Ackoff Russell Quotes

#1. Lebanese mezze, Cantonese dim sum and Basque pinchos have all evolved over years and are designed to make sense together.

Yotam Ottolenghi

#2. In systems thinking, increases in understanding are believed to be obtainable by expanding the systems to be understood, not by reducing them to their elements. Understanding proceeds from the whole to its parts, not from the parts to the whole as knowledge does.

Russell L. Ackoff

#3. We can only learn from mistakes, by identifying them, determining their source, and correcting them ... people learn more from their own mistakes than from the successes of others.

Russell L. Ackoff

#4. Taught me a lesson I should have known all along. What you do to children matters. And they might never forget. She's got a big-time job in California but she don't call or visit anymore. She sends me money and stuff every now and then, but I ain't seen her in I don't know how long.

Toni Morrison

#5. It is the satisfaction we derive from 'going there' in contrast to the satisfaction derived from 'getting there.' Recreation provides 'the pause that refreshes.' It recreates creators.

Russell L. Ackoff

#6. To manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately.

Russell L. Ackoff

#7. Some people train for certain sports and I want to train to be able to hold a super heavy electric guitar and carry luggage around myself because I always have to have 7,000 pairs of shoes. Who cares about sports?

Lisa Loeb

#8. I think the best way to find out about something is to try to do it to the max. A lot of people take up a hobby or sport and then find an excuse not to carry on with it. Once I start something, I won't stop until I'm as good at it as I'll ever be.

Bruce Dickinson

#9. She left the window - and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps - and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer - and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words failed me to express), The lady is ugly!

Wilkie Collins

#10. Every problem interacts with other problems and is therefore part of a set of interrelated problems, a system of problems ... . I choose to call such a system a mess.

Russell L. Ackoff

#11. Omnicompetence,' the ability to obtain whatever one wants or needs, is an unattainable but continuously approachable ideal for all mankind - past, present, and future.

Russell L. Ackoff

#12. Life is a gift. Treat each moment with anticipation and gratitude.

Christopher Earle

#13. Successful problem solving requires finding the right solution to the right problem. We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.

Russell L. Ackoff

#14. It is far better to do the right thing wrong than to do the wrong thing right.

Russell L. Ackoff

#15. If we are all in agreement on the decision - then I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.

Alfred P. Sloan

#16. A problem never exists in isolation; it is surrounded by other problems in space and time. The more of the context of a problem that a scientist can comprehend, the greater are his chances of finding a truly adequate solution.

Russell L. Ackoff

#17. Errors of omission, lost opportunities, are generally more critical than errors of commission. Organizations fail or decline more frequently because of what they did not do than because of what they did.

Russell L. Ackoff

#18. Unless people can express themselves well in ordinary English, they don't know what they are talking about.

Russell L. Ackoff

#19. The more efficient you are at doing the wrong thing, the wronger you become. It is much better to do the right thing wronger than the wrong thing righter. If you do the right thing wrong and correct it, you get better.

Russell L. Ackoff

#20. So much time is currently spent in worrying about the future that the present is allowed to go to hell.

Russell L. Ackoff

#21. When a writer is able to experience the whole range of human emotions, from deep depressions to glorious highs, it creates a whole inventory of feelings and musings from which they can choose and infuse into their words and characters.

David Perry

#22. The future is better dealt with using assumptions than forecasts.

Russell L. Ackoff

#23. Hidden behind your fears and your failures is the success you seek.

Robert G. Allen

#24. You must marry ugly man," I said. "Very fet." I held my arms out in front of me, indicating a giant belly. "He weeel make you heppy." I heard Mal snort beneath his mask.

Leigh Bardugo

#25. Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes ... Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes. - RUSSELL ACKOFF,

Donella H. Meadows

#26. The objective of education is learning, not teaching

Russell L. Ackoff

#27. Art inspires, produces an unwillingness to settle for what we have and a desire for something better. It is the product and producer of creative activity, change; it is essential for continuous development.

Russell L. Ackoff

#28. Ours is not the first generation to understand the dire need for health reform. And I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.

Barack Obama

#29. Managers who don't know how to measure what they want settle for wanting what they can measure.

Russell L. Ackoff

#30. The lower the rank of managers, the more they know about fewer things. The higher the rank of managers, the less they know about many things.

Russell L. Ackoff

#31. Most managers receive much more data (if not information) than they can possibly absorb even if they spend all of their time trying to do so. Hence they already suffer from an information overload.

Russell L. Ackoff

#32. Creativity is the ability to identify self-imposed constraints, remove them, and explore the consequences of their removal.

Russell L. Ackoff

#33. Our ability to solve problem is limited by our conception of what is feasible.

Russell L. Ackoff

#34. Nothing is harder to topple than a fact that supports a deeply held prejudice denied by its holder.

Russell L. Ackoff