TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index A > Category: Age

Age Quotes (509 quotes)

…I distinguish two parts of it, which I call respectively the brighter and the darker. The brighter seems to surround and pervade the whole hemisphere; but the darker part, like a sort of cloud, discolours the Moon’s surface and makes it appear covered with spots. Now these spots, as they are somewhat dark and of considerable size, are plain to everyone and every age has seen them, wherefore I will call them great or ancient spots, to distinguish them from other spots, smaller in size, but so thickly scattered that they sprinkle the whole surface of the Moon, but especially the brighter portion of it. These spots have never been observed by anyone before me; and from my observations of them, often repeated, I have been led to the opinion which I have expressed, namely, that I feel sure that the surface of the Moon is not perfectly smooth, free from inequalities and exactly spherical… but that, on the contrary, it is full of inequalities, uneven, full of hollows and protuberances, just like the surface of the Earth itself, which is varied everywhere by lofty mountains and deep valleys.
Describing his pioneering telescope observations of the Moon made from Jan 1610. In The Starry Messenger (Mar 1610). Quoted in Patrick Moore, Patrick Moore on the Moon (2006), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Call (781)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Crater (8)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deep (241)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Express (192)  |  Feel (371)  |  Free (239)  |  Great (1610)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Portion (86)  |  Protuberance (3)  |  Respectively (13)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Two (936)  |  Valley (37)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

…this discussion would be unprofitable if it did not lead us to appreciate the wisdom of our Creator, and the wondrous knowledge of the Author of the world, Who in the beginning created the world out of nothing, and set everything in number, measure and weight, and then, in time and the age of man, formulated a science which reveals fresh wonders the more we study it.
Hrosvita
From her play Sapientia, as quoted and cited in Philip Davis with Reuben Hersh, in The Mathematical Experience (1981), 110-111. Davis and Hersh introduce the quote saying it comes “after a rather long and sophisticated discussion of certain facts in the theory of numbers” by the character Sapientia.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Author (175)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Creator (97)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Everything (489)  |  Formulate (16)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Measure (241)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Set (400)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unprofitable (7)  |  Weight (140)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wondrous (22)  |  World (1850)

“Bitzer,” said Thomas Gradgrind. “Your definition of a horse.”
“Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth; namely, twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the Spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.” Thus (and much more) Bitzer.
“Now girl number twenty,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “You know what a horse is.”
Spoken by fictional character Thomas Gringrind in his schoolroom with pupil Bitzer, Hard Times, published in Household Words (1 Apr 1854), Vol. 36, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Coat (5)  |  Country (269)  |  Definition (238)  |  Eye (440)  |  Girl (38)  |  Hard (246)  |  Horse (78)  |  Incisive (4)  |  Iron (99)  |  Iron Age (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Mark (47)  |  Marsh (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Quadruped (4)  |  Shed (6)  |  Spring (140)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Thomas Gradgrind (2)  |  Tooth (32)

“They were apes only yesterday. Give them time.”
“Once an ape—always an ape.”…
“No, it will be different. … Come back here in an age or so and you shall see. …”
[The gods, discussing the Earth, in the movie version of Wells’ The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936).]
The Man Who Could Work Miracles: a film by H.G. Wells based on the short story (1936), 105-106. Quoted in Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain (1979, 1986), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Ape (54)  |  Back (395)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  God (776)  |  Man (2252)  |  Miracle (85)  |  See (1094)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yesterday (37)

[About any invention] (1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal; (2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it; (3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.
In News Review section, Sunday Times (29 Aug 1999).
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Already (226)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Birth (154)  |  Career (86)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Creative (144)  |  End (603)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Invention (400)  |  Know (1538)  |  Luck (44)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Order (6)  |  Normal (29)  |  Order (638)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thirty (6)  |  Turn (454)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

[Fossils found in the Secondary formation are] unrefined and imperfect [species and the species in the Tertiary formation] are very perfect and wholly similar to those that are seen in the modern sea. [Thus] as many ages have elapsed during the elevation of the Alps, as there are races of organic fossil bodies embedded within the strata.
Quoted in Francesco Rodolico, 'Arduino', In Charles Coulston Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1970), Vol. 1, 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Alp (9)  |  Alps (9)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Formation (100)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Modern (402)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Organic (161)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Race (278)  |  Sea (326)  |  Species (435)  |  Strata (37)  |  Wholly (88)

[In an inventor’s life] Everything is stacked against you, but for some reason some silly chaps seem to be driven to it (rather like a painter of a composer of music), which is perhaps just as well or we should still be living in the Stone Age.
As quoted in Michael T. Kaufman, 'Christopher Cockerell, 88, Inventor, Dies; Father of Hovercraft and Marconi Devices', New York Times (4 Jun 1999), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Composer (7)  |  Driven (4)  |  Everything (489)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Music (133)  |  Painter (30)  |  Reason (766)  |  Seem (150)  |  Silly (17)  |  Stack (3)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)

[Man] … his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labour of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins…
From 'A Free Man's Worship', Independent Review (Dec 1903). Collected in Mysticism and Logic: And Other Essays (1918), 47-48.
Science quotes on:  |  Accidental (31)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Atom (381)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Death (406)  |  Destined (42)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fire (203)  |  Genius (301)  |  Grave (52)  |  Growth (200)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Origin (250)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Solar System (81)  |  System (545)  |  Temple (45)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Whole (756)

[Scientific research reveals] the majestic spectacle of the order of nature gradually unfolding itself to man’s consciousness and placing in his hands the implements of ever augmenting power to control his destinies and attain that ultimate comprehension of the universe which has in all ages constituted the supreme aspiration of man.
As quoted in book review by Ian Clunies Ross, "The Spirit of Research', The Australian Quarterly (Dec 1931), 3, No. 12, 126.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Attain (126)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Control (182)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Implement (13)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Power (771)  |  Research (753)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unfold (15)  |  Unfolding (16)  |  Universe (900)

[Should Britain fail, then the entire world would] sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister ... by the lights of perverted science.
“Finest Hour” speech after Dunkirk during WW II (18 Jun 1940). In Robert Rhodes James, ed. Winston Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963 (1974), Vol. 6, p.6238.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Britain (26)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Fail (191)  |  Light (635)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Perversion (2)  |  Pervert (7)  |  Sinister (8)  |  Sink (38)  |  World (1850)

[T]he phenomena of animal life correspond to one another, whether we compare their rank as determined by structural complication with the phases of their growth, or with their succession in past geological ages; whether we compare this succession with their relative growth, or all these different relations with each other and with the geographical distribution of animals upon the earth. The same series everywhere!
In Essay on Classification (1851), 196.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Compare (76)  |  Complication (30)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Determine (152)  |  Different (595)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Geographical (6)  |  Geology (240)  |  Growth (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Phase (37)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Rank (69)  |  Relative (42)  |  Series (153)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)

[The body of law] has taxed the deliberative spirit of ages. The great minds of the earth have done it homage. It was the fruit of experience. Under it men prospered, all the arts flourished, and society stood firm. Every right and duty could be understood because the rules regulating each had their foundation in reason, in the nature and fitness of things; were adapted to the wants of our race, were addressed to the mind and to the heart; were like so many scraps of logic articulate with demonstration. Legislation, it is true occasionally lent its aid, but not in the pride of opinion, not by devising schemes inexpedient and untried, but in a deferential spirit, as a subordinate co-worker.
From biographical preface by T. Bigelow to Austin Abbott (ed.), Official Report of the Trial of Henry Ward Beecher (1875), Vol. 1, xii.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Aid (101)  |  Art (680)  |  Arts (3)  |  Body (557)  |  Deference (2)  |  Deliberation (5)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Duty (71)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Experience (494)  |  Firm (47)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Homage (4)  |  Law (913)  |  Legislation (10)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Pride (84)  |  Prosper (8)  |  Race (278)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regulate (11)  |  Right (473)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Society (350)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Subordinate (11)  |  Tax (27)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Want (504)

[The] second fundamental rule of historical science may be thus simply expressed:—we should not wish to explain every thing. Historical tradition must never be abandoned in the philosophy of history—otherwise we lose all firm ground and footing. But historical tradition, ever so accurately conceived and carefully sifted, doth not always, especially in the early and primitive ages, bring with it a full and demonstrative certainty.
In Friedrich von Schlegel and James Burton Robertson (trans.), The Philosophy of History (1835), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Demonstrative (14)  |  Early (196)  |  Everything (489)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Express (192)  |  Firm (47)  |  Footing (2)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Ground (222)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Lose (165)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Rule (307)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Wish (216)

[To identify ancient sites] The primary requirement is a human skeleton or artifacts that are clearly the work of humans. Next, this evidence must lie in situ within undisturbed geological deposits. The artifacts should be directly associated with stratigraphy. Finally, the minimum age of the site must be determined by a direct link with fossils of known age or with material that has been reliably dated.
As quoted in Sharman Apt Russell, When the Land Was Young: Reflections on American Archaeology (2001), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Artifact (5)  |  Associate (25)  |  Date (14)  |  Deposit (12)  |  Determine (152)  |  Direct (228)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Geology (240)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identify (13)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Lie (370)  |  Link (48)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  Next (238)  |  Primary (82)  |  Reliable (13)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Site (19)  |  Skeleton (25)  |  Stratigraphy (7)  |  Undisturbed (4)  |  Work (1402)

[About reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, age 14, in the back seat of his parents' sedan. I almost threw up. I got physically ill when I learned that ospreys and peregrine falcons weren't raising chicks because of what people were spraying on bugs at their farms and lawns. This was the first time I learned that humans could impact the environment with chemicals. [That a corporation would create a product that didn't operate as advertised] was shocking in a way we weren't inured to.
As quoted by Eliza Griswold, in 'The Wild Life of “Silent Spring”', New York Times (23 Sep 2012), Magazine 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Bug (10)  |  Rachel Carson (49)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chick (5)  |  Corporation (6)  |  Create (245)  |  Environment (239)  |  Falcon (2)  |  Farm (28)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impact (45)  |  Lawn (5)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Parent (80)  |  People (1031)  |  Product (166)  |  Reading (136)  |  Shock (38)  |  Sick (83)  |  Spring (140)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)

Clarke's First Law - Corollary: When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion—the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.
'Asimov's Corollary', Fantasy & Science Fiction (Feb 1977). In collection Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright (1978), 231.
Science quotes on:  |  Arthur C. Clarke (49)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Fervor (8)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Law (913)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Support (151)

Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
'Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination'. In the collection. Profiles of the Future: An Enquiry into the Limits of the Possible (1962, rev. 1973), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainly (185)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  First (1302)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Law (913)  |  Possible (560)  |  Research (753)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Something (718)  |  State (505)  |  Wrong (246)

Dans les sciences physiques en général, on ait souvent supposé au lieu de conclure; que les suppositions transmises d’âge en âge, soient devenues de plus en plus imposantes par le poids des autorités qu'elles ont acquises , & qu'elles ayent enfin été adoptées & regardées comme des vérités fondamentales, même par de très-bons esprits.
In the science of physics in general, men have so often formed suppositions, instead of drawing conclusions. These suppositions, handed down from one age to another, acquire additional weight from the authorities by which they are supported, till at last they are received, even by men of genius, as fundamental truths.
From the original French in Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789, 1793), discours préliminaire, x; and from edition translated into English by Robert Kerr, as Elements of Chemistry (1790), Preface, xvi.
Science quotes on:  |  Authority (99)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Down (455)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  General (521)  |  Genius (301)  |  Last (425)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plus (43)  |  Support (151)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Weight (140)

Hoc age ['do this'] is the great rule, whether you are serious or merry; whether ... learning science or duty from a folio, or floating on the Thames. Intentions must be gathered from acts.
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1821), 139.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Do (1905)  |  Duty (71)  |  Float (31)  |  Gather (76)  |  Great (1610)  |  Intention (46)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Merry (3)  |  Must (1525)  |  Rule (307)  |  Serious (98)  |  Thames (6)

I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of the conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or not. The importance of the strength of our conviction is only to provide a proportionally strong incentive to find out if the hypothesis will stand up to critical examination.
In Advice to a Young Scientist (1979), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Bearing (10)  |  Better (493)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Critical (73)  |  Examination (102)  |  False (105)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Importance (299)  |  Incentive (10)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Stand (284)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)

Nature and nurture are an inseparable blend of influences that work together to produce our behavior. A growing band of researchers are demonstrating that the bedrock of behaviors that make up the concerns of everyday life, such as sex, language, cooperation, and violence have been carved out by evolution over the eons, and this Stone Age legacy continues to influence modern life today.
In Stone Age Present: How Evolution Has Shaped Modern Life: From Sex, Violence and Language to Emotions, Morals and Communities, (1995), 25-26.
Science quotes on:  |  Bedrock (3)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Blend (9)  |  Concern (239)  |  Continue (179)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Eon (12)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everyday Life (15)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Growing (99)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inseparable (18)  |  Language (308)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Life (3)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Sex (68)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Today (321)  |  Together (392)  |  Violence (37)  |  Work (1402)

Occult sciences. Those imaginary sciences of the middle ages which related to the influence of supernatural powers, such as alchemy, magic, necromancy, and astrology.
In Noah Webster, Noah Porter (supervising ed.) and Dorsey Gardner (ed.), Webster's Condensed Dictionary: A Condensed Dictionary of the English Language (1884, 1887), 385.
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Astrology (46)  |  Imaginary (16)  |  Influence (231)  |  Magic (92)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Necromancy (3)  |  Occult (9)  |  Power (771)  |  Supernatural (26)

Wer kann was Dummes, wer was Kluges denken, Das nicht die Vorwelt schon gedacht?
What is there, wise or foolish, one can think, That former ages have not thought before?
Words of Mephistopheles written in Faust, Pt. 2, Act 2. As quoted and translated by the editor in in William Francis Henry King (ed.), Classical and Foreign Quotations: A Polyglot Manual of Historical (1904), 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Foolish (41)  |  Former (138)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wise (143)

CLAUDIO: Death is a fearful thing.
ISABELLA: And shamed life a hateful.
CLAUDIO: Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisioned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendant world; or to be worst than worst
Of those lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling—'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisionment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
Measure for Measure (1604), III, i.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Cold (115)  |  Death (406)  |  Delight (111)  |  Fear (212)  |  Flood (52)  |  Ice (58)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Paradise (15)  |  Penury (3)  |  Reside (25)  |  Rot (9)  |  Rotting (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Violence (37)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wind (141)  |  World (1850)  |  Worst (57)

~~[Not in his own words]~~ Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Attributed, no citation found, and probably not by Einstein. For example, it is found without citation in Albert Einstein, Jerry Mayer and John P. Holms, Bite-size Einstein (1996), 25. Listed under heading 'Probably Not by Einstein' by Alice Calaprice, The New Quotable Einstein (2005), 294. It probably morphed from a writer’s restatement of how he understood Einstein’s views, expressed in the writer’s own words, without quotation marks as: But as Einstein has pointed out, common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen. This statement appeared in Lincoln Barnett, 'The Universe and Dr. Einstein', Harper’s Magazine (May 1948), 473. The quoteinvestigator.com site gives more background, with the speculation on how eventually quotation marks crept in, and then propagated that way.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Collection (68)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Sense (785)  |  Word (650)

A primâ facie argument in favour of the efficacy of prayer is therefore to be drawn from the very general use of it. The greater part of mankind, during all the historic ages, have been accustomed to pray for temporal advantages. How vain, it may be urged, must be the reasoning that ventures to oppose this mighty consensus of belief! Not so. The argument of universality either proves too much, or else it is suicidal.
'Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer', Fortnightly Review, 1872, 12, 126.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Argument (145)  |  Belief (615)  |  Consensus (8)  |  General (521)  |  Greater (288)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Must (1525)  |  Prayer (30)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Universality (22)  |  Use (771)  |  Vain (86)

A few days afterwards, I went to him [the same actuary referred to in another quote] and very gravely told him that I had discovered the law of human mortality in the Carlisle Table, of which he thought very highly. I told him that the law was involved in this circumstance. Take the table of the expectation of life, choose any age, take its expectation and make the nearest integer a new age, do the same with that, and so on; begin at what age you like, you are sure to end at the place where the age past is equal, or most nearly equal, to the expectation to come. “You don’t mean that this always happens?”—“Try it.” He did try, again and again; and found it as I said. “This is, indeed, a curious thing; this is a discovery!” I might have sent him about trumpeting the law of life: but I contented myself with informing him that the same thing would happen with any table whatsoever in which the first column goes up and the second goes down.
In Budget of Paradoxes (1872), 172.
Science quotes on:  |  Actuary (2)  |  Begin (275)  |  Choose (116)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Column (15)  |  Content (75)  |  Curious (95)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Equal (88)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Gravely (2)  |  Happen (282)  |  Highly (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inform (50)  |  Informing (5)  |  Integer (12)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mortality (16)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nearly (137)  |  New (1273)  |  New Age (6)  |  Past (355)  |  Place (192)  |  Quote (46)  |  Send (23)  |  Table (105)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trumpet (3)  |  Try (296)  |  Up (5)  |  Whatsoever (41)

A few days ago, a Master of Arts, who is still a young man, and therefore the recipient of a modern education, stated to me that until he had reached the age of twenty he had never been taught anything whatever regarding natural phenomena, or natural law. Twelve years of his life previously had been spent exclusively amongst the ancients. The case, I regret to say, is typical. Now we cannot, without prejudice to humanity, separate the present from the past.
'On the Study of Physics', From a Lecture delivered in the Royal Institution of Great Britain in the Spring of 1854. Fragments of Science for Unscientific People: A Series of Detached Essays, Lectures, and Reviews (1892), Vol. 1, 284-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Education (423)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Modern (402)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Never (1089)  |  Past (355)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Present (630)  |  Previous (17)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recipient (3)  |  Regret (31)  |  Say (989)  |  Separate (151)  |  Separation (60)  |  Spent (85)  |  Statement (148)  |  Still (614)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Twelve (4)  |  Twenty (4)  |  Typical (16)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

A good deal of my research in physics has consisted in not setting out to solve some particular problem, but simply examining mathematical quantities of a kind that physicists use and trying to fit them together in an interesting way, regardless of any application that the work may have. It is simply a search for pretty mathematics. It may turn out later to have an application. Then one has good luck. At age 78.
International Journal of Theoretical Physics (1982), 21, 603. In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Consist (223)  |  Deal (192)  |  Equation (138)  |  Fit (139)  |  Good (906)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Kind (564)  |  Luck (44)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Problem (731)  |  Research (753)  |  Search (175)  |  Setting (44)  |  Solve (145)  |  Together (392)  |  Trying (144)  |  Turn (454)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

A hundred years ago … an engineer, Herbert Spencer, was willing to expound every aspect of life, with an effect on his admiring readers which has not worn off today.
Things do not happen quite in this way nowadays. This, we are told, is an age of specialists. The pursuit of knowledge has become a profession. The time when a man could master several sciences is past. He must now, they say, put all his efforts into one subject. And presumably, he must get all his ideas from this one subject. The world, to be sure, needs men who will follow such a rule with enthusiasm. It needs the greatest numbers of the ablest technicians. But apart from them it also needs men who will converse and think and even work in more than one science and know how to combine or connect them. Such men, I believe, are still to be found today. They are still as glad to exchange ideas as they have been in the past. But we cannot say that our way of life is well-fitted to help them. Why is this?
In 'The Unification of Biology', New Scientist (11 Jan 1962), 13, No. 269, 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Able (2)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Become (821)  |  Combine (58)  |  Connect (126)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Effort (243)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Follow (389)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Happen (282)  |  Help (116)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Need (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Past (355)  |  Profession (108)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Several (33)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Herbert Spencer (37)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  Technician (9)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Way (1214)  |  Way Of Life (15)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Willing (44)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

A man is as old as his arteries.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Artery (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  Old (499)

A man of about fifty-four years of age, had begun, five or six months before, to be somewhat emaciated in his whole body...a troublesome vomiting came on, of a fluid which resembl’d water, tinctur’d with soot.... Death took place.... In the stomach...was an ulcerated cancerous tumour.... Betwixt the stomach and the spleen were two glandular bodies, of the bigness of a bean, and in their colour, and substance, not much unlike that tumour which I have describ’d in the stomach.
About stomach cancer. In De Sedibus Causis Morborum (1761). Translated by Benjamin Alexander in The Seats and Causes of Diseases (1960), 43
Science quotes on:  |  Bean (3)  |  Body (557)  |  Death (406)  |  Emaciated (2)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Man (2252)  |  Month (91)  |  Soot (11)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Stomach Cancer (2)  |  Substance (253)  |  Troublesome (8)  |  Tumour (2)  |  Two (936)  |  Vomiting (3)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

A noteworthy and often-remarked similarity exists between the facts and methods of geology and those of linguistic study. The science of language is, as it were, the geology of the most modern period, the Age of the Man, having for its task to construct the history of development of the earth and its inhabitants from the time when the proper geological record remains silent … The remains of ancient speech are like strata deposited in bygone ages, telling of the forms of life then existing, and of the circumstances which determined or affected them; while words are as rolled pebbles, relics of yet more ancient formations, or as fossils, whose grade indicates the progress of organic life, and whose resemblances and relations show the correspondence or sequence of the different strata; while, everywhere, extensive denudation has marred the completeness of the record, and rendered impossible a detailed exhibition of the whole course of development.
In Language and the Study of Language (1867), 47.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Bygone (4)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Course (413)  |  Denudation (2)  |  Detail (150)  |  Development (441)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Exhibition (7)  |  Exist (458)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Geology (240)  |  History (716)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marred (3)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Organic (161)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Period (200)  |  Progress (492)  |  Proper (150)  |  Record (161)  |  Remain (355)  |  Render (96)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Roll (41)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Show (353)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Speech (66)  |  Strata (37)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Study (701)  |  Task (152)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whole (756)  |  Word (650)

A persistent and age-old instinct makes us want to wander
Into regions yet untrod
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God.
Address upon receiving the Perkin Medal Award, 'The Big Things in Chemistry', The Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (Feb 1921), 13, No. 2, 163. These lines concluded his remarks, without citation, and since Webmaster has found no other source has assumed the words are his own. Contact Webmaster if you know a different primary source.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  God (776)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Make (25)  |  Manuscript (10)  |  Old (499)  |  Persistent (18)  |  Read (308)  |  Region (40)  |  Research (753)  |  Still (614)  |  Wander (44)  |  Want (504)

A person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonal value. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content and the depth of the conviction concerning its overpowering meaningfulness, regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Accordingly (5)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Appear (122)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |   Buddha (5)  |  Capable (174)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Cling (6)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Content (75)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Count (107)  |  Definition (238)  |  Depth (97)  |  Desire (212)  |  Devout (5)  |  Divine (112)  |  Domain (72)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Effect (414)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightened (25)  |  Exist (458)  |  Extend (129)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Fetter (4)  |  Fetters (7)  |  Force (497)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Goal (155)  |  Himself (461)  |  Important (229)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Kind (564)  |  Liberate (10)  |  Loftiness (3)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Matter (821)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Object (438)  |  Old (499)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Outside (141)  |  Person (366)  |  Personality (66)  |  Possible (560)  |  Rational (95)  |  Regardless (8)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Remain (355)  |  Require (229)  |  Same (166)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Seem (150)  |  Selfish (12)  |  Sense (785)  |  Significance (114)  |  Spinoza (11)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  Superpersonal (2)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unite (43)  |  Value (393)

A story about the Jack Spratts of medicine [was] told recently by Dr. Charles H. Best, co-discoverer of insulin. He had been invited to a conference of heart specialists in North America. On the eve of the meeting, out of respect for the fat-clogs-the-arteries theory, the delegates sat down to a special banquet served without fats. It was unpalatable but they all ate it as a duty. Next morning Best looked round the breakfast room and saw these same specialists—all in the 40-60 year old, coronary age group—happily tucking into eggs, bacon, buttered toast and coffee with cream.
'Objections To High-Fat Diets', Eat Fat And Grow Slim (1958), Ch. 3.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Artery (10)  |  Bacon (4)  |  Banquet (2)  |  Best (467)  |  Charles Best (3)  |  Breakfast (10)  |  Butter (8)  |  Coffee (21)  |  Conference (18)  |  Cream (6)  |  Delegate (3)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Down (455)  |  Duty (71)  |  Eat (108)  |  Egg (71)  |  Fat (11)  |  Heart (243)  |  Insulin (9)  |  Look (584)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Meeting (22)  |  Morning (98)  |  Next (238)  |  Old (499)  |  Respect (212)  |  Saw (160)  |  Special (188)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Story (122)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Toast (8)  |  Year (963)

After an honest day’s work a mathematician goes off duty. Mathematics is very hard work, and dons tend to be above average in health and vigor. Below a certain threshold a man cracks up; but above it, hard mental work makes for health and vigor (also—on much historical evidence throughout the ages—for longevity). I have noticed lately that when I am working really hard I wake around 5.30 a.m. ready and eager to start; if I am slack, I sleep till I am called.
In 'The Mathematician’s Art of Work' (1967), collected in Béla Bollobás (ed.), Littlewood’s Miscellany (1986), 195.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Duty (71)  |  Eager (17)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Health (210)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Honest (53)  |  Longevity (6)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Ready (43)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Start (237)  |  Tend (124)  |  Threshold (11)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Vigor (12)  |  Wake (17)  |  Work (1402)

Alas, your dear friend and servant is totally blind. Henceforth this heaven, this universe, which by wonderful observations I had enlarged by a hundred and a thousand times beyond the conception of former ages, is shrunk for me into the narrow space which I myself fill in it. So it pleases God; it shall therefore please me also.
In Letter, as quoted in Sir Oliver Lodge, Pioneers of Science (1905), 133.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Blind (98)  |  Conception (160)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Former (138)  |  Friend (180)  |  God (776)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Myself (211)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Observation (593)  |  Please (68)  |  Servant (40)  |  Shrink (23)  |  Space (523)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wonderful (155)

All admit that the mountains of the globe are situated mostly along the border regions of the continents (taking these regions as 300 to 1000 miles or more in width), and that over these same areas the sedimentary deposits have, as a general thing, their greatest thickness. At first thought, it would seem almost incredible that the upliftings of mountains, whatever their mode of origin, should have taken place just where the earth’s crust, through these sedimentary accumulations, was the thickest, and where, therefore, there was the greatest weight to be lifted. … Earthquakes show that even now, in this last of the geological ages, the same border regions of the continents, although daily thickening from the sediments borne to the ocean by rivers, are the areas of the greatest and most frequent movements of the earth’s crust. (1866)
[Thus, the facts were known long ago; the explanation by tectonic activity came many decades later.]
In 'Observations on the Origin of Some of the Earth’s Features', The American Journal of Science (Sep 1866), Second Series, 42, No. 125, 210-211.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Activity (218)  |  Border (10)  |  Continent (79)  |  Crust (43)  |  Daily (91)  |  Decade (66)  |  Deposit (12)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Known (453)  |  Last (425)  |  Lift (57)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Movement (162)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Origin (250)  |  Plate Tectonics (22)  |  River (140)  |  Sediment (9)  |  Show (353)  |  Thickness (5)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Uplift (6)  |  Weight (140)  |  Whatever (234)

All attempts to adapt our ethical code to our situation in the technological age have failed.
Max Born
My Life & My Views (1968), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Code (31)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Fail (191)  |  Situation (117)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)

All of us are interested in our roots. Generally this interest is latent in youth, and grows with age. Until I reached fifty I thought that history of science was a refuge for old scientists whose creative juices had dried up. Now of course I know that I was wrong! As we grow older, we become more interested in the past, in family history, local history, etc. Astronomy is, or was when I started in it, almost a family.
In Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy (2002), Vol. 3, 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Become (821)  |  Course (413)  |  Creative (144)  |  Dried (2)  |  Family (101)  |  Fifty (17)  |  Grow (247)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Interest (416)  |  Juice (7)  |  Know (1538)  |  Latent (13)  |  Local (25)  |  More (2558)  |  Old (499)  |  Older (7)  |  Past (355)  |  Reach (286)  |  Refuge (15)  |  Root (121)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Start (237)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Youth (109)

Alphonse of Castile is reported to have said that if he had had the making of the universe he would have done it much better. And I think so too. Instead of making a man go through the degradation of faculties and death, he should continually improve with age, and then be translated from this world to a superior planet, where he should begin life with the knowledge gained here, and so on. That would be to my mind, as an old man, a more satisfactory way of conducting affairs
Address, in 'Report to the Chemical Society's Jubilee', Nature (26 Mar 1891), 43, 493.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Better (493)  |  Continual (44)  |  Death (406)  |  Degradation (18)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Gain (146)  |  Improve (64)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Old Man (6)  |  Planet (402)  |  Satisfactory (19)  |  Superior (88)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Translate (21)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

Although we are mere sojourners on the surface of the planet, chained to a mere point in space, enduring but for a moment of time, the human mind is not only enabled to number worlds beyond the unassisted ken of mortal eye, but to trace the events of indefinite ages before the creation of our race, and is not even withheld from penetrating into the dark secrets of the ocean, or the interior of the solid globe; free, like the spirit which the poet described as animating the universe.
In Principles of Geology (1830).
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Creation (350)  |  Dark (145)  |  Event (222)  |  Eye (440)  |  Free (239)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Interior (35)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Number (710)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Planet (402)  |  Point (584)  |  Race (278)  |  Secret (216)  |  Solid (119)  |  Space (523)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Surface (223)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

Among all highly civilized peoples the golden age of art has always been closely coincident with the golden age of the pure sciences, particularly with mathematics, the most ancient among them.
This coincidence must not be looked upon as accidental, but as natural, due to an inner necessity. Just as art can thrive only when the artist, relieved of the anxieties of existence, can listen to the inspirations of his spirit and follow in their lead, so mathematics, the most ideal of the sciences, will yield its choicest blossoms only when life’s dismal phantom dissolves and fades away, when the striving after naked truth alone predominates, conditions which prevail only in nations while in the prime of their development.
From Die Entwickelung der Mathematik im Zusammenhange mit der Ausbreitung der Kultur (1893), 4. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 191-192. From the original German, “Bei allen Kulturvölkern ist die Blüthezeit der Kunst auch immer zeitlich eng verbunden mit einer Blüthezeit der reinen Wissenschaften, insbesondere der ältesten unter ihnen, der Mathematik.
Dieses Zusammentreffen dürfte auch nicht ein zufälliges, sondern ein natürliches, ein Ergebniss innerer Notwendigkeit sein. Wie die Kunst nur gedeihen kann, wenn der Künstler, unbekümmert um die Bedrängnisse des Daseins, den Eingebungen seines Geistes lauschen und ihnen folgen kann, so kann die idealste Wissenschaft, die Mathematik, erst dann ihre schönsten Blüthen treiben, wenn des Erdenlebens schweres Traumbild sinkt und sinkt und sinkt, wenn das Streben nach der nackten Wahrheit allein bestimmend ist, was nur bei Nationen in der Vollkraft ihrer Entwickelung vorkommt.”
Science quotes on:  |  Accidental (31)  |  Alone (324)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Art (680)  |  Artist (97)  |  Blossom (22)  |  Civilized (20)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Coincident (2)  |  Condition (362)  |  Development (441)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Due (143)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fade (12)  |  Follow (389)  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Inner (72)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Listen (81)  |  Look (584)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessity (197)  |  People (1031)  |  Phantom (9)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Prime (11)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Relieve (6)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Strive (53)  |  Thrive (22)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)  |  Yield (86)

Among innumerable footsteps of divine providence to be found in the works of nature, there is a very remarkable one to be observed in the exact balance that is maintained, between the numbers of men and women; for by this means is provided, that the species never may fail, nor perish, since every male may have its female, and of proportionable age. This equality of males and females is not the effect of chance but divine providence, working for a good end, which I thus demonstrate.
'An Argument for Divine Providence, taken from the Constant Regularity observ’d in the Births of both Sexes', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1710-12, 27, 186. This has been regarded as the origin of mathematical statistics
Science quotes on:  |  Balance (82)  |  Chance (244)  |  Divine (112)  |  Effect (414)  |  End (603)  |  Equality (34)  |  Fail (191)  |  Female (50)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Good (906)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Observed (149)  |  Perish (56)  |  Providence (19)  |  Species (435)  |  Work (1402)

Among the multitude of animals which scamper, fly, burrow and swim around us, man is the only one who is not locked into his environment. His imagination, his reason, his emotional subtlety and toughness, make it possible for him not to accept the environment, but to change it. And that series of inventions, by which man from age to age has remade his environment, is a different kind of evolution—not biological, but cultural evolution. I call that brilliant sequence of cultural peaks The Ascent of Man. I use the word ascent with a precise meaning. Man is distinguished from other animals by his imaginative gifts. He makes plans, inventions, new discoveries, by putting different talents together; and his discoveries become more subtle and penetrating, as he learns to combine his talents in more complex and intimate ways. So the great discoveries of different ages and different cultures, in technique, in science, in the arts, express in their progression a richer and more intricate conjunction of human faculties, an ascending trellis of his gifts.
The Ascent of Man (1973), 19-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Animal (651)  |  Art (680)  |  Ascent Of Man (7)  |  Become (821)  |  Biological (137)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Combine (58)  |  Complex (202)  |  Conjunction (12)  |  Culture (157)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Express (192)  |  Fly (153)  |  Gift (105)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kind (564)  |  Learn (672)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  More (2558)  |  Multitude (50)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plan (122)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precise (71)  |  Progression (23)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Series (153)  |  Subtlety (19)  |  Swim (32)  |  Talent (99)  |  Technique (84)  |  Together (392)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

An age is called Dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see.
From Space: A Novel (1983), 709. As cited by David G. Anderson, 'Archaic Mounds and Southeastern Tribal Societies', in Jon L. Gibson, Philip J. Carr (ed.), Signs of Power: The Rise of Cultural Complexity in the Southeast (2004), 297. A footnote by Anderson explains that Michener described the supernova of 1054 A.D. which blazed for 23 days and was recorded around the world, except in western Europe where religious dogma insisted the heavens were immutable. The quote above was Michener’s comment on that “refusal to see.”.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Called (9)  |  Dark (145)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failing (5)  |  Light (635)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Refuse (45)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Shining (35)

An epidemiologist is a doctor broken down by age and sex.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Broken (56)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Down (455)  |  Epidemiologist (3)  |  Quip (81)  |  Sex (68)

An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalization would be just as well founded as the generalization which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet.
Scientific Method in Philosophy (1914), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Base (120)  |  Being (1276)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Planet (402)  |  Progress (492)  |  Single (365)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Watch (118)  |  Youth (109)

An inventive age
Has wrought, if not with speed of magic, yet
To most strange issues. I have lived to mark
A new and unforeseen creation rise
From out the labours of a peaceful Land:
Wielding her potent enginery to frame
And to produce, with appetite as keen
As that of war, which rests not night or day.
In The Excursion (1814). In The Works of William: Wordsworth (1994), Book 8, 875.
Science quotes on:  |  Appetite (20)  |  Creation (350)  |  Day (43)  |  Engine (99)  |  Invention (400)  |  Labor (200)  |  Magic (92)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Night (133)  |  Peace (116)  |  Potent (15)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rise (169)  |  Speed (66)  |  Strange (160)  |  Unforeseen (11)  |  War (233)

And how admirable and rare an ornament, O good God, is mildenesse in a divine? And how much is it to be wished in this age, that all divines were mathematicians? that is men gentle and meeke.
Trigonometria (1595), trans. R. Handson (1614), Epistle Dedicatorie.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Divine (112)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mildness (2)  |  Ornament (20)  |  Rare (94)  |  Rarity (11)  |  Wish (216)

And yet, it will be no cool process of mere science … with which we face this new age of right and opportunity….
Inaugural Address (4 Mar 1913). In 'President Wilson’s Inaugural Address', New York Times (5 Mar 1913), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Cool (15)  |  Face (214)  |  Mere (86)  |  New (1273)  |  New Age (6)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Process (439)  |  Right (473)  |  Will (2350)

Any scientist of any age who wants to make important discoveries must study important problems. Dull or piffling problems yield dull or piffling answers. It is not not enough that a problem should be “interesting.” … The problem must be such that it matters what the answer is—whether to science generally or to mankind.
From 'What Shall I Do Research On?', Advice to a Young Scientist (1979), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dull (58)  |  Enough (341)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Problem (731)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Study (701)  |  Want (504)  |  Yield (86)

Archimedes, who combined a genius for mathematics with a physical insight, must rank with Newton, who lived nearly two thousand years later, as one of the founders of mathematical physics. … The day (when having discovered his famous principle of hydrostatics he ran through the streets shouting Eureka! Eureka!) ought to be celebrated as the birthday of mathematical physics; the science came of age when Newton sat in his orchard.
In An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Birthday (9)  |  Celebrate (21)  |  Discover (571)  |  Eureka (13)  |  Famous (12)  |  Founder (26)  |  Genius (301)  |  Insight (107)  |  Later (18)  |  Lived (3)  |  Mathematical Physics (12)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Orchard (4)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Principle (530)  |  Rank (69)  |  Run (158)  |  Shout (25)  |  Sit (51)  |  Street (25)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Year (963)

Art and science coincide insofar as both aim to improve the lives of men and women. The latter normally concerns itself with profit, the former with pleasure. In the coming age, art will fashion our entertainment out of new means of productivity in ways that will simultaneously enhance our profit and maximize our pleasure.
Brecht’s positive vision of theater in the coming age of technology, expressed in Little Organon for the Theater (1949). In The Columbia World of Quotations (1996).
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Art (680)  |  Both (496)  |  Coming (114)  |  Concern (239)  |  Enhance (17)  |  Entertainment (19)  |  Former (138)  |  Live (650)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  New (1273)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Productivity (23)  |  Profit (56)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

Arts and sciences in one and the same century have arrived at great perfection; and no wonder, since every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies; the work then, being pushed on by many hands, must go forward.
In Samuel Austin Allibone, Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay (1880), 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Being (1276)  |  Century (319)  |  Forward (104)  |  Genius (301)  |  Great (1610)  |  Kind (564)  |  Live (650)  |  Must (1525)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Progress (492)  |  Push (66)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Study (701)  |  Universal (198)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Work (1402)

As children we all possess a natural, uninhibited curiosity, a hunger for explanation, which seems to die slowly as we age—suppressed, I suppose, by the high value we place on conformity and by the need not to appear ignorant.
It betokens a conviction that somehow science is innately incomprehensible. It precludes reaching deeper, thereby denying the profound truth that understanding enriches experience, that explanation vastly enhances the beauty of the natural world in the eye of the beholder.
In Toward the Habit of Truth (1990).
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Children (201)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Enhance (17)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Eye (440)  |  High (370)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Natural (810)  |  Possess (157)  |  Profound (105)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Value (393)  |  World (1850)

As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn’t make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting—the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.
From More Die of Heartbreak (1987, 1997), 246-247.
Science quotes on:  |  Age Of Science (2)  |  Assigned (2)  |  Behind (139)  |  Call (781)  |  Choose (116)  |  Conviction (100)  |  End (603)  |  Existence (481)  |  Game (104)  |  Humanities (21)  |  Humankind (15)  |  Motivated (14)  |  Nursery (4)  |  Painting (46)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Point (584)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Turning Point (8)  |  Type (171)  |  Wallpaper (2)  |  Worthless (22)

As he sat alone in a garden, he [Isaac Newton in 1666, age 24] fell into a speculation on the power of gravity; that as this power is not found sensibly diminished at the remotest distance from the centre of the earth to which we can rise, neither at the tops of the loftiest buildings, nor even on the summits of the highest mountains, it appeared to him reasonable to conclude that this power must extend much further than was usually thought: why not as high as the moon? said he to himself; and if so, her motion must be influenced by it; perhaps she is retained in her orbit thereby.
View of Newton's Philosophy (1728), preface. In William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences (1847), Vol. 2, 166. Pemberton's narrative is based on firsthand conversations with Newton himself.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Building (158)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extend (129)  |  Garden (64)  |  Gravity (140)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Moon (252)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Power (771)  |  Retain (57)  |  Rise (169)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Summit (27)  |  Thought (995)  |  Top (100)  |  Usually (176)  |  Why (491)

As the Director of the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos, I participated at the most senior level in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic weapons.
Now, at age 88, I am one of the few remaining such senior persons alive. Looking back at the half century since that time, I feel the most intense relief that these weapons have not been used since World War II, mixed with the horror that tens of thousands of such weapons have been built since that time—one hundred times more than any of us at Los Alamos could ever have imagined.
Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear weapons. But in some countries nuclear weapons development still continues. Whether and when the various Nations of the World can agree to stop this is uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills.
Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons - and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons.
[On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Hiroshima.]
Letter, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Nov 1995), 51:6, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Back (395)  |  Biological (137)  |  Call (781)  |  Cease (81)  |  Century (319)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Continue (179)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Development (441)  |  Disarmament (6)  |  Division (67)  |  Era (51)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Hiroshima (18)  |  Horror (15)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individual (420)  |  Influence (231)  |  Looking (191)  |  Los Alamos (6)  |  Manhattan Project (15)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Weapon (17)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Potential (75)  |  Process (439)  |  Produced (187)  |  Project (77)  |  Relief (30)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Senior (7)  |  Skill (116)  |  Still (614)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Various (205)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

As the saying goes, the Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones; we transitioned to better solutions. The same opportunity lies before us with energy efficiency and clean energy.
In letter (1 Feb 2013) to Energy Department employees announcing his decision not to serve a second term.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Clean (52)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Energy Efficiency (7)  |  Lie (370)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Transition (28)

As the world has seen its age of stone, its age of bronze, and its age of iron, so it may before long have embarked on a new and even more prosperous era—the age of aluminium.
Concluding remark in uncredited 'Topics of the Day' article, 'The Future of Aluminium', The Spectator (15 Jul 1893), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Aluminum (15)  |  Bronze (5)  |  Bronze Age (2)  |  Era (51)  |  Iron (99)  |  Iron Age (3)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Prosperity (31)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  World (1850)

As time goes on, it becomes increasingly evident that the rules which the mathematician finds interesting are the same as those which Nature has chosen.
At age 36.
"Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1939), 59 122. In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 109-110. This quote is also on this web page in a longer version that begins, “Pure mathematics and physics are… ”.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Evident (92)  |  Find (1014)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Rule (307)  |  Time (1911)

As to writing another book on geometry [to replace Euclid] the middle ages would have as soon thought of composing another New Testament.
In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 130.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  New (1273)  |  Soon (187)  |  Thought (995)  |  Writing (192)

Astrology was much in vogue during the middle ages, and became the parent of modern astronomy, as alchemy did of chemistry.
As given in Edwin Davies, Other Men's Minds, Or, Seven Thousand Choice Extracts on History, Science, Philosophy, Religion, Etc (1800), 41. Webmaster so far has not found the primary source-can you help?
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Astrology (46)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  Parent (80)  |  Vogue (4)

At about the age of sixteen, I began to feel uneasy. My confidence in adults began to be shaken. They were not smarter than us kids. They just had fixed ideas and stuck to them even if they disagreed among themselves. They were dragging us along a road to an unknown destination; they had no goal, just something to escape from: nature. … It was better to begin to look for a safer, side track. I began to feel like a prisoner calmly preparing to jump off a train that was on a wrong track.
In Ch. 1, 'Farewell to Civilization', Fatu-Hiva (1974), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Adult (24)  |  Biography (254)  |  Calm (32)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Destination (16)  |  Disagree (14)  |  Drag (8)  |  Escape (85)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fix (34)  |  Goal (155)  |  Idea (881)  |  Jump (31)  |  Kid (18)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Prisoner (8)  |  Road (71)  |  Safe (61)  |  Shaken (3)  |  Side (236)  |  Smart (33)  |  Track (42)  |  Train (118)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Wrong (246)

At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. ... I had not imagined that there was anything so delicious in the world. After I had learned the fifth proposition, my brother told me that it was generally considered difficult, but I had found no difficulty whatsoever. This was the first time it had dawned on me that I might have some intelligence.
In Autobiography: 1872-1914 (1967), Vol. 1, 37-38.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Brother (47)  |  Consider (428)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  First (1302)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  World (1850)

At the age of three I began to look around my grandfather’s library. My first knowledge of astronomy came from reading and looking at pictures at that time. By the time I was six I remember him buying books for me. … I think I was eight, he bought me a three-inch telescope on a brass mounting. It stood on a table. … So, as far back as I can remember, I had an early interest in science in general, astronomy in particular.
Oral History Transcript of interview with Dr. Jesse Greenstein by Paul Wright (31 Jul 1974), on website of American Institute of Physics.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Back (395)  |  Book (413)  |  Early (196)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Interest (416)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Library (53)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Particular (80)  |  Picture (148)  |  Reading (136)  |  Remember (189)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)

At the entrance to the observatory Stjerneborg located underground, Tycho Brahe built a Ionic portal. On top of this were three sculptured lions. On both sides were inscriptions and on the backside was a longer inscription in gold letters on a porfyr stone: Consecrated to the all-good, great God and Posterity. Tycho Brahe, Son of Otto, who realized that Astronomy, the oldest and most distinguished of all sciences, had indeed been studied for a long time and to a great extent, but still had not obtained sufficient firmness or had been purified of errors, in order to reform it and raise it to perfection, invented and with incredible labour, industry, and expenditure constructed various exact instruments suitable for all kinds of observations of the celestial bodies, and placed them partly in the neighbouring castle of Uraniborg, which was built for the same purpose, partly in these subterranean rooms for a more constant and useful application, and recommending, hallowing, and consecrating this very rare and costly treasure to you, you glorious Posterity, who will live for ever and ever, he, who has both begun and finished everything on this island, after erecting this monument, beseeches and adjures you that in honour of the eternal God, creator of the wonderful clockwork of the heavens, and for the propagation of the divine science and for the celebrity of the fatherland, you will constantly preserve it and not let it decay with old age or any other injury or be removed to any other place or in any way be molested, if for no other reason, at any rate out of reverence to the creator’s eye, which watches over the universe. Greetings to you who read this and act accordingly. Farewell!
(Translated from the original in Latin)
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Application (257)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Both (496)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Constant (148)  |  Construct (129)  |  Creator (97)  |  Decay (59)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Divine (112)  |  Entrance (16)  |  Error (339)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expenditure (16)  |  Extent (142)  |  Eye (440)  |  Finish (62)  |  Glorious (49)  |  God (776)  |  Gold (101)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greeting (10)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Honour (58)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Industry (159)  |  Injury (36)  |  Inscription (12)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Island (49)  |  Kind (564)  |  Labor (200)  |  Letter (117)  |  Lion (23)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Monument (45)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observatory (18)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Portal (9)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rare (94)  |  Read (308)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reform (22)  |  Research (753)  |  Side (236)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Time (1911)  |  Top (100)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Underground (12)  |  Universe (900)  |  Useful (260)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)

At the sea shore you pick up a pebble, fashioned after a law of nature, in the exact form that best resists pressure, and worn as smooth as glass. It is so perfect that you take it as a keepsake. But could you know its history from the time when a rough fragment of rock fell from the overhanging cliff into the sea, to be taken possession of by the under currents, and dragged from one ocean to another, perhaps around the world, for a hundred years, until in reduced and perfect form it was cast upon the beach as you find it, you would have a fit illustration of what many principles, now in familiar use, have endured, thus tried, tortured and fashioned during the ages.
From Address (1 Aug 1875), 'The Growth of Principles' at Saratoga. Collected in William L. Snyder (ed.), Great Speeches by Great Lawyers: A Collection of Arguments and Speeches (1901), 246.
Science quotes on:  |  Beach (23)  |  Best (467)  |  Cast (69)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Current (122)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fit (139)  |  Form (976)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Glass (94)  |  History (716)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Possession (68)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reduced (3)  |  Rock (176)  |  Rough (5)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seashore (7)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Wear (20)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Ay, driven no more by passion's gale,
Nor impulse unforeseen,
Humanity shall faint and fail,
And on her ruins will prevail
The Conquering Machine!
Responsibility begone!
Let Freedom's flag be furled;
Oh, coming ages, hasten on,
And bring the true Automaton,
The monarch of the world.
'The Conquering Machine', Dreams to Sell (1887), 29-30.
Science quotes on:  |  Automaton (12)  |  Coming (114)  |  Fail (191)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Hasten (13)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Machine (271)  |  More (2558)  |  Passion (121)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Unforeseen (11)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Babbage … gave the name to the [Cambridge] Analytical Society, which he stated was formed to advocate “the principles of pure d-ism as opposed to the dot-age of the university.”
In History of Mathematics (3rd Ed., 1901), 451.
Science quotes on:  |  Advocate (20)  |  Anecdote (21)  |  Charles Babbage (54)  |  Dot (18)  |  Form (976)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Name (359)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pure (299)  |  Society (350)  |  University (130)

Bacteria represent the world’s greatest success story. They are today and have always been the modal organisms on earth; they cannot be nuked to oblivion and will outlive us all. This time is their time, not the ‘age of mammals’ as our textbooks chauvinistically proclaim. But their price for such success is permanent relegation to a microworld, and they cannot know the joy and pain of consciousness. We live in a universe of trade-offs; complexity and persistence do not work well as partners.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bacterium (6)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Live (650)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Microworld (2)  |  Oblivion (10)  |  Organism (231)  |  Outlive (4)  |  Pain (144)  |  Partner (5)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Price (57)  |  Proclaim (31)  |  Relegation (3)  |  Represent (157)  |  Story (122)  |  Success (327)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Because a child of one doubles its age after the passage of a single year, it can be said to be aging rapidly.
Speech at the Nobel Banquet (10 Dec 1983) for his Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In Wilhelm Odelberg (ed.), Les Prix Nobel: The Nobel Prizes (1984), 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Aging (9)  |  Child (333)  |  Double (18)  |  Passage (52)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Single (365)  |  Year (963)

Because science flourishes, must poesy decline? The complaint serves but to betray the weakness of the class who urge it. True, in an age like the present,—considerably more scientific than poetical,—science substitutes for the smaller poetry of fiction, the great poetry of truth.
Lecture Second, collected in Popular Geology: A Series of Lectures Read Before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's Portfolio (1859), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Betray (8)  |  Class (168)  |  Decline (28)  |  Fiction (23)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Great (1610)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Present (630)  |  Science And Poetry (17)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Urge (17)  |  Weakness (50)

Before thirty, men seek disease; after thirty, diseases seek men.
Chinese proverb.
Science quotes on:  |  Disease (340)  |  Seek (218)

Being also in accord with Goethe that discoveries are made by the age and not by the individual, I should consider the instances to be exceedingly rare of men who can be said to be living before their age, and to be the repository of knowledge quite foreign to the thought of the time. The rule is that a number of persons are employed at a particular piece of work, but one being a few steps in advance of the others is able to crown the edifice with his name, or, having the ability to generalise already known facts, may become in time to be regarded as their originator. Therefore it is that one name is remembered whilst those of coequals have long been buried in obscurity.
In Historical Notes on Bright's Disease, Addison's Disease, and Hodgkin's Disease', Guy's Hospital Reports (1877), 22, 259-260.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Advance (298)  |  Already (226)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Coequal (2)  |  Consider (428)  |  Crown (39)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Employ (115)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (150)  |  Individual (420)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Name (359)  |  Number (710)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Originator (7)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Rare (94)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remember (189)  |  Repository (5)  |  Rule (307)  |  Step (234)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)

Believe me, this planet has put up with much worse than us. It’s been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, solar flares, sun-spots, magnetic storms, pole reversals, planetary floods, worldwide fires, tidal waves, wind and water erosion, cosmic rays, ice ages, and hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets, asteroids, and meteors. And people think a few plastic bags and aluminum cans are going to make a difference?
In Napalm and Silly Putty (2002), 97.
Science quotes on:  |  Aluminum (15)  |  Asteroid (19)  |  Bombardment (3)  |  Comet (65)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Difference (355)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Environment (239)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flood (52)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Ice (58)  |  Ice Age (10)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Meteor (19)  |  People (1031)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Plastic Bag (2)  |  Plate Tectonics (22)  |  Pole (49)  |  Ray (115)  |  Solar Flare (2)  |  Storm (56)  |  Storms (18)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunspot (5)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Tidal Wave (2)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wind (141)  |  Worldwide (19)  |  Worse (25)  |  Year (963)

But as Geographers use to place Seas upon that place of the Globe which they know not: so chronologers, who are near of kin to them, use to blot out ages past, which they know not. They drown those Countries which they know not: These with cruel pen kill the times they heard not of, and deny which they know not.
Prae-Adamitae (1655), trans. Men Before Adam (1656), 164, published anonymously.
Science quotes on:  |  Chronology (9)  |  Cruel (25)  |  Deny (71)  |  Geographer (7)  |  Globe (51)  |  Kill (100)  |  Kin (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Map (50)  |  Past (355)  |  Pen (21)  |  Sea (326)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)

But, contrary to the lady’s prejudices about the engineering profession, the fact is that quite some time ago the tables were turned between theory and applications in the physical sciences. Since World War II the discoveries that have changed the world are not made so much in lofty halls of theoretical physics as in the less-noticed labs of engineering and experimental physics. The roles of pure and applied science have been reversed; they are no longer what they were in the golden age of physics, in the age of Einstein, Schrödinger, Fermi and Dirac.
'The Age of Computing: a Personal Memoir', Daedalus (1992), 121, 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Paul A. M. Dirac (45)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Enrico Fermi (20)  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physics (564)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Profession (108)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Role (86)  |  Erwin Schrödinger (68)  |  Table (105)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)  |  World War II (9)

By death the moon was gathered in Long ago, ah long ago;
Yet still the silver corpse must spin
And with another's light must glow.
Her frozen mountains must forget
Their primal hot volcanic breath,
Doomed to revolve for ages yet,
Void amphitheatres of death.
And all about the cosmic sky,
The black that lies beyond our blue,
Dead stars innumerable lie,
And stars of red and angry hue
Not dead but doomed to die.
'Cosmic Death' (1923), in The Captive Shrew and Other Poems of a Biologist (1932), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Amphitheatre (2)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Breath (61)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Crater (8)  |  Death (406)  |  Doom (34)  |  Forget (125)  |  Gather (76)  |  Hot (63)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Poem (104)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Silver (49)  |  Sky (174)  |  Spin (26)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Void (31)  |  Volcano (46)

By the worldly standards of public life, all scholars in their work are of course oddly virtuous. They do not make wild claims, they do not cheat, they do not try to persuade at any cost, they appeal neither to prejudice nor to authority, they are often frank about their ignorance, their disputes are fairly decorous, they do not confuse what is being argued with race, politics, sex or age, they listen patiently to the young and to the old who both know everything. These are the general virtues of scholarship, and they are peculiarly the virtues of science.
In Science and Human Values (1956).
Science quotes on:  |  Authority (99)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Cheat (13)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cost (94)  |  Course (413)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  General (521)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Listen (81)  |  Old (499)  |  Politics (122)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Race (278)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Sex (68)  |  Try (296)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Virtuous (9)  |  Wild (96)  |  Work (1402)  |  Young (253)

Chemistry is yet, indeed, a mere embryon. Its principles are contested; experiments seem contradictory; their subjects are so minute as to escape our senses; and their result too fallacious to satisfy the mind. It is probably an age too soon to propose the establishment of a system.
Letter to Rev. James Madison (Paris, 19 Jul 1788). In Thomas Jefferson and John P. Foley (ed.), The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia (1900), 135. From H.A. Washington, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1853-54). Vol 2, 431.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Escape (85)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fallacious (13)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Principle (530)  |  Result (700)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soon (187)  |  Subject (543)  |  System (545)

Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public service.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Consider (428)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Free (239)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Important (229)  |   Magazine (26)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Public Service (6)  |  Service (110)  |  Significance (114)  |  Socialism (4)  |  Taboo (5)  |  Transition (28)

Conformity-enforcing packs of vicious children and adults gradually shape the social complexes we know as religion, science, corporations, ethnic groups, and even nations. The tools of our cohesion include ridicule, rejection, snobbery, self-righteousness, assault, torture, and death by stoning, lethal injection, or the noose. A collective brain may sound warm and fuzzily New Age, but one force lashing it together is abuse.
In 'The Conformity Police', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Abuse (25)  |  Adult (24)  |  Assault (12)  |  Brain (281)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Cohesion (7)  |  Collective (24)  |  Complex (202)  |  Conform (15)  |  Corporation (6)  |  Death (406)  |  Enforce (11)  |  Ethnic (2)  |  Force (497)  |  Fuzzy (5)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Group (83)  |  Include (93)  |  Injection (9)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lash (3)  |  Lethal (4)  |  Nation (208)  |  New (1273)  |  New Age (6)  |  Noose (2)  |  Pack (6)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Religion (369)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Righteousness (6)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Righteous (2)  |  Shape (77)  |  Social (261)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stone (168)  |  Together (392)  |  Tool (129)  |  Torture (30)  |  Vicious (5)  |  Warm (74)

Consider the plight of a scientist of my age. I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1940. In the 41 years since then the amount of biological information has increased 16 fold; during these 4 decades my capacity to absorb new information has declined at an accelerating rate and now is at least 50% less than when I was a graduate student. If one defines ignorance as the ratio of what is available to be known to what is known, there seems no alternative to the conclusion that my ignorance is at least 25 times as extensive as it was when I got my bachelor’s degree. Although I am sure that my unfortunate condition comes as no surprise to my students and younger colleagues, I personally find it somewhat depressing. My depression is tempered, however, by the fact that all biologists, young or old, developing or senescing, face the same melancholy situation because of an interlocking set of circumstances.
In 'Scientific innovation and creativity: a zoologist’s point of view', American Zoologist (1982), 22, 228.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Accelerate (11)  |  Alternative (32)  |  Amount (153)  |  Available (80)  |  Bachelor (3)  |  Berkeley (3)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consider (428)  |  Decade (66)  |  Decline (28)  |  Define (53)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depressing (3)  |  Depression (26)  |  Develop (278)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fold (9)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Graduate Student (13)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Increase (225)  |  Information (173)  |  Interlocking (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Least (75)  |  Less (105)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Personally (7)  |  Plight (5)  |  Rate (31)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Same (166)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seem (150)  |  Set (400)  |  Situation (117)  |  Student (317)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Temper (12)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  University (130)  |  University Of California (2)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)  |  Younger (21)

Criticism, though dignified from the earliest ages by the labours of men eminent for knowledge and sagacity, has not yet attained the certainty and stability of science.
In Samuel Austin Allibone, Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay (1880), 151.
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Sagacity (11)  |  Stability (28)

Deprived, therefore, as regards this period, of any assistance from history, but relieved at the same time from the embarrassing interference of tradition, the archaeologist is free to follow the methods which have been so successfully pursued in geology—the rude bone and stone implements of bygone ages being to the one what the remains of extinct animals are to the other. The analogy may be pursued even further than this. Many mammalia which are extinct in Europe have representatives still living in other countries. Our fossil pachyderms, for instance, would be almost unintelligible but for the species which still inhabit some parts of Asia and Africa; the secondary marsupials are illustrated by their existing representatives in Australia and South America; and in the same manner, if we wish clearly to understand the antiquities of Europe, we must compare them with the rude implements and weapons still, or until lately, used by the savage races in other parts of the world. In fact, the Van Diemaner and South American are to the antiquary what the opossum and the sloth are to the geologist.
Pre-historic Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages, (2nd ed. 1869, 1890), 429-430.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  America (143)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Animal (651)  |  Antiquary (4)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Archaeologist (18)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Australia (11)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bone (101)  |  Bygone (4)  |  Compare (76)  |  Europe (50)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Follow (389)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Free (239)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Geology (240)  |  History (716)  |  Implement (13)  |  Interference (22)  |  Living (492)  |  Marsupial (2)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Opossum (3)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Race (278)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remain (355)  |  Savage (33)  |  Sloth (7)  |  South (39)  |  South America (6)  |  Species (435)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Understand (648)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Wish (216)  |  World (1850)

Disease is largely a removable evil. It continues to afflict humanity, not only because of incomplete knowledge of its causes and lack of individual and public hygiene, but also because it is extensively fostered by harsh economic and industrial conditions and by wretched housing in congested communities. ... The reduction of the death rate is the principal statistical expression and index of human social progress. It means the saving and lengthening of lives of thousands of citizens, the extension of the vigorous working period well into old age, and the prevention of inefficiency, misery, and suffering. These advances can be made by organized social effort. Public health is purchasable. (1911)
Quoted in Evelynn Maxine Hammonds, Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930(1999), 221.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Affliction (6)  |  Cause (561)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Community (111)  |  Condition (362)  |  Congestion (2)  |  Continue (179)  |  Death (406)  |  Disease (340)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economy (59)  |  Effort (243)  |  Evil (122)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extension (60)  |  Foster (12)  |  Health (210)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Hygiene (13)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Incompleteness (2)  |  Individual (420)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lack (127)  |  Live (650)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Misery (31)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Period (200)  |  Prevention (37)  |  Principal (69)  |  Progress (492)  |  Public Health (12)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Progress (3)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Wretched (8)

Do not expect to be hailed as a hero when you make your great discovery. More likely you will be a ratbag—maybe failed by your examiners. Your statistics, or your observations, or your literature study, or your something else will be patently deficient. Do not doubt that in our enlightened age the really important advances are and will be rejected more often than acclaimed. Nor should we doubt that in our own professional lifetime we too will repudiate with like pontifical finality the most significant insight ever to reach our desk.
Theories of the Earth and Universe (1988), 365.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Career (86)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightened (25)  |  Examiner (5)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fail (191)  |  Finality (8)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hero (45)  |  Insight (107)  |  Literature (116)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Observation (593)  |  Patently (4)  |  Professional (77)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Repudiate (7)  |  Significant (78)  |  Something (718)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Study (701)  |  Will (2350)

Doctors in all ages have made fortunes by killing their patients by means of their cures. The difference in psychiatry is that is the death of the soul.
From Address (Jul 1967), 'The Obvious', to the Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation, London, collected in David Cooper, The Dialectics of Liberation (2015), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Cure (124)  |  Death (406)  |  Difference (355)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Kill (100)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Patient (209)  |  Psychiatry (26)  |  Soul (235)

Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Condition (362)  |  Dream (222)  |  Matter (821)  |  New (1273)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Renewable (7)  |  Still (614)  |  Untapped (2)  |  Wait (66)  |  Waiting (42)

Drunkenness, the ruin of reason, the destruction of strength, premature old age, momentary death.
Homilies, No. XIV, Ch. 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Alcoholism (6)  |  Death (406)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Reason (766)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Strength (139)

During my span of life science has become a matter of public concern and the l'art pour l'art standpoint of my youth is now obsolete. Science has become an integral and most important part of our civilization, and scientific work means contributing to its development. Science in our technical age has social, economic, and political functions, and however remote one's own work is from technical application it is a link in the chain of actions and decisions which determine the fate of the human race. I realized this aspect of science in its full impact only after Hiroshima.
Max Born
My Life & My Views (1968), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Application (257)  |  Art (680)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Become (821)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Concern (239)  |  Decision (98)  |  Determine (152)  |  Development (441)  |  Economic (84)  |  Fate (76)  |  Function (235)  |  Hiroshima (18)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Impact (45)  |  Integral (26)  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  Political (124)  |  Politics (122)  |  Race (278)  |  Remote (86)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Social (261)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Work (1402)  |  Youth (109)

During the long ages of class rule, which are just beginning to cease, only one form of sovereignty has been assigned to all men—that, namely, over all women. Upon these feeble and inferior companions all men were permitted to avenge the indignities they suffered from so many men to whom they were forced to submit.
In “Common Sense” Applied to Woman Suffrage (1894), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Avenge (2)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Cease (81)  |  Class (168)  |  Companion (22)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Form (976)  |  Indignity (2)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Permit (61)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sovereignty (6)  |  Submit (21)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Woman (160)

Early Greek astronomers, derived their first knowledge from the Egyptians, and these from the Chaldeans, among whom the science was studied, at a very early period. Their knowledge of astronomy, which gave their learned men the name of Magi, wise men, afterwards degenerated into astrology, or the art of consulting the position of the stars to foretel events—and hence sprung the silly occupation of sooth saying, for which the Chaldeans were noted to a proverb, in later ages.
In Elements of Useful Knowledge (1806), Vol. 1, 8-9. Note “foretel” is as printed in this text.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Astrology (46)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Chaldea (4)  |  Consulting (13)  |  Degenerate (14)  |  Early (196)  |  Egyptian (5)  |  Event (222)  |  First (1302)  |  Foretell (12)  |  Greek (109)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Late (119)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Name (359)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Period (200)  |  Position (83)  |  Proverb (29)  |  Silly (17)  |  Spring (140)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Wise (143)

Education is like a diamond with many facets: It includes the basic mastery of numbers and letters that give us access to the treasury of human knowledge, accumulated and refined through the ages; it includes technical and vocational training as well as instruction in science, higher mathematics, and humane letters.
In Proclamation 5463, for Education Day (19 Apr 1986). Collected in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1986 (1988), 490.
Science quotes on:  |  Access (21)  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Basic (144)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Education (423)  |  Facet (9)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humane (19)  |  Humanities (21)  |  Include (93)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Letter (117)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Number (710)  |  Refinement (19)  |  Technical (53)  |  Through (846)  |  Training (92)  |  Treasury (3)

Endowed with two qualities, which seemed incompatible with each other, a volcanic imagination and a pertinacity of intellect which the most tedious numerical calculations could not daunt, Kepler conjectured that the movements of the celestial bodies must be connected together by simple laws, or, to use his own expression, by harmonic laws. These laws he undertook to discover. A thousand fruitless attempts, errors of calculation inseparable from a colossal undertaking, did not prevent him a single instant from advancing resolutely toward the goal of which he imagined he had obtained a glimpse. Twenty-two years were employed by him in this investigation, and still he was not weary of it! What, in reality, are twenty-two years of labor to him who is about to become the legislator of worlds; who shall inscribe his name in ineffaceable characters upon the frontispiece of an immortal code; who shall be able to exclaim in dithyrambic language, and without incurring the reproach of anyone, “The die is cast; I have written my book; it will be read either in the present age or by posterity, it matters not which; it may well await a reader, since God has waited six thousand years for an interpreter of his words.”
In 'Eulogy on Laplace', in Smithsonian Report for the year 1874 (1875), 131-132.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Anyone (38)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Await (6)  |  Become (821)  |  Body (557)  |  Book (413)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Cast (69)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Character (259)  |  Code (31)  |  Colossal (15)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Connect (126)  |  Die (94)  |  Discover (571)  |  Employ (115)  |  Endow (17)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Error (339)  |  Exclaim (15)  |  Expression (181)  |  Frontispiece (2)  |  Fruitless (9)  |  Glimpse (16)  |  Goal (155)  |  God (776)  |  Harmonic (4)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Incompatible (4)  |  Incur (4)  |  Inscribe (4)  |  Inseparable (18)  |  Instant (46)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Interpreter (8)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Labor (200)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Legislator (4)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pertinacity (2)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Present (630)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Quality (139)  |  Read (308)  |  Reader (42)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reproach (4)  |  Resolutely (3)  |  Simple (426)  |  Single (365)  |  Still (614)  |  Tedious (15)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Together (392)  |  Toward (45)  |  Two (936)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Undertaking (17)  |  Use (771)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Wait (66)  |  Weary (11)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)  |  Year (963)

Etna presents us not merely with an image of the power of subterranean heat, but a record also of the vast period of time during which that power has been exerted. A majestic mountain has been produced by volcanic action, yet the time of which the volcanic forms the register, however vast, is found by the geologist to be of inconsiderable amount, even in the modern annals of the earth’s history. In like manner, the Falls of Niagara teach us not merely to appreciate the power of moving water, but furnish us at the same time with data for estimating the enormous lapse of ages during which that force has operated. A deep and long ravine has been excavated, and the river has required ages to accomplish the task, yet the same region affords evidence that the sum of these ages is as nothing, and as the work of yesterday, when compared to the antecedent periods, of which there are monuments in the same district.
Travels in North America (1845), Vol. 1, 28-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Amount (153)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Data (162)  |  Deep (241)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Etna (5)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exert (40)  |  Fall (243)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Heat (180)  |  History (716)  |  Image (97)  |  Lava (12)  |  Long (778)  |  Merely (315)  |  Modern (402)  |  Monument (45)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Niagara (8)  |  Niagara Falls (4)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Period (200)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Produced (187)  |  Ravine (5)  |  Record (161)  |  Register (22)  |  Required (108)  |  River (140)  |  Sum (103)  |  Task (152)  |  Teach (299)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vast (188)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yesterday (37)

Eventually the process of aging, which is unlikely to be simple, should be understandable. Hopefully some of its processes can be slowed down or avoided. In fact, in the next century, we shall have to tackle the question of the preferred form of death.
(1986).
Science quotes on:  |  Aging (9)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Century (319)  |  Death (406)  |  Down (455)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Next (238)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Simple (426)  |  Slow (108)  |  Tackle (6)  |  Understandable (12)

Every breath you draw, every accelerated beat of your heart in the emotional periods of your oratory depend upon highly elaborated physical and chemical reactions and mechanisms which nature has been building up through a million centuries. If one of these mechanisms, which you owe entirely to your animal ancestry, were to be stopped for a single instant, you would fall lifeless on the stage. Not only this, but some of your highest ideals of human fellowship and comradeship were not created in a moment, but represent the work of ages.
Quoted in Closing Address by Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin, president of the Union Theological Seminary, New York, at the Memorial Service for Osborn at St. Bartholomew's Church, N.Y. (18 Dec 1935). In 'Henry Fairfield Osborn', Supplement to Natural History (Feb 1936), 37:2, 133-34. Bound in Kofoid Collection of Pamphlets on Biography, University of California.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancestry (13)  |  Animal (651)  |  Beat (42)  |  Breath (61)  |  William Jennings Bryan (20)  |  Building (158)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Reaction (17)  |  Chemical Reactions (13)  |  Deaf (4)  |  Depend (238)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drowning (2)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Elaborated (7)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fall (243)  |  Heart (243)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Instant (46)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Moment (260)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Owe (71)  |  Period (200)  |  Physical (518)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Represent (157)  |  Single (365)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Speech (66)  |  Stage (152)  |  Through (846)  |  Voice (54)  |  Work (1402)

Every living language, like the perspiring bodies of living creatures, is in perpetual motion and alteration; some words go off, and become obsolete; others are taken in, and by degrees grow into common use; or the same word is inverted to a new sense and notion, which in tract of time makes as observable a change in the air and features of a language as age makes in the lines and mien of a face.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Common (447)  |  Creature (242)  |  Degree (277)  |  Face (214)  |  Grow (247)  |  Language (308)  |  Living (492)  |  Motion (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Notion (120)  |  Observable (21)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Perpetual Motion (14)  |  Perspire (2)  |  Sense (785)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

Every new theory as it arises believes in the flush of youth that it has the long sought goal; it sees no limits to its applicability, and believes that at last it is the fortunate theory to achieve the 'right' answer. This was true of electron theory—perhaps some readers will remember a book called The Electrical Theory of the Universe by de Tunzelman. It is true of general relativity theory with its belief that we can formulate a mathematical scheme that will extrapolate to all past and future time and the unfathomed depths of space. It has been true of wave mechanics, with its first enthusiastic claim a brief ten years ago that no problem had successfully resisted its attack provided the attack was properly made, and now the disillusionment of age when confronted by the problems of the proton and the neutron. When will we learn that logic, mathematics, physical theory, are all only inventions for formulating in compact and manageable form what we already know, like all inventions do not achieve complete success in accomplishing what they were designed to do, much less complete success in fields beyond the scope of the original design, and that our only justification for hoping to penetrate at all into the unknown with these inventions is our past experience that sometimes we have been fortunate enough to be able to push on a short distance by acquired momentum.
The Nature of Physical Theory (1936), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Already (226)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arise (162)  |  Attack (86)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Book (413)  |  Brief (37)  |  Call (781)  |  Claim (154)  |  Compact (13)  |  Complete (209)  |  Depth (97)  |  Design (203)  |  Disillusionment (2)  |  Distance (171)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electron (96)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experience (494)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  General Relativity (10)  |  Goal (155)  |  Invention (400)  |  Justification (52)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Learn (672)  |  Limit (294)  |  Logic (311)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Momentum (10)  |  Neutron (23)  |  New (1273)  |  Past (355)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Physical (518)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proton (23)  |  Push (66)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Remember (189)  |  Right (473)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Scope (44)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Space (523)  |  Success (327)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Wave (112)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)  |  Youth (109)

Every one should keep a mental waste-paper basket and the older he grows the more things he will consign to it—torn up to irrecoverable tatters.
Samuel Butler, Henry Festing Jones (ed.), The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1917), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Consign (2)  |  Grow (247)  |  Mental (179)  |  More (2558)  |  Paper (192)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Torn (17)  |  Waste (109)  |  Will (2350)

Every phenomenon, however trifling it be, has a cause, and a mind infinitely powerful, and infinitely well-informed concerning the laws of nature could have foreseen it from the beginning of the ages. If a being with such a mind existed, we could play no game of chance with him; we should always lose.
Science and Method (1908), trans. Francis Maitland (1914), 65.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chance (244)  |  Concern (239)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Foresight (8)  |  Game (104)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Inform (50)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Lose (165)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Play (116)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Trifle (18)  |  Well-Informed (7)

Everyone faces at all times two fateful possibilities: one is to grow older, the other not.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Face (214)  |  Grow (247)  |  Other (2233)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)

Experience hobbles progress and leads to abandonment of difficult problems; it encourages the initiated to walk on the shady side of the street in the direction of experiences that have been pleasant. Youth without experience attacks the unsolved problems which maturer age with experience avoids, and from the labors of youth comes progress. Youth has dreams and visions, and will not be denied.
From speech 'In the Time of Henry Jacob Bigelow', given to the Boston Surgical Society, Medalist Meeting (6 Jun 1921). Printed in Journal of the Medical Association (1921), 77, 599.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Attack (86)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Denial (20)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direction (185)  |  Dream (222)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Encouragement (27)  |  Experience (494)  |  Initiated (2)  |  Labor (200)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mature (17)  |  Pleasant (22)  |  Problem (731)  |  Progress (492)  |  Side (236)  |  Street (25)  |  Unsolved (15)  |  Vision (127)  |  Walk (138)  |  Will (2350)  |  Youth (109)

Few intellectual tyrannies can be more recalcitrant than the truths that everybody knows and nearly no one can defend with any decent data (for who needs proof of anything so obvious). And few intellectual activities can be more salutary than attempts to find out whether these rocks of ages might crumble at the slightest tap of an informational hammer.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Crumble (5)  |  Data (162)  |  Decent (12)  |  Defend (32)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Find (1014)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Know (1538)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Need (320)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Proof (304)  |  Rock (176)  |  Salutary (5)  |  Slight (32)  |  Tap (10)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Tyranny (15)

First Painter of the Atomic Age.
Title he declared for himself, during press conference at the Lefevre Gallery in London. As quoted in Norwalk, Ohio, newspaper article, Fred Doerflinger, 'Painter Salvador Dalí Quits Surrealism To Take Fling At New Atomic Age Art', Norwalk Reflector-Herald, (1 Feb 1952), 1. Dali’s exhibition opened at the gallery on 4 Dec 1951. Quoted and cited in Michael R. Taylor, 'God and the Atom: Salvador Dalí’s Mystical Manifesto and the Contested Origins of Nuclear Painting', Avant-garde Studies (Fall 2016), No. 2, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Age (6)  |  First (1302)  |  Painter (30)

First were mainframes, each shared by lots of people. Now we are in the personal computing era, person and machine staring uneasily at each other across the desktop. Next comes ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives.
From biography on University of California, Berkeley, website.
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Calm (32)  |  Computer (131)  |  Desktop (2)  |  Era (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Lot (151)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mainframe (3)  |  Next (238)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Personal (75)  |  Recede (11)  |  Receding (2)  |  Sharing (11)  |  Staring (3)  |  Technology (281)  |  Ubiquitous (5)

For forty-nine months between 1968 and 1972, two dozen Americans had the great good fortune to briefly visit the Moon. Half of us became the first emissaries from Earth to tread its dusty surface. We who did so were privileged to represent the hopes and dreams of all humanity. For mankind it was a giant leap for a species that evolved from the Stone Age to create sophisticated rockets and spacecraft that made a Moon landing possible. For one crowning moment, we were creatures of the cosmic ocean, an epoch that a thousand years hence may be seen as the signature of our century.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Become (821)  |  Briefly (5)  |  Century (319)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Create (245)  |  Creature (242)  |  Crown (39)  |  Dozen (10)  |  Dream (222)  |  Dusty (8)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Forty-Nine (2)  |  Giant (73)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Half (63)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Leap (57)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Moment (260)  |  Month (91)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moon Landing (9)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Possible (560)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Represent (157)  |  Rocket (52)  |  See (1094)  |  Signature (4)  |  Sophisticated (16)  |  Spacecraft (6)  |  Species (435)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tread (17)  |  Two (936)  |  Visit (27)  |  Year (963)

For the environmentalists, The Space Option is the ultimate environmental solution. For the Cornucopians, it is the technological fix that they are relying on. For the hard core space community, the obvious by-product would be the eventual exploration and settlement of the solar system. For most of humanity however, the ultimate benefit is having a realistic hope in a future with possibilities.... If our species does not soon embrace this unique opportunity with sufficient commitment, it may miss its one and only chance to do so. Humanity could soon be overwhelmed by one or more of the many challenges it now faces. The window of opportunity is closing as fast as the population is increasing. Our future will be either a Space Age or a Stone Age.
Arthur Woods and Marco Bernasconi
Science quotes on:  |  Benefit (123)  |  By-Product (8)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Chance (244)  |  Close (77)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Community (111)  |  Core (20)  |  Do (1905)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Environment (239)  |  Environmentalist (7)  |  Eventual (9)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Face (214)  |  Fast (49)  |  Fix (34)  |  Future (467)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Increase (225)  |  Miss (51)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Option (10)  |  Overwhelm (5)  |  Overwhelmed (6)  |  Population (115)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Product (166)  |  Realistic (6)  |  Rely (12)  |  Settlement (3)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Solution (282)  |  Soon (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Age (4)  |  Species (435)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  System (545)  |  Technological (62)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unique (72)  |  Will (2350)  |  Window (59)

For those [observations] that I made in Leipzig in my youth and up to my 21st year, I usually call childish and of doubtful value. Those that I took later until my 28th year [i.e., until 1574] I call juvenile and fairly serviceable. The third group, however, which I made at Uraniborg during approximately the last 21 years with the greatest care and with very accurate instruments at a more mature age, until I was fifty years of age, those I call the observations of my manhood, completely valid and absolutely certain, and this is my opinion of them.
In H. Raeder, E. and B. Stromgren (eds. and trans.), Tycho Brahe’s Description of his Instruments and Scientific Work: as given in Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica, Wandesburgi 1598 (1946), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Call (781)  |  Care (203)  |  Certain (557)  |  Childish (20)  |  Completely (137)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Last (425)  |  Mature (17)  |  More (2558)  |  Observation (593)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Usually (176)  |  Value (393)  |  Year (963)  |  Youth (109)

Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown; and in philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian hero can never apply,– there are always new worlds to conquer.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Belong (168)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Country (269)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fortunately (9)  |  Hero (45)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Know (1538)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  New Worlds (5)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Remain (355)  |  Sentiment (16)  |  Space (523)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unknown (195)  |  World (1850)

From a man’s hat, or a horse’s tail, we can reconstruct the age we live in, like that scientist, you remember, who reconstructed a mastodon from its funny-bone.
In paper, 'For Love of Beasts', Pall Mall Gazette (1912). Collected and cited in A Sheaf (1916), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Bone (101)  |  Hat (9)  |  Horse (78)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mastodon (4)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Remember (189)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Tail (21)

From the age of 13, I was attracted to physics and mathematics. My interest in these subjects derived mostly from popular science books that I read avidly. Early on I was fascinated by theoretical physics and determined to become a theoretical physicist. I had no real idea what that meant, but it seemed incredibly exciting to spend one's life attempting to find the secrets of the universe by using one's mind.
From 'Autobiography', in Tore Frängsmyr (ed.) Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 2004, (2005).
Science quotes on:  |  Attempting (3)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Become (821)  |  Book (413)  |  Career (86)  |  Determination (80)  |  Early (196)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Fascination (35)  |  Find (1014)  |  Idea (881)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Interest (416)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Popular (34)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Secret (216)  |  Spend (97)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)

From thus meditating on the great similarity of the structure of the warm-blooded animals, and at the same time of the great changes they undergo both before and after their nativity; and by considering in how minute a portion of time many of the changes of animals above described have been produced; would it be too bold to imagine that, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions and associations, and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!
Zoonomia, Or, The Laws of Organic Life, in three parts (1803), Vol. 1, 397.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Animal (651)  |  Association (49)  |  Attend (67)  |  Blood (144)  |  Bold (22)  |  Both (496)  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Commencement (14)  |  Direct (228)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Filament (4)  |  First (1302)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Mankind (15)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Living (492)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Minute (129)  |  New (1273)  |  Portion (86)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Power (771)  |  Produced (187)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Small (489)  |  Structure (365)  |  Time (1911)  |  Volition (3)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warm-Blooded (3)  |  World (1850)

Genius-worship is the infallible sign of an uncreative age.
In Art (1928), 161.
Science quotes on:  |  Genius (301)  |  Infallible (18)  |  Sign (63)  |  Uncreative (2)  |  Worship (32)

Geology is rapidly taking its place as an introduction to the higher history of man. If the author has sought to exalt a favorite science, it has been with the desire that man—in whom geological history had its consummation, the prophecies of the successive ages their fulfilment—might better comprehend his own nobility and the true purpose of his existence.
Concluding remark in Preface (1 Nov 1862), in Manual of Geology, Treating of the Principles of the Science (1863), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Better (493)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Desire (212)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Existence (481)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Fulfillment (20)  |  Geology (240)  |  History (716)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nobility (5)  |  Prophecy (14)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Successive (73)

He (Anaxagoras) is said to have been twenty years old at the time of Xerxes' crossing, and to have lived to seventy-two. Apollodorus says in his Chronicles that he was born in the seventieth Olympiad (500-497 B.C.) and died in the first year of the eighty-eighth (428/7). He began to be a philosopher at Athens in the archonship of Callias (456/5), at the age of twenty, as Demetrius Phalereus tells us in his Register of Archons, and they say he spent thirty years there. … There are different accounts given of his trial. Sotion, in his Succession of Philosophers, says that he was prosecuted by Cleon for impiety, because he maintained that the sun was a red hot mass of metal, and after that Pericles, his pupil, had made a speech in his defence, he was fined five talents and exiled. Satyrus in his Uves, on the other hand, says that the charge was brought by Thucydides in his political campaign against Pericles; and he adds that the charge was not only for the impiety but for Medism as well; and he was condemned to death in his absence. ... Finally he withdrew to Lampsacus, and there died. It is said that when the rulers of the city asked him what privilege he wished to be granted, he replied that the children should be given a holiday every year in the month in which he died. The custom is preserved to the present day. When he died the Lampsacenes buried him with full honours.
Diogenes Laërtius 2.7. In G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield (eds.), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1983), p. 353.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Against (332)  |  Anaxagoras (11)  |  Ask (420)  |  Charge (63)  |  Children (201)  |  City (87)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Custom (44)  |  Death (406)  |  Defence (16)  |  Different (595)  |  First (1302)  |  Grant (76)  |  Holiday (12)  |  Honour (58)  |  Hot (63)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mass (160)  |  Metal (88)  |  Month (91)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Political (124)  |  Present (630)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Register (22)  |  Ruler (21)  |  Say (989)  |  Speech (66)  |  Spent (85)  |  Succession (80)  |  Sun (407)  |  Talent (99)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trial (59)  |  Two (936)  |  Wish (216)  |  Year (963)

He plucks the pearls that stud the deep Admiring Beauty’s lap to fill;
He breaks the stubborn Marble’s sleep,
Rocks disappear before his skill:
With thoughts that swell his glowing soul
He bids the ore illume the page,
And, proudly scorning Time’s control,
Commences with an unborn age.
Written for the Mechanics Celebration (1824). In 'Art—An Ode', as quoted and cited in Alpheus Cary, An Address Delivered Before the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association (October 7th, 1824) (1824), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Break (109)  |  Control (182)  |  Deep (241)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Geology (240)  |  Lap (9)  |  Marble (21)  |  Ore (14)  |  Pearl (8)  |  Rock (176)  |  Skill (116)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Soul (235)  |  Stubborn (14)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unborn (5)

He plucks the pearls that stud the deep Admiring Beauty’s lap to fill;
He breaks the stubborn Marble’s sleep,
Rocks disappear before his skill:
With thoughts that swell his glowing soul
He bids the ore illume the page,
And, proudly scorning Time’s control,
Commences with an unborn age.
Written for the Mechanics Celebration (1824). In 'Art—An Ode', as quoted and cited in Alpheus Cary, An Address Delivered Before the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association (October 7th, 1824) (1824), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Break (109)  |  Control (182)  |  Deep (241)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Lap (9)  |  Marble (21)  |  Ore (14)  |  Rock (176)  |  Skill (116)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Soul (235)  |  Stubborn (14)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)

He that desires to learn Truth should teach himself by Facts and Experiments; by which means he will learn more in a Year than by abstract reasoning in an Age.
In Academical Lectures on the Theory of Physic (1751), Vol. 1. As quoted in Thomas Steele Hall, A Source Book in Animal Biology (1951), 485.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Desire (212)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Himself (461)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Teach (299)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

He was not a mathematician–he never even took a maths class after high school–yet Martin Gardner, who has died aged 95, was arguably the most influential and inspirational figure in mathematics in the second half of the last century.
In 'Martin Gardner Obituary', The Guardian (27 May 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Century (319)  |  Class (168)  |  Die (94)  |  Figure (162)  |  Martin Gardner (50)  |  High (370)  |  High School (15)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Last (425)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  School (227)

HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood- pump. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments—a very pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once universal belief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a feeling—tender or not, according to the age of the animal from which it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram; the marvelous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility—these things have been patiently ascertained by M. Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity. 
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  133-134.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Blood (144)  |  Boil (24)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Cut (116)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Egg (71)  |  Elaboration (11)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Food (213)  |  Gastric (3)  |  Hard (246)  |  Heart (243)  |  Humour (116)  |  Known (453)  |  Lucidity (7)  |  Marvelous (31)  |  Method (531)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Organ (118)  |  Louis Pasteur (85)  |  Process (439)  |  Quaint (7)  |  Religious (134)  |  Reside (25)  |  Stage (152)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Successive (73)  |  Survival (105)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Universal (198)  |  Useful (260)

Heraclitus son of Bloson (or, according to some, of Herakon) of Ephesus. This man was at his prime in the 69th Olympiad. He grew up to be exceptionally haughty and supercilious, as is clear also from his book, in which he says: “Learning of many things does not teach intelligence; if so it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes and Hecataeus.” … Finally he became a misanthrope, withdrew from the world, and lived in the mountains feeding on grasses and plants. However, having fallen in this way into a dropsy he came down to town and asked the doctors in a riddle if they could make a drought out of rainy weather. When they did not understand he buried himself in a cow-stall, expecting that the dropsy would be evaporated off by the heat of the manure; but even so he failed to effect anything, and ended his life at the age of sixty.
Diogenes Laertius 9.1. In G. S. Kirk, E. Raven, and M. Schofield (eds.), The Presocratic philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1983), 181.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Ask (420)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Cow (42)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Down (455)  |  Drought (14)  |  Effect (414)  |  End (603)  |  Fail (191)  |  Heat (180)  |  Himself (461)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Misanthrope (2)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Plant (320)  |  Riddle (28)  |  Say (989)  |  Supercilious (2)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weather (49)  |  World (1850)

His work was so great that it cannot be compassed in a few words. His death is one of the greatest losses ever to occur to British science.
Describing Ernest Rutherford upon his death at age 66. Thomson, then 80 years old, was once his teacher.
Quoted in Time Magazine (1 Nov 1937).
Science quotes on:  |  British (42)  |  Compass (37)  |  Death (406)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Occur (151)  |  Old (499)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

History is the record of what one age finds worthy of note in another.
Judgements on History and Historians (1958), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Find (1014)  |  History (716)  |  Record (161)

Hopes are always accompanied by fears, and, in scientific research, the fears are liable to become dominant.
At age 67.
Eureka (Oct 1969), No.32, 2-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Dominant (26)  |  Fear (212)  |  Hope (321)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)

How many discoveries are reserved for the ages to come when our memory shall be no more, for this world of ours contains matter for investigation for all generations.
From Quaestiones Naturales as translated in Charles Singer, From Magic to Science (1958), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Discovery (837)  |  Generation (256)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Matter (821)  |  Memory (144)  |  More (2558)  |  Reservation (7)  |  World (1850)

How many famous men be there in this our age, which make scruple to condemne these old witches, thinking it to bee nothing but a melancholike humour which corrupteth thei imagination, and filleth them with all these vaines toyes. I will not cast my selfe any further into the depth of this question, the matter craveth a man of more leisure.
Describing melancholy as the innocent affliction of those regarded as witches instead of Satanic influence, while distancing himself from the controversy.
Discours de la conservation de la veue; des maladies mélancholiques, des catarrhes, et de la vieillese (1594). In Richard Surphlet (trans.) A Discourse of the Preservation of the Sight: of Melancholike Diseases; of Rheumes, and of Old Age (1599), 98-9. Quoted in Michael Heyd, Be sober and Reasonable (), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Bee (44)  |  Cast (69)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Depth (97)  |  Diagnosis (65)  |  Disease (340)  |  Himself (461)  |  Humour (116)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Influence (231)  |  Leisure (25)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Question (649)  |  Regard (312)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Will (2350)  |  Witch (4)

However much we may enlarge our ideas of the time which has elapsed since the Niagara first began to drain the waters of the upper lakes, we have seen that this period was one only of a series, all belonging to the present zoological epoch; or that in which the living testaceous fauna, whether freshwater or marine, had already come into being. If such events can take place while the zoology of the earth remains almost stationary and unaltered, what ages may not be comprehended in those successive tertiary periods during which the Flora and Fauna of the globe have been almost entirely changed. Yet how subordinate a place in the long calendar of geological chronology do the successive tertiary periods themselves occupy! How much more enormous a duration must we assign to many antecedent revolutions of the earth and its inhabitants! No analogy can be found in the natural world to the immense scale of these divisions of past time, unless we contemplate the celestial spaces which have been measured by the astronomer.
Travels in North America (1845), Vol. 1, 51-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Calendar (9)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Chronology (9)  |  Division (67)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drain (12)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Event (222)  |  First (1302)  |  Freshwater (3)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Lake (36)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Marine Biology (24)  |  Marine Geology (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Niagara (8)  |  Niagara Falls (4)  |  Past (355)  |  Period (200)  |  Present (630)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Scale (122)  |  Series (153)  |  Space (523)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Successive (73)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Water (503)  |  World (1850)  |  Zoology (38)

I [Man] the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time.
In 'Locksley Hall', Poems (1842), Vol. 1, 110.
Science quotes on:  |  File (6)  |  Foremost (11)  |  Heir (12)  |  Man (2252)  |  Time (1911)

I abide in a goodly Museum,
Frequented by sages profound:
'Tis a kind of strange mausoleum,
Where the beasts that have vanished abound.
There's a bird of the ages Triassic,
With his antediluvian beak,
And many a reptile Jurassic,
And many a monster antique.
'Ballad of the Ichthyosaurus', Dreams to Sell (1887), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Antediluvian (5)  |  Beast (58)  |  Bird (163)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Jurassic (3)  |  Kind (564)  |  Monster (33)  |  Museum (40)  |  Paleontology (32)  |  Poem (104)  |  Profound (105)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Sage (25)  |  Strange (160)

I always rejoice to hear of your being still employed in experimental researches into nature, and of the success you meet with. The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon: it is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter; we may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its labour and double its produce; all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured (not excepting even that of old age), and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard. Oh! that moral science were in as fair a way of improvement; that men would cease to be wolves to one another; and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity!
Letter to Dr Priestley, 8 Feb 1780. In Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (1845), Vol. 2, 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Antediluvian (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Cease (81)  |  Disease (340)  |  Easy (213)  |  Employ (115)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moral (203)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Power (771)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Progress (492)  |  Sake (61)  |  Soon (187)  |  Still (614)  |  Success (327)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Transport (31)  |  True Science (25)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

I am almost thanking God that I was never educated, for it seems to me that 999 of those who are so, expensively and laboriously, have lost all before they arrive at my age—& remain like Swift's Stulbruggs—cut and dry for life, making no use of their earlier-gained treasures:—whereas, I seem to be on the threshold of knowledge.
In Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear: the Life of a Wanderer (1969), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Cut (116)  |  Dry (65)  |  Education (423)  |  Expense (21)  |  Gain (146)  |  God (776)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Making (300)  |  Never (1089)  |  Remain (355)  |  Jonathan Swift (27)  |  Thank (48)  |  Threshold (11)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Use (771)

I appeal to the contemptible speech made lately by Sir Robert Peel to an applauding House of Commons. 'Orders of merit,' said he, 'were the proper rewards of the military' (the desolators of the world in all ages). 'Men of science are better left to the applause of their own hearts.' Most learned Legislator! Most liberal cotton-spinner! Was your title the proper reward of military prowess? Pity you hold not the dungeon-keys of an English Inquisition! Perhaps Science, like creeds, would flourish best under a little persecution.
Chemical Recreations (1834), 232.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Common (447)  |  Creed (28)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Heart (243)  |  House (143)  |  Inquisition (9)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Little (717)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Merit (51)  |  Military (45)  |  Most (1728)  |  Order (638)  |  Persecution (14)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reward (72)  |  Speech (66)  |  World (1850)

Srinivasa Ramanujan quote: I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust Office at Ma
I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust Office at Madras on a salary of only £20 per annum. I am now about 23 years of age. … After leaving school I have been employing the spare time at my disposal to work at Mathematics.
Opening lines of first letter to G.H. Hardy (16 Jan 1913). In Collected Papers of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1927), xxiii. Hardy notes he did “seem to remember his telling me that his friends had given him some assistance” in writing the letter because Ramanujan's “knowledge of English, at that stage of his life, could scarcely have been sufficient.”
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Clerk (13)  |  Department (93)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Leaving (10)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Myself (211)  |  Office (71)  |  Salary (8)  |  School (227)  |  Spare Time (3)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trust (72)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

I beg to present Columbus as a man of science and a man of faith. As a scientist, considering the time in which he lived, he eminently deserves our respect. Both in theory and in practice he was one of the best geographers and cosmographers of the age.
Address, in Chicago (12 Oct 1892). In E.S. Werner (ed.), Werner's Readings and Recitations (1908), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Both (496)  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Faith (209)  |  Geographer (7)  |  Man (2252)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Practice (212)  |  Present (630)  |  Respect (212)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)

I came into the room, which was half dark, and presently spotted Lord Kelvin in the audience and realised that I was in for trouble at the last part of my speech dealing with the age of the earth, where my views conflicted with his. To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye and cock a baleful glance at me! Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the earth, provided no new source was discovered. That prophetic utterance refers to what we are now considering tonight, radium! Behold! the old boy beamed upon me.
The italicized phrase refers to “no new source” of energy. Concerning a Lecture by Rutherford, at the Royal Institution, dealing with the energy of subterranean radium, which had an effect prolonging the heat of the Earth. Arthur S. Eve wrote that Rutherford “used to tell humorous stories about this lecture long afterwards:” — followed by the subject quote above, as its own paragraph. As given in Arthur S. Eve, Rutherford: Being the Life and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Lord Rutherford, O.M. (1939), 107. The story lacks quotation marks, and thus should be regarded as perhaps Eve’s own words giving a faithful recollection, rather than Rutherford’s verbatim words. (However, note that the style used throughout the book is to omit quotation marks from their own separate paragraph.)
Science quotes on:  |  Age Of The Earth (12)  |  Audience (28)  |  Beam (26)  |  Bird (163)  |  Boy (100)  |  Cock (6)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Dark (145)  |  Discover (571)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Eye (440)  |  Glance (36)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Baron William Thomson Kelvin (74)  |  Last (425)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Lord (97)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Open (277)  |  Point (584)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Radium (29)  |  Relief (30)  |  Saw (160)  |  Speech (66)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Tonight (9)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Utterance (11)  |  View (496)

I can remember … starting to gather all sorts of things like rocks and beetles when I was about nine years old. There was no parental encouragement—nor discouragement either—nor any outside influence that I can remember in these early stages. By about the age of twelve, I had settled pretty definitely on butterflies, largely I think because the rocks around my home were limited to limestone, while the butterflies were varied, exciting, and fairly easy to preserve with household moth-balls. … I was fourteen, I remember, when … I decided to be scientific, caught in some net of emulation, and resolutely threw away all of my “childish” specimens, mounted haphazard on “common pins” and without “proper labels.” The purge cost me a great inward struggle, still one of my most vivid memories, and must have been forced by a conflict between a love of my specimens and a love for orderliness, for having everything just exactly right according to what happened to be my current standards.
In The Nature of Natural History (1950, 1990), 255.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Ball (64)  |  Beetle (19)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Child (333)  |  Childish (20)  |  Common (447)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Cost (94)  |  Current (122)  |  Discouragement (10)  |  Early (196)  |  Easy (213)  |  Emulation (2)  |  Encouragement (27)  |  Everything (489)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Fourteen (2)  |  Gather (76)  |  Great (1610)  |  Haphazard (3)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Home (184)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inward (6)  |  Label (11)  |  Limestone (6)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Love (328)  |  Memory (144)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mount (43)  |  Must (1525)  |  Old (499)  |  Orderliness (9)  |  Outside (141)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pin (20)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Proper (150)  |  Purge (11)  |  Remember (189)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Right (473)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Settled (34)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Stage (152)  |  Standard (64)  |  Start (237)  |  Still (614)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Twelve (4)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Year (963)

I conclude therefore that this star [Tycho’s supernova] is not some kind of comet or a fiery meteor, whether these be generated beneath the Moon or above the Moon, but that it is a star shining in the firmament itself—one that has never previously been seen before our time, in any age since the beginning of the world.
In De Stella Nova, as translated in Dagobert D. Runes, A Treasury of World Science (1962), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Tycho Brahe (24)  |  Comet (65)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Fiery (5)  |  Firmament (18)  |  Kind (564)  |  Meteor (19)  |  Moon (252)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observation (593)  |  Shining (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Supernova (7)  |  Time (1911)  |  Robert W. Wood (2)  |  World (1850)

I consider [H. G. Wells], as a purely imaginative writer, to be deserving of very high praise, but our methods are entirely different. I have always made a point in my romances of basing my so-called inventions upon a groundwork of actual fact, and of using in their construction methods and materials which are not entirely without the pale of contemporary engineering skill and knowledge. ... The creations of Mr. Wells, on the other hand, belong unreservedly to an age and degree of scientific knowledge far removed from the present, though I will not say entirely beyond the limits of the possible.
Gordon Jones, 'Jules Verne at Home', Temple Bar (Jun 1904), 129, 670.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Belong (168)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Consider (428)  |  Construction (114)  |  Creation (350)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Fact (1257)  |  High (370)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Material (366)  |  Method (531)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Purely (111)  |  Romance (18)  |  Say (989)  |  Science Fiction (35)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skill (116)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Herbert George (H.G.) Wells (41)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writer (90)

I did enjoy the [CCNY geology] field trips. We went upstate and clambered over formations of synclines and anticlines. We had to diagram them, and figure out their mirror images. If you had an anticline here, you should be able to predict a complementing syncline bulging out somewhere else. Very satisfying when I got it right. Geology allowed me to display my brilliance to my non-college friends. “You know, the Hudson really isn’t a river.” “What are you talking about? … Everybody knows the Hudson River’s a river.” I would explain that the Hudson was a “drowned” river, up to about Poughkeepsie. The Ice Age had depressed the riverbed to a depth that allowed the Atlantic Ocean to flood inland. Consequently, the lower Hudson was really a saltwater estuary.
In My American Journey (1996), 30-31. [Powell graduated with a B.S. degree in Geology.]
Science quotes on:  |  Atlantic Ocean (7)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Brilliance (14)  |  College (71)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depth (97)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Display (59)  |  Estuary (3)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Explain (334)  |  Field (378)  |  Field Trip (2)  |  Figure (162)  |  Flood (52)  |  Formation (100)  |  Friend (180)  |  Geology (240)  |  Ice (58)  |  Ice Age (10)  |  Image (97)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Predict (86)  |  Right (473)  |  River (140)  |  Talking (76)

I do not believe that science per se is an adequate source of happiness, nor do I think that my own scientific outlook has contributed very greatly to my own happiness, which I attribute to defecating twice a day with unfailing regularity. Science in itself appears to me neutral, that is to say, it increases men’s power whether for good or for evil. An appreciation of the ends of life is something which must be superadded to science if it is to bring happiness, but only the kind of society to which science is apt to give rise. I am afraid you may be disappointed that I am not more of an apostle of science, but as I grow older, and no doubt—as a result of the decay of my tissues, I begin to see the good life more and more as a matter of balance and to dread all over-emphasis upon anyone ingredient.
Letter to W. W. Norton, Publisher (27 Jan 1931). In The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 1914-1944 (1968), Vol. 2, 200.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Apostle (3)  |  Appreciation (37)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Balance (82)  |  Begin (275)  |  Belief (615)  |  Decay (59)  |  Disappoint (14)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dread (13)  |  Emphasis (18)  |  End (603)  |  Evil (122)  |  Good (906)  |  Grow (247)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Increase (225)  |  Ingredient (16)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Neutral (15)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Power (771)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Society (350)  |  Something (718)  |  Source (101)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tissue (51)

I find myself now preaching about the golden age of manned spaceflight, because something went on there, within us, that we’re missing. When we went to the Moon, it was not only just standing on a new plateau for all mankind. We changed the way everybody in the world thought of themselves, you know. It was a change that went on inside of us. And we’re losing that.
From interview with Ron Stone (24 May 1999) for NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project on NASA website.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Changed (2)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Find (1014)  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  Inside (30)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Missing (21)  |  Moon (252)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  Plateau (8)  |  Something (718)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Standing (11)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York … a city neighborhood that included houses, lampposts, walls, and bushes. But with an early bedtime in the winter, I could look out my window and see the stars, and the stars were not like anything else in my neighborhood. [At age 5] I didn’t know what they were.
[At age 9] my mother … said to me, “You have a library card now, and you know how to read. Take the streetcar to the library and get a book on stars.” … I stepped up to the big librarian and asked for a book on stars. … I sat down and found out the answer, which was something really stunning.
I found out that the stars are glowing balls of gas. I also found out that the Sun is a star but really close and that the stars are all suns except really far away I didn’t know any physics or mathematics at that time, but I could imagine how far you’d have to move the Sun away from us till it was only as bright as a star. It was in that library, reading that book, that the scale of the universe opened up to me. There was something beautiful about it.
At that young age, I already knew that I’d be very happy if I could devote my life to finding out more about the stars and the planets that go around them. And it’s been my great good fortune to do just that.
Quoted in interview with Jack Rightmyer, in 'Stars in His Eyes', Highlights For Children (1 Jan 1997). Ages as given in Tom Head (ed.), Conversations with Carl Sagan (2006), x.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Ball (64)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Bright (81)  |  Brooklyn (3)  |  Career (86)  |  Child (333)  |  City (87)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Early (196)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Gas (89)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Happy (108)  |  House (143)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Know (1538)  |  Library (53)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Mother (116)  |  Move (223)  |  Neighborhood (12)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Planet (402)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Scale (122)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wall (71)  |  Window (59)  |  Winter (46)  |  Young (253)

I grew up in Leicestershire, in Leicester, which is on the Jurassic, and it’s full of lovely fossils. Ammonites, belemnites, brachiopods—very beautiful. How did they get there, in the middle of the rocks, in the middle of England, and so on? And I had the collecting bug, which I still have, actually, which is the basis of so much of natural history, really, and so much of science. And so collecting all these things, and discovering what they were, and how they lived, and when they had lived, and all that, was abiding fascination to me from the age of I suppose about eight. And I still feel that way, actually.
Speaking about fossils that first inspired his love of natural history. In video by Royal Society of Biology, 'Sir David Attenborough, Biology: Changing the World Interview,' published on YouTube (13 Feb 2015).
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Discover (571)  |  England (43)  |  Fascination (35)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fossil (143)  |  History (716)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Jurassic (3)  |  Leicestershire (2)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Rock (176)  |  Still (614)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)

I had begun it, it will now be unnecessary for me to finish it.[At a late age, expressing his enthusiasm for mathematics had gone, as when informed of some other mathematician's current work.]
As quoted by Charles Hutton in A Philosophical and Mathematical Dictionary (1815), Vol. 1, 708.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Current (122)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Finish (62)  |  Inform (50)  |  Late (119)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Other (2233)  |  Unnecessary (23)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

I had no books as a child. I had real machines, and I went out to work in the fields. I was driving farm machinery at five, and fixing it at age seven or eight. It’s no accident that I worked on Hubble 50 to 60 years later. My books were nature; it was very important to how I related to the Earth, and the Earth from space. No doubt when I go into space, I go back into the cool soil of Earth. I’m always thinking of it. Nature was my book. Other people come from that tradition - Emerson, Thoreau, and especially Whitman. Look at what they said in their philosophy - go out and have a direct relationship with nature.
When asked by Discover magazine what books helped inspire his passion as an astronaut.
'The 1998 Discover Science Gift Guide: Fantastic Voyages Children's Books That Mattered', Discover (Dec 1998).
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Ask (420)  |  Astronaut (34)  |  Back (395)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Child (333)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discover (571)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Driving (28)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Farm (28)  |  Field (378)  |  Look (584)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Soil (98)  |  Space (523)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

I had this experience at the age of eight. My parents gave me a microscope. I don’t recall why, but no matter. I then found my own little world, completely wild and unconstrained, no plastic, no teacher, no books, no anything predictable. At first I did not know the names of the water-drop denizens or what they were doing. But neither did the pioneer microscopists. Like them, I graduated to looking at butterfly scales and other miscellaneous objects. I never thought of what I was doing in such a way, but it was pure science. As true as could be of any child so engaged, I was kin to Leeuwenhoek, who said that his work “was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more that most other men.”
In The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth (2010), 143-144.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Child (333)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completely (137)  |  Craving (5)  |  Doing (277)  |  Drop (77)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Graduation (6)  |  Kin (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (17)  |  Little (717)  |  Looking (191)  |  Matter (821)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Microscopist (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Never (1089)  |  Notice (81)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Praise (28)  |  Predictability (7)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Reside (25)  |  Scale (122)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unconstrained (2)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Wild (96)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

I have had a fairly long life, above all a very happy one, and I think that I shall be remembered with some regrets and perhaps leave some reputation behind me. What more could I ask? The events in which I am involved will probably save me from the troubles of old age. I shall die in full possession of my faculties, and that is another advantage that I should count among those that I have enjoyed. If I have any distressing thoughts, it is of not having done more for my family; to be unable to give either to them or to you any token of my affection and my gratitude is to be poor indeed.
Letter to Augez de Villiers, undated. Quoted in D. McKie, Antoine Lavoisier: Scientist, Economist, Social Reformer (1952), 303.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Affection (44)  |  Ask (420)  |  Behind (139)  |  Count (107)  |  Death (406)  |  Event (222)  |  Family (101)  |  Gratitude (14)  |  Happy (108)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Involved (90)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Poor (139)  |  Possession (68)  |  Regret (31)  |  Remember (189)  |  Reputation (33)  |  Save (126)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Token (10)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Will (2350)

I have never thought a boy should undertake abstruse or difficult sciences, such as Mathematics in general, till fifteen years of age at soonest. Before that time they are best employed in learning the languages, which is merely a matter of memory.
Letter to Ralph Izard (17 July 1788).
Science quotes on:  |  Abstruse (12)  |  Boy (100)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Memory (144)

I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress: I am convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.g., about space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking (complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.
Max Born
My Life & My Views (1968), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Causality (11)  |  Complementarity (6)  |  Concept (242)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  New (1273)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Progress (492)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Read (308)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Space-Time (20)  |  Steady (45)  |  Substance (253)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understanding (527)

I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not led him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle.
'Agnosticism' (1889). In Collected Essays (1894), Vol. 5, 256.
Science quotes on:  |  Barren (33)  |  Blind (98)  |  Brute (30)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Endless (60)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  History (716)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mental (179)  |  More (2558)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Prehistoric (12)  |  Prehistoric Man (2)  |  Set (400)  |  Strong (182)  |  Study (701)  |  Terror (32)  |  Toil (29)  |  Victim (37)

I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age.
Letter to Charles Augustin Ferriol, comte d'Argental (1767). In Raymond C. Rowe, Joseph Chamberlain, A Spoonful of Sugar (2007), 243.
Science quotes on:  |  Die (94)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Know (1538)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Laughable (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)

I know too much; I have stuffed too many of the facts of History and Science into my intellectuals. My eyes have grown dim over books; believing in geological periods, cave-dwellers, Chinese Dynasties, and the fixed stars has prematurely aged me.
In 'The Burden', Trivia (1917,1921), 156.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Book (413)  |  China (27)  |  Dim (11)  |  Dynasty (8)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fix (34)  |  Geology (240)  |  History (716)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Period (200)  |  Premature (22)  |  Science (39)  |  Star (460)  |  Stuff (24)

I sometimes wonder how we spent leisure time before satellite television and Internet came along…and then I realise that I have spent more than half of my life in the ‘dark ages’!
From interview (5 Dec 2003) days before his 86th birthday with Nalaka Gunawardene, published on the internet sites http://southasia.oneworld.net and arthurcclarke.net.
Science quotes on:  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Half (63)  |  Internet (24)  |  Leisure (25)  |  Life (1870)  |  More (2558)  |  Realize (157)  |  Satellite (30)  |  Spent (85)  |  Television (33)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wonder (251)

I think all museums should be directed toward 12-year-old boys. They’re the brightest group you can find and this is the age when you can arouse their curiosity and interest.
As quoted in interview with Frances Glennon, 'Student and Teacher of Human Ways', Life (14 Sep 1959), 147. [See another quote on this webpage beginning, “Junior high school…” in which Mead compares boys “in junior high school with girls who are two years ahead of them.” That suggests that the subject quote is comparing boys with boys. Unfortunately, the subject quote includes no further context from the interview. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Arouse (13)  |  Boy (100)  |  Brightest (12)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Direct (228)  |  Find (1014)  |  Group (83)  |  Interest (416)  |  Museum (40)  |  Old (499)  |  Think (1122)  |  Year (963)

I think every child born on this planet up to the age of about four or five is fascinated by the natural world. If they aren’t it’s because we deprive them of the opportunity. Over half the world’s population is urbanised and the thought that some children may grow up not looking at a pond or knowing how plants grow is a terrible thing. If you lose that delight and joy and intoxication, you’ve lost something hugely precious.
From interview with Alice Roberts, 'Attenborough: My Life on Earth', The Biologist (Aug 2015), 62, No. 4, 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Delight (111)  |  Fascinated (2)  |  Grow (247)  |  Intoxication (7)  |  Joy (117)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Looking (191)  |  Lose (165)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural World (33)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plant (320)  |  Pond (17)  |  Population (115)  |  Precious (43)  |  Something (718)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Urban (12)  |  World (1850)

I think if a physician wrote on a death certificate that old age was the cause of death, he’d be thrown out of the union. There is always some final event, some failure of an organ, some last attack of pneumonia, that finishes off a life. No one dies of old age.
In talk, 'Origin of Death' (1970). Evolution began with one-celled organisms reproducing indefinitely by cell division.
Science quotes on:  |  Attack (86)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certificate (3)  |  Death (406)  |  Event (222)  |  Failure (176)  |  Final (121)  |  Finish (62)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Organ (118)  |  Physician (284)  |  Pneumonia (8)  |  Think (1122)  |  Union (52)

I think it is a peculiarity of myself that I like to play about with equations, just looking for beautiful mathematical relations which maybe don’t have any physical meaning at all. Sometimes they do.
At age 60.
"Interview with T. Kuhn (7 May 1963), Niels Bohr Library, American Intitute of Physics, New York. In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Do (1905)  |  Equation (138)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Myself (211)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Physical (518)  |  Think (1122)

I think it is the general rule that the originator of a new idea is not the most suitable person to develop it, because his fears of something going wrong are really too strong…
At age 69.
The Development of Quantum Theory (1971). In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 111.
Science quotes on:  |  Develop (278)  |  Fear (212)  |  General (521)  |  Idea (881)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Originator (7)  |  Person (366)  |  Rule (307)  |  Something (718)  |  Strong (182)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wrong (246)

I think it’s time we recognized the Dark Ages are over. Galileo and Copernicus have been proven right. The world is in fact round; the Earth does revolve around the sun. I believe God gave us intellect to differentiate between imprisoning dogma and sound ethical science, which is what we must do here today.
Debating federal funding for stem cell research as Republican Representative (CT).
In Eve Herold, George Daley, Stem Cell Wars (2007), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Funding (20)  |  God (776)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Must (1525)  |  Proof (304)  |  Research (753)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Right (473)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stem (31)  |  Stem Cell (11)  |  Sun (407)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  World (1850)

I used to get so depressed about the environment. … But I feel much better since I joined my Environmental Grief Counseling Group, which is a wonderful New Age approach to gaining the personal serenity you need in a world of melting ice caps, shrinking rain forests, and toxic lakes.
In 'Stop Beaching, Think Positive', Mother Jones Magazine (Oct 1988), 14, No. 8, 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Better (493)  |  Depressed (3)  |  Environment (239)  |  Feel (371)  |  Forest (161)  |  Grief (20)  |  Ice (58)  |  Join (32)  |  Lake (36)  |  Melting (6)  |  New (1273)  |  New Age (6)  |  Personal (75)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Serenity (11)  |  Toxic (3)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

I wandered away on a glorious botanical and geological excursion, which has lasted nearly fifty years and is not yet completed, always happy and free, poor and rich, without thought of a diploma or of making a name, urged on and on through endless, inspiring Godful beauty.
[Shortly after leaving university in 1863, without completing a degree, at age 25, he began his first botanical foot journey along the Wisconsin River to the Mississippi.]
John Muir
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913), 286.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Botany (63)  |  Completed (30)  |  Degree (277)  |  Diploma (2)  |  Endless (60)  |  Excursion (12)  |  First (1302)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Geology (240)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Happy (108)  |  Journey (48)  |  Last (425)  |  Making (300)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Poor (139)  |  River (140)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  University (130)  |  Wander (44)  |  Year (963)

I was interested in flying beginning at age 7, when a close family friend took me in his little airplane. And I remember looking at the wheel of the airplane as we rolled down the runway, because I wanted to remember the exact moment that I first went flying... the other thing growing up is that I was always interested in science.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Airplane (43)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Close (77)  |  Down (455)  |  Exact (75)  |  Family (101)  |  First (1302)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Friend (180)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growing Up (4)  |  Interest (416)  |  Little (717)  |  Looking (191)  |  Moment (260)  |  Other (2233)  |  Remember (189)  |  Roll (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Want (504)  |  Wheel (51)

I was x years old in the year x2.
When asked about his age (43).
Quoted in H. Eves, In Mathematical Circles (1969).
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Biography (254)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Old (499)  |  Year (963)

I will lift mine eyes unto the pills. Almost everyone takes them, from the humble aspirin to the multi-coloured, king-sized three deckers, which put you to sleep, wake you up, stimulate and soothe you all in one. It is an age of pills.
1962
Science quotes on:  |  Aspirin (2)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Eye (440)  |  Humble (54)  |  Lift (57)  |  Mine (78)  |  Pill (7)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Soothe (2)  |  Stimulate (21)  |  Unto (8)  |  Wake (17)  |  Will (2350)

I with my hammer pounding evermore
The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust.
Strewing my bed and, in another age.
Rebuild a continent for better men.
Poem, 'Seashore' (1857), published in The Boatswain’s Whistle (Boston 18 Nov 1864). Collected in Percy H. Boynton (ed.), American poetry (1921), 217. The blank verse of this poem was recast from a prose passage he wrote in his journal (3 Jul 1857), the day after a two-week visit to Cap Ann.
Science quotes on:  |  Andes (2)  |  Bed (25)  |  Better (493)  |  Coast (13)  |  Continent (79)  |  Dust (68)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Rock (176)  |  Smite (4)  |  Strewing (2)

If a hundred or a thousand people, all of the same age, of the same constitution and habits, were suddenly seized by the same illness, and one half of them were to place themselves under the care of doctors, such as they are in our time, whilst the other half entrusted themselves to Nature and to their own discretion, I have not the slightest doubt that there would be more cases of death amongst the former, and more cases of recovery among the latter.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Among (3)  |  Care (203)  |  Case (102)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Death (406)  |  Discretion (3)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Entrust (3)  |  Former (138)  |  Habit (174)  |  Half (63)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Illness (35)  |  Latter (21)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Place (192)  |  Recovery (24)  |  Same (166)  |  Seize (18)  |  Slight (32)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whilst (3)

If a man is in any sense a real mathematician, then it is a hundred to one that his mathematics will be far better than anything else he can do, and that it would be silly if he surrendered any decent opportunity of exercising his one talent in order to do undistinguished work in other fields. Such a sacrifice could be justified only by economic necessity of age.
In A Mathematician's Apology (1940, 2012), 70.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Decent (12)  |  Do (1905)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Field (378)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Justification (52)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Real (159)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Sense (785)  |  Silly (17)  |  Surrender (21)  |  Talent (99)  |  Undistinguished (3)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

If catastrophic geology had at times pushed Nature to almost indecent extremes of haste, uniformitarian geology, on the other hand, had erred in the opposite direction, and pictured Nature when she was “young and wantoned in her prime”, as moving with the lame sedateness of advanced middle age. It became necessary, therefore, as Dr. Haughton expresses it, “to hurry up the phenomena”.
From British Association Address to Workingmen, 'Geology and Deluges', published in Nature (1984), 50, 505-510. Also printed in Popular Science Monthly (Dec 1894), 46 251. “Wontoned” (sic) was likely used for “wanton.” and Dr. Samuel Haughton was an Irish scientific writer —Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Age Of The Earth (12)  |  Catastrophe (35)  |  Catastrophic (10)  |  Direction (185)  |  Err (5)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Geology (240)  |  Haste (6)  |  Hurry (16)  |  Lame (5)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Push (66)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uniformitarianism (9)  |  Wanton (2)  |  Young (253)

If I were a comet, I should consider the men of our present age a degenerate breed. In former times, the respect for comets was universal and profound.
In 'On Comets', collected in In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Breed (26)  |  Comet (65)  |  Consider (428)  |  Degenerate (14)  |  Former (138)  |  Present (630)  |  Profound (105)  |  Respect (212)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universal (198)

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
In unpublished manuscript, 'Is There a God', (5 Mar 1952) written for the magazine, Illustrated. Collected in Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater (ed.) and Peter Köllner (ed.) The Collected Papers of Bertran Russell: Volume II: Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68 (1997), 547-548.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Attention (196)  |  Become (821)  |  Book (413)  |  Children (201)  |  China (27)  |  Disprove (25)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightened (25)  |  Existence (481)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inquisitor (6)  |  Mars (47)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Presumption (15)  |  Psychiatrist (16)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Small (489)  |  Sun (407)  |  Talking (76)  |  Teapot (3)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)

If the Humours of the Eye by old Age decay, so as by shrinking to make the Cornea and Coat of the Crystalline Humour grow flatter than before, the Light will not be refracted enough, and for want of a sufficient Refraction will not converge to the bottom of the Eye but to some place beyond it, and by consequence paint in the bottom of the Eye a confused Picture, and according to the Indistinctuess of this Picture the Object will appear confused. This is the reason of the decay of sight in old Men, and shews why their Sight is mended by Spectacles. For those Convex glasses supply the defect of plumpness in the Eye, and by increasing the Refraction make the rays converge sooner, so as to convene distinctly at the bottom of the Eye if the Glass have a due degree of convexity. And the contrary happens in short-sighted Men whose Eyes are too plump. For the Refraction being now too great, the Rays converge and convene in the Eyes before they come at the bottom; and therefore the Picture made in the bottom and the Vision caused thereby will not be distinct, unless the Object be brought so near the Eye as that the place where the converging Rays convene may be removed to the bottom, or that the plumpness of the Eye be taken off and the Refractions diminished by a Concave-glass of a due degree of Concavity, or lastly that by Age the Eye grow flatter till it come to a due Figure: For short-sighted Men see remote Objects best in Old Age, and therefore they are accounted to have the most lasting Eyes.
Opticks (1704), Book 1, Part 1, Axiom VII, 10-11.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Account (195)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Concave (6)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Converge (10)  |  Convergence (4)  |  Convex (6)  |  Decay (59)  |  Defect (31)  |  Degree (277)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Due (143)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eye (440)  |  Figure (162)  |  Glass (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Happen (282)  |  Humour (116)  |  Lens (15)  |  Light (635)  |  Most (1728)  |  Object (438)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Picture (148)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reason (766)  |  Refraction (13)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Short-Sighted (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Spectacles (10)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supply (100)  |  Vision (127)  |  Want (504)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men. If you can do one you can do the other. Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind.
Darrow’s concluding remarks before adjournment of the second day of the Scopes Monkey Trial, Dayton, Tennessee (Monday, 13 Jul 1925). In The World's Most Famous Court Trial: Tennessee Evolution Case: a Complete Stenographic Report of the Famous Court Test of the Tennessee Anti-Evolution Act, at Dayton, July 10 to 21, 1925 (1925), Second Day's Proceedings, 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Banner (9)  |  Bigot (6)  |  Book (413)  |  Burn (99)  |  Catholic (18)  |  Century (319)  |  Church (64)  |  Creed (28)  |  Crime (39)  |  Culture (157)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drum (8)  |  Education (423)  |  Enlightenment (21)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Flying (74)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Honor (57)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Lecturer (13)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Other (2233)  |  Preacher (13)  |  Religion (369)  |  School (227)  |  Set (400)  |  Setting (44)  |  Soon (187)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Try (296)  |  Year (963)

In a recent newspaper interview I was asked what, above all, I associated with Socialism in this modern age. I answered that if there was one word I would use to identify modern Socialism it was “science.”
In The Relevance of British Socialism (1964), 41. See also Sir Alan Cottrell, Physics Bulletin (Mar 1976), 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Identification (20)  |  Modern (402)  |  Recent (78)  |  Socialism (4)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

In all times it is only individuals that have advanced science, not the age.
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 184:42.
Science quotes on:  |  Individual (420)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Time (1911)

In an age of egoism, it is so difficult to persuade man that of all studies, the most important is that of himself. This is because egoism, like all passions, is blind. The attention of the egoist is directed to the immediate needs of which his senses give notice, and cannot be raised to those reflective needs that reason discloses to us; his aim is satisfaction, not perfection. He considers only his individual self; his species is nothing to him. Perhaps he fears that in penetrating the mysteries of his being he will ensure his own abasement, blush at his discoveries, and meet his conscience. True philosophy, always at one with moral science, tells a different tale. The source of useful illumination, we are told, is that of lasting content, is in ourselves. Our insight depends above all on the state of our faculties; but how can we bring our faculties to perfection if we do not know their nature and their laws! The elements of happiness are the moral sentiments; but how can we develop these sentiments without considering the principle of our affections, and the means of directing them? We become better by studying ourselves; the man who thoroughly knows himself is the wise man. Such reflection on the nature of his being brings a man to a better awareness of all the bonds that unite us to our fellows, to the re-discovery at the inner root of his existence of that identity of common life actuating us all, to feeling the full force of that fine maxim of the ancients: 'I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me.'
Considerations sur les diverses méthodes à suivre dans l'observation des peuples sauvages (1800) The Observation of Savage Peoples, trans. F. C. T. Moore (1969), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Aim (175)  |  Alien (35)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Attention (196)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Blind (98)  |  Bond (46)  |  Common (447)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Consider (428)  |  Depend (238)  |  Develop (278)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Ethnology (9)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Force (497)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identity (19)  |  Illumination (15)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inner (72)  |  Insight (107)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Passion (121)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Root (121)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Studying (70)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Unite (43)  |  Useful (260)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wise (143)  |  Wise Man (17)

In an age of specialization people are proud to be able to do one thing well, but if that is all they know about, they are missing out on much else life has to offer.
As given in John Rennie, 'Dennis Flanagan, A Proud “Renaissance Hack”', Scientific American (26 Jan 2005).
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Miss (51)  |  Missing (21)  |  Offer (142)  |  People (1031)  |  Pride (84)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Thing (1914)

In design, people like Buckminster Fuller amazed me at the levels at which he could think. He could think molecularly. And he could think at the almost galactic scale. And the idea that somebody could actually talk about molecules and talk about buildings and structures and talk about space just amazed me. As I get older–I’ll be 60 next year–what I’ve discovered is that I find myself in those three realms too.
In interview with Kerry A. Dolan, 'William McDonough On Cradle-to-Cradle Design', Forbes (4 Aug 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Amazement (19)  |  Building (158)  |  Design (203)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Find (1014)  |  R. Buckminster Fuller (16)  |  Galactic (6)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Idea (881)  |  Level (69)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Myself (211)  |  Next (238)  |  People (1031)  |  Realm (87)  |  Scale (122)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Talk (108)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Three (10)  |  Year (963)

In modern Europe, the Middle Ages were called the Dark Ages. Who dares to call them so now? … Their Dante and Alfred and Wickliffe and Abelard and Bacon; their Magna Charta, decimal numbers, mariner’s compass, gunpowder, glass, paper, and clocks; chemistry, algebra, astronomy; their Gothic architecture, their painting,—are the delight and tuition of ours. Six hundred years ago Roger Bacon explained the precession of the equinoxes, and the necessity of reform in the calendar; looking over how many horizons as far as into Liverpool and New York, he announced that machines can be constructed to drive ships more rapidly than a whole galley of rowers could do, nor would they need anything but a pilot to steer; carriages, to move with incredible speed, without aid of animals; and machines to fly into the air like birds.
In 'Progress of Culture', an address read to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, 18 July 1867. Collected in Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1883), 475.
Science quotes on:  |  Peter Abelard (3)  |  Aid (101)  |  Air (366)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Animal (651)  |  Announce (13)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Roger Bacon (20)  |  Bird (163)  |  Calendar (9)  |  Call (781)  |  Carriage (11)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Clock (51)  |  Compass (37)  |  Construct (129)  |  Dante Alighieri (10)  |  Dare (55)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Delight (111)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drive (61)  |  Equinox (5)  |  Europe (50)  |  Explain (334)  |  Far (158)  |  Fly (153)  |  Glass (94)  |  Gothic (4)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Liverpool (3)  |  Looking (191)  |  Machine (271)  |  Magna Carta (3)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Number (710)  |  Painting (46)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pilot (13)  |  Precession (4)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Reform (22)  |  Ship (69)  |  Speed (66)  |  Steer (4)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Tuition (3)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

In natural history, great discovery often requires a map to a hidden mine filled with gems then easily gathered by conventional tools, not a shiny new space-age machine for penetrating previously inaccessible worlds.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Conventional (31)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Easily (36)  |  Fill (67)  |  Gather (76)  |  Gem (17)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hide (70)  |  History (716)  |  Inaccessible (18)  |  Machine (271)  |  Map (50)  |  Mine (78)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  New (1273)  |  Often (109)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Previously (12)  |  Require (229)  |  Shiny (3)  |  Space (523)  |  Tool (129)  |  World (1850)

In old age, you realise that while you're divided from your youth by decades, you can close your eyes and summon it at will. As a writer it puts one at a distinct advantage.
Interview with Sarah Crown, in The Guardian (25 Jul 2009).
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Close (77)  |  Decade (66)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Divided (50)  |  Eye (440)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Summon (11)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writer (90)  |  Youth (109)

In order that the relations between science and the age may be what they ought to be, the world at large must be made to feel that science is, in the fullest sense, a ministry of good to all, not the private possession and luxury of a few, that it is the best expression of human intelligence and not the abracadabra of a school, that it is a guiding light and not a dazzling fog.
'Hindrances to Scientific Progress', The Popular Science Monthly (Nov 1890), 38, 121.
Science quotes on:  |  Abracadabra (2)  |  Best (467)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Expression (181)  |  Feel (371)  |  Few (15)  |  Fog (10)  |  Good (906)  |  Guide (107)  |  Human (1512)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Large (398)  |  Light (635)  |  Luxury (21)  |  Ministry (2)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Possession (68)  |  Privacy (7)  |  Relation (166)  |  School (227)  |  Sense (785)  |  World (1850)

In order to imbue civilization with sound principles and enliven it with the spirit of the gospel, it is not enough to be illumined with the gift of faith and enkindled with the desire of forwarding a good cause. For this end it is necessary to take an active part in the various organizations and influence them from within. And since our present age is one of outstanding scientific and technical progress and excellence, one will not be able to enter these organizations and work effectively from within unless he is scientifically competent, technically capable and skilled in the practice of his own profession.
Encyclical (10 Apr 1963). In Pacem in Terris, Pt. 5, 50
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Desire (212)  |  Education (423)  |  End (603)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enter (145)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Faith (209)  |  Gift (105)  |  Good (906)  |  Influence (231)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Order (638)  |  Organization (120)  |  Outstanding (16)  |  Practice (212)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Profession (108)  |  Progress (492)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skill (116)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Technology (281)  |  Various (205)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

In physics, mathematics, and astronautics [elderly] means over thirty; in the other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are, of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory!
Defining 'elderly scientist' as in Clarke's First Law.
'Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination'. In the collection. Profiles of the Future: An Enquiry into the Limits of the Possible (1962, rev. 1973), 14-15.
Science quotes on:  |  College (71)  |  Cost (94)  |  Course (413)  |  Decay (59)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Exception (74)  |  First (1302)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Good (906)  |  Know (1538)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Scientist (881)

In reality, I have sometimes thought that we do not go on sufficiently slowly in the removal of diseases, and that it would he better if we proceeded with less haste, and if more were often left, to Nature than is the practice now-a-days. It is a great mistake to suppose that Nature always stands in need of the assistance of Art. If that were the case, site would have made less provision for the safety of mankind than the preservation of the species demands; seeing that there is not the least proportion between the host of existing diseases and the powers possessed by man for their removal, even in those ages wherein the healing art was at the highest pitch, and most extensively cultivated.
As quoted by Gavin Milroy in 'On the Writings of Sydenham', The Lancet (14 Nov 1846), 524.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Better (493)  |  Demand (131)  |  Disease (340)  |  Do (1905)  |  Great (1610)  |  Haste (6)  |  Healing (28)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Practice (212)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Reality (274)  |  Safety (58)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Slow (108)  |  Species (435)  |  Stand (284)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Thought (995)  |  Treatment (135)

In recent years it has become impossible to talk about man’s relation to nature without referring to “ecology” … such leading scientists in this area as Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, Eugene Odum, Paul Ehrlich and others, have become our new delphic voices … so influential has their branch of science become that our time might well be called the “Age of Ecology”.
In opening paragraph of Preface, Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas (1994), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Branch (155)  |  Call (781)  |  Rachel Carson (49)  |   Barry Commoner (10)  |  Delphic (4)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Paul Ehrlich (9)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Influential (4)  |  Leading (17)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |   Eugene Pleasants Odum (3)  |  Other (2233)  |  Recent (78)  |  Refer (14)  |  Relation (166)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Talk (108)  |  Time (1911)  |  Voice (54)  |  Year (963)

In recent years scientists have grown self-conscious, perhaps because they have only lately become of age. They realize that they are now part of the drama of human history, and they look to the professional historian for background and perspective.
(1932). Epigraph, without citation, in I. Bernard Cohen, Science, Servant of Man: A Layman's Primer for the Age of Science (1948), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Become (821)  |  Drama (24)  |  Historian (59)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Look (584)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Professional (77)  |  Realize (157)  |  Recent (78)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Conscious (3)  |  Year (963)

In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense—not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay.
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), 293.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Aid (101)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Association (49)  |  Attain (126)  |  Best (467)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Course (413)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Decay (59)  |  Development (441)  |  Doom (34)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extension (60)  |  Find (1014)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Growth (200)  |  Habit (174)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Life (1870)  |  Limit (294)  |  Live (650)  |  Maintenance (21)  |  Majority (68)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Natural (810)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Open (277)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Practice (212)  |  Progress (492)  |  Protection (41)  |  Sense (785)  |  Society (350)  |  Species (435)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Survival Of The Fittest (43)  |  Understood (155)  |  Vast (188)  |  Wide (97)  |  World (1850)

In the beginning of the year 1665 I found the Method of approximating series & the Rule for reducing any dignity of any Bionomial into such a series. The same year in May I found the method of Tangents of Gregory & Slusius, & in November had the direct method of fluxions & the next year in January had the Theory of Colours & in May following I had entrance into ye inverse method of fluxions. And the same year I began to think of gravity extending to ye orb of the Moon & (having found out how to estimate the force with wch [a] globe revolving within a sphere presses the surface of the sphere) from Keplers rule of the periodic times of the Planets being in sesquialterate proportion of their distances from the center of their Orbs, I deduced that the forces wch keep the Planets in their Orbs must [be] reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the centers about wch they revolve: & thereby compared the force requisite to keep the Moon in her Orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the earth, & found them answer pretty nearly. All this was in the two plague years of 1665-1666. For in those days I was in the prime of my age for invention & minded Mathematicks & Philosophy more then than at any time since.
Quoted in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (1980), 143.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Binomial (6)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Color (155)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Direct (228)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entrance (16)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Fluxion (7)  |  Force (497)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inverse Square Law (5)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Law Of Gravity (16)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Next (238)  |  Orb (20)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plague (42)  |  Planet (402)  |  Prime (11)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Rule (307)  |  Series (153)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Square (73)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Tangent (6)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Year (963)

In the earliest ages science was poetry, as in the latter poetry has become science.
In literary essay, 'Witchcraft' (1868), collected in The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry (1870, 1898), Vol. 2, 359.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Science And Poetry (17)

In the information age, you don’t teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he’d have a talk show.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Information (173)  |  Perform (123)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Show (353)  |  Talk (108)  |  Teach (299)  |  Today (321)

In the long course of cell life on this earth it remained, for our age for our generation, to receive the full ownership of our inheritance. We have entered the cell, the Mansion of our birth, and started the inventory of our acquired wealth.
Talking about the new information revealed by electron microscopy Nobel Lecture, The Coming Age of the Cell, 12 Dec 1974
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Birth (154)  |  Cell (146)  |  Course (413)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enter (145)  |  Generation (256)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Receive (117)  |  Remain (355)  |  Start (237)  |  Wealth (100)

In this age of space flight, when we use the modern tools of science to advance into new regions of human activity, the Bible ... this grandiose, stirring history of the gradual revelation and unfolding of the moral law ... remains in every way an up-to-date book. Our knowledge and use of the laws of nature that enable us to fly to the Moon also enable us to destroy our home planet with the atom bomb. Science itself does not address the question whether we should use the power at our disposal for good or for evil. The guidelines of what we ought to do are furnished in the moral law of God. It is no longer enough that we pray that God may be with us on our side. We must learn again that we may be on God's side.
Quoted in Bob Phillips, Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts & Funny Sayings (1993), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Advance (298)  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Bible (105)  |  Book (413)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enough (341)  |  Evil (122)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Furnish (97)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Grandiose (4)  |  Guideline (4)  |  History (716)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Modern (402)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moral (203)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Question (649)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Side (236)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Tool (129)  |  Unfolding (16)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)

In this age of specialization men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss another. … The old problems, such as the relation of science and religion, are still with us, and I believe present as difficult dilemmas as ever, but they are not often publicly discussed because of the limitations of specialization.
Opening statement, in transcript of talk to the Caltech Lunch Forum (2 May 1956), 'The Relation of Science and Religion', collected in Richard Phillips Feynman and Jeffrey Robbins (ed.), The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman (1999, 2005), 245-246.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Dilemma (11)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Field (378)  |  Incompetent (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Old (499)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Public (100)  |  Relation (166)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Still (614)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Thoroughly (67)

In truth, we know causes only by their effects; and in order to learn the nature of the causes which modify the earth, we must study them through all ages of their action, and not select arbitrarily the period in which we live as the standard for all other epochs.
In History of the Inductive Sciences (1857), Vol. 3, 514.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Cause (561)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  Modification (57)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Select (45)  |  Standard (64)  |  Study (701)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)

Indeed the modern developments of mathematics constitute not only one of the most impressive, but one of the most characteristic, phenomena of our age. It is a phenomenon, however, of which the boasted intelligence of a “universalized” daily press seems strangely unaware; and there is no other great human interest, whether of science or of art, regarding which the mind of the educated public is permitted to hold so many fallacious opinions and inferior estimates.
In Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Arts (1908), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Boast (22)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Daily (91)  |  Development (441)  |  Educate (14)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Fallacious (13)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hold (96)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Interest (416)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Most (1728)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Permit (61)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Press (21)  |  Public (100)  |  Regard (312)  |  Unaware (6)

Indeed, while Nature is wonderfully inventive of new structures, her conservatism in holding on to old ones is still more remarkable. In the ascending line of development she tries an experiment once exceedingly thorough, and then the question is solved for all time. For she always takes time enough to try the experiment exhaustively. It took ages to find how to build a spinal column or brain, but when the experiment was finished she had reason to be, and was, satisfied.
In The Whence and Whither of Man; a Brief History of his Origin and Development through Conformity to Environment; being the Morse Lectures of 1895. (1896), 173. The Morse lectureship was founded by Prof. Samuel F.B. Morse in 1865 at Union Theological Seminary, the lectures to deal with “the relation of the Bible to any of the sciences.”
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Build (211)  |  Conservatism (3)  |  Development (441)  |  Enough (341)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Exhaustive (4)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Find (1014)  |  Finish (62)  |  Hold (96)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inventive (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spinal Column (2)  |  Still (614)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Wonder (251)

Inexact method of observation, as I believe, is one flaw in clinical pathology to-day. Prematurity of conclusion is another, and in part follows from the first; but in chief part an unusual craving and veneration for hypothesis, which besets the minds of most medical men, is responsible. Except in those sciences which deal with the intangible or with events of long past ages, no treatises are to be found in which hypothesis figures as it does in medical writings. The purity of a science is to be judged by the paucity of its recorded hypotheses. Hypothesis has its right place, it forms a working basis; but it is an acknowledged makeshift, and, at the best, of purpose unaccomplished. Hypothesis is the heart which no man with right purpose wears willingly upon his sleeve. He who vaunts his lady love, ere yet she is won, is apt to display himself as frivolous or his lady a wanton.
The Mechanism and Graphic Registration of the Heart Beat (1920), vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Best (467)  |  Chief (99)  |  Clinical (18)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Craving (5)  |  Deal (192)  |  Display (59)  |  Event (222)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Flaw (18)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Frivolous (8)  |  Heart (243)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Inexact (3)  |  Intangible (6)  |  Long (778)  |  Love (328)  |  Makeshift (2)  |  Man (2252)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Observation (593)  |  Past (355)  |  Pathology (19)  |  Paucity (3)  |  Physician (284)  |  Premature (22)  |  Purity (15)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Record (161)  |  Right (473)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Wanton (2)  |  Writing (192)

Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.
In Twentieth Century Faith: Hope and Survival (1972), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Class (168)  |  Color (155)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Instead (23)  |  Learn (672)  |  Loathsome (3)  |  Must (1525)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  People (1031)  |  Present (630)  |  Range (104)  |  Religion (369)  |  Sex (68)  |  Stereotype (4)

Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence.
The Selfish Gene (1976), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Existence (481)  |  First (1302)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Life (1870)  |  Planet (402)  |  Reason (766)  |  Work (1402)

Is it not evident, in these last hundred years (when the Study of Philosophy has been the business of all the Virtuosi in Christendome) that almost a new Nature has been revealed to us? that more errours of the School have been detected, more useful Experiments in Philosophy have been made, more Noble Secrets in Opticks, Medicine, Anatomy, Astronomy, discover'd, than in all those credulous and doting Ages from Aristotle to us? So true it is that nothing spreads more fast than Science, when rightly and generally cultivated.
Of Dramatic Poesie (1684 edition), lines 258-67, in James T. Boulton (ed.) (1964), 44
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Business (156)  |  Credulous (9)  |  Detect (45)  |  Discover (571)  |  Error (339)  |  Evident (92)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Last (425)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Noble (93)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Optics (24)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  School (227)  |  Secret (216)  |  Spread (86)  |  Study (701)  |  Useful (260)  |  Year (963)

Is no one inspired by our present picture of the universe? This value of science remains unsung by singers: you are reduced to hearing not a song or poem, but an evening lecture about it. This is not yet a scientific age.
Perhaps one of the reasons for this silence is that you have to know how to read music. For instance, the scientific article may say, “The radioactive phosphorus content of the cerebrum of the rat decreases to one-half in a period of two weeks.” Now what does that mean?
It means that phosphorus that is in the brain of a rat—and also in mine, and yours—is not the same phosphorus as it was two weeks ago. It means the atoms that are in the brain are being replaced: the ones that were there before have gone away.
So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week’s potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago—a mind which has long ago been replaced. To note that the thing I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of the brain to be replaced by other atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and then go out—there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday.
'What do You Care What Other People Think?' Further Adventures of a Curious Character (1988), 244.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brain (281)  |  Call (781)  |  Cerebrum (10)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Dance (35)  |  Discover (571)  |  Doing (277)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mine (78)  |  Music (133)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Period (200)  |  Phosphorus (18)  |  Picture (148)  |  Poem (104)  |  Present (630)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Rat (37)  |  Read (308)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remember (189)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Silence (62)  |  Song (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unsung (4)  |  Value (393)  |  Week (73)  |  Year (963)  |  Yesterday (37)

Is not Cuvier the greatest poet of our age? Of course Lord Byron has set down in fine words certain of our souls’ longings; but our immortal naturalist has reconstructed whole worlds out of bleached bones. Like Cadmus, he has rebuilt great cities from teeth, repopulated thousands of forests with all the mysteries of zoology from a few pieces of coal, discovered races of giants in the foot of a mammoth.
From 'La Peau de Chagrin' (1831). As translated as by Helen Constantine The Wild Ass’s Skin (2012), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Bleached (4)  |  Bone (101)  |  Build (211)  |  Lord George Gordon Byron (28)  |  Certain (557)  |  City (87)  |  Coal (64)  |  Course (413)  |  Cuvier_George (2)  |  Discover (571)  |  Down (455)  |  Foot (65)  |  Forest (161)  |  Giant (73)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Longing (19)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mammoth (9)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Poet (97)  |  Populate (4)  |  Race (278)  |  Reconstruct (5)  |  Set (400)  |  Soul (235)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)  |  Zoology (38)

It has been asserted … that the power of observation is not developed by mathematical studies; while the truth is, that; from the most elementary mathematical notion that arises in the mind of a child to the farthest verge to which mathematical investigation has been pushed and applied, this power is in constant exercise. By observation, as here used, can only be meant the fixing of the attention upon objects (physical or mental) so as to note distinctive peculiarities—to recognize resemblances, differences, and other relations. Now the first mental act of the child recognizing the distinction between one and more than one, between one and two, two and three, etc., is exactly this. So, again, the first geometrical notions are as pure an exercise of this power as can be given. To know a straight line, to distinguish it from a curve; to recognize a triangle and distinguish the several forms—what are these, and all perception of form, but a series of observations? Nor is it alone in securing these fundamental conceptions of number and form that observation plays so important a part. The very genius of the common geometry as a method of reasoning—a system of investigation—is, that it is but a series of observations. The figure being before the eye in actual representation, or before the mind in conception, is so closely scrutinized, that all its distinctive features are perceived; auxiliary lines are drawn (the imagination leading in this), and a new series of inspections is made; and thus, by means of direct, simple observations, the investigation proceeds. So characteristic of common geometry is this method of investigation, that Comte, perhaps the ablest of all writers upon the philosophy of mathematics, is disposed to class geometry, as to its method, with the natural sciences, being based upon observation. Moreover, when we consider applied mathematics, we need only to notice that the exercise of this faculty is so essential, that the basis of all such reasoning, the very material with which we build, have received the name observations. Thus we might proceed to consider the whole range of the human faculties, and find for the most of them ample scope for exercise in mathematical studies. Certainly, the memory will not be found to be neglected. The very first steps in number—counting, the multiplication table, etc., make heavy demands on this power; while the higher branches require the memorizing of formulas which are simply appalling to the uninitiated. So the imagination, the creative faculty of the mind, has constant exercise in all original mathematical investigations, from the solution of the simplest problems to the discovery of the most recondite principle; for it is not by sure, consecutive steps, as many suppose, that we advance from the known to the unknown. The imagination, not the logical faculty, leads in this advance. In fact, practical observation is often in advance of logical exposition. Thus, in the discovery of truth, the imagination habitually presents hypotheses, and observation supplies facts, which it may require ages for the tardy reason to connect logically with the known. Of this truth, mathematics, as well as all other sciences, affords abundant illustrations. So remarkably true is this, that today it is seriously questioned by the majority of thinkers, whether the sublimest branch of mathematics,—the infinitesimal calculus—has anything more than an empirical foundation, mathematicians themselves not being agreed as to its logical basis. That the imagination, and not the logical faculty, leads in all original investigation, no one who has ever succeeded in producing an original demonstration of one of the simpler propositions of geometry, can have any doubt. Nor are induction, analogy, the scrutinization of premises or the search for them, or the balancing of probabilities, spheres of mental operations foreign to mathematics. No one, indeed, can claim preeminence for mathematical studies in all these departments of intellectual culture, but it may, perhaps, be claimed that scarcely any department of science affords discipline to so great a number of faculties, and that none presents so complete a gradation in the exercise of these faculties, from the first principles of the science to the farthest extent of its applications, as mathematics.
In 'Mathematics', in Henry Kiddle and Alexander J. Schem, The Cyclopedia of Education, (1877.) As quoted and cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 27-29.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundant (23)  |  Act (278)  |  Actual (118)  |  Advance (298)  |  Alone (324)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Appalling (10)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Mathematics (15)  |  Arise (162)  |  Assert (69)  |  Attention (196)  |  Auxiliary (11)  |  Basis (180)  |  Being (1276)  |  Branch (155)  |  Build (211)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Child (333)  |  Claim (154)  |  Class (168)  |  Common (447)  |  Complete (209)  |  Auguste Comte (24)  |  Conception (160)  |  Connect (126)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constant (148)  |  Count (107)  |  Counting (26)  |  Creative (144)  |  Culture (157)  |  Curve (49)  |  Demand (131)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Department (93)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difference (355)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Essential (210)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Extent (142)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Form (976)  |  Formula (102)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Induction (81)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Infinitesimal Calculus (2)  |  Inspection (7)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Lead (391)  |  Logic (311)  |  Majority (68)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Memorize (4)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mental (179)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  New (1273)  |  Notice (81)  |  Notion (120)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perception (97)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Power (771)  |  Practical (225)  |  Preeminence (3)  |  Premise (40)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Pure (299)  |  Push (66)  |  Question (649)  |  Range (104)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Recondite (8)  |  Representation (55)  |  Require (229)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Scope (44)  |  Scrutinize (7)  |  Search (175)  |  Series (153)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solution (282)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Step (234)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Suppose (158)  |  System (545)  |  Table (105)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Today (321)  |  Triangle (20)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Verge (10)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writer (90)

It is arguable whether the human race have been gainers by the march of science beyond the steam engine. Electricity opens a field of infinite conveniences to ever greater numbers, but they may well have to pay dearly for them. But anyhow in my thought I stop short of the internal combustion engine which has made the world so much smaller. Still more must we fear the consequences of entrusting a human race so little different from their predecessors of the so-called barbarous ages such awful agencies as the atomic bomb. Give me the horse.
Address to the Royal College of Surgeons (10 Jul 1951). Collected in Stemming the Tide: Speeches 1951 and 1952 (1953), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Different (595)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fear (212)  |  Field (378)  |  Greater (288)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Internal (69)  |  Internal Combustion Engine (4)  |  Invention (400)  |  Little (717)  |  March (48)  |  March Of Science (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Open (277)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Progress (492)  |  Race (278)  |  Short (200)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Still (614)  |  Thought (995)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)

It is because simplicity and vastness are both beautiful that we seek by preference simple facts and vast facts; that we take delight, now in following the giant courses of the stars, now in scrutinizing the microscope that prodigious smallness which is also a vastness, and now in seeking in geological ages the traces of a past that attracts us because of its remoteness.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Attract (25)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Both (496)  |  Course (413)  |  Delight (111)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Follow (389)  |  Geological (11)  |  Giant (73)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Past (355)  |  Preference (28)  |  Prodigious (20)  |  Remoteness (9)  |  Scrutinize (7)  |  Seek (218)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Smallness (7)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Trace (109)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vastness (15)

It is better to trust in the Rock of Ages, than to know the age of the rocks; it is better for one to know that he is close to the Heavenly Father, than to know how far the stars in the heavens are apart.
In chapter, 'The Origin of Man', In His Image (1922), 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Close (77)  |  Distance (171)  |  Father (113)  |  God (776)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Rock (176)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Trust (72)

It is certain that as a nation we are all smoking a great deal too much ... Smoking among boys—to whom it cannot possibly do any kind of good, while it may do a vast amount of active harm—is becoming prevalent to a most pernicious extent. ... It would be an excellent thing for the morality of the people could the use of “intoxicants and tobacco” be forbidden to all persons under twenty years of age. (1878)
In London Daily Telegraph (22 Jan 1878). Reprinted in English Anti-Tobacco Society and Anti-Narcotic League, Monthly letters of the Committee of the English Anti-Tobacco Society and Anti-Narcotic League 1878, 1879, 1880, (1 Feb 1878), 85.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Amount (153)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Boy (100)  |  Certain (557)  |  Deal (192)  |  Do (1905)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Extent (142)  |  Forbidden (18)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Harm (43)  |  Kind (564)  |  Morality (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nation (208)  |  People (1031)  |  Pernicious (9)  |  Person (366)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Prevalent (4)  |  Smoking (27)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tobacco (19)  |  Twenty (4)  |  Use (771)  |  Vast (188)  |  Year (963)

It is characteristic of our age to endeavour to replace virtues by technology. That is to say, wherever possible we strive to use methods of physical or social engineering to achieve goals which our ancestors thought attainable only by the training of character. Thus, we try so far as possible to make contraception take the place of chastity, and anaesthetics to take the place of fortitude; we replace resignation by insurance policies and munificence by the Welfare State. It would be idle romanticism to deny that such techniques and institutions are often less painful and more efficient methods of achieving the goods and preventing the evils which unaided virtue once sought to achieve and avoid. But it would be an equal and opposite folly to hope that the take-over of virtue by technology may one day be complete, so that the necessity for the laborious acquisition of the capacity for rational choice by individuals can be replaced by the painless application of the fruits of scientific discovery over the whole field of human intercourse and enterprise.
'Mental Health in Plato's Republic', in The Anatomy of the Soul: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Mind (1973), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Anaesthetic (2)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Application (257)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Character (259)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chastity (5)  |  Choice (114)  |  Complete (209)  |  Contraception (2)  |  Deny (71)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Evil (122)  |  Field (378)  |  Folly (44)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Goal (155)  |  Good (906)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idle (34)  |  Individual (420)  |  Institution (73)  |  Insurance (12)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Munificence (2)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possible (560)  |  Rational (95)  |  Romanticism (5)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Society (25)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Engineering (2)  |  State (505)  |  Technique (84)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thought (995)  |  Training (92)  |  Try (296)  |  Use (771)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Welfare (30)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Whole (756)

It is difficult to know how to treat the errors of the age. If a man oppose them, he stands alone; if he surrender to them, they bring him neither joy nor credit.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 185.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Credit (24)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Error (339)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Oppose (27)  |  Stand (284)  |  Surrender (21)  |  Treat (38)

It is for such inquiries the modern naturalist collects his materials; it is for this that he still wants to add to the apparently boundless treasures of our national museums, and will never rest satisfied as long as the native country, the geographical distribution, and the amount of variation of any living thing remains imperfectly known. He looks upon every species of animal and plant now living as the individual letters which go to make up one of the volumes of our earth’s history; and, as a few lost letters may make a sentence unintelligible, so the extinction of the numerous forms of life which the progress of cultivation invariably entails will necessarily render obscure this invaluable record of the past. It is, therefore, an important object, which governments and scientific institutions should immediately take steps to secure, that in all tropical countries colonised by Europeans the most perfect collections possible in every branch of natural history should be made and deposited in national museums, where they may be available for study and interpretation. If this is not done, future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations. They will charge us with having culpably allowed the destruction of some of those records of Creation which we had it in our power to preserve; and while professing to regard every living thing as the direct handiwork and best evidence of a Creator, yet, with a strange inconsistency, seeing many of them perish irrecoverably from the face of the earth, uncared for and unknown.
In 'On the Physical Geography of the Malay Archipelago', Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1863), 33, 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Allowed (3)  |  Amount (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apparently (22)  |  Available (80)  |  Back (395)  |  Best (467)  |  Blind (98)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Branch (155)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Charge (63)  |  Collect (19)  |  Collection (68)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Country (269)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Direct (228)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entail (4)  |  European (5)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Face (214)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Geographical (6)  |  Government (116)  |  Handiwork (6)  |  Higher (37)  |  History (716)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Imperfectly (2)  |  Important (229)  |  Inconsistency (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Institution (73)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Invaluable (11)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Known (453)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Lost (34)  |  Made (14)  |  Material (366)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Museum (40)  |  National (29)  |  Native (41)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Never (1089)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Object (438)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perish (56)  |  Person (366)  |  Plant (320)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Professing (2)  |  Progress (492)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Record (161)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remain (355)  |  Render (96)  |  Rest (287)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Secure (23)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Species (435)  |  Step (234)  |  Still (614)  |  Strange (160)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Tropical (9)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Variation (93)  |  Volume (25)  |  Want (504)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Will (2350)

It is impossible for the strength of an elderly person to be great. Some physicians think that children also do not have great strength, but they are mistaken in their opinion.
As quoted in Robert Taylor, White Coat Tales: Medicine's Heroes, Heritage, and Misadventures (2010), 125.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Do (1905)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Person (366)  |  Physician (284)  |  Strength (139)  |  Think (1122)

It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.
Spectator, No. 253. In Samuel Austin Allibone, Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay (1880), 60.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Author (175)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Morality (55)  |  More (2558)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Represent (157)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Sense (785)  |  Strong (182)  |  Touch (146)  |  Uncommon (14)  |  World (1850)

It is only at the beginning of the age of the dinosaurs that the deep sea, hitherto bare of organisms, was finally invaded by life.
(1965). In Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Bare (33)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deep Sea (10)  |  Dinosaur (26)  |  Life (1870)  |  Marine Biology (24)  |  Organism (231)  |  Sea (326)

It is only in mathematics, and to some extent in poetry, that originality may be attained at an early age, but even then it is very rare (Newton and Keats are examples), and it is not notable until adolescence is completed.
In A Study of British Genius (1904), 142
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completed (30)  |  Early (196)  |  Example (98)  |  Extent (142)  |  John Keats (12)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Notable (6)  |  Originality (21)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Rare (94)

It is popular to believe that the age of the individual and, above all, of the free individual, is past in science. There are many administrators of science and a large component of the general population who believe that mass attacks can do anything, and even that ideas are obsolete. Behind this drive to the mass attack there are a number of strong psychological motives. Neither the public or the big administrator has too good an understanding of the inner continuity of science, but they both have seen its world-shaking consequences, and they are afraid of it. Both of them wish to decerebrate the scientist, even as the Byzantine State emasculated its civil servants. Moreover, the great administrator who is not sure of his own intellectual level can aggrandize himself only by cutting his scientific employees down to size.
In I am a Mathematician (1956), Epilogue, 363-364.
Science quotes on:  |  Administrator (11)  |  Attack (86)  |  Behind (139)  |  Both (496)  |  Civil (26)  |  Component (51)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Cutting (6)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Free (239)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inner (72)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Large (398)  |  Mass (160)  |  Motive (62)  |  Number (710)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  Past (355)  |  Population (115)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Servant (40)  |  Size (62)  |  State (505)  |  Strong (182)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Wish (216)  |  World (1850)

It is safe to say that the little pamphlet which was left to find its way through the slow mails to the English scientist outweighed in importance and interest for the human race all the press dispatches which have been flashed under the channel since the delivery of the address—March 24. The rapid growth of the Continental capitals, the movements of princely noodles and fat, vulgar Duchesses, the debates in the Servian Skupschina, and the progress or receding of sundry royal gouts are given to the wings of lightning; a lumbering mail-coach is swift enough for the news of one of the great scientific discoveries of the age. Similarly, the gifted gentlemen who daily sift out for the American public the pith and kernel of the Old World's news; leave Dr. KOCH and his bacilli to chance it in the ocean mails, while they challenge the admiration of every gambler and jockey in this Republic by the fullness and accuracy of their cable reports of horse-races.
New York Times (3 May 1882). Quoted in Thomas D. Brock, Robert Koch (1988), 131.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Bacillus (9)  |  Cable (11)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Chance (244)  |  Daily (91)  |  Debate (40)  |  Enough (341)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flash (49)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Gout (5)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growth (200)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interest (416)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Little (717)  |  Mail (2)  |  March (48)  |  Movement (162)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Old (499)  |  Old World (9)  |  Progress (492)  |  Race (278)  |  Republic (16)  |  Royal (56)  |  Safe (61)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Slow (108)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Through (846)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wing (79)  |  World (1850)

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
In Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Busy (32)  |  Learn (672)  |  Leave (138)  |  Malady (8)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Time (1911)  |  Young (253)

It is the man of science, eager to have his every opinion regenerated, his every idea rationalised, by drinking at the fountain of fact, and devoting all the energies of his life to the cult of truth, not as he understands it, but as he does not understand it, that ought properly to be called a philosopher. To an earlier age knowledge was power—merely that and nothing more—to us it is life and the summum bonum.
As quoted in Sir Richard Gregory, Discovery: Or, The Spirit and Service of Science (1916), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Cult (5)  |  Devote (45)  |  Drink (56)  |  Drinking (21)  |  Eager (17)  |  Early (196)  |  Energy (373)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fountain (18)  |  Idea (881)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mere (86)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Power (771)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)

It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Alone (324)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Celestial Mechanics (4)  |  Century (319)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Church (64)  |  Completely (137)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Countless (39)  |  Deep (241)  |  Derive (70)  |  Develop (278)  |  Devote (45)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Devotee (7)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Disentangle (4)  |  Easily (36)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effort (243)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Enable (122)  |  End (603)  |  Failure (176)  |  False (105)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fight (49)  |  Give (208)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Issue (46)  |  Kepler (4)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Man (2252)  |  Materialistic (2)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mentality (5)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motive (62)  |  Must (1525)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Nobl (4)  |  Notion (120)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ours (4)  |  People (1031)  |  Persecute (6)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Practical (225)  |  Principle (530)  |  Profoundly (13)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Reality (274)  |  Realization (44)  |  Realize (157)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Religious (134)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remote (86)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Say (989)  |  Scatter (7)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Serious (98)  |  Show (353)  |  Similar (36)  |  Skeptical (21)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spite (55)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Surround (33)  |  Theoretical Science (4)  |  Through (846)  |  True (239)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unjustly (2)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Wide (97)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worker (34)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)  |  Yearn (13)  |  Yearning (13)

It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age.
Quoted, without citation, as a column filler, in New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, Mental Hygiene News (1949), Volumes 20-26, 20. Webmaster has so far been unable to find a primary source, so please contact if you know the primary source.
Science quotes on:  |  Arbitrary (27)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Cruel (25)  |  False (105)  |  Learning (291)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Play (116)  |  Regret (31)  |  Utterly (15)  |  Work (1402)

It is well-known that those who have charge of young infants, that it is difficult to feel sure when certain movements about their mouths are really expressive; that is when they really smile. Hence I carefully watched my own infants. One of them at the age of forty-five days, and being in a happy frame of mind, smiled... I observed the same thing on the following day: but on the third day the child was not quite well and there was no trace of a smile, and this renders it probable that the previous smiles were real.
The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Certain (557)  |  Charge (63)  |  Child (333)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Expressive (6)  |  Feel (371)  |  Frame Of Mind (3)  |  Happy (108)  |  Infant (26)  |  Known (453)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Movement (162)  |  Observed (149)  |  Render (96)  |  Smile (34)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trace (109)  |  Watch (118)  |  Young (253)

It just so happens that during the 1950s, the first great age of molecular biology, the English schools of Oxford and particularly of Cambridge produced more than a score of graduates of quite outstanding ability—much more brilliant, inventive, articulate and dialectically skillful than most young scientists; right up in the Jim Watson class. But Watson had one towering advantage over all of them: in addition to being extremely clever he had something important to be clever about.
From the postscript to 'Lucky Jim', New York Review of Books (28 Mar 1968). Also collected in 'Lucky Jim', Pluto’s Republic (1982), 275. Also excerpted in Richard Dawkins (ed.), The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing (2008), 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Addition (70)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biology (232)  |  Brilliance (14)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Cambridge (17)  |  Class (168)  |  Clever (41)  |  Cleverness (15)  |  DNA (81)  |  First (1302)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Importance (299)  |  Inventiveness (8)  |  Molecular Biology (27)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Outstanding (16)  |  Oxford (16)  |  Produced (187)  |  Right (473)  |  School (227)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Skill (116)  |  Skillful (17)  |  Something (718)  |  Towering (11)  |  James Watson (33)  |  Young (253)

It may metaphorically be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the lapse of ages...
The Origin of Species (1870), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Condition (362)  |  Daily (91)  |  Good (906)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Marked (55)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Progress (492)  |  See (1094)  |  Selection (130)  |  Slow (108)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variation (93)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Wherever (51)  |  World (1850)

It may well be doubted whether, in all the range of Science, there is any field so fascinating to the explorer—so rich in hidden treasures—so fruitful in delightful surprises—as that of Pure Mathematics. The charm lies chiefly, I think, in the absolute certainty of its results: for that is what, beyond all mental treasures, the human intellect craves for. Let us only be sure of something! More light, more light … “And if our fate be death, give light and let us die” This is the cry that, through all the ages, is going up from perplexed Humanity, and Science has little else to offer, that will really meet the demands of its votaries, than the conclusions of Pure Mathematics.
Opening of 'Introduction', A New Theory of Parallels (1890), xv. As a non-fiction work, the author’s name on the title page of this book was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Being better known for his works of fiction as Lewis Carroll, all quotes relating to this one person, published under either name, are gathered on this single web page under his pen name.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Charm (54)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Crave (10)  |  Cry (30)  |  Death (406)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Demand (131)  |  Die (94)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Fate (76)  |  Field (378)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Give (208)  |  Hide (70)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Let (64)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  More (2558)  |  Offer (142)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Range (104)  |  Result (700)  |  Rich (66)  |  Something (718)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Votary (3)  |  Will (2350)

It was not by any accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls.
In Max Planck and James Vincent Murphy (trans.), Where is Science Going?, (1932), 168.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Deeply (17)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Religious (134)  |  Soul (235)  |  Thinker (41)

James Watt patented his steam engine on the eve of the American Revolution, consummating a relationship between coal and the new Promethean spirit of the age, and humanity made its first tentative steps into an industrial way of life that would, over the next two centuries, forever change the world.
In The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth (2002), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Century (319)  |  Change (639)  |  Coal (64)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Engine (99)  |  Eve (4)  |  First (1302)  |  Forever (111)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Patent (34)  |  Prometheus (7)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Step (234)  |  Tentative (18)  |  Two (936)  |  James Watt (11)  |  Way (1214)  |  Way Of Life (15)  |  World (1850)

Jealousy was plainly exhibited when I fondled a large doll, and when I weighed his infant sister, he being then 15? months old. Seeing how strong a feeling of jealousy is in dogs, it would probably be exhibited by infants at any earlier age than just specified if they were tried in a fitting manner
Mind
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Dog (70)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Infant (26)  |  Jealousy (9)  |  Large (398)  |  Month (91)  |  Old (499)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Strong (182)  |  Weigh (51)

Junior high school seemed like a fine idea when we invented it but it turned out to be an invention of the devil. We’re catching our boys in a net in which they’re socially unprepared. We put them in junior high school with girls who are two years ahead of them. There isn’t a thing they should have to do with girls at this age except growl at them.
As quoted in interview with Frances Glennon, 'Student and Teacher of Human Ways', Life (14 Sep 1959), 147.
Science quotes on:  |  Ahead (21)  |  Boy (100)  |  Catch (34)  |  Devil (34)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fine (37)  |  Girl (38)  |  Growl (3)  |  High (370)  |  High School (15)  |  Idea (881)  |  Invent (57)  |  Invention (400)  |  Junior (6)  |  Net (12)  |  School (227)  |  Social (261)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turn Out (9)  |  Two (936)  |  Unprepared (2)  |  Year (963)

Just as, in civil History, one consults title-deeds, one studies coins, one deciphers ancient inscriptions, in order to determine the epochs of human revolutions and to fix the dates of moral [i.e. human] events; so, in Natural History, one must excavate the archives of the world, recover ancient monuments from the depths of the earth, collect their remains, and assemble in one body of proofs all the evidence of physical changes that enable us to reach back to the different ages of Nature. This, then, is the order of the times indicated by facts and monuments: these are six epochs in the succession of the first ages of Nature; six spaces of duration, the limits of which although indeterminate are not less real; for these epochs are not like those of civil History ... that we can count and measure exactly; nevertheless we can compare them with each other and estimate their relative duration.
'Des Époques de la Nature', Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière contenant les Époques de la Nature (1778), Supplement Vol. 9, 1-2, 41. Trans. Martin J. Rudwick.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Assemble (14)  |  Back (395)  |  Body (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Civil (26)  |  Compare (76)  |  Count (107)  |  Deed (34)  |  Depth (97)  |  Determine (152)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enable (122)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Fossil (143)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inscription (12)  |  Limit (294)  |  Measure (241)  |  Monument (45)  |  Moral (203)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Change (5)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Space (523)  |  Succession (80)  |  Time (1911)  |  World (1850)

Knowledge is never the exclusive possession of any favoured race; the whole world is inter-dependent and a constant stream of thought had through ages enriched the common heritage of mankind.
From 'Sir J.C. Bose’s Address', Benares Hindu University 1905-1935 (1936), 423-424.
Science quotes on:  |  Common (447)  |  Constant (148)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Enrich (27)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Favor (69)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Inter (12)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Never (1089)  |  Possession (68)  |  Race (278)  |  Stream (83)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  World (1850)

Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Arrest (9)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Evil (122)  |  Food (213)  |  Lack (127)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Nourishment (26)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Youth (109)

Learning is wealth to the poor, an honor to the rich, an aid to the young, and a support and comfort to the aged.
As cited in Abram N. Coleman (ed.), Proverbial Wisdom: Proverbs, Maxims and Ethical Sentences (1903), 130. Often-seen attribution to John C. Lavater is probably erroneous. Several quote collections of the same era give the quote without citation. In Tryon Edwards, Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), 294, this quote is given without citation, followed by a blank line separator, and then an unrelated quote by Lavater. This juxtaposition is likely the source of confusion in attribution.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Honor (57)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Poor (139)  |  Rich (66)  |  Support (151)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Young (253)

Leibniz never married; he had considered it at the age of fifty; but the person he had in mind asked for time to reflect. This gave Leibniz time to reflect, too, and so he never married.
From the original French, “Leibnitz ne s'était point marié ; il y avait pensé à l'âge de cinquante ans; mais la personne qu’il avait en vue voulut avoir le temps de faire ses réflexions. Cela donna à Leibnitz le loisir de faire aussi les siennes, et il ne se maria point.” In 'Éloge de Leibniz' (1768), in Éloges de Fontenelle (1883), 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Consider (428)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Marry (11)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Person (366)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Time (1911)

Like almost every subject of human interest, this one [mathematics] is just as easy or as difficult as we choose to make it. A lifetime may be spent by a philosopher in discussing the truth of the simplest axiom. The simplest fact as to our existence may fill us with such wonder that our minds will remain overwhelmed with wonder all the time. A Scotch ploughman makes a working religion out of a system which appalls a mental philosopher. Some boys of ten years of age study the methods of the differential calculus; other much cleverer boys working at mathematics to the age of nineteen have a difficulty in comprehending the fundamental ideas of the calculus.
In Teaching of Mathematics (1902), 19-20.
Science quotes on:  |  All The Time (4)  |  Appall (2)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Boy (100)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Choose (116)  |  Clever (41)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Differential Calculus (11)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Easy (213)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fill (67)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interest (416)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overwhelm (5)  |  Overwhelmed (6)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Ploughman (4)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remain (355)  |  Simple (426)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  System (545)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Like other departments of philosophy, medicine began with an age of wonder. The accidents of disease and the features of death aroused surprise and stimulated interest, and a beginning was made when man first asked in astonishment, Why should these things be?
In 'The Evolution of Internal Medicine', Modern Medicine: Its Theory and Practice, (1907), Vol. 1, xvi.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Death (406)  |  Department (93)  |  Disease (340)  |  First (1302)  |  Interest (416)  |  Man (2252)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Why (491)  |  Wonder (251)

Like so many aging college people, Pnin had long ceased to notice the existence of students on the campus.
In Pnin (1957), 53
Science quotes on:  |  Aging (9)  |  Campus (3)  |  Cease (81)  |  College (71)  |  Existence (481)  |  Long (778)  |  Notice (81)  |  People (1031)  |  Student (317)

Little could Plato have imagined, when, indulging his instinctive love of the true and beautiful for their own sakes, he entered upon these refined speculations and revelled in a world of his own creation, that he was writing the grammar of the language in which it would be demonstrated in after ages that the pages of the universe are written.
From Lecture (4 Dec 1854) delivered to the Gresham Committee and the members of the Common Council of the City of London, 'A Probationary Lecture on Geometry', collected in Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester (1908), Vol. 2, 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Creation (350)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Enter (145)  |  Grammar (15)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Indulge (15)  |  Instinctive (5)  |  Language (308)  |  Little (717)  |  Love (328)  |  Page (35)  |  Plato (80)  |  Refine (8)  |  Revel (6)  |  Sake (61)  |  Speculation (137)  |  True (239)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

Looking back over the last thousand years, one can divide the development of the machine and the machine civilization into three successive but over-lapping and interpenetrating phases: eotechnic, paleotechnic, neotechnic … Speaking in terms of power and characteristic materials, the eotechnic phase is a water-and-wood complex: the paleotechnic phase is a coal-and-wood complex… The dawn-age of our modern technics stretches roughly from the year 1000 to 1750. It did not, of course, come suddenly to an end in the middle of the eighteenth century. A new movement appeared in industrial society which had been gathering headway almost unnoticed from the fifteenth century on: after 1750 industry passed into a new phase, with a different source of power, different materials, different objectives.
Technics and Civilisation (1934), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  Back (395)  |  Century (319)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Coal (64)  |  Complex (202)  |  Course (413)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Divide (77)  |  End (603)  |  Gathering (23)  |  Headway (2)  |  Industry (159)  |  Last (425)  |  Looking (191)  |  Machine (271)  |  Material (366)  |  Modern (402)  |  Movement (162)  |  New (1273)  |  Objective (96)  |  Paleotechnic (2)  |  Pass (241)  |  Phase (37)  |  Power (771)  |  Society (350)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Successive (73)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Technics (2)  |  Technology (281)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Water (503)  |  Wood (97)  |  Year (963)

Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is, I dunno. If The Eiffel Tower were now to represent the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle knob at its summit would represent man’s share of that age; and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.
Declaiming Alfred Russel Wallace's 'anthropocentric' theory, that the universe was created specifically for the evolution of mankind. From 'Was the World Made for Man?' (1903) collected in What is Man?: and Other Philosophical Writings (1973), 106. Twain used the age of the earth accepted in his time; it is now estimated as 4,500 million years. Man’s origin is now estimated as 250,000 years.
For the complete essay, see Was The World Made For Man?.
Science quotes on:  |  Age Of The Earth (12)  |  Anybody (42)  |  Eiffel Tower (13)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Paint (22)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Represent (157)  |  Share (82)  |  Skin (48)  |  Summit (27)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tower (45)  |  Universe (900)  |  Alfred Russel Wallace (41)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Man is a creature composed of countless millions of cells: a microbe is composed of only one, yet throughout the ages the two have been in ceaseless conflict.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ceaseless (6)  |  Cell (146)  |  Compose (20)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Countless (39)  |  Creature (242)  |  Man (2252)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Millions (17)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Two (936)

Man, so far as natural science by itself is able to teach us, is no longer the final cause of the universe, the heaven-descended heir of all the ages. His very existence is an accident, his story a brief and discreditable episode in the life of one of the meanest of the planets. Of the combination of causes which first converted a piece or pieces of unorganised jelly into the living progenitors of humanity, science indeed, as yet, knows nothing.
In 'The Religion of Humanity', Essays and Addresses by the Right Hon. Arthur J. Balfour (1893), 307.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Brief (37)  |  Cause (561)  |  Combination (150)  |  Convert (22)  |  Descend (49)  |  Descended (2)  |  Discredit (8)  |  Episode (5)  |  Existence (481)  |  Final (121)  |  First (1302)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heir (12)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Jelly (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Planet (402)  |  Progenitor (5)  |  Story (122)  |  Teach (299)  |  Universe (900)

Many of the nobles and senators, although of great age, mounted more than once to the top of the highest church in Venice, in order to see sails and shipping … so far off that it was two hours before they were seen without my spy-glass …, for the effect of my instrument is such that it makes an object fifty miles off appear as large as if it were only five miles away. ... The Senate, knowing the way in which I had served it for seventeen years at Padua, ... ordered my election to the professorship for life.
Quoted in Will Durant, Ariel Duran, The Age of Reason Begins (1961), 604. From Charles Singer, Studies in the History and Method of Science (1917), Vol. 1, 228.
Science quotes on:  |  Church (64)  |  Effect (414)  |  Glass (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hour (192)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Magnification (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Mount (43)  |  Noble (93)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Sail (37)  |  See (1094)  |  Spy (9)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Top (100)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

Mathematics, once fairly established on the foundation of a few axioms and definitions, as upon a rock, has grown from age to age, so as to become the most solid fabric that human reason can boast.
In Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, 4th. Ed., 461.
Science quotes on:  |  Axiom (65)  |  Become (821)  |  Boast (22)  |  Definition (238)  |  Establish (63)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Fabric (27)  |  Fairly (4)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Grow (247)  |  Human (1512)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rock (176)  |  Solid (119)

Men have been talking now for a week at the post office about the age of the great elm, as a matter interesting but impossible to be determined. The very choppers and travelers have stood upon its prostrate trunk and speculated upon its age, as if it were a profound mystery. I stooped and read its years to them (127 at nine and a half feet), but they heard me as the wind that once sighed through its branches. They still surmised that it might be two hundred years old, but they never stooped to read the inscription. Truly they love darkness rather than light. One said it was probably one hundred and fifty, for he had heard somebody say that for fifty years the elm grew, for fifty it stood still, and for fifty it was dying. (Wonder what portion of his career he stood still!) Truly all men are not men of science. They dwell within an integument of prejudice thicker than the bark of the cork-tree, but it is valuable chiefly to stop bottles with. Tied to their buoyant prejudices, they keep themselves afloat when honest swimmers sink.
(26 Jan 1856). In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: VIII: November 1, 1855-August 15, 1856 (1906), 145-146.
Science quotes on:  |  Afloat (4)  |  Bark (19)  |  Bottle (17)  |  Buoyant (6)  |  Career (86)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Cork (2)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Dwell (19)  |  Elm (4)  |  Forestry (17)  |  Great (1610)  |  Honest (53)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inscription (12)  |  Integument (4)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Light (635)  |  Love (328)  |  Matter (821)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Never (1089)  |  Office (71)  |  Old (499)  |  Portion (86)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Profound (105)  |  Read (308)  |  Say (989)  |  Sink (38)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Still (614)  |  Swimmer (4)  |  Talking (76)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Tree (269)  |  Truly (118)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Two (936)  |  Week (73)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Year (963)

Men in most cases continue to be sexually competent until they are sixty years old, and if that limit be overpassed then until seventy years; and men have been actually known to procreate children at seventy years of age.
Aristotle
In The Works of Aristotle: Historia Animalium (350 BC), (The History of Animals), Book VII, Part 6, 585b5 translated in William David Ross and John Alexander Smith (eds.), D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (trans.), (1910), Vol. 4, 4
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Competent (20)  |  Continue (179)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Limit (294)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Procreate (4)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Seventy (2)  |  Sexuality (11)  |  Sixty (6)  |  Year (963)

Men today who have had an irreproachable training in the art are seen to abstain from the use of the hand as from the plague, and for this very reason, lest they should be slandered by the masters of the profession as barbers… . For it is indeed above all things the wide prevalence of this hateful error that prevents us even in our age from taking up the healing art as a whole, makes us confine ourselves merely to the treatment of internal complaints, and, if I may utter the blunt truth once for all, causes us, to the great detriment of mankind, to study to be healers only in a very limited degree.
As given in George I. Schwartz and ‎Philip W. Bishop, 'Andreas Vesalius', Moments of Discovery: The Development of Modern Science (1958), Vol. 1, 521.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstain (7)  |  Art (680)  |  Barber (5)  |  Blunt (5)  |  Cause (561)  |  Complaint (13)  |  Degree (277)  |  Detriment (3)  |  Error (339)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hand (149)  |  Healer (3)  |  Healing (28)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Internal (69)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Master (182)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Merely (315)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Plague (42)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Profession (108)  |  Reason (766)  |  Slander (3)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Today (321)  |  Training (92)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wide (97)

Middle age has been said to be the time of a man’s life when, if he has two choices for an evening, he takes the one that gets him home earlier.
Journal of the American Medical Association (1962), 181, 393.
Science quotes on:  |  Choice (114)  |  Home (184)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)

Millions of our race are now supported by lands situated where deep seas once prevailed in earlier ages. In many districts not yet occupied by man, land animals and forests now abound where the anchor once sank into the oozy bottom.
Principles of Geology (1837), Vol. 1, 237.
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Anchor (10)  |  Animal (651)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deep Sea (10)  |  Forest (161)  |  Geology (240)  |  Land (131)  |  Man (2252)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Race (278)  |  Sea (326)  |  Support (151)

Modern times breed modern phobias. Until the present age, for example, it has been impossible for any woman to suffer crippling fear of artificial insemination.
(1986).
Science quotes on:  |  Artificial (38)  |  Artificial Insemination (3)  |  Fear (212)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Modern (402)  |  Phobia (3)  |  Present (630)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Time (1911)  |  Woman (160)

Mountains have been formed by one [or other] of the causes of the formation of stone, most probably from agglutinative clay which slowly dried and petrified during ages of which we have no record. It seems likely that this habitable world was in former days uninhabitable and, indeed, submerged beneath the ocean. Then, becoming exposed little by little, it petrified in the course of ages.
Avicenna
Congelatione et Conglutinatione Lapidium (1021-23), trans. E. J. Hohnyard and D. C. Mandeville (1927), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Becoming (96)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Cause (561)  |  Course (413)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Former (138)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Little (717)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Other (2233)  |  Petrification (5)  |  Record (161)  |  Stone (168)  |  World (1850)

Mr. President, one does not need help going down, only going up. [At age 81, while receiving the first National Medal of Science from President Kennedy, Karman politely refusing the President's helping hand.]
Quoted in 'Von Kármán Symposium', National Academy of Engineering, The Bridge (1980), Vols 10-11, 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Down (455)  |  First (1302)  |  Help (116)  |  Need (320)  |  President (36)

My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.
Interview with Deborah Solomon, 'The Science of Second-Guessing', in New York Times Magazine (12 Dec 2004), 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Bonus (2)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Zero (38)

My interest in science was excited at age nine by an article on astronomy in National Geographic; the author was Donald Menzel of the Harvard Observatory. For the next few years, I regularly made star maps and snuck out at night to make observations from a locust tree in our back yard.
In Wilhelm Odelberg (ed.), Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1986 (1987).
Science quotes on:  |  Article (22)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Author (175)  |  Back (395)  |  Backyard (4)  |  Child (333)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Geographic (10)  |  Harvard (7)  |  Interest (416)  |  Locust (2)  |  Map (50)  |  National Geographic (2)  |  Next (238)  |  Night (133)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observatory (18)  |  Sneak (3)  |  Star (460)  |  Star Map (2)  |  Tree (269)  |  Year (963)

My second fixed idea is the uselessness of men above sixty years of age, and the incalculable benefit it would be in commercial, political, and in professional life, if as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age.
In farewell address, Johns Hopkins University, 'The Fixed Period', as quoted in Harvey Cushing, The Life of Sir William Osier (1925), vol. 1, 666. He was reflecting on his own intention to retire (now age 55) because he felt a teacher should have a fixed period of service. The title of his address was from an Anthony Trollope novel The Fixed Period which discussed the retiring of college teachers at age 60.
Science quotes on:  |  Benefit (123)  |  Commercial (28)  |  Course (413)  |  Idea (881)  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Political (124)  |  Professional (77)  |  Retirement (8)  |  Sixty (6)  |  Uselessness (22)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Natural causes, as we know, are at work, which tend to modify, if they do not at length destroy, all the arrangements and dimensions of the earth and the whole solar system. But though in the course of ages catastrophes have occurred and may yet occur in the heavens, though ancient systems may be dissolved and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules [i.e. atoms] out of which these systems are built—the foundation stones of the material universe—remain unbroken and unworn. They continue to this day as they were created—perfect in number and measure and weight.
Lecture to the British Association at Bradford, 'Molecules', Nature (1873), 8, 437-441. Reprinted in James Clerk Maxwell and W. D. Niven, editor, The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (2003), 377. By
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Catastrophe (35)  |  Cause (561)  |  Conservation Of Mass (2)  |  Continue (179)  |  Course (413)  |  Creation (350)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Know (1538)  |  Material (366)  |  Measure (241)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Occur (151)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Remain (355)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Stone (168)  |  System (545)  |  Tend (124)  |  Universe (900)  |  Weight (140)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

Nature offers us a thousand simple pleasures—plays of light and color, fragrance in the air, the sun’s warmth on skin and muscle, the audible rhythm of life’s stir and push—for the price of merely paying attention. What joy! But how unwilling or unable many of us are to pay this price in an age when manufactured sources of stimulation and pleasure are everywhere at hand. For me, enjoying nature’s pleasures takes conscious choice, a choice to slow down to seed time or rock time, to still the clamoring ego, to set aside plans and busyness, and to simply to be present in my body, to offer myself up.
In Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry (1991), 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Attention (196)  |  Audible (4)  |  Body (557)  |  Busy (32)  |  Choice (114)  |  Clamoring (2)  |  Color (155)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Down (455)  |  Ego (17)  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Joy (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Manufacture (30)  |  Merely (315)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Offer (142)  |  Pay (45)  |  Plan (122)  |  Play (116)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Present (630)  |  Price (57)  |  Push (66)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Rock (176)  |  Seed (97)  |  Set (400)  |  Set Aside (4)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simply (53)  |  Skin (48)  |  Slow (108)  |  Source (101)  |  Still (614)  |  Stimulation (18)  |  Stir (23)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unable (25)  |  Unwilling (9)  |  Warmth (21)

Newton and Laplace need myriads of ages and thick-strewn celestial areas. One may say a gravitating solar system is already prophesied in the nature of Newton’s mind.
In Essay on History.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Area (33)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Gravitate (2)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Prophesy (11)  |  Say (989)  |  Solar System (81)  |  System (545)

Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago. Isaac Newton, a posthumous child born with no father on Christmas Day, 1642, was the last wonder child to whom the Magi could do sincere and appropriate homage.
In 'Newton, the Man' (1946). In Geoffrey Keynes (ed.), Essays in Biography, 2nd edition (1951), 311.
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Birth (154)  |  Build (211)  |  Child (333)  |  Christmas (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eye (440)  |  Father (113)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Last (425)  |  Look (584)  |  Magician (15)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Reason (766)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

No mathematician should ever allow him to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game. … Galois died at twenty-one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty. There have been men who have done great work later; … [but] I do not know of a single instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty. … A mathematician may still be competent enough at sixty, but it is useless to expect him to have original ideas.
In A Mathematician's Apology (1941, reprint with Foreward by C.P. Snow 1992), 70-71.
Science quotes on:  |  Niels Henrik Abel (15)  |  Advance (298)  |  Art (680)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enough (341)  |  Expect (203)  |  Forget (125)  |  Évariste Galois (6)  |  Game (104)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Major (88)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  Single (365)  |  Still (614)  |  Work (1402)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a publick library; for who can see the wall crouded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditation, and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue, and preserved only to encrease the pomp of learning, without considering how many hours have been wasted in vain endeavours, how often imagination has anticipated the praises of futurity, how many statues have risen to the eye of vanity, how many ideal converts have elevated zeal, how often wit has exulted in the eternal infamy of his antagonists, and dogmatism has delighted in the gradual advances of his authority, the immutability of his decrees, and the perpetuity of his power.
Non unquam dedit
Documenta fors majora, quam fragili loco
Starent superbi.

Seneca, Troades, II, 4-6
Insulting chance ne'er call'd with louder voice,
On swelling mortals to be proud no more.
Of the innumerable authors whose performances are thus treasured up in magnificent obscurity, most are forgotten, because they never deserved to be remembered, and owed the honours which they have once obtained, not to judgment or to genius, to labour or to art, but to the prejudice of faction, the stratagem of intrigue, or the servility of adulation.
Nothing is more common than to find men whose works are now totally neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries, as the oracles of their age, and the legislators of science. Curiosity is naturally excited, their volumes after long enquiry are found, but seldom reward the labour of the search. Every period of time has produced these bubbles of artificial fame, which are kept up a while by the breath of fashion and then break at once and are annihilated. The learned often bewail the loss of ancient writers whose characters have survived their works; but perhaps if we could now retrieve them we should find them only the Granvilles, Montagus, Stepneys, and Sheffields of their time, and wonder by what infatuation or caprice they could be raised to notice.
It cannot, however, be denied, that many have sunk into oblivion, whom it were unjust to number with this despicable class. Various kinds of literary fame seem destined to various measures of duration. Some spread into exuberance with a very speedy growth, but soon wither and decay; some rise more slowly, but last long. Parnassus has its flowers of transient fragrance as well as its oaks of towering height, and its laurels of eternal verdure.
The Rambler, Number 106, 23 Mar 1751. In W. J. Bate and Albrecht B. Strauss (eds.), The Rambler (1969), Vol. 2, 200-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Advance (298)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Author (175)  |  Authority (99)  |  Break (109)  |  Breath (61)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Call (781)  |  Caprice (10)  |  Chance (244)  |  Character (259)  |  Class (168)  |  Common (447)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Decay (59)  |  Decree (9)  |  Delight (111)  |  Destined (42)  |  Dogmatism (15)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Eye (440)  |  Faction (4)  |  Fame (51)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flower (112)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Genius (301)  |  Growth (200)  |  Honour (58)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hour (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Last (425)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Library (53)  |  Long (778)  |  Loss (117)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Measure (241)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Mention (84)  |  More (2558)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Number (710)  |  Oak (16)  |  Oblivion (10)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Performance (51)  |  Period (200)  |  Perpetuity (9)  |  Power (771)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Produced (187)  |  Remember (189)  |  Reward (72)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Search (175)  |  See (1094)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Side (236)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spread (86)  |  Statue (17)  |  Striking (48)  |  Time (1911)  |  Towering (11)  |  Transient (13)  |  Vain (86)  |  Various (205)  |  Wall (71)  |  Wit (61)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

Nominally a great age of scientific inquiry, ours has become an age of superstition about the infallibility of science; of almost mystical faith in its non-mystical methods; above all—which perhaps most explains the expert's sovereignty—of external verities; of traffic-cop morality and rabbit-test truth.
In Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954), 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Expert (67)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  External (62)  |  Faith (209)  |  Great (1610)  |  Infallibility (7)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Method (531)  |  Morality (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mystical (9)  |  Rabbit (10)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sovereignty (6)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Test (221)  |  Traffic (10)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Verity (5)

Not long ago the head of what should be a strictly scientific department in one of the major universities commented on the odd (and ominous) phenomenon that persons who can claim to be scientists on the basis of the technical training that won them the degree of Ph.D. are now found certifying the authenticity of the painted rag that is called the “Turin Shroud” or adducing “scientific” arguments to support hoaxes about the “paranormal” or an antiquated religiosity. “You can hire a scientist [sic],” he said, “to prove anything.” He did not adduce himself as proof of his generalization, but he did boast of his cleverness in confining his own research to areas in which the results would not perturb the Establishment or any vociferous gang of shyster-led fanatics. If such is indeed the status of science and scholarship in our darkling age, Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls.
In 'The Price of the Head', Instauration Magazine (Mar 1980).
Science quotes on:  |  Antiquated (3)  |  Area (33)  |  Argument (145)  |  Ask (420)  |  Authenticity (5)  |  Basis (180)  |  Bell (35)  |  Boast (22)  |  Call (781)  |  Certify (2)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cleverness (15)  |  Comment (12)  |  Confine (26)  |  Degree (277)  |  Department (93)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Fanatic (7)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gang (4)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Head (87)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hire (7)  |  Hoax (6)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Long (778)  |  Long Ago (12)  |  Major (88)  |  Odd (15)  |  Ominous (5)  |  Paint (22)  |  Paranormal (3)  |  Person (366)  |  Perturb (2)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Prove Anything (7)  |  Rag (2)  |  Religiosity (2)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Send (23)  |  Shroud (2)  |  Status (35)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Support (151)  |  Technical (53)  |  Toll (3)  |  Training (92)  |  Turin (3)  |  University (130)  |  Win (53)

Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.
In Samuel Johnson and Arthur Murphy, The works of Samuel Johnson (1837), 237.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Former (138)  |  History (716)  |  Infancy (14)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Must (1525)  |  Past (355)  |  Remain (355)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transact (2)  |  Use (771)  |  World (1850)

Nothing could be more admirable than the manner in which for forty years he [Joseph Black] performed this useful and dignified office. His style of lecturing was as nearly perfect as can well be conceived; for it had all the simplicity which is so entirely suited to scientific discourse, while it partook largely of the elegance which characterized all he said or did … I have heard the greatest understandings of the age giving forth their efforts in its most eloquent tongues—have heard the commanding periods of Pitt’s majestic oratory—the vehemence of Fox’s burning declamation—have followed the close-compacted chain of Grant’s pure reasoning—been carried away by the mingled fancy, epigram, and argumentation of Plunket; but I should without hesitation prefer, for mere intellectual gratification (though aware how much of it is derived from association), to be once more allowed the privilege which I in those days enjoyed of being present while the first philosopher of his age was the historian of his own discoveries, and be an eyewitness of those experiments by which he had formerly made them, once more performed with his own hands.
In 'Philosophers of the Time of George III', The Works of Henry, Lord Brougham, F.R.S. (1855), Vol. I, 19-21.
Science quotes on:  |  Association (49)  |  Being (1276)  |  Joseph Black (14)  |  Burning (49)  |  Compact (13)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fancy (50)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Grant (76)  |  Gratification (22)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  Historian (59)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Lecture (111)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Office (71)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perform (123)  |  Period (200)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Present (630)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Useful (260)  |  Year (963)

Nurses, as well as midwives, ought to be of middle age, sober, patient, and discreet, able to bear fatigue and watching, free from external deformity, cutaneous eruptions, and inward complaints that may be troublesome or infectious.
In A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery (1766), 444.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Complaint (13)  |  Eruption (10)  |  Fatigue (13)  |  Free (239)  |  Infectious (2)  |  Inward (6)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Midwife (3)  |  Nurse (33)  |  Patient (209)  |  Sober (10)  |  Troublesome (8)  |  Watch (118)

Observation is so wide awake, and facts are being so rapidly added to the sum of human experience, that it appears as if the theorizer would always be in arrears, and were doomed forever to arrive at imperfect conclusion; but the power to perceive a law is equally rare in all ages of the world, and depends but little on the number of facts observed.
In A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1862), 383.
Science quotes on:  |  Awake (19)  |  Being (1276)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Depend (238)  |  Doom (34)  |  Equally (129)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Forever (111)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Law (913)  |  Little (717)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Power (771)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Rare (94)  |  Sum (103)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Wide (97)  |  World (1850)

Obviously, what our age has in common with the age of the Reformation is the fallout of disintegrating values. What needs explaining is the presence of a receptive audience. More significant than the fact that poets write abstrusely, painters paint abstractly, and composers compose unintelligible music is that people should admire what they cannot understand; indeed, admire that which has no meaning or principle.
In Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Admire (19)  |  Audience (28)  |  Common (447)  |  Compose (20)  |  Composer (7)  |  Disintegrate (3)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fallout (2)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  More (2558)  |  Music (133)  |  Need (320)  |  Obviously (11)  |  Paint (22)  |  Painter (30)  |  People (1031)  |  Poet (97)  |  Presence (63)  |  Principle (530)  |  Receptive (5)  |  Reformation (6)  |  Significant (78)  |  Understand (648)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Value (393)  |  Write (250)

Of my own age I may say … I was x years old in the year x × x. … I dare say Professor De Morgan, or some of your mathematical correspondents, will be able to find my age.
In Notes and Queries: Volume Twelve: July—December 1855 (4 Aug 1855), Vol. 12 No. 301, 94. The reply is signed as by M. However De Morgan is identified as author in C.O. Tuckey, 'Noughts and Crosses', The Mathematical Gazette (Dec 1929), 14, No. 204, 577, which points out: M “contributed other replies that were certainly from the pen of De Morgan.” Furthermore, De Morgan, mathematician, born in 1806, was 43 in the year 1849 (43 × 43, which is the only reasonable solution for an adult writing in 1855 since 42² = 1764).
Science quotes on:  |  Dare (55)  |  Find (1014)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Old (499)  |  Professor (133)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Say (989)  |  Square (73)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Old age is but a second childhood.
In Aristophanes and Thomas Mitchell (trans.), 'The Clouds', The Comedies of Aristophanes (1822), 148.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)

Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.
Diary entry (8 May 1936), collected in Diary in Exile (1959).
Science quotes on:  |  Happen (282)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unexpected (55)

On May 7, a few weeks after the accident at Three-Mile Island, I was in Washington. I was there to refute some of that propaganda that Ralph Nader, Jane Fonda and their kind are spewing to the news media in their attempt to frighten people away from nuclear power. I am 71 years old, and I was working 20 hours a day. The strain was too much. The next day, I suffered a heart attack. You might say that I was the only one whose health was affected by that reactor near Harrisburg. No, that would be wrong. It was not the reactor. It was Jane Fonda. Reactors are not dangerous.
From statement, published as a two-page advertisement, 'I Was the Only Victim of Three-Mile Island', placed by Dresser Industries in The Wall Street Journal (31 Jul 1979), U.S. Representative Larry McDonald entered the entire content of the ad, as Extensions of Remarks, into the Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the Congress (18 Dec 1979), 36876. [Note: The Three Mile Island accident happened on 28 Mar 1979. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Attack (86)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Fright (11)  |  Health (210)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heart Attack (2)  |  Hour (192)  |  Island (49)  |  Kind (564)  |  Media (14)  |  Ralph Nader (3)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Next (238)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Power (16)  |  Old (499)  |  People (1031)  |  Power (771)  |  Propaganda (13)  |  Reactor (3)  |  Refute (6)  |  Say (989)  |  Week (73)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)

On the day of Cromwell’s death, when Newton was sixteen, a great storm raged all over England. He used to say, in his old age, that on that day he made his first purely scientific experiment. To ascertain the force of the wind, he first jumped with the wind and then against it; and, by comparing these distances with the extent of his own jump on a calm day, he was enabled to compute the force of the storm. When the wind blew thereafter, he used to say it was so many feet strong.
In 'Sir Isaac Newton', People’s Book of Biography: Or, Short Lives of the Most Interesting Persons of All Ages and Countries (1868), 248.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Blow (45)  |  Calm (32)  |  Compare (76)  |  Compute (19)  |  Oliver Cromwell (3)  |  Death (406)  |  Distance (171)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extent (142)  |  First (1302)  |  Foot (65)  |  Force (497)  |  Great (1610)  |  Jump (31)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Purely (111)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Storm (56)  |  Strong (182)  |  Wind (141)

Once established, an original river advances through its long life, manifesting certain peculiarities of youth, maturity and old age, by which its successive stages of growth may be recognized without much difficulty.
'The Rivers and Valleys of Pennsylvania', The National Geographic Magazine, 1889, 1, 203.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Certain (557)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Growth (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Maturity (14)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  River (140)  |  Stage (152)  |  Successive (73)  |  Through (846)  |  Youth (109)

One naturally asks, what was the use of this great engine set at work ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of the earth? We have our answer in the fertile soil which spreads over the temperate regions of the globe. The glacier was God’s great plough.
In 'Ice-Period in America', Geological Sketches (1875), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Engine (99)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Glacier (17)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Plough (15)  |  Set (400)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spread (86)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Use (771)  |  Work (1402)

One of the most striking results of modern investigation has been the way in which several different and quite independent lines of evidence indicate that a very great event occurred about two thousand million years ago. The radio-active evidence for the age of meteorites; and the estimated time for the tidal evolution of the Moon's orbit (though this is much rougher), all agree in their testimony, and, what is far more important, the red-shift in the nebulae indicates that this date is fundamental, not merely in the history of our system, but in that of the material universe as a whole.
The Solar System and its Origin (1935), 137.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Date (14)  |  Different (595)  |  Estimation (7)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Importance (299)  |  Independence (37)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Indication (33)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Material (366)  |  Merely (315)  |  Meteorite (9)  |  Million (124)  |  Modern (402)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nebula (16)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Radio (60)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Red-Shift (4)  |  Result (700)  |  Shift (45)  |  Striking (48)  |  System (545)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tide (37)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe.
Opening sentences of his first published book (at first, anonymously), 'Introduction', Nature (1836), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Beheld (2)  |  Biography (254)  |  Build (211)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face To Face (4)  |  Father (113)  |  Foregoing (3)  |  Generation (256)  |  God (776)  |  History (716)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Original (61)  |  Relation (166)  |  Retrospective (4)  |  Sepulchre (4)  |  Universe (900)  |  Write (250)

Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter. … Transmutation of the elements, unlimited power, ability to investigate the working of living cells by tracer atoms, the secret of photosynthesis about to be uncovered, these and a host of other results, all in about fifteen short years. It is not too much to expect that our children will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under the and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a life span far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age.
Speech at the 20th anniversary of the National Association of Science Writers, New York City (16 Sep 1954), as quoted in 'Abundant Power From Atom Seen', New York Times (17 Sep 1954) 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Aging (9)  |  Air (366)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Atom (381)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cell (146)  |  Cheapness (2)  |  Children (201)  |  Danger (127)  |  Disease (340)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Element (322)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Experience (494)  |  Famine (18)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Home (184)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifespan (9)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meter (9)  |  Minimum (13)  |  Other (2233)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Power (771)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Sea (326)  |  Secret (216)  |  Ship (69)  |  Short (200)  |  Speed (66)  |  Submarine (12)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmutation (24)  |  Travel (125)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unlimited (24)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)  |  Yield (86)

Our immediate interests are after all of but small moment. It is what we do for the future, what we add to the sum of man's knowledge, that counts most. As someone has said, 'The individual withers and the world is more and more.' Man dies at 70, 80, or 90, or at some earlier age, but through his power of physical reproduction, and with the means that he has to transmit the results of effort to those who come after him, he may be said to be immortal.
'Willis Rodney Whitney', National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs (1960), 360.
Science quotes on:  |  Count (107)  |  Death (406)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Future (467)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Immortality (11)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interest (416)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physical (518)  |  Power (771)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Result (700)  |  Small (489)  |  Successor (16)  |  Sum (103)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmission (34)  |  World (1850)

Our most distinguished “man of science” was the then veteran John Dalton. He was rarely absent from his seat in a warm corner of the room during the meetings of the Literary and Philosophical Society. Though a sober-minded Quaker, he was not devoid of some sense of fun; and there was a tradition amongst us, not only that he had once been a poet, but that, although a bachelor, two manuscript copies were still extant of his verses on the subject of matrimonial felicity; and it is my belief there was foundation for the tradition. The old man was sensitive on the subject of his age. Dining one day ... he was placed between two ladies ... [who] resolved to extract from him some admission on the tender point, but in vain. Though never other than courteous, Dalton foiled all their feminine arts and retained his secret. ... Dalton's quaint and diminutive figure was a strongly individualized one.
In Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist (1896), 73-74.
Science quotes on:  |  Absent (3)  |  Admission (17)  |  Art (680)  |  Bachelor (3)  |  Belief (615)  |  Biography (254)  |  Corner (59)  |  Courteous (2)  |  John Dalton (25)  |  Devoid (12)  |  Diminutive (3)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Extract (40)  |  Felicity (4)  |  Feminine (4)  |  Figure (162)  |  Foiled (2)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fun (42)  |  Individual (420)  |  Lady (12)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manuscript (10)  |  Meeting (22)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Poet (97)  |  Point (584)  |  Quaint (7)  |  Quaker (2)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Retain (57)  |  Room (42)  |  Seat (7)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensitive (15)  |  Society (350)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Two (936)  |  Vain (86)  |  Verse (11)  |  Warm (74)

Ours is a golden age of minorities. At no time in the past have dissident minorities felt so much at home and had so much room to throw their weight around. They speak and act as if they were “the people,” and what they abominate most is the dissent of the majority.
In 'The Trend Toward Anarchy', In Our Time (1976), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Dissent (8)  |  Feel (371)  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  Home (184)  |  Majority (68)  |  Minority (24)  |  Most (1728)  |  Ours (4)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Room (42)  |  Speak (240)  |  Throw (45)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weight (140)

Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.
In 20 Hrs., 40 Min. (1928), 310.
Science quotes on:  |  Commencement (14)  |  Existence (481)  |  Flying (74)  |  Happy (108)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Life (1870)  |  Period (200)

Perfection of means and confusion of ends seems to characterize our age.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Characterize (22)  |  Confusion (61)  |  End (603)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Seem (150)

Perfections of means and confusion of goals seem—in my opinion to characterize our age.
In Out of My Later Years (1950, 1956), 113. Footnoted on page 277 as from 'The Common Language of Science', a broadcast recording for the Science Conference, London (28 Sep 1941) and published in Advancement of Science, 2, No. 5, 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Characterization (8)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Goal (155)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Perfection (131)

Perhaps I may without immodesty lay claim to the appellation of Mathematical Adam, as I believe that I have given more names (passed into general circulation) of the creatures of the mathematical reason than all the other mathematicians of the age combined.
In Nature (1887-1888), 87, 162. As quoted and cited in As cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 178
Science quotes on:  |  Adam (7)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Claim (154)  |  Combine (58)  |  Creature (242)  |  General (521)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Reason (766)

Physics is becoming so unbelievably complex that it is taking longer and longer to train a physicist. It is taking so long, in fact, to train a physicist to the place where he understands the nature of physical problems that he is already too old to solve them.
As quoted by Colin Pittendrigh (1971). In George C. Beakley, Ernest G. Chilton, Introduction to Engineering Design and Graphics (1973), 40
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Education (423)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Long (778)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Old (499)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Problem (731)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Train (118)  |  Understand (648)

Poore soule, in this thy flesh what do'st thou know?
Thou know'st thy selfe so little, as thou know'st not.
How thou did'st die, nor how thou wast begot.
Thou neither know'st how thou at first camest in,
Nor how thou took'st the poyson of mans sin.
Nor dost thou, (though thou know'st, that thou art so)
By what way thou art made immortall, know.
Thou art too narrow, wretch, to comprehend
Even thy selfe; yea though thou wouldst but bend
To know thy body. Have not all soules thought
For many ages, that our body'is wrought
Of Ayre, and Fire, and other Elements?
And now they thinke of new ingredients,
And one soule thinkes one, and another way
Another thinkes, and 'tis an even lay.
Knowst thou but how the stone doth enter in
The bladder's Cave, and never breake the skin?
Knowst thou how blood, which to the hart doth flow,
Doth from one ventricle to th'other go?
And for the putrid stuffe, which thou dost spit,
Knowst thou how thy lungs have attracted it?
There are no passages, so that there is
(For aught thou knowst) piercing of substances.
And of those many opinions which men raise
Of Nailes and Haires, dost thou know which to praise?
What hope have we to know our selves, when wee
Know not the least things, which for our use bee?
Of the Progresse of the Soule. The Second Anniversarie, I. 254-280. The Works of John Donne (Wordsworth edition 1994), 196-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Art (680)  |  Aught (6)  |  Bee (44)  |  Blood (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Enter (145)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Flow (89)  |  Hope (321)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Lung (37)  |  Man (2252)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Poem (104)  |  Sin (45)  |  Skin (48)  |  Stone (168)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Use (771)  |  Ventricle (7)  |  Way (1214)

Positive, objective knowledge is public property. It can be transmitted directly from one person to another, it can be pooled, and it can be passed on from one generation to the next. Consequently, knowledge accumulates through the ages, each generation adding its contribution. Values are quite different. By values, I mean the standards by which we judge the significance of life. The meaning of good and evil, of joy and sorrow, of beauty, justice, success-all these are purely private convictions, and they constitute our store of wisdom. They are peculiar to the individual, and no methods exist by which universal agreement can be obtained. Therefore, wisdom cannot be readily transmitted from person to person, and there is no great accumulation through the ages. Each man starts from scratch and acquires his own wisdom from his own experience. About all that can be done in the way of communication is to expose others to vicarious experience in the hope of a favorable response.
The Nature of Science and Other Lectures (1954), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Communication (101)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Different (595)  |  Evil (122)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Expose (28)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Generation (256)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hope (321)  |  Individual (420)  |  Joy (117)  |  Judge (114)  |  Justice (40)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Method (531)  |  Next (238)  |  Objective (96)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Person (366)  |  Positive (98)  |  Property (177)  |  Purely (111)  |  Response (56)  |  Scratch (14)  |  Significance (114)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Start (237)  |  Store (49)  |  Success (327)  |  Through (846)  |  Universal (198)  |  Value (393)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wisdom (235)

POTABLE, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific—and without science we are as the snakes and toads.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  260-261.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Bear (162)  |  Declare (48)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Drinking (21)  |  Find (1014)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humour (116)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Invention (400)  |  Known (453)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Palatable (3)  |  Potable (3)  |  Race (278)  |  Snake (29)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Thirst (11)  |  Toad (10)  |  Unscientific (13)  |  Water (503)

Profundity of thought belongs to youth, clarity of thought to old age.
Human, All-To-Human, Vol. 2, Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions (1879), 140. In Willard Huntington Wright, What Nietzsche Taught? (1917), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Profundity (6)  |  Thought (995)  |  Youth (109)

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Certain (557)  |  Creative (144)  |  Divert (3)  |  Fall (243)  |  Habit (174)  |  Lazy (10)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Use (771)

Revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse.
In Areopagitica: A speech of Mr John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenced printing to the Parliament of England (23 Nov 1644), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Fare (5)  |  Loss (117)  |  Nation (208)  |  Recover (14)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Want (504)  |  Whole (756)  |  Worse (25)

Science and politics become the hobby of, and are cherished only by, the elect few; but religion becomes, through education, the property of all, without reference to station, age, and sex.
From an essay, reprinted as 'The Elect People' in Rev. W. Ayerst The Jews of the Nineteenth Century: A Collection of Essays, Reviews and Historical Notices, Originally Published in the “Jewish Intelligence” (1848) 119.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Cherished (2)  |  Education (423)  |  Elect (5)  |  Hobby (14)  |  Politics (122)  |  Property (177)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sex (68)  |  Station (30)  |  Through (846)

Science can have a purifying effect on religion, freeing it from beliefs of a pre-scientific age and helping us to a truer conception of God. At the same time, I am far from believing that science will ever give us the answers to all our questions.
Essay 'Science Will Never Give Us the Answers to All Our Questions', collected in Henry Margenau, and Roy Abraham Varghese (eds.), Cosmos, Bios, Theos (1992), 65.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Belief (615)  |  Conception (160)  |  Effect (414)  |  Freeing (6)  |  God (776)  |  Help (116)  |  Pre-Scientific (5)  |  Purify (9)  |  Question (649)  |  Religion (369)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)

Science goes from question to question; big questions, and little, tentative answers. The questions as they age grow ever broader, the answers are seen to be more limited.
Nobel banquet speech (10 Dec 1967). In Ragnar Granit (ed.), Les Prix Nobel en 1967 (1968).
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Big (55)  |  Broad (28)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Little (717)  |  More (2558)  |  Question (649)  |  Tentative (18)

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual ... The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.
In Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Both (496)  |  Compatible (4)  |  Disservice (4)  |  Elation (2)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Humility (31)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Intricacy (8)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Light-Years (2)  |  Mutually (7)  |  Notion (120)  |  Passage (52)  |  Place (192)  |  Profound (105)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soaring (9)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Source (101)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Spirituality (8)  |  Subtlety (19)  |  Surely (101)  |  Year (963)

Science is the flower of the altruism of the ages, by which nothing that lives “liveth for itself alone.” The recognition of facts and laws is the province of science.
From Presidential Address (5 Dec 1896) to the Biological Society of Washington, 'The Malarial Parasite and Other Pathogenic Protozoa', Popular Science Monthly (Mar 1897), 642.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Altruism (7)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Flower (112)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Province (37)  |  Recognition (93)

Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point. ...
Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.…
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers…
In poem, 'Locksley Hall', collected in Poems by Alfred Tennyson (1842), Vol. 1, 105-106.
Science quotes on:  |  Creep (15)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Linger (14)  |  Move (223)  |  Movement (162)  |  Point (584)  |  Process (439)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Run (158)  |  Slowly (19)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Widen (10)  |  Wisdom (235)

Science, which now offers us a golden age with one hand, offers at the same time with the other the doom of all that we have built up inch by inch since the Stone Age and the dawn of any human annals. My faith is in the high progressive destiny of man. I do not believe we are to be flung back into abysmal darkness by those fiercesome discoveries which human genius has made. Let us make sure that they are servants, but not our masters.
In The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill by James C. Humes (1994).
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doom (34)  |  Faith (209)  |  Genius (301)  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Servant (40)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Time (1911)

Scientists are supposed to live in ivory towers. Their darkrooms and their vibration-proof benches are supposed to isolate their activities from the disturbances of common life. What they tell us is supposed to be for the ages, not for the next election. But the reality may be otherwise.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Bench (8)  |  Common (447)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Election (7)  |  Isolate (24)  |  Ivory Tower (5)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Next (238)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reality (274)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tower (45)  |  Vibration (26)

Since [World War I] we have seen the atomic age, the computer age, the space age, and the bio-engineering age, each as epochal as the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. And all these have occurred in one generation. Man has stood on the moon and looked back on the earth, that small planet now reduced to a neighbourhood. But our material achievements have exceeded the managerial capacities of our human minds and institutions.
As quoted in Colin Bingham (ed.), Wit and Wisdom: A Public Affairs Miscellany (1982), 227.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Atomic Age (6)  |  Back (395)  |  Bioengineering (5)  |  Bronze (5)  |  Bronze Age (2)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Computer (131)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Exceed (10)  |  Generation (256)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Institution (73)  |  Iron (99)  |  Iron Age (3)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moon (252)  |  Neighbourhood (2)  |  Occur (151)  |  Planet (402)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Renaissance (16)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Age (4)  |  Stand (284)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)  |  World War I (3)

Since my first discussions of ecological problems with Professor John Day around 1950 and since reading Konrad Lorenz's “King Solomon's Ring,” I have become increasingly interested in the study of animals for what they might teach us about man, and the study of man as an animal. I have become increasingly disenchanted with what the thinkers of the so-called Age of Enlightenment tell us about the nature of man, and with what the formal religions and doctrinaire political theorists tell us about the same subject.
'Autobiography of Allan M. Cormack,' Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures 1979, editted by Wilhelm Odelberg.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Disenchantment (2)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Enlightenment (21)  |  First (1302)  |  Formal (37)  |  Interest (416)  |  Man (2252)  |  Men (20)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Man (8)  |  Political (124)  |  Problem (731)  |  Professor (133)  |  Reading (136)  |  Religion (369)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Tell (344)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Thinker (41)

So far as I can see the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feeling that has sustained mankind for ages.
(1946). In William Borman, Gandhi and Non-Violence (1986), 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Death (406)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fine (37)  |  Mankind (356)  |  See (1094)  |  Sustain (52)

Society exists through a process of transmission quite as much as biological life. This transmission occurs by means of communication of habits of doing, thinking, and feeling from the older to the younger.
Democracy and Education: an Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (1916), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Biological (137)  |  Communication (101)  |  Doing (277)  |  Education (423)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Habit (174)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Occur (151)  |  Process (439)  |  Society (350)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Younger (21)

Some drill and bore
The solid earth, and from the strata there
Extract a register, by which we learn,
That he who made it, and reveal'd its date
To Moses, was mistaken in its age.
The Task and Other Poems, Book III, The Garden (1785). In John D. Baird and Charles Ryskamp (eds.), The Poems of William Cowper (1995), Vol. 2, 1782-1785, 166-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extract (40)  |  Learn (672)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Register (22)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Solid (119)  |  Strata (37)

Some of my youthful readers are developing wonderful imaginations. This pleases me. Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams—day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain-machinery whizzing—are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it.
Opening paragraph of preface, 'To My Readers', The Lost Princess of Oz (1917), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Apt (9)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Betterment (4)  |  Brain (281)  |  Child (333)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Create (245)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Day Dream (2)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discover (571)  |  Dream (222)  |  Educator (7)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fairy Tale (7)  |  Foster (12)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Invent (57)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Most (1728)  |  Open (277)  |  Please (68)  |  Present (630)  |  Prominent (6)  |  Reader (42)  |  Reality (274)  |  State (505)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Talking (76)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Untold (6)  |  Value (393)  |  Whiz (2)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

Some years ago John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in an essay on his efforts at writing a history of economics: “As one approaches the present, one is filled with a sense of hopelessness; in a year and possibly even a month, there is now more economic comment in the supposedly serious literature than survives from the whole of the thousand years commonly denominated as the Middle Ages … anyone who claims to be familiar with it all is a confessing liar.” I believe that all physicists would subscribe to the same sentiments regarding their own professional literature. I do at any rate.
In H. Henry Stroke, 'The Physical Review Then and Now', Physical Review: The First Hundred Years: a Selection of Seminal Papers and Commentaries, Vol. 1, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Belief (615)  |  Claim (154)  |  Comment (12)  |  Do (1905)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Effort (243)  |  Essay (27)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Fill (67)  |  John Kenneth Galbraith (11)  |  History (716)  |  Hopelessness (6)  |  Liar (8)  |  Literature (116)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Month (91)  |  More (2558)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Present (630)  |  Professional (77)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sentiment (16)  |  Serious (98)  |  Survive (87)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Whole (756)  |  Writing (192)  |  Year (963)

Srinivasa Ramanujan was the strangest man in all of mathematics, probably in the entire history of science. He has been compared to a bursting supernova, illuminating the darkest, most profound corners of mathematics, before being tragically struck down by tuberculosis at the age of 33... Working in total isolation from the main currents of his field, he was able to rederive 100 years’ worth of Western mathematics on his own. The tragedy of his life is that much of his work was wasted rediscovering known mathematics.
In Hyperspace:A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension (1994), 172.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Bursting (3)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Corner (59)  |  Current (122)  |  Dark (145)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Down (455)  |  Field (378)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Profound (105)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  Strangest (4)  |  Supernova (7)  |  Total (95)  |  Tragedy (31)  |  Tuberculosis (9)  |  Waste (109)  |  Western (45)  |  Work (1402)  |  Working (23)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game of chess. Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight?
Yet, it is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated—without haste, but without remorse.
Address to the South London Working Men’s College. 'A Liberal Education; and Where to Find It', in David Masson, (ed.), Macmillan’s Magazine (Mar 1868), 17, 369. Also in 'A Liberal Education and Where to Find it' (1868). In Collected Essays (1893), Vol. 3, 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Allowance (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Check (26)  |  Checkmate (2)  |  Chess (27)  |  Chessboard (2)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Connect (126)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cost (94)  |  Delight (111)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Disapprobation (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Eye (440)  |  Father (113)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Game (104)  |  Generosity (7)  |  Grow (247)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Haste (6)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ill (12)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Knight (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Loss (117)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Member (42)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Move (223)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Notion (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Patient (209)  |  Pawn (2)  |  Payment (6)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Player (9)  |  Primary (82)  |  Remorse (9)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Show (353)  |  Side (236)  |  Something (718)  |  Son (25)  |  Stake (20)  |  State (505)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Win (53)  |  Winning (19)  |  Woman (160)  |  World (1850)

Surely this is the golden age of mathematics.
In 'History of Mathematics in the Nineteenth Century', Congress of Arts and Sciences (1905), Vol. 1, 493. As quoted and cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Surely (101)

Symmetry, as wide or as narrow as you may define its meaning, is one idea by which man through the ages has tried to comprehend and create order, beauty and perfection.
Symmetry (1952), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Create (245)  |  Idea (881)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Order (638)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Through (846)  |  Wide (97)

Take the sum of human achievement in action, in science, in art, in literature—subtract the work of the men above forty, and while we should miss great treasures, even priceless treasures, we would practically be where we are today. … The effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty.
In farewell address, Johns Hopkins University, 'The Fixed Period', as quoted in Harvey Cushing, The Life of Sir William Osier (1925), vol. 1, 666.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Action (342)  |  Art (680)  |  Effective (68)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Literature (116)  |  Miss (51)  |  Priceless (9)  |  Retirement (8)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Sum (103)  |  Today (321)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Vital (89)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Taking a very gloomy view of the future of the human race, let us suppose that it can only expect to survive for two thousand millions years longer, a period about equal to the past age of the earth. Then, regarded as a being destined to live for three-score years and ten, humanity although it has been born in a house seventy years old, is itself only three days old. But only in the last few minutes has it become conscious that the whole world does not centre round its cradle and its trappings, and only in the last few ticks of the clock has any adequate conception of the size of the external world dawned upon it. For our clock does not tick seconds, but years; its minutes are the lives of men.
EOS: Or the Wider Aspects of Cosmology (1928), 12-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Age Of The Earth (12)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Clock (51)  |  Conception (160)  |  Cradle (19)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Destined (42)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Expect (203)  |  Future (467)  |  House (143)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Last (425)  |  Live (650)  |  Minute (129)  |  Old (499)  |  Past (355)  |  Period (200)  |  Race (278)  |  Regard (312)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Survive (87)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tick (9)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Teach me your mood,
O patient stars.
Who climb each night,
the ancient sky.
leaving on space no shade, no scars,
no trace of age, no fear to die.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Climb (39)  |  Die (94)  |  Fear (212)  |  Leave (138)  |  Mood (15)  |  Night (133)  |  Patient (209)  |  Scar (8)  |  Shade (35)  |  Sky (174)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Teach (299)  |  Trace (109)

That the enthusiasm which characterizes youth should lift its parricide hands against freedom and science would be such a monstrous phenomenon as I cannot place among possible things in this age and country.
[Expressing confidence in the next generation to preserve the freedom of the human mind, and of the press, which grew out of America's Declaration of Independence.]
Letter to a student, William Green Mumford (18 Jun 1799), In Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation (1970), 616.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  America (143)  |  Characterization (8)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Country (269)  |  Declaration (10)  |  Declaration Of Independence (5)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Generation (256)  |  Hand (149)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Lift (57)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monstrous (7)  |  Next (238)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possible (560)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Youth (109)

The “control of nature” is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and the convenience of man.
In Silent Spring (1962), 297.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrogance (22)  |  Biology (232)  |  Control (182)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Environment (239)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neanderthal (7)  |  Phrase (61)

The actions of bad men produce only temporary evil, the actions of good men only temporary good ; and eventually the good and the evil altogether subside, are neutralized by subsequent generations, absorbed by the incessant movements of future ages. But the discoveries of great men never leave us; they are immortal; they contain those eternal truths which survive the shock of empires, outlive the struggles of rival creeds, and witness the decay of successive religions.
In History of Civilization in England (1858), Vol. 1, 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Action (342)  |  Bad (185)  |  Creed (28)  |  Decay (59)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Empire (17)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Eventual (9)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Evil (122)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Incessant (9)  |  Leave (138)  |  Movement (162)  |  Never (1089)  |  Outlive (4)  |  Religion (369)  |  Rival (20)  |  Shock (38)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Subside (5)  |  Successive (73)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survive (87)  |  Temporary (24)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Witness (57)

The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790, 1868), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Calculator (9)  |  Economist (20)  |  Sophist (2)  |  Succeed (114)

The age of the earth was thus increased from a mere score of millions [of years] to a thousand millions and more, and the geologist who had before been bankrupt in time now found himself suddenly transformed into a capitalist with more millions in the bank than he knew how to dispose of … More cautious people, like myself, too cautious, perhaps, are anxious first of all to make sure that the new [radioactive] clock is not as much too fast as Lord Kelvin’s was too slow.
1921 British Association for the Advancement of Science symposium on 'The Age of the Earth'. In Nature (1921), 108, 282.
Science quotes on:  |  Age Of The Earth (12)  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Bank (31)  |  Bankrupt (4)  |  Capitalist (6)  |  Caution (24)  |  Clock (51)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fast (49)  |  First (1302)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Himself (461)  |  Increase (225)  |  Baron William Thomson Kelvin (74)  |  Lord (97)  |  More (2558)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  People (1031)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Slow (108)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transform (74)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Year (963)

The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Conservation (187)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mar (2)  |  Work (1402)

The American farmer should in no sense be the prototype of Edwin Markham’s brainless fellow, whom he so graphically portrays—
“Bowed by the weight of centuries, he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face, …
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox.”
In Farmer’s Leaflet 7: The Need of Scientific Agriculture in the South (1902). Reprinted in The Review of Reviews (1902), 25, 322. Edwin Markham composed his poem, Man With a Hoe, after viewing a painting of the same name by Jean-François Millet.
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Brother (47)  |  Emptiness (13)  |  Face (214)  |  Farmer (35)  |  Hoe (2)  |  Hope (321)  |  Ox (5)  |  Stunned (2)

The application of botanical and zoological evidence to determine the relative age of rocks—this chronometry of the earth's surface which was already present to the lofty mind of Hooke—indicates one of the most glorious epochs of modern geognosy, which has finally, on the Continent at least, been emancipated from the way of Semitic doctrines. Palaeontological investigations have imparted a vivifying breath of grace and diversity to the science of the solid structure of the earth.
Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (1845-62), trans. E. C. Due (1849), Vol. 1, 272.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Application (257)  |  Botany (63)  |  Breath (61)  |  Continent (79)  |  Determine (152)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Geognosy (2)  |  Geology (240)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Grace (31)  |  Robert Hooke (20)  |  Impart (24)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  North America (5)  |  Paleontology (32)  |  Present (630)  |  Rock (176)  |  Solid (119)  |  Structure (365)  |  Surface (223)  |  Way (1214)  |  Zoology (38)

The Atomic Age began at exactly 5.30 Mountain War Time on the morning of July 15, 1945, on a stretch of semi-desert land about 50 airline miles from Alamogordo, New Mexico. And just at that instance there rose from the bowels of the earth a light not of this world, the light of many suns in one. ... At first it was a giant column that soon took the shape of a supramundane mushroom.
On the first atomic explosion in New Mexico, 16 Jul 1945.
From 'Drama of the Atomic Bomb Found Climax in July 16 Test', in New York Times (26 Sep 1945), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Age (6)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Bowel (17)  |  Desert (59)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Explosion (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Giant (73)  |  Light (635)  |  Morning (98)  |  Mountain (202)  |  New (1273)  |  Rose (36)  |  Soon (187)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)

The Atomic Age was born in secrecy, and for two decades after Hiroshima, the high priests of the cult of the atom concealed vital information about the risks to human health posed by radiation. Dr. Alice Stewart, an audacious and insightful medical researcher, was one of the first experts to alert the world to the dangers of low-level radiation.
(Udeall is a former U.S. Secretary of the Interior.)
Quoted in Gayle Jacoba Greene, The Woman Who Knew Too Much (1999), back cover.
Science quotes on:  |  Alert (13)  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Age (6)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Concealed (25)  |  Danger (127)  |  Decade (66)  |  Expert (67)  |  First (1302)  |  Former (138)  |  Health (210)  |  High (370)  |  Hiroshima (18)  |  Human (1512)  |  Information (173)  |  Interior (35)  |  Low (86)  |  Priest (29)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Risk (68)  |  Alice Stewart (5)  |  Two (936)  |  Vital (89)  |  World (1850)

The Author of nature has not given laws to the universe, which, like the institutions of men, carry in themselves the elements of their own destruction; he has not permitted in his works any symptom of infancy or of old age, or any sign by which we may estimate either their future or their past duration. He may put an end, as he no doubt gave a beginning, to the present system at some determinate period of time; but we may rest assured, that this great catastrophe will not be brought about by the laws now existing, and that it is not indicated by any thing which we perceive.
'Biographical Account of the Late Dr James Hutton, F.R.S. Edin.' (read 1803), Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1805), 5, 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Assurance (17)  |  Author (175)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Carry (130)  |  Catastrophe (35)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Determination (80)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Duration (12)  |  Element (322)  |  End (603)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Estimation (7)  |  Existence (481)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Indication (33)  |  Infancy (14)  |  Institution (73)  |  Law (913)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Past (355)  |  Perception (97)  |  Period (200)  |  Permission (7)  |  Present (630)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sign (63)  |  Symptom (38)  |  System (545)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

The beauty of natural history programmes is that you can be straightforward and fascinate the 7s and the 70s. If you just present it as it is, all kinds of people of all ages and all educational backgrounds love it. That’s the joy of natural history—it’s a godsend for blokes like me.
In Rowan Hooper, 'One Minute With… David Attenborough', New Scientist (2 Feb 2013), 217, No. 2902, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Education (423)  |  Fascinate (12)  |  History (716)  |  Joy (117)  |  Kind (564)  |  Love (328)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  People (1031)  |  Present (630)  |  Program (57)  |  Straightforward (10)

The body is most fully developed from thirty to thirty-five years of age, the mind at about forty-nine.
Aristotle
Rhetoric, II, xiv.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Develop (278)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Year (963)

The book of Nature is the book of Fate. She turns the gigantic pages,—leaf after leaf,—never re-turning one. One leaf she lays down, a floor of granite; then a thousand ages, and a bed of slate; a thousand ages, and a measure of coal; a thousand ages, and a layer of marl and mud: vegetable forms appear; her first misshapen animals, zoophyte, trilobium, fish; then, saurians,—rude forms, in which she has only blocked her future statue, concealing under these unwieldy monsters the fine type of her coming king. The face of the planet cools and dries, the races meliorate, and man is born. But when a race has lived its term, it comes no more again.
From 'Fate', collected in The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 6: The Conduct of Life (1860), 15. This paragraph is the prose version of his poem, 'Song of Nature'.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Bed (25)  |  Birth (154)  |  Block (13)  |  Book (413)  |  Book Of Fate (2)  |  Book Of Nature (12)  |  Coal (64)  |  Coming (114)  |  Concealing (2)  |  Cool (15)  |  Down (455)  |  Dry (65)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Face (214)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fine (37)  |  First (1302)  |  Fish (130)  |  Floor (21)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Granite (8)  |  King (39)  |  Layer (41)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  Monster (33)  |  More (2558)  |  Mud (26)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Page (35)  |  Planet (402)  |  Race (278)  |  Returning (2)  |  Rude (6)  |  Saurian (2)  |  Slate (6)  |  Statue (17)  |  Term (357)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Trilobite (6)  |  Turn (454)  |  Type (171)  |  Unwieldy (2)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Zoophyte (5)

The California climate makes the sick well and the well sick, the old young and the young old.
Anonymous
American saying
Science quotes on:  |  Climate (102)  |  Health (210)  |  Old (499)  |  Proverb (29)  |  Sick (83)  |  Young (253)

The cell was the first invention of the animal kingdom, and all higher animals are and must be cellular in structure. Our tissues were formed ages on ages ago; they have all persisted. Most of our organs are as old as worms. All these are very old, older than the mountains.
In The Whence and Whither of Man; a Brief History of his Origin and Development through Conformity to Environment; being the Morse Lectures of 1895. (1896), 173. The Morse lectureship was founded by Prof. Samuel F.B. Morse in 1865 at Union Theological Seminary, the lectures to deal with “the relation of the Bible to any of the sciences.”
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Kingdom (21)  |  Cell (146)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Formed (5)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Old (499)  |  Older (7)  |  Organ (118)  |  Persist (13)  |  Structure (365)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Worm (47)

The century after the Civil War was to be an Age of Revolution—of countless, little-noticed revolutions, which occurred not in the halls of legislatures or on battlefields or on the barricades but in homes and farms and factories and schools and stores, across the landscape and in the air—so little noticed because they came so swiftly, because they touched Americans everywhere and every day. Not merely the continent but human experience itself, the very meaning of community, of time and space, of present and future, was being revised again and again, a new democratic world was being invented and was being discovered by Americans wherever they lived.
In The Americans: The Democratic Experience (1973, 1974), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Battlefield (9)  |  Being (1276)  |  Century (319)  |  Civil (26)  |  Civil War (4)  |  Community (111)  |  Continent (79)  |  Countless (39)  |  Democracy (36)  |  Democratic (12)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Experience (494)  |  Factory (20)  |  Farm (28)  |  Future (467)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invention (400)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Legislature (4)  |  Little (717)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Merely (315)  |  New (1273)  |  Present (630)  |  Revise (6)  |  Revolution (133)  |  School (227)  |  Space (523)  |  Store (49)  |  Swiftly (5)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Touch (146)  |  War (233)  |  Wherever (51)  |  World (1850)

The certainties of one age are the problems of the next.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926, 2008), 282.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainty (180)  |  Next (238)  |  Problem (731)

The Chinese, who aspire to be thought an enlightened nation, to this day are ignorant of the circulation of the blood; and even in England the man who made that noble discovery lost all his practice in the consequence of his ingenuity; and Hume informs us that no physician in the United Kingdom who had attained the age of forty ever submitted to become a convert to Harvey’s theory, but went on preferring numpsimus to sumpsimus to the day of his death.
Reflection 352, in Lacon: or Many things in Few Words; Addressed to Those Who Think (1820), 164-165.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Aspire (15)  |  Attain (126)  |  Become (821)  |  Blood (144)  |  Britain (26)  |  China (27)  |  Chinese (22)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Death (406)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightened (25)  |  William Harvey (30)  |   David Hume (34)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Inform (50)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nation (208)  |  Noble (93)  |  Physician (284)  |  Practice (212)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)

The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors. … In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket, and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the Earth. These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring idealism, we will miss them all the more. … The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.
Address to the Nation on the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy, from the Cabinet Room (1 Feb 2003). In William J. Federer, A Treasury of Presidential Quotations (2004), 437.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronaut (34)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Cause (561)  |  Continue (179)  |  Courage (82)  |  Danger (127)  |  Daring (17)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Death (406)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Flight (101)  |  High (370)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Journey (48)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Life (1870)  |  Longing (19)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Miss (51)  |  More (2558)  |  Noble (93)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Routine (26)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Space Shuttle (12)  |  Travel (125)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The Commonwealth of Learning is not at this time without Master-Builders, whose mighty Designs, in advancing the Sciences, will leave lasting Monuments to the Admiration of Posterity; But every one must not hope to be a Boyle, or a Sydenham; and in an Age that produces such Masters, as the Great-Huygenius, and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some other of that Strain; 'tis Ambition enough to be employed as an Under-Labourer in clearing Ground a little, and removing some of the Rubbish, that lies in the way to Knowledge.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), The Epistle to the Reader, 9-10.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Ambition (46)  |  Robert Boyle (28)  |  Design (203)  |  Employ (115)  |  Enough (341)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hope (321)  |  Christiaan Huygens (11)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learning (291)  |  Lie (370)  |  Little (717)  |  Master (182)  |  Monument (45)  |  Must (1525)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Other (2233)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Rubbish (12)  |  Thomas Sydenham (8)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals, never to the age.
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 422:12.
Science quotes on:  |  Due (143)  |  Individual (420)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Never (1089)

The cult of individual personalities is always, in my view, unjustified. To be sure, nature distributes her gifts variously among her children. But there are plenty of the well-endowed ones too, thank God, and I am firmly convinced that most of them live quiet, unregarded lives. It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few of them for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular estimate of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque. The consciousness of this extraordinary state of affairs would be unbearable but for one great consoling thought: it is a welcome symptom in an age which is commonly denounced as materialistic, that it makes heroes of men whose ambitions lie wholly in the intellectual and moral sphere. This proves that knowledge and justice are ranked above wealth and power by a large section of the human race. My experience teaches me that this idealistic outlook is particularly prevalent in America, which is usually decried as a particularly materialistic country.
From Mein Weltbild, as translated by Alan Harris (trans.), 'Some Notes on my American Impressions', The World as I See It (1956, 1993), 37-38.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Ambition (46)  |  America (143)  |  Bad (185)  |  Biography (254)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Character (259)  |  Children (201)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Consoling (4)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Country (269)  |  Distribute (16)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fate (76)  |  Gift (105)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Justice (40)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Power (771)  |  Prove (261)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Race (278)  |  Rank (69)  |  Reality (274)  |  Select (45)  |  Sphere (118)  |  State (505)  |  Strike (72)  |  Superhuman (6)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Taste (93)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thought (995)  |  Usually (176)  |  View (496)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Welcome (20)  |  Wholly (88)

The Dark Ages may return—the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of Science; and what might now shower immeasureable material blessings upon mankind may even bring about its total destruction. Beware! I say. Time may be short.
Referring to the discovery of atomic energy.
“Iron Curtain” speech at Fulton, Missouri (5 Mar 1946). Maxims and Reflections (1947), 164.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Energy (25)  |  Beware (16)  |  Blessing (26)  |  Blessings (17)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Energy (373)  |  Immeasurable (4)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Material (366)  |  Return (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Short (200)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Time (1911)  |  Total (95)  |  Wing (79)

The days of my youth extend backward to the dark ages, for I was born when the rush-light, the tallow-dip or the solitary blaze of the hearth were common means of indoor lighting, and an infrequent glass bowl, raised 8 or 10 feet on a wooden post, and containing a cup full of evil-smelling train-oil with a crude cotton wick stuck in it, served to make the darkness visible out of doors. In the chambers of the great, the wax candle or, exceptionally, a multiplicity of them, relieved the gloom on state occasions, but as a rule, the common people, wanting the inducement of indoor brightness such as we enjoy, went to bed soon after sunset.
Reminiscence written by Swan “in his old age”, as quoted in Kenneth Raydon Swan, Sir Joseph Swan (1946), 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Bed (25)  |  Biography (254)  |  Birth (154)  |  Blaze (14)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Candle (32)  |  Common (447)  |  Crude (32)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Door (94)  |  Evil (122)  |  Extend (129)  |  Glass (94)  |  Gloom (11)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hearth (3)  |  Indoor (2)  |  Light (635)  |  Lighting (5)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Multiplicity (14)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Oil (67)  |  People (1031)  |  Rule (307)  |  Soon (187)  |  State (505)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Tallow (2)  |  Train (118)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wax (13)  |  Wick (4)  |  Youth (109)

The Earth Speaks, clearly, distinctly, and, in many of the realms of Nature, loudly, to William Jennings Bryan, but he fails to hear a single sound. The earth speaks from the remotest periods in its wonderful life history in the Archaeozoic Age, when it reveals only a few tissues of its primitive plants. Fifty million years ago it begins to speak as “the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life.” In successive eons of time the various kinds of animals leave their remains in the rocks which compose the deeper layers of the earth, and when the rocks are laid bare by wind, frost, and storm we find wondrous lines of ascent invariably following the principles of creative evolution, whereby the simpler and more lowly forms always precede the higher and more specialized forms.
The earth speaks not of a succession of distinct creations but of a continuous ascent, in which, as the millions of years roll by, increasing perfection of structure and beauty of form are found; out of the water-breathing fish arises the air-breathing amphibian; out of the land-living amphibian arises the land-living, air-breathing reptile, these two kinds of creeping things resembling each other closely. The earth speaks loudly and clearly of the ascent of the bird from one kind of reptile and of the mammal from another kind of reptile.
This is not perhaps the way Bryan would have made the animals, but this is the way God made them!
The Earth Speaks to Bryan (1925), 5-6. Osborn wrote this book in response to the Scopes Monkey Trial, where William Jennings Bryan spoke against the theory of evolution. They had previously been engaged in the controversy about the theory for several years. The title refers to a Biblical verse from the Book of Job (12:8), “Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.”
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Amphibian (7)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arise (162)  |  Bare (33)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Begin (275)  |  Bird (163)  |  Breath (61)  |  Breathing (23)  |  William Jennings Bryan (20)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eon (12)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fish (130)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Frost (15)  |  God (776)  |  Hear (144)  |  History (716)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Kind (564)  |  Land (131)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Million (124)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Period (200)  |  Plant (320)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Principle (530)  |  Realm (87)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remains (9)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Rock (176)  |  Roll (41)  |  Single (365)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Storm (56)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Two (936)  |  Various (205)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Wondrous (22)  |  Year (963)

The electric age ... established a global network that has much the character of our central nervous system.
Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man? (2nd Ed.,1964), 302.
Science quotes on:  |  Central (81)  |  Character (259)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Global (39)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Network (21)  |  System (545)

The elements of human nature are the learning rules, emotional reinforcers, and hormonal feedback loops that guide the development of social behaviour into certain channels as opposed to others. Human nature is not just the array of outcomes attained in existing societies. It is also the potential array that might be achieved through conscious design by future societies. By looking over the realized social systems of hundreds of animal species and deriving the principles by which these systems have evolved, we can be certain that all human choices represent only a tiny subset of those theoretically possible. Human nature is, moreover, a hodgepodge of special genetic adaptations to an environment largely vanished, the world of the Ice­Age hunter-gatherer.
In On Human Nature (1978), 196.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Animal (651)  |  Attain (126)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Certain (557)  |  Choice (114)  |  Design (203)  |  Development (441)  |  Element (322)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Environment (239)  |  Feedback (10)  |  Future (467)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hormone (11)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Hunter-Gatherer (2)  |  Ice (58)  |  Ice Age (10)  |  Learning (291)  |  Looking (191)  |  Loop (6)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Potential (75)  |  Principle (530)  |  Represent (157)  |  Rule (307)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  System (545)  |  Through (846)  |  Tiny (74)  |  World (1850)

The engineer is the key figure in the material progress of the world. It is his engineering that makes a reality of the potential value of science by translating scientific knowledge into tools, resources, energy and labor to bring them to the service of man ... To make contribution of this kind the engineer requires the imagination to visualize the needs of society and to appreciate what is possible as well as the technological and broad social age understanding to bring his vision to reality.
In Philip Sporn, Foundations of Engineering: Cornell College of Engineering Lectures, Spring 1963 (1964), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Figure (162)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Possible (560)  |  Potential (75)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reality (274)  |  Require (229)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Service (110)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Technological (62)  |  Tool (129)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Value (393)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)

Edwin Grant Conklin quote: The ethics of science regards the search for truth as one of the highest duties of man.
The ethics of science regards the search for truth as one of the highest duties of man; it regards noble human character as the finest product of evolution; it considers the service of all mankind as the universal good; it teaches that human nature and humane nurture may be improved, that reason may replace unreason, cooperation supplement competition, and the progress of the human race through future ages be promoted by intelligence and goodwill.
From Address as retiring president before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Indianapolis (27 Dec 1937). Published in 'Science and Ethics', Science (31 Dec 1937), 86, No. 2244, 602.
Science quotes on:  |  Character (259)  |  Competition (45)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Duty (71)  |  Ethic (39)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Future (467)  |  Good (906)  |  Goodwill (6)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Humane (19)  |  Improve (64)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Noble (93)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Product (166)  |  Progress (492)  |  Promote (32)  |  Race (278)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regard (312)  |  Replace (32)  |  Search (175)  |  Service (110)  |  Supplement (7)  |  Teach (299)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universal (198)  |  Unreason (3)

The explosive component in the contemporary scene is not the clamor of the masses but the self-righteous claims of a multitude of graduates from schools and universities. This army of scribes is clamoring for a society in which planning, regulation, and supervision are paramount and the prerogative of the educated. They hanker for the scribe’s golden age, for a return to something like the scribe-dominated societies of ancient Egypt, China, and Europe of the Middle Ages. There is little doubt that the present trend in the new and renovated countries toward social regimentation stems partly from the need to create adequate employment for a large number of scribes. And since the tempo of the production of the literate is continually increasing, the prospect is of ever-swelling bureaucracies.
In 'Scribe, Writer, and Rebel', The Ordeal of Change (1963), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Ancient Egypt (4)  |  Army (35)  |  Bureaucracy (8)  |  China (27)  |  Claim (154)  |  Clamor (7)  |  Clamoring (2)  |  Component (51)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Continually (17)  |  Country (269)  |  Create (245)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Educate (14)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Employment (34)  |  Europe (50)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Increase (225)  |  Large (398)  |  Literate (2)  |  Little (717)  |  Mass (160)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Paramount (11)  |  Partly (5)  |  Plan (122)  |  Planning (21)  |  Prerogative (3)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Prospect (31)  |  Regimentation (2)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Renovate (3)  |  Return (133)  |  Scene (36)  |  School (227)  |  Scribe (3)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Righteous (2)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Something (718)  |  Stem (31)  |  Supervision (4)  |  Tempo (3)  |  Toward (45)  |  Trend (23)  |  University (130)

The extensive literature addressed to the definition or characterization of science is filled with inconsistent points of view and demonstrates that an adequate definition is not easy to attain. Part of the difficulty arises from the fact that the meaning of science is not fixed, but is dynamic. As science has evolved, so has its meaning. It takes on a new meaning and significance with successive ages.
Opening statement on 'The Meaning of “Science”', in Scientific Method: Optimizing Applied Research Decisions (1962), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Arise (162)  |  Attain (126)  |  Characterization (8)  |  Definition (238)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Easy (213)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Inconsistent (9)  |  Literature (116)  |  Meaning (244)  |  New (1273)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Significance (114)  |  Successive (73)  |  View (496)

The extinctions ongoing worldwide promise to be at least as great as the mass extinction that occurred at the end of the age of dinosaurs.
Quoted in Jamie Murphy and Andrea Dorfman, 'The Quiet Apocalypse,' Time (13 Oct 1986).
Science quotes on:  |  Dinosaur (26)  |  End (603)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Great (1610)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mass Extinction (4)  |  Promise (72)  |  Worldwide (19)

The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age; and when this fact has been established, the remainder of the principles of mathematics consists of the analysis of Symbolic Logic itself.
In Bertrand Russell, The Principles of Mathematics (1903), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Consist (223)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Principle (530)  |  Remainder (7)

The fact that, with respect to size, the viruses overlapped with the organisms of the biologist at one extreme and with the molecules of the chemist at the other extreme only served to heighten the mystery regarding the nature of viruses. Then too, it became obvious that a sharp line dividing living from non-living things could not be drawn and this fact served to add fuel for discussion of the age-old question of “What is life?”
Nobel Lecture (12 Dec 1946), 'The Isolation and Properties of Crystalline Tobacco Mosaic Virus', collected in Nobel Lectures in Chemistry (1999), 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Become (821)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Divide (77)  |  Draw (140)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Life (1870)  |  Line (100)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Non-Living (3)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Old (499)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlap (9)  |  Question (649)  |  Regard (312)  |  Respect (212)  |  Serve (64)  |  Sharp (17)  |  Size (62)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Virus (32)

The frying pan you should give to your enemy. Food should not be prepared in fat. Our bodies are adapted to a stone age diet of roots and vegetables.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Body (557)  |  Diet (56)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Fat (11)  |  Food (213)  |  Frying (2)  |  Root (121)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Vegetable (49)

The general knowledge of our author [Leonhard Euler] was more extensive than could well be expected, in one who had pursued, with such unremitting ardor, mathematics and astronomy as his favorite studies. He had made a very considerable progress in medical, botanical, and chemical science. What was still more extraordinary, he was an excellent scholar, and possessed in a high degree what is generally called erudition. He had attentively read the most eminent writers of ancient Rome; the civil and literary history of all ages and all nations was familiar to him; and foreigners, who were only acquainted with his works, were astonished to find in the conversation of a man, whose long life seemed solely occupied in mathematical and physical researches and discoveries, such an extensive acquaintance with the most interesting branches of literature. In this respect, no doubt, he was much indebted to an uncommon memory, which seemed to retain every idea that was conveyed to it, either from reading or from meditation.
In Philosophical and Mathematical Dictionary (1815), 493-494.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaint (11)  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Ardor (5)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Attentive (15)  |  Author (175)  |  Botany (63)  |  Branch (155)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Civil (26)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Convey (17)  |  Degree (277)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Erudition (7)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Expect (203)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Find (1014)  |  Foreigner (3)  |  General (521)  |  Generally (15)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indebted (8)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literary (15)  |  Literature (116)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Memory (144)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nation (208)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possess (157)  |  Progress (492)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Respect (212)  |  Retain (57)  |  Rome (19)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Uncommon (14)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

The golden age of mathematics—that was not the age of Euclid, it is ours. Ours is the age when no less than six international congresses have been held in the course of nine years. It is in our day that more than a dozen mathematical societies contain a growing membership of more than two thousand men representing the centers of scientific light throughout the great culture nations of the world. It is in our time that over five hundred scientific journals are each devoted in part, while more than two score others are devoted exclusively, to the publication of mathematics. It is in our time that the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik, though admitting only condensed abstracts with titles, and not reporting on all the journals, has, nevertheless, grown to nearly forty huge volumes in as many years. It is in our time that as many as two thousand books and memoirs drop from the mathematical press of the world in a single year, the estimated number mounting up to fifty thousand in the last generation. Finally, to adduce yet another evidence of a similar kind, it requires not less than seven ponderous tomes of the forthcoming Encyclopaedie der Mathematischen Wissenschaften to contain, not expositions, not demonstrations, but merely compact reports and bibliographic notices sketching developments that have taken place since the beginning of the nineteenth century.
In Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Art (1908), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  19th Century (41)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Admit (49)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bibliography (3)  |  Book (413)  |  Center (35)  |  Century (319)  |  Compact (13)  |  Condense (15)  |  Congress (20)  |  Course (413)  |  Culture (157)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Development (441)  |  Devote (45)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Dozen (10)  |  Drop (77)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Exposition (16)  |  Generation (256)  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growing (99)  |  Huge (30)  |  Hundred (240)  |  International (40)  |  Journal (31)  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  Light (635)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Membership (6)  |  Memoir (13)  |  Mere (86)  |  Merely (315)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  More (2558)  |  Mount (43)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Notice (81)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Ponderous (2)  |  Press (21)  |  Publication (102)  |  Report (42)  |  Reporting (9)  |  Represent (157)  |  Require (229)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Score (8)  |  Single (365)  |  Sketch (8)  |  Society (350)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Title (20)  |  Two (936)  |  Volume (25)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

The graceful minuet-dance of fancy must give place to the toilsome, thorny pilgrimage of understanding.
On the transition from the age of romance to that of science.
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 431:5.
Science quotes on:  |  Dance (35)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Must (1525)  |  Pilgrimage (4)  |  Romance (18)  |  Transition (28)  |  Understanding (527)

The gradual advance of Geology, during the last twenty years, to the dignity of a science, has arisen from the laborious and extensive collection of facts, and from the enlightened spirit in which the inductions founded on those facts have been deduced and discussed. To those who are unacquainted with this science, or indeed to any person not deeply versed in the history of this and kindred subjects, it is impossible to convey a just impression of the nature of that evidence by which a multitude of its conclusions are supported:—evidence in many cases so irresistible, that the records of the past ages, to which it refers, are traced in language more imperishable than that of the historian of any human transactions; the relics of those beings, entombed in the strata which myriads of centuries have heaped upon their graves, giving a present evidence of their past existence, with which no human testimony can compete.
The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (1838), 47-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Being (1276)  |  Collection (68)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightened (25)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Geology (240)  |  Grave (52)  |  Historian (59)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Impression (118)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Induction (81)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Language (308)  |  Last (425)  |  More (2558)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Past (355)  |  Person (366)  |  Present (630)  |  Record (161)  |  Research (753)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Strata (37)  |  Subject (543)  |  Support (151)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Transaction (13)  |  Year (963)

The great age of the earth will appear greater to man when he understands the origin of living organisms and the reasons for the gradual development and improvement of their organization. This antiquity will appear even greater when he realizes the length of time and the particular conditions which were necessary to bring all the living species into existence. This is particularly true since man is the latest result and present climax of this development, the ultimate limit of which, if it is ever reached, cannot be known.
Hydrogéologie (1802), trans. A. V. Carozzi (1964), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Age Of The Earth (12)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Condition (362)  |  Development (441)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Known (453)  |  Limit (294)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Present (630)  |  Reach (286)  |  Realize (157)  |  Reason (766)  |  Result (700)  |  Species (435)  |  Time (1911)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)

The great object of all knowledge is to enlarge and purify the soul, to fill the mind with noble contemplations, to furnish a refined pleasure, and to lead our feeble reason from the works of nature up to its great Author and Sustainer. Considering this as the ultimate end of science, no branch of it can surely claim precedence of Astronomy. No other science furnishes such a palpable embodiment of the abstractions which lie at the foundation of our intellectual system; the great ideas of time, and space, and extension, and magnitude, and number, and motion, and power. How grand the conception of the ages on ages required for several of the secular equations of the solar system; of distances from which the light of a fixed star would not reach us in twenty millions of years, of magnitudes compared with which the earth is but a foot-ball; of starry hosts—suns like our own—numberless as the sands on the shore; of worlds and systems shooting through the infinite spaces.
Oration at Inauguration of the Dudley Astronomical Observatory, Albany (28 Jul 1856). Text published as The Uses of Astronomy (1856), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Author (175)  |  Ball (64)  |  Branch (155)  |  Claim (154)  |  Conception (160)  |  Considering (6)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Embodiment (9)  |  End (603)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Equation (138)  |  Extension (60)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Fill (67)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Football (11)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Great (1610)  |  Host (16)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Million (124)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Noble (93)  |  Number (710)  |  Numberless (3)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Palpable (8)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Power (771)  |  Precedence (4)  |  Purify (9)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Refined (8)  |  Required (108)  |  Sand (63)  |  Secular (11)  |  Shooting (6)  |  Shore (25)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Soul (235)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surely (101)  |  System (545)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

The greatest enemy, however, to true arithmetic work is found in so-called practical or illustrative problems, which are freely given to our pupils, of a degree of difficulty and complexity altogether unsuited to their age and mental development. … I am, myself, no bad mathematician, and all the reasoning powers with which nature endowed me have long been as fully developed as they are ever likely to be; but I have, not infrequently, been puzzled, and at times foiled, by the subtle logical difficulty running through one of these problems, given to my own children. The head-master of one of our Boston high schools confessed to me that he had sometimes been unable to unravel one of these tangled skeins, in trying to help his own daughter through her evening’s work. During this summer, Dr. Fairbairn, the distinguished head of one of the colleges of Oxford, England, told me that not only had he himself encountered a similar difficulty, in the case of his own children, but that, on one occasion, having as his guest one of the first mathematicians of England, the two together had been completely puzzled by one of these arithmetical conundrums.
Address before the Grammar-School Section of the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association (25 Nov 1887), 'The Teaching of Arithmetic in the Boston Schools', printed The Academy (Jan 1888). Collected in Francis Amasa Walker, Discussions in Education (1899), 253.
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Bad (185)  |  Boston (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Children (201)  |  College (71)  |  Completely (137)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Confess (42)  |  Conundrum (3)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Degree (277)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Enemy (86)  |  First (1302)  |  Greatest (330)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Long (778)  |  Master (182)  |  Mental (179)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Oxford (16)  |  Power (771)  |  Practical (225)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Running (61)  |  School (227)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Summer (56)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  True (239)  |  Trying (144)  |  Two (936)  |  Unravel (16)  |  Work (1402)

The Greeks in the first vigour of their pursuit of mathematical truth, at the time of Plato and soon after, had by no means confined themselves to those propositions which had a visible bearing on the phenomena of nature; but had followed out many beautiful trains of research concerning various kinds of figures, for the sake of their beauty alone; as for instance in their doctrine of Conic Sections, of which curves they had discovered all the principal properties. But it is curious to remark, that these investigations, thus pursued at first as mere matters of curiosity and intellectual gratification, were destined, two thousand years later, to play a very important part in establishing that system of celestial motions which succeeded the Platonic scheme of cycles and epicycles. If the properties of conic sections had not been demonstrated by the Greeks and thus rendered familiar to the mathematicians of succeeding ages, Kepler would probably not have been able to discover those laws respecting the orbits and motions of planets which were the occasion of the greatest revolution that ever happened in the history of science.
In History of Scientific Ideas, Bk. 9, chap. 14, sect. 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Bear (162)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Concern (239)  |  Confine (26)  |  Conic Section (8)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Curious (95)  |  Curve (49)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Destined (42)  |  Discover (571)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Epicycle (4)  |  Establish (63)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Gratification (22)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Greek (109)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Important (229)  |  Instance (33)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Kepler (4)  |  Kind (564)  |  Late (119)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mere (86)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Part (235)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plato (80)  |  Platonic (4)  |  Play (116)  |  Principal (69)  |  Probably (50)  |  Property (177)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Remark (28)  |  Render (96)  |  Research (753)  |  Respect (212)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Sake (61)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Soon (187)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Succeeding (14)  |  System (545)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Train (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Various (205)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Visible (87)  |  Year (963)

The Greeks made Space the subject-matter of a science of supreme simplicity and certainty. Out of it grew, in the mind of classical antiquity, the idea of pure science. Geometry became one of the most powerful expressions of that sovereignty of the intellect that inspired the thought of those times. At a later epoch, when the intellectual despotism of the Church, which had been maintained through the Middle Ages, had crumbled, and a wave of scepticism threatened to sweep away all that had seemed most fixed, those who believed in Truth clung to Geometry as to a rock, and it was the highest ideal of every scientist to carry on his science “more geometrico.”
In Space,Time, Matter, translated by Henry Leopold Brose (1952), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Belief (615)  |  Carry (130)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Church (64)  |  Classical (49)  |  Cling (6)  |  Crumble (5)  |  Despotism (2)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Greek (109)  |  Grow (247)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Later (18)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Matter (821)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scepticism (17)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seem (150)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Skepticism (31)  |  Sovereignty (6)  |  Space (523)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subject-Matter (8)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Sweep (22)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Wave (112)

The growing complexity of civilized life demands with each age broader and more exact knowledge as to the material surroundings and greater precision in our recognition of the invisible forces or tendencies about us.
From Presidential Address (5 Dec 1896) to the Biological Society of Washington, 'The Malarial Parasite and Other Pathogenic Protozoa', Popular Science Monthly (Mar 1897), 642.
Science quotes on:  |  Broader (3)  |  Civilized (20)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Demand (131)  |  Exact (75)  |  Force (497)  |  Greater (288)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growing (99)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  Precision (72)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Surrounding (13)  |  Tendency (110)

The history of semiconductor physics is not one of grand heroic theories, but one of painstaking intelligent labor. Not strokes of genius producing lofty edifices, but great ingenuity and endless undulation of hope and despair. Not sweeping generalizations, but careful judgment of the border between perseverance and obstinacy. Thus the history of solid-state physics in general, and of semiconductors in particular, is not so much about great men and women and their glorious deeds, as about the unsung heroes of thousands of clever ideas and skillful experiments—reflection of an age of organization rather than of individuality.
'Selected Topics from the History of Semiconductor Physics and Its Applications', in Lillian Hoddeson et al. (eds.), Out of the Crystal Maze (1992), 474.
Science quotes on:  |  Clever (41)  |  Deed (34)  |  Despair (40)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Endless (60)  |  Experiment (736)  |  General (521)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Genius (301)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Hope (321)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Labor (200)  |  Organization (120)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Research (753)  |  Semiconductor (4)  |  Skillful (17)  |  Solid (119)  |  State (505)  |  Stroke (19)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Unsung (4)

The human mind has a natural tendency to explore what has passed in distant ages in scenes with which it is familiar: hence the taste for National and Local Antiquities. Geology gratifies a larger taste of this kind; it inquires into what may appropriately be termed the Antiquities of the Globe itself, and collects and deciphers what may be considered as the monuments and medals of its remoter eras.
Vindiciae Geologicae (1820), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Archaeology (51)  |  Consider (428)  |  Era (51)  |  Geology (240)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monument (45)  |  Natural (810)  |  Pass (241)  |  Scene (36)  |  Taste (93)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Term (357)

The images evoked by words being independent of their sense, they vary from age to age and from people to people, the formulas remaining identical. Certain transitory images are attached to certain words: the word is merely as it were the button of an electric bell that calls them up.
From Psychologie des Foules (1895), 91. English text in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897), Book 2, Chap. 2, 97. The original French text is, “Les images évoquées par les mots étant indépendantes de leur sens, varient d’âge en âge, de peuple à peuple, sous l’identité des formules. A certains mots s’attachent transitoirement certaines images: le mot n’est que le bouton d’appel qui les fait apparaître.” Notice the original French, “le bouton d’appel” translates more directly as “call button” and “of an electric bell” is added in translation for clarity, but is not in the French text. The ending could also be translated as “that makes them appear.”
Science quotes on:  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bell (35)  |  Button (5)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Electric (76)  |  Evoke (13)  |  Formula (102)  |  Identical (55)  |  Image (97)  |  Independent (74)  |  Mere (86)  |  Merely (315)  |  People (1031)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Sense (785)  |  Transitory (4)  |  Vary (27)  |  Word (650)

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this. The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Akin (5)  |  Already (226)  |  Appear (122)  |  Atheist (16)  |  Base (120)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beginnings (5)  |  Both (496)  |  Buddhism (4)  |  Case (102)  |  Central (81)  |  Church (64)  |  Closely (12)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Contain (68)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  David (6)  |  Democritus of Abdera (17)  |  Desire (212)  |  Development (441)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Early (196)  |  Element (322)  |  Especially (31)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fill (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Francis (2)  |  Futility (7)  |  Genius (301)  |  God (776)  |  Heretic (8)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Image (97)  |  Impress (66)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marvelous (31)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Prison (13)  |  Prophet (22)  |  Psalm (3)  |  Regard (312)  |  Religious (134)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Saint (17)  |  Schopenhauer (6)  |  Significant (78)  |  Single (365)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Sort (50)  |  Spinoza (11)  |  Stage (152)  |  Strong (182)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Sublimity (6)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teachings (11)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)  |  Want (504)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)  |  Writing (192)  |  Writings (6)

The latest refinements of science are linked with the cruelties of the Stone Age.
Speech (26 Mar 1942), on the effects of war.
Science quotes on:  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Late (119)  |  Link (48)  |  Refinement (19)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)

The law of conservation rigidly excludes both creation and annihilation. Waves may change to ripples, and ripples to waves,—magnitude may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude,—asteroids may aggregate to suns, suns may resolve themselves into florae and faunae, and florae and faunae melt in air,—the flux of power is eternally the same. It rolls in music through the ages, and all terrestrial energy,—the manifestations of life, as well as the display of phenomena, are but the modulations of its rhythm.
Conclusion to lecture 12 (10 Apr 1862) at the Royal Institution, collected in Heat Considered as a Mode of Motion: Being a Course of Twelve Lectures (1863), 449.
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Aggregation (6)  |  Air (366)  |  Annihilation (15)  |  Asteroid (19)  |  Both (496)  |  Change (639)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Conservation Of Energy (30)  |  Creation (350)  |  Display (59)  |  Energy (373)  |  Exclusion (16)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Flora (9)  |  Flux (21)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Melting (6)  |  Modulation (3)  |  Music (133)  |  Number (710)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Power (771)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Rigidity (5)  |  Ripple (12)  |  Roll (41)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Sun (407)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Wave (112)

The laws of nature, as we understand them, are the foundation of our knowledge in natural things. So much as we know of them has been developed by the successive energies of the highest intellects, exerted through many ages. After a most rigid and scrutinizing examination upon principle and trial, a definite expression has been given to them; they have become, as it were, our belief or trust. From day to day we still examine and test our expressions of them. We have no interest in their retention if erroneous. On the contrary, the greatest discovery a man could make would be to prove that one of these accepted laws was erroneous, and his greatest honour would be the discovery.
Experimental researches in chemistry and physics (1859), 469.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Definite (114)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Examination (102)  |  Examine (84)  |  Exert (40)  |  Expression (181)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Honour (58)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Principle (530)  |  Prove (261)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Still (614)  |  Successive (73)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Trial (59)  |  Trust (72)  |  Understand (648)

The long summer was over. For ages a tropical climate had prevailed over a great part of the earth, and animals whose home is now beneath the Equator roamed over the world from the far South to the very borders of the Arctics ... But their reign was over. A sudden intense winter, that was also to last for ages, fell upon our globe.
Geological Sketches (1866), 208.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Arctic (10)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Climate (102)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Equator (6)  |  Great (1610)  |  Home (184)  |  Ice Age (10)  |  Last (425)  |  Long (778)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Reign (24)  |  South (39)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Summer (56)  |  Winter (46)  |  World (1850)

The long-range trend toward federal regulation, which found its beginnings in the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Act of 1890, which was quickened by a large number of measures in the Progressive era, and which has found its consummation in our time, was thus at first the response of a predominantly individualistic public to the uncontrolled and starkly original collectivism of big business. In America the growth of the national state and its regulative power has never been accepted with complacency by any large part of the middle-class public, which has not relaxed its suspicion of authority, and which even now gives repeated evidence of its intense dislike of statism. In our time this growth has been possible only under the stress of great national emergencies, domestic or military, and even then only in the face of continuous resistance from a substantial part of the public. In the Progressive era it was possible only because of widespread and urgent fear of business consolidation and private business authority. Since it has become common in recent years for ideologists of the extreme right to portray the growth of statism as the result of a sinister conspiracy of collectivists inspired by foreign ideologies, it is perhaps worth emphasizing that the first important steps toward the modern organization of society were taken by arch-individualists—the tycoons of the Gilded Age—and that the primitive beginning of modern statism was largely the work of men who were trying to save what they could of the eminently native Yankee values of individualism and enterprise.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Act (278)  |  America (143)  |  Arch (12)  |  Authority (99)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beginnings (5)  |  Big Business (2)  |  Business (156)  |  Class (168)  |  Collectivism (2)  |  Commerce (23)  |  Common (447)  |  Consolidation (4)  |  Conspiracy (6)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Dislike (16)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Emergency (10)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Era (51)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Face (214)  |  Fear (212)  |  Federal (6)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Gilded (3)  |  Give (208)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growth (200)  |  Ideology (15)  |  Important (229)  |  Individualism (3)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Intense (22)  |  Large (398)  |  Largely (14)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Range (3)  |  Measure (241)  |  Middle-Class (2)  |  Military (45)  |  Modern (402)  |  National (29)  |  Native (41)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Organization (120)  |  Original (61)  |  Part (235)  |  Portray (6)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Predominantly (4)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Private (29)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Public (100)  |  Quicken (7)  |  Range (104)  |  Recent (78)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Relax (3)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Response (56)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Save (126)  |  Sinister (8)  |  Society (350)  |  State (505)  |  Step (234)  |  Stress (22)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toward (45)  |  Trend (23)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Uncontrolled (2)  |  Urgent (15)  |  Value (393)  |  Widespread (23)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)  |  Yankee (2)  |  Year (963)

The man in the street will, therefore, twist the statement that the scientist has come to the end of meaning into the statement that the scientist has penetrated as far as he can with the tools at his command, and that there is something beyond the ken of the scientist. This imagined beyond, which the scientist has proved he cannot penetrate, will become the playground of the imagination of every mystic and dreamer. The existence of such a domain will be made the basis of an orgy of rationalizing. It will be made the substance of the soul; the spirits of the dead will populate it; God will lurk in its shadows; the principle of vital processes will have its seat here; and it will be the medium of telepathic communication. One group will find in the failure of the physical law of cause and effect the solution of the age-long problem of the freedom of the will; and on the other hand the atheist will find the justification of his contention that chance rules the universe.
Reflections of a Physicist (1950),102-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Atheist (16)  |  Basis (180)  |  Become (821)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cause And Effect (21)  |  Chance (244)  |  Command (60)  |  Communication (101)  |  Contention (14)  |  Domain (72)  |  Dreamer (14)  |  Effect (414)  |  End (603)  |  Existence (481)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Freedom (145)  |  God (776)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Justification (52)  |  Law (913)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mystic (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Law (15)  |  Playground (6)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Solution (282)  |  Something (718)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Statement (148)  |  Substance (253)  |  Tool (129)  |  Twist (10)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Vital (89)  |  Will (2350)

The mathematical life of a mathematician is short. Work rarely improves after the age of twenty-five or thirty. If little has been accomplished by then, little will ever be accomplished.
Reflections: Mathematics and Creativity', New Yorker (1972), 47, No. 53, 39-45. In Douglas M. Campbell, John C. Higgins (eds.), Mathematics: People, Problems, Results (1984), Vol. 2, 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Short (200)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

The Mathematician deals with two properties of objects only, number and extension, and all the inductions he wants have been formed and finished ages ago. He is now occupied with nothing but deduction and verification.
In 'On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences', Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews (1872), 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Deal (192)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Extension (60)  |  Finish (62)  |  Form (976)  |  Induction (81)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Property (177)  |  Two (936)  |  Verification (32)  |  Want (504)

The meaning of human life and the destiny of man cannot be separable from the meaning and destiny of life in general. 'What is man?' is a special case of 'What is life?' Probably the human species is not intelligent enough to answer either question fully, but even such glimmerings as are within our powers must be precious to us. The extent to which we can hope to understand ourselves and to plan our future depends in some measure on our ability to read the riddles of the past. The present, for all its awesome importance to us who chance to dwell in it, is only a random point in the long flow of time. Terrestrial life is one and continuous in space and time. Any true comprehension of it requires the attempt to view it whole and not in the artificial limits of any one place or epoch. The processes of life can be adequately displayed only in the course of life throughout the long ages of its existence.
The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of its Significance for Man (1949), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Answer (389)  |  Artificiality (2)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Awesome (15)  |  Chance (244)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Course (413)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Display (59)  |  Enough (341)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extent (142)  |  Flow (89)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Glimmering (2)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Importance (299)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Life (1870)  |  Limit (294)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Measure (241)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Past (355)  |  Place (192)  |  Plan (122)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Precious (43)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Random (42)  |  Read (308)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Riddle (28)  |  Separation (60)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Special (188)  |  Special Case (9)  |  Species (435)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)

The mere man of pleasure is miserable in old age, and the mere drudge in business is but little better, whereas, natural philosophy, mathematical and mechanical science, are a continual source of tranquil pleasure, and in spite of the gloomy dogmas of priests and of superstition, the study of these things is the true theology; it teaches man to know and admire the Creator, for the principles of science are in the creation, and are unchangeable and of divine origin.
Age of Reason (1794, 1818), 35.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Better (493)  |  Business (156)  |  Continual (44)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Divine (112)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Drudge (4)  |  Gloom (11)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Misery (31)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Origin (250)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Priest (29)  |  Principle (530)  |  Source (101)  |  Spite (55)  |  Study (701)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Theology (54)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unchangeable (11)

The method of science is tried and true. It is not perfect, it’s just the best we have. And to abandon it, with its skeptical protocols, is the pathway to a dark age.
From a sound clip from CSICOP, now CSI (Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). If you know a more specific citation, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Best (467)  |  Dark (145)  |  Method (531)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Reliability (18)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Skeptical (21)  |  Skepticism (31)

The mortal enemies of man are not his fellows of another continent or race; they are the aspects of the physical world which limit or challenge his control, the disease germs that attack him and his domesticated plants and animals, and the insects that carry many of these germs as well as working notable direct injury. This is not even the age of man, however great his superiority in size and intelligence; it is literally the age of insects.
In Chap. 7, 'Some Human Implications', The Social Life of Animals (1938), 240-241. [Books that cite a source of The Social Life of Insects are incorrect. There is no such title in the Library of Congress catalog. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Attack (86)  |  Carry (130)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Continent (79)  |  Control (182)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disease (340)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Germ (54)  |  Great (1610)  |  Injury (36)  |  Insect (89)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Limit (294)  |  Literally (30)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Plant (320)  |  Race (278)  |  Superiority (19)  |  World (1850)

The most conspicuous scientific and technical achievements of our age—nuclear bombs, rockets, computers—are all direct products of war.
In 'Reactions to Man’s Landing on the Moon Show Broad Variations in Opinions', The New York Times (21 Jul 1969), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Computer (131)  |  Conspicuous (13)  |  Direct (228)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Bomb (6)  |  Product (166)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Technical (53)  |  War (233)

The most difficult problem in mathematics is to make the date of a woman's birth agree with her present age.
Anonymous
In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes, 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Birth (154)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Joke (90)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Woman (160)

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
Written in 1926, and first published in magazine, Weird Tales (Feb 1928), 11, No. 2, first paragraph. In The Call of Cthulhu (2014), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Dark (145)  |  Direction (185)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Inability (11)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Island (49)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Mad (54)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Peace (116)  |  Reality (274)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Safety (58)  |  Sea (326)  |  Terrifying (3)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Together (392)  |  Vista (12)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The natural scientists of the previous age knew less than we do and believed they were very close to the goal: we have taken very great steps in its direction and now discover we are still very far away from it. With the most rational philosophers an increase in their knowledge is always attended by an increased conviction of their ignorance.
Aphorisms, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (1990), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Goal (155)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Increase (225)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rational (95)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Step (234)  |  Still (614)

The next object which I have observed is the essence or substance of the Milky Way. By the aid of a telescope anyone may behold this in a manner which so distinctly appeals to the senses that all the disputes which have tormented philosophers through so many ages are exploded at once by the irrefragable evidence of our eyes, and we are freed from wordy disputes upon this subject, for the Galaxy is nothing else but a mass of innumerable stars planted together in clusters.
In pamphlet, The Sidereal Messenger (1610), reprinted in The Sidereal Messenger of Galileo Galilei: And a Part of the Preface to the Preface to Kepler's Dioptrics Containing the Original Account of Galileo's Astronomical Discoveries (1880), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Behold (19)  |  Cluster (16)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Essence (85)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exploded (11)  |  Eye (440)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Irrefragable (2)  |  Mass (160)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Next (238)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Plant (320)  |  Sense (785)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substance (253)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Torment (18)  |  Way (1214)

The notion that individualism came first runs against the very grain of cosmic history. … grouping has been inherent in evolution since the first quarks joined to form neutrons and protons. Similarly, replicators—RNA, DNA, and genes—have always worked in teams… The bacteria of 3.5 billion years ago were creatures of the crowd. So were the trilobites and echinoderms of the Cambrian age.
In 'The Embryonic Meme', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Billion (104)  |  Cambrian (2)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Creature (242)  |  Crowd (25)  |  DNA (81)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Gene (105)  |  Grain (50)  |  Group (83)  |  History (716)  |  Individualism (3)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Join (32)  |  Neutron (23)  |  Notion (120)  |  Proton (23)  |  Quark (9)  |  Replicator (3)  |  RNA (5)  |  Run (158)  |  Similarly (4)  |  Team (17)  |  Trilobite (6)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

The only condition more appalling, less practical, than world government is the lack of it in this atomic age. Most of the scientists who produced the bomb admit that. Nationalism and the split atom cannot coexist in the planet.
In 'Talk of the Town', The New Yorker (1 Jun 1946), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Admit (49)  |  Appalling (10)  |  Atom (381)  |  Atom Bomb (4)  |  Atomic Age (6)  |  Coexist (4)  |  Condition (362)  |  Government (116)  |  Lack (127)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nationalism (5)  |  Planet (402)  |  Practical (225)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Split (15)  |  World (1850)

The oppressive weight of disaster and tragedy in our lives does not arise from a high percentage of evil among the summed total of all acts, but from the extraordinary power of exceedingly rare incidents of depravity to inflict catastrophic damage, especially in our technological age when airplanes can become powerful bombs. (An even more evil man, armed only with a longbow, could not have wreaked such havoc at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.)
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Arise (162)  |  Arm (82)  |  Battle (36)  |  Become (821)  |  Bomb (20)  |  Catastrophic (10)  |  Damage (38)  |  Depravity (3)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Especially (31)  |  Evil (122)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Havoc (7)  |  High (370)  |  Incident (4)  |  Inflict (4)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Oppressive (2)  |  Percentage (9)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Rare (94)  |  Sum (103)  |  Technological (62)  |  Total (95)  |  Tragedy (31)  |  Weight (140)  |  Wreak (2)

The origin of volcanic energy is one of the blankest mysteries of science, and it is strange indeed, that a class of phenomena so long familiar to the human race and so zealously studied through all the ages should be so utterly without explanation. (1880)
In Report on the Geology of the High Plateaus of Utah (1880), 113.
Science quotes on:  |  Class (168)  |  Energy (373)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Long (778)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Origin (250)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Race (278)  |  Strange (160)  |  Study (701)  |  Through (846)  |  Volcano (46)

The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.
Address to the Canadian Medical Association, Montreal (17 Sep 1902), 'Chauvinism in Medicine', published in The Montreal Medical Journal (1902), 31, 267. Collected in Aequanimitas, with Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine (1904), 281.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurdity (34)  |  Become (821)  |  Foolishness (10)  |  Next (238)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Yesterday (37)

The position of the anthropologist of to-day resembles in some sort the position of classical scholars at the revival of learning. To these men the rediscovery of ancient literature came like a revelation, disclosing to their wondering eyes a splendid vision of the antique world, such as the cloistered of the Middle Ages never dreamed of under the gloomy shadow of the minster and within the sound of its solemn bells. To us moderns a still wider vista is vouchsafed, a greater panorama is unrolled by the study which aims at bringing home to us the faith and the practice, the hopes and the ideals, not of two highly gifted races only, but of all mankind, and thus at enabling us to follow the long march, the slow and toilsome ascent, of humanity from savagery to civilization. And as the scholar of the Renaissance found not merely fresh food for thought but a new field of labour in the dusty and faded manuscripts of Greece and Rome, so in the mass of materials that is steadily pouring in from many sides—from buried cities of remotest antiquity as well as from the rudest savages of the desert and the jungle—we of to-day must recognise a new province of knowledge which will task the energies of generations of students to master.
'Author’s Introduction' (1900). In Dr Theodor H. Gaster (ed.), The New Golden Bough (1959), xxv-xxvi.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Bell (35)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Classical (49)  |  Desert (59)  |  Dream (222)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fad (10)  |  Faith (209)  |  Field (378)  |  Follow (389)  |  Food (213)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Generation (256)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Greater (288)  |  Home (184)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Jungle (24)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Learning (291)  |  Literature (116)  |  Long (778)  |  Mankind (356)  |  March (48)  |  Mass (160)  |  Master (182)  |  Material (366)  |  Merely (315)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Panorama (5)  |  Practice (212)  |  Province (37)  |  Race (278)  |  Rediscovery (2)  |  Renaissance (16)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Rome (19)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Side (236)  |  Slow (108)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Sound (187)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Task (152)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Vision (127)  |  Vista (12)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The pre-Darwinian age had come to be regarded as a Dark Age in which men still believed that the book of Genesis was a standard scientific treatise, and that the only additions to it were Galileo’s demonstration of Leonardo da Vinci’s simple remark that the earth is a moon of the sun, Newton’s theory of gravitation, Sir Humphry Davy's invention of the safety-lamp, the discovery of electricity, the application of steam to industrial purposes, and the penny post.
Back to Methuselah: a Metabiological Pentateuch (1921), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Application (257)  |  Belief (615)  |  Book (413)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Leonardo da Vinci (87)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |   Genesis (26)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Industry (159)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moon (252)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Penny (6)  |  Post (8)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remark (28)  |  Safety (58)  |  Safety Lamp (3)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Simple (426)  |  Standard (64)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Power (10)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Gravitation (6)  |  Treatise (46)

The primary rocks, … I regard as the deposits of a period in which the earth’s crust had sufficiently cooled down to permit the existence of a sea, with the necessary denuding agencies,—waves and currents,—and, in consequence, of deposition also; but in which the internal heat acted so near the surface, that whatever was deposited came, matter of course, to be metamorphosed into semi-plutonic forms, that retained only the stratification. I dare not speak of the scenery of the period. We may imagine, however, a dark atmosphere of steam and vapour, which for age after age conceals the face of the sun, and through which the light of moon or star never penetrates; oceans of thermal water heated in a thousand centres to the boiling point; low, half-molten islands, dim through the log, and scarce more fixed than the waves themselves, that heave and tremble under the impulsions of the igneous agencies; roaring geysers, that ever and anon throw up their intermittent jets of boiling fluid, vapour, and thick steam, from these tremulous lands; and, in the dim outskirts of the scene, the red gleam of fire, shot forth from yawning cracks and deep chasms, and that bears aloft fragments of molten rock and clouds of ashes. But should we continue to linger amid a scene so featureless and wild, or venture adown some yawning opening into the abyss beneath, where all is fiery and yet dark,—a solitary hell, without suffering or sin,—we would do well to commit ourselves to the guidance of a living poet of the true faculty,—Thomas Aird and see with his eyes.
Lecture Sixth, collected in Popular Geology: A Series of Lectures Read Before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's Portfolio (1859), 297-298.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Act (278)  |  Ash (21)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Bear (162)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Chasm (9)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Commit (43)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continue (179)  |  Course (413)  |  Crack (15)  |  Crust (43)  |  Current (122)  |  Dare (55)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deposition (4)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Existence (481)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Form (976)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hell (32)  |  Igneous (3)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Internal (69)  |  Island (49)  |  Light (635)  |  Linger (14)  |  Living (492)  |  Low (86)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metamorphosis (5)  |  Molten (3)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Period (200)  |  Permit (61)  |  Poet (97)  |  Point (584)  |  Primary (82)  |  Regard (312)  |  Retain (57)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Sin (45)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Speak (240)  |  Star (460)  |  Steam (81)  |  Stratification (2)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Vapour (16)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wild (96)

The principal objection to old age is that there is no future in it.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Future (467)  |  Objection (34)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Principal (69)

The principles of medical management are essentially the same for individuals of all ages, albeit the same problem is handled differently in different patients. ... [just as] the principles of driving an automobile are uniform, but one drives in one manner on the New Jersey Turnpike and in another manner on a narrow, winding road in the Rocky Mountains.
Quoted in Joseph Earle Moore, The Neurologic and Psychiatric Aspects of the Disorders of Aging (1956), 247.
Science quotes on:  |  Automobile (23)  |  Different (595)  |  Driving (28)  |  Individual (420)  |  Management (23)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Narrow (85)  |  New (1273)  |  Patient (209)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Winding (8)

The private motives of scientists are not the trend of science. The trend of science is made by the needs of society: navigation before the eighteenth century, manufacture thereafter; and in our age I believe the liberation of personality. Whatever the part which scientists like to act, or for that matter which painters like to dress, science shares the aims of our society just as art does.
From The Common Sense of Science (1951), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  19th Century (41)  |  20th Century (40)  |  Act (278)  |  Aim (175)  |  Art (680)  |  Century (319)  |  Liberation (12)  |  Manufacture (30)  |  Matter (821)  |  Motive (62)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Need (320)  |  Painter (30)  |  Personality (66)  |  Private (29)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Share (82)  |  Society (350)  |  Trend (23)  |  Whatever (234)

The progress of the individual mind is not only an illustration, but an indirect evidence of that of the general mind. The point of departure of the individual and of the race being the same, the phases of the mind of a man correspond to the epochs of the mind of the race. Now, each of us is aware, if he looks back upon his own history, that he was a theologian in his childhood, a metaphysician in his youth, and a natural philosopher in his manhood. All men who are up to their age can verify this for themselves.
The Positive Philosophy, trans. Harriet Martineau (1853), Vol. 1, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Evidence (267)  |  General (521)  |  History (716)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Individual (420)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Natural (810)  |  Phase (37)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Point (584)  |  Progress (492)  |  Race (278)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theologian (23)  |  Verify (24)  |  Youth (109)

The pursuits of the greatest trifles may sometimes have a very good effect. The search after the philosopher’s stone has preserved chemistry; and the following astrology so much in former ages has been the cause of astronomy’s being so much advanced in ours. Sir Isaac Newton himself has owned that he began with studying judicial astrology, and that it was his pursuits of that idle and vain study which led him into the beauties and love of astronomy.
As recalled and recorded in Joseph Spence and Edmund Malone (ed.) Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters of Books and Men (1858), 159-160.
Science quotes on:  |  Astrology (46)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Effect (414)  |  Former (138)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Himself (461)  |  Idle (34)  |  Love (328)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosopher�s Stone (8)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Search (175)  |  Stone (168)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Trifle (18)  |  Vain (86)

The question now at issue, whether the living species are connected with the extinct by a common bond of descent, will best be cleared up by devoting ourselves to the study of the actual state of the living world, and to those monuments of the past in which the relics of the animate creation of former ages are best preserved and least mutilated by the hand of time.
The Antiquity of Man (1863), 470.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Best (467)  |  Bond (46)  |  Common (447)  |  Connect (126)  |  Creation (350)  |  Descent (30)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Former (138)  |  Living (492)  |  Monument (45)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Past (355)  |  Question (649)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The respect which in all ages and countries has ever been paid to inventors seems, indeed, to rest on something more profound than mere gratitude for the benefits which they have been the means of conferring on mankind; and to imply, if it does not express, a consciousness that by the grand and original conceptions of their minds they approach somewhat more nearly than their fellows to the qualities and pre-eminence of a higher order of being.
The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (1854), Vol.1, 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Being (1276)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Express (192)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Gratitude (14)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Order (638)  |  Pre-eminence (4)  |  Profound (105)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rest (287)  |  Something (718)

The risk of developing carcinoma of the lung increases steadily as the amount smoked increases. If the risk among non-smokers is taken as unity and the resulting ratios in the three age groups in which a large number of patients were interviewed (ages 45 to 74) are averaged, the relative risks become 6, 19, 26, 49, and 65 when the number of cigarettes smoked a day are 3, 10, 20, 35, and, say, 60—that is, the mid-points of each smoking group. In other words, on the admittedly speculative assumptions we have made, the risk seems to vary in approximately simple proportion with the amount smoked.
William Richard Shaboe Doll and Austin Bradford Hill (1897-1991 British medical statistician) 'Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung', British Medical Journal, 1950, ii, 746.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Become (821)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Austin Bradford Hill (2)  |  Increase (225)  |  Large (398)  |  Lung (37)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Patient (209)  |  Point (584)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Risk (68)  |  Say (989)  |  Simple (426)  |  Smoking (27)  |  Unity (81)  |  Word (650)

The rocks have a history; gray and weatherworn, they are veterans of many battles; they have most of them marched in the ranks of vast stone brigades during the ice age; they have been torn from the hills, recruited from the mountaintops, and marshaled on the plains and in the valleys; and now the elemental war is over, there they lie waging a gentle but incessant warfare with time and slowly, oh, so slowly, yielding to its attacks!
In Under the Apple-Trees (1916), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Attack (86)  |  Battle (36)  |  Brigade (3)  |  Elemental (4)  |  Gentle (9)  |  Geology (240)  |  Gray (9)  |  Hill (23)  |  History (716)  |  Ice (58)  |  Ice Age (10)  |  Incessant (9)  |  Lie (370)  |  March (48)  |  Marshal (4)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Plain (34)  |  Rank (69)  |  Recruit (3)  |  Rock (176)  |  Stone (168)  |  Tear (48)  |  Time (1911)  |  Torn (17)  |  Valley (37)  |  Vast (188)  |  War (233)  |  Warfare (12)  |  Yielding (2)

The six thousand years of human history form but a portion of the geologic day that is passing over us: they do not extend into the yesterday of the globe, far less touch the myriads of ages spread out beyond.
My Schools and Schoolmasters, Or, The Story of my Education (1854), 441.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Do (1905)  |  Era (51)  |  Extend (129)  |  Form (976)  |  Geology (240)  |  Globe (51)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Passing (76)  |  Portion (86)  |  Spread (86)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Touch (146)  |  Year (963)  |  Yesterday (37)

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home.
Cosmos (1981), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Lost (34)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Size (62)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Understanding (527)

The skein of human continuity must often become this tenuous across the centuries (hanging by a thread, in the old cliché), but the circle remains unbroken if I can touch the ink of Lavoisier’s own name, written by his own hand. A candle of light, nurtured by the oxygen of his greatest discovery, never burns out if we cherish the intellectual heritage of such unfractured filiation across the ages. We may also wish to contemplate the genuine physical thread of nucleic acid that ties each of us to the common bacterial ancestor of all living creatures, born on Lavoisier’s ancienne terre more than 3.5 billion years ago—and never since disrupted, not for one moment, not for one generation. Such a legacy must be worth preserving from all the guillotines of our folly.
From The Lying Stones of Marrakech (2000, 2011), 114, previously published in an article in Natural History Magazine. Gould was writing about tangibly having Lavoisier’s signature on proof plates bought at an auction. (The plates were made to accompany Lavoisier’s sole geological article of 1789.)
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Across (32)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bear (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Billion (104)  |  Burn (99)  |  Candle (32)  |  Century (319)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Circle (117)  |  Cliche (8)  |  Common (447)  |  Contemplate (21)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Creature (242)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disrupt (2)  |  Folly (44)  |  Generation (256)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Guillotine (5)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hang (46)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ink (11)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (41)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Light (635)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Often (109)  |  Old (499)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Physical (518)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Remain (355)  |  Skein (2)  |  Tenuous (3)  |  Thread (36)  |  Tie (42)  |  Touch (146)  |  Unbroken (10)  |  Wish (216)  |  Worth (172)  |  Write (250)  |  Year (963)

The so-called “scientific revolution,” popularly associated with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but reaching back in an unmistakably continuous line to a period much earlier still. Since that revolution overturned the authority in science not only of the middle ages but of the ancient world—since it ended not only in the eclipse of scholastic philosophy but in the destruction of Aristotelian physics—it outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes, mere internal displacements, within the system of medieval Christendom … It looms so large as the real origin of the modern world and of the modern mentality that our customary periodisation of European history has become an anachronism and an encumbrance.
The Origins of Modern Science (1949), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Authority (99)  |  Back (395)  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Customary (18)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Displacement (9)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Encumbrance (5)  |  End (603)  |  Everything (489)  |  History (716)  |  Internal (69)  |  Large (398)  |  Loom (20)  |  Medieval (12)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  Origin (250)  |  Period (200)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Rank (69)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Reformation (6)  |  Renaissance (16)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Revolution (13)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Still (614)  |  System (545)  |  World (1850)

The solution of the difficulties which formerly surrounded the mathematical infinite is probably the greatest achievement of which our age has to boast.
In 'The Study of Mathematics', Philosophical Essays (1910), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Boast (22)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Formerly (5)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Probably (50)  |  Solution (282)  |  Surround (33)

The stimulus of competition, when applied at an early age to real thought processes, is injurious both to nerve-power and to scientific insight.
In The Preparation of the Child for Science (1904), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Both (496)  |  Child (333)  |  Competition (45)  |  Early (196)  |  Education (423)  |  Injurious (14)  |  Injury (36)  |  Insight (107)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Power (771)  |  Process (439)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)

The Stone Age did not end because humans ran out of stones. It ended because it was time for a re-think about how we live.
As reported, without quotation marks, in Jo Twist, 'Eco-designs on Future Cities', on BBC News website (14 June 2005). McDonough did not originate the statement about the Stone Age; it has been used earlier and attributed to others. He added his own conclusion to it.
Science quotes on:  |  End (603)  |  Human (1512)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Rethink (2)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)

The stone age did not end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  End (603)  |  Lack (127)  |  Long (778)  |  Oil (67)  |  Run (158)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The succession of individuals, connected by reproduction and belonging to a species, makes it possible for the specific form itself to last for ages. In the end, however, the species is temporary; it has no “eternal life.” After existing for a certain period, it either dies or is converted by modification into other forms.
As translated by Joseph McCabe in Haeckel's The Wonders of Life: a Popular Study of Biological Philosophy (1904), 248.
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Certain (557)  |  Connect (126)  |  Convert (22)  |  Die (94)  |  End (603)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Form (976)  |  Individual (420)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Modification (57)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Species (435)  |  Specific (98)  |  Succession (80)  |  Temporary (24)

The supposed astronomical proofs of the theory [of relativity], as cited and claimed by Einstein, do not exist. He is a confusionist. The Einstein theory is a fallacy. The theory that ether does not exist, and that gravity is not a force but a property of space can only be described as a crazy vagary, a disgrace to our age.
Quoted in Elizabeth Dilling, A "Who's Who" and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots (1934), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Citation (4)  |  Claim (154)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Crazy (27)  |  Description (89)  |  Disgrace (12)  |  Do (1905)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Ether (37)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Force (497)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Proof (304)  |  Property (177)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Space (523)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Relativity (33)  |  Vagary (2)

The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know is that the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages. According to the Hay Theory of History, the invention of hay was the decisive event which moved the center of gravity of urban civilization from the Mediterranean basin to Northern and Western Europe. The Roman Empire did not need hay because in a Mediterranean climate the grass grows well enough in winter for animals to graze. North of the Alps, great cities dependent on horses and oxen for motive power could not exist without hay. So it was hay that allowed populations to grow and civilizations to flourish among the forests of Northern Europe. Hay moved the greatness of Rome to Paris and London, and later to Berlin and Moscow and New York. ... Great inventions like hay and printing, whatever their immediate social costs may be, result in a permanent expansion of our horizons, a lasting acquisition of new territory for human bodies and minds to cultivate.
Infinite In All Directions (1988, 2004), 135. The book is a revised version of a series of the Gifford Lectures under the title 'In Praise of Diversity', given at Aberdeen, Scotland.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Alive (97)  |  Alp (9)  |  Alps (9)  |  Animal (651)  |  Autumn (11)  |  Berlin (10)  |  Call (781)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Climate (102)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Cost (94)  |  Cow (42)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Decisive (25)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enough (341)  |  Europe (50)  |  Event (222)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Forest (161)  |  Good (906)  |  Grass (49)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hay (6)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Invention (400)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  London (15)  |  Medieval (12)  |  Mediterranean (9)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moscow (5)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motive (62)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxen (8)  |  Paris (11)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Population (115)  |  Power (771)  |  Printing (25)  |  Profound (105)  |  Result (700)  |  Roman (39)  |  Rome (19)  |  Simple (426)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Social (261)  |  Technology (281)  |  Territory (25)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Urban (12)  |  Usually (176)  |  Western (45)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Winter (46)

The terror of the atom age is not the violence of the new power but the speed of man’s adjustment to it—the speed of his acceptance.
In 'The Age of Dust', collected in Second Tree From the Corner (1954), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Adjustment (21)  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Energy (25)  |  Man (2252)  |  New (1273)  |  Power (771)  |  Speed (66)  |  Terror (32)  |  Violence (37)

The true way to render age vigorous is to prolong the youth of the mind.
In Mortimer Collins and Frances Cotton Collins, The Village Comedy (1878), Vol. 1, 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Mind (1377)  |  Prolong (29)  |  Render (96)  |  True (239)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Way (1214)  |  Youth (109)

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Idea's won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervour, live for it, and, if need be, die for it. Their inheritors receive the idea, perhaps now strong and successful, but without inheriting the fervour; so the idea settles down to a comfortable middle age, turns senile, and dies.
In Alfred North Whitehead and Lucien Price (ed.), Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954, 1977), 100.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Comfortable (13)  |  Custodian (3)  |  Die (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Fervor (8)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Keep (104)  |  Live (650)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Receive (117)  |  Settle (23)  |  Something (718)  |  Strong (182)  |  Successful (134)  |  Thought (995)  |  Turn (454)  |  Vitality (24)

The weight of our civilization has become so great, it now ranks as a global force and a significant wild card in the human future along with the Ice Ages and other vicissitudes of a volatile and changeable planetary system
Rethinking Environmentalism (13 Dec 1998).
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Force (497)  |  Future (467)  |  Global (39)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ice (58)  |  Ice Age (10)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Rank (69)  |  Significant (78)  |  System (545)  |  Vicissitude (6)  |  Volatility (3)  |  Weight (140)  |  Wild (96)

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are preserved by quotations.
From Section, 'Quotation', Curiosities of Literature (1834), Vol. 1, 2nd Series, 53. This quotation appears in a printed primary source. It should not be confused with a spurious misquoted variant attributed to his son, Benjamin Disraeli, in which “preserved” is replaced with “perpetuated”.
Science quotes on:  |  Experience (494)  |  Perpetuate (11)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Quotation (19)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)

The wonderful structure of the animal system will probably never permit us to look upon it as a merely physical apparatus, yet the demands of science require that the evidently magnified principles of vitality should be reduced to their natural spheres, or if truth requires, wholly subverted in favor of those more cognizable by the human understanding. The spirit of the age will not tolerate in the devotee of science a quiet indifference. ...
In 'An Inquiry, Analogical and Experimental, into the Different Electrical conditions of Arterial and Venous Blood', New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal (1853-4), 10, 584-602 & 738-757. As cited in George B. Roth, 'Dr. John Gorrie—Inventor of Artificial Ice and Mechanical Refrigeration', The Scientific Monthly (May 1936) 42 No. 5, 464-469.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Demand (131)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Favor (69)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indifference (16)  |  Look (584)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Never (1089)  |  Permit (61)  |  Physical (518)  |  Principle (530)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Require (229)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vitality (24)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)

The word 'statistic' is derived from the Latin status, which, in the middle ages, had become to mean 'state' in the political sense. 'Statistics', therefore, originally denoted inquiries into the condition of a state.
'Statistics' Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), Vol. 25, 806. In Anton Bovier, Statistical Mechanics of Disordered Systems (2006), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Condition (362)  |  Latin (44)  |  Mean (810)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Political (124)  |  Sense (785)  |  State (505)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Status (35)  |  Word (650)

The year 1896 … marked the beginning of what has been aptly termed the heroic age of Physical Science. Never before in the history of physics has there been witnessed such a period of intense activity when discoveries of fundamental importance have followed one another with such bewildering rapidity.
In 'The Electrical Structure of Matter', Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1924), C2.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bewilderment (8)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Follow (389)  |  Following (16)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Hero (45)  |  History (716)  |  Importance (299)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Marked (55)  |  Never (1089)  |  Period (200)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physics (564)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Term (357)  |  Witness (57)  |  Year (963)

The young blush much more freely than the old but not during infancy, which is remarkable, as we know that infants at a very early age redden from passion.
Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Science quotes on:  |  Blush (3)  |  Early (196)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Infant (26)  |  Know (1538)  |  More (2558)  |  Old (499)  |  Passion (121)  |  Young (253)

Theorists tend to peak at an early age; the creative juices tend to gush very early and start drying up past the age of fifteen—or so it seems. They need to know just enough; when they’re young they haven’t accumulated the intellectual baggage.
In Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi, The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question (1993), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Drying (2)  |  Early (196)  |  Enough (341)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Juice (7)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Past (355)  |  Peak (20)  |  Start (237)  |  Tend (124)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

There are some men who are counted great because they represent the actuality of their own age, and mirror it as it is. Such an one was Voltaire, of whom it was epigrammatically said: “he expressed everybody's thoughts better than anyone.” But there are other men who attain greatness because they embody the potentiality of their own day and magically reflect the future. They express the thoughts which will be everybody's two or three centuries after them. Such as one was Descartes.
Quoted in James Roy Newman, The World of Mathematics (2000), Vol. 1, 239.
Science quotes on:  |  Actuality (6)  |  Attain (126)  |  Better (493)  |  Count (107)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Express (192)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Other (2233)  |  Potentiality (9)  |  Represent (157)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire (42)  |  Will (2350)

There are still many unsolved problems about bird life, among which are the age that birds attain, the exact time at which some birds acquire their adult dress, and the changes which occur in this with years. Little, too, is known about the laws and routes of bird migration, and much less about the final disposition of the untold thousands which are annually produced.
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Bird (163)  |  Change (639)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Final (121)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Migration (12)  |  Occur (151)  |  Ornithology (21)  |  Problem (731)  |  Produced (187)  |  Research (753)  |  Still (614)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unsolved (15)  |  Year (963)

There are, at present, fundamental problems in theoretical physics … the solution of which … will presumably require a more drastic revision of our fundmental concepts than any that have gone before. Quite likely, these changes will be so great that it will be beyond the power of human intelligence to get the necessary new ideas by direct attempts to formulate the experimental data in mathematical terms. The theoretical worker in the future will, therefore, have to proceed in a more direct way. The most powerful method of advance that can be suggested at present is to employ all the resources of pure mathematics in attempts to perfect and generalize the mathematical formalism that forms the existing basis of theoretical physics, and after each success in this direction, to try to interpret the new mathematical features in terms of physical entities.
At age 28.
Proceedings of the Royal Society (1931), A133, 60. In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Basis (180)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Change (639)  |  Concept (242)  |  Data (162)  |  Direct (228)  |  Direction (185)  |  Employ (115)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Form (976)  |  Formalism (7)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  Generalize (19)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Require (229)  |  Revision (7)  |  Solution (282)  |  Success (327)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Try (296)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

There has never been an age so full of humbug. Humbug everywhere, even in science. For years now the scientists have been promising us every morning a new miracle, a new element, a new metal, guaranteeing to warm us with copper discs immersed in water, to feed us with nothing, to kill us at no expense whatever on a grand scale, to keep us alive indefinitely, to make iron out of heaven knows what. And all this fantastic, scientific humbugging leads to membership of the Institut, to decorations, to influence, to stipends, to the respect of serious people. In the meantime the cost of living rises, doubles, trebles; there is a shortage of raw materials; even death makes no progress—as we saw at Sebastopol, where men cut each other to ribbons—and the cheapest goods are still the worst goods in the world.
With co-author Jules de Goncourt (French writer, 1830-70)
Diary entry, 7 Jan 1857. In R. Baldick (ed. & trans.), Pages from the Goncourt Journal (1978), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Author (175)  |  Copper (25)  |  Cost (94)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Element (322)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  Good (906)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Humbug (6)  |  Influence (231)  |  Iron (99)  |  Kill (100)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Metal (88)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Morning (98)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Progress (492)  |  Raw (28)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rise (169)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scale (122)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Serious (98)  |  Still (614)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)  |  Whatever (234)  |  World (1850)  |  Worst (57)  |  Writer (90)  |  Year (963)

There is no area in our minds reserved for superstition, such as the Greeks had in their mythology; and superstition, under cover of an abstract vocabulary, has revenged itself by invading the entire realm of thought. Our science is like a store filled with the most subtle intellectual devices for solving the most complex problems, and yet we are almost incapable of applying the elementary principles of rational thought. In every sphere, we seem to have lost the very elements of intelligence: the ideas of limit, measure, degree, proportion, relation, comparison, contingency, interdependence, interrelation of means and ends. To keep to the social level, our political universe is peopled exclusively by myths and monsters; all it contains is absolutes and abstract entities. This is illustrated by all the words of our political and social vocabulary: nation, security, capitalism, communism, fascism, order, authority, property, democracy. We never use them in phrases such as: There is democracy to the extent that… or: There is capitalism in so far as… The use of expressions like “to the extent that” is beyond our intellectual capacity. Each of these words seems to represent for us an absolute reality, unaffected by conditions, or an absolute objective, independent of methods of action, or an absolute evil; and at the same time we make all these words mean, successively or simultaneously, anything whatsoever. Our lives are lived, in actual fact, among changing, varying realities, subject to the casual play of external necessities, and modifying themselves according to specific conditions within specific limits; and yet we act and strive and sacrifice ourselves and others by reference to fixed and isolated abstractions which cannot possibly be related either to one another or to any concrete facts. In this so-called age of technicians, the only battles we know how to fight are battles against windmills.
From 'The Power of Words', collected in Siân Miles (ed.), Simone Weil: An Anthology (2000), 222-223.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Actual (118)  |  Against (332)  |  Apply (170)  |  Area (33)  |  Authority (99)  |  Battle (36)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Capitalism (12)  |  Casual (9)  |  Change (639)  |  Communism (11)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Complex (202)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contain (68)  |  Contingency (11)  |  Cover (40)  |  Degree (277)  |  Democracy (36)  |  Device (71)  |  Element (322)  |  Elementary (98)  |  End (603)  |  Entire (50)  |  Entity (37)  |  Evil (122)  |  Exclusively (10)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extent (142)  |  External (62)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Far (158)  |  Fascism (4)  |  Fight (49)  |  Fill (67)  |  Fix (34)  |  Greek (109)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illustrate (14)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Interdependence (4)  |  Interrelation (8)  |  Invade (5)  |  Isolate (24)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Level (69)  |  Limit (294)  |  Live (650)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measure (241)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modify (15)  |  Monster (33)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myth (58)  |  Mythology (19)  |  Nation (208)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Never (1089)  |  Objective (96)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  P (2)  |  People (1031)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Play (116)  |  Political (124)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Property (177)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reality (274)  |  Realm (87)  |  Reference (33)  |  Relate (26)  |  Relation (166)  |  Represent (157)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Revenge (10)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Same (166)  |  Security (51)  |  Seem (150)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Social (261)  |  Solve (145)  |  Specific (98)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Store (49)  |  Strive (53)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Technician (9)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unaffected (6)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Vary (27)  |  Vocabulary (10)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Windmill (4)  |  Word (650)

There is no more wild, free, vigorous growth of the forest, but everything is in pots or rows like a rococo garden... The pupil is in the age of spontaneous variation which at no period of life is so great. He does not want a standardized, overpeptonized mental diet. It palls on his appetite.
Hall, GS (1904b). Adolescence: Its psychology and its relations to physiology, anthropology, sociology, sex, crime, religion and education (1904), Vol. 2, 509.
Science quotes on:  |  Appetite (20)  |  Child (333)  |  Diet (56)  |  Education (423)  |  Everything (489)  |  Forest (161)  |  Free (239)  |  Garden (64)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growth (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mental (179)  |  More (2558)  |  Period (200)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Variation (93)  |  Want (504)  |  Wild (96)

There is scarce any one invention, which this nation has produced in our age, but it has some way or other been set forward by his assistance. ... He is indeed a man born for the good of mankind, and for the honour of his country. ... So I may thank God, that Dr. Wilkins was an Englishman, for wherever he had lived, there had been the chief seat of generous knowledge and true philosophy.
In Micrographia, Preface. Cited in Charles Coulston Gillispie, Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1976), Vol. 14, 369-370.
Science quotes on:  |  Assistance (23)  |  Born (37)  |  Chief (99)  |  Country (269)  |  Englishman (5)  |  Forward (104)  |  Generous (17)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Honour (58)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Nation (208)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Produced (187)  |  Production (190)  |  Scarce (11)  |  Seat (7)  |  Set (400)  |  Thank (48)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wherever (51)  |  John Wilkins (4)

There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisner to the inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licencers thought.
Recounting the tyranny of the inquisition that Milton had seen for himself in Italy. When he visited in 1640, he was age 30, and Galileo was age 77 and nearly blind. In 'Proof.—The servile condition of learning in Italy, the home of licencing.' Areopagitica; A Speech of Mr John Milton to the Parlament of England (24 Nov 1644), editted by Edward Arber (1868), 60. The words “prisner” and “Parlment” are sic.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Blind (98)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Himself (461)  |  Inquisition (9)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Old (499)  |  Prisoner (8)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tyranny (15)

This [the fact that the pursuit of mathematics brings into harmonious action all the faculties of the human mind] accounts for the extraordinary longevity of all the greatest masters of the Analytic art, the Dii Majores of the mathematical Pantheon. Leibnitz lived to the age of 70; Euler to 76; Lagrange to 77; Laplace to 78; Gauss to 78; Plato, the supposed inventor of the conic sections, who made mathematics his study and delight, who called them the handles or aids to philosophy, the medicine of the soul, and is said never to have let a day go by without inventing some new theorems, lived to 82; Newton, the crown and glory of his race, to 85; Archimedes, the nearest akin, probably, to Newton in genius, was 75, and might have lived on to be 100, for aught we can guess to the contrary, when he was slain by the impatient and ill mannered sergeant, sent to bring him before the Roman general, in the full vigour of his faculties, and in the very act of working out a problem; Pythagoras, in whose school, I believe, the word mathematician (used, however, in a somewhat wider than its present sense) originated, the second founder of geometry, the inventor of the matchless theorem which goes by his name, the pre-cognizer of the undoubtedly mis-called Copernican theory, the discoverer of the regular solids and the musical canon who stands at the very apex of this pyramid of fame, (if we may credit the tradition) after spending 22 years studying in Egypt, and 12 in Babylon, opened school when 56 or 57 years old in Magna Græcia, married a young wife when past 60, and died, carrying on his work with energy unspent to the last, at the age of 99. The mathematician lives long and lives young; the wings of his soul do not early drop off, nor do its pores become clogged with the earthy particles blown from the dusty highways of vulgar life.
In Presidential Address to the British Association, Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2 (1908), 658.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Aid (101)  |  Akin (5)  |  Analytic (11)  |  Apex (6)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Art (680)  |  Aught (6)  |  Babylon (7)  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Blow (45)  |  Bring (95)  |  Call (781)  |  Called (9)  |  Canon (3)  |  Carry (130)  |  Clog (5)  |  Conic Section (8)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Copernican Theory (3)  |  Credit (24)  |  Crown (39)  |  Delight (111)  |  Die (94)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dusty (8)  |  Early (196)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Energy (373)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fame (51)  |  Founder (26)  |  Full (68)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  General (521)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Glory (66)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Guess (67)  |  Handle (29)  |  Harmonious (18)  |  Highway (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Impatient (4)  |  Invent (57)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Last (425)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Let (64)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Longevity (6)  |  Manner (62)  |  Marry (11)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Musical (10)  |  Name (359)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Old (499)  |  Open (277)  |  Originate (39)  |  Pantheon (2)  |  Particle (200)  |  Past (355)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plato (80)  |  Pore (7)  |  Present (630)  |  Probably (50)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Pyramid (9)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Race (278)  |  Regular (48)  |  Roman (39)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Second (66)  |  Send (23)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sergeant (2)  |  Solid (119)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spending (24)  |  Stand (284)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Undoubtedly (3)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wife (41)  |  Wing (79)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

This brings me to the final point of my remarks, the relation between creativity and aging, a topic with which I have had substantial experience. Scientific research, until it has gone through the grueling and sometimes painful process of publication, is just play, and play is characteristic of young vertebrates, particularly young mammals. In some ways, scientific creativity is related to the exuberant behavior of young mammals. Indeed, creativity seems to be a natural characteristic of young humans. If one is fortunate enough to be associated with a university, even as one ages, teaching allows one to contribute to, and vicariously share, in the creativity of youth.”
In 'Integrative Biology: An Organismic Biologist’s Point of View', Integrative and Comparative Biology (2005), 45, 331.
Science quotes on:  |  Aging (9)  |  Allow (51)  |  Associate (25)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Bring (95)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experience (494)  |  Exuberant (2)  |  Final (121)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Grueling (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Natural (810)  |  Painful (12)  |  Particularly (21)  |  Play (116)  |  Point (584)  |  Process (439)  |  Publication (102)  |  Relate (26)  |  Relation (166)  |  Remark (28)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seem (150)  |  Share (82)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Through (846)  |  Topic (23)  |  University (130)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Way (1214)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

This is an age of science. ... All important fields of activity from the breeding of bees to the administration of an empire, call for an understanding of the spirit and the technique of modern science. The nations that do not cultivate the sciences cannot hold their own.
From Rose's private notebook (1924?), as quoted by Stanley Coben in 'The Scientific Establishment and the Transmission of Quantum Mechanics to the United States, 1919-32', The American Historical Review (Apr 1971), 76, No. 2, 449.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Administration (15)  |  Age Of Science (2)  |  Bee (44)  |  Breeding (21)  |  Call (781)  |  Cultivate (24)  |  Do (1905)  |  Empire (17)  |  Field (378)  |  Hold (96)  |  Important (229)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Nation (208)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Technique (84)  |  Understanding (527)

This is not the age of pamphleteers. It is the age of the engineers. The spark-gap is mightier than the pen. Democracy will not be salvaged by men who talk fluently, debate forcefully and quote aptly.
In Science for the Citizen (1938), 1075.
Science quotes on:  |  Debate (40)  |  Democracy (36)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Gap (36)  |  Pen (21)  |  Quote (46)  |  Spark (32)  |  Will (2350)

This is the patent-age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions;
Sir Humphrey Davy's lantern, by which coals
Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,
Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the Poles,
Are ways to benefit mankind, as true,
Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.
Don Juan (1819, 1858), Canto I, CXXXII, 36. Although aware of scientific inventions, the poet seemed to view them with suspicion. Davy invented his safety lamp in 1803. Sir W.E. Parry made a voyage to the Arctic Regions (4 Apr to 18 Nov 1818).
Science quotes on:  |  Benefit (123)  |  Best (467)  |  Body (557)  |  Coal (64)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Intention (46)  |  Invention (400)  |  Killing (14)  |  Lantern (8)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mining (22)  |  New (1273)  |  Patent (34)  |  Pole (49)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Safety Lamp (3)  |  Saving (20)  |  Shooting (6)  |  Soul (235)  |  Travel (125)  |  Way (1214)

This is the question
Marry
Children—(if it Please God)—Constant companion (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one—object to be beloved and played with—better than a dog anyhow. Home, & someone to take care of house—Charms of music and female chit-chat.—These things good for one’s health.—but terrible loss of time.—
My God, it is Intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working—& nothing after all.—No, no, won’t do. Imagine living all one’s day solitary in smoky dirty London House.—Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps-—Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ Street.
Not Marry
Freedom to go where one liked—choice of Society and little of it. —Conversation of clever men at clubs—Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. —to have the expense and anxiety of children—perhaps quarreling—Loss of time. —cannot read in the Evenings—fatness & idleness—Anxiety & responsibility—less money for books &c—if many children forced to gain one’s bread. —(but then it is very bad for ones health to work too much)
Perhaps my wife won’t like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool.
Marry—Marry—Marry Q.E.D.
It being proved necessary to Marry When? Soon or late?
Notes on Marriage, July 1838. In F. Burkhardt and S. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin 1837-1843 (1986), Vol. 2, 444.
Science quotes on:  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Bad (185)  |  Bee (44)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Bread (42)  |  Care (203)  |  Charm (54)  |  Children (201)  |  Choice (114)  |  Clever (41)  |  Companion (22)  |  Compare (76)  |  Constant (148)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Degradation (18)  |  Dirty (17)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dog (70)  |  Feel (371)  |  Female (50)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fool (121)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Friend (180)  |  Gain (146)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Health (210)  |  Home (184)  |  House (143)  |  Idle (34)  |  Idleness (15)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Interest (416)  |  Late (119)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Living (492)  |  Loss (117)  |  Marriage (39)  |  Money (178)  |  Music (133)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Picture (148)  |  Please (68)  |  Question (649)  |  Read (308)  |  Reality (274)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Society (350)  |  Soft (30)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spending (24)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vision (127)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wife (41)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

This leads us to ask for the reasons which call for this new theory of transmutation. The beginning of things must needs lie in obscurity, beyond the bounds of proof, though within those of conjecture or of analogical inference. Why not hold fast to the customary view, that all species were directly, instead of indirectly, created after their respective kinds, as we now behold them,--and that in a manner which, passing our comprehension, we intuitively refer to the supernatural? Why this continual striving after “the unattained and dim,”—these anxious endeavors, especially of late years, by naturalists and philosophers of various schools and different tendencies, to penetrate what one of them calls “the mystery of mysteries,” the origin of species? To this, in general, sufficient answer may be found in the activity of the human intellect, “the delirious yet divine desire to know,” stimulated as it has been by its own success in unveiling the laws and processes of inorganic Nature,—in the fact that the principal triumphs of our age in physical science have consisted in tracing connections where none were known before, in reducing heterogeneous phenomena to a common cause or origin, in a manner quite analogous to that of the reduction of supposed independently originated species to a common ultimate origin,—thus, and in various other ways, largely and legitimately extending the domain of secondary causes. Surely the scientific mind of an age which contemplates the solar system as evolved from a common, revolving, fluid mass,— which, through experimental research, has come to regard light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, and mechanical power as varieties or derivative and convertible forms of one force, instead of independent species,—which has brought the so-called elementary kinds of matter, such as the metals, into kindred groups, and raised the question, whether the members of each group may not be mere varieties of one species,—and which speculates steadily in the direction of the ultimate unity of matter, of a sort of prototype or simple element which may be to the ordinary species of matter what the protozoa or component cells of an organism are to the higher sorts of animals and plants,—the mind of such an age cannot be expected to let the old belief about species pass unquestioned.
Asa Gray
'Darwin on the Origin of Species', The Atlantic Monthly (Jul 1860), 112-3. Also in 'Natural Selection Not Inconsistent With Natural Theology', Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism (1876), 94-95.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Affinity (27)  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bound (120)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Common (447)  |  Component (51)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consist (223)  |  Continual (44)  |  Customary (18)  |  Desire (212)  |  Different (595)  |  Direction (185)  |  Divine (112)  |  Domain (72)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Element (322)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Heat (180)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Independently (24)  |  Inference (45)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Kind (564)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Late (119)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Metal (88)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Principal (69)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prototype (9)  |  Protozoa (6)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Regard (312)  |  Research (753)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Mind (13)  |  Simple (426)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Species (435)  |  Success (327)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supernatural (26)  |  Surely (101)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmutation (24)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unity (81)  |  Unquestioned (7)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Year (963)

This notion that “science” is something that belongs in a separate compartment of its own, apart from everyday life, is one that I should like to challenge. We live in a scientific age; yet we assume that knowledge of science is the prerogative of only a small number of human beings, isolated and priest-like in their laboratories. This is not true. It cannot be true. The materials of science are the materials of life itself. Science is part of the reality of living; it is the what, the how, and the why of everything in our experience. It is impossible to understand man without understanding his environment and the forces that have molded him physically and mentally.
Address upon receiving National Book Award at reception, Hotel Commodore, New York (27 Jan 1952). As cited in Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature (1997), 218-219.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Environment (239)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everyday Life (15)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experience (494)  |  Force (497)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mold (37)  |  Notion (120)  |  Number (710)  |  Physical (518)  |  Prerogative (3)  |  Priest (29)  |  Reality (274)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Separate (151)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Why (491)

This success permits us to hope that after thirty or forty years of observation on the new Planet [Neptune], we may employ it, in its turn, for the discovery of the one following it in its order of distances from the Sun. Thus, at least, we should unhappily soon fall among bodies invisible by reason of their immense distance, but whose orbits might yet be traced in a succession of ages, with the greatest exactness, by the theory of Secular Inequalities.
[Following the success of the confirmation of the existence of the planet Neptune, he considered the possibility of the discovery of a yet further planet.]
In John Pringle Nichol, The Planet Neptune: An Exposition and History (1848), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Calculation (134)  |  Confirmation (25)  |  Consider (428)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distance (171)  |  Employ (115)  |  Exactness (29)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fall (243)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hope (321)  |  Immense (89)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Neptune (13)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Order (638)  |  Permit (61)  |  Planet (402)  |  Pluto (6)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Reason (766)  |  Secular (11)  |  Soon (187)  |  Success (327)  |  Succession (80)  |  Sun (407)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Turn (454)  |  Year (963)

This whole period was a golden age of immunology, an age abounding in important synthetic discoveries all over the world, a time we all thought it was good to be alive. We, who were working on these problems, all knew each other and met as often as we could to exchange ideas and hot news from the laboratory.
In Memoir of a Thinking Radish: An Autobiography (1986), 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  Good (906)  |  Hot (63)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immunology (14)  |  Important (229)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Problem (731)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Those of us who saw the dawn of the Atomic Age that early morning at Alamogordo … know now that when man is willing to make the effort, he is capable of accomplishing virtually anything.
In And Now It Can Be Told: The Story Of The Manhattan Project (1962), 415.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Alamogordo (2)  |  Anything (9)  |  Atomic Age (6)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Capable (174)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Early (196)  |  Effort (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manhattan Project (15)  |  Morning (98)  |  Saw (160)  |  Willing (44)

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it—we mean to lead it.
Address at Rice University in Houston (12 Sep 1962). On website of John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. [This go-to-the-moon speech was largely written by presidential advisor and speechwriter Ted Sorensen.]
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Coming (114)  |  Country (269)  |  First (1302)  |  Founder (26)  |  Generation (256)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Intend (18)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mean (810)  |  Modern (402)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Power (16)  |  Power (771)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Age (4)  |  United States (31)  |  Wave (112)

Those who suggest that the “dark ages” were a time of violence and superstition would do well to remember the appalling cruelties of our own time, truly without parallel in past ages, as well as the fact that the witch-hunts were not strictly speaking a medieval phenomenon but belong rather to the so-called Renaissance.
From Interview (2003) on the Exhibition, 'Il Medioevo Europeo di Jacques le Goff' (The European Middle Ages by Jacques Le Goff), at Parma, Italy (27 Sep 2003—11 Jan 2004). Published among web pages about the Exhibition, that were on the website of the Province of Parma.
Science quotes on:  |  Appalling (10)  |  Belong (168)  |  Call (781)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Medieval (12)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Past (355)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Remember (189)  |  Renaissance (16)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)  |  Violence (37)

Thou hast nor youth nor age,
But as it were an after-dinner's sleep
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld.
Measure for Measure (1604), III, i.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Bless (25)  |  Blessed (20)  |  Both (496)  |  Dream (222)  |  Palsy (3)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Youth (109)

Through the ages, man's main concern was life after death. Today, for the first time, we find we must ask questions about whether there will be life before death.
The Crazy Ape (1970), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Concern (239)  |  Death (406)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Must (1525)  |  Question (649)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Will (2350)

Through the Middle Ages and down to the late eighteenth century, many philosophers, most men of science, and, indeed, most educated men, were to accept without question—the conception of the universe as a Great Chain of Being, composed of an immense, or—by the strict but seldom rigorously applied logic of the principle of continuity—of an infinite number of links ranging in hierarchical order from the meagerest kind of existents, which barely escape non-existence, through 'every possible' grade up to the ens perfectissimum—or, in a somewhat more orthodox version, to the highest possible kind of creature, between which and the Absolute Being the disparity was assumed to be infinite—every one of them differing from that immediately above and that immediately below it by the 'least possible' degree of difference.
The Great Chain of Being (1936), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  Absolute (153)  |  Accept (198)  |  Applied (176)  |  Being (1276)  |  Century (319)  |  Conception (160)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Creature (242)  |  Degree (277)  |  Difference (355)  |  Down (455)  |  Escape (85)  |  Existence (481)  |  Great (1610)  |  Great Chain Of Being (2)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Immense (89)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Kind (564)  |  Late (119)  |  Logic (311)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Question (649)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Through (846)  |  Universe (900)

Thursday, May 30 [1912]. This morning at 3:15, Wilbur passed away, aged 45 years, 1 month, and 14 days. A short life, full of consequences. An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great selfreliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadily, he lived and died. Many called - many telegrams. (Probably over a thousand.)
From Milton’s handwritten Diary entry for Thur, 30 May 1912.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Death (406)  |  Die (94)  |  Full (68)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Modesty (18)  |  Month (91)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Right (473)  |  Short (200)  |  Steadily (7)  |  Telegram (5)  |  Temper (12)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Unfailing (6)  |  Wilbur Wright (14)  |  Year (963)

Thus died Negro Tom [Thomas Fuller], this untaught arithmetician, this untutored scholar. Had his opportunities of improvement been equal to those of thousands of his fellow-men, neither the Royal Society of London, the Academy of Science at Paris, nor even a Newton himself need have been ashamed to acknowledge him a brother in science.
[Thomas Fuller (1710-1790), although enslaved from Africa at age 14, was an arithmetical prodigy. He was known as the Virginia Calculator because of his exceptional ability with arithmetic calculations. His intellectual accomplishments were related by Dr. Benjamin Rush in a letter read to the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery.]
Obituary
From obituary in the Boston Columbian Centinal (29 Dec 1790), 14, No. 31. In George Washington Williams, History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 (1882), Vol. 1, 400
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Academy (37)  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Africa (38)  |  African American (8)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Brother (47)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Calculator (9)  |  Equal (88)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Himself (461)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Known (453)  |  Letter (117)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Negro (8)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Prodigy (5)  |  Read (308)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Shame (15)  |  Slave (40)  |  Slavery (13)  |  Society (350)  |  Thousand (340)

Thus identified with astronomy, in proclaiming truths supposed to be hostile to Scripture, Geology has been denounced as the enemy of religion. The twin sisters of terrestrial and celestial physics have thus been joint-heirs of intolerance and persecution—unresisting victims in the crusade which ignorance and fanaticism are ever waging against science. When great truths are driven to make an appeal to reason, knowledge becomes criminal, and philosophers martyrs. Truth, however, like all moral powers, can neither be checked nor extinguished. When compressed, it but reacts the more. It crushes where it cannot expand—it burns where it is not allowed to shine. Human when originally divulged, it becomes divine when finally established. At first, the breath of a rage—at last it is the edict of a god. Endowed with such vital energy, astronomical truth has cut its way through the thick darkness of superstitious times, and, cheered by its conquests, Geology will find the same open path when it has triumphed over the less formidable obstacles of a civilized age.
More Worlds than One: The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian (1854), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Become (821)  |  Breath (61)  |  Burn (99)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Criminal (18)  |  Cut (116)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Divine (112)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Energy (373)  |  Expand (56)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Geology (240)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heir (12)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Joint (31)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Open (277)  |  Path (159)  |  Persecution (14)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Power (771)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Twin (16)  |  Victim (37)  |  Vital (89)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

To build up cities, an age is needed: but an hour destroys them.
Urbes constituit ætas: hora dissolvit.
Cited as from Quæstionum Naturalium, Book III. 27 in Kate Louise Roberts (ed.) Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922), 798.
Science quotes on:  |  Archaeology (51)  |  Build (211)  |  City (87)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Hour (192)

To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
In 'Proverbs', The Poems: With Specimens of the Prose Writings of William Blake (1885), 281.
Science quotes on:  |  Create (245)  |  Flower (112)  |  Labor (200)  |  Little (717)

To engage in experiments on heat was always one of my most agreeable employments. This subject had already begun to excite my attention when, in my seventeenth year, I read Boerhave’s admirable Treatise on Fire. Subsequently, indeed, I was often prevented by other matters from devoting my attention to it, but whenever I could snatch a moment I returned to it anew, and always with increased interest.
In 'Historical Review of the Various Experiments of the Author on the Subject of Heat', The Complete Works of Count Rumford (1873), Vol. 2, 188. It is translated from the original German, in Vol. IV, of Rumford’s Kleine Schriften.
Science quotes on:  |  Admirable (20)  |  Agreeable (20)  |  Anew (19)  |  Attention (196)  |  Devote (45)  |  Employment (34)  |  Engage (41)  |  Excite (17)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fire (203)  |  Heat (180)  |  Increase (225)  |  Interest (416)  |  Moment (260)  |  Read (308)  |  Return (133)  |  Snatch (14)  |  Subject (543)  |  Treatise (46)

To judge in this [utilitarian] way demonstrates … how small, narrow and indolent our minds are; it shows a disposition always to calculate the reward before the work, a cold heart and a lack of feeling for everything that is great and honours mankind. Unfortunately one cannot deny that such a mode of thinking is common in our age, and I am convinced that this is closely connected with the catastrophes which have befallen many countries in recent times; do not mistake me, I do not talk of the general lack of concern for science, but of the source from which all this has come, of the tendency to look out everywhere for one’s advantage and to relate everything to one’s physical well being, of indifference towards great ideas, of aversion to any effort which derives from pure enthusiasm.
Epigraph before title page, T. W. Körner, The Pleasures of Counting (1996).
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Aversion (9)  |  Befall (3)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Catastrophe (35)  |  Cold (115)  |  Common (447)  |  Concern (239)  |  Country (269)  |  Deny (71)  |  Derive (70)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Effort (243)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Everything (489)  |  Feel (371)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Honour (58)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indifference (16)  |  Indolent (2)  |  Lack (127)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Mode (43)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Physical (518)  |  Pure (299)  |  Recent (78)  |  Relate (26)  |  Reward (72)  |  Small (489)  |  Source (101)  |  Talk (108)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)

To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
Amiel's Journal The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel, (21 Sep 1874), trans. By Mrs Humphry Ward (1889),177.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Know (1538)  |  Living (492)  |  Master (182)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)

To me old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
Commenting on his 85th birthday.
Quoted in Newsweek (29 Aug 1955). In Alfred J. Kolatch, Great Jewish Quotations (1996), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Birthday (9)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Year (963)

To Nature nothing can be added; from Nature nothing can be taken away; the sum of her energies is constant, and the utmost man can do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the applications of physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the never-varying total. The law of conservation rigidly excludes both creation and annihilation. Waves may change to ripples, and ripples to waves; magnitude may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude; asteroids may aggregate to suns, suns may resolve themselves into florae and faunae, and floras and faunas melt in air: the flux of power is eternally the same. It rolls in music through the ages, and all terrestrial energy—the manifestations of life as well as the display of phenomena—are but the modulations of its rhythm.
Conclusion of Heat Considered as a Mode of Motion: Being a Course of Twelve Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in the Season of 1862 (1863), 449.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Air (366)  |  Annihilation (15)  |  Application (257)  |  Asteroid (19)  |  Both (496)  |  Change (639)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Conservation Of Energy (30)  |  Constant (148)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Creation (350)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Energy (373)  |  Eternally (4)  |  Exclude (8)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Flora (9)  |  Flux (21)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Melt (16)  |  Modulation (3)  |  Music (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Power (771)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Ripple (12)  |  Roll (41)  |  Same (166)  |  Shift (45)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Sum (103)  |  Sun (407)  |  Take Away (5)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Total (95)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Wave (112)

To regard such a positive mental science [psychology] as rising above the sphere of history, and establishing the permanent and unchanging laws of human nature, is therefore possible only to a person who mistakes the transient conditions of a certain historical age for the permanent conditions of human life.
The Idea of History (1946), 224.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Condition (362)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Person (366)  |  Positive (98)  |  Possible (560)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Regard (312)  |  Rising (44)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Transient (13)

To suppose that so perfect a system as that of Euclid’s Elements was produced by one man, without any preceding model or materials, would be to suppose that Euclid was more than man. We ascribe to him as much as the weakness of human understanding will permit, if we suppose that the inventions in geometry, which had been made in a tract of preceding ages, were by him not only carried much further, but digested into so admirable a system, that his work obscured all that went before it, and made them be forgot and lost.
In Essay on the Powers of the Human Mind (1812), Vol. 2, 368.
Science quotes on:  |  Admirable (20)  |  Ascribe (18)  |  Carry (130)  |  Digest (10)  |  Element (322)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Far (158)  |  Forget (125)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lose (165)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Permit (61)  |  Precede (23)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Suppose (158)  |  System (545)  |  Tract (7)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Weakness (50)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

To the days of the aged it addeth length;
To the might of the strong it addeth strength;
It freshens the heart, It brightens the sight;
’Tis like quaffing a goblet of morning light.
So, water, I will drink nothing but thee,
Thou parent of health and energy!
Anonymous
From 'Song of the Water Drinker', The Metropolitan Magazine (1835), 15, 283. Attributed to E. Johnson, but without a full name with which to find more biographical information, Webmaster is putting these lines under Anonymous.
Science quotes on:  |  Drink (56)  |  Energy (373)  |  Freshen (2)  |  Health (210)  |  Heart (243)  |  Length (24)  |  Light (635)  |  Morning (98)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Parent (80)  |  Sight (135)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

True majorities, in a TV-dominated and anti-intellectual age, may need sound bites and flashing lights–and I am not against supplying such lures if they draw children into even a transient concern with science. But every classroom has one [Oliver] Sacks, one [Eric] Korn, or one [Jonathan] Miller, usually a lonely child with a passionate curiosity about nature, and a zeal that overcomes pressures for conformity. Do not the one in fifty deserve their institutions as well–magic places, like cabinet museums, that can spark the rare flames of genius?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Anti-Intellectual (2)  |  Bite (18)  |  Cabinet (5)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Classroom (11)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conformity (15)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Fifty (17)  |  Flame (44)  |  Flash (49)  |  Genius (301)  |  Institution (73)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Light (635)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Lure (9)  |  Magic (92)  |  Majority (68)  |  Miller (2)  |  Museum (40)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Passionate (22)  |  Place (192)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Rare (94)  |  Sack (2)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spark (32)  |  Supply (100)  |  Transient (13)  |  True (239)  |  Usually (176)  |  Zeal (12)

Very few people do anything creative after the age of thirty-five. The reason is that very few people do anything creative before the age of thirty-five.
Atrributed, without citation, in Richard V. Eastman, Discovery Workbook: Why Didn't I Think Of That, 6. If you known a primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Reason (766)  |  Thirty-Five (2)

We are about to move into the Aquarian age of clearer thinking. Astrology and witchcraft both have a contribution to make to the new age, and it behooves the practitioners of both to realize their responsibilities and ob­ligations to the science and the religion.
In Diary of a Witch (1969), 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Astrology (46)  |  Behoove (6)  |  Both (496)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Move (223)  |  New (1273)  |  New Age (6)  |  Obligation (26)  |  Practitioner (21)  |  Realize (157)  |  Religion (369)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Witchcraft (6)

We are at that very point in time when a four-hundred-year-old age is rattling in its deathbed and another is struggling to be born. A shifting of culture, science, society and institutions enormously greater and swifter than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, lies the possibility of regeneration of individuality, liberty, community and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another and with the divine intelligence such as the world has always dreamed.
Birth of the Chaordic Age (1999), 310-311.
Science quotes on:  |  Community (111)  |  Culture (157)  |  Divine (112)  |  Dream (222)  |  Ethic (39)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Greater (288)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Institution (73)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Known (453)  |  Liberty (29)  |  Lie (370)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Point (584)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Regeneration (5)  |  Shift (45)  |  Society (350)  |  Time (1911)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

We are living in an age of awesome agricultural enterprise that needs to be interpreted. We find our simple faith in science dominated by the Religion of PhDeism under the reign of Data; so narrow in people and often so meaningless in context as to be worthless to the scientific farmer.
Letter to Joshua Lederberg (19 Apr 1970), Joshua Lederberg papers, National Library of Medicine (online). Hildebrand was a response to a Lederberg's letter published in the Washington Post (18 Apr 1970) about 'Ecology Has All Requisites of an Authentic Religion.' Note that Sam Murchid claimed this term PhDeism in another context in his diaries (as seen in diaries of 1964 and others).
Science quotes on:  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Awesome (15)  |  Context (31)  |  Data (162)  |  Domination (12)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Faith (209)  |  Farmer (35)  |  Find (1014)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Living (492)  |  Meaningless (17)  |  Narrow (85)  |  People (1031)  |  Reign (24)  |  Religion (369)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Simple (426)  |  Worthless (22)

We are the children of a technological age. We have found streamlined ways of doing much of our routine work. Printing is no longer the only way of reproducing books. Reading them, however, has not changed...
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Change (639)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Doing (277)  |  Find (1014)  |  Long (778)  |  Print (20)  |  Printing (25)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Routine (26)  |  Technological (62)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

We are very lucky to be living in an age in which we are still making discoveries. It is like the discovery of America—you only discover it once. The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. It is very exciting, it is marvelous, but this excitement will have to go.
From transcript of the seventh Messenger Lecture, Cornell University (1964), 'Seeking New Laws.' Published in The Character of Physical Law (1965, reprint 2001), 172.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Law (913)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Lucky (13)  |  Making (300)  |  Marvelous (31)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Still (614)  |  Will (2350)

We do live in a conceptual trough that encourages such yearning for unknown and romanticized greener pastures of other times. The future doesn’t seem promising, if only because we can extrapolate some disquieting present trends in to further deterioration: pollution, nationalism, environmental destruction, and aluminum bats. Therefore, we tend to take refuge in a rose-colored past ... I do not doubt the salutary, even the essential, properties of this curiously adaptive human trait, but we must also record the down side. Legends of past golden ages become impediments when we try to negotiate our current dilemma.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptive (3)  |  Aluminum (15)  |  Bat (10)  |  Become (821)  |  Color (155)  |  Conceptual (11)  |  Current (122)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Deterioration (10)  |  Dilemma (11)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Down (455)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Environment (239)  |  Essential (210)  |  Extrapolate (3)  |  Far (158)  |  Future (467)  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  Green (65)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impediment (12)  |  Legend (18)  |  Live (650)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nationalism (5)  |  Negotiate (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Pasture (15)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Present (630)  |  Promise (72)  |  Property (177)  |  Record (161)  |  Refuge (15)  |  Romanticize (2)  |  Rose (36)  |  Salutary (5)  |  Seem (150)  |  Side (236)  |  Tend (124)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trait (23)  |  Trend (23)  |  Try (296)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Yearn (13)  |  Yearning (13)

We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create the Declaration. Our Declaration created them. … If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it.
Address at a Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia (5 Jul 1926). In William J. Federer, A Treasury of Presidential Quotations (2004), 252.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Create (245)  |  Declaration (10)  |  Declaration Of Independence (5)  |  Father (113)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Live (650)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Material (366)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thing (1914)

We modern chemists, the witnesses and workers of this “Age of Chemistry,” can learn something from the old alchemy, full as it was of errors and fantasies! … Let the Past furnish us a warning against too much phantasy in modern chemistry.
From 'What Can the Modern Chemist Learn From the Old Alchemy?', Introductory Lecture (1917), delivered at Cornell University, written in German, translated by L.F. Audrieth, and published in Salts, Acids, and Bases: Electrolytes Stereochemistry (1929), 1-2, as Vol. 4 of the George Fisher Baker Non-Resident Lectureship in Chemistry at Cornell University.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Error (339)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Full (68)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Learn (672)  |  Modern (402)  |  Old (499)  |  Past (355)  |  Something (718)  |  Warning (18)  |  Witness (57)  |  Worker (34)

We must make practice in thinking, or, in other words, the strengthening of reasoning power, the constant object of all teaching from infancy to adult age, no matter what may be the subject of instruction. … Effective training of the reasoning powers cannot be secured simply by choosing this subject or that for study. The method of study and the aim in studying are the all-important things.
From 'Wherein Popular Education has Failed' Forum (Dec 1892), collected in American Contributions to Civilization: And Other Essays and Addresses (1897), 229 & 231.
Science quotes on:  |  Adult (24)  |  Aim (175)  |  Choose (116)  |  Constant (148)  |  Education (423)  |  Effective (68)  |  Important (229)  |  Infancy (14)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Practice (212)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Secure (23)  |  Secured (18)  |  Simply (53)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Training (92)  |  Word (650)

We must take the abiding spiritual values which inhere in the deep experiences of religion in all ages and give them new expression in terms of the framework which our new knowledge gives us. Science forces religion to deal with new ideas in the theoretical realm and new forces in the practical realm.
Address to Seventh Annual Midsummer Conferences of Ministers and Other Christian Workers, held by Union Theological Seminary, at Columbia University gymnasium (19 Jul 1927), as quoted in 'Fosdick Sees Bible Outrun by Science', New York Times (20 Jul 1927), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Abiding (3)  |  Deal (192)  |  Deep (241)  |  Experience (494)  |  Expression (181)  |  Force (497)  |  Framework (33)  |  Idea (881)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Practical (225)  |  Realm (87)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  Value (393)

We now live in an age in which science is a court from which there is no appeal. And this issue this time around, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, is not the evolution of the species, which can seem a remote business, but the nature of our own precious inner selves.
Tom Wolfe
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Appeal (46)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Business (156)  |  Century (319)  |  Court (35)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Inner (72)  |  Issue (46)  |  Live (650)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Precious (43)  |  Remote (86)  |  Seem (150)  |  Self (268)  |  Species (435)  |  Time (1911)  |  Twenty-First (2)

We should be most careful about retreating from the specific challenge of our age. We should be reluctant to turn our back upon the frontier of this epoch… We cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand slow march of our intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now would be to deny our history, our capabilities.
At a 1979 U.S. Senate hearing. As quoted in House Congressional Record (21 Jun 1991), 13874. Also quoted in James E. Oberg, Mission to Mars: Plans and Concepts for the First Manned Landing (2017), 174.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Bring (95)  |  Capability (44)  |  Careful (28)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Deny (71)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Frontier (41)  |  Generation (256)  |  Grand (29)  |  History (716)  |  Indifferent (17)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  March (48)  |  Most (1728)  |  Point (584)  |  Reluctant (4)  |  Retreat (13)  |  Slow (108)  |  Space (523)  |  Specific (98)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turn Back (2)  |  Understand (648)  |  Utilize (10)

We should be very jealous of who speaks for science, particularly in our age of rapidly expanding technology. How can the public be educated? I do not know the specifics, but of this I am certain: The public will remain uninformed and uneducated in the sciences until the media professionals decide otherwise. Until they stop quoting charlatans and quacks and until respected scientists speak up.
In article, 'Who Speaks For Science?', Chemical Times and Trends (Jan 1990). As quoted in Jay H. Lehr (ed.), Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns (1992), 730, and cited on p.735.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Charlatan (8)  |  Decide (50)  |  Do (1905)  |  Educate (14)  |  Educated (12)  |  Expanding (3)  |  Jealous (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Media (14)  |  Professional (77)  |  Public (100)  |  Quack (18)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Remain (355)  |  Respect (212)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Speak (240)  |  Specific (98)  |  Stop (89)  |  Technology (281)  |  Uneducated (9)  |  Uninformed (3)  |  Will (2350)

We spend our years as a tale that is told, but the tale varies in a hundred different ways, varies between man and man, between year and year, between youth and age, sorrow and joy, laughter and tears. How different the story of the child’s year from the man’s; how much longer it seems; how far apart seem the vacations, and the Christmases, and the New Years! But let the child become a man, and he will find that he can tell full fast enough these stories of a year; that if he is disposed to make good use of them he has no hours to wish away; the plot develops very rapidly, and the conclusion gallops on the very heels of that first chapter which records the birth of a new year.
In Edward Parsons Day (ed.), Day’s Collacon: An Encyclopaedia of Prose Quotations (1884), 1050.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Birth (154)  |  Chapter (11)  |  Child (333)  |  Christmas (13)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Develop (278)  |  Different (595)  |  Dispose (10)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fast (49)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Full (68)  |  Good (906)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Joy (117)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Longer (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  New (1273)  |  Plot (11)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Record (161)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Spend (97)  |  Story (122)  |  Tale (17)  |  Tear (48)  |  Tell (344)  |  Use (771)  |  Vacation (4)  |  Vary (27)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Year (963)  |  Youth (109)

We think the heavens enjoy their spherical
Their round proportion, embracing all;
But yet their various and perplexed course,
Observed in divers ages, doth enforce
Men to find out so many eccentric parts,
Such diverse downright lines, such overthwarts,
As disproportion that pure form.
From poem, 'An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary', lines 251-257, as collected in The Poems of John Donne (1896), Vol. 2, 113.
Science quotes on:  |  Course (413)  |  Disproportion (3)  |  Diverse (20)  |  Eccentric (11)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Enforce (11)  |  Find (1014)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Form (976)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Line (100)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Perplex (6)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Pure (299)  |  Round (26)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Think (1122)  |  Various (205)

We thought of universities as the cathedrals of the modern world. In the middle ages, the cathedral was the center and symbol of the city. In the modern world, its place could be taken by the university.
L.A. Times (21 Jul 1999)
Science quotes on:  |  Cathedral (27)  |  Cathedrals Of The Modern World (5)  |  City (87)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Thought (995)  |  University (130)  |  World (1850)

We were very privileged to leave on the Moon a plaque ... saying, ‘For all Mankind’. Perhaps in the third millennium a wayward stranger will read the plaque at Tranquility Base. We’ll let history mark that this was the age in which that became a fact. I was struck this morning in New York by a proudly waved but uncarefully scribbled sign. It said, ‘Through you we touched the Moon.’ It was our privilege today to touch America. I suspect perhaps the most warm, genuine feeling that all of us could receive came through the cheers and shouts and, most of all, the smiles of our fellow Americans. We hope and think that those people shared our belief that this is the beginning of a new era—the beginning of an era when man understands the universe around him, and the beginning of the era when man understands himself.
Acceptance speech (13 Aug 1969), upon receiving the Medal of Freedom as a member of the first manned moon-landing mission. In James R. Hansen, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong (2005), 569.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Base (120)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belief (615)  |  Era (51)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Hope (321)  |  Leaving (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mark (47)  |  Millenium (2)  |  Moon (252)  |  Morning (98)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  People (1031)  |  Plaque (2)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Read (308)  |  Receive (117)  |  Scribble (5)  |  Sharing (11)  |  Shout (25)  |  Sign (63)  |  Smile (34)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Today (321)  |  Touch (146)  |  Touching (16)  |  Tranquility Base (3)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wayward (3)  |  Will (2350)

We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We'll restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.
From First Inaugural Address (20 Jan 2009)
Science quotes on:  |  Bind (26)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Build (211)  |  Car (75)  |  Care (203)  |  College (71)  |  Commerce (23)  |  Cost (94)  |  Demand (131)  |  Digital (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electric (76)  |  Factory (20)  |  Feed (31)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Harness (25)  |  Health (210)  |  Health Care (10)  |  Internet (24)  |  Line (100)  |  Lower (11)  |  New (1273)  |  New Age (6)  |  Place (192)  |  Quality (139)  |  Raise (38)  |  Restore (12)  |  Rightful (3)  |  Road (71)  |  Run (158)  |  School (227)  |  Soil (98)  |  Sun (407)  |  Technology (281)  |  Together (392)  |  Transform (74)  |  University (130)  |  Wield (10)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wonder (251)

Well, in the first place, it leads to great anxiety as to whether it’s going to be correct or not … I expect that’s the dominating feeling. It gets to be rather a fever…
At age 60, when asked about his feelings on discovering the Dirac equation.
"Interview with T. Kuhn (7 May 1963), Niels Bohr Library, American Intitute of Physics, New York. In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Ask (420)  |  Biography (254)  |  Equation (138)  |  Expect (203)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Fever (34)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Lead (391)

What about the magical number seven? What about the seven wonders of the world, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven daughters of Atlas in the Pleiades, the seven ages of man, the seven levels of hell, the seven primary colors, the seven notes of the musical scale, and the seven days of the week? What about the seven-point rating scale, the seven categories for absolute judgment, the seven objects in the span of attention, and the seven digits in the span of immediate memory? For the present I propose to withhold judgment. Perhaps there is something deep and profound behind all these sevens, something just calling out for us to discover it. But I suspect that it is only a pernicious, Pythagorean coincidence.
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two (1956), 42-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Attention (196)  |  Behind (139)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Color (155)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Deep (241)  |  Discover (571)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Magic (92)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Pernicious (9)  |  Pleiades (4)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Primary (82)  |  Profound (105)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Scale (122)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seven (5)  |  Sin (45)  |  Something (718)  |  Week (73)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

What can I say of the perpetual motion machine that is my husband? What makes Francis run? It is a mysterious and propelling force which, injected into all mankind, would solve all the problems that plague this day and age.
Describing her husband, opthalmologist Francis Heed Adler.
Investigative Ophthalmology (Feb 1968), 7 No. 1, 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Francis Heed Adler (2)  |  Biography (254)  |  Force (497)  |  Heed (12)  |  Injection (9)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Perpetual Motion (14)  |  Plague (42)  |  Problem (731)  |  Run (158)  |  Say (989)  |  Solve (145)

What certainty can there be in a Philosophy which consists in as many Hypotheses as there are Phaenomena to be explained. To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, & leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.
Quoted in Richard S. Westfall, The Life of Isaac Newton (1994), 256.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Consist (223)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Do (1905)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Little (717)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Rest (287)  |  Task (152)  |  Thing (1914)

What happened to those Ice Age beasts? What caused the mammoth and mastodon and wooly rhinoceros to pay the ultimate Darwinian penalty, while bison and musk ox survived? Why didn't the fauna of Africa suffer the kinds of losses evident in other regions of the world? And if something like climatic change caused the extinction of North America's Pleistocene horse, how have feral horses managed to reestablish themselves on the western range?
(1986)
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  America (143)  |  Beast (58)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Evident (92)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Horse (78)  |  Ice (58)  |  Ice Age (10)  |  Kind (564)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mammoth (9)  |  Mastodon (4)  |  Musk (2)  |  North America (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ox (5)  |  Penalty (7)  |  Pleistocene (4)  |  Range (104)  |  Rhinoceros (2)  |  Something (718)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Survive (87)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Western (45)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

What is it to see, in an Eagle glide
Which fills a human heart with so much pride?
Is it that it soars effortless above the Earth
That steals us from our own limits & dearth?
Trapped in our seas of befuddling sludge
We try and try but cannot budge.
And then to see a mortal; with such ease take wing
Up in a breeze that makes our failing spirits sing?
Do we, vicarious birds, search in it our childishness -
When we too were young & yearned in heart to fly?
Taking flights of fancy through adolescent nights
Listening little, heeding less, knowing not why?
From its highest perch in the forest of snow
Majestic - the Eagle soars alone.
Riding thermals, lording clouds
Till dropping silent from the sky as a stone
But we, so quick and ready to fold
Give up our wings at the whiff of age
Losing years, cursing time, wasting spirit
Living out entire lives in futile rage!
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adolescent (4)  |  Alone (324)  |  Bird (163)  |  Breeze (8)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Curse (20)  |  Dearth (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dropping (8)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ease (40)  |  Effortless (3)  |  Entire (50)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Fill (67)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Fold (9)  |  Forest (161)  |  Futile (13)  |  Give Up (10)  |  Glide (4)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heed (12)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Less (105)  |  Limit (294)  |  Listen (81)  |  Listening (26)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Lord (97)  |  Lose (165)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Night (133)  |  Perch (7)  |  Pride (84)  |  Quick (13)  |  Rage (10)  |  Ready (43)  |  Ride (23)  |  Sea (326)  |  Search (175)  |  See (1094)  |  Silent (31)  |  Sing (29)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sludge (3)  |  Snow (39)  |  Soar (23)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Steal (14)  |  Stone (168)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trap (7)  |  Try (296)  |  Vicarious (2)  |  Waste (109)  |  Whiff (2)  |  Why (491)  |  Wing (79)  |  Year (963)  |  Yearn (13)  |  Young (253)

What led me to my science and what fascinated me from a young age was the, by no means self-evident, fact that our laws of thought agree with the regularities found in the succession of impressions we receive from the external world, that it is thus possible for the human being to gain enlightenment regarding these regularities by means of pure thought
Max Planck and Ch. Scriba (ed), Wissenschaftliche Selbstbiographie (1990), 9. Quoted in Erhard Scheibe and Brigitte Falkenburg (ed), Between Rationalism and Empiricism: Selected Papers in the Philosophy of Physics (2001), 69
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Enlightenment (21)  |  Evident (92)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Gain (146)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Impression (118)  |  Law (913)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Possible (560)  |  Pure (299)  |  Receive (117)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Succession (80)  |  Thought (995)  |  World (1850)  |  Young (253)

What of the future of this adventure? What will happen ultimately? We are going along guessing the laws; how many laws are we going to have to guess? I do not know. Some of my colleagues say that this fundamental aspect of our science will go on; but I think there will certainly not be perpetual novelty, say for a thousand years. This thing cannot keep on going so that we are always going to discover more and more new laws … It is like the discovery of America—you only discover it once. The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. Of course in the future there will be other interests … but there will not be the same things that we are doing now … There will be a degeneration of ideas, just like the degeneration that great explorers feel is occurring when tourists begin moving in on a territory.
In The Character of Physical Law (1965, 1994), 166.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  America (143)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Begin (275)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Course (413)  |  Degeneration (11)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guess (67)  |  Happen (282)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Say (989)  |  Territory (25)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tourist (6)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

What politicians do not understand is that [Ian] Wilmut discovered not so much a technical trick as a new law of nature. We now know that an adult mammalian cell can fire up all the dormant genetic instructions that shut down as it divides and specializes and ages, and thus can become a source of new life. You can outlaw technique; you cannot repeal biology.
Writing after Wilmut's successful cloning of the sheep, Dolly, that research on the cloning of human beings cannot be suppressed.
'A Special Report on Cloning'. Charles Krauthammer in Time (10 Mar 1997).
Science quotes on:  |  Ban (9)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cell (146)  |  Clone (8)  |  Cloning (8)  |  Discover (571)  |  Divide (77)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dolly (2)  |  Down (455)  |  Fire (203)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Politician (40)  |  Research (753)  |  Shut (41)  |  Successful (134)  |  Technique (84)  |  Trick (36)  |  Understand (648)  |  Ian Wilmut (5)  |  Writing (192)

What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not.
In Letter (7 Feb 1736) to Alexander Pope, The Works of Jonathan Swift (1841), Vol. 2, 764.
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Bear (162)  |  Double (18)  |  Dozen (10)  |  Female (50)  |  Formerly (5)  |  Forsake (4)  |  Friend (180)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Prove (261)  |  Vex (10)  |  Year (963)

Whatever terrain the environmental historian chooses to investigate, he has to address the age-old predicament of how humankind can feed itself without degrading the primal source of life. Today as ever, that problem is the fundamental challenge in human ecology, and meeting it will require knowing the earth well—knowing its history and knowing its limits.
In 'Transformations of the Earth: toward an Agroecological Perspective in History', Journal of American History (Mar 1990), 76, No. 4, 1106.
Science quotes on:  |  Address (13)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Choose (116)  |  Degrade (9)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Feed (31)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Historian (59)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humankind (15)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Life (1870)  |  Limit (294)  |  Old (499)  |  Primal (5)  |  Problem (731)  |  Require (229)  |  Source (101)  |  Terrain (6)  |  Today (321)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)

When first I applied my mind to Mathematics I read straight away most of what is usually given by the mathematical writers, and I paid special attention to Arithmetic and Geometry because they were said to be the simplest and so to speak the way to all the rest. But in neither case did I then meet with authors who fully satisfied me. I did indeed learn in their works many propositions about numbers which I found on calculation to be true. As to figures, they in a sense exhibited to my eyes a great number of truths and drew conclusions from certain consequences. But they did not seem to make it sufficiently plain to the mind itself why these things are so, and how they discovered them. Consequently I was not surprised that many people, even of talent and scholarship, should, after glancing at these sciences, have either given them up as being empty and childish or, taking them to be very difficult and intricate, been deterred at the very outset from learning them. … But when I afterwards bethought myself how it could be that the earliest pioneers of Philosophy in bygone ages refused to admit to the study of wisdom any one who was not versed in Mathematics … I was confirmed in my suspicion that they had knowledge of a species of Mathematics very different from that which passes current in our time.
In Elizabeth S. Haldane (trans.) and G.R.T. Ross (trans.), 'Rules for the Direction of the Mind', The Philosophical Works of Descartes (1911, 1973), Vol. 1, Rule 4, 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Attention (196)  |  Author (175)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bygone (4)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certain (557)  |  Childish (20)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Current (122)  |  Deter (4)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discover (571)  |  Empty (82)  |  Eye (440)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Read (308)  |  Rest (287)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Sense (785)  |  Speak (240)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Straight (75)  |  Study (701)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Usually (176)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

When the war finally came to an end, 1 was at a loss as to what to do. ... I took stock of my qualifications. A not-very-good degree, redeemed somewhat by my achievements at the Admiralty. A knowledge of certain restricted parts of magnetism and hydrodynamics, neither of them subjects for which I felt the least bit of enthusiasm.
No published papers at all … [Only gradually did I realize that this lack of qualification could be an advantage. By the time most scientists have reached age thirty they are trapped by their own expertise. They have invested so much effort in one particular field that it is often extremely difficult, at that time in their careers, to make a radical change. I, on the other hand, knew nothing, except for a basic training in somewhat old-fashioned physics and mathematics and an ability to turn my hand to new things. … Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice. …
In What Mad Pursuit (1988).
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Basic (144)  |  Career (86)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Choice (114)  |  Completely (137)  |  Degree (277)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  End (603)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Expertise (8)  |  Field (378)  |  Free (239)  |  Good (906)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Invest (20)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lack (127)  |  Loss (117)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Old-Fashioned (9)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Qualification (15)  |  Radical (28)  |  Reach (286)  |  Realize (157)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Training (92)  |  Turn (454)  |  War (233)

When we look back beyond one hundred years over the long trails of history, we see immediately why the age we live in differs from all other ages in human annals. … It remained stationary in India and in China for thousands of years. But now it is moving very fast. … A priest from Thebes would probably have felt more at home at the council of Trent, two thousand years after Thebes had vanished, than Sir Isaac Newton at a modern undergraduate physical society, or George Stephenson in the Institute of Electrical Engineers. The changes have have been so sudden and so gigantic, that no period in history can be compared with the last century. The past no longer enables us even dimly to measure the future.
From 'Fifty Years Hence', Strand Magazine (Dec 1931). Reprinted in Popular Mechanics (Mar 1932), 57, No. 3, 393.
Science quotes on:  |  19th Century (41)  |  20th Century (40)  |  Annal (3)  |  Back (395)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Century (319)  |  Change (639)  |  China (27)  |  Compared (8)  |  Council (9)  |  Differ (88)  |  Dimly (6)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electrical Engineer (5)  |  Electrical Engineering (12)  |  Enable (122)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Fast (49)  |  Future (467)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  History (716)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Immediately (115)  |  India (23)  |  Institute (8)  |  Last (425)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Measure (241)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Moving (11)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Period (200)  |  Physical (518)  |  Priest (29)  |  Probably (50)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remained (2)  |  See (1094)  |  Society (350)  |  Stationary (11)  |  George Stephenson (10)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Trail (11)  |  Two (936)  |  Undergraduate (17)  |  Vanished (3)  |  Why (491)  |  Year (963)

Wherever we seek to find constancy we discover change. Having looked at the old woodlands in Hutcheson Forest, at Isle Royale, and in the wilderness of the boundary waters, in the land of the moose and the wolf, and having uncovered the histories hidden within the trees and within the muds, we find that nature undisturbed is not constant in form, structure, or proportion, but changes at every scale of time and space. The old idea of a static landscape, like a single musical chord sounded forever, must be abandoned, for such a landscape never existed except in our imagination. Nature undisturbed by human influence seems more like a symphony whose harmonies arise from variation and change over many scales of time and space, changing with individual births and deaths, local disruptions and recoveries, larger scale responses to climate from one glacial age to another, and to the slower alterations of soils, and yet larger variations between glacial ages.
Discordant Harmonies (1990), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Arise (162)  |  Birth (154)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Constancy (12)  |  Constant (148)  |  Death (406)  |  Discover (571)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forever (111)  |  Form (976)  |  Glaciation (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Individual (420)  |  Influence (231)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Look (584)  |  Moose (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Mud (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Response (56)  |  Scale (122)  |  Seek (218)  |  Single (365)  |  Soil (98)  |  Sound (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)  |  Symphony (10)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Tree (269)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Variation (93)  |  Water (503)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Wolf (11)

Who shall declare the time allotted to the human race, when the generations of the most insignificant insect also existed for unnumbered ages? Yet man is also to vanish in the ever-changing course of events. The earth is to be burnt up, and the elements are to melt with fervent heat—to be again reduced to chaos—possibly to be renovated and adorned for other races of beings. These stupendous changes may be but cycles in those great laws of the universe, where all is variable but the laws themselves and He who has ordained them.
Physical Geography (1848), Vol. 1, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Adornment (4)  |  Being (1276)  |  Burnt (2)  |  Change (639)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Course (413)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Declaration (10)  |  Declare (48)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Event (222)  |  Ever-Changing (2)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fervent (6)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heat (180)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Insect (89)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Melt (16)  |  Most (1728)  |  Ordained (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Race (278)  |  Reduced (3)  |  Renovation (2)  |  Stupendous (13)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vanish (19)  |  Variability (5)  |  Variable (37)

Why Become Extinct? Authors with varying competence have suggested that dinosaurs disappeared because the climate deteriorated (became suddenly or slowly too hot or cold or dry or wet), or that the diet did (with too much food or not enough of such substances as fern oil; from poisons in water or plants or ingested minerals; by bankruptcy of calcium or other necessary elements). Other writers have put the blame on disease, parasites, wars, anatomical or metabolic disorders (slipped vertebral discs, malfunction or imbalance of hormone and endocrine systems, dwindling brain and consequent stupidity, heat sterilization, effects of being warm-blooded in the Mesozoic world), racial old age, evolutionary drift into senescent overspecialization, changes in the pressure or composition of the atmosphere, poison gases, volcanic dust, excessive oxygen from plants, meteorites, comets, gene pool drainage by little mammalian egg-eaters, overkill capacity by predators, fluctuation of gravitational constants, development of psychotic suicidal factors, entropy, cosmic radiation, shift of Earth’s rotational poles, floods, continental drift, extraction of the moon from the Pacific Basin, draining of swamp and lake environments, sunspots, God’s will, mountain building, raids by little green hunters in flying saucers, lack of standing room in Noah’s Ark, and palaeoweltschmerz.
'Riddles of the Terrible Lizards', American Scientist (1964) 52, 231.
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Author (175)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blame (31)  |  Blood (144)  |  Brain (281)  |  Building (158)  |  Calcium (8)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Cold (115)  |  Comet (65)  |  Competence (13)  |  Composition (86)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Constant (148)  |  Continental Drift (15)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Development (441)  |  Diet (56)  |  Dinosaur (26)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disease (340)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Dry (65)  |  Dust (68)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Egg (71)  |  Element (322)  |  Endocrine (2)  |  Enough (341)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Environment (239)  |  Excessive (24)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Extraction (10)  |  Fern (10)  |  Flood (52)  |  Fluctuation (15)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Saucer (3)  |  Food (213)  |  Gene (105)  |  God (776)  |  Green (65)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hormone (11)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Lack (127)  |  Lake (36)  |  Little (717)  |  Malfunction (4)  |  Meteorite (9)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Noah�s Ark (2)  |  Oil (67)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Plant (320)  |  Poison (46)  |  Pole (49)  |  Predator (6)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Shift (45)  |  Sterilization (2)  |  Stupidity (40)  |  Substance (253)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Suicide (23)  |  Sunspot (5)  |  Swamp (9)  |  System (545)  |  UFO (4)  |  Volcano (46)  |  War (233)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warm-Blooded (3)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Writer (90)

Why is the world five—or ten or twenty—billion years old?
Because it took that long to find that out.
Anonymous
Reflecting on the time before the man existed, and have consciousness of the the world to answer the question. Unattributed joke given by George Wald in lecture, 'Life and Mind in the Universe', versions of which he delivered throughout the 1980s. On the website of his son, Elijah Wald, who states it was the last of his father's major lectures.
Science quotes on:  |  Billion (104)  |  Find (1014)  |  Joke (90)  |  Long (778)  |  Old (499)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Why, then, are we surprised that comets, such a rare spectacle in the universe, are not known, when their return is at vast intervals?. … The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject … And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them …. Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced. Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has in it something for every age to investigate … Nature does not reveal her mysteries once and for all. Someday there will be a man who will show in what regions comets have their orbit, why they travel so remote from other celestial bodies, how large they are and what sort they are.
Natural Questions, Book 7. As translated by Thomas H. Corcoran in Seneca in Ten Volumes: Naturales Quaestiones II (1972), 279 and 293.
Science quotes on:  |  Affair (29)  |  Amaze (5)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Comet (65)  |  Descendant (18)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Efface (6)  |  Enough (341)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Lie (370)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Plain (34)  |  Rare (94)  |  Remote (86)  |  Research (753)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Return (133)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Show (353)  |  Single (365)  |  Sky (174)  |  Someday (15)  |  Something (718)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travel (125)  |  Unfold (15)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

Why, these men would destroy the Bible on evidence that would not convict a habitual criminal of a misdemeanor. They found a tooth in a sand pit in Nebraska with no other bones about it, and from that one tooth decided that it was the remains of the missing link. They have queer ideas about age too. They find a fossil and when they are asked how old it is they say they can't tell without knowing what rock it was in, and when they are asked how old the rock is they say they can't tell unless they know how old the fossil is.
In Henry Fairfield Osborn, 'Osborn States the Case For Evolution', New York Times (12 Jul 1925), XX1. In fact, the tooth was misidentified as anthropoid by Osborn, who over-zealously proposed Nebraska Man in 1922. This tooth was shortly thereafter found to be that of a peccary (a Pliocene pig) when further bones were found. A retraction was made in 1927, correcting the scientific blunder.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Bible (105)  |  Bone (101)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Criminal (18)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Misdemeanor (2)  |  Missing (21)  |  Missing Link (4)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pit (20)  |  Queer (9)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sand (63)  |  Say (989)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Why (491)

Wisdom cannot be directly transmitted, and does not readily accumulate through the ages.
From manuscript on English Science in the Renaissance (1937), Edwin Hubble collection, Box 2, Huntington Library, San Marino, California. As cited by Norriss S. Hetherington in 'Philosophical Values and Observation in Edwin Hubble's Choice of a Model of the Universe', Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences (1982), 13, No. 1, 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Science History (4)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Wisdom (235)

With advancing years new impressions do not enter so rapidly, nor are they so hospitably received… There is a gradual diminution of the opportunities for age to acquire fresh knowledge. A tree grows old not by loss of the vitality of the cambium, but by the gradual increase of the wood, the non-vital tissue, which so easily falls a prey to decay.
From address, 'A Medical Retrospect'. Published in Yale Medical Journal (Oct 1910), 17, No. 2, 59. The context is that he is reflecting on how in later years of life, a person tends to give priority to long-learned experience, rather than give attention to new points of view.
Science quotes on:  |  Decay (59)  |  Diminution (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enter (145)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hospitable (3)  |  Impression (118)  |  Increase (225)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Loss (117)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Receive (117)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vital (89)  |  Vitality (24)  |  Wood (97)  |  Year (963)

With old inflation riding the headlines, I have read till I am bleary-eyed, and I can’t get head from tails of the whole thing. ... Now we are living in an age of explanations—and plenty of ’em, too—but no two things that’s been done to us have been explained twice the same way, by even the same man. It’s and age of in one ear and out the other.
Newspaper column, for example in 'Complete Heads and Tails', St. Petersburgh Times (28 Jan 1934), 4. Collected in Will Rogers’ Weekly Articles: The Roosevelt Years (1933-1935) (1982), 91-92.
Science quotes on:  |  Ear (69)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Headline (8)  |  Inflation (6)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Read (308)  |  Same (166)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Twice (20)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)

Without birds to feed on them, the insects would multiply catastrophically. ... The insects, not man or other proud species, are really the only ones fitted for survival in the nuclear age. ... The cockroach, a venerable and hardy species, will take over the habitats of the foolish humans, and compete only with other insects or bacteria.
As quoted in obituary by Douglas Martin, New York Times (20 Jan 2005).
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bird (163)  |  Cockroach (6)  |  Compete (6)  |  Feed (31)  |  Fit (139)  |  Fool (121)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Habitat (17)  |  Hardy (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Insect (89)  |  Man (2252)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pride (84)  |  Species (435)  |  Survival (105)  |  Venerable (7)  |  Will (2350)

Without the death of forests by Ice Age advance, there would be no northern lakes.
Without the death of mountains, there would be no sand or soil.
In 'The Nested Emergent Nature of Divine Creativity', Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World (2007), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Death (406)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Forest (161)  |  Geology (240)  |  Glaciation (2)  |  Ice (58)  |  Ice Age (10)  |  Lake (36)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Sand (63)  |  Soil (98)

Words are to the Anthropologist what rolled pebbles are to the Geologist—Battered relics of past ages often containing within them indelible records capable of intelligible interpretion—and when we see what amount of change 2000 years has been able to produce in the languages of Greece & Italy or 1000 in those of Germany, France & Spain we naturally begin to ask how long a period must have lapsed since the Chinese, the Hebrew, the Delaware & the Malesass had a point in common with the German & Italian & each other.—Time! Time! Time!—we must not impugn the Scripture Chronology, but we must interpret it in accordance with whatever shall appear on fair enquiry to be the truth for there cannot be two truths. And really there is scope enough: for the lives of the Patriarchs may as reasonably be extended to 5000 or 50000 years apiece as the days of Creation to as many thousand millions of years.
Letter to Charles Lyell, 20 Feb 1836, In Walter F. Cannon, 'The Impact of Uniformitarianism', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1961, 105, 308.
Science quotes on:  |  2000 (15)  |  Age Of The Earth (12)  |  Amount (153)  |  Ask (420)  |  Begin (275)  |  Capable (174)  |  Change (639)  |  Chinese (22)  |  Chronology (9)  |  Common (447)  |  Creation (350)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Extend (129)  |  Geologist (82)  |  German (37)  |  Hebrew (10)  |  Impugn (2)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Italian (13)  |  Language (308)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Patriarch (4)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Period (200)  |  Point (584)  |  Record (161)  |  Roll (41)  |  Scope (44)  |  See (1094)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

Your true inventor has a yen to invent, just as a painter or musician is impelled to create something in his art. I began wanting to invent when I was in short pants. At the age of eight—and that was forty years ago—I invented a rock-thrower. Later I found that the Romans had done a much better job some two thousand years before me.
Anonymous
Attributed to an unnamed “holder of many patents,” as quoted by Stacy V. Jones, in You Ought to Patent That (1962), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Better (493)  |  Create (245)  |  Creation (350)  |  Impelled (2)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Job (86)  |  Musician (23)  |  Painter (30)  |  Rock (176)  |  Roman (39)  |  Short (200)  |  Something (718)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Throwing (17)  |  Two (936)  |  Year (963)

YOUTH AND AGE
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
In McClure's Magazine (Dec 1910), 36, No. 2, 168.
Science quotes on:  |  Flower (112)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Lie (370)  |  Lying (55)  |  Root (121)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sway (5)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wither (9)  |  Youth (109)

Youth disserves; middle age conserves; old age preserves.
Science quotes on:  |  Conserve (7)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Youth (109)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail 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) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.