Quotes about advantage
page 13

Buckminster Fuller photo
Frantz Fanon photo
Boris Johnson photo
Enoch Powell photo
Alfred von Waldersee photo
Clement Attlee photo
Edmund Burke photo
Edmund Burke photo

“Civil freedom, gentlemen, is not, as many have endeavoured to persuade you, a thing that lies hid in the depth of abstruse science. It is a blessing and a benefit, not an abstract speculation; and all the just reasoning that can bo upon it, is of so coarse a texture, as perfectly to suit the ordinary capacities of those who are to enjoy, and of those who are to defend it. Far from any resemblance to those propositions in geometry and metaphysics, which admit no medium, but must be true or false in all their latitude; social and civil freedom, like all other things in common life, are variously mixed and modified, enjoyed in very different degrees, and shaped into an infinite diversity of forms, according to the temper and circumstances of every community. The extreme of liberty (which is its abstract perfection, but its real fault) obtains no where, nor ought to obtain any where. Because extremes, as we all know, in every point which relates either to our duties or satisfactions in life, are destructive both to virtue and enjoyment. Liberty too must be limited in order to be possessed. The degree of restraint it is impossible in any case to settle precisely. But it ought to be the constant aim of every wise public counsel, to find out by cautious experiments, and rational, cool endeavours, with how little, not how much of this restraint, the community can subsist. For liberty is a good to be improved, and not an evil to be lessened. It is not only a private blessing of the first order, but the vital spring and energy of the state itself, which has just so much life and vigour as there is liberty in it. But whether liberty be advantageous or not, (for I know it is a fashion to decry the very principle,) none will dispute that peace is a blessing; and peace must in the course of human affairs be frequently bought by some indulgence and toleration at least to liberty. For as the sabbath (though of divine institution) was made for man, not man for the sabbath, government, which can claim no higher origin or authority, in its exercise at least, ought to conform to the exigencies of the time, and the temper and character of the people, with whom it is concerned; and not always to attempt violently to bend the people to their theories of subjection. The bulk of mankind on their part are not excessively curious concerning any theories, whilst they are really happy; and one sure symptom of an ill-conducted state, is the propensity of the people to resort to them.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali photo
Michael Gove photo
Johann Most photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Edward Bellamy photo
Chang Guan-chung photo

“We intend to make use of the natural buffer zone of the Taiwan Strait and our geostrategic advantages (in the case of conflicts with Mainland China). We adopt innovative and asymmetric concepts to focus our investment on systems that are mobile, hard to find, agile, cheap, numerous, survivable and operationally effective.”

Chang Guan-chung (1959) Taiwanese military personel

Chang Guan-chung (2019) cited in " Taiwan seeking long-term U.S. logistic support: defense official http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201910080004.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 8 October 2019

Michael E. Porter photo
Gangubai Hangal photo

“Throat surgery left her with a masculine voice, but the doyenne of the Kirana gharana turned it into an advantage through years of hard work.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

Deepa Ganesh, in "Gangubai's search for perfection."

Piet Joubert photo

“Were an impartial and competent observer of the state of society in these middle colonies asked, whence it happens that Virginia and Maryland (which were the first planted, and which are superior to many colonies and inferior to none, in point of natural advantage) are still so exceedingly behind most of the other British trans-Atlantic possessions in all those improvements which bring credit and consequence to a country?”

Jonathan Boucher (1738–1804) English minister

he would answer - They are so, because they are cultivated by slaves. … Some loss and inconvenience would, no doubt, arise from the general abolition of slavery in these colonies: but were it done gradually, with judgement, and with good temper, I have never yet seen it satisfactorily proved that such inconvenience would either be great or lasting. … If ever these colonies, now filled with slaves, be improved to their utmost capacity, an essential part of the improvement must be the abolition of slavery. Such a change would hardly be more to the advantage of the slaves, than it would be to their owners."
"A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution" (London, Robinson, 1797)

“The way those sons-of-bitches took advantage of me. Warhol is a sadistic faggot.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

Referring to the Warhol crowd in New York
Edie : American Girl (1982)

Iain Banks photo

“One of the advantages of having laws is the pleasure one may take in breaking them. We here are not children, Mr. Gurgeh.”

Hamin waved the pipestem round the tables of people. “Rules and laws exist only because we take pleasure in doing what they forbid, but as long as most of the people obey such proscriptions most of the time, they have done their job; blind obedience would imply we are—ha!”—Hamin chuckled and pointed at the drone with the pipe—“no more than robots!”
Source: Culture series, The Player of Games (1988), Chapter 2 (p. 279).

Peter Medawar photo

“But Watson had one towering advantage over all of them: in addition to being extremely clever he had something important to be clever about.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

This is an advantage which scientists enjoy over most other people engaged in intellectual pursuits, and they enjoy it at all levels of capability. To be a first-rate scientist it is not necessary (and certainly not sufficient) to be extremely clever, anyhow in a pyrotechnic sense. One of the great social revolutions brought about by scientific research has been the democratization of learning. Anyone who combines strong common sense with an ordinary degree of imaginativeness can become a creative scientist, and a happy one besides, in so far as happiness depends upon being able to develop to the limit of one's abilities.
1960s, Lucky Jim, 1968

John Stuart Mill photo

“In those days I had seen little further than the old school of political economists into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social arrangements. Private property, as now understood, and inheritance, appeared to me, as to them, the dernier mot of legislation: and I looked no further than to mitigating the inequalities consequent on these institutions, by getting rid of primogeniture and entails. The notion that it was possible to go further than this in removing the injustice -- for injustice it is, whether admitting of a complete remedy or not -- involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast majority to poverty, I then reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by universal education, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In short, I was a democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We were now much less democrats than I had been, because so long as education continues to be so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ultimate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to. The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of the sentiments, will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature. Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity, as only self-interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society, is so deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it; modern institutions in some respects more than ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do anything for the public without receiving its pay, are far less frequent in modern life, than the smaller commonwealths of antiquity.”

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/230/mode/1up pp. 230-233

John Stuart Mill photo
John Stuart Mill photo
Julio Iglesias photo

“I regret not having taken more advantage of time — of the solidity of time, the intention of time. That’s why I don’t like to sleep much anymore. Had I known when I was 20 that I was going to be a musician, I would have taken to the piano, I would have taken the guitar more seriously, I would have perfected my knowledge of music.”

Julio Iglesias (1943) Spanish recording artist; singer-songwriter

On one of his biggest regrets in "Julio Iglesias reflects on a life that 'has been a miracle'" https://apnews.com/7ef030336a5b4a1a949723346d64ec51 in AP News (2019 Jun 14)

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck photo
Lewis Gompertz photo
William Lloyd Garrison photo
Learned Hand photo
William Cobbett photo

“It is not true, that the granting of the independence of America was “an advantage to England.””

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

It was, on the contrary, the greatest evil that and ever befell her. It was the primary cause of the present war, and of all the calamities which it has brought upon England and upon Europe. If England and the American States had continued united, they would have prevented France from disturbing the peace of the world. That fatal measure, though it has not curtailed our commerce, has created a power who will be capable of assisting France in any of her future projects against us, and whose neutrality, when France recovers her marine, must be purchased by us at the expense, first of commercial concessions, and, finally, by much more important sacrifices. In short, it laid the foundation of the ruin of the British empire, which can be prevented by nothing but a wisdom, and an energy, which have never yet marked the councils of our Government, in its transactions with the American States.

‘A Summary View of the Politics of the United States from the close of the War to the year 1794’, Porcupine's Works; containing various writings and selections, exhibiting a faithful picture of the United States of America, Volume I (1801), pp. 47–8
1790s

Lois McMaster Bujold photo
William Godwin photo

“People of all political parties who were anti-Modi and anti-BJP were taking advantage of his inexperience.”

Kanwar Pal Singh Gill (1934–2017) Indian police officer

quoted in Madhu Purnima Kishwar: Modi, Muslims and Media. Voices from Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, Manushi Publications, Delhi 2014.

William Bartram photo
Jacques Delors photo

“What is perceived as a cost by some will turn out to be the competitive advantage of Europe by helping maintain a well-trained, secure workforce, open to change.”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

Speech to a Trades Union Congress conference in London (31 August 1994), quoted in The Times (1 September 1994), p. 25
President of the European Commission

Justin Huang photo

“We have to take advantage of rebuilding to elevate the (Taitung) city, or we'll have gotten clobbered by (Typhoon) Nepartak for no reason.”

Justin Huang (1959) Taiwanese politician

Source: Justin Huang (2017) cited in " Using Tourism to Save the Economy https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=1672" on Commonwealth Magazine Group, 18 September 2017

Frederick Douglass photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Mikhail Gorbachev photo
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad photo

“One should try to find out what he is going to gain from the Bai'at and why it is necessary to enter into this pledge. Unless one knows what the advantage of a certain thing is and the value it possesses, one cannot appreciate it. It is just as there are various kinds of articles in the house: money-big and small coins-and wood etc. Everything is placed where it belongs, that is, everything will be cared for and looked after according to its value. Small coins will not receive the same care as the big ones. As for the pieces of wood, they will be thrown in a corner. In short, whatever will be a cause of bigger loss will be cared for more than other things. The most important point in Bai'at is Tauba (repentance)which means turning back. It indicates that condition in which man is closely connected with sin, and it is as if sins are the homeland and he is living in this habitation. Tauba means that he is now leaving this homeland. Turning back (Raju') means to adopt piety (to become pious).Leaving one's homeland is indeed a hard thing to do, and it entails thousands of hardships. When a man leaves his home, he feels it very much, then how much more one must be feeling while leaving one's homeland. He leaves every thing, his household belongings, his streets and his neighbours and bazaars (shops) and goes to another country.He does not come back to his old homeland.This is TAUBA.”

When a man is a sinner, his friends are different from those who are going to be his friends when he adopts Taqwa(fear of God).
The mystics have termed this change as 'death'.
Source: Malfoozat, Vol.1, p.2

John F. Kennedy photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“What advantage does my noble Friend think could be derived by humanity, civilization or commerce from leaving the vast tracts of territory which he has described to be simply wandered over by naked savages or to be the hunting ground of slavers?”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Speech in the House of Lords (6 July 1888), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 231

Annie Besant photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Theodore Kaczynski photo

“In the short term, natural selection favors self-propagating systems that pursue their own short-term advantage with little or no regard for long-term consequences.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

Source: Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How (2015), p. 44

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Prevale photo

“The individual who takes advantage of the power he has to impose exclusively the interests to his advantage, is a failure absolutely devoid of courage and value.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) L'individuo che approfitta del potere che ha per imporre esclusivamente gli interessi a suo vantaggio, è un fallito assolutamente privo di coraggio e valore.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“In life, whoever takes advantage of the health of others, to plan advantages in his favor, is an individual without any value.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Nella vita, chi approfitta della salute degli altri, per pianificare vantaggi a suo favore, è un individuo senza alcun valore.
Source: prevale.net

Viktor Pinchuk photo

“It is better to watch TV when it is switched off — that is, in the traditional way, but by pulling the plug out of the socket. One of the advantages of the alternative is electricity saving; in addition — the use of this method does not pose a threat to eyesight.”

Press interview quotes
Source: «A Little Journey into the Past» — South Capital. Crimea: newspaper. — 20.08.2021. — № 32 (1504), M. Kiseleva, ru, simadm.ru, 2021-09-02 http://simadm.ru/media/uploads/userfiles/2021/08/23/ЮС32.pdf,

Jan Švankmajer photo

“Censorship has an advantage of making you express yourself in very inventive ways and to think in symbols…those are the only weapons you have against censorship. It also helps by filling your desk drawers with mountains of rejected scripts you can use later in life, if you’re as lucky as I am.”

Jan Švankmajer (1934) Czech animator, photographer and director

Surrealism’s Not Dead: Interview with Jan Svankmajer https://beautifulbizarre.net/2016/06/29/surrealisms-not-dead-interview-with-jan-svankmajer/ (June 29, 2016)

Valentin Varennikov photo

“The reason for the collapse of the USSR was only the betrayal of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, who were led by the United States. The American administration has always, all the years, strived to destroy the USSR, and now Russia, and take advantage of our wealth.”

Valentin Varennikov (1923–2009) Soviet general and russian politician

"Горбачев сказал нам: "Действуйте, как хотите" " https://ytro.news/articles/2007/08/20/672987.shtml

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Bill Gates photo

“Most governments take advantage of their scientists and listen to them. They don't undermine them and attack them.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

As quoted in "Bill Gates slams U.S. on Covid: Most governments listen to their scientists, not attack them" (14 October 2020) https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/14/bill-gates-slams-us-on-covid-most-governments-listen-to-scientists.html
2020s

Emer de Vattel photo

“The citizens are the members of the civil society: linked to this society by certain duties and subject to its authority, they participate with equality has its advantages.”

Alternate: The citizens are the members of the civil society, bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority; they equally participate in its advantages.
The natives or natural-born citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.
..
if he be born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country
page 176 https://books.google.ca/books?id=NukJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176 of English translation published in 1883,
while the bottom-left marks it as page 176, it is listed as page 101 on the top-left. The section of the book is titled "OF OUR NATIVE COUNTRY, ETC." and it is part of chapter XIX called "OF OUR NATIVE COUNTRY AND SEVERAL THINGS THAT RELATE TO IT"
quoted in 1856 case https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/60/393/#476 in supreme court
quoted in 1942 by Mr. Stewart seen in page 1683 https://books.google.ca/books?id=qiI9TLONLVMC&pg=PA1683 of part 2 of volume 8 of "Proceedings and Debates of the 77th Congress Second Session"
The Law of Nations (1758)
Original: (fr) Les citoyens sont les membres de la societe civile : lies a cette societe par certains devoirs et soumis a son autorite, ils participent avec egalite a ses avantages.

Ivica Dačić photo

“Stability is of huge significance to the future of our region. And I have to express great pleasure, and it is a huge potential and advantage that Serbia has, and that is that in Serbia there is political stability. On our part we will do everything to make a contribution to regional stability.”

Ivica Dačić (1966) Serbian politician

Source: "ΙΒΝΑ-Exclusive Interview-Ivica Dacic: Stability is of huge importance to the future of our region" in Independent Balkan News Agency https://balkaneu.com/ibna-exclusive-interview-ivica-dacic-stability-is-of-huge-importance-to-the-future-of-our-region/ (20 May 2017)

Peter F. Drucker photo
Nakamura Kichiemon II photo

“In my house, I was surrounded by actors, by nothing but talk of plays and performances, so I felt it was more advantageous to go in that direction, now, I can’t quit.”

Nakamura Kichiemon II (1944–2021) Japanese kabuki actor (1944-2021)

Source: His Grandfather’s Kabuki https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-09-15-ca-44008-story.html (September 15, 1996)

“Take advantage of every opportunity that you get. I was always one to go into any singing competition and taking advantage of offers for any performances. Just get as much experience as you can. Don’t listen when people say "Oh you can’t do that." If you want it keep going for it.”

Victoria Duffield (1995) Canadian actor, singer and dancer

Source: Interview: Canada’s Hottest New Pop Star Victoria Duffield https://www.realstylenetwork.com/celebrities/2012/02/interview-canadas-hottest-new-pop-star-victoria-duffield/ (2012)

Nicolas Chamfort photo

“M.... used to warn me that I had one grave disability: I couldn't suffer fools—and their predominance—gladly. He was right and I realized that in society a fool had one great advantage: he was among his peers.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Reflections
Original: (fr) M... me disait que j'avais un grand malheur: c'était de ne pas me faire à la toute-puissance des sots. Il avait raison, et j'ai vu qu'en entrant dans le monde, un sot avait de grands avantages, celui de se trouver parmi ses pairs. C'est comme frère Lourdis dans le temple de la Sottise.
Original: (fr) Maximes et Pensées, #197

Jay Samit photo

“Remote Workers are Your New Competitive Advantage.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

Winston S. Churchill photo

“No one in England has ever wished to prevent the fullest expression of Scottish or Welsh traditions and customs. Indeed, their manifestation is regarded with pleasure and pride by the English people. We have reaped great advantages from this tolerant mood.”

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

Source: 'Yugoslavia and Europe' (29 October 1937), quoted in Winston Churchill, Step by Step, 1936–1939 (1939; 1947), p. 169

Tara Westover photo

“I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.”

Source: Educated (2018), Chapter 24, “A Knight, Errant” (p. 207)

Louise Glück photo

“The advantage of poetry over life is that poetry, if it is sharp enough, may last.”

Louise Glück (1943–2023) American poet

Source: "Against Sincerity", in American Poetry Review, Vol. XXII, No. 5 (1993), p. 29

Santiago Ramón y Cajal photo
Swami Sivananda photo
Roberta Floris photo

“The positive aspect is that it is a job that varies from day to day. Events and news are always new. Then it is a great advantage to combine work and passion.”

Roberta Floris (1979) italian journalist, television presenter and former model (1979)

Source: From the interview with de Il Viaggio Magico, Il Viaggio Magico interview with Roberta Floris http://www.viaggiomagico.net/intervista.php?id=48, Viaggio Magico, viaggiomagico.net.

Jordan Peterson photo
Joe Biden photo

“Students who simply wanted to better their prospects in life and instead found themselves taken advantage of by a scam that took their money and gave them nothing in return except heartache.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2022, June 2022, Remarks by Vice President Harris on Corinthian Student Loan Forgiveness

Edward Bellamy photo
Leonid Kuchma photo
Prevale photo

“There are three categories of individuals: the false, the envious and the bad. The false, do not have the courage to show themselves and be themselves. The envious, they do not take advantage to learn something new and be able to do better. The villains, they willfully and severely harm the health of others.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Esistono tre categorie di individui: i falsi, gli invidiosi ed i cattivi. I falsi, non hanno il coraggio di mostrarsi ed essere se stessi. Gli invidiosi, non approfittano per imparare qualcosa di nuovo e poter fare di meglio. I cattivi, danneggiano volontariamente e gravemente la salute degli altri.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Take advantage of all the pleasant occasions in your life, every instant that passes will be one instant less, not one more.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Approfittate di tutte le occasioni piacevoli della vostra vita, ogni istante che passa sarà un istante in meno, non uno in più.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Never allow anyone the privilege of seeing you as fragile. There are people ready to help you everywhere and just as many parasites ready to take advantage of your weakness.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Non permettete mai a nessuno il privilegio di vedervi fragili. Ci sono persone pronte ad aiutarvi ovunque ed altrettanti parassiti pronti ad approfittare della vostra debolezza.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“The only advantage that can be obtein from false friendships is to lose them, without ever feeling the lack of them.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: L'unico vantaggio che si possa ottenere dalle false amicizie è perderle, senza mai sentirne la mancanza.
Source: prevale.net