“We wring our hands over the miscarriages of technology and take its benefactions for granted. We are dismayed by air pollution but not proportionately cheered up by, say, the virtual abolition of poliomyelitis.”

1960s, Presidential Address, 1969

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

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Peter Medawar40

scientist 1915–1987

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“This oppressor, this machine that has gone mad and run amok, it is berserk. They keep telling us, "progress.” They keep telling us “face reality.” Well, let’s deal with reality. Reality is the Earth can no longer take this attack. We can no longer allow this Thing to continue when it’s polluting the air, it’s polluting the water, polluting our food. They pollute the air, they pollute the water, they pollute our food, they pollute our minds.”

John Trudell (1946–2015) Native American rights activist, musician, poet

"We are Power" speech (1980)

“Our maturity is evidenced by our beginning to take responsibility for our planet on a global scale, albeit in a very tentative, barely discernible way. We are beginning to realize what we are doing to our environment… We are beginning to see that we cannot go on despoiling the planet, polluting the air, rivers and oceans.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

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“We are losing our common vocabulary, built over thousands of years to help and delight and instruct us, for the sake of what we take to be the new technology's virtues.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

“It's a terrible paradox that we march toward a virtual Eden when there is still time to reverse pollution and find it again in nature.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

(21 December 2017) http://lorinrichards.weebly.com

“It has come to my attention, that air pollution is polluting the air!”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

“Let us take short views. If we look over the precipices, we shall grow dizzy. If we look too far ahead, we shall grow discouraged. Let us rather put our weak hands into Christ's strong, loving grasp, and all the time listen to His cheering words, "Fear not; only trust."”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 592.

“The spirit of fellowship, with its attendant cheerfulness, is in the air.”

L. P. Jacks (1860–1955) British educator, philosopher, and Unitarian minister

"The Peacefulness of Being at War." in The New Republic (11 September 1915), p. 152.
Context: The spirit of fellowship, with its attendant cheerfulness, is in the air. It is comparatively easy to love one's neighbor when we realize that he and we are common servants and common sufferers in the same cause. A deep breath of that spirit has passed into the life of England. No doubt the same thing has happened elsewhere.

“We take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.”

Cynthia Ozick (1928) American writer

“It's like there's this predator energy on this planet, and this predator energy feeds upon the essence of the spirit, feeds upon the essence of the human being, the spirit. This predator energy can take fossil fuel and other resources out of the Earth, turn it into fuel, to run a machine system. But in order for there to be a need for that system, and in order for that system to work, they have to mine our minds to get at the essence of our spirit. In the same way the external mining takes place, it pollutes—we see now, people understand how it poisons the environment, the water, the air pollution—the mining of the essence, the mining of the spirit, mining our minds … the pollution from that is all the neurotic, distorted, insecure behavior patterns that we develop. That's the pollution. Because in order for this predatory system, this disease, to work, we must not be able to use our minds in a clear coherent manner. Because if we use our minds in a clear coherent manner, we will not accept the unacceptable.”

John Trudell (1946–2015) Native American rights activist, musician, poet

Columbus Day Speech, San Francisco (1992)

“What’s wrong with empowering government? When you give government new powers and responsibilities, you are also increasing its police power. If we put government in charge of a thing — say, ensuring income equality — we are also handing it the power to police that thing nationwide, to impose penalties for breaches of its new regulations, and ultimately to coerce citizens into compliance. At the limit, we grant the state the power to take our money, imprison us, and even execute us if we violate its laws.”

Paul D. Miller (academic) American academic

Why Socialism Is Bad (2018)

“We wring our hands over the miscarriages of technology and take its benefactions for granted. We are dismayed by air pollution but not proportionately cheered up by, say, the virtual abolition of poliomyelitis.”

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Peter Medawar40

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