"The State of the Union," The Nation (13 September 2004)
2000s
“We are the United States of Amnesia, we learn nothing because we remember nothing.”
“Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.”
Kenneth Boulding (1971) "The diminishing returns of science" in: New Scientist. (March 25, 1971) Vol. 49, nr. 744. p. 682
1970s
Context: Perhaps the most difficult ethical problem of the scientific community arises not so much from conflict with other subcultures as from its own success. Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.
“We can only be what we are, nothing more, nothing less.- Kahlan- Wizard's First Rule.”
Quotes from the Books
“We of the United States need above all things to remember that”
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: Four centuries and a quarter have gone by since Columbus by discovering America opened the greatest era in world history. Four centuries have passed since the Spaniards began that colonization on the main land which has resulted in the growth of the nations of Latin-America. Three centuries have passed since, with the settlements on the coasts of Virginia and Massachusetts, the real history of what is now the United States began. All this we ultimately owe to the action of an Italian seaman in the service of a Spanish King and a Spanish Queen. It is eminently fitting that one of the largest and most influential social organizations of this great republic, a republic in which the tongue is English, and the blood derived from many sources, should, in its name, commemorate the great Italian. It is eminently fitting to make an address on Americanism before this society. We of the United States need above all things to remember that, while we are by blood and culture kin to each of the nations of Europe, we are also separate from each of them. We are a new and distinct nationality. We are developing our own distinctive culture and civilization, and the worth of this civilization will largely depend upon our determination to keep it distinctively our own. Our sons and daughters should be educated here and not abroad. We should freely take from every other nation whatever we can make of use, but we should adopt and develop to our own peculiar needs what we thus take, and never be content merely to copy.
“If He who in Himself can lack nothing chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed.”
The Problem of Pain (1940)
“If those who owe us nothing gave us nothing, how poor we would be!”
Si no nos dieran nada quienes no nos deben nada, !pobres de nosotros!
Voces (1943)
“In the end, we all lose it. Remember that. In the end, we own nothing.”
Source: Miles to Go
