“Many discoveries must have been stillborn or smothered at birth. We know only those which survived.”

Source: The Art of Scientific Investigation (1950), p. 65.

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 "Many discoveries must have been stillborn or smothered at birth. We know only those which survived." by William Ian Beardmore Beveridge?
William Ian Beardmore Beveridge photo
William Ian Beardmore Beveridge 3
British zoologist 1908–2006

Related quotes

Stephen Hawking photo

“It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery have conveyed a survival advantage. It is not so clear that this is still the case: our scientific discoveries may well destroy us all, and even if they don’t, a complete unified theory may not make much difference to our chances of survival.”

Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 1
Context: It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery have conveyed a survival advantage. It is not so clear that this is still the case: our scientific discoveries may well destroy us all, and even if they don’t, a complete unified theory may not make much difference to our chances of survival. However, provided the universe has evolved in a regular way, we might expect that the reasoning abilities that natural selection has given us would be valid also in our search for a complete unified theory, and so would not lead us to the wrong conclusions.

Audre Lorde photo
Socrates photo
Thich Nhat Hanh photo

“Birth is okay and death is okay, if we know that they are only concepts in our mind. Reality transcends both birth and death.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

Dave Eggers photo

“There are people who meet strangers and people, like me, who know only those they’ve known from birth”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

You Shall Know Our Velocity! (2002)

Mahatma Gandhi photo
George Eliot photo
Piero Manzoni photo
Norman Cousins photo

“If the United Nations is to survive, those who represent it must bolster it; those who advocate it must submit to it; and those who believe in it must fight for it.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

Editorial (1956) on importance of preservation rather than breaches of world peace.
Saturday Review

Related topics