One advantage of exhibiting a hierarchy of systems in this way is that it gives us some idea of the present gaps in both theoretical and empirical knowledge. Adequate theoretical models extend up to about the fourth level, and not much beyond. Empirical knowledge is deficient at practically all levels.

DNA has been aptly described as the first three-dimensional Xerox machine.

Political conflict rests to a very large extent on a universal ignorance of consequences, as the people who are benefited by any particular act or policy are rarely those who struggled for it, and the people who are injured are rarely those who opposed it.

Humble, honest, ignorance is one of the finest flowers of the human spirit

The organizer who creates roles, who creates the holes that will force the pegs to their shape, is a prime creator of personality itself. When we ask of a man, "What is he?" the answer is usually given in terms of his major role, job, or position in society; he is the place that he fills, a painter, a priest, a politician, a criminal.

Economists and technologists bring the "bits", but it requires the social scientists and humanists to bring the "wits.

Consumption is the death of capital, and the only valid arguments in favor of consumption are arguments in favor of death itself.