(题词)
社会中有多少特立独行,往往就有多少天才、精神的力量和道义勇气。而如今鲜少有人敢于冒天下之大不韪行怪诞之事,这已然成为这个时代最大的危机。
——约翰・穆勒(John Stuart Mill),《论自由(On Liberty)》,1869年
没有了我们的前辈、我们的老师、我们同时代人的工作,我们什么都不是。从我们完美和缺陷的程度来评判,甚至当我们不断地提出新的见解、创造新的制度时,没有别人我们仍然什么都不是。是的,没有别人,我们什么都不是。
——J・罗伯特・奥本海默(J. Robert Oppenheimer),里斯讲座(Reith Lecture),1953年12月20日
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(Epigraph)
[T]he amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to theamount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
JOHN STUART MILL, On Liberty,1869
We are nothing without the work of others our predecessors, others our teachers, others our contemporaries. Even when, in the measure of our inadequacy and our fullness, new insight and new order are created, we are still nothing without others. Yet we are more.
J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, Reith Lecture, 20 December 1953