“"We do not encourage initiative," said the factory manager. "What you must do is to learn to work to the safety rules." It was my first day in my first job, as a plant chemist in an explosives factory, located in the English countryside, in July 1941. Happily, he was quite wrong. We were not making some old, tried and tested explosive like nitroglycerine or TNT. It was the first large -scale production of a brand-new chemical, code-named RDX-Research Department eXplosive-developed by a government military research department.”

Source: A Long Search for Information (2004), p. 3.

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 ""We do not encourage initiative," said the factory manager. "What you must do is to learn to work to the safety rules."…" by Brian Campbell Vickery?
Brian Campbell Vickery photo
Brian Campbell Vickery 84
British information theorist 1918–2009

Related quotes

Edwin Grant Conklin photo

“The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing factory.”

Edwin Grant Conklin (1863–1952) American biologist and zoologist

Quoted in: Cliffe Knechtle (1986) Give Me an Answer, p. 70

Stanley Kubrick photo

“Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Quoted in Stanley Kubrick at Look Magazine (2013) by Phillipe Mather, p. 46
Context: I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.

“We do not see it because we can not afford to-because the truth is too explosive.”

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter X : Beyond Youth: Recovery Of Self, p. 287

Douglas Adams photo
Bill Bryson photo
Ernst Gombrich photo
Tamerlan Tsarnaev photo

“Do you know the Boston Marathon explosion? I did it.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev (1986–2013) Chechen-American perpetrator of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing

To Dun Meng (April 2013), as quoted in "Boston Bombing Day 4: The Firefight: 'I Thought We Were Gonna Die'" http://abcnews.go.com/US/boston-bombing-day-firefight-thought-gonna-die/story?id=38554342 (21 April 2016), by Brian Ross, ABC News

Vandana Shiva photo
Samuel Johnson photo

“What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: The Life Of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 4

James Patterson photo

Related topics