Quote

A complex decision is like a great river, drawing from its many tributaries the innumerable premises of which it is constituted.

Herbert Simon

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Herbert Simon
Drawing
Rivers
Tributaries
Decision
Constituted
Many
Innumerable
Great
Premises
Like
River
Complexes
Complex

More quotes by Herbert Simon

Image
I don't care how big and fast computers are, they're not as big and fast as the world.
Herbert Simon
Image
Human beings know a lot of things, some of which are true, and apply them. When we like the results, we call it wisdom.
Herbert Simon
Image
Mathematics is a language. We want scientists to be able to read it, speak it, and write it. But we are are not training them to be grammarians.
Herbert Simon
Image
All correct reasoning is a grand system of tautologies, but only God can make direct use of that fact
Herbert Simon
Image
Anything that gives us new knowledge gives us an opportunity to be more rational.
Herbert Simon
Image
Innovation has a lot to do with your ability to recognise surprising and unusual phenomena.
Herbert Simon
Image
Learning is any change in a system that produces a more or less permanent change in its capacity for adapting to its environment.
Herbert Simon
Image
Technology may create a condition, but the questions are what do we do about ourselves. We better understand ourselves pretty clearly and we better find ways to like ourselves
Herbert Simon
Image
The proper study of mankind is the science of design.
Herbert Simon
Image
Many individuals and organization units contribute to every large decision, and the very problem of centralization and decentralization is a problem of arranging the complex system into an effective scheme.
Herbert Simon
Image
The world is vast, beautiful, and fascinating, even awe-inspiring - but impersonal. It demands nothing of me, and allows me to demand nothing of it.
Herbert Simon
Image
The intelligent altruists, though less altruistic than unintelligent altruists, will be fitter than both unintelligent altruists and selfish individuals.
Herbert Simon
Image
The engineer, and more generally the designer, is concerned with how things ought to be - how they ought to be in order to attain goals, and to function.
Herbert Simon
Image
Engineering, medicine, business, architecture and painting are concerned not with the necessary but with the contingent - not with how things are but with how they might be - in short, with design.
Herbert Simon
Image
Most of us really aren't horribly unique. There are 6 billion of us. Put 'em all in one room and very few would stand out as individuals. So maybe we ought to think of worth in terms of our ability to get along as a part of nature, rather than being the lords over nature
Herbert Simon
Image
One of the first rules of science is if somebody delivers a secret weapon to you, you better use it
Herbert Simon
Image
Solving a problem simply means representing it so as to make the solution transparent.
Herbert Simon
Image
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
Herbert Simon
Image
Human knowledge has been changing from the word go and people in certain respects behave more rationally than they did when they didn't have it. They spend less time doing rain dances and more time seeding clouds.
Herbert Simon
Image
There are no morals about technology at all. Technology expands our ways of thinking about things, expands our ways of doing things. If we're bad people we use technology for bad purposes and if we're good people we use it for good purposes.
Herbert Simon