Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness. They are more willing to follow their own vision, even when it takes them far from the mainland of the human community. Unexplored places do not frighten them- or not, at any rate, as much as they frighten those around them. This is one of the secrets of their power. That which we call "genius" has a great deal to do with courage and daring, a great deal to do with nerve.
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We should listen first and foremost to our own experience...We should stop looking for saviors... Society has not existed for read more
We should listen first and foremost to our own experience...We should stop looking for saviors... Society has not existed for thousands of years because it had a succession of saviors. It's existed because it has institutions and processes through which people can realize their own goals.
...it is largely because civilization enables us constantly to profit from knowledge which we individually do not possess and because read more
...it is largely because civilization enables us constantly to profit from knowledge which we individually do not possess and because each individual's use of his particular knowledge may serve to assist others unknown to him in achieving their ends that men as members of civilized society can pursue their individual ends so much more successfully than they could alone.
It is nobler to convert souls, than to conquer kingdoms.
It is nobler to convert souls, than to conquer kingdoms.
There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a read more
Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. ('What else could it be?') I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and I am told some of the ancient Greeks thought the brain functions like a catapult. At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer.
In that the wisdom of the few becomes available to the many, there is progress in human affairs; without it, read more
In that the wisdom of the few becomes available to the many, there is progress in human affairs; without it, the static routine of tradition continues.
Avoid making irrevocable decisions when tired or hungry.
Avoid making irrevocable decisions when tired or hungry.
Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness read more
Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
Children sweeten labours; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the care of life; but they mitigate the remembrance read more
Children sweeten labours; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the care of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity of generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men; which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed.
