“I'm really convinced that our descendants a century or two from now will look back at us with the same pity that we have toward the people in the field of science two centuries ago.”

—  John Marks Templeton

The Quotable Sir John

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I'm really convinced that our descendants a century or two from now will look back at us with the same pity that we hav…" by John Marks Templeton?
John Marks Templeton photo
John Marks Templeton 22
stock investor, businessman and philanthropist 1912–2008

Related quotes

Theodore Dalrymple photo

“In Britain, journalists often view comparisons with our society going back two, three, or seven centuries as more relevant than comparisons going back two, three, or seven decades. Drunkenness centuries ago is more illuminating than comparative sobriety 30 years ago. The distant past, selectively mined for evidence that justifies our current conduct, becomes more important than living memory.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Selective Memory http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_07_06_04td.html (July 6, 2004).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Brian W. Aldiss photo

“There was a time, two or three centuries ago, when it looked as if the intellect might win over the body, and our species become something worthwhile. But too much procreation killed that illusion.”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

“Man on Bridge” p. 92
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

“Much of present science rests on engineering tools, and as time goes on, engineering seems to involve more and more of the science part. …the two fields are growing together! …and now there is not enough time to allow us the leisure which comes from separating the two fields.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)

Alan Greenspan photo

“From the development of the textile loom two centuries ago to today's Internet, output per hour has increased fifty fold.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Source: 2000s, The Age of Turbulence (2008), Chapter Twenty-Five, "The Delphic Future", p. 471.

Benito Mussolini photo

“Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil and Augustus.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Speech at the 5th Levantine Fair (6 September 1934) in reference to German Nordicism; quoted in Hitler's Ten-year War on the Jews http://books.google.com/books?id=vCA4AAAAIAAJ&q=%22Thirty+centuries+of+history+allow+us+to+look+with+supreme+pity%22&dq=%22Thirty+centuries+of+history+allow+us+to+look+with+supreme+pity%22&pgis=1 (1946) by the Institute of Jewish Affairs
1930s

Derek Parfit photo

“We live during the hinge of history. Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period. Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 616

Jacy Reese photo

“Many years from now, our descendants will look back on the use of animals for food—particularly the intense animal suffering in factory farms—as a moral atrocity.”

Jacy Reese (1992) American social scientist

[Why It's Time to End Factory Farming, October 20, 2018, Quillette, https://quillette.com/2018/10/20/why-its-time-to-end-factory-farming/]

George Marshall photo

“We have walked blindly, ignoring the lessons of the past, with, in our century, the tragic consequences of two world wars and the Korean struggle as a result.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

Essentials to Peace (1953)
Context: We have walked blindly, ignoring the lessons of the past, with, in our century, the tragic consequences of two world wars and the Korean struggle as a result.
In my country my military associates frequently tell me that we Americans have learned our lesson. I completely disagree with this contention and point to the rapid disintegration between 1945 and 1950 of our once vast power for maintaining the peace. As a direct consequence, in my opinion, there resulted the brutal invasion of South Korea, which for a time threatened the complete defeat of our hastily arranged forces in that field. I speak of this with deep feeling because in 1939 and again in the early fall of 1950 it suddenly became my duty, my responsibility, to rebuild our national military strength in the very face of the gravest emergencies.

Steven Best photo

“We now face the grim choice posed by revolutionaries over the last two centuries, which involved "revolution or barbarism."”

Steven Best (1955) American activist

Our situation has deteriorated so dramatically that we must choose between revolution or ecological collapse, mass extinction, and possibly our own demise. The twenty-first century is a time of reckoning.
Conclusion: "Reflections on Activism and Hope in a Dying World and Suicidal Culture" (p. 162)
The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century (2014)

Alain de Botton photo

“Two centuries ago, our forbears would have known the precise history and origin of nearly every one of the limited number of things they ate and owned, as well as of the people and tools involved in their production. … The range of items available for purchase may have grown exponentially since then. but our understanding of their genesis has diminished almost to the point of obscurity. We are now as imaginatively disconnected from the manufacture and distribution of our goods as we are practically in reach of them, a process of alienation which has stripped us of myriad opportunities for wonder, gratitude and guilt.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), p. 35.

Related topics