"Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power."
Acquisition quotes
111 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"Everyone thought the acquisition strategy was extremely risky because no one had ever done it successfully. In other words, it was innovative."
"Of one thing be certain: if a CEO is enthused about a particularly foolish acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his stance. Only in fairy tales are emperors told that they are naked."
"It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of 'culture.'"
"Happiness is not to be found in knowledge, but in the acquisition of knowledge"
"On the acquisition of Louisiana, in the year 1803, the attention of the government of the United States, was early directed towards exploring and improving the new territory."
"The science of numbers ought to be preferred as an acquisition before all others, because of its necessity and because of the great secrets and other mysteries which there are in the properties of numbers. All sciences partake of it, and it has need of none."
"The beauty of a financial institution is that there are a lot of ways to go to hell in a bucket. You can push credit too far, do a dumb acquisition, leverage yourself excessively - it's not just derivatives [that can bring about your downfall]."
"Now property is part of a household, and the acquisition of property part of household-management; for neither life itself nor the good life is possible without a certain minimum supply of the necessities."
"The acquisition of knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known."
"At most corporations if you make an acquisition and it turns out to be a disaster, all the paperwork and presentations that caused the dumb acquisition to be made are quickly forgotten. You've got denial, you've got everything in the world. You've got Pavlovian association tendency. Nobody even wants to even be associated with the damned thing or even mention it. At Johnson & Johnson, they make everybody revisit their old acquisitions and wade through the presentations. That is a very smart thing to do. And by the way, I do the same thing routinely."
"Abundance is not a number or acquisition. It is the simple recognition of enoughness."
"The artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition-and therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty and pain."
"Dostoevsky believed that the gods of rationalism and materialist utilitarianism had joined in conspiracy against all other ethical systems. ... The accumulation of capital, or the acquisition of money, are endeavors par excellence which establish a quantifiable goal: hence they are directly amenable to maximization formulae."
"Every acquisition of accommodation becomes material for assimilation, but assimilation always resists new accommodations."
"I think the acquisition of consumers might be on the verge of being mapped. The battlefield is going to be retention and lifetime value."
"The desires of man increase with his acquisitions."
"The acquisition of riches has been to many not an end to their miseries, but a change in them: The fault is not in the riches, but the disposition."
"Don't you know what marriage means in this world? They are mergers and acquisitions disguised as marriages. In other words, the takeover syndromes."
"Much of what is called investment is actually nothing more than mergers and acquisitions, and of course mergers and acquisitions are generally accompanied by downsizing."
"Let war be so carried on that no other object may seem to be sought but the acquisition of peace. [Lat., Bellum autem ita suscipiatur, ut nihil aliud, nisi pax, quaesita videatur.]"