Every animal leaves traces of what it was; man alone leaves traces of what he created. Jacob Bronowski More Quotes by Jacob Bronowski More Quotes From Jacob Bronowski It's a sort of curious phenomenon that God is somehow not quite as nice as the devil; the devil doesn't punish you for behaving well, but God punishes you for behaving badly. Jacob Bronowski curious devil nice Fifty years from now if an understanding of man's origins, his evolution, his history, his progress is not in the common place of the school books we shall not exist. Jacob Bronowski science book school In the moment of appreciation we live again the moment when the creator saw and held the hidden likeness. Jacob Bronowski saws moments appreciation One aim of physical sciences had been to give an exact picture the material world. One achievement of physics in the twentieth century has been to prove that that aim is unattainable. Jacob Bronowski achievement giving science The problem of values arises only when men try to fit together their need to be social animals with their need to be free men. There is no problem, and there are no values, until men want to do both. If an anarchist wants only freedom, whatever the cost, he will prefer the jungle of man at war with man. And if a tyrant wants only social order, he will create the totalitarian state. Jacob Bronowski animal men war Science has nothing to be ashamed of even in the ruins of Nagasaki. The shame is theirs who appeal to other values than the human imaginative values which science has evolved. Jacob Bronowski ruins shame science When Da Vinci wanted an effect, he willed, he planned the means to make it happen: that was the purpose of his machines. But the machines of Newton ... are means not for doing but for observing. He saw an effect, and he looked for its cause. Jacob Bronowski purpose science mean Da Vinci was as great a mechanic and inventor as were Newton and his friends. Yet a glance at his notebooks shows us that what fascinated him about nature was its variety, its infinite adaptability, the fitness and the individuality of all its parts. By contrast what made astronomy a pleasure to Newton was its unity, its singleness, its model of a nature in which the diversified parts were mere disguises for the same blank atoms. Jacob Bronowski notebook nature science We re-make nature by the act of discovery, in the poem or in the theorem. And the great poem and the deep theorem are new to every reader, and yet are his own experiences, because he himself re-creates them. They are the marks of unity in variety; and in the instant when the mind seizes this for itself, in art or in science, the heart misses a beat. Jacob Bronowski missing discovery art To imagine is the characteristic act, not of the poet's mind, or the painter's, or the scientist's, but of the mind of man. Jacob Bronowski imagination mind men Progress is the exploration of our own error. Jacob Bronowski exploration progress errors A theory in its day helps to solve the problems of the day. Jacob Bronowski problem theory helping I call that brilliant sequence of cultural peaks The Ascent of Man. Jacob Bronowski ascent brilliant men The preoccupation with the choice of a mate both by male and female I regard as a continuing echo of the major selective force by which we have evolved. Jacob Bronowski males echoes choices That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer. Jacob Bronowski The University is a Mecca to which students come with something less than perfect faith. It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies they are not here to worship what is know, but to question it. Jacob Bronowski The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. Jacob Bronowski The world is full of people who never quite get into the first team and who just miss the prizes at the flower show. Jacob Bronowski It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Jacob Bronowski find say will action The wish to hurt, the momentary intoxication with pain, is the loophole through which the pervert climbs into the minds of ordinary men. Jacob Bronowski pain hurt wish men
