# Donella H. Meadows - Quotes: 32 - Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows ## Books - [Limits to Growth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/limits-to-growth.md) — 2 quotes - [Thinking in Systems](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems.md) — 30 quotes ## Recently added quotes > We have felt it necessary to dwell so long on an analysis of technology here because we have found that technological optimism is the most common and the most dangerous reaction to our findings from the world model. Technology can relieve the symptoms of a problem without affecting the underlying causes. Faith in technology as the ultimate solution to all problems can thus divert our attention from the most fundamental problem—the problem of growth in a finite system—and prevent us from taking effective action to solve it. > > On the other hand, our intent is certainly not to brand technology as evil or futile or unnecessary. We are technologists ourselves, working in a technological institution. We strongly believe ... that many of the technological developments mentioned here—recycling, pollution control devices, contraceptives—will be absolutely vital to the future of human society if they are combined with deliberate checks on growth. We would deplore an unreasoned rejection of the benefits of technology as strongly as we argue here against an unreasoned acceptance of them. Perhaps the best summary of our position is the motto of the Sierra Club: “Not blind opposition to progress, but opposition to blind progress.” p. 154 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/limits-to-growth/we-have-felt.md) > Taking no action to solve these problems is equivalent of taking strong action. Every day of continued exponential growth brings the world system closer to the ultimate limits of that growth. A decision to do nothing is a decision to increase the risk of collapse. p. 183 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/limits-to-growth/taking-no-action.md) > How is it that one way of seeing the world becomes so widely shared that institutions, technologies, production systems, buildings, cities, become shaped around that way of seeing? p. 169 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems/how-is-it-that.md) > There always will be limits to growth. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems/there-always-will-be.md) > The bounded rationality of each actor in a system may not lead to decisions that further the welfare of the system as a whole. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems/the-bounded-rationality.md) > Power over the rules is real power. That's why lobbyists congregate when Congress writes laws, and why the Supreme Court, which interprets and delineates the Constitution – the rules for writing the rules – has even more power than Congress. If you want to understand the deepest malfunctions of systems, pay attention to the rules and to who has power over them. p. 158 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems/power-over-the.md) > There always will be limits to growth. They can be self-imposed. If they aren't, they will be system-imposed. No physical entity can grow forever. If company managers, city governments, the human population do not choose and enforce their own limits to keep growth within the capacity of the supporting environment, then the environment will choose and enforce limits. p. 103 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems/there-always-will.md) > When there are long delays in feedback loops, some sort of foresight is essential. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems/when-there-are.md) > Changing the length of a delay may utterly change behavior. [...] Overshoots, oscillations, and collapses are always caused by delays. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems/changing-the-length.md) > That very large system, with interconnected industries responding to each other through delays, entraining each other in their oscillations, and being amplified by multipliers and speculators, is the primary cause of business cycles. Those cycles don't come from presidents, although presidents can do much to ease or intensify the optimism of the upturns and the pain of the downturns. Economies are extremely complex systems; they are full of balancing feedback loops with delays and they are inherently oscillatory. p. 58 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems/that-very-large.md) > A quantity growing exponentially toward a limit reaches that limit in a surprisingly short time. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems/a-quantity-growing.md) > Our culture, obsessed with numbers, has given us the idea that what we can measure is more important than what we can't measure. Think about that for a minute. It means that we make quantity more important than quality. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems/our-culture-obsessed.md)