It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. Both in the marketplace and on the battlefield men who set their hearts on toys have often displayed unequal initiative and drive. And one must be ignorant of the creative process to look for a close correspondence between motive and achievement in the world of thought and imagination.
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Knowledge can be enormously costly, and is often scattered in widely uneven fragments, too small to be individually usable in read more
Knowledge can be enormously costly, and is often scattered in widely uneven fragments, too small to be individually usable in decision making. The communication and coordination of these scattered fragments of knowledge is one of the basic problems- perhaps the basic problem- of any society.
Idealism without realism is impotent. Realism without idealism is immoral.
Idealism without realism is impotent. Realism without idealism is immoral.
Always behave like a duck- keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath.
Always behave like a duck- keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath.
When the Greeks said, "Whom the gods love die young," they probably meant, as Lord Sankey suggested, that those favored read more
When the Greeks said, "Whom the gods love die young," they probably meant, as Lord Sankey suggested, that those favored by the gods stay young till the day they die; young and playful.
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement read more
To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement is possible, we need only refer to a passage in Engel's most famous book. Here, in 1878, Engels apodictically announced that military weapons are "now so perfected that no further progress of any revolutionizing influence is any longer possible." Henceforth "all further [technological] progress is by and large indifferent for land warfare. The age of evolution is in this regard essentially closed." This complacent conclusion shows in what the achievement of the innovator consists: he accomplishes what other people believe to be unthinkable and unfeasible.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
Every once in a while someone without a single bad habit gets caught.
Every once in a while someone without a single bad habit gets caught.
The mind cannot foresee its own advance.
The mind cannot foresee its own advance.
