Entropy Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old entropy quotes, entropy sayings, and entropy proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy. Vaclav Havel
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 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 is time's arrow. Arthur Stanley Eddington
Evolution in the biosphere is therefore a necessarily irreversible process defining a direction in time; a direction which is the same as that enjoined by the law of increasing entropy, that is to say, the second law of thermodynamics. This is far more than a mere comparison: the second law is founded upon considerations identical to those which establish the irreversibility of evolution. Indeed, it is legitimate to view the irreversibility of evolution as an expression of the second law in the biosphere. Jacques Monod
The powerful notion of entropy, which comes from a very special branch of physics is certainly useful in the study of communication and quite helpful when applied in the theory of language. J. Robert Oppenheimer
Any method involving the notion of entropy, the very existence of which depends on the second law of thermodynamics, will doubtless seem to many far-fetched, and may repel beginners as obscure and difficult of comprehension. Willard Gibbs
The increase of disorder or entropy with time is one example of what is called an arrow of time, something that distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time. Stephen Hawking
Entropy is not about speeds or positions of particles, the way temperature and pressure and volume are, but about our lack of information. Hans Christian von Baeyer
Entropy is the price of structure. Ilya Prigogine
Just as entropy is a measure of disorganization, the information carried by a set of messages is a measure of organization. In fact, it is possible to interpret the information carried by a message as essentially the negative of its entropy, and the negative logarithm of its probability. That is, the more probable the message, the less information it gives. Cliches, for example, are less illuminating than great poems. Norbert Wiener
All things tend toward entropy. The whole universe is moving outward, the stars pulling away from one another, God knows what falling through the cracks between them. Cassandra Clare
Only entropy comes easy. Anton Chekhov
Entropy shakes its angry fist at you for being clever enough to organize the world. Brandon Sanderson
Entropy is the normal state of consciousness a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Entropy makes things fall, but life ingeniously rigs the game so that when they do they often fall into place. John Tooby
Entropy explains why left to the mercy of the elements, mortar crumbles, glass shatters, and building collapse. Wonders of the Unverse
Wiggle your big toe...As lay in the back of Buck's truck, trying to will my limbs out of entropy. Kill Bill
Until Tuesday, occupy Wall Street seemed, at least from the outside, to be entering a stage of entropy. Michelle Goldberg
If you have all your wishes fulfilled, you have what could be called psychological entropy. I found then that what I had thought to be a pathological phenomenon is in fact a rule of nature. C.G. Jung
Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought. Yevgeny Zamyatin
From my earliest youth I have felt the intuition that at some deeper cross-section of this pyramid of consciousness, mere being could become an event, the inviolable presence and simultaneity of everything that we, on the upper 'normal,' apex of self-consciousness, are permitted to experience only as entropy. Rainier Maria Rilke
But if one takes control of what the body can do, and learns to impose order on physical sensations, entropy yields to a sense of enjoyable harmony in consciousness. Mihaly Csikszentmihaly
It's our job to take entropy and randomness and find meaning. Khaled Hosseini
Entropy happens in an instant; order takes time. Joseph Stirt
The universe and life are based on chance, but no accident. Forces of chance and anti chance coexist in a complementary relationship. The random element is entropy, the agent of chaos, which destroys meaning. The nonrandom element is information. Joseph Stirt
Of course, in the long run, the great trivial purpose of maximum entropy will appear to be the most enduring of all. Norbert Wiener
The increase of disorder or entropy is what distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time. Stephen Hawking
Our perception trapped in entropy / Keeps the order one direction/ Our search for meaning stacked upon / —a theory not to last. Kurt Philip Behm
If we assume there is no maximum possible entropy for the universe, then any state can be a state of low entropy. Alan Guth
If you stop being scared, that's when entropy sets in, and you may as well go home. Tamsin Greg
Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the second law of thermodynamics; i.e. it always increases. Norman Ralph Augustine
Entropy' will be a kaleidoscope of thought processes and my identity as an Indian who grew up in California. Sid Sriram
Things fall apart, even when you think they're stronger than anything you could ever imagine. Susane Colasanti
No structure, even an artificial one, enjoys the process of entropy. It is the ultimate fate of everything, and everything resists it. Philip K. Dick
Messy arrangements far outweigh orderly ones. Brian Greene
Entropy is just a fancy way of saying: things fall apart. Dan Brown
Death always seems to come for you whether you are machine or organic, entropy seems to always win. L.B. Ó Ceallaigh
History shows that people are as changeable as rivers. Andres Neuman
Creativity is our only weapon against entropy. Dean Cavanagh
Entropy requires no maintenance. Robert Anton Wilson
The organism feeds on negative entropy. Erwin Schrodinger