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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.

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
Right
Doubt
Defend
Men
Wrong
Civilized
Action
Consistent
Past
Actions
Today
Mark
May
Fool
Consistency
Firsts
Tomorrow
Refuge
First
Principles
Fools

More quotes by Hyman Rickover

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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.
Hyman Rickover
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Good ideas and innovations must be driven into existence by courage and patience.
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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 have the charisma of the chipmunk. I never have thought I was smart. I thought the people I dealt with were dumb.
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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
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How the hell are you supposed to know what God wants you to do with your life, eh?
Hyman Rickover
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Any one detail, followed through to its source, will usually reveal the general state of readiness of the whole organization.
Hyman Rickover
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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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Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous impatience.
Hyman Rickover
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Trying to make things work in government is sometimes like trying to sew a button on a custard pie.
Hyman Rickover
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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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Human experience shows that people, not organizations or management systems, get things done
Hyman Rickover
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A child is being properly educated only when he is learning to become independent of his parents.
Hyman Rickover
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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.
Hyman Rickover
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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.
Hyman Rickover
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Free discussion requires an atmosphere unembarrassed by any suggestion of authority or even respect.
Hyman Rickover
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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.
Hyman Rickover
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What it takes to do a job will not be learned from management courses. It is principally a matter of experience, the proper attitude, and common sense — none of which can be taught in a classroom... Human experience shows that people, not organizations or management systems, get things done.
Hyman Rickover
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The Devil is in the details, but so is salvation.
Hyman Rickover
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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.
Hyman Rickover