Thou canst not tell where one drop of water or one grain of sand will be tomorrow noon

History would be an excellent thing if only it were true

A cat is not part of the elementary ingredients of the universe. It is something complex that emerges, and repeats itself, in various parts of our planet.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Reason is a tool of weaklings who are afraid to be naked in the face of a cruel and conflictual reality and who therefore build fantasy intellectual structures to hide in.

They consider only their own ideas of ingenuity; and, in searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which they would have hidden it.

In every job that must be done there is an element of fun.

A culture, an organisation, or even a society is not a thing but a pattern of relating which takes habitual forms and which constrains and enables what it is possible to think, say and do.

The very idea of a guru, in a sense, is a reductionist concept.

I really do have a blow-up elephant.

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.

Culture is like a shadow. You cannot change it, but it changes all the time. Culture is read-only.

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

The most reckless and treacherous of all theorists is he who professes to let facts and figures speak for themselves, who keeps in the background the part he has played, perhaps unconsciously, in selecting and grouping them.

Innovation is the opposite of policy.

The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity.

Freedom is participation in power.

Nature’s answer to those who sought to control nature through programmable machines is to allow us to build machines whose nature is beyond programmable control.

Years ago a professor gave me a bunch of white papers written by physicists at the Santa Fe Institute, and I became voraciously interested in them. I began to learn about complex systems theory, which holds that evolution isn’t just a biological process; it can apply to social organizations as well. I found myself asking, “If Darwin’s ideas exist in nature, who am I to say they don’t apply in business? What if they apply everywhere?”

Most Western managers believe that long-term success flows from a state of stability, harmony, predictability, discipline, and consensus - a state that I refer to as stable equilibrium. This belief leads them to demand general prescriptions that they can immediately convert into successful action. The most popular prescriptions are to formulate a vision of an organization's future state, to prepare long-term plans to realize that vision, to set strategic milestones and monitor achievements against those plans, to write mission statements and persuade people to share the same culture, to encourage widespread participation and consensus in decision making, and to install control systems that allow top executives to set the organization's direction and stay in command.

Scarcity of rhyme and reason frightens us and so we impose on the world around us, even on random facts and chance phenomena, artificial order based on false principles

People must ... get away from the idea that serious work is restricted to beating to death a well-defined problem in a narrow discipline, while broadly integrative thinking is relegated to cocktail parties. In academic life, in bureaucracies, and elsewhere, the task of integration is insufficiently respected.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science

Smooth shapes are very rare in the wild but extremely important in the ivory tower and the factory

Everyone’s got a plan until you punch them in the mouth

Nothing pleases people more than to go on thinking what they have always thought, and at the same time imagine that they are thinking something new and daring: it combines the advantage of security and the delight of adventure

The great unexplored frontier is complexity… I am convinced that nations and people that master the new science of complexity will become the economic, cultural, and political superpowers of the next century

I do not regard ambiguity as an enemy, nor do I consider disagreement a pest to be eradicated. New ideas almost inevitably excite disagreement. Knowledge is the child of disagreement.

The future is an endless series of experiments

I shall not ask you what your religion is. I prefer to ask instead: How do you put into practice whatever beliefs you have?

The world is what is revealed when we each say what we see, when we all shine our faint torches on it

May God us keep from single vision and Newton’s Sleep

When we speak without jargon, it frees us from hiding behind knowledge we don’t have

Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities arise

It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.

People, ideas, hardware - in that order!

There should be no element of slavery in learning. Enforced exercise does no harm to the body, but enforced learning will not stay in the mind. So avoid compulsion, and let your children's lessons take the form of play.

Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.

There is something you should understand about the way I work. When you need me but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me but no longer need me, then I have to go.

...so many great truths must be very gently introduced, with voices soft and the truths themselves understated.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.

The pencil is mightier than the pen.

Is it hard? -- Not if you have the right attitudes. It's having the right attitudes that's hard.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

To make matters worse, in order to ride a bike, you have to be willing to embrace its precariousness.

You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea.

You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them.

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant but has forgotten the gift.

There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.

This task was appointed to you, Frodo of the Shire. If you do not find a way, no one will.

Simple rules lead to complex behavior. Complicated rules lead to stupid behavior.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

In a knowledge economy there no such thing as conscripts, there are only volunteers. The trouble is we have trained our managers to manage conscripts.

Eliminate numerical quotas.

Do or do not. There is no try.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

Management by objective works - if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don't.

No, I will not calm down!

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.

All lasting business is built on friendship.

As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction.

Shut up! [Vikings stop] Bloody Vikings! You can't have egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam.

The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn.

In times of change the learners will inherit the earth while the knowers will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.