Generalists Quotes

Every one of my opponents, every one of my critics, will tell you that I am a generalist spread far too thin in an age when this is not done anymore, when responsible knowledge is specialized knowledge.

We are generalists. You can't draw neat lines around planet-wide problems. Planetology is a cut-and-fit science.

I was a generalist in college. You take a lot of courses to feel out what you're interested in. I really felt web design was too limited for me to interested in it - [instead] I was really into typography.

A tip for generalists who try to read economic research papers: If you get to a section that's incomprehensible, don't give up. Just skip to the next section.

In this age of specialization, I sometimes think of myself as the last 'generalist' in economics, with interests that range from mathematical economics down to current financial journalism. My real interests are research and teaching.

Lorenzo de' Medici seeks highly skilled, aesthetically oriented individual to conceive and implement several major public projects. You are a generalist with sound training in structural engineering, synthesis of pigments and Christian iconography. Some climbing involved

Make sure a certain percentage of the people that you're hiring are generalists so that you can be, kind of reconfigured in the workforce pretty easily.

Because I've done a lot of television, I'm sort of a generalist. I'm not a pastry cook, but I've had to learn a certain amount about it. I'm not a baker, though I've had to learn how to do it. I'm sort of a general cook.

I think the more you have a generalist perspective, I think sometimes the more you can kind of see through the forest and the trees. And when it gets a little bit cloudy, you know, have some sense of, "Well, maybe this might happen or maybe that might happen." So I really am a big believer in liberal arts education. I think it's better - particularly in these kind of uncertain times - to know a little bit about a lot of things as opposed to being expert in one thing.

Writers have no real area of expertise. They are merely generalists with a highly inflamed sense of punctuation.

Become an expert in one fundamental area of your market or business, no one starts out as a generalist.

Everything that you've learned: 'Make a lot of money, have a nice house'. But they never teach you at school how to relate, how to communicate with others, how to share values with others. ...They teach you how to make a living. You become an optometrist, he becomes a physicist, she becomes a structural engineer, he's an architect.  In the future, none of that. Everybody is trained to be a generalist, so they understand different cultures, different values, how we get to be the way we are. So no-one can ever use you for war or killing anybody or hurting anybody

Generalists, people with moderately strong attachments to many ideas, should be hard to interrupt, and once interrupted, should have weaker, shorter negative reactions since they have alternative paths to realize their plans. Specialists, people with stronger attachments to fewer ideas, should be easier to interrupt, and once interrupted, should have stronger, more sustained negative reactions because they have fewer alternative pathways to realize their plans. Generalists should be the upbeat, positive people in the profession while specialists should be their grouchy, negative counterparts.

If I am to be remembered, I hope it will not be primarily for my specialized scientific work, but as a generalist; one to whom, enlarging Terence's words, nothing human and nothing in external nature was alien.

No one achieves greatness by becoming a generalist. You don't hone a skill by diluting your attention to its development. The only way to get to the next level is focus.