One of the little-celebrated powers of Presidents (and other high government officials) is to listen to their critics with just enough sympathy to ensure their silence.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Modern science and technology succeed by fostering ordinary individuals' specialized knowledge for collaborative performance rather than relying on extraordinary genius.
This quote by John Kenneth Galbraith emphasizes how modern advancements in science and technology are built on the collective efforts of ordinary people who are given specialized training. Instead of depending on rare genius, the systematic organization of knowledge from various experts leads to predictable and reliable outcomes, illustrating the power of collaboration in achieving significant results.
Themes
ScienceTechnologyCollaborationKnowledgeOrdinaryPredictableAccomplishment
In practice
Example use cases
In a talk about teamwork in project management, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of collaboration over individual genius.
More from John Kenneth Galbraith
All quotes →If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
Money differs from an automobile or mistress in being equally important to those who have it and those who do not.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
Similar quotes
It’s hard to build models of inflation that don't lead to a multiverse. It’s not impossible, so I think there’s still certainly research that needs to be done. But most models of inflation do lead to a multiverse, and evidence for inflation will be pushing us in the direction of taking [the idea of a] multiverse seriously.
Alan GuthRead
The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.
Nikola TeslaRead
The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them.
Albert EinsteinRead
When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity ? And why turbulence ? I really believe he will have an answer for the first.
Werner HeisenbergRead
One of the reasons for its success is that science has a built-in, error-correcting machinery at its very heart. Some may consider this an overbroad characterization, but to me every time we exercise self-criticism, every time we test our ideas against the outside world, we are doing science. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hopes and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.
Carl SaganRead
Our ancestors worshipped the Sun, and they were not that foolish. It makes sense to revere the Sun and the stars, for we are their children.
Carl SaganRead