“It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.”

—  Edsger W. Dijkstra

Dijkstra (2000), "Answers to questions from students of Software Engineering" http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd13xx/EWD1305.PDF (EWD 1305).
2000s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs." by Edsger W. Dijkstra?
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra 68
Dutch computer scientist 1930–2002

Related quotes

Zaman Ali photo

“What’s good for individual could be bad for society but what’s good for society that will be good for individual and there is always need to choose what right for society because if it is right for society then it is right for individual.”

Zaman Ali (1993) Pakistani philosopher

"Humanity", Ch.VII, "Humanity: A Way Forward" Part VI

Ernesto Che Guevara photo

“The university cannot be an ivory tower, far away from the society, removed from the practical accomplishments of the Revolution. If such an attitude is maintained, the university will continue giving our society lawyers that we do not need.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Speech to University students (1959)

Friedrich Hayek photo

“What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

Source: 1960s–1970s, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), p. 6.

“Many of us do not believe in capital punishment, because thus society takes from a man what society cannot give.”

Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944) American writer

Source: Modes and Morals (1920), Ch. 7

“The universe doesn't give you what you ask for with your thoughts — it gives you what you demand with your actions.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 140

Vanna Bonta photo

“As a global society, befriending one another in the interchange of what we each have to offer will support a renascence of our humanity.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

State of the Art (2000)

Buckminster Fuller photo

“Instead, humans will spontaneously take upon themselves those tasks that world society really needs to have done.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Cosmography (1992)
Context: Every child has an enormous drive to demonstrate competence. If humans are not required to earn a living to be provided survival needs, many are going to want very much to be productive, but not at those tasks they did not choose to do but were forced to accept in order to earn money. Instead, humans will spontaneously take upon themselves those tasks that world society really needs to have done.

Ernesto Che Guevara photo

“What is important, however, is that each day individuals are acquiring ever more consciousness of the need for their incorporation into society and, at the same time, of their importance as the motor of that society.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Related topics