Carla O’Dell, US management consultant, author
I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn’t poor, I was needy. Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy. I was deprived. (Oh not deprived but rather underprivileged.) Then they told me that underprivileged was over-used. I was disadvantaged. I still don’t have a dime. But I have a great vocabulary.
Jules Feiffer, US cartoonist, author (b. 1929)
It often shows an excellent command of language to say nothing.
Karol Newlin
Competition
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle – when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.
African proverb
To conquer the enemy without recourse to war is the most desirable. The highest form of generalship is to conquer the enemy by strategy.
Sun Tzu, Chinese military strategist, general (c.544-c.496 BC)
The biggest things are always the easiest to do because there is no competition.
William Cornelius Van Horne, Canadian railway magnate (1843-1915)
Competition brings out the best in products, and the worst in people.
David Sarnoff, US businessman (1891-1971)
Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed – there’s so little competition.
Elbert Hubbard, US publisher, editor (1856-1915)
Computers
The computer business is changing so quickly these days that sometimes we feel as if we’re in the fresh-produce business.
Safi Qureshey, US executive AST research (b. 1951)
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter (1881-1973)
No computer has ever been designed that is ever aware of what it’s doing; but most of the time, we aren’t either.
Marvin Minsky, US author (b.1927)
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.
Sydney J Harris, US journalist, author (1917-1986)
The computer can’t tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what’s missing is the eyebrows.
Frank Zappa, US musician (1940-1993)
If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticise it.
Pierre Gallois, French airman, geopolitician (1911-2010)
Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more ‘user-friendly’. Their best approach, so far, has been to take all the old brochures, and stamp the words ‘user-friendly’ on the cover.
Bill Gates, US computer engineer, manufacturer (b. 1955)
I have a spelling checker
It came with my PC;
It plainly marks four my revue
Mistakes I cannot sea.
I’ve run this poem threw it,
I’m sure your pleased too no,
Its letter perfect in it’s weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.
Janet Minor, US internet poet
A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history – with the possible exception of handguns and tequila.
Mitch Radcliffe, US computer journalist
Technological man can’t believe in anything that can’t be measured, taped, or put into a computer.
Claire Booth Luce, US author, politician, diplomat (1903-1987)
Continuous Improvement
He who stops being better stops being good.
Oliver Cromwell, English soldier, statesman (1599-1658)
There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.
Aldous Huxley, British author (1894-1963)
It is necessary to try to surpass oneself always; this occupation ought to last as long as life.
Christina, Queen of Sweden (1632-1654)
The road to success is always under construction.
James C Miller, US economist, politician (b. 1942)
We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
Marian Wright Edelman, US lawyer (b. 1939)
Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter (1853-1890)
There is no brilliant single stroke that is going to transform the water into wine or straw into gold.
Coleman Young, US senator (1918-1997)
You can’t improve 100% in one thing. But you can improve 1% in 100 things.
John Willard Marriott, US executive, Marriott Hotels (b. 1932)
The rung of the ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.
Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist (1825-1895)
The productivity of people requires continuous learning, as the Japanese have taught us. It requires adoption in the West of the specific Japanese Zen concept where one learns to do better what one already does well.
Peter Drucker, US management author (1909-2005)
Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.
William Blake, British poet, painter, engineer (1757-1827)
Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.
Robert Collier, US advertising copywriter (1885-1950)
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning.
Benjamin Franklin, US statesman, author, scientist (1707-1790)
Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.
Salvador Dali, Spanish artist (1904-1989)
Contribution
Life’s most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?
Martin Luther King Jr, US civil rights leader (1929-1968)
If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives.
Robert South, British clergyman (1634-1716)