As quoted by Thomas Little Heath, Diophantos of Alexandria: https://books.google.com/books?id=ABkPAAAAIAAJ A Study in the History of Greek Algebra (1885) <br class="br">Arithmetica (c. 250 AD)
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Tupac Shakur154
rapper and actor 1971–1996Barack Obama1158
44th President of the United States of America 1961William Shakespeare699
English playwright and poet 1564–1616George Orwell473
English author and journalist 1903–1950Oscar Wilde812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Recommended quotes
“Sometimes, son," my father said, prying my fingers free, "you have to help the heroes along.”
Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer
Source: Steelheart
“There is no reality but God,
says the completely surrendered sheik, who is an ocean for all beings.”
Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet
"The Grasses" in Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 44
Disputed, The Essential Rumi (1995)
“When in Love,
body, mind, heart and soul don't even exist.”
Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet
Hush Don't Say Anything to God (1999)
“Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader,
are your own nature reflected in them.”
Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet
Rumi Daylight (1990)
“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”
Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet
As quoted in Path for Greatness : Spiritualty at Work (2000) by Linda J. Ferguson, p. 51
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
1961, UN speech
Context: Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.
Abbas Kiarostami (1940–2016) Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/95ecdfa2-4be8-11de-b827-00144feabdc0.html
“What matters is not to know the world but to change it.”
Frantz Fanon book Black Skin, White Masks
Source: Black Skin, White Masks
Buenaventura Durruti (1896–1936) Spanish anarchist
On his military leadership against fascist troops in Spain, as quoted in "Durruti Is Dead, Yet Living" (1936) http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Essays/durruti.html, by Emma Goldman <br class="br">Context: I have been an Anarchist all my life. I hope I have remained one. I should consider it very sad indeed, had I to turn into a general and rule the men with a military rod. They have come to me voluntarily, they are ready to stake their lives in our antifascist fight. I believe, as I always have, in freedom. The freedom which rests on the sense of responsibility. I consider discipline indispensable, but it must be inner discipline, motivated by a common purpose and a strong feeling of comradeship.
Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) German, later an American, aerospace engineer and space architect
Comparable to remarks of William Masters, in "Two Sex Researchers on the Firing Line" LIFE magazine (24 June 1966), p. 49: "Science by itself has no moral dimension. But it does seek to establish truth. And upon this truth morality can be built."
Variants:
Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently.
As quoted in Futurehype: The Myths of Technology Change (2009) by Robert B. Seidensticker
Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently. Should the knife have not been developed?
As quoted in Science & Society (2012) by Peter Daempfle, Ch. 6, p. 97<!-- also in Good Science, Bad Science, Pseudoscience, and Just Plain Bunk: How to Tell the Difference (2013) by Peter Daempfle, Ch. 9, p. 166 -->
Responsible Scientific Investigation and Application (1976)
Context: One of the most disconcerting issues of our time lies in the fact that modern science, along with miracle drugs and communications satellites, has also produced nuclear bombs. What makes it even worse, science has utterly failed to provide an answer on how to cope with them. As a result, science and scientists have often been blamed for the desperate dilemma in which mankind finds itself today.
Science, all by itself, has no moral dimension. The same poison-containing drug which cures when taken in small doses, may kill when taken in excess. The same nuclear chain reaction that produces badly needed electrical energy when harnessed in a reactor, may kill thousands when abruptly released in an atomic bomb. Thus it does not make sense to ask a biochemist or a nuclear physicist whether his research in the field of toxic substances or nuclear processes is good or bad for mankind. In most cases the scientist will be fully aware of the possibility of an abuse of his discoveries, but aside from his innate scientific curiosity he will be motivated by a deep-seated hope and belief that something of value for his fellow man may emerge from his labors.
The same applies to technology, through which most advances in the natural sciences are put to practical use.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much, as its total annihilation. While, on the other hand, good men, men who love tranquillity, who desire to abide by the laws and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country, seeing their property destroyed, their families insulted, and their lives endangered, their persons injured, and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better, become tired of and disgusted with a government that offers them no protection, and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose. Thus, then, by the operation of this mobocratic spirit which all must admit is now abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of any government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed — I mean the attachment of the people.
1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)
