Quotes about push
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Derren Brown photo
Angela Davis photo
Phillip Guston photo
Trey Gowdy photo
William Hazlitt photo

“But patience can't be acquired overnight. It's just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it, to push its limits.”

Eknath Easwaran (1910–1999) spiritual teacher, author of books on meditation and spiritual practice, and translator and interpreter of …

[Your life is your message: Finding harmony with yourself, others, and the earth, Easwaran, Eknath, w:Eknath Easwaran, 1997, Hyperion, New York, 0786882662, http://books.google.com/books?id=xKlCo3suzTkC&pg=PA42&dq=Patience+can%27t+be+acquired+overnight.+It+is+just+like+building+up+a+muscle.+Every+day+you+need+to+work+on+it+inauthor:eknath+inauthor:easwaran&hl=en&ei=9UCVTqyUKuKsiAKB1oy6CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Patience%20can%27t%20be%20acquired%20overnight.%20It%20is%20just%20like%20building%20up%20a%20muscle.%20Every%20day%20you%20need%20to%20work%20on%20it%20inauthor%3Aeknath%20inauthor%3Aeaswaran&f=false] (p. 42) (work originally published 1992)

“Gordon Tullock, on the other hand, might be characterized as the somewhat cynical pragmatist, who set out to understand the world, not to change it. This side of Tullock is visible in his early paper on simple majority rule, and is perhaps most apparent in his work on rent seeking. These differences should not be pushed too far, however. Buchanan (1980) also contributed to the rent-seeking literature, and often has described public choice as “politics without romance.” One of the most dispiriting contributions to the public choice literature has to be Kenneth Arrow’s (1951) famous impossibility theorem. In a too little appreciated article, Tullock (1967b) demonstrated with the help of a somewhat torturous geometrical analysis, that the cycling that underlies the impossibility theorem is likely to be constrained to a rather small subset of Pareto-optimal outcomes, and thus Arrow’s theorem was “irrelevant,” a rather happy result, and one which anticipated work appearing more than a decade later on the uncovered set. In Chap. 10 of Toward a Mathematics of Politics, Tullock (1967a) engages in a bit of wishful thinking about constitutional design by describing how one could achieve an ideal form of proportional representation in a legislative body. He also was an early enthusiast of the potential for using a demand-revelation process to reveal individual preferences for public goods”

Dennis Mueller (1940) American economist

Tideman and Tullock 1976
James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and The Calculus (2012)

Daniel Handler photo
Phillip Guston photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Kim Jong-il photo

“Our Party’s Songun-based revolutionary leadership, Songun-based politics, is a revolutionary mode of leadership and socialist mode of politics that gives top priority to military affairs, and defends the country, the revolution and socialism and dynamically pushes ahead with overall socialist construction by dint of the revolutionary mettle and combat capabilities of the People’s Army.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

"The Songun-based revolutionary line is a great revolutionary line of our era and an ever-victorious banner of our revolution", address to the senior officials of the Central Committee of the Worker's Party (29 January 2003)

Wilt Chamberlain photo
Mahinda Rajapaksa photo

“It is a revolution against a dictator [referring to Rajapaksa]. This should be a lesson for all South Asian countries. This verdict has opened up a free space through which the democratic values and reforms can be pushed in. People really wanted a change and wished to end the authoritarian rule of Rajapaksa.”

Mahinda Rajapaksa (1945) Prime Minister of Sri Lanka

Kushal Perera, a political analyst and writer on Mahinda Rajapaksa loosing to Maithripala Sirisena in 2015, quoted on The Indian Express (January 9, 2015), "Maithripala Sirisena sworn-in as Sri Lanka’s new President" http://indianexpress.com/article/world/neighbours/maithripala-sirisena-sworn-in-as-sri-lankas-new-president/
About

Amitabh Bachchan photo

“I know that there are a lot of areas inside me which I need to analyse. But I need time. I can't be rushed into it. Even if it keeps lingering in the back of my mind always. I keep joking, fooling around on the sets, trying to push everything away for a later day scrutiny. I don't even want to acknowledge those dark corners of my insides as yet. And if at all I do it, I'll do it for no one else but myself. Not my wife, not my parents. Maybe my children - maybe just my son. Nobody else. Of course, there is also another way of looking at things. Supposing I did not have this pressure of talking to the media, maybe people like you and others would have always thought of me as somebody else. I don't know what opinion of me you have now. I don't know what you felt before you met me, how you felt while you were interviewing me and how you feel today and how you'll feel tomorrow. But I'm sure there will be a difference. Because forming an opinion without meeting a person and judging your instincts and impressions after meeting him are two different things. Most people I've met of late have gone back thinking exactly the contrary of what they thought earlier. I've tried to be as honest as I can with you. I can tell you that I've never spoken like this to anyone before. I wonder if you're convinced. You don't look it. Maybe I will convince you someday.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

Van Morrison photo

“Look at the ivy on the cold clinging wall
Look at the flowers and the green grass so tall
It's not a matter of when push comes to shove
It's just an hour on the wings of a dove.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Warm Love
Song lyrics, Hard Nose the Highway (1973)

Ward Churchill photo

“Among the worst examples is that of the Alberni Indian Residential School (British Columbia) where, during the 1920s, children caught "talking Indian" suffered the hideous ordeal of having sewing needles pushed through their tongues.”

Ward Churchill (1947) Political activist

[Kill the Indian, Save the Man]: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools, City Lights Books, San Francisco, CA, November 2004, 55, 0872864340]
Churchill's source: [Haig-Brown, Celia, Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School, Tillacum Library, Vancouver, BC, April 1, 1988, 0889781893]

Kanō Jigorō photo

“Generally speaking, if we look at sports we find that their strong point is that because they are competitive they are interesting, and young people are likely to be attracted to them. No matter how valuable the method of physical education, if it is not put into practice, it will serve no purpose — therein lies the advantage of sports. But, in this regard there are matters to which we must also give a great deal of consideration. First, so-called sports were not created for the purpose of physical education; one competes for another purpose, namely, to win. Accordingly, the muscles are not necessarily developed in a balanced way, and in some cases the body is pushed too far or even injured. For that reason, while there is no doubt that sports are a good thing, serious consideration must be given to the selection of the sport and the training method. Sports must not be undertaken carelessly, over-zealously, or without restraint. However, it is safe to say that competitive sports are a form of physical education that should be promoted with this advice in mind. The reason I have worked to popularize sports for more than twenty years and that I have strived to bring the Olympic Games to Japan is entirely because I recognize these merits. However, in times like these, when many people are enthusiastic about sports, I would like to remind them of the adverse effects of sports as well. I also urge them to keep in mind the goals of physical education—to develop a sound body that is useful to you in your daily life — and be sure to consider whether or not the method of training is in keeping with the concept of”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

http://www.judoinfo.com/seiryoku2.htm seiryoku zenyo
"Judo and Physical Training" in Mind Over Muscle : Writings from the Founder of Judo (2006) edited by Naoki Murata, p. 57

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Jane Roberts photo
Chinua Achebe photo
Maxime Bernier photo

“This title is unacceptably misleading, @CTVNews. I did not criticize “diversity” but rather “more diversity,” and “ever more diversity” as Trudeau is proposing with his radical multiculturalism. Canada has always been a diverse country and this is part of who we are. I love this Canada. But there is a difference between recognizing diversity and pushing for ever more of it. Something infinitely diverse has no core identity and ceases to exist.”

Maxime Bernier (1963) Canadian politician

7:10am 13 August 2018 https://twitter.com/MaximeBernier/status/1029007345005879296 reply to CTV News misquotation "Diversity will 'destroy' what makes Canada great" https://twitter.com/CTVNews/status/1029000159856914434 at 6:42am, leading CTV to re-issue the report under a different title by 9:40am https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/tory-mp-bernier-criticized-for-saying-more-diversity-will-destroy-what-makes-canada-great-1.4050494
2018

Claude Lévi-Strauss photo
Jeremy Clarkson photo
Devin Townsend photo
Richard Rumelt photo
Neil Cavuto photo
Steve Kilbey photo
Harold Wilson photo

“We have not been pushed around either abroad or at home and we are not going to be. This is government of the people; it is government for all the people, and the accent is on government.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (28 September 1965), quoted in The Times (29 September 1965), p. 5.
Prime Minister

Fred Astaire photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Bernie Sanders photo

“The real issue here, if you look at the Koch Brothers' agenda, is: look at what many of the extreme right-wing people believe. Obamacare is just the tip of the iceberg. These people want to abolish the concept of the minimum wage, they want to privatize the Veteran's Administration, they want to privatize Social Security, end Medicare as we know it, massive cuts in Medicaid, wipe out the EPA, you don’t have an Environmental Protection Agency anymore, Department of Energy gone, Department of Education gone. That is the agenda. And many people don’t understand that the Koch Brothers have poured hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into the tea party and two other kinds of ancillary organizations to push this agenda.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Regarding the United States federal government shutdown of 2013, [Sanders, Bernie, MSNBC News Interview (7 October 2013) (06:41), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LC_4h8rk9E, 7 October 2013, YouTube, 12 October 2013]
[Staff, Bernie Sanders Says Koch Brothers Shut Down Government Via Citizens United, http://www.inquisitr.com/984880/bernie-sanders-says-koch-brothers-shut-down-government-via-citizens-united, 8 October 2013, The Inquisitr, 12 October 2013]
2010s

Andrew Breitbart photo

“I must say, in my non-strategic… ‘cuz I’m under attack all the time, if you see it on Twitter. The [unclear] call me gay, it’s just, they’re vicious, there are death threats, and everything. And so, there are times where I’m not thinking as clearly as I should, and in those unclear moments, I always think to myself, ‘Fire the first shot.’Bring it on. Because I know who’s on our side. They can only win a rhetorical and propaganda war. They cannot win. We outnumber them in this country, and we have the guns. [laughter] I’m not kidding. They talk a mean game, but they will not cross that line because they know what they’re dealing with.And I have people who come up to me in the military, major named people in the military, who grab me and they go, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing, we’ve got your back.’They understand that. These are the unspoken things we know, they know. They know who’s on their side, they’ve got Janeane Garofalo, we are freaked out by that. When push comes to shove, they know who’s on our side. They are the bullies on the playground, and they’re starting to realize, what if we were to fight back, what if we were to slap back?”

Andrew Breitbart (1969–2012) American writer and publisher

Speaking to a Massachusetts tea party group http://www.mediaite.com/online/andrew-breitbart-to-tea-partiers-we-outnumber-liberals-and-we-have-the-guns/ (September 16, 2011)

Thomas F. Wilson photo
Paul Krugman photo
Dean Acheson photo
Ray Comfort photo

“The Bible says that the earth is immovable. It cannot be moved. So now is your chance to prove your point. Run outside and move the earth. Perhaps you and your friends could jump on it, or find a rocky outcrop and push it together. Maybe after that little experiment you will concede that the earth is immovable.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

earlier written, without emphasis, in * "Mistakes" in the Bible
Source: The Defender's Guide for Life's Toughest Questions, 58, 2011-02-16, New Leaf, Green Forest, 9780890516041, 2010943232, http://books.google.com/books?id=OBCuCmR7KiYC&pg=PA58

Fritjof Capra photo
Primo Levi photo

“For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world. I was fed up with books, which I still continued to gulp down with indiscreet voracity, and searched for a key to the highest truths; there must be a key, and I was certain that, owing to some monstrous conspiracy to my detriment and the world's, I would not get in school. In school they loaded with me with tons of notions that I diligently digested, but which did not warm the blood in my veins. I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: "I will understand this, too, I will understand everything, but not the way they want me to. I will find a shortcut, I will make a lock-pick, I will push open the doors."
It was enervating, nauseating, to listen to lectures on the problem of being and knowing, when everything around us was a mystery pressing to be revealed: the old wood of the benches, the sun's sphere beyond the windowpanes and the roofs, the vain flight of the pappus down in the June air. Would all the philosophers and all the armies of the world be able to construct this little fly? No, nor even understand it: this was a shame and an abomination, another road must be found.”

"Hydrogen"
The Periodic Table (1975)

Daniel Dennett photo

“Remember Marxism? It used to be a sour sort of fun to tease Marxists about the contradictions in some of their pet ideas. The revolution of the proletariat was inevitable, good Marxists believed, but if so, why were they so eager to enlist us in their cause? If it was going to happen anyway, it was going to happen with or without our help. But of course the inevitability that Marxists believe in is one that depends on the growth of the movement and all its political action. There were Marxists working very hard to bring about the revolution, and it was comforting to them to believe that their success was guaranteed in the long run. And some of them, the only ones that were really dangerous, believed so firmly in the rightness of their cause that they believed it was permissible to lie and deceive in order to further it. They even taught this to their children, from infancy. These are the "red-diaper babies," children of hardline members of the Communist Party of America, and some of them can still be found infecting the atmosphere of political action in left-wing circles, to the extreme frustration and annoyance of honest socialists and others on the left.Today we have a similar phenomenon brewing on the religious right: the inevitability of the End Days, or the Rapture, the coming Armageddon that will separate the blessed from the damned in the final day of Judgment. Cults and prophets proclaiming the imminent end of the world have been with us for several millennia, and it has been another sour sort of fun to ridicule them the morning after, when they discover that their calculations were a little off. But, just as with the Marxists, there are some among them who are working hard to "hasten the inevitable," not merely anticipating the End Days with joy in their hearts, but taking political action to bring about the conditions they think are the prerequisites for that occasion. And these people are not funny at all. They are dangerous, for the same reason that red-diaper babies are dangerous: they put their allegiance to their creed ahead of their commitment to democracy, to peace, to (earthly) justice — and to truth. If push comes to shove, some of the are prepared to lie and even to kill…”

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Anish Kapoor photo
Benoît Mandelbrot photo
William L. Shirer photo
C. D. Broad photo
Mike Oldfield photo
Bill Hybels photo
Silvio Berlusconi photo

“I have little hair because my brain is so big it pushes the hair out.”

Silvio Berlusconi (1936) Italian politician

As quoted in "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008) http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/20/italy
2001

Henry Ford photo

“Through all the years that I have been in business I have never yet found our business bad as a result of any outside force. It has always been due to some defect in our own company, and whenever we located and repaired that defect our business became good again - regardless of what anyone else might be doing. And it will always be found that this country has nationally bad business when business men are drifting, and that business is good when men take hold of their own affairs, put leadership into them, and push forward in spite of obstacles. Only disaster can result when the fundamental principles of business are disregarded and what looks like the easiest way is taken. These fundamentals, as I see them, are:
(1) To make an ever increasingly large quantity of goods of the best possible quality, to make them in the best and most economical fashion, and to force them out onto the market.
(2) To strive always for higher quality and lower prices as well as lower costs.
(3) To raise wages gradually but continuously B and never to cut them.
(4) To get the goods to the consumer in the most economical manner so that the benefits of low cost production may reach him.
These fundamentals are all summed up in the single word 'service'… The service starts with discovering what people need and then supplying that need according to the principles that have just been given.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Henry Ford in: Justus George Frederick (1930), A Philosophy of Production: A Symposium, p. 32; as cited in: Morgen Witzel (2003) Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 196

Chris Cornell photo
Eric Hoffer photo
Alfred de Zayas photo

“Some observers compare elections in some countries with sports events, where people are but spectators. Moreover, elections must not be mere interludes for pushing a lever and then retreating to passivity, for democracy demands committed participation in the daily workings of society.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

United Nations General Assembly - Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A-68-284_en.pdf.
2013

Paul Graham photo

“Stay in the middle,
don't get pushed to the side,
every chance that's worth taking,
is a chance worth the fight”

Hill Zaini (1987) Bruneian singer

"Stay in the Middle", Filling up the Pages, 2009
Song Quotations

Bill Engvall photo

“[on being condescended to by a flight attendant] Ma'am, when I got up this morning, I didn't wanna be a jackass…you just pushed my jackass button.”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Blue Collar Comedy Tour, Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One For the Road (2006)

Roberto Clemente photo
Denis Diderot photo

“In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

No. 50
On the Interpretation of Nature (1753)

John Byrne photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“Every process pushed far enough tends to reverse or flip suddenly. Chiasmus – the reversal to process caused by increasing its speed, scope or size.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1970s, Take Today : The Executive as Dropout (1972), p. 6

Scott Ritter photo

“I'll say this about nuclear weapons. You know I'm not sitting on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I'm not in on the planning. I'll take it at face value that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff successfully eliminated nuclear weapons in the first phase of the operation.But keep in mind this. That the Bush Administration has built a new generation of nuclear weapons that we call 'usable nukes.' And they have a nuclear posture now, which permits the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons in a non-nuclear environment, if the Commander in Chief deems U. S. forces to be in significant risk.If we start bombing Iran, I'm telling you right now, it's not going to work. We're not going to achieve decapitation, regime change, all that. What will happen is the Iranians will respond, and we will feel the pain instantaneously, which will prompt the Bush administration to phase two, which will have to be boots on the ground. And we will put boots on the ground, we will surge a couple of divisions in, probably through Azerbaijan, down the Caspian Sea coast, in an effort to push the regime over. And when they don't push over, we now have 40,000 troops trapped. We have now reached the definition of significant numbers of U. S. troops in harm's way, and there is no reserve to pull them out! There's no more cavalry to come riding to the rescue. And at that point in time, my concern is that we will use nuclear weapons to break the backbone of Iranian resistance, and it may not work.But what it will do is this: it will unleash the nuclear genie. And so for all those Americans out there tonight who say, 'You know what - taking on Iran is a good thing.' I just told you if we take on Iran, we're gonna use nuclear weapons. And if we use nuclear weapons, the genie ain't going back in the bottle, until an American city is taken out by an Islamic weapon in retaliation. So, tell me, you want to go to war with Iran. Pick your city. Pick your city. Tell me which one you want gone. Seattle? L. A.? Boston? New York? Miami. Pick one. Cause at least one's going. And that's something we should all think about before we march down this path of insanity that George Bush has us headed on.</p”

Scott Ritter (1961) American weapons inspector and writer

October 16, 2006
2006

Pat O'Keeffe photo
George Carlin photo
Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“By all means begin your folio; even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

316.
Aes Triplex (1878)
Variant: Even if the doctor does not give a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week.

Norman Tebbit photo
Thomas Morton (playwright) photo

“Push on,—keep moving.”

Thomas Morton (playwright) (1764–1838) English playwright

A Cure for the Heartache (1797), Act II, scene 1.

John Stuart Mill photo
Roy Jenkins photo

“There has been a lot of talk about the formation of a new centre party. Some have even been kind enough to suggest that I might lead it. I find this idea profoundly unattractive. I do so for at least four reasons. First, I do not believe that such a grouping would have any coherent philosophical base…A party based on such a rag-bag could stand for nothing positive. It would exploit grievances and fall apart when it sought to remedy them. I believe in exactly the reverse sort of politics…Second, I believe that the most likely effect of such an ill-considered grouping would be to destroy the prospect of an effective alternative government to the Conservatives…Some genuinely want a new, powerful anti-Conservative force. They would be wise to reflect that it is much easier to will this than to bring it about. The most likely result would be chaos on the left and several decades of Conservative hegemony almost as dismal and damaging as in the twenties and thirties. Third, I do not share the desire, at the root of much such thinking, to push what may roughly be called the leftward half of the Labour Party…out of the mainstream of British politics…Fourth, and more personally, I cannot be indifferent to the political traditions in which I was brought up and in which I have lived my political life. Politics are not to me a religion, but the Labour Party is and always had been an instinctive part of my life.”

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

Speech to the Oxford University Labour Club (9 March 1973), quoted in The Times (10 March 1973), p. 4
1970s

“The phrase "an idea whose time has come" captures a fundamental reality about an irresistible movement that sweeps over the politics and our society, pushing aside everything that might stand in its path.”

John W. Kingdon (1940) American political scientist

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 1, How Does an Idea's Time Come?, p. 1

Jeremy Corbyn photo
Frank Bainimarama photo
Newton Lee photo
Daniel J. Boorstin photo
Donald A. Norman photo
Dylan Moran photo
Gillian Anderson photo

“I'm damaged in many ways. And yet a lot of what my fight is about is pushing through that to live a meaningful, sane existence and make a difference and play to my strengths.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

WSJ "Gillian Anderson: Reviving Blanche DuBois in Brooklyn" http://www.wsj.com/articles/gillian-anderson-reviving-blanche-dubois-in-brooklyn-1461975005 (April 29, 2016)
2010s

Bill Clinton photo

“Piece by piece, pushing that rock up the hill.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

2010s, (July 26, 2016)

Pete Seeger photo
Damian Pettigrew photo

“We lunched in Fregene: grilled sardines sprinkled with parsley and lemon. Federico ate daintily, like someone with no appetite. The beach was deserted, the wind brisk. In the distance stood the abandoned lighthouse he filmed for 8 1/2. Like someone about to propose a toast, he stood up and "recited" from King Lear :
Hark! Have you heard the news? The king fell off a cliff.
O horrible! Were you very close to him?
Indeed, sir. Close enough to push.
We laughed until he brusquely sat down again, scraping the fish scales off his fingers, staring at the age spots that covered his hands. The beautiful adolescent waitress asked for his autograph. He drew himself as a man-lion in a hat and scarf with huge paws chasing her, and signed it "Féfé." We spent the afternoon visiting Ostia and returned to Rome in a sweltering twilight. He asked to be driven home for a change of clothes. We invited Giulietta, who wore a green velvet turban, to join us for dinner. (Had she already lost her hair from chemotherapy?) Graciously, she declined while smoking cigarette after cigarette. At Cesarina's, Federico drew hilarious, pornographic sketches on the table napkin saying, "If you have not made love today then you have lost a day!"”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

The entire restaurant was at his feet. He was twenty years old now and as thin as Kafka. He was Rome. He had adopted us the way Rome adopts everyone, and we loved him.
On Fellini's final years
Federico Fellini: Sou um Grande Mentiroso (2008)

Richard Feynman photo
Chuck Berry photo
Thaddeus Stevens photo
Pope John Paul I photo
Jerome Isaac Friedman photo
Regina E. Dugan photo

“The DARPA model has three elements:
Ambitious goals. The agency’s projects are designed to harness science and engineering advances to solve real-world problems or create new opportunities. At Defense, GPS was an example of the former and stealth technology of the latter. The problems must be sufficiently challenging that they cannot be solved without pushing or catalyzing the science. The presence of an urgent need for an application creates focus and inspires greater genius.
Temporary project teams. DARPA brings together world-class experts from industry and academia to work on projects of relatively short duration. Team members are organized and led by fixed-term technical managers, who themselves are accomplished in their fields and possess exceptional leadership skills. These projects are not open-ended research programs. Their intensity, sharp focus, and finite time frame make them attractive to the highest-caliber talent, and the nature of the challenge inspires unusual levels of collaboration. In other words, the projects get great people to tackle great problems with other great people.
Independence. By charter, DARPA has autonomy in selecting and running projects. Such independence allows the organization to move fast and take bold risks and helps it persuade the best and brightest to join.”

Regina E. Dugan (1963) American businesswoman, inventor, and technology developer

“Special Forces” Innovation: How DARPA Attacks Problems (2013)

Lewis Mumford photo
Tina Fey photo
Wilhelm II, German Emperor photo
Amit Chaudhuri photo