Intellectual Contributions Quotes

It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing-and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite - that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.

If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.

The sciences are monuments devoted to the public good; each citizen owes to them a tribute proportional to his talents.

From Calcutta has gone forth a living stream of knowledge in many branches of study. It is inspiring to think of the long succession of scholars, both Indian and European, who have lived in this city, made it their own, and given it of their best.

Experts, and people who give their lives to research, never seem to me to get proper recognition in this world. For most of us are so busy that we listen more readily to people who give us in simplified form what they have gathered from the experts. Every one of us owes a debt of gratitude which we should not forget, to the quiet and unobtrusive workers who do the really scientific work.

The worth of a civilization or a culture is not valued in the terms of its material wealth or military power, but by the quality and achievements of its representative individuals - its philosophers, its poets and its artists.

No woman has been a significant original thinker in any of the world's great philosophical traditions.

Not only did I always know I was black, I always knew we were and are beautiful, culturally rich, and creators of everything from the sciences to the arts.

The most enduring contributions made to civilization have not been made by brawn, they have been made by brain.

Where intellectuals have played a role in history, it has not been so much by whispering words of advice into the ears of political overlords as by contributing to the vast and powerful currents of conceptions and misconceptions that sweep human action along.

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

In the first place, the preparation of the Nobel lecture which I am to give has shown me, even more clearly than I knew before, how many others share with me, often, indeed, have anticipated me, in the discoveries for which you have awarded me the prize.

I count myself fortunate to be able to contribute to this work; and the great interest which the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has shown in my work and the recognition that it has paid to my past successes, convince me that I am not on the wrong track.

The Nobel awards should be regarded as giving recognition to this general scientific progress as well as to the individuals involved.

To the Caucasian race is the world indebted for all the great and important discoveries, inventions, and improvements, that have been made in the arts and sciences.

Imagine what would have been the 20th century without intellectuals?

Pat Moynihan wrote more books than most of his colleagues in the senate ever read.

Our focus on melanin and people's skins - can't we talk about the diversity of ideology? Can't we look at people for their minds and what they can contribute? And I'd like to see us go more toward a respect for people's ability to contribute, and I actually want to get to a society where we disregard race.

You should not forget that without all the work in law and economics, a great part of which has been supported by the John M. Olin Foundation, it is doubtful whether the importance of my work would have been recognized.

No single achievement in science is possible without the painstaking work of the many hundreds who have built the foundation on which all new work is based.

Life is girt all round with a zodiac of sciences, the contributions of men who have perished to add their point of light to our sky. ... These road-makers on every hand enrich us. We must extend the area of life and multiply our relations. We are as much gainers by finding a property in the old earth as by acquiring a new planet.