Capra Quotes & Sayings

Whenever a situation develops to its extreme, it is bound to turn around and become its opposite. — Frank Capra

Whenever the essential nature of things is analysed by the intellect, it must seem absurd or paradoxical. This has always been recognized by the mystics, but has become a problem in science only very recently. — Fritjof Capra

With the subsequent strong support from cybernetics , the concepts of systems thinking and systems theory became integral parts of the established scientific language, and led to numerous new methodologies and applications
systems engineering, systems analysis, systems dynamics, and so on. — Fritjof Capra

Capra is an old-time movie craftsman, the master of every trick in the bag, and in many ways he is more at home with the medium than any other Hollywood director. But all of his details give the impression of contrived effect. — Manny Farber

There's music in my films but you seldom hear it. Very early I got the idea that the important things in films were people - the actors. They are the intermediary between the director and the audience. They make direct contact. People to people communication. — Frank Capra

Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated "building blocks," but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitute the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can be understood only in terms of the object's interaction with the observer. — Fritjof Capra

If physics leads us today to a world view which is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning, 2,500 years ago ... This time, however, it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism. — Fritjof Capra

In our film profession you may have Gable's looks, Tracy's art, Marlene's legs or Liz's violet eyes, but they don't mean a thing without that swinging thing called courage. — Frank Capra

I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries. — Frank Capra

The complexity and efficiency of the physicist's technical apparatus is matched, if not surpassed, by that of the mystic's consciousness - both physical and spiritual - in deep meditation. — Fritjof Capra

I have a sixth sense for casting. I just have to see and talk to the actors. I never make tests. I like to work with crowds. I like to get the principals in a crowd. When they do, something else comes off, something special. — Frank Capra

Any kind of dictatorship, I'm uneasy. I just don't like dictators. I don't like crowds. I don't like hordes, and I don't like other people telling me what to do. This is probably a reaction against people telling me what to do when I was a kid. I won't join any group, espouse a cause against some other people. — Frank Capra

Whenever we look a life, we look at networks. — Fritjof Capra

Don't follow trends, start trends. — Frank Capra

The new paradigm may be called a holistic world view, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts. It may also be called an ecological view, if the term "ecological" is used in a much broader and deeper sense than usual. Deep ecological awareness recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena and the fact that, as individuals and societies we are all embedded in (and ultimately dependent on) the cyclical process of nature. — Fritjof Capra

Automatic simply means that you can?t repair it yourself. — Frank Capra

The fact that modern physics, the manifestation of an extreme specialization of the rational mind, is now making contact with mysticism, the essence of religion and manifestation of an extreme specialization of the intuitive mind, shows very beautifully the unity and complementary nature of the rational and intuitive modes of consciousness; of the yang and the yin. — Fritjof Capra

This exceptional ability to interconnect observations and ideas from different disciplines lies at the very heart of Leonardo's approach to learning and research. — Fritjof Capra

Making money, getting yourself status in this world is not everything at all. But it has become everything in America. That you really have to get going and keep up with the Jones'. Get a house and a car and other things. And pretty soon you're stymied. Things own you. — Frank Capra

The natural world, on the other hand, is one of infinite varieties and complexities, a multidimensional world which contains no straight lines or completely regular shapes, where things do not happen in sequences, but all together; a world where - as modern physics tells us - even empty space is curved. — Fritjof Capra

I was the enemy of the major studio. I believed in one man - one film. I believed one man should make the film. And I believed the director should be that one man. One man should do it - I didn't give a damn who. I just couldn't accept art as a committee. I could only accept art as an extension of an individual. — Frank Capra

Leonardo did not pursue science and engineering in order to dominate nature, as Francis Bacon would advocate a century later, but always tried to learn as much as possible from nature. He was in awe of the beauty he saw in the complexity of natural forms, patterns, and processes, and aware that nature's ingenuity was far superior to human design. Accordingly, he often used natural processes and structures as models for his own designs. — Fritjof Capra

As long as we do science, some things will always remain unexplained. — Fritjof Capra

Frank Capra was a prop man, I think. John Ford was a prop man. It was a little bit of a father and son thing, and you kind of worked your way up. — Francis Ford Coppola

Things own you. That's the trouble with capitalism. Things own you. With communism and fascism - ideas own you. One idea and you can't have any other. — Frank Capra

In Hinduism, Shiva the Cosmic Dancer, is perhaps the most perfect personification of the dynamic universe. Through his dance, Shiva sustains the manifold phenomena in the world, unifying all things by immersing them in his rhythm and making them participate in the dance - a magnificent image of the dynamic unity of the Universe. — Fritjof Capra

One is never completely satisfied. But I can say that I'm not dissatisfied. I've been very fortunate. I've been given some gifts - to take advantage of the contemporary times when I made movies. Gifts to make audiences laugh. — Frank Capra

Man's greatest advances are weapon advances. Culture follows from weaponry, we are militant like the animals and birds - defending our homes. No matter how far back you go in history, along with the struggle for existence, along with the survival necessities - kill or be killed, eat or be eaten - there is a hunger for something spiritual. He invents God, prayers, incantations to something above him. Why? This is not brought out - this is not weapon culture. — Frank Capra

Capitalism is supposedly free enterprise. Supposedly about the free individual. But capitalism itself is so massive that the guy on the street gets caught in paying rent, taxes, and he doesn't own himself at all. — Frank Capra

Film is universal. All the countries of the world are making films. Hollywood is the only major unsubsidized center for films. To my knowledge all others are at least partially subsidized. I'm glad Hollywood isn't. — Frank Capra

A person functioning exclusively in the Cartesian mode may be free from manifest symptoms but cannot be considered mentally healthy. Such individuals typically lead ego-centred, competitive, goal-oriented lives. Overpreoccupied with their past and their future, they tend to have a limited awarenessof the present and thus a limited ability to derive satisfaction from ordinary activities in everyday life. They concentrate on manipulating the external world and measure their living standard by the quantity of material possessions, while they become ever more alienated from their inner world and unable to appreciate the process of life. For people whose existence is dominated by this mode of experience no level of wealth, power, or fame will bring genuine satisfaction — Fritjof Capra

Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics. — Fritjof Capra

All you can do is learn the skills of movies. Neither colleges nor anyone else can teach you creativity. They can teach you abilities to work with - you know how to use the gifts you've been born with. — Frank Capra

Frank Capra made a series of films during World War II called 'Why We Fight' that explored America's reasons for entering the war. Today, with our troops engaged in Iraq and elsewhere for reasons far less clear, I think it's crucial to ask the questions: 'Why are we doing what we are doing? What is it doing to others? And what is it doing to us?' — Eugene Jarecki

Frank Capra, Hollywood's Horatio Alger, lights with more cinematic know-how and zeal than any other director to convince movie audiences that American life is exactly like the 'Saturday Evening Post' covers of Norman Rockwell. 'It's A Wonderful Life,' the latest example of Capracorn, shows his art at a hysterical pitch. — Manny Farber

John Lee Hancock is someone that I had admired from afar. I think he is a wonderful director ... in the tradition I would say both of Clint Eastwood and Frank Capra. — Alison Owen

At the deepest level of ecological awareness you are talking about spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness is an understanding of being imbedded in a larger whole, a cosmic whole, of belonging to the universe. — Fritjof Capra

There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness. — Frank Capra

Before the 1940s the terms "system" and "systems thinking" had been used by several scientists, but it was Bertalanffy's concepts of an open system and a general systems theory that established systems thinking as a major scientific movement — Fritjof Capra

My heroes are guys like Frank Capra and Elia Kazan and Coen brothers and Terry Gilliam, more so than a lot of bass players at this point in my life. So I've always been an old-film nut and have very much enjoyed doing videos over the years. — Les Claypool

Modern physics had shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic matter. For modern physicists ... Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter. — Fritjof Capra

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something. — Frank Capra

Do not help the quick moneymakers who have delusions about taking possession of classics by smearing them with paint. — Frank Capra

As the systems theorist Fritjof Capra points out, humanity's social, political, economic, and environmental plights are all manifestations of a cultural crisis brought about by adherence to outdated conceptual models ... Under the reductionist paradigm, humans' concept of nature devolved from that of living organism to machine, and the predominant value system came to be based on the domination and control of nature rather than respect for and harmony with the natural world. — Alex Gerber Jr.

Zen phrase says The instant you speak about a thing you miss the mark. — Fritjof Capra

Gradually, physicists began to realise that nature, at the atomic level, does not appear as a mechanical universe composed of fundamental building blocks, but rather as a network of relations, and that, ultimately, there are no parts at all in this interconnected web. Whatever we call a part is merely a pattern that has some stability and therefore captures our attention. — Fritjof Capra

The structure of the human brain is enormously complex. It contains about 10 billion nerve cells (neurons), which are interlinked in a vast network through 1,000 billion junctions (synapses). The whole brain can be divided into subsections, or sub-networks, which communicate with each other in a network fashion. All this results in intricate patterns of intertwined webs, networks of nesting within larger networks. — Fritjof Capra

Systems thinking is "contextual," which is the opposite of analytical thinking. Analysis means taking something apart in order to understand it; systems thinking means putting it into the context of a larger whole. — Fritjof Capra

In the end, the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity. — Fritjof Capra

During periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight. — Fritjof Capra

The creativity and adaptability of life expresses itself through the spontaneous emergence of novelty at critical points of instability. Every human organization contains both designed and emergent structures. The challenge is to find the right balance between the creativity of emergence and the stability of design. — Fritjof Capra

Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream, it takes over as the number one hormone; it bosses the enzymes; directs the pineal gland; plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to film is more film. — Frank Capra

When the concept of human spirit is understood as the mode of consciousness in which the individual feels connected to the Cosmos as a whole, it becomes clear that ecological awareness is spiritual in its deepest sense. — Fritjof Capra

The phenomenon of emergence takes place at critical points of instability that arise from fluctuations in the environment, amplified by feedback loops. — Fritjof Capra

Albert Einstein, for one, repeatedly expressed these feelings, as in the following celebrated passage (Einstein, 1949, p. 5): The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science ... the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. — Fritjof Capra

There are no rules in filmmaking — Frank Capra

Unfortunately, I never knew my father and when I did, it was very briefly. — Francis Capra

My main professional interest during the 1970s has been in the dramatic change of concepts and ideas that has occurred in physics during the first three decades of the century, and that is still being elaborated in our current theories of matter. The new concepts in physics have brought about a profound change in our world view; from the mechanistic conception of Descartes and Newton to a holistic and ecological view, a view which I have found to be similar to the views of mystics of all ages and traditions. — Fritjof Capra

War to me is the stupidest way of settling anything. The whole damn thing goes to pieces. — Frank Capra

I read a book called 'The Tao of Physics' by Fritjof Capra that pointed out the parallels between quantum physics and eastern mysticism. I started to feel there was more to reality than conventional science allowed for and some interesting ideas that it hadn't got round to investigating, such as altered states of consciousness. — Brian Josephson

One of the key insights of the systems approach has been the realization that the network is a pattern that is common to all life. Wherever we see life, we see networks. — Fritjof Capra

Religion is the organized attempt to understand spiritual experience, to interpret it with words and concepts, and to use this interpretation as the source of moral guidelines for the religious community. — Fritjof Capra

Someone should keep reminding Mr. Average Man that he was born free, divine, strong; uncrushable by fate, society, or hell itself; and that he is a child of God, equal heir to all the bounties of God; and that goodness is riches, kindness is power, and freedom is glory. Above all, every man is born with an inner capacity to take him as far as his imagination can dream or envision-providing he is free to dream and envision. — Frank Capra

Care flows naturally if the "self" is widened and deepened so that protection of free Nature is felt and conceived as protection of ourselves ... Just as we need no morals to make us breathe ... [so] if your "self" in the wide sense embraces another being, you need no moral exhortation to show care ... You care for yourself without feeling any moral pressure to do it. — Fritjof Capra

He had a deep respect for life, a special compassion for animals, and great awe and reverence for nature's complexity and abundance. While a brilliant inventor and designer himself, he always thought that nature's ingenuity was vastly superior to human design. He felt that we would be wise to respect nature and learn from her. — Fritjof Capra

There's an excellent movie we have on TCM called 'It Happened on Fifth Avenue,' which was originally going to be directed by Frank Capra ... but just before he was going to start working on it, he came across this story called 'The Greatest Gift.' And that turned into 'It's a Wonderful Life.' — Robert Osborne

This segregation is confirmed by the common stereotypes of these two disciplines and their representatives. While scientists are perceived as absentminded, casually dressed individuals who live in a refined world of abstract theory with little practical reality, lawyers are usually perceived as formally dressed people who are practically oriented, concentrating mainly on trivialities (such as negotiating their retaining fee) and engaging professionally in all sorts of nitty-gritty social intercourse - the kind of things that normal people, although worried by them, would rather not have to deal with themselves. — Fritjof Capra

There are a lot of people who believe that the individual can't make it himself. And that's why people want to join up in various herds - herd formation. So you become part of a herd, a group. Group power of some kind. There's an awful lot of group power people in our country [the USA] - Black power, Chinese power, Indian power, woman power. Everyone is putting in together. — Frank Capra

A page from a journal of modern experimental physics will be as mysterious to the uninitiated as a Tibetan mandala. Both are records of enquiries into the nature of the universe. — Fritjof Capra

I have a feeling that demonstrations don't accomplish anything. That they become fads. I also feel that demonstrations wouldn't go on unless there is a TV camera. That part of it all is performance for the media. I didn't know whether they are completely honest. — Frank Capra

[O]rganizations need to undergo fundamental changes, both in order to adapt to the new business environment and to become ecologically sustainable. — Fritjof Capra

If you want to send a message, try Western Union. — Frank Capra

The parallels to modern physics [with mysticism] appear not only in the Vedas of Hinduism, in the I Ching, or in the Buddhist sutras, but also in the fragments of Heraclitus, in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, or in the teachings of the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan. — Fritjof Capra

Scientists, therefore, are responsible for their research, not only intellectually but also morally. This responsibility has become an important issue in many of today's sciences, but especially so in physics, in which the results of quantum mechanics and relativity theory have opened up two very different paths for physicists to pursue. They may lead us - to put it in extreme terms - to the Buddha or to the Bomb, and it is up to each of us to decide which path to take. — Fritjof Capra

My films must let every man, woman, and child know that God loves them, that I love them, and that peace and salvation will become a reality only when they all learn to love each other. — Frank Capra

I still think of Columbia as one Rita Hayworth movie a year, or maybe one a year directed by Frank Capra in the '30s. To see how many really outstanding movies Columbia made, and all together, is kind of eye-opening. — Robert Osborne

I think the human spirit is a real powerful spirit. It has no limits and it has no ends. And I hate to see it put in any kind of box - pink or green. — Frank Capra

I love Frank Capra. He believed in the goodness of people and one man's ability to fight and often triumph. — Tom Shadyac

I went to Dave Eggers with this idea of doing a movie about a guy going through some sort of Frank Capra-esque journey. — John Krasinski

Shallow ecology is anthropocentric, or human-centred. It views humans as above or outside nature, as the source of all value, and ascribes only instrumental, or 'use', value to nature. Deep ecology does not separate humans - or anything else - from the natural environment. It does see the world not as a collection of isolated objects but as a network of phenomena that are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. Deep ecology recognizes the intrinsic value of all human beings and views humans as just one particular strand in the web of life. — Fritjof Capra

In the words of a Zen poem, At dusk the cock announces dawn; At midnight, the bright sun. — Fritjof Capra

There are solutions to the major problems of our time; some of them even simple. But they require a radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking, our values. And, indeed, we are now at the beginning of such a fundamental change of worldview in science and society, a change of paradigms as radical as the Copernican revolution. Unfortunately, this realization has not yet dawned on most of our political leaders, who are unable to "connect the dots," to use a popular phrase. — Fritjof Capra

No saint, no pope, no general, no sultan, has ever had the power that a filmmaker has; the power to talk to hundreds of millions of people for two hours in the dark. — Frank Capra

When carbon (C), Oxygen (o) and hydrogen (H) atoms bond in a certain way to form sugar, the resulting compound has a sweet taste. The sweetness resides neither in the C, nor in the O, nor in the H; it resides in the pattern that emerges from their interaction. It is an emergent property. Moreover, strictly speaking, is not a property of the chemical bonds. It is a sensory experience that arises when the sugar molecules interact with the chemistry of our taste buds, which in turns causes a set of neurons to fire in a certain way. The experience of sweetness emerges from that neural activity. — Fritjof Capra

The Oscar is the most valuable, but least expensive, item of world-wide public relations ever invented by any industry. — Frank Capra

If the audience gets everything, if they see the photography and notice that it is good, then the story goes out the window, but if you become involved with the lives of the actors and forget that you are seeing mechanical devices on a huge screen - forget the make-believe - this is the job of the director to involve the audience with the actors. — Frank Capra

Scriptwriting is the toughest part of the whole racket ... the least understood and the least noticed. — Frank Capra

Doing work which has to be done over and over again helps us recognize the natural cycles of growth and decay, of birth and death, and thus become aware of the dynamic order of the universe. "Ordinary" work, as the root meaning of the term indicates, is work that is in harmony with the order we perceive in the natural environment. — Fritjof Capra

As Eastern thought has begun to interest a significant number of people, and meditation is no longer viewed with ridicule or suspicion, mysticism is being token seriously even within the scientific community An increasing number of scientists are aware that mystical thought provides a consistent and relevant philosophical back ground to the theories of Contemporary science, a conception of the world in which the scientific discoveries of men and women can be in perfect harmony with their SpirItual aims and religious beliefs. — Fritjof Capra

One does not have to make Frank Capra movies to like people. — Stanley Kubrick

Most ideologies of the world are not for the individual. They're against the individual. Communism, fascism. Any kind of an ism - almost - they're against the individual. — Frank Capra

From the systems point of view, it is evident that one of the main obstacles to organizational change is the - largely unconscious - embrace by business leaders of the mechanistic approach to management. — Fritjof Capra

This spontaneous emergence of order at critical points of instability, which is often referred to simply as "emergence," is one of the hallmarks of life. It has been recognized as the dynamic origin of development, learning, and evolution. In other words, creativity-the generation of new forms-is a key property of all living systems. — Fritjof Capra

Understanding of life begins with the understanding of patterns. — Fritjof Capra

I think of the medium as a people-to-people medium, not cameraman-to-people, not direction-to-people, not writers-to-people, but people-to-peopleYou can only involve an audience with people. You can't involve them with gimmicks, with sunsets, with hand-held cameras, zoom shots, or anything else. They couldn't care less about those things. But you give them something to worry about, some person they can worry about, and care about, and you've got them, you've got them involved. — Frank Capra

Whenever we look at life, we look at networks. — Fritjof Capra

I happen to think that Jesus was the greatest hero of all time. I don't think you could invent that kind of a hero. He had it all - everything that the human spirit could yearn for. There is nothing that man ever said or did, by word or deed that is evil. That is not full of compassion. That is not full of love for your neighbor whether he's down or out, or up - no matter what. He taught that you must love your neighbor whether he's a crook, a beggar, whether he's rich or poor. — Frank Capra

The more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be. — Fritjof Capra

For children, most importantly, being in the garden is something magical. — Fritjof Capra

Most of ideologies are not based on the individual - no matter what they say. There are these peoples' democracies, nationalism - they're all dictatorships. And I think any kind of dictatorship is bad for the individual. — Frank Capra