Joseph Needham

“The Chinese were not obsessed with the search for a Prime Mover.”

“The genius of the Chinese people lay in their organic conception of the universe.”

“Throughout the whole of Chinese history, the scholar-gentry were the mandarins, the bureaucratic administrators of the empire.”

“The Chinese have always been a very practical people.”

“The development of science and technology in China was not a steady upward curve.”

“I felt that China has this wonderful culture and that it is not well known in the West.”

“The Taoists were interested in the immortality of the individual, not the immortality of the community.”

“The grand titration was the coming together of the streams of science in East and West.”

“Science and religion are two different languages, or two different kinds of song.”

“What is important is the liberation of humanity.”

“The history of science is not a triumphal procession of great discoveries.”

“We must not forget the social and economic background of scientific development.”

“Bureaucratic feudalism was a factor which repressed all mercantile and industrial impulses.”

“It is an ironic fact that the very successes of the West in science and technology have created a world in which we can no longer afford to be ignorant of the rest of the world's contributions.”

“The Chinese civilization is the only one of the great ancient civilizations which has continued without a break to the present day.”

“The only thing that can redeem mankind is cooperation.”