“Knowing more about the public effects his work will have, the engineer ought to consider himself an “officer of the court” and keep the general interest always in mind.”

— Hyman George Rickover

The Rickover Effect (1992)
Context: As a guide to engineering ethics, I should like to commend to you a liberal adaptation of the injunction contained in the oath of Hippocrates that the professional man do nothing that will harm his client. Since engineering is a profession which affects the material basis of everyone’s life, there is almost always an unconsulted third party involved in any contact between the engineer and those who employ him — and that is the country, the people as a whole. These, too, are the engineer’s clients, albeit involuntarily. Engineering ethics ought therefore to safeguard their interests most carefully. Knowing more about the public effects his work will have, the engineer ought to consider himself an “officer of the court” and keep the general interest always in mind.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Knowing more about the public effects his work will have, the engineer ought to consider himself an “officer of the cou…" by Hyman George Rickover?

Hyman George Rickover 52

United States admiral 1900–1986

Related quotes

“At common law, the Attorney-General is, when he is exercising his functions as an officer of the Crown, in no case that I know of a Court in the ordinary sense.”

Charles Bowen (1835–1894) English judge

In the matter of Van Gelder's Patent (1888), 6 Rep. Pat. Cas. 28

“Everyone who knows something about the dangers of reflection and the dangerous walk along the road of reflection also knows that it is dubious when a person, instead of getting out of the tension through resolution and action, becomes productive about his state in tension. Then there is no effort to get out of the state, but reflection fixes the situation for reflection and thereby fixes the man. The more richly thoughts and expressions offer themselves, the more briskly the productivity advances-in the wrong direction-the more dangerous it becomes and the more it hides from the person, concerned that his work, his extremely strenuous work, his very interesting (perhaps also for a third party who has a total view) work, is a work of bogging himself down deeper and deeper. That is, he does not work himself loose but works himself fast and becomes interesting to himself by reflecting on the tension and diverts himself with an utterly piecemeal productivity about detached details, with isolated short articles.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

The Book of Adler, by Søren Kierkegaard, Hong 1998 p. 127
1840s, The Book on Adler (1846-1847)

“The way to get a man interested and to hold his interest was to talk about himself, and then gradually lead the conversation around yourself—and keep it there.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

“It always did bother me that the American public were more interested in me than in my work.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 2
Context: It always did bother me that the American public were more interested in me than in my work. And after all there is no sense in it because if it were not for my work they would not be interested in me so why should they not be more interested in my work than in me. That is one of the things one has to worry about in America.

“Always keep your mind open. In all things, always keep your mind open. Everything is possible. Especially things you know nothing about.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=346794326803029&set=pb.100044173926915.-2207520000.&type=3

“The two maxims of any great man at court are always to keep his countenance and never to keep his word.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

http://books.google.com/books?id=eRwwAAAAMAAJ&q="The+two+maxims+of+any+great+man+at+court+are+always+to+keep+his+countenance+and+never+to+keep+his+word"&pg=PA262#v=onepage
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)