limiting factor - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

A limiting factor is access to something, such as if I want to drive an electric car and I only can have limited access to electrical charging, then that will limit how far I can drive. Or, if I want to eat healthy food but I can only afford junk, then money is the limiting factor for improving my health. We often think if terms such as this as belonging to science, but they do very well as terms for societal issues.

If good nutrition is a limiting factor to educational success and thus national performance, it makes sense to increase access to good nutrition.

Role modelling is the key way activation energy for behavioural pathways is reduced, similar to a small gulley being dug for water to begin flowing within. This is the pathway of least resistance for the water and so it flows here. Thus in a society that is given violent and unstable role modelling in fiction and in leadership, that has access to the means to create the same violence that has been role modelled, will become progressively unstable. Catalysts for the increase in rate of instability will be that which increases the use of the primitive brain (thus removing the oversight and more highly evolved features of the prefrontal cortex). In short, the activation energy for pathways to violent action is given via role models, the access to the same kind of weaponry is increased, the triggers toward more primitive brain functions is increased, thus society is destabilised. To reverse the process alter the lore, decrease weaponry access, shift brain biochemistry in favour of lower stress to reactivate the prefrontal cortex. Currently, for example, America has increasing role modelling via the media coverage of mass shootings and this lowers the activation energy in stressed individuals to do the same, thus creating "runaway violence escalation." Conversely, in countries with limited firearms and weapons, in times of high social pressure the lack of access acts as a limiting factor.