We never had any use for Taylor or any of the efficiency or scientific management crowd. They never realized that human toil was the last thing in the world you had to be efficient about; the only way to be really efficient is to eliminate it entirely, and this would have been heresy to any of the Taylor, Gant, Barth, Cook efficiency crowd. It is sad to contemplate that men of the technical ability of the names mentioned in this paragraph were so lame in their thinking and social outlook that they missed the boat so completely. Who in hell wants to be efficient with a shovel, and what sense would there be even if you succeeded? They should have had their heads opened with a shovel; it might have been more effective.
Howard ScottRelated topics
ability barth boat cook crowd effective efficiency efficient hell heresy human men lame last management might outlook paragraph sad sense should shovel social technical thing thinking toil use way world taylor names headsRelated quotes
Cause, Principle, and One eternal
From whom being, life, and movement are suspended,
And which extends itself in length, breadth, and depth,
To whatever is in Heaven, on Earth, and Hell;
With sense, with reason, with mind, I discern,
That there is no act, measure, nor calculation, which can comprehend
That force, that vastness and that number,
Which exceeds whatever is inferior, middle, and highest;
Blind error, avaricious time, adverse fortune,
Deaf envy, vile madness, jealous iniquity,
Crude heart, perverse spirit, insane audacity,
Will not be sufficient to obscure the air for me,
Will not place the veil before my eyes,
Will never bring it about that I shall not
Contemplate my beautiful Sun.
Giordano Bruno
There was not one of my blood, in or out of the Union Army who was not either serving and sacrificing at home or suffering and dying among the hills and valleys of the southland for the preservation of the Union. And yet, so bitter was the politics of the time that they had to undergo the suspicion of being disloyal to their country because they did not vote the Republican ticket. My grandfather and my father were notified by the Methodist preacher whose church they attended that he would have to strike their names off the roll if they continued to vote the Democratic ticket. My grandfather, as a fiery Virginian, announced that he was willing to take his chance on Hell but never on the Republican party.
Thomas R. Marshall
Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution. Let them all become attentive to the grounds and principles of government, ecclesiastical and civil. Let us study the law of nature; search into the spirit of the British constitution; read the histories of ancient ages; contemplate the great examples of Greece and Rome; set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who have defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests, in short, against the gates of earth and hell.
John Adams
The start of work means the end to freedom, but also to doubt, intensity and wayward desires. The accountant's ten thousand possibilities have been reduced to an agreeable handful. She has a business card which she hands over in meetings and which tells other people-and, more meaningfully perhaps, reminds her-that she is a Business Unit Senior manager, rather than a vaporous transient consciousness in an incidental universe. How satisfying it is to be held in check by the assumptions of colleagues, instead of being forced to contemplate, in the loneliness of the early hours, all that one might have been and now never will be. ... Life is no longer mysterious, sad, haunting, touching, confusing or melancholy; it is a practical stage for clear-eyed action.
Alain de Botton
Being fresh out of college, I found myself in the typically feminine dilemma of carving out for myself in a male world a way of life appropriate to a young woman of taste, cultivation and sensitivity. There must be nothing crass-like work. However, a girl must survive. So, after a cool appraisal of the social scene, I finally hit upon an excellent-paying occupation, challenging to the ingenuity, dealing on one's own terms with people and affording independence, flexible hours, great stability and, most important, a large amount of leisure time, an occupation highly appropriate to female sensibilities. I contemplate my good fortune as I begin work for the day: "Pardon me, Sir, do you have fifteen cents?"
Valerie Solanas
