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Reminds me of a quote by Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, a German general: I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the la
by shoto_io 6y ago
Reminds me of a quote by Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, a German general:
I divide my officers into four classes as follows:
The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities.
Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy.
The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions.
But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.
- tigroferoce 6y agoI read the same statement, attributed to other German generals, namely Rommel and Von Moltke I think.
- CyanDeparture 6y agoWhat about the people who are clever and stupid?
- saltyfamiliar 6y agoThey make great comedians.
- dang 6y agohttps://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/28/clever-lazy/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/28/clever-lazy/
- shoto_io 6y agoNice! > In conclusion, this was a difficult expression to trace because it was complex, and it could be articulated in myriad ways. Currently, the earliest example located by QI appeared in English in 1933 and was credited to Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord.
- lenkite 6y agoHow can you be industrious and lazy ?
- Kluny 6y agoThat's the point, you can't. They are opposite ends of a spectrum.
- dijksterhuis 6y agoThe old urban legend of the sysadmin who wrote scripts to send an SMS to his wife depending on whether he still had active ssh connections at 6pm comes to mind. Others might call this being efficient or work smart, not hard etc. etc. To me, it's quintessential laziness at its most glorious. Edit: knew there was a link somewhere https://github.com/NARKOZ/hacker-scripts https://github.com/NARKOZ/hacker-scripts
- Tcepsa 6y agoI believe they were intended to be two separate axes: stupid<->clever and lazy<->industrious. This lends itself to the four quadrants referenced in the quote: clever-industrious, stupid-lazy, clever-lazy, and the infamous stupid-industrious