Quotessence
Home / Authors / Donella H. Meadows

Donella H. Meadows Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllSystems ThinkingEconomicsFeedback LoopObservationalParadigmsPerception Of RealityRealityRule Of 72Systems AnalysisSystems Engineering

Famous Donella H. Meadows Quotes

“Because we bump into reinforcing loops so often, it is handy to know this shortcut: The time it takes for an exponentially growing stock to double in size, the “doubling time,” equals approximately 70 divided by the growth rate (expressed as a percentage). Example: If you put $100 in the bank at 7% interest per year, you will double your money in 10 years (70 ÷ 7 = 10). If you get only 5% interest, your money will take 14 years to double.”

EconomicsFeedback LoopRule Of 72
Book:Thinking in Systems: A Primer
Create image

“There is yet one leverage point that is even higher than changing a paradigm. That is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms, to stay flexible, to realize that no paradigm is “true,” that every one, including the one that sweetly shapes your own worldview, is a tremendously limited understanding of an immense and amazing universe that is far beyond human comprehension. It is to "get" at a gut level the paradigm that there are paradigms, and to see that that itself is a paradigm, and to regard that whole realization as devastatingly funny.”

Systems ThinkingParadigms
Book:Thinking in Systems: A Primer
Create image

“The limits on a growing system may be temporary or permanent. The system may find ways to get around them for a short while or a long while, but eventually there must come some kind of accommodation, the system adjusting to the constraint, or the constraint to the system, or both to each other. In that accommodation come some interesting dynamics. Whether the constraining balancing loops originate from a renewable or nonrenewable resource makes some difference, not in whether growth can continue forever, but in how growth is likely to end.”

Systems ThinkingSystems AnalysisSystems Engineering
Book:Thinking in Systems: A Primer
Create image