Information Quotes

We must be contented to amuse, when we cannot inform.

Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.

There are four means of obtaining information about the enemy’s operations: espionage, reconnaissances, questioning prisoners, and signals.

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

Information is money, but data is squat.

Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility.

When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and – eventually – incapable of determining their own destinies.

One of the most interesting aspects of power in relation to increasing flows of information might be called the “paradox of plenty”… As Herbert Simon has pointed out, a plenitude of information leads to a poverty of attention. Attention becomes the scarce resource and those who can distinguish valuable signal from white noise gain power. […]

Information is just signs and numbers, while knowledge involves their meaning. What we want is knowledge, but what we get is information.

We must become much more efficient and more clever in the ways we find new sources of data, mine information from the new and old, generate information, make it available for analysis, convert it to knowledge, and create actionable options. We must also break down the stovepipes – at least punch holes in them. By […]