Quotes from The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki ·  306 pages

Rating: (20.3K votes)


“Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise.”
― James Surowiecki, quote from The Wisdom of Crowds


“No decision-making system is going to guarantee corporate success. The strategic decisions that corporations have to make are of mind-numbing complexity. But we know that the more power you give a single individual in the face of complexity and uncertainty, the more likely it is that bad decisions will get made.”
― James Surowiecki, quote from The Wisdom of Crowds


“If small groups are included in the decision-making process, then they should be allowed to make decisions. If an organization sets up teams and then uses them for purely advisory purposes, it loses the true advantage that a team has: namely, collective wisdom.”
― James Surowiecki, quote from The Wisdom of Crowds


“Groups are only smart when there is a balance between the information that everyone in the group shares and the information that each of the members of the group holds privately. It's the combination of all those pieces of independent information, some of them right, some of the wrong, that keeps the group wise.”
― James Surowiecki, quote from The Wisdom of Crowds


“It may be, in the end, that a good society is defined more by how people treat strangers than by how they treat those they know.”
― James Surowiecki, quote from The Wisdom of Crowds



“groups that are too much alike find it harder to keep learning, because each member is bringing less and less new information to the table. Homogeneous groups are great at doing what they do well, but they become progressively less able to investigate alternatives.”
― James Surowiecki, quote from The Wisdom of Crowds


About the author

James Surowiecki
Born place: in Meriden, Connecticut, The United States
Born date April 30, 1967
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Popular quotes

“Alternating periods of activity and rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive. Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all wax and wane. Plan accordingly.”
― Timothy Ferriss, quote from The 4-Hour Workweek


“When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from The Farthest Shore


“Many parts of Watford, especially around Vicarage Road Football Stadium, consist of scuzy warrens of Victorian terraced houses”
― Karl Wiggins, quote from Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab


“فاعترض الناس على هذا القول و قالوا كيف يرضى اللة سبحانة و تعالى فى هذا العالم الذى تقولون انة افضل العوالم و اعمها خيرا ان يهلك الفاضل العادل و يسعد الشرير فقالوا انما قلنا ان هذا العالم افضل العوالم امكانا و ان هناك ضرورات منطقية لا تدركها عقولنا تقضى ان يظهر الشر بجانب الخير و ربما كان حدوث الخير متوقفا على وقوع الشر!
و ان فانون التناسب الخلقى يقضى باجتماع الاضداد لتتميز الاشياء فلا يعرف الخير الا اذا عرف الشر كما انة لا يعرف النور بغير الظلام ولا الحر بغير البرد و انة ان لم يكن فى العالم باطل فلا محل للحق!!"
-مائدة افلاطون(كتاب)”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium


“Just be happy, and if you can't be happy, do things that make you happy. Or do nothing with the people that make you happy.”
― quote from This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl


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