Hazel Henderson Quotes

The image of the scientist who puts the pursuit of truth before anything else has been shattered and replaced by a man on the make or a quasi-religious enthusiast who wants to prove his case at any cost. Science is becoming the tool of campaigning warfare, in which truth is the first casualty.

My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with ethics.

It's a very bad idea for scientific conclusions to be accepted because they fit with the political values of a group of researchers.

Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils.

Cash is always the deciding factor in such matters of moral politics; nothing ever gets done unless motivated by commerce or greed.

Power is sweet, and when you are a little clerk you love its sweetness quite as much as if you were an emperor, and maybe you love it a good deal more.

Never underestimate the potential for human stupidity when wealth and power are at stake.

The first business of a man of science is to proclaim the truth as he finds it, and let the world adjust itself as best it can to the new knowledge.

The lust of dominion burns with a flame so fierce as to overpower all other affections of the human breast.

The love of power is the demon of mankind.

A curious thing about Ugu the Shoemaker was that he didn't suspect in the least that he was wicked. He wanted to be powerful and great, and he hoped to make himself master of all the Land of Oz that he might compel everyone in that fairy country to obey him, His ambition blinded him to the rights of others, and he imagined anyone else would act just as he did if anyone else happened to be as clever as himself.

I always felt that a scientist owes the world only one thing, and that is the truth as he sees it. If the truth contradicts deeply held beliefs, that is too bad. Tact and diplomacy are fine in international relations, in politics, perhaps even in business; in science only one thing matters, and that is the facts.

The only way to the top is killing and greed. Okay, I'm kidding. But killing helps.

Being is good, but getting rich is better.... If the gods had only the riches of men's adoration, they would be as poor as poor Caligula.

Success only feeds the appetite of aggression.

Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails, And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

Right now, scientists are in exactly the same position as Renaissance painters, commissioned to make the portrait the patron wants done, And if they are smart, they'll make sure their work subtly flatters the patron. Not overtly. Subtly.

... there are many to whom money has no personal appeal, but who can be tempted by the power it confers.

Nearly all rich and powerful people are not notably talented, educated, charming or good-looking. They become rich and powerful by wanting to be rich and powerful.

To crave wealth and honor, to demand power, to pile up riches, to gather all those vanities which seem to make for pomp and empty display, that is our furious passion and our unbounded desire.On the other hand, we fear and abhor poverty, obscurity, and humility, and we seek to avoid them by all possible means.

I refuse to make money out of my science. My laurel is not for sale like so many bales of cotton.

Trimming consists of clipping off little bits here and there from those observations which differ most in excess from the mean, and in sticking them onto those which are too small; a species of 'equitable adjustment,' as a radical would term it, which cannot be admitted in science.

The idea that academics should remain ''above the fray'' only gives ideologues license to misuse our work.

I'm very concerned about the increasing distortion of research by the intrusion of the market. Universities are beginning to see science as a means of attracting funds.

There may be in every government a few choice spirits, who may act from more worthy motives. One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are. Our prevailing passions are ambition and interest.