Famous quotes containing the words orders, magnitude and/or numbers:
“He was thoughtful and grave—but the orders he gave
Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried “Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!”
What on earth was the helmsman to do?”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“All experience teaches that, whenever there is a great national establishment, employing large numbers of officials, the public must be reconciled to support many incompetent men; for such is the favoritism and nepotism always prevailing in the purlieus of these establishments, that some incompetent persons are always admitted, to the exclusion of many of the worthy.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)