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Quote by John Desmond Bernal

“If science were communism, was it also not possible that communism could itself become a science?”

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John Desmond Bernal was a prominent physicist, born on May 10, 1901, and died on September 15, 1971. He made significant contributions to quantum mechanics and solid-state physics. more

“In science men have learned consciously to subordinate themselves to a common purpose without losing the individuality of their achievements. Each one knows that his work depends on that of his predecessors and colleagues, and that it can only reach its fruition through the work of his successors. In science men collaborate not because they are forced to by superior authority or because they blindly follow some chosen leader, but because they realize that only in this willing collaboration can each man find his goal.”

“[In eighteenth-century Britain] engineers for the most began as simple workmen, skilful and ambitious but usually illiterate and self-taught. They were either millwrights like Bramah, mechanics like Murdoch and George Stephenson, or smiths like Newcomen and Maudslay.”

Self Simple Century Taught Britain Ambitious Engineers Mechanic Illiterate Workmen Self Taught

Author:John Desmond Bernal

“Science is the one human activity that is totally progressive.”

Humans Activity Progressive Human Activity

Author:Edwin Powell Hubble

“We do not know why we are born into the world, but we can try to find out what sort of a world it is - at least in its physical aspects.”

Knows World Trying Born Aspect

Author:Edwin Powell Hubble

“These facts make the creator of music a being like the gods, and make music itself the supreme mystery of human knowledge.”

Humans Facts Mystery Creator Supreme Human Knowledge

Author:Claude Levi-Strauss

“[Serialism] is like a sailless ship, driven out to sea by its captain, who has grown tired of its being used only as a pontoon, and who is privately convinced that by subjecting life aboard to the rules of an elaborate protocol, he will prevent the crew from thinking nostalgically either of their home port or of their ultimate destination.…”

Thinking Home Used Sea Ultimate Tired Convinced Driven Ships Destination Captains Crew Port Protocol

Author:Claude Levi-Strauss

“The order and harmony of the Western world, its most famous achievement, and a laboratory in which structures of a complexity as yet unknown are being fashioned, demand the elimination of a prodigious mass of noxious by-products which now contaminate the globe. The first thing we see as we travel round the world is our own filth, thrown into the face of mankind.”

World Firsts Faces Order Mankind Products Demand Achievement Mass Harmony Structure Western Rounds Complexity Thrown Globes Laboratory Elimination Western World Filth Prodigious

Book:Tristes Tropiques

Source: Tristes Tropiques

“While I complain of being able to glimpse no more than the shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is taking shape at this very moment, since I have not reached the stage of development at which I would be capable of perceiving it. A few hundred years hence, in this same place, another traveller, as despairing as myself, will mourn the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see.”

Years May Moments Reality Might Would Be Able Past Stage Development Shapes Capable Hundred Shadow Complaining Glimpse Mourn Traveller Disappearance Insensitive Stages Of Development

Book:Tristes Tropiques

Source: Tristes Tropiques

“Teaching and research are not to be confused with training for a profession. Their greatness and their misfortune is that they are a refuge or a mission.”

Teaching Greatness Training Research Missions Profession Confused Misfortunes Refuge

Book:Tristes Tropiques

Source: Tristes Tropiques

“Not only does a journey transport us over enormous distances, it also causes us to move a few degrees up or down in the social scale. It displaces us physically and also for better or for worse takes us out of our class context, so that the colour and flavour of certain places cannot be dissociated from the always unexpected social level on which we find ourselves in experiencing them.”

Doe Moving Certain Social Causes Levels Class Journey Degrees Distance Scales Enormous Colour Unexpected Transport Flavour

Book:Tristes Tropiques

Source: Tristes Tropiques

Quote by John Desmond Bernal

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