“Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind,
because they drink at streams which we have not yet made accessible to science.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind, because they drink at streams which we have not yet mad…" by Sigmund Freud?
Sigmund Freud photo
Sigmund Freud 147
Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psycho… 1856–1939

Related quotes

Frederick Douglass photo
George Sarton photo

“Men of science have made abundant mistakes of every kind; their knowledge has improved only because of their gradual abandonment of ancient errors, poor approximations, and premature conclusions.”

George Sarton (1884–1956) American historian of science

Preface.
A History of Science Vol.2 Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B.C. (1959)

Edward Frenkel photo

“We should all have access to the mathematical knowledge and tools needed to protect us from arbitrary decisions made by the powerful few in an increasingly math-driven world. Where there is no mathematics, there is no freedom.”

Edward Frenkel (1968) mathematician working in representation theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics

Source: Love and Math, 2013, p. 5

Wernher von Braun photo
Daniel Bell photo

“If the language of art is not accessible to ordinary language and ordinary experience, how can it be accessible to ordinary people?”

Source: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Chapter 3, The Sensibility of the Sixties, p. 131

Jean Rostand photo

“Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.”

Jean Rostand (1894–1977) French writer

La science a fait de nous des dieux avant même que nous méritions d'être des hommes.
[Jean Rostand, Thoughts of a Biologist, 1939]

Thomas Carlyle photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Why does this magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it.”

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

Speech to students at the California Institute of Technology, in "Einstein Sees Lack in Applying Science" http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50A1FFF3F5E1B7A93C5A81789D85F458385F9&scp=4&sq=&st=p, The New York Times (16 February 1931)
1930s
Context: Why does this magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it. In war it serves that we may poison and mutilate each other. In peace it has made our lives hurried and uncertain. Instead of freeing us in great measure from spiritually exhausting labor, it has made men into slaves of machinery, who for the most part complete their monotonous long day's work with disgust and must continually tremble for their poor rations. … It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in order that your work may increase man's blessings. Concern for the man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours; concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

Franz Kafka photo

“We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life.”

83, a slight variant of this was later published in Parables and Paradoxes (1946):
We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we find ourselves is sinful, quite independent of guilt.
Also quoted in this form in The Parables of Peanuts (1968) by Robert L. Short, and Like a Dream, Like a Fantasy: The Zen Teachings and Translations of Nyogen (2005)
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Context: We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.

Related topics