Top 100 System Thinking Quotes
#1. In the Pythagorean system, thinking about numbers, or doing mathematics, was an inherently masculine task. Mathematics was associated with the gods, and with transcendence from the material world; women, by their nature, were supposedly rooted in this latter, baser realm.
Margaret Wertheim
#3. Gobbledygook may indicate a failure to think clearly, a contempt for one's clients, or more probably a mixture of both. A system that can't or won't communicate is not a safe basis for a democracy.
Michael Shanks
#4. According to a Pew poll, 49% of young Americans have a favorable view of socialism. What is socialism? it is a system that leads to mass misery, mass impoverishment, and human slaughter. That's what it means. Yet almost half of the young think it's benign.
David Horowitz
#5. I have been vegetarian for twelve years. And I have never been seriously ill. Vegetarian food strengthens the immune system. I think that meat makes you sick.
Bryan Adams
#6. The grid is going to be a very different system in 2020, 2030. We keep thinking that we want it to be there and provide power when we need it ... Families will have to get used to only using power when it was available, rather than constantly.
Steve Holliday
#7. I think in rural settings, people have a different appreciation for animals than might the city dweller. In parts of India where poisonous snake bite is common, people have a much different value system. I live in a city. I'm not thinking about wolves, lions, etc.
Henry Rollins
#8. I think people forgot that there are still ways you can get the ball inside rather than just standing there and throwing the ball in. You have to have a system that makes all things work.
Phil Jackson
#9. I think if the copyright regime focuses on the people we are supposed to be helping, the artists and creators, and builds a system that gives them the freedom to choose and to protect and to be rewarded for their creativity, then we will have the right focus.
Lawrence Lessig
#10. The first hit on the nervous system is the one I'm most interested in, because I think if you hit the reader emotionally, the reader can't guarantee the lessons they would like to learn.
Fred D'Aguiar
#11. Care about understanding and before you know it, in just a few decades, you'll have a system of thinking that gives you answers whenever you ask.
Richard Bach
#12. I think we are part of the earth. The concept of the rainforest being the womb of life is something I believe in ... the value system must get back to the environment as it was originally, the magnificence from where we emerged.
Ian Cohen
#13. For the gay and lesbian community, even though I'm not gay I think its really important to speak out for people that aren't necessarily dealing with the same circumstances you're dealing with and don't have the benefit of the health care system or the government that you do.
Chelsea Handler
#14. Our blind trust in the system is the product of ignorance and magical thinking,
William Landay
#15. I think it's absurd to talk about - one time you were outside the system, now you are in the system - no, we fight, the cause of the fight is because the system is bad that we can't get out of it.
Huey Newton
#16. To change a political system, the majority of the thinking citizens must unite, speak with one voice and stand firm like one leg.
Ahmed Padia Binkatabana
#17. All of this got me thinking about the history of the westward expansion, and got me to wondering how the exploration of the Solar System would be changed if there were an indigenous presence out there.
Sarah Zettel
#18. As I think all Americans understand on both sides of the aisle, the Social Security system as it is structured today is a pay-as-you-go system.
John Shadegg
#19. unscientific ways of thinking will dominate scientific thinking among human intellectuals, and lead to the collapse of the entire scientific system of thought.
Liu Cixin
#20. You can't have the capitalist system if an increasing number of people think it is unjust.
Alan Greenspan
#21. I also think that there is a huge failure in the American education system to educate Americans about where we, our system, our government, came from. And to some extent this failure is shared in places like Britain and Canada and Australia.
Michael Scheuer
#22. I think death is the most wonderful invention of life. It purges the system of these old models that are obsolete.
Steve Jobs
#23. We're all connected by the system, and we all have to be a part, I think, of changing it.
Eric Schlosser
#24. He smiles so much, I don't think he has a central nervous system.
Lewis Black
#25. All I did in Chicago was to exercise my legal right to speak on my own behalf and I was given four years in jail as a result. But I think the most serious injustice perpetrated by the court system in America is the inability of a black man to get a jury of his peers.
Bobby Seale
#26. The problem is, you have to look at Afghanistan also in a global context where we've canceled basically our missile defense system undercutting the Czech Republic in Poland. We've I think not dealt with Iran with the kind of resolve that would show that we understand the nature of that threat.
Rahm Emanuel
#27. Those who think that metaphysics is just misunderstood grammar will react to my giving metaphysics some place or another in the system of knowledge.
Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra
#28. Most people, I believe, think that you need a God to explain the existence of the world, and especially the existence of life. They are wrong, but our education system is such that many people don't know it.
Richard Dawkins
#29. I like computers. I like the Internet. It's a tool that can be used. But don't be misled into thinking that these technologies are anything other than aspects of a degenerate economic system.
Jerry Brown
#30. The best compliment I can give Blake is just to say that if I hadn't inherited him as the quarterback, he would have been a kid I would have recruited. I think he has all the tools to be very successful in our system.
Terry Hoeppner
#31. I think most people are motivated to want to do what is best for themselves. People want to avoid STDs. I believe in a system that leaves it up to the individual to protect their own health.
Chester Brown
#32. There are two things you need if you are to uncover and communicate what is really happening in the world. One is to free of any dogmatic belief system. The second is not to give a damn what people think and say about you, or, at least, not to let that influence your decisions.
David Icke
#33. Prana is the aspect of mobility, dynamism, and cohesion, while consciousness is the aspect of cognition and the capacity for reflective thinking. So according to the Guhyasamaja tantra, when a world system comes into being, we are witnessing the play of this energy and consciousness reality.
Dalai Lama XIV
#34. I have a beautiful wife and a wonderful support system and I think in those low moments, I could never thank them enough.
Sean Mackin
#35. In order to function, the people who operate such a system of drawers must be reprogrammed to stop thinking as humans and to start thinking as clerks and accountants.
Yuval Noah Harari
#36. If you're making commercials which sell products which are unhealthy or which are unnecessary, I think that you are part of a system.
Haskell Wexler
#37. But at the time I didn't know that it would take more to escape black-and-white thinking than just no longer attending your parents' church. The church had provided me a sorting system, which was now ingrained. It had containers into which every person and idea and event was to be placed.
Nadia Bolz-Weber
#38. The world needs the kind of education by means of which character is formed, strength of the mind is increased and the human intellect is expanded beyond its own limits.
Abhijit Naskar
#39. What most of us do not realize is that we are being transformed in our thinking all the time - either by the world's value system or by the truth of God's Word.
Chip Ingram
#40. When I was 21 I think I thought I was 31. I was always kind of doing the right thing, and it wasn't until my late twenties that I became just a completely wild asshole. So I should've had that out of my system already and I was too busy being a grown-up.
Ryan Reynolds
#41. For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions in the South, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire system, a revolution of values.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#42. To think that land reform is going to somehow automatically create an equitable system, I think that's just wrong. It's a very technical view of the world.
Pankaj Mishra
#43. I think that we should give visas to people - green cards, rather, to people who graduate with skills that we need. People around the world with accredited degrees in science and math get a green card stapled to their diploma, come to the U.S. of A. We should make sure our legal system works.
Mitt Romney
#44. Marcus is a great example of that way of thinking. He's always looking for ways a security system fails.
Cory Doctorow
#45. Everyone thinks they've won the Magical Belief Lottery. Everyone thinks they more or less have a handle on things, that they, as opposed to the billions who disagree with them, have somehow lucked into the one true belief system.
R. Scott Bakker
#46. The capitalist system is not delivering those decade-after-decade increases it promised. We're not where we should be in terms of our national economies. We don't know how to get out of this malaise and I think we now have to consider more radical policies.
Adair Turner
#47. I think we can say our energy system will be the most efficient and environmentally friendly in the world.
Angela Merkel
#48. When it comes to immigration reform, now is the time ... I've never seen a better political environment ... I'm not doing immigration reform to solve the Republican Party's political problem. I'm trying to save our nation from, I think, a shortage of labor and a catastrophic broken system.
Lindsey Graham
#49. I think that one thing that people are missing is that we are never going to be able to fix this country's [American] economy in the long run until we fix our public education system.
Michelle Rhee
#50. I think we need a real plan, which is why I have offered a much more specific approach to securing the border, fixing the legal immigration system and addressing illegal immigration.
Carly Fiorina
#51. The gay movement doesn't care about what you think ... they're focused on the young ones because if you can put the ideas into their minds it's just a matter of time before you die off and they take your place and their value system will then allow all the rules to be changed.
Scott Lively
#52. Interdependent Thinking is a true system view of the world.
Pearl Zhu
#53. I would say I was challenging the system quite. But I like to think that if the choices I make are slightly unexpected or challenging to people, then that is good. We are definitely three fairly like-minded people in terms of what we value in scripts and in storytelling.
Daniel Radcliffe
#54. I don't think you'll ever replace human judgment and human inspiration and creativity because, at the end of the day, you need to be asking questions like, O.K., the system says this. Is this really what we want to do? Is that the right thing?
Laszlo Bock
#55. I definitely didn't fit in perfectly to the school system. I was raised with such freedom of speech and thinking.
Julie Delpy
#56. Having a system for thinking deeper can provide greater insight into solving everyday problem. Such a system is shared in my book, Medical Investigation 101.
Dr. Russ Hill
#57. I think that we already have a really good system in town, but I have a vision that it could be even better. My vision is that academic excellence is the area that we should pursue more, coupled with fiscal discipline.
F Scott Fitzgerald
#58. The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same. They find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and action that will (they believe) cover everything; and then they try to impose that on all thinking people.
Gilbert Highet
#59. All Citizens United did was to level the playing field for corporate speech. We now have, I think, the most free and open system we've had in modern times.
Mitch McConnell
#60. I don't think there's a petty system of heaven and hell. The love of God is much more forgiving. I'm not a believer in a wrathful God at all.
Susan Sarandon
#61. Rappers are usually rapping about knowledge they think people need to get by in the world. If there's no movement that gives the idea that the knowledge people need is how to take over the system, what they see is that people need to know how to hustle; people need to know how to survive.
Boots Riley
#62. Nepotism is despised in England, which is a very good thing. I think something to do with the class system. People really look down on nepotism. So yeah, it never really works in your favor - even in this industry.
Max Irons
#63. I suppose we all share this pipe-dream of being able to reach out a hand and find anything at will; what is amazing is that we think that good filing could somehow make it comes true. On the contrary: putting a letter into a filing system is like releasing your ferret in the Hampton Court maze.
Katharine Whitehorn
#64. Negative emotions, like depression or anxiety, have been shown to affect our immune system. Stress impedes wound healing.
Chris Prentiss
#65. What we want to see is the development of human rights and greater democracy, not just because it is our system but because we think that's the best way that economic and political development go hand in hand.
Tony Blair
#66. Probably the biggest thing around not training correctly is eating. You've got to fuel your system correctly, and I think what we're very unfortunate with in this country [UK] is the [lack of] education around food and nutrition.
Greg Rutherford
#67. Anger is the lowest emotion. It clouds the intellect and can make you do foolish things. You become blind to reason and react only with your body, without thinking. This leads to failure in every sphere. Uproot this evil from your system.
Anand Neelakantan
#68. Term Life Insurance is the only insurance I recommend. It's the least expensive way to get the coverage your family needs and allows you to lock in rates for 15, 20 or 30 years. Zander's online quoting system will help you find the most competitive options. It's more affordable than you think!
Dave Ramsey
#69. I think the game has gotten better. (The two-ref system) keeps players from taking cheap shots behind the play. I never thought I'd like it, considering the way I like to hack.
Brian Skrudland
#70. I don't think of Twitter as a social network. I think of it as a messaging system that has a lot of social components to it.
Biz Stone
#71. The thinking was that so long as the British kept our basic documents in their hands and so long as they kept the formal right to change them, changes in our system would be careful and deliberate.
Stockwell Day
#72. I was just thinking... isn't it lucky that we decided to become co-editors? If one takes a blow to the head, the other can fill in. If the other's lung spontaneoulsy collapses, the one can fill in. It's a perfect system once you think about it."
~Will Landsman
Gabrielle Zevin
#73. When your world falls apart and you're left with just yourself, you're forced to discover who you are without all the beliefs, expectations, views, & self-image provided by some teacher or system. The calculating mind gives way to the intuitive mind, Knowing without Thinking.
Gabrielle Roth
#74. The people must be helped to think naturally about money. They must be told what it is, and what makes it money, and what are the possible tricks of the present system which put nations and peoples under control of the few.
Henry Ford
#75. I came back once or twice a year to visit my family, and then I would take off again. In the beginning, I think everybody thought I would get over it and get it out of my system. And I never did.
Rita Gelman
#76. Many characters in the novel are representative of types that exist in India. He represents the caste system in India with an air of superiority, the caste system in India and the people thinking that western things are better.
Anita Desai
#77. Don't be scared ... Be positive ... Please don't think that your life is about to end ... Take the right advice and act as soon as you can ... If there's an issue in your system, don't ignore it.
Yuvraj Singh
#78. I think Unix is a great system
especially for running data centers
because it is very mature, very reliable, very scalable. But when I want to go out and populate small devices, I think Java.
Bill Joy
#79. If you ask what keeps me up at night, it's the pressure in the system forcing us to do all sorts of things. Content, data and technology are forcing us to think about business in a very different way.
Martin Sorrell
#80. I think Leopard is a much better system [than Windows Vista] ... but OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary.
Linus Torvalds
#81. When you're ... stepping over a guy on the sidewalk ... does it ever occur to you to think, 'Wow. Maybe our system doesn't work?'
Bill Hicks
#82. Real change comes when people are enabled to use their thinking and their energy in a new way, using a different system of thought, different language, and having fresh visions of the future.
Scilla Elworthy
#83. It is regrettable that people think about our monetary system, and of our economic structure, only in times of depression.
Henry Ford
#84. I see why now Tohno-kun is different from the others. Like the rocket shooting off into space, on the loneliest journey to the far end of the solar system. Because he's always looking at something beyond me. He can never see me. I cried myself to sleep, thinking of him.
Makoto Shinkai
#85. A bad play folds and is forgotten, but in pictures we don't bury our dead. When you think it's out of your system, your daughter sees it on television and says, My father is an idiot.
Billy Wilder
#86. I think in Singapore, we stand a chance of making the one-man-one-vote system work. With amendments as we have done, you know, like GRCs.. We need to make it work. And I believe with pragmatic adjustments, given these favourable conditions, we can have more open debate.
Lee Kuan Yew
#87. I do think that we may be looking at a period in the next few years where the two-party system will fracture.
Jonathan Tasini
#88. As someone fairly committed to the death of our solar system and ultimately the entropy of the universe, I think the question of what we should worry about is irrelevant in the end.
Bruce Hood
#89. I don't live by 'The Rules' you know, and if there's one person who has influenced me in that way of thinking, someone who is a maverick, someone who does 'that' to the system then it's Ian Botham.
David
#90. Despite his image as a bloody tyrant, Genghis was also forward thinking. His empire had the first international postal system, invented the concept of diplomatic immunity, and even allowed women in its councils. But more importantly, the Mongols were also unprecedented in their religious tolerance.
James Rollins
#91. I think when I started doing stand-up, that's when I really tried to question everything in my belief system which is - I think a pretty important part of being a comedian is really questioning things.
Jim Gaffigan
#92. Pluto was part of their mental landscape, the one they had constructed to organize their thinking about the solar system and their own place within it. Pluto seemed like the edge of existence. Ripping Pluto out of that landscape caused what felt like an inconceivably empty hole.
Mike Brown
#93. There are other kinds of emotional pain that emerge from our own mistaken thinking. As we surrender that pain, we are inviting into our thought system a guide who will lead us to different thoughts. It's like the song "Amazing Grace": I was blind and now I see.
Marianne Williamson
#94. Enchantment can be done with writing but I think enchantment is basically a prospective or an operating system for life. That you can enchant a person who is assigning your airplane seat, your hotel room, your waiter, your waitress.
Guy Kawasaki
#95. As soon as you start to tell yourself in your perception that you can't do something anymore, then your biological system will adjust to prove you right. You will not do what you think you can't do.
Bruce H. Lipton
#96. I think that the Bible as a system of moral guidance in the 21st century is insufficient, to put it mildly. I feel quite strongly that we need a new moral lodestone if we can't rely on what is inside our own selves. Which I think, actually, is pretty reliable.
Emma Thompson
#97. The metric system was designed to get people to enter charity runs.Do you think you would go run a 3.1 mile race? No, but if somebody says, hey, 5 km. You go, 5km sounds pretty impressive.
Greg Gutfeld
#98. I think that when the education system started to be dismantled during the first Great Depression in the 1930s, we didn't recover from that.
Wynton Marsalis
#99. It is humanity's destiny to explore the universe. When we start thinking and working on that cosmic level, we will transcend our parochial differences and tribal natures and become global creatures, solar system creatures. Then we will figure out where we fit in.
Story Musgrave
#100. I think Hollywood is more of a state of mind then a place. There are certainly iconic locations in L.A. but as far as the glitz and glamour of old Hollywood and the studio system, that's all but faded away.
Nicholas Ozeki
