Cog In The Machine Quotes

“As a freelancer, you’re not a cog in the (corporate) machine. You’re the gear, pinion, axis, and whatever other doohickey it takes for the entire mechanism to function. And the gearhead who designs and makes it all work.”
― Rodika Tollefson, The Freelancer’s Compass: Navigate Your Way from Corporate Cog to Solopreneur Star

“While the Growing went on, this god of their market-place was their true god, their familiar and spirit-control. They did not know that they were his helplessly obedient slaves, nor could they ever hope to realize their serfdom (as the first step to becoming free men) until they should make the strange and hard discovery that matter should serve man’s spirit. (p.211)”
― Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons

“From the point of view of totalitarian ethics, from the point of view of collective utility, Plato’s theory of justice is perfectly correct. To keep one’s place is a virtue. It is that civil virtue which corresponds exactly to the military virtue of discipline. And this virtue plays exactly that rôle which ‘justice’ plays in Plato’s system of virtues. For the cogs in the great clockwork of the state can show ‘virtue’ in two ways. First, they must be fit for their task, by virtue of their size, shape, strength, etc.; and secondly, they must be fitted each into its right place and must retain that place. The first type of virtues, fitness for a specific task, will lead to a differentiation, in accordance with the specific task of the cog. Certain cogs will be virtuous, i.e. fit, only if they are (‘by their nature’) large; others if they are strong; and others if they are smooth. But the virtue of keeping to one’s place will be common to all of them; and it will at the same time be a virtue of the whole: that of being properly fitted together—of being in harmony. To this universal virtue Plato gives the name ‘justice’. This procedure is perfectly consistent and it is fully justified from the point of view of totalitarian morality. If the individual is nothing but a cog, then ethics is nothing but the study of how to fit him into the whole.”
― Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies - Volume One: The Spell of Plato