Quotations of the Day: On Realistic Expectations
Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law. — Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Tag: Quotation
History Repeating Itself.
“First, you push on your territories, where you have no business to be, and where you had promised not to go; secondly, your intrusion provokes resentment, and resentment means resistance. Thirdly, you instantly cry out that the people are rebellious and their act is rebellion…Fourthly, you send out a force to stamp out rebellion; and…
Labor Day Quotation: On the Merits of Capitalism
“The greatest beneficiaries of capitalism are those at the bottom of the income ladder. That’s why I favor capitalism. Were that not the case, I would not be in favor of capitalism. Milton Friedman feels the same way.” Gary Becker HT: John Goodman
Quotation of the Day
“Where there is no Standard there can be no Improvement” – Taiichi Ohno
Quotation of the Day
I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous. — Old Proverb
The Soviet Union and Plato’s Republic
“Baggy two-piece suits are not the obvious costume for philosopher kings: but that, in theory, was what the apparatchiks who rule the Soviet Union in the 1960s were supposed to be. Lenin’s state made the same bet that Plato had twenty-five centuries earlier, when he proposed that enlightened intelligence gives absolute powers would serve the…
The Demand for Policy Interventions
“Authors of economics books, essays, articles, and political platforms demand interventionist measures before they are taken, but once they have been imposed no one likes them. Then everyone—usually even the authorities responsible for them—call them insufficient and unsatisfactory. Generally the demand then arises for the replacement of unsatisfactory interventions by other, more suitable measures. And…
Do Capitalists or Communists Promote Aid to Africa?
“It is significant that none of the most passionate advocates of aid for Africa are African. Aid can speed up development that people have already decided to carry out for themselves and have the capacity to do. It is also essential for vaccination campaigns and for ARVs to combat HIV/AIDS. Emergency aid is obviously vital…
Quotation of the Day
“Getting into a new field of physics is like reading a Russian novel. There are a lot of names to cope with, and at first you wonder who’s who.” – Kenneth W. Ford, The Quantum World.
On Corruption: Quotation of the Day
“Outside my study window in London stood an old hawthorn tree enveloped in a massive growth of ivy. Over the years the tree had become an ivy bush in the shape of a hawthorn tree and I saw it as an image of what corruptions does to a country. Mobutu’s rule in Zaire seemed like…