The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. Jacob Bronowski More Quotes by Jacob Bronowski More Quotes From Jacob Bronowski No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power. Jacob Bronowski politics political power There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. Jacob Bronowski scientist tragedy doors I set out to show that there exists single creative activity,which is displayed alike in the arts and in the sciences.It is wrong to think of science as a mechanical record of facts, and it is wrong to think of the arts as remote and private fancies. What makes each human, what makes them universal, is the stamp of the creative mind. Jacob Bronowski science art thinking The world today is made, it is powered by science; and for any man to abdicate an interest in science is to walk with open eyes towards slavery. Jacob Bronowski eye men religion The central opposition between magic and science is the opposition between power and knowledge. Jacob Bronowski opposition magic power There are three creative ideas which, each in its turn, have been central to science. They are the idea of order, the idea of causes, and the idea of chance. Jacob Bronowski creative order ideas By the worldly standards of public life, all scholars in their work are of course oddly virtuous. They do not make wild claims, they do not cheat, they do not try to persuade at any cost, they appeal neither to prejudice nor to authority, they are often frank about their ignorance, their disputes are fairly decorous, they do not confuse what is being argued with race, politics, sex or age, they listen patiently to the young and to the old who both know everything. These are the general virtues of scholarship, and they are peculiarly the virtues of science. Jacob Bronowski ignorance race sex Nations in their great ages have not been great in art or science, but in art and science. Jacob Bronowski art-and-science age art A man becomes creative, whether he is an artist or scientist, when he finds a new unity in the variety of nature. He does so by finding a likeness between things which were not thought alike before. Jacob Bronowski creative artist men That series of inventions by which man from age to age has remade his environment is a different kind of evolution -- not biological, but cultural evolution . . . "The Ascent of Man. Jacob Bronowski different age men We are all shot through with enough motives to make a massacre, any day of the week that we want to give them their head. Jacob Bronowski violence want giving The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well. And having done it well, he loves to do it better. Jacob Bronowski powerful skills men Satire is not a social dynamite. But it is a social indicator: it shows that new men are knocking at the door. Jacob Bronowski satire doors men The richness of human life is that we have many lives, we live the events that do not happen (and some that cannot) as vividly as those that do, and if thereby we die a thousand deaths, that is the price we pay... Jacob Bronowski events life-is pay By the worldly standards of public life, all scholars in their work are of course oddly virtuous. They do not make wild claims, they do not cheat, they do not try to persuade at any cost, they appeal neither to prejudice nor to authority . . . Jacob Bronowski prejudice cost trying Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man. Jacob Bronowski cutting men science You will die but the carbon will not; its career does not end with you. It will return to the soil, and there a plant may take it up again in time, sending it once more on a cycle of plant and animal life. Jacob Bronowski grandchildren careers animal Einstein was a man who could ask immensely simple questions. And what his work showed is that when the answers are simple too, then you can hear God thinking. Jacob Bronowski simple work men There must be something unique about man because otherwise, evidently, the ducks would be lecturing about Konrad Lorenz, and the rats would be writing papers about B. F. Skinner. Jacob Bronowski unique writing men Man is not the most majestic of the creatures; long before the mammals even, the dinosaurs were far more splendid. But he has what no other animal possesses: a jigsaw of faculties, which alone, over three thousand million years of life, made him creative. Every animal leaves traces of what he was. Man alone leaves traces of what he created. Jacob Bronowski animal men years
