What the machine can do, we need not; and if we need not, soon we cannot.
Working
Business is more agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind more continuously, and more deeply.
—Bagehot
The purveyor of a cure does not, unless he is a madman, spread the ill; but he can scarcely help spreading belief in it.
Modern Westerners are, by historical standards, awash with leisure, much of which we use to complain about working all the time.
Every charitable foundation does more harm than good, if it lasts long enough, eventually falling into the hands of people who wish to run charitable foundations.
The modern corporation has turned business — a glamorous pursuit, full of intrigue, danger, and deceit — into bureaucratic drudgery. This is its unpardonable sin.
There are so many ways to go wrong that every well-made thing is a miracle, to be regarded with reverence, even awe.
True believers make the best publicists, and they work cheap.
If you hire for competence, it is still likely that you will get incompetents; if you hire for anything else, it is certain.
The micromanager constantly remarks his hatred of micromanaging, as if he were driven to it, as a last resort, by the sheer fecklessness of his underlings.
Sports are dead, and so is the water cooler to congregate by to discuss them.