A Quote by Oliver E. Williamson

Opportunism is self interest seeking with guile often involving subtle forms of deceit, especially calculated efforts to mislead, distort, disguise, obfuscate, or otherwise confuse. This vastly complicates the problems of economic organisation. Plainly if it were not for opportunism all behaviour could be rule governed

Oliver E. Williamson

Quote Topics

Behaviour Calculated Confuse Could Deceit Disguise Distort Economic Efforts Forms Governed Guile Interest Involving Mislead Often Opportunism Organisation Otherwise Problems Rule Seeking Self Self Interest Subtle Vastly Were

Quote Author

Oliver E. Williamson
American - Economist
Born: September 27, 1932

The whole struggle of our Party (and of the working class movement in Europe generally) must be directed against opportunism. The latter is not a current of opinion, not a tendency; it (opportunism) has now become the organised tool of the bourgeoisie within the working class movement.

Vladimir Lenin

Writing about a person whose struggle you wish you could solve is an act of compassion and also, frankly, opportunism.

Karen Bender

Politics is nothing but opportunism.

H. D. Kumaraswamy

Nowhere has truth such a short life as in Sicily; a fact has scarcely happened five minutes before its genuine kernel has vanished, been camouflaged, embellished, disfigured, squashed, annihilated by imagination and self interest; shame, fear, generosity, malice, opportunism, charity, all the passions, good as well as evil, fling themselves onto the fact and tear it to pieces; very soon it has vanished altogether.

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Altruism is a hard master, but so is opportunism.

Mignon McLaughlin

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The notion that economic life is a distinct realm, governed by immutable laws of narrow self-interest, is giving way to a much older notion: economic life is only one strand in the rich web of human relationships.

Frances Moore Lappé

The opportunism of electoral politics makes people lie to each other.

Boots Riley

Ah yes, liberal democrats unified as ever in opportunism and in error.

Tony Blair

The battle over genetically modified crops is rife with business interests and political opportunism. When GMOs were first produced in laboratories around the world, they were rightly heralded as a tremendous leap forward in our ability to supplement nature by providing high-nutrient foods.

Richard J. Roberts

It's true that in Cuba there are double standards, there's opportunism, and there is a lack of freedom in some ways.

Fernando Perez

Most people define learning too narrowly as mere 'problem-solving', so they focus on identifying and correcting errors in the external environment. Solving problems is important. But if learning is to persist, managers and employees must also look inward. The need to reflect critically on their own behaviour, identify the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organisation’s problems, and then change how they act.

Chris Argyris

I believe businesses don't grow or develop in terms of a blueprint. There is a huge element of opportunism involved.

Christoffel Wiese

What is evil? What is - where does the evil come from that lies behind someone like Saddam Hussein, or Radovan Karadzic, or General Claude Raymond in Haiti. As I say, I've tended to find these people - I mean, Saddam, I've never met or interviewed - but these other people to be rather disappointing. Their political goals were mundane. What they had working for them was opportunism, was very often cleverness and was ruthlessness.

Mark Danner

Self-deceit—It’s in the “Nine Satanic Statements” but deserves to be repeated here. Another cardinal sin. We must not pay homage to any of the sacred cows presented to us, including the roles we are expected to play ourselves. The only time self-deceit should be entered into is when it’s fun, and with awareness. But then, it’s not self-deceit!