New Tech Quotes

[Leoreth]

When introducing the HR tech tree to DoC, I added some new techs of my own. Of course, they are now all without tech quotes. Likewise, some of the techs ported over from HR either lack quotes from the beginning or have quotes that I'm not very happy with.

This thread is to discuss some options I've already collected or suggest new quotes.

(I have always included the current quotes for the relevant techs mentioned. Sometimes I'm not sure if it actually needs to be changed, depending on if there are better alternatives. Quotes I really don't want to keep if at all possible are in parentheses.)

Update: already included a couple of quotes into the game. I have moved those techs into a spoiler, with the chosen quote marked in bold. I have left the other suggestions in case they are still useful for other techs. Those are still open for suggestions, in case something better comes up I'm willing to change them again. But for the moment I'm happy with them.


Charter

???

Spoiler :

Academia

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

Alchemy

"All is interrelated. Heaven and earth, air and water. All are but one thing; not four, not two and not three, but one. Where they are not together, there is only an incomplete piece." - Paracelsus

Arithmetics

"Mathematics is the queen of science, and arithmetics the queen of mathematics" - Carl Friedrich Gauss
"All things are numbers" - Pythagoras
"If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics" - Francis Bacon, Opus Majus

Artificial Intelligence

"The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man." - B. F. Skinner

Biotechnology

("We can rebuild him, we have the technology" - Oscar Goldman, The Six Million Dollar Man)
"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff." - Carl Sagan

Cartography

"Map me no maps, sir, my head is my map, a map of the whole world" - Henry Fielding
"Not all who wander are lost" - J.R.R. Tolkien

Ceremony

"Lead them by means of virtue and regulate them through ritual, and they will have a sense of shame and moreover have standards" - Confucius

Combined Arms

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." - Aristotle

Companies (was Urbanism)

"Wealth unused might as well not exist." - Aesop

Contract

("Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work" - Aristotle)
"Men keep their agreements when it is an advantage to both parties not to break them; and I shall so frame my laws that it will be evident to the Athenians that it will be for their interest to observe them." - Solon of Athens

Divination

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky" - William Shakespeare
"In the beginning man created God, and in the image of man created he him" - Ian Anderson

Education

"Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel." - Socrates

Engine

"The is no replacement for displacement." - American proverb
"Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines." - Enzo Ferrari
"You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I have no time for such nonsense." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Electronics

("The human brain must continue to frame the problems for the electronic machine to solve" - David Sarnoff)
"The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year." - Gordon Moore, Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits

Exploration

("Wealth unused might as well not exist" - Aesop)
"Leave no stone unturned." - Euripides
"One doesn't discover new lands without losing sight of the shore" - Andre Gide

Feudalism

"I will to my lord be true and faithful and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns." - Anglo-Saxon Oath of Fealty

Film

("There's no business like show business" - Irving Berlin)
"A picture shows me at a glance what takes a dozen pages to expound" - Ivan Turgenev
"I have seized the light. I have arrested its flight." - Louis Daguerre

Fortification

"Fixed fortifications are monuments to man's stupidity" - George S. Patton
"Better too much spade work than too little! This work saves blood." - Erwin Rommel
"It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls." - Aristophanes

Generalship

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win" - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Geography

"Leave no stone unturned." - Euripides

Humanities

"I am a man. Nothing human is alien to me." - Terence, The Self-Tormentor

Hydraulics

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." - Heraclitus
"Water is the driving force of all nature." - Leonardo da Vinci

Infrastructure

"Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car." - E. B. White

Journalism

"The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being." - Thomas Jefferson

Judiciary

"Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law" - Solon of Athens

Laser

"The night is far spent; the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light." - The Bible, Romans

Law

"Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law" - Solon of Athens
"At his best, man is the noblest animal; separated from law and justice he is the worst" - Aristotle
"To bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, so that the strong should not harm the weak" - Code of Hammurabi

Leverage

"Give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." - Archimedes

Machinery

("Give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." - Archimedes)
"Instrumental or mechanical science is the noblest and, above all others, the most useful." - Leonardo da Vinci

Macroeconomics

"Economists agree that 50% of the economic theories are true. But they don't know which 50%." - ???
"But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run, we are all dead." - John Maynard Keynes

Mathematics (was Geometry)

"If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics" - Francis Bacon, Opus Majus
"Let no one who is unacquainted with geometry enter here" - Inscription over the entrance to Plato's Academy
"There is no royal road to geometry" - Euclid
"What has philosophy got to do with measuring anything? It's the mathematicians you have to trust, and they measure the skies like we measure a field" - Galileo Galilei, Concerning the New Star

Measurement

"Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so." - Galileo Galilei

Metal Casting

"And them that take the sword shall perish by the sword" - The Bible
"When pieces of bronze or gold or iron break, the metalsmith wields them together again on the fire, and the bond is established." - Sri Guru Granth Sahib

Microbiology

("If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything" - Christopher Guest, in The Princess Bride)
“The cause of nutrition and growth resides not in the organism as a whole but in the separate elementary parts—the cells.” - Theodor Schwann

Mythology (was Worship)

("Lead them by means of virtue and regulate them through ritual, and they will have a sense of shame and moreover have standards" - Confucius)
"Not at all similar are the race of the immortal gods and the race of men who walk upon the earth" - Homer

Navigation

"The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." - Edward Gibbon

Nuclear Power

"Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter." - Lewis L. Strauss

Power Projection

"If you want peace, prepare for war" - Roman proverb
"War is merely the continuation of politics by other means" - Karl von Clausewitz

Psychology

"The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water." - Sigmund Freud

Radio

("Then one fine morning she puts on a New York station. You know her life was saved by Rock and Roll." - The Velvet Underground)
"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about" - Oscar Wilde
"A world without radio is a deaf world." - Ernest Yeboah

Railroad

"If the steam engine be the most powerful instrument in the hands of man, to alter the face of the physical world, it operates, at the same time, as a powerful moral lever in forwarding the great cause of civilisation." - William Huskisson
"The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam to carriage on wheels will make a great change in the situation of man." - Thomas Jefferson

Renewable Energy

"Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe." - Nikola Tesla

Replaceable Parts

"Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs." - Henry Ford

Scholarship

"True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgement" - James Russell Lowell
"There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance." - Ali ibn Abi-Talib

Social Services

"Therefore a wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him." — Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Sociology (was Social Sciences)

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it" - Karl Marx
"Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand." - Karl Marx

Statecraft

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command - Niccolo Machiavelli
"When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life." - Aristotle, Politics

Steel

("Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth" - Chuck Norris)
"If men are to meet steel with steel, they should be adequately armed." - Robert E. Howard
"There never was a good knife made of bad steel." - Benjamin Franklin

Superconductors

"What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome." - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist

Supermaterials

"The matter lies before the eyes of all; everybody sees it, touches it, loves it, but knows it not." - Lucas Jennis, The Hermetic Library

Synthetics

("I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth" - Pete Townshend)
"Nothing on this earth lasts forever. Except maybe plastic." - Patricia Dunn

Television

("The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about" - Oscar Wilde)
"Like the invention of indoor plumbing. It didn’t change people’s habits. It just kept them inside the house" - Alfred Hitchcock
"In the age of television, image becomes more important than substance." - S. I. Hayakawa

Thermodynamics

"The energy of the universe is constant. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum." - Rudolf Clausius

 

[xugening]

Statecraft: He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.---Machiavelli

Standing Army: Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior.---Carl von Clausewitz

 

[ozqar]

Biotech: "“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” ― Carl Sagan
Nuclear Power: “If the radiance of a thousand suns, Were to burst at once into the sky, That would be like the splendour of the Mighty One...I am become Death, The shatterer of worlds." ― Oppenheimer, from the Bhagavad Gita (used in a previous Civ game, iirc)
Psychology: "The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water." Freud

The proverb you have in parenthesis for ecology is a very beautiful phrase, I'd suggest to keep it. As for the others, I'd suggest to generally use phrases that speak positively about the tech in question, ie, I'd change the fortification quote.

 

[merijn_v1]

Engine
"The is no replacement for displacement." - American proverb
"Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines." - Enzo Ferrari

Exploration
"Leave no stone unturned." - Euripides

Macroeconomics
"Economists agree that 50% of the economic theories are true. But they don't know which 50%."

Nuclear power
"Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to mete.r" - Lewis L. Strauss

Standing army
"A standing army is like a standing member. It's an excellent assurance of domestic tranquility, but a dangerous temptation to foreign adventure." - Elbridge Gerry

 

[Leoreth]

Great suggestions already, thanks guys. I'll edit them into the OP later.

Nuclear Power: “If the radiance of a thousand suns, Were to burst at once into the sky, That would be like the splendour of the Mighty One...I am become Death, The shatterer of worlds." ― Oppenheimer, from the Bhagavad Gita (used in a previous Civ game, iirc)

That's currently the quote for Fission.

The proverb you have in parenthesis for ecology is a very beautiful phrase, I'd suggest to keep it.

It's sort of a pet peeve of mine how it is often quoted as a "Native American proverb".

As for the others, I'd suggest to generally use phrases that speak positively about the tech in question, ie, I'd change the fortification quote.

I agree, that's why it's part of the list.

Macroeconomics
"Economists agree that 50% of the economic theories are true. But they don't know which 50%."

That reminds me of "Microeconomics is the science of being wrong about very specific things, while Macroeconomics is the science of being wrong about things in general. Now, don't be too hard on macroeconomists. They successfully predicted 10 out of the last 3 recessions."

 

[Just an idea]

Fortification: "Better too much spade work than too little! This work saves blood." -Erwin Rommel
Renewable Energy: "Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe." -Nikola Tesla
Steel: "If men are to meet steel with steel, they should be adequately armed." -Robert E. Howard

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

It's sort of a pet peeve of mine how it is often quoted as a "Native American proverb".

Then just credit it properly to counteract this trend?

Boy do I have some quotes!

Macroeconomics:

"Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks."
-Santa Claus aka Karl Marx

Or a few interesting ones from Adam Smith:

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

"Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another."

"Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality... for one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor."

"The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it."

"All money is a matter of belief."

Social Sciences, every single one of them from Marx:

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please."

"The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles."

"Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand."

"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

 

[Leoreth]

Then just credit it properly to counteract this trend?

It's just that it turned me sour on the quote in general.

 

[ozqar]

On ecology, here's a beautiful poem (perhaps you can take the first and third stanzas only, if it's too long), that could serve, it's a translation of Praan, a Bengalese poem/song. However, I don't speak Bengalese so I can't tell if it's properly translated. And as far as I can tell, the translation in the Wikipedia page has been changed for fun.

"The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment."

Here's another one: “The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”― Rachel Carson

 

[Ani Taneen]

On ecology:
Here and there awareness is growing that man, far from being the overlord of all creation, is himself part of nature, subject to the same cosmic forces that control all other life. Man's future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces.
- Rachel Carson, "Essay on the Biological Sciences" in Good Reading (1958).

Urbanism:
When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life.
Aristotle, Politics
OR
We cannot afford merely to sit down and deplore the evils of city life as inevitable, when cities are constantly growing, both absolutely and relatively. We must set ourselves vigorously about the task of improving them; and this task is now well begun.
Theodore Roosevelt, The City in Modern Life

Microbiology
“The cause of nutrition and growth resides not in the organism as a whole but in the separate elementary parts—the cells.”
Theodor Schwann

 

[Alexius08]

Fortification: "It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls." - Aristophanes, already present as the quote for Masonry in previous versions.

 

[Leoreth]

Fortification: "It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls." - Aristophanes, already present as the quote for Masonry in previous versions.

Duh.

 

[Ani Taneen]

Fortification: "It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls." - Aristophanes, already present as the quote for Masonry in previous versions.

Maybe Masonry quote could be: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone" -Psalm 118

 

[Leoreth]

Masonry already has a different quote, but the Aristophanes quote is currently used by Construction. What we can do though is restore Construction to the "My name is Ozymandias ..." quote that is currently unused.

 

[need my speed]

A random assortment of nice quotes:

The universe is drawn in circles. The memory of chariot wheels clacking across small stones foreshadows the asp's death as he wraps himself around the wheel.

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

Conquering the world on horseback is easy; it is dismounting and governing that is hard.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.

There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

To the engineer falls the job of clothing the bare bones of science with life, comfort, and hope.

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

We prohibit under anathema that murderous art of crossbowmen and archers, which is hated by God, to be employed against Christians and Catholics from now on.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

The massive bulk of the earth does indeed shrink to insignificance in comparison with the size of the heavens.

Labour is discovered to be the grand conqueror, enriching and building up nations more surely than the proudest battles.

Labour is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labour, and could never have existed if labour had not first existed. Labour is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

The great tragedy of science; the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

The line between disorder and order lies in logistics.

If the steam engine be the most powerful instrument in the hands of man, to alter the face of the physical world, it operates, at the same time, as a powerful moral lever in forwarding the great cause of civilisation.

(the German Army) was a machine, endless, tireless, with the delicate organisation of a watch and the brute power of a steam roller.

I have broken the machine and touched the ghost of matter.

Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.

Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness

How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand, in front of battle for their native land!

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.

Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the world.

 

[merijn_v1]

Supermaterials:
"If you can't fix it with duct tape, you're not using enough" - Myself (and every other mechanical engineering student I know)

 

[citis]

Leverage:
Give me a place to stand, a rod and I will move earth. Archimedes

Drama:
The man for wisdom's various arts reknown, long exercised in woes, oh Muse resound. Homer

Geometry:
That's exactly what ought to be proven. Euclides
OR
Let through a point out of line, only one parallel comes. Euclides

Currency:
An unlucky rich man is more capable only in satisfying his desires and in riding out disaster when it strikes. Solon

Writing or Literature (ancient):
In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time. Thucidides

Astrolabe:
Zuraqi is based on the idea entertained by some to the effect that the motion we see is due to the Earth's movement and not to that of the sky. Al-Biruni

Aesthetics:
Number is the rule of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and daemons. Pythagoras

Law:
Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.
Code of Hammurabi

Philosophy:
I only know one thing, that I know nothing. Socrates

Herbalism:
I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Hippocratic oath

Ethics:
Do not do to others what you don't want to suffer. Golden rule

Dogma:
As to those who reject Faith, it is the same to them whether thou warn them or do not warn them; they will not believe. Quran 2:6

Education:
I think, therefore I am. Descartes

Astronomy:
There is no figure left for the orbit of the planet but a perfect ellipse. Johanes Kepler

Biology:
When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings..., they seem to me to become ennobled. Charles Darwin

Tools:
The tool, as we have seen, is not exterminated by the machine. Karl Marx

Thermodynamics:
The energy of the universe is constant. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum. Rudolf Clausius

Sociology:
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it. Karl Marx

Electricity:
Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. Nikola Tesla

Photography:
I have seized the light. I have arrested its flight. Louis Daguerre

Abstraction:
There is no abstract art. You always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. Pablo Picasso

Activism:
I have a dream this afternoon, that the brotherhood of man will become a reality in this day. Martin Luther King

Semiconductors:
The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year. Gordon Moore

Macroeconomics:
But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Spaceflight:
The rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet. Wernher von Braun

Future tech:
How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased? Five words were printed: Insufficient data for meaningful answer. Isaac Asimov

 

[Leoreth]

They're great, thanks. I'm sure I can manage to use a couple of them.

 

[Leoreth]

I integrated a bunch of quotes into the game and updated the thread, you can find my choices in the spoiler tag.

The remaining techs are still without good quotes or need a replacement, so if anyone wants to give it another go, I'd appreciate it.

(For Leverage, I'd like to use the current Machinery quote, so if there is a replacement for Machinery that would help.)

 

[Ani Taneen]

Radio

Invisible airwaves
Crackle with life
Bright antennae bristle
With the energy

Rush, "The Spirit of Radio" (1980)​

For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall
Concert hall
And echoes with the sound of salesmen.

Rush, "The Spirit of Radio" (1980)
​

Radio, on the other hand, is now the chief agent of imperialism. It does not purify the spirit of man, does not, like the book, bring him back to the sanctuary of solitude, but throws him to the lions, subtly preparing his mind for the blood and chains of public sacrifice.

Georges Duhamel, In Defense of Letters (1937)
​

Superconductors

Important? Yes. Critical? Absolutely! I would go so far as to say that superconducting fiber alone makes our present economy possible.
— CEO Nwabudike Morgan, MorganLink 3DVision Live Interview, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999)

Cheap superconductors imply maglev trains everywhere. Computers could get big again, with RAM/ROM rising by powers of forty and fifty, if superconductors shed the heat.
Laser handguns against superconducting armor. I'm not predicting; I just love playing with superconductors.

Larry Niven (2000)​

Supermaterials

Optical computers, genetic catalogs, nanorepair modules—forget all of that. It's when you see a megaton of steel suspended over your head by a thread the thickness of a human hair that you really find God in technology.
— Anonymous Metagenics Dockworker, MorganLink 3DVision Live Interview, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999)

Would you dress in diamond nanothreads? It's not as far-fetched as you might think. And you'll have a Brisbane-based carbon chemist and engineer to thank for it.

Kate Haggman, phys.org (2016)​