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
Humans are natural-born scientists. When we're born, we want to know why the stars shine. We want to know why the sun rises.
Michio KakuRead
The Earth is round, and is inhabited on all sides, is insignificantly small, and is borne through the stars.
Johannes KeplerRead
Science fiction [is] the kind of writing that prepares us for the necessary mutations brought about in society from an ever changing technological world and as a result. The mainstream hasn’t excluded SF; the mainstream has excluded itself. No one told Jules Verne he was a science fiction writer, but he invented the 20th century.
Walter MosleyRead
A scientist's aim in a discussion with his colleagues is not to persuade, but to clarify.
Leo SzilardRead
More than two decades after the birth of Louise Brown, and all the hysteria that surrounded her 'test tube' conception, we should know that institutions, not technologies, create dystopias. Artificially conceived children are everywhere, beloved by their parents, and they haven't radically altered our world.
Virginia PostrelRead
I think, in general, medicine in the 21st century will switch from healing the sick to upgrading the healthy... If you find ways to repair the memory damaged by Alzheimer's disease or dementia and so forth, it is very likely that the same methods could be used to upgrade the memory of completely healthy people.
Yuval Noah HarariRead