Lewis Mumford Quotes

Like bees creating a beehive or ants creating an anthill we're all moving along creating something and we're not sure what it is.

That order generated without design can far outstrip plans men consciously contrive.

I've probably overused this analogy of a flock of birds moving around an object in flight, but, in reality, it's so simple, real time communication of individuals that allow for this super organism type of organism to happen.

The current understanding was that it was impossible to predict how something would evolve because it was a very turbulent environment full of things interacting with each other.

I'm interested in complexity, in the mathematical sense, as well as the idiomatic sense. The idea of emergence - that it's possible for complex patterns to arise out of many simple interactions - is fascinating.

Basins of attraction, of self organization, show up as well in our complex social environment, in human organizations. Here again, while we cannot predict the result of any given input, we can say that it will likely fall within one of several areas.

It really doesn't matter honestly to look at the scoreboard where it's 20 runs and 2 wickets down or 200 runs, 2 wickets down, because... if you're positive inside it really doesn't matter. It just requires different planning sometimes.

Chaos is hard to create, even on the Internet.

Information is just simply bootstrapping itself to higher and higher levels of self-reflection and self-coordination using whatever means are necessary.

Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone

What WE represent is the nexus of concrescent novelty that has been moving itself together, complexifying itself, folding itself in upon itself for billions and billions of years. There is, so far as we know, nothing more advanced than what is sitting behind your eyes. The human neocortex is the most densely ramified complexified structure in the known universe.

You want to favor systems that benefit from error, disorder, variability and things like that. You want to favor these systems and unfortunately, when - there's something I call the Soviet Illusion. The more the government becomes intrusive, the more things have to follow a script, and it can't handle this kind of system.

Technically speaking, since our complex societies are highly susceptible to interferences and accidents,they certainly offer ideal opportunities for a prompt disruption of normal activities. These disruptions can, with minimum expense, have considerably destructive consequences. Global terrorism is extreme both in its lack of realistic goals and in its cynical exploitation of the vulnerability of complex systems.

Once I started working with the Polaroid, I would take a shot and if that shot was good, then I'd move the model and change the lighting or whatever... slowly sneaking up on what I wanted rather than having to predetermine what it was.

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, to a large extent, causes its own behavior.

Goals happen to be restrictive to me. Goals can cause me to maybe miss out or make a wrong decision on an opportunity that pops up.

Globalization is a bottom-up phenomenon with all actions initiated by milions of individuals, the sum total of which is globalization. No one is in charge, and no one can anticipate what the sum of all the individual initiatives will be before the result manifest. A global economy can only be the result of spontaneous order.

Think about your future possibilities and the fact that your potential is virtually unlimited. You can do what you want to do and go where you want to go. You can be the person you want to be. You can set large and small goals and make plans and move step-by-step, progressively toward their realization. There are no obstacles to what you can accomplish except the obstacles that you create in your mind.

Many of the greatest things man has achieved are not the result of consciously directed thought, and still less the product of a deliberately coordinated effort of many individuals, but of a process in which the individual plays a part which he can never fully understand.

The goal of a marketing interaction isn't to close the sale, any more than the goal of a first date is to get married. No, the opportunity is to move forward, to earn attention and trust and curiosity and conversation.

We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf , as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective - a new world order - can emerge: a new era - freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony.

Every day, do something that is truly important in moving you toward your goals. You must choose to invest your time in the important steps. When you take charge of your time, you take charge of your life. How you spend your time reflects your priorities.

You miss a lot of opportunities by making mistakes, but that's part of it: knowing that you're not shut out forever, and that there's a goal you still can reach.

My goal is this: always to put myself in the place in which I am best able to serve, wherever my gifts and qualities find the best soil to grow, the widest field of action. There is no other goal.

I always want to do the best that I can with the opportunities that God has given me. The only way that you can possibly do that is to give yourself a chance to go as high as you possibly can. If you don't have the confidence in yourself and you don't have the desire to compete and move ahead, than you start to get stagnant....If I fall a little bit short, then I'm still farther than if I hadn't reached at all.