„Take two opposites, connect the dots, and you have a straight line.“

„Today we live in a chaos of straight lines, in a jungle of straight lines. If you do not believe this, take the trouble to count the straight lines which surround you. Then you will understand, for you will never finish counting.“

—  Friedensreich Hundertwasser Austrian artist 1928 - 2000

Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture (1958)

„Our course of advance … is neither a straight line nor a curve. It is a series of dots and dashes.“

—  Benjamin N. Cardozo United States federal judge 1870 - 1938

Other writings, The Paradoxes of Legal Science (1928)
Kontext: Our course of advance... is neither a straight line nor a curve. It is a series of dots and dashes. Progress comes per saltum, by successive compromises between extremes, compromises often … between "positivism and idealism". The notion that a jurist can dispense with any consideration as to what the law ought to be arises from the fiction that the law is a complete and closed system, and that judges and jurists are mere automata to record its will or phonographs to pronounce its provisions.

„Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path and that will make all the difference.“

—  Steve Jobs American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc. 1955 - 2011

2000s, Address at Stanford University (2005)

„A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.“

—  Madeleine L'Engle American writer 1918 - 2007

Quelle: A Wrinkle in Time: With Related Readings

„A line is a dot that went for a walk.“

—  Paul Klee German Swiss painter 1879 - 1940

„This makes you think in straight lines. And if today doesn't happen in straight lines -- think of your own experience -- why should the past have?“

—  James Burke (science historian) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer 1936

Connections (1979), 10 - Yesterday, Tomorrow and You
Kontext: The question is in what way are the triggers around us likely to operate to cause things to change -- for better or worse. And, is there anything we can learn from the way that happened before, so we can teach ourselves to look for and recognize the signs of change? The trouble is, that's not easy when you have been taught as I was, for example, that things in the past happened in straight-forward lines. I mean, take one oversimple example of what I'm talking about: the idea of putting the past into packaged units -- subjects, like agriculture. The minute you look at this apparently clear-cut view of things, you see the holes. I mean, look at the tractor. Oh sure, it worked in the fields, but is it a part of the history of agriculture or a dozen other things? The steam engine, the electric spark, petroleum development, rubber technology. It's a countrified car. And, the fertilizer that follows; it doesn't follow! That came from as much as anything else from a fellow trying to make artificial diamonds. And here's another old favorite: Eureka! Great Inventors You know, the lonely genius in the garage with a lightbulb that goes ping in his head. Well, if you've seen anything of this series, you'll know what a wrong approach to things that is. None of these guys did anything by themselves; they borrowed from other people's work. And how can you say when a golden age of anything started and stopped? The age of steam certainly wasn't started by James Watt; nor did the fellow whose engine he was trying to repair -- Newcomen, nor did his predecessor Savorey, nor did his predecessor Papert. And Papert was only doing what he was doing because they had trouble draining the mines. You see what I'm trying to say? This makes you think in straight lines. And if today doesn't happen in straight lines -- think of your own experience -- why should the past have? That's part of what this series has tried to show: that the past zig-zagged along -- just like the present does -- with nobody knowing what's coming next. Only we do it more complicatedly, and it's because our lives are that much more complex than theirs were that it's worth bothering about the past. Because if you don't know how you got somewhere, you don't know where you are. And we are at the end of a journey -- the journey from the past.

„The straight line is regarded as the shortest distance between two people, as if they were points.“

—  Theodor W. Adorno, buch Minima Moralia

Nun gilt für die kürzeste Verbindung zwischen zwei Personen die Gerade, so als ob sie Punkte wären.
E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 20
Minima Moralia (1951)

„In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line.“

—  Will Durant American historian, philosopher and writer 1885 - 1981

Quelle: The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

„Never in my life have I seen two villages on opposite banks of a river that weren't connected by a ford.“

—  Bernard Cornwell British writer 1944

Major General Arthur Wellesley, p. 196
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Triumph (1997)

„In any triangle the centre of gravity lies on the straight line joining any angle to the middle point of the opposite side.“

—  Archimedes, buch On the Equilibrium of Planes

Book 1, Proposition 13.
On the Equilibrium of Planes

„The centre of gravity of any parallelogram lies on the straight line joining the middle points of opposite sides.“

—  Archimedes, buch On the Equilibrium of Planes

Book 1, Proposition 9.
On the Equilibrium of Planes

„From now on I’ll connect the dots my own way.“

—  Bill Watterson American comic artist 1958

„Too many dots,” Miller said. “Not enough lines.“

—  Daniel Abraham speculative fiction writer from the United States 1969

Quelle: Leviathan Wakes (2011), Chapter 10 (p. 109)

„I found a book on how to be invisible
You take a pinch of keyhole,
And fold yourself up,
You cut along the dotted lines.
You think inside out.
You're invisible.“

—  Kate Bush British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer 1958

Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sea of Honey (Disc 1)

„I don't speechify. I know the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. And that's what I ask. But they get mad at the straight line. I just want to ask a tough question.“

—  Helen Thomas American author and journalist 1920 - 2013

Interview by Adam Holdorf for Real Change News, (18 March 2004).

„Common to the two geometries is only the general property of one-to-one correspondence, and the rule that this correspondence determines straight lines as shortest lines as well as their relations of intersection.“

—  Hans Reichenbach American philosopher 1891 - 1953

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

„The trouble is, that's not easy when you have been taught as I was, for example, that things in the past happened in straight-forward lines.“

—  James Burke (science historian) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer 1936

Connections (1979), 10 - Yesterday, Tomorrow and You
Kontext: The question is in what way are the triggers around us likely to operate to cause things to change -- for better or worse. And, is there anything we can learn from the way that happened before, so we can teach ourselves to look for and recognize the signs of change? The trouble is, that's not easy when you have been taught as I was, for example, that things in the past happened in straight-forward lines. I mean, take one oversimple example of what I'm talking about: the idea of putting the past into packaged units -- subjects, like agriculture. The minute you look at this apparently clear-cut view of things, you see the holes. I mean, look at the tractor. Oh sure, it worked in the fields, but is it a part of the history of agriculture or a dozen other things? The steam engine, the electric spark, petroleum development, rubber technology. It's a countrified car. And, the fertilizer that follows; it doesn't follow! That came from as much as anything else from a fellow trying to make artificial diamonds. And here's another old favorite: Eureka! Great Inventors You know, the lonely genius in the garage with a lightbulb that goes ping in his head. Well, if you've seen anything of this series, you'll know what a wrong approach to things that is. None of these guys did anything by themselves; they borrowed from other people's work. And how can you say when a golden age of anything started and stopped? The age of steam certainly wasn't started by James Watt; nor did the fellow whose engine he was trying to repair -- Newcomen, nor did his predecessor Savorey, nor did his predecessor Papert. And Papert was only doing what he was doing because they had trouble draining the mines. You see what I'm trying to say? This makes you think in straight lines. And if today doesn't happen in straight lines -- think of your own experience -- why should the past have? That's part of what this series has tried to show: that the past zig-zagged along -- just like the present does -- with nobody knowing what's coming next. Only we do it more complicatedly, and it's because our lives are that much more complex than theirs were that it's worth bothering about the past. Because if you don't know how you got somewhere, you don't know where you are. And we are at the end of a journey -- the journey from the past.

„Politics is momentum. And we have right now straight line momentum.“

—  Gary Johnson American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico 1953

2016, Interview with CNBC's John Harwood (August 22, 2016)

„Nothing shows you the straight line from here to death like a list.“

—  Chuck Palahniuk, buch Survivor

Quelle: Survivor