The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I

by Douglas Brunt

“One does not have to be a spiritualist, a Protestant, a Catholic, or a Jew in order to feel true love of humanity in his breast and to practice it to the best of his ability. The less one adheres to specific opinions, the more one is open, the freer are his opinions and the more tolerant and loving toward his fellow man.”

“How is an idea created? Maybe sometimes it strikes like lightning, but mostly it will develop slowly through intensive search under numerous mistakes.”

Churchill further observed that, “The achievements of science in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were not necessarily to the happiness, virtue, or glory of mankind. Thus the ‘Supreme Issue’ facing mankind is the choice between moving forward into a paradise of earthly delights and plunging into a senseless hell… It is our right and duty to choose—and to choose well.”

It is wonderful to design and to invent in the way that an artist designs and creates. But whether it all has a purpose, whether people have become happier as a result, that I can no longer decide. Rudolf Diesel