Martin Gardner, of Scientific American:
»Piet Hein has one of those rare and psychologically mysterious minds, possessed by so many great creative scientists such as Einstein and Niels Bohr, a mind that goes straight to the heart of a problem, seeing all its aspects as a single unity, then finding a solution that is as unexpected as it is beautiful.«
Henrik Groth, the grand old man of Norwegian publishing:
»..... an enormous explosive force ... the enormous wealth of associations of ideas ...has made Piet Hein world famous ...can only be compared to Hans Christian Andersen. Tenderness and love are equally strong ingredients in Piet Hein as wit.«
Norbert Wiener, of Cybernetics, the science behind the electronic machines:
»Piet Hein is a master of the epigram. He must be read on at least two levels.
What a wealth of significant thought it contains. «
C. Northcote Parkinson:
»He is a more profound thinker than I can claim to be....Piet Hein’s humor ... is rooted in bitter experience, a taste of hell. ...In the century to come he will be remembered as a man of great wisdom, charm and wit.«
Aage Marcus, of the library of the Danish Academy of Art:
»...if anybody has expressed life enthusiasm, Piet Hein has ...a whole immeasurable universe ... a No to the narrow personality and a Yes to its expansion… «
David Hellden, of the rebuilding of the centre of Stockholm:
»Never have I met a human being so rewarding and exciting to speak with. The boyish mind, the wide awake intellect and the need to be always deeply engaged in things have kept him young in spite of the trials of life he has experienced... «
Konrad Lorenz:
»..A poet who has put the essence of science into four lines... «
Itsuo Sakane, Asahi Shimbun, Japan:
»Even his impressive Grooks are good examples of unity of poetic spirit and ‘logical thinking - art and science. The secret of his creativity must be his playful spirit functioning as a catalyst to unify such two fields. In this sense he is a more humane Leonardo of our time...«
TIME Weekly:
»Conciliation would be far easier if adversaries would only heed the aphoristic advice of the Danish scientist poet Piet Hein:
The Noble Art of Losing Face
may one day save the Human Race
and turn into eternal merit
what weaker minds would call disgrace. «
In a TV broadcast in Montreal, 1967:
»..when I introduced the exact mathematical shape, the Superellipse, into town planning,
architecture and industry, I knew it bridged the gap between the two patterns we had forced on our civilization as two extreme strait-jackets: the rectangular and the circular, but I didn’t know to which extent it could be taken as paradigm of a healthy reconciliation of seemingly incompatible extremes in all human fields.«
In a lecture in Tokyo, 1983, under the auspices of the Japan Foundation:
»One fundamental quality which Japanese and Danish technology and design, at their best,
have in common is a knack of posing the technical and the aesthetic (read: psychologic, read: psychotechnical) problems as the unity they really con stitute.«
In a speech at the International Design Conference, Aspen, Colorado, 1967:
»The repulsion of the unclear is the penumbra of a neurosis... «
In his Nobel lecture in Stockholm, 1983:
»..The opposite of a folly is not the opposite folly... «
ALL THE DIFFERENCE |
ALLOTMENT |
BRIDGING MATERIALS |
DARTS |
DE LUX |
EQUIVALENCE |
FREEDOM |
GROOK TO STIMULATE GRATITUDE |
I'D LIKE - |
IDLE FELLOW |
LEST FOOLS SHOULD FAIL |
LIFE IS – |
MAKING THE BEST OF IT |
MASQUERADE |
MONEY |
MOUSE AND MAN |
MY FAITH IN DOCTORS |
NUMBERS |
ON BEING ONESELF |
ONLY HOPING |
OUR OWN MOTES |
PERFECTION |
PORNOGRAPHIC GROOK |
PRESCRIPTION |
REASONS WITHIN REASON |
REFLECTION RE FRACTIONS |
REMEDIES' REMEDIES |
ROAD HOGS |
SAUVE QUI PEUT |
SCOTCHED |
SPEED IT UP! |
STRIKING A BALANCE |
TECHNICALLY SPEAKING |
TECHNOCY |
THE BOAST |
THE CENTRAL POINT |
THE EGOCENTRICS |
THE ME ABOVE THE ME |
THE MIRROR |
THE PLAGIARIST |
THE SAVING GRACE |
THE VITAL PRECEPT |
THE WISDOM OF THE SPHERES |
THOSE WHO KNOW |
THRIFT |
TIME |
TIMING TOAST |
UNDERTONE |
UNQUALIFIED QUALIFICATION |
WARNING |
WE DO OUR BEST |
WEAKNESS THROUGH STRENGTH |
WISDOM IS - |