“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

— Robert A. Heinlein , Time Enough for Love

Time Enough for Love (1973)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update April 3, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write…" by Robert A. Heinlein?

Robert A. Heinlein 557

American science fiction author 1907–1988

Related quotes

“In order to preserve a balance, while we aren't planning to build a missile defence of our own, as it's very expensive and its efficiency is not quite clear yet, we have to develop offensive strike systems. They [U. S. ] should give us all the information about the missile defence, and we will be ready then to provide some information about offensive weapons.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Putin said that arms control talks between Moscow and Washington were proceeding in a positive way. (December 2009) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/29/nuclear-weapons-russia
2006- 2010

“Overemphasis of efficiency leads to an unfortunate circularity in design: for reasons of efficiency early programming languages reflected the characteristics of the early computers, and each generation of computers reflects the needs of the programming languages of the preceding generation.”

Kenneth E. Iverson (1920–2004) Canadian computer scientist

§5.4
Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979)

“Mathematical programming assisted by electronic computers becomes the fundamental instrument of long-term economic planning, as well as of solving dynamic economic problems of a more limited scope. Here, the electronic computer does not replace the market. It fulfils a function which the market never was able to perform.”

Oskar R. Lange (1904–1965) Polish economist

"The computer and the market" (1967)

“We don’t change the world by fighting the old, we change it by building the new.”

Ralph Smart

“Design is really a special case of problem solving.”

Edward de Bono (1933) Maltese physician

Source: Lateral Thinking : Creativity Step by Step (1970), p. 198; Cited in: Eddie Norman, Urry (1995) Advanced design and technology. p. 65-66.
Context: Design is really a special case of problem solving. One wants to bring about a desired state of affairs. Occasionally one wants to remedy some fault but more usually one wants to bring about something new. For that reason design is more open ended than problem solving. It requires more creativity. It is not so much a matter of linking up a clearly defined objective with a clearly defined starting position (as in problem solving) but more a matter of starting out from a general position in the direction of a general objective

“I'm interested in the computer as a new idea, a new and fundamental philosophical concept that changes mathematics, that solves old problems better and suggests new problems, that changes our way of thinking and helps us to understand things better, that gives us radically new insights…”

Gregory Chaitin (1947) Argentinian mathematician and computer scientist

Meta Maths!: The Quest for Omega https://books.google.com/books?id=ZACLDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA11. Vintage Books (2006). p. 11

“Everyone should be able to build, and as long as this freedom to build does not exist, the present-day planned architecture cannot be considered art at all.”

Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928–2000) Austrian artist

Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture (1958)

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men and women to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Disputed

“The major cause [of the software crisis] is that the machines have become several orders of magnitude more powerful! To put it quite bluntly: as long as there were no machines, programming was no problem at all; when we had a few weak computers, programming became a mild problem, and now we have gigantic computers, programming has become an equally gigantic problem. In this sense the electronic industry has not solved a single problem, it has only created them, it has created the problem of using its products.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

1970s, The Humble Programmer (1972)

“I think both sides [China and United States] should work hard to build a new type of relationship between big powers. The two sides should cooperate with each other for a win-win result in order to benefit people from the two countries and the world.”

Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China

As quoted in "Xi, Obama vow to step up cooperation" http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20130608/104235.shtml in cctv.com English (8 June 2013).
2010s

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Robert A. Heinlein 557

Related quotes

Related topics