Benefactor Quotes (7 quotes)
Aluminum has been called the sustainability nutrient of the world, and for good reason. Consider that 75% of all the aluminum made since 1886 is still in use. So from a sustainability standpoint alone, yes, [Charles] Hall really did become that benefactor to humanity—big time.
As quoted in 'Alcoa Co-Founder Charles Hall Smelt Success' (20 Jul 2012), article on investors.com website.
He who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before is the benefactor of mankind, but he who obscurely worked to find the laws of such growth is the intellectual superior as well as the greater benefactor of mankind.
Presidential Address (28 Oct 1899) to the Physical Society of America Meeting, New York. Printed in American Journal of Science (Dec 1899). Reprinted in the The Johns Hopkins University Circular (Mar 1900), 19, No. 143, 17. Compare earlier remark by Jonathan Swift, beginning “whoever could make two ears of corn…” on the Jonathan Swift Quotes page of this website.
Science must be free. We can permit no restrictions to be placed upon the scientists’ right to question, to experiment, and to think. Because America has held liberty above all else, distinguished men of science have come here to live, to work, and to seek new knowledge. The world has been the benefactor and science has moved forward.
In address (Fall 1946) at a dinner in New York to commemorate the 40 years of Sarnoff’s service in the radio field, 'Institute News and Radio Notes: The Past and Future of Radio', Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers (I.R.E.), (May 1947), 35, No. 5, 498.
Technology and production can be great benefactors of man, but they are mindless instruments, and if undirected they careen along with a momentum of their own. In our country, they pulverize everything in their path—the landscape, the natural environment,
The Greening of America (1970).
The destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not.
Epigraph in The Writings of Robert G. Ingersoll: Volume 1 (1896), title page.
The sweetest and most inoffensive path of life leads through the avenues of science and learning; and whoever can either remove any obstruction in this way, or open up any new prospect, ought, so far, to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.
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We claim to be more moral than other nations, and to conquer and govern and tax and plunder weaker peoples for their good! While robbing them we actually claim to be benefactors! And then we wonder, or profess to wonder, why other Governments hate us! Are they not fully justified in hating us? Is it surprising that they seek every means to annoy us, that they struggle to get navies to compete with us, and look forward to a time when some two or three of them may combine together and thoroughly humble and cripple us? And who can deny that any just Being, looking at all the nations of the earth with impartiality and thorough knowledge, would decide that we deserve to be humbled, and that it might do us good?
In 'Practical Politics', The Clarion (30 Sep 1904), 1.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
