One learns quite easily to identify the rich person who is making a career out of dangling the carrot; of being fawned on by insti...tutions eager for his (or, more often, her) money. It is not very productive to "cultivate" them. I associated with many, and developed great compassion for rich people who suspect that they are in demand only because they are a potential source of income to some cause or institution. Whether it's true or not, their suspicions isolate them from all save a handful of old and trusted friends, turn them sour, make it difficult for them to accept new friends at face value, and leave them with little attraction other than their money.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What seems to be, is, to those to whom It seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful... Consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of Torments, despair, eternal death.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good bre...eding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Suppose that humans happen to be so constructed that they desire the opportunity for freely undertaken productive work. Suppose th...at they want to be free from the meddling of technocrats and commissars, bankers and tycoons, mad bombers who engage in psychological tests of will with peasants defending their homes, behavioral scientists who can't tell a pigeon from a poet, or anyone else who tries to wish freedom and dignity out of existence or beat them into oblivion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In academic science, interdisciplinary work is productive and praised, but is relatively rare. Scientists don't need to cooperate ...to have their results fit together: they are all describing different parts of the same thing--nature--so in the long run, their results tend to come together into a single picture. Engineering, however, is different. Because it is more creative (it actually creates complex things), it demands more attention to teamwork. If the finished parts are going to work together, they must be developed by groups that share a common picture of what each part must accomplish. Engineers in different disciplines are forced to communicate; the challenge of management and team-building is to make that communication happen.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning... her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter, wherever I meet with ...it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action: and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Temperament refers to the mode of reaction and is constitutional and not changeable; character is essentially formed by a person's... experiences, especially of those in early life, and changeable, to some extent, by insights and new kinds of experiences. If a person has a choleric temperament, for instance, his mode of reaction is "quick and strong." But what he is quick or strong about depends on his kind of relatedness, his character. If he is a productive, just, loving person he will react quickly and strongly when he loves, when he is enraged by injustice, and when he is impressed by a new idea. If he is a destructive or sadistic character, he will be quick and strong in his destructiveness or in his cruelty. The confusion between temperament and character has had serious consequences for ethical theory. Preferences with regard to differences in temperament are mere matters of subjective taste. But differences in character are ethically of the most fundamental importance.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »