29 Quotes by James Bryant Conant

In every section of the entire area where the word science may properly be applied, the limiting factor is a human one. We shall have rapid or slow advance in this direction or in that depending on the number of really first-class men who are engaged in the work in question. ... So in the last analysis, the future of science in this country will be determined by our basic educational policy.

Some of mankind's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases.

He who enters a university walks on hallowed ground.

The dignity of man is vindicated as much by the thinker and poet as by the statesman and soldier.

Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. . . . There will always be the false snobbery which tries to place one vocation above another. You will become a member of the aristocracy in the American sense only if your accomplishments and integrity earn this appellation.

Public education is a great instrument of social change. Through it, if we so desire, we can make our country more nearly a democracy without classes. To do so will require the efforts of us all-teachers, administrators, taxpayers and statesmen. Education is a social process, perhaps the most important process in determining the future of our country; it should command a far larger portion of our national income than it does today.

Science advances, not by the accumulation of new facts, but by the continuos development of new concepts.

There is only one proved method of assisting the advancement of pure science-that of picking men of genius, backing them heavily, and leaving them to direct themselves.

Democracy is a small hard core of common agreement, surrounded by a rich variety of individual differences.