# Quote — Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems

> 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.

- Author: [Donella H. Meadows](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows.md)
- Book: [Thinking in Systems](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems.md)
- Page: 103
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Donella_Meadows#Thinking_in_Systems:_A_Primer_(2008)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/donella-h-meadows/thinking-in-systems/there-always-will

## More from this book

> 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)