A Quote by Jared Diamond

All recognized famous inventors had capable predecessors and successors and made their improvements at a time when society was capable of using their product.

Jared Diamond

Quote Topics

Capable Famous Had Inventors Made Predecessors Product Recognized Society Successors Time Using

Quote Author

Jared Diamond
American - Author
Born: September 10, 1937

When we consider that each of us has only one life to live, isn’t it rather tragic to find men and women, with brains capable of comprehending the stars and the planets, talking about the weather; men and women, with hands capable of creating works of art, using those hands only for routine tasks; men and women, capable of independent thought, using their minds as a bowling-alley for popular ideas; men and women, capable of greatness, wallowing in mediocrity; men and women, capable of self-expression, slowly dying a mental death while they babble the confused monotone of the mob?

Neil Gaiman

There was not a single Negro slave owner who did not know dozens of Negroes just as capable of learning and efficiency as the mass of poor white people around and about, and some quite as capable as the average slaveholder. They had continually, in the course of the history of slavery, recognized such men.

W. E. B. Du Bois

Do not regret too much the choices you have made in the past, Gabriel," she said, aware that she was using his Christian name, but not able to help it. "Only make the right ones in the future. We are ever capable of change and ever capable of being our better selves.

Cassandra Clare

We are looking at a society increasingly dependent on machines, yet decreasingly capable of making or even using them effectively.

Douglas Rushkoff

Not everybody out here trains with me; not everybody knows what I'm capable of. My coaches know what I'm capable of, my training partners know what I'm capable of, and I know what I'm capable of.

Kamaru Usman

Men must be capable of imagining and executing and insisting on social change if they are to reform or even maintain civilization, and capable too of furnishing the rebellion which is sometimes necessary if society is not to perish of immobility.

Rebecca West

At one time I had given much thought to why men were so very rarely capable of living for an ideal. Now I saw that many, no, all men were capable of dying for one.

Hermann Hesse

Here is a language so far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors.

Tony Hoare

There is nothing everyone is so afraid of as being told how vastly much he is capable of. You are capable of - do you want to know? - you are capable of living in poverty; you are capable of standing almost any kind of maltreatment, abuse, etc. But you do not wish to know about it, isn't that so? You would be furious with him who told you so, and only call that person your friend who bolsters you in saying: 'No, this I cannot bear, this is beyond my strength, etc.

Soren Kierkegaard

A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

H. L. Mencken

Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc'-ra-cy): A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Morgan Philpot

Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.

Jonathan Swift

Whatever it is, we want to be able to win at any time. The great teams and the great drivers are capable of doing that, and I think we are capable doing that.

Chase Elliott

The art of using troops is this: ......When ten to the enemy's one, surround him; ......When five times his strength, attack him; ......If double his strength, divide him; ......If equally matched you may engage him; ......If weaker numerically, be capable of withdrawing; ......And if in all respects unequal, be capable of eluding him, ..........for a small force is but booty for one more powerful.