“Committee - a group of men who keep minutes and waste hours.”

—  Milton Berle

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Milton Berle photo
Milton Berle 9
American comedian and actor 1908–2002

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“An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line.”

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“When ours are interrupted, his are not. His plans are proceeding exactly as scheduled, moving us always (including those minutes or hours or years which seem most useless or wasted or unendurable).”

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Charles Darwin photo

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

volume I, chapter VI: "The Voyage", page 266 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=284&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image; letter to sister Susan Elizabeth Darwin (4 August 1836)
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)
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“The safest refuge when dealing with urgent, ticklish problems is sought in shirking responsibility, in gaining time by the formation of Committees, with the requisite Sub-Committees to tackle the problem. It is the well-known practice of Promise, Pause, Prepare, Postpone and end by letting things alone. But this cannot last for ever. Now the secret of these Committees is that they consist of a group of men, who individually can do nothing, but collectively can meet and decide that nothing can be done, whilst they know that the best Sub-Committees consist of three persons, two of whom are always absent!”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

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“What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.”

Richard Harkness (1907–1977) American journalist

The New York Herald Tribune, 15 June 1960.

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“Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Made to Last (1964), ch. 4

Albert Einstein photo

“When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

An explanation of relativity which he gave to his secretary Helen Dukas to convey to non-scientists and reporters, as quoted in Best Quotes of '54, '55, l56 (1957) by James B. Simpson; also in Expandable Quotable Einstein (2005) edited by Alice Calaprice

William Hermanns recorded a series of four conversations he had with Einstein and published them in his book Einstein and the Poet (1983), quoting Einstein saying this variant in a 1948 conversation: "To simplify the concept of relativity, I always use the following example: if you sit with a girl on a garden bench and the moon is shining, then for you the hour will be a minute. However, if you sit on a hot stove, the minute will be an hour." ( p. 87 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q&f=false)

In the 1985 book Einstein in America, Jamie Sayen wrote "Einstein devised the following explanation for her [Helen Dukas] to give when asked to explain relativity: An hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench passes like a minute, but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour." ( p. 130 http://books.google.com/books?ei=yma3TsDWK8WciQL63smAAQ&ct=book-thumbnail&id=vs3aAAAAMAAJ&dq=sayen+%22einstein+in+america%22&q=pretty+girl#search_anchor)
Attributed in posthumous publications
Variant: When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.

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“Keep time! How sour sweet music is when time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men's lives. I wasted time and now doth time waste me.”

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