This document discusses the concept of holism through quotes from Jan Smuts, John Muir, Albert Einstein, and William Blake. Jan Smuts defined holism as the tendency in nature for wholes to be greater than the sum of their parts through creative evolution. John Muir noted that when trying to isolate anything, it is connected to everything else in the universe. Albert Einstein predicted that holism would be an important concept guiding human thinking in the next millennium.

1. The Poetic Underpinning
of Holism
Karl Thidemann
Biodiversity for a Livable Climate
Restoring Ecosystems to Reverse Global Warming
November 23, 2014

3. Holism
"The tendency in nature to form wholes that are
greater than the sum of the parts through
creative evolution”
- Jan Smuts, Holism and Evolution, 1926

4. Walt Whitman:
A Study in the
Evolution of
Personality
- Jan Smuts, early 1880s while
a student at Cambridge

5. "When we try to pick
out anything by itself
we find it hitched to
everything else in the
Universe.”
- John Muir (1838-1914)

7. “Two mental
constructs will direct
human thinking in the
next Millennium,
relativity and holism.”
- Albert Einstein, 1926

8. To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
- William Blake