Quotes about achiever
page 6

“To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

“Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Obituary for physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (Nachruf auf Ernst Mach), Physikalische Zeitschrift 17 (1916), p. 101
1910s
Context: How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there not some more valuable work to be done in his specialty? That's what I hear many of my colleagues ask, and I sense it from many more. But I cannot share this sentiment. When I think about the ablest students whom I have encountered in my teaching — that is, those who distinguish themselves by their independence of judgment and not just their quick-wittedness — I can affirm that they had a vigorous interest in epistemology. They happily began discussions about the goals and methods of science, and they showed unequivocally, through tenacious defense of their views, that the subject seemed important to them.
Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. [Begriffe, welche sich bei der Ordnung der Dinge als nützlich erwiesen haben, erlangen über uns leicht eine solche Autorität, dass wir ihres irdischen Ursprungs vergessen und sie als unabänderliche Gegebenheiten hinnehmen. ] Thus they might come to be stamped as "necessities of thought," "a priori givens," etc. The path of scientific progress is often made impassable for a long time by such errors. [Der Weg des wissenschaftlichen Fortschritts wird durch solche Irrtümer oft für längere Zeit ungangbar gemacht. ] Therefore it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analysing long-held commonplace concepts and showing the circumstances on which their justification and usefulness depend, and how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. Thus their excessive authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, or replaced if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason.

Forgetting

“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1930s, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), p. 322
Context: Historically our own culture has relied for the creation of rich and contrasting values upon many artificial distinctions, the most striking of which is sex. It will not be by the mere abolition of these distinctions that society will develop patterns in which individual gifts are given place instead of being forced into an ill-fitting mould. If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.

“The more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek
opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you
desire.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

“One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one’s greatest efforts.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Effort

“The key to happiness was achievable dreams.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Happiness, Dreams

“My ability to persuade my wife to marry me [was] quite my most brilliant achievement …”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

As cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 511,
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Context: My ability to persuade my wife to marry me [was] quite my most brilliant achievement … Of course, it would have been impossible for any ordinary man to have got through what I had to go through in peace and war without the devoted aid of what we call, in England, one’s better half.

“If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Life, Personality

“To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance.”

Jean Genet book The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal (1949)

“I do know that when I am 60, I should be attempting to achieve different personal goals than those which had priority at age 20.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Age, Personality

“The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Beauty, History

“Curiosity is the engine of achievement.”

Ken Robinson (1950) UK writer

“Believe in yourself and you can achieve greatness in your life.”

Judy Blume (1938) American children's writer

Life

“I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is…the higher achievement.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Mirror Dance

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)

Perfection

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Variant: Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

Peace, Understanding, Peaceful

“It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Love, Hate

“Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Circles

“God depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

God, Dependency

“Always remember that as long as other people are gullible, there's no limit to what you can achieve.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Source: Dilbert's Guide to the Rest of Your Life: Dispatches from Cubicleland

People

“The school even had a Latin motto: Pergo et Perago, which sounded like the story of two Italian cannibals but which actually meant “I try and I achieve.”

Anthony Horowitz book Crocodile Tears

Source: Crocodile Tears

School

“The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Life

“Don't mistake activity with achievement.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Success

“These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

"The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements" http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/addams6.htm; this piece by Jane Addams was first published in 1892 and later appeared as chapter six of Twenty Years at Hull House (1910) <br class="br">Context: These young people accomplish little toward the solution of this social problem, and bear the brunt of being cultivated into unnourished, oversensitive lives. They have been shut off from the common labor by which they live which is a great source of moral and physical health. They feel a fatal want of harmony between their theory and their lives, a lack of coördination between thought and action. I think it is hard for us to realize how seriously many of them are taking to the notion of human brotherhood, how eagerly they long to give tangible expression to the democratic ideal. These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.

Life, Women, Men, People

“Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Variant: Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity trust upon them.
Source: Catch-22 (1961)
Context: Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.

Men

“People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

People, Dreams, Feeling

“The way to achieve happiness is to try for perfection that is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Life, Happiness, Way, Perfection

“Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the achievement of historical, universally human goals.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Universe

“Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Essay "Distractions I" in Vedanta for the Western World (1945) edited by Christopher Isherwood

Happiness

“Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Source: The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential

Time

“Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.”

Daniel H. Pink book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Source: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

People, Business

“To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great or rational whether in life or in science. Great achievement is assured, however, of subsequent recognition and grateful acceptance by public opinion, which in due course will make it one of its own prejudices”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Elements of the Philosophy of Right

Sect. 318, as translated by T. M. Knox, (1952)
Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820/1821)

Life, Science

“What we achieve at our best moment doesn’t say much about who we are. It all boils down to what we become at our worst moment.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Feverborn

“God, what a ghastly enterprise to be in, though--and what an odd way to achieve success. I'm an exhibitionist who wants to hide, but is unsuccessful at hiding; therefore, somehow I succeed.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

God, Way, Success

“Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

“You know, if you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything, wouldn't you, at any time? And you would achieve nothing!”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Interview for Press Association (3 May 1989) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107427 <br class="br">Third term as Prime Minister

Time

“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Back To Work, For Team

“Superhuman effort isn't worth a damn unless it achieves results.”

Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) Anglo-Irish polar explorer

Effort

“Patience is not a virtue. It is an achievement.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Patience

“Some are born weird, some achieve it, others have weirdness thrust upon them.”

Dick Francis (1920–2010) English jockey and crime writer

Source: To the Hilt (1996)

“I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea

Source: Gift from the Sea

God

“In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.”

Lionel Shriver book We Need to Talk About Kevin

Source: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Country

“Every woman knows that, regardless of all her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

Source: The Whole Woman

Beauty, Failure

“To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.”

Tom Robbins book Jitterbug Perfume

Source: Jitterbug Perfume (1984)

“It is not only by one's impulses that one achieves greatness, but also by patiently filing away the steel wall that separates what one feels from what one is capable of doing.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Feeling

“Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches.”

Italo Calvino book Invisible Cities

Source: Invisible Cities

Past, Future, Dead

“Every form of happiness if one, every desire is driven by the same motor--by our love for a single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence--and every achievement is an expression of it.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Love, Happiness

“He looked at the walls,
Awed at the heights
His people had achieved
And for a moment -- just a moment --
All that lay behind him
Passed from view.”

Herbert Mason (1891–1960) British film director and producer

Source: The Epic of Gilgamesh

People

“I worry about a lot of things, but I don’t worry about achievements. I worry primarily about whether there are nightclubs in Heaven.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

“We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth

Forgetting

“We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations the important thing is not to achieve, but to strive. … The problem, then, is how to bring about a striving for harmony with land among a people many of whom have forgotten there is any such thing as land, among whom education and culture have become almost synonymous with landlessness. This is the problem of 'conservation education.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"Conservation" (c. 1938); Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 155.
1930s
Source: Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold

People, Education, Justice, Problem

“My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Life, Happiness

“But people need lift, too. People don't get moving, they don't soar, they don't achieve great heights, without someone buoying them up.”

Elizabeth Wein book Rose Under Fire

Source: Rose Under Fire

People

“Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.”

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

Motivational, Courageous, Leadership, Graduation

“Women have been repeating the same mistake since time began: falling for a man’s potential. We rarely see it the same way, and even more rarely care to achieve it.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: The Alpha Alternative: JZB Sex Scene

Women, Way, Time

“no project is completed until its objective has been achieved.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

“How can a novelist achieve atonement when with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also god?”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

God

“I don't need a baby growing inside me for nine months. If I'm going to feel nauseous and achy when I wake up, I want to achieve that state the old-fashioned way: getting good and drunk the night before.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Way, Feeling, Fashion, Baby

“I have discovered that even the mediocre can have adventures and even the fearful can achieve.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

Fear

“You have to go wholeheartedly into anything in order to achieve anything worth having.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

“Renounce love and you can achieve demonic focus.”

Glen Duncan (1965) British writer

Source: The Last Werewolf

Love

“You should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise you're merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that's always easiest.”

John Berryman (1914–1972) American poet

Courage

“The grandiose person is never really free; first because he is excessively dependent on admiration from others, and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Dependency, Personality

“To realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation and when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Universe, Help, Personality

“In order to deal with reality successfully - to pursue and achieve the values which his life requires - man needs self-esteem; he needs to be confident of his efficacy and worth.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

Life, Confidence, Reality

“Maybe that is the best lesson I learned in my first semester at Yale, because if I had gone to a less-demanding school and continued to sail along on the top, I am sure I would never have attained the subsequent achievements in my life.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Life, School, Learning

“All you can ever achieve is a sense of your soul. You gain little glimpses of its light, colors, and contours. You feel the inspiration of its possibilities and the wonder of its mysteries.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Color, Feeling, Soul, Sense

“All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.”

Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer

Men, Motivational

“For me, I think the greatest achievements of science is to allow humanity to realize that our world is comprehensible. Through science, rational thinking, we can understand how the universe works.”

Jim Al-Khalili (1962) British theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster

World, Understanding, Thinking, Universe

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

The alchemist, p. 141.
Variant: There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
Source: The Alchemist (1988)

Fear, Dreams, Motivational, Business

“Our patience will achieve more than our force.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Patience

“He'd probably been born with abs. Some were born with abs, some achieved abs, and some - like Simon - had abs thrust upon them by cruel instructors.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Bitter of Tongue

“Art – the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

Art

“… falling in love could be achieved in a single word—a glance.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Love

“Our achievements may make us interesting, Tyler, but our darkness makes us lovable.”

Douglas Coupland book Shampoo Planet

Source: Shampoo Planet

“Remind me one day to teach you how to achieve a sneer, Hugh. Yours is too pronounced, and thus but a grimace. It should be but a faint curl of the lips.”

Georgette Heyer book These Old Shades

Source: These Old Shades

“It’s not that you have to achieve anything, it’s that you have to get away from where you are.”

Marguerite Duras book The Lover

Source: The Lover

“Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's value.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Happiness, Happy

“All young people worry about things, it's a natural and inevitable part of growing up, and at the age of sixteen my greatest anxiety in life was that I'd never again achieve anything as good, or pure, or noble, or true, as my O-level results.”

David Nicholls book Starter for Ten

Source: Starter for Ten

Life, People, Age, Nature

“By the time a person has achieved years adequate for choosing a direction, the die is cast and the moment has long since passed which determined the future.”

Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948) Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Time, Future, Personality

“Revolution is an art that I pursue rather than a goal I expect to achieve. Nor is this a source of dismay; a lost cause can be as spiritually satisfying as a victory.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Art, Victory

“Let us, then, be up and doing.
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A Psalm of Life

St. 9.
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Source: Longfellow's Poems

Fate, Learning, Waiting, Heart

“If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

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

1960s, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1964)
Context: Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time — the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts… Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Love, Revenge

“All great achievements require time.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Time

“The future is not a gift-it is an achievement.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: The Einstein Theory Of Relativity

Future

“The conquest of learning is achieved through the knowledge of languages.”

Roger Bacon (1220–1292) medieval philosopher and theologian

Source: The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon - Volume 1

Knowledge, Learning

“Dolgan: ’Tis a wise thing to know what is wanted, and wiser still to know when ‘tis achieved.
Rhuagh: True. And still wiser to know when it is unachievable, for then striving is folly.”

Raymond E. Feist (1945) Novelist

Source: Magician: Apprentice

“There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Happiness, Way

“There is no disappointment so numbing… as someone no better than you achieving more.”

Joseph Heller (1923–1999) American author

Disappointment

“An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes.”

Ayn Rand book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

“After that searing meeting with those female soldiers I was even more determined that I was going to achieve real change in our culture.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

Change

“But Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment: "Stay, thou art so fair." And our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress. For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”

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

1963, Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt
Variant: Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.
Documents on International Affairs, 1963, Royal Institute of International Affairs, ed. Sir John Wheeler Wheeler-Bennett, p. 36.

Life, World, Law, Art

“This situation [alienation] can therefore [according to Durkheim] be remedied by providing the individual with a moral awareness of the social importance of his particular role in the division of labour. He is then no longer an alienated automaton. but is a useful part of an organic whole: ‘from that time, as special and uniform as his activity may be, it is that of an intelligent being, for it has direction, and he is aware of it.’ This is entirely consistent with Durkheim’s general account of the growth of the division of labour, and its relationship to human freedom. It is only through moral acceptance in his particular role in the division of labour that the individual is able to achieve a high degree of autonomy as a self-conscious being, and can escape both the tyranny of rigid moral conformity demanded in undifferentiated societies on the one hand and the tyranny of unrealisable desires on the other.
Not the moral integration of the individual within a differentiated division of labour but the effective dissolution of the division of labour as an organising principle of human social intercourse, is the premise of Marx’s conception. Marx nowhere specifies in detail how this future society would be organised socially, but, at any rate,. this perspective differs decisively from that of Durkheim. The vision of a highly differentiated division of labour integrated upon the basis of moral norms of individual obligation and corporate solidarity. is quite at variance with Marx’s anticipation of the future form of society.
According to Durkheim’s standpoint. the criteria underlying Marx’s hopes for the elimination of technological alienation represent a reversion to moral principles which are no longer appropriate to the modern form of society. This is exactly the problem which Durkheim poses at the opening of The Division of Labour: ‘Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being. one quite sufficient unto himself; or, on the contrary, to be only a part of a whole, the organ of an organism?’ The analysis contained in the work, in Durkheim’s view, demonstrates conclusively that organic solidarity is the ‘normal’ type in modern societies, and consequently that the era of the ‘universal man’ is finished. The latter ideal, which predominated up to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in western Europe is incompatible with the diversity of the contemporary order. In preserving this ideal. by contrast. Marx argues the obverse: that the tendencies which are leading to the destruction of capitalism are themselves capable of effecting a recovery of the ‘universal’ properties of man. which are shared by every individual.”

Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist

Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), pp. 230-231.

Hope, Intelligence, Problem, Decision

“In a globalized world, security can no longer be thought of as a zero-sum game involving states alone. Global security, instead, has five dimensions that include human, environmental, national, transnational, and transcultural security, and, therefore, global security and the security of any state or culture cannot be achieved without good governance at all levels that guarantees security through justice for all individuals, states, and cultures.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

The Five Dimensions of Global Security: Proposal for a Multi-sum Security Principle, p. 15-16 (2007)

World, Justice, Game

“Every great work, every big accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision, and often just before the big achievement, comes apparent failure and discouragement.”

Florence Scovel Shinn (1871–1940) American writer

The Game of Life and How to Play It https://archive.org/details/gameoflifehowtop00shin (1925)

Failure

“The self-delusion that mysterious forces and persons unknown are conspiring against us is, surprisingly, a comforting belief, because it means we’re significant enough in this anarchic world to warrant someone’s enmity. That delusion saves us from the far more difficult to accept reality: that we’re not that important to anyone. That the universe just isn’t “into” us.
Paranoia is the emotive-psychestructure’s response to feeling ignored, unloved, or forgotten in an existence filled with random acts of destructive indifference emphasizing the inherent futility of life and struggle. If you’re ever to achieve serenity, ultimately you must accept that in such a vast cosmos, you simply don’t matter very much.”

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 6 “Up is Down: The Path Inside is Outside” (p. 185)

Life, World, Feeling, Reality

“The century of revolution in the United States after the Civil War was economic, not political, freeing households from an unremitting daily grind of painful manual labor, household drudgery, darkness, isolation, and early death. Only one hundred years later, daily life had changed beyond recognition. Manual outdoor jobs were replaced by work in air-conditioned environments, housework was increasingly performed by electric appliances, darkness was replaced by light, and isolation was replaced not just by travel, but also by color television images bringing the world into the living room. Most important, a newborn infant could expect to live not to age forty-five, but to age seventy-two. The economic revolution of 1870 to 1970 was unique in human history, unrepeatable because so many of its achievements could happen only once.”

Robert J. Gordon (1940) American economist

Source: The Rise and Fall of American Growth, 2016, p. 1 ; Lead paragraph

Life, Death, Pain, War

“Milosevic was convinced that he could create Greater Serbia on the ruins of Yugoslavia, which is why he entered the war adventure that left thousands and thousands dead, a destroyed economy, infrastructure, homes, cities and villages. That politics did not succeed. Dodik, basically, wants to achieve Milosevic’s aims, but not with artillery, but thinks that some sort of politics will lead to people saying: okay, let them break away, let them link with Serbia. That cannot pass.”

Stjepan Mesić (1934) Former Croatian and Yugoslav president

President: Dodik Carries Out Milosevic's Politics, Dalje, 28 February 2009, 17 January 2013 http://www.javno.com/en-croatia/president--dodik-carries-out-milosevics-politics_238621, Criticizing Republika Srpska and its leader Milorad Dodik.

War, People, Home, Thinking

“Decentralization may bring flexibility and fast response to changing business needs, as well as other benefits, but decentralization also makes systems integration difficult, presents a barrier to standardization, and acts as a disincentive toward achieving economies of scale. As a result, there is a need to balance the decentralization of IT management to business units with some centralized planning for technology, data, and human resources”

Gerardine DeSanctis (1954–2005) American organizational theorist

Gerardine DeSanctis, Brad M. Jackson, in: Coordination of information technology management: team-based structures and computer-based communication systems http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1189653, Journal of Management Information Systems - Special issue: Information technology and organization design Volume 10 Issue 4, March 1994, pp 85-110.

Business, Change

“By 1954, when Brown came up for decision, it had been apparent for some time that segregation rarely if ever produced equality. Quite aside from any question of psychology, the physical facilities provided for blacks were not as good as those provided for whites. That had been demonstrated in a long series of cases... The Court's realistic choice, therefore, was either to abandon the quest for equality by allowing segregation or to forbid segregation in order to achieve equality. There was no third choice. Either choice would violate one aspect of the original understanding, but there was no possibility of avoiding that. Since equality and segregation were mutually inconsistent, though the ratifiers did not understand that, both could not be honored. When that is seen, it is obvious the Court must choose equality and prohibit state-imposed segregation. The purpose that brought the fourteenth amendment into being was equality before the law, and equality, not separation, was written into the law.”

Robert Bork (1927–2012) American legal scholar

The Tempting of America (1990), page 82; on Brown v. Board of Education.

Law, Understanding, Question, Decision

Quotes about achiever page 6

Quotes about achiever
page 6