Quote

Trying to make things work in government is sometimes like trying to sew a button on a custard pie.

Hyman Rickover

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Government
Sometimes
Trying
Work
Make
Custard
Things
Button
Like
Pie
Buttons

More quotes by Hyman Rickover

Image
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.
Hyman Rickover
Image
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.
Hyman Rickover
Image
How the hell are you supposed to know what God wants you to do with your life, eh?
Hyman Rickover
Image
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.
Hyman Rickover
Image
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
Image
I have the charisma of the chipmunk. I never have thought I was smart. I thought the people I dealt with were dumb.
Hyman Rickover
Image
More than ambition, more than ability, it is rules that limit contribution rules are the lowest common denominator of human behavior. They are a substitute for rational thought.
Hyman Rickover
Image
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
Image
Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous.
Hyman Rickover
Image
Any one detail, followed through to its source, will usually reveal the general state of readiness of the whole organization.
Hyman Rickover
Image
The Devil is in the details, but so is salvation.
Hyman Rickover
Image
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.
Hyman Rickover
Image
It is a human inclination to hope things will work out, despite evidence or doubt to the contrary. A successful manager must resist this temptation.
Hyman Rickover
Image
Free discussion requires an atmosphere unembarrassed by any suggestion of authority or even respect.
Hyman Rickover
Image
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
Image
Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous impatience.
Hyman Rickover
Image
A system under which it takes three men to check what one is doing is not control it is systematic strangulation.
Hyman Rickover
Image
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.
Hyman Rickover
Image
Good ideas and innovations must be driven into existence by courage and patience.
Hyman Rickover
Image
A child is being properly educated only when he is learning to become independent of his parents.
Hyman Rickover