Dangerous Quotes (8)
It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.
Science and the Modern World: Lowell Lectures, 1925 (1925), 291.
It is the triumph of civilization that at last communities have obtained such a mastery over natural laws that they drive and control them. The winds, the water, electricity, all aliens that in their wild form were dangerous, are now controlled by human will, and are made useful servants.
In Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), 75.
See also: | Civilization (42) | Community (11) | Control (11) | Electricity (30) | Natural Law (4) | Obtain (5) | Servant (3) | Triumph (5) | Water (35) | Wild (2) | Wind (11)
It’s very dangerous to invent something in our times; ostentatious men of the other world, who are hostile to innovations, roam about angrily. To live in peace, one has to stay away from innovations and new ideas. Innovations, like trees, attract the most destructive lightnings to themselves.
From the play Galileo Galilei (2001) .
See also: | Attract (4) | Hostility (2) | Idea (83) | Innovation (15) | Invention (84) | Lightning (8) | Peace (5) | Tree (18)
Only to often on meeting scientific men, even those of genuine distiction, one finds that they are dull fellows and very stupid. They know one thing to excess; they know nothing else. Pursuing facts too doggedly and unimaginatively, they miss all the charming things that are not facts. ... Too much learning, like too little learning, is an unpleasant and dangerous thing.
A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit (2006), 157.
See also: | Distinction (2) | Dull (4) | Fact (139) | Imagination (50) | Knowledge (330) | Learning (43) | Pursuit (7) | Scientist (71) | Stupid (6)
Science is dangerous. There is no question but that poison gas, genetic engineering, and nuclear weapons and power stations are terrifying. It may be that civilization is falling apart and the world we know is coming to an end. In that case, why no turn to religion and look forward to the Day of Judgment, ... [being] lifted into eternal bliss ... [and] watching the scoffers and disbelievers writhe forever in torment.
The 'Threat' of Creationism. In Ashley Montagu (ed.), Science and Creationism (1984), 192.
See also: | Civilization (42) | Creationist (9) | Fear (24) | Genetic Engineering (11) | Nuclear Power (3) | Poison (17) | Religion (68) | Science (444)
Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled.
Brave New World (1932, 1998), 225.
See also: | Science (444)
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
Widely quoted, but without citation, for example in Eve Herold, George Daley, Stem Cell Wars (2007), 79. If you know a primary source, please contact Webmaster.
[Science] dissipates errors born of ignorance about our true relations with nature, errors the more damaging in that the social order should rest only on those relations. TRUTH! JUSTICE! Those are the immutable laws. Let us banish the dangerous maxim that it is sometimes useful to depart from them and to deceive or enslave mankind to assure its happiness.
Exposition du Système du Monde (1796), 2, 312, trans. Charles Coulston Gillispie, Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science (1997), 175.
See also: | Damage (2) | Deceive (2) | Error (97) | Ignorance (62) | Immutable (2) | Justice (3) | Law (134) | Mankind (34) | Maxim (2) | Nature (243) | Relationship (10) | Science (444) | Social Order (3) | Truth (241) | Usefulness (16)
