherapy: Learning the Essential Domains and Nonlinear Thinking of Master Practitioners”, p. 447

## N

* The same gold is fashioned into various articles; just so, the Lord has made the many patterns of the creation.
** Guru Nanak, as quoted in The Ultimate Sikhism Library (2013), p. 54

## O

* The individual organs follow the same pattern as the whole organism, i.e. they have their period of growth, of stationary, maximum activity and then of aging decline.
** Wilhelm Ostwald, in [http://books.google.co.in/books?id=fIYhAQAAMAAJ Chemistry: 1901-1921 (1966), by the Nobel Foundation, p. 166
* Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.
** P. J. O'Rourke, in [http://books.google.co.in/books?id=VGGGGm1QYPgC&pg=PA19 Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People (2007), p. 19

## P

* What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher.
** Chuck Palahniuk, in Gerald J. Mozdzierz et al., Principles of Counseling and Psychotherapy: Learning the Essential Domains and Nonlinear Thinking of Master Practitioners, Routledge, 15 January 2014, p. 447
* We have the suggestion of divine love but we never understand its pattern
** Pericles, in Mary Ellen Lamb, Valerie Wayne Staging Early Modern Romance: Prose Fiction, Dramatic Romance, and Shakespeare, Routledge, 23 February 2011, p. 37
* [M]athematicians and physicists think alike; they are led, and sometimes misled, by the same patterns of plausible reasoning.
** George Pólya, "Heuristic Reasoning in the Theory of Numbers" The American Mathematical Monthly Vol. 66, No. 5 (May, 1959), p. 384.

## R

* Art is pattern informed by sensibility.
** Herbert Read, in Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington Perl Cookbook, "O'Reilly Media, Inc.", 21 August 2003, p. 213

## S

* I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.
** William Shakespeare, in King Lear (1608), Act III, Scene 2
* Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not.
** Michael Shermer, in "Out of This World" in The Washington Post (21 November 1999)
* Perceiving the world as well designed and thus the product of a designer, and even seeing divine providence in the daily affairs of life, may be the product of a brain adapted to finding patterns in nature. We are pattern seeking and pattern-finding animals.
** Michael Shermer, in Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design, Macmillan, 1 April 2007, p. 38
* When we focus consciously on an object — and create a mental image for example — it's not because the brain pattern is a copy or neural representation of the perceived object, but because the brain experiences a special kind of interaction with that object, preparing the brain to deal with it. I maintained that an identical feeling or thought on two separate occasions did not necessarily involve the identical nerve cells each time. Instead, it is the operational impact of the neural activity pattern as a whole that counts, and this depends on context — just as the word "lead" can mean different things, depending on the rest of the sentence.
** Roger Wolcott Sperry, in "New Mindset on Consciousness" in Sunrise magazine (December 1987/January 1988)
* Science traditionally takes the reductionist approach, saying that the collective properties of molecules, or the fundamental units of whatever system you're talking about, are enough to account for all of the system's activity. But this standard approach leaves out one very important additional factor, and that's the spacing and timing of activity — its pattern or form. The components of any system are linked up in different ways, and these possible relationships, especially at the higher levels, are not completely covered by the physical laws for the elementary interactions between atoms and molecules. At some point, the higher properties of the whole begin to take over and govern the fate of its constituents.
** Roger Wolcott Sperry, in "New Mindset on Consciousness" in Sunrise magazine (December 1987/January 1988)
* if we seem a small factor in a huge pattern, nevertheless it is of relative importance. We take a tiny colony of soft corals from a rock in a little water world. And that isn't terribly important to the tide pool. Fifty miles away the Japanese shrimp boats are dredging with overlapping scoops, bringing up tons of shrimps, rapidly destroying the species so that it may never come back, and with the species destroying the ecological balance of the whole region. That isn't very important in the world. And thousands of miles away the great bombs are falling and the stars are not moved thereby. None of it is important or all of it is.
** John Steinbeck, in The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)
* I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for it is the one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.
** John Steinbeck, in East of Eden (1952)

## T

* It always comes down to patterns … Look, when they invented fingerprinting, criminals tried to remove their prints by burning them or cutting them off. Yet they always grew back. If there is a pattern, it will come back — maybe in Russia more than anywhere else, because it has collapsed so many times. Maybe less so here in the States, because here the society is so young.
** Tatyana Tolstaya, as quoted in "A Tolstoy Speaks, and Russia Listens" by Celestine Bohlen, in The New York Times (11 January 2003)
* You can’t say, “I did this; this gross matrix of flesh and blood and sinews and nerves did this.” What nonsense! I’m given these things to make a pattern out of. Something gave it to me.
** P. L. Travers, author of the Mary Poppins stories, in The Paris Review No. 86 (Winter 1982)
* Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.
** Sun Tzu, The Art of War, (6th Century BC).

## V

* Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia.
** Judith Viorst in: Michael Hansbury The Problem Behind All Problems, Epitome Books, 1 January 2009, p. 149
* The significance of the crucifixion is not only what God does for us; consistently throughout the New Testament the crucifixion is portrayed as the pattern that we are to follow. It is a model of social behavior toward the other as well as a statement about what God has done for us.
** Miroslav Volf in: The Clumsy Embrace: Croatian Miroslav Volf wanted to love his Serbian enemies; the Prodigal's father is showing him how, Christianity Today, 26 October 1998
* I have to say, I grew up with fashion because my mother was a seamstress, and she had an atelier. She would cut the first pattern, and then she had people working for her. So I grew up in an atelier, watching people all around me sewing. I was fascinated.
** Donatella Versace as quoted in: Lenny Kravitz, Versace, Interview Magazine,

## W

* Dry areas created by global circulation patterns contain most of the deserts on the Earth. The deserts of our world are not restricted by longitude, latitude, or elevation. They occur from areas close to the poles down to areas near the equator. … Deserts are not confined to earth. The atmospheric circulation patterns of other terrestrial planets with gaseous envelopes also depend on the rotation of those planets, the tilts of their axes, their distances from the Sun and the composition and density of their atmospheres. Except for the poles the entire surface of Mars is a desert. Venus may also support deserts .
** A.S. Walker, in Deserts:Geology and Resources, U.S. Department of the Interior/U.S. Geological Survey, p. 11

## Z

* If what the heart approves conforms to proper patterns, then even if one's desires are many, what harm would they be to good order?
** Xun Zi in: Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (Second Edition), Hackett Publishing, 2005, p. 297

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on Pattern on Wikipedia
* The dictionary definition of pattern on Wiktionary
* Media related to Patterns on Wikimedia Commons