Alfred Russel Wallace Quotes

We can go into no mechanic shop, into no manufactory of any description, upon no farm or plantation, or travel a mile on our railroads or in our steamboats, without seeing evidence of our originality and witnessing the fruits of our ingenuity and enterprise.

We do not ride upon the railroad. It rides upon us.

I believe that science is the engine of prosperity, that if you look around at the wealth of civilization today, it's the wealth that comes from science.

The two great agents of the physical world have become subject to the will of man and have been made subservient to his wants and enjoyments; I allude to steam and electricity, under whatever name the latter may be called.

I came into the world at the same time as the auto, if you will.

I'm very pro-science and pro-technology; I believe that these have been key drivers of progress in the world in the last centuries.

To me, innovations are the wheel, fire, language, movable type. There are not 3 million innovations; there are 3 million inventions.

The most wonderful discovery made by scientists is science itself.

Steam and the telegraph and other machinery have required capital greater than any individual can furnish.

We have a few great engineers and mechanics, and a large body of clever workmen; but the Americans seem likely to become a whole nation of such people. Already, their rivers swarm with steamboats; their valleys are becoming crowded with factories; their towns, surpassing those of every state of Europe, except Belgium, Holland, and England, are the abodes of all the skill which now distinguishes a town population; and there is scarcely an art [occupation and craft] in Europe not carried on in America with equal or greater skill than in Europe, though it has been here cultivated and improved through ages.

A completely industrialized society is of no consequence to me.

...industrialisation took centuries, rather than decades

The sciences which we feel in need of is thought of by some people to be technology and other means of mastering agriculture and trade. This is false, for if we look at what we complain of, we find something deeper than the mere lack of technology and similar disciplines...The science which will revive the souls is the science of disciplining the soul. Such a discipline exists only in religion, therefore what we lack is extensive knowledge of the ethics of religion and what we need in accordance with our feelings is to have a true understanding of religion.

Who brings tomorrow into the present if not the scientists, technicians and engineers?

The greatness of the Erie Canal is the American equal only of its equality and liberty.

A miracle is something unexpected which we do not understand. A hundred years ago, the jumbo jet would have been a miracle.

The strength of self-reliance and self-development is that of science and technology, and the shortcut to implementing the five-year strategy is to give importance and precedence to science and technology.

Science, engineering, and technology have transformed the infrastructure of the modern world and have a vital role to play at the heart of policy making.

In analyzing what made the Golden Century of 1870 to 1970 possible, it becomes clear that four physical infrastructure technologies provided the underlying foundation for growth: energy, transportation, health and sanitation, and communication.

I was always fascinated by how things work and learning about them.

Capitalism has brought with it progress, not merely in production but also in knowledge.

The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention.

Every improvement that is put upon the real estate is the result of an idea in somebody's head. The skyscraper is another idea; the railroad is another; the telephone and all those things are merely symbols which represent ideas. An andiron, a wash-tub, is the result of an idea that did not exist before.

Without science, there would be no such hope.

Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. 5