Quotations
Dr. Edgar Mitchell on the nature of the universe:
“The universe is a self-organizing, intelligent, creative, trial-and-error learning, participatory, interactive, non-locally interconnected and evolving system”.
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner U.S. Patent Office 1899
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Chief Seattle circa 1850:
"This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."
Dr. Edgar Mitchell on reflections of his trip to the moon:
“When I went to the moon, I was as pragmatic a test pilot, engineer, and scientist as any of my colleagues … But there was another aspect to my experience during Apollo 14, and it … began with the breathtaking experience of seeing planet earth floating in the vastness of space. The first thing that came to mind as I looked at earth was its incredible beauty … a splendid blue and white jewel suspended against a velvet black sky. How peacefully, how harmoniously, how marvelously it seemed to fit into the evolutionary pattern by which the universe is maintained. In a peak experience, the presence of divinity became almost palpable and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random process. … It was knowledge gained through private subjective awareness, but it was - and still is - every bit as real as the objective data upon which, say, the navigational program or the communications system were based. Clearly, the universe had meaning and direction … an unseen dimension behind the visible creation that gives it an intelligent design and that gives life purpose”.
Dr. Albert Einstein
“You can’t solve a problem using the same level of thinking that got you into that problem”.
"Given the millions of billions of Earth-like planets, life elsewhere in the Universe without a doubt, does exist. In the vastness of the Universe we are not alone."
"There
re is not the slightest indication that
nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean the atom would
have to be shattered at will."
Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator 1901
"I am tired of all
this sort of thing called science here ... We have spent millions in
that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be
stopped."
Wilbur Wright, 1908
"I confess that in
1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty
years. Two years later we ourselves made flights. This demonstration of
my impotence as a prophet gave me such a shock that ever since I have
distrusted myself and avoided all predictions."
Nikola Tesla
"Of all the frictional resistance, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance, what Buddha called "the greatest evil in the world." The friction which results from ignorance can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent."
| "No matter what we attempt to do, no matter to what fields we turn our efforts, we are dependent on power. We have to evolve means of obtaining energy from stores which are forever inexhaustible, to perfect methods which do not imply consumption and waste of any material whatever. If we use fuel to get our power, we are living on our capital and exhausting it rapidly. This method is barbarous and wantonly wasteful and will have to be stopped in the interest of coming generations." |
Chinese proverb
“If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up exactly where we are headed”.
Albert A. Michelson German Born American Physicist 1894
"The more
important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been
discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility
of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is
exceedingly remote.... Our future discoveries must be looked for in the
sixth place of decimals."
Margret Meed
“Never doubt the power of a small group of people to change the world. Nothing else ever has”.
Buddha
“In order to fully understand, you have to be one with what you want to understand”.
Paul Davies
“You are … host to a billion or so atoms that once belonged to Jesus Christ, or Julius Caesar, or the Buddha, or the tree that the Buddha once sat beneath”.
Niccollo Machavelli circa 1500
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things".
Dr. Steven Hawking - A Brief History of Time
“Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.”