Inventors

"There are two futures, the future of desire and the future of fate, and man's reason has never learnt to separate them. Desire, the strongest thing in the world, is itself all future, and it is not for nothing that in all the religions the motive is always forwards to an endless futurity of bliss or annihilation. Now that religion gives place to science the paradiscial future of the soul fades before the Utopian future of the species, and still the future rules. But always there is, on the other side, destiny, that which inevitably will happen, a future here concerned not as the other was with man and his desires, but blindly and inexorably with the whole universe of space and time. The Buddhist seeks to escape from the Wheel of Life and Death, the Christian passes through them in the faith of another world to come, the modern reformer, as unrealistic but less imaginative, demands his chosen future in this world of men."

"The central industry of modern civilisation, tending, because of its control over materials, to spread into and ultimately incorporate older industries such as mining, smelting, oil- refining, textiles, rubber, building, and even agriculture in respect to fertilizers and food processing."

"If science were communism, was it also not possible that communism could itself become a science?"

"The psychology of a complex mind must differ almost as much from that of a simple, mechanized mind as its psychology would from ours; because something that must underlie and perhaps be even greater than sex is involved."

"No one, who knows what the difficulties are, now believes that the crisis of physics is likely to be resolved by any simple trick or modification of existing theories. Something radical is needed, and it will have to go far wider than physics. A new world outlook is being forged, but much experiment and argument will be needed before it can take a definitive form. It must be coherent, it must include and illuminate the new knowledge of fundamental particles and their complex fields, it must resolve the paradoxes of wave and particle, it must make the world inside the atom and the wide spaces of the universe equally intelligible. It must have a different dimension from all previous world views, and include in itself an explanation of development and the origin of new things. In this it will fall naturally in line with the converging tendencies of the biological and social sciences in which a regular pattern blends with their evolutionary history."

"But if capitalism had built up science as a productive force, the very character of the new mode of production was serving to make capitalism itself unnecessary."

"In the decade after the war Freud’s theories dominated the narrow circles of British intellectuals. His psycho-analysis was accepted warmly for many reasons. It was new and exciting, it was shocking, it debunked religion and morals, it promised an internal liberation from all restraints. Nevertheless, it was essentially a creed of escape into an inner world of complexes and repressions and away from social and economic realities."

"The present aristocracy of western culture, at the very moment when it most clearly dominates the world, is being imitated rapidly and successfully in every eastern country."

"One of the questions on which clarity of thinking is now most necessary is that of the relation between the methods of science and of Marxist philosophy. Although much has already been written on the subject, yet there is still an enormous amount of confusion and contradictory statement."

"Life is a partial, continuous, progressive, multiform and conditionally interactive self-realization of the potentialities of atomic electron states."

"If Engels had not been the constant companion in arms of Marx in the revolutionary struggles of the 19th century, there is no doubt that he would be remembered chiefly as one of the foremost scientist-philosophers of the century. It was an ironical tribute paid to the correctness of his views as to the relations between politics and ideology that he suffered complete neglect from the scientists of the Victorian age. But time now has taken its revenge, and Engels’ contemporary views on 19th century science seem to us now in the 20th far more fresh and filled with understanding than those of the professional philosophers of science of his day, who for the most part are completely forgotten, while the few that linger on, such as Lange and Herbert Spencer, are only quoted as examples of the limitations of their times."

"At different stages in the educational process different changes are required. In schools the chief need is for a general change in the attitude towards science, which should be from the beginning an integral part and not a mere addition, often an optional addition, to the curriculum. Science should be taught not merely as a subject but should come into all subjects. Its importance in history and in modern life should be pointed out and illustrated. The old contrast, often amounting to hostility, between scientific and humane subjects need to be broken down and replaced by a scientific humanism. At the same time, the teaching of science proper requires to be humanized. The dry and factual presentation requires to be transformed, not by any appeal to mystical theory, but by emphasizing the living and dramatic character of scientific advance itself. Here the teaching of the history of science, not isolated as at present, but in close relation to general history teaching, would serve to correct the existing atmosphere of scientific dogmatism. It would show at the same time how secure are the conquests of science in the control they give over natural processes and how insecure and provisional, however necessary, are the rational interpretations, the theories and hypotheses put forward at each stage. Past history by itself is not enough, the latest developments of science should not be excluded because they have not yet passed the test of time. It is absolutely necessary to emphasize the fact that science not only has changed but is continually changing, that it is an activity and not merely a body of facts. Throughout, the social implications of science, the powers that it puts into men's hands, the uses they could make of them and those which they in fact do, should be brought out and made real by a reference to immediate experience of ordinary life."

"Hogben's Science for the Citizen would be an admirable text-book for such teaching."

"To design a flying machine is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything."

"Particular honour belongs to those who believed in the possibility of mechanical flight when all the world was against them; not the visionaries because they hoped for it merely, but those who by sheer force of intellect perceived the means by which it could be accomplished and directed their experiments along the right path. … The name of Lilienthal is now among the most honoured, but curiously his own countrymen were the last to recognize the value of his work."

"Actual practice in individual flight presents the best prospects for developing our capacity until it leads to perfected free flight."

"Experience alone can teach us the best forms of construction for sailing apparatus in order that they may be of sufficient strength, very light, and most easily managed."

"By practice and experience a man can (if the wind be of the right strength) imitate the complete sailing flight of birds by availing himself of the slight upward trend of some winds, by performing circling sweeps, and by allowing the air to carry him."

"Of all the men who attacked the flying problem in the 19th century, Otto Lilienthal was easily the most important. … It is true that attempts at gliding had been made hundreds of years before him, and that in the nineteenth century, Cayley, Spencer, Wenham, Mouillard, and many others were reported to have made feeble attempts to glide, but their failures were so complete that nothing of value resulted."

"The contrivances which are necessary to counteract the wind effects can only be understood by actual practice in the wind."

"The supporting powers of time air and of the wind depend on the shape of the surfaces used, and the best forms can only be evolved by free flight through the air."

"The sailing flight of birds is the only form of flight which is carried on for some length of time without the expenditure of power."

"The maintenance of equilibrium in forward flight is a matter of practice, and can only be learned by repeated personal experiment."

"I, too, have made it a lifelong task of mine to add a cultural element to my work, which should result in uniting countries and reconciling their people. Our experience of today's civilisation suffers from the fact that it only happens on the surface of the earth. We have invented barricades between our countries, custom regulations and constraints and complicated traffic laws and these are only possible because we are not in control of the 'kingdom of the air', and not as 'free as a bird'. Numerous technicians in every state are doing their utmost to achieve the dream of free, unlimited flight and it is precisely here where changes can be made which would have a radical effect on our whole way of life. The borders between countries would lose their significance, because they could not be closed off from each other. Linguistic differences would disappear, as human mobility increased. National defence would cease to devour the best resources of nations as it would become impossible in itself. And the necessity of resolving disagreements among nations in some other way than by bloody battles would, in its turn, lead us to eternal peace. We are getting closer to this goal. When we will reach it, I do not know."

"Artificial flight may be defined as that form of aviation in which a man flies at will in any direction by means of an apparatus attached to his body, the use of which requires personal skill. Artificial flight by a single individual is the proper beginning for all species of artificial flight, as the necessary conditions can most easily be fulfilled when man flies individually."

"All flight is based upon producing air pressure, all flight energy consists in overcoming air pressure."

"The increasing size of the apparatus makes the construction more difficult in securing lightness in the machine; therefore the building of small apparatus is to be recommended."

"The difficulty of rising into the air increases rapidly with the size of the apparatus. The uplifting of a single person, therefore, is more easily attained than that of a large flying machine loaded with several persons."

"Gradual development of flight should begin with the simplest apparatus and movements, and without time complication of dynamic means."

"Life is so short. Why waste a single day of it doing something that doesn't matter, that doesn't try to do something big?"

"You can make it out of Unobtainium!"

"If we do not add something to the knowledge of cosmic rays by our trip to the stratosphere this summer, we had better not go. We had better stay on the ground, be hewers of wood and drawers of water."

"When you fly a balloon you don’t file a flight plan; you go where the wind goes. You feel like part of the air. You almost feel like part of eternity, and you just float along."

"Sonny, I'm old enough to have changed your nappies."

"There are many reasons, some of them so deep-seated emotionally as to be very difficult of expression. Possibly the simplest explanation is that we started along this road … and I cannot stop until I have won."

"How can it be easy to understand Father Schauberger's language—his work belongs to the future."

"It is important for human beings and animals to drink healthy water. Chemically purified water, chlorinated or ozonated water is no longer living and healthy water. Good water, full of life and rich in energy, is synonymous with strong and healthy life. Bad water is synonymous with sick life. No water is the same as no life."

"You may have lived a calm and contented life—but from the moment you come face to face with the ideas of Viktor Schauberger, you will never again have peace in your soul."

"Nothing falls entirely! Nothing dies away completely! Nothing can totally deprive another of its rights! On the contrary, the deeper the fall, the higher the reactive upswing!"

"Water is a living organism!"

"Viktor Schauberger's early appreciation of the intimate relationship between water and forest, and their dual influence upon water resource management, the landscape's health within particular precipitation areas—is undoubtedly correct. ...Schauberger's theories about Europe are, in the tropics, ...verified in a convincing and shocking way. We, in the temperate regions will, in the long run, experience similar damage... if harmful ecological measures are allowed to continue..."

"My dear friends! We move everything back to front. What we are doing is wrong and contrary to Nature. Nature moves in other ways. She primarily employs drawing, i.e. sucking energies, since these are indispensable to Nature for the growth and maintenance of life. Nature uses pressure energies and explosive forces only for reducing quality and destruction. Atomic physicists also work upside down. They would be more correct if they started with simple nuclear fusion. They should set about the cold transformation of hydrogen into helium, as Nature has done over the millions of years of Creation. Today's technology has a tiger by the tail, because it splits the heaviest atoms with the greatest development of heat and an enormous expenditure of energy."

"Is it therefore so illogical to recognise the Will of Nature in the rapid increase in the number of human beings? Surely several hundred million more people are needed, who with their energy and strength can help restore this ravished lump of excrement, the Earth, to its former glory!"

"Whoever exploits retrograde oxidising processes must inevitably inaugurate a scarcity and shortage of food, raw materials and fuels"

"Science views the blood-building and character-influencing ur-organism "water" merely as a chemical compound and provides millions of people with a liquid prepared from this point of view, which is everything but healthy water."

""Unfortunately, catastrophes or scandalous disclosures always have to happen before humanity realises that it is only its own mistakes that have led it into misfortune. These are all the more difficult to rectify, because in the main they have been made by the authorities, who will not commit suicide themselves, but in order to save their own skins, they would rather that all Life should perish before they acknowledge their errors.'"

"For a person who lives 100 years in the future, the present comes as no surprise."

"The essential nature of growth is none other than the overcoming of earthly weight."

"This is not the place to discuss the validity of his theories... only a small number of them have been able to be tested. ...[I]f his central theme is correct... this embodies a revolutionary discovery of crucial importance. ...Schauberger wished to make practical use of nature's reconstituting principle of 'cycloidal spiral motion' ...However his theories may be regarded, ...he was a great friend of Nature and a man with original, grandiose and often revolutionary ideas. Many have been moved by his ideas about Nature and his philosophy of life..."

"How else should it be done then?", was always the immediate question. The answer is simple: "Exactly in the opposite way that it is done today!"