“Men have become the tools of their tools.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
“Private ownership of tools, a basis of freedom when tools are simple becomes a basis of enslavement when tools are complex.”
p10, 3rd principle of the 12 Principles of EPIC
I, Governor of California and How I Ended Poverty (1933)
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Upton Sinclair50
American novelist, writer, journalist, political activist 1878–1968Related quotes
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”
Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher
Does not appear in any works with direct sources to Socrates. Origin and earliest use unknown.
Misattributed
Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist
As quoted in Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties (1999) by Mike Marqusee<!-- p. 213 -->; also quoted in the International Socialist Review Issue 33 (January–February 2004) http://www.isreview.org/issues/33/muhammadali.shtml <br class="br">Context: Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.
Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant
Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 1, p. 224
John P. Kotter (1947) author of The heart of Change
Introduction to the 2002 edition, p. 12
The Heart of Change, (2002)
“In Soviet-Russia the Jew is forging the tool with which he wants to enslave Europe.”
Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician
In Sowjet-Rußland schmiedet sich der Jude das Werkzeug, mit dem er Europa versklaven will.
04/25/1928, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
“We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …
“Man is a tool-using animal…Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
Bk. I, ch. 5.
1830s, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834)
Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant
Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 2, p. 513