Maria Weston Chapman Quotes

Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.

The national oil companies still want to acquire some expertise so they will outsource more, but not totally.

It matters little how much equipment we use; it matters much that we be masters of all we do use.

If you are drilling for water, it's better to drill one 60-foot well than 10 6-foot wells.

It is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don't know something are no better than one), will tend to slow down progress, and will make the task incredibly expensive.

There is no more merit in being able to attach a correct description to a picture than in being able to find out what is wrong with a stalled motorcar. In each case it is special knowledge.

A mechanic is just an engineer in blue jeans.

If you desire to dig a well to reach water, your efforts are more fruitful if you dig one 100-foot-deep hole than if you dig ten holes each 10 feet deep.

The scarce water of Dune is an exact analog of oil scarcity. CHOAM is OPEC.

First, do it. Second, do it well. Third, do it well and fast — that means you're a professional.

The gross size of our talent inventories is less important than the net use of our talents?

Time is your most precious resource; make every minute count.

One of the most important rules of personal effectiveness is the 10/90 rule.

A society can be Pareto optimal and still perfectly disgusting.

The soul of dispatch is decision.

I've only got a fraction of the energy I once had, but I think I probably use it better.

We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%

The man who saves time by galloping loses it by missing his way; the shepherd who hurries his flock to get them home spends the night on the mountain looking for the lost; economy does not consist in haste, but in certainty.

You cannot save time, but you can spend time differently.

I read like the flame reads the wood.

I've never seen a job being done by a five-hundred-person engineering team that couldn't be done better by fifty people.

Credentialed ignorance is still ignorance.

Compare society to a boat. Her progress through the water will not depend upon the exertion of her crew, but upon the exertion devoted to propelling her. This will be lessened by any expenditure of force in fighting among themselves, or in pulling in different directions.

Priority determines capacity.

Effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals. Efficiency is performing a given task (whether important or not) in the most economical manner possible. Being efficient without regard to effectiveness is the default mode of the universe.