Buckminster Fuller

1895–1983 · American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

Topics: learning, software design, complexity, simplicity

• Realistic thinking accrues only after mistake making, which is the cosmic wisdom's most cogent way of teaching each of us how to carry on.

  — Buckminster Fuller

• We are here as local information harvesters, local problem-solvers in support of the integrity of eternally regenerative Universe. The fact that we get away from physical problems doesn't mean we go away from problems. The problems are really rarely physical.

  — Buckminster Fuller

• Synergy means behavior of integral, aggregate, whole systems unpredicted by behaviors of any of their components or subassemblies of their components taken separately from the whole.

  — Buckminster Fuller

• A problem adequately stated is a problem solved theoretically and immediately, and therefore subsequently to be solved, realistically.

  — Buckminster Fuller

• Study your mistakes; admit them, study them, and be terribly excited about them too. If this isn't true, what is true?

  — Buckminster Fuller

• Synergy means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately.

  — Buckminster Fuller

• The physical is inherently entropic, giving off energy in ever more disorderly ways. The metaphysical is antientropic, methodically marshalling energy. Life is antientropic. It is spontaneously inquisitive. It sorts out and endeavors to understand.

  — Buckminster Fuller

• The Things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done.

  — Buckminster Fuller

• Gravity is the inwardly cohering force acting integratively on all systems. Radiation is the outwardly disintegrating force acting divisively upon all systems.

  — Buckminster Fuller

• Thinking is a momentary dismissal of irrelevancies.

  — Buckminster Fuller