explosion quotes

   Like being the captain of a mine-sweeper, if you do your job well, nobody notices.If you don't, there's a hell of an explosion.

- Henry E(dward) Catto
  On his role as chief of protocol. In the Washington Post, 22 Mar.

Roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the centre of an explosion† I fancy you would feel much the same if you were struck by lightning. I knew immediately that I was hit, but because of that seeming bang and flash, I thought it was a rifle nearby that had gone off accidentallyand shot me.

- George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
  Of his wounding during the Spanish Civil War. Homage to Catalonia, ch.12.

Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion?

- Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
  'Can a Scientific Community Be Stable?', Lloyd Roberts lecture to the Royal Society of Medicine, 29 Nov.