|
|
|
|
|
|
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Pulitzer Prize for History
I think I was so aware of the privilege of having this man, for some reason, having chosen me to talk to. He talked to me about his mother, his father, his dreams, his sadnesses. And I realized that it was just a pretty lucky thing in some ways that he had chosen me to be there in those last years, and use that information for that first book on Lyndon Johnson. I think from then on, it made me want to understand the private side of the public figures, because I'd had that connection with this first one I ever knew. So the kind of books that I wrote from then on were not simply the public sides of President Kennedy or President Roosevelt, but really what their lives were like in the White House at the same time.
View Interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin
View Biography of Doris Kearns Goodwin
View Profile of Doris Kearns Goodwin
View Photo Gallery of Doris Kearns Goodwin
|
|
Mikhail Gorbachev
Nobel Prize for Peace
We, our generation, were not associated with the repression. Moreover, we ourselves were aware of the repression and that left its mark on us because ours was an educated generation, a generation that knew its own value and was capable of thinking and analyzing. When we found ourselves active participants in life in work and in politics, then we began to see a great deal and see it clearly. Little by little there came the awareness that in this country, this society, this system, no matter how hard we tried, no matter how sincere our convictions were, very little good could be achieved. Therefore the system had to be changed.
View Interview with Mikhail Gorbachev
View Biography of Mikhail Gorbachev
View Profile of Mikhail Gorbachev
View Photo Gallery of Mikhail Gorbachev
|
|
Mikhail Gorbachev
Nobel Prize for Peace
One can and must understand that one cannot do or know everything. Even God, who created us, doesn't lead us through life by the hand, but wishes and hopes that we will think and act in life in accordance with His commandments and expectations, and to rouse people to take the initiative, to have faith in themselves, and the desire to live as their conscience dictates. That means to awaken great feelings, which cannot help but make life into something completely different. You will say, "But that's Utopia! Could it really be that Gorbachev was filled with such Utopian ideas, when he undertook such realistic actions, the overhaul of the Soviet system?" To which I would give you a very short answer. Idealists make the world go 'round since everything starts with ideas. Yes, ideas! Everything comes from them and everything begins here.
View Interview with Mikhail Gorbachev
View Biography of Mikhail Gorbachev
View Profile of Mikhail Gorbachev
View Photo Gallery of Mikhail Gorbachev
|
|
Stephen Jay Gould
Evolutionary Biologist and Paleontologist
It's certainly true that knowledge, in the sense of unambiguous documented facts, do not in any simple fashion build up to theory, which is a common misconception. But then, I don't really know where theory comes from. Theory often seems to come out of the head, but it's a head that's been prepared by years of study of the facts as well. What I'm trying to say is, what we call imagination draws upon so much factual experience that it is not as pristine as it seems. The two are so interrelated that I don't quite know how to make the separation. But I think what's behind that famous remark of Einstein's is the recognition that science is not a simple accumulation of facts, and that the accumulation of facts does not lead to theory. And that the imposition of human imagination is always required, and that's certainly true and vitally important.
View Interview with Stephen Jay Gould
View Biography of Stephen Jay Gould
View Profile of Stephen Jay Gould
View Photo Gallery of Stephen Jay Gould
|
| |
