Quotes about organizing
page 27

David Horowitz photo

“They are radical groups who identify with the violent jihad of Islamacist terror organizations like al-Qaeda, Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. And they have the support of a radical culture that regards America as the Great Satan, and Muslims and Arabs as the people whom America oppresses.”

David Horowitz (1939) Neoconservative activist, writer

[David, Horowitz, http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/horowitz.html, "As a former 'Radical,' I see the threat of Militant Islam on our Campuses,", jewishworldreview.com, April 08, 2003, 2010-01-05]
2003

J. Doyne Farmer photo

“He was a terrific writer and was the most responsible for the success and development of Batman. He really was the background for Batman; Bob Kane had ideas while Bill sort of organized them.”

Bill Finger (1914–1974) American comic strip and comic book writer

George Roussos, quoted in "Interviews with George Roussos", Dark Knight Archives, vol. 2, DC Comics, page 8
About

Troy Perry photo
Ben Klassen photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
George W. Bush photo
Jack McDevitt photo
Charles Babbage photo

“It is difficult to estimate the misery inflicted upon thousands of persons, and the absolute pecuniary penalty imposed upon multitudes of intellectual workers by the loss of their time, destroyed by organ-grinders and other similar nuisances.”

Charles Babbage (1791–1871) mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable c…

Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), ch. 26 "Street Nuisances"
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)

Winston S. Churchill photo

“The Budget, and the policy of the Budget, is the first conscious attempt on the part of the State to build up a better and a more scientific organization of society for the workers of this country.”

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

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), pp. 146-147
Early career years (1898–1929)

Charles Lyell photo
Democritus photo
Ernst Bloch photo
Jack Vance photo

“Beauty compelled admiration and erotic yearning; such was its organic function. But never by itself could it command love.”

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 6, section 5 (p. 449)

“Organization is the form of every human association for the attainment of a common purpose.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 10

Noam Chomsky photo
Anthony Giddens photo
Wyndham Lewis photo
Philip Morrison photo
Helen Keller photo

“The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labour. Surely we must free men and women together before we can free women. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands -- the ownership and control of their lives and livelihood -- are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind are ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease. How can women hope to help themselves while we and our brothers are helpless against the powerful organizations which modern parties represent and which contrive to rule the people? They rule the people because they own the means of physical life, land, and tools, and the nourishers of intellectual life, the press, the church, and the school. You say that the conduct of the woman suffragists is being disgracefully misrepresented by the British press. Here in America the leading newspapers misrepresent in every possible way the struggles of toiling men and women who seek relief. News that reflects ill upon the employers is skillfully concealed -- news of dreadful conditions under which labourers are forced to produce, news of thousands of men maimed in mills and mines and left without compensation, news of famines and strikes, news of thousands of women driven to a life of shame, news of little children compelled to labour before their hands are ready to drop their toys. Only here and there in a small and as yet uninfluential paper is the truth told about the workman and the fearful burdens under which he staggers.”

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

Out of the Dark (1913), To a Woman-Suffragist

Jacob M. Appel photo
W. Richard Scott photo
Jack Goody photo
H.V. Sheshadri photo
David Allen photo

“Organizations' problems can all be traced to someone not telling the right someone what had their attention, when it did.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

12 May 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/13822827287
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

“The most frequently encountered view of commitment in organizations is one having to do with an individual's psychological bond to the organization.”

Gerald R. Salancik (1943–1996) American organizational theorist

Barry M. Staw & ‎Gerald R. Salancik (1977). New directions in organizational behavior. p. 2

Paul Kurtz photo
Christopher Monckton photo

“New plains frontier was politically organized and opened and settled with little, if any, heed to its natural features of climate and land cover.”

John M. Gaus (1894–1969) American political scientist

John Merriman Gaus, cited in: Renée Beville Flower, ‎Brent M. Haddad (2014), Reawakening the Public Research University. p. 197

Theo van Doesburg photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Tina Fey photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo
Nelson Mandela photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Robert M. May photo

“To a rough approximation, and setting aside vertebrate chauvinism, it can be said that essentially all organisms are insects.”

Robert M. May (1936) Australian scientist who has been Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government

How many species are there on earth? (1988), Science 241: 1441--9

Nicolae Paulescu photo
John Banville photo
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Charles A. Beard photo
Herbert Marcuse photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Viktor Schauberger photo

“Water is a living organism!”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Alick Bartholomew: The Schauberger Keys

Karlheinz Stockhausen photo

“New methods change the experience, and new experiences change man. Whenever we hear sounds, we are changed, we are no longer the same, and this is more the case when we hear organized sounds; music.”

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007) German composer

http://www.ubu.com/film/stockhausen_tuning.html
Tuning In (1981) BBC documentary on Stockhausen.
Attributed

Don Soderquist photo

“Culture is the personality of an organization. Therefore, culture governs much of how people think, act, interact, with others, and do their work. It is extremely powerful in determining the present and continuing success and the future direction of any organization Culture can literally determine whether a company has a future.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 27.
On the Importance of Culture

Jacques Lacan photo

“Nature provides-I must use the word- signifies, and these signifies organize human relation in a creative way, providing them with structures and shaping them.”

Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist

The Freudian Unconscious and Ours
The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho Analysis (1978)

Mata Amritanandamayi photo
Baba Hari Dass photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“In dealing with our military problems there is one principle that is exceedingly important. Our institutions are founded not on military power but on civil authority. We are irrevocably committed to the theory of a government by the people. We have our constitutions and our laws, our executives, our legislatures, and our courts, but ultimately we are governed by public opinion. Our forefathers had seen so much of militarism, and suffered so much from it, that they desired to banish it forever. They believed and declared in at least one of their State constitutions that the military power should be subordinate to and governed by the civil authority. It is for this reason that any organization of men in the military service bent on inflaming the public mind for the purpose of forcing Government action through the pressure of public opinion is an exceedingly dangerous undertaking and precedent. This is so whatever form it might take, whether it be for the purpose of influencing the Executive, the legislature, or the heads of departments. It is for the civil authority to determine what appropriations shall be granted, what appointments shall be made, and what rules shall be adopted for the conduct of its armed forces. Whenever the military power starts dictating to the civil authority, by whatsoever means adopted, the liberties of the country are beginning to end. National defense should at all times be supported, but any form of militarism should be resisted.”

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

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

“But just like voices, thoughts are underpinned by physical stuff. We know this because alterations to the brain change the kinds of thoughts we can think. In a state of deep sleep, there are no thoughts. When the brain transitions into dream sleep, there are unbidden, bizarre thoughts. During the day we enjoy our normal, well-accepted thoughts, which people enthusiastically modulate by spiking the chemical cocktails of the brain with alcohol, narcotics, cigarettes, coffee, or physical exercise. The state of the physical material determines the state of the thoughts. And the physical material is absolutely necessary for normal thinking to tick along. If you were to injure your pinkie in an accident you’d be distressed, but your conscious experience would be no different. By contrast, if you were to damage an equivalently sized piece of brain tissue, this might change your capacity to understand music, name animals, see colors, judge risk, make decisions, read signals from your body, or understand the concept of a mirror—thereby unmasking the strange, veiled workings of the machinery beneath. Our hopes, dreams, aspirations, fears, comic instincts, great ideas, fetishes, senses of humor, and desires all emerge from this strange organ—and when the brain changes, so do we. So although it’s easy to intuit that thoughts don’t have a physical basis, that they are something like feathers on the wind, they in fact depend directly on the integrity of the enigmatic, three-pound mission control center.”

David Eagleman (1971) neuroscientist and author

Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain

Eric Hobsbawm photo
Norman G. Finkelstein photo
Frederic Dan Huntington photo

“Scott London: How did you begin to explore the connection between management and science?
Meg Wheatley: I didn't have an interest in the new science. I had a realization that in my profession — which was vaguely labeled "organizational change," "organizational development," or "management consulting" in general — none of us knew how organizations change. When I talked to other consultants, I noticed that if we had an organizational change effort that was successful, it felt like a miracle to us.
I realized with a great start one day that we weren't even geared up for success. It didn't matter that we didn't know how to change organizations. We were all professionals who didn't hope to achieve what we were selling or suggesting to clients. The field was really moribund.
At the same time — and this is the serendipity of life — I had a friend and educator whom I had worked with for many years who said casually one day "Meg, if you're interested in systems thinking, you should be reading quantum physics." He didn't know where I was in my despair over my professional failings. But I said, "Okay, give me a book list."”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

He gave me ten titles. I read eight of those and I was off. I always credit him with that casual, helpful comment that changed my life.
Scott London (2008) " The New Science of Leadership: An Interview with Margaret Wheatley http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/wheatley.html" in Quantum21. management journal, Spring 2008.

Lorenzo Snow photo
Benjamin Stanton photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo

“The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity, of mastering multitude and avoiding its bastard chaos as effectively as possible.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (1970) " Notes On Structured Programming http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD249.PDF" (EWD249), Section 3 ("On The Reliability of Mechanisms"), p. 7.
1970s

Rosa Luxemburg photo
Jean Cocteau photo
Edward McMillan-Scott photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo

“Whatever Hitler may ultimately prove to be, we know what Hitlerism has come to mean, It means naked, ruthless force reduced to an exact science and worked with scientific precision. In its effect it becomes almost irresistible.
Hitlerism will never be defeated by counter-Hitlerism. It can only breed superior Hitlerism raised to nth degree. What is going on before our eyes is the demonstration of the futility of violence as also of Hitlerism.
What will Hitler do with his victory? Can he digest so much power? Personally he will go as empty-handed as his not very remote predecessor Alexander. For the Germans he will have left not the pleasure of owning a mighty empire but the burden of sustaining its crushing weight. For they will not be able to hold all the conquered nations in perpetual subjection. And I doubt if the Germans of future generations will entertain unadulterated pride in the deeds for which Hitlerism will be deemed responsible. They will honour Herr Hitler as genius, as a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more. But I should hope that the Germans of the future will have learnt the art of discrimination even about their heroes. Anyway I think it will be allowed that all the blood that has been spilled by Hitler has added not a millionth part of an inch to the world’s moral stature.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Harijan (22 June 1940), after Nazi victories resulting in the occupation of France.
1940s

Herbert Hoover photo
Manuel Valls photo
Charles Lyell photo

“Yet more complex are the environments we have called turbulent fields. In these, dynamic processes, which create significant variances for the component organizations, arise from the field itself.”

Fred Emery (1925–1997) Australian psychologist

Source: The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments (1963), p. 30.

Russell Brand photo
Ralph George Hawtrey photo
Don Soderquist photo

“I believe there are hundreds and thousands of stories just waiting to be written by organizations and companies who have leaders that inspire people to accomplish things that seem impossible. The only way that can happen, though, is if the leader believes it is possible—has even a mustard seed of faith—and can convince his people that the seemingly impossible is indeed possible.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 106.
On Leading Well

James A. Garfield photo

“Most human organizations that fall short of their goals do so not because of stupidity or faulty doctrines, but because of internal decay and rigidification. They grow stiff in the joints. They get in a rut. They go to seed.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

John William Gardner, No easy victories (1968), p. 39
Misattributed

Mao Zedong photo

“The organs of state must practice democratic centralism, they must rely on the masses and their personnel must serve the people.”

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

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People

Heidi Klum photo

“Markets are social organizations, structured and regulated by more or less well-defined social rule systems.”

Tom R. Burns (1937) American sociologist

Source: The shaping of social organization (1987), p. 125.

Jim Clyburn photo

“Has he paid his dues? Is he black enough? … John Lewis and I were out there marching and organizing sit-ins back in the '60s so that his children and my children would not have to do it. … We would have been failures if [Obama] had to do the same things we did.”

Jim Clyburn (1940) American politician

Attacking critics of presidential candidate Barack Obama who contend that Obama hasn't endured the Civil Rights-era struggles that other black politicians have
[6 July 2007, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2007/07/clyburn_takes_up_heavy_politic.html, "Clyburn Does Heavy Political Lifting for Dems", The Washington Post, 2007-07-24]

Zhang Zhijun photo

“If Taiwan wants to join international organizations, it must return to the fundamental condition, which is recognition of the 'One China Principle' and the '1992 consensus.”

Zhang Zhijun (1953) Chinese politician

Zhang Zhijun (2017) cited in " Presidential spokesman disappointed with KMT over WHA participation http://focustaiwan.tw/news/acs/201705090030.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 9 May 2017.

Herbert A. Simon photo

“Follett was always preoccupied with the dynamic view of organization, with the thing in process, so to speak. Authority, Power, Leadership, the Giving of Orders, Conflict, Conciliation — all her keywords are active words. There is a static or structural approach to the problem of organization which has its value; but those who are most convinced of the importance of such structural analysis would be the first to admit that it is only a step on the journey, an instrument of thought; it is not and cannot be complete in itself; it is only the anatomy of the subject. As in medicine, the study of anatomy may be an essential discipline, but it is in the physiology and psychology of the individual patient that that discipline finds its working justification.
Thus the four principles which she finally arrived at to express her view of organization were all active principles. In her own words, they are:
"1. Co-ordination by direct contact of the responsible people concerned.
2. Co-ordination in the early stages.
3. Co-ordination as a reciprocal relating of all the features in a situation.
4. Co-ordination as a continuing process."”

Henry C. Metcalf (1867–1942) American business theorist

Since these principles are carefully explained and illustrated by Miss Follett herself in the final paper in this volume, we must content ourselves here with merely this concise statement of them.
Source: Dynamic administration, 1942, p. xxvi