Quotes by Donella Meadows
“The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-social-psychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent, intractable global problems arise directly from this mismatch.”— Donella Meadows
“A system just does what it does. It can't be blamed for that. It is structured to do what it does, and that's all.”— Donella Meadows
“The behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made.”— Donella Meadows
“The least obvious part of the system, its function or purpose, is often the most crucial determinant of the system’s behavior.”— Donella Meadows
“The future can't be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. Systems can't be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned.”— Donella Meadows
“Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows, is only a model.”— Donella Meadows
“There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion.”— Donella Meadows
“The scarcest resource is not oil, metals, clean air, capital, labour, or technology. It is our willingness to listen to each other and learn from each other and to seek the truth rather than seek to be right.”— Donella Meadows
“We can't impose our will on a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.”— Donella Meadows
“Living successfully in a world of systems requires more of us than our ability to calculate. It requires our full humanity.”— Donella Meadows
“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.”— Donella Meadows