1. 事實上我們?nèi)际切┘w性人物，不管我們愿意把自己擺在什么位置，嚴(yán)格地說，可以看成我們所特有的東西是微乎其微的，就像我們個人是微乎其微的一樣。我們?nèi)家獜那拜吇蛲吥抢飳W(xué)習(xí)到一些東西，就連最大的天才，如果單憑他所具有的內(nèi)在的自我去對付一切，他也決不會有多大成就。我們的發(fā)展要?dú)w功于廣大世界千絲萬縷的影響，從這些影響中，我們吸收我們能吸收的和對我們有用的那一部分。（歌德）
But, in fact, we are all collective beings, let us place ourselves as we may. For how little have we, and are we, that we can strictly call our own property? We must all receive and learn both from those who were before us, and from those wo are with us. Even the greatest genius would not go far if he tried to own everything to his own internal self.?
I by no means owe my works to my own wisdom alone, but to a thousand things and persons around me, who provided me with material. There were fools and sages, minds enlightened and narrow, childhood, youth, and mature age - all told me what they felt, what they thought, how they lived and worked, and what experiences they had gained; and I had nothing further to do than to put out my hand and reap what others had sown for me.
--- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,?Goethe's Works
2. 任何個人要想突然做出驚人的發(fā)現(xiàn) ，這是不符合事物發(fā)展的規(guī)律的 。科學(xué)是一步一個腳印地向前發(fā)展 ，每個人都要依賴前人的工作 。當(dāng)你聽說一個突然的 ，意想不到的發(fā)現(xiàn) ——仿佛晴天霹靂時 ，你永遠(yuǎn)可以確信 ，它總是由一個人對另一個人的影響所導(dǎo)致的 ，正是因為有這種相互影響才使科學(xué)的進(jìn)展存在著巨大的可能性 。科學(xué)并不依賴于某一個人的思想 ，而是依賴于千萬人的集體智慧 ，千萬人思考著同一個問題 ，每一個人盡他自己的一份力量 ，知識的大廈就是這樣建造起來的 。（盧瑟福）
It is not in the nature of things for any one man to make a sudden violent discovery; science goes step by step, and every man depends on the work of his predecessors. When you hear of a sudden unexpected discovery—a bolt from the blue, as it were—you can always be sure that it has grown up by the influence of one man on another, and it is this mutual influence which makes the enormous possibility of scientific advance.?Scientists are not dependent on the ideas of a single man, but on the combined wisdom of thousands?of men, all thinking of the same problem, and?each doing his little bit to add to the great structure of knowledge which is gradually being erected.? ? ? ?---?Ernest Rutherford
3. 我曾經(jīng)為知識領(lǐng)域添瓦加磚，也曾幫別人添枝加葉；這些東西的價值，比起身后留下某種紀(jì)念物的大數(shù)學(xué)家或任何其他大大小小的藝術(shù)家們創(chuàng)造的價值，只是程度上有所不同，性質(zhì)上并無差異。(The case for my life, then, or for that of any one else who has been a mathematician in the same sense which I have been one, is this: that I have added something to knowledge, and helped others to add more; and that these somethings have a value which differs in degree only, and not in kind, from that of the creations of the great mathematicians, or of any of the other artists, great or small, who have left some kind of memorial behind them. -- A Mathematician's Apology, G. H. Hardy)
