art never improves, but ... the material of art is never quite the same

--- T S Eliot, in "Tradition and the Individual Talent, suggested by Bret Battey a propos the previous Basho quote

"[The artist] must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same. He must be aware that the mind of Europe - the mind of his own country - a mind which he learns in time to be much more important than his own private mind - is a mind which changes... That this development, refinement perhaps, complication certainly, is not, from the point of view of the artist, any improvement. Perhaps not even an improvement from the point of view of the psychologist or not to the extent which we imagine; perhaps only in the end based upon a complication in economics and machinery. But the different between the present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past's awareness of itself cannot show."

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.

--- Matsuo Basho. Cited by Miller & Page, Complex Adaptive Systems (2007), p. 227. Quoted on the web passim, but I couldn't find a citation.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things

--- Henry David Thoreau

Cited by http://quotationsbook.com/quote/44734/ to be from Walden (1854), ch. 1, p. 67 .

"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."

I found it via Miller & Page, Complex Adaptive Systems (2007), p. 215

Unlike Soviet propagandists, who told people what to think, Russian propagandists tell people what they want to hear

--- Georgy Satarov, formerly aide to President Boris Yeltsin, now runs the INDEM think-tank; quoted by The Economist in "Enigma variations", first article in a special report on Russia, Nov 27th 2008

Quote in context:

So far the state has not interfered in people’s personal lives. It gives them freedom to make money, consume, travel abroad, drive foreign cars and listen to any music they like. They are even free to criticise the Kremlin on radio, in print and on the internet, though not on television. And although Russia’s elections are stage-managed, the support for Mr Putin is genuine. During the war in Georgia it hit almost 90% in opinion polls. The biased television coverage plays its part, but unlike Soviet propagandists, who told people what to think, Russian propagandists tell people what they want to hear, says Georgy Satarov, who used to be an aide to a former president, Boris Yeltsin, and now runs INDEM, a think-tank. What people want to hear, especially as they are getting richer, is that their country is “rising from its knees”, sticking its flag in the Arctic Circle, winning football games and chasing the Americans out of Georgia.

Science: testable and partially tested fantasies about the real world

--- attributed to Kenneth Boulding by JohnH Miller & Scott E Page, Complex Adaptive Systems (2007) p. 8

Science advances funeral by funeral

--- Unknown; many attributions

Miller & Page in their Complex Adaptive Systems (2007) p. 6 cite Paul Samuelson using it to describe economics, citing Samuelson's foreword in Michael Salzberg, Passion and Craft: Economists at work, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press (1999)

Paul H. Smith in Reading the Enemy's Mind (2005) mentions Max Planck, Niels Bohr and Max Born (without attribution).

There are two ways to make a man richer: give him more money or curb his desires

--- Ascribed to Jean Jacques Rousseau passim, but may be a paraphrase from Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety (p. 43):

“There are two ways to make a man richer, reasoned Rousseau: give him more money or curb his desires. Modern societies have done the former spectacularly well, but by continuously whetting appetites they have at the same time managed to negate a share of their success”

the same shit you get in any other book—a little bit mystical, but really about going to work every day and keeping your head down

--- Entrepreneur, financier Russell "Rush" Simmons, describing his bestselling book “Do You! 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success,” as reported in a profile in The Economist, 18 Oct 2008

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it

--- Author and journalist Upton Sinclair, quoted by Dan Ariely in Predictably Irrational, Harper 2008 (hardcover), p. 227. Cited passim on the web, but I didn't find a reference to the source.

cheating is a lot easier when it’s a step removed from money

--- Dan Ariely, professor of behavioral economics at MIT, in Predictably Irrational, Harper 2008 (hardcover), p. 219

... the exuberant wreckage of August

--- Poet Reg Saner, lines ending "The Fifth Season" (1983), collected in Fifty Years of American Poetry, Harry N Abrams 1984, p. 235

From the poem

... ... ... ... - or common starling
dead in mid-flight,
flashing dark color off preen oil
in wings barely stirring, whispering
ever so lightly as its slow turn falls
perfectly aimed
through air's open doors
toward the exuberant wreckage of August.

Great voices rising like smoke from time’s wreckage

--- Poet Gjertrud Schnackenberg, lines from "The Living Room" (1982), collected in Fifty Years of American Poetry, Harry N Abrams 1984, p. 210

The full text of the poem is posted in the article Art into poetry by Peter Steele, Eureka Street, Jul/Aug 2005. Here's a fragment

... ... ... ... ... She enjoys
Bach in Heaven, his sacred Fantasies
For her alone spin like fabulous toys.
Lines shift and break, she finds it rich and right,
Such music out of black dots on the page,
Symbols, the world a symbol from her height,
Great voices rising like smoke from time’s wreckage.
...

All models are wrong, but some are useful

--- Statistician George E P Box, in "Science and statistics", Journal of the
American Statistical Association 71:791-799, quoted in Holling, C S, Stephen R Carpenter, William A Brock, and Lance H Gunderson, “Discoveries for Sustainable Futures”, Ch. 15 in Gunderson, Lance H and C S Holling, Panarchy: Understanding transformations in human and natural systems, Island Press (2002), p. 409

Wikiquote provides some alternative citations and variations:

"Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful."

--- Box, George E. P.; Norman R. Draper (1987). Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces, p. 424, Wiley. ISBN 0471810339.

"Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful."

--- Box and Draper, Empirical Model-Building, p. 74

"All models are false but some models are useful."