{ "type": "quote", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/timeline/if-you-were", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/timeline/if-you-were.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/timeline/if-you-were.md", "id": "136f8e0c-da71-4c82-8dec-59c2e337848e", "slug": "if-you-were", "text": "If you were to say to a physicist in 1899 that in 1999, a hundred years later, moving images would be transmitted into homes all over the world from satellites in the sky; that bombs of unimaginable power would threaten the species; that antibiotics would abolish infectious disease but that disease would fight back; that women would have the vote, and pills to control reproduction; that millions of people would take to the air every hour in aircraft capable of taking off and landing without human touch; that you could cross the Atlantic at two thousand miles an hour; that humankind would travel to the moon, and then lose interest; that microscopes would be able to see individual atoms; that people would carry telephones weighing a few ounces, and speak anywhere in the world without wires; or that most of these miracles depended on devices the size of a postage stamp, which utilized a new theory called quantum mechanics—if you said all this, the physicist would almost certainly pronounce you mad.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Crichton", "slug": "michael-crichton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton" }, "book": { "title": "Timeline", "slug": "timeline", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/timeline" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "technology", "slug": "technology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology" }, { "name": "the future", "slug": "the-future", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Timeline_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:49", "more_from_book": [ { "id": "e76474d3-8224-4636-a86f-086b58192e4e", "slug": "what-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/timeline/what-is-the", "text": "What is the dominant motive experience at the end of the twentieth century? How do people see things, and how do they expect to see things? The answer is simple. In every field, from business to politics to marketing to education, the dominant mode has become entertainment.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 442, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "media", "slug": "media", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/media" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Timeline_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:49" }, { "id": "e1c9991b-8472-43c5-ad5c-52124a377480", "slug": "today-everybody-expects", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/timeline/today-everybody-expects", "text": "Today, everybody expects to be entertained, and they expect to be entertained all the time. Business meetings must be snappy, with bullet lists and animated graphics, so executives aren’t bored. Malls and stores must be engaging, so they amuse as well as sell us. Politicians must have pleasing video personalities and tell us only what we want to hear. Schools must be careful not to bore young minds that expect the speed and complexity of television. Students must be amused—everyone must be amused, or they will switch: switch brands, switch channels, switch parties, switch loyalties. This is the intellectual reality of western society at the end of the century.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 443, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "media", "slug": "media", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/media" }, { "name": "boredom", "slug": "boredom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/boredom" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Timeline_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:49" }, { "id": "82f375f5-aae6-4ed7-b728-33169b9c2053", "slug": "the-purpose-of-history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/timeline/the-purpose-of-history", "text": "The purpose of history is to explain the present—to say why the world around us is the way it is. History tells us what is important in our world, and how it came to be. It tells us why the things we value are the things we should value. And it tells us what is to be ignored, or discarded. That is true power—profound power. The power to define a whole society.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 480, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" }, { "name": "history", "slug": "history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Timeline_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:49" } ] }