
Source: 1930s- 1950s, The Future of Industrial Man (1942), p. 28
Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 10 (p. 333)
Source: 1930s- 1950s, The Future of Industrial Man (1942), p. 28
Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism
"Einstein's Reply to Criticisms" (1949), The World As I See It (1949)
Context: A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows. We call him good or bad according to how he stands in this matter. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depended entirely on his social qualities.
And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It is clear that all the valuable things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society can be traced back through countless generations to certain creative individuals. The use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam engine — each was discovered by one man.
Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society — nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.
Variant: A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, can even enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.
Source: The Human Revolution
“Revolution will free society of its afflictions, while science will free the individual of his.”
Source: The War of the End of the World
The Lessons of History (1968), p. 72 (co-authored with Ariel Durant)
Source: The Political Doctrine of Fascism (1925), p. 112