What we need now is the description of the "describer" or, in other words, we need a theory of the observer.

First-order cybernetics is the science of observed systems; Second-order cybernetics is the science of observing systems.

Hard sciences are successful because they deal with the soft problems; soft sciences are struggling because they deal with the hard problems.

Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer.

If you desire to see, learn how to act.

Act always so as to increase the number of choices

Objectivity is a subject's delusion that observing can be done without him.

Cybernetics is NOT the banana.

Something that cannot be explained cannot be seen.

The environment as we perceive it is our invention.

Should one name one central concept, a first principle, of cybernetics, it would be circularity.

I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.

Oregon welcomed me like a beloved child, enfolded me in her cool arms, shushed my turbulent thoughts, and promised peace through her whispering pines.

A road that perhaps more than any other leads to self atrophy is undedicated money.

Take calculated risks.

If we are wise, we never leave school.

I love Minnesota, and I'd love to play my whole career here.

I still favor alternatives to governmental race-based preferences.

I don't know what my favorite film of mine is... But I think the most important film I was in was Glory.

Faith makes us, and not we it; and faith makes its own forms.

I believe there's a landscape that exists underneath everything that we can see in present-day stuff. And I think that makes life kind of a detective story.