“There may be millions of fine thoughts, and the account of the experience on which they are based, all encased within stone walls of acceptable architectural form; but if the scholar can get at only one a week by diligent search, his syntheses are not likely to keep up with the current scene.”

As We May Think (1945)

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Vannevar Bush57

American electrical engineer and science administrator 1890–1974

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“It may be true that death is a large empty hole and that sorrow is knowing just how deep the hole is, but it is only true when one is sober. If one has snaps one can fill up the hole with all the beautiful thoughts one can think of, and all the fine words one can hit on. One can fill it right up to the brink, and then put a stone there.He loved her because she loved him, and if one is loved, one loves in return, otherwise one is a fool.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 30

“The young man [Turgot] destined for an ecclesiastical career was placed within walls carefully designed to keep out all currents of new thought; his studies, his reading, his professors, his associates, all were combined to keep from him any results of observation or reflection save those prescribed: probably, of all means for stifling healthy and helpful thought, a theological seminary, as then conducted—whether Catholic or Protestant, Jewish or Mohammedan, was the most perfect.”

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) American politician

Source: Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1915), p. 167

“First were the thick stone walls, the arches, then the domes and vaults — of the architect, searching out for wider spaces.
Now it is concrete-reinforced that gives our imagination flight with its soaring spans and uncommon cantilevers. Concrete, to which architecture is integrated, through which it is able to discard the foregone conclusions of rationalism, with its monotony and repetitious solutions.
A concern for beauty, a zest for fantasy, and an ever-present element of surprise bear witness that today's architecture is not a minor craft bound to straight-edge rules, but an architecture imbued with technology: light, creative and unfettered, seeking out its architectural scene.”

Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012) Brazilian architect

Acceptance speech, Pritzker Architecture Prize http://www.pritzkerprize.com/bunnei.htm#Oscar%20Niemeyer's%20Acceptance%20Speech (1988).

“It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living. It is clear also that thought is not free if all the arguments on one side of a controversy are perpetually presented as attractively as possible, while the arguments on the other side can only be discovered by diligent search.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda, books.google.com https://books.google.com/books?id=9tQsg5ITfHsC&pg=PA127&dq=bertrand+russell,+%22diligent+search%22, archive.org https://archive.org/stream/freethoughtoffic00russuoft/freethoughtoffic00russuoft_djvu.txt