Downfall Quotes - page 4
Most post-mortems of these software disaster projects have indicated that their problems would have been avoided or strongly reduced if there had been an explicit early concern with identifying and resolving their high-risk elements. Frequently, these projects were swept along by a tide of optimistic enthusiasm during their early phases, which caused them to miss some clear signals of high risk issues which proved to be the project's downfall later.
Enthusiasm for new software capabilities is a good thing. But it needs to be tempered with a concern for early identification and resolution of a project's high-risk elements, so that people can get these resolved early and then focus their enthusiasm and energy on the positive aspects of their software product.
Barry Boehm
No matter how "right” you may be on various points, you must be diplomatic also. The first and important thing is not "rightness” at all, but Christian love and harmony. Most "crazy converts” have been "right” in the criticisms that led to their downfall; but they were lacking in Christian love and charity and so went off the deep end, needlessly alienating people around them and finally finding themselves all alone in their rightness and self-righteousness. Don't you follow them!...
Seraphim Rose
China's new paramount leader, Xi Jinping, is making the fight against corruption his No. 1 mission. In several speeches since he took over the reins of the Communist Party last November, he has warned that corruption could lead to "the collapse of the Party and the downfall of the state.” Xi sees corruption as a threat to the party's legitimacy.
Xi Jinping
The media today are controlled by the big corporations. It's all about ratings and money. Believe it or not, I think the downfall of our press today was the show 60 Minutes. Up until it came along, news was expected to lose money, in order to bring the people fair reporting and the truth. But when 60 Minutes became the top-rated program on television, the light went on. The corporate honchos said, "Wait a minute, you mean if we entertain with the news, we can make money?" It was the realization that, if packaged the correct way, the news could make you big bucks. No longer was it a matter of scooping somebody else on a story, but whether 20/20's ratings this week were better than Dateline's. I'm not knocking 60 Minutes. It was tremendously well done and hugely successful, but in the long run it could end up being a detriment to society.
Jesse Ventura
Gold and the love of gain become to him his god, as the belly does to others. Wherefore the blessed Apostle, looking out on the deadly poison of this pest, not only says that it is a root of all kinds of evil, but also calls it the worship of idols, saying "And covetousness (which in Greek is called φιλαργυρία) which is the worship of idols." [Colossians 3:5] You see then to what a downfall this madness step by step leads, so that by the voice of the Apostle it is actually declared to be the worship of idols and false gods, because passing over the image and likeness of God (which one who serves God with devotion ought to preserve undefiled in himself), it chooses to love and care for images stamped on gold instead of God.
John Cassian
My subject is a city of the future under a Democratic government. Some very great men, and among them Herbert Spencer and Lord Macaulay, have predicted the downfall of the American democracy. Nevertheless, having firm confidence in our new mixture of bloods, our new environment, our searching publicity and our growing intelligence, I cannot doubt that the American democracy will persist. It takes far greater ability to subvert liberty now than ever before since man's history began, and so I promise permanence to democratic institutions.
To these is vitally related the future of the cities. Plenary democracies can do what we want them to do. They have full power over men, land and goods, and can always make their laws and execute their purposes. Democratic peoples, when they perceive the value of plans to bring convenience and beauty into the hearts of cities can get such plans carried out.
Daniel Burnham
In The Night Watch, again in Amsterdam, we have the feeling of communication: that something dramatic is happening before our very eyes. This scene of a company of guards painted as a group portrait was very popular in Rembrandt's day. The only other Dutch painter who could do anything at all with the subject was Frans Hals, who did it several times and rather well. But the conventions prevailing at the time were for such a group portrait to consist of an inert line of figures which was boring in the extreme. Rembrandt, tackling this subject, sees it as a dramatic event but also as an entirely realistic everyday occurrence... It was probably the most ambitious painting in size and scope that Rembrandt had painted up to that time, but it began his downfall among his contemporaries and from then his popularity waned. As his painting got better and better, he got poorer and poorer - so much for the Dutch public of his day and their taste in art! p. 404.
Rembrandt
Have you ever argued with a toddler? Because if you have, you probably lost that argument, or you killed the toddler. Either way, you didn't win the argument, because you can't win an argument against a toddler. Toddlers will say the most outlandish shit. [...] Over the course of this election season, we've come to realize that president-elect Donald Trump might have the mind of a toddler. And if you think about it, it makes sense. He loves the same things that toddlers do. They like building things. They love attention, always grabbing things they're not supposed to. [...] You don't argue with a child if you want to win. Don't amplify the toddler's voice, because you'll just get trapped in the toddler's world. Rather, just keep asking the toddler to elaborate. Because logic is the downfall of every toddler. The point is to gently demoralize the toddler and smother his tantrums. And, as a bonus, stop him from delegitimizing the press.
Trevor Noah
