Utility Quotes - Page 2

• The architect should strive continually to simplify; the ensemble of the rooms should then be carefully considered that comfort and utility may go hand in hand with beauty.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  Artist, Hands, Design

  Frank Lloyd Wright (1925). “Frank Lloyd Wright: The Complete 1925 "Wendingen" Series”, p.10, Courier Corporation

  42 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the richest country in the history of the world, this Obama economy has crushed the middle class. Family income has fallen by $4,000, but health insurance premiums are higher, food prices are higher, utility bills are higher, and gasoline prices have doubled. Today more Americans wake up in poverty than ever before.

  Mitt Romney

  Country, Gasoline Prices, Class

  Mitt Romney's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, www.npr.org. August 30, 2012.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.

  Peter Singer

  Workout, Lying, Exercise

  7 Copy quote

• Failures of perspective in decision-making can be due to aspects of the social utility paradox, but more often result from simple mistakes caused by inadequate thought.

  Herman Kahn

  Mistake, Simple, Perspective

  Herman Kahn, Paul Dragoș Aligică, Kenneth R. Weinstein (2009). “The Essential Herman Kahn: In Defense of Thinking”, p.208, Lexington Books

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of all parts of wisdom, the practice is the best. Socrates was esteemed the wisest man of his time because he turned his acquired knowledge into morality, and aimed at goodness more than greatness.

  John Tillotson

  Greatness, Men, Wisest Man

  8 Copy quote

• Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate practical utility, may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain.

  Hermann von Helmholtz

  Science, May, Vain

  Hermann von Helmholtz, David Cahan (1995). “Science and Culture: Popular and Philosophical Essays”, p.93, University of Chicago Press

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• The utility model of computing - computing resources delivered over the network in much the same way that electricity or telephone service reaches our homes and offices today - makes more sense than ever.

  Scott McNealy

  Home, Office, Today

  30 Copy quote

• If you are without bread, how much wisdom can you boast and of what real utility are your talents, if you cannot procure for yourselves and save against a day of scarcity those substances designed to sustain your natural lives?

  Brigham Young

  Real, Bread, Scarcity

  Brigham Young (1861). “Journal of Discourses”, p.68

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• The university is a vast public utility which turns out future workers in today's vineyard, the military-industrial complex.

  Mario Savio

  Military, Vineyards, Today

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

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Business, Hands, Tyrants

  35 Copy quote

• Whenever you play dance music, it serves a function. It becomes a utility; you have to worry about the tempos and what you're going to play for people. But when you're playing for listening, you're free.

  Stan Kenton

  Play, People, Worry

  7 Copy quote

• Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure... they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Pain, Thinking, Government

  Jeremy Bentham (1838). “The works of Jeremy Bentham, now first collected: under the superintendence of his executor, John Bowring ...”, p.1

  102 Copy quote

  Show source

• Uselessness is a fatal accusation to bring against any act which is done for its presumed utility, but those which are done for their own sake are their own justification.

  George Santayana

  Experience, Done, Sake

  George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.18, Courier Corporation

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Clay is moulded to make a vessel, but the utility of the vessel lies in the space where there is nothing. . . . Thus, taking advantage of what is, we recognize the utility of what is not.

  Laozi

  Lying, Space, Clay

  9 Copy quote

• There's a utility in the democracy refreshing itself on an ongoing basis.

  Barack Obama

  Democracy, Ongoing, Refreshing

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• We know the utility of prayer from the efforts of the wicked spirits to distract us during the divine office; and we experience the fruit of prayer in the defeat of our enemies.

  John Climacus

  Prayer, Office, Effort

  10 Copy quote

• If you had a really good - battery, it wouldn't matter that the sun goes down at night and the wind stops blowing sometimes. But at the moment, battery technology is nowhere near good enough to use at utility scale.

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Night, Technology, Wind

  4 Copy quote

• Oppression tries to defend itself by its utility.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Trying, Oppression

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

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• True art is but the anti-type of nature; the embodiment of discovered beauty in utility.

  James A. Garfield

  Art, Embodiment, Type

  4 Copy quote

• The best you can hope for in this life is that your delusions are benign and your compulsions have utility.

  Scott Adams

  Life Is, Benign, This Life

  13 Copy quote

• Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity, quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace.

  Benito Mussolini

  Believe, Political, Humanity

  Benito Mussolini (2012). “My Autobiography: With "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism"”, p.230, Courier Corporation

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• Not to be, but to seem, virtuous - it is a formula whose utility we all discovered in the nursery.

  C. S. Lewis

  Deception, Nursery, Virtuous

  C. S. Lewis (1990). “Poetry and prose in the sixteenth century”, Oxford Univ Pr on Demand

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Money and electricity are much alike. Both are stored energy. Living amidst electricity, using it constantly, you take its presence and its utility for granted. Treated with respect, it is constructive, tireless. Treated with disrespect, it is destructive, vicious. It will light your way, pull a twelve-car train from Washington to New York in a bit more than four hours, kill you or burn your house alike. Electricity is insulated, though, and children are not permitted to play with it.

  Evalyn Walsh McLean

  Money, New York, Children

  Evalyn Walsh McLean (2015). “Father Struck It Rich”, p.454, Pickle Partners Publishing

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The income men derive from producing things of slight consequence is of great consequence. The production reflects the low marginal utility of the goods to society. The income reflects the high total utility of a livelihood to a person.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Business, Men, Income

  John Kenneth Galbraith (1998). “The Affluent Society”, p.217, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the process of helping some (perhaps most) people to more utility and justice, the state imposes on civil society a system of interdictions and commands.

  Anthony de Jasay

  People, Justice, Society

  9 Copy quote