
The fight against racism doesn't stop here (2013)
Source: The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century (2009), p. 252
The fight against racism doesn't stop here (2013)
“As we are human, we can't do what we can't do; as we're neurotic, we can't do what we can.”
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Neurotics and neurosis
The Value of Science (1955)
Context: We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
... It is our responsibility to leave the people of the future a free hand. In the impetuous youth of humanity, we can make grave errors that can stunt our growth for a long time. This we will do if we say we have the answers now, so young and ignorant as we are. If we suppress all discussion, all criticism, proclaiming "This is the answer, my friends; man is saved!" we will doom humanity for a long time to the chains of authority, confined to the limits of our present imagination. It has been done so many times before.
... It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989), Farewell Address (1989)
“Every artist's problem today is: What will we do with the human?”
Quote from exhibition catalogue, Mark Tobey, 1951, as cited in Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, p.13
1950's
Context: Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
“We do what we have to so we can do what we want to.”