Quotes about electricity
page 5

Lee Smolin photo
Pauline Kael photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Neville Chamberlain photo
Keith Richards photo

“And then, all of a sudden, it was as though through those dark eyes an electrical circuit had been struck. She sat fascinated. Snake-and-bird fascinated. Afterwards she could not recall the details of what he had said. She remembered only that she had been absorbed, rapt, lost, for over ten minutes by the clock. She had perceived images conjured up from the dead past: a hand trailed in clear river water, deliciously cool, while the sun smiled and a shoal of tiny fishes darted between her fingers; the crisp flesh of a ripe apple straight from the tree, so juicy it ran down her chin; grass between her bare toes, the turf like springs so that she seemed not to bear the whole of her weight on her soles but to be floating, dreamlike, in slow motion, instantly transported to the moon; the western sky painted with vast heart-tearing slapdash streaks of red below the bright steel-blue of clouds, and stars coming snap-snap into view against the eastern dark; wind gentle in her hair and on her cheeks, bearing flower perfumes, dusting her with petals; snow cold to the palm as it was shaped into a ball; laughter echoing from a dark lane where only lovers walked, not thieves and muggers; butter like an ingot of soft gold; ocean spray sharp and clean as the edge of an axe; with the same sense of safe, provided rightly used; round pebbles polychrome beside a pool; rain to which a thirsty mouth could open, distilling the taste of a continent of air... And under, and through, and in, and around all this, a conviction: “Something can be done to get that back!”
She was crying. Small tears like ants had itched their paths down her cheeks. She said, when she realized he had fallen silent, “But I never knew that! None of it! I was born and raised right here in New York!””

”But don’t you think you should have known it?” Austin Train inquired gently.
September “MINE ENEMIES ARE DELIVERED INTO MY HAND”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Klaus Kinski photo
Albert Speer photo

“At this time a high-ranking SS leader hinted to me that Himmler was preparing decisive steps. In February 1945, the Reichsführer-SS had assumed command of the Vistula Army Group, but he was no better than his successor at stopping the Russian advance. Hitler was now berating him also. Thus what personal prestige Himmler had retained was used up by a few weeks of commanding frontline troops. Nevertheless, everyone still feared Himmler, and I felt distinctly shaky one day on learning that Himmler was coming to see me about something that evening. This, incidentally, was the only time he ever called on me. My nervousness grew when Theodor Hupfauer, the new chief of our Central Office- with whom I had several times spoken rather candidly- told me in some trepidation that Gestapo chief Kaltenbrunner would be calling on him at the same hour. Before Himmler entered, by adjutant whispered to me: "He's alone." My office was without window panes; we no longer bothered replacing them since they were blasted out by bombs every few days. A wretched candle stood at the center of the table; the electricity was out again. Wrapped in our coats, we sat facing one another. Himmler talked about minor matters, asked about pointless details, and finally made the witless observation: "When the course is downhill there's always a floor to the valley, and once it is reached, Herr Speer, the ascent begins again." Since I expressed neither agreement nor disagreement with this proverbial wisdom and remained virtually monosyllabic throughout the conversation, he soon took his leave. I never found out what he wanted of it, or why Kaltenbrunner called on Hupfauer at the same time. Perhaps t hey had heard about my critical attitude and were seeking allies; perhaps they merely wanted to sound us out.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

Source: Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (1970), p. 427-428

Daniel Dennett photo

“A neurosurgeon once told me about operating on the brain of a young man with epilepsy. As is customary in this kind of operation, the patient was wide awake, under only local anesthesia, while the surgeon delicately explored his exposed cortex, making sure that the parts tentatively to be removed were not absolutely vital by stimulating them electrically and asking the patient what he experienced. Some stimulations provoked visual flashes or hand-raisings, others a sort of buzzing sensation, but one spot produced a delighted response from the patient: "It's 'Outta Get Me' by Guns N'Roses, my favorite heavy metal [sic] band!"I asked the neurosurgeon if he had asked the patient to sing or hum along with the music, since it would be fascinating to learn how "high fidelity" the provoked memory was. Would it be in exactly the same key and tempo as the record? Such a song (unlike "Silent Night") has one canonical version, so we could simply have superimposed a recording of the patient's humming with the standard record and compare the results. Unfortunately, even though a tape recorder had been running during the operation, the surgeon hadn't asked the patient to sing along. "Why not?" I asked, and he replied: "I hate rock music!"Later in the conversation the neurosurgeon happened to remark that he was going to have to operate again on the same young man, and I expressed the hope that he would just check to see if he could restimulate the rock music, and this time ask the fellow to sing along. "I can't do that," replied the neurosurgeon, "since I cut out that part." "It was part of the epileptic focus?"”

I asked, and he replied, "No, I already told you — I hate rock music."</p>
Source: Consciousness Explained (1991), p. 58-59

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti photo

“We had stayed up all night — my friends and I — beneath mosque lamps hanging from the ceiling. Their brass domes were filigreed, starred like our souls; just as, again like our souls, they were illuminated by the imprisoned brilliance of an electric heart. On the opulent oriental rugs, we had crushed our ancestral lethargy, arguing all the way to the final frontiers of logic and blackening reams of paper with delirious writings.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

Original Italian text:
Avevamo vegliato tutta la notte  —  i miei amici ed io  —  sotto lampade di moschea dalle cupole di ottone traforato, stellate come le nostre anime, perchè come queste irradiate dal chiuso fulgòre di un cuore elettrico. Avevamo lungamente calpestata su opulenti tappeti orientali la nostra atavica accidia, discutendo davanti ai confini estremi della logica ed annerendo molta carta di frenetiche scritture.
Source: 1900's, The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism' 1909, p. 49 Lead paragraph

Tim Powers photo
Joanna Newsom photo

“And, when the bulbs do flash,
as bright as morning,
the crowd keeps on gathering
like an electric storm.”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Esme
Have One On Me (2010)

Lewis Mumford photo

“Wall Street, as you already know, is part of Marshall McLuhan's vision of the world in the Electric Age, that is, a global village dependent on oral-aural communication.”

George Goodman (1930–2014) American author and economics commentator

Source: The Money Game (1968), Chapter 10, Can Footprints Predict The Future?, p. 128

Gertrude Stein photo
Immortal Technique photo
James Jeans photo
Greg Giraldo photo

“Flav, you look like a skeleton wrapped in electrical tape.”

Greg Giraldo (1965–2010) American comedian

Flavor Flav Comedy Central Roast (2007)

John Ruskin photo
Frank Wilczek photo
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti photo

“11. We shall sing the great masses shaken with work, pleasure, or rebellion: we shall sing the multicolored and polyphonic tidal waves of revolution in the modern metropolis; shall sing the vibrating nocturnal fervor of factories and shipyards burning under violent electrical moons; bloated railroad stations that devour smoking serpents; factories hanging from the sky by the twisting threads of spiraling smoke; bridges like gigantic gymnasts who span rivers, flashing at the sun with the gleam of a knife; adventurous steamships that scent the horizon, locomotives with their swollen chest, pawing the tracks like massive steel horses bridled with pipes, and the oscillating flight of airplanes, whose propeller flaps at the wind like a flag and seems to applaud like a delirious crowd.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

Original Italian text:
Noi canteremo le grandi folle agitate dal lavoro, dal piacere o dalla sommossa: canteremo le maree multicolori e polifoniche delle rivoluzioni nelle capitali moderne; canteremo il vibrante fervore notturno degli arsenali e dei cantieri incendiati da violente lune elettriche; le stazioni ingorde, divoratrici di serpi che fumano; le officine appese alle nuvole pei contorti fili dei loro fumi; i ponti simili a ginnasti giganti che scavalcano i fiumi, balenanti al sole con un luccichio di coltelli; i piroscafi avventurosi che fiutano l'orizzonte, le locomotive dall'ampio petto, che scalpitano sulle rotaie, come enormi cavalli d'acciaio imbrigliati di tubi, e il volo scivolante degli aereoplani, la cui elica garrisce al vento come una bandiera e sembra applaudire come una folla entusiasta.
Source: 1900's, The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism' 1909, p. 52 : Last bullet-item in THE MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM

Marshall McLuhan photo

“Unlike previous environmental changes, the electric media constitutes a total and near-instanteous transformation of culture, values and attitudes.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1960s, Playboy Interview (1969)

Oliver Sacks photo
Willem de Sitter photo

“How does it come about that we have been able to find satisfactory hypotheses to explain electricity and magnetism, light and heat, in short all other physical phenomena, but have been unsuccessful in the case of gravitation?”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932), Above is Beginning Quote of the Last Chapter: Relativity and Modern Theories of the Universe -->

Jean-Étienne Montucla photo

“There is reason, however, to think that the author would have rendered it much more interesting, and have carried it to si higher degree of perfection, had he lived in an age more enlightened and better informed in regard to the mathematics and natural philosophy. Since the death of that mathematician, indeed, the arts and sciences have been so much improved, that what in his time might have been entitled to the character of mediocrity, would not at present be supportable. How many new discoveries in every part of philosophy? How many new phenomena observed, some of which have even given birth to the most fertile branches of the sciences? We shall mention only electricity, an inexhaustible source of profound reflection, and of experiments highly amusing. Chemistry also is a science, the most common and slightest principles of which were quite unknown to Ozanam. In short, we need not hesitate to pronounce that Ozanam's work contains a multitude of subjects treated of with an air of credulity, and so much prolixity, that it appears as if the author, or rather his continuators, had no other object in view than that of multiplying the volumes.
To render this work, then, more worthy of the enlightened agt in which we live, it was necessary to make numerous corrections and considerable additions. A task which we have endeavoured to discharge with all diligence”

Jean-Étienne Montucla (1725–1799) French mathematician

Source: Preface to Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. (1803), p. vi; As cited in: Tobias George Smollett. The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature http://books.google.com/books?id=T8APAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA412, Volume 38, (1803), p. 412

“We want Futurist clothes to be comfortable and practical
Dynamic
Aggressive
Shocking
Energetic
Violent
Flying (i. e. giving the idea of flying, rising and running)
Peppy
Joyful
Illuminating (in order to have light even in the rain)
Phosphorescent
Lit by electric lamps.”

Giacomo Balla (1871–1958) Italian artist

(Manuscript, 1913); as quoted at dekorera.tumblr: Futurist manifesto of men's clothing http://dekorera.tumblr.com/post/3212646425/futurist-manifesto-of-mens-clothing-by-giacomo
Futurist Manifesto of Men's clothing,' 1913/1914

Cole Porter photo

“Electric eels I might add do it,
Though it shocks 'em I know…”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love"
Paris (1928)

Charles A. Beard photo
Oliver Sacks photo
Morarji Desai photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“The user of the electric light -- or a hammer, or a language, or a book -- is the content. As such, there is a total metamorphosis of the user by the interface. It is the metamorphosis that I consider the message.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Letter to Edward T. Hall, 1971, Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 397
1970s

Marshall McLuhan photo

“The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 8

Joseph Priestley photo

“The History of Electricity is a field full of pleasing objects, according to all the genuine and universal principles of taste, deduced from a knowledge of human nature.”

Preface
The History and Present State of Electricity (1767)
Context: The History of Electricity is a field full of pleasing objects, according to all the genuine and universal principles of taste, deduced from a knowledge of human nature. Scenes like these, in which we see a gradual rise and progress in things, always exhibit a pleasing spectacle to the human mind. Nature, in all her delightful walks, abounds with such views, and they are in a more especial manner connected with every thing that relates to human life and happiness; things, in their own nature, the most interesting to us. Hence it is, that the power of association has annexed crowds of pleasing sensations to the contemplation of every object, in which this property is apparent.
This pleasure, likewise, bears a considerable resemblance to that of the sublime, which is one of the most exquisite of all those that affect the human imagination. For an object in which we see a perpetual progress and improvement is, as it were, continually rising in its magnitude; and moreover, when we see an actual increase, in a long period of time past, we cannot help forming an idea of an unlimited increase in futurity; which is a prospect really boundless, and sublime.

John D. Barrow photo
Shakira photo

“Before this school, there was no paved roads, or potable water, or electricity. And now all of this has changed, because of this alliance that we have created between our foundation, the private sector, and the [national] and local governments. And you know, it was recently reported that the gangs that used to hang in this area have dissolved completely since the school was built. So that is the kind of social impact that these kind of projects have. And that is why I vehemently and passionately advocate for education and for the construction of schools that are state-of-the-art – and that are open to the community”

Shakira (1977) Colombian singer

Speaking of her her educational foundation, Pias Descalzos (Barefoot), which was named after her third album and has just opened its sixth school in Cartagena, Colombia.
Context: It’s in an area where there’s a huge population of displaced people – refugees in their own country. It’s a very impoverished area, where kids have no access to a high-quality education programme. So we just inaugurated this school for 1,700 students. And it’s already showing the kind of transformational power that education has. It’s already having an enormous social impact on this area. Before this school, there was no paved roads, or potable water, or electricity. And now all of this has changed, because of this alliance that we have created between our foundation, the private sector, and the [national] and local governments. And you know, it was recently reported that the gangs that used to hang in this area have dissolved completely since the school was built. So that is the kind of social impact that these kind of projects have. And that is why I vehemently and passionately advocate for education and for the construction of schools that are state-of-the-art – and that are open to the community … Thatis the whole philosophy that we have in our foundation.

Timothy Leary photo
Louis Brandeis photo

“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

Other People's Money—and How Bankers Use It (1914).
Extra-judicial writings
Context: Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.

Margaret Fuller photo

“Those who seem overladen with electricity frighten those around them.”

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
Context: The electrical, the magnetic element in Woman has not been fairly brought out at any period. Everything might be expected from it; she has far more of it than Man. This is commonly expressed by saying that her intuitions are more rapid and more correct. You will often see men of high intellect absolutely stupid in regard to the atmospheric changes, the fine invisible links which connect the forms of life around them, while common women, if pure and modest, so that a vulgar self do not overshadow the mental eye, will seize and delineate these with unerring discrimination.
Women who combine this organization with creative genius are very commonly unhappy at present. They see too much to act in conformity with those around them, and their quick impulses seem folly to those who do not discern the motives. This is an usual effect of the apparition of genius, whether in Man or Woman, but is more frequent with regard to the latter, because a harmony, an obvious order and self-restraining decorum, is most expected from her.
Then women of genius, even more than men, are likely to be enslaved by an impassioned sensibility. The world repels them more rudely, and they are of weaker bodily frame.
Those who seem overladen with electricity frighten those around them.

George Pólya photo

“Life is full of surprises: our approximate condition for the fall of a body through a resisting medium is precisely analogous to the exact condition for the flow of an electric current through a resisting wire”

George Pólya (1887–1985) Hungarian mathematician

Mathematical Methods in Science (1977)
Context: Life is full of surprises: our approximate condition for the fall of a body through a resisting medium is precisely analogous to the exact condition for the flow of an electric current through a resisting wire [of an induction coil]....
m\frac {dv}{dt} = mg - Kv
This is the form most convenient for making an analogy with the "fall", i. e., flow, of an electric current.
... in order from left to right, mass m, rate of change of velocity \frac {dv}{dt}, gravitational force mg, and velocity v. What are the electrical counterparts?... To press the switch, to allow current to start flowing is the analogue of opening the fingers, to allow the body to start falling. The fall of the body is caused by the force mg due to gravity; the flow of the current is caused by the electromotive force or tension E due to the battery. The falling body has to overcome the frictional resistance of the air; the flowing current has to overcome the electrical resistance of the wire. Air resistance is proportional to the body's velocity v; electrical resistance is proportional to the current i. And consequently rate of change of velocity \frac {dv}{dt} corresponds to rate of change of current \frac {di}{dt}.... The electromagnetic induction L opposes the change of current... And doesn't the inertia or mass m..? Isn't L, so to speak, an electromagnetic inertia?
L\frac {di}{dt} = E - Ki

Alan Watts photo

“We are becoming accustomed to a conception of the universe so mysterious and so impressive that even the best father-image will no longer do for an explanation of what makes it run. But the problem then is that it is impossible for us to conceive an image higher than the human image. Few of us have ever met an angel, and probably would not recognize it if we saw one, and our images of an impersonal or suprapersonal God are hopelessly subhuman—jello, featureless light, homogenized space, or a whopping jolt of electricity. However, our image of man is changing as it becomes clearer and clearer that the human being is notsimply and only his physical organism. My body is also my total environment, and this must be measured by light-years in the billions. Hitherto the poets and philosophers of science have used the vast expanse and duration of the universe as a pretext for reflections on the unimportance of man, forgetting that man with "that enchanted loom, the brain" is precisely what transforms this immense electrical pulsation into light and color, shape and sound, large and small, hard and heavy, long and short. In knowing the world we humanize it, and if, as we discover it, we are astonished at its dimensions and its complexity, we should be just as astonished that we have the brains to perceive it.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 111-112

B. W. Powe photo

“Electrical fire and the fire of greed kindle economies.”

B. W. Powe (1955) Canadian writer

Interlude, p. 75
Towards a Canada of Light (2006)
Context: Electrical fire and the fire of greed kindle economies. In that flux, nations become digitized commodities on stock-exchange floors and on investors' rating screens. A country becomes a product to be rated for its obedience to paying of deficits and debts.

Robert H. Jackson photo

“There is no such thing as an achieved liberty; like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights go out.”

Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) American judge

Source: "The Task of Maintaining Our Liberties: The Role of the Judiciary" (1953), P. 962

Oliver Heaviside photo

“Electric and magnetic forces. May they live for ever, and never be forgot”

Oliver Heaviside (1850–1925) electrical engineer, mathematician and physicist

Electromagnetic Theory (1912), Volume III; p. 1; "The Electrician" Pub. Co., London.
Context: Electric and magnetic forces. May they live for ever, and never be forgot, if only to remind us that the science of electromagnetics, in spite of the abstract nature of its theory, involving quantities whose nature is entirely unknown at the present, is really and truly founded on the observations of real Newtonian forces, electric and magnetic respectively.

Will Rogers photo

“The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

The Manly Wisdom of Will Rogers (2001)
Context: There are three kinds of men: The ones that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

Heinrich Hertz photo

“If we wish to lend more color to the theory, there is nothing to prevent us from supplementing all this and aiding our powers of imagination by concrete representations of the various conceptions as to the nature of electric polarisation, the electric current, etc.”

Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894) German physicist

Introduction, p. 28
Electric Waves: Being Researches on the Propagation of Electric Action with Finite Velocity Through Space (1893)
Context: It is not particularly satisfactory to see equations set forth as direct results of observation and experiment, where we used to get long mathematical deductions as apparent proofs of them. Nevertheless, I believe that we cannot, without deceiving ourselves, extract much more from known facts than is asserted in the papers referred to. If we wish to lend more color to the theory, there is nothing to prevent us from supplementing all this and aiding our powers of imagination by concrete representations of the various conceptions as to the nature of electric polarisation, the electric current, etc.

Paul Glover photo

“While dissecting the universe scientists discovered that uranium, a metal invisibly boiling, can boil water to spark electricity.”

Paul Glover (1947) Community organizer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; American politician

http://www.paulglover.org/8812.html (“Ithaca Power”) comprehensive energy survey, received grant from Fund for Investigative Journalism, December 1988
Context: “While dissecting the universe scientists discovered that uranium, a metal invisibly boiling, can boil water to spark electricity. They believed the 'peaceful atom' would give cheap clean power. Recent years cause many to doubt this.”

Upton Sinclair photo

“When the first savage saw his hut destroyed by a bolt of lightning, he fell down upon his face in terror. He had no conception of natural forces, of laws of electricity ; he saw this event as the act of an individual intelligence.”

Book One : The Church of the Conquerors, "The Priestly Lie"
The Profits of Religion (1918)
Context: When the first savage saw his hut destroyed by a bolt of lightning, he fell down upon his face in terror. He had no conception of natural forces, of laws of electricity; he saw this event as the act of an individual intelligence. To-day we read about fairies and demons, dryads and fauns and satyrs, Wotan and Thor and Vulcan, Freie and Flora and Ceres, and we think of all these as pretty fancies, play-products of the mind; losing sight of the fact that they were originally meant with entire seriousness—that not merely did ancient man believe in them, but was forced to believe in them, because the mind must have an explanation of things that happen, and an individual intelligence was the only explanation available. The story of the hero who slays the devouring dragon was not merely a symbol of day and night, of summer and winter; it was a literal explanation of the phenomena, it was the science of early times.

Margaret Fuller photo

“The electrical, the magnetic element in Woman has not been fairly brought out at any period. Everything might be expected from it; she has far more of it than Man.”

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
Context: The electrical, the magnetic element in Woman has not been fairly brought out at any period. Everything might be expected from it; she has far more of it than Man. This is commonly expressed by saying that her intuitions are more rapid and more correct. You will often see men of high intellect absolutely stupid in regard to the atmospheric changes, the fine invisible links which connect the forms of life around them, while common women, if pure and modest, so that a vulgar self do not overshadow the mental eye, will seize and delineate these with unerring discrimination.
Women who combine this organization with creative genius are very commonly unhappy at present. They see too much to act in conformity with those around them, and their quick impulses seem folly to those who do not discern the motives. This is an usual effect of the apparition of genius, whether in Man or Woman, but is more frequent with regard to the latter, because a harmony, an obvious order and self-restraining decorum, is most expected from her.
Then women of genius, even more than men, are likely to be enslaved by an impassioned sensibility. The world repels them more rudely, and they are of weaker bodily frame.
Those who seem overladen with electricity frighten those around them.

Richard Wright photo
Jack Benny photo

“Clyde: General Electric.”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)

Joseph Larmor photo

“The evidence is closing in more and more rigorously that the medium which transmits electrical and radiant effects must either completely accompany matter in bulk in its movements or else be entirely independent of such movements.”

Joseph Larmor (1857–1942) Irish physicist and mathematician

[Review of Electric Waves by H. M. Macdonald, 19 February 1903, 67, 1738, 361–364, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.319510002995080;view=1up;seq=421] (p. 363)

Benjamin Bratt photo
Daniel Abraham photo
Thomas Edison photo

“During all those years of experimentation and research, I never once made a discovery. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention, pure and simple. I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. Then it would be discarded at once and another theory evolved. This was the only possible way for me to work out the problem. … I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory. My chief difficulty was in constructing the carbon filament.... Every quarter of the globe was ransacked by my agents, and all sorts of the queerest materials used, until finally the shred of bamboo, now utilized by us, was settled upon.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

On his years of research in developing the electric light bulb, as quoted in "Talks with Edison" by George Parsons Lathrop in Harper's magazine, Vol. 80 (February 1890), p. 425.
Variant:
Through all the years of experimenting and research, I never once made a discovery. I start where the last man left off. … All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention pure and simple.
As quoted in Makers of the Modern World : The Lives of Ninety-two Writers, Artists, Scientists, Statesmen, Inventors, Philosophers, Composers, and Other Creators who Formed the Pattern of Our Century (1955) by Louis Untermeyer, p. 227.
1800s

Jeanine Áñez photo
David Foster Wallace photo
Evo Morales photo
Vijay Prashad photo
Hillary Clinton photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Philip K. Dick photo

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you—about it being electrical.”

She put her hand out, touched his arm; she felt guilty, seeing the effect it had on him, the change.
”No,” Rick said. “I’m glad to know. Or rather—” He became silent. “I’d prefer to know.”
Source: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), Chapter 22 (p. 241)

Jack Vance photo
Narendra Modi photo

“Better be careful, Jason warned himself. Why should I be careful? A nagging thought just below the surface of his mind gave him an uneasy feeling again, the feeling that something was wrong, that things were not what they seemed. Was that his imagination or just being in this small office, no air-conditioning, not even an electric fan? For some reason, the blank walls bothered him. No pictures. And no windows. I want to get out of here.”

He realized that he could get out of there. He could simply get up and leave. He didn't have to even speak to anybody. Hadn't they said this was voluntary? He was a volunteer. Well, he didn't feel like being a volunteer anymore. He wanted to go home.
Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 99-100

B.K.S. Iyengar photo

“Of the many references to Newton in 18th-century electrical writings only a small number were to the Principia, the greater part by far were to the Opticks.”

I. Bernard Cohen (1914–2003) American historian of science

This was true not alone of the electrical writings but also in other fields of experimental enquiry. ...[The Opticks] would allow the reader to roam, with great Newton as his guide, through the major unresolved problems of science and even the relation of the whole world of nature to Him who had created it. ...in the Opticks Newton did not adopt the motto... —Hypotheses non fingo; I frame no hypotheses—but, so to speak, let himself go, allowing his imagination full reign and by far exceeding the bounds of experimental evidence.
I. Bernard Cohen, Preface to Opticks by Sir Isaac Newton (1952)

Anish Kapoor photo
Jagadish Chandra Bose photo
Thomas Young (scientist) photo

“Life must be various, incongruous, vile and electric. Life must be ruthless and as full of love as may be found in a jaguar’s fang.”

“I like the way you talk, young man,” said Grass, “but I don’t know what you’re saying.”
Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 24 (p. 841)

Victor Hugo photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo

“Transformation is no longer lightning but electricity. We have captured a force more powerful than the atom, a worthy keeper of all our other powers.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Thirteen, The Whole- Earth Conspiracy

“I ask... What would they do if every nation had unlimited electrical power-power for the taking-power costing nothing to obtain and available to all men equally?”

Desmond Leslie (1921–2001) British pilot, film maker, writer, and musician

The Amazing Mr. Lutterworth (1958)

Harry Gordon Selfridge photo
Stephen King photo
Napoleon Hill photo
Viktor Pinchuk photo

“It is better to watch TV when it is switched off — that is, in the traditional way, but by pulling the plug out of the socket. One of the advantages of the alternative is electricity saving; in addition — the use of this method does not pose a threat to eyesight.”

Press interview quotes
Source: «A Little Journey into the Past» — South Capital. Crimea: newspaper. — 20.08.2021. — № 32 (1504), M. Kiseleva, ru, simadm.ru, 2021-09-02 http://simadm.ru/media/uploads/userfiles/2021/08/23/ЮС32.pdf,

Francesco Maggiotto photo

“[...] I think that there is no body in nature that lets entirely and unhinderedly flow the electrical fluid, but we should settle for the materials that lose less of it.”

Francesco Maggiotto (1738–1805) Italian painter (1738-1805)

From Lettera di Francesco Maggiotto pittore, ed accademico della pubblica Accademia di pittura, scultura, ed architettura di Venezia, e della Clementina di Bologna all'illustre professore nell'Università di Padova il signor abate Giuseppe Toaldo, sopra una nuova costruzione di macchina elettrica, 1781, p. 10 https://books.google.it/books?id=wRdqZqL8jcIC&hl=it&pg=PR10#v=onepage&q&f=false.

William Gibson photo
Jack Vance photo
Peter Hammill photo