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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

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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
Temptation
Humans
Must
Despite
Work
Contrary
Things
Evidence
Inclination
Doubt
Manager
Successful
Resist
Hope
Managers
Human

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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.
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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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All new ideas begin in a non-conforming mind that questions some tenet of the conventional wisdom.
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We bury the men who do the nation's creative work under layers of administrators and mountains of memoranda. We shrivel creativity by endless frustrations.
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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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Trying to make things work in government is sometimes like trying to sew a button on a custard pie.
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Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous.
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Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous impatience.
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How the hell are you supposed to know what God wants you to do with your life, eh?
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Human experience shows that people, not organizations or management systems, get things done
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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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Those involved with practical reactors, humbled by their experiences, speak less and worry more.
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Free discussion requires an atmosphere unembarrassed by any suggestion of authority or even respect.
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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.
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Good ideas and innovations must be driven into existence by courage and patience.
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The Devil is in the details, but so is salvation.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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