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1 " Why should we look to the past in order to prepare for the future? Because there is nowhere else to look. "
― James Burke , Connections
2 " On why 300 years separates the first use of glass lenses in spectacles and their use in a telescope: “In many cases there are times when an invention is technologically possible – and in which it may indeed appear necessary, as the telescope may have – but without a market the idea will not sell, and in the absence of the technical and social infrastructure to support it, the invention will not survive. "
3 " Scientists are the true driving force of civilization. "
― James Burke
4 " When you read a book, you hold another's mind in your hands. "
5 " we in the modern world expect that tomorrow will be better than today. "
― James Burke , The Day the Universe Changed: How Galileo's Telescope Changed the Truth
6 " Maybe a good start would be to recognize within yourself the ability to understand anything, as long as it's explained clearly enough. And then go and ask for explanations. And if you're thinking 'Well what do I ask for?' ask yourself if there's anything in your life you want changed. That's where to start. "
7 " If, as I've said all along, the universe at any time is what you say it is, then say. "
8 " I suppose the attitude of the vast majority of people is 'Whats the hurry to do anything at all?' Most people have a job that gives them money and time off to enjoy it. Take the kids to the country, relax. Whats wrong with the way things are? I mean technology may have caused problems, but it's always solved them, hasn't it? We are healthier, and better off, and better dressed, and cleverer, and having more fun than anyone in history. And it's been good old inventive genius that's given us all this, so lets have more of the same. Tomorrow has always been better than today, so why should things suddenly be any different?... That's fine if your'e prepared to put up with a rate of change that makes today's breakneck pace look like a snail out for a walk. And a world more interdependent than it is now. and a level of specialization even more incomprehensible than it is now. And a growing avalanche of innovations each one competing with the other for the steadily shrinking amount of time there will be to make decisions about them. And a growing number of bureaucrats to process and handle those decisions. And outside this maelstrom, this core of decision making, way outside, cut off, the people who don't understand whats going on, and who wouldn't understand even if they got in to find out. "
9 " You are what you know. Fifteenth-century Europeans ‘knew’ that the sky was made of closed concentric crystal spheres, rotating around a central earth and carrying the stars and planets. That ‘knowledge’ structured everything they did and thought, because it told them the truth. Then Galileo’s telescope changed the truth. "
10 " Last but not least, knowledge mapping's contextualizing capability facilitates community-wide consensual innovation assessment. "
