One of the most beautiful things in the world, to me, are brief, simple statements that can sum up a whole basic truth. When I stare out my bus window, (or when I daydream in general), it’s what I do. The consolidation of a whole bunch of observations- into a single sentence- is strangely gorgeous to me.
Notable quotes, and even the laws of science and math- I admire them. I think summarizing many ideas into a single sentence is jut as difficult as formulating the ideas. I believe it’s an art. It requires careful construction. It’s also why Einstein was as famous as he was.
All of this is possible, I think, because of a twist on a universally recognized quote, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Is this implying that words are worth less than pictures?
How about, “A word is worth a thousand pictures?”
How many pictures can you imagine when you see the word:
Sunset?
Yo-yo?
Lamp?
In Google Images, you type any ordinary word, and you receive an endless database of photos. Now do that with your mind.
Something is terrifically appealing about a brief, powerful set of a minimal amount of words. I don’t know what it is, but it almost makes it understandable why mathematicians would want to spend their lives deciphering formulas and theorems. It almost makes it understandable why we learn mathematics at all. “Learning math in school is useless now,” people say. But not all of it. Not the beautiful, brief statements we learn about. It also explains why quality > quantity, in a way.
Here’s a nice one:
If only there was one definition for “good”.
Patrick L. (HTHS) 