Derek Hitchins (1935) British systems engineer
Source: Putting systems to work (1992), p. 7; as cited in: Stuart Anderson (2006)
Source: General systemantics, an essay on how systems work, and especially how they fail..., 1975, p. 33 cited in: Stanley A. Clayes, David Gelvin Spencer, Martin S. Stanford (1979) Contexts for composition. p. 94
Derek Hitchins (1935) British systems engineer
Source: Putting systems to work (1992), p. 7; as cited in: Stuart Anderson (2006)
“Observation is a passive science, experimentation an active science.”
Claude Bernard (1813–1878) French physiologist
Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1865)
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
The Way to Love (1995)
Context: It is the desire for "the more" that prevents clear thinking, whereas if we are discontent, not because we want something, but without knowing what we want; if we are dissatisfied with our jobs, with making money, with seeking position and power, with tradition, with what we have and with what we might have; if we are dissatisfied, not with anything in particular but with everything, then I think we shall find that our discontent brings clarity. When we don't accept or follow, but question, investigate, penetrate, there is an insight out of which comes creativity, joy.
Booknotes (C-SPAN) review of King of the Mountain (2002) http://www.booknotes.org/Program/?ProgramID=1693
Coventry Patmore (1823–1896) English poet
Magna Moralia XI, p. 156.
The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)
Jay Wright Forrester (1918–2016) American operations researcher
Source: Urban dynamics (1969), p. 9
Jacques Ellul book Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes
Vintage, p. 61
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965)
Context: Having analyzed these traits, we can now advance a definition of propaganda — not an exhaustive definition, unique and exclusive of all others, but at least a partial one: Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated in an organization.
Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist
1960s, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1963)
Context: Synergy is the only word in our language that means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the separately observed behaviors of any of the system's separate parts or any subassembly of the system's parts. There is nothing in the chemistry of a toenail that predicts the existence of a human being.