John W. Campbell

North Carolina · connected1910–1971

American science fiction writer (1910–1971)

Studied at Duke University

editor, novelist, writer, screenwriter, science fiction writer, prose writer

Quotations with a citation

The world’s prize stupid oaf is the man who thinks he already has all the answers.

A successful crackpot is still a crackpot.

The curve of progress in the physical sciences is, assuredly, still rising rapidly. But I wonder how fast the curve of human-effort-invested-per-discovery-achieved is rising?

Hypnosis has been a seriously neglected factor of the human mind; now it must be attacked as a major engineering problem. For once, we have an aspect of the mind that ties directly into a solid engineering job; it will require that psychology submit to that harshest of all disciplines—the absolutely inflexible, utterly autocratic, uncompromisingly dogmatic discipline of “Does it work?”

It’s frustrating to have to yield one’s Opinion to someone else; the ancient, surging feeling “I have a right to my own opinion!” resents that necessity violently. O.K., friend, your opinion may, indeed, be just as good as mine . . . but is it as good as the Universe’s? The cultural group was able to apply pressure that forced Galileo to retract his stated opinion, and that proved his opinion wasn’t as good as theirs, didn’t it? Winning the argument is not equivalent to proving yourself the better and righter man. You may, in the more general terms of the Universal Laws, simply be the more bigoted and stupid man.

Logic happens to be one of the levels of reality; ignoring it is perfectly possible, just as it is possible for a drunken driver to ignore the concrete-and-steel bridge abutment in his path. The difficulty is that logic—like the bridge-abutment—won’t ignore the individual man.

Immunity corrupts; absolute immunity corrupts absolutely.