Quotes about operating
page 14

“My whole concept of economics is based on the idea that we have to explain how prices operate as signals, telling people what they ought to do in particular circumstances. The approach to this problem has been blocked by a cost or labor theory of value, which assumes that prices are determined by the technical conditions of production only. The important question is to explain how the interaction of a great number of people, each possessing only limited knowledge, will bring about an order that could only be achieved by deliberate direction taken by somebody who has the combined knowledge of all these individuals. However, central planning cannot take direct account of particular circumstances of time and place. Additionally, every individual has important bits of information which cannot possibly be conveyed to a central authority in statistical form. In a system in which the knowledge of relevant data is dispersed among millions of agents, prices can act to coordinate the separate actions of different individuals.
Given this context, it is intellectually not satisfactory to attempt to establish causal relations between aggregates or averages in the manner in which the discipline of macroeconomics has attempted to do. Individuals do not make decisions on the basis of partial knowledge of magnitudes such as the total amount of production, or the total quantity of money. Aggregative theorizing leads nowhere.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1960s–1970s, A Conversation with Professor Friedrich A. Hayek (1979)

Money, People, Idea, Question

“Suggestion can shape dreams, and the dreams themselves then operate as action. A strong dream can be a more significant psychic action than any physical experience, and it can change the course of the personality completely.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 28
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 1

Dreams, Strong, Change, Personality

“So here’s my challenge to Rupert Murdoch, Jeff Bezos, the Sulzberger family, and anyone else who runs a major media operation: Why not hire a realist? If you’re looking for some suggestions, how about Paul Pillar, Chas Freeman Jr., Robert Blackwill, Steve Clemons, Michael Desch, Steve Chapman, John Mearsheimer, Barry Posen, Andrew Bacevich, or Daniel Larison? Give one of them a weekly column, and then you could genuinely claim to be offering your readers a reasonably comprehensive and balanced range of opinion on international affairs. I mean: What are you folks so afraid of?”

Stephen M. Walt (1955) American political scientist

"What Would a Realist World Have Looked Like?", Foreign Policy (January 8, 2016)

Family

“He who cannot see the workings of a Divine wisdom in the order of the heavens, the change of the seasons, the flowing of the tides, the operations of the wind and other elements, the structure of the human body, the circulation of the blood through a variety of vessels wonderfully arranged and conducted, the instinct of beasts, their tempers and dispositions, the growth of plants, and their many effects for meat and medicine; he who cannot see all these and many other things as the evident contrivance of a Divine wisdom is sottishly blind, and unworthy the name of man.”

William Jones (ecclesiastic)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 275.

Wisdom, Change, Season

“The moral relativists ask: what do you mean by should? Here's how you should act: Act in a way so that things are good for you like they would be for someone you're taking care of. But they have to be good for you in a way that's also good for your family, and they have to be good for you and your family also in a way that's good for society (and maybe even good for the broader environment if you can manage that), so it's balanced at all those levels. And it has to be good for you, your family, and society right now, AND next week, AND next month, AND a year from now, AND ten years from now. It's this harmonious balancing of multiple layers of Being simultaneously, and that's a Darwinian reality, I would say. Your brain is actually attuned to tell you when you are doing that. And the way it tells you is that it reveals that what you're doing is meaningful. That's the sign. Your nervous system is adapted to do this. It's adapted to exist on the edge between order and chaos. Chaos is where things are so complex that you can't handle it, and order is where things are so rigid that it's too restrictive. In between that, there's a place. It's a place that's meaningful. It's where you're partly stabilized, and partly curious. You're operating in a manner that increases your scope of knowledge, so you're inquiring and growing, and at the same time you're stabilizing and renewing you, your family, society, nature; now, next week, next month, and next year. When you have an intimation of meaning, then you know you're there.""Lies and deception destroy people's lives. When they start telling the truth and acting it out, things get a lot better.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

People, Truth, Family, Way

“You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?"
And I was looking down writing, and I said yes. And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, you drown in your own blood — that's the end of you.
It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states, and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what the letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply, "Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the Whites Plains High School." She said, "While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze."”

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

And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn't sneeze.
1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)

Books, World, School, Girl

“This Prime Minister must be drummed from office and we will use each and every opportunity to make that a reality…But this Prime Minister deserves to be impeached - and we, with others, will present the case that he should be required to answer…I believe that this Prime Minister now operates outside the currency of debate, beyond the pale of decency…I don't just challenge the policies of Tony Blair, I challenge his morality…This is not a question of this Prime Minister - any prime minister - making a judgement call and just being wrong. It is not a matter, as Blair would have us believe, of someone acting in good faith and making an honest mistake. This is a man who buried the intelligence that was inconvenient, manipulated the information to suit his purpose, and entered into a secret pact with the American President to go to war come what may.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Speech at the SNP annual conference (24 September 2004), quoted in The Independent, ' Salmond back with threat to impeach PM http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/salmond-back-with-threat-to-impeach-pm-6160873.html' (25 September 2004).

War, Secret, Faith, Intelligence

“The profit motive should not be confused with the profit system. By the profit system, of course, we mean the institution of private property in capital goods and the free private enterprise that goes along with it. There is no reason why the "profit motive" should be necessarily connected with the profit system. In a profit system there is nothing to prevent anyone acting on altruistic lines; there is no law that says a businessman must maximize his profits. If a businessman chose to operate with outputs, prices, and wages that yielded him a smaller profit than the maximum, but which he felt were socially more desirable, there is nothing in the profit system that would prevent him from doing this. Nothing in the profit system would prevent the most ardent liberal from refusing an increase in wages, or from accepting an unpleasant and poorly paid job. At the other extreme, there is nothing in a communist system that would do away with the profit motive, or the "advantage motive."”

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

Source: 1940s, The Economics of Peace, 1945, p. 239

Law, Motivation

“The general co-operation of all members of society for the purpose of planned exploitation of the forces of production, the expansion of production to the point where it will satisfy the needs of all, the abolition of a situation in which the needs of some are satisfied at the expense of the needs of others, the complete liquidation of classes and their conflicts, the rounded development of the capacities of all members of society through the elimination of the present division of labor, through industrial education, through engaging in varying activities, through the participation by all in the enjoyments produced by all, through the combination of city and country – these are the main consequences of the abolition of private property.”

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

(1847)

Education, Country

“The threat levels are going up, the dangers are increasing and our capability to deal with them has gone down because of the way the Obama administration has operated for the last eight years.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

At the Ringling College Library Association Town Hall Lecture Series in Sarasota https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/articles/2017/1/23/dick-cheney-sarasota (January 2017) 2010s, 2017

Way

“Mike Stone was Portland’s premier lawyer—if you were in deep, deep trouble. He took on clients other lawyers avoided—swim team coaches accused of child molestation, surgeons who had operated while three sheets to the wind, bank presidents caught embezzling millions…Just being defended by Stone was a sure sign that you were involved in something embarrassing or off-putting”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), p. 46

“My thought is always, ‘It’s only downhill from here’. That’s how I’ve always operated, ever since I began Family Guy. I had the crippling fear that I used up all the funny last week. That crippling insecurity really drives you to do your best. Your moments of pure joy are few and far between, but they do exist.”

Seth MacFarlane (1973) American animator, actor, singer and television producer

Seth Macfarlane: Interview With a Demented Genius, at the annual media leadership conference TheGrill, quoted in Oscar host Seth MacFarlane: 'Crippling insecurity drives you to do your best' http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/10/02/oscar-host-seth-macfarlane-conference/, Inside Movies, 2 October 2012.

Fear, Family, Guy, Joy

“What we see in both software development and military operations is a tendency for the pendulum to swing back and forth between extremes. Yet in most cases, we need a balance between armor and discipline and between mobility and agility. Actually, though, I would say that the leaders in both the agile and plan-driven camps occupy various places in the responsible middle. It’s only the over-enthusiastic followers who overinterpret “discipline” and “agility” to unhealthy degrees.”

Barry Boehm (1935) American software engineer

Tom DeMarco and Barry Boehm. " The agile methods fray http://cf.agilealliance.org/articles/system/article/file/872/file.pdf." Computer 35.6 (2002): 90-92.

“The government of the Israelites was a Federation, held together by no political authority, but by the unity of… faith and founded not on physical force but on a voluntary covenant. The principle of self-government was carried out not only in each tribe, but in every group of at least 120 families; and there was neither privilege of rank nor inequality before the law. Monarchy was so alien to the primitive spirit of the community that it was resisted by Samuel… The throne was erected on a compact; and the king was deprived of the right of legislation among a people that recognised no lawgiver but God, whose highest aim in politics was to… make its government conform to the ideal type that was hallowed by the sanctions of heaven. The inspired men who rose in unfailing succession to prophesy against the usurper and the tyrant, constantly proclaimed that the laws, which were divine, were paramount over sinful rulers, and appealed… to the healing forces that slept in the uncorrupted consciences of the masses. Thus the… Hebrew nation laid down the parallel lines on which all freedom has been won—the doctrine of national tradition and the doctrine of the higher law; the principle that a constitution grows from a root, by process of development… and the principle that all political authorities must be tested and reformed according to a code which was not made by man. The operation of these principles… occupies the whole of the space we are going over together.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Source: The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

Men, God, People, Family

“Nutrition science is where surgery was in about 1650, you know, really interesting and promising, but would you want to have them operate on you yet? I don’t think so.”

Michael Pollan (1955) American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism

[In Defense of Food: Author, Journalist Michael Pollan on Nutrition, Food Science and the American Diet, 2008-02-13, Democracy Now!, http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/13/in_defense_of_food_author_journalist, 2009-04-15]

Thinking, Science

“I have made a great study of the spine ever since I had my spine trouble, and now I know what to do and it doesn’t involve doctors, operations or anything like that. Why, in Puerto Rico last winter I helped 29 people who had back trouble and one of them was a doctor who couldn’t get medical relief. Ask Willie (Stargell), ask Danny Murtaugh what I did for them. They had back trouble and I fixed them, not by any tricks or anything, but because I know how to manipulate and bring relief. A lot of people think if you have a pain or tightness here, it can be worked out by rubbing that area. It can’t. The way to do it is to know the trigger points. Sometimes you have to manipulate a few inches from the spot that’s hurting because that's maybe where the muscle that controls the soreness is. It’s all very complicated, but believe me, it works.

I was suffering so bad I could hardly walk [in 1957]. All the x-rays and medical doctors couldn’t find out what was wrong. Then a man in St. Louis, a chiropractor, called me and offered to help. The ballclub was against it and said they wouldn’t be responsible, but I was desperate and the pain was driving me crazy. But the man, who told me I had a curvature of the spine, was able to fix me up. It was after that I became interested in studying the human back and ever since I’ve never had trouble I couldn't take care of. Back trouble is a painful thing and people who don’t have the problem don’t know how lucky they are.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente a Doc" by Red Foley, in The New York Daily News (October 10, 1971), pp. 69, 75
Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Pain, People, Way, Problem

“There are always “class or prestige” gaps between various levels of management. There are also functional gaps between working units of the organization. If we superimpose the management gaps on top of the functional gaps, we find that companies are made up of small operational islands that refuse to communicate with one another for fear that giving up information may strengthen their opponents. The {[w|project manager}}’s responsibility is to get these islands to communicate cross-functionally toward common goals and objectives.”

Harold Kerzner (1940) American engineer, management consultant

Source: Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling (1979), p. 4 (2e ed. 1984)

Fear, Communication

“The IWW's affirm as a fundamental principle that the creators of wealth are entitled to all they create. Thus they find themselves pitted against the whole profit-making system. They declare that there can be no compromise so long as the majority of the working class lives in want while the master class lives in luxury. They insist that there can be no peace until the workers organize as a class, take possession of the resources of the earth and the machinery of production and distribution and abolish the wage system. In other words, the workers in their collectivity must own and operate all the essential industrial institutions and secure to each laborer the full value of his product.
It is for these principles, this declaration of class solidarity, that the IWWs are being persecuted, beaten, imprisoned, murdered. If the capitalist class had the sense it is reputed to have, it would know that violence is the worst weapon that can be used against men who have nothing to lose and the world to gain.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

What is the IWW? (1918)

Men, World, Peace, Sense

“[Operation] Rockingham was spinning reports and emphasizing reports that showed non-compliance (by Iraq with UN inspections) and quashing those which showed compliance. It was cherry-picking intelligence.”

Scott Ritter (1961) American weapons inspector and writer

Sunday Herald, 8 June 2003
2003

Intelligence

“I might've tried bungee jumping, until I saw that video of that guy whose cord came untied. He didn't know it 'till he hit the ground. Oh, he flew off that tower, hollerin' at his buddies, "Whoo! Whoa, check me out, dudes! Whoo, that ground is coming up…"—BAM! And what do you say, if you're the operator of that ride, to the next guy in line? "All right, dude– you're up."”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Dorkfish (1998)

Guy

“If torture was so strongly embedded in legal practice, it was because it revealed truth and showed the operation of power. It assured the articulation of the written on the oral, the secret on the public, the procedure of investigation on the operation of the confession; it made it possible to reproduce the crime on the visible body of the criminal.”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Source: Discipline and Punish (1977), Chapter One, pp.55

Truth, Secret

“By now I assume you know my attitude to this type of conduct. I have stated categorically, many times, that the Army has to be a inclusive organisation, in which every soldier, man and woman, is able to reach their full potential and is encouraged to do so. Those who think that it is okay to behave in a way that demeans or exploits their colleagues, have no place in this army. Our service has been engaged in continuous operations since 1999, and in it’s longest war ever in Afghanistan.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Message regarding unacceptable behaviour (2013)

War, Way, Thinking, Time

“If in later life she has mastered her hunger drive by ego control, she may assume that she can control her fate herself. But that ego may in fact be very weak, because it has been built by cutting herself off from the mainstream of life through severe dieting. It is built on negative rather than positive need. In a real life crisis, such an ego may fail to operate because she does not know consciously what her own needs are. […] An ego which sets itself up against Fate is attempting to usurp the power of the Self; it swings from light to dark, from inflation to depression. Only when her ego is firmly rooted in her own feminine feeling can a woman be released from her compulsive behavior.”

Marion Woodman (1928–2018) Canadian writer

Source: The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter (1980), p. 33

Life, Hunger, Fate, Behavior

“I am myself convinced that the existing law on abortion is uncertain and is also, and perhaps more importantly, harsh and archaic and that it is in urgent need of reform. I certainly shall have no hesitation in voting for the Second Reading of the Bill. I take this view because I believe that we have here a major social problem. How can anyone believe otherwise when perhaps as many as 100,000 illegal operations a year take place, that the present law has shown itself quite unable to deal with the problem? I believe this, too, because of the danger which exists at present to those who are forced to resort to back-street abortionists and to the misery which is caused to some of those who fail to get an abortion. I believe it also because we all know…that the law is consistently flouted by those who have the means to do so. It is, therefore, very much a question of one law for the rich and one law for the poor.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1966/jul/22/medical-termination-of-pregnancy-bill in the House of Commons in favour of the Bill legalising abortion (22 July 1966) 1960s

Law, Question, Problem, Reading

“The citizen of today in every developed country is typically an employee. He works for one of the institutions. He looks to them for his livelihood. He looks to them for his opportunities. He looks to them for access to status and function in society, as well as for personal fulfillment and achievement.
The citizen of 1900 if employed worked for a small family-type operation; the small pop-and-mom store employing a helper or two; the family household; and so on. And of course, the great majority of people in those days, except in the most highly industrialized countries—such as Britain or Belgium—worked on the farm.
Our society has become an employee society. In the early 1900s people asked, “What do you do?””

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Today they tend to ask, “Whom do you work for?”
Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), p. 4

People, Family, Moms, Personality

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is with no ordinary feelings, I assure you, that I rise on this occasion to thank you for the very flattering manner in which you have received the last toast, and for the good wishes expressed therein. I cannot look around me, and see this vast assemblage of my friends and workpeople, without being moved. I feel gratified at this day's proceedings; I also feel greatly honoured by the presence of the nobleman at my side. I am more than all delighted at the presence of this vast assemblage of my workpeople. Perhaps it may be permitted me to remark that ten or twelve years ago I was looking forward to this day (on which I complete my his fiftieth year) as the period when I hoped to retire from business and enjoy myself in agricultural pursuits, which would be quite congenial to my mind and inclination. As the time drew near, looking at my large family (five of them being sons) I reversed that decision, and resolved to proceed a little longer and remain at the head of the firm. Having thus determined, I at once made up my mind to leave Bradford. I did not like to be a party to increasing that already overcrowded borough, but I looked around for a site suitable for a large manufacturing establishment, and I fixed upon this, as offering every capability for a first rate manufacturing and commercial establishment. It is also, from the beauty of its situation, and the salubrity of the air, a most desirable place for the erection of dwellings. Far be it from me to do anything to pollute the air or the water of the district. I shall do my utmost to avoid these evils, and I have no doubt of being successful. I hope to draw around me a population that will enjoy the beauties of this neighbourhood—a population of well paid, contented, happy operatives. I have given instructions to my architects (who are competent to carry them out) that nothing shall be spared to render the dwellings of the operatives a pattern to the country, and if my life is spared by Divine Providence, I hope to see satisfaction, contentment, and happiness around me.”

Titus Salt (1803–1876) English industrialist and philanthropist

The speech he made to the 3,500 guests (including his workers) at the banquet on 1853-09-20, which he held to celebrate both his fiftieth birthday and the opening of his new factory at Saltaire. [Inauguration of the works at Saltaire, The Bradford Observer, 1853-09-22, 8, http://find.galegroup.com/bncn/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&orientation=&scale=0.33&sort=DateAscend&docLevel=FASCIMILE&prodId=BNCN&tabID=T012&subjectParam=Locale%2528en%252C%252C%2529%253ALQE%253D%2528jn%252CNone%252C17%2529Bradford%2BObserver%253AAnd%253ALQE%253D%2528da%252CNone%252C10%252909%252F22%252F1853%2524&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R2&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=11&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3ALQE%3D%28jn%2CNone%2C17%29Bradford+Observer%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C10%2909%2F22%2F1853%24&subjectAction=DISPLAY_SUBJECTS&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&enlarge=&bucketSubId=&inPS=true&userGroupName=brad&hilite=y&docPage=article&nav=prev&sgCurrentPosition=0&docId=R3207957429, 2012-06-07 (subscription site)]
A slightly edited version (in the third person) appears in [Holroyd, Abraham, 1873, 2000, Saltaire and its Founder, Piroisms Press, ISBN 0-9538601-0-8, 14-15]

Life, Family, Beauty, Hope

“[If] we equip the programmed computer with transducers so it can interact freely with a natural environment and a linguistic one, as well as the power to make inferences, it is far from obvious what if any latitude the theorist (who knows how the transducers operate and therefore what they respond to) would still have in assigning a coherent interpretation to the functional states so as to capture psychologically relevant regularities in behavior. If the answer is that the theorist is left with no latitude beyond the usual inductive indeterminism all theories have in the face of finite data, it would be perverse to deny that these states had the semantic content assigned to them by the theory.”

Zenon Pylyshyn (1937) Canadian philosopher

Source: Computation and cognition, 1984, p. 44

Behavior, Nature

“No man can defend or palliate such conduct as that of Smith O'Brien and his confederates. It would be a mercy to shut them up in a lunatic asylum. They are not seeking a repeal of the legislative union, but the establishment of the Kings of Munster and Connaught! But the sad side of the picture is in fact that we are doing nothing to satisfy the moderate party in Ireland, nothing which strengthens the hands even of John O'Connell and the priest party, who are opposed to the 'red republicans' of the Dublin clubs. There seems to be a strong impression here that this time there is to be a rebellion in Ireland. But I confess I have ceased to fear or hope anything from that country. Its utter helplessness to do anything for itself is our great difficulty. You can't find three Irishmen who will co-operate together for any rational object.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to Henry Ashworth (21 July 1848), quoted in John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905), p. 488.
1840s

Sadness, Fear, Hope, Strong

“Our achievement…has been to show that you can build far greater, and far more lasting, prosperity by letting people co-operate in the freedom of the market place than by making them submit to the coercion of Government regulations and state bureaucracy. If you look around the world today, East and West, even in Soviet Russia and Communist China, you will see that lesson being taken to heart…The truth is that a prosperous world based on free and open markets is a world of co-operation and interdependence between the people of all nations. By contrast, a world of closed, State controlled economies is a world disposed towards confrontation and conflict.”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

Speech to the Conservative Party Conference (13 October, 1988).

People, Truth, World, Freedom

“Personally, I regard alcohol, used in moderation, as a medicine in the Polar regions. … It is another matter on sledge journeys: there … alcohol must be banished … on account of the weight and space. … Two men who have fallen out a little in the course of the week are reconciled at once by the scent of rum; the past is forgotten, and they start afresh in friendly co-operation.”

Roald Amundsen (1872–1928) Norwegian polar researcher, who was the first to reach the South Pole

Sydpolen (The South Pole) (1912)

Men, Alcohol, Past, Personality

“The success of yesterday's mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate 'em.”

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

2000s, 2003, Remarks on the Capture of Saddam Hussein (December 2003)

Women, Men, People, Hope

“Another discovery was that the size and importance of an action is no yardstick of its personal unpleasantness. A big operation which commands headlines may be a dawdle for some of those involved, while the little forgotten patrol is a real horror.”

George MacDonald Fraser book Quartered Safe Out Here

Source: Quartered Safe Out Here (1992), p. 46.

Personality

“Those who urge an alliance with Assad cite the example of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet despot who became an ally of Western democracies against Nazi Germany. I never liked historical comparisons and like this one even less. To start with, the Western democracies did not choose Stalin as an ally; he was thrusted upon them by the turn of events. When the Second World War started Stalin was an ally of Hitler thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet Union actively participated in the opening phase of the war by invading Poland from the east as the Germans came in from the West. Before that, Stalin had rendered Hitler a big service by eliminating thousands of Polish army officers in The Katyn massacre. Between September 1939 and June 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin was an objective ally of Hitler. Stalin switched sides when he had no choice if he wanted to save his skin. The situation in Syria today is different. There is no alliance of democracies which, thanks to Obama’s enigmatic behavior, lack any strategy in the Middle East. Unlike Stalin, Assad has not switched sides if only because there is no side to switch to. Assad regards ISIS as a tactical ally against other armed opposition groups. This is why Russia is now focusing its air strikes against non-ISIS armed groups opposed to Assad. More importantly, Assad has none of the things that Stalin had to offer the Allies. To start with Stalin could offer the vast expanse of territory controlled by the Soviet Union and capable of swallowing countless German divisions without belching. Field Marshal von Paulus’ one-million man invasion force was but a drop in the ocean of the Soviet landmass. In contrast, Assad has no territorial depth to offer. According to the Iranian General Hossein Hamadani, who was killed in Aleppo, Assad is in nominal control of around 20 percent of the country. Stalin also had an endless supply of cannon fodder, able to ship in millions from the depths of the Urals, Central Asia and Siberia. In contrast, Assad has publicly declared he is running out of soldiers, relying on Hezbollah cannon fodder sent to him by Tehran. If Assad has managed to hang on to part of Syria, it is partly because he has an air force while his opponents do not. But even that advantage has been subject to the law of diminishing returns. Four years of bombing defenseless villages and towns has not changed the balance of power in Assad’s favor. This may be why his Russian backers decided to come and do the bombing themselves. Before, the planes were Russian, the pilots Syrian. Now both planes and pilots are Russian, underlining Assad’s increasing irrelevance. Stalin’s other card, which Assad lacks, consisted of the USSR’s immense natural resources, especially the Azerbaijan oilfields which made sure the Soviet tanks could continue to roll without running out of petrol. Assad in contrast has lost control of Syria’s oilfields and is forced to buy supplies from ISIS or smugglers operating from Turkey. There are other differences between Stalin then and Assad now. Adulated as “the Father of the Nation” Stalin had the last word on all issues. Assad is not in that position. In fact, again according to the late Hamadani in his last interview published by Iranian media, what is left of the Syrian Ba’athist regime is run by a star chamber of shadowy characters who regard Assad as nothing but a figurehead.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: No, Bashar Al-Assad is no Joseph Stalin http://english.aawsat.com/2015/10/article55345413/opinion-no-bashar-al-assad-is-no-joseph-stalin, Ashraq Al-Awsat (16 Oct, 2015).

War, World, Law, Behavior

“Until the People have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon themselves collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even knowledge of their sentiments, can warrant their Representatives in a departure from it, prior to such an act. But it is easy to see, that it would require an uncommon portion of fortitude in the Judges to do their duty as faithful guardians of the Constitution, where Legislative invasions of it had been instigated by the major voice of the community. But it is not with a view to infractions of the Constitution only, that the independence of the Judges may be an essential safeguard against the effects of occasional ill humors in the society. These sometimes extend no farther than to the injury of the private rights of particular classes of citizens, by unjust and partial laws. Here also the firmness of the Judicial magistracy is of vast importance in mitigating the severity, and confining the operation of such laws. It not only serves to moderate the immediate mischiefs of those which may have been passed, but it operates as a check upon the Legislative body in passing them; who, perceiving that obstacles to the success of iniquitous intention are to be expected from the scruples of the Courts, are in a manner compelled, by the very motives of the injustice they meditate, to qualify their attempts.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 78
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

People, Faith, Law, Communication

“It is impossible to exercise free will as long as we are operating from within the system. Free will requires consciousness, and our pervasive and deep-seated patterns of thought are unconscious; they are outside of our awareness and therefore outside of our control. While we remain in the system, we see the world through the eyes of carnism. And as long as we look through eyes other than our own, we will be living in accordance with a truth that is not of our own choosing. We must step outside the system to find our lost empathy and make choices that reflect what we truly feel and believe, rather than what we've been taught to feel and believe.”

Melanie Joy book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows

Source: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2010), p. 113

Truth, World, Feeling, Exercises

“Disorderly, unorganised and petty terrorist acts may, if carried to extremes, only scatter and squander our forces. That is a fact, which, of course, should not be forgotten. On the other hand, under no circumstances should it be forgotten that a slogan calling for an uprising has already been issued, that the uprising has already begun. To launch attacks under favourable circumstances is not only every revolutionary’s right, but his plain duty. The killing of spies, policemen, gendarmes, the blowing up of police stations, the liberation of prisoners, the seizure of government funds for the needs of the uprising—such operations are already being carried out wherever insurrection is rife, in Poland and in the Caucasus, and every detachment of the revolutionary army must be ready to start such operations at a moment’s notice. Each group should remember that if it allows a favourable opportunity for such an operation to slip by today, it will be guilty of unpardonable inactivity, of passivity—and such an offence is the greatest crime a revolutionary can commit at a time of insurrection, the greatest disgrace that can befall anyone who is striving for liberty in deed, and not in word alone.”

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

As quoted in Tasks of Revolutionary Army Contingents, Collected Works, Vol. 9, pages. 420-24.
Attributions

Time

“This reminds one of the story of two eminent surgeons who were leaving the operation room, and one turned to the other and said, 'That was a close one, one inch either way and I would have been out of my speciality.”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

The Pageant of Life (1964), On Doctors

Way

“War as a whole, and each operation taken separately, are first of all mathematics and calculations.”

Vasily Blyukher (1889–1938) Soviet military commander

Quoted in Jonathan Fenby; Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost

War, Mathematics

“I got a lot of benefit from auditing. It was the fastest and deepest way to handle situations that I had yet encountered. I immediately wanted to learn to do it. … With Scientology, I was able to characterize the Mind more accurately, and to cease justifying it. This greatly clarified what I was doing. … After my experience with Scientology, I saw what it means to see the Mind as a machine. I can now operate my Mind accordingly, with exactitude. I can do the familiar mind over matter experiments - the control of pain and bleeding, telepathy, those things. Many people can do such things, and they are well known in the yogic tradition.”

Werner Erhard (1935) Critical Thinker and Author

Interview with William Warren Bartley, cited in [Bartley, William Warren, w:William Warren Bartley, Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1978, New York, 146-47, 0-517-53502-5]

Pain, People, Way, Learning

“Fundamentally I think soldiering is pretty similar to politics. It’s not about you, it’s all about the people you serve with. It’s all about the results, it’s all about the operation, it’s all about the mission. The reason we’re here at all in politics is to serve the people.”

Tom Tugendhat (1973) British politician

Interview in The Times, 28 July 2018.

People, Thinking

“Market-Garden was the biggest airborne operation of World War II, which is to say of all time. The D-day assault included 20,000 parachutists, some 1,500 transport planes, and about 500 gliders, and was protected by over 1,000 Allied fighters. In this D-day landing the 101st had over 400 C-47 transport aircraft and 70 gliders carrying nearly 7,000 officers and men. The remainder of the division arrived progressively by air and ship over the next six days. Our initial mission was to secure fifteen miles of highway extending from Eindhoven to Veghel and to seize and hold the bridges in the area for use of the spearhead units of the British Second Army advancing from the south. Although our objectives were scattered, I insisted on putting all the troops arriving the first day into a compact area between Zon and Veghel in order to have them within supporting distance of each other at the outset.”

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

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 87

Men, War, World, Support

“By virtue of the way it has organized its technological base, contemporary industrial society tends to be totalitarian. For "totalitarian" is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 5

Way

“The explanation for capturing the vessel is perhaps to be found in Barroes’ remark: ‘It is true that there does exist a common right to all to navigate the seas and in Europe we recognize the rights which others hold against us; but the right does not extend beyond Europe and therefore the Portuguese as Lords of the Sea are justified in confiscating the goods of all those who navigate the seas without their permission.’ Strange and comprehensive claim, yet basically one which every European nation, in its turn, held firmly almost to the end of Western supremacy in Asia. It is true that no other nation put it forward so crudely or tried to enforce it so barbarously as the Portuguese in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, but the principle that the doctrines of international law did not apply outside Europe, that what would be barbarism in London or Paris is civilized conduct in Peking (e. g. the burning of the Summer Palace) and that European nations had no moral obligations in dealing with Asian peoples (as for example when Britain insisted on the opium trade against the laws of China, though opium smoking was prohibited by law in England itself) was pact of the accepted creed of Europe’s relations with Asia. So late as 1870 the President of the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce declared: ‘China can in no sense be considered a country entitled to all the same rights and privileges as civilized nations which are bound by international law.’ Till the end of European domination the fact that rights existed for Asians against Europeans was conceded only with considerable mental reservation. In countries under direct British occupation, like India, Burma and Ceylon, there were equal rights established by law, but that as against Europeans the law was not enforced very rigorously was known and recognized. In China, under extra‑territorial jurisdiction, Europeans were protected against the operation of Chinese laws. In fact, except in Japan this doctrine of different rights persisted to the very end and was a prime cause of Europe’s ultimate failure in Asia.”

K. M. Panikkar (1895–1963) Indian diplomat, academic and historian

Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945

People, Law, Failure, Sense

“In accordance with Dr. Sun's principles and the experience of the Chinese revolution, China's national economy at the present stage should be composed of the state sector, the private sector and the co-operative sector. But the state here must certainly not be one "privately owned by the few", but a new-democratic state "shared by all the common people" under the leadership of the proletariat.”

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

On Coalition Government (1945)

People, Sun

“[T]he symbols of algebra, when employed in abstruse and complex theoretical investigations, constitute a sort of thought-saving machine, by whose aid a person skilled in its use can solve problems respecting quantities, and dispense with the mental labour of thinking of the quantities denoted by the symbols, except at the beginning and the end of the operation.”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

p, 125
"On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics" (Jan. 3, 1856)

Problem, Thinking, Personality

“Whenever like mates with like (genetically), the statistical distribution curve, which describes the frequency of the purely fortuitous combinations of genes, is flattened out, its mode is depressed, and its extremes are increased. The reduces the number of the mediocre produced and increases the numbers both of the sub-normal and the talented groups. It is possible that, without this increase in the number of extreme variants, no nation, race or group could produce enough superior individuals to maintain a complex culture. Certainly not enough to operate or advance a civilization. …Any number of social customs have stood, and still stand, in the way of an optimum amount of selective matings. In a feudal society, opportunities are denied to many able men who, consequently, never develop to the high level of their biological potential and thus they remain among the undistinguished. Such able men (and women) might also be diffused throughout an "ideal" classless society and, lacking the means to separate themselves from the generality, or to develop their peculiar talents, would be effectively swamped. In such a society they could hardly segregate in groups. In fact, only a few of the able males might ever meet an able female who appealed to them erotically. Obviously an open society—one in which the able may rise and the dim-wits sick, and where like intelligences have a greater chance of meeting and mating—has advantages that other societies do not have. Our own society today—incidentally and without design—is providing more and more opportunities for intelligent matrimonial discrimination. It is possible that our co-educational colleges, where highly-selected males and females meet when young, are as important in their function of bringing together the parents of our future superior individuals as they are in educating the present crop.”

Conway Zirkle (1895–1972)

"Some Biological Aspects of Individualism," Essays on Individuality (Philadelphia: 1958), pp. 59-61

Women, Men, Education, Way

“[The decisionmaking role of the firm has progressed from the neoclassical standpoint of profit maximization to sales maximization, utility maximization, and satisficing. From the Operation Research point of view] …the ideal picture is that someone, presumable the firm that hires the operations researcher, hands him, on a silver platter, an objective function. By talking to the engineers, or by looking into a few scientific laws, he determines the policy alternatives available and also the model”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

Source: 1970s-1980s, The Economics of Information (1984), p. 55 as cited in: Demetri Kantarelis (2008) " Book Review: Title: Theories Of The Firm 2nd Edition http://www.inderscience.com/books/TOF_american_econ_review.pdf". In: The American economist. Vol 52, Nr 1. p. 117

Law

“Industrial Americanization is not, as we sometimes think, welfare work, or the introduction of a few makeshifts to keep men at work. It is the practical operation of the American spirit in management. The man who comes here expecting opportunity, fair remuneration for his day's work, fair working conditions, friendly personal relations, and that the utmost will be made of his abilities, cannot be met with limitations and discriminations and still become Americanized. He comes to escape the brutality of the military system, and he finds the brutality of the industrial system, ruthless in its destruction of life and property and morality.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Life, Men, Thinking, Personality

“A great surgeon performs operations for stone by a single method; later he makes a statistical summary of deaths and recoveries, and he concludes from these statistics that the mortality law for this operation is two out of five. Well, I say that this ratio means literally nothing scientifically and gives us no certainty in performing the next operation; for we do not know whether the next case will be among the recoveries or the deaths. What really should be done, instead of gathering facts empirically, is to study them more accurately, each in its special determinism…. to discover in them the cause of mortal accidents so as to master the cause and avoid the accidents.”

Claude Bernard (1813–1878) French physiologist

Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1865)

Death, Law, Study

“The responsibility for progress rests not only on the Government, but on every man and woman in the country. The Government can go no faster in progress than the people will allow them to do. Willing co-operation in new methods is essential, and without the will to work progress is not possible, and with constant stoppages of industry progress is not possible.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at the Albert Hall (4 December 1924), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 70.
1924

People, Country

““I don’t have much confidence,” she said. “A lot of what I’ve been taught isn’t making sense.”
“That’s the nature of teaching. Something happens, and intelligence first apprehends it, then makes up a rule about it, then tries to pass the rule along. Very small beings invariably operate in that way. However, by the time the information is passed on, new things are happening that the old rule doesn’t fit. Eventually intelligence learns to stop making rules and understand the flow.””

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 16 (p. 354)

Way, Confidence, Intelligence, Understanding

“Four basic operations in the effective use of graphic records (documents), to store information and make it available, have been listed by Hyslop: A, recording information in documents; B, storing recorded information—documentary items; C, identifying items containing information relevant to a given problem, situation, or subject; D, providing the identified items from storage. Information storage and retrieval in the wide sense covers all these operations. In the narrow sense used in this paper, information retrieval means only C, identifying documentary items by subject.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: The Structure of Information Retrieval Systems (1959), p. 1275.

Problem, Sense

“Rousseauist and Baconian, though often superficially at odds with one another, have co-operated in undermining, not merely religious tradition, but another tradition which in the Occident goes back finally, not to Judea, but to ancient Greece. This older tradition may be defined as humanistic. The goal of the humanist is poised and proportionate living. This he hopes to accomplish by observing the law of measure. … Decorum is supreme for the humanist even as humility takes precedence over all other virtues in the eyes of the Christian. Traditionally the idea of decorum has been associated, often with a considerable admixture of mere formalism, with the idea of the gentleman. Humanism and religion in their various forms have at times conflicted, but have more often been in alliance with one another. As Burke says in a well-known passage: "Nothing is more certain than that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things that are connected with manners and with civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles; and were indeed the result of both combined; I mean the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion."”

Irving Babbitt (1865–1933) American academic and literary criticism

Source: "What I Believe" (1930), pp. 6-7

Age, World, Religion, Law

“There’s no disputing the fact that I am politically conservative. But, ultimately, the question here is about fact patterns. Before the book was released, I took it to the investigative units at the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News and Fox News. They independently verified large portions of the book on important narratives. As to the book itself, there are seven or eight minor revisions made. The reader is either going to conclude the Clintons operate in a parallel universe that is just filled with amazing coincidences, or, like lots of politicians, they have recognized that official power is a means to self-enrichment, and they have done it on steroids in a way no other political figure has in modern American political history.”

Peter Schweizer (1964) American writer

The Interview: Author Peter Schweizer on the Clintons’ wealth http://www.macleans.ca/politics/washington/the-interview-author-peter-schweizer-on-the-clintons-wealth/ (June 15, 2015)

Books, Way, History, Question

“The operations of commerce are not confined to the material ends; that there is no more powerful agent in consolidating and in knitting together the amity of nations; and that the great moral purpose of the repression of human passions, and those lusts and appetites which are the great cause of war, is in direct relation with the understanding and application of the science which you desire to propagate.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://archive.org/details/revisedreportofp00poli to the Political Economy Club (31 May 1876) upon the centenary of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. 1870s

War, Understanding, Passion, Science

“The chief innovator of symbolism in algebra was François Viète… an amateur in the sense that his professional life was devoted to the law… John Wallis… says that Viète, in denoting a class of numbers by a letter, followed the custom of lawyers who discussed legal cases by using arbitrary names [for the litigants]… and later the abbreviations… and still more briefly A, B, and C. Actually, letters had been used occasionally by the Greek Diophantus and by the Hindus. However, in these cases letters were confined to designating a fixed unknown number, powers of that number, and some operations. Viète recognized that a more extensive use of letters, and, in particular, the use of letters to denote classes of numbers, would permit the development of a new kind of mathematics; this he called logistica speciosa in distinction from logistica numerosa.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

...the growth of symbolism was slow. Even simple ideas take hold slowly. Only in the last few centuries has the use of symbolism become widespread and effective.
Source: Mathematics and the Physical World (1959), p. 60

Life, Law, Mathematics, Idea

“The essential task of management is to arrange organizational conditions and methods of operations so that people can achieve their own goals best by directing their own efforts toward organizational objectives.”

Douglas McGregor (1906–1964) American professor

Source: The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), p. 178

People, Effort

“This is the greatest political question of our time. How can we put an end to the empire of mega-corporations and restore democracy? If I knew I would be the savior of the world. What I think I can tell is that the media are crucial. The power of the corporate media enables truth to be suppressed and lies to be passed as truth. You probably heard that a half-truth can be worse than a lie. A lot of the things that our governments and media saying are 1/10 truths, 9/10 lies. And it doesn't take very many of them together to create a completely fictional world view (like the one that Bush presents when he talks). So I recommend that people stop listening to the mainstream media. Don't watch television news. Don't listen the news on radio. Don't read news from ordinary newspapers. Get it from variety of web sites which are not operated under the power of business money and you'll have better chance of not being fooled by the systematic lies that they all tell, because they're all paid by the same people to tell the same lies or 9/10 lies.”

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

2000s, What is free software? (2006)

Money, People, Truth, Lie

“By this time we had reached the trench system. On both sides of us men were going along the trenches with their Tommy guns. A tank assaulted one of the trenches and behind it was a young radio operator calmly chewing a stalk of wheat, waiting to flash the words that the bastion had been taken. Shouts of “come on out of there you Nazi 'so-and-so's'" and "keep your hands up you 'such-and-such'" announced the arrival of the First Troop. Then they began to pop up like prairie dogs.”

Bill Downs (1914–1978) American journalist

Broadcast from Normandy (1944)

Men, Dogs, Time, Waiting

“God bestows His Compassion upon all beings, always, and His Love and His Way is to bring lives together by pressing them together. God possesses a Love which spreads and intermingles with all lives. In the same way, among human beings there is also such a true Love, such a true, real feeling. When that Love is operating, when it is working, then it is God's work to take it and put it in its appropriate place. That is the Form of Love. That Love, that Divine Love, has brought us together as one.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Truth & Light: Brief Explanations (1974)

Love, God, Way, Feeling

“Our contribution to the study of organisations will be greatly enriched if we are able to discern the sources of institutional patterns, their subsequent elaboration and potency, the degree to which these forces are sustained, and the kinds of settings where they operate with the greatest resonance. This agenda is consonant with the core insights of the institutional approach: modern organisations are more likely to arise, expand, and survive in those settings where the social environment creates and sustains the basic building blocks of formal, rational organisation.”

Walter W. Powell (1948) American sociologist

Walter W. Powell, "Expanding the scope of institutional analysis." The new institutionalism in organizational analysis (1991) In P. J. DiMaggio and W. Powell (eds.) The New Institutionalism and Organizational Analysis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 183-203. p. 188

Study

“Under the leadership of their democratic governments, all the anti-Japanese people in the Liberated Areas of China are called upon to join organizations of workers, peasants, youth and women, and cultural, professional and other organizations, which will wholeheartedly perform various tasks in support of the armed forces. Those tasks are not limited to rallying the people to join the army, transporting grain for it, caring for soldiers' families and helping the troops in meeting their material needs. They also include mobilizing the guerrilla units, militia and self-defence corps to make widespread raids and lay land mines against the enemy, gather intelligence about him, comb out traitors and spies, transport and protect the wounded and take direct part in the army's operations.”

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

On Coalition Government (1945)

Women, People, Youth, Family

“The Reason of the present Animadversions. …How far Hevelius has proceeded. That his instruments do not much exceed Ticho. The bigness, Sights and Divisions, not considerably differing. Ticho not ignorant of his new way of Division. …That so great curiosity as Hevelius strives for is needless without the use of Telescopic Sights, the power of the naked eye being limited. That no one part of an Instrument should be more perfect than another. …
That if Hevelius could have been prevail'd on by the Author to have used Telescopic Sights, his observations might have been 40 times more exact than they are.
That Hevelius his Objections against Telescopic sights are of no validity; but the Sights without Telescopes cannot distinguish a less angle then half a Minute.
That an Instrument of 3 foot Radius with Telescopes, will do more then one of 3 score foot Radius with common Sights, the eye being unable to distinguish. This is proved by the undiscernableness of spots in the Moon, and by an Experiment with Lines on a paper, by which a Standard is made of the power of the eye. …
A Conclusion of the Animadversions. That the learn'd World is obllig'd to Hevelius for what he hath done, but would have more, if he had used other instruments.
That the Animadvertor both contrived some hundreds of Instruments, each of very great accurateness for taking Angles, Levels, &c.; and a particular Arithmetical lnstrument for performing all Operations in Arithmetick, with the greatest ease, swiftness and certainty imaginable.
That the Reader may be the more certain of this, the Author describes an Instrument for taking Angles in the Heavens…”

Robert Hooke (1635–1703) English natural philosopher, architect and polymath

Contents, Animadversions on the First Part of the Machina Coelestis of the Astronomer Johannes Hevelius https://books.google.com/books?id=KAtPAAAAcAAJ (1674)

World, Way, Imagination, Time

“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume I, chapter V: "On the Development of the Intellectual and Moral Faculties during Primeval and Civilised Times" (second edition, 1874) pages 133-134 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=156&itemID=F944&viewtype=image The last sentence of the first paragraph is often quoted in isolation to make Darwin seem heartless. The Descent of Man (1871)

Life, Men, Marriage, Health

“If it has been revealed to man that the Almighty made him out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, it is in vain to tell a Christian that man was originally a speck of albumen, and passed through the stages of monads and monkeys, before he attained his present intellectual preeminence. If it be a received truth that the Creator has repeatedly interposed in the government of the universe and displayed his immediate agency in miraculous interpositions, it is an insult to any reader to tell him that the being slumbers on his throne and rules under a "primal arrangement in his counsels," and "by a code of laws of unbending operation."”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

Review of Vestiges (1845)

Life, Truth, Law, Universe

“Every social occurrence as such, consists of an interaction between individuals. In other words, each individual is at the same time an active and a passive agent in a transaction. In case of superiority and inferiority, however, the relation assumes the appearance of a one-sided operation; the one party appears to exert, while the other seems merely to receive an influence.”

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

Source: Superiority and Subordination as Subject-matter of Sociology (1896), p. 169

Appearance, Time

“Organizations are complex and paradoxical phenomena that can be understood in many different ways. Many of our taken-for-granted ideas about organizations are metaphorical, even though we may not recognize them as such. For example, we frequently talk about organizations as if they were machines designed to achieve predetermined goals and objectives, and which should operate smoothly and efficiently. And as a result of this kind of thinking, we often attempt to organize and manage them in a mechanistic way, forcing their human qualities into a background role. By using different metaphors to understand the complex and paradoxical character of organizational life, we are able to manage and design organizations in ways that we may not have thought possible before.”

Gareth Morgan book Images of Organization

Source: Images of Organization (1986), p. 13; Cited in: Morgen Witzel (2011) Fifty key figures management, p. 205

Life, Way, Idea, Understanding

“If there be anything in a remark often to be met with, namely that there is, in the genius of the people of this country, a peculiar aptitude for mechanic improvements, it would operate as a forcible reason for giving opportunities to the exercise of that species of talent, by the propagation of manufactures.”

Alexander Hamilton Report on Manufactures

Report on Manufactures (1791)

People, Exercises, Country

“The term "cognition" refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. It is concerned with these processes even when they operate in the absence of relevant stimulation, as in images and hallucinations. Such terms as sensation. perception. imagery. retention. recall. problem-solving. and thinking. among others. refer to hypothetical stages or aspects of cognition.”

Ulric Neisser (1928–2012) American psychologist

Source: Cognitive Psychology, 1967, p. 4

Problem, Thinking

“We are a multitude of selves, and the sooner we learn that, the better. And in that rich alliance of psychological Aspects lies the very secret of our practical operative stability. Only because we change our positions constantly in reference to the psyche and the world are we able to manipulate physically and translate inner experience into sense terms.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 272

Secret, World, Sense, Learning

“What does NOT work best for anyone, though, is being forced to keep a Windows partition around just to play video games. The best operating system for playing games is the one that lets you keep your word processor, instant messenger, email, and music player open in the background while you play. The worst is the one that will force you to shut all that down just to screw around for a few minutes.”

Ryan C. Gordon (1978) Computer programmer

Quoted in Robin Heggelund Hansen, "Porting games to Linux" http://www.hardware.no/artikler/ryan_c_gordon_and_michael_simms/68450/1 hardware.no (2009-03-10)

Music, Game

“The biggest thing I learned was, especially the way I operate and how I am as a person, if I'm going to do a creative endeavor, I need to have full, complete control. Top to bottom. And with my book and website, I always had that. With the website, definitely, with the book, basically, with the movie…I didn't in a lot of ways. Nils and I, we had a lot of control, more control probably than almost any first time movie makers do within a normal studio system. We were in the middle between independent and not, because someone else paid for everything, and they kind of let us do what we wanted, but then once the movie was done creatively, it went in a direction that I did not want it to go, and there was nothing I could really do about it. It's hard enough to swim in that movie current by yourself, but when you've got weights tied to you and someone pulling you in a different direction, it's almost impossible. You need to pick a direction and go with it. If you're going to be a big studio movie, go be that, and if you're going to go be a rogue independent film, go be that. We had different people with different levels of authority on the movie that pulled us in different directions, and it just doesn't work. Either be in control or let someone else do it, but don't…too many chefs. I'm going to be better next time. Failure instructs, failure improves. Failure shouldn't deter you, unless you're just bad at it.”

Tucker Max (1975) Internet personality; blogger; author

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC6zdVKoNr8 (March 2010).

People, Books, Way, Failure

“You see I am like a surgeon in a hospital; all these [sketches / watercolors] lying around me are my patients, and as I walk about among them I notice those most in need of doctoring. I pick out some sickly looking specimen and say to myself, 'Only wait a moment, and I will find some remedy for you'; some need much medicine, and some even require a severe operation to bring them round. Look at that one in the corner. I believe it is suffering from jaundice, but doubtless I shall find a cure for it.”

Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch (1824–1903) Dutch painter of the Hague School (1824-1903)

as quoted by E. C. Cady, in 'The Art of Johannes Hendrick Weissenbruch' https://ia801702.us.archive.org/33/items/jstor-25540452/25540452.pdf, in 'Brush and Pencil, Volume 12', April 1904, pp. 51-52

Lying, Suffering, Waiting

“The Egyptian philosophers ventured on the perilous task of seeking out some analogy to the mode of operation employed by the Author of Nature in the first creation of organized beings, and they compared it to that which governs the birth of new individuals by generation.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.2, p. 12
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1

Birth, Nature

“The south repudiates the idea that a pecuniary dependence on the federal government is one of the legitimate means of holding the states together. A moneyed interest in the government is essentially a base interest; and just so far as it operates to bind the feelings of those who are subjected to it to the government,—just so far as it operates in creating sympathies and interests that would not otherwise exist,—is it opposed to all the principles of free government, and at war with virtue and patriotism. Sir, the link which binds the public creditors, as such, to their country, binds them equally to all governments, whether arbitrary or free. In a free government, this principle of abject dependence, if extended through all the ramifications of society, must be fatal to liberty.”

Robert Hayne (1791–1839) American politician

Hayne's Speech on Mr. Foot's Resolution, January 21, 1830, page 9.

Money, War, Feeling, Idea

“The second-order cybernetics worked out by Heinz von Foerster is rightly held to be a constructivist theory, if no an a manifesto for operational constructivism. The reverse doesn't apply, however. Constructivist epistemologies do not necessarily have the rigor of a cybernetics of cybernetics. One can obeserve congnitions as constructions of an observer, without linking with this the theory that the observing observer observes himself or herself as an observer.”

Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) German sociologist, administration expert, and social systems theorist

Source: The reality of the Mass Media (2000), p. 117.

“Some differences of opinion exist in the Board of Directors, in regard to the discipline that has been pursued in the superintendence of the operations of the road. [It was his understanding that] a respectable number of them entertain views… somewhat at variance with my own.”

Daniel McCallum (1815–1878) Canadian engineer and early organizational theorist

Resignation letter, 1857

Understanding

“Illusion begets and sustains the world; we do not destroy one without destroying the other. Which is what I do every day. An apparently ineffectual operation, since I must begin all over again the next day.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

World

“Some people seem to operate on an auto-pilot and when they become emotional they immediately react. What triggers you to react in a potentially negative way at work?”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Page 205 Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Managing Teams in a Week (2013) https://books.google.ae/books?idqZjO9_ov74EC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIIDAB#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Secrets of Success at Work – 50 techniques to excel (2014) https://books.google.ae/books?id4S7vAgAAQBAJ&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIJjAC#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse

People, Way

“The group self or "we" is simply an "I" which includes other persons. One identifies himself with a group and speaks of the common will, opinion, service, or the like in terms of "we" and "us." The sense of it is stimulated by co-operation within and opposition without.”

Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American sociologist

Source: Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902, p. 209

Sense, Personality

“Cage took it to work in his way of making compositions then; and he used the idea of 64—the number of the hexagrams —to say that you had 64, for example, sounds; then you could cast, by chance, to find which sound first appeared, cast again, to say which sound came second, cast again, so that it's done by, in that sense, chance operations. Instead of finding out what you think should follow—say a particular sound—what did the I Ching suggest? Well, I took this also for dance.”

Merce Cunningham (1919–2009) American dancer

Merce Cunningham, A Lifetime of Dance, 2000

Way, Idea, Thinking, Sense

“To every trend there is a counter-trend. There are a number of pendulums operating and each creates new business opportunities.”

Patrick Dixon book Futurewise

Futurewise (1998)

Business

“At all levels the drug trade operates without without schedule. Nobody delivers on time except by accident. The addict runs on junk time. His body is his clock, and junk runs through it like an hour-glass. Time has meaning for him only with reference to his need. Then he make his abrupt intrusion into the time of others, and, like all Outsiders, all Petitioners, he must wait, unless he happens to mesh with non-junk time.”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

Hauser and O'Brien
Naked Lunch (1959)

Time, Waiting

“Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so keenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch them, to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered march. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations of nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security.”

Willa Cather book O Pioneers!

Part I, Ch. 5
O Pioneers! (1913)

Love, Law, Star, Autumn

“When you get to my age, and I'm 66 now, you realize that the world is a madhouse and that most people are operating in fantasy anyway. So once you realise that, it doesn't bother you much.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

From Channel 4 documentary The Secret Life of Brian (2007)

People, Age, World

“Manfred was not one of those savage tyrants who wanton in cruelty unprovoked. The circumstances of his fortune had given an asperity to his temper, which was naturally humane; and his virtues were always ready to operate, when his passions did not obscure his reason.”

Horace Walpole book The Castle of Otranto

Section 1
The Castle of Otranto (1764)

Nature, Passion

“An invariable accompaniment of growth in developed countries is the shift away from agriculture, a process usually referred to as industrialization and urbanization. The income distribution of the total population, in the simplest model, may therefore be viewed as a combination of the income distributions of the rural and of the urban populations. What little we know of the structures of these two component income distributions reveals that: (a) the average per capita income of the rural population is usually lower than that of the urban;' (b) inequality in the percentage shares within the distribution for the rural population is somewhat narrower than in that for the urban population… Operating with this simple model, what conclusions do we reach? First, all other conditions being equal, the increasing weight of urban population means an increasing share for the more unequal of the two component distributions. Second, the relative difference in per capita income between the rural and urban populations does not necessarily drift downward in the process of economic growth: indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that it is stable at best, and tends to widen because per capita productivity in urban pursuits increases more rapidly than in agriculture. If this is so, inequality in the total income distribution should increase”

Simon Kuznets (1901–1985) economist

Source: "Economic growth and income inequality," 1955, p. 7 as cited in: Anthony Barnes Atkinson, François Bourguignon, Handbook of Income Distribution, Vol. 1. Elsevier, 2000 p. 799

Country

“We must be careful to discriminate between our own incapacity to test truth and the necessary improbability of an event. It is plain that from our ignorance of the remote spheres of God's action we cannot judge of His works removed from our experience; but a fact is not necessarily doubtful because it cannot be reached by our ordinary senses. To recapitulate, we may lay down the following propositions:
1. That there is no real physical distinction between miracles and any other operations of the Divine energy : that we regard them differently is because we are familiar with one order of events and not the other.
2. There is nothing incredible in a miracle, and the credibility of a miraculous event is to be measured only by the evidence which sustains it. And although the extraordinary character of a phenomenon may render the event itself improbable, it does not, therefore, necessarily render it either incredible or untrue.”

Charles Babbage Passages from the life of a philosopher

"Passages from the life of a philosopher", Appendix, p. 489
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)

God, Truth, Sense

“A neurosurgeon once told me about operating on the brain of a young man with epilepsy. As is customary in this kind of operation, the patient was wide awake, under only local anesthesia, while the surgeon delicately explored his exposed cortex, making sure that the parts tentatively to be removed were not absolutely vital by stimulating them electrically and asking the patient what he experienced. Some stimulations provoked visual flashes or hand-raisings, others a sort of buzzing sensation, but one spot produced a delighted response from the patient: "It's 'Outta Get Me' by Guns N'Roses, my favorite heavy metal [sic] band!"I asked the neurosurgeon if he had asked the patient to sing or hum along with the music, since it would be fascinating to learn how "high fidelity" the provoked memory was. Would it be in exactly the same key and tempo as the record? Such a song (unlike "Silent Night") has one canonical version, so we could simply have superimposed a recording of the patient's humming with the standard record and compare the results. Unfortunately, even though a tape recorder had been running during the operation, the surgeon hadn't asked the patient to sing along. "Why not?" I asked, and he replied: "I hate rock music!"Later in the conversation the neurosurgeon happened to remark that he was going to have to operate again on the same young man, and I expressed the hope that he would just check to see if he could restimulate the rock music, and this time ask the fellow to sing along. "I can't do that," replied the neurosurgeon, "since I cut out that part." "It was part of the epileptic focus?"”

Daniel Dennett book Consciousness Explained

I asked, and he replied, "No, I already told you — I hate rock music."
Source: Consciousness Explained (1991), p. 58-59

Hate, Hope, Music, Learning

“Bisexuality is the proportional representation of sexuality in a world where most of us — straight or gay — operate a first-past-the-post system.”

Mark Steyn (1959) Canadian writer

" Sorry, but voters prefer straight choices http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/01/31/do3102.xml", Daily Telegraph, 31 January 2006

World, Past

“The appreciation of a painting or a piece of music, for example, or even falling in love, is all about our subjectivity. But to decide that the entire universe operates in such a way, let alone to go to war because we are so convinced we are right that others must agree with us or die, that surely should demand a higher level of argument than 'It's true because I really, really feel it is.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Tricks of the Mind (2006)

Love, War, Music, Way

“Everybody looks comfortable playing on the same line as Ovechkin because that guy is unbelievable. Everybody has said that Alex and Pavel Bure are kind of the same caliber of player, and I think I agree with them. They both scored 50 goals and both are unbelievable. Playing with Alex, you know he's a great player. So you just give him the puck and stay away from him and give him room to operate. It's that easy.”

Alexander Ovechkin (1985) Russian ice hockey player

Viktor Kozlov, interview in Pierre Lebrun (October 10, 2007) "Viktor Kozlov making most of plum assignment with Alexander Ovechkin", The Canadian Press.
About

Guy, Thinking

“The question therefore now comes forward, To what other objects shall these surpluses be appropriated, and the whole surplus of impost, after the entire discharge of the public debt, and during those intervals when the purposes of war shall not call for them? Shall we suppress the impost and give that advantage to foreign over domestic manufactures? On a few articles of more general and necessary use the suppression in due season will doubtless be right, but the great mass of the articles on which impost is paid are foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them.
Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of Federal powers. By these operations new channels of communications will be opened between the States, the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties. Education is here placed among the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal, but a public institution can alone supply those sciences which though rarely called for are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country and some of them to its preservation.”

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

Thomas Jefferson's Sixth State of the Union Address (2 December 1806). Advising the origination of an annual fund to be spent through new constitutional powers (by new amendments) from projected surplus revenue.
1800s, Second Presidential Administration (1805-1809)

War, Education, Communication, Question

“The area extending from the Himalayas in the north to the sea and a thousand yojanas wide from east to west is the area of operation of the King-Emperor.”

Chanakya book Arthashastra

Chakravarti-kshetra as described by Kautilya: Arthashastra 9:1:17 (tr. L.N. Rangarajan), quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p.457
Arthashastra

Sea

“Hitler and all German people knew that the Israelis are not people who are working in the interest of the people of the world and that is why they burnt over six million Jews alive on the soil of Germany. The world should remember that the palestinians, with the assitance of Germany made the operation possible in the Olympic village.”

Idi Amin (1925–2003) third president of Uganda

Telegram sent to Kurt Waldheim in 1972 after the Munich massacre.
Attributed

People, World

“I can never consent to being dictated to as to what I shall or shall not do. I, as President, shall be responsible for my administration. I hope to have your hearty co-operation in carrying out its measures. So long as you see fit to do this, I shall be glad to have you with me. When you think otherwise, your resignations will be accepted.”

John Tyler (1790–1862) American politician, 10th President of the United States (in office from 1841 to 1845)

Cabinet meeting (1841), as retold by John Alexander Tyler.

Hope, Thinking

“Beating the market is a zero-sum game for investors. Money managers, as a group, must provide the market return… But that return comes only before their exorbitant fees, operating expenses, and portfolio turnover costs are deducted. The zero-sum game before costs becomes a loser’s game after costs.”

John Bogle (1929–2019)

Gilbert Lecture, Princeton University, Feb 21, 2013

Money, Game

“The universe has been expanding since the big bang, thus early on it was hot and dense. To trace the history of the universe we must understand the dynamics that operates when the universe was hot and particles were very energetic. Before the standard model we could not go back further than 200,000 years after the big bang. Today, especially since QCD simplifies at high energy, we can extrapolate to very eary times, where nucleons melt and quarks and gluons are liberated to form a quark-gluon plasma.”

David Gross (1941) American particle physicist and string theorist

"The Discovery of Asymptotic Freedom and the Emergence of QCD" http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2004/gross-lecture.html, Nobel Lecture, p. 79, nobelprize.org (2004)

History, Understanding, Universe, Time

“Management experts can do much harm simply by being doctrinaire when, because of some customarily accepted formula, they tear apart established ways of doing things even though the existing structure is producing satisfactory results. They evidence a form of professional conceit-not confined to them by any means-which contributes invariably to the bad opinion which many successful executives hold of the management expert. It is a serious thing to operate on a going concern, because an institution is made up of people with established ways of doing things; people who, in consequence, develop certain institutional attachments which are an important part of institutional success. They are like the traditions of a family. Men take pride in them.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

Source: The Executive in Action, 1945, p. 79; as cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 406-7

Men, People, Family, Way

“Cybernetics is concerned primarily with the construction of theories and models in science, without making a hard and fast distinction between the physical and the biological sciences. The theories and models occur both in symbols and in hardware, and by 'hardware* we shall mean a machine or computer built in terms of physical or chemical, or indeed any handleable parts. Most usually we shall think of hardware as meaning electronic parts such as valves and relays. Cybernetics insists, also, on a further and rather special condition that distinguishes it from ordinary scientific theorizing: it demands a certain standard of effectiveness. In this respect it has acquired some of the same motive power that has driven research on modern logic, and this is especially true in the construction and application of artificial languages and the use of operational definitions. Always the search is for precision and effectiveness, and we must now discuss the question of effectiveness in some detail. It should be noted that when we talk in these terms we are giving pride of place to the theory of automata at the expense, at least to some extent, of feedback and information theory.”

Frank Honywill George (1921–1997) British psychologist

Source: The Brain As A Computer (1962), p.2

Search, Motivation, Question, Thinking

Quotes about operating page 14

Quotes about operating
page 14