W. Edwards Deming Quotes

Technologists come at a problem from the point of view that the system is working a certain way, and if I engage in that system and actually change the rules of the system, I can make it work a different way.

A computation is a process that obeys finitely describable rules.

The government has the right to change laws and rules and regulations.

Asimov was the reason why we changed some rules in the SFWA, and I'm not convinced we changed it for the best.

The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace.

Nothing can be created out of nothing.

Very few wars have been won by mere numbers alone. Quality, willpower, geographical advantages, natural and financial resources, the command of the sea, and above all a cause that rouses the spontaneous surgings of the human spirit…

Out of bad motives good things often come.

Whenever you can, count.

the cause must be ascertained, before the remedy is devised.

Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity. For Chance rarely conflicts with intelligence, and most things in life can be set in order by an intelligent sharpsightedness.

Every good cause is worth some inefficiency

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

Our system of market capitalism wasn't handed down, in perfect form, on stone tablets. We wrote the rules. We broke them. And we can fix them.

The numbers are hard to control.

Pray tell us, what's your favorite number?"... "Shiva jumped up to the board, uninvited, and wrote 10,213,223"... "And pray, why would this number interest us?" "It is the only number that describes itself when you read it, 'One zero, two ones, three twos, two threes'.

Early on I realized that I had to hire people smarter and more qualified than I was in a number of different fields, and I had to let go of a lot of decision-making. I can't tell you how hard that is. But if you've imprinted your values on the people around you, you can dare to trust them to make the right moves.

Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and daemons.

Management works in the system; leadership works on the system.

Managers watch over our numbers, our time and our results. Leaders watch over us.

QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there.

There are more reasons for people's actions than the number of actions that are actually set in motion.

The number one cause of failure in this country is the fear of failure.

What we do not understand, we cannot control.

... numbers have neither substance, nor meaning, nor qualities. They are nothing but marks, and all that is in them we have put into them by the simple rule of straight succession.