Douglas Hofstadter Quotes

The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.

Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularity is indispensable to the creations of the imagination.

Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a concept.

As soon as there is language, generality has entered the scene.

The more particular you make something, the more universal it becomes.

I think people have problems sometimes when things are too general. In fact, they are not really general at all.

The aims of scientific thought are to see the general in the particular and the eternal in the transitory.

If you don't generalize you don't philosophize.

Avoid context and specifics; generalize and keep repeating the generalization.

The specific is not exclusive: it lacks the aspiration to totality.

The art of doing mathematics consists in finding that special case which contains all the germs of generality.

I … think it is safer, when a practical question arises, to decide that question directly, and not indirectly, by deciding a general abstraction supposed to include it, and also including a great deal more.

The more specific we are, the more universal something can become. Life is in the details. If you generalize, it doesn't resonate. The specificity of it is what resonates.

It is difficult to speak of the universal specifically.

Generalities are intellectually necessary evils.

Everything solid was first an idea.

Another characteristic of mathematical thought is that it can have no success where it cannot generalize.

It is a good deal easier for most people to state an abstract idea than to describe and thus re-create some object they actually see.

Always to see the general in the particular is the very foundation of genius.

Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.

A mind that is very selective to forms... is apt to use its images metaphorically, to exploit their possible significance for the conception of remote or intangible ideas.

To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess.

Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, and insults the philosopher in every moment with a million fresh particulars.

One should not be too distracted by definitions. Ideas transcend definitions.