“Dumb parts, properly constituted into a swarm, yield smart results.”

—  Kevin Kelly

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Dumb parts, properly constituted into a swarm, yield smart results." by Kevin Kelly?
Kevin Kelly photo
Kevin Kelly141
American author and editor 1952

Related quotes

Bill Whittle photo

“Intellectualism is the result of over-educating someone who was not that smart to begin with.”

Bill Whittle (1959) author, director, screenwriter, editor

citation needed

Thomas Mann photo

“What they, in their innocence, cannot comprehend is that a properly constituted, healthy, decent man never writes, acts, or composes.”

Thomas Mann book Tonio Kröger

"Tonio Kröger" on general opinions about artists.
Tonio Kröger (1903)

Irving Kristol photo

“A welfare state, properly conceived, can be an integral part of a conservative society.”

Irving Kristol (1920–2009) American columnist, journalist, and writer

Reflections of a Neoconservative: Looking Back, Looking Ahead (1983).
1980s

Simone Weil photo

“It would be strange, indeed, that the word of Christ should have produced such results if it had been properly understood.”

Simone Weil Letter to a Priest

Section 9
Letter to a Priest (1951)
Context: Besides, it is written that the tree shall be known by its fruits. The Church has borne too many evil fruits for there not to have been some mistake at the beginning. Europe has been spiritually uprooted, cut off from that antiquity in which all the elements of our civilization have their origin; and she has gone about uprooting the other continents from the sixteenth century onwards. Missionary zeal has not Christianized Africa, Asia and Oceania, but has brought these territories under the cold, cruel and destructive domination of the white race, which has trodden down everything. It would be strange, indeed, that the word of Christ should have produced such results if it had been properly understood.

Rick Riordan photo

“Love is no game! It is no flowery softness! It is hard work- It demands everything from you- especially the truth. Only then does it yield results.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

William Cobbett photo

“Having still in my recollection so many excellent men, to whose grandfathers, upon the same spots, my grandfather had yielded cheerful obedience and reverence, it is not without sincere sorrow that I have beheld many of the sons of these men driven from their fathers' mansions, or holding them as little better than tenants or stewards, while the swarms of Placemen, Pensioners, Contractors, and Nabobs…have usurped a large part of the soil.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (21 December 1816), quoted in Karl W. Schweizer and John W. Osborne, Cobbett and His Times (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), p. 31.

Paul Valéry photo

“Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Tel Quel (1943)

Seymour Papert photo

“Our children grow up in a culture permeated with the idea that there are "smart people" and "dumb people". The social construction of the individual is as a bundle of aptitudes. There are people who are "good at math" and people who "can't do math." Everything is set up for children to attribute their first unsuccessful or unpleasant learning experiences to their own disabilities. As a result, children perceive failure as relegating them either to the group of "dumb people" or, more often, to a group of people "dumb at x" (where, as we have pointed out, x often equals mathematics). Within this framework children will define themselves in terms of their limitations, and this definition will be consolidated and reinforced throughout their lives. Only rarely does some exceptional event lead people to reorganize their intellectual self-image in such a way as to open up new perspectives on what is learnable.”

Seymour Papert book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

Source: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), Chapter 2, Mathophobia: The Fear of Learning

Kevin D. Williamson photo

“Nobody but nobody is quite so dumb as to believe that all, most, or even very many uses of firearms to prevent acts of criminal violence result in justifiable homicides.”

Kevin D. Williamson (1972) American writer

Most of them do not result in anybody’s being shot, much less shot dead, because most of them do not involve discharging a firearm. As it turns out, pointing a gun at a would-be assailant is in many cases a very persuasive gesture. <br class="br"> &quot;The Dumbest Gun-Control Paragraph&quot; https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-dumbest-gun-control-paragraph/ (3 June 2019), National Review

Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo

“The best part of human language, properly so called, is derived from reflection on the acts of the mind itself.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge book Biographia Literaria

Source: Biographia Literaria (1817), Ch. XVII

Related topics