Quotessence
Home / Topics / Efficiency Quotes

Efficiency Quotes

Browse 648 quotes about Efficiency.

Related topics

EnergyPeopleIfsEnergy EfficiencyEfficientEffectivenessThinkingMenWayGovernmentEconomyWellsHumansNeedsShouldWorldIncreaseMayTechnologyUseResourcesTwoImportantProblemCostEconomicEconomicsMeanOpportunityWantFuelFuel EfficiencyStatesTermValuesYearsCompanyHas BeensHelpingQualityTryingCarHomeJobsSocialTodayCultureEffortGreaterGrowthLevelsManagementMaximumPoliticalProductsSkillsStandardsAbilityActionAmericaBuildingBusinessCountryCreativityCuttingDecisionDoeEnvironmentFirstsFunctionInspirationalKindLongMillionsOrderPersonsProcessProductivityProfitRenewable EnergyRolesSpiritWould BeActivityBeliefBigsClimate ChangeDependsDesignDoneEconomic EfficiencyEnoughEvolutionFactorsFactsFocusGivenGivingHighestImprovingmore

Efficiency Quotes

“In the name of economy a thousand wasteful devices would be invented; and in the name of efficiency new forms of mechanical time-wasting would be devised: both processes gained speed through the nineteenth century and have come close to the limit of extravagant futility in our own time. But labor-saving devices could only achieve their end-that of freeing mankind for higher functions-if the standard of living remained stable. The dogma of increasing wants nullified every real economy and set the community in a collective squirrel-cage.”

IfsWantRealEndsWould BeFormNamesProcessCommunityEconomyAchieveMankindCenturyHigherThousandLimitsStandardsLaborFunctionSpeedSavingCollectivesDevicesWasting TimeStableDogmaEfficiencyConsumerismCagesNineteenth CenturyFutilityOverconsumptionExtravagantStandards Of LivingSquirrels
Author:Lewis Mumford
Create image

“The important issue is not how much inequality there is but how much opportunity there is for individuals to get out of the bottom classes and into the top. If there is enough movement upward, people will accept the efficiency of the markets. If you have opportunity, there is a great tolerance for inequality. That has been the saving grace of the American system.”

PeopleIfsHas BeensImportantEnoughOpportunityIndividualAcceptingClassIssuesGraceMovementBottomToleranceInequalitySavingEfficiencyImportant IssuesSaving Grace
Author:Milton Friedman
Create image

“Basically, for any complex to be sustainable needs to have a balance between two factors: resilience and efficiency. These two factors can be calculated from the structure of the network that is involved in a complex system. A resilient, efficient system needs to be diverse and interconnected. On the other hand, diversity and interconnectivity decrease efficiency. Therefore, the key is an appropriate balance between efficiency and resilience.”

NeedsTwoHandsKeysBalanceInvolvedDiversityStructureComplexesResilienceFactorsAppropriateEfficientDiverseEfficiencyResilientDecreaseInterconnectedComplex Systems
Author:Bernard Lietaer
Create image

“Distributed print is arguably our biggest challenge as a machinery supplier, as more publishers find efficiencies in transferring print production to remote printers and supersites. But our signature Goss flexibility and adaptability allow us to meet that challenge head-on with relevant technologies, services and expertise that continue to provide customers with an edge.”

ChallengesTechnologyEdgesProductionsCustomersPrintRelevantEfficiencyPublishersFlexibilityMachineryExpertiseSignaturesAdaptabilityPrinterSuppliers
Author:Eric Bell
Create image

“In North America, the medium-to-large publishers are generally confining investment to enhancements, upgrades and opportunities for incremental capacity and efficiency improvements, while among the smaller newspapers, there continues to be interest in systems that can provide a significant boost in production capabilities.”

AmericaOpportunityInterestCapacityInvestmentProductionsImprovementNewspapersSignificantMediumsCapabilityEfficiencyPublishersBoostNorth AmericaEnhancement
Author:Eric Bell
Create image

“Our concept of eco-effectiveness means working on the right things - on the right products and services and systems - instead of making the wrong things less bad. Once you are doing the right things, then doing them "right," with the help of efficiency among other tools, makes perfect sense.”

MeanHelpingPerfectBusinessProductsConceptsToolsRight ThingEfficiencyEffectivenessWrong ThingsDoing The Right ThingEco
Book:Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
Create image

“Small acts can drive reforms. What appears minor can actually be vital and fundamental. Generating 20,000 MW of power attracts a lot of attention. That is important. At the same time, 20,000 MW of power can be saved through a people's movement for energy efficiency. The second is more difficult but is as important as the first. Small indeed, is beautiful.”

PeopleFirstsImportantBeautifulEnergyDifficultAttentionMovementIndiaFundamentalsSavedReformMinorsEfficiencyGovernanceSmall ActsEnergy Efficiency
Author:Narendra Modi
Create image

“Extrapolated, technology wants what life wants: Increasing efficiency Increasing opportunity Increasing emergence Increasing complexity Increasing diversity Increasing specialization Increasing ubiquity Increasing freedom Increasing mutualism Increasing beauty Increasing sentience Increasing structure Increasing evolvability”

WantOpportunityTechnologyDiversityStructureComplexityEfficiencyEmergenceSpecializationUbiquity
Book:What Technology Wants
Create image

“We trained hard ... but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”

HardWould BeFormSituationProgressWonderfulTeamCreatingIllusionMethodConfusionTeamworkEfficiencyTeam BuildingLater In LifeInefficiencyTeamwArbiterBuilding A TeamNew SituationsReorganizationDemoralization
Author:Charlton Ogburn
Create image

“We are beginning to realize that even the most fortunate people are living far below capacity, and that most human beings develop not more than a small fraction of their potential mental and spiritual efficiency. The human race, in fact, is surrounded by a large area of unrealized possibilities, a challenge to the spirit of exploration.”

PeopleHumansFactsSpiritualSpiritRealizingChallengesHuman BeingsRacePossibilityAreasCapacityFortunateHuman RaceExplorationEfficiencyFractions
Book:New Bottles for New Wine: Essays
Create image

“In our truly remarkable an unexampled civil peace, where there are rarely fist fights; where no one is born, is gravely ill, or dies; where meat is eaten but no one sees an animal slaughtered; where scores of millions of cars, trains, elevators, and airplanes go their scheduled way and there is rarely a crash; where an immense production proceeds in orderly efficiency and the shelves are duly clears and nevertheless none of this come to joy or tragic grief or any other final good it is not surprising if there are explosions.”

IfsWayJoyDiesFightingBornAnimalGriefMillionsCarTrainFinalsIllProductionsMeatScoreRemarkableTragicSurprisingAirplaneImmenseCrashEfficiencyNeverthelessShelvesFistsExplosionsOrderlyElevators
Book:Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society
Create image

“What is the major problem? It is fundamentally the confusion between effectiveness and efficiency that stands between doing the right things and doing things right. There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”

ShouldDoneProblemMajorsConfusionUselessRight ThingEfficiencyEffectivenessDoing The Right ThingMajor Problems
Book:The Peter F. Drucker Reader: Selected Articles from the Father of Modern Management Thinking
Create image

“Let the Common School be expanded to its capabilities, let it be worked with the efficiency of which it is susceptible, and nine tenths of the crimes in the penal code would become obsolete; the long catalogue of human ills would be abridged; men would walk more safely by day; every pillow would be more inviolate by night; property, life, and character held by a stronger tenure; all rational hopes respecting the future brightened.”

MenHumansLongCharacterWould BeSchoolNightWalksCommonCrimeStrongerPropertyNineRationalCodeCapabilityEfficiencyPillowObsoleteSusceptibleTenureCatalogues
Book:Common School Journal
Create image

“An attitudinal sea change. I think that's the hardest one to fix. Presidential directives, bills, provisions can all be rescinded, repealed, amended, but attitudes linger. The hardest thing is going to be to try to reverse an attitude, a bunker mentality that equates secrecy with either security or heightened efficiency and that regards transparency as an invitation to mischief and trespass. This default position of operating in the shadows is going to be somewhat appealing to whomever inherits office.”

ThinkingTryingAttitudeSeaSecurityPositionOfficeShadowRegardBillsHardestPresidentialMentalityReverseEfficiencyHardest ThingInvitationsSecrecyTransparencyProvisionMischiefDefaultBunkersSea Change
Author:Ted Gup
Create image

“Sabbath ceasing means to cease not only from work itself, but also from the need to accomplish and be productive, from the worry and tension that accompany our modern criterion of efficiency, from our efforts to be in control of our lives as if we were God, from our possessiveness and our enculturation, and, finally, from the humdrum and meaninglessness that result when life is pursued without the Lord at the center of it all.”

IfsNeedsMeanLife IsResultsEffortLordWorryOur LivesModernAccomplishCeaseTensionProductiveEfficiencyCriteriaPursuedAccompanySabbathMeaninglessnessPossessivenessHumdrum
Author:Marva Dawn
Create image

“The great multinationals are unwilling to face the moral and economic contradictions of their own behavior - producing in low-wage dictatorships and selling to high-wage democracies. Indeed, the striking quality about global enterprises is how easily free-market capitalism puts aside its supposed values in order to do business. The conditions of human freedom do not matter to them so long as the market demand is robust. The absence of freedom, if anything, lends order and efficiency to their operations.”

IfsHumansLongMatterFacesValuesOrderQualityMoralDemocracyEconomicConditionsDemandBehaviorLowsCapitalismAbsenceSellingOperationsEnterpriseContradictionDictatorshipEfficiencyFree MarketUnwillingRobustHuman FreedomMultinationalsFree Market Capitalism
Author:William Greider
Create image

“The recent period has been marked by a transformation to an economy that is more productive as competitive forces become increasingly intense and new technologies raise the efficiency of our businesses...While these tendencies were no doubt in train in the "old," pre-1990s economy, they accelerated over the past decade as a number of technologies with their roots in the cumulative innovations of the past half-century began to yield dramatic economic returns.”

Has BeensPastForceNumbersHalfTechnologyEconomyDoubtEconomicCenturyReturnPeriodsRootsTransformationInnovationRaisesTrainDecadesIntenseTendenciesDramaticNo DoubtProductiveYieldEfficiencyOver The PastNew TechnologyCumulative
Author:Alan Greenspan
Create image

“A narrow and moralistic view of morals is responsible for the failure to recognize that all the aims and values which are desirable in education are themselves moral. Discipline, natural development, culture, social efficiency, are moral traits - marks of a person who is a worthy member of that society which it is the business of education to further.”

PersonsValuesCultureSocialNaturalViewsMoralDevelopmentDisciplineMembersMarkResponsibleAimWorthyTraitsEfficiencyDesirable
Book:Democracy And Education
Create image

“I am not a believer in large salaries. I hold that every man should be paid for personal production. Our big men at Bethlehem seldom get salaries of over one hundred dollars a week; but all of them receive bonuses computed entirely on the efficiencies and the economies registered in their departments.”

MenShouldBigsEconomyWeekHundredPaidDollarsProductionsBelieverEvery ManDepartmentEfficiencySalaryBonusBethlehem
Book:Succeeding With What You Have
Create image

“Competitiveness is defined as the ability of companies to compete while maintaining or improving the average standard of living. If you are cutting wages to become more competitive, that's not really more competitive. It's raising the skill and the efficiency of those workers so that they can support and sustain that higher wage.”

IfsAbilityCompanySupportCuttingHigherSkillsStandardsWorkersAverageDefinedEfficiencyImprovingWagesMaintainingStandards Of LivingCompetitiveness
Author:Michael Porter
Create image

“Climate change is real, caused by human activity and already devastating our nation and planet. The United States must lead the world in combating climate change and transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainability.”

WorldHumansRealStatesEnergyNationsUnitedUnited StatesPlanetsActivityClimateClimate ChangeFuelSustainabilityEfficiencyFossilsTransformingFossil FuelHuman ActivityEnergy Efficiency
Author:Bernie Sanders
Create image

“Every candidate running for president has got to answer the following very simple question: At a time when we need to address the planetary crisis of climate change, and transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainability, should we continue to give $135 billion in tax breaks and subsidies over the next decade to fossil fuel companies?”

NeedsGivingShouldRunningNextEnergyPresidentSimpleAnswersCompanyBreakTaxesCrisisClimateClimate ChangeFollowingDecadesBillionsCandidatesFuelAddressesSustainabilityEfficiencyFossilsFossil FuelSubsidiesTax BreaksEnergy Efficiency
Author:Bernie Sanders
Create image

“I am confident that we can do better than GUIs because the basic problem with them (and with the Linux and Unix interfaces) is that they ask a human being to do things that we know experimentally humans cannot do well. The question I asked myself is, given everything we know about how the human mind works, could we design a computer and computer software so that we can work with the least confusion and greatest efficiency?”

KnowsMindHumansWellsProblemAsksGivenCan DoHuman BeingsDesignComputerConfusionHuman MindSoftwareEfficiencyLinuxInterfacesUnixComputer Software
Author:Jef Raskin
Create image

“We are constantly straining to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization. God's plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God's method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.”

MenLosesChurchPlansHe ManOrganizationSightMethodTendenciesSecureTrendsEfficiencyGod's PlanBetter ManEnlargement
Book:E.M. Bounds: Man of Prayer
Create image