Quotes about advantage
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“… and the great advantage of being a literary woman, was that you could go everywhere and do everything.”

Source: The Portrait of a Lady

“The Superior Man is aware of Righteousness, the inferior man is aware of advantage.”

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

The virtuous man is driven by responsibility, the non-virtuous man is driven by profit. [by 朱冀平]
The Analects, Chapter I, Chapter IV

“Saturday morning was their unrestricted television time, and they usually took advantage of it to watch a series of cartoon shows that would certainly have been impossible before the discovery of LSD.”

Jeff Lindsay book Dexter in the Dark

Source: Dexter in the Dark

Time

“Intelligence is an accident of evolution, and not necessarily an advantage.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Intelligence

“It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard drinking people.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

People, Drink

“People with power always take advantage of those without power.”

Christopher Pike book The Last Vampire

Source: The Last Vampire

People

“To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages today that determine success--the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history--with a society that provides opportunities for all.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Happiness, World, History, Birth

“We live in an age of confusion and thirst in which the advantages of communication are greater than those of secrecy.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

Source: Esoterism as Principle and as Way

Age, Communication

“The advantage to being a wicked bastard is that everyone pesters the Lord on your behalf; if volume of prayers from my saintly enemies means anything, I'll be saved when the Archbishop of Canterbury is damned. It's a comforting thought.”

George MacDonald Fraser Flashman at the Charge

Source: Flashman at the Charge

“If you appear weak, people take advantage of you.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl-A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

People, Appearance

“The pounding music, the cheers, the admiration work their way into my blood, and I can’t suppress my excitement. Cinna has given me a great advantage. No one will forget me. Not my look, not my name. Katniss. The girl who was on fire.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Music, Way, Girl, Forgetting

“I see no advantage in these new clocks. They run no faster than the ones made 100 years ago.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

“beautiful girls have certain advantages.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

White Oleander

Beauty, Girl

“Excuse me, but aren't boys forbidden on this floor?' Macey said on our way to the suite.

'That's the advantage of being the only boy,' he (Zach) said. 'No one actually comes right out and makes rules like that.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

Way, Boy

“We all have our different skills. You’re patient to a fault, which sometimes doesn’t work to your advantage. I, on the other hand, have the patience of a wet cat. Only on rare occasions does that come in handy.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Kiss of Deception

Source: The Kiss of Deception

Cats, Patience

“O God, I love you to the edge of madness, Venetia, but I'm not mad yet--not so mad that I don't know how disastrous it might be to you--to us both! You don't realize what an advantage I should be taking of your innocence!”

Georgette Heyer book Venetia

Source: Venetia

Love, God, Madness

“It's one of the advantages of being a woman. I get to do all sorts of unfair things, and you have to accept them because you're too polite not to.
--Polgara”

David Eddings (1931–2009) American novelist

Source: The Seeress of Kell

“TELEPHONE n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Personality

“We spend a lot of time thinking about the ways that prestige and resources and belonging to elite institutions make us better off. We don’t spend enough time thinking about the ways in which those kinds of material advantages limit our options.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Way, Thinking, Time

“Charming villains have always had a decided social advantage over well-meaning people who chew with their mouths open.”

Judith Martin (1938) American etiquette expert

People

“Make whatever decision you wish but never forget one thing: all of you are much better than you believed. Take advantage of the chance that tragedy has given you; not everyone is capable of doing so”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

Decision, Chance, Forgetting

“Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

Personality

“One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

“What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

“It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

People, Drink, Time

“Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

Men, Books, Education

“Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

People, Silence

“Watch it." he said at last. "I can make your life miserable." I gave him an icy smile. "You already have, and that's why i've got the advantage. You've done your worst but you haven't seen what i can do yet.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Life, Smile

“I don't believe in fate," she said at last. "But I do believe in… loopholes. I think a lot of what keeps the world going is the result of accidents — happy or otherwise — and taking advantage of these.”

Robin McKinley book Sunshine

Source: Sunshine

Fate, Happiness, World, Thinking

“But Catherine did not know her own advantages - did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Girl, Heart

“Can I take advantage of you in the limo?” His eyes laughed at me. “By all means, angel mine.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Entwined with You

Angels

“Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Life, Suffering

“I was taught never to take advantage of anybody who was less fortunate than myself, whether he be less fortunate in brains, wealth, or social position; it meant anybody…”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Wealth

“The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Truth

“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Source: Letters of Thomas Jefferson

Personality, Peaceful

“There's no advantage to hurrying through life." -Shikamaru Nara”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Life

“Let me guess. The big one is due in on the north shore? (Dante)
Yes. So let’s make this quick. I have a board, a wave, and a babe with my name on them and I would like to take advantage of all three. (Savitar)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Unleash the Night

“Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

III, 7
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book III

“Don't worry. They're all against me. But I have one advantage: they don't know what they want. I do.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

“We have advantages. We have a cushion to fall back on. This is abundance. A luxury of place and time. Something rare and wonderful. It's almost historically unprecedented. We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to.”

Dave Eggers book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Source: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Time

“The sandwich he made was bologna and cheese, his favorite. All the sandwiches he made were his favorites; that was one of the advantages of being single.”

Stephen King book 'Salem's Lot

Source: 'Salem's Lot

“Sociopaths have no regard whatsoever for the social contract, but they do know how to use it to their advantage. And all in all, I am sure that if the devil existed, he would want us to feel very sorry for him.”

Martha Stout (1953) American psychologist

Source: The Sociopath Next Door

Feeling

“The advantage of beating a mute is he can't tell on you.”

Thomas Harris Hannibal Rising

Source: Hannibal Rising

“It’s not manly to hurt others or belittle them. Respect and kindness require more courage because people take advantage of those.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

People, Courage, Hurt

“Fear is a weakness. It makes a person lose her nerve and her cool. It makes people jumpy and organizations nervous, and when that happens, there is always a chance to take advantage.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

People, Fear, Chance, Personality

“One of the major keys to success is to keep moving forward on the journey, making the best of the detours and interruptions, turning adversity into advantage.”

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

Success

“A woman with an education may be able to spend more time sitting in a chair instead of lying on her back. A sound advantage, I should think.”

Anne Bishop (1955) American fiction writer

Source: Daughter of the Blood

Education, Lying, Thinking, Time

“A society's competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity.”

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

School, Imagination

“Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.”

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

“The more clearly we express it that the whole weight of our future victories will lie on our enemies, the more, in my opinion, will it tend to shorten the war. We have covered a considerable distance towards peace. The Entente no longer has any possibility of beating us economically. Do they think they can beat us militarily, now that our position in the West has become better that it ever was? If the statesmen of the Entente wanted understanding, they ought to have taken advantage of the situation now, when the Reich Chancellor has offered them the hand of understanding. They are playing a wanton game with their misguided peoples. Let the example of Russia be a warning to them. Russia, which offered us the hand of understanding, could have obtained a good peace of understanding if she had not risked this peace through the arrogance of Trotsky. May this struggle bring us victory, but may it also bring the benefits of this victory for Germany's future.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 18 March 1918

War, People, Lie, Peace

“(…) Gandhi also distanced himself from classical economic theory. Adam Smith’s assertion that it is in the nature of each individual to pursue his or her own self-interest in the marketplace and that “it is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view,” was anathema to Gandhi.54 He believed in a virtuous economy in which the community’s interest superseded individual self-interest and argued that anything less depreciates the happiness of the human race.”

Jeremy Rifkin (1945) American economist

The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism (2014)

Happiness, Communication, Nature

“Why may not a goose say thus: "All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me; I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters; there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me. I am the darling of Nature! Is it not man that keeps and serves me?"”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Star, Nature, Light, Universe

“What then is Liberty? Liberty, I would answer, so far as it is possible for it to exist in a Society of Beings whose interests are almost perpetually opposed to each other, consists in this, that, every Man, while he respects the persons of others, and allows them quietly to enjoy the produce of their industry, be certain himself likewise to enjoy the produce of his own industry, and that his person be also secure. But to contribute by one’s suffrage to procure these advantages to the Community,—to have a share in establishing that order, that general arrangement of things, by means of which an individual, lost as it were in the croud, is effectually protected,—to lay down the rules to be observed by those who, being invested with a considerable power, are charged with the defence of individuals, and provide that they should never transgress them,—these are functions, are acts of Government, but not constituent parts of Liberty.”

Jean-Louis de Lolme (1740–1806) Genevan and English political theorist and writer on constitutional matters

The Constitution of England (1784), Ch. 5 : In which an Inquiry is made, whether it would be an Advantage to public Liberty, that the Laws should be enacted by the Votes of the People at large.

Communication, Parting, Personality

“The advantage of love at first sight is that it delays a second sight.”

Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972) writer and salonist

In "Samples from Almost Illegible Notebooks", ADAM International Review, No. 299 (1962)

Love

“The philosophy of Kant, then, is the only philosophy with which a thorough acquaintance is directly presupposed in what we have to say here. But if, besides this, the reader has lingered in the school of the divine Plato, he will be so much the better prepared to hear me, and susceptible to what I say. And if, indeed, in addition to this he is a partaker of the benefit conferred by the Vedas, the access to which, opened to us through the Upanishads, is in my eyes the greatest advantage which this still young century enjoys over previous ones, because I believe that the influence of the Sanscrit literature will penetrate not less deeply than did the revival of Greek literature in the fifteenth century: if, I say, the reader has also already received and assimilated the sacred, primitive Indian wisdom, then is he best of all prepared to hear what I have to say to him. My work will not speak to him, as to many others, in a strange and even hostile tongue; for, if it does not sound too vain, I might express the opinion that each one of the individual and disconnected aphorisms which make up the Upanishads may be deduced as a consequence from the thought I am going to impart, though the converse, that my thought is to be found in the Upanishads, is by no means the case.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book The World as Will and Representation

:s:The World as Will and Representation/Preface to the First Edition Kants Philosophie also ist die einzige, mit welcher eine gründliche Bekanntschaft bei dem hier Vorzutragenden gradezu vorausgesetzt wird. — Wenn aber überdies noch der Leser in der Schule des göttlichen Platon geweilt hat; so wird er um so besser vorbereitet und empfänglicher seyn mich zu hören. Ist er aber gar noch der Wohllhat der Veda's theilhaft geworden, deren uns durch die Upanischaden eröfneter Zugang, in meinen Augen, der größte Vorzug ist, den dieses noch junge Jahrhundert vor den früheren aufzuweisen hat, indem ich vermuthe, daß der Einfluß der Samskrit-Litteratur nicht weniger tief eingreifen wird, als im 14ten Jahrhundert die Wiederbelebung der Griechischen: hat also, sage ich, der Leser auch schon die Weihe uralter Indischer Weisheit empfangen und empfänglich aufgenommen; dann ist er auf das allerbeste bereitet zu hören, was ich ihm vorzutragen habe. Ihn wird es dann nicht, wie manchen Andern fremd, ja feindlich ansprechen; da ich, wenn es nicht zu stolz klänge, behaupten möchte, daß jeder von den einzelnen und abgerissenen Aussprüchen, welche die Upanischaden ausmachen, sich als Folgesatz aus dem von mir mitzutheilenden Gedanken ableiten ließe, obgleich keineswegs auch umgekehrt dieser schon dort zu finden ist. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Leipzig 1819. Vorrede. pp.XII-XIII books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=0HsPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR12 The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

Wisdom, Hostility, School, Literature

“I can think of a few microorganisms, possibly the tubercle bacillus, the syphilis spirochete, the malarial parasite, and a few others, that have a selective advantage in their ability to infect human beings, but there is nothing to be gained, in an evolutionary sense, by the capacity to cause illness or death. Pathogenicity may be something of a disadvantage for most microbes, carrying lethal risks far more frightening to them than to us. The man who catches a meningococcus is in considerably less danger for his life, even without chemotherapy, than meningococci with the bad luck to catch a man.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"Germs"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)

Life, Death, Bad luck, Thinking

“In manufactures, a very small advantage will enable foreigners to undersell our own workmen, even in the home market. It will require a very great one to enable them to do so in the rude produce of the soil. If the free importation of foreign manufactures were permitted, several of the home manufactures would probably suffer, and some of them, perhaps, go to ruin altogether, and a considerable part of the stock and industry at present employed in them, would be forced to find out some other employment. But the freest importation of the rude produce of the soil could have no such effect upon the agriculture of the country.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter II

Home, Suffering, Parting, Country

“It is one of the advantages of the revelations which we acknowledge, that whilst they reject idolatry with its many pernicious accompaniments, they introduce the Deity to human apprehension, under an idea more personal, more determinate, more within its compass, than the theology of nature can do. And this they do by representing him exclusively under the relation in which he stands to ourselves; and, for the most part, under some precise character, resulting from that relation, or from the history of his providences. Which method suits the span of our intellects much better than the universality which enters into the idea of God, as deduced from the views of nature.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 24 : Of the Natural Attributes of the Deity.

God, History, Idea, Nature

“To be perfectly ignorant in all the Terms of them is only tolerable in those, who think their Tongues of as little Use to them, as generally their Understandings are. Those whom Necessity has obliged to get their Bread by Manual Industry, where some Degree of Art is required to go along with it, and who have had some Insight into these Studies, have very often found Advantages from them sufficient to reward the Pains they were at in acquiring them. And whatever may have been imputed (how justly I'm not now to determine) to some other Studies, under the Notion of Insignificancy and Loss of Time; yet these, I believe, never caused Repentance in any, except it was for their Remissness in the Prosecution of them. And though Plato's Censure, that those who did not understand the 117 Prop. of the 10th Element, ought not to be ranked among Rational Creatures, wax unreasonable and unjust: Yet to give a Man the Character of Universal Learning that is destitute of a competent Knowledge in the Mathematics, is no less so.”

Jacques Ozanam (1640–1718) French mathematician

Preface
A Mathematical Dictionary: Or; A Compendious Explication of All Mathematical Terms, 1702

Pain, Art, Mathematics, Understanding

“Coadaptation is the process whereby systems of related agents take mutual advantage of each other in order to change more effectively, yet still be adaptive in each agent's particular situation.”

Shona Brown (1960) businessperson

Source: Competing on the Edge, 1998, p. 60

Change

“In England, and in all Roman Catholic countries, the lottery of the church is in reality much more advantageous than is necessary.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter X, Part II, p. 155.

Reality, Country

“The advantage of molecular messaging over other sorts of communication, he says, is its ability to be deployed in hard-to-reach places, such as providing in-body communications for medical applications. The body’s cellular signalling pathways have already been mapped, so these could serve as “communications channels”, says Dr Bush. Digital signals could be sent, say, to the vagal system to help moderate a patient’s blood pressure or heart rate. Data transmitted molecularly might also enable blood-sugar levels to be monitored without invasive pinpricks.”

Stephen F Bush

Bush, Stephen F., ' Molecular communications: Researchers are looking at ways to broadcast messages using chemical rather than electrical signals http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21598326-molecular-communications-researchers-are-looking-ways-broadcast-messages,' The Economist, Technology Quarterly: Q1 2014.

Communication, Help, Heart

“I thank your Excellency for your generous and obliging offer. Most certain, my inclination leads me to a resignation. My reputation I value more than any advantages of gain; and I consider it in great danger. I wrote your Excellency lengthy upon this subject yesterday, and therefore shall say but little upon it to-day. I intend to write to Congress to day, upon the subject of my apprehensions and determination; and, if they do not give me those kinds of assurances, which are necessary to guard my reputation from malice and detraction. I shall insist upon leaving the business. The politics of Congress are really alarming, and the state of the finances astonishing; where they will end, time only can unfold.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (26 April 1779)

Business, Time

“San Domingo, with a stable government, under which her immense resources can be developed, will give remunerative wages to tens of thousands of laborers not now upon the island. This labor will take advantage of every available means of transportation to abandon the adjacent islands and seek the blessings of freedom and its sequence—each inhabitant receiving the reward of his own labor. Porto Rico and Cuba will have to abolish slavery, as a measure of self-preservation, to retain their laborers.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Second State of the Union Address (1870)

Freedom

“Had the acute-angled rabble been all, without exception, absolutely destitute of hope and of ambition, they might have found leaders in some of their many seditious outbreaks, so able as to render their superior numbers and strength too much even for the wisdom of the Circles. But a wise ordinance of Nature has decreed that, in proportion as the working-classes increase in intelligence, knowledge, and all virtue, in that same proportion their acute angle (which makes them physically terrible) shall increase also and approximate to the comparatively harmless angle of the Equilateral Triangle. Thus, in the most brutal and formidable of the soldier class — creatures almost on a level with women in their lack of intelligence — it is found that, as they wax in the mental ability necessary to employ their tremendous penetrating power to advantage, so do they wane in the power of penetration itself.

How admirable is this Law of Compensation! And how perfect a proof of the natural fitness and, I may almost say, the divine origin of the aristocratic constitution of the States in Flatland! By a judicious use of this Law of Nature, the Polygons and Circles are almost always able to stifle sedition in its very cradle, taking advantage of the irrepressible and boundless hopefulness of the human mind. Art also comes to the aid of Law and Order. It is generally found possible — by a little artificial compression or expansion on the part of the State physicians — to make some of the more intelligent leaders of a rebellion perfectly Regular, and to admit them at once into the privileged classes; a much larger number, who are still below the standard, allured by the prospect of being ultimately ennobled, are induced to enter the State Hospitals, where they are kept in honourable confinement for life; one or two alone of the more obstinate, foolish, and hopelessly irregular are led to execution.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART I: THIS WORLD, Chapter 3. Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland

Life, Wisdom, Women, Law

“Originally UML was intended to serve as a specification language. But a specification is primarily intended to describe properties of systems that the system developers want to be valid, but to leave open other properties that are not clear already. Today this is partly achieved by having a semantics that is rather vague (and here we mean imprecise as opposed to not detailed). However, this is not an advantage, as the developer cannot fix this kind of impreciseness within UML, but can adapt the individual interpretation only. Furthermore, to get complete (and therefore executable) UML descriptions, often certain details have to be specified, which the developer does not yet know or wants to leave open to a later phase of development or even implementation. It is an intrinsic problem of executable languages that this kind of over-specification frequently occurs. Instead it would be of some help to have flexible concepts of under-specification to postpone detail decisions to situations, where the decisions can and must be made.”

Bernhard Rumpe (1967) German computer scientist

Bernhard Rumpe (1998) " A Note on Semantics (with an Emphasis on UML) http://sse-tubs.de/~rumpe/publications/papers/RUM98a/RUM98a.pdf." Proceedings of Second ECOOP Workshop on Precise Behavioral Semantics. 1998.

Problem, Decision, Help

“The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes: and in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false. The rights of men are in a sort of middle, incapable of definition, but not impossible to be discerned. The rights of men in government are their advantages; and these are often in balances between differences of good; in compromises between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil. Political reason is a computing principle: adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, morally and not metaphysically or mathematically, true moral denominations.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Men, Mathematics, Evil, Falseness

“I could scarcely keep from laughing at this scrupulous manner of waging war. I cited the European example as a much more forceful policy. A monarch is careful not to overlook any advantage for victory. She had some questions about that: "Tell me," she said, "do your princes have no other pretext for war than might makes right?"
"Yes," I answered, "the justice of their cause."
"Why, then," she continued, "do they not choose to be reconciled by impartial judges? And if it is determined that both sides are in the right, then why not maintain the status quo? Or why not play a game of gin rummy for the town or province they're arguing over? But no, while they cause the death of four million men who are better than they, they stay in their strategy rooms making light of the way the poor fellows are being massacred. But I'm wrong to criticize the valour of your brave men. It's important to die for one's country when it means being the subject of a king who wears a ruffled collar or a pleated one."”

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist

The Other World (1657)

Death, Men, War, Justice

“The Palestinians living among us have, for the most part, earned a not unfounded reputation for being cheaters, because of their spirit of usury since their exile. Certainly, it seems strange to conceive of a nation of cheaters; but it is just as odd to think of a nation of merchants, the great majority of whom, bound by an ancient superstition that is recognized by the State they live in, seek no civil dignity and try to make up for this loss by the advantage of duping the people among whom they find refuge, and even one another. The situation could not be otherwise, given a whole nation of merchants, as non-productive members of society”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

for example, the Jews in Poland page 77 of 6 December 2012 publication by Springer Science & Business Media https://books.google.ca/books?id=nRArBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA77, translation by Mary J. Gregor (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974) page 238 of "Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation" https://books.google.ca/books?id=4EmqLCWUFvEC&pg=PA238 in 1998, page 221 of "Acts of Religion" https://books.google.ca/books?id=c_kgAmFbvP0C&pg=PA221 in 2002, page 235 of "Spinoza's Modernity: Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine" https://books.google.ca/books?id=CYcOfkrduWYC&pg=PA235 in 2004, page 44 of "Friedrich Schleiermacher: Between Enlightenment and Romanticism" https://books.google.ca/books?id=IYVDMuOFN20C&pg=PA44 in 2005, page 8 of "The Jewish Odyssey of George Eliot" https://books.google.ca/books?id=juCYcPWdqccC&pg=PA8 in 2010, page 155 of "Inhumanities: Nazi Interpretations of Western Culture" https://books.google.ca/books?id=YMIsYMw0ES0C&pg=PA155 in 2012, page 75 of "Romanticism/Judaica: A Convergence of Cultures" https://books.google.ca/books?id=4svsCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT75 in 2016 and page 39 of "Cosmopolitanisms and the Jews" https://books.google.ca/books?id=6kk_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA39 in 2017 also quote this. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

People, Thinking, Loss, Parting

“Speaking of the sanctions, they are not just a knee-jerk reaction on behalf of the United States or its allies to our position regarding the events and the coup in Ukraine, or even the so-called Crimean Spring. I’m sure that if these events had never happened – I want to point this out specifically for you as politicians sitting in this auditorium – if none of that had ever happened, they would have come up with some other excuse to try to contain Russia’s growing capabilities, affect our country in some way, or even take advantage of it. 4 December 2014, The Kremlin Moscow, http://eng.news.kremlin.ru/news/23341”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

On Ukraine

Jerk, Way, Spring, Country

“As they say on my own Cape Cod, a rising tide lifts all the boats. And a partnership, by definition, serves both partners, without domination or unfair advantage. Together we have been partners in adversity — let us also be partners in prosperity.”

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

1963, Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt

Partnership

“I started life with two great advantages: no money, and good parents.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

On a 1971 TV interview, when asked if she understands ordinary people's problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tanJYrIh7VU&feature=youtu.be&t=47s Education Secretary

Life, Money, Parent

“I would just like to challenge the idea that it is necessary to have a lot of women, or a particular number, on a board. Business is very, very competitive and you should take the performance of women in another competitive area, which is sport where [men] have no strength advantage. Chess, bridge, poker - women come absolutely nowhere. I think that just has to be borne in mind.”

Stuart Wheeler (1935) British businessman and politician

As quoted in The Independent, Thursday 15 August 2013 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ukip-faces-renewed-accusations-of-sexism-as-stuart-wheeler-claims-women-are-not-as-competitive-as-men-8763570.html See Victoria Coren for a reply.

Women, Men, Idea, Business

“The idea that an aim can be reasonable for its own sake—on the basis of virtues that insight reveals it to have in itself—without reference to some kind of subjective gain or advantage, is utterly alien to subjective reason, even where it rises above the consideration of immediate utilitarian values and devotes itself to reflection about the social order as a whole.”

Max Horkheimer book Eclipse of Reason

Source: Eclipse of Reason (1947), p. 4.

Idea

“If we accomplish a good deed, a charity in the hope of (getting…) future rewards, or with a more or less confessed (or admitted) ulterior motive to profit from personal advantages ("d'en retirer quelque avantage personnel", Fr.), we are probably doing a useful thing, but which is devoided of any ("tout", Fr.) truly moral character (or disposition)"”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

p .39.
Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)

Hope, Motivation, Future, Personality

“But a morbid consciousness that others did not give him the place which he had not demonstrably merited—a perpetual suspicious conjecture that the views entertained of him were not to his advantage— a melancholy absence of passion in his efforts at achievement, and a passionate resistance to the confession that he had achieved nothing.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

Effort, Passion

“I felt there’s a wealth in Jewish tradition, a great inheritance. I’d be a jerk not to take advantage of it.”

Herman Wouk (1915–2019) Pulitzer Prize-winning American author whose novels include The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War and War and …

On his return to Orthodox Judaism.
Time Magazine (September 5, 1955).

Jerk, Wealth

“Naturally, it is in the interest of the trader to be on good terms with the one from whom he buys cheap as well as with the other to whom he sells dear. A nation therefore acts very imprudently if it fosters feelings of animosity in its suppliers and customers. The more friendly, the more advantageous. Such is the humanity of trade. And this hypocritical way of misusing morality for immoral purposes is the pride of the free-trade system.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

Natürlich ist es im Interesse des Handelnden, mit dem einen, von welchem er wohlfeil kauft, wie mit dem andern, an welchen er teuer verkauft, sich in gutem Vernehmen zu halten. Es ist also sehr unklug von einer Nation gehandelt, wenn sie bei ihren Versorgern und Kunden eine feindselige Stimmung nährt. Je freundschaftlicher, desto vorteilhafter. Dies ist die Humanität des Handels, und diese gleisnerische Art, die Sittlichkeit zu unsittlichen Zwecken zu mißbrauchen, ist der Stolz des Systems der Handelsfreiheit.
Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844)

Way, Feeling, Nature

“My concern for environmental issues and the challenge to leave our fragile planet in good condition for future generations. However, we take advantage of our opportunities, all the positive and hopeful I meet during my travels in this country and abroad, I am convinced that together we can a promising future.”

Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden (1946) King of Sweden

royalcorrespondent.com http://royalcorrespondent.com/2013/02/15/an-interview-with-his-majesty-king-carl-xvi-gustaf-of-sweden/

Hope, Travel, Future, Country

“As a young man, I was more a white liberal than I ever tried to put on black. For all that, I ended up a “minority,” the beneficiary of affirmative action programs to redress black exclusion. And, harder to say, my brown advantage became a kind of embarrassment. For I never had an adversarial relationship to American culture. I was never at war with the tongue. Brown was no longer invisible by the time I got to college. In the white appraisal, brown skin became a coat of disadvantage, which was my advantage. Acknowledgment came at a price, then as now. (Three decades later, the price of being a published brown author is that one cannot be shelved near those one has loved. The price is segregation.) I remain at best ambivalent about those Hispanic anthologies where I end up; about those anthologies where I end up the Hispanic; about shelves at the bookstore where I look for myself and find myself. The fact that my books are published at all is the result of the slaphappy strategy of the northern black Civil Rights movement.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Love, War, Books, Time

“I use the media the way the media uses me—to attract attention. Once I have that attention, it's up to me to use it to my advantage.”

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

Source: 2010s, 2015, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (2015), p. 10

Way

“For a Westerner to trash Western culture is like criticizing our nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere on the grounds that it sometimes gets windy, and besides, Jupiter's is much prettier. You may not realize its advantages until you're trying to breathe liquid methane.”

Neal Stephenson (1959) American science fiction writer

Wired 2.02: In the Kindom of Mao Bell http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.02/mao.bell.html?pg=2&topic=&topic_set=

“There is the advantage that a small or light bullet has over a heavy one when it comes to wound ballistics. … What it amounts to is the fact that bullets are stabilized to fly through the air, and not through water, or a body, which is approximately the same density as the water. And they are stable as long as they are in the air. When they hit something, they immediately go unstable. … If you are talking about.30-caliber, this might remain stable through a human body. … While a little bullet, being it has a low mass, it senses an instability situation faster and reacts much faster. … this is what makes a little bullet pay off so much in wound ballistics.”

Eugene Stoner (1922–1997) American firearms designer

Congressional testimony ([Why the AR-15 Is So Lethal, w:James Fallows, James, Fallows, November 7, 2017, September 2, 2018, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/why-the-ar-15-is-so-lethal/545162/]; [M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story, June 1981, September 2, 2018, w:James Fallows, James, Fallows, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/]; [If Porn Could Be Banned, Why Not AR-15s?, w:James Hamblin, James, Hamblin, February 15, 2018, October 25, 2018, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/02/on-banning-porn-vs-guns/553433/]).

Sense, Light, Water, Flying

“I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions. More often than not Democratic Law works to the advantage of the few even though the many have voted; this, of course, is because the few have told them how to vote. I grow tired of 18th century moralities in a 20th century space-atomic age. If I want to kill myself I feel that should be my business. If I go out and hold up gas stations at night to pay for my supply it is because the law inflates a very cheap thing into an escalated war against my nerves and my soul.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

"This Floundering Old Bastard is the Best Damn Poet in Town", interview by John Thomas, in LA Free Press (1967)
Interviews

Men, War, Age, Law

““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!””

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, The Player of Games (1988), Chapter 2 (p. 279).

Children, People, Pleasure, Law

“Their is one advantage in a plurality of wifes; tha fite each other, insted ov their husbands.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

“Social unrest and a deepening sense of unfairness are dangers to our national life which we must minimize by rigorous methods. People know that vast personal incomes come not only through the effort or ability or luck of those who receive them, but also because of the opportunities for advantage which Government itself contributes. Therefore, the duty rests upon the Government to restrict such incomes by very high taxes.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Message to Congress on tax revision (1935)

Life, People, Sense, Effort

““Am I hired?”
“There is no legal way you can get me out of paying that much of my taxes.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Wiggin. The tax laws are designed to trick people into paying more than they have to. That way the rich who are in the know get to take advantage of drastic tax breaks, while those who don’t have such good connections and haven’t yet found an accountant who does are tricked into paying ludicrously higher amounts.””

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Page 188
Ender's Game series, First Meetings in the Enderverse (2003), Investment Counselor

People, Law, Way

“The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Money, Thinking

“… far greater Advantages would come to pass amongst Christians, if they would cease from Contention, Oppression, and (what tends and disposes them thereunto,) the killing of Beasts, and eating their Flesh and Blood; and in a short time humane murthers, and devilish feuds and cruelties among each other, would abate, and perhaps scarce have a being amongst them.”

Thomas Tryon (1634–1703) British hat maker

The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness, London, 1697, p. 241 https://books.google.it/books?id=cQ83AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA241.

Time

“… habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 182

Life

“It was once said by Abraham Lincoln that this Republic could not long endure half slave and half free; and the same may be said with even more truth of the black citizens of this country. They cannot remain half slave and half free. They must be one thing or the other. And this brings me to consider the alternative now presented between slavery and freedom in this country. From my outlook, I am free to affirm that I see nothing for the negro of the South but a condition of absolute freedom, or of absolute slavery. I see no half-way place for him. One or the other of these conditions is to solve the so-called negro problem. There are forces at work in both of these directions, and for the present that which aims at the re-enslavement of the negro seems to have the advantage. Let it be remembered that the labor of the negro is his only capital. Take this from him, and he dies from starvation. The present mode of obtaining his labor in the South gives the old master-class a complete mastery over him. I showed this in my last annual celebration address, and I need not go into it here. The payment of the negro by orders on stores, where the storekeeper controls price, quality, and quantity, and is subject to no competition, so that the negro must buy there and nowhere else–an arrangement by which the negro never has a dollar to lay by, and can be kept in debt to his employer, year in and year out–puts him completely at the mercy of the old master-class. He who could say to the negro, when a slave, you shall work for me or be whipped to death, can now say to him with equal emphasis, you shall work for me, or I will starve you to death… This is the plain, matter-of-fact, and unexaggerated condition of the plantation negro in the Southern States today.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-nations-problem/

Death, Truth, Way, Problem

“In private prayer we have a far greater advantage as so the exercise of our own gifts and graces and parts that we have in public…in public duties we are more passive, but in private duties we are more active. Now, the more our gifts and parts and graces are exercised, the more they are strengthened and increased. All acts strengthen habits. The more sin is acted, the more it is strengthened. And so it is with our gifts and graces; the more they are acted, the more they are strengthened.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

The Secret Key To Heaven, 1665

Exercises, Parting

“One of the advantages of being in the futurism business is that by the time your readers are able to find fault with your forecasts, it is too late for them to ask for their money back.”

Ray Kurzweil (1948) Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist

Ray Kurzweil: The Library Journal, The virtual book revisited http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-virtual-book-revisited

Money, Business, Time, Future

“I like to say that the attacker always has the advantage.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

Part II, Chapter 10, The Attacker's Advantage, p. 122
2000s, How Life Imitates Chess (2007)

“One of the peculiar features of history is that time always erodes advantage. Every invention sooner or later erodes advantage. Every invention sooner or later leads to a counter-invention.”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 1. Human Nature

History, Time

“Generally speaking, if we look at sports we find that their strong point is that because they are competitive they are interesting, and young people are likely to be attracted to them. No matter how valuable the method of physical education, if it is not put into practice, it will serve no purpose — therein lies the advantage of sports. But, in this regard there are matters to which we must also give a great deal of consideration. First, so-called sports were not created for the purpose of physical education; one competes for another purpose, namely, to win. Accordingly, the muscles are not necessarily developed in a balanced way, and in some cases the body is pushed too far or even injured. For that reason, while there is no doubt that sports are a good thing, serious consideration must be given to the selection of the sport and the training method. Sports must not be undertaken carelessly, over-zealously, or without restraint. However, it is safe to say that competitive sports are a form of physical education that should be promoted with this advice in mind. The reason I have worked to popularize sports for more than twenty years and that I have strived to bring the Olympic Games to Japan is entirely because I recognize these merits. However, in times like these, when many people are enthusiastic about sports, I would like to remind them of the adverse effects of sports as well. I also urge them to keep in mind the goals of physical education—to develop a sound body that is useful to you in your daily life — and be sure to consider whether or not the method of training is in keeping with the concept of”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

http://www.judoinfo.com/seiryoku2.htm seiryoku zenyo
"Judo and Physical Training" in Mind Over Muscle : Writings from the Founder of Judo (2006) edited by Naoki Murata, p. 57

Life, People, Education, Way

“I like well your idea of issuing treasury notes bearing interest, because I am persuaded they would soon be withdrawn from circulation and locked up in vaults & private hoards. It would put it in the power of every man to lend his 100. or 1000 d. tho’ not able to go forward on the great scale, and be the most advantageous way of obtaining a loan. The other idea of creating a National bank, I do not concur in, because it seems now decided that Congress has not that power, (altho’ I sincerely wish they had it exclusively) and because I think there is already a vast redundancy, rather than a scarcity of paper medium.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Thomas Law (6 November 1813) http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/Vol11/0054-11_Pt07_1813.html#hd_lf054-11_head_125 FE 9:433 : The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (10 Vols., 1892-99) edited by Paul Leicester Ford 1810s

Way, Idea, Thinking, Sincerity

“Companies are in the midst of a revolutionary transformation. Industrial age competition is shifting to information age competition. During the industrial age, from 1850 to about 1975, companies succeeded by how well they could capture the benefits from economies of scale and scope. Technology mattered, but, ultimately, success accrued to companies that could embed the new technology into physical assets that offered efficient, mass production of standard products.
During the industrial age, financial control systems were developed in companies, such as General Motors, DuPont, Matsushita, and General Electric, to facilitate and monitor efficient allocations of financial and physical capital. A summary financial measure such as return-on-capital employed (ROCE) could both direct a company’s internal capital to its most productive use and monitor the efficiency by which operating divisions used financial and physical capital to create value for shareholders.
The emergence of the information era, however, in the last decades of the twentieth century, made obsolete many of the fundamental assumptions of industrial age competition. No longer could companies gain sustainable competitive advantage by merely deploying new technology into physical assets rapidly, and by excellent management of financial assets and liabilities.”

Robert S. Kaplan (1940) American accounting academic

Source: The Balanced Scorecard, 1996, p. 2-3

Age, Success

“I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1990s, Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism (1998)

Quotes about advantage page 3

Quotes about advantage
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