Quotes about expert
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“There are no experts in the systems approach”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1960s - 1970s, The Systems Approach (1968), p. 232

“You think that Mr Khomeini, [an] uneducated person … could have planned all this? Masterminded all this, set up all the organization? I know that one man alone could not have done it … I know that a tremendous amount of money was spent … I know that top experts in propaganda were used to show us like tyrants and monsters, and the other side as democratic liberal revolutionaries who want to save the country.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

David Frost (January 1980), The Shah Speaks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKUQUDf5IBo&feature=related (video) Interviews

Money, Thinking, Personality, Country

“DOBSON: Not to that degree, no. There's a lot — you know I'm not an expert on this subject. I told you that last time we were here, and so I can just give you my impressions about it. And there are very, very violent people within the Islamic faith. There are also some that are not violent.”

James Dobson (1936) Evangelical Christian psychologist, author, and radio broadcaster.

Exchange between Larry King and James Dobson http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0209/18/lkl.00.htmlon CNN's Larry King Live Aired September 18, 2002 - 21:00 ET 2002

People, Faith, Time

“We afford automatic respect to superstar business moguls, politicians, and actors and to anyone flying around in a private jet, as if their accomplishments must reflect unique qualities not shared by those forced to eat commercial airline food. And we place too much confidence in the overly precise predictions of people - political pundits, financial experts, business consultants - who claim a track record demonstrating expertise.”

Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk

Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 10, The Drunkard's Walk, p. 199-200

People, Food, Confidence, Business

“I'm told theology is outside my field of expertise. But is theology a "field" at all? Is there anything in "theology" to be expert ABOUT?”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/324171554491596803 (16 April 2013) Twitter

“When I saw the newspaper headline "Gas Chamber Expert Captured" and an American lieutenant explained it to me, I was pale in amazement. How can they say such things about me? I told you I was only in charge of the Intelligence Service from 1943 on. The British even admitted that they tried to assassinate me because of that, not because of having anything to do with atrocities, you can be sure of that.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

4/11/46. Quoted in "Nuremberg Diary" - Page 255 - by G. M. Gilbert - History - 1995

Intelligence

“Mr. Ellis is neither a scientist nor an expert on the natural behavior of wolves.”

L. David Mech (1937) American Biologist , Ecologist

B.J. King, "Why Are Wolf Scientists Howling At Jodi Picoult?" NPR. (April 19, 2012).

Behavior, Nature

“I'm not an expert. I've been reliably informed it's a sapphire with some diamonds. But I'm sure everyone recognises it from previous times.”

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (1982) a member of the British royal family

On the engagement ring he gave to Kate Middleton, which had been his mother's engagement ring.
First post-engagement interview (2010)

Time

“People are giving up tremendous careers in order to be subject to you folks and subject to a lot of other folks. But they're giving up a lot. I mean some are giving up tremendous businesses in order to sit for four or maybe eight or whatever the period of time is. But I think we're going to see some tremendous talent, tremendous talent coming in. We have many people for every job. I mean no matter what the job is, we have many incredible people. I think, Reince, you can sort of just confirm that. The quality of the people is very good. … We're trying very hard to get the best people. Not necessarily people that will be the most politically correct people, because that hasn't been working. So we have really experts in the field. Some are known and some are not known, but they're known within their field as being the best. That's very important to me.”

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

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

People, Business, Thinking, Time

“Probability is too important to be left to the experts. […] The experts, by their very expert training and practice, often miss the obvious and distort reality seriously. […] The desire of the experts to publish and gain credit in the eyes of their peers has distorted the development of probability theory from the needs of the average user. The comparatively late rise of the theory of probability shows how hard it is to grasp, and the many paradoxes show clearly that we, as humans, lack a well grounded intuition in the matter. Neither the intuition of the man in the street, nor the sophisticated results of the experts provides a safe basis for important actions in the world we live in.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

Source: The Art of Probability for Scientists and Engineers (1991), p. 4 [emphasis in original]

World, Reality, Training

“Let me start a different/ analysis by recalling an idea from Max Weber. He characterized cultural modernity as the separation of the substantive reason expressed in religion and metaphysics into three autonomous spheres. They are science, morality and art. These came to be differentiated because the unified world-views of religion and metaphysics fell apart. Since the 18th century, the problems inherited from these older world-views could be arranged so as to fall under specific aspects of validity: truth, normative rightness, authenticity and beauty. They could then be handled as questions of knowledge, or of justice and morality, or of taste. Scientific discourse, theories of morality, Jurisprudence, and the production and criticism of art could in turn be institutionalized. Each domain of culture could be made to correspond to cultural professions in which problems could be dealt with as the concern of special experts. This professionalized treatment of the cultural tradition brings to the fore the intrinsic structures of each of the three dimensions of culture. There appear the structures of cognitive-instrumental, of moral-practical and of aesthetic-expressive rationality, each of these under the control of specialists who seem more adept at being logical in these particular ways than other people are. As a result, the distance grows between the culture of the experts and that of the larger public. What accrues to culture through specialized treatment and reflection does not immediately and necessarily become the property of everyday praxis. With cultural rationalization of this sort, the threat increases that the life-world, whose traditional substance has already been devalued, will become more and more impoverished.”

Manuel Castells (1942) Spanish sociologist (b.1942)

Source: Modernity — An Incomplete Project, 1983, p. 8-9

Life, People, Truth, World

“You experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. … Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”

Luke the Evangelist Gospel of Luke

11:46-52 NIV
Gospel of Luke

People, Law, Knowledge, Help

“Vyasa’s activities in the MBh cover the full range of activities traditionally deemed appropriate for a brahmin. Unquestionably Vyasa is the epic’s foremost expert on the Veda and the ritual activity enjoined by the Veda. Having rearranged the one Veda into four texts, Vyasa taught those to his five pupils along with MBh as the fifth Veda.”

Vyasa central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions

In p,51.
Sources, Seer of the Fifth Veda: Kr̥ṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa in the Mahābhārata

“We must all begin to question the experts. They have not really been right. No abundance of material goods can compensate for the death of individuality and personal creativity.”

Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) American author, activist, and civil rights leader. Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Harvard class day address (1968); published in the July 1, 1968, issue of Harvard Alumni Bulletin http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/05/coretta-scott-king-urges-students-to-speak-out-with-righteous-indignation As quoted in International Education Vol. 1, p. 26

Death, Question, Personality

“Whereas an Otaku is a true connoisseur of the culture, showing the same reverence and respectful distance which any true expert shows to their chosen field of expertise, the Weeaboo is like a socially awkward adolescent, ineptly trying to gain the social acceptance of Japanese people — because their unfortunate mental disorder has caused them to believe they are, in fact, Japanese.”

Alexei Maxim Russell (1976) Canadian writer

from The Japanophile's Handbook.

People

“I wondered aloud to Renae why in our society the greatest sums of money tended to accrue from the sale of the least meaningful things, and why the dramatic improvements in efficiency and productivity at the heart of the Industrial Revolution so seldom extended beyond the provision of commonplace material goods. … I told Renae that our robots and engines were delivering the lion’s share of their benefits at the base of our pyramid of needs, that we were evident experts at swiftly assembling confectionery and yet we were still searching for reliable means of generating emotional stability or marital harmony.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), p. 84.

Money, Search, Heart

“…except for the NCERT experts who specialise in making molehills of mountains, and vice versa.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

Mountain

“I sold electric light bulbs to janitors, candy to drug stores, and Stoddard's Lectures from door to door. I had decided I was a total failure, when I saw an advertisement which indicated that somebody wanted an expert accountant. Not knowing anything about its I applied for the job and got it.
I am convinced that what are commonly known as "the breaks," good or bad, have fully as much to do with one's success or failure as ability. The break I got in this instance lay in the fact that my employer knew even less about the duties of an expert accountant than I did.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) American writer

How I Wrote the Tarzan Books (1929)

Failure, Light, Success

“International law. Our country should also support efforts which are being made toward the codification of international law. We can look more hopefully, in the first instance, for research and studies that are likely to be productive of results, to a cooperation among representatives of the bar and members of international law institutes and societies, than to a conference of those who are technically representative of their respective governments, although, when projects have been developed, they must go to the governments for their approval. These expert professional studies are going on in certain quarters and should have our constant encouragement and approval.”

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

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Law, Support, Effort, Study

“Dogmatic religion any form of mind control actually, has been used, and refined to fantastic effect over thousands of years since the "restart" of Modern civilisation-Sumeria/Sumer according to Official history. To incite and exploit emotions like fear, guilt, frustration, anger, and the feeling of 'Emptiness'. Which has assisted our prison warders, who've encouraged the "masses" to hand over their Responsibilty, and right to think and feel to a politician, book, media presenter, priest, experts because they feel and are encouraged to perpetuate the consensus reality, therefore subconcious belief that we/they don't have the ability or confidence for that matter to establish truth for themselves regardless of any external influences and without fear of being "crucified" for doing so. You and I have the right, to take control of our minds and therefore of lives, which is the first step on the road to infinite, now is a good time as any to start to make your own decisions.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

"… and the truth shall set you free", 1995

Truth, Books, Fear, Religion

“Experts must read the patterns and judge their usefulness as evidence. Under any of numerous pressures, an expert may wish to misread a pattern or even to alter it. Americans had a touching trust in "experts."”

Dean Koontz book The Good Guy

Krait musing about fingerprints
Source: The Good Guy (2007), Chapter 21, p. 147

Reading

“When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Illustrated London News (6 April 1918)

“The mandate entails a generous synthesis of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. The title requires the expert to be truly independent, keep an open mind, conduct his/her research objectively and without ideological prejudices, listen to all sides of an argument and seek the opinion of all stakeholders.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Alfred de Zayas Statement by on his personal website http://alfreddezayas.com. 2013

“We are being protected from hysteria. Isn't that what they call it? Maniacs! The world's been in a habitual state of crisis for fifty years. Fifty? What am I saying? It's been in a habitual state of crisis since the beginning — but for half a century now, almost unbearable. And why, for the love of God? What is the fundamental irritant, the essence of the tension? Political philosophies? Economics? Population pressure? Disparity of culture and creed? Ask a dozen experts, get a dozen answers. Now Lucifer again. Is the species congenitally insane, Brother?”

Walter M. Miller, Jr. book A Canticle for Leibowitz

Ch 24
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Voluntas Tua

Love, God, World

“One of the hardest-to-down myths about the evolution of mass production at Ford is one which credits much of the accomplishment to 'scientific management.' No one at Ford—not Mr. Ford, Couzens, Flanders, Wills, Pete Martin, nor I—was acquainted with the theories of the 'father of scientific management,' Frederick W. Taylor. Years later I ran across a quotation from a two-volume book about Taylor by Frank Barkley Copley, who reports a visit Taylor made to Detroit late in 1914, nearly a year after the moving assembly line had been installed at our Highland Park plant. Taylor expressed surprise to find that Detroit industrialists 'had undertaken to install the principles of scientific management without the aid of experts.' To my mind this unconscious admission by an expert is expert testimony on the futility of too great reliance on experts and should forever dispose of the legend that Taylor's ideas had any influence at Ford.”

Charles E. Sorensen (1881–1968) American businessman

Source: My Forty Years with Ford, 1956, p. 41

Books, Idea

“It is no coincidence, I am sure, that those who have the most to say about the Project are the ones who have had no direct contact with it. Which is similar to the attitude physicists have regarding gravitation or electrons — as opposed to that of the "well-informed" who read popular science. The "well-informed" think they know something about matters that the experts are reluctant to even to speak of. Information at second hand always gives an impression of tidiness, in contrast with the data at the scientist's disposal, full of gaps and uncertainties.”

Stanisław Lem book His Master's Voice

Source: His Master's Voice (1968), Ch. 1

Thinking, Science, Reading

“For most of the 20th century, small radical groups were seen as social change incubators. The various socialist and communist parties, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and a thousand local or regional variants were where it was at. … But we live in a knowledge society now – a world that depends increasingly on professional expertise and special skills. If we want to change that world, we'll need to be even more expert and skilled than those who'd defend the status quo. That's why professional schools, not radical groups, are our social change incubators now. And radical middle social change agents know it. Many of the most idealistic and dedicated of them have been pouring into our graduate schools, including our great medical, business, and law schools.”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Source: Radical Middle (2004), Chapter 16, "You Can Have a Career and Be Political, Too," pp. 176–77.

World, School, Law, Business

“In America all too few blows are struck into flesh. We kill the spirit here, we are experts at that. We use psychic bullets and kill each other cell by cell.”

Norman Mailer book The Presidential Papers

The Fourth Presidential Paper — Foreign Affairs : Letter To Castro
The Presidential Papers (1963)

“After serving about 2 years there I was pronounced by the parole board to be a nice, clean boy of good morals, as pure as lily and a credit to those in authority in the istatution where I had been sent to be reformed. Yes sure I was reformed all right, dam good and reformed too. When I got out of there I knew all about Jesus and the bible so much so that I knew it was all a lot of hot air. But that wasn’t all I knew. I had been taught by christians how to be a hypocrite and I had learned more about stealing, lying, hating, burning and killing. I had learned that a boys penis could be use for something besides to urinate with and that a rectum could be use for other purposes than crepitating. Oh yes I had learned a hell of a lot, from my expert instructors furnished to me free of charge by society in general and the state of Minnesota in particular. From the treatment I recieved while there and the lessons I learned from it, I had fully desided when I left there just how I would live my life. I made up my mind that I would rob, burn, destroy and kill every where I went and everybody I could as long as I lived. That’s the way I was reformed in the Minnesota State Training School. Thats the reasons why.”

Carl Panzram (1891–1930) American serial killer

sic
Lustmord: The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers, p. 172, (1997), Brian King, ed. ISBN 096503240X

Life, Hate, School, Way

“The DARPA model has three elements:
Ambitious goals. The agency’s projects are designed to harness science and engineering advances to solve real-world problems or create new opportunities. At Defense, GPS was an example of the former and stealth technology of the latter. The problems must be sufficiently challenging that they cannot be solved without pushing or catalyzing the science. The presence of an urgent need for an application creates focus and inspires greater genius.
Temporary project teams. DARPA brings together world-class experts from industry and academia to work on projects of relatively short duration. Team members are organized and led by fixed-term technical managers, who themselves are accomplished in their fields and possess exceptional leadership skills. These projects are not open-ended research programs. Their intensity, sharp focus, and finite time frame make them attractive to the highest-caliber talent, and the nature of the challenge inspires unusual levels of collaboration. In other words, the projects get great people to tackle great problems with other great people.
Independence. By charter, DARPA has autonomy in selecting and running projects. Such independence allows the organization to move fast and take bold risks and helps it persuade the best and brightest to join.”

Regina E. Dugan (1963) American businesswoman, inventor, and technology developer

“Special Forces” Innovation: How DARPA Attacks Problems (2013)

People, World, Nature, Problem

“Experts never seem to tell us what we’re up against until we’re up against it.”

William Feather (1889–1981) Publisher, Author

Featherisms (2008)

“The human aspect of industry has changed very considerably in the last fifty years. The nature and range of these changes are still partly unknown to us, but the question of their significance is no longer in dispute. Whereas the human problems of industry were regarded until recently as lying within the strict province of the specialist, it is now beginning to be realized that a clear statement of such problems in particular situations is necessary to the effective thinking of every business administrator and every economic expert.”

Elton Mayo (1880–1949) Australian academic

Source: The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilisation, (1933), p. 1, Chapter 1: Fatigue; Lead paragraph

Lying, Question, Business, Nature

“Avian flu, which has already killed 50 people, is only a mutation away from being transmissible from person to person. We have no immunity, no vaccines, and no cure. It is imperative that we strengthen our domestic vaccine supply, expand legal protections, encourage collaboration between the public and private sectors, and advance research and development. These initiatives will help protect us from a deadly viral outbreak that experts warn could come to our shores any day.”

Bill Frist (1952) physician, businessman, and politician

On the potential for a flu pandemic.
The Associated Press, April 12, 2005.

People, Help, Personality

“This paper analyzes the relations between knowledge, control and organizational structure both in the market system as a whole and in private organizations. Limitations on the mental capacity of the human mind and the costs of producing and transferring knowledge means that knowledge relevant to all decisions can never be collected in the mind of a single individual or a small body of experts. This means that if the knowledge valuable to a particular decision is to be used in making that decision, there must be a system for partitioning out decision rights to individuals who already have the relevant knowledge and abilities or who can acquire or produce them at the lowest cost. Self interest on the part of individual decision-makers means a control system is required to motivate individuals with the decision rights and the relevant knowledge to use those decision rights appropriately. This control problem is solved in a capitalist economy by a system of alienable property rights.”

Michael Jensen (1939) American economist

Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling. "Specific and general knowledge and organizational structure." (1992).

Motivation, Knowledge, Problem, Decision

“It pains me to see my old company, which has meant so much to America, on the ropes. But Chrysler has been in trouble before, and we got through it, and I believe they can do it again. […] Let's face it, if your car breaks down, you're not going to take it to the White House to get fixed. But, if your company breaks down, you've got to go to the experts on the ground, not the bureaucrats.”

Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American businessman

It Pains Me, Halpert, Julie, 2009-04-30, Newsweek, 2009-05-23 http://www.newsweek.com/id/195551,

Pain, Cars, Housing

“A new view of the role of art and science in cartography is clearly needed. It is probably a mistake to view maps as objects that contain varied amounts of scientific or artistic content for which we must determine an appropriate balance (as both Keates, 1984, and Robinson, 1952, seem to, with Keates arguing for more art and Robinson for more science). Instead, it makes more sense to consider complementary artistic and scientific approaches to studying and improving maps, both of which can be applied to any given cartographic problem. The artistic approach is intuitive and holistic, achieving improvements through experience supplemented by critical examination (where critical examination implies expert appraisal of the results of our cartographic decision-making efforts). It draws on science in using perspective, understanding of human vision, color theory, and so on.”

Alan MacEachren (1952) American geographer

Source: How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995), p. 9

Art, Color, Understanding, Problem

“Some day, even the experts will figure out, that crime is not caused by rap music…or even my music, but by a power structure of self-absorbed property owners so brain dead and stupid they won't even see that if you're too goddamn greedy to pay taxes for schools and services, they're not going to be any good any more! And that uneducated time bombs are a very poor investment as a future work force. And if you go on teaching people that life is cheap, and leave them to rot in ghettos and jails, they may one day feel justified in coming back to rob and kill you. Duh!”

Jello Biafra (1958) singer and activist

"Rob Now, Pay Later", Home Alive: The Art of Self Defense (1996)

Life, People, Stupidity, School

“If you saw the first painted color-studies that I made when I came here to Nuenen [1883] - and the present canvas [1885] - side by side - I think you'd see that as far as colour is concerned - things have livened up. I think that the question of the breaking of colours in the relationships of the colours will occupy you too one day. For as an art expert and critic, one must also, it seems to me - be sure of one's ground and have certain convictions. At least for one's own pleasure and to be able to give reasons, and at the same time one must be able to explain it in a few words to others, who sometimes turn to someone like you for enlightenment when they want to know something more about art.”

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

Quote in his letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 30 April 1885, http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let497/letter.html Vincent refers to his famous painting Eaters' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Vincent_van_Gogh_-_The_potato_eaters_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg'Potato 1880s, 1885

Pleasure, Art, Color, Question

“The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance — these are what may make a vast, complex, ever growing, ever changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world, nevertheless a world of human community.”

Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) American theoretical physicist and professor of physics

Science and the Common Understanding (1953)

Men, World, Communication, Knowledge

“It is those of us who have been broken that become experts at mending.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 148

“"Global Warming" represents the last gasp of so-called "scientific progressivism", a mass of pitifully transparent falsehoods being employed to justify reducing mankind under the absolute despotism of "experts", the obvious implication being that we can’t even breathe responsibly. Environmentalism, Gaianism, is a religion on the basis of which — illegally under the First Amendment — public policy is being generated. Exhaling carbon dioxide is Original Sin, a reliable source of unlimited power and wealth to a Parasitic Class of politicians, bureaucrats, and cops with which our civilization now finds itself infested.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Wanna Buy a Future?"

Religion, Wealth

“The Enlightenment worldview held by Du Bois is ultimately inadequate, and, in many ways, antiquated, for our time. The tragic plight and absurd predicament of Africans here and abroad requires a more profound interpretation of the human condition — one that goes beyond the false dichotomies of expert knowledge vs. mass ignorance, individual autonomy vs. dogmatic authority, and self-mastery vs. intolerant tradition.”

Cornel West book The Future of the Race

The Future of the Race (1997) by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cornel West, p. 64

Way, Boy, Knowledge, Time

“The data in the public domain suggest the truth about bin Laden's activities in Afghanistan is much closer to the picture of him as 'the great freedom fighter of the Islamic world" than to the Western experts' description of him as an Islamic do-gooder or an immature, irrational youth.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

Through Our Enemies Eyes (p. 92)
2000s

Truth, Youth, World, Freedom

“I teach identity leadership, based on the philosophy that you can’t lead anybody else until you lead yourself. Once you understand who you are, you can really focus on becoming the expert in your field.”

Stedman Graham (1951) American businessman

Financial Post: "'The key is to know who you are': Stedman Graham talks investing, self-leadership and Oprah" https://business.financialpost.com/executive/leadership/the-key-is-to-know-who-you-are-stedman-graham-talks-investing-self-leadership-and-oprah (27 April 2018)

Understanding

“To me, for politicians to claim that we have an answer to every problem is silly. When you listen to some politicians reeling off their prepared answers, you almost fall for it. They're all experts. But nothing ever happens.”

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. 73

Problem

“Active defense is also known as offensive defense, or defense by decisive battles. Passive defense is also known as purely defensive defense or pure defense. Passive defense is actually a sham defense; active defense is the only real defense, the only defense for the purpose of counter-attacking and taking the offensive. As far as I known, there is no military manual of any value, nor is there any reasonably intelligent military expert, ancient or modern, Chinese or foreign, that does not oppose passive defense, wether strategically or tactically. Only the greatest fool or madman would hold up passive defense as a magic weapon.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

As quoted in Mao's Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings, 1912-49: v. 5: Toward the Second United Front, January 1935-July 1937: Revolutionary Writings, 1912-49 https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=USEvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT861 (2017), p. 861, Routledge.

Fools, Intelligence, Decision

“By 1939 the national debt had reached 37.4 billion marks. The reemployment of millions of jobless and the rearmament of German military forces had been financed by borrowing gigantic sums of money. Even Goebbels, who otherwise mocked the government’s financial experts as narrow-minded misers, expressed concern in his diary about the exploding deficit.”

Götz Aly (1947) German journalist, historian and social scientist

Source: Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2007), p. 39

Money

“The essence of being an independent expert is not only the expertise, which must be a given and is conscientiously assessed by this Council before appointing rapporteurs, but the capacity to carry out the mandate free of intimidation or interference, free of thinking barriers, or of political correctness. An independent expert would fail the mandate and the Council if he or she were to rehash existing wisdoms and engage in rhetoric that only confirms the status quo. The essence of the independent expert is his independence to think outside systems, beyond prejudices, to give impulses, offer new perspectives -- and to make bold proposals to the Human Rights Council.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Alfred de Zayas' comments to the remarks made by NGOs and States during the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council Session http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13713&LangID=E Comments by Alfred de Zayas, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, following the Interactive Dialogue on the presentation of his thematic report. 2013

Wisdom, Thinking

“In choosing people for specific jobs previous experience should not be a guide. I never put a man in the job which he thought he knew. Often the 'experts' make the worst possible Ministers in their own fields. In this country we prefer rule by amateurs.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Address to the Oxford University Law Society (14 June 1957), quoted in The Times (15 June 1957), p. 4.
1950s

People, Country

“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow…… [Continued in another tweet 9 minutes later] …. Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U. S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming….. [after another 4 minutes] …. victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you”

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

Series https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/890193981585444864 of https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/890196164313833472 tweets https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/890197095151546369 by @realDonaldTrump. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, subsequently wrote to senior commanders https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/us/politics/transgender-military-trump-ban.html that "We will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect" until the White House sends the Defense Department new rules and the secretary of defense issues new guidelines. (26 July 2017) 2010s, 2017, July

Decision, Victory

“As a physician I am embarrassed by the lack of initiative and obstructionist policies of my own medical profession toward healthier lifestyles. This is not surprising. Physicians lack training and knowledge of nutrition and are self-serving when they proclaim “patients won't follow plant-based nutrition.” Having counseled patients with severe coronary artery heart disease for over twenty years, I find the opposite to be true. Patients sent home to die by expert cardiologists after failing bypass or stents rejoice as they lose weight, eliminate angina chest pains, lessen their medication, lower their blood sugars, decrease or come off their insulin, revert their positive stress test back to normal, selectively diminish the plaque plugging their arteries, and resume a fully active life empowered by the knowledge that they, not their physicians, have become the locus of control for the disease that was destroying them.”

Caldwell Esselstyn (1933) American physician, author and rower

Foreword https://books.google.it/books?id=6Aosc1wlAXcC&pg=PA1 to No More Bull! by Howard Lyman (New York: Scribner, 2005).

Life, Pain, Disease, Home

“[About experts' disbelief that Egyptians could build pyramids] It hardly seems possible that the ancient Egyptians were as smart as these experts. Still, they went right ahead and did it, and you can draw your own conclusions.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Cheops, or Khufu

Drawing

“In 2014, one of the key agendas of the BJP’s election campaign was highlighting the dismal management of the Indian economy, ironically under an ‘economist’ prime minister and a ‘know-it-all’ finance minister. We all knew that the economy was in the doldrums but since we were not in government, we naturally did not have the complete details of the state of the economy. But, what we saw when we formed the government left us shocked! The state of the economy was much worse than expected. Things were terrible. Even the budget figures were suspicious. When all of this came to light, we had two options – to be driven by Rajneeti (political considerations) or be guided by Rashtraneeti (putting the interests of India First)… Rajneeti, or playing politics on the state of the economy in 2014, would have been extremely simple as well as politically advantageous for us. We had just won a historic election, so obviously the frenzy was at a different level. The Congress Party and their allies were in big trouble. Even for the media, it would have made news for months on end. On the other hand, there was Rashtraneeti, where more than politics and one-upmanship, reform was needed. Needless to say, we preferred to think of ‘India First’ instead of putting politics first. We did not want to push the issues under the carpet, but we were more interested in addressing the issue. We focused on reforming, strengthening and transforming the Indian economy. The details about the decay in the Indian economy were unbelievable. It had the potential to cause a crisis all over. In 2014, industry was leaving India. India was in the Fragile Five. Experts believed that the ‘I’ in BRICS would collapse. Public sentiment was that of disappointment and pessimism.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi, Swarajya Interviews Prime Minister Modi, Interview, R Jagannathan- Jul 02, 2018 https://swarajyamag.com/economy/swarajya-interviews-prime-minister-modi-the-state-of-indian-economy 2018

Disappointment, Nature, Thinking, Light

“[O]n most of the major issues of the last 40 years, what we were told by economists, foreign-policy experts, pundits, and the media has proven wrong — and doubly wrong given the emphases placed on such assertions by the supposedly better-educated professional classes.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, The Deflation of the Academic Brand (2018)

Education

“Because of the information discussed on page nine, experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown.”

Daniel Handler book The Hostile Hospital

The Snicket File, page 13
The Hostile Hospital (2001)

“The poet is a particular kind of expert.”

Robert Pinsky (1940) American poet, editor, literary critic, academic.

Singing School

“[regarding Sarah Palin] "I know about Russia because I can see it from my front yard!" You have amazing eyesight, number one… Well, I can see San Quentin from my house, but that doesn't make me an expert on prison reform.”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Weapons of Self Destruction (2010)

Housing

“Owen believed in common archetypes rather than a common ancestor, and his conduct presents an archetype of the modern creation scientists, except that they submit to peer review rarely, (if ever) and none of them are experts in anything. They’ve never produced any research indicative of their position. They cannot substantiate any of their assertions, and they’ve never successfully refuted anyone else’s hypotheses either. But every argument of evidence they’ve ever made in favor of creation has been refuted immediately and repeatedly. All they’ve ever been able to do was criticize real science, and even then the absolute best arguments they’ve ever come up with were all disproved in a court of law with mountains of research standing against their every allegation. Yet creationists still use those same ridiculous rationalizations because they will never accept where their beliefs are in error! Their only notable strength is how anyone can be so consistently proven to be absolutely wrong about absolutely everything, 100% of the time, for such a long time, and still make-believe theirs is the absolute truth. More amazing still is how often they will actually lie in defense of their alleged truth. Every publication promoting creation over any avenue of actual science contains misquotes, misdefinitions, and misrepresented misinformation, while their every appeal to reason is based entirely on erroneous assumptions and logical fallacies. There is a madness to their method, but it is naught but propaganda.”

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

"12th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TkY7HrJOhc Youtube (April 19, 2008) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Truth, Lie, Law, Error

“Expertise now resides in fanatical customers. The world's best experts on your product or service, don't work for your company. They are your customers, or a hobby tribe.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

World

“By the basis of power we mean the relationship between O and P which is the source of that power. It is rare that we can say with certainty that a given empirical case of power is limited to one source. Normally, the relation between O and P will be characterized by several qualitatively different variables which are bases of power (30). Although there are undoubtedly many possible bases of power which may be distinguished, we shall here define five which seem especially common and important. These five bases of O's power are:
(a) reward power, based on P's perception that O has the ability to mediate rewards for him;
(b) coercive power, based on P's perception that O has the ability to mediate punishments for him;
(c) legitimate power, based on the perception by P that O has a legitimate right to prescribe behavior for him;
(d) referent power, based on P's identification with O;
(e) expert power, based on the perception that O has some special knowledge or expertness.”

John R. P. French (1913–1995) American psychologist

Source: "The bases of social power." 1959, p. 155-6

Behavior, Knowledge

“I think if we call in the experts we can draw up the full scheme, with the rallying points arranged.”

Pietro Badoglio (1871–1956) Italian general during both World Wars and a Prime Minister of Italy

Quoted in "Twenty Angels Over Rome: The Story of Fascist Italy's Fall" - Page 72 - by Richard McMillan - 1945

Thinking, Drawing

“All of you know I'm having to become quite an expert in this business of asking for forgiveness. And I ----. It gets a little easier the more you do it. And if you have a family, an Administration, a Congress and a whole country to ask, you're going to get a lot of practice. But I have to tell that in these last days it has come home to me again, something I first learned as President, but it wasn't burned in my bones -- and that is that in order to get it, you have to be willing to give it. And all of us -- the anger, the resentment, the bitterness, the desire for recrimination against people you believe have wronged you -- they harden the heart and deaden the spirit and lead to self-inflicted wounds. And so it is important that we are able to forgive those we believe have wronged us, even as we ask for forgiveness from people we have wronged. And I heard that first -- first -- in the Civil Rights Movement. Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

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

On August 28, 1998 at Union Chapel in Oak Bluff, Massachusetts, speaking on the 35th anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Published in the August 29, 1998 edition of The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/29/us/in-clinton-s-remarks-a-focus-on-interdependence-and-forgiveness.html?pagewanted=5 1990s

Love, People, Family, Home

“Fundamentally, a society that asks questions and has the power to answer them is a healthier society than one that simply accepts what it’s told from a narrow range of experts and institutions.”

Chris Anderson book The Long Tail

Source: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (2006), Ch. 11, p. 191

Question

“It took one tweet on Monday evening as I left the office to light the virtual touchpaper. At five past nine I tapped: "Now Guardian prevented from reporting parliament for unreportable reasons. Did John Wilkes live in vain?"… By the time I got home, after stopping off for a meal with friends, the Twittersphere had gone into meltdown. Twitterers had sleuthed down Farrelly's question, published the relevant links and were now seriously on the case. By midday on Tuesday "Trafigura" was one of the most searched terms in Europe, helped along by re-tweets by Stephen Fry and his 830,000-odd followers.
… One or two legal experts uncovered the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840, wondering if that would help? Common #hashtags were quickly developed, making the material easily discoverable. By lunchtime – an hour before we were due in court – Trafigura threw in the towel. The textbook stuff – elaborate carrot, expensive stick – had been blown away by a newspaper together with the mass collaboration of total strangers on the web. Trafigura thought it was buying silence. A combination of old media – the Guardian – and new – Twitter – turned attempted obscurity into mass notoriety.”

Alan Rusbridger (1953) British newspaper editor

Alan Rusbridger " The Trafigura fiasco tears up the textbook http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/14/trafigura-fiasco-tears-up-textbook" The Guardian, Wednesday 14 October 2009; As cited in Paul Bradshaw, ‎Liisa Rohumaa (2013) The Online Journalism Handbook: Skills to survive and thrive in the Digital Age. p. 176. 2000s

Home, Search, Question, Light

“In Afghanistan, a determined people are working to overcome decades of tyranny, and protect their newly free society. They have strong support from all 26 nations of the NATO Alliance. I appreciate the United Nations' decision this week to renew the mandate for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. The United Nations is also an active civilian presence in Afghanistan, where experts are doing important work helping to improve education, facilitate humanitarian aid, and protect human rights. We must continue to help the Afghan people defend their young democracy so the Taliban does not return to power, and Afghanistan is never again a safe haven for terror.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

People, Education, Democracy, Support

“An expert gives an objective view. He gives his own view.”

Morarji Desai (1896–1995) Former Indian Finance Minister, Freedom Fighters, Former prime minister

19th World Vegetarian Congress 1967

“For the Confucian, the specialistic expert could not be raised to truly positive dignity, no mater what his social usefulness. The decisive factor was that the "cultured man" (gentleman) was "not a tool"; that is, in his adjustment to the world and in his self-perfection he was an end unto himself, not a means for any functional end. This core of Confucian ethics rejected professional specialization, modern expert bureaucracy, and special training; above all, it rejected training in economics for the pursuit of profit.”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Source: Religion of China (1915), p. 246

World, Decision, Perfection, Training

“Thank you Joe Nobody for giving me your expert opinion on what missile sounds like, because gas station superintendents are usually the best people to ask about the sonic signature of ballistic missile thrust.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

The Best Page in the Universe

People

“I had the opportunity to fish as a kid, I just follow through with it. I'm not the best fisherman in the world, but I have a lot more fun than a lot of my other fishing friends in this world, who think they're supposedly experts. Sometimes the fish cooperate, sometimes they don't.”

John du Pont (1938–2010) American heir to the Du Pont family fortune, ornothologist, conchologist, murderer

1988 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4WOqUkJmFQ&t=3m Quote

World, Thinking, Fish

“According to child-experts—and every child is an expert on something—the function of a parent is to provide information, entertainment, transportation, and spot cash on demand.”

Roger Price (comedian)

Forward to The Power of Negative Thinking (1955)

Parent

“The Gospel of Efficiency. Every era, as Carl Becker has reminded us in his Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers, has a few words that epitomize its world-view and that are fixed points by which all else can be measured. In the Middle Ages they were such words as faith, grace, and God; in the eighteenth century they were such words as reason, nature, and rights; during the past fifty years in America they have been such words as cause, reaction, scientific, expert, progress and efficient. Efficiency is a natural ideal for a relatively immature and extrovert culture, but presumably its high development and wide acceptance are due to the fact that ours has been, par excellence, a machine civilization. At any event, efficiency grew to be a national catchword in the Progressive era as mechanization became the rule in American life, and it frequently appears in the literature of the period entangled in mechanical metaphor.”

Dwight Waldo (1913–2000) American political scientist

Source: The Administrative State, 1948, p. 19

Life, God, Age, World

“Finding an alternative to supplement military ways of resolving international conflicts has been taken up by many people skilled in various areas such as political science, economics, social studies, modelling and simulation, intelligence and expert systems, military strategy and weaponry as well as private business and industry.”

Harold Chestnut (1917–2001) American engineer

Harold Chestnut, Peter Kopacek, Tibor Vámos (1989) International conflict resolution using system engineering: proceedings of the IFAC workshop, Budapest, Hungary, 5-8 June 1989. International Federation of Automatic Control.

People, Way, Intelligence, Business

“This man, a veteran journalist, held a position of importance in one of the lie-factories operated by the Roosevelt regime to keep the boobs pepped up with enthusiasm for sending their sons or their husbands to a senseless slaughter. At one policy conference, this man objected to a proposed lie on the grounds that it was so absurd that it would destroy public confidence, with the result that Americans would soon cease to believe anything that the agency manufactured. There was a great deal of debate over that question in this policy conference until it was ended by the agency's great expert in such matters. He was a man who, by the way, for some reason or other, had left Germany a few years before and come to bless the United States with his presence. This expert, being a bit ruffled by the debate, finally took his elegant little cigar from his mouth and said decisively, "Ve spit in ze faces of the American schwine!"”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

And that settled it. The master had spoken.
"What We Owe Our Parasites", speech (June 1968); Free Speech magazine (October and November 1995)
1990s

Lie, Way, Confidence, Question

“"Disaffected, disadvantaged, disenfranchised is how progressives prefer to depict the Muslim murderers in their midst. After all, progressives hail from the school of therapeutic “thought” that considers crime to have been caused, not committed. Misbehavior is either medicalized and outsourced to state-approved experts, or reduced to the fault of the amorphous thing called society."”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“The Camel-ate-my-homework Theory of Culpability” http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/01/30/the-camel-ate-my-homework-theory-of-culpability/, Libertarian Alliance, January 30, 2015. 2010s, 2015

School

“Many people think there are no transitional species because the only fossil forms they’re aware of at all are a handful of plastic pieces in a prehistoric play set. They’ve no idea how rich the fossil record is! We know of several hundred species just within dinosaurs, to say nothing of the thousands of examples of each of hundreds more taxa apart from that. Experts estimate that all the collective genera still roaming around now only amount to about 1% of all the species that have ever lived. Practically everything there ever was ain’t no more. Every species living today has definite relatives both extant and extinct, and evident in the fossil record. And in one sense, all of them, even the things still alive, count as transitional species.”

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

"9th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfoje7jVJpU, Youtube (May 8, 2008) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

People, Idea, Thinking, Sense

“What mystifies me is how he or any one else can determine what is a desirable type of industry such as should qualify for special assistance of this kind. In my own simple way I should have thought that a desirable industry was, almost by definition, one which could establish itself and thrive without special assistance in ordinary market conditions. Anything else suggests a degree of omniscience which I, at least, am not prepared to credit even the most expert with. I trust the commercial judgment only of those who are themselves taking the risks.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

March 27, 1968, page 212.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

Way

“In the technocracy, nothing is any longer small or simple or readily apparent to the nontechnical man. Instead, the scale of intricacy or all human activities… transcends the competence of the amateurish citizen and inexorably demands the attention of specially trained experts. …even the most seemingly personal aspects of life. …In the absence of expertise, the great [productive} mechanism would surely break down, leaving us in the midst of chaos and poverty.”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

Life, Personality, Training

“The opposition of some executives to formalized organizational analysis stems in part from a reaction against the too zealous advocacy of organization as the universal panacea of all management ills. These executives correctly understand that organization is not the whole of management any more than personnel or budgeting or public relation. Organization analysis, therefore, is not properly the periodic pursuit of the expert; rather, it is the continuous responsibility of the executive. His clue is found in mal-functionings; not in the blind following of preconceived stereotypes.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

Source: The Executive in Action, 1945, p. 53-4, as cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 406

Understanding, Universe, Parting

“The real alternative to co-EXistence is co-REsistance. Experts in the field have been saying for years that Communism does not have to be tolerated. It has no moral, economic or political excuse for existing. Furthermore, it is extremely vulnerable to many types of peaceful pressures which free men have not yet used. We will discuss these in a later section. At this point it is important simply to emphasize that Communism can be beaten - and it can be done without atomic war. Therefore the whole basis for arguing coexistence collapses. Coexistence is a contradiction of terms because it means trying to coexist with world conquest, which is impossible. One must resist or be conquered. It also means accepting the status quo of one-third of the human race in bondage as a permanent working arrangement. It means accepting Communism in spite of its deceit, subversion and broken covenants. It means tolerating Communism without resistance.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Men, War, World, Peace

“In spite of all humans' innate interest in the interrelatedness of all experience, long ago these world-power-structure builders learned to shunt all the bright intellectuals and the physically creative into specialist careers. The powerful reserved for themselves the far easier, because innate, comprehensive functioning. All one needs to do is to discover how self-perpetuating is this disease of specialization is to witness the inter-departmental battling for educational funds and the concomitant jealous guarding of the various specializations assigned to a department's salaried experts on each subject in any university.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Cosmography (1992)

World, Education, Disease, Learning

“In the long run the [Nazi] movement was moving to a position in which the economic New Order would be controlled by the Party through a bureaucratic apparatus staffed by technical experts and dominated by political interests, not unlike the system that had already been built up in the Soviet Union.”

Richard Overy (1947) British historian

Source: War and Economy in the Third Reich (1994), p. 118

“Surely just about everybody has faced a moral dilemma and secretly wished, "If only somebody — somebody I trusted — could just tell me what to do!" Wouldn't this be morally inauthentic? Aren't we responsible for making our own moral decisions? Yes, but the virtues of "do it yourself" moral reasoning have their limits, and if you decide, after conscientious consideration, that your moral decision is to delegate further moral decisions in your life to a trusted expert, then you have made your own moral decision. You have decided to take advantage of the division of labor that civilization makes possible and get the help of expert specialists.We applaud the wisdom of this course in all other important areas of decision-making (don't try to be your own doctor, the lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client, and so forth). Even in the case of political decisions, like which way to vote, the policy of delegation can be defended. … Is the a dereliction of [one's] dut[y] as a citizen? I don't think so, but it does depend on my having good grounds for trusting [the delegate's] judgment. … That why those who have an unquestioning faith in the correctness of the moral teachings of their religion are a problem: if they themselves haven't conscientiously considered, on their own, whether their pastors or priests or rabbis or imams are worthy of this delegated authority over their own lives, then they are in fact taking a personally immoral stand.This is perhaps the most shocking implication of my inquiry, and I do not shrink from it, even though it may offend many who think of themselves as deeply moral. It is commonly supposed that it is entirely exemplary to adopt the moral teachings of one's own religion without question, because -- to put it simply — it is the word of God (as interpreted, always, by the specialists to whom one has delegated authority). I am urging, on the contrary, that anybody who professes that a particular point of moral conviction is not discussable, not debatable, not negotiable, simply because it is the word of God, or because the Bible says so, or because "that is what all Muslims [Hindus, Sikhs… ] [sic] believe, and I am a Muslim [Hindu, Sikh… ]" [sic], should be seen to be making it impossible for the rest of us to take their views seriously, excusing themselves from the moral conversation, inadvertently acknowledging that their own views are not conscientiously maintained and deserve no further hearing.”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Life, Wisdom, God, Faith

“I beg you not to listen to the experts in this country anymore. The fools disguised in tweed jackets or ascots of the Ivy League campuses. The scholars and the experts and those who have been around in the State Department forever, blahdy blahdy blahdy. They couldn't find their way through an unlocked door at a locksmith shop. They come on TV and they lecture you about how everything is fine and everything is in a box. I have news for you: I believe it was the great philosopher Depeche Mode that said "nothing is impossible."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Life is outside of the box now and if you're inside of the box, you'll suffocate.
2014-12-16
The Glenn Beck Program
http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/12/16/three-unbelievable-news-stories-three-crazy-glenn-predictions-one-must-watch-monologue/, quoted in * 2014-12-17
'I See The Future': Glenn Beck Begs His Audience 'Not To Listen To The Experts In This Country Anymore'
Kyle
Mantyla
RightWingWatch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/i-see-future-glenn-beck-begs-his-audience-not-listen-experts-country-anymore
2014-12-19
2010s, 2014

Life, Fools, Way, Country

“Since then I never pay attention to anything by "experts". I calculate everything myself.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

After having been led astray on neutron-proton coupling by reports of "beta-decay experts".
Part 5: "The World of One Physicist", "The 7 Percent Solution", p. 255
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)

“I have had luck with my St. Bernardino, not only with the experts, but with the public as well. Without any reservation, everyone is on my side. The King expressed his satisfaction before the whole Court.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

letter to his friend Don Martín Zapater, c. 10 December 1784; as quoted in Francisco Goya, Hugh Stokes, Herbert Jenkins Limited Publishers, London, 1914, p. 134-135
Ventura Rodriquez, chief of the architects in Madrid was building the church of San Francisco el Grande. Pictures would be required for the seven altars. Goya had chosen for his subject St. Bernardino de Siena, crucifix in hand, preaching from a rock, by the light of a star, to King Alfonso of Aragon and his courtiers. He was selected as one of the painters of the altars.
1780s

“Experts have
their expert fun
ex cathedra
telling one
just how nothing
can be done.”

Piet Hein (1905–1996) Danish puzzle designer, mathematician, author, poet

Experts
Grooks

“I see advancing upon all this in hideous onslaught the Nazi war machine, with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers, its crafty expert agents fresh from the cowing and tying down of a dozen countries. I see also the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts. I see the German bombers and fighters in the sky, still smarting from many a British whipping, delighted to find what they believe is an easier and a safer prey.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Radio broadcast (22 June 1941) on the day Germany invaded the Soviet Union, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), pp. 1120-1121
The Second World War (1939–1945)

War, Country

“Experts have a vested interest in their own playpens, and so they will quite naturally argue that 'education' is impossible without them (can you imagine an Oxford philosopher, or an elementary particle physicist arguing himself out of good money?)”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Science in a Free Society

Science in a Free Society (1978)

Money, Education, Imagination, Nature

“The Communists have created the illusion in free men's minds that "the way to peace is through disarmament." We must not forget that this originated as a Communist slogan. Now free men have adopted it as their own and are even setting up special commissions to explore ways and means to carry it out. In this action we are deliberately closing our eyes to everything we promised ourselves at the close of World War II and again at the end of the Korean War. Experts tell us that to disarm in the face of an obvious and present danger is an immoral act. It is an act of self-destruction.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Men, War, World, Peace

“We cannot walk befor we toddle,
Though we may toddle far too long,
If we embrace a lovely Model
That is consistent, clear, and wrong.
- Experts from "Notes from Wooods Hole", unpublished, 1976.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1980s, Illustrating Economics: Beasts, Ballads and Aphorisms, 1980, p. 148

Love

“Mr. Hoover's presidency was drawing to a close and Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of the most dynamic grave diggers of the Western world, succeeded on a platform not dissimilar to that of his predecessor. Though Mr. Roosevelt belonged to the Democratic party, his social background indisposed him for a time to leftist policies, both national and international. But his wife (from another branch of the Roosevelt family) was more in tune with leftist ideas, undoubtedly the aftereffect of higher feminine education in the United States. Whereas Mr. Roosevelt played his politics by ear, his wife, who wielded considerable influence, was ideologically far more consistent. Mr. Roosevelt, moreover, had but the scantiest education for his task; he hardly knew Europe, and his knowledge of foreign languages was as modest as his acquaintance with the mentality of other nations. Largely ignorant himself, and profoundly anti-intellectual, he had no way of judging, evaluating, and coordinating expert opinion. Even worse, perhaps, his sense of objective truth was gravely impaired. His handicap was by no means primarily of a physical nature.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Source: Leftism Revisited (1990), pp. 230-231

Truth, World, Education, Family

“The rule, acknowledged or not, seems to be that if we have great power we must use it. We would use a steam shovel to pick up a dime. We have experts who can prove there is no other way to do it.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"The Loss of the Future".
The Long-Legged House (1969)

Way

“I would like to congratulate everybody with the commencement of the "Combined Endeavour 2007" military exercises. This exercise is running simultaneously in Armenia and Germany. We have about 130 participants from 6 countries, this being evidence of importance and actuality of the event. It is notable that the cooperation between the Ministry of Defence of Armenia and the US European Command is developing and implementing a number of projects, and the vivid evidence of this cooperation is this military exercise. This is not the first military exercise in Armenia. Since 2003, we have hosted a number of military exercises organized with the NATO/PfP and the US European Command. It is important that the running of military exercises in Armenia is growing into a good tradition. Especially since, we already have an arrangement of hosting "Cooperative Longbow/Lancer" military exercises in Armenia for 2008. I would also like to mention with appreciation that the planning conference and working meetings before the military exercise would be held in a constructive atmosphere. We have effectively managed to run all preparation activities with joint efforts of the US European Command, the MOD of Armenia and other partners. The communication field is that chain which has fundamental importance for realizing multinational activities. The effectiveness and successes of our cooperation is related to that. This military exercise not only supports the testing of capabilities of participating units and experts, but also an opportunity for developing effective mechanisms for ensuring an interoperability and carrying out the tasks jointly. It is not accidental that Armenia has always expressed its readiness to host such kinds of events, and all participants have been trying to create appropriate conditions for their work. Taking this opportunity, one more time, I would like to thank all participants for their presence here and the US European command for their assistance in organizational matters. I am sure that due to our joint activities, the military exercise would be on a high professional and organizational level. I also hope that while you are in Armenia, you have a chance to make yourselves familiar with our history, culture and will have wonderful impressions. I am sure that on the 10th of May, after the completion of the military exercise, we will ascertain one more time that another multinational military exercise was held with success and fulfilled its tasks. I would like to wish all participants fruitful work and further success. I allow the commencement of the opening of the "Combined Endeavour 2007" military exercise.”

Mikael Harutyunyan (1946) Armenian general

Quoted in 2007 article. [April 27, 2007]

Hope, Exercises, History, Communication

“Experience has shown that the mass-armies of “democratic” states fight with greater zeal when they are animated by hatred and supported by a hate-crazed populace that fancies it is fighting a holy war. Lies have therefore become military equipment, a kind of mental logistics; but it is the essence of such propaganda that its spuriousness is known only to the persons who manufacture it. The model of such operations is the famous lie-factory managed by Lord Bryce during the First World War, in which a corps of expert technicians forged photographs, while expert liars, including Arnold Toynbee, concocted stories, of “atrocities,” to inspire the emotionally overwrought British with a fanatical hatred of the incredibly bestial Germans and with a noble Christian ardor to kill them.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"Revised Historiography", Liberty Bell magazine (April 1980)
1970s, 1980s

Hate, War, Lie, World

“I knew Muhammad Mujeeb personally. He was Head of the Department of History and Shaikh-ul-Jamia… In 1972, however, there was a mild 'confrontation' between him and me. Sometime that year there was a Selection Committee meeting for the post of Professor of History in Delhi University. I was then a Reader and candidate for the post of Professor. Mujeeb was an 'expert'… Mujeeb asked me a question: "Why did the Hindu convert to Islam?" It was a loaded question carrying the suggestion that the initiative for conversion came from the Hindu. In all probability Mujeeb expected me to say that the Hindus suffered from the injustices of the caste system, that Islam was spiritually so great and its message of social equality so attractive that the Hindus queued up for conversion the moment they came in contact with Islamic invaders. A tactful candidate (not a truthful one) would have said what Mujeeb desired, but my answer was different. I said that Hindus did not (voluntarily) convert to Islam; they were converted, often forcibly, as told by Muslim chroniclers. Muslim invaders and rulers felt proud of their achievements in the fields of loot and destruction, enslavement and proselytization. Their chroniclers, writing at their command or independently, speak about their achievements in these spheres in glowing terms. They repeatedly write about the choice offered to the Hindus - "Islam or death". Mujeeb expected a different answer. I was not selected.”

K. S. Lal book Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India

Source: Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999), Chapter 6

Death, Truth, History, Question

“We got into telecom in the '90s by bidding for cellular licences. But I felt that the real value is in the convergence of information and communication; pure communication will not deliver a sustainable value; that is why we called ourselves infocomm. It was learning a whole new domain. We brought in experts from the outside but we essentially did it with proven Reliance people.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Mukesh Ambani on how Reliance was built

People, Communication, Learning

“Departmental reorganization. One way to save public money would be to pass the pending bill for the reorganization of the various departments. This project has been pending for some time, and has had the most careful consideration of experts and the thorough study of a special congressional committee. This legislation is vital as a companion piece to the Budget law. Legal authority for a thorough reorganization of the Federal structure with some latitude of action to the Executive in the rearrangement of secondary functions would make for continuing economy in the shift of government activities which must follow every change in a developing country. Beyond this many of the independent agencies of the Government must be placed under responsible Cabinet officials, if we are to have safeguards of efficiency, economy, and probity.”

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

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Money, Law, Way, Study

“The Novice has been the focus of an alarming amount of attention in the computer field. It is not just that the preferred user is unskilled, it is that the whole field in its application rewards novices and punishes experts. What you learn today will be useless a few years hence, so why bother to study and know anything well? I think this is the main reason for the IT winter we are now experiencing.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: "Well, I want to switch over to replace EMACS LISP with Guile." http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/a6df017072f4c700 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Thinking, Study, Learning, Winter

“Ridgway and I climbed a ladder inside the tower to the belfry, spoke to the sergeant observer there, and looked over the landscape on the German side of the river. Then Ridgway turned to the sergeant and at length asked him to put a mortar concentration on a point of woods a few hundred yards away on the German side. The sergeant, unperturbed, cranked his field telephone and spoke to someone at the mortar position in the fields behind the church. "Joe," he said, "remember the dead horse we used as an aiming point yesterday? This target is about fifty over and 100 left. Ten rounds when you're ready." The rounds were in the air almost at once, and their accuracy was impeccable; but I was far from happy about the way my sergeant had shortcut the standard methods of adjusting fire as prescribed in the mortar manual. Although an artilleryman and not the expert on infantry weapons which Ridgway was, I was sure the "dead horse" method of adjustment was not in the book.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 94

Happiness, Books, Way, Horse

“Android and the DROID X are, warts and all, already neck and neck with the iPhone 4. It's scary to think how one-sided this would be if Google just put a handful of UI experts on the [Android app] marketplace. Game over, Apple. Game over.”

Paul Thurrott (1966) American podcaster, author, and blogger

Droid Attack Spells Doom for iPhone http://winsupersite.com/article/mobile-computing-devices/droid-attack-spells-doom-for-iphone in Paul Thurrott's Supersite For Windows (21 September 2010)

Game, Thinking

Quotes about expert page 2

Quotes about expert
page 2