“When we are born, all humans are clueless, self-absorbed, and helpless. Most babies will grow out of it. Those who don't become managers.”

—  Scott Adams

Source: Books, Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook (1996)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Feb. 20, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "When we are born, all humans are clueless, self-absorbed, and helpless. Most babies will grow out of it. Those who don'…" by Scott Adams?
Scott Adams photo
Scott Adams 86
cartoonist, writer 1957

Related quotes

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“And this becomes a point of balance when you can forget yourself into immortality. You’re not so absorbed in self, but you are absorbed in something beyond self.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: I’ve seen people who discovered a great meaning in their jobs and they became so absorbed in that that they didn’t have time to become self-centered. They loved their job. And the great prayer that anyone could pray at that point is: “O God, help me to love my job as this individual loves his or hers. O God, help me to give my self to my work and to my job and to my allegiance as this individual does.” And this is the way out. And I think this is what [Ralph Waldo] Emerson meant when he said: “O, see how the masses of men worry themselves into nameless graves, while here and there, some great unselfish soul forgets himself into immortality.” And this becomes a point of balance when you can forget yourself into immortality. You’re not so absorbed in self, but you are absorbed in something beyond self.

“We are all born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us manage to remain greedy.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

William Moulton Marston photo

“The talkies are the only art that would attract Leonardo da Vinci were he alive to-day. This art is a baby giant, as clumsy as all babies are…we don't know what the baby will be doing and saying when it grows up. But we are sure it will make its mark in the world.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

Martson, Pitkin, The Art of Sound Pictures (1929), p. vi; Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman (2014), p. 140.

Paulo Coelho photo

“we are human beings, we are born full of guilt; we feel terrified when happiness becomes a real possibility.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

Steven Wright photo

“Lots of my friends have babies, but I don't have any babies. But I have lots of friends; babies don't have any friends. They all have those baby-monitors so they can hear the baby from the other room, which I consider a form of wiretapping. One day there's gonna be a really smart baby who makes a fake recording of some fake baby noises…gonna crawl out of the window and go to Italy.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

When the Leaves Blow Away (2006), I Still Have a Pony (2007)

“While growing your management skill…you set out to learn more about business. To grow yourself as a leader is a human thing. For that you must set out to learn more about humans, and yourself.”

Kent Thiry (1956) Business; CEO of DaVita

Vanderbilt Commencement Address (2011)

John F. Kennedy photo

“The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby — who may be born long after we are gone — should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty speech
Context: Continued unrestricted testing by the nuclear powers, joined in time by other nations which may be less adept in limiting pollution, will increasingly contaminate the air that all of us must breathe. Even then, the number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. But this is not a natural health hazard — and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby — who may be born long after we are gone — should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent.

“The great investors are almost entirely clueless as to what their supposed “employees,” the corporation managers are doing. The CEOs are almost entirely clueless as to what the branch and facility managers are doing. And the management of each facility are almost entirely clueless as to what is going on within the black box of the actual production process. In the light of this reality, Mises’ “entrepreneur”—so carefully and closely involved in the minutiae of choosing between technical possibilities of production, a brooding omnipresence guiding the efforts of every employee—is largely a construction of fantasy. It’s quite ironic, in fact, considering that Mises starts out the block quote above with the announcement that the entrepreneur is not omnipresent.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective (2008), Chapter 7
Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective (2008)

Paulo Freire photo

“No one is born fully-formed: it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Related topics