Rudolf Arnheim - Collected Quotes

"A system is in equilibrium when the forces constituting it are arranged in such a way as to compensate each other, like the two weights pulling at the arms of a pair of scales." (Rudolf Arnheim, "Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order", 1974) 

"All perceiving is also thinking, all reasoning is also intuition, all observation is also invention." (Rudolf Arnheim, "Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order", 1974) 

"Entropy theory is indeed a first attempt to deal with global form; but it has not been dealing with structure. All it says is that a large sum of elements may have properties not found in a smaller sample of them." (Rudolf Arnheim, "Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order", 1974) 

"Entropy theory, on the other hand, is not concerned with the probability of succession in a series of items but with the overall distribution of kinds of items in a given arrangement." (Rudolf Arnheim, "Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order", 1974)

"Order is a necessary condition for anything the human mind is to understand."  (Rudolf Arnheim, "Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order", 1974)

"Since mechanically obtained randomness contains all kinds of possible permutations, including the most regular ones, it cannot be relied upon always to exhibit a pervasive irregularity." (Rudolf Arnheim, "Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order", 1974) 

"The line that describes the beautiful is elliptical. It has simplicity and constant change. It cannot be described by a compass, and it changes direction at every one of its points." (Rudolf Arnheim, "Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order", 1974) 

"The rehabilitation of order as a universal principle, however, suggested at the same time that orderliness by itself is not sufficient to account for the nature of organized systems in general or for those created by man in particular." (Rudolf Arnheim, "Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order", 1974) 

"When a system is considered in two different states, the difference in volume or in any other property, between the two states, depends solely upon those states themselves and not upon the manner in which the system may pass from one state to the other." (Rudolf Arnheim, "Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order", 1974)