W. Ross Ashby

"The most basic facts in biology are that this earth is now two thousand million years old, and that the biologist studies mostly that which exists today."

"As shorthand, when the phenomena are suitably simple, words such as equilibrium and stability are of great value and convenience. Nevertheless, it should be always borne in mind that they are mere sho…"

"Further, as every law of nature implies the existence of an invariant, it follows that every law of nature is a constraint."

"Two main lines are readily distinguished. One already well developed in the hands of von Bertalanffy and his co-workers, takes the world as we find it, examines the various systems that occur in it - …"

"Duration of selection. At this point a word should be said about how long a given act of selection may take, for when actual cases are examined, the time taken may, at first estimate, seem too long fo…"

"The primary fact is that all isolated state-determined dynamic systems are selective: from whatever state they have initially, they go towards states of equilibrium. These states of equilibrium are al…"

"If intellectual power is to be developed, we must somehow construct amplifiers for intelligence — devices that, supplied with a little intelligence, will emit a lot."

"During the last few years it has become apparent that the concept of "machine" must be very greatly extended if it is to include the most modern developments. Especially is this true if we are studyin…"