Quotes about productivity
page 28

“The production of wealth by private enterprise is called Capitalism. It is hard to call Capitalism one of the isms, because Capitalism is not a creed at all. Capitalism was not ‘invented’ by any sociologist or philosopher. Capitalists never called themselves that. The word was invented by socialists to describe what they hated.”

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. 25

Wealth , Hate

“If the economy today were operating close to capacity levels with little unemployment, or if a sudden change in our military requirements should cause a scramble for men and resources, then I would oppose tax reductions as irresponsible and inflationary; and I would not hesitate to recommend a tax increase, if that were necessary. But our resources and manpower are not being fully utilized; the general level of prices has been remarkably stable; and increased competition, both at home and abroad, along with increased productivity will help keep both prices and wages within appropriate limits.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Men , Home , Help , Change

“I am confident that the enactment of the right bill next year will in due course increase our gross national product by several times the amount of taxes actually cut. Profit margins will be improved and both the incentive to invest and the supply of internal funds for investment will be increased. There will be new interest in taking risks, in increasing productivity, in creating new jobs and new products for long-term economic growth. Other national problems, moreover, will be aided by full employment. It will encourage the location of new plants in areas of labor surplus and provide new jobs for workers that we are retraining and facilitate the adjustment which will be necessary under our new trade expansion bill and reduce a number of government expenditures.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Problem , Confidence , Time , Self-confidence

“The new tax bill should improve both the equity and the simplicity of our present tax system. This means the enactment of long-needed tax reforms, a broadening of the tax base and the elimination or modification of many special tax privileges. These steps are not only needed to recover lost revenue and thus make possible a larger cut in present rates; they are also tied directly to our goal of greater growth. For the present patchwork of special provisions and preferences lightens the tax load of some only at the cost of placing a heavier burden on others. It distorts economic judgments and channels an undue amount of energy into efforts to avoid tax liabilities. It makes certain types of less productive activity more profitable than other more valuable undertakings. All this inhibits our growth and efficiency, as well as considerably complicating the work of both the taxpayer and the Internal Revenue Service. These various exclusions and concessions have been justified in part as a means of overcoming oppressively high rates in the upper brackets--and a sharp reduction in those rates, accompanied by base-broadening, loophole-closing measures, would properly make the new rates not only lower but also more widely applicable. Surely this is more equitable on both counts.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Making love , Parting , Effort

“Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital. The Government has already taken major steps this year to reduce business tax liability and to stimulate the modernization, replacement, and expansion of our productive plant and equipment. [...] For all these reasons, next year's tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes, for those in the lower brackets, who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Business , Home , Personality , Effort

“I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last 5 years that our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking. In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the Federal Government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures. [...] While rising demand will expand imports, new investment in more efficient productive facilities will aid exports and a new economic climate could both draw capital from abroad and keep capital here at home.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Home , Peace , Drawing , Time

“The coming stock market crash will inevitably cause much unemployment. This will lead to a complete change of government priorities: the supplying of adequate food, shelter, health-care and education will become paramount responsibilities of all forward looking nations. The waste of resources as today, in armaments and competitive practices, will cease. A rational and sustainable economic structure based on sufficiency will become the norm. Leisure will be the natural by-product of such a structure. p.156”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: Maitreya's Mission Vol. II (1993), After the stock markets collapse

Food , Health , Nature , Education

“Think of life as being this book, an unfinished book for sure. We're just seeing the last few pages of each chapter. If you look out on the eight million species that we share this planet with, think of them all being four billion years of evolution. They're all the product of that. Think of us all as young leaves on this ancient and gigantic tree of life, all of us connected by invisible branches not just to each other, but to our extinct relatives and our evolutionary ancestors. As a biologist, I'm still trying to learn, with others, how everyone's related to each other, who is related to whom. Perhaps it's better still to think of us as a little fish out of water. Yes, one that learned to walk and talk, but one that still has a lot of learning to do about who we are and where we came from.”

Prosanta Chakrabarty (1978) American ichthyologist

Source: Four billion years of evolution in six minutes https://www.ted.com/talks/prosanta_chakrabarty_four_billion_years_of_evolution_in_six_minutes (April 2018)

Tree , Learning , Water , Thinking

“I'm interested in truth, I like science. But truth's a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it's been beneficent. … It's curious … to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to imagine that it could go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasise from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific resarch was still permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled — after the Nine Years' War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World (1932), Mustapha Mond, in Ch. 16

Imagination , Reading , Time , War

“iPhone is the most profitable product in the history of business, but more than a decade after its debut, pretty much everyone on the planet who can afford one already has one ...”

Farhad Manjoo (1978) American journalist

Source: The Incredible Shrinking Apple http://nytimes.com/2019/04/03/opinion/apple-steve-jobs.html in The New York Times (3 April 2019)

Business , History

“Study in one school of psychology came to what seemed a terrible conclusion. It was the school of Lombroso in Italy. He declared, and many others followed him, that the visions of the prophets, of the saints, of the seers, all their testimony to the existence of superphysical worlds, were the products of disordered brains, of diseased or over-strained nervous apparatus. He went further, and he declared that the manifestation known as genius was closely allied to insanity, that the brain of the genius and the brain of the madman were akin, until the phrase "genius is allied to madness," became the stock axiom of that school.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Essays and Addresses, Vol. III- Evolution and Occultism (1913)

School , Study , World , Madness

“The hardest thing about making a vaccine is mass-producing it. You have to have the right buffering agent, the right stabilizing agent. You have to have the right vial. You have to do real-time stability studies to make sure that when the vaccine leaves the manufacturing plant, that the time it takes to get from the tarmac to the person's arm does not cause any problems. Because, remember, when you're shipping vaccines, they're going to be exposed to high temperatures and low temperatures, and you have to make sure that you have a stable product.”

Paul Offit (1951) American immunologist

Paul Offit (2020) cited in " This Is How We'll Vaccinate the World Against COVID-19 https://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/devices/this-is-how-well-vaccinate-the-world-against-covid19" on IEEE Spectrum, 15 December 2020.

Study , Time , Personality , Problem

“epic ; supreme court rules nabisco is legally allowed to label their products as "Homemade" after forcing the employees to live at the factory”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/1288582330261467136]
Tweets by year, 2020

“When one sees, the variety and abundance of beautiful and bloodless fruits that gorge the markets of civilisation and considers the amount of art available for cooking and compounding this abundance, and considers, too, what might be still further accomplished in the production and preparation of foods by scientific attention to the matter, it seems so strange, so sad, and so frightful, that man, elected by the accidents of evolution to be the model and schoolmaster of the world, and adapted so signally to a guiltless diet, should continue to perpetrate in the daylight of the twentieth century the barbarous, blood-sucking atrocities of the reptile.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), Is Man a Plant-Eater?, p. 130

Food , Beauty , Art , World

“[S]ince vegetal fat is identical chemically with animal fat, and vegetal protein with animal protein, since these substances are found abundantly in non-flesh products, and since the only other food substances used by man (starch and sugar) are not found except in plants and plant products, it may be asserted positively that from the standpoint of food-supply there is no reason why man should prey when he eats. The plant world contains all of the compounds necessary for human alimentation, it contains them abundantly, it contains them in forms of the highest delicacy and the greatest variety and economy, and it contains them in a much more prime condition than they are found in the diseased tissues of our mistreated servants.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), What Shall We Eat?, pp. 92–93

World , Animals , Disease , Food

“From the standpoint of economy alone, the diet of the fields and orchards ought to appeal successfully to every one possessed of undoubted sanity. One acre devoted to wheat will support ten times as many men as one devoted to grazing. If men would take the beautiful products of the soil fresh from Nature's hand, instead of sitting down and devouring, in the form of the accumulated residuum or ruminants^ an acre at a meal, the problems o human poverty and over-population would be immensely simplified.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), What Shall We Eat?, p. 92

Time , Support , Beauty , Nature

“Furs just as warm and beautiful as murderous sealskin may be made of plush; and vegetal silk as fine and lustrous as ever was spun by the oak-eating babes of Polyphemus can be made of wood. Vegetal leather has been manufactured in London with the polish and durability of calfskin. And when the demand becomes strong enough to turn human attention profitably to the task, foot-wear just as comely and lasting, and more sanitary and comfortable, will be made at even less cost from plant products.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Cost of a Skin, pp. 74–75

Strong , Beauty

“Criminals are the product of arrested development.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

“Just go and feed yourselves on a wide array of products containing high-fructose corn sugar. Zheesh.”

Douglas Coupland book JPod

"That wasn't funny, Evil Mark. It sounded fake and hollow. You're terrible at being ironic, and you've been rehearsing that line, haven't you?"
JPod (2006)

“One common strategy on which we should all be able to agree is to take steps to reduce the risk of human extinction when those steps are also highly effective in benefiting existing sentient beings. For example, eliminating or decreasing the consumption of animal products will benefit animals, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and lessen the chances of a pandemic resulting from a virus evolving among the animals crowded into today’s factory farms, which are an ideal breeding ground for viruses. That therefore looks like a high-priority strategy.”

Peter Singer book The Most Good You Can Do

Source: The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically (2015), Chapter 15: Preventing Human Extinction (p. 177)

Animals , Chance

“The highest production and living standards cannot be achieved without a new and human spirit in the industrial world. No industry can succeed without the co-operation of capital, management and labour. Each must be encouraged. Each must be fairly rewarded. Between the three there must be mutual understanding and respect.”

Robert Menzies (1894–1978) Australian politician, 12th Prime Minister of Australia

1949 election campaign speech https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1949-robert-menzies, delivered in Melbourne on November 10, 1949
Wilderness Years (1941-1949)

World , Understanding

“An important assumption underlying our commitment to freedom of expression is that truth is a process, not a product.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

Source: Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002), p. 149

Truth , Freedom

“Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he "burns without being consumed.“”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself (1947), p.189

Problem , Self-confidence , World , Happiness

“Profits, wages and salaries are still determined not by any conditions of national interest or social justice, but by the traditional methods of laisser-faire. Under conditions of full employment, this must result in a continuous inflationary pressure, which undermines the real value of social security and small savings, as well as making our products less competitive in foreign markets and so jeopardising our capacity to maintain the standard of living.”

Richard Crossman (1907–1974) British Member of Parliament

‘Introduction’, New Fabian Essays (1952), pp. 26–27

Making love , Justice

“Sometimes in our activist and production-oriented American society and culture we succumb to pragmatism looking at the Christian life and our sharing in the apostolic mission of the Church as a matter being able to “do” things for Christ, the Church or others. In fact, the Christian life is a gift and a call to truth and love given to us by God. It is first a matter of "being," of simply existing as a person created by God and redeemed by him in Christ. We live out this truth and love in specific ways according to our age, talents, and unique vocation. At no point are the sacraments about what we have done or promise to do for God. They are God's free gift of grace to us. At the same time, these gifts of love entail an obligation to bear witness to God's love in word and deed by our collaboration in freedom with the grace given.”

Álvaro Corrada del Río (1942) Puerto Rican Catholic bishop

Pastoral Reflection on the Sacrament of Confirmation http://www.americancatholicpress.org/Bishop_Corrada_Pastoral_Reflecton%20_on_Confirmation.html (October 7, 2005)

God , Time , Freedom , Personality

“Men were made for higher things, one can’t help wanting to say, even though one knows that men weren’t made for anything, but are the product of natural selection.”

J. J. C. Smart (1920–2012) Australian philosopher and academic

An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics, in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism For and Against, Cambridge, 1973, p. 19

Help , Nature , Men

“Men were made for higher things, one can’t help wanting to say, even though one knows that men weren’t made for anything, but are the product of natural selection.”

J. J. C. Smart (1920–2012) Australian philosopher and academic

An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics, in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism For and Against, Cambridge, 1973, p. 19

Help , Nature , Men

“We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.”

Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker

Past , Animals

“You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back?”

W. Clement Stone (1902–2002) American New Thought author

Success , Help , Life

“Bee Movie was definitely my favorite movie that I've starred in, because I've always wanted to be a bee. They seem to have the most organized society on earth, and they make honey! Which is a pretty amazing product.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Reddit "Ask Me Anything" #3 (2016)

Star , Bee

“If our engineers became politicians, Huawei would have collapsed. Engineers should focus on developing good products. They don't need to read about politics. What's the point of them caring about political issues? If our engineers are all out protesting, who is going to pay them?”

Ren Zhengfei (1944) Chinese businessman

Interview with the Economist (September 10, 2019)

Reading

“We can license technologies and production techniques. Whoever gets the technologies can develop new things based on them.”

Ren Zhengfei (1944) Chinese businessman

Interview with the Economist (September 10, 2019)

“Earth had always operated on a continuous-growth model that requires a poverty class. Sustainable models require productive work by all members and are quite different.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 32, “I Am Gretamara/On Mars” (p. 272)

“Have you, have I the right to live only so long as we are productive, so long as we are recognized by others as productive?”

Clemens August Graf von Galen (1878–1946) German count, Bishop of Münster, and cardinal, important figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism

Speech against Nazi euthanasia (August 3, 1941)

“If you want a room to write in, just get a room. Don't make a big production out of it. If it doesn't leak, has a window, heat in the winter, then put in your desk, bookshelves, a soft chair, and start writing.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "The writing studio". p.103
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

Winter

“Wealth won’t give you satisfaction, creating a good product that’s well received by users is what matters most.”

Ma Huateng (1971) Chinese internet entrepreneur

"TC Disrupt Beijing: A Fireside Chat With Tencent CEO Pony Ma" in Techcrunch (31 October 2011) https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/30/tc-disrupt-beijing-a-fireside-chat-with-tencent-ceo-pony-ma/

Wealth

“So long as production is left to the uncontrolled decisions of private individuals, conducted, guided and inspired by the motive of profit, so long will Poverty, Insecurity and Injustice continue.”

Hugh Gaitskell (1906–1963) British politician

'Why I Am a Socialist', South Leeds Worker (December 1937), quoted in Philip Williams, Hugh Gaitskell: A Political Biography (1979), p. 68

Motivation , Decision

“Anyone who wish to become a genius must seek for the process and not the final product. Forget about the shortcuts and take the longest road. The future and all the prizes shall be yours!”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Forgetting , Future

“Without a sense of history, our expectations are the product of how we live now.”

David Fleming (1940–2010) British activist

Lean Logic, (2016), p. 152, entry on Expectations https://leanlogic.online/expectations/

History , Sense

“All directors always try to do their best. The kind of movie on which they are working does not matter. Directors are limited by the size of the production budget and the amount of time that they have to shoot a film, but they always try to do their best within those constraints.”

Akira Kubo (1936) Japanese actor

Time

“Freedom is the biggest myth ever created. It's a destructive, unachievable goal that has caused a great deal of pain. Very few people can handle freedom. A society is healthy and productive when it's under control.”

John Twelve Hawks book The Traveler

Source: Fourth Realm Trilogy (2005-2009), The Traveler (2005), Ch. 30

Pain , Freedom , People

“Of all the outlets, the safest and most stable, both for products and for capital, is obviously that of a colony.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Quotes related to the Belgian Colonial Empire
Source: All the King's Men' A search for the colonial ideas of some advisers and "accomplices" of Leopold II (1853-1892). (Hannes Vanhauwaert), Preface:A historiographical picture of Leopold II (1835-1909) http://www.ethesis.net/leopold_II/leopold_II.htm#2.%20 STENGERS, J. “The place of Leopold II in the history of colonization.” The New Clio, I-II (1949-1950), 517.

“It will not be wise, however, to engage in a blind rat-race of consumption and production as if man is created for the sole purpose of consumption.”

Deendayal Upadhyaya (1916–1968) RSS thinker and co-founder of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh

Source: —Deendayal Upadhyaya, thinker and forerunner of the Bharatiya Janata Party quoted from Malhotra, R. (2021). Artificial intelligence and the future of power: 5 battlegrounds. New Delhi : Rupa, 2021.

“Private prisons are direct sources of profit for the companies that run them, but public prisons have become so thoroughly saturated with the profit-producing products and services of private corporations that the distinction is not as meaningful as one might suspect.”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Five

“I might like to try things I haven’t attempted before, whether it’s working with new production teams or utilising my own ideas for innovative designs. I would enjoy a path like that, where I can take part in the creative process.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "Liu Wen opens up about fame, responsibility and finding meaning in her career" in Vogue https://vogue.sg/liu-wen-cover-vogue-singapore-leslie-zhang/ (1 March 2021)

Idea , Parting

“Overcapacity in steel production is a worldwide problem. The main reasons for this are the slow recovery of the global economy and shrinking demand.”

Liu Yandong (1945) Chinese politician

Source: "Chinese Vice Premier: Germany Can Trust Us" in Handelsblatt https://www.handelsblatt.com/english/politics/handelsblatt-interview-chinese-vice-premier-germany-can-trust-us/23542860.html?ticket=ST-3429686-pwkpyaicAuKXkd15MSqn-cas01.example.org (25 November 2016)

Problem

“It is important to launch core reforms in education and healthcare and boost production primarily through developing agriculture and IT sector. We see the latter as a potentially key sector for future development because there is a real need today for several thousand programmers.”

Ana Brnabić (1975) Prime Minister of Serbia

Source: "Serbia Would Look Very Different Without NALED" in CORD Magazine https://cordmagazine.com/interview/ana-brnabic-serbia-different-without-naled/ (17 June 2016)

Education , Future

“In the military perspective, fighting is the last resort while before it there must be production on a large scale and with high enthusiasm and large-scale production on the sea.”

Zhang Zhaozhong (1952) Chinese admiral

"China boasts of strategy to “recover” islands occupied by Philippines" in China News https://chinanews.net.au/2013/05/28/china-boasts-of-strategy-to-recover-islands-occupied-by-philippines/ (28 May 2013)

Fight , Sea

“From the creative standpoint it's process not product and if you can stay in that headspace then the business side of that product you will serve that to the best of your ability.”

Joy Tanner (1966) American actress

Source: Acting with Impact with Joy Tanner interviewed by Kimberly Jentzen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sAqXdm_9u4 (February 3, 2021)

Business

“A product, or an idea for a product, does not make a business.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Source: Official FB page https://www.facebook.com/100044446688992/posts/453533559471530/

Business , Idea

“The fundamental truth that makes us free is the grateful recognition that we come from God and we are not the product of chance, or of mere biological evolution, or of some cosmic coincidence.”

Andrés Stanovnik (1949) Catholic archbishop

Source: Bishop reminds Argentineans “man comes from God and is not product of chance” https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/4419/bishop-reminds-argentineans-man-comes-from-god-and-is-not-product-of-chance (17 July 2005)

God , Chance , Truth

“We support the complex approach that has been initiated in connection with sustainable energy for all, sustainable consumption and production, the elimination of hunger, and ensuring urban infrastructure development.”

Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine

Source: "Speech at the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly" https://undocs.org/en/A/67/PV.9 (26 September 2012)

Hunger , Support

“... the phenomenon of serial entrepreneurship would seem to call into question our tendency to explain success as the product of chance.”

Peter Thiel book Zero to One

Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=Owc2nQEACAAJ&pg=PA59 p. 59
Zero to One (2014)

Chance , Question , Success

“Success in financial inclusion entails reaching these users with products that can significantly improve financial lives.”

Ibukun Awosika (1962) Nigerian business magnate

Source: https://theafricadebate.com/news-2018/2018/an-interview-with-ibukun-awosika Speaking in an interview about herself (April 18 2018)

Success

“Agrarian reform is not the whim of a government or the program of a party. It is the product of the pressing need of all the peoples of the world...”

João Goulart (1918–1976) 24th President of Brazil

Source: João Goulart. Discursos Selecionados do Presidente João Goulart, 2010, FUNAG, 978-85-7631-193-5, 85, pt-br http://funag.gov.br/loja/download/641-Discursos_joao_goulart.pdf,

People , World

“Finished products are for decadent minds.”

Isaac Asimov book Second Foundation

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Second Foundation (1953)

“The most treasured resource is our people and, if their health deteriorates, productivity and excellence will become mere talking points and not achievable objectives.”

Linah Mohohlo (1952–2021) Botswana banker

Source: PRODUCTIVITY WEEK DINNER DANCE ADDRESS https://www.bankofbotswana.bw/sites/default/files/speech-documents/productivity-week-dance-october-25-2001.pdf (October 25, 2001)

People , Health

“It has been said that everybody’s business is nobody’s business. This is not true with respect to productivity; it is truly everybody’s business.”

Linah Mohohlo (1952–2021) Botswana banker

Source: PRODUCTIVITY WEEK DINNER DANCE ADDRESS https://www.bankofbotswana.bw/sites/default/files/speech-documents/productivity-week-dance-october-25-2001.pdf (October 25, 2001)

Business

“Obstacles, not products, are the source of creating wealth.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

Wealth

“A large fraction of our total economy has grown up around providing service and counseling to inadequate people—and inadequate people are the main product of government compulsion schools.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

The Exhausted School: Bending The Bars of Traditional Education, Berkeley Hills Books; 2 edition (2002) p. 53

People , School

“Fascism is a leftist product—a corrupt and diseased offshoot of leftist agitation.”

John Thomas Flynn (1882–1964) American journalist

Source: As We Go Marching (1944), p. 68

Disease

“I felt it was shaving away my soul little by little…The music industry is this supersaturated version of consumerism. You are the product being consumed, bought, and sold. Even the people on your team who are your friends, the very foundation of your dynamic is that they get a percentage of your income. Every time I turned something down, it would mean that they would make less money.”

Mitski (1990) Japanese-American singer-songwriter

Laurel Hell
Source: On why she initially decided to leave the music industry in Mitski Had to Quit Music to Love It” https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/mitski-new-album-laurel-hell-cover-story-1272973/ in Rolling Stone (2021 Dec 27)

Money , Soul , People , Time

“This important act reflects the will of a people demanding unity, especially within the opposition, in order to defeat the dictatorship... I want a social pact with every sector, the productive sectors, with business, with workers, with teachers, with farmers and campesinos, with the informal economy and small and medium-sized businesses”

Xiomara Castro (1959) First Lady of Honduras

Source: Quoted in Could Honduras Shift Left? A Look at Xiomara Castro, by Brendan O'Boyle, America's Quarterly, October 14, 2021

People , Teachers , Business

“Changin' laws an' legislatures ain't, as fur as I can see,
Goin' to make this world much better, unless somehow we can
Find a way to make a better an' a finer sort o' man.
The trouble ain't with statutes or with systems—not at all;
It's with humans jus' like we [are] an' their petty ways an' small.
We could stop our writin' law-books an' our regulatin' rules
If a better sort of manhood was the product of our schools.
For the things that we air needin' isn't writin' from a pen
Or bigger guns to shoot with, but a bigger type of men.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: All That Matters (1922), p.57 - The Need, from stanzas 1 (part) and 2.

Men , Books , World , School

“People who object to the by-product hypothesis [for female orgasm] are doing something strange: They're saying that it's hugely important to them that female orgasm turns out to be an adaptation, like vomiting, cobra venom, and the scorpion's stinger, rather than a "mere" cultural invention, like science, medicine, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: The Ape That Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve (2018), p. 59

People , Universe , Science

“Nature shouldn’t be able to do this, Sunday thought. It shouldn’t be able to produce something that resembled the work of directed intelligence, something artful, when the only factors involved were unthinking physics and obscene, spendthrift quantities of time. Time to lay down the sediments, in deluge after deluge, entire epochs in the impossibly distant past when Mars had been both warm and wet, a world deluded into thinking it had a future. Time for cosmic happenstance to hurl a fist from the sky, punching down through these carefully superimposed layers, drilling through these carefully superimposed layers, drilling the geological chapters like a bullet through a book. And then yesterday more time—countless millions of years—for wind and dust to work their callous handiwork, scouring and abrading, wearing the exposed layers back at subtly different rates depending on hardness and chemistry, util these deliberate-looking right-angled steps and contours began to assume grand and imperial solidity, rising from the depths like the stairways of the gods.
Awe-inspiring, yesterday. Sometimes it was entirely right and proper to be awed. And recognising the physics in these formations, the hand of time and matter and the nuclear forces underpinning all things, did not lessen that feeling. What was she, ultimately, but the end product of physics and matter? And what was her art but the product of physics and matter working on itself?”

Alastair Reynolds book Blue Remembered Earth

Source: Blue Remembered Earth (2012), Chapter 17 (pp. 292-293)

Dependency , God , Books , World

“Some of the harm that humans cause to other humans and to animals is mediated by the destructive effect that humans have on the environment. For much of human history, the damage was local. Groups of humans fouled their immediate environment. In recent centuries the human impact has increased exponentially and the threat is now to the global environment. The increased threat is a product of two interacting factors–the exponential growth of the human population combined with significant increases in negative effects per capita. The latter is the result of industrialization and increased consumption.”

David Benatar (1966) South African philosopher

Permissible Progeny? The Morality of Procreation and Parenting (2015)
Source: Chapter 1: The Misanthropic Argument for Anti-natalism https://books.google.com/books?id=J6dBCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA44&pg=PA48#v=onepage&q&f=false, p. 48

History , Animals

“Our species is prone to a flattering view of itself. Humans have regarded themselves as the pinnacle of creation, formed by and in the image of an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God, and inhabiting a planet at the center of the universe—a planet around which all others revolve. Science has done much to debunk some of these ideas. We now know that our planet is not at the center of the universe: the earth revolves around the sun rather than vice versa. And we know—or at least some of us do—that we are Johnny-come-lately products of a long, blind evolutionary process.”

David Benatar (1966) South African philosopher

Permissible Progeny? The Morality of Procreation and Parenting (2015)
Source: Chapter 1: The Misanthropic Argument for Anti-natalism https://books.google.com/books?id=J6dBCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA44&pg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false (2015), p. 35-36

God , Universe , Idea , Science

“The belief that we can maintain current levels of consumption, especially of animal products, capitalist expansion, imperial wars, a reliance on fossil fuels and abject subservience to unfettered corporate power, which has solidified the worst income inequality in human history, is not a form of hope but suicidal self-delusion. We are not headed under the policies of the Biden administration and the global ruling elite for the broad sunlit uplands of a new and glorious future, but economic misery, vast climate migrations, waves of new and more virulent pandemics, of which COVID-19 is a mild precursor, along with irreversible ecological systems collapse and frightening forms of societal breakdown, authoritarianism and neofascism.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

Source: The Great Delusion https://scheerpost.com/2020/12/21/chris-hedges-the-great-delusion/. Scheerpost, December 21, 2020

History , Suicide , War , Future

“Don’t worry about winning debates and beating up people in heated arguments. That stuff is rarely enjoyable or productive. Instead offer a helping hand. Be positive. Teach. Try to inspire people to think better for their own good.”

Guy P. Harrison (1963) American skeptic author

People , Help , Thinking

“Women are attracted to men's ability to generate, to be productive, and to share. These qualities transcend wealth, which can disappear.”

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

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifi5KkXig3s "Biblical Series IV: Adam and Eve: Self-Consciousness, Evil, and Death"

Wealth , Women , Men

“Terrorism cannot be born of religion. Terrorism is the product of corrupt minds, hardened hearts, and arrogant egos, and corruption, destruction, and arrogance are unknown to the heart attached to the divine.”

Ali Gomaa (1951) Egyptian imam

"Terrorism Has No Religion" http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/terrorism-has-no-religion/0019906, The American Muslim (TAM).

Religion , Heart

“America must offer meaningful opportunities for redemption and rehabilitation to empower those who have been incarcerated to become productive, law-abiding, members of society, and reduce crime and make our communities safer.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Expands Second Chance Opportunities for Formerly Incarcerated Persons https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/26/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-expands-second-chance-opportunities-for-formerly-incarcerated-persons/
2022, April 2022

Law , Communication

“It was his hope and ambition to cause many deaths. He was an arms salesman by choice, calm and even a little happy to see his products in such demand, capable of trying to clinch a sale at the bedside of a fresh corpse.”

John Brunner book The Jagged Orbit

Source: The Jagged Orbit (1969), Chapter 51, “If Your Number Comes Up Then Your Number Comes Up and That’s All There Is to It So What’s the Use of Worrying That’s What I Always Say” (p. 163)

Happiness , Hope , Death

“Would it not have startled the old economists to hear that the secret of the most efficient system of wealth production was conformity on a national scale to the ethical idea of equal treatment for all embodied by Jesus Christ in the golden rule?”

Edward Bellamy book Equality

Equality (1897)

Secret , Idea , Wealth , Christ

“The A B C of any science of wealth production is the necessity of co-ordination and concert of effort; whereas competition, conflict, and endless cross-purposes were the sum and substance of the economic methods set forth by these writers.”

Edward Bellamy book Equality

Equality (1897)

Science , Wealth , Effort

“...the profit system, by its necessary nature, operated to stop limit and cripple production at the point where it began to be efficient.”

Edward Bellamy book Equality

Equality (1897)

Nature

“The effect of the land reform bringing land to the peasant masses is to enhance their enthusiasm and their zeal in increasing production and taking part in the war of resistance, and consequently the resistance forces will grow in strength.”

Trường Chinh (1907–1988) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (1907-1988)

Implementing the Land Reform (1958) (excerpts)

War , Parting

“We want to get our army involved with the people in productive work and remind it constantly that, without patriotic training, a soldier is only a criminal with power.”

Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta

From a speech to the United Nations on 4 October 1984 https://www.marxists.org/archive/sankara/1984/october/04.htm

People , Training

“Speaking of the agriculture, we should at least stop selling grain but instead we should process it, for example, into meat or meat products.”

Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine

Source: * Янукович: Перерабатывать зерно в мясо ** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAmDEwlydIw ** en ** 2022-06-12 ** 2009-12-25

“I would like to say that in the end, our task should be, if we are speaking of metal, to process it to the highest depth so that we can trade with the most sophisticated products...”

Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine

Source: * Янукович: Перерабатывать зерно в мясо ** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAmDEwlydIw ** en ** 2022-06-12 ** 2009-12-25

“The common error lies in failing to recognize that apparent trends can be generated as by-products, or side consequences, of expansions and contractions in the amount of variation within a system, and not by anything directly moving anywhere.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

Source: Full House (1996), Chapter 3, “Different Parsings, Different Images of Trends” (p. 33)

Error

“Age-related sensory changes can be traced to degeneration in some of the cells and cell products that compose the sense organ itself.”

Leonard Hayflick (1928) American anatomist

[How and why we age, 1994, Ballantine Books, 177, https://books.google.com/books?id=E2pHAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=loss]

Age , Sense , Change

“Economics was like psychology, a pseudoscience trying to hide that fact with intense theoretical hyperelaboration. And gross domestic product was one of those unfortunate measurement concepts, like inches or the British thermal unit, that ought to have been retired long before.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Blue Mars (1996), Chapter 2, “Areophany” (p. 80)

“Production is ensured by the native working no longer as an employee, but as a free peasant, owner of his land.”

Leopold III of Belgium (1901–1983) King of Belgians

The visit of King Albert I to the Belgian Congo in 1928. Between propaganda and reality. https://www.congoforum.be/Upldocs/Het_bezoek_van_koning_Albert_I_aan_Belgi.compressed.pdf In July 1933, in a noted speech to the Senate, Leopold made a plea for the development of paysannat or indigenous agriculture in then Belgian Congo.

“Fear is a product of a guilty mind.”

Idegu Ojonugwa Shadrach (1995)

Fear

“Cultural products which present women who do not want to be household slaves or universal mothers or sex objects as bitches or sexual failures objectively aid male supremacy.”

Meredith Tax (1942) American writer

Source: "Culture is not Neutral, Whom Does it Serve?" (1972), p. 15

Bitch , Universe , Failure , Sex

“Cultural products that present people who have no money or power as innately stupid or depraved, and thus unworthy of money or power, are in the interests of the ruling class and the power structure as it stands.”

Meredith Tax (1942) American writer

Source: "Culture is not Neutral, Whom Does it Serve?" (1972), p. 15

Money , People , Stupidity

“Cultural products which present foreign wars as the heroic effort of a master race to ennoble mankind are, to the degree they are successful as art, objectively in the interests of imperialists, who are people who make foreign wars against other races for profit.”

Meredith Tax (1942) American writer

Source: "Culture is not Neutral, Whom Does it Serve?" (1972), p. 15

War , People , Success , Art

“A meaningful life – is a productive life dedicated to the welfare and making society more humane.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Life

“The purpose of life is to live meaningfully, productively, and emotionally–saturate. In other words, to live fully.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Life

“Nowadays, if what really matters in a production is its promotion, regardless of the musical genre, unfortunately the quality and its beauty no longer make much sense.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Al giorno d'oggi, se ciò che conta davvero in una produzione è la sua promozione, indipendentemente dal genere musicale, purtroppo la qualità e la sua bellezza non hanno più molto senso.
Source: prevale.net

Beauty , Music , Sense

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