Jacob Bronowski
Jacob Bronowski
Jacob Bronowskiwas a British mathematician, historian of science, theatre author, poet and inventor. Of Polish-Jewish origin, he is best remembered as the presenter and writer of the 1973 BBC television documentary series, The Ascent of Man, and the accompanying book...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth1 September 1908
unique men animal
Man is a singular creature. He has a set of gifts which make him unique among the animals, so that unlike them, he is not a figure in the landscape, he is the shaper of the landscape.
art unique men
Man is unique not because he does science, and his is unique not because he does art, but because science and art equally are expressions of his marvelous plasticity of mind.
action cannot english-scientist human ought vain
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.
english-scientist full miss people prizes
The world is full of people who never quite get into the first team and who just miss the prizes at the flower show.
english-scientist essence pertinent science
That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer.
discovery english-scientist science scientists wonderful
The most wonderful discovery made by scientists is science itself.
climbs english-scientist minds momentary ordinary wish
The wish to hurt, the momentary intoxication with pain, is the loophole through which the pervert climbs into the minds of ordinary men.
mind independence doe
Dissent is the mark of freedom, as originality is the mark of independence of mind. … No one can be a scientist … if he does not have independence of observation and of thought.
men two ideas
A genius is a man who has two great ideas.
mean intelligent knowing
To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.
justice social-justice reader
The great poem and the deep theorem are new to every reader, and yet are his own experiences, because he himself recreates them.
nice devil curious
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.
dream real simple
Dream or nightmare, we have to live our experience as it is, and we have to live it awake. We live in a world which is penetrated through and through by science and which is both whole and real. We cannot turn it into a game simple by taking sides.
character loss discovery
Progress is the exploration of our own error. Evolution is a consolidation of what have always begun as errors. And errors are of two kinds: errors that turn out to be true and errors that turn out to be false (which are most of them). But they both have the same character of being an imaginative speculation. I say all this because I want very much to talk about the human side of discovery and progress, and it seems to me terribly important to say this in an age in which most non-scientists are feeling a kind of loss of nerve.