Section 2, paragraph 58.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
Context: When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the fact that within the old society, the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.
“Science knows no boundaries, and efforts to create barriers – whether to keep new ideas within or to prevent new ones from entering from the outside – have universally proved harmful to progress.”
in a tribute to Andrei Sakharov, Address at the National Academy of Science, November 13, 1988
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Sidney Drell 1
American physicist 1926–2016Related quotes
In his preface to the book "Reconstructing India(1920)" quoted in The Most Celebrated Indian Engineer:Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, 22 November 2013, Official web site of Government of India: Vigyan Prasar http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/dream/feb2000/article1.htm,
“The great inconvenience of new books is that they prevent us from reading the old ones.”
Shared Struggles/Polarized Realities, pp. 177–178
What Men Really Want (1991)
Address delivered to the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression awards banquet, in The Globe and Mail (27 November 2004) http://www.cjfe.org/awards06/speaker_polanyi.html.
[2005, Stations of Wisdom, World Wisdom, 93, 978-0-94153218-1]
God, Reverential fear and love
Neither Democrats, Nor Dictators: Anarchists (1926)
Context: !-- The majority is, by definition, backward, conservative, enemy of the new, sluggish in thought and deed and at the same time impulsive, immoderate, suggestible, facile in its enthusiasms and irrational fears. --> Every new idea stems from one or a few individuals, is accepted, if viable, by a more or less sizeable minority and wins over the majority, if ever, only after it has been superseded by new ideas and new needs and has already become outdated and rather an obstacle, rather than a spur to progress.
But do we, then, want a minority government?
Certainly not. If it is unjust and harmful for a majority to oppress minorities and obstruct progress, it is even more unjust and harmful for a minority to oppress the whole population or impose its own ideas by force which even if they are good ones would excite repugnance and opposition because of the very fact of being imposed.
And then, one must not forget that there are all kinds of different minorities. There are minorities of egoists and villains as there are of fanatics who believe themselves to be possessed of absolute truth and, in perfectly good faith, seek to impose on others what they hold to be the only way to salvation, even if it is simple silliness. There are minorities of reactionaries who seek to turn back the clock and are divided as to the paths and limits of reaction. And there are revolutionary minorities, also divided on the means and ends of revolution and on the direction that social progress should take.
Which minority should take over?
This is a matter of brute force and capacity for intrigue, and the odds that success would fall to the most sincere and most devoted to the general good are not favourable. To conquer power one needs qualities that are not exactly those that are needed to ensure that justice and well-being will triumph in the world.
31
Sovereign Maxims
Variant: Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another.
How To Defend Society Against Science (1975)
Source: Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972) (1989), p. 2, footnote 4.