Living a life of curiosity, pausing to wonder, standing rapt in awe, always eager to understand

Culture

Part 16 of Shanti’s series quotes these scientists: Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Galileo Galilei, Jane Goodall, Rachel Carson, Camille Flammarion

Part 16 of Shanti's series
Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Isaac Newton, Rachel Carson, Camille Flammarion, Charles Darwin, Galileo Galilei, Jane Goodall

 

Charles Darwin

naturalist and biologist

“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.”

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.”

 

Isaac Newton

mathematician and physicist

“What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.”

“We build too many walls and not enough bridges.”

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

 

Albert Einstein

theoretical physicist

“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.”

“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”

“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”

“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”

 

Marie Curie

chemist and physicist

“All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.”

“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”

 

Galileo Galilei

natural philosopher, astronomer and mathematician

“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.”

 

Jane Goodall

primatologist and anthropologist

“Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.”

“There are certain characteristics that define a good chimp mother. She is patient, she is protective but she is not over-protective, that is really important. She is tolerant, but she can impose discipline. She is affectionate. She plays. And the most important of all: she is supportive.”

 

Rachel Carson

biologist and writer of ‘Silent Spring’

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe around us, the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.”

 

Camille Flammarion

astronomer

(while watching the stars appearing)

“The subtle harmonies and immense movements of the heavenly bodies were unfolding above my head; the Earth became an atom floating in infinity. But between this atom and all the suns in space, those whose lights take millions of years to reach us and those which move unknown, beyond the power of our human sight, I felt there was an invisible bond which links all universes and all souls in the unity of a single creation…

“The grandeur of this spectacle was too much for me to contemplate. I felt my personality vanishing before the immensity of nature. Soon I felt as though I could neither speak nor think, this vast sea stretched to infinity, I no longer existed and something like a veil descended over my eyes.

“If humankind – from humble farmers in the fields and toiling workers in the cities to teachers, people of independent means, those who have reached the pinnacle of fame or fortune, even the most frivolous of society women – if they knew what profound inner pleasure awaits those who gaze at the heavens, then France, nay, the whole of Europe, would be covered with telescopes instead of bayonets, thereby promoting universal happiness and peace.”

To be continued…

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Shanti

Shanti is the creator and compiler of this series, including At Home in the Universe and 1001 Tales.

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