Quotes about advantage (1284 quotes, page 4)

“The value of my cry great will be its advantage to degrees.
The chief of men, shield of warriors.
The extensive booty of the ashen shaft is my fair Awen.
A shield before a prince, bright his smile,
Heroic, aspiring, the most heroic is Urien”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Spoils of Taliesin, a Song to Urien

Men , Smile , Cry

“We are Communist, you are Capitalist. You have your ideas, we have ours. But I tell you this much: many American generals are very often sorry that they have no ideal to plant in the heart of the American soldier, so he will be willing to die for that ideal. You are jealous of us for this. The Communist soldier, the Red Army soldier, has such an ideal in his heart. He has it because he considers the ideal of the commander his own ideal. Your generals in Korea were sorry that Americans were not fighting willingly. We couldn't tell them why this was so, but I will tell you why. There is a difference between us. We have an advantage over you. We have an ideal for which we are prepared to die. You have not.”

Rodion Malinovsky (1898–1967) Soviet military commander and politician

To William Randolph Hearst. Quoted in "Ask Me Anything: Our Adventures with Khrushchev" - Page 152 - by William Randolph Hearst - 1960

Idea , Heart , Fight

“If I’m required to identify myself on a form, I write “teacher.” I’ve been a teacher almost as long as I’ve been writing. [Pause. ] I think of myself less as a writer than as a person who writes — or tries to. Each morning is a kind of obstacle course in which the obstacles seem to have all the advantage.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Joyce Carol Oates interviews herself (2013)

Thinking , Teachers , Personality

“The reign of Antoninus is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history, which is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

Vol. 1, Chap. 3. Compare: "L'histoire n'est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs" (translated: "History is but the record of crimes and misfortunes"), Voltaire, L'Ingénu, chap. x.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

History

“One of the common means by which one nation exploits another and one that is relevant to Africa’s external relations is exploitation through trade. When the terms of trade are set by one country in a manner entirely advantageous to itself, then the trade is usually detrimental to the trading partner. To be specific, one can take the export of agricultural produce from Africa and the import of manufactured goods into Africa from Europe, North America, and Japan. The big nations establish the price of the agricultural products and subject these prices to frequent reductions. At the same time the price of manufactured goods is also set by them, along with the freight rates necessary for trade in the ships of those nations. The minerals of Africa also fall into the same category as agricultural produce as far as pricing is concerned. The whole import-export relationship between Africa and its trading partners is one of unequal exchange and of exploitation.”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 38.

Time , Country

“Priests, theologians, have taken advantage of women—of their gentleness—their love of approbation. They have lived upon their hopes and fears. Like vampires, they have sucked their blood. They have made them responsible for the sins of the world. They have taught them the slave virtues—meekness, humility—implicit obedience. They have fed their minds with mistakes, mysteries and absurdities. They have endeavored to weaken and shrivel their brains, until, to them, there would be no possible connection between evidence and belief—between fact and faith.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

A Thanksgiving Sermon (1897)

Love , Women , World , Fear

“I have not had your advantages, gentlemen. What poor education I have received has been gained in the University of Life.”

Horatio Bottomley (1860–1933) English financier, journalist, editor, newspaper proprietor, swindler, and Member of Parliament

Speaking at the Oxford Union, December 2, 1920; quoted in Beverley Nichols 25: Being a Young Man's Candid Recollections of his Elders and Betters (London, 1926), ch. 7, p. 69.
Sometimes said to have been the first usage of this now ubiquitous cliché, though in fact the phrase university of life had been in use for many years. Some early instances:
"The disciplined minds that go from [their university's] walls will be its jewels…It will worthily introduce them to the University of Life." ~ The New Englander and Yale Review (February 1853), p. 70.
"The late Professor Greenleaf…who, not born to affluence, and not bred up to scholarly studies, achieved an honorable scholarship in the university of life". ~ Cornelius Conway Felton An Address Delivered before the Association of the Alumni of Harvard College, July 20, 1854 (Cambridge, Mass., 1854), p. 7.
"But God be thanked…for the university of life where we may acquire, at the same time that we put in practice, the rules which are to fit us for, and conduct us through the eternities." Elizabeth D. Livermore Zoë (Cincinnati, 1855), p. 14.
"When our men go into the great university of life…there are few, indeed, who have practical reason to regret that so many years were spent in the severe but salutary discipline imposed by the University of Dublin." ~ The Dublin University Magazine (April 1858), p. 419.

Life , Education , Universe

“I fly to Luxembourg on Berlusconi's usual twin engine, who accompanies us, glad to exhibit himself and exhibit his status in an international ceremony. The gold medal (but is it really gold?) is given to me by Gaston Thorn, head of the Luxembourg government. Berlusconi fills his notebook with addresses: of all the V. I. P.'s that he has met. He's a true climber that takes advantage of everything and throws nothing away.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Luxembourg, 23 may, from accounts with myself. [citation needed]
2000s - 2010s

Flying

“When I released GNU Emacs and people started using it, they started sending me improvements in the mail. So I would get a message with a bug fix, and a message with a new feature, and another bug fix, and another new feature, and another… and another… until they were pouring in on me so fast that just taking advantage of all of the help people were giving me was a big job. Microsoft doesn't have this problem.”

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

"The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System", address at LinuxTag (July 2000)
2000s

People , Problem , Help

“The harvest of your Summer [1910] is displayed on our walls. I like some of them terrifically. The 'certainty' with which most of it is done makes me feel ashamed of myself. The thousand steps that I need to take for a picture are of no advantage, as I sometimes foolishly used to think. Things must change.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

In a letter to August Macke, Nov. 1910; as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 128
Franz Marc is reacting on Macke who focused in his exhibited works strongly on the independent power of color
1905 - 1910

Feeling , Thinking , Change , Summer

“The physicist needs a facility in looking at problems from several points of view. The exact analysis of real physical problems is usually quite complicated, and any particular physical situation may be too complicated to analyze directly by solving the differential equation. But one can still get a very good idea of the behavior of a system if one has some feel for the character of the solution in different circumstances. Ideas such as the field lines, capacitance, resistance, and inductance are, for such purposes, very useful. … On the other hand, none of the heuristic models, such as field lines, is really adequate and accurate for all situations. There is only one precise way of presenting the laws, and that is by means of differential equations. They have the advantage of being fundamental and, so far as we know, precise. If you have learned the differential equations you can always go back to them. There is nothing to unlearn.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

volume II; lecture 2, "Differential Calculus of Vector Fields"; section 2-1, "Understanding physics"; p. 2-1
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

Law , Way , Behavior , Feeling

“Some researchers have speculated that religion itself may have played an important role in getting large groups of prehistoric humans to socially cohere. If this is true, we can say that religion has served an important purpose. This does not suggest, however, that it serves an important purpose now. There is, after all, nothing more natural than rape. But no one would argue that rape is good, or compatible with a civil society, because it may have had evolutionary advantages for our ancestors. That religion may have served some necessary function for us in the past does not preclude the possibility that it is now the greatest impediment to our building a global civilization.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: 2000s, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), p. 90-91

Religion , Nature , Past

“In the second year of my residence in Gottingen, I entered my name for a course of lectures on practical physics, against the advice of all my friends, but I have never regretted so doing, as there never has been, and probably never will be, a greater man at the university than Doctor Schroder, physician to the king, who gave, at that period, his celebrated lectures on practical physics. Schroder himself was astonished at the step I had taken; but when he perceived that I fully understood him, I became one of his favourite pupils; nor had I the advantage alone of receiving private lessons gratis, but he took me with him in most of his professional visits, where I had all the advantages of his great practice. Thus I caught a putrid fever which was then very prevalent; Schroeder attended me day and night, and giving up all hopes of my recovery, he observed to one of his friends, not thinking that I understood what he said, "The expansion of the sinews increases." "Then," answered I, in a quiet manner, "I shall die in four days, according to such and such a rule of Hippocrates: pray, prepare my father to receive the news of my death." However, immediately after, a sudden turn in the disorder taking place, I soon recovered; not so my memory, which I lost for a time, so that I had forgotten the names of my best friends; my nerves were so completely shaken, that I had no wish to recover. After my recovery, Professor Schroeder being himself attacked with the same fever, requested of his wife that no other physician than myself should attend him; but when he became light-headed, she called in all the physicians of Gottingen, and these gentlemen not agreeing in opinion respecting the treatment of the patient, this great and learned man fell a victim to ignorance and jealousy, April 21, 1772. I cannot think of this celebrated and good man without shedding tears of regret and gratitude.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Death , Jealousy , Hope , Thinking

“There is no finer revenge than that which others inflict on your enemy. Moreover, it has the advantage of leaving you the role of a generous man.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Revenge

“It is a great advantage for any man to be able to talk or hear, neither ignorantly nor absurdly, upon any subject; for I have known people, who have not said one word, hear ignorantly and absurdly; it has appeared by their inattentive and unmeaning faces.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

11 May 1752
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

People , Appearance

“Muslims had two more advantages in addition to their aggressiveness and superiority in the art of warfare. “During this long period of Indian resistance”, observes Dr. Misra, “the infiltration of Arabs, and later on the Turks, continued almost unabated into India, both through armed invasions as well as through peaceful migration from Central Asia. The Hindus, true to their catholicity of religious outlook and rich tradition of tolerance, never obstructed the peaceful immigrants and even zealously granted them security and full religious freedom… The greatest Chishti saint of India, Shaikh Muinuddin Chishti, came to Ajmer just before the battles of Tarain and was able to attract a number of devoted followers… It is all the more remarkable that this Hindu tolerance towards the Muslim merchants and mystics should have continued even after the invasions of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni… As Professor Habib points out, ‘the far-flung campaigns of Sultan Mahmud would have been impossible without an accurate knowledge of trade routes and local resources, which was probably obtained from Muslim merchants.’ The same can be said to hold good about the invasions of Muhammad Ghori or Qutbuddin Aibak.””

Ram Gopal (1925) Indian author and historian

The sufis were working not only as the spies of Islamic imperialism but also as deceivers of gullible Hindu masses.
Quoted from S.R. Goel, (1994) Heroic Hindu resistance to Muslim invaders, 636 AD to 1206 AD.
Indian Resistance to Early Muslim Invaders Upto 1206 A.D.

Peace , Art , Knowledge , Freedom

“The master of a private dwelling will not allow any untidiness or unseemliness to be seen in the house, such as a couch upset, or the table littered with rubbish, or vessels of price thrown away into dirty corners, while those which serve ignobler uses are thrust forward for entering guests to see. He has everything arranged neatly and in the proper place, where it stands to most advantage; and then he can welcome his guests, without any misgivings that he need be ashamed of opening the interior of his house to receive them. The same duty, I take it, is incumbent on that master of our "tabernacle," the mind; it has to arrange everything within us, and to put each particular faculty of the soul, which the Creator has fashioned to be our implement or our vessel, to fitting and noble uses.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Virginity, Chapter 18

Soul , Fashion , Housing

“Trying to assess the true importance and function of the Internet now is like asking the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk if they were aware of the potential of American Airlines Advantage miles.”

Bran Ferren (1953) American technologist

Quoted by Kevin Roberts (CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi), in Strategies for Peak Performance, September 8, 2013 http://www.saatchikevin.com/Strategies_for_Peak_Performance/,, and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger (publisher of the New York Times), in NYT publisher Sulzberger spoke yesterday about journalism's future, 2007-10-17, The Tufts Daily, en-US, 2017-01-17 http://tuftsdaily.com/archives/2007/10/17/nyt-publisher-sulzberger-spoke-yesterday-about-journalisms-future/,

“Every man of learning wishes, that his son may be learned; and that not so much from a view to pecuniary advantage, as from a desire to have him supplied with the means of useful instruction and liberal amusement.”

James Beattie (1735–1803) Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher

"Remarks on the Utility of Classical Learning" (written in 1769), published in Essays, Vol. II (1776), p. 524.

Learning

“Now, consciousness. That’s a fun thing, isn’t it? Product of an arms race between predators and prey. If you watch a cat creeping up on a mouse, you’ll be able to impute to the cat intentions that are most easily explained by the cat having a theory of mind concerning the mouse—an internal simulation of the mouse’s likely behavior when it notices the predator. Which way to run, for example. And the cat will use its theory of mind to optimize its attack strategy. Meanwhile, prey species that are complex enough to have a theory of mind are at a defensive advantage if they can anticipate a predator’s actions. Eventually this very mammalian arms race gave us a species of social ape that used its theory of mind to facilitate signaling—so the tribe could work collectively—and then reflexively, to simulate the individual’s own inner states. Put the two things together, signaling and introspective simulation, and you’ve got human-level consciousness, with language thrown in as a bonus—signaling that transmits information about internal states, not just crude signals such as ‘predator here’ or ‘food there.”

Charles Stross book Accelerando

Source: Accelerando (2005), Chapter 9 (“Survivor”), p. 397

Food , Way , Behavior , Cats

“There being several strong fortifications in and about King's Bridge, if the enemy should throw in a thousand or fifteen hundred men,, they could cut off our communication effectually; and, as the state of the barracks is, they would find exceeding good cover for the men. But if we were to take the barracks down, if the boards were not removed, it would, in a great measure, deprive them of that advantage. However, I have not had it in my power to do either as yet.”

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

Letter to George Washington (24 October 1776)

Men , Communication , Strong

“Efficiency advantages and disadvantages are more finely balanced than with health care - one person's 'sign of a civilized society' is another's 'society is going to the dogs.”

Nicholas Barr (1943) British economist

Source: Economics Of The Welfare State (Fourth Edition), Chapter 13, School Education, p. 309

Health , Dogs , Personality

“If there was any justice in this world, I would have been a dead man at least two times over. By this, I mean simply that many times in my life the statistical probabilities of a fatal outcome have been overwhelming – thanks to my sins of excess and poor judgment and my inability to say no to anything that sounded as if it might have been fun. … [When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered.”

Anthony Bourdain (1956–2018) Chef and food writer

Kitchen Confidential (2000)

Life , People , World , Sadness

“Although I am not a legalist when it comes to the conquest of power, I am one when it comes to the exercise of power. If parliamentary processes result in our being called upon to exercise power within the framework of existing institutions, we should do so legally and fairly without taking advantage of our presence in government to fraudulently transform the exercise of power into the conquest of power.”

Léon Blum (1872–1950) French politician

Quoted in Jean Lacouture, Léon Blum (1979), p. 206.

Exercises

“Self-pity? I see no moral objections to it, the smell drives people away, but that's a practical objection, and occasionally an advantage.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Source: Commonplace Book (1985), p. 50

People

“Capitalism is all about somebody coming and trying to take the castle. Now what you need is …. you need a castle that has some durable competitive advantage — some castle that has a moat around it.”

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

Rules for success

““There’s only one way to guard a secret so effectively that no one can misuse it to his own advantage and the detriment of others,” Kennedy mused slowly, “And that’s to give it away—make it open knowledge. Give it to everybody.”
“Scientists have known that for a long time,” Hoskins said, “That’s why we keep insisting on free trade of ideas.””

Mark Clifton book They'd Rather Be Right

Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 180.

Secret , Way , Idea , Knowledge

“the art-critic has provided the products of my lab with a (new) label: 'abracadabra'.... [but] one can not speak about abracadabra-ism, and that is its advantage on all –isms: it doesn't know time and limits and especially not the 'periods of time' [but] only seasons.... all -isms are dead, blown away, sprayed in the air, gone (here imagery does not fit, imagery is always wrong) - only for the 'abracadabra' is the future wall, the coming wall in the next house - how much the 'peinture' of other fabrics is curving and folding itself, polished or blown-up, it's all for nothing... We are not addressing those offspring but only the artists in this world..”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): de critiek heeft de producten van mijn laboratorium voorzien van een (nieuw) etiket: abracadabra.. ..van abacadabraïsme kan men niet spreken en dat is haar voorsprong op alle ismen: het kent geen tijd en geen grenzen en vooral geen 'perioden' [maar] slechts jaargetijden.. ..alle ismen zijn dood, verwaaid, verstoven, weg (hier past beeldspraak niet, beeldspraak is altijd valsch) slechts voor het abracadabra is de toekomstige wand, de komende wand in het komende huis hoe ook de peintuur van ander maaksel zich kromt en plooit, poets of opblaast, het is al om niet.. ..wij richten ons immers niet tot deze nakomers maar uitsluitend tot de artisten op deze globe..
Quote of Werkman from his 'Proclamatie / Procamation 2. Nov. 1932, published at nr. 13, at the left border of the river Aa'; print on paper; (transl. Fons Heijnsbroek) - from the collection of Gemeentemuseum The Hague
Werkman is referring to an article by nl:Johan Dijkstra in the 'Provinciale Groninger Courant' who called Werkman's art-works 'abacadraba', but meant in a rather positive sense, because Dijkstra missed it at the exhibition of De Ploeg, Autumn 1932
1930's

World , Art , Time , Future

“If there were an Economist's Creed, it would surely contain the affirmations 'I understand the Principle of Comparative Advantage' and 'I advocate Free Trade”

Paul Krugman Is Free Trade Passé?

"Is Free Trade Passé?", The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Autumn, 1987)

Understanding

“In recent years, the studies of the effects of drugs on the behavior of animals have been playing an increasingly important role. Animal studies have been an advantage over studies with human subjects because better control of experimental variables and a possibility of using a wider range of the doses. It is also permissible to administer toxix compounds to animals. One can interfere surgically with various parts of the central nervous system while investigating the effects of the drugs. The whole field of comparative psychopharmacology has been recently reviewed”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Weckowicz (1967) "Chapter VI - Animal Studies of Hallucinogenic Drugs" in: Abram Hoffer, Humphry Osmond (1967) The hallucinogens. p. 555

Behavior , Study , Animals , Parting

“I take advantage of a painting that I now have at the Paris' exhibition. 3 orphan girls who are sewing in an interior room. I have sold [it] there for a nice price and have heard some interesting reviews published about it. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

version in original Dutch (citaat van Jozef Israëls' brief, in het Nederlands): Ik heb nogal plaizier van eene schilderij die ik thans op de parijsche tentst. Heb. 3 weesmeisjes die in een binnekamer zitten te naaijen. Ik heb [het] daar voor een mooije prijs verkocht en hier en daar interessante kritieken over hooren uitbrengen.
In a letter to A.C. Vosmaer, June 1866; ARA - Tweede afdeling, Archief Vosmaer, input no. 249
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1840 - 1870

Girl , Painting

“he [agent Daly] conducts his office as being a whole Dominion Government, Indian Agent, Indian Cheif and Council, all into one … the Agent appears as taking too much advantage of his powers over the Chief and council and causing a considerable strife an [animosity] amoung the Indians of this Reserve … foiling the labors of the chief and members of the council, discrediting those who assist to maintain good government of the Band.”

Francis Pegahmagabow (1891–1952) World War I sniper

[harv, Brownlie, Robin, A fatherly eye: Indian agents, government power, and Aboriginal resistance in Ontario, 1918-1939, 2003, 2003, University of Toronto Press, 9780195417845], p. 153

Appearance

“Until Roy Hattersley said he would shoot himself if I became prime minister, I had not been able to see any possible advantage in standing.”

Roy Hattersley (1932) British Labour Party politician, published author and journalist

John Reid in his speech to the Labour Party conference in Manchester, 28 September 2006. BBC News 28 September 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5388112.stm
About

“It is not the business of socialists to help the younger and stronger robbers. Socialists must take advantage of the struggle between the robbers to overthrow all of them. To be able to do this, socialists must first of all tell the people the truth, namely, that this war is, in three respects, a war between slave-holders with the aim of consolidating slavery.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Socialism and War (1914), The Lenin Anthology
1910s

War , People , Truth , Business

“Warlocks and witches debate to determine how to make their broomsticks fly again. But how shall they ever come together in strength? Even if your ideas had any truth, they’re so frequently, by their very character, at odds. Each claims to hold the key to the only wisdom. That’s where natural philosophers, who do not impose what they need to believe (or at least not so readily!) upon the world, but analyze what they see, have the strong advantage.”

Michael Moorcock book The City in the Autumn Stars

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 9 (p. 310)

Wisdom , Truth , World , Idea

“Voluntary exchanges are by definition advantageous to their participants. Within this voluntary, mutually beneficial relationship, I give up an item I value less, for something I value more: a fee for the desired product or service. My trading partners, whose valuations are in complementary opposition to mine, reciprocate in kind. Ceteris paribus (all other things being equal), there's nothing wrong with my running a trade deficit with Costco, my hair stylist or my GTI dealer, as I do—just as long as I pay for my purchases. However, the data demonstrate that Americans, in general, are not paying for their purchases.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Trump and Trade," http://praag.org/?p=21936Praag.org, March 12, 2016.
2010s, 2016

“One advantage of remorse is that it sets the stage for consolation.”

John Leonard (1939–2008) American critic, writer, and commentator

"The Pampas" (p. 41)
Private Lives in the Imperial City (1979)

“For the Trade Unions such a scheme as this offers great and evident advantages compared with progressive inflation or with a wages tax. In spite of the demands of war, the workers would have secured the enjoyment, sooner or later, of a consumption fully commensurate with their increased effort; whilst family allowances and the cheap ration would actually improve, even during the war, the economic position of the poorer families. We should have succeeded in making the war an opportunity for a positive social improvement. How great a benefit in comparison with a futile attempt to evade a reasonable share of the burden of a just war, ending in a progressive inflation!”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Source: How to Pay for the War (1940), Ch. 5 : A Plan for Deferred Pay, Family, Allowances and a Cheap Ration

War , Family , Effort

“Of course we can establish constitutional checks and balances, but those won’t mean a thing unless citizens make sure the safeguards are taken seriously. The greedy and the power-hungry will always look for ways to break the rules, or twist them to their advantage.”

David Brin book The Postman

Source: The Postman (1985), Section 3, “Cincinnatus”, Chapter 14 (p. 266)

Way

“You might with advantage take out your map of modern literature and mark on it the name of Italo Svevo…for Svevo and his novel, Confessions of Zeno…will henceforth be on other people's maps, and it is well that the atlases of the enlightened should agree.”

Italo Svevo (1861–1928) Italian writer

Arnold Bennett (ed. Andrew Mylett) The Evening Standard Years (London: Chatto & Windus, 1974) pp. 357-8.
Criticism

People , Literature

“When you traveling by bus, it is always difficult to decide whether you should sit in a seat by the window, a seat on the aisle, or a seat in the middle. If you take an aisle seat, you have the advantage of being able to stretch your legs whenever you like, but you have the disadvantage of people walking by you, and they can accidentally step on your toes or spill something on your clothing. If you take a window seat, you have the advantage of getting a clear view of the scenery, but you have the disadvantage of watching insects die was they hit the glass. If you take the middle seat, you have neither of these advantages, and you have the added disadvantage of people leaning all over you when they fall asleep. You can see at once why you should always hire a limousine or rent a mule rather than take the bus to your destination.”

Daniel Handler book The Vile Village

Lemony Snicket
The Vile Village (2001)

People , Travel , Clothes

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

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, iii. 7
Misattributed

“The triplet of specifications - the product-market scope, the growth vector and the competitive advantage - describes the firm's product-market path in the external environment.”

Igor Ansoff (1918–2001) American mathematician

Source: Corporate Strategy, 1965, p. 110

“This bill, if passed into law, will serve as a deterrent to those who will take advantage of the poverty situation in order to profit from selling our women and children. This is one of the most repulsive crimes in society today, and we must not allow our women and children to fall prey to these vultures.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Official Website of the Senate of the Philippines http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2009/0507_escudero1.asp
2009

Women , Children , Law

“Radical Islam has seen us for what we are: a soft touch. It sees that political correctness is like a drug that we just can't stop injecting, even though we know it's going to kill us. And they're taking full advantage of that, turning our sense of fairness against us, and making us despise ourselves for one of our best qualities. And any concession made will be seen as a sign of weakness to be exploited further, because there is no dialogue with radical Islam. It doesn't want to be agreed with, it wants to be obeyed. It thinks it has the God-given right, aptly enough, to make the rules, not just for Muslims, but for everyone, and some of us, frankly, think that's a little bit too much to ask.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"More demands from Islam" (9 October 2007) http://youtube.com/watch?v=mHh0NdR5Jh0
2007

God , Thinking , Sense

“I want good people to come here from all over the world, but I want them to do so legally. We can expedite the process, we can reward achievement and excellence, but we have to respect the legal process. And those people who take advantage of the system and come here illegally should never enjoy the benefits of being a resident--or citizen--of this nation. So I am against any path to citizenship for undocumented workers or anyone else who is in this country illegaly. They should--and need to--go home and get in line.”

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. 30

People , World , Home , Country

“Would scientific distribution send the alien where he is most needed? On the surface, such an expediency seems a way cut of our dilemma. The land is broad, and population is unevenly distributed. But once a person is here— beyond the bars of Ellis Island, or any other port of entry—he has a right, under our law, to go whither he phases. To limit him suggests a return to medievalism, to vassalage. It aims a blow at personal liberty and challenges opposition. What the economist and sociologist call the 'law of status' is usually applied to the weak and incapable—not to the fit. The man who would lift himself to a higher goal desires freedom of movement, freedom of choice. Our Constitution guarantees this to him; it offers him opportunities. What opportunities he takes advantage of depends on what he is. It might be wise to examine closely our immigration agencies abroad, and test the alien before he sails, suggesting a locality which needs him, and where he will take root to the best advantage.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Whose Country Is This? (1921)

Law , Way , Freedom , Dependency

“Things appear very complex but underneath they are quite simple. People complicate things by super-imposing their own viewpoints and advantages. If you remove all that is superfluous, most problems have very simple solutions.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

26
Ki Sayings (2003)

People , Problem , Appearance

“I believe the earth gets warmer, and I also believe the earth gets cooler, and I think history points out that it does that and that the idea that man through the production of CO2 which is a trace gas in the atmosphere and the manmade part of that trace gas is itself a trace gas is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd when you consider all of the other factors, El Niño, La Niña, sunspots, you know, moisture in the air. There's a variety of factors that contribute to the earth warming and cooling, and to me, this is an opportunity for the left to create — it's really a beautifully concocted scheme because they know that the earth is gonna cool and warm. And so it's been on a warming trend so they said, "Oh, let's take advantage of that and say that we need the government to come in and regulate your life some more because it's getting warmer." Just like they did in the '70s when it was getting cooler. They needed the government to come in and regulate your life because it's getting cooler. It's just an excuse for more government control of your life. And I've never been for any scheme or even accepted the junk science behind the whole narrative.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Life , History , Idea , Thinking

“I would say the better part of my family identifies as Mormon or they identify as Christian – not that that’s a different thing because all of them identify as Christian because they all think that Mormon is Christian, just like every Mormon seemingly does. It is just other denominations that don’t think Mormons are Christians, just like they don’t think Catholics are Christian. This was an advantage for me growing up. I got to see the interdenominational bigotry within Christianity.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Exclusive Interview with Aron Ra – Public Speaker, Atheist Vlogger, and Activist https://conatusnews.com/interview-aron-ra-past-president-atheist-alliance-america/, Conatus News (May 17, 2017)

Family , Thinking , Parting

“The fifty-third Chuang Tzu wore the very first on his cloak as a diamond buckle. Every emperor became a diamond eventually. It was one of the few advantages of living as a carbon-based life form.”

Jon Courtenay Grimwood (1953) British writer

Source: Stamping Butterflies (2004), Chapter 25 (p. 157)

Life

“The practical effects of the Marxian-Federovian cult of technology were ruinous. Inspired by a materialist philosophy, the Soviet Union inflicted more far-reaching and lasting damage on the material environment than any regime in history. Green earth became desert, and pollution rose to life-threatening levels. No advantage to mankind was gained by the Soviet destruction of nature. Soviet citizens lived no longer than people in other countries - many of them a good deal less.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Unsaved: Nikolai Federov, Bolshevism and the Technological Pursuit of Immortality (p. 138)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Life , People , History , Nature

“It is also often argued that neo-liberalism, especially neo-liberal economics, helps those in the advantaged categories and hurts, often badly, those in the disadvantaged categories.”

George Ritzer (1940) American sociologist

Source: Globalization - A Basic Text (2010), Chapter 15, Global Inequalities II: Global Majority-Minority Relations, p. 436

Help , Hurt

“Every disadvantage has its advantage.”

Johan Cruyff (1947–2016) Dutch association football player

In They said It: Johan Cruyff ( FIFA.com, 25 April 2014 http://www.fifa.com/news/y=2014/m=4/news=they-said-it-johan-cruyff-2323958.html).

“Agile development methodologies promise higher customer satisfaction, lower defect rates, faster development times and a solution to rapidly changing requirements. Plan-driven approaches promise predictability, stability, and high assurance. However, both approaches have shortcomings that, if left unaddressed, can lead to project failure. The challenge is to balance the two approaches to take advantage of their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses.”

Barry Boehm (1935) American software engineer

Barry Boehm and Richard Turner. " Observations on balancing discipline and agility http://people.cs.aau.dk/~jeremy/SOE2011/resources/Boehm.pdf." Agile Development Conference, 2003. ADC 2003. Proceedings of the. IEEE, 2003.

Failure , Change , Time

“When obstacles or difficulties arise, the positive thinker takes them as creative opportunities. He welcomes the challenge of a tough problem and looks for ways to turn it to advantage.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Have a Great Day (1986), p. 2

Way , Problem

“Dad is a man of few words. He rarely discusses my compositions. But I hear him humming my numbers to my nephew. The recent one is a hit from the Telugu flick “Oy”. A musical genius in the family is both a huge advantage and a disadvantage. I’ve absorbed so much from my father. But, at the same time, fans keep writing to me saying they expect more from me — because of my lineage!”

Yuvan Shankar Raja (1979) Indian musician

Yuvan Unplugged (2009)

Family , Music , Time

“It is much to my advantage that several of my pictures should be seen together, as it displays to advantage their varieties of conception and also of execution, and what they gain by the mellowing hand of time which should never be forced or anticipated. Thus my pictures when first coming forth have a comparative harshness which at the time acts to my disadvantage.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 516
posthumous, undated

Time

“She is comprehensively experienced and has advantages that some of the other contenders would have to scramble to match in terms of her exposure to the world and many of the tough issues we are facing in foreign policy.”

Mitch Daniels (1949) Governor of Indiana

On Hillary Clinton, Bloomberg's With All Due Respect (February 5, 2015).

World

“As the saying goes - the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. Politicians have taken advantage of our indifference by imposing ever more draconian and restrictive laws that increase their power while diminishing ours. Asking questions of our public bodies is the best way to ensure they are working for our interests and not those of politicians. Through FOI we can go behind political rhetoric to see the true state of affairs.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Page 4.
Your Right to Know: A Citizen's Guide to the Freedom of Information Act, 2nd Edition

Law , Way , Question , Freedom

“By following up this idea, also, we might go a little further. We might arrive at the conviction that our present science is human, petty, and contingent; that it is closely linked with the structure of our sensory organs; that this structure results from the evolution which fashioned these organs; that this evolution has been an accident of history; that in the future it may be different; and that, consequently, by the side or in the stead of our modern science, the work of our eyes and hands—and also of our words—there might have been constituted, there may still be constituted, sciences entirely and extraordinarily new—auditory, olfactory, and gustatory sciences, and even others derived from other kinds of sensations which we can neither foresee nor conceive because they are not, for the moment, differentiated in us. Outside the matter we know, a very special matter fashioned of vision and touch, there may exist other matter with totally different properties. …We must, by setting aside the mechanical theory, free ourselves from a too narrow conception of the constitution of matter. And this liberation will be to us a great advantage which we shall soon reap. We shall avoid the error of believing that mechanics is the only real thing and that all that cannot be explained by mechanics must be incomprehensible. We shall then gain more liberty of mind for understanding what the union of the soul with the body may be.”

Alfred Binet (1857–1911) French psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test

Source: The Mind and the Brain, 1907, p. 43

Error , Soul , History , Idea

““One should know,” he wrote, “that jihad is an advantageous and beneficial institution. Mankind derives benefits from its advantages in various ways, just like rain, the advantages of which are imparted upon both plants, animals and men.” Barelvi promised that if Muslims waged jihad, they would receive “the blessings of heaven,” including “timely downpour of rain, abundant vegetation, growth of profits and trade, absence of calamities and pestilences, growth of wealth and presence of men of learning and perfection.””

Syed Ahmad Barelvi (1786–1831) Muslim activist

Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (Mouton Publishers, 1979) 47, Quoted from Spencer, Robert (2018). The history of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.

Men , Way , Learning , Time

“An empire derives no advantage from the caresses of two turtledoves who spend a year cooing to each other in public meetings.”

Charles Fourier (1772–1837) French utopian socialist and philosopher

Charles Fourier: The Visionary and His World, J. Beecher (1986), p. 315
New Amorous World

“What Wilson and Lloyd George failed to see was that the terms of peace which they were hammering out against the dogged resistance of Clemenceau and Foch, while seemingly severe enough, left Germany in the long run relatively stronger than before. Except for the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France in the west and the loss of some valuable industrialized frontier districts to the Poles, form whom the Germans had taken them originally, Germany remained virtually intact, greater in population and industrial capacity than France could ever be, and moreover with her cities, farms, and factories undamaged by the war, which had been fought in enemy lands. In terms of relative power in Europe, Germany's position was actually better in 1919 than in 1914, or would be as soon as the Allied victors carried out their promise to reduce their armaments to the level of the defeated. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had not been the catastrophe for Germany that Bismarck had feared, because there was no Russian empire to take advantage of it. Russia, beset by revolution and civil war, was for the present, and perhaps would be for years to come, impotent. In the place of this powerful country on her eastern border Germany now had small, unstable states which could not seriously threaten her and which one day might easily be made to return former German territory and even made to disappear from the map.”

William L. Shirer book The Collapse of the Third Republic

The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

War , Fear , Peace , Dogs

“…in war, the advantages and disadvantages of a single action could only be determined by the final balance.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

On War (1832), Book 3

War

“Does Madison's belief that separation of powers is necessary to prevent tyranny necessarily require a presidential system or even judicial review? As I pointed out, this reading makes Madison silly, or at least a casualty of historical developments, since almost all other democratic countries have rejected the first and some the second. Of course, like all others of his time Madison had to make judgments about constitutional arrangements with very little directly relevant historical experience to go on. Hindsight gives us the advantage of nearly two centuries of later experience, during which most of the stable democracies adopted a parliamentary system, only a few chose a presidential system, and none adopted the American presidential system.”

Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) American political scientist

Foreword : Reflections on A Preface to Democratic Theory
A Preface to Democratic Theory (Expanded ed., 2006)

Democracy , Time , Reading , Country

“In the study of history, slowness is an advantage. The scholar decelerates the fast-moving events of past days until his mind can fathom them. Then… he can demonstrate to the rashest king how he should have acted in battle.”

Sten Nadolny book The Discovery of Slowness

p, 125
The Discovery of Slowness (1983, 1987)

History , Study , Past

“The brain is encased in the head, the part of the body which in most walking, flying or swimming animals is the leading end of the moving body (with few exceptions: starfish, cuttlefish, humans, penguins when they are not swimming). The obvious risks which this localization entails are apparently compensated by the advantage of direct short connections with the sense organs localized in or on top of the head (olfaction, taste, vision, audition, vestibular sense), which together with the brain could be seen as something like the cockpit of the animal, or the pilot if one prefers.”

Valentino Braitenberg (1926–2011) Italian-Austrian neuroscientist

Valentino Braitenberg (2007) " Brain http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Brain". Scholarpedia, 2(11):2918.

Sense , Animals , Parting , Flying

“You can imagine that it is not easy to describe this modern vision of the nature of things in any manner intelligible to those who have not our advantages. There is much in this vision which will remind you of your mystics; yet between them and us there is far more difference than similarity, in respect both of the matter and the manner of our thought. For while they are confident that the cosmos is perfect, we are sure only that it is very beautiful. While they pass to their conclusion without the aid of intellect, we have used that staff every step of the way. Thus, even when in respect of conclusions we agree with your mystics rather than your plodding intellectuals, in respect of method we applaud most your intellectuals; for they scorned to deceive themselves with comfortable fantasies.”

Olaf Stapledon book Last and First Men

Source: Last and First Men (1930), Chapter XV: The Last Men; Section 3, “A Racial Awakening” (pp. 228-229)

Beauty , Way , Confidence , Imagination

“You see, if E. O. Wilson says that Indian scientists should do taxonomy, now of course, someone will say that you are preventing them from doing the sort of high science that is done elsewhere. So it should not come from there, it should come from us. I think that we must recognize where we have the advantages and where we have the disadvantages.”

Raghavendra Gadagkar

Raghavendra Gadagkar, [Michael L. Lewis, Inventing Global Ecology: Tracking the Biodiversity Ideal in India, 1947-1997, Modern Ecology Comes to India, http://books.google.com/books?id=0Bl8s5JCM4UC&pg=PA129, 2003, Ohio University Press, 978-0-8214-1540-5, 129]

Thinking , Science

“He's like a PlayStation. I think he can take advantage of every mistake you make. Barcelona are a very good side but of course they have Messi who can make the difference at any moment in the game. He is very young but he can achieve a lot. There are not many players who can score four goals like he did. He has six or seven great years ahead of him and he can become unbelievable.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

On Lionel Messi, (7 April 2010) http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/apr/07/barcelona-arsenal-lionel-messi

Game , Thinking

“I am not fond of the Germans by any means but at the present time it is more advantageous to use them than to challenge them. An independent Poland is very dangerous to Soviet Russia: it is an evil which, however, at the present time has also its redeeming features; for while it exists, we may safely count on Germany, because the Germans hate Poland and will at any time make common cause with us in order to strangle Poland. … Everything teaches us to look upon Germany as our most reliable ally. Germany wants revenge, and we want revolution. For the moment our aims are the same. When our ways part they will be our most ferocious and our great enemies. Time will tell whether a German hegemony or a Communist federation is to arise out of the ruins of Europe.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Quoted from a "Speech to followers" by Ost-Information (Berlin), No. 81 (4 December 1920); as quoted in The Foreign Policies of Soviet Russia (1924) by A. L. O. Dennis, p. 154.
Attributions

Hate , Way , Revenge , Evil

“When you have come to grips and are striving together with the enemy, and you realise that you cannot advance, you "soak in" and become one with the enemy. You can win by applying a suitable technique while you are mutually entangled.
In battles involving large numbers as well as in fights with small numbers, you can often win decisively with the advantage of knowing how to "soak" into the enemy, whereas, were you to draw apart, you would lose the chance to win. Research this well.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book

Decision , Chance , Fight , Drawing

“A vegetarian diet, by reason of its low content of saturated fatty acids, cholesterol, and animal proteins, and its high concentrations of folic acids, antioxidants, and phytoestrogens—shown to be effective in inhibiting the growth or in promoting the regression of serious coronary pathologies—constitutes a barrier against a number of chronic degenerative diseases, cancer among them. And that is not all. Fruits and vegetables—besides contaminating us much less than some other foods—are troves of precious substances that enable the neutralization of carcinogenic agents and that 'dilute' the concentration of diseased cells and reduce their proliferation. All of these advantages, as well as many others, emerged from studies on populations in the last century.”

Umberto Veronesi (1925–2016) Italian oncologist and politician

The First Day Without Cancer (2013)

Disease , Food , Study , Animals

“Talking about the particles, I know I don't have any special theory of particles. It's just the way it came out and that's the way I want to do it. Also, there are advantages to particles: you can't break them; they don't break apart. They don’t have any rigid connections; there are no rigid connections to break. The particles are always shifting around a little bit and you have to kick them back into shape. It's like tuning a piano every once in a while. I like the idea of something being permanent by being non-rigid, being absolutely non-rigid but not having a rigid form that can be broken. But a theory of particles, I don’t know. Maybe late one night after a few drinks I explained to Lucy Lippard a theory of particles. I'm sure I didn't remember the next day.”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Source: Artists talks 1969 – 1977, p. 30

Way , Idea , Drink , Night

“Once illiberal, unassimilable people gain 'numeric superiority,' they will turn their population advantage into political advantage, using the host population's liberalism against it.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"How The Left Stole Liberalism & Sold Out The West, http://www.quarterly-review.org/how-the-left-stole-liberalism-and-betrayed-the-west/" Quarterly Review, August 19, 2018."
2010s, 2018

People

“There are very few content owners that believe that the existing model will last forever, I think the most forward-thinking ones are looking and saying, 'I'd rather have the first-mover advantage.”

Tim Cook (1960) American business executive

Investing.com http://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/apple-music-hits-6.5-million-paid-users:-tim-cook-366943

Thinking

“The duty on British teas was slight. Americans might have paid the duty without increasing the price of their much prized luxury; ministers might have collected the same duty in England to the advantage of the Exchequer. That Britain should have insisted on this peppercorn in acknowledgement of her right, that America should have refused it in vindication of her liberty, may be taken as a high tribute from two eminently practical peoples to the power of abstract ideas.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The Eve of the Revolution (1918)

People , Idea , Tea

“They have four books in that language (Sanskrit), which they are constantly in the habit of repeating. Their name is Bed (Vedas). They contain stories of their gods, but little advantage can be derived from their perusal.”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

Extract trs. in Elliot and Dowson, III, p. 563. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5
Nuh Siphir

God , Books

“You've got to stay sharp, on your toes, alert. Always look over your shoulder. Always protect yourself. Don't let your guard down for even a second. There are people who will take advantage of you the moment they see you're not in control. The world's filled with people like that. Nearly everyone you meet is like that. We're animals in a jungle, and we've got to be prepared to fight if we want to survive. You can't trust hardly anyone, hardly anyone at all. Even people who are supposed to like you can turn on you faster than you think. Even friends. People who say they love you are the worst, the most dangerous, the most untrustworthy of all. People who say they love you will pounce when they get the chance. You gotta always remember that they're just waiting for the opportunity to get you. Love's a trick. A cover. A way to catch you off guard. Never let down your guard. Never.”

Dean Koontz book The Voice of the Night

Roy Borden, p. 53
The Voice of the Night (1980)

Love , People , World , Way

“He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

H 10
Variant translation: He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage — he won't encounter many rivals.
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook H (1784-1788)

“On the whole we get on pretty smoothly in our domestic relations, except in the lower strata of the Military Classes. There the want of tact and discretion on the part of the husbands produces at times indescribable disasters. Relying too much on the offensive weapons of their acute angles instead of the defensive organs of good sense and seasonable simulation, these reckless creatures too often neglect the prescribed construction of the women's apartments, or irritate their wives by ill-advised expressions out of doors, which they refuse immediately to retract. Moreover a blunt and stolid regard for literal truth indisposes them to make those lavish promises by which the more judicious Circle can in a moment pacify his consort. The result is massacre; not, however, without its advantages, as it eliminates the more brutal and troublesome of the Isosceles; and by many of our Circles the destructiveness of the Thinner Sex is regarded as one among many providential arrangements for suppressing redundant population, and nipping Revolution in the bud.

Yet even in our best regulated and most approximately Circular families I cannot say that the ideal of family life is so high as with you in Spaceland. There is peace, in so far as the absence of slaughter may be called by that name, but there is necessarily little harmony of tastes or pursuits; and the cautious wisdom of the Circles has ensured safety at the cost of domestic comfort.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART I: THIS WORLD, Chapter 4. Concerning the Women

Life , Wisdom , Women , Truth

“My sense of the high advantage derived from this establishment in a scientific point of view, as I am fully sensible that by reason of my patronizing it, my name, however, undeserving of any celebrity is favorably noticed even in distant regions, among the scientific personages of the present day.”

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813–1846) Maharajah of Travencore

His perception of modern science is explicitly stated in ‘An enlightened and princely patron of true science".

Sense , Distant

“The nation … must sacrifice some present advantages in order to insure to itself future ones.”

Friedrich List (1789–1846) German economist with dual American citizenship

Source: The National System of Political Economy (1841), Ch. 12

Future

“Philosophy … lost its prestige to the extent that it lost its evident advantage in cleverness to "normal life." In the transition from archaic teachings of wisdom to philosophy based on argument, it itself was engulfed in the twilight of alienation from life. It had to accept that the independent cleverness theories of pragmatics, economics, strategy, and politics proved themselves to be its better, until, with its logical niceties, it became infantile and academic, and stood there as the Utopian idiot with its reminiscences about great ideals. Today philosophy is surrounded on all sides by maliciously clever empiricisms and realistic disciplines that "know better."”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 536

Life , Wisdom

“And should we not be guilty of consummate folly if we were to reject advantages which we cannot obtain otherwise, merely because they involve a greater gain to others than to ourselves?”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 25

“You don’t like me saying that, but here’s the truth: luxury always comes at someone else’s expense. One of the many advantages of civilization is that one generally doesn’t have to see that, if one doesn’t wish. You’re free to enjoy its benefits without troubling your conscience.”

Ann Leckie book Ancillary Justice

Source: Ancillary Justice (2013), Chapter 4 (p. 63)

Truth

“Analysis is the critical starting point of strategic thinking. Faced with problems, trends, events, or situations that appear to constitute a harmonious whole or come packaged as a whole by common sense of the day, the strategic thinker dissects them into their constituent parts. Then, having discovered the significance of these constituents, he reassembles them in a way calculated to maximize his advantage.”

Kenichi Ohmae (1943) Japanese academic

Source: The Mind Of The Strategist, 1982, p. 12

Way , Problem , Thinking , Sense

“I recently published a book about movies I hated, and people have been asking me which reviews are harder to write — those about great movies, or those about terrible ones. The answer is neither. The most unreviewable movies are those belonging to the spoof genre — movies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun and all the countless spin-offs and retreads of the same basic idea… the bottom line in reviewing a movie like this is, does it work? Is it funny? Yes, it is. Not funny with the shocking impact of Airplane! which had the advantage of breaking new ground. But also not a tired wheeze like some of the lesser and later Leslie Nielsen films. To get your money's worth, you need to be familiar with the various teenage horror franchises, and if you are, Scary Movie delivers the goods.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/scary-movie-2000 of Scary Movie (7 July 2000)
Reviews, Three star reviews

Money , Hate , People , Books

“One of the duties which devolve upon women in the present interesting crisis, is to prepare themselves for more extensive usefulness, by making use of those religious and literary privileges and advantages that are within their reach, if they will only stretch out their hands and possess them.”

Sarah Grimké (1792–1873) American abolitionist

Letter 15 (October 20, 1837).
Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman (1837)

Women

“If I have accomplished anything, I owe it, among other fortunate circumstances, to the fact that through the early training bestowed on me by my father, I started, I may fairly say, with an advantage of a quarter of a century over my contemporaries.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873), Ch. 1: Childhood and Early Education

Training

“The business with high ethical standards has three primary advantages over competitors whose standards are lower:”

Marvin Bower (1903–2003) American business theorist

A business of high principle generates greater drive and effectiveness because people know they can do the right thing decisively and with confidence. ...
A business of high principle attracts high-caliber people more easily, thereby gaining a basic competitive and profit edge. ...
A business of high principle develops better and more profitable relations with customers, competitors, and the general public, because it can be counted on to do the right thing at all times. By the consistently ethical character of its actions, it builds a favorable image.
Source: The Will to Manage (1966), p. 26

Business

“It could be advantageous for Mr. Cosby to give up the statute of limitations because there is a huge cloud on his reputation and legacy.”

Gloria Allred (1941) American civil rights lawyer

Statement by Gloria Allred at press conference representing three women who say they were sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby — quoted in: [December 6, 2014, http://uptownmagazine.com/2014/12/judy-hurth-sues-bill-cosby-gloria-allred/, Uptown Magazine, K, Whaley, December 4, 2014, New Accuser Sues Bill Cosby, Gloria Allred Demands He Face Judgement]