Quotes About Interdependence

Neighbours are given to us on the same basis as we are given our families. There is no element of choice involved - none at all.

It is not the tree that forsakes the flower, but the flower that forsakes the tree.

the tree forsakes not the flower: the flower falls from the tree.

What tender threads do life and death hang

When you nurture Nature, Nature nurtures you.

A human being has to look out for other human beings or else there's no civilization.

We can no more get out of a relationship with nature than we can get out of history.

This ancient Sufi story was told to teach a simple lesson but one that we often ignore: The behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made.

The behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made.

You think that because you understand "one" that you must therefore understand "two" because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand "and." -Sufi teaching story

Words and sentences must, by necessity, come only one at a time in linear, logical order. Systems happen all at once. They are connected not just in one direction, but in many directions simultaneously.

How to know whether you are looking at a system or just a bunch of stuff: A) Can you identify parts? … and B) Do the parts affect each other? … and C) Do the parts together produce an effect that is different from the effect of each part on its own? … and perhaps D) Does the effect, the behavior over time, persist in a variety of circumstances?

Here we meet a very important feature. It would seem as if this were circular reasoning; profits fell because investment fell, and investment fell because profits fell. —Jan Tinbergen,5 Jan Tinbergen,

The behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made. PART ONE System Structure and Behavior

A system is a set of things—people, cells, molecules, or whatever—interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. The system may be buffeted, constricted, triggered, or driven by outside forces. But the system's response to these forces is characteristic of itself, and that response is seldom simple in the real world.

we" are not only breathing this life, "it" is also breathing us.

Weather meaning 'weather' and man meaning 'man.

Men are beginning to realize that they are not individuals but persons in society, that man alone is weak and adrift, that he must seek strength in common action.

We each have the responsibility of living our own lives, determining our individual needs, and arranging to get those needs met. We cannot live through a partner, nor can we assume that just because we have a lover, all our needs should automatically be satisfied.

A great many people do believe that to be single is to be somehow incomplete and that they need to find the other half. [...] We believe, on the other hand, that the fundamental sexual unit is one person. Adding more people to that unit may be intimate, fun and companionable, but does not complete anybody.

The person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member.

Precise knowledge of how all things are entangled with all others at the quantum level.

The most successful of biology's creatures coexist in mutually beneficial ecosystems.

Don't just invest in ammo and electric fences, invest in people and relationships.