“Two polar groups: at one pole we have the literary intellectuals, at the other scientists, and as the most representative, the physical scientists. Between the two a gulf of mutual incomprehension.”

— C. P. Snow, book The Two Cultures

Source: The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959), P. 4

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 "Two polar groups: at one pole we have the literary intellectuals, at the other scientists, and as the most representati…" by C. P. Snow?

C. P. Snow photo

C. P. Snow7

British writer 1905–1980

Related quotes

“The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

Source: What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches

“It was the tension between these two poles — a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other — that kept me going.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

1990s, The Rum Diary (1998)
Context: Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles — a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other — that kept me going.

“It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum. There is no question but that nominally religious scientists like Francis Collins and Kenneth R. Miller are doing lasting harm to our discourse by the accommodations they have made to religious irrationality.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, "The Politics of Ignorance" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/the-politics-of-ignorance_b_5053.html (2 August 2005) <br class="br">2000s

“But the conflict has not ended and the fight between the two rival forces-capitalism and socialism-goes on. There can be no permanent compromise between the two although there have been, and there may be in the future, temporary arrangements and treaties between the two. Russia and communism stand at one pole, and the great capitalist countries of Western Europe and America stand at the other. Between the two, the liberals, the moderates, and the centre parties are disappearing everywhere.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

“I hold that the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding states between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good. A positive good.”

John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) 7th Vice President of the United States

In 1837 http://stoprepublicans.blogspot.com/2008/06/democrats-held-these-words-to-be-self.html <br class="br">1830s

“Now one could say, at the risk of some superficiality, that there exist principally two types of scientists. The ones, and they are rare, wish to understand the world, to know nature; the others, far more frequent, wish to explain it. The first are searching for truth, often with knowledge that they will not attain it; the second strive for plausibility, for the achievement of an intellectually consistent, and hence successful, view of the world.”

Erwin Chargaff (1905–2002) Ukrinian-born biochemist who emigrated to the United States

Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature, Paul & Co Pub Consortium, June, 1978.

“I keep wondering if, say, there is intelligent life on other planets, the scientists argue that something like two percent of the other planets have the conditions, the physical conditions, to support life in the way it happened here, did Christ visit each and every planet, go through the same routine, the Agony in the Garden, the Crucifixion, and so on…”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“Basil From Her Garden”.
Flying to America: 45 More Stories (2007)

“The progressive development of moral and intellectual man has scarcely occupied their [scientists] attention; nor have they noted how the faculties of his mind are at every age influenced by those of the body, nor how his faculties mutually react.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

“A scientist’s work is determined by two things: his interests and those of his time. Everything has led to this.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”

Steven Pressfield book The War of Art

Source: The War of Art (2002), p. 13

Related topics