 |
|||
 Short
Stories
of Science and Invention A Collection of Radio Talks by Charles F. Kettering |
 |
There have been only a few thousand of these thought cultivators in the history of the world. It has been said that except for about 1,500 of these thinkers living in the last 3,000 years, we might still be living in caves. Now, somebody might say that if these people are as rare as all that there isn't much that can be done about it. We'll just have to wait until one happens to come along. But that isn't true. We can develop thinkers just as we can educate people in other lines. If no one practiced playing the violin, there wouldn't be any great violinists. Through practice, we can develop this ability to think. Along with these original thinkers, we have millions who are afflicted with mental laziness - those who are satisfied. They are the easy thinkers. When a new thought is given them, they find it much easier to agree than to question it. And that is dangerous, especially if the idea is a bad one. We are fighting the world's greatest war because millions of people were sold one of these bad ideas. But I am still in hope that we can some day put as much energy into the development of good, constructive ideas as we are now putting into the fighting of a bad one.   |
|
 |
|||