Grant Munro > Grant's Quotes

“All we know about the new economic world tells us that nations which train engineers will prevail over those which train lawyers. No nation has ever sued its way to greatness. ”
― Richard Lamm

“I was originally supposed to become an engineer but the thought of having to expend my creative energy on things that make practical everyday life even more refined, with a loathsome capital gain as the goal, was unbearable to me.”
― Albert Einstein, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein

“We don’t care about what you did yesterday—we care about what you’re going to do tomorrow.”
― Cory Doctorow, Makers

“Never confuse movement with action.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”
― Robert Heinlein

“Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Restlessness is discontent — and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man — and I will show you a failure.”
― Thomas A. Edison, Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison

“The rising sun managed to peek around the vast column of smoke that forever rose from Ankh-Morpork, City of Cities, illustrating almost up to the edge of space that smoke means progress or, at least, people setting fire to things.”
― Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

“In dreams begin responsibilities.”
― William Butler Yeats, Responsibilities

“And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

“If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain, do you also believe that television shows are made inside your television set?”
― Warren Ellis

“We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more.”
― Bill Clinton

“William: "I'm sure we can all pull together, sir."
Vetinari: "Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Truth: Stage Adaptation

“If everyone helps to hold up the sky, then one person does not become tired.”
― Askhari Johnson Hodari, Lifelines: The Black Book of Proverbs

“Civilization is a race between disaster and education.”
― H.G. Wells

“I believe order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must try to learn from history.”
― Kenneth Clark, Civilisation

“What happened?

It took Gibbon six volumes to describe the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, so I shan’t embark on that. But thinking about this almost incredible episode does tell one something about the nature of civilisation.

It shows that however complex and solid it seems, it is actually quite fragile. It can be destroyed.



What are its enemies?


Well, first of all fear — fear of war, fear of invasion, fear of plague and famine, that make it simply not worthwhile constructing things, or planting trees or even planning next year’s crops. And fear of the supernatural, which means that you daren’t question anything or change anything.

The late antique world was full of meaningless rituals, mystery religions, that destroyed self-confidence. And then exhaustion, the feeling of hopelessness which can overtake people even with a high degree of material prosperity. 

There is a poem by the modern Greek poet, Cavafy, in which he imagines the people of an antique town like Alexandria waiting every day for the barbarians to come and sack the city. Finally the barbarians move off somewhere else and the city is saved; but the people are disappointed — it would have been better than nothing.

Of course, civilisation requires a modicum of material prosperity—

What civilization needs:

confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one’s own mental powers. The way in which the stones of the Pont du Gard are laid is not only a triumph of technical skill, but shows a vigorous belief in law and discipline.

Vigour, energy, vitality: all the civilisations—or civilising epochs—have had a weight of energy behind them.

People sometimes think that civilisation consists in fine sensibilities and good conversations and all that. These can be among the agreeable results of civilisation, but they are not what make a civilisation, and a society can have these amenities and yet be dead and rigid.”
― Kenneth Clark, Civilisation

“By the time of the arrival of Islam in the early seventeenth century CE, what we now call the Middle East was divided between the Persian and Byzantine empires. But with the spread of this new religion from Arabia, a powerful empire emerged, and with it a flourishing civilization and a glorious golden age.

Given how far back it stretches in time, the history of the region -- and even of Iraq itself -- is too big a canvas for me to paint. Instead, what I hope to do in this book is take on the nonetheless ambitious task of sharing with you a remarkable story; one of an age in which great geniuses pushed the frontiers of knowledge to such an extent that their work shaped civilizations to this day.”
― Jim Al-Khalili

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”
― Niels Bohr

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”
― William Butler Yeats