“Britain for a long time had a reflection of its class structure which meant that people like, well, J. B. S. Haldane who was the nephew of Lord Haldane, or Bertrand Russell who became Lord Russell, could do what they pleased, and it's interesting to think that Bertrand Russell never had a job, he never had to compete for a job. Haldane had four or five different jobs in his life, totally different. He probably could have — if he had been bothered — have just abandoned his job and went on to live otherwise. … But this no longer exists. IBM no longer exists. I don't see a place now where somebody like myself who combined, let's say, unusual gifts and unusual tastes and, who everybody said has promise, was certainly a misfit of the worst kind could find a position at this point and I think that a tragedy.”
Segment 45
Peoples Archive interview
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Benoît Mandelbrot 56
Polish-born, French and American mathematician 1924–2010Related quotes
Source: A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), Chapter 33 (p. 428).
Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)
“It's a wonderful job for people who have never had a nervous breakdown but always wanted one.”
On hosting a talk show, "Playboy Interview: Dick Cavett", Playboy, March 1971, vol. 18, no. 3, p. 72
“The Morality of Mr. Winters”, p. 18
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)
2010s, 2016, April, Foreign Policy Speech (27 April 2016)
