E Ostrom Quotes

#1. People say, 'Why don't you just paint with paintbrushes?' I say that I feel more connected to my painting using my skin. It's very tribal in a way - savage!

Meredith Ostrom

#2. What we have ignored is what citizens can do and the importance of real involvement of the people involved - versus just having somebody in Washington make a rule.

Elinor Ostrom

#3. Organizing is a process; an organization is the result of that process.

Elinor Ostrom

#4. I think we are able to keep active provided we approach our lives with creativity. I think the mere fact that we keep doing is self-creating.

Jessica Tandy

#5. I never was so rapid in my virtue but my vice kept up with me.

Henry David Thoreau

#6. I think that in my plays you can come in for 20 minutes and get something out of it. I'd like to do a play that would run for days. I don't think time is that important. Nature doesn't hurry the sky, the changing clouds and sunsets.

Robert Wilson

#7. Little by little, bit by bit, family by family, so much good can be done on so many levels

Elinor Ostrom

#8. I'm too sensitive and too sincere.

Meredith Ostrom

#9. The power of a theory is exactly proportional to the diversity of situations it can explain.

Elinor Ostrom

#10. The generation of atmosphere, the aura of the uncanny, is one of the most important secrets of magic. It contributes to the willing suspension of disbelief, the feeling that, within the circle, or in the presence of the magical shrine, anything may happen.

Doreen Valiente

#11. Bureaucrats sometimes do not have the correct information, while citizens and users of resources do.

Elinor Ostrom

#12. At times I ask myself if I shouldn't be living a more regular, stable life with a 9-to-5 job. Then I think about it and realise that there is no point in planning everything.

Meredith Ostrom

#13. I can be very messy and disorganized. And I don't throw away anything.

Meredith Ostrom

#14. John Casablancas was saying, 'You will be the next Claudia Schiffer!' But I said, 'Actually, I have to go to college.'

Meredith Ostrom

#15. As long as a single center has a monopoly on the use of coercion, one has a state rather than a self-governed society.

Elinor Ostrom

#16. Scientific knowledge is as much an understanding of the diversity of situations for which a theory or its models are relevant as an understanding of its limits.

Elinor Ostrom

#17. People get upset when Baghdad, the "Cradle of Civilization" is burning, or when the Buddhas in Afghanistan are falling. These are real concerns.

Aleksandra Mir

#18. In some settings, however, rampant opportunistic behavior severely limits what can be done jointly without major investments in monitoring and sanctioning arrangements.

Elinor Ostrom

#19. There is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians, no matter how well meaning, are better at solving problems than the people on the spot, who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right.

Elinor Ostrom

#20. Driven by a concern with institutions, we re-enter the world of the behavioralists. But we do so not in protest against the notion of rational choice, but rather in an effort to understand how rationality on the part of individuals leads to coherence at the level of society. (Bates 1988, p. 399)

Elinor Ostrom

#21. When you are in a long relationship, sometimes you forget who you are, what you love to do.

Meredith Ostrom

#22. I'm so not into being emaciated.

Meredith Ostrom

#23. all good books are bad!

Elinor Ostrom