I wondered aloud to Renae why in our society the greatest sums of money tended to accrue from the sale of the least meaningful things, and why the dramatic improvements in efficiency and productivity at the heart of the Industrial Revolution so seldom extended beyond the provision of commonplace material goods. I told Renae that our robots and engines were delivering the lions share of their benefits at the base of our pyramid of needs, that we were evident experts at swiftly assembling confectionery and yet we were still searching for reliable means of generating emotional stability or marital harmony.
--
p. 84Alain de Botton
» Alain de Botton - all quotes »
If stability and efficiency required that there existed markets that extended infinitely far into the future and these markets clearly did not exist what assurance do we have of the stability and efficiency of the capitalist system?
Joseph E. Stiglitz
The development of the Watt governor for steam engines, which adapted the power output of the engine automatically to the load by means of feedback, consolidated the first Industrial Revolution.
Anthony Stafford Beer
Business the world's work is the sale of lies:
Not goods, but trade-marks; and still more and more
In every branch becomes the sale of money.John Davidson
This law (regarding the theoretical efficiency of heat engines by Mr. Joule), and the law of the maximum efficiency of heat engines, are particular cases of a general law which regulates all transformation of energy, and is the basis of the Science of Energetics.
William John Macquorn Rankine
Delivering advice assumes that our cognitive apparatus rather than our emotional machinery exerts some meaningful control over our actions.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
de Botton, Alain
de Cleyre, Voltairine
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z