Rick Tumlinson Quotes

Each work has to pass through these stages—ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.

Common sense means living in the world as it is today; but creative people are people who don't want the world as it is today but want to make another world.

In regard to the philosophers, if they be true philosophers, i.e., lovers of truth, they should not be irritated that the earth moves. Rather, if they realize that they have held a false belief, they should thank those have shown them the truth; and if their opinion stands firm that the earth doesn't move, they will have reason to boast than be angered.

Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought.

I'm often accused of being ahead of my time, but it's simply not true. The truth is that everybody else is behind.

The view that the sun stands motionless at the center of the universe is foolish, philosophically false, utterly heretical, because it is contrary to Holy Scripture. The view that the earth is not the center of the universe and even has a daily rotation is philosophically false, and at least an erroneous belief.

In order to design a future of positive change, we must first become expert at changing our minds.

A man who doesn't think differently from his time and environment can't grow beyond his time and environment.

he thoughtless knowers will call you a red or a communist or a capitalist or some name that expresses their aversion to any mental activity. But somebody must take a chance. The monkeys did who became men, and the monkeys who didn't are still jumping around in the trees making faces at us monkeys who did.

A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels.

I've learned never to close my mind to an idea simply because it seems miraculous.

There's never any percentage in being ahead of your time.

All art is based on nonconformity ... Without nonconformity we would have had no Bill of Rights or Magna Carta, no public education system, no nation upon this continent, no continent, no science at all, no philosophy, and considerably fewer religions.

What counts alone is the innovator, the dissenter, the harbinger of things unheard of, the man who rejects the traditional standards and aims at substituting new values and ideas for old ones.

Remarkable visions and genuine insights are always met with resistance.

The trouble with innovation is that truly innovative ideas often look like bad ideas at the time.

Strong communities ... embrace change. New discoveries require us to think differently and approach things differently, to think anew.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?

[The writers of the holy books] did not even know the earth revolves around the sun. Why are we listening?

I look for people who have a slightly different perspective and are trying to move the needle a little bit and push boundaries.

All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.

In every department of life--in its business and in its pleasures, in its beliefs and in its theories, in its material developments and in its spiritual connections--we thank God that we are not like our fathers.

The job isn't to catch up to the status quo; the job is to invent the status quo.

Think big, think fast, think ahead. Ideas are no one's monopoly.