A pattern is a fully realized form original, or model accepted or proposed for imitation. With patterns, small piecework is standardized into a larger chunk or unit. Patterns become the building blocks for design and construction. Finding and applying patterns indicates progress in a field of human endeavor.

Many fields use patterns in various ways: In music and literature, a pattern is the coherent structure or design of a song or book. In art, a pattern is the composition or plan of a work of graphic or plastic art. In architecture, a pattern is an architectural design or style. In psychology, a pattern is a thinking mechanism that is basic to the brain's operation, helping one to perceive things quickly. In archeology, a pattern is a group of phases having several distinguishing and fundamental features in common. In linguistics, a pattern is the manner in which smaller units of language are grouped into larger units...

The definition I use for a pattern is an idea that has been useful in one practical context and will probably be useful in others

With each pattern, small piecework is standardized into a larger chunk or unit. Patterns become the building blocks for design and construction. Finding and applying patterns indicates progress in a field of human endeavor.

It is commonly said that a pattern, however it is written, has four essential parts: a statement of the context where the pattern is useful, the problem that the pattern addresses, the forces that play in forming a solution, and the solution that resolves those forces. … it supports the definition of a pattern as "a solution to a problem in a context", a definition that [unfortunately] fixes the bounds of the pattern to a single problem-solution pair

Everything about us, everything around us, everything we know and can know of is composed ultimately of patterns of nothing; that’s the bottom line, the final truth. So where we find we have any control over those patterns, why not make the most elegant ones, the most enjoyable and good ones, in our own terms?

There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace - these qualities you find always in that the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush of the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and in our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move towards death.

Codes and patterns are very different from each other,” Langdon said. “And a lot of people confuse the two. In my field, it’s crucial to understand their fundamental difference.”
“That being?”
Langdon stopped walking and turned to her. “A pattern is any distinctly organized sequence. Patterns occur everywhere in nature — the spiraling seeds of a sunflower, the hexagonal cells of a honeycomb, the circular ripples on a pond when a fish jumps, et cetera.”
“Okay. And codes?”
“Codes are special,” Langdon said, his tone rising. “Codes, by definition, must carry information. They must do more than simply form a pattern — codes must transmit data and convey meaning. Examples of codes include written language, musical notation, mathematical equations, computer language, and even simple symbols like the crucifix. All of these examples can transmit meaning or information in a way that spiraling sunflowers cannot.

Where there's a pattern, there's a reason.

People want to see patterns in the world. It is how we evolved. We descended from those primates who were best at spotting the telltale pattern of a predator in the forest, or of food in the savannah. So important is this skill that we apply it everywhere, warranted or not.

Where There’s Pattern, There’s Reason The key thought in the preceding few lines is the article of faith that this pattern cannot merely be a coincidence. A mathematician who finds a pattern of this sort will instinctively ask, “Why? What is the reason behind this order?” Not only will all mathematicians wonder what the reason is, but even more importantly, they will all implicitly believe that whether or not anyone ever finds the reason, there must be a reason for it. Nothing happens “by accident” in the world of mathematics.

Our common actions in reality are simply the sackcloth covering which hides the cloth-of-gold – the meaning of the pattern. For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfil it in its true potential—the imagination.

No, no...that is what our minds demand. We look for patterns

Human paint, produce films and videos; they dance, dream and make music; they engage in political action, exchange goods, perform rituals, build houses start wars, act in plays, try to please patrons- and so on... They contain patterns, press the practitioners to "conform" and in this way mold their thought, their perception, their actions, and their discriminative abilities.