“People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better, and actually it will, I think, by itself degrade, actually. You look at great civilizations like Ancient Egypt, and they were able to make the pyramids, and they forgot how to do that. And then the Romans, they built these incredible aqueducts. They forgot how to do it.”

— Elon Musk

Career advice from Elon Musk's latest TED interview, in one sentence http://www.businessinsider.com/brilliant-career-advice-from-elon-musk-2017-5 at 2017 TED conference (May 9, 2017)

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Elon Musk 91

South African-born American entrepreneur 1971

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“Look, technology is another word for tool. There was a time when nails were high-tech. There was a time when people had to be told how to use a telephone. We got past that. Technology is just a tool. People use tools to improve their lives.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

1990s, Schafer interview (1995)

“I think the control I had over my work was less than adequate. There was nothing wrong with the good bits in my poems, it’s just that they were packed around with lots and lots of bad bits, and I think that the only way I’ve improved in the last several decades [... ] is that I’ve learned to leave out the bad bits. I’m not sure you do improve beyond that.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

From a conversation with Peter Porter broadcast on ABC Radio, Australia in the program 'Book Talk' on Saturday 15 October 2005
Television and radio

“If you believe in making change from the bottom up, if you believe the measure of change is how many people’s lives are better, you know it’s hard and some people think it’s boring. Speeches like this are fun. Actually doing the work is hard. So people say, well, we need to change. She’s been around a long time, she sure has, and she’s sure been worth every single year she’s put into making people’s lives better.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

2010s, (July 26, 2016)

“My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements, and operate the device entirely in my mind.”

Nikola Tesla book My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla

My Inventions (1919)
Source: My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla
Context: The moment one constructs a device to carry into practice a crude idea, he finds himself unavoidably engrossed with the details of the apparatus. As he goes on improving and reconstructing, his force of concentration diminishes and he loses sight of the great underlying principle.… I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance.

“Now answer me this. Do you think that the same holds of horses? Do people in general improve them, whereas one particular person corrupts them or makes them worse? Or is it wholly the opposite: one particular person - or the very few who are horse trainers - is able to improve them, whereas the majority of people, if they have to do with horses and make use of them, make them worse? Isn't that true, Meletus, both of horses and of all other animals? Of course it is, whether you and Anytus say so or not. Indeed, our young people are surely in a very happy situation if only one person corrupts them, whereas all the rest benefit them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

25b
Plato, Apology

“The newspapers were saying, 'You have AIDS.' They actually said I was dead. I just threw myself into my work when the whispering campaign turned really ugly. I think Camille saved me. I felt incredibly paranoid, just as Camille did. And do you know? I was able to use that in doing Camille's scenes. It made them better.”

Isabelle Adjani (1955) French actress

The 'Hounding' of Isabelle Adjani http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/06/movies/the-hounding-of-isabelle-adjani.html, 6 January 1990.

“I would love to be able to be the one that made peace with Israel and the Palestinians. I would love that, that would be such a great achievement. Because nobody's been able to do it. … I've had a lot of, actually, great Israeli businesspeople tell me, you can't do that, it's impossible. I disagree, I think you can make peace. I think people are tired now of being shot, killed. At some point, when do they come? I think we can do that. I have reason to believe I can do that.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, November, New York Times Interview (November 23, 2016)

“I think that once you’ve seen the ways in which lots of these animals are killed and how brutal and grotesque and unnecessary it is, I think that people would automatically choose not to wear fur.”

Tamara Ecclestone (1984) British model, socialite and television personality

"Fur-Free Tamara Ecclestone Has the Winning Formula", Peta.org.uk (17 November 2008) https://www.peta.org.uk/blog/fur-free-tamara-ecclestone-winning-formula/.

“By reading so much, my vocabulary automatically improved along with my comprehension.”

Ben Carson book Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

“People don't change or improve much, but they do evolve. It is very slow.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin" (1997)
Context: Feminists have often claimed a moral equivalence for sexual and racial prejudice. There are certain affinities and one or two of these affinities are mildly and paradoxically encouraging. Sexism is like racism: we all feel such impulses. Our parents feel them more strongly than we feel them; our children, we trust, will feel them less strongly than we feel them. People don't change or improve much, but they do evolve. It is very slow.

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