Thomas Paine Quotes
Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.
Paine, Thomas. The Age of Reason. Barrois, 1794.
In reference to impending legislation involving Missouri, Clay was admonished that his stand would offend "ultras" of both parties, to his political discredit. Clay replied: Also attributed to Clay during the Senate debates on the Compromise of 1850
While this is generally true, from the scientific point of view, it is not quite right. The layman and most engineers believe that scientists discover things that exist. Although they do most of the time, breakthrough’s of the last century have for example discovered new chemical elements, but there are a few that science has CREATED—they exist nowhere in nature. Scientists are beginning to develop new life forms as well as discovering already existing ones. For over a century now the science of metallurgy has created thousands of alloys that did not previously exist.
Babbage anticipated the digital era when a small number of computer programmers develop a powerful program that can be used by millions of people who have no skill at programming.
Thomas Paine was an English-born American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and helped inspire the patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of transnational human rights. Historian Saul K. Padover described him as "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination".
