The progress of science, of good science, depends on novel ideas and on intellectual freedom: science has very often been advanced by outsiders (remember that Bohr and Einstein regarded themselves as outsiders).
“Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.”
—Niels Bohr
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In terra di ciechi chi vi ha un occhio è signore.
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Mandrake, Act III, scene ix.
When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson (July 15, 1817).
“Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein.”
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Bk. II, Ch. 5; source: Die Wahlverwandtschaften, Hamburger Ausgabe, Bd. 6 (Romane und Novellen I), dtv Verlag, München, 1982, p. 397 (II.5)
Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.
Benjamin Franklin in ‘On Freedom of Speech and the Press,’ Pennsylvania Gazette (November 17, 1737).
Fatherland without freedom and merit is a large word with little meaning.
Anders Chydenius, For What Reason do so Many Swedes Emigrate Every Year?, 1765.
I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.
Our wants are various, and nobody has been found able to acquire even the necessaries without the aid of other people, and there is scarcely any Nation that has not stood in need of others. The Almighty himself has made our race such that we should help one another. Should this mutual aid be checked within or without the Nation, it is contrary to Nature.
Anders Chydenius, The National Gain, §2, 1765.
Never do any enemy a small injury for they are like a snake which is half beaten and it will strike back the first chance it gets.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince