Thinking In Systems Quotes

“If a frog turns right and catches a fly, and then turns left and catches a fly, and then turns around backward and catches a fly, the purpose of the frog has to do not with turning left or right or backward but with catching flies. If a government proclaims its interest in protecting the environment but allocates little money or effort toward that goal, environmental protection is not, in fact, the government’s purpose. Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“QUESTIONS FOR TESTING THE VALUE OF A MODEL Are the driving factors likely to unfold this way? If they did, would the system react this way? What is driving the driving factors?”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Now imagine starting again with a full tub, and again open the drain, but this time, when the tub is about half empty, turn on the inflow faucet so the rate of water flowing in is just equal to that flowing out. What happens? The amount of water in the tub stays constant at whatever level it had reached when the inflow became equal to the outflow. It is in a state of dynamic equilibrium—its level does not change, although water is continuously flowing through it.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“If a frog turns right and catches a fly, and then turns left and catches a fly, and then turns around backward and catches a fly, the purpose of the frog has to do not with turning left or right or backward but with catching flies. If a government proclaims its interest in protecting the environment but allocates little money or effort toward that goal, environmental protection is not, in fact, the government’s purpose. Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals. A”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“President Jimmy Carter had an unusual ability to think in feedback terms and to make feedback policies. Unfortunately, he had a hard time explaining them to a press and public that didn’t understand feedback.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“We live in an exaggerated present—we pay too much attention to recent experience and too little attention to the past, focusing on current events rather than long-term behavior.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of greatest value… he generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.… He intends his own security; … he intends only his own gain and he is in this … led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. —Adam Smith,9 18th century political economist”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“At any given time, the input that is most important to a system is the one that is most limiting.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Complex systems can evolve from simple systems only if there are stable intermediate forms. The resulting complex forms will naturally be hierarchic.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking In Systems: A Primer

“A quantity growing exponentially toward a constraint or limit reaches that limit in a surprisingly short time.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“The … goal of all theory is to make the … basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of … experience. —Albert Einstein,1 physicist”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Remember—all system diagrams are simplifications of the real world.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“A feedback loop is a closed chain of causal connections from a stock, through a set of decisions or rules or physical laws or actions that are dependent on the level of the stock, and back again through a flow to change the stock.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“The behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made. PART ONE System Structure and Behavior”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Escalation in morality can lead to holier-than-thou sanctimoniousness.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“How to know whether you are looking at a system or just a bunch of stuff: A) Can you identify parts? … and B) Do the parts affect each other? … and C) Do the parts together produce an effect that is different from the effect of each part on its own? … and perhaps D) Does the effect, the behavior over time, persist in a variety of circumstances?”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“To discuss them properly, it is necessary somehow to use a language that shares some of the same properties as the phenomena under discussion. Pictures work for this language better than words, because you can see all the parts of a picture at once.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Changes in stocks set the pace of the dynamics of systems. Industrialization cannot proceed faster than the rate at which factories and machines can be constructed and the rate at which human beings can be educated to run and maintain them. Forests can’t grow overnight. Once contaminants have accumulated in groundwater, they can be washed out only at the rate of groundwater turnover, which may take decades or even centuries.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“As we try to imagine restructured rules and what our behavior would be under them, we come to understand the power of rules. They are high leverage points. Power over the rules is real power.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Physical structure is crucial in a system, but is rarely a leverage point, because changing it is rarely quick or simple. The leverage point is in proper design in the first place.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“The only way to fix a system that is laid out poorly is to rebuild it, if you can.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“The more users there are, the more resource is used. The more resource is used, the less there is per user.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“There always will be limits to growth. They can be self-imposed. If they aren’t, they will be system-imposed.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Everything we think we know about the world is a model. Every word and every language is a model. All maps and statistics, books and databases, equations and computer programs are models. So are the ways I picture the world in my head—my mental models. None of these is or ever will be the real world. Our models usually have a strong congruence with the world. That is why we are such a successful species in the biosphere. Especially complex and sophisticated are the mental models we develop from direct, intimate experience of nature, people, and organizations immediately around us. However, and conversely, our models fall far short of representing the world fully. That is why we make mistakes and why we are regularly surprised. In our heads, we can keep track of only a few variables at one time. We often draw illogical conclusions from accurate assumptions, or logical conclusions from inaccurate assumptions. Most of us, for instance, are surprised by the amount of growth an exponential process can generate. Few of us can intuit how to damp oscillations in a complex system.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Hierarchies are brilliant systems inventions, not only because they give a system stability and resilience, but also because they reduce the amount of information that any part of the system has to keep track of.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Systems often have the property of self-organization—the ability to structure themselves, to create new structure, to learn, diversify, and complexify. Even complex forms of self-organization may arise from relatively simple organizing rules—or may not.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Resilience is a measure of a system’s ability to survive and persist within a variable environment. The opposite of resilience is brittleness or rigidity.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“To ask whether elements, interconnections, or purposes are most important in a system is to ask an unsystemic question. All are essential. All interact. All have their roles. But the least obvious part of the system, its function or purpose, is often the most crucial determinant of the system’s behavior.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“The best way to deduce the system’s purpose is to watch for a while to see how the system behaves.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Carter also was trying to deal with a flood of illegal immigrants from Mexico. He suggested that nothing could be done about that immigration as long as there was a great gap in opportunity and living standards between the United States and Mexico. Rather than spending money on border guards and barriers, he said, we should spend money helping to build the Mexican economy, and we should continue to do so until the immigration stopped. That never happened either.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer