
“We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”
Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973)
“We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”
Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Five, The Second Question: Charity and Welfare-The Old Debate Is New Again, p. 95
“We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were low.
Will you never let us go?”
Song of the Galley-Slaves http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/p4/galleyslaves.html, l. 1-2 (1893).
Other works
Introduction
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003)
Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
34 min 00 sec
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), The Persistence of Memory [Episode 11]
Context: What distinguishes our species is thought. The cerebral cortex is in a way a liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behavior patterns of lizards and baboons: territoriality and aggression and dominance hierarchies. We are each of us largely responsible for what gets put in to our brains. For what as adults we wind up caring for and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain we can change ourselves. Think of the possibilities.