Robert Shea Quotes

• Indeed, one of the most successful and influential religious organizations in history, the Society of Jesus, was consciously modeled along military lines by its founder, Ignatius Loyola.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in History, Uncategorized

  Tags in Successful, Jesus

• Even while we busily attend meetings, contribute money and perform our assigned tasks, we suspect that we may be helping to create a force that is inimical to many values we hold dear.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Money, Uncategorized

• A permanent division of labor inevitably creates occupational and class inequality and conflict.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Labor, Class, Conflict

• Anyone who seeks power wants absolute power.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Power

  Tags in Want

• But the more an organization succeeds and prospers, the more it is likely to be diverted from its original ideals, principles and purposes.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Principles

• As such people achieve influence within the organization, whenever there is a conflict between their own interest and the interest of the organization, their interests will win out.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Win

• But instead I usually say that, though it may surprise them, I too believe in the necessity of organization.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Believe

• Because the better an organization is at fulfilling its purpose, the more it attracts people who see the organization as an opportunity to advance themselves.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Better, Purpose

• Indeed, if our ancestors of millions of years ago hadn’t learned how to care for one another and hunt in packs, they’d all have ended up being eaten by leopards.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Care, Learned

• Every combination of two or more human beings has both a useful aspect and a political aspect.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Human, Political

• It is instructive, for instance, to trace the computer industry’s decline in vision, idealism, creativity, romance and sheer fun as it becomes more and more important and prosperous.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Fun, Important, Creativity

• Of all human inventions the organization, a machine constructed of people performing interdependent functions, is the most powerful.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Powerful, Human, Machine

• Organized religion provides a model of the way all organizations, from the state down to the village garden club, end a price in terms of a member’s freedom of thought and action.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Freedom, End, Down

• Military organization, like religious organization, can be seen as a paradigm of organization in general.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Religious, Seen, Military

• Individuals, too, who cultivate a variety of skills seem brighter, more energetic and more adaptable than those who know how to do one thing only.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Seem, Skills

• Just as predatory animals follow a similar general design and behave in similar ways, so organizations, especially those in competition with one another, must follow certain design principles if they are to succeed and prevail.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Another, Succeed

• It often happens that when a person possesses a particular ability to an extraordinary degree, nature makes up for it by leaving him or her incompetent in every other department.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Person, Leaving

• One simple way to keep organizations from becoming cancerous might be to rotate all jobs on a regular, frequent and mandatory basis, including the leadership positions.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Leadership

  Tags in Simple

• The key element in tragedy is that heroes and heroines are destroyed by that which appears to be their greatest strength.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Strength, Greatest, Key

• The Gnostics were rapidly driven out of business by the hierarchical orthodox Christians.

  Robert Shea

  Topics in Business

  Tags in Driven, Christian

Robert Shea (26)

Birth:	14th February, 1933
Death:	10th March, 1994
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Journalist, Novelist

About

Robert Joseph Shea was an American novelist and former journalist best known as co-author with Robert Anton Wilson of the science fantasy trilogy Illuminatus!. It became a cult success and was later turned into a marathon-length stage show put on at the British National Theatre and elsewhere.

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Today's Anniversary - 15th May

Births

• 1856 - L. Frank Baum
• 1967 - Laura Hillenbrand
• 1951 - Jonathan Richman
• 1895 - Prescott Bush
• 1926 - Peter Shaffer

Deaths

• 1978 - Robert Menzies
• 1986 - Theodore H. White
• 1976 - Samuel Eliot Morison
• 1925 - Nelson A. Miles
• 1949 - Mary Antin