Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
We loved cars until the '70s or so. Then they became appliances. They turned into motorized cup holders. Most of it has to do with urban sprawl. What began as pleasure ends up in necessity, as so many things do.
Interpretation
Cars shifted from being objects of love and passion to mere necessities over time.
P. J. O'Rourke's quote reflects on the transformation of cars from symbols of freedom and enjoyment to mundane tools required for everyday life, largely due to urban development. The transition symbolizes a broader trend where the joy of many things gets replaced by practical necessity as society evolves.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the evolution of transportation in urban design.
Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
I spend my days kneeling in the muck of language, feeling around for gooey verbs, nouns, and modifiers that I can squash together to make a blob of a sentence that bears some likeness to reason and sense.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around.
Nobody wants to buy a $60,000 electric Civic. But people will pay $90,000 for an electric sports car.
A Web site that promotes flow is like a gourmet meal. You start off with the appetizers, move on to the salads and entrees, and build toward dessert. Unfortunately, most sites are built like a cafeteria. You pick whatever you want. That sounds good at first, but soon it doesn't matter what you choose to do. Everything is bland and the same.
When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft over 30 years ago, we had big dreams about software. We had dreams about the impact it could have.
I invented nothing new. I simply combined the inventions of others into a car. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed.
Languages evolve; ideas blend together. In computer technology, we all stand on others' shoulders.
The Internet amplifies power in all respects. It can grossly exaggerate the power of the individual.
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