Create Yours

Top 120 Steven Johnson Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 3 of 3

Steven Johnson Quote: “Even in the best of times, life aboard a seventeenth-century privateering ship was a challenging and claustrophobic experience. The fact that a community of a hundred or more people could survive on the open seas for months at a time, in a vessel with dimensions not much larger than a tennis court, should go down as one of the great achievements in our long history of creating life-sustaining habitats in fundamentally inhospitable environments.”

101. “Even in the best of times, life aboard a seventeenth-century privateering ship was a challenging and claustrophobic experience. The fact that a community of a hundred or more people could survive on the open seas for months at a time, in a vessel with dimensions not much larger than a tennis court, should go down as one of the great achievements in our long history of creating life-sustaining habitats in fundamentally inhospitable environments.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “We need to play each others instruments.”

102. “We need to play each others instruments.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “In other words, a serious crisis of nonrenewable energy resources is likely to accelerate the urbanization trend, not derail it.”

103. “In other words, a serious crisis of nonrenewable energy resources is likely to accelerate the urbanization trend, not derail it.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “As Lawrence Lessig has so persuasively argued over the years, there is nothing “natural” about the artificial scarcity of intellectual property law.”

104. “As Lawrence Lessig has so persuasively argued over the years, there is nothing “natural” about the artificial scarcity of intellectual property law.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “Thanks to the printing press, the Continent was suddenly populated by people who were experts at manipulating light through slightly convex pieces of glass. These were the hackers of the first optical revolution.”

105. “Thanks to the printing press, the Continent was suddenly populated by people who were experts at manipulating light through slightly convex pieces of glass. These were the hackers of the first optical revolution.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “And so this is why the whole world has suddenly taken an interest in whether Thai poultry workers get their flu shots: because the world wants to ensure that H5N1 stays as far away as possible from ordinary flu viruses.”

106. “And so this is why the whole world has suddenly taken an interest in whether Thai poultry workers get their flu shots: because the world wants to ensure that H5N1 stays as far away as possible from ordinary flu viruses.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “You need a system for capturing hunches, but not necessarily categorizing them, because categories can build barriers between disparate ideas, restrict them to their own conceptual islands. This is one way in which the human history of innovation deviates from the natural history. New ideas do not thrive on archipelagos.”

107. “You need a system for capturing hunches, but not necessarily categorizing them, because categories can build barriers between disparate ideas, restrict them to their own conceptual islands. This is one way in which the human history of innovation deviates from the natural history. New ideas do not thrive on archipelagos.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “The observers of the time were detecting a phenomenon that we now largely take for granted: that “mass” behavior can often diverge strikingly from the desires of the individuals that make up the mass.”

108. “The observers of the time were detecting a phenomenon that we now largely take for granted: that “mass” behavior can often diverge strikingly from the desires of the individuals that make up the mass.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “Cities were suddenly populated by a class of consumers, free to worry about other pressing matters: new technologies, new modes of commerce, politics, professional sports, celebrity gossip. That.”

109. “Cities were suddenly populated by a class of consumers, free to worry about other pressing matters: new technologies, new modes of commerce, politics, professional sports, celebrity gossip. That.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “If the pirate articles were clear about anything, it was that the act of dividing up the booty was as close to a sacrament as anything else in the code.”

110. “If the pirate articles were clear about anything, it was that the act of dividing up the booty was as close to a sacrament as anything else in the code.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “The platform builders and ecosystem engineers do not just open a door in the adjacent possible. They build an entire new floor.”

111. “The platform builders and ecosystem engineers do not just open a door in the adjacent possible. They build an entire new floor.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “Jane Jacobs observed many years ago that one of the paradoxical effects of metropolitan life is that huge cities create environments where small niches can flourish. A store selling nothing but buttons most likely won’t be able to find a market in a town of 50,000 people, but in New York City, there’s an entire button-store district.”

112. “Jane Jacobs observed many years ago that one of the paradoxical effects of metropolitan life is that huge cities create environments where small niches can flourish. A store selling nothing but buttons most likely won’t be able to find a market in a town of 50,000 people, but in New York City, there’s an entire button-store district.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “Our safety depends on being able to predict the evolutionary path that viruses and bacteria will take in the coming decades, just as safety in Snow’s day depended on the rational application of the scientific method to public-health matters. Superstition, then and now, is not just a threat to the truth. It’s also a threat to national security.”

113. “Our safety depends on being able to predict the evolutionary path that viruses and bacteria will take in the coming decades, just as safety in Snow’s day depended on the rational application of the scientific method to public-health matters. Superstition, then and now, is not just a threat to the truth. It’s also a threat to national security.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “If we’re going to survive as a planet with more than 6 billion people without destroying the complex balance of our natural ecosystems, the best way to do it is to crowd as many of those humans into metropolitan spaces and return the rest of the planet to Mother Nature.”

114. “If we’re going to survive as a planet with more than 6 billion people without destroying the complex balance of our natural ecosystems, the best way to do it is to crowd as many of those humans into metropolitan spaces and return the rest of the planet to Mother Nature.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “Islam’s imperial ambitions to resist. From 1 CE to 1500 CE, no region in the world – including China – had a larger share of global GDP. Its copious supply of pearls, diamonds, ivory, ebony, and spices ensured that India ran what amounted to a thousand-year trade surplus.”

115. “Islam’s imperial ambitions to resist. From 1 CE to 1500 CE, no region in the world – including China – had a larger share of global GDP. Its copious supply of pearls, diamonds, ivory, ebony, and spices ensured that India ran what amounted to a thousand-year trade surplus.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “The river of intellectual progress is not defined purely by the steady flow of good ideas begetting better ones; it follows the topography that has been carved out for it by external factors. Sometimes that topography throws up so many barricades that the river backs up for a while.”

116. “The river of intellectual progress is not defined purely by the steady flow of good ideas begetting better ones; it follows the topography that has been carved out for it by external factors. Sometimes that topography throws up so many barricades that the river backs up for a while.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “Wagner found that after an initial exposure to the numerical test, “sleeping on the problem” more than doubled the test subjects’ ability to discover the hidden rule. The mental recombinations of sleep helped them explore the full range of solutions to the puzzle, detecting patterns that they had failed to perceive in their initial training period. The work of dreams turns out to be a particularly chaotic, yet productive, way of exploring the adjacent possible.”

117. “Wagner found that after an initial exposure to the numerical test, “sleeping on the problem” more than doubled the test subjects’ ability to discover the hidden rule. The mental recombinations of sleep helped them explore the full range of solutions to the puzzle, detecting patterns that they had failed to perceive in their initial training period. The work of dreams turns out to be a particularly chaotic, yet productive, way of exploring the adjacent possible.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “When the next great epidemic does come, maps will be as crucial as vaccines in our fight against the disease. But again, the scale of the observation will have broadened considerably: from a neighborhood to an entire planet.”

118. “When the next great epidemic does come, maps will be as crucial as vaccines in our fight against the disease. But again, the scale of the observation will have broadened considerably: from a neighborhood to an entire planet.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “The greatest risk of a deliberately planned urban epidemic is not that we won’t have a vaccine, it’s that we won’t recognize the outbreak until it’s too late for the vaccine to stop the spread of disease.”

119. “The greatest risk of a deliberately planned urban epidemic is not that we won’t have a vaccine, it’s that we won’t recognize the outbreak until it’s too late for the vaccine to stop the spread of disease.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “The first defining act of a modern, centralized public-health authority was to poison an entire urban population.”

120. “The first defining act of a modern, centralized public-health authority was to poison an entire urban population.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “We conventionally associate dream inspiration with the creative arts, but the canon of scientific breakthroughs contains many revolutionary ideas that originated in dreams.”

121. “We conventionally associate dream inspiration with the creative arts, but the canon of scientific breakthroughs contains many revolutionary ideas that originated in dreams.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “They were not hacks, working surreptitiously for Victorian special-interest groups. They were not blinded by politics or personal ambition. They were blinded, instead, by an idea.”

122. “They were not hacks, working surreptitiously for Victorian special-interest groups. They were not blinded by politics or personal ambition. They were blinded, instead, by an idea.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “It is simply hard to pinpoint exactly when Darwin had the idea, because the idea didn’t arrive in a flash; it drifted into his consciousness over time, in waves. In the months before the Malthus reading, we could probably say that Darwin had the idea of natural selection in his head, but at the same time was incapable of fully thinking it. This is how slow hunches often mature: by stealth, in small steps. They fade into view.”

123. “It is simply hard to pinpoint exactly when Darwin had the idea, because the idea didn’t arrive in a flash; it drifted into his consciousness over time, in waves. In the months before the Malthus reading, we could probably say that Darwin had the idea of natural selection in his head, but at the same time was incapable of fully thinking it. This is how slow hunches often mature: by stealth, in small steps. They fade into view.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “He drew maps in his head, looking for patterns, looking for clues.”

124. “He drew maps in his head, looking for patterns, looking for clues.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “We tend to think of grand organizations like corporations or empires coming about through deliberate human planning: designing the conceptual architecture for each imposing structure, brick by brick. But the shape an institution ultimately takes is not so much designed in advance by a master engineer as it is carved away by challenges to its outer boundaries, the way a coastline is partly formed by an endless battering of much smaller waves.”

125. “We tend to think of grand organizations like corporations or empires coming about through deliberate human planning: designing the conceptual architecture for each imposing structure, brick by brick. But the shape an institution ultimately takes is not so much designed in advance by a master engineer as it is carved away by challenges to its outer boundaries, the way a coastline is partly formed by an endless battering of much smaller waves.”

— Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson Quote: “Whitehead was not an expert, an official, an authority. He was a local. That was his great strength.”

126. “Whitehead was not an expert, an official, an authority. He was a local. That was his great strength.”

— Steven Johnson

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

PREV 1 2 3 NEXT

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Steve Jobs Quotes

Steve Jobs Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS APPLE

Inspirational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

COURAGE MOTIVATIONAL STRENGTH

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

LIFE SPIRITUALITY

Save image...
Permalink
Open in new tab
Copy quote text

Beautiful Wallpapers and Images

We hope you enjoyed our collection of 120 Steven Johnson Quotes.

All the images on this page were created with QuoteFancy Studio.

Use QuoteFancy Studio to create high-quality images for your desktop backgrounds, blog posts, presentations, social media, videos, posters, and more.

Thank you!

Please check your email.