Benoit Mandelbrot Quotes

The existence of these patterns [fractals] challenges us to study forms that Euclid leaves aside as being formless, to investigate the morphology of the amorphous. Mathematicians have disdained this challenge, however, and have increasingly chosen to flee from nature by devising theories unrelated to anything we can see or feel.

A cloud is made of billows upon billows upon billows that look like clouds. As you come closer to a cloud you don't get something smooth, but irregularities at a smaller scale.

Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.

Sometimes people are layered like that. There's something totally different underneath than what's on the surface. But sometimes, there's a third, even deeper level, and that one is the same as the top surface one. Like with pie.

Though life is very glorious, it is difficult.

The different variables involved in anything creative, really, are massive. When it comes together, it just clicks, I suppose.

I don't like things to be handed to me on a plate; that means nothing. I like to go through layers of unraveling and every time I listen to something, it makes me feel something different. Now I'm aware of the conflict that's going on, but at the time I just let what was happening happen.

Even the most straightforward of paths could turn out to be more complicated than it seemd at first.

Success makes life easier. It doesn't make living easier.

I think as a person, I have a whole bunch of different sides to me.

How insidious Nature is when one is trying to get at it experimentally.

They say behind mountains are more mountains.

The straight line cannot proceed through the torturous twists of life.

There are always going to be some complications.

If you take a look at our natural history, there's always a moment where the young lion wants to challenge the older lion and, inherently, that's going to be problematic, and I don't think we're any different.

You learn that Hollywood has its own rules, sometimes. And it's tricky, and sometimes you can't see what's coming around the corner.

An insect is more complex than a star..and is a far greater challenge to understand.

Life is not, nor ever has been, a straight line forward ... Life is characterized much more by exception and disorder than by total or perfect order.

Not everything in the world is easy or powerful.

Realism is important in foreign policy. You have to be realistic about what you can achieve, and about the pitfalls, and problems along the way, of which there are plenty. Nothing is easy. It's always rough.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age

It's our challenges and obstacles that give us layers of depth and make us interesting.

Marriage is not something that's easy, but nothing in life is easy.

Linguistics becomes an ever eerier area, like I feel like I'm in Oz, Just trying to tell it like it was.

Kindness, it turns out, is hard - it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include . . . well, EVERYTHING.