quote · Legacy record
But there also seems to be in our culture a curious cautiousness—“You’ll get these abundant gratifications only if you don’t feel too much, don’t let on you want too much.” The result is that, instead of conquering the world like Horatio Alger, we should wait passively until the genie of technology—which we don’t push or influence, only await—brings us our appointed gratifications. All of this is a part of the rewards which go with belief in the vast myth of the machine in the twentieth century.
But there also seems to be in our culture a curious cautiousness—“You’ll get these abundant gratifications only if you don’t feel too much, don’t let on you want too much.” The result is that, instead of conquering the world like Horatio Alger, we should wait passively until the genie of technology—which we don’t push or influence, only await—brings us our appointed gratifications. All of this is a part of the rewards which go with belief in the vast myth of the machine in the twentieth century.
Approximate author period: c. 1951 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Rollo May
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1951 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1909 to 1994; Wikidata Q1059597, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1059597 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 153901; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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