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.
People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.
What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice.
I have a collective sense of suffering.
Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.
Men and governments must act to the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.
No destiny attacks us from outside. But, within him, man bears his fate and there comes a moment when he knows himself vulnerable; and then, as in a vertigo, blunder upon blunder lures him.
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