Utility Quotes - Page 10

• Use almost can change the stamp of nature.

  William Shakespeare

  Use, Habit, Potency

  William Shakespeare (1851). “Dictionary of Shakespearian quotations: Exhibiting the most forcible passages illustrative of the various passions, affections and emotions of the human mind”, p.158

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• Prescriptive regulations, such as telling electric utilities what kinds of coal to burn or what kinds of scrubbers to install on their smokestacks, were not only intrusive, they were also grossly inefficient.

  Bob Frank

  Regulation, Coal, Kind

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Though determinants and matrices received a great deal of attention in the nineteenth century and thousands of papers were written on these subjects, they do not constitute great innovations in mathematics.... Neither determinants nor matrices have influenced deeply the course of mathematics despite their utility as compact expressions and despite the suggestiveness of matrices as concrete groups for the discernment of general theorems of group theory.

  Morris Kline

  Expression, Innovation, Groups

  Morris Kline (1990). “Mathematical Thought From Ancient to Modern Times”, p.795, Oxford University Press

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• They were just snapshots, nothing special, nothing particularly artistic. They were used for utility purposes. (On photographs of mundane streetscapes he had Stanley Something-or-other take in Sacramento in 1988 to serve as backgrounds to his cartoons. People don't draw it, all this crap, people don't focus attention on it because it's ugly, it's bleak, it's depressing... But, this is the world we live in; I wanted my work to reflect that, the background reality of urban life. )

  Robert Crumb

  Depressing, Reality, People

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• Giving government aid to a bank basically transforms it into a utility. The huge salaries in this sector are only a symptom of a more profound misalignment. The profitability of the finance industry has been excessive. [...] That was absurd.

  George Soros

  Government, Giving, Profound

  "Mathias Müller von Blumencron, Gregor Peter Schmitz and Gabor Steingart". Interview with Mathias Müller von Blumencron, Gregor Peter Schmitz and Gabor Steingart, www.spiegel.de. November 24, 2008.

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• Feeling prosperous means paying your utility bills on time and with a smile on your face. Prosperity means not only giving to the homeless person, but having a smile on your face when you do it. Prosperity also means buying fresh produce with a smile on your face instead of buying day-old bread or bargain overripe fruit with a scowl on your face. Still more, being prosperous means tipping generously with a smile on your face when the waiter has given you great service instead of trying to stiff him with a mere percent, or worse, no tip at all.

  Ernie J Zelinski

  Mean, Giving, Feelings

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• Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only on the common utility.

  Olympe de Gouges

  Men, Rights, Common

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• Legalize racing in every State. Sure people will bet, but they get to see the horses run and you certain can't see General Motors and General Electric and General Utility run when you bet on them.

  Will Rogers

  Running, Horse, People

  Will Rogers (1979). “Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams: The Hoover years, 1931-1933”, Will Rogers Heritage Trust

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• The nineteenth century, utilitarian throughout, set up a utilitarian interpretation of the phenomenon of life which has come down to us and may still be considered as the commonplace of everyday thinking. ... An innate blindness seems to have closed the eyes of this epoch to all but those facts which show life as a phenomenon of utility

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Eye, Thinking, Everyday

  "History as a System". Book by Jose Ortega y Gasset, 1962.

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• The Great War differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness with which it was fought... Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. When all was over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and they were of doubtful utility.

  Winston Churchill

  Christian, War, Struggle

  "The World Crisis, Volume I: 1911-1914". Book by Winston Churchill, 1923.

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• In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Christian, Country, Religious

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2015). “Democracy in America: Book One”, p.575, eKitap Projesi via PublishDrive

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• Oppression tries to defend itself by its utility. But we have seen that it is one of the lies of the serious mind to attempt to give the word "useful" an absolute meaning; nothing is useful if it is not useful to man; nothing is useful to man if the latter is not in a position to define his own ends and values, if he is not free.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Lying, Men, Giving

  Simone de Beauvoir (2011). “The Ethics of Ambiguity”, p.47, Open Road Media

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• When one makes sculptures of horses, one remembers all of that great relationship that humans had with them.....Even today one raises horses only for dressage, the races, for the pleasure of horseback riding. It has become an animal of romance, an animal of pleasure which has lost its utility in the West.

  Joe Fafard

  Horse, Animal, Race

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• Because subjects like literature and art history have no obvious material pay-off, they tend to attract those who look askance at capitalist notions of utility. The idea of doing something purely for the delight of it has always rattled the grey-bearded guardians of the state. Sheer pointlessness has always been a deeply subversive affair.

  Terry Eagleton

  Art, Ideas, Looks

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• Current utility and historical origin are different subjects.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Historical, Different, Currents

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History”, p.63, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Concerning the utility of Rhetoric, it is to be observed that it divides itself into two; first, whether Oratorical skill be, on the whole, a public benefit, or evil; and secondly, whether any artificial system of Rules is conducive to the attainment of that skill.

  Richard Whately

  Skills, Two, Evil

  Richard Whately (1872). “Elements of Rhetoric: Comprising an Analysis of the Laws of Moral Evidence and of Persuasion, with Rules for Argumentative Composition and Elocution”, p.29

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• Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes.

  Charles Darwin

  Class, Doctrine, Finals

  Charles Darwin (2003). “On the Origin of Species”, p.364, Broadview Press

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• Nothing teems But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs, Losing both beauty and utility.

  William Shakespeare

  Docks, Losing, Hateful

  'Henry V' (1599) act 5, sc. 2, l. 44

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• Our attitude towards plants is a singularly narrow one. If we see any immediate utility in a plant we foster it. If for any reason we find its presence undesirable or merely a matter of indifference, we may condemn it to destruction forthwith.

  Rachel Carson

  Weed, Attitude, Differences

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.63, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• If you consider only utility, the things you build will soon be useless... nobody wants to be in it.

  Roger Scruton

  Useless, Want, Architecture

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• A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.

  George Washington

  Punishment, Prison, Proportion

  George Washington (1840). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private”, p.396

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• The university is a vast public utility which turns out future workers in today's vineyard, the military-industrial complex. They've got to be processed in the most efficient way to see to it that they have the fewest dissenting opinions, that they have just those characteristics which are wholly incompatible with being an intellectual. This is a real internal psychological contradiction. People have to suppress the very questions which reading books raises.

  Mario Savio

  Military, Real, Reading

  "The University Has Become a Factory". Interview with Jack Fincher, Life magazine, February 26, 1965.

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• Timberland is an all-American brand focused on work, utility and the outdoors, that managed to find a place in the fashion world as well

  Pharrell Williams

  Fashion, World, Wells

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• In economic terms, we've always thought of work as a disutility - as something you do to get something else. Now it's increasingly a utility - something that's valuable and worthy in its own right.

  Daniel H. Pink

  Leadership, Mind, Economic

  "Your Start-Up Life: Dan Pink on Why “Passion” Doesn’t Matter". Interview with Rana Florida, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 5, 2012.

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• Utility is our national shibboleth: the savior of the American businessman is fact and his uterine half-brother, statistics.

  Edward Dahlberg

  Brother, Business, Half

  Edward Dahlberg (1968). “The Carnal Myth: A Search Into Classical Sensuality”, New York : Weybright and Talley

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