Devices Quotes

• Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Freedom, Sarcasm, Political

  65 Copy quote

• All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.

  Thomas J. Watson

  Hard Work, Men, Thinking

  36 Copy quote

• A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Crazy, Ignorance

  "A Mencken Chrestomathy". Book by H. L. Mencken, 1949.

  22 Copy quote

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  Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Inspirational, Sarcastic, Business

  Ambrose Bierce (2015). “The Eyes of the Panther (Cryptofiction Classics - Weird Tales of Strange Creatures)”, p.20, Read Books Ltd

  28 Copy quote

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• Purring would seem to be, in her case, an automatic safety-valve device for dealing with happiness overflow.

  Monica Edwards

  Cat, Animal, Safety

  72 Copy quote

• The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.

  Dudley Moore

  Views, Mirrors, Safety

  54 Copy quote

• A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.

  Paul Erdos

  Witty, Humorous, Coffee

  84 Copy quote

• The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability, and something is bound to come of it.

  Vannevar Bush

  Age, Reliability, World

  Vannevar Bush (1946). “Endless horizons”

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• Many societies have educated their male children on the simple device of teaching them not to be women.

  Margaret Mead

  Children, Teaching, Simple

  Margaret Mead (1975). “Male and female: a study of the sexes in a changing world”, William Morrow & Co

  21 Copy quote

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• Science consistently produces a new crop of miraculous truths and dazzling devices every year.

  Kary Mullis

  Years, Crops, Produce

  19 Copy quote

• I favour passive investing for most investors, because markets are amazingly successful devices for incorporating information into stock prices.

  Merton Miller

  Successful, Investing, Information

  9 Copy quote

• Most of the people who had PCs did not have modems and could not use those PCs as communicating devices. They really were using them for spreadsheets or word processing or storing recipes or playing games or what have you.

  Steve Case

  Playing Games, People, Use

  8 Copy quote

• The nervous system and the automatic machine are fundamentally alike in that they are devices, which make decisions on the basis of decisions they made in the past.

  Norbert Wiener

  Past, Decision, Machines

  Norbert Wiener (1988). “The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society”, p.33, Da Capo Press

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• All for one, one for all, that is our device.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Unity, Three Musketeers

  Alexandre Dumas (1878). “The Three Musketeers”, p.74, ebookfreedom

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• A nuclear weapon of some dimension, whether it's actually a nuclear weapon, or a dirty bomb, or some kind of radiological device. Yes, I think it's probably a near thing.

  Michael Scheuer

  Dirty, Thinking, Nuclear

  8 Copy quote

• Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Creative, Important, Tiny

  Lawrence Lessig “Free Culture”, Lulu.com

  8 Copy quote

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• By his very success in inventing labor-saving devices, modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed.

  Lewis Mumford

  Success, Science, Men

  "The Conduct Of Life". Book by Lewis Mumford, 1951.

  8 Copy quote

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• Utopianism is probably a necessary social device for generating the superhuman efforts without which no major revolution is achieved.

  Eric Hobsbawm

  Effort, Revolution, Social

  Eric J. Hobsbawm (1971). “Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries”, p.60, Manchester University Press

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• On close inspection, this device turned out to be a funereal juke box - the result of mixing Lloyd's of London with the principle of the chewing gum dispenser.

  Cecil Beaton

  Mixing, Principles, Gum

  24 Copy quote

• Any device in science is a window on to nature, and each new window contributes to the breadth of our view.

  C. F. Powell

  Views, Window, Breadth

  12 Copy quote

• The most popular labor saving device is still money.

  Phyllis George

  Money, Memorable, Saving

  15 Copy quote
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  Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.

  Horace Mann

  Education, Men, Balance

  Horace Mann (1872). “Annual Reports on Education”, p.669

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• Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.

  Hans Arp

  Technology, Men, Essence

  "Arp on Arp: poems, essays, memories". p. 231, 1972.

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• Those are the things that, in the wrong hands - and certainly in our war on terrorism we also must attack proliferation and those nations that proliferate with chemical, biological and nuclear type devices, because that can cause the most catastrophic results.

  Hugh Shelton

  War, Hands, Nuclear

  8 Copy quote

• Cyber terrorism could also become more attractive as the real and virtual worlds become more closely coupled, with automobiles, appliances, and other devices attached to the Internet.

  Dorothy E. Denning

  Real, World, Internet

  88 Copy quote