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Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous.

Hyman Rickover

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Hyman Rickover
Age: 86 †
Born: 1900
Born: January 27
Died: 1986
Died: July 8
Admiral
Military Officer
Submariner
Makow Mazowiecki
Hyman George Rickover
Hyman Rickover
Stupid
Synonymous
Optimism
Nearly
Stupidity

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I have a son. I love my son. I want everything that I do to be so safe that I would be happy to have my son operating it. That's my fundamental rule.
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When the men in Russia foul up, they are dismisses, sometimes losing their necks. But we protect those who fail and press them to the government bosom.
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A child is being properly educated only when he is learning to become independent of his parents.
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Nothing so sharpens the thought process as writing down one's arguments. Weaknesses overlooked in oral discussion become painfully obvious on the written page.
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A system under which it takes three men to check what one is doing is not control it is systematic strangulation.
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I believe it is the duty of each of us to act as if the fate of the world depended on him. Admittedly, one man by himself cannot do the job. However, one man can make a difference. We must live for the future of the human race, and not for our own comfort or success.
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Human experience shows that people, not organizations or management systems, get things done
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The Devil is in the details, but so is salvation.
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Trying to make things work in government is sometimes like trying to sew a button on a custard pie.
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To doubt one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man. Don't defend past actions what is right today may be wrong tomorrow. Don't be consistent consistency is the refuge of fools.
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Knowing more about the public effects his work will have, the engineer ought to consider himself an officer of the court and keep the general interest always in mind.
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Any one detail, followed through to its source, will usually reveal the general state of readiness of the whole organization.
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Above all, we should bear in mind that our liberty is not an end in itself it is a means to win respect for human dignity for all classes of our society.
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Good ideas and innovations must be driven into existence by courage and patience.
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As a guide to engineering ethics, I should like to commend to you a liberal adaptation of the injunction contained in the oath of Hippocrates that the professional man do nothing that will harm his client.
Hyman Rickover
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Those involved with practical reactors, humbled by their experiences, speak less and worry more.
Hyman Rickover
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Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous impatience.
Hyman Rickover
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All new ideas begin in a non-conforming mind that questions some tenet of the conventional wisdom.
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Be ever questioning. Ignorance is not bliss. It is oblivion. You don't go to heaven if you die dumb. Become better informed. Lean from others' mistakes. You could not live long enough to make them all yourself.
Hyman Rickover
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It troubles me that we are so easily pressured by purveyors of technology into permitting so-called progress to alter our lives without attempting to control it-as if technology were an irrepressible force of nature to which we must meekly submit.
Hyman Rickover