Latest Quotes

“The world of business really separates into two groups. Entrepreneurs who are disrupting the status quo are attackers. Large organizations are defenders.”

— Steve Case, The New York Times Innovation Report

“Culturally, I think we have operated as if we had the formula figured out, and it was all about optimizing, in its various constituent parts, the formula. Now it is about discovering the new formula.”

— Satya Nadella, The New York Times Innovation Report

“Hallmarks of disruptive innovators: introduced by an 'outsider,' / less expensive than existing products/ targeting underserved or new markets/ initially inferior to existing products/ advanced by an enabling technology.”

— The New York Times, The New York Times Innovation Report

“If you are a dedicated reader in Brooklyn fond of sliding bills across smooth countertops in exchange for tantalizing tomes in independent bookstores, you have probably encountered the Middling Millennials. They are largely white women who are almost totally in the dark about their privilege, many b…”

— Edward Champion, Emily Gould, Literary Narcissism, and the Middling Millennials

“The time lags imposed by stocks allow room to maneuver, to experiment, and to revise policies that aren't working.”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“A stock takes time to change, because flow takes time to flow.”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“The elements, the parts of systems we are most likely to notice, are often (not always) least important in defining the unique characteristics of the system—unless changing an element also results in changing relationships or purpose.”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“A system generally goes on being itself, changing only slowly if at all, even with complete substitutions of its elements—as long as its interconnections and purposes remain intact.”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Changing [a system's] elements usually has the least effect on the system.”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“...one of the most frustrating aspects of systems is that the purposes of subunits may add up to an overall behavior that no one wants.”

— 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…”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Many interconnections in systems operate through the flow of information.”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Do the parts together produce an effect that is different from the effect of each part on its own?”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“You think that because you understand 'one' that you must therefore understand 'two' because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand 'and.'”

— Sufi teaching story, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something.”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“You can be doing something that has always worked and suddenly discover, to your great disappointment, that your action no longer works.”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“The system, to a large extent, causes it's own behavior. An outside event may unleash that behavior, but the same outside event applied to a different system is likely to produce a different result.”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“A system is a set of things—people, cells, molecules, or whatever—interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. The system may be buffeted, constricted, triggered, or driven by outside forces. But the system's response to these forces is characteristic of it…”

— Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Depth over breadth, man. I believe in diving deeply into a small pool of information.”

— Josh Waitzkin, The Fighter's Mind: Inside the Mental Game

“Basically, his opponent made a beginner's blunder; he gave Josh a piece on an error. The error that was so weirdly obvious, so big, that it was almost impossible for Josh to see. When you read the game now, it's simply mystifying. They were both embroiled in computations of this deep position, getti…”

— Sam Sheridan, The Fighter's Mind: Inside the Mental Game