
Interview with Mike Watkiss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA6MkH9BHMg
A collection of quotes on the topic of product, production, productivity, use.
Interview with Mike Watkiss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA6MkH9BHMg
Education helps reduce social problems and improves quality of life
citizenship in the changing world of tomorrow.
Education helps reduce social problems and improves quality of life
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
From the same 24 March 1954 letter as above, p. 44
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Source: Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle
“Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.”
Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 310
“I don't set out to make a really hot shoe, I set out to make a product that is true to where I am.”
“Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence.”
First Memoir.
The Mechanical Theory of Heat (1867)
"Como se gobiernan las Filipinas" (How one governs in the Philippines), published in La Solidaridad (15 December 1890)
The German Ideology (1845/46)
Context: The fact is, therefore, that definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations. Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production. The social structure and the state are continually evolving out of the life-process of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they appear in their own or other people's imagination, but as they really are; i. e. as they are effective, produce materially, and are active under definite material limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their will.
The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of the politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics of a people. Men are the producers of their conception, ideas, etc. — real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process.
Remarks made during the Fifth Solvay International Conference (October 1927), as quoted in Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations (1971) by Werner Heisenberg, pp. 85-86; these comments prompted the famous remark later in the day by Wolfgang Pauli: "Well, our friend Dirac, too, has a religion, and its guiding principle is "God does not exist and Dirac is His prophet." Variant translations and paraphrases of that comment are listed in the "Quotes about Dirac" section below.
Context: If we are honest — and scientists have to be — we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards — in heaven if not on earth — all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.
Vol. I, Part 4.
The German Ideology (1845/46)
Context: Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals. Its organisation is, therefore, essentially economic, the material production of the conditions of this unity; it turns existing conditions into conditions of unity. The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independently of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves.
Source: "As I Please," Tribune (4 August 1944)
http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/
Source: Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), Chapter One
Source: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: Full Text of 1916 Edition
Source: The New Science of Politics: An Introduction
“Man is above all else mind, consciousness -- that is, he is a product of history, not of nature.”
“Happiness is not a goal… it's a by-product of a life well lived.”
Variant: Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product.
Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 95
Context: Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively.
Source: Real Frank Zappa Book
Source: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: Full Text of 1916 Edition
Source: Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism: a popular outline
Source: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: Full Text of 1916 Edition
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”
Source: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: Full Text of 1916 Edition
Book 5, Chapter 33, Section 4. Translated by Philip Schaff et al. (full text at Wikisource).
Against Heresies
Responding to the accusation that Alibaba sells fake merchandise. "Jack Ma Says Fakes 'Better Quality and Better Price Than the Real Names'” http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/06/15/jack-ma-says-fakes-better-quality-and-better-price-than-the-real-names/, CHINA REAL TIME REPORT, The Wall Street Journal (June 15, 2016)
“The Philosophy of Fascism,” first published in English in the Spectator, November 1928, pp. 36-37. Reprinted in Origins and Doctrine of Fascism, A. James Gregor, translator and editor, Transaction Publishers (2003) p. 33
Cited by António Caeiro in Pela China Dentro (translated), Dom Quixote, Lisboa, 2004. ISBN 972-20-2696-8
“ A New Storm Against Imperialism https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-9/mswv9_80.htm” (1968)
Carl Sagan on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (full interview, May 20th, 1977)
Others
The Election of Donald Trump https://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/amin301116.html (30 November 2016), Monthly Review Magazine (MRzine)
“Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.”
Freedom and the control of men (1955/1956) American Scholar, 25 (1), 47-65.
In 1953; p. 21
before 1960, "Yves Klein, 1928 – 1962, Selected Writings"
Connections (1979), 10 - Yesterday, Tomorrow and You
Speech (1972), as quoted by Ioan Myrddin (1980), A Modern History of Somalia, Wilture Enterprises (International) Ltd.
Letter to Willis Everett, July 4, 1946. Parker, Hitler's Warrior, chapter 14, citing Everett Papers in note 5.
For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture
Statement after the fall of Poland, as quoted in Legitimacy and Force (1988) by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, p. 49
Wallerstein (1974) The modern world system capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world economy in the sixteenth century. New York: Academic Press.
jackgibbons.com http://www.jackgibbons.com/writings/alkanmyths.htm
"Reasoned Proposal to the Central Committee of the League for Peace and Freedom" also known as "Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism" (September 1867)
“I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check.”
On why he delayed the Leopard OS in favor of developing the iPhone rather than hiring more developers, at the annual Apple stockholder's meeting (10 May 2007) as quoted in "Apple's Jobs brushes aside backdating concerns" at c|net News (10 May 2007) http://archive.is/20130628220833/http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6182965.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news
Variant: I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check … if so, then Microsoft would have great products.
As quoted in "Apple iPhone: more secrets revealed" (11 May 2007) http://www.tech.co.uk/computing/mac/news/apple-iphone-jobs-spills-more-secrets?articleid=1431998781
2005-09
Context: I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If that was the case, Microsoft would have great products.
Interview on The David Frost Show (14 June 1969)
Context: We're trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And it's the only way to get people aware that peace is possible, and it isn't just inevitable to have violence. Not just war — all forms of violence. People just accept it and think 'Oh, they did it, or Harold Wilson did it, or Nixon did it,' they're always scapegoating people. And it isn't Nixon's fault. We're all responsible for everything that goes on, you know, we're all responsible for Biafra and Hitler and everything. So we're just saying "SELL PEACE" — anybody interested in peace just stick it in the window. It's simple but it lets somebody else know that you want peace too, because you feel alone if you're the only one thinking 'wouldn't it be nice if there was peace and nobody was getting killed.' So advertise yourself that you're for peace if you believe in it.
On working in webseries https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tv/news/hindi/sukriti-kandpal-except-for-supernatural-and-naagin-shows-i-dont-think-much-has-changed-on-tv/articleshow/70315084.cms/
Overcoming a Personal Holocaust, Alfred Freddy Krupa (in the article by Ante Vranković), Life As A Human (Canada), 2019
2010s
1920s, Zweites Buch (1928)
“Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product.”
Quoted in story of a king, a poor country, and a rich idea. Business Bhutan, Tashi Dorji https://web.archive.org/web/20190112132102/https://earthjournalism.net/stories/6468The (15 June 2012).
1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)
Source: "Playing Iron Man was hard and I dug deep: Robert Downey Jr" https://www.hindustantimes.com/hollywood/playing-iron-man-was-hard-and-i-dug-deep-robert-downey-jr/story-OOv6pvyDb8ojxc1r78g89K.html (13 December 2020)
“The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.”
Variant: The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.”
The New York Times, January 18, 1981 Quotation of the Day http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/18/nyregion/quotation-of-the-day-227621.html?scp=28&sq=Brzezinski&st=nyt.
Variant: History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.
Like the latter, it seems to be tinged with a definite scepticism. It suggests a lack of faith in my vision. The impression I retain after hearing you shoot it at me a couple of times is that you consider me to be talking through the back of my neck, and that only a feudal sense of what is fitting restrains you from substituting for it the words 'Says you!'"
Source: Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)
“Neurosis is the natural by-product of pain avoidance.”
“Winners and losers aren't born, they are the products of how they think”
Preface to ' (1859).
Source: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Context: In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society — the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. [Es ist nicht das Bewußtsein der Menschen, das ihr Sein, sondern umgekehrt ihr gesellschaftliches Sein, das ihr Bewusstsein bestimmt. ] At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work before. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so we can not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production. No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation. In broad outlines we can designate the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the modern bourgeois modes of production as so many progressive epochs in the economic formation of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production — antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individuals; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism. This social formation constitutes, therefore, the closing chapter of the prehistoric stage of human society.
1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)
(1847)
Source: Man on His Own: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (1959), p. 142
“I believe that structure is a product, not a process.”
Re: In- and Out-of- core editors http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/865c7dadceb68cbb (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous
Section 2, paragraph 30.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
About "What kinds of applications have you been excited to see develop?"
1990s, Interview with Lotfi Zadeh, Creator of Fuzzy Logic (1994)
Vol. II, Ch. XVII, p. 351.
(Buch II) (1893)
Letter to Saint-Venant (1845) as quoted by Michael J. Crowe, A History of Vector Analysis: The Evolution of the Idea of a Vectorial System (1967)
Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), pp. 12-13.
Where is science going? The Universe in the light of modern physics. (1932)
Oui interview (1979)
“Productive people guard their time more heavily than the gold in Fort Knox.”
101 Ways to Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress (1999)
The Election of Donald Trump https://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/amin301116.html (30 November 2016), Monthly Review Magazine (MRzine)
Quote, May 1924; from Tatlin's lecture on 'Material Culture and Its Role in the Production of Life in the USSR'; as quoted by Larissa A. Zhadova, ed., Tatlin, trans. Paul Filotas et al; Thames and Hudson, London, 1988, p. 252
In May 1924, right in the middle of N.E.P., Tatlin offered his synoptic statement of what was still the task of material culture
Quotes, 1910 - 1925
Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), p. 37.
Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Introduction, p. 10.
Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch. IV
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume I, "Fragments of a Tariff Discussion" (1 December 1847)
1840s
Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook IV, The Chapter on Capital, p. 308.