Hays translation
Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book X, 3
“It seems to me that those who complain of man's progress confuse ends with means.”
Ch III : The Tool
Terre des Hommes (1939)
Context: Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures — in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together. Do our dreamers hold that the invention of writing, of printing, of the sailing ship, degraded the human spirit?
It seems to me that those who complain of man's progress confuse ends with means. True, that man who struggles in the unique hope of material gain will harvest nothing worth while. But how can anyone conceive that the machine is an end? It is a tool. As much a tool as is the plough. The microscope is a tool. What disservice do we do the life of the spirit when we analyze the universe through a tool created by the science of optics, or seek to bring together those who love one another and are parted in space?
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Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 38
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"The Common Language of Science", a broadcast for Science, Conference, London, 28 September 1941. Published in Advancement of Science, London, Vol. 2, No. 5. Reprinted in Ideas and Opinions (1954), the quote appearing on this page http://books.google.com/books?id=OeUoXHoAJMsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PT357#v=onepage&q&f=false.
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Context: The vain man is in like cause with the avaricious — he takes the mean for the end; forgetting the end he pursues the means for its own sake and goes no further. The seeming to be something, conducive to being it, ends by forming our objective. We need that others should believe in our superiority to them in order that we may believe in it ourselves, and upon their belief base our faith in our own persistence, or at least in the persistence of our fame. We are more grateful to him that congratulates us on the skill with which we defend a cause than we are to him who recognizes the truth or goodness of the cause itself. A rabid mania for originality is rife in the modern intellectual world and characterizes all individual effort. We would rather err with genius than hit the mark with the crowd.
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Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus
“Progress leads to confusion leads to progress and on and on without respite.”
Abraham Pais
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Inward Bound : Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World (1988) http://books.google.com/books?id=mREnwpAqz-YC, p. 4
Context: Progress leads to confusion leads to progress and on and on without respite. Every one of the many major advances … created sooner or later, more often sooner, new problems. These confusions, never twice the same, are not to be deplored. Rather, those who participate experience them as a privilege.
“For those who confuse you, recognize that their confusion is theirs and your clarity is yours.”
Barbara Marciniak
(1928–2012)
Source: Family of Light: Pleiadian Tales and Lessons in Living