
Private journal (1858), quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952), p. 40
A Principled Leader (2004)
Context: I think, at the end of the day, that it is a mistake simply to pursue a job. Instead, you should pursue a way of life. The opportunity for me is to make a fundamental difference in people’s lives, both inside and outside the company. To lead a very successful enterprise that is not just focused on achieving business success. That’s a consequence of doing the right things for our employees and our customers. The challenge of operating a global company is a terrific, terrific opportunity. You cannot be successful as a CEO in the short, moderate or long term if you don’t have a passion for what you’re doing. Because the challenges and the issues are so substantial that if you don’t have that passion, you’re going to wilt. Fortunately, I think I’ve got that passion.<!-- ** p. 17
Private journal (1858), quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952), p. 40
“Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best Ends by the best Means.”
An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), Treatise I, Sect. V
When asked if acting is something he would like to do more after his cameo in Singles ** Interview with Request Magazine, October 1994 http://web.stargate.net/soundgarden/articles/request_10-94.shtml,
Soundgarden Era
“Technique is totally irrelevant to this notion and pursues no end, professed or unprofessed.”
Source: The Technological Society (1954), p. 97
Context: A principal characteristic of technique … is its refusal to tolerate moral judgments. It is absolutely independent of them and eliminates them from its domain. Technique never observes the distinction between moral and immoral use. It tends on the contrary, to create a completely independent technical morality.
Here, then, is one of the elements of weakness of this point of view. It does not perceive technique's rigorous autonomy with respect to morals; it does not see that the infusion of some more or less vague sentiment of human welfare cannot alter it. Not even the moral conversion of the technicians could make a difference. At best, they would cease to be good technicians. This attitude supposes further that technique evolves with some end in view, and that this end is human good. Technique is totally irrelevant to this notion and pursues no end, professed or unprofessed.
“If I were dying, my last words would be, Have faith and pursue the unknown end.”
Letter to John Ching Hsiung Wu (1924), published in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: His Book Notices and Uncollected Letters and Papers (1936) by Harry Clair Shriver, p. 175.
1920s
Humanities interview (1996)
Context: As a former soldier, what struck me is the absolutely heartless way that war was being pursued by the Americans, partly I think because of the race problem. The Vietnamese to us were not merely communists, they were nasty little yellow people without souls. It didn't matter how we blew them up or how we bombed them or how we burned their villages and so on. I was very struck by that. And one thing I was trying to do in The Great War and Modern Memory was to awaken a sort of civilian sympathy for the people who suffer on the ground in wartime, and that's really an act that I've been performing, oh, ever since 1945, I suppose.
“I believe there are ways whose ends are life instead of death.”
Inhale and Exhale (1936), Antranik and the Spirit of Armenia
On voluntary euthanasia as quoted in People's Daily Online (14 June 2006) http://english.people.com.cn/200606/14/eng20060614_273839.html
“I am still on my zigzag way, pursuing the diagonal between reason and heart.”
Source: Rain in the Mountains: Notes from the Himalayas