“If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run — and often in the short one — the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

The Exploration of Space (1951), p. 111
1950s

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 "If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run — and often in th…" by Arthur C. Clarke?

Arthur C. Clarke 207

British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, u… 1917–2008

Related quotes

“To avoid this error, the error of assuming that that to be widely read and to be well read are the same thing, we must consider a certain distinction in types of learning. … In the history of education, men have often distinguished between learning by instruction and learning by discovery. … Discovery stands to instruction as learning without a teacher stands to learning through the help of one. In both cases the activity of learning goes on in the one who learns. It would be a mistake to suppose that discovery is active learning, and instruction passive. There is no inactive learning, just as there is no inactive reading. This is so true, in fact, that a better way to make the distinction clear is to call instruction “aided discovery.””

Mortimer J. Adler book How to Read a Book

Source: How to Read a Book (1940, 1972), p. 11-12

“In this age, which believes that there is a short-cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way, in the long run, is the easiest.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

The Books in My Life (1952) Preface (2nd edition. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1969, p. 12)

“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to Hans Muehsam (9 July 1951), Einstein Archives 38-408, quoted in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2010) by Alice Calaprice, p. 404 http://books.google.com/books?id=G_iziBAPXtEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA404#v=onepage&q&f=false
1950s