Quotes about tool
page 5

Stephen Baxter photo
Lawrence M. Schoen photo

““You didn’t do any of these things because they were necessarily good unto themselves, but because you saw them as means to shape events to serve your own ends. The entire legacy of the Matriarch is the exploitation of others like pieces in some great game.”
She laughed in his face. “You can see it that way if you like. The weak usually do, if they see it at all. But you disappoint me. Despite your study of history, you fail to understand power. It’s obvious you never will… There’s really only one choice you ever have to make in any act of creation. Will you be the instrument or the artist? If you’re only now coming to realize that you’ve been a tool all your life, there’s no one to blame for it but yourself. If you don’t like that state of affairs, then act! Impose your will upon the world and walk your own path. If you don’t, you’ll just end up being a token in someone else’s game; you’ll continue to be used as they see fit. That’s how the universe works. You don’t have to like it, but you’d do well to get used to it.”…
“No, maybe that’s the way the world looks once you’ve already decided to take your path. Or maybe it’s just you’re so jaded, or you’ve bought into your own delusions. I don’t know which, and I don’t care. Those aren’t the only choices: use of be used. There is more than being tyrant or servant. I reject both options and I reject you. You’ve been dead for centuries, Margda, it’s about time you accepted that.””

Lawrence M. Schoen (1959) American writer and klingonist

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 38, “Loose Ends” (pp. 362-363; ellipses represent elisions of descriptive sections)

Albert Einstein photo

“The most important tool of the theoretical physicist is his wastebasket.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Told by P. Morrison
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: A guide for the perplexed (1979)

Donald Ervin Knuth photo
Starhawk photo

“Sraffa’s criticisms of the concept of capital also amount – at least in principle –to a deadly blow to the foundations of the so-called ‘neo-classical synthesis’. Combining Keynes’ thesis on the possibility of fighting unemployment by adopting adequate fiscal and monetary policies with the marginalist tradition of simultaneous determination of equilibrium quantities and prices as a method to study any economic problem, this approach has in the last few decades come to constitute the dominant doctrine in textbooks the whole world over. It is only thanks to increasing specialisation in the various fields of economics, often invoked as the inevitable response to otherwise insoluble difficulties, that the theoreticians of general equilibrium are able to construct their models without considering the problem of relations with the real world that economists are supposed to be interpreting, and that the macroeconomists can pretend that their ‘one commodity models’ constitute an acceptable tool for analysis. For those who believe that the true task facing economists, hard as it may be, is to seek to interpret the world they live in, Sraffa’s ‘cultural revolution’ still marks out a path for research that may not (as yet) have yielded all it was hoped to, but is certainly worth pursuing.”

Alessandro Roncaglia (1947) Italian economist

Source: Piero Sraffa: His life, thought and cultural heritage (2000), Ch. 1. Piero Sraffa

Mark Zuckerberg photo
Colin Wilson photo
Dianne Feinstein photo
Gino Severini photo

“I found in your book the confirmation of my ultimate conclusions and the tools for deepening this aspect of the artistic problem.”

Gino Severini (1883–1966) Italian painter

Original in Italian:
ho trovato nel vostro libro la conferma delle mie ultime conclusioni e gli strumenti per approfondire questo as petto della questione artistica.
In a letter to Jacques Maritain, 18 September, 1923; as quoted in: Justine Grace, 'The Spirit of Collaboration: Gino Severini, Jacques Maritain, Anton Luigi Gajoni and the Roman Mosaicists' http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/colloquy/download/colloquy_issue_twenty-two/grace.pdf, COLLOQUY text theory critique Vol 22 (2011).

Adam Roberts photo
Rasmus Lerdorf photo

“I've never thought of PHP as more than a simple tool to solve problems.”

Rasmus Lerdorf (1968) Danish programmer and creator of PHP

@rasmus http://twitter.com/rasmus/status/1938080214814720

Peter F. Drucker photo

“A tool is not necessarily better because it is bigger. A tool is best if it does the job required with a minimum of effort, with a minimum of complexity, and with a minimum of power.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 1, p. 224

Charles Stross photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Joseph Goebbels photo
David Allen photo

“Eternal #GTD paradox: when you get the principle, the tool doesn't matter. But simultaneosly it matters so much more.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

16 February 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/9169795220
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

Paul A. Samuelson photo
Ray Bradbury photo
James Allen photo

“Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills: —
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

As A Man Thinketh (1902)
Variant: Mind is the Master Power that molds and makes, And we are mind. And ever more we take the tool of thought, and shaping what we will, bring forth a thousand joys, or a thousand ills. We think in secret, and it comes to pass, environment, is but our looking glass.

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Henry R. Towne photo

“Among the names of those who have led the great advance of the industrial arts during the past thirty years, that of Frederick Winslow Taylor will hold an increasingly high place. Others have led in electrical development, in the steel industry, in industrial chemistry, in railroad equipment, in the textile arts, and in many other fields, but he has been the creator of a new science, which underlies and will benefit all of these others by greatly increasing their efficiency and augmenting their productivity. In addition, he has literally forged a new tool for the metal trades, which has doubled, or even trebled, the productive capacity of nearly all metal-cutting machines. Either achievement would entitle him to high rank among the notable men of his day; — the two combined give him an assured place among the world's leaders in the industrial arts.
Others without number have been organizers of industry and commerce, each working out, with greater or less success, the solution of his own problems, but none perceiving that many of these problems involved common factors and thus implied the opportunity and the need of an organized science. Mr. Taylor was the first to grasp this fact and to perceive that in this field, as in the physical sciences, the Baconian system could be applied, that a practical science could be created by following the three principles of that system, viz.: the correct and complete observation oi facts, the intelligent and unbiased analysis of such facts, and the formulating of laws by deduction from the results so reached. Not only did he comprehend this fundamental conception and apply it; he also grasped the significance and possibilities of the problem so fully that his codification of the fundamental principles of the system he founded is practically complete and will be a lasting monument to its founder.”

Henry R. Towne (1844–1924) American engineer

Henry R. Towne, in: Frank Barkley Copley, Frederick W. Taylor, father of scientific management https://archive.org/stream/frederickwtaylor01copl, 1923. p. xii.

Margaret Mead photo

“I believe, however, that humans are the only animals that we know who invents tools for working together - and they have done that as long as we have considered them human.”

Gerald M. Weinberg (1933–2018) American computer scientist

Gerald M. Weinberg (1992) cited in: Hannes P. Lubich (1995) Towards a CSCW Framework for Scientific Cooperation in Europe. p. 7

Václav Havel photo
Karl Kraus photo

“Progress … has subordinated the purpose of life to the means of subsistence and turned us into the nuts and bolts for our tools.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

“In these great times,” Harry Zohn, trans., In These Great Times (Montreal: 1976), pp. 73-74

Larry Wall photo

“I wasn't recommending that we make the links for them, only provide them with the tools to do so if they want to take the gamble”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

or the gambol
[199709292259.PAA10407@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Siddharth Katragadda photo

“Religion is god's population-control tool.”

Siddharth Katragadda (1972) Indian writer

page 9
Dark Rooms (2002)

Jozef Israëls photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Aldo Leopold photo
Benjamin Franklin photo

“Man [is a] tool-making animal.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Quoted by James Boswell in The Life of Samuel Johnson, April 7, 1778 https://books.google.de/books?id=nuINAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA199&dq=tool-making (1791).
Decade unclear

Pricasso photo

“Of all the exhibitions, Pricasso, the flamboyant painter who uses his penis as his tool of trade, drew, by far, the largest crowds.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

['Pricasso' draws crowds at Sexpo, The Mercury, South Africa, 8 February 2008, 4, Independent Online, Bronwyn Gerretsen]
About

Thomas Frank photo
Karel Appel photo

“The mill is a tool for the wind
the mill is like a human being
that escapes”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

ATV, 47; p. 183
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

“Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.”

Haim Ginott (1922–1973) psychologist

Ginott, H. G. (1972). Teacher and child. New York: Macmillan.

John Backus photo
Garry Kasparov photo
V. V. Giri photo
Gerald Ford photo
William Stanley Jevons photo
Richard Stallman photo
Luboš Motl photo

“Clearly, the left-wing groups want to use this carbon theme as a tool for wealth redistribution.”

Luboš Motl (1973) Czech physicist and translator

http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/10/poland-rejects-global-carbon-communism.html#more
The Reference Frame http://motls.blogspot.com/

Anthony Burgess photo
Joe Biden photo

“Alan Cranston understood power not as a reflection of status but as a tool with a purpose.”

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

Meet the Press (December 31, 2000)
2000s

Ayn Rand photo

“Accept yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, your truths, and know what tools you have to fulfill your purpose.”

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 46

Tjalling Koopmans photo
Richard A. Posner photo
Thomas Eakins photo
Margaret Mead photo
Paul Thurrott photo

“Is this thing even worth reviewing? Right off the bat, I'm glad to see that my initial reactions to this thing were accurate. Anyone who believes this thing is a game changer is a tool. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is.”

Paul Thurrott (1966) American podcaster, author, and blogger

Apple iPad Hands-On First Impressions http://winsupersite.com/article/product-review/apple-ipad-hands-on-first-impressions in Paul Thurrott's Supersite For Windows (6 October 2010)

Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Haile Selassie photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Arthur Stanley Eddington photo
Moshe Safdie photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo
John D. Carmack photo

“The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.”

John D. Carmack (1970) American computer programmer, engineer, and businessman

On software patents, Quoted in "John Carmack: Knee Deep in the Voodoo" http://web.archive.org/web/20010624154450/http://www.voodooextreme.com/games/interviews/carmack/ Voodoo Extreme(2000-11-11)

Caroline Glick photo

“It will say that in peace we have time that a man has vision, has been fed, has worked..
.. That hands and minds and tools and material made a symbol to the elevation of vision”

David Smith (1906–1965) American visual artist (1906-1965)

1940s, The Question – What is your Hope' (c. 1940s)

Alain de Botton photo
David Korten photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Nicholas D. Kristof photo
James Anthony Froude photo

“We start with enthusiasm — out we go each of us to our task in all the brightness of sunrise, and hope beats along our pulses; we believe the world has no blanks except to cowards, and we find, at last, that, as far as we ourselves are concerned, it has no prizes; we sicken over the endless unprofitableness of labour most when we have most succeeded, and when the time comes for us to lay down our tools we cast them from us with the bitter aching sense, that it were better for us if it had been all a dream. We seem to know either too much or too little of ourselves — too much, for we feel that we are better than we can accomplish; too little, for, if we have done any good at all, it has heen as we were servants of a system too vast for us to comprehend. We get along through life happily between clouds and sunshine, forgetting ourselves in our employments or our amusements, and so long as we can lose our consciousness in activity we can struggle on to the end. But when the end comes, when the life is lived and done, and stands there face to face with us; or if the heart is weak, and the spell breaks too soon, as if the strange master-worker has no longer any work to offer us, and turns us off to idleness and to ourselves; in the silence then our hearts lift up their voices, and cry out they can find no rest here, no home. Neither pleasure, nor rank, nor money, nor success in life, as it is called, have satisfied, or can satisfy; and either earth has nothing at all which answers to our cravings, or else it is something different from all these, which we have missed finding — this peace which passes understanding — and from which in the heyday of hope we had turned away, as lacking the meretricious charm which then seemed most alluring.
I am not sermonizing of Religion, or of God, or of Heaven, at least not directly.”

Confessions Of A Sceptic
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Peter F. Drucker photo

“The tool user, provided the tool is made well, need not, and indeed should not, know anything about the tool.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 2, p. 513

Kent Hovind photo
Susan Sarandon photo

“Every relationship starts out with a dream of what you think it's going to be, and you either have the tool kit when you get to the hard spots where you'll make it through, or you need to move on.”

Susan Sarandon (1946) American actress

As quoted in "Susan Sarandon On 'Jeff Who Lives At Home'" in The Daily Beast (16 March 2012) http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/16/susan-sarandon-on-jeff-who-lives-at-home-limbaugh-the-gop-tim-robbins-and-more
Quote

Kenneth E. Iverson photo
Margaret Mead photo
Terrell Owens photo

“He's definitely a character. But he's his own marketing tool, and he does it very well. He's real laid-back and subdued most times. Real down-to-earth guy. And when it's lights-camera-action -- different person.”

Terrell Owens (1973) former American football wide receiver

Dorsey Levens — reported in Jason Wilde (December 3, 2004) "A Perfect Fit - Shedding His Label As A Malcontent, Terrell Owens Has Transformed The Eagles With His NFL-Best 13 Receiving Tds - And Form-Fitting Tights", Wisconsin State Journal, p. D1.
About

Lloyd deMause photo
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad photo

“Everyone knows that the Zionist regime is a tool in the hands of the United States and British governments.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

2006
Source: Time Magazine, December 2006 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570714,00.html

Richard Leakey photo
Michael Chabon photo
Dave Eggers photo
Werner von Blomberg photo

“He became a willing tool in Hitler's hands for every one of his decisions.”

Werner von Blomberg (1878–1946) German field marshal

About Wilhelm Keitel. Quoted in "Justice at Nuremberg" - Page 281 - by Robert E. Conot - History - 1993

Cyia Batten photo
Francis Escudero photo
Antonin Scalia photo

“As I understand the various opinions today: One Justice holds that two-parent notification is unconstitutional (at least in present circumstances) without judicial bypass, but constitutional with bypass […]; four Justices would hold that two-parent notification is constitutional with or without bypass […]; four Justices would hold that two-parent notification is unconstitutional with or without bypass, though the four apply two different standards […]; six Justices hold that one-parent notification with bypass is constitutional, though for two different sets of reasons […]; and three Justices would hold that one-parent notification with bypass is unconstitutional […]. One will search in vain the document we are supposed to be construing for text that provides the basis for the argument over these distinctions and will find in our society’s tradition regarding abortion no hint that the distinctions are constitutionally relevant, much less any indication how a constitutional argument about them ought to be resolved. The random and unpredictable results of our consequently unchanneled individual views make it increasingly evident, Term after Term, that the tools for this job are not to be found in the lawyer’s – and hence not in the judges – workbox. I continue to dissent from this enterprise of devising an Abortion Code, and from the illusion that we have authority to do so.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

On whether a state law may require notification of both parents before a minor can obtain an abortion; Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990, concurring in the judgment and dissenting in part), 497 U.S. 417 http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/497/417.html, No. 88-605 ; decided June 25, 1990
1990s

Julius Streicher photo

“In Soviet-Russia the Jew is forging the tool with which he wants to enslave Europe.”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

In Sowjet-Rußland schmiedet sich der Jude das Werkzeug, mit dem er Europa versklaven will.
04/25/1928, speech in the Bavarian regional parliament ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)

George W. Bush photo
Mario Savio photo
Brian W. Kernighan photo

“The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements.”

Brian W. Kernighan (1942) Canadian computer scientist

"Unix for Beginners" (1979).