“We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.”
“Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”
Speech at the University of Kansas at Lawrence http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/RFK-Speeches/Remarks-of-Robert-F-Kennedy-at-the-University-of-Kansas-March-18-1968.aspx (18 March 1968)
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Robert F. Kennedy 72
American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy 1925–1968Related quotes
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
From William Bruce Cameron's Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963), p. 13. The comment is part of a longer paragraph and does not appear in quotations in Cameron's book, and other sources http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22not%20everything%20that%20can%20be%20counted%20counts%22%20cameron&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=bks:1&source=og&sa=N&tab=wp such as The Student's Companion to Sociology (p. 92) http://books.google.com/books?id=KMsB1GE8dBEC&lpg=PA92&dq=%22Not%20everything%20that%20can%20be%20counted%20counts%22&pg=PA92#v=onepage&q=%22Not%20everything%20that%20can%20be%20counted%20counts%22&f=false attribute the quote to Cameron. A number of recent books http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=p&tbs=bks:1&q=%22not+everything+that+can+be+counted%22+einstein+princeton&start=0&sa=N claim that Einstein had a sign with these words in his office in Princeton, but until a reliable historical source can be found to support this, skepticism is warranted. The earliest source on Google Books that mentions the quote in association with Einstein and Princeton is Charles A. Garfield's 1986 book Peak Performers: The New Heroes of American Business, in which he wrote on p. 156:
: Albert Einstein liked to underscore the micro/macro partnership with a remark from Sir George Pickering that he chalked on the blackboard in his office at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
Misattributed
Aspiration of countrymen to ensure growth: Mukesh Ambani
“The Treaty of India is that all our billion people count and they have aspirations.”
Aspiration of countrymen to ensure growth: Mukesh Ambani
“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”
Section 172
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)
Yen Teh-fa (2018) cited in " Taiwan losing military edge: US report http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2018/08/18/2003698716/2" on Taipei Times, 18 August 2018
“Many of the things you can count, don't count. Many of the things you can't count, really count.”
“Don’t count, feel! The only count I know, is Count Basie!”
when asked about her preference for six-count or eight-count in Lindy Hop http://www.it-must-schwing.de/wir-ueber-uns