General System Theory

Famous quotes containing the words general, system and/or theory:

    In the drawing room [of the Queen’s palace] hung a Venus and Cupid by Michaelangelo, in which, instead of a bit of drapery, the painter has placed Cupid’s foot between Venus’s thighs. Queen Caroline asked General Guise, an old connoisseur, if it was not a very fine piece? He replied “Madam, the painter was a fool, for he has placed the foot where the hand should be.”
    Horace Walpole (1717–1797)

    ... the yearly expenses of the existing religious system ... exceed in these United States twenty millions of dollars. Twenty millions! For teaching what? Things unseen and causes unknown!... Twenty millions would more than suffice to make us wise; and alas! do they not more than suffice to make us foolish?
    Frances Wright (1795–1852)

    Won’t this whole instinct matter bear revision?
    Won’t almost any theory bear revision?
    To err is human, not to, animal.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)