Inertia Quotes - page 3

Leaders must wake people out of inertia. They must get people excited about something they've never seen before, something that does not yet exist. (Rosabeth Moss Kanter)
Thus the inertia of "progress" today leads swiftly downhill; while the attempt while the attempt to achieve stabilization by collective compulsion and social arrest likewise leads to the same destination--death. Only one road lies open to those who would remain human: the road of renewal. Each one of us must dedicate himself, at whatever effort, with whatever willing sacrifice, to such a transformation of himself and all the groups and associations of in which he participates, as will lead to law and order, to peace and cooperation, to love and brotherhood, throughout the planet. View quote
Lewis Mumford
"Mustn't grumble” was the most English of expressions. English patience was mingled inertia and despair. What was the use? But Americans did nothing but grumble! Americans also boasted. "I do some pretty incredible things” was not an English expression. "I'm fairly keen" was not American. Americans were showoffs - it was part of our innocence - we often fell on our faces; the English seldom showed off, so they seldom looked like fools. View quote
Paul Theroux
At least half of my life's many mistakes can be safely put down to impetuosity: the other half derive from inertia. View quote
Donald James
All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right about face which turns us from failure to success. View quote
Dorothea Brande
Inertia is a powerful force in human and political affairs. View quote
Maurice Strong
Taking again as an example the need to appear perfect, I would be interested primarily in understanding what this trend accomplishes for the individual (eliminating conflicts with others and making him feel superior to others), and also what consequences the trend has on his character and his life. The latter investigation would make it possible to understand, for example, how such a person anxiously conforms with expectations and standards to the extent of becoming a mere automaton, and yet subversively defies them; how this double play results in listlessness and inertia; how he is proud of his apparent independence, yet actually is entirely dependent on the expectations and opinions of others; how he is terrified lest anyone should discover the flimsiness of his moral strivings and the duplicity which has pervaded his life; how this in turn has made him seclusive and hypersensitive to criticism. View quote
Karen Horney
The reason men oppose progress is not that they hate progress, but that they love inertia. View quote
Elbert Hubbard
Often it is not physical limitations... but rather it is human made laws, habits, and organizational rules, regulations, personal egos, and inertia, which dominate the evolution of the future. View quote
Richard Hamming
The weight and concentration of the poems fall upon things (and those great things, animals and people), in their tough, laconic, un-get-pastable plainness: they have kept the stolid and dangerous inertia of the objects of the sagas-the sword that snaps, the man looking at his lopped-off leg and saying, "That was a good stroke.”. View quote
Randall Jarrell
I would be prepared to submit to the Congress of the United States, and with every expectation of approval, any such plan that would, first, encourage world-wide investigation into the most effective peacetime uses of fissionable material, and with the certainty that the investigators had all the material needed for the conducting of all experiments that were appropriate; second, begin to diminish the potential destructive power of the world's atomic stockpiles; third, allow all peoples of all nations to see that, in this enlightened age, the great Powers of the earth, both of the East and of the West, are interested in human aspirations first rather than in building up the armaments of war; fourth, open up a new channel for peaceful discussion and initiative at least a new approach to the many difficult problems that must be solved in both private and public conversations if the world is to shake off the inertia imposed by fear and is to make positive progress towards peace. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)
Inertia is the death of creativity. View quote
Austin Kleon
Many Americans say they want to be organ donors, but they just don't get around to acting on their intentions. Helping these potential good Samaritans overcome their inertia could prolong thousands of lives a year. View quote
Richard Thaler
Adroit geo-strategists take new realities into account as they try to imagine how global politics will unfold. In the foreign policy business, however, inertia is a powerful force and 'adroit' a little-known concept. View quote
Stephen Kinzer
Culture has tremendous inertia,” he said. "That's why it's culture. It works because it lasts. Culture strangles innovation in the crib. View quote
Atul Gawande
In Einstein's general theory of relativity the identity of these two coefficients, the gravitational and the inertial mass, is no longer a miracle, but a necessity, because gravitation and inertia are identical. View quote
Willem de Sitter
Both the law of inertia and the law of gravitation contain a numerical factor or a constant belonging to matter, which is called mass. View quote
Willem de Sitter
What properties are essential to a medium capable of transmitting wave motion? Roughly, we may say two: elasticity and inertia. View quote
Oliver Lodge
Whatever their station or sophistication, the conspirators are linked, made kindred by their inner discoveries and earthquakes. You can break through old limits, past inertia and fear, to levels of fulfillment that once seemed impossible ... to richness of choice, freedom, human closeness. You can be more productive, confident, comfortable with insecurity. Problems can be experienced as challenges, a chance for renewal, rather than stress. Habitual defensiveness and worry can fall away. It can all be otherwise. View quote
Marilyn Ferguson
Gandhi, Nehru and all did try to improve the situation. They tried to break a lot of economic and social stratifications. But inertia and the system prevail. View quote
V. P. Singh
If you work hard in real life, people tend to get in your way - either from inertia or prejudice - and they stop you achieving things. It's the worst thing about real life compared with sports, where you generally get what you deserve: if you're the fastest guy, you win; there are no other games being played. (Daley Thompson)
Technology has made it easier for different firms to coordinate their activities with one another, and they don't have to be part of one company. They can get the benefits of scale without the inertia of scale. View quote
Erik Brynjolfsson
Inertia iseasy-don't fix what's not broken. Leave well enough alone. So we end up accepting whatbroken, mistaking complaining for action, procrastinating for deliberation. View quote
Justina Chen
If history is a guide, a victory for Obama means he faces the prospect of a second term dogged by scandal or inertia. View quote
Ron Fournier
What I think we fear is rapid, pronounced, and uncontrollable changes to ourselves, and because of this we have a form of personality inertia - something that resists rapid change. View quote
Simon Travaglia