Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Henno Martin
Henno Martin Quotes
3 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
My first reaction was bitter cynicism and a rejection of all the material and spiritual values which mankind had developed in the course of thousands of generations. But at the same time I felt that I should have to overcome that cynicism if I were to survive here in the desert. Cynicism is a sharp enough weapon in the hurly-burly of an overcrowded town; it gives you elbow-room and it also gives you a satisfactory feeling of superiority. But what's the use of elbow-room in a desert? And what's the use of cynicism when the enemies you have to contend with are the broiling sun and the parching winds? When your only aim is to survive amidst the swift, sure-footed, cruel and lovely animals of the desert?
Henno Martin
Source
Report...
All power operates on a narrow basis; it rests on a few chosen faculties, and always ruthless exploits the weak. But history hast shown again and again that the weak of the present have become the strong of the future, whereas power of today has provided the ruins of to-morrow. Who can know today that attributes and capacities will be vital in a thousand years' time? Only the preservation of all our attributes, including our weaknesses, can carry us safely through into the uncertain future. But how can it be done? Certainly not by force which does not preserve but destroys. There is only one thing which preserves all things, including the weak, and that is love.
Henno Martin
Source
Report...
There were many examples in the history of life so show that precisely the most perfectly adapted, the physically biggest and strongest, the most numerous creatures, the lords of whole periods of life, died out in the end with monotonous regularity leaving the torch of life to be carried forward by smaller, more modest and often previously almost unnoticed forms of life, until they too fell into the trap of all too perfect adaptation.
Henno Martin
Quote of the day
No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
Carrie Chapman Catt
Henno Martin
Born:
March 15, 1910
Died:
January 7, 1998
(aged 87)
Bio:
Henno Martin was a German professor of geology who, along with Hermann Korn, lived for two years in the Namib Desert to avoid internment during the Second World War.
Henno Martin on Wikipedia
Suggest an edit or a new quote
German Geologist Quotes
Geologist Quotes
20th-century Geologist Quotes
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes