Quotes from John Boyd Orr

In recent times, European nations, with the use of gunpowder and other technical improvements in warfare, controlled practically the whole world. One, the British Empire, brought under one government a quarter of the earth and its inhabitants.

In the last five or six thousand years, empires one after another have arisen, waxed powerful by wars of conquest, and fallen by internal revolution or attack from without.

Our civilization is now in the transition stage between the age of warring empires and a new age of world unity and peace.

As I have tried to show, science, in producing the airplane and the wireless, has created a new international political environment to which governments must adjust their foreign policies.

Though the general principles of statecraft have survived the rise and fall of empires, every increase in knowledge has brought about changes in the political, economic, and social structure.

The real evil of the Russian communist state is not communism. It is the secret police and the concentration camp.

The increase of territory and power of empires by force of arms has been the policy of all great powers, and it has always been possible to get the approval of their state religion.

If the views I have expressed be right, we can think of our civilization evolving with the growth of knowledge from small wandering tribes to large settled law.

In the last fifty years science has advanced more than in the 2,000 previous years and given mankind greater powers over the forces of nature than the ancients ascribed to their gods.

When the fabric of society is so rigid that it cannot change quickly enough, adjustments are achieved by social unrest and revolutions.

Our civilization has evolved through the continuous adjustment of society to the stimulus of new knowledge.

When the fabric of society is so rigid that it cannot change quickly enough, adjustments are achieved by social unrest and revolutions.

If the views I have expressed be right, we can think of our civilization evolving with the growth of knowledge from small wandering tribes to large settled law.

It is said that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. It may well be that a war neurosis stirred up by propaganda of fear and hatred is the prelude to destruction.

Our civilization is now in the transition stage between the age of warring empires and a new age of world unity and peace.

Science has produced such powerful weapons that in a war between great powers there would be neither victor nor vanquished. Both would be overwhelmed in destruction.

Measured in time of transport and communication, the whole round globe is now smaller than a small European country was a hundred years ago.

The increase of territory and power of empires by force of arms has been the policy of all great powers, and it has always been possible to get the approval of their state religion.

In the last fifty years science has advanced more than in the 2 000 previous years and given mankind greater powers over the forces of nature than the ancients ascribed to their gods.

Our civilization has evolved through the continuous adjustment of society to the stimulus of new knowledge.

There can be no peace in the world so long as a large proportion of the population lack the necessities of life and believe that a change of the political and economic system will make them available. World peace must be based on world plenty.

As I have tried to show, science, in producing the airplane and the wireless, has created a new international political environment to which governments must adjust their foreign policies.

Though the general principles of statecraft have survived the rise and fall of empires, every increase in knowledge has brought about changes in the political, economic, and social structure.

Some wars have been due to the lust of rulers for power and glory, or to revenge to wipe out the humiliation of a former defeat.