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Archive for the ‘Quotations’ Category

Go away and think

Wise counsel on understanding the history and context of any fact or assumed causation.  When solving problems, we often want to start with a clean slate, unencumbered by history.  Even where that is possible, it is not always wise.  Only when we understand the nature of the status quo do we begin to be in a position to intelligently change it.  From G.K. Chesterton in The Thing (1929), Ch. IV : The Drift From Domesticity.

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable.  It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.

If you have to forecast, forecast often.

Various quotes from economist Edgar R. Fiedler.

The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers.
If you have to forecast, forecast often.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships.

If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion.

If you’re ever right, never let ’em forget it.

Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.

Lao Tzu, 6th Century BC Chinese Poet

Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.

My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations

From Thomas Huxley:

My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored

Aldous Huxley, Proper Studies, 1927

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Disdain or with hot rage

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632) by Galileo Galilei, p. 322

In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea as they hit upon themselves or hear set forth by others, no matter how simple and stupid these may be, gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or with hot rage — if indeed it does not make them ill. Beside themselves with passion, some of them would not be backward even about scheming to suppress and silence their adversaries.

Rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?

A classic rendition of the decision-maker’s dilemma.  From William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 3 scene 1, the famous soliloquy,

To be, or not to be–that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep–
No more–and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep–
To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. — Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! — Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

The mind is slow to unlearn what it learnt early.

The Roman Stoic Seneca left us a rich portfolio of aphorisms pertaining to decision making.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

The greater part of progress is the desire to progress.

I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him.

It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.

It is a youthful failing to be unable to control one’s impulses.

It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.

It is rash to condemn where you are ignorant.

Speech is the mirror of the mind. (Imago Animi Sermo Est)

The arts are the servant; wisdom its master.

The first step towards amendment is the recognition of error.

The mind is slow to unlearn what it learnt early.

The path of precept is long, that of example short and effectual.

We most often go astray on a well trodden and much frequented road.

Where reason fails, time oft has worked a cure.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.

The best ideas are common property.

Nothing is as certain as that the vices of leisure are gotten rid of by being busy.

Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult.

Aphorisms by Hippocrates, the very first aphorism:

Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate.

A neat summation that remains true in virtually all fields today.  It takes a long time to develop skills (Art long) compared to the allotted time we have to develop those skills (life is short), the pace of change is fast and we only have one chance to get it right (the crisis fleeting), the consequences are great (experience perilous) and as always the “decision difficult.”  The second sentence is not perhaps as crisp but is just as consequential.  A good decision without support from all parties in the context (the patient, the attendants, and externals) is like as not to fail.  The challenge is that in the modern era, rarely can we “make” others cooperate, rather we have to convince, motivate, or incent them to cooperate, an endeavor fraught with variable outcomes.  A variability that is less and less desirable, the greater the consequences arising from the decision.

The Latin original is Vita brevis, ars longa, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

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