No individual is alone responsible for a single stepping stone along the path of progress, and where the path is smooth progress is most rapid.
Interpretation
Progress is a collective effort, and smooth paths allow for faster advancements.
This quote highlights the idea that progress is not solely achieved by individuals, but rather it is a collaborative endeavor. When the circumstances are favorable and the path is clear, advancements can occur more swiftly and effectively, emphasizing the importance of teamwork and the conditions that facilitate growth and success.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about teamwork in the workplace.
Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere; and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing; and little children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville- great Casey has struck out.
Certainly, it may bring to light such a deeper knowledge of the structure of matter as to constitute a veritable discontinuity in the progress of science.
From the beginning of the Radiation Laboratory, I have had the rare good fortune of being in the center of a group of men of high ability, enthusiastic and completely devoted to scientific pursuits.
In the Radiation Laboratory we count it a privilege to do everything we can to assist our medical colleagues in the application of these new tools to the problems of human suffering.
We have reached the age, those of us to whom fortune has assigned a post in life's struggle, when beaten and smashed and biffed by the lashing of the dragon's tail, we begin to appreciate that the old man was not such a fool after all. We saw our parents wrestling with the same dragon, and we thought, though we never spoke a thought aloud, 'Why doesn't he hit him on the head?' Alas, comrads, we know now. We have hit the dragon on the head and we have seen the dragon smile.
I am mindful that scientific achievement is rooted in the past, is cultivated to full stature by many contemporaries and flourishes only in favorable environment. No individual is alone responsible for a single stepping stone along the path of progress, and where the path is smooth progress is most rapid. In my own work this has been particularly true.
The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.
How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.
A physician is obligated to consider more than a diseased organ, more even than the whole man - he must view the man in his world.
Being in the moment means not being distracted by the melodrama and hysteria around you. Present-moment awareness allows solutions to emerge.
When you see in places like Africa and parts of Asia abject poverty, hungry children and malnutrition around you, and you look at yourself as being people who have well being and comforts, I think it takes a very insensitive, tough person not to feel they need to do something.
The world also remains a hopeful place. Calls for democracy and human rights are being reborn everywhere, and these calls are an expression of support for the values enshrined in the United Nations Charter. They encourage our hopes for a more stable, more peaceful, more prosperous world.
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