George Soros Quotes

To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.

A rough rule in life is that an organization foolish in one way in dealing with a complex system is all too likely to be foolish in another.

In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.

People don't realize that we cannot forecast the future. What we can do is have probabilities of what causes what, but that's as far as we go. And I've had a very successful career as a forecaster, starting in 1948 forward. The number of mistakes I have made are just awesome. There is no number large enough to account for that.

The way to build a complex system that works is to build it from very simple systems that work.

We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.

Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.

Our society is intertwined with the economy that we've built, which is a fantastically complex system. I hope that my writing about it might do some good, but that's not why I do it.

Perfection is perfectly simple; fouling things up requires true skill.

It used to be that if your automobile broke, the teenager down the street with the wrench could fix it. Now you have to have sophisticated equipment that can deal with microchips. We're entering a world in which the complexity of the devices and the system of interconnecting devices is beyond our capability to easily understand.

By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.

A lot of things can't be modeled very well.

As a rule, software systems do not work well until they have been used, and have failed repeatedly, in real applications.

Always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. Walt Disney Every decision you make is a mistake.

Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.

Honest error in the face of complex and possibly intractable problems is a far more important source of bad results than are bad motives.

Stop trying to change reality by attempting to eliminate complexity.

Everyone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather, the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole.

Failures happen in any system.

Correct" is a property of small systems.

The State machine breaks often down in consequence of mistakes made forty and fifty years ago …

Error is a hardy plant; it flourisheth in every soil; In the heart of the wise and good, alike with the wicked and foolish; For there is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth; Nor is any poison so deadly, that it serveth not some wholesome use.

Complex systems work until the day that they don’t work.

We don't have a health care system. We have a health care maze.

As you deal with more and more complex systems, it becomes harder and harder to find deep and interesting properties.