Australian Academic Quotes

The experienced and skilled observer does not have perceptual experiences identical to those of the untrained novice when the two confront the same situation.

The problem is not that of the sickness of an acquisitive society; it is that of the acquisitiveness of a sick society.

Elton Mayo
Elton Mayo
Shifts within friendships happen in imperceptible increments. There is distance, then assurance. Misconjecture, caution, gradual convergence. So much depends on the respect accorded to vulnerability.

Losing faith in your own singularity is the start of wisdom, I suppose; also the first announcement of death.

The most important fact in the environmental history of Australia is that it had a radically new technology imposed upon it, suddenly, twice.

This book is a product of my long-standing interest in questions relating to institutions and their relation in economic life. Initially, this interest took me to the study of the American institutionalist tradition (now often called the "old" institutional economics, or OIE) and to a series of articles on Veblen, Mitchell, Commons and Ayres (Rutherford 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1987), a line of work I have continued to pursue (1990a, 1990c, 1992a, 1992b). These pieces are written from the point of view of a sympathetic critic.

The perception that cannabis is a safe drug is a mistaken reaction to a past history of exaggeration of its health risks.

That is where homeland is. In that shifting space, kinfolk know one another by secret signs; and wherever kinfolk meet, homeland soil coalesces about their feet in the mysterious way that coral cays, like seabirds pausing in flight, anchor themselves to the Barrier Reef.

Let's take this figure of the feminist killjoy seriously. Does the feminist kill other people's joy by pointing out moments of sexism? Or does she expose the bad feelings that get hidden, displaced, or negated under public signs of joy? Does bad feeling enter the room when somebody expresses anger about things, or could anger be the moment when the bad feelings that circulate through objects get brought to the surface in a certain way?

Human beings are distinguished by a capacity for experience as well as by their behavior, and homosexuality is as much a matter ofemotion as of genital manipulation.... As we each examine our own sense of identity we realize how much more complex is the question of homosexuality than a mere Kinsey-like computation of orgasms.

Remember that the future is not somewhere we are going, it is something we are creating. Everyday we do things that make some futures more probable and others less likely.

A totally honest organization would never hide or disguise actions or stonewall.