Quotes about productivity (2792 quotes, page 27)

“I have already accepted the policy of Imperial preference…to the effect that a preference will be given on existing duties and on any duties which may subsequently be imposed. On this subject I think there is no difference of opinion between us. … I am prepared to say that the key industries on which the life of the nation depends must be preserved. I am prepared to say also that, in order to keep up the present standard of production and develop it to the utmost extent possible, it is necessary that security should be give against the unfair competition to which our industries have been in the past subjected by the dumping of goods below the actual cost of production. … I shall look at every problem simply from the point of view of what is the best method of securing the objects at which we are aiming without any regard to theoretical opinions about Free Trade or Tariff Reform.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Andrew Bonar Law (2 November 1918), quoted in The Times (18 November 1918), p. 4
Prime Minister

Dependency , Past , Problem , Thinking

“The State must help to promote and encourage production. … There must be none of that shrinking from national organization, national production, and national assistance. Germany never made that mistake. Take the most important of national industries, agriculture. Agriculture in the past has been overlooked in this country. It has been neglected, with the result that we have been dependent very largely on lands across the seas for our food. We have realized during the war the perils of this position. … It is in the highest interests of the community that the land in this country should be cultivated to its fullest capacity, and I doubt whether there is a civilized country in the whole world where agriculture has received less attention at the hands of the State. … The cultivation of the land is the basis of national strength and prosperity.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Manchester (12 September 1918), quoted in The Times (13 September 1918), p. 8
Prime Minister

Dependency , Food , Country , War

“It will not be the case that we will have zero-rate tariffs on food products. There will be protections for sensitive sections of agriculture and food production.”

Michael Gove (1967) British politician

Brexit: UK will apply food tariffs in case of no deal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47291378 BBC News (19 February 2019)
2019

Food

“I leave undecided the question whether complete mutual freedom of international commerce, such as is contemplated by the theory of Free Trade, would not serve the interests of Germany. But as long as most of the countries with which our trade is carried on surround themselves with customs barriers…it does not seem to me justifiable, or to the economic interest of the nation, that we should allow ourselves to be restricted in the satisfaction of our financial wants by the apprehension that German products will thereby be slightly preferred to foreign ones. … The minority of the population, which does not produce at all, but exclusively consumes, will apparently be injured by a customs system favouring the entire national production. Yet if by means of such a system the aggregate sum of the values produced in the country increase, and thus the national wealth be on the whole enhanced, the non-producing parts of the population…will eventually be benefited.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

Letter to the Bundesrath committee on tariff revision (15 December 1878), quoted in Percy Ashley, Modern Tariff History: Germany–United States–France (1970), pp. 45–46
1870s

Question , Country , Freedom , Wealth

“When increase of production is accompanied by an augmented pauperization of the masses, consumption must simultaneously decrease, stagnation and crises must ensue. A superabundance of actual wealth in the hands of the few must create hunger, typhus, and other epidemics among the many. The injustice - yea the idiocy - of this state of affairs is evident. The money-bags of course merely shrug their shoulders. This they will continue to do until a rope well tied over their shoulders will end all further shrugging.”

Johann Most (1846–1906) German-American anarchist politician, newspaper editor, and orator

The Beast of Property (1884)

Money , Hunger , Wealth

“Since the management of industry by individuals necessarily implies private property, and since competition is in reality merely the manner and form in which the control of industry by private property owners expresses itself, it follows that private property cannot be separated from competition and the individual management of industry. Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods.”

Friedrich Engels book Principles of Communism

Principles of Communism (1847)

Reality , Communication

“Art has a breadth which encompasses all the forms of creativeness, in drama, poetry, dance, fine arts, music, and literature. Art is not the picture you see before you. Pictures are the products of art.”

Harvey Dwight Dash (1924–2002) American art educator

[Pictures Called Products Of Art., The Record, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harvey_Dwight_Dash_(1924-2002)_in_The_Record_of_Hackensack,_New_Jersey_on_5_November_1959.png, November 5, 1959, Harvey Dwight Dash]
Quote

Music , Dance , Literature , Art

“My philosophy is normal human orthodox philosophy, such as has come down from the Indians through the Greeks, to Spinoza. It is simply not Protestant philosophy. The problems of Protestant philosophy do not exist for me: I regard them as products of a confusion of thought, of a heresy. Catholic philosophy differs from the normal only in that it accepts sacred history as well as natural history as the true account of the facts: but when the facts are agreed upon, one way or another, philosophy has no real difficulty in discovering what to say. It has said everything essential already. To invent a philosophy would be not to have understood.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

George Santayana, in his letter to John Boynton Priestley, 15 September 1924
S - Z, George Santayana

Way , Problem , History , Nature

“The first attempt of a democracy which includes the previously disfranchised poor is to redistribute wealth and income, and this is exactly what the black South attempted. The theory is that the wealth and the current income of the wealthy ruling class does not belong to them entirely, but is the product of the work and striving of the great millions; and that, therefore, these millions ought to have a voice in its more equitable distribution; and if this is true in modern countries, like France and England and Germany, how much more true was it in the South after the war where the poorest class represented the most extreme case of theft of labor that the world can conceive; namely, chattel slavery?”

W.E.B. Du Bois book Black Reconstruction

Source: Black Reconstruction in America (1935), p. 604

Democracy , Country , War , Wealth

“And do not think, my boy, that because I, impulsively broke forth in jubillations over Shakspeare, that, therefore, I am of the number of the snobs who burn their tuns of rancid fat at his shrine. No, I would stand afar off & alone, & burn some pure Palm oil, the product of some overtopping trunk.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

I would to God Shakspeare had lived later, & promenaded in Broadway. Not that I might have had the pleasure of leaving my card for him at the Astor, or made merry with him over a bowl of the fine Duyckinck punch; but that the muzzle which all men wore on their soul in the Elizebethan day, might not have intercepted Shakspers full articulations. For I hold it a verity, that even Shakspeare, was not a frank man to the uttermost. And, indeed, who in this intolerant universe is, or can be? But the Declaration of Independence makes a difference.—There, I have driven my horse so hard that I have made my inn before sundown.
Letter to Evert Augustus Duyckinck (3 March 1849); published in The Letters of Herman Melville (1960) edited by Merrell R. Davis and William H. Gilman, p. 79

Thinking , Boy

“I: My consciousness of the object is only a yet unrecognised consciousness of my production of the representation of an object. Of this production I know no more than that it is I who produce, and thus is all consciousness no more than a consciousness of myself, and so far perfectly comprehensible. Am I in the right? Spirit. Perfectly so; but whence then is derived the necessity and universality thou hast ascribed to these propositions, to that of causality for instance?”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 47
The Vocation of Man (1800), Knowledge

Universe

“What, then, is the animal? First of all, a system of plant-souls. The unity of those plant-souls, which unity nature itself produces, is the soul of the animal. Its world is therefore partly that of the plants — its nourishment, for instance, it receives partly through synthesis from vegetable, and through analysis from animal nature — and partly that of the animals, whereof we shall speak directly. Each product of nature is an organically in-itself completed totality in space, like the plant. Hence, the unknown x which we are looking for must also be such a whole or totality, and in so far it must also have a principle of organization, a sphere and central point of this organization; in short, the same which we have called the soul of the plant, which thus remains common to both. … The animal is a system of plant-souls, and the plant is a separated, isolated part of an animal. Both reciprocally affect each other.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 502, 503, 504

Soul , Nature , Animals , World

“I posit myself as individual, in opposition to another individual, by ascribing to myself a sphere for my freedom, from which I exclude the other, and by ascribing to him a sphere, from which I exclude myself — of course, only in the thinking of a fact and by virtue of this fact. Hence, I have posited myself as free a side of him without danger to the possibility of his freedom. Through this positing of my freedom I have determined myself; to be free constitutes my essential character. But what does to be free mean? Evidently to be able to carry out the conceptions of acts I may entertain. But the carrying out always follows the conception, and the perception of the desired product of my causality is always — in relation to its first conception — a matter of the future. Freedom is therefore always posited in the future; and if it is to constitute the character of a being, it is posited for all the future of the individual; is posited in the future as far as the individual himself is posited in the future.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 77

Future , Thinking , Relation ships , Freedom

“Could they be reasoning beings, who did not see the folly which, when the product is made and ready for use, wastes so much of it in getting it to the user? If people eat with a spoon that leaks half its contents between bowl and lip, are they not likely to go hungry?”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 28.

People

“Their system of unorganized and antagonistic industries was as absurd economically as it was morally abominable. Selfishness was their only science, and in industrial production selfishness is suicide. Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production; and not till the idea of increasing the individual hoard gives place to the idea of increasing the common stock can industrial combination be realized, and the acquisition of wealth really begin. Even if the principle of share and share alike for all men were not the only humane and rational basis for a society, we should still enforce it as economically expedient, seeing that until the disintegrating influence of self-seeking is suppressed no true concert of industry is possible.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 22.

Selfishness , Wealth , Self-confidence , Secret

“I was totally star-struck as a youngster and incredibly shy, but I loved the theatre – especially pantomimes. After a failed audition for RADA, I worked as a trainee fashion buyer at Harrods, where they had an entertainments society and I performed in several of its productions. I took singing lessons and my teacher encouraged me to read The Stage, where I saw that chorus singers were needed for the musical The Belle Of New York.”

Valerie Leon (1943) English actress

I got the job – much to my parents’ horror, who wanted me to keep my respectable job, but I was determined to become an actress.
Whatever happened to Bond Girl Valerie Leon? http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/614933/Bond-Girl-Valerie-Leon-career-life (November 2, 2015)

Singing , Reading , Star , Teachers

“In definitional terms, a process is simply a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus’s emphasis on what.”

Thomas H. Davenport (1954) American academic

A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action.
Process Innovation: Reengineering Work through Information Technology, 1993

Strong

“This is not a book about charismatic visionary leaders. It is not about visionary product concepts or visionary market insights. Nor even is it about having a corporate vision. This is a book about something far more important, enduring, and substantial. This is a book about visionary companies.”

James C. Collins book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

What is a visionary company? Visionary companies are premier institutions -- the crown jewels -- in their industries, widely admired by their peers and having a long track record of making a significant impact on the world around them. The key point is that a visionary company is an organization -- an institution. All individual leaders, no matter how charismatic or visionary, eventually die; and all visionary products and services -- all "great ideas" -- eventually become obsolete. Indeed, entire markets can become obsolete and disappear. Yet visionary companies prosper over long periods of time, through multiple product life cycles and multiple generations of active leaders.
Book abstract, as cited in: Joe Kelly, ‎Louise Kelly (1998), An Existential-systems Approach to Managing Organizations. p. 256
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, 1994

Books

“Life is not just a fuck-fuck-Anne! (на бълграски: чук-чук-Анне)Sex is a product that sells. Point.”

Mimo Garcia (1998) Bulgarian director and actor

- Mimo Garcia in his blog on 14/05/2015

Sex , Life

“Let as many Numbers, as you please, be proposed to be Combined: Suppose Five, which we will call a b c d e. Put, in so many Lines, Numbers, in duple proportion, beginning with 1. The Sum (31) is the Number of Sumptions, or Elections; wherein, one or more of them, may several ways be taken. Hence subduct (5) the Number of the Numbers proposed; because each of them may once be taken singly. And the Remainder (26) shews how many ways they may be taken in Combination; (namely, Two or more at once.) And, consequently, how many Products may be had by the Multiplication of any two or more of them so taken. But the same Sum (31) without such Subduction, shews how many Aliquot Parts there are in the greatest of those Products, (that is, in the Number made by the continual Multiplication of all the Numbers proposed,) a b c d e.”

John Wallis (1616–1703) English mathematician

For every one of those Sumptions, are Aliquot Parts of a b c d e, except the last, (which is the whole,) and instead thereof, 1 is also an Aliquot Part; which makes the number of Aliquot Parts, the same with the Number of Sumptions. Only here is to be understood, (which the Rule should have intimated;) that, all the Numbers proposed, are to be Prime Numbers, and each distinct from the other. For if any of them be Compound Numbers, or any Two of them be the same, the Rule for Aliquot Parts will not hold.
Source: A Discourse of Combinations, Alterations, and Aliquot Parts (1685), Ch.I Of the variety of Elections, or Choice, in taking or leaving One or more, out of a certain Number of things proposed.

Way , Parting

“Vivekananda often asserted that only in becoming a ṛṣi does one understand the scripture properly. His argument appears to be that as products and records of direct perception, these texts were not written for the intellect, or for understanding through a process of rational inquiry and analysis. They become meaningful only when one has lifted oneself to the same heights of perception.”

Anantanand Rambachan (1951) Hindu studies scholar

Source: The Nature and Authority of Scripture (1995), p. 23

Appearance , Understanding

“Indian Gold, Indian tea and Indian petrol to the nation: When car manufacturer Hyundai made her brand ambassador for their Getz model, production capacity doubled. She had not yet won a major tournament, but her fame was spreading well beyond Asia: soon she would be on the front of Time magazine and selected by the New Statesman as one of 10 young people with the potential to change the world.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

India's most wanted

Time , People , Cars , World

“Aryabhatiya, an improved work, is product of mature intellect, which he wrote when he was 23 years old. Unlike in the Aryabhata siddhanta, the civil days are reckoned from one sunrise to the next, a practice which is still prevalent among the followers of Hindu calendar.”

Aryabhata (476–550) Indian mathematician-astronomer

In, p. 244.
Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures

“He gave more elegant rules for the sum of the squares and cubes of an initial segment of the positive integers. The sixth part of the product of three quantities consisting of the number of terms, the number of terms plus one, and twice the number of terms plus one is the sum of the squares. The square of the sum of the series is the sum of the cubes.”

Aryabhata (476–550) Indian mathematician-astronomer

Roger Cooke in: The history of mathematics: a brief course http://books.google.co.in/books?id=z-ruAAAAMAAJ, Wiley, 7 October 1997, p. 207.

Parting

“He brought the first movie camera from Germany, but nobody knows what happened to it afterwards. Maybe it is lying with some antique collector. There were absolutely no film-making facilities - production or distribution - available as people believed films had no future. But, whatever he did from scratch set a precedent for the future generations of film-makers.”

Dadasaheb Phalke (1870–1944) Indian producer-director-screenwriter

His grandson Kiran Phalke in "Dadasaheb Phalke's family wants Bharat Ratna for him".

Future , Lying , Making love , People

“Dr. Swaminathan is a living legend. His contributions to Agricultural Science have made an indelible mark on food production in India and elsewhere in the developing world. By any standards, he will go into the annals of history as a world scientist of rare distinction.”

M. S. Swaminathan (1925) Indian scientist

Stated by Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary General of the United Nations on the occasion of award of the First World Food Prize. Quoted here World Food Prize, Prof. Swaminathan, 1987 World Food Prize Laureate, 25 November 2013, World Food Prize Organization http://www.worldfoodprize.org/Laureates/Past/1987.htm,

World , Science , History , Food

“The Generic Enterprise Reference Architecture and Methodology is about those methods, models and tools which are needed to build the integrated enterprise. The architecture is generic because it applies to most, potentially all types of enterprise. The coverage of the framework spans Products, Enterprises, Enterprise Integration and Strategic Enterprise Management, with the emphasis being on the middle two. The proposal for the architecture follows the architecture itself improving the quality of the presentation and of the outcome. De nitions of Generic Enterprise Reference Architecture, Enterprise Engineering/ Integration Methodology, Enterprise Modelling Languages, Enterprise Models, and Enterprise Modules are given. It is proposed how the above could be developed on the basis of previously analysed architectures (and other results too), such as the Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture, the GRAI Integrated Methodology, CIM-OSA, and TOVIE.”

Peter Bernus (1949) Hungarian-Australian computer scientist

Peter Bernus and Laszlo Nemes (1996) "A framework to define a generic enterprise reference architecture and methodology." Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems Vol 9 (3) p. 179

“There always is an architecture, whether it is defined in advance - as with modern computers - or found out after the fact - as with many older computers. For architecture is determined by behavior, not by words. Therefore, the term architecture, which rightly implies the notion of the arch, or prime structure, should not be understood as the vague overall idea. Rather, the product of the computer architecture, the principle of operations manual, should contain all detail which the user can know, and sooner or later is bound to know.”

Gerrit Blaauw (1924–2018) Dutch computer scientist

Source: Computer architecture (1972), p. 155

Idea , Behavior

“Analysis of a system reveals its structure and how it works. It provides the knowledge required to make it work efficiently and to repair it when it stops working. Its product is know-how, knowledge, not understanding. To enable a system to perform effectively we must understand it—we must be able to explain its behavior—and this requires being aware of its functions in the larger systems of which it is a part.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Source: 1990s, Re-Creating the Corporation (1999), p. 12.

Understanding , Knowledge , Behavior , Making love

“Manikda was always different from the others. He did everything — from writing the script to choosing the location, finalizing the cast to designing sets and costumes, supervising make-up to framing the shots to editing. He was involved with each and every part of his film and was always very clear about what he wanted. His films were Indian but the production process was western. He also proved that silence can say a million words if used properly and was very economical with dialogues. He used barking of dogs, birdcalls, mechanical clatter or other natural sounds to brilliant effect. It was because of this detailing that every scene of his films became powerful and meaningful. And though he played so many roles behind the scenes, he accepted remuneration from the producer only for direction.”

Satyajit Ray (1921–1992) Indian author, poet, composer, lyricist, filmmaker

After working with Satyajit Ray, working in Bombay was confusing: Sharmila Tagore

Silence , Dogs , Nature , Making love

“When I realized I was going to have to be a whore, to put my face on the label, I decided that the only way I could do it was to give away all the money we make. Over the years, that ethical stance has given us a 30 per cent boost. One in three customers buys my products because all the profits go to good causes and the rest buy the stuff because it is good.”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in "Saint Paul," http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,1453395,00.html interview with John Aldridge, The Guardian (2005-04-10)

Whore , Money , Way , Making love

“Once upon a time a Georgian printed a couple of books that attracted notice, but immediately it turned out that he was little more than an amanuensis for the local blacks--that his works were really the products, not of white Georgia, but of black Georgia. Writing afterward as a white man, he swiftly subsided into the fifth rank.”

Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908) Journalist, children's writer

H. L. Mencken, The Sahara of the Bozart.

Books , Time

“My first singing role was as Susanna in a school production in a shortened form of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.”

Elaine Paige (1948) English singer and actress

I loved to sing and I was given lots of encouragement by a wonderful music teacher Mrs Ann Hill and by my parents who suggested I go to drama school.
As quoted in "Angie Davidson Interviews Elaine Paige" by Angie Davidson in lupus.org.uk http://www.lupus.org.uk/article.php?i=159 (2005)

Marriage , Singing , School

“Convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i. e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system — a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charges against an accused out of his own mouth.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 540-41 (1961).
Judicial opinions

Law

“We are going through a crucial historical crisis in which each year poses more acutely the global problem of rationally mastering the new productive forces and creating a new civilization. Yet the international working-class movement, on which depends the prerequisite overthrow of the economic infrastructure of exploitation, has registered only a few partial local successes. Capitalism has invented new forms of struggle (state intervention in the economy, expansion of the consumer sector, fascist governments) while camouflaging class oppositions through various reformist tactics and exploiting the degenerations of working-class leaderships. In this way it has succeeded in maintaining the old social relations in the great majority of the highly industrialized countries, thereby depriving a socialist society of its indispensable material base. In contrast, the underdeveloped or colonized countries, which over the last decade have engaged in the most direct and massive battles against imperialism, have begun to win some very significant victories. These victories are aggravating the contradictions of the capitalist economy and (particularly in the case of the Chinese revolution) could be a contributing factor toward a renewal of the whole revolutionary movement. Such a renewal cannot limit itself to reforms within the capitalist or anticapitalist countries, but must develop conflicts posing the question of power everywhere.”

Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)

About the Situationist International movement
Report on the Construction of Situations (1957)

Dependency , Question , Country , Success

“When people are content, they are difficult to maneuver. We are perennially discontent and offered placebos as remedies. My intention in writing this book is to make you feel better, to offer you a solution to the way you feel. I am confident that this is necessary. When do you ever meet people that are happy? Genuinely happy? Only children, the mentally ill, and daytime television presenters. My belief is that it is possible to feel happier, because I feel better than I used to. I am beginning to understand where the solution lies, primarily because of an exhausting process of trial and mostly error. My qualification to write a book on how to change yourself and change the world is not that I’m better than you, it’s that I’m worse. Not that I’m smarter, but that I’m dumber: I bought the lie hook, line, and sinker. My only quality has been an unwitting momentum, a willingness to wade through the static dissatisfaction that has been piped into my mind from the moment I learned language. What if that feeling of inadequacy, isolation, and anxiety isn’t just me? What if it isn’t internally engineered but the result of concerted effort, the product of a transmission? An ongoing broadcast from the powerful that has colonized my mind? Who is it in here, inside your mind, reading these words, feeling that fear? Is there an awareness, an exempt presence, gleaming behind the waterfall of words that commentate on every event, label every object, judge everyone you come into contact with? And is there another way to feel? Is it possible to be in this world and feel another way? Can you conceive, even for a moment, of a species similar to us but a little more evolved, that have transcended the idea that solutions to the way we feel can be externally acquired? What would that look like? How would that feel—to be liberated from the bureaucracy of managing your recalcitrant mind. Is it possible that there is a conspiracy to make us feel this way?”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Confidence , Reading , Making love , Understanding

“Nothing is sacred to you, Mr. Munro. You base your beliefs on the products of human thought, so it could hardly be otherwise. You might believe in certain things, but you do not have faith. That comes with submission to the force of divine revelation.”

Iain Banks (1954–2013) Scottish writer

“So, because I don’t have what I think of as superstitions, because I believe we just happen to exist, and believe in... science, evolution, whatever; I’m not as... worthy as somebody who has faith in an ancient book and a cruel, desert God?”
Source: Short fiction, The State of the Art (1991) “Piece” (p. 73)

Faith

“Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist, observed that elites in a society typically maintain their power not simply by controlling the means of production (ie money), but by dominating the cultural discourse too (ie a society’s intellectual map). And what is most important in relation to that cognitive map is not what is overtly stated and discussed – but what is left unstated, or ignored.”

Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher

Gillian Tett " Eliminate financial double-think http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/96810a0e-8d8f-11de-93df-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2TVG2oiL2" Financial Times, August 20, 2009

Money , Relation ships

“Capitalism subordinates men to machines instead of using machines to liberate men from the burden of mechanical and repetitive work. it subordinates all social activities to the imperatives of an incessant drive for individual enrichment in terms of money, instead of gearing social life to the development of rich individualities and their social relations. The contradiction between use-value and exchange-value, inherent in every commodity, fully unfolds itself in this contradictory nature of capitalist machinery. When capitalism is not overthrown once it has created the material and social preconditions for a classless society of associated producers, this contradiction implies the possibility of a steadily increasing transformation of the forces of production into forces of destruction, in the most literal sense of the word: not only forces of destruction of wealth (crises and wars), of human wealth and human happiness, but also forces of destruction of life tout court.”

Ernest Mandel (1923–1995) Belgian economist and Marxist philosopher

Introduction to Capital. Introduction to volume 1 (1976)

Money , War , Wealth , Nature

“But, ironically, the latest product of that way of doing things is a new instrument — a new system — that while it could make conformity more rigid, more totalitarian, than ever before in history, could also blow everything wide open. Because with it, we could operate on the basis that values and standards — and ethics and facts and truth — all depend on what your view of the world is — and that there may be as many views of that, as there are people.”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

The Day the Universe Changed (1985), 10 - Worlds Without End

History , Dependency , People , Truth

“The most sensational of all the sick literary lives was that of Maupassant, who died mad at forty-three and whose hatred of God, man and nature - manifested in literary productions which give us immense pleasure: how is that to be explained?”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

spring from a kind of mother fixation as well as a terror of the cold. He was a bull of a man much given to boats and riparian dalliance, but he had bad circulation. He had other things too, including a Chinese-style priapism which enabled him to copulate, usually in public, six times in a row, the secret being his failure to detumesce. This, of course, like acne and the common cold, can be a symptom of tertiary syphilis, which Maupassant certainly had.
Non-Fiction, Homage to QWERT YUIOP: Selected Journalism 1978-1985 (1986)

Pleasure , God , Madness , Nature

“Dada; knowledge of all the means rejected up until now... Dada; abolition of logic, which is the dance of those impotent to create: Dada; of every social hierarchy and equation set up for the sake of values by our valets: Dada; every object, all objects, sentiments, obscurities, apparitions and the precise clash of parallel lines are weapons for the fight: Dada; abolition of memory: Dada; abolition of archaeology: Dada; abolition of prophets: Dada; abolition of the future: Dada; absolute and unquestionable faith in every god that is the immediate product of spontaneity:* Dada; elegant and unprejudiced leap from a harmony to the other sphere… Freedom: Dada Dada Dada, a roaring of tense colors, and interlacing of opposites and of all contradictions, grotesques, inconsistencies: LIFE.”

Tristan Tzara (1896–1963) Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist

1910s, Dada Manifesto', 1918

God , Faith , Freedom , Future

“A fundamental problem in such studies stems from the long tradition that has regarded artistic productions as social facts.”

Norman K. Denzin (1941) American sociologist

By regarding such productions as social facts the analyst is relieved of the burden of demonstrating what meanings these productions have for the artist and his audience. It is too frequently assumed that such meanings can be identified by a capable analyst, independent of the interpretations brought to such works by the artist or his audiences. In my judgement artist productions must be seen as interactional creations; the meanings of which arise out of the interactions directed to them by the artist and his audience.
[The Sociology of Rock, 1978, Frith, Simon (ed.), ISBN 0094602204]

Problem , Study

“Pournelle, who if I recall correctly is a veteran of the Korean conflict, does mention logistical details more often than I expect in MilSF. Not the fun kind of logistics, involving the production of a million zillion Squamoid Hypermissiles, but the mundane sort, like who gets to dig the latrines. Latrines are not romantic, but nobody wants a battle called off because the men all have dysentery and are too busy shitting blood to fight.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

review of The Mercenary by Jerry Pournelle http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/the-hunter-and-the-bear, 2016
2010s

Business , Fight , Men

“But now if the gifted soul be not of taciturn nature, be of vivid, impatient, rapidly productive nature, and aspire much to give itself sensible utterance,—I find that, in this case, the field it has in England is narrow to an extreme; is perhaps narrower than ever offered itself, for the like object, in this world before. Parliament, Church, Law: let the young vivid soul turn whither he will for a career, he finds among variable conditions one condition invariable, and extremely surprising, That the proof of excellence is to be done by the tongue. For heroism that will not speak, but only act, there is no account kept.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

World , Soul , Law , Nature

“Of the proportion, which the product of any region bears to the people, an estimate is commonly made according to the pecuniary price of the necessities of life; which is never certain, because it supposes what is far from truth, that the value of money is always the same, and so measures an unknown quantity by an uncertain standard. It is competent enough when the markets of the same country, at different times, and those times not too distant, are to be compared; but of very little use for the purpose of making one nation acquainted with the state of another.”

Samuel Johnson book A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

pp. 366-367. https://books.google.com/books?id=-6JfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA366
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)

Money , Time , Country , People

“Who would imagine that the Deity conducts his providence similar to the detestable despots of this world? Oh horrible? most horrible impeachment of Divine Goodness! Rather let us exaltedly suppose that God eternally had the ultimate best good of beings generally and individually in his view, with the reward of the virtuous and the punishment of the vicious, and that no other punishment will ever be inflicted, merely by the divine administration, but that will finally terminate in the best good of the punished, and thereby subserve the great and important ends of the divine government, and be productive of the restoration and felicity of all finite rational nature.”

Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American general

Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. III Section II - The Moral Government of God as Incompatible With Eternal Punishment

World , God , Imagination , Nature

“Zealousness to learn from life is seldom found, but all the more frequently a desire, inclination, and reciprocal haste to be deceived by life. Undaunted, people do not seem to have a Socratic fear of being deceived, for the voice of God is always a whisper, while the demand of the age is a thousand-tongued rumor, not an all-powerful call that creates great men but a stirring in the offal that creates confused pates, an abracadabra that produces after its kind as is the case with all production. Even less do people seem to have above all a Socratic fear of being deceived by themselves, do not seem to be the least aware that if the self-deceived are the most miserable of all, then among these, again, the most miserable are those who are presumptuously deceived by themselves in contrast to those who are piously deceived.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review. By Soren Kierkegaard, 1846 edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong 1978 Princeton University Press P. 10
1840s, Two Ages: A Literary Review (1846)

Life , God , People , Learning

“Your task as a student of human nature is to recognize and examine the dark side of your character. Once subjected to conscious scrutiny, it loses its destructive power. If you can learn to detect the signs of it in yourself (see the following sections for help on this), you can channel this darker energy into productive activity. You can turn your neediness and vulnerability into empathy. You can channel your aggressive impulses into worthwhile causes and into your work. You can admit your ambitions, your desires for power, and not act so guiltily and stealthily. You can monitor your suspicious tendencies and the projection of your own negative emotions onto others. You can see that selfish and harmful impulses dwell within you as well, that you are not as angelic or strong as you imagine. With this awareness will come balance and greater tolerance for others.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 9 : Confront Your Dark Side
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Selfishness , Imagination , Strong , Help

“As part of this experiment we must not only accept human nature but work with what we have to make it productive. We inevitably feel the need for status and recognition, so let’s not deny it. Instead, let’s cultivate such status and recognition through our excellent work. We must accept our need to belong to the group and prove our loyalty, but let’s do it in more positive ways—by questioning group decisions that will harm it in the long run, by supplying divergent opinions, by steering the group in a more rational direction, gently and strategically.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 14 : Resist the Downward Pull of the Group
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Question , Nature , Decision , Way

“On the surface, the people around you appear so polite and civilized. But beneath the mask, they are all inevitably dealing with frustrations. They have a need to influence people and gain power over circumstances. Feeling blocked in their endeavors, they often try to assert themselves in manipulative ways that catch you by surprise. And then there are those whose need for power and impatience to obtain it are greater than others. They turn particularly aggressive, getting their way by intimidating people, being relentless and willing to do almost anything. You must transform yourself into a superior observer of people’s unsatisfied aggressive desires, paying extra attention to the chronic aggressors and passive aggressors in our midst. You must recognize the signs—the past patterns of behavior, the obsessive need to control everything in their environment—that indicate the dangerous types. They depend on making you emotional—afraid, angry—and unable to think straight. Do not give them this power. When it comes to your own aggressive energy, learn to tame and channel it for productive purposes—standing up for yourself, attacking problems with relentless energy, realizing great ambitions.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 16 : See the Hostility Behind the Friendly Façade
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Dependency , Past , People , Learning

“A realistic definition of capitalism should not present it as a constant, created and characterized by unicentral thought and action. It is , in essence, the result of the actions of opportunist individuals and groups who established themselves into openings and cracks within society a the potential for surplus product developed; these actions became systemaised as they nibbled away at the surplus product.”

Abdullah Öcalan (1949) Founder of the PKK

Source: The Political Thought of Abdullah Ocalan (2017), Liberating Life: Women's Revolution, pp. 82

“Productivity can only be the result of inspiration. When one is inspired, the productivity takes no effort. Manifestation and fruition is the quick and natural byproduct of being in the flow of creation. Creation is the result of inspiration. Inspiration ensures that any action we take, is backed by universal energy, the same energy that creates worlds. So the real question is not how do I become more productive, it is how do I become more inspired?”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Question , Nature , Universe , World

“it was partly by their writings that my eyes were opened to the very limited and temporary value of the old political economy, which assumes private property and inheritance as indefeasible facts, and freedom of production and exchange as the dernier mot of social improvement. The scheme gradually unfolded by the St. Simonians, under which the labour and capital of society would be managed for the general account of the community every individual being required to take a share of labour either as thinker, teacher, artist, or producer, all being classed according to their capacity, and remunerated according to their works, appeared to me a far superior description of Socialism to Owen's.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Autobiography (1873)

Communication , Teachers , Appearance , Freedom

“It's as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working.... Hell is a collection of individuals who spend their time working on a task they don't like and are not especially good at.... Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their job really is.... Nurses, garbage collectors, mechanics, it's obvious were they to vanish, results would be catastrophic.... A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble.... It's not clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish.... Real productive workers are squeezed and exploited. The remainder are unemployed and a larger stratum paid to do nothing.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Dr. David Graeber, "Bullshit Jobs," Aug 2013

Hell , Drink , Time , Suffering

“Production that is essentially completed, which no longer requires strength, ability, inventiveness, entrepreneurship and brilliance (e.g., the transportation system, trusts, conglomerates) will be brought back to state ownership.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Der Nazi-Sozi https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/nazi-sozi.htm, Elberfeld: Verlag der Nationalsozialistischen Briefe (1927)
1920s

“If style is anything more than formal analysis or a description of the ornamentation of a building it must surely offer or represent a specific set of ideals from the moment of its production.”

Dana Arnold (1961) Middlessex uni prof

Source: Reading Architectural History (2002), Ch. 3 : On classical ground : Histories of style

“I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If that was the case, Microsoft would have great products.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

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
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
2000s
Variant: I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check … if so, then Microsoft would have great products.

“When you eat animal products, you start to form plaques in the coronary arteries. Plaque formation in the arteries doesn't just limit the function of the arteries, it can also block the blood flow, and that's when the heart starts to have some real problems keeping up with the demands of the body.”

Kim A. Williams (1955) American cardiologist

Interview in the documentary-film The Game Changers by Louie Psihoyos (2018).

Animals , Problem , Heart

“Want work and bread for every productive national and blood comrade. Pay should be according to accomplishment. That means more pay for German workers!”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

“A true socialist never hates people. He knows, that they are products of the great economical laws, which in the present society divides man into two nations of poor and rich… We socialists never hate specific individuals.”

Ture Nerman (1886–1969) Swedish socialist

Socialist newspaper Folkets Dagblad - Politiken (24 April 1918)

Hate , People , Law

“Half a century ago in Holism and Evolution Jan Smuts tried to synthesize Darwin's evolutionary theory, Einstein's physics, and his own insights to account for the evolution of mind as well as matter. Wholeness, Smuts said, is a fundamental characteristic of the universe—the product of nature's drive to synthesize.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Six, Liberating Knowledge: News from the Frontiers of Science

Universe , Nature

“The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it is to usurp the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to his own body—to the products of his own labor—to the protection of law—and to the common advantages of society. It is piracy to buy or steal a native African, and subject him to servitude. Surely, the sin is as great to enslave an American as an African.”

William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) American journalist

“Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Convention,” speech in Philadelphia, (Dec. 6 1833) http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeswlgct.html

Law

“The word vegan should not just be used when referring to people who choose not to eat animal products because being vegan includes doing our best to abstain from participating in the other ways animals are exploited, including animal testing, wearing them, etc. Clearly there is a lot of buzz about the word vegan these days, which is great, but I think it is imperative that we keep the dialogue about this word focused on what it truly means. Veganism is simply about one's ethics and not contributing to the suffering of others.”

Lauren Ornelas American activist

"EVEN Interview with lauren Ornelas" https://www.all-creatures.org/articles/even-lauren-ornelas.pdf, All-Creatures.org (March 2016).

Suffering , People , Animals , Thinking

“You may ask what then will become of the fundamental principles of equity and fair play which our constitutions enshrine; and whether I seriously believe that unsupported they will serve merely as counsels of moderation. I do not think that anyone can say what will be left of those principles; I do not know whether they will serve only as counsels; but this much I think I do know — that a society so riven that the spirit of moderation is gone, no court can save; that a society where that spirit flourishes, no court need save; that in a society which evades its responsibility by thrusting upon the courts the nurture of that spirit, that spirit in the end will perish. What is the spirit of moderation? It is the temper which does not press a partisan advantage to its bitter end, which can understand and will respect the other side, which feels a unity between all citizens—real and not the factitious product of propaganda—which recognizes their common fate and their common aspirations—in a word, which has faith in the sacredness of the individual.”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

"The Contribution of an Independent Judiciary to Civilization" (1942).
Extra-judicial writings

Faith , Understanding , Fate , Thinking

“Perfume is a good example of a product gone all wrong. When I was a child, it was a semi-exotic thing and it was called something stupid like "Fleur de Fleur" and you would give it to your mother or aunty at Christmas and it was advertised by some dopey looking woman in a field of sunflowers and she looked like she'd been hit by a tractor because she was going *flails with arms*. She couldn’t just get over how nice she smelled. Now, because we’re so jaded, we’ve consumed so much, our attention can only be grabbed in a violent way. So it’s always advertised by these constipated, exo-keletal bitches who are sneering at you and it’s called something horrible like "Homicide"! "Dysentery!"”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

"Urban Dysentery" for boys and girls!

On consumerism.
What It Is (2009)

Way , Christmas , Bitch , Stupidity

“We begin to see the unease and disease of our adult lives as elaborate patterns that emerged from a system that taught us young how to be still, look backward, look to authority, construct certainties. The fear of learning—and transformation—is the inevitable product of such a system.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn

Fear , Learning , Disease

“Once these ideas coalesce into a coherent new paradigm grounded in transformation, we will see that humanity is both a part of creation and its steward as well, "a product of evolution and an instrument of evolution."”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Thirteen, The Whole- Earth Conspiracy

Idea , Parting

“Women are not exempt from patriarchy, they are also products of it. So, they also come in with that system of 'am I right' or 'am I wrong.'”

Zoya Akhtar (1974) Indian film director

Zoya Akhtar & Reema Kagti - FC Post Mortem 15 Jun 2015, at 10 Min 25 Sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4DGmAXNPt4
From interview with Film Companion

Women

“When the production process demands less work and distributes less and less wages, it gradually becomes obvious that the right to an income can no longer be reserved for those who have a job; nor, most importantly, can the level of incomes be made to depend on the quantity of work furnished by each person. Hence the idea of guaranteeing an income to every citizen which is not linked to work, or the quantity of work done.”

André Gorz (1923–2007) austrian philosopher

p. 203 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbpvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA203
Critique of Economic Reason, 1988

Idea , Dependency , Personality

“Mass education was designed to turn independent farmers into docile, passive tools of production. That was its primary purpose. And don't think people didn't know it. They knew it and they fought against it. There was a lot of resistance to mass education for exactly that reason. It was also understood by the elites. Emerson once said something about how we're educating them to keep them from our throats. If you don't educate them, what we call "education," they're going to take control -- "they" being what Alexander Hamilton called the "great beast," namely the people. The anti-democratic thrust of opinion in what are called democratic societies is really ferocious. And for good reason. Because the freer the society gets, the more dangerous the great beast becomes and the more you have to be careful to cage it somehow.”

Noam Chomsky book Class Warfare

Quotes 1990s, 1995–1999, Class Warfare, 1995

Education , Thinking , People

“Our duty is not merely to abolish the capitalist order but to set up a higher order in its place. But we must oppose those forces aiming to destroy capitalism only in order to replace it with another barbarous mode of production.”

Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician

Chap. V, The Period of Dictatorship
"Hitlerism and Social Democracy" (1934) https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1934/hitler/index.htm

“Government violence is not the result of violent revolutions, but the product of government itself. Any movement that leaves the State intact will fail in ending the oppressions we are fighting against. A nonviolent movement that replaces one government with another—and this is the greatest victory a nonviolent movement has ever achieved in the history of the world—ends up betraying itself, allowing Power to change its masks without addressing the fundamental problems of society. Nonviolence as an analytical tool has no means of understanding this kind of defeat—the kind that looks like victory.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 2. Recuperation is How We Lose

Understanding , History , Victory , Problem

“Money is the password, and all doors, which are closed to the man of lesser means, fly open to those whom Plutus favors. The invention of money, which has no other usefulness (or at least it should not have any) except for the commercial exchange of the products of man's industry, now serves all that is physically good among men. Especially after money was represented by metal, it has produced avarice which, finally, without indulgence, but by its mere possession, and even with the resolution (of the stingy) not to spend it, still contains a power which people believe can sufficiently compensate for the lack of any other power.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996), pages 181-182
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

Money , People , Men , Flying

“In the light of the coronavirus pandemic, I focus criticism on capitalism and the vulnerabilities it has accumulated for several reasons. Viruses are part of nature. They have attacked human beings—sometimes dangerously—in both distant and recent history. In 1918, the Spanish Flu killed nearly 700,000 in the United States and millions elsewhere. Recent viruses include SARS, MERS and Ebola. What matters to public health is each society's preparedness: stockpiled tests, masks, ventilators, hospital beds, trained personnel, etc., to manage dangerous viruses. In the U.S., such objects are produced by private capitalist enterprises whose goal is profit. It was not profitable to produce and stockpile such products, that was not and still is not being done. Nor did the U.S. government produce or stockpile those medical products. Top U.S. government personnel privilege private capitalism; it is their primary objective to protect and strengthen. The result is that neither private capitalism nor the U.S. government performed the most basic duty of any economic system: to protect and maintain public health and safety. U.S. capitalism's response to the coronavirus pandemic continues to be what it has been since December 2019: too little, too late. It failed. It is the problem.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

History , Light , Health , Nature

“Standards should not be forced down from above but rather set by the production workers themselves.”

Taiichi Ohno (1912–1990) Japanese businessman and engineer

“The competitive advantage of an organization lies not so much in the solutions themselves—whether lean techniques, today’s profitable product, or any other—but in the ability of the organization to understand conditions and create fitting, smart solutions.”

Mike Rother (1958) American business academic

Understanding

“Baldner contends that is "arrogant" and "paternalistic" morally to condemn something as definitive of the natural order as predation. However, it is in the nature of morality to devise ideals of a better world and to work toward realizing them. This entails judging this world to be less than ideal and working to change it. One could restrict moral evaluations to the products of human activity, but that would be arbitrary: what makes suffering (prima facie) morally bad is not that it is the result of human activity but that it is suffering. Our commitment to making the world a morally better place impels us to make moral evaluations of the natural order. There need be nothing either arrogant or paternalistic in making and acting on such evaluations, provided we recognize the very limited nature of our understanding and our power to make improvements.”

Steve F. Sapontzis (1945)

Steve Sapontzis, " Dicussion: Environmental Ethics and the Locus of Value https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2060&context=bts", Between the Species (Winter 1990), p. 9

Understanding , Bad luck , Suffering , Nature

“[A] party requires party spirit, and party spirit is the product of a very complex sentiment, which is slow to grow and hard to sustain, and which thrives best where it can be nourished by historic memories.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

‘The English Extreme Left’, The Spectator (12 August 1876), p. 8

Memory

“The crisis of production today is the crisis of the antagonism between manual and intellectual labor. The problem of modern philosophy from Descartes in the sixteenth century to Stalinism in 1950 is the problem of the division of labor between the intellectuals and the workers.”

C. L. R. James (1901–1989) Trinidadian writer

State Capitalism and World Revolution (1950)

Problem

“Anybody interested in solving, rather than profiting from, the problems of food production and distribution will see that in the long run the safest food supply is a local food supply, not a supply that is dependent on a global economy. Nations and regions within nations must be left free — and should be encouraged — to develop the local food economies that best suit local needs and local conditions.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"A Bad Big Idea"
Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community (1993)

Problem , Dependency , Food

“We haven't accepted — we can't really believe — that the most characteristic product of our age of scientific miracles is junk, but that is so. And we still think and behave as though we face an unspoiled continent, with thousands of acres of living space for every man. We still sing "America the Beautiful" as though we had not created in it, by strenuous effort, at great expense, and with dauntless self-praise, an unprecedented ugliness.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"The Rise"
The Long-Legged House (1969)

Singing , Beauty , Self-confidence , Thinking

“Homo economicus is an implausible caricature, but a highly productive one, and no useful alternative has yet been found.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Source: Development, Geography, and Economic Theory (1995), Ch. 3. Models and Metaphors

“If the brutes have consciousness and no souls, then it is clear that, in them, consciousness is a direct function of material changes; while, if they possess immaterial subjects of consciousness, or souls, then, as consciousness is brought into existence only as the consequence of molecular motion of the brain, it follows that it is an indirect product of material changes. The soul stands related to the body as the bell of a clock to the works, and consciousness answers to the sound which the bell gives out when it is struck.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1870s, On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and Its History (1874)

Soul , Relation ships , Change

“The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be as completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1870s, On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and Its History (1874)

Appearance , Relation ships , Change

“The vast majority of people eat animal products not because of how they’re produced, but in spite of it.”

Jacy Reese (1992) American social scientist

The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs, and Activists Are Building an Animal-Free Food System (2018)

Animals , People

“History has proved us, and all who thought like us, wrong. It has made it clear that the state of economic development on the Continent at that time [1848] was not, by a long way, ripe for the removal of capitalist production.”

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

Introduction (1895) https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm to Marx's The Class Struggles in France (1848-50)

Way , Time , History

“[T]he laws of science are products of the human mind rather than factors of the external world.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

World , Science , Law

“Once the means of production have become capital, a certain quantity of value is augmented through the exploitation of labor. And this valorizing value is capital.”

Itsurō Sakisaka (1897–1985) Japanese economist

Exploitation of Labor (1967)

“I found for me personally the easiest way to think about things [in the transition to veganism] was to not actually think about the products I was boycotting as food, but for what they actually were—for instance, the flesh of an animal or the embryo of a chicken.”

Jona Weinhofen (1983) Australian singer

"Bring Me The Horizon’s Vegan Warrior" https://www.peta2.com/news/jona-weinhofen-vegan-peta2-ad/, interview with PETA (11 November 2011).

Food , Personality , Animals , Thinking

“Every business faces its challenges…It's not realistic to think otherwise. If nothing else, it brings out the best in the team. It's important at that point to be open with the consumer and educate them around the realities of creating a product in bulk.”

Jessica Alba (1981) American model, free-diver and businesswoman; TV and film actress

On handling business challenges in “Exclusive: Jessica Alba on overcoming criticism at work” https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/people-parties/bazaar-at-work/a43744/jessica-alba-honest-company-defence/ in Harper’s Bazaar (2017 Sep 11)

Business , Education , Thinking , Reality

“[A]ll that which America did not get from Europe may seem worthy of admiration to a Jewified mixed race, but Europe regards that merely as symptomatic of decay in artistic and cultural life, the product of Jewish or Negroid blood mixture.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

1940s, Speech Declaring War Against the United States (1941)

Life

“When a man is touching 50 and has never had any productive job in his life, he cannot elicit respect from me as an individual... If you stand in the capital of India and say you support “Bharat ke tukde honge” (India will be broken into pieces), I don’t have an iota of respect for such individuals.”

Rahul Gandhi (1970) Indian politician

Smriti Irani (2020). https://web.archive.org/web/20200517065839/https://www.opindia.com/2020/05/smriti-irani-says-cant-embarrass-rahul-gandhi-as-he-is-an-embarrassment/

Support , Life

“When I see the present Socialist Government denouncing capitalism in all its forms, mocking with derision and contempt the tremendous free enterprise capitalist system on which the mighty production of the United States is founded, I cannot help feeling that as a nation we are not acting honourably or even honestly.”

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

Churchill By Himself: The Definitive Collections of Quotations, ed. Richard Langworth, 2008, p. 124, (1948, 10 July) Woodford, Essex, Europe, 374)
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Feeling , Help

“The natural effect of unfettered market competition is socialism. For a short time the innovator receives a large profit, as a reward for being first to the market. Then, as competitors adopt the innovation, competition drives these profits down to zero and the price gravitates toward the new, lower cost of production made possible by this innovation (that price including, of course, the cost of the producer’s maintenance and the amortization of her capital outlays). So in a free market, the cost savings in labor required to produce any given commodity would quickly be socialized in the form of reduced labor cost to purchase it.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

"Who Owns the Benefit? The Free Market as Full Communism" https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/kevin-carson-who-owns-the-benefit-the-free-market-as-full-communism (2012)

Time , Nature

“My whole goal, besides trying to get more production value back into animation, was really to provide an environment like there was at Disney at one time, where you felt secure as an artist, filmmaker, contributor, animator. You could plan your life, have a place to raise your family, have a home and not worry about living like a gypsy. Personally, I can say I've been in the business for 28 years and have never been unemployed...though sometimes not paid. We've done our best to try to take care of our people. We've done our best to try to make good stories. How many people have gone out and hired sometimes over 500 people and come up with over $450,000 a week in salaries and still tried to create a quality product? It's not an easy thing to do...but it gives a great feeling of accomplishment.”

Gary Goldman (1944) American film director and producer

A Chat With Don Bluth And Gary Goldman https://www.awn.com/animationworld/chat-don-bluth-and-gary-goldman-part-i (June 1, 2000)

Family , Home , Time , Business

“I come now to the question of diplomatic personnel. ... It is said that I am admitting to the service Eton and Harrow. I am not one of those who decry Eton and Harrow. I was very glad of them in the Battle of Britain—by God, I was!—those fellows paid the price in the Royal Air Force on those fatal days. If the Universities are to be criticized, well, put up a vote of censure on Harold Laski, because it is the product of the Universities I have got to accept.”

Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) British labour leader, politician, and statesman

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth (12 June 1946), quoted in British Information Services, British Speeches of the Day, Vol. IV (1946), pp. 423-424

Universe , God , Question

“But what has been the experience of the Russian socialist movement up to now? The most important and fruitful changes in its tactical policy during the last ten years have not been the inventions of several leaders and even less so of any central organizational organs. They have always been the spontaneous product of the movement in ferment.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Leninism or Marxism? (1904)

Change

“The rise of liberalism was accompanied by immense technological progress; by the industrial revolution; by the division of labor which ensued, and which suddenly, and prodigiously, accelerated the efficiency of production; and by the conception of economic life governed by the market. In other words, of economic life governed by the buyer, not the seller. This was a brand-new and wholly revolutionary idea.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
pp. 65-66

Idea , Life

“Capitalism is the use of wealth in private hands to create more wealth. It is the existing world-wide modern system of organizing production and trade by private enterprise, free to seek profit by employing human labor. Its defenders argue that never, since the beginning of history, has there been such a thing as perfect equality and harmony;… and every know period of history had rich and poor, and that actually modern technology, plus liberal democracy, plus an increased social sense, plus Capitalism, have created the modern world, and that as far as the standard of living of the average man is concerned the modern world surpasses all previous epochs of history.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 26

Democracy , History , Wealth , Perfection

Quotes about productivity page 27

Quotes about productivity
page 27