„To secure the greatest amount of pleasure with the least possible outlay should be the aim of all economic effort… when everyone does this the natural order, instead of being endangered, will be all the better assured.“

„The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.“

—  Aristotle Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy -384 - -321 př. n. l.

„It is therefore, the interest of all, that every one, from birth, should be well educated, physically and mentally, that society may be improved in its character, — that everyone should be beneficially employed, physically and mentally, that the greatest amount of wealth may be created, and knowledge attained, — that everyone should be placed in the midst of those external circumstances that will produce the greatest number of pleasurable sensations, through the longest life, that man may be made truly intelligent, moral and happy, and be thus prepared to enter upon the coming Millennium.“

—  Robert Owen Welsh social reformer 1771 - 1858

A Development of the Principles & Plans on which to establish self-supporting Home Colonies (1841).

„The greatest misunderstandings occur as to the aims of scientific management. Its fundamental aim is the elimination of waste, the attainment of worth-while desired results with the least necessary amount of time and effort. Scientific management may, and often does, result in expansion, but its primary aim is conservation and savings, making an adequate use of every ounce of energy of any type that is expended.“

—  Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. American industrial engineer 1868 - 1924

Zdroj: Applied Motion Study (1917), p. 4.

„Management’s job. It is management’s job to direct the efforts of all components toward the aim of the system. The first step is clarification: everyone in the organization must understand the aim of the system, and how to direct his efforts toward it. Everyone must understand the damage and loss to the whole organization from a team that seeks to become a selfish, independent, profit centre.“

—  W. Edwards Deming American professor, author, and consultant 1900 - 1993

The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993)

„Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of equilibrium that guarantees the survival of any particular species - least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product: man.“

—  Ayn Rand, kniha The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

Zdroj: The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (1971), p. 134

„The books to be read should not be limited to those written in English…. Instead it should be devoted to the great works of history, biography, philosophy, theology, natural science, social science, and mathematics, as well as the… tradition of Western literature -- in English translation… Its aim should not be a survey of Western civilization, but an effort to understand the basic ideas and issues in Western thought.“

—  Mortimer J. Adler American philosopher and educator 1902 - 2001

Zdroj: Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1990), p. 316

„The greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as its greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure.“

—  John Ruskin English writer and art critic 1819 - 1900

Sesame and Lilies, lecture I: Sesame. Of King's Treasuries, section 3 (1864-1865)

„Poetry is the greatest literature, and pleasure in poetry is the greatest of literary pleasures. It is also the least easy to attain and there are some people who never do attain it.“

—  Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon British Liberal statesman 1862 - 1933

Recreation (1919)

„The greatest greatness and the greatest humility go hand in hand naturally and without effort.“

—  Meher Baba Indian mystic 1894 - 1969

Kontext: Better the absence of greatness than the establishing of a false greatness by assumed humility. Not only do these efforts at humility on man's part not express strength, they are, on the contrary, expressions of modesty born of weakness, which springs from a lack of knowledge of the truth of Reality.
Beware of modesty. Modesty, under the cloak of humility, invariably leads one into the clutches of self-deception. Modesty breeds egoism, and man eventually succumbs to pride through assumed humility.
The greatest greatness and the greatest humility go hand in hand naturally and without effort.

„Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.“

—  Bertrand Russell logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist 1872 - 1970

Zdroj: 1930s, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness

„The laboring classes constitute the main part of our population. They should be protected in their efforts peaceably to assert their rights when endangered by aggregated capital, and all statutes on this subject should recognize the care of the State for honest toil, and be framed with a view of improving the condition of the workingman.“

—  Grover Cleveland 22nd and 24th president of the United States 1837 - 1908

Letter accepting the nomination for governor of New York (October 1882); later quoted in his letter to the Democratic National Convention (18 August 1884).

„All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim.“

—  Michel De Montaigne, kniha Essays

Book I, Ch. 20
Essais (1595), Book I

„There is an inborn tendency to be Free. Every being is struggling to be Free. No one wants bondage. No one wants misery. The very idea of disease and death is appalling to all. Still, a being thinks that it will be happy by sense-pleasures. Can these sense-pleasures make one happy? No. Any amount of sense-pleasures will not make one really happy. Sense-pleasures will bring momentary satisfaction and then make one unhappy. Then comes the question: Where does this real happiness lie? It lies in knowing the True Nature. To know your True Nature, you have to control your mind. In order to control your mind, you have to live a true life. You must be a man of good character. That is why all the Scriptures ask their followers to be good, kind, gentle, noble, charitable, truthful, etc. In fact, moral and ethical codes of good conduct are the starting points of all Religions. They start with moral and ethical codes and end with God-realization or Self-realization.“

—  Swami Narayanananda Indian guru 1902 - 1988

The Essence of Life (1980), also in Minor Works II (2001), p. 131f

„It says in the sutras that buddha nature pervades all beings. But this does not mean that there is some thing which is buddha nature. Rather, when all the confusion of samsara is cleared away, what remains is buddha nature.“

—  Ken McLeod Canadian lama 1948

Buddha Nature http://www.unfetteredmind.org/buddha-nature. Unfettered Mind http://www.unfetteredmind.org. (Topic: Awareness)

„The greatest defect of common education is, that we are in the habit of putting pleasure all on one side, and weariness on the other; all weariness in study, all pleasure in idleness.“

—  François Fénelon Catholic bishop 1651 - 1715

Remarquez un grand défaut des éducations ordinaires: on met tout le plaisir d'un côté , et tout l'ennui de l'autre; tout l'ennui dans l'étude, tout le plaisir dans les divertissements.
De l'éducation des filles, ch. 5, cited from De l’éducation des filles, dialogues des morts et opuscules divers (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1857) p. 21; translation from Selections from the Writings of Fénelon (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little and Wilkins, 1829) p. 72.

„The basis of all true cosmic horror is violation of the order of nature, and the profoundest violations are always the least concrete and describable.“

—  H.P. Lovecraft American author 1890 - 1937

Zdroj: Selected Letters III: 1929-1931

„Broadly speaking, the object of industry is to set up economic ways and means of satisfying human wants and in so doing to reduce everything possible to routines requiring a minimum amount of human effort.“

—  Walter A. Shewhart American statistician 1891 - 1967

Zdroj: Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product,1931, p. vii

„The same thing happens whenever the established order of things is upset, when security no longer exists, when all those rights usually protected by the law of man or of Nature are at the mercy of unreasoning, savage force.“

—  Guy De Maupassant, kniha Kulička

Boule de Suif (1880)
Kontext: The same thing happens whenever the established order of things is upset, when security no longer exists, when all those rights usually protected by the law of man or of Nature are at the mercy of unreasoning, savage force. The earthquake crushing a whole nation under falling roofs; the flood let loose, and engulfing in its swirling depths the corpses of drowned peasants, along with dead oxen and beams torn from shattered houses; or the army, covered with glory, murdering those who defend themselves, making prisoners of the rest, pillaging in the name of the Sword, and giving thanks to God to the thunder of cannon — all these are appalling scourges, which destroy all belief in eternal justice, all that confidence we have been taught to feel in the protection of Heaven and the reason of man.

„I was too green to know that all cynicism masks a failure to cope – an impotence, in short and to despise all effort is the greatest effort of all…“

—  John Fowles, kniha Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin (1977)