The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom.
C. Northcote ParkinsonRead
The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take.
Interpretation
People tend to value the decisions they can make when they are restricted from making more significant choices.
This quote by C. Northcote Parkinson highlights the psychological tendency of individuals to assign greater importance to the decisions they are permitted to make when they are deprived of making more substantial choices. It suggests that when faced with limits, people often overvalue the limited options available to them, illustrating how human perception can be influenced by the context of control and autonomy.
In practice
In a corporate seminar about decision-making, to emphasize the importance of empowerment.
The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom.
The man whose life is devoted to paperwork has lost the initiative. He is dealing with things that are brought to his notice, having ceased to notice anything for himself.
Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
Parkinson's First Law: Work expands to fill the time available.
There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest, which makes us desire to know that which may be useful to us; and the other, from pride which comes from the wish to know what others are ignorant of.
We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?
True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self.
To have a great idea, have a lot of them.
But the things that we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God.
He has missed the finest lesson of culture and experience who has not learned how to enjoy without owning.
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