Hyman Rickover Men Quotations

A system under which it takes three men to check what one is doing is not control; it is systematic strangulation.

As a guide to engineering ethics, I should like to commend to you a liberal adaptation of the injunction contained in the oath of Hippocrates that the professional man do nothing that will harm his client.

I suggest that this is a good time to think soberly about our responsibilities to our descendents - those who will ring out the Fossil Fuel Age. Our greatest responsibility, as parents and as citizens, is to give America's youngsters the best possible education. We need the best teachers and enough of them to prepare our young people for a future immeasurably more complex than the present, and calling for ever larger numbers of competent and highly trained men and women.

To doubt one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man. Don't defend past actions; what is right today may be wrong tomorrow. Don't be consistent; consistency is the refuge of fools.

We bury the men who do the nation's creative work under layers of administrators and mountains of memoranda. We shrivel creativity by endless frustrations.

The man in charge must concern himself with details. If he does not consider them important, neither will his subordinates.

When the men in Russia foul up, they are dismisses, sometimes losing their necks. But we protect those who fail and press them to the government bosom.