Paul Virilio Quotes

Good scientists will fight the system rather than learn to work with the system.

Scientists are not delinquents. Our work has changed the conditions in which men live, but the use made of these changes is the problem of governments, not of scientists.

That artists are called to be more responsible and 'true' is a tip of hat to their power.

I appeal to my fellow scientists to remember their responsibility to humanity.

Scientists surely have a special responsibility. It is their ideas that form the basis of new technology. They should not be indifferent to the fruits of their ideas. They should forgo experiments that are risky or unethical.

I would say it's important for scientists to speak out when they can and when they can be listened to.

We artists have the dignity to tell the truth to the people, unlike politicians.

Responsibility has become the fundamental imperative in modern civilization, and it should be an unavoidable criterion to assess and evaluate human actions, including, in a special way, development activities.

Not so the scientist. The very essence of his life is the service of truth.

I am critical of modernity giving science and technology a blank check as if it were the fountain of all truth. That is not true. And I think I may have introduced a word which has now caught on quite a bit, scientism. Science is good. It simply reports a discovery.

The federal government has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect, except that you can't eat it. We should make every effort to make sure this disease, often referred to as 'progress', doesn't spread.

It is a sort of great Victorian truth that actually, trying to do the right thing is pretty good for you and pretty good for business as well, by and large.

With so much power, science will inevitably receive strong criticism. It comes with success. It’s entirely appropriate. Take it as a complement. And get over it.

Science now finds itself in paradoxical strife with society: admired but mistrusted; offering hope for the future but creating ambiguous choice; richly supported yet unable to fulfill all its promise; boasting remarkable advances but criticized for not serving more directly the goals of society.

But whereas skepticism and uncertainty have always been the heart and soul of science, confidence and certainty are the coin of the realm in much of today’s public discourse. Unquestioning confidence is deeply troubling for the scientific community because it is not the currency we trade in, and it has led people in America and around the world to question scientific enterprise itself. We should all be troubled when science is treated as if it were an ideology rather than a discipline.

Our interest isn't in just serving the guests and hosts. We need to serve the entire community. If that means we have to take action against the host, we will.

It is hard to speak the truth about valued national institutions. But when they are not fit for purpose, we must speak out.

Do you trust in your fellow citizens, in a sense that whatever they will have in additional tools they will use in balance more to the good or more to the bad? If you think they will use it more to the bad, you shouldn't do science, you know.

Top technologists have a tremendous capacity - and, therefore, a tremendous responsibility - to build things that make a positive impact on the world.

People are suspicious of science. They see it as being responsible for problems like the degradation of our climate. There is also a strand in society that says physics is terribly hard.

We are ambassadors. We are leaders of our own brands, and then in life things are thrown at you, you have to stand up for what's right. That brings on a whole new role. It's not on the front of the agenda that you see, but if you read the fine print it's part of becoming an athlete and the pedestal you get with that.

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.

I do feel a responsibility to address things that are problematic, but I don't have to go out of my way to do that.

Mostly, as I said, a desire to do a bit of good, and the quaint notion that this is what we signed up for, this is the business that we have chosen.

You like science? You enjoy science? Always use it for good, never for evil. Can you promise me that?