Norbert Quotes & Sayings

I have said that science is impossible without faith ... Inductive logic, the logic of Bacon, is rather something on which we can act than something which we can prove, and to act on it is a supreme assertion of faith ... Science is a way of life which can only fluorish when men are free to have faith. — Norbert Wiener

There are quite a lot of people asking for a painting so I'm not able to fulfil all their wishes. And this gives me a lot of freedom, because if I cannot please them at all I don't have to start to try. — Norbert Bisky

Death is a problem of the living. Dead people have no problems. — Norbert Elias

A faith which we follow upon orders imposed from outside is no faith, and a community which puts its dependence upon such a pseudo-faith is ultimately bound to ruin itself because of the paralysis which the lack of a healthy growing science imposes upon it. — Norbert Wiener

I make decisions quickly. — Norbert Leo Butz

Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic conditions of slave labor. — Norbert Wiener

In the play we have the messy he-loves-her, she-loves-him, she-loves-him-too structure, and, to add even more confusion to the mix, the real love story is between the two ladies. — Norbert Leo Butz

Is it your conviction that small-town life, centered on church, tradition, and fear of God, is our best bulwark against murder and mayhem? Well, think again. As Europe became more urban, cosmopolitan, commercial, industrialized, and secular, it got safer and safer. And that brings us back to the ideas of Norbert Elias, the only theory left standing. Elias — Steven Pinker

To live effectively is to live with adequate information. — Norbert Wiener

The modern physicist is a quantum theorist on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and a student of gravitational relativity on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On Sunday, he is praying ... that someone will find the reconciliation between the two views. — Norbert Wiener

I have told our senior executives that I will slaughter holy cows if it benefits the company's long-term success. When we asked ourselves whether Formula 1 still matched the concept of a sustainable company, the clear answer was no. — Norbert Reithofer

We will continue to offer the most dynamic vehicles in the future. However, we have also made it our mission to be sustainable as a company. — Norbert Reithofer

Hagrid's hut loomed out of the darkness. There were no lights, no sound of Fang scrabbling at the door, his bark booming in welcome. All those visits to Hagrid, and the gleam of the copper kettle on the fire, and rock cakes and giant grubs, and his great bearded face, and Ron vomiting slugs, and Hermione helping him save Norbert . . . — J.K. Rowling

I have 10 brothers and sisters. — Norbert Leo Butz

Joschka Fischer was a Green Party politician and Germany's foreign minister. We hired Mr. Fischer, as well as former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, as advisors because we, as an automaker, want to know, for example, how new emissions laws will develop in the United States, Europe and Asia. Fischer and Ms. Albright have diverse contacts worldwide. They can call our attention to trends early on, information from which we can benefit. — Norbert Reithofer

Prestige and premium will also play an important role in the future. But some people define these values differently today. — Norbert Reithofer

It's thrilling to be onstage and to not know, literally, what the next moment is going to bring. To just submit to the not-knowing-ness of it. — Norbert Leo Butz

All human action is expressive; a gesture is an intentionally expressive action. All art is expressive - of its author and of the situation in which he works - but some art is intended to move us through visual gestures that transmit, and perhaps give release to, emotions and emotionally charged messages. Such art is expressionist. — Norbert Lynton

Norbert Wiener," Tillingford said. "You recall his work in cybernetics. And, even more important, Enrico Destini's work in the field of theophonics." "What's that?" Tillingford raised an eyebrow. "You are a specialist, my boy. Communication between man and God, of course. Using Wiener's work, and using the invaluable material of Shannon and Weaver, Destini was able to set up the first really adequate system of communication between Earth and Heaven in 1946. Of course, he had the use of all that equipment from the War Against the Pagan Hordes, those damned Wotan-Worshiping, Oak-Tree-Praising Huns." "You mean the - Nazis?" "I'm familiar with that term. That's sociologist jargon, isn't it? And that Denier of the Prophet, that Anti-Bab. They say he's still alive down in Argentina. Found the elixir of eternal youth or something. He made that pact with the devil in 1939, you remember. Or was that before your time? But you know about it - it's history." "I — Philip K. Dick

Some critics claim to know what art has to be and do, and consider it their task to steer art along the path they have chosen. Others receive art gladly, and try to distinguish degrees of excellence ... — Norbert Lynton

Like books, artists have their fates. — Norbert Lynton

After three or four hours of chomping and chewing, Norbert realised that he was very thirsty. — James Sutherland

The mechanical brain does not secrete thought "as the liver does bile," as the earlier materialists claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day. — Norbert Wiener

A professor is one who can speak on any subject - for precisely fifty minutes. — Norbert Wiener

The advantage is that mathematics is a field in which one's blunders tend to show very clearly and can be corrected or erased with a stroke of the pencil. — Norbert Wiener

There must be an open space in the paintings - an entry space for the viewer, or even for me. Just white space where you can get into it. — Norbert Bisky

The world of the future will be an even more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves. — Norbert Wiener

I have said that the modern man, and especially the modern American, however much 'know-how' he may have, has very little 'know-what' — Norbert Wiener

Mathematics, which most of us see as the most factual of all sciences, constitutes the most colossal metaphor imaginable, and must be judged, aesthetically as well as intellectually in terms of the success of this metaphor. — Norbert Wiener

The simplest type of breakdown exhibits itself as an oscillation in a goal-seeking process which appears only when that process is actively invoked. — Norbert Wiener

The most fruitful areas for the growth of the sciences were those which had been neglected as a no-man's land between the various established fields. — Norbert Wiener

It is worthwhile to liveand fight courageouslyfor sacred ideals.O blow ye evil windsinto my body's firemy soul you'll never unravel.Even though disappointed a thousand timesor fallen in the fightand everything would worthless seem,I have lived amidst eternity -Be grateful, my soul -My life was worth living.He who was pressed from all sidesbut remained victorious in spiritis welcomed into the choir of heroes.He who overcame the fettersgiving wings to his mindis entering into the golden age ofthe victorious. — Norbert Capek

I am firmly convinced that the trend toward more fuel-efficient vehicles is not a fad. Gas prices will continue to rise in the medium to long term, because demand is growing considerably in China, India and other countries. — Norbert Reithofer

The sense of tragedy is that the world is not a pleasant little nest made for our protection, but a vast and largely hostile environment, in which we can achieve great things only by defying the gods; and that this defiance inevitably brings its own punishment. — Norbert Wiener

Since Brazil became a democracy in 1975 over 1700 Activists and small Farmers have been murdered in Brazil alone over land reforms and the rainforest ! — Norbert F Hoffmann Jr

Use the word 'cybernetics', Norbert, because nobody knows what it means. This will always put you at an advantage in arguments. — Claude Shannon

Norbert Blei is a writer the way people used to be troubadours and minstrels, celebrating what he has seen and heart and felt in a deceptively simple style reminiscent of the early Sherwood Anderson ... Like Anderson, he is a lover, and his affection invests his writing with a singular charm. — Sydney J. Harris

A painter like Picasso, who runs through many periods and phases, ends up by saying all those things which are on the tip of the tongue of the age to say, and finally sterilizes the originality of his contemporaries and juniors. — Norbert Wiener

Mathematics is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one's best moments that count and not one's worst. — Norbert Wiener

Let us remember that the automatic machine is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor. Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic consequences of slave labor. — Norbert Wiener

In a way, my paintings are like my children. They have many possibilities in life. You tell them, 'I believe that you're good and I trust that wherever you are and whatever you do, you will do it right. — Norbert Bisky

Any use of a human being in which less is demanded of him and less is attributed to him than his full status is a degradation and a waste. — Norbert Wiener

Science is a way of life which can only flourish when men are free to have faith. — Norbert Wiener

Until we in the community have made up our minds that what we really want is expiation, or removal, or reform, or or the discouragement of potential criminals, we shall get none of these, but only a confusion in which crime breeds more crime. — Norbert Wiener

One doesn't have to be a large corporation to benefit from the advantages of volume. This can also be achieved through joint ventures. — Norbert Reithofer

There are no answers, only cross references — Norbert Wiener

Progress imposes not only new possibilities for the future but new restrictions. — Norbert Wiener

Scientific discovery consists in the interpretation for our own convenience of a system of existence which has been made with no eye to our convenience at all. — Norbert Wiener

It isn't a given that the companies that provide mobility today will also be the ones to do so tomorrow. Every company has to work hard to make this happen. — Norbert Reithofer

What sometimes enrages me and always disappoints and grieves me is the preference of great schools of learning for the derivative as opposed to the original, for the conventional and thin which can be duplicated in many copies rather than the new and powerful, and for arid correctness and limitation of scope and method rather than for universal newness and beauty, wherever it may be seen. — Norbert Wiener

I may remark parenthetically that the modern apparatus of the theory of small samples, once it goes beyond the determination of its own specially defined parameters and becomes a method for positive statistical inference in new cases, does not inspire me with any confidence unless it is applied by a statistician by whom the main elements of the dynamics of the situation are either explicitly known or implicitly felt. — Norbert Wiener

A great artist is never a closed subject, but this catalogue is a milestone production, as useful as it is beautiful. — Norbert Lynton

Science is better paid than at any time in the past. The results of this pay have been to attract into science many of those for whom the pay is the first consideration, and who scorn to sacrifice immediate profit for the freedom of development of their own concept. Moreover, this inner development, important and indispensable as it may be to the world of science in the future, generally does not have the tendency to put a single cent into the pockets of their employers. — Norbert Wiener

Norbert?" Charlie laughed. "The Norwegian Ridgeback? We call her Norberta now."
"Wha
Norbert's a girl?"
"Oh yeah," said Charlie.
"How can you tell?" asked Hermoine.
"They're a lot more vicious," said Charlie. — J.K. Rowling

I enjoyed the freedom they gave me - to write about almost any damned thing that came into my mind, whether it was crime, science fiction, western, fantasy or sports. — Norbert Davis

We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves.
A pattern is a message, and may be transmitted as a message. — Norbert Wiener

A significant idea of organization cannot be obtained in a world in which everything is necessary and nothing is contingent — Norbert Wiener

You give a poet a bucket of worms, he'll probably put the whole bucket on the end of the hook. — Norbert Blei

Am I really a good mathematician? — Norbert Wiener

Information is information; it is neither matter nor energy. — Norbert Wiener

Hypocrisy is a fickle friend indeed . — Norbert F Hoffmann Jr

to the castle feeling Saturday couldn't come quickly enough. They would have felt sorry for Hagrid when the time came for him to say good-bye to Norbert if they hadn't been — J.K. Rowling

We will introduce an electric car by 2015. It will be a completely new vehicle concept for mega-cities. We would also have it developed if, contrary to expectations, it did not turn a profit in its first life cycle. — Norbert Reithofer

BMW models are more powerful on average than competitors. This is precisely what we are aiming for: less fuel consumption and more driving pleasure. — Norbert Reithofer

The idea that information can be stored in a changing world without an overwhelming depreciation of its value is false. It is scarcely less false than the more plausible claim that after a war we may take our existing weapons, fill their barrels with information. — Norbert Wiener

Had Martha Foley returned William [James Sidis]'s passion as Margaret [Engemann] did Norbert [Wiener]'s, perhaps the two prodigies would have had more in common in the long run. ... In the life of a prodigy, perhaps more than in the average life, a marriage or a requited love is the greatest single factor that can heal the old childhood wounds. William and Norbert's response to their childhood and teenage rejections and humiliations was to retreat into the painless world of ideas, where successes and satisfactions abounded. A successful love affair could be the key to reentry into the world of feeling, bridging the gap between the cerebral and the emotional lives. — Amy Wallace

One of the chief duties of the mathematician in acting as an advisor ... is to discourage ... from expecting too much from mathematics. — Norbert Wiener

Politicians in Europe want change. The United States and China will follow this trend. One could see this is a threat, but it's also an opportunity. We at BMW want to take advantage of this and, through innovations, place ourselves at the forefront. — Norbert Reithofer

There were certainly those who rubbed their eyes in astonishment. But when we held a company discussion forum with Joschka Fischer, interest was high. Six hundred senior managers came to the meeting. In the end, there was tremendous applause for Fischer, because he offered a precise analysis of the challenges our industry faces worldwide. — Norbert Reithofer

Our tissues change as we live: the food we eat and the air we breathe become flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, and the momentary elements of our flesh and bone pass out of our body every day with our excreta. We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves — Norbert Wiener

Communication engineering began with Gauss, Wheatstone, and the first telegraphers. — Norbert Wiener

Premium will increasingly be defined in terms of sustainability and environmental compatibility — Norbert Reithofer

Belief is a dangerous thing," Norbert said. "It can blind you. It can consume you. It can make you unable to admit you're wrong. — Alex Siegel

I've decided to call him Norbert,' said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. 'He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mummy?'
'He's lost his marbles,' Ron muttered in Harry's ear.
'Hagrid,' said Harry loudly, 'give it a fortnight and Norbert's going to be as big as your house. Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment.
Hagrid bit his lip.
'I- I know I can't jus' dump him, I can't.'
Harry suddenly turned to Ron.
'Charlie,' he said.
'You're losing it too,' said Ron. 'I'm Ron, remember? — J.K. Rowling

We have used so much polyethylene ( plastic ) since the invention of this oil derivative that plastic broken down has over time completely changed the molecular structure of seawater . — Norbert F Hoffmann Jr

Scientific modes of thought cannot be developed and become generally accepted unless people renounce their primary, unreflecting, and spontaneous attempt to understand all their experience in terms of its purpose and meaning for themselves. The development that led to more adequate knowledge and increasing control of nature was therefore, considered from one aspect, also a development toward greater self-control by men. — Norbert Elias

A single inattention may lose a chess game, whereas a single successful approach to a problem, among many which have been relegated to the wastebasket, will make a mathematician's reputation. — Norbert Wiener

If you, as CEO, have recognized an approach as being the right one, you have to pursue it consistently, even if some people disagree. But it is now clear to everyone that we, as an automaker, have no alternative but to take [environmental protection] course. — Norbert Reithofer

European carmakers pledged to reduce CO2 emissions by 25 percent from 1995 to 2008. We kept our word and reduced the value even more. This is not the result of short-term gimmickry. We decided years ago to develop the relevant models and engines, otherwise we wouldn't be able to offer them today. — Norbert Reithofer

The more we get out of the world the less we leave, and in the long run we shall have to pay our debts at a time that may be very inconvenient for our own survival. — Norbert Wiener

Any useful logic must concern itself with Ideas with a fringe of vagueness and a Truth that is a matter of degree. — Norbert Wiener

If Peter was nine, and a new boy came to St. Norbert's Home for Wayward Boys who said he was ten, why, then, Peter would declare himself eleven. Also, he could spit the farthest. That made him the undisputed leader. — Dave Barry

As far as I'm concerned, however, it is clear that the concept of premium will be increasingly defined through sustainability in the future. — Norbert Reithofer

What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead. — Norbert Wiener

It is easy to make a simple machine which will run toward the light or run away from it, and if such machines also contain lights of their own, a number of them together will show complicated forms of social behavior ... — Norbert Wiener

We have modified our environment so radically that we must now modify ourselves to exist in this new environment. — Norbert Wiener

There is one quality more important than know-how ... This is know-how by which we determine not only how to accomplish our purposes, but what our purposes are to be. — Norbert Wiener

We are swimming upstream against a great torrent of disorganization ... In this, our main obligation is to establish arbitrary enclaves of order and system ... It is the greatest possible victory to be, to continue to be, and to have been. No defeat can deprive us of the success of having existed for some moment of time in a universe that seems indifferent to us.
This is no defeatism ... The declaration of our own nature and the attempt to build up an enclave of organization in the face of nature's overwhelming tendency to disorder is an insolence against the gods and the iron necessity that they impose. Here lies tragedy, but here lies glory too ...
All this represents the manner in which I believe I have been able to add something positive to the pessimism of ... the existensialists. I have not replaced the gloom of existence by a philosophy which is optimistic in any Pollyanna sense, but ... with a positive attitude toward the universe and toward our life in it. — Norbert Wiener

If you individualize an audience, it helps up the stakes of your responsibility to that audience. — Norbert Leo Butz

In the European Union, a fleet average of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer will be permitted in 2020. This corresponds to fuel consumption of about four liters (per 100 kilometers; about 59 mpg). We have to continue reducing the fuel consumption of our vehicles and offer hybrid and electric vehicles, or else we will be unable to achieve these values. — Norbert Reithofer

O Priest! Take care lest what was said to Christ on the cross be said to you: He saved others, himself he cannot save! — Norbert Of Xanten

The manufacturers of mechanical typewriters believed that they had developed sufficiently when they introduced electric typewriters. Then came the PC, and the deeply traditional makers of typewriters disappeared from the market. — Norbert Reithofer

I was in the original cast of 'Wicked', and that got a bad review in 'The New York Times,' and it's the most successful thing that's ever been put onstage. — Norbert Leo Butz

Naturally, we will continue to offer very powerful vehicles in the future. Nevertheless, no other manufacturer has reduced the CO2 emissions of its fleet as substantially as the BMW Group. — Norbert Reithofer

I hate sitting around a table and talking about what a play might mean. I'm the person who's always like, 'Can we get up on our feet and just do it?' — Norbert Leo Butz

You will never enjoy the sweetness of a quiet prayer unless you shut your mind to all worldly desires and temporal affairs. — Norbert Of Xanten

In a very real sense, we are shipwrecked passengers on a doomed planet. Yet, even in a shipwreck, human decencies and human values do not necessarily vanish, and we must make the most of them. We shall go down, but let it be in a manner to which we may look forward as worthy of our dignity. — Norbert Wiener

How's Norbert doin'?"
Norbert?" Charlie laughed. "The Norwegian Ridgeback? We call her Norberta now."
Wha - Norbert's a girl? — J.K. Rowling

It is possible to believe in progress as a fact without believing in progress as an ethical principle; but in the catechism of many Americans, the one goes with the other. — Norbert Wiener

The nervous system and the automatic machine are fundamentally alike in that they are devices, which make decisions on the basis of decisions they made in the past. — Norbert Wiener