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: “We are here to celebrate the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome. Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by human kind.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index A > Category: Air

Air Quotes (366 quotes)

…winds are produced by differences of air temperature, and hence density, between two regions of earth.
Lecture to the Accademia della Crusca. Quoted in Archana Srinivasan, Great Inventors (2007), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Density (25)  |  Difference (355)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Produced (187)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Two (936)  |  Wind (141)

…with common water. Its substance reaches everywhere; it touches the past and prepares the future; it moves under the poles and wanders thinly in the heights of air. It can assume forms of exquisite perfection in a snowflake, or strip the living to a single shining bone cast up by the sea.
From essay 'The Flow of the River', collected in The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature (1957, 1959), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Bone (101)  |  Cast (69)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Height (33)  |  Live (650)  |  Past (355)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Pole (49)  |  Sea (326)  |  Shine (49)  |  Single (365)  |  Snowflake (15)  |  Strip (7)  |  Touch (146)  |  Wander (44)  |  Water (503)

’Tis evident, that as common Air when reduc’d to half Its wonted extent, obtained near about twice as forcible a Spring as it had before; so this thus- comprest Air being further thrust into half this narrow room, obtained thereby a Spring about as strong again as that It last had, and consequently four times as strong as that of the common Air. And there is no cause to doubt, that If we had been here furnisht with a greater quantity of Quicksilver and a very long Tube, we might by a further compression of the included Air have made It counter-balance “the pressure” of a far taller and heavier Cylinder of Mercury. For no man perhaps yet knows how near to an infinite compression the Air may be capable of, If the compressing force be competently increast.
A Defense of the Doctrine Touching the Spring and Weight of the Air (1662), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Balance (82)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boyle�s Law (2)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Common (447)  |  Compression (7)  |  Cylinder (11)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Evident (92)  |  Extent (142)  |  Force (497)  |  Greater (288)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Quicksilver (8)  |  Spring (140)  |  Strong (182)  |  Thrust (13)  |  Time (1911)

[1.] And first I suppose that there is diffused through all places an aethereal substance capable of contraction & dilatation, strongly elastick, & in a word, much like air in all respects, but far more subtile.
2. I suppose this aether pervades all gross bodies, but yet so as to stand rarer in their pores then in free spaces, & so much ye rarer as their pores are less ...
3. I suppose ye rarer aether within bodies & ye denser without them, not to be terminated in a mathematical superficies, but to grow gradually into one another.
Letter to Robert Boyle (28 Feb 1678/9). In H. W. Turnbull (ed.), The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, 1676-1687 (1960), Vol. 2, 289.
Science quotes on:  |  Aether (13)  |  Capable (174)  |  Contraction (18)  |  First (1302)  |  Free (239)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Grow (247)  |  More (2558)  |  Respect (212)  |  Space (523)  |  Stand (284)  |  Substance (253)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Through (846)  |  Word (650)

[1665-08-12] The people die so, that now it seems they are fain to carry the dead to be buried by daylight, the nights not sufficing to do it in. And my Lord Mayor commands people to be inside by nine at night that the sick may leave their domestic prison for air and exercise.
Diary of Samuel Pepys (12 Aug 1665)
Science quotes on:  |  Carry (130)  |  Command (60)  |  Daylight (23)  |  Do (1905)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Lord (97)  |  People (1031)  |  Plague (42)  |  Prison (13)  |  Sick (83)

[After the flash of the atomic bomb test explosion] Fermi got up and dropped small pieces of paper … a simple experiment to measure the energy liberated by the explosion … [W]hen the front of the shock wave arrived (some seconds after the flash) the pieces of paper were displaced a few centimeters in the direction of propagation of the shock wave. From the distance of the source and from the displacement of the air due to the shock wave, he could calculate the energy of the explosion. This Fermi had done in advance having prepared himself a table of numbers, so that he could tell immediately the energy liberated from this crude but simple measurement. … It is also typical that his answer closely approximated that of the elaborate official measurements. The latter, however, were available only after several days’ study of the records, whereas Fermi had his within seconds.
In Enrico Fermi: Physicist (1970), 147-148.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Answer (389)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Available (80)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Crude (32)  |  Direction (185)  |  Displacement (9)  |  Distance (171)  |  Dropped (17)  |  Dropping (8)  |  Due (143)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Energy (373)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Enrico Fermi (20)  |  Flash (49)  |  Himself (461)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Number (710)  |  Paper (192)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Record (161)  |  Second (66)  |  Shock (38)  |  Shock Wave (3)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  Study (701)  |  Table (105)  |  Tell (344)  |  Test (221)  |  Trinity (9)  |  Wave (112)

[An] old Pythagorean prejudice … thought it a crime to eat eggs; because an egg was a microcosm, or universe in little; the shell being the earth; the white, water; fire, the yolk; and the air found between the shell and the white.
Anonymous
'Common Cookery'. Household Words (26 Jan 1856), 13, 43. An English weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Crime (39)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eat (108)  |  Egg (71)  |  Fire (203)  |  Little (717)  |  Microcosm (10)  |  Old (499)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Shell (69)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)  |  Water (503)  |  White (132)

[Blackett] came one morning, deep in thought, into the G (technical) Office at Stanmore. It was a bitterly cold day, and the staff were shivering in a garret warmed over only with an oil-stove. Without a word of greeting, Blackett stepped silently up on to the table and stood there pondering with his feet among the plans. After ten minutes somebody coughed uneasily and said, diffidently: “Wouldn’t you like a chair, sir … or something?” “No, thank you,” said Professor Blackett, “it is necessary to apply scientific methods. Hot air rises. The warmest spot in this room, therefore, will be near the ceiling.” At this, Colonel Krohn, my technical G.S.O., stepped up on the table beside the Professor, and for the next half-hour, the two stayed there in silence. At the end of this period Professor Blackett stepped down from the table saying: “Well! That’s that problem solved.” And so it was.
Anecdote as told by General Sir Frederick Pile, in Frederick Pile, Ack-Ack: Britain’s Defence Against Air Attack During Second World War (1949), 161. As cited by Maurice W. Kirby and Jonathan Rosenhead, 'Patrick Blackett (1897)' in Arjang A. Assad (ed.) and Saul I. Gass (ed.),Profiles in Operations Research: Pioneers and Innovators (2011), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Ceiling (5)  |  Chair (25)  |  Cold (115)  |  Deep (241)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Greeting (10)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hour (192)  |  Method (531)  |  Minute (129)  |  Morning (98)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Next (238)  |  Office (71)  |  Oil (67)  |  Period (200)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plan (122)  |  Problem (731)  |  Professor (133)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Silence (62)  |  Something (718)  |  Standing (11)  |  Stove (3)  |  Table (105)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thank You (8)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

[Henry Cavendish] fixed the weight of the earth; he established the proportions of the constituents of the air; he occupied himself with the quantitative study of the laws of heat; and lastly, he demonstrated the nature of water and determined its volumetric composition. Earth, air, fire, and water—each and all came within the range of his observations.
Essays in Historical Chemistry (1894), 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Henry Cavendish (7)  |  Composition (86)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Density (25)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fire (203)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Heat (180)  |  Himself (461)  |  Law (913)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Range (104)  |  Study (701)  |  Water (503)  |  Weight (140)

[In 1909,] Paris was the center of the aviation world. Aeronautics was neither an industry nor even a science; both were yet to come. It was an “art” and I might say a “passion”. Indeed, at that time it was a miracle. It meant the realization of legends and dreams that had existed for thousands of years and had been pronounced again and again as impossible by scientific authorities. Therefore, even the brief and unsteady flights of that period were deeply impressive. Many times I observed expressions of joy and tears in the eyes of witnesses who for the first time watched a flying machine carrying a man in the air.
In address (16 Nov 1964) presented to the Wings Club, New York City, Recollections and Thoughts of a Pioneer (1964), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Art (680)  |  Aviation (8)  |  Both (496)  |  Brief (37)  |  Carry (130)  |  Center (35)  |  Dream (222)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expression (181)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Flight (101)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Industry (159)  |  Joy (117)  |  Legend (18)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Paris (11)  |  Passion (121)  |  Period (200)  |  Realization (44)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Tear (48)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Watch (118)  |  Witness (57)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

[In the beginning, before creation] There was neither Aught nor Naught, no air nor sky beyond. …
[There was only]
A self-supporting mass beneath, and energy above.
Who knows, who ever told, from whence this vast creation rose?
No gods had yet been born—who then can e’er the truth disclose?
In Rigveda. In John Robson, Hinduism and Its Relations to Christianity (1893), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Aught (6)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Creation (350)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Energy (373)  |  God (776)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mass (160)  |  Myth (58)  |  Naught (10)  |  Rose (36)  |  Self (268)  |  Sky (174)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)

[In treating the sick], the first thing to consider is the provision of fresh air, clean water, and a healthy diet.
As quoted in Robert Taylor, White Coat Tales: Medicine's Heroes, Heritage, and Misadventures (2010), 124.
Science quotes on:  |  Clean (52)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Diet (56)  |  First (1302)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Providing (5)  |  Sick (83)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Water (503)

[On common water.] Its substance reaches everywhere; it touches the past and prepares the future; it moves under the poles and wanders thinly in the heights of air. It can assume forms of exquisite perfection in a snowflake, or strip the living to a single shining bone cast up by the sea.
From essay 'The Flow of the River', collected in The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature (1957, 1959), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Assume (43)  |  Bone (101)  |  Cast (69)  |  Common (447)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Height (33)  |  Living (492)  |  Move (223)  |  Past (355)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Pole (49)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Reach (286)  |  Sea (326)  |  Shining (35)  |  Single (365)  |  Snowflake (15)  |  Strip (7)  |  Substance (253)  |  Touch (146)  |  Under (7)  |  Wander (44)  |  Water (503)

[S]uppose you make a hole in an ordinary evacuated electric light bulb and allow the air molecules to pass in at the rate of 1,000,000 a second, the bulb will become full of air in approximately 100,000,000 years.
In Lecture (1936) on 'Forty Years of Atomic Theory', collected in Needham and Pagel (eds.) in Background to Modern Science: Ten Lectures at Cambridge Arranged by the History of Science Committee, (1938), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Approximate (25)  |  Atomic Size (2)  |  Become (821)  |  Bulb (10)  |  Electric (76)  |  Full (68)  |  Hole (17)  |  Light (635)  |  Light Bulb (6)  |  Million (124)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Pass (241)  |  Rate (31)  |  Second (66)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

[Simplicio] is much puzzled and perplexed. I think I hear him say, 'To whom then should we repair for the decision of our controversies if Aristotle were removed from the choir? What other author should we follow in the schools, academies, and studies? What philosopher has written all the divisions of Natural Philosophy, and so methodically, without omitting as much as a single conclusion? Shall we then overthrow the building under which so many voyagers find shelter? Shall we destroy that sanctuary, that Prytaneum, where so many students find commodious harbour; where without exposing himself to the injuries of the air, with only the turning over of a few leaves, one may learn all the secrets of Nature.'
Dialogue on the Great World Systems (1632). Revised and Annotated by Giorgio De Santillana (1953), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Author (175)  |  Building (158)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Decision (98)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Division (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Hear (144)  |  Himself (461)  |  Learn (672)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Sanctuary (12)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Secret (216)  |  Shelter (23)  |  Single (365)  |  Student (317)  |  Think (1122)

[What verdict would a historian of the year 3000 pass upon our age? Let us hope this will be his judgement:]
“The twentieth century was, without question, the most momentous hundred years in the history of Mankind. It opened with the conquest of the air, and before it had run half its course had presented civilisation with its supreme challenge—the control of atomic energy. Yet even these events, each of which changed the world, were soon to be eclipsed. To us a thousand years later, the whole story of Mankind before the twentieth century seems like the prelude to some great drama, played on the narrow strip of stage before the curtain has risen and revealed the scenery. For countless generations of men, that tiny, crowded stage—the planet Earth—was the whole of creation, and they the only actors. Yet towards the close of that fabulous century, the curtain began slowly, inexorably to rise, and Man realised at last that the Earth was only one of many worlds; the Sun only one among many stars. The coming of the rocket brought to an end a million years of isolation. With the landing of the first spaceship on Mars and Venus, the childhood of our race was over and history as we know it began….”
In Chap. 18, 'Concerning Means and Ends', The Exploration of Space (1951), 195. [Clarke wrote this, not knowing there would be a Moon landing just 18 years later, on 20 Jul 1969. In fact, in an earlier chapter, he wrote “On our present knowledge, there is no likelihood of such spaceships for a very long time to come.” —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  20th Century (40)  |  Actor (9)  |  Atomic Energy (25)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Curtain (4)  |  Earth (1076)  |  History (716)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Landing (3)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mars (47)  |  Million (124)  |  Momentous (7)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Scenery (9)  |  Spaceship (5)  |  Stage (152)  |  Sun (407)  |  Venus (21)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

[When combustion occurs,] one body, at least, is oxygenated, and another restored, at the same time, to its combustible state... This view of combustion may serve to show how nature is always the same, and maintains her equilibrium by preserving the same quantities of air and water on the surface of our globe: for as fast as these are consumed in the various processes of combustion, equal quantities are formed, and rise regenerated like the Phoenix from her ashes.
Fulhame believed 'that water was the only source of oxygen, which oxygenates combustible bodies' and that 'the hydrogen of water is the only substance that restores bodies to their combustible state.'
An Essay on Combustion with a View to a New Art of Dyeing and Painting (1794), 179-180. In Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie and Joy Dorothy Harvey, The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science (2000), 478.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Conservation Of Matter (7)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Form (976)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occur (151)  |  Oxidation (8)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Redox Reaction (2)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Rise (169)  |  Show (353)  |  State (505)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Time (1911)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Water (503)

[Describing the effects of over-indulgence in wine:]
But most too passive, when the blood runs low
Too weakly indolent to strive with pain,
And bravely by resisting conquer fate,
Try Circe's arts; and in the tempting bowl
Of poisoned nectar sweet oblivion swill.
Struck by the powerful charm, the gloom dissolves
In empty air; Elysium opens round,
A pleasing frenzy buoys the lightened soul,
And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care;
And what was difficult, and what was dire,
Yields to your prowess and superior stars:
The happiest you of all that e'er were mad,
Or are, or shall be, could this folly last.
But soon your heaven is gone: a heavier gloom
Shuts o'er your head; and, as the thundering stream,
Swollen o'er its banks with sudden mountain rain,
Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook,
So, when the frantic raptures in your breast
Subside, you languish into mortal man;
You sleep, and waking find yourself undone,
For, prodigal of life, in one rash night
You lavished more than might support three days.
A heavy morning comes; your cares return
With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well
May be endured; so may the throbbing head;
But such a dim delirium, such a dream,
Involves you; such a dastardly despair
Unmans your soul, as maddening Pentheus felt,
When, baited round Citheron's cruel sides,
He saw two suns, and double Thebes ascend.
The Art of Preserving Health: a Poem in Four Books (2nd. ed., 1745), Book IV, 108-110.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Bank (31)  |  Blood (144)  |  Care (203)  |  Charm (54)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Cruel (25)  |  Delirium (3)  |  Despair (40)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dire (6)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Dream (222)  |  Drunk (10)  |  Effect (414)  |  Empty (82)  |  Fate (76)  |  Find (1014)  |  Folly (44)  |  Frenzy (6)  |  Gloom (11)  |  Headache (5)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Hope (321)  |  Indulgence (6)  |  Involve (93)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Low (86)  |  Mad (54)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Morning (98)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Night (133)  |  Open (277)  |  Pain (144)  |  Poison (46)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Prodigal (2)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rapture (8)  |  Rash (15)  |  Return (133)  |  Run (158)  |  Saw (160)  |  Shut (41)  |  Side (236)  |  Sink (38)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Soon (187)  |  Soul (235)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Stream (83)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Sun (407)  |  Superior (88)  |  Support (151)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Tempting (10)  |  Try (296)  |  Two (936)  |  Waking (17)  |  Wine (39)  |  Yield (86)

[On the propulsive force of rockets] One part of fire takes up as much space as ten parts of air, and one part of air takes up the space of ten parts of water, and one part of water as much as ten parts of earth. Now powder is earth, consisting of the four elementary principles, and when the sulfur conducts the fire into the dryest part of the powder, fire, and air increase … the other elements also gird themselves for battle with each other and the rage of battle is changed by their heat and moisture into a strong wind.
In De La Pirotechnia (1540). From the 1943 English translation, as given in Willy Ley, Rockets: The Future of Travel Beyond the Stratosphere (1944), 64. Though Birinuccio provided the first insight into what propels a rocket, the “strong wind” blowing downward, he did not explain why that should cause the rocket to rise upward, as Issac Newton would do with his Third Law of Motion, nearly a century and a half later.
Science quotes on:  |  Battle (36)  |  Change (639)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Fire (203)  |  Force (497)  |  Heat (180)  |  Increase (225)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  Powder (9)  |  Principle (530)  |  Propulsion (10)  |  Rage (10)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Space (523)  |  Strong (182)  |  Sulfur (5)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Water (503)  |  Wind (141)

Air Chief Marshal Harris [objecting to a change in strategy recommended by statisticians]: Are we fighting this war with weapons or the slide rule?
Churchill [after puffing on his cigar]: That's a good idea. Let's try the slide rule.
During World War II, Britain lost the advantage when enemy U-boats began listening in to the aircraft radar, were forewarned, and would dive. U-boat sinkings fell to zero. Physicist Patrick S. Blackett with his Operational Research colleagues came up with a solution. Concentrate sufficient aircraft in certain areas, causing the subs to dive so frequently their air supply and batteries were exhausted, forcing them to remain on the surface and be vulnerable to attack. The strategy required diverting several squadrons from Bomber Command to Coastal Command. “Bomber” Harris voiced his objection to Churchill, who made the right choice, proved by successful results. As described by R.V. Jones, 'Churchill and Science', in Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis (eds.), Churchill (1996), 437.
Science quotes on:  |  Patrick M.S. Blackett (9)  |  Change (639)  |  Chief (99)  |  Fighting (2)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Rule (307)  |  Slide Rule (2)  |  Statistician (27)  |  Strategy (13)  |  Try (296)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

Air Force Chief of Staff: Doctor, what do you think of our new creation, the … Corporation?
von Kármán: Why, General, I think that corporation has already had an effect on the whole industry.
Air Force Chief of Staff: I’m delighted. What effect is that?
von Kármán: Why, they’ve upset the salary schedule of the whole industry.
As quoted by William R. Sears in 'Some Recollections of Theodore von Kármán', Address to the Symposium in Memory of Theodore von Kármán, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, National Meeting (13-14 May 1964), Washington, D.C. Printed in Journal of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (Mar 1965), 13>, No. 1, 181. These are likely not verbatim words of Karman, but as recollected by Sears, giving an example of von Kármán’s willingness to speak truth to power.
Science quotes on:  |  Air Force (2)  |  Already (226)  |  Chief (99)  |  Corporation (6)  |  Creation (350)  |  Delight (111)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Effect (414)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Industry (159)  |  New (1273)  |  Salary (8)  |  Think (1122)  |  Upset (18)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)

La fermentation est … la vie sans air, c’est la vie sans oxygène libre
Fermentation is … life without air, it is life without free oxygen.
In 'Études sur la Bière', Section 6, 'Théorie Physiologique des Fermentation', Revue Scientifique (26 Aug 1876), 2nd Series, 11, No. 9, 214. This is described as “Pasteur’s famous aphorism, ‘Fermentation is life without oxygen’”, in Burton J. Hendrick, 'Some Modern Ideas on Food', McClure’s Magazine (Apr 1910), 34, No. 6, 667.
Science quotes on:  |  Fermentation (15)  |  Free (239)  |  Life (1870)  |  Oxygen (77)

Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf.
From 'Introduction' in his first published book (at first, anonymously), Nature (1836), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Essence (85)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  River (140)  |  Space (523)  |  Unchanged (4)

Quelquefois, par exemple, je me figure que je suis suspendu en l’air, et que j’y demeure sans mouvement, pendant que la Terre tourne sous moi en vingt-quatre heures. Je vois passer sous mes yeux tous ces visages différents, les uns blancs, les autres noirs, les autres basanés, les autres olivâtres. D’abord ce sont des chapeaux et puis des turbans, et puis des têtes chevelues, et puis des têtes rasées; tantôt des villes à clochers, tantôt des villes à longues aiguilles qui ont des croissants, tantôt des villes à tours de porcelaine, tantôt de grands pays qui n’ont que des cabanes; ici de vastes mers, là des déserts épouvantables; enfin, toute cette variété infinie qui est sur la surface de la Terre.
Sometimes, for instance, I imagine that I am suspended in the air, and remain there motionless, while the earth turns under me in four-and-twenty hours. I see pass beneath me all these different countenances, some white, others black, others tawny, others olive-colored. At first they wear hats, and then turbans, then heads with long hair, then heads shaven; sometimes towns with steeples, sometimes towns with long spires, which have crescents, sometimes towns with porcelain towers, sometimes extensive countries that have only huts; here wide seas; there frightful deserts; in short, all this infinite variety on the surface of the earth.
In 'Premier Soir', Entretiens Sur La Pluralité Des Mondes (1686, 1863), 43. French and translation in Craufurd Tait Ramage, Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors (1866), 117-118.
Science quotes on:  |  Beneath (68)  |  Black (46)  |  Color (155)  |  Countenance (9)  |  Country (269)  |  Crescent (4)  |  Desert (59)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Face (214)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Hair (25)  |  Hat (9)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hut (2)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Long (778)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Porcelain (4)  |  Remain (355)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Spire (5)  |  Steeple (4)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Tawny (3)  |  Tower (45)  |  Turban (2)  |  Turn (454)  |  Variety (138)  |  White (132)  |  Wide (97)

Question: A hollow indiarubber ball full of air is suspended on one arm of a balance and weighed in air. The whole is then covered by the receiver of an air pump. Explain what will happen as the air in the receiver is exhausted.
Answer: The ball would expand and entirely fill the vessell, driving out all before it. The balance being of greater density than the rest would be the last to go, but in the end its inertia would be overcome and all would be expelled, and there would be a perfect vacuum. The ball would then burst, but you would not be aware of the fact on account of the loudness of a sound varying with the density of the place in which it is generated, and not on that in which it is heard.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 181, Question 21. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Air Pump (2)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arm (82)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Balance (82)  |  Ball (64)  |  Being (1276)  |  Burst (41)  |  Cover (40)  |  Density (25)  |  Drive (61)  |  Driving (28)  |  End (603)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Examination (102)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Expand (56)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Expulsion (2)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Generation (256)  |  Greater (288)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Hollow (6)  |  Howler (15)  |  Inertia (17)  |  Last (425)  |  Loudness (3)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Overcoming (3)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Place (192)  |  Question (649)  |  Receiver (5)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sound (187)  |  Suspend (11)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Varying (2)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Weighing (2)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

Question: Explain how to determine the time of vibration of a given tuning-fork, and state what apparatus you would require for the purpose.
Answer: For this determination I should require an accurate watch beating seconds, and a sensitive ear. I mount the fork on a suitable stand, and then, as the second hand of my watch passes the figure 60 on the dial, I draw the bow neatly across one of its prongs. I wait. I listen intently. The throbbing air particles are receiving the pulsations; the beating prongs are giving up their original force; and slowly yet surely the sound dies away. Still I can hear it, but faintly and with close attention; and now only by pressing the bones of my head against its prongs. Finally the last trace disappears. I look at the time and leave the room, having determined the time of vibration of the common “pitch” fork. This process deteriorates the fork considerably, hence a different operation must be performed on a fork which is only lent.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 176-7, Question 4. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beat (42)  |  Bone (101)  |  Bow (15)  |  Close (77)  |  Common (447)  |  Deterioration (10)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Dial (9)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Ear (69)  |  Examination (102)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Faint (10)  |  Figure (162)  |  Force (497)  |  Head (87)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Howler (15)  |  Last (425)  |  Leaving (10)  |  Listen (81)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mount (43)  |  Mounting (2)  |  Must (1525)  |  Operation (221)  |  Original (61)  |  Particle (200)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Pressing (2)  |  Process (439)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Require (229)  |  Room (42)  |  Second (66)  |  Sensitivity (10)  |  Slow (108)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stand (284)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Sure (15)  |  Surely (101)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Tuning Fork (2)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Watch (118)

~~[Misquoted]~~ Heavier than air flying machines are impossible.
A viral quote with no known authentic source in these words. At best, it is consistent with quotes expressing doubt that are documented. For example, the quote which begins “I am afraid I am not in the flight for ‘aerial navigation’…” on the Lord Kelvin Quotes page of this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Machine (271)

~~[Unverified]~~ [Louis Pasteur’s] … theory of germs is a ridiculous fiction. How do you think that these germs in the air can be numerous enough to develop into all these organic infusions? If that were true, they would be numerous enough to form a thick fog, as dense as iron.
Webmaster has not yet been able to verify this quote - and is very suspicious of it - but includes it to provide this cautionary note. It appears in several books, such as Rob Kaplan, Science Says (2001), 201-202, which cites “Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, The Universe: The Infinitely Great and the Infinitely Small (1872).” Webmaster has not yet found any information on Pierre Pochet as a 19th-century scientist, anywhere. A similar book title was found as The Universe: The Infinitely Great and the Infinitely Little (1870) but that author is Félix-Archimède Pochet, Director of the Natural History Museum at Rouen. This book, translated from the French, presents germs in the normal way, with no trace of the subject quote to be found in it. The Preface (dated 1867) begins, “My sole object in writing this work was…” implying it was totally authored by F.A. Pochet with no reference to taking over from earlier work by another person. It does, however, have this curious statement: “One of my learned colleagues at the Academy of Sciences lately brought out a similar work, but under a fictitious name,” which F.A. Pochet thought was a questionable practice, and did not provide any name of the individual involved. If you find more definitive information, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Dense (5)  |  Develop (278)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fiction (23)  |  Fog (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Germ (54)  |  Infusion (4)  |  Iron (99)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Organic (161)  |  Louis Pasteur (85)  |  Ridiculous (24)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thick (6)  |  Think (1122)

A bird maintains itself in the air by imperceptible balancing, when near to the mountains or lofty ocean crags; it does this by means of the curves of the winds which as they strike against these projections, being forced to preserve their first impetus bend their straight course towards the sky with divers revolutions, at the beginning of which the birds come to a stop with their wings open, receiving underneath themselves the continual buffetings of the reflex courses of the winds.
'Flight', in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, trans. E. MacCurdy (1938), Vol. 1, 471.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Balance (82)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bird (163)  |  Continual (44)  |  Course (413)  |  Curve (49)  |  First (1302)  |  Flight (101)  |  Impetus (5)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Open (277)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Reflex (14)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Sky (174)  |  Straight (75)  |  Strike (72)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wing (79)

A celebrated medical lecturer began one day “Fumigations, gentlemen, are of essential importance. They make such an abominable smell that they compel you to open the window.” I wish all the disinfecting fluids invented made such an “abominable smell” that they forced you to admit fresh air. That would be a useful invention.
In Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not (1860), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Abominable (4)  |  Admit (49)  |  Compel (31)  |  Disinfect (2)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Fumigation (2)  |  Importance (299)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lecturer (13)  |  Open (277)  |  Smell (29)  |  Useful (260)  |  Window (59)  |  Wish (216)

A good ornithologist should be able to distinguish birds by their air as well as by their colors and shape; on the ground as well as on the wing, and in the bush as well as in the hand. For, though it must not be said that every species of birds has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat, in most genera at least, that at first sight discriminates them and enables a judicious observer to pronounce upon them with some certainty.
Letter (7 Aug 1778) to Daines Barrington, collected in The Natural History of Selborne (1829), 274.
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Bush (11)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Color (155)  |  Discriminate (4)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Enable (122)  |  First (1302)  |  First Sight (6)  |  Genus (27)  |  Good (906)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hand (149)  |  Judicious (3)  |  Least (75)  |  Manner (62)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observer (48)  |  Ornithology (21)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pronounce (11)  |  Shape (77)  |  Sight (135)  |  Species (435)  |  Wing (79)

A little science is something that they must have. I should like my nephews to know what air is, and water; why we breathe, and why wood burns; the nutritive elements essential to plant life, and the constituents of the soil. And it is no vague and imperfect knowledge from hearsay I would have them gain of these fundamental truths, on which depend agriculture and the industrial arts and our health itself; I would have them know these things thoroughly from their own observation and experience. Books here are insufficient, and can serve merely as aids to scientific experiment.
Science quotes on:  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Aid (101)  |  Art (680)  |  Book (413)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Burn (99)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Depend (238)  |  Element (322)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Gain (146)  |  Health (210)  |  Hearsay (5)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Industrial (15)  |  Insufficient (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Merely (315)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nephew (2)  |  Observation (593)  |  Plant (320)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Serve (64)  |  Soil (98)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vague (50)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)  |  Wood (97)

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height, spots a man down below and asks,“Excuse me, can you help me? I promised to return the balloon to its owner, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man below says: “You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 350 feet above mean sea level and 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude.”
“You must be an engineer,” says the balloonist.
“I am,” replies the man.“How did you know?”
“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost.”
The man below says, “You must be a manager.”
“I am,” replies the balloonist,“but how did you know?”
“Well,” says the engineer,“you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem.The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault.”
Anonymous
In Jon Fripp, Michael Fripp and Deborah Fripp, Speaking of Science (2000), 199.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Correct (95)  |  Degree (277)  |  Down (455)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Everything (489)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fault (58)  |  Field (378)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Help (116)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hover (8)  |  Hovering (5)  |  Idea (881)  |  Information (173)  |  Joke (90)  |  Know (1538)  |  Latitude (6)  |  Longitude (8)  |  Lost (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manager (6)  |  Mean (810)  |  Must (1525)  |  Problem (731)  |  Promise (72)  |  Realize (157)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Return (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sea Level (5)  |  Solve (145)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Still (614)

A Miracle is a Violation of the Laws of Nature; and as a firm and unalterable Experience has established these Laws, the Proof against a Miracle, from the very Nature of the Fact, is as entire as any Argument from Experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all Men must die; that Lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the Air; that Fire consumes Wood, and is extinguished by Water; unless it be, that these Events are found agreeable to the Laws of Nature, and there is required a Violation of these Laws, or in other Words, a Miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteem'd a Miracle, if it ever happen in the common Course of Nature... There must, therefore, be a uniform Experience against every miraculous Event, otherwise the Event would not merit that Appellation. And as a uniform Experience amounts to a Proof, there is here a direct and full Proof, from the Nature of the Fact, against the Existence of any Miracle; nor can such a Proof be destroy'd, or the Miracle render'd credible, but by an opposite Proof, which is superior.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), 180-181.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Agreeable (20)  |  Amount (153)  |  Argument (145)  |  Common (447)  |  Course (413)  |  Death (406)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Direct (228)  |  Event (222)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fire (203)  |  Firm (47)  |  Happen (282)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Merit (51)  |  Miracle (85)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Probable (24)  |  Proof (304)  |  Remain (355)  |  Render (96)  |  Required (108)  |  Superior (88)  |  Violation (7)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)  |  Wood (97)  |  Word (650)

A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent.
Collected Papers
Science quotes on:  |  Build (211)  |  Castle In The Air (4)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Neurotic (6)  |  Psychiatrist (16)  |  Psychotic (2)  |  Quip (81)

A number of years ago, when I was a freshly-appointed instructor, I met, for the first time, a certain eminent historian of science. At the time I could only regard him with tolerant condescension.
I was sorry of the man who, it seemed to me, was forced to hover about the edges of science. He was compelled to shiver endlessly in the outskirts, getting only feeble warmth from the distant sun of science- in-progress; while I, just beginning my research, was bathed in the heady liquid heat up at the very center of the glow.
In a lifetime of being wrong at many a point, I was never more wrong. It was I, not he, who was wandering in the periphery. It was he, not I, who lived in the blaze.
I had fallen victim to the fallacy of the “growing edge;” the belief that only the very frontier of scientific advance counted; that everything that had been left behind by that advance was faded and dead.
But is that true? Because a tree in spring buds and comes greenly into leaf, are those leaves therefore the tree? If the newborn twigs and their leaves were all that existed, they would form a vague halo of green suspended in mid-air, but surely that is not the tree. The leaves, by themselves, are no more than trivial fluttering decoration. It is the trunk and limbs that give the tree its grandeur and the leaves themselves their meaning.
There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before. “If I have seen further than other men,” said Isaac Newton, “it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”
Adding A Dimension: Seventeen Essays on the History of Science (1964), Introduction.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Arise (162)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Behind (139)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Certain (557)  |  Condescension (3)  |  Count (107)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Edge (51)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fad (10)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Frontier (41)  |  Giant (73)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Green (65)  |  Growing (99)  |  Halo (7)  |  Heat (180)  |  Historian (59)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Hover (8)  |  Insight (107)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mid-Air (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Newborn (5)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Progress (492)  |  Regard (312)  |  Research (753)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Sparkling (7)  |  Spring (140)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surely (101)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tree (269)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Twig (15)  |  Vague (50)  |  Victim (37)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)

A nurse is to maintain the air within the room as fresh as the air without, without lowering the temperature.
In Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not (1859), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Fresh (69)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Nurse (33)  |  Room (42)  |  Temperature (82)

A plain, reasonable working man supposes, in the old way which is also the common-sense way, that if there are people who spend their lives in study, whom he feeds and keeps while they think for him—then no doubt these men are engaged in studying things men need to know; and he expects of science that it will solve for him the questions on which his welfare, and that of all men, depends. He expects science to tell him how he ought to live: how to treat his family, his neighbours and the men of other tribes, how to restrain his passions, what to believe in and what not to believe in, and much else. And what does our science say to him on these matters?
It triumphantly tells him: how many million miles it is from the earth to the sun; at what rate light travels through space; how many million vibrations of ether per second are caused by light, and how many vibrations of air by sound; it tells of the chemical components of the Milky Way, of a new element—helium—of micro-organisms and their excrements, of the points on the hand at which electricity collects, of X rays, and similar things.
“But I don't want any of those things,” says a plain and reasonable man—“I want to know how to live.”
In 'Modern Science', Essays and Letters (1903), 221-222.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemical (303)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Component (51)  |  Depend (238)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Element (322)  |  Ether (37)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Family (101)  |  Helium (11)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Micro-Organism (3)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  People (1031)  |  Point (584)  |  Question (649)  |  Ray (115)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solve (145)  |  Sound (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Speed Of Light (18)  |  Spend (97)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Sun (407)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Travel (125)  |  Tribe (26)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Welfare (30)  |  Will (2350)  |  X-ray (43)

A rose is the visible result of an infinitude of complicated goings on in the bosom of the earth and in the air above, and similarly a work of art is the product of strange activities in the human mind.
In Since Cezanne (1922), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Art (680)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Infinitude (3)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Product (166)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rose (36)  |  Similarly (4)  |  Strange (160)  |  Visible (87)  |  Work (1402)

A small bubble of air remained unabsorbed... if there is any part of the phlogisticated air [nitrogen] of our atmosphere which differs from the rest, and cannot be reduced to nitrous acid, we may safely conclude that it is not more than 1/120 part of the whole.
Cavendish did not realize the significance of the remaining small bubble. Not until a century later were the air’s Noble Gases appreciated.
'Experiments on Air', read 2 June 1785, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1785, 75, 382.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Century (319)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Differ (88)  |  More (2558)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Noble (93)  |  Noble Gas (4)  |  Realize (157)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Rest (287)  |  Significance (114)  |  Small (489)  |  Whole (756)

A strict materialist believes that everything depends on the motion of matter. He knows the form of the laws of motion though he does not know all their consequences when applied to systems of unknown complexity.
Now one thing in which the materialist (fortified with dynamical knowledge) believes is that if every motion great & small were accurately reversed, and the world left to itself again, everything would happen backwards the fresh water would collect out of the sea and run up the rivers and finally fly up to the clouds in drops which would extract heat from the air and evaporate and afterwards in condensing would shoot out rays of light to the sun and so on. Of course all living things would regrede from the grave to the cradle and we should have a memory of the future but not of the past.
The reason why we do not expect anything of this kind to take place at any time is our experience of irreversible processes, all of one kind, and this leads to the doctrine of a beginning & an end instead of cyclical progression for ever.
Letter to Mark Pattison (7 Apr 1868). In P. M. Hannan (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1995), Vol. 2, 1862-1873, 360-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Backwards (18)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Cradle (19)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Depend (238)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dynamical (15)  |  End (603)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extract (40)  |  Fly (153)  |  Form (976)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Future (467)  |  Grave (52)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Heat (180)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Laws Of Motion (10)  |  Lead (391)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Materialist (4)  |  Matter (821)  |  Memory (144)  |  Motion (320)  |  Past (355)  |  Process (439)  |  Progression (23)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reverse (33)  |  River (140)  |  Run (158)  |  Sea (326)  |  Small (489)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

About eight days ago I discovered that sulfur in burning, far from losing weight, on the contrary, gains it; it is the same with phosphorus; this increase of weight arises from a prodigious quantity of air that is fixed during combustion and combines with the vapors. This discovery, which I have established by experiments, that I regard as decisive, has led me to think that what is observed in the combustion of sulfur and phosphorus may well take place in the case of all substances that gain in weight by combustion and calcination; and I am persuaded that the increase in weight of metallic calxes is due to the same cause... This discovery seems to me one of the most interesting that has been made since Stahl and since it is difficult not to disclose something inadvertently in conversation with friends that could lead to the truth I have thought it necessary to make the present deposit to the Secretary of the Academy to await the time I make my experiments public.
Sealed note deposited with the Secretary of the French Academy 1 Nov 1772. Oeuvres de Lavoisier, Correspondance, Fasc. II. 1770-75 (1957), 389-90. Adapted from translation by A. N. Meldrum, The Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Science (1930), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Academy (37)  |  Arise (162)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Calcination (4)  |  Cause (561)  |  Combination (150)  |  Combine (58)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Compound (117)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Decisive (25)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Due (143)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Friend (180)  |  Gain (146)  |  Increase (225)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Lead (391)  |  Letter (117)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Observed (149)  |  Phosphorus (18)  |  Present (630)  |  Prodigious (20)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Regard (312)  |  Something (718)  |  Georg Ernst Stahl (9)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sulfur (5)  |  Sulphur (19)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vapor (12)  |  Weight (140)

Absolute space, of its own nature without reference to anything external, always remains homogenous and immovable. Relative space is any movable measure or dimension of this absolute space; such a measure or dimension is determined by our senses from the situation of the space with respect to bodies and is popularly used for immovable space, as in the case of space under the earth or in the air or in the heavens, where the dimension is determined from the situation of the space with respect to the earth. Absolute and relative space are the same in species and in magnitude, but they do not always remain the same numerically. For example, if the earth moves, the space of our air, which in a relative sense and with respect to the earth always remains the same, will now be one part of the absolute space into which the air passes, now another part of it, and thus will be changing continually in an absolute sense.
The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687), 3rd edition (1726), trans. I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman (1999), Definitions, Scholium, 408-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Immovable (2)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Move (223)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Numerically (2)  |  Relative (42)  |  Remain (355)  |  Respect (212)  |  Sense (785)  |  Situation (117)  |  Space (523)  |  Species (435)  |  Will (2350)

Adam is fading out. It is on account of Darwin and that crowd. I can see that he is not going to last much longer. There's a plenty of signs. He is getting belittled to a germ—a little bit of a speck that you can't see without a microscope powerful enough to raise a gnat to the size of a church. They take that speck and breed from it: first a flea; then a fly, then a bug, then cross these and get a fish, then a raft of fishes, all kinds, then cross the whole lot and get a reptile, then work up the reptiles till you've got a supply of lizards and spiders and toads and alligators and Congressmen and so on, then cross the entire lot again and get a plant of amphibiums, which are half-breeds and do business both wet and dry, such as turtles and frogs and ornithorhyncuses and so on, and cross-up again and get a mongrel bird, sired by a snake and dam'd by a bat, resulting in a pterodactyl, then they develop him, and water his stock till they've got the air filled with a million things that wear feathers, then they cross-up all the accumulated animal life to date and fetch out a mammal, and start-in diluting again till there's cows and tigers and rats and elephants and monkeys and everything you want down to the Missing Link, and out of him and a mermaid they propagate Man, and there you are! Everything ship-shape and finished-up, and nothing to do but lay low and wait and see if it was worth the time and expense.
'The Refuge of the Derelicts' collected in Mark Twain and John Sutton Tuckey, The Devil's Race-Track: Mark Twain's Great Dark Writings (1980), 340-41. - 1980
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Adam (7)  |  Amphibian (7)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Bat (10)  |  Bird (163)  |  Both (496)  |  Bug (10)  |  Business (156)  |  Church (64)  |  Cow (42)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Develop (278)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Dry (65)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Enough (341)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expense (21)  |  Feather (13)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Fish (130)  |  Flea (11)  |  Fly (153)  |  Frog (44)  |  Germ (54)  |  Gnat (7)  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Lizard (7)  |  Lot (151)  |  Low (86)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mermaid (5)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Missing (21)  |  Missing Link (4)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Plant (320)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Pterodactyl (2)  |  Rat (37)  |  Reptile (33)  |  See (1094)  |  Ship (69)  |  Snake (29)  |  Speck (25)  |  Spider (14)  |  Start (237)  |  Supply (100)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tiger (7)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toad (10)  |  Turtle (8)  |  Wait (66)  |  Want (504)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)

After an orange cloud—formed as a result of a dust storm over the Sahara and caught up by air currents—reached the Philippines and settled there with rain, I understood that we are all sailing in the same boat.
In Jack Hassard and Julie Weisberg , Environmental Science on the Net: The Global Thinking Project (1999), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Boat (17)  |  Catch (34)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Current (122)  |  Dust (68)  |  Dust Storm (2)  |  Form (976)  |  Orange (15)  |  Philippines (3)  |  Rain (70)  |  Reach (286)  |  Result (700)  |  Sahara (2)  |  Sail (37)  |  Sailing (14)  |  Same (166)  |  Settle (23)  |  Settled (34)  |  Storm (56)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)

After having produced aquatic animals of all ranks and having caused extensive variations in them by the different environments provided by the waters, nature led them little by little to the habit of living in the air, first by the water's edge and afterwards on all the dry parts of the globe. These animals have in course of time been profoundly altered by such novel conditions; which so greatly influenced their habits and organs that the regular gradation which they should have exhibited in complexity of organisation is often scarcely recognisable.
Hydrogéologie (1802), trans. A. V. Carozzi (1964), 69-70.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Animal (651)  |  Aquatic (5)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Condition (362)  |  Course (413)  |  Different (595)  |  Dry (65)  |  Edge (51)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extensive (34)  |  First (1302)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Habit (174)  |  Little (717)  |  Living (492)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Novel (35)  |  Organ (118)  |  Produced (187)  |  Rank (69)  |  Regular (48)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variation (93)  |  Water (503)

AIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  21.
Science quotes on:  |  Humour (116)  |  Poor (139)  |  Providence (19)  |  Substance (253)

All over the world there lingers on the memory of a giant tree, the primal tree, rising up from the centre of the Earth to the heavens and ordering the universe around it. It united the three worlds: its roots plunged down into subterranean abysses, Its loftiest branches touched the empyrean. Thanks to the Tree, it became possible to breathe the air; to all the creatures that then appeared on Earth it dispensed its fruit, ripened by the sun and nourished by the water which it drew from the soil. From the sky it attracted the lightning from which man made fire and, beckoning skyward, where clouds gathered around its fall. The Tree was the source of all life, and of all regeneration. Small wonder then that tree-worship was so prevalent in ancient times.
From 'L'Arbre Sacre' ('The Sacred Tree'), UNESCO Courier (Jan 1989), 4. Epigraph to Chap 1, in Kenton Miller and Laura Tangley, Trees of Life: Saving Tropical Forests and Their Biological Wealt (1991), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Appeared (4)  |  Attracted (3)  |  Beckoning (4)  |  Branch (155)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Centre (31)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Creature (242)  |  Dispense (10)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Empyrean (3)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Gather (76)  |  Giant (73)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Linger (14)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  Nourished (2)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prevalent (4)  |  Primal (5)  |  Regeneration (5)  |  Rising (44)  |  Root (121)  |  Sky (174)  |  Skyward (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Soil (98)  |  Source (101)  |  Subterranean (2)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thanks (26)  |  Three (10)  |  Time (1911)  |  Touch (146)  |  Tree (269)  |  United (15)  |  Universe (900)  |  Water (503)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)  |  Worship (32)

All substances susceptible of decay, when in a moist state, and exposed to the air and light at the common temperature, undergo precisely the same change as they would if exposed to a red-heat, in a dry state, that is, they absorb oxygen,—they undergo combustion.
Justus von Liebig and John Gardner (ed.), Familiar Letters on Chemistry: Second Series. The Philosophical Principles and General Laws of the Science (1844), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Change (639)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Decay (59)  |  Dry (65)  |  Expose (28)  |  Light (635)  |  Moist (13)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Same (166)  |  Substance (253)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Undergo (18)

All that I am … I owe to the Air Force.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Air Force (2)  |  Force (497)  |  Gratitude (14)  |  Loyalty (10)  |  Owe (71)

Already the steam-engine works our mines, impels our ships, excavates our ports and our rivers, forges iron, fashions wood, grinds grain, spins and weaves our cloths, transports the heaviest burdens, etc. It appears that it must some day serve as a universal motor, and be substituted for animal power, waterfalls, and air currents.
'Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu' (1824) translated by R.H. Thurston in Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, and on Machines Fitted to Develop that Power (1890), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Animal (651)  |  Burden (30)  |  Cloth (6)  |  Current (122)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Excavation (8)  |  Fashioning (2)  |  Forge (10)  |  Grain (50)  |  Grind (11)  |  Impelling (2)  |  Iron (99)  |  Mine (78)  |  Motor (23)  |  Must (1525)  |  Port (2)  |  Power (771)  |  River (140)  |  Serving (15)  |  Ship (69)  |  Spin (26)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Transport (31)  |  Universal (198)  |  Waterfall (5)  |  Weave (21)  |  Weaving (6)  |  Wood (97)  |  Work (1402)

Anaximander son of Praxiades, of Miletus: he said that the principle and element is the Indefinite, not distinguishing air or water or anything else. … he was the first to discover a gnomon, and he set one up on the Sundials (?) in Sparta, according to Favorinus in his Universal History, to mark solstices and equinoxes; and he also constructed hour indicators. He was the first to draw an outline of earth and sea, but also constructed a [celestial] globe. Of his opinions he made a summary exposition, which I suppose Apollodorus the Athenian also encountered. Apollodorus says in his Chronicles that Anaximander was sixty-four years old in the year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad [547/6 B.C.], and that he died shortly afterwards (having been near his prime approximately during the time of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos).
Diogenes Laërtius II, 1-2. In G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven and M. Schofield (eds), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1957), 99. The editors of this translation note that Anaximander may have introduced the gnomon into Greece, but he did not discover it—the Babylonians used it earlier, and the celestial sphere, and the twelve parts of the day.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Anaximander (5)  |  Cartography (3)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Construct (129)  |  Discover (571)  |  Draw (140)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  First (1302)  |  History (716)  |  Hour (192)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Principle (530)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Set (400)  |  Summary (11)  |  Sundial (6)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universal (198)  |  Water (503)  |  Year (963)

Anaximenes ... also says that the underlying nature is one and infinite ... but not undefined as Anaximander said but definite, for he identifies it as air; and it differs in its substantial nature by rarity and density. Being made finer it becomes fire; being made thicker it becomes wind, then cloud, then (when thickened still more) water, then earth, then stones; and the rest come into being from these.
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, 24, 26-31, quoting Theophrastus on Anaximenes. In G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M.Schofield (eds), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1983), p. 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Anaximenes (5)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Definite (114)  |  Density (25)  |  Differ (88)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fire (203)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Rarity (11)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Water (503)  |  Wind (141)

Anaximenes ... declared that air is the principle of existing things; for from it all things come-to-be and into it they are again dissolved. As our soul, he says, being air holds us together and controls us, so does wind [or breath] and air enclose the whole world.
Aetius, 1, 3, 4. In G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M.Schofield (eds), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1983), p. 158-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Anaximenes (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Breath (61)  |  Control (182)  |  Declared (24)  |  Matter (821)  |  Principle (530)  |  Say (989)  |  Soul (235)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wind (141)  |  World (1850)

Anaximenes ... said that infinite air was the principle, from which the things that are becoming, and that are, and that shall be, and gods and things divine, all come into being, and the rest from its products. The form of air is of this kind: whenever it is most equable it is invisible to sight, but is revealed by the cold and the hot and the damp and by movement. It is always in motion; for things that change do not change unless there be movement. Through becoming denser or finer it has different appearances; for when it is dissolved into what is finer it becomes fire, while winds, again, are air that is becoming condensed, and cloud is produced from air by felting. When it is condensed still more, water is produced; with a further degree of condensation earth is produced, and when condensed as far as possible, stones. The result is that the most influential components of the generation are opposites, hot and cold.
Hippolytus, Refutation, 1.7.1. In G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield (eds.), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1983), p. 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Anaximander (5)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Cold (115)  |  Component (51)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Divine (112)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fire (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  God (776)  |  Hot (63)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Kind (564)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Movement (162)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Produced (187)  |  Product (166)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Sight (135)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Water (503)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Wind (141)

Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Democritus say that its [the earth’s] flatness is responsible for it staying still: for it does not cut the air beneath but covers it like a lid, which flat bodies evidently do: for they are hard to move even for the winds, on account of their resistance.
Aristotle
Aristotle, On the Heavens, 294b, 13. In G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M.Schofield (eds), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1983), p. 153.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Anaxagoras (11)  |  Anaximenes (5)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Cut (116)  |  Democritus of Abdera (17)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Flat (34)  |  Hard (246)  |  Move (223)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Say (989)  |  Still (614)  |  Wind (141)

Anaximenes son of Eurystratus, of Miletus, was a pupil of Anaximander; some say he was also a pupil of Parmenides. He said that the material principle was air and the infinite; and that the stars move, not under the earth, but round it. He used simple and economical Ionic speech. He was active, according to what Apollodorus says, around the time of the capture of Sardis, and died in the 63rd Olympiad.
Diogenes Laertius 2.3. In G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield (eds), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts(1983), p. 143.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Active (80)  |  Anaximenes (5)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Material (366)  |  Move (223)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Say (989)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Speech (66)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Time (1911)

And ‘tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
In Lines Written in Early Spring (1798). In The Works of William Wordsworth (1994), Book 4, 482.
Science quotes on:  |  Breathe (49)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Faith (209)  |  Flower (112)

And men ought to know that from nothing else but thence [from the brain] come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear, and know what are foul and hat are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet, and what unsavory... And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us... All these things we endure from the brain, when it is not healthy... In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man. This is the interpreter to us of those things which emanate from the air, when it [the brain] happens to be in a sound state.
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, trans. Francis Adams (1886), Vol. 2, 344-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Become (821)  |  Brain (281)  |  Delight (111)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fear (212)  |  Foul (15)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Grief (20)  |  Happen (282)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Hear (144)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Mad (54)  |  Man (2252)  |  Neuroscience (3)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organ (118)  |  Power (771)  |  See (1094)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Sound (187)  |  Sport (23)  |  State (505)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Terror (32)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wisdom (235)

Apart from its healthful mental training as a branch of ordinary education, geology as an open-air pursuit affords an admirable training in habits of observation, furnishes a delightful relief from the cares and routine of everyday life, takes us into the open fields and the free fresh face of nature, leads us into all manner of sequestered nooks, whither hardly any other occupation or interest would be likely to send us, sets before us problems of the highest interest regarding the history of the ground beneath our feet, and thus gives a new charm to scenery which may be already replete with attractions.
Outlines of Field-Geology (1900), 251-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Branch (155)  |  Care (203)  |  Charm (54)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Education (423)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everyday Life (15)  |  Face (214)  |  Field (378)  |  Free (239)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Geology (240)  |  Ground (222)  |  Habit (174)  |  History (716)  |  Interest (416)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mental (179)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Open (277)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Relief (30)  |  Routine (26)  |  Sequester (2)  |  Set (400)  |  Training (92)  |  Whither (11)

As Crystallography was born of a chance observation by Haüy of the cleavage-planes of a single fortunately fragile specimen, … so out of the slender study of the Norwich Spiral has sprung the vast and interminable Calculus of Cyclodes, which strikes such far-spreading and tenacious roots into the profoundest strata of denumeration, and, by this and the multitudinous and multifarious dependent theories which cluster around it, reminds one of the Scriptural comparison of the Kingdom of Heaven “to a grain of mustard-seed which a man took and cast into his garden, and it grew and waxed a great tree, and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it.”
From 'Outline Trace of the Theory of Reducible Cyclodes', Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society (1869), 2, 155, collected in Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester (1908), Vol. 2, 683-684.
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Branch (155)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Cast (69)  |  Chance (244)  |  Cleavage (2)  |  Cluster (16)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Crystallography (9)  |  Dependent (26)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Fowl (6)  |  Fragile (26)  |  Garden (64)  |  Grain (50)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  René-Just Haüy (4)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Interminable (3)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Kingdom Of Heaven (3)  |  Lodge (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Multitudinous (4)  |  Mustard (2)  |  Observation (593)  |  Plane (22)  |  Profound (105)  |  Root (121)  |  Scripture (14)  |  Seed (97)  |  Single (365)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Spiral (19)  |  Spread (86)  |  Spring (140)  |  Strata (37)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Strike (72)  |  Study (701)  |  Tenacious (2)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vast (188)  |  Wax (13)

As I show you this liquid, I too could tell you, 'I took my drop of water from the immensity of creation, and I took it filled with that fecund jelly, that is, to use the language of science, full of the elements needed for the development of lower creatures. And then I waited, and I observed, and I asked questions of it, and I asked it to repeat the original act of creation for me; what a sight it would be! But it is silent! It has been silent for several years, ever since I began these experiments. Yes! And it is because I have kept away from it, and am keeping away from it to this moment, the only thing that it has not been given to man to produce, I have kept away from it the germs that are floating in the air, I have kept away from it life, for life is the germ, and the germ is life.'
Quoted in Patrice Debré, Louis Pasteur, trans. Elborg Forster (1994), 169.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Ask (420)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Development (441)  |  Drop (77)  |  Element (322)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fecund (2)  |  Float (31)  |  Germ (54)  |  Gift (105)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Jelly (6)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Low (86)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moment (260)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Production (190)  |  Question (649)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Show (353)  |  Sight (135)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Wait (66)  |  Water (503)  |  Year (963)

As lightning clears the air of impalpable vapours, so an incisive paradox frees the human intelligence from the lethargic influence of latent and unsuspected assumptions. Paradox is the slayer of Prejudice.
In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Assumption (96)  |  Clear (111)  |  Free (239)  |  Human (1512)  |  Incisive (4)  |  Influence (231)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Latent (13)  |  Lethargic (2)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Unsuspected (7)  |  Vapour (16)

As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.
In 'Proverbs', The Poems: With Specimens of the Prose Writings of William Blake (1885), 281.
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Contempt (20)  |  Contemptible (8)  |  Fish (130)  |  Sea (326)

Ask a follower of Bacon what [science] the new philosophy, as it was called in the time of Charles the Second, has effected for mankind, and his answer is ready; “It has lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has increased the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to the mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the night with the splendour of the day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has multiplied the power of the human muscles; it has accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, all dispatch of business; it has enabled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth, to traverse the land in cars which whirl along without horses, to cross the ocean in ships which run ten knots an hour against the wind. These are but a part of its fruits, and of its first-fruits; for it is a philosophy which never rests, which has never attained, which is never perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-point to-morrow.”
From essay (Jul 1837) on 'Francis Bacon' in Edinburgh Review. In Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay and Lady Trevelyan (ed.) The Works of Lord Macaulay Complete (1871), Vol. 6, 222.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceleration (12)  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Against (332)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Bridge Engineering (8)  |  Business (156)  |  Call (781)  |  Car (75)  |  Cave (17)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Depth (97)  |  Descend (49)  |  Disease (340)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Estuary (3)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extend (129)  |  Father (113)  |  Fertility (23)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Goal (155)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Horse (78)  |  Hour (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invisibility (5)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Knot (11)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Lighting (5)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mining (22)  |  Motion (320)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Noxious (8)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Oceanography (17)  |  Office (71)  |  Pain (144)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Progress (492)  |  Range (104)  |  Rest (287)  |  River (140)  |  Run (158)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Soar (23)  |  Soil (98)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Strength (139)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Thunderbolt (7)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Vision (127)  |  Warrior (6)  |  Whirl (10)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Yesterday (37)

Astronomy affords the most extensive example of the connection of physical sciences. In it are combined the sciences of number and quantity, or rest and motion. In it we perceive the operation of a force which is mixed up with everything that exists in the heavens or on earth; which pervades every atom, rules the motion of animate and inanimate beings, and is a sensible in the descent of the rain-drop as in the falls of Niagara; in the weight of the air, as in the periods of the moon.
On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1858), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Animate (8)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Combination (150)  |  Connection (171)  |  Descent (30)  |  Drop (77)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everything (489)  |  Example (98)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Fall (243)  |  Force (497)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Inanimate (18)  |  Mix (24)  |  Moon (252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Niagara (8)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Perception (97)  |  Period (200)  |  Pervade (10)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Rain (70)  |  Raindrop (4)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sensible (28)  |  Weight (140)

Basic research is like shooting an arrow into the air and, where it lands, painting a target.
As quoted by Walter Gratzer, in book review titled 'The Bomb and the Bumble-Bees' (about the book Late Night Thoughts, by Lewis Thomas), Nature (15 Nov 1984), 31, 211. The original text expresses the quote as “It was the organic chemist, Homer Adkins, who defined basic research as shooting an arrow into the air, and…”.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrow (22)  |  Basic (144)  |  Basic Research (15)  |  Land (131)  |  Paint (22)  |  Research (753)  |  Shoot (21)  |  Target (13)

Be not afeard.
The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That if I then had waked after long sleep
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.
The Tempest (1611), III, ii.
Science quotes on:  |  Cloud (111)  |  Delight (111)  |  Dream (222)  |  Drop (77)  |  Ear (69)  |  Humming (5)  |  Hurt (14)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Isle (6)  |  Long (778)  |  Mine (78)  |  Noise (40)  |  Open (277)  |  Riches (14)  |  Show (353)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Sound (187)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Voice (54)  |  Waking (17)  |  Will (2350)

Because words pass away as soon as they strike upon the air, and last no longer than their sound, men have by means of letters formed signs of words. Thus the sounds of the voice are made visible to the eye, not of course as sounds, but by means of certain signs.
In 'Origin of Writing', Christian Doctrine, Book 2, as translated by J.F. Shaw, collected in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church: Volume II: St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine (1907), 536.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Course (413)  |  Eye (440)  |  Form (976)  |  Last (425)  |  Letter (117)  |  Linguistics (39)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Pass (241)  |  Sign (63)  |  Soon (187)  |  Sound (187)  |  Strike (72)  |  Visible (87)  |  Voice (54)  |  Word (650)

Birds’ songs express joy, beauty, and purity, and evoke in us vitality and love. So many beings in the universe love us unconditionally. The trees, the water, and the air don’t ask anything of us; they just love us. Even though we need this kind of love, we continue to destroy them. By destroying the animals, the air, and the trees, we are destroying ourselves. We must learn to practice unconditional love for all beings so that the animals, the air, the trees, and the minerals can continue to be themselves.
In Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change (1993), 131-132.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Bird (163)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Evoke (13)  |  Joy (117)  |  Love (328)  |  Purity (15)  |  Song (41)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vitality (24)  |  Water (503)

Bodies, projected in our air, suffer no resistance but from the air. Withdraw the air, as is done in Mr. Boyle's vacuum, and the resistance ceases. For in this void a bit of fine down and a piece of solid gold descend with equal velocity.
In 'General Scholium' from The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1729), Vol. 2, Book 3, 388.
Science quotes on:  |  Air Resistance (2)  |  Body (557)  |  Robert Boyle (28)  |  Cease (81)  |  Descend (49)  |  Down (455)  |  Equal (88)  |  Feather (13)  |  Free Fall (2)  |  Gold (101)  |  Project (77)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Solid (119)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Void (31)

Bradley is one of the few basketball players who have ever been appreciatively cheered by a disinterested away-from-home crowd while warming up. This curious event occurred last March, just before Princeton eliminated the Virginia Military Institute, the year’s Southern Conference champion, from the NCAA championships. The game was played in Philadelphia and was the last of a tripleheader. The people there were worn out, because most of them were emotionally committed to either Villanova or Temple-two local teams that had just been involved in enervating battles with Providence and Connecticut, respectively, scrambling for a chance at the rest of the country. A group of Princeton players shooting basketballs miscellaneously in preparation for still another game hardly promised to be a high point of the evening, but Bradley, whose routine in the warmup time is a gradual crescendo of activity, is more interesting to watch before a game than most players are in play. In Philadelphia that night, what he did was, for him, anything but unusual. As he does before all games, he began by shooting set shots close to the basket, gradually moving back until he was shooting long sets from 20 feet out, and nearly all of them dropped into the net with an almost mechanical rhythm of accuracy. Then he began a series of expandingly difficult jump shots, and one jumper after another went cleanly through the basket with so few exceptions that the crowd began to murmur. Then he started to perform whirling reverse moves before another cadence of almost steadily accurate jump shots, and the murmur increased. Then he began to sweep hook shots into the air. He moved in a semicircle around the court. First with his right hand, then with his left, he tried seven of these long, graceful shots-the most difficult ones in the orthodoxy of basketball-and ambidextrously made them all. The game had not even begun, but the presumably unimpressible Philadelphians were applauding like an audience at an opera.
A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Activity (218)  |  Appreciatively (2)  |  Audience (28)  |  Back (395)  |  Basket (8)  |  Basketball (4)  |  Battle (36)  |  Begin (275)  |  Bradley (2)  |  Cadence (2)  |  Champion (6)  |  Championship (2)  |  Chance (244)  |  Cheer (7)  |  Close (77)  |  Commit (43)  |  Conference (18)  |  Country (269)  |  Court (35)  |  Crescendo (3)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Curious (95)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Disinterest (8)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dropped (17)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Emotionally (3)  |  Event (222)  |  Exception (74)  |  First (1302)  |  Foot (65)  |  Game (104)  |  Graceful (3)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Group (83)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hardly (19)  |  High (370)  |  Home (184)  |  Hook (7)  |  Increase (225)  |  Institute (8)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Jump (31)  |  Last (425)  |  Leave (138)  |  Local (25)  |  Long (778)  |  March (48)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Military (45)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Murmur (4)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Net (12)  |  Night (133)  |  Occur (151)  |  Opera (3)  |  Orthodoxy (11)  |  People (1031)  |  Perform (123)  |  Philadelphia (3)  |  Play (116)  |  Player (9)  |  Point (584)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Presumably (3)  |  Princeton (4)  |  Promise (72)  |  Providence (19)  |  Respectively (13)  |  Rest (287)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Right (473)  |  Routine (26)  |  Series (153)  |  Set (400)  |  Shoot (21)  |  Southern (3)  |  Start (237)  |  Steadily (7)  |  Still (614)  |  Sweep (22)  |  Team (17)  |  Temple (45)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Two (936)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Virginia (2)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warming (24)  |  Watch (118)  |  Whirl (10)  |  Worn Out (2)  |  Year (963)

But come, hear my words, for truly learning causes the mind to grow. For as I said before in declaring the ends of my words … at one time there grew to be the one alone out of many, and at another time it separated so that there were many out of the one; fire and water and earth and boundless height of air, and baneful Strife apart from these, balancing each of them, and Love among them, their equal in length and breadth.
From The Fragments, Bk. 1, line 74. In Arthur Fairbanks (ed., trans.), Quotations from The First Philosophers of Greece (1898), 167-168.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Balance (82)  |  Baneful (2)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Breadth (15)  |  Cause (561)  |  Declare (48)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Equal (88)  |  Fire (203)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hear (144)  |  Height (33)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Length (24)  |  Love (328)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Separate (151)  |  Strife (9)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)  |  Water (503)  |  Word (650)

But nothing of a nature foreign to the duties of my profession [clergyman] engaged my attention while I was at Leeds so much as the, prosecution of my experiments relating to electricity, and especially the doctrine of air. The last I was led into a consequence of inhabiting a house adjoining to a public brewery, where first amused myself with making experiments on fixed air [carbon dioxide] which found ready made in the process of fermentation. When I removed from that house, I was under the necessity making the fixed air for myself; and one experiment leading to another, as I have distinctly and faithfully noted in my various publications on the subject, I by degrees contrived a convenient apparatus for the purpose, but of the cheapest kind. When I began these experiments I knew very little of chemistry, and had in a manner no idea on the subject before I attended a course of chymical lectures delivered in the Academy at Warrington by Dr. Turner of Liverpool. But I have often thought that upon the whole, this circumstance was no disadvantage to me; as in this situation I was led to devise an apparatus and processes of my own, adapted to my peculiar views. Whereas, if I had been previously accustomed to the usual chemical processes, I should not have so easily thought of any other; and without new modes of operation I should hardly have discovered anything materially new.
Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley, in the Year 1795 (1806), Vol. 1, 61-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Academy (37)  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adjoining (3)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Attend (67)  |  Attention (196)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Degree (277)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Disadvantage (10)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Duty (71)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fermentation (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Fixed Air (2)  |  Foreign (45)  |  House (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Little (717)  |  Making (300)  |  Mode (43)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Operation (221)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Process (439)  |  Profession (108)  |  Publication (102)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Situation (117)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thought (995)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)

But when it has been shown by the researches of Pasteur that the septic property of the atmosphere depended not on the oxygen, or any gaseous constituent, but on minute organisms suspended in it, which owed their energy to their vitality, it occurred to me that decomposition in the injured part might be avoided without excluding the air, by applying as a dressing some material capable of destroying the life of the floating particles. Upon this principle I have based a practice.
'On the Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery', The British Medical Journal (1867), ii, 246.
Science quotes on:  |  Antiseptic (8)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Capable (174)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Decay (59)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dressing (3)  |  Energy (373)  |  Infection (27)  |  Injury (36)  |  Life (1870)  |  Material (366)  |  Microorganism (29)  |  Minute (129)  |  Organism (231)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Particle (200)  |  Louis Pasteur (85)  |  Practice (212)  |  Principle (530)  |  Property (177)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Vitality (24)

By blending water and minerals from below with sunlight and CO2 from above, green plants link the earth to the sky. We tend to believe that plants grow out of the soil, but in fact most of their substance comes from the air. The bulk of the cellulose and the other organic compounds produced through photosynthesis consists of heavy carbon and oxygen atoms, which plants take directly from the air in the form of CO2. Thus the weight of a wooden log comes almost entirely from the air. When we burn a log in a fireplace, oxygen and carbon combine once more into CO2, and in the light and heat of the fire we recover part of the solar energy that went into making the wood.
The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems (1997), 178.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Cellulose (3)  |  Combine (58)  |  Compound (117)  |  Consist (223)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fireplace (3)  |  Form (976)  |  Green (65)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heat (180)  |  Light (635)  |  Link (48)  |  Log (7)  |  Making (300)  |  Mineral (66)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Compound (3)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Plant (320)  |  Produced (187)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Sky (174)  |  Soil (98)  |  Solar Energy (21)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Tend (124)  |  Through (846)  |  Water (503)  |  Weight (140)  |  Wood (97)

By research in pure science I mean research made without any idea of application to industrial matters but solely with the view of extending our knowledge of the Laws of Nature. I will give just one example of the ‘utility’ of this kind of research, one that has been brought into great prominence by the War—I mean the use of X-rays in surgery. Now, not to speak of what is beyond money value, the saving of pain, or, it may be, the life of the wounded, and of bitter grief to those who loved them, the benefit which the state has derived from the restoration of so many to life and limb, able to render services which would otherwise have been lost, is almost incalculable. Now, how was this method discovered? It was not the result of a research in applied science starting to find an improved method of locating bullet wounds. This might have led to improved probes, but we cannot imagine it leading to the discovery of X-rays. No, this method is due to an investigation in pure science, made with the object of discovering what is the nature of Electricity. The experiments which led to this discovery seemed to be as remote from ‘humanistic interest’ —to use a much misappropriated word—as anything that could well be imagined. The apparatus consisted of glass vessels from which the last drops of air had been sucked, and which emitted a weird greenish light when stimulated by formidable looking instruments called induction coils. Near by, perhaps, were great coils of wire and iron built up into electro-magnets. I know well the impression it made on the average spectator, for I have been occupied in experiments of this kind nearly all my life, notwithstanding the advice, given in perfect good faith, by non-scientific visitors to the laboratory, to put that aside and spend my time on something useful.
In Speech made on behalf of a delegation from the Conjoint Board of Scientific Studies in 1916 to Lord Crewe, then Lord President of the Council. In George Paget Thomson, J. J. Thomson and the Cavendish Laboratory in His Day (1965), 167-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Average (89)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bitter (30)  |  Call (781)  |  Consist (223)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Drop (77)  |  Due (143)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Faith (209)  |  Find (1014)  |  Glass (94)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grief (20)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impression (118)  |  Induction (81)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Interest (416)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Iron (99)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Looking (191)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Method (531)  |  Money (178)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Non-Scientific (7)  |  Object (438)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Pain (144)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Probe (12)  |  Prominence (5)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Ray (115)  |  Remote (86)  |  Render (96)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Service (110)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Spend (97)  |  State (505)  |  Suck (8)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Utility (52)  |  Value (393)  |  Vessel (63)  |  View (496)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wire (36)  |  Word (650)  |  Wound (26)  |  X-ray (43)

Camels, unlike most animals, regulate their body temperatures at two different but stable states. During daytime in the desert, when it is unbearably hot, camels regulate close to 40°C, a close enough match to the air temperature to avoid having to cool by sweating precious water. At night the desert is cold, and even cold enough for frost; the camel would seriously lose heat if it tried to stay at 40°C, so it moves its regulation to a more suitable 34°C, which is warm.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Camel (12)  |  Close (77)  |  Cold (115)  |  Cool (15)  |  Daytime (3)  |  Desert (59)  |  Different (595)  |  Frost (15)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hot (63)  |  Lose (165)  |  Match (30)  |  Move (223)  |  Night (133)  |  Precious (43)  |  Regulate (11)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Seriously (20)  |  Stable (32)  |  State (505)  |  Stay (26)  |  Suitable (10)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Try (296)  |  Unlike (9)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)

Chemistry affords two general methods of determining the constituent principles of bodies, the method of analysis, and that of synthesis. When, for instance, by combining water with alkohol, we form the species of liquor called, in commercial language, brandy or spirit of wine, we certainly have a right to conclude, that brandy, or spirit of wine, is composed of alkohol combined with water. We can produce the same result by the analytical method; and in general it ought to be considered as a principle in chemical science, never to rest satisfied without both these species of proofs. We have this advantage in the analysis of atmospherical air, being able both to decompound it, and to form it a new in the most satisfactory manner.
Elements of Chemistry (1790), trans. R. Kerr, 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Brandy (3)  |  Call (781)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Language (308)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proof (304)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Species (435)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Two (936)  |  Water (503)  |  Wine (39)

Chemistry works with an enormous number of substances, but cares only for some few of their properties; it is an extensive science. Physics on the other hand works with rather few substances, such as mercury, water, alcohol, glass, air, but analyses the experimental results very thoroughly; it is an intensive science. Physical chemistry is the child of these two sciences; it has inherited the extensive character from chemistry. Upon this depends its all-embracing feature, which has attracted so great admiration. But on the other hand it has its profound quantitative character from the science of physics.
In Theories of Solutions (1912), xix.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Care (203)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Child (333)  |  Depend (238)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Feature (49)  |  Few (15)  |  Glass (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Inherited (21)  |  Intensive (9)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Chemistry (6)  |  Physics (564)  |  Profound (105)  |  Property (177)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Result (700)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)

Chlorine is a poisonous gas. In case I should fall over unconscious in the following demonstration involving chlorine, please pick me up and carry me into the open air. Should this happen, the lecture for the day will be concluded.
Quoted in Ralph Oesper, The Human Side of Scientists (1975), 192.
Science quotes on:  |  Carry (130)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Fall (243)  |  Gas (89)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Open (277)  |  Please (68)  |  Poisonous (4)  |  Unconscious (24)  |  Will (2350)

Clinical ecology [is] a new branch of medicine aimed at helping people made sick by a failure to adapt to facets of our modern, polluted environment. Adverse reactions to processed foods and their chemical contaminants, and to indoor and outdoor air pollution with petrochemicals, are becoming more and more widespread and so far these reactions are being misdiagnosed by mainstream medical practitioners and so are not treated effectively.
Quoted in article 'Richard Mackarness', Contemporary Authors Online (2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Adverse (3)  |  Aim (175)  |  Air Pollution (13)  |  Allergy (2)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Branch (155)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Clinical (18)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Effectiveness (13)  |  Environment (239)  |  Facet (9)  |  Failure (176)  |  Food (213)  |  Illness (35)  |  Mainstream (4)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  People (1031)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Practitioner (21)  |  Process (439)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Sick (83)  |  Sickness (26)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Widespread (23)

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
From An Oration, Delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1802, at the Anniversary Commemoration of the First Landing of our Ancestors at that Place (1802), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Courage (82)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Magic (92)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Vanish (19)

Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine
Unweave a rainbow.
Lamia 1820, II, lines 229-37. In John Barnard (ed.), John Keats. The Complete Poems (1973), 431.
Science quotes on:  |  Angel (47)  |  Charm (54)  |  Cold (115)  |  Common (447)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dull (58)  |  Empty (82)  |  Fly (153)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mine (78)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Poem (104)  |  Rainbow (17)  |  Rule (307)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touch (146)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wing (79)

Each pregnant Oak ten thousand acorns forms
Profusely scatter’d by autumnal storms;
Ten thousand seeds each pregnant poppy sheds
Profusely scatter’d from its waving heads;
The countless Aphides, prolific tribe,
With greedy trunks the honey’d sap imbibe;
Swarm on each leaf with eggs or embryons big,
And pendent nations tenant every twig ...
—All these, increasing by successive birth,
Would each o’erpeople ocean, air, and earth.
So human progenies, if unrestrain’d,
By climate friended, and by food sustain’d,
O’er seas and soils, prolific hordes! would spread
Erelong, and deluge their terraqueous bed;
But war, and pestilence, disease, and dearth,
Sweep the superfluous myriads from the earth...
The births and deaths contend with equal strife,
And every pore of Nature teems with Life;
Which buds or breathes from Indus to the Poles,
And Earth’s vast surface kindles, as it rolls!
The Temple of Nature (1803), canto 4, lines 347-54, 367-74, 379-82, pages 156-60.
Science quotes on:  |  Birth (154)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Climate (102)  |  Countless (39)  |  Death (406)  |  Deluge (14)  |  Disease (340)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Egg (71)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Friend (180)  |  Honey (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Kindle (9)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Oak (16)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pestilence (14)  |  Poem (104)  |  Pole (49)  |  Roll (41)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seed (97)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spread (86)  |  Storm (56)  |  Storms (18)  |  Successive (73)  |  Superfluous (21)  |  Surface (223)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Sweep (22)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tribe (26)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Twig (15)  |  Vast (188)  |  War (233)

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.
Poem, 'Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare", collected in Wallace Warner Douglas and Hallett Darius Smith (eds.), The Critical Reader: Poems, Stories, Essays (1949), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Bare (33)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Blind (98)  |  Bondage (6)  |  Cease (81)  |  Draw (140)  |  Dusty (8)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Euclid (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Goose (13)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hero (45)  |  Hold (96)  |  Holy (35)  |  Hour (192)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Let (64)  |  Light (635)  |  Lineage (3)  |  Look (584)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Massive (9)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Peace (116)  |  Ponder (15)  |  Prone (7)  |  Release (31)  |  Sandal (3)  |  Seek (218)  |  Set (400)  |  Shaft (5)  |  Shape (77)  |  Shift (45)  |  Shine (49)  |  Stare (9)  |  Stone (168)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Vision (127)

Euler calculated without any apparent effort, just as men breathe, as eagles sustain themselves in the air.
In Oeuvres, t. 2 (1854), 138.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparent (85)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Effort (243)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Themselves (433)

Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.
What I Believe (1925). In The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959 (1992), 370.
Science quotes on:  |  End (603)  |  First (1302)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Great (1610)  |  Myth (58)  |  Open (277)  |  Space (523)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vigor (12)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Window (59)

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:  |  Age (509)  |  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)

Everything on this earth iz bought and sold, except air and water, and they would be if a kind Creator had not made the supply too grate for the demand.
In The Complete Works of Josh Billings (1876), 277.
Science quotes on:  |  Buy (21)  |  Creator (97)  |  Demand (131)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everything (489)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hydrology (10)  |  Kind (564)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Sell (15)  |  Supply (100)  |  Water (503)

Experimental evidence is strongly in favor of my argument that the chemical purity of the air is of no importance.
Lecturer on Physiology at London Hospital, in 'Impure Air Not Unhealthful If Stirred and Cooled,' in The New York Times, September 22, 1912.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Favor (69)  |  Importance (299)

Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate rival theories for explaining them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome.
'Evolution as Fact and Theory', in Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes (1983, 1994), Chap. 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Apple (46)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Data (162)  |  Debate (40)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Hierarchy (17)  |  Idea (881)  |  Increasing (4)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Mid-Air (3)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Outcome (15)  |  Pending (2)  |  Rival (20)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Structure (365)  |  Suspend (11)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Gravitation (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  World (1850)

Facts are the air of scientists. Without them you can never fly.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fly (153)  |  Never (1089)  |  Scientist (881)

Fleets are not confined to the ocean, but now sail over the land. … All the power of the British Navy has not been able to prevent Zeppelins from reaching England and attacking London, the very heart of the British Empire. Navies do not protect against aerial attack. … Heavier-than-air flying machines of the aeroplane type have crossed right over the heads of armies, of million of men, armed with the most modern weapons of destruction, and have raided places in the rear. Armies do not protect against aerial war.
In 'Preparedness for Aerial Defense', Addresses Before the Eleventh Annual Convention of the Navy League of the United States, Washington, D.C., April 10-13, 1916 (1916), 70.
Science quotes on:  |  Aerial (11)  |  Against (332)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Arm (82)  |  Army (35)  |  Attack (86)  |  British (42)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Do (1905)  |  England (43)  |  Fleet (4)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Heart (243)  |  London (15)  |  Machine (271)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Navy (10)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Power (771)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Protect (65)  |  Protection (41)  |  Raid (5)  |  Right (473)  |  Sail (37)  |  Type (171)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Zeppelin (4)

Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.
(1902). Widely quoted, though always without a source, for example in Laura Ward and Robert Allen, Foolish Words: The Most Stupid Words Ever Spoken (2003), 68. If you know a primary print source to authenticate this quote, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Airplane (43)  |  Flight (101)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Machine (271)

Food is at present obtained almost entirely from the energy of the sunlight. The radiation from the sun produces from the carbonic acid in the air more or less complicated carbon compounds which serve us in plants and vegetables. We use the latent chemical energy of these to keep our bodies warm, we convert it into muscular effort. We employ it in the complicated process of digestion to repair and replace the wasted cells of our bodies. … If the gigantic sources of power become available, food would be produced without recourse to sunlight. Vast cellars, in which artificial radiation is generated, may replace the cornfields and potato patches of the world.
From 'Fifty Years Hence', Strand Magazine (Dec 1931). Reprinted in Popular Mechanics (Mar 1932), 57, No. 3, 396-397.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Available (80)  |  Become (821)  |  Body (557)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbonic Acid (4)  |  Cell (146)  |  Cellar (4)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Energy (3)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Compound (117)  |  Convert (22)  |  Corn (20)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Effort (243)  |  Employ (115)  |  Energy (373)  |  Field (378)  |  Food (213)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Latent (13)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Muscular (2)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Patch (9)  |  Plant (320)  |  Potato (11)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Produced (187)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Recourse (12)  |  Repair (11)  |  Replace (32)  |  Source (101)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Use (771)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wasted (2)  |  World (1850)

For terrestrial vertebrates, the climate in the usual meteorological sense of the term would appear to be a reasonable approximation of the conditions of temperature, humidity, radiation, and air movement in which terrestrial vertebrates live. But, in fact, it would be difficult to find any other lay assumption about ecology and natural history which has less general validity. … Most vertebrates are much smaller than man and his domestic animals, and the universe of these small creatures is one of cracks and crevices, holes in logs, dense underbrush, tunnels, and nests—a world where distances are measured in yards rather than miles and where the difference between sunshine and shadow may be the difference between life and death. Actually, climate in the usual sense of the term is little more than a crude index to the physical conditions in which most terrestrial animals live.
From 'Interaction of physiology and behavior under natural conditions', collected in R.I. Bowman (ed.), The Galapagos (1966), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appear (122)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Climate (102)  |  Condition (362)  |  Crack (15)  |  Creature (242)  |  Crude (32)  |  Death (406)  |  Dense (5)  |  Difference (355)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Distance (171)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  General (521)  |  History (716)  |  Hole (17)  |  Humidity (3)  |  Index (5)  |  Less (105)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Log (7)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mile (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nest (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Small (489)  |  Sunshine (12)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Term (357)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Tunnel (13)  |  Underbrush (2)  |  Universe (900)  |  Validity (50)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  World (1850)  |  Yard (10)

For the first time in my life I saw the horizon as a curved line. It was accentuated by a thin seam of dark blue light - our atmosphere. Obviously this was not the ocean of air I had been told it was so many times in my life. I was terrified by its fragile appearance.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accentuate (2)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Blue (63)  |  Curve (49)  |  Dark (145)  |  First (1302)  |  First Time (14)  |  Fragile (26)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Line (100)  |  Obviously (11)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Saw (160)  |  Seam (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Tell (344)  |  Terrified (4)  |  Thin (18)  |  Time (1911)

For we are dwelling in a hollow of the earth, and fancy that we are on the surface… . But the fact is, that owing to our feebleness and sluggishness we are prevented from reaching the surface of the air.
Plato
In Plato and B. Jowett (trans.), The Dialogues of Plato: Republic (2nd ed., 1875), Vol. 1, 490.
Science quotes on:  |  Dwelling (12)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Hollow (6)  |  Owing (39)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Reach (286)  |  Surface (223)

Forests … are in fact the world’s air-conditioning system—the very lungs of the planet—and help to store the largest body of freshwater on the planet … essential to produce food for our planet’s growing population. The rainforests of the world also provide the livelihoods of more than a billion of the poorest people on this Earth… In simple terms, the rainforests, which encircle the world, are our very life-support system—and we are on the verge of switching it off.
Presidential Lecture (3 Nov 2008) at the Presidential Palace, Jakarta, Indonesia. On the Prince of Wales website.
Science quotes on:  |  Billion (104)  |  Body (557)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Food (213)  |  Forest (161)  |  Freshwater (3)  |  Growing (99)  |  Largest (39)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life-Support (2)  |  Livelihood (13)  |  Lung (37)  |  More (2558)  |  People (1031)  |  Planet (402)  |  Population (115)  |  Population Growth (9)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Simple (426)  |  Storage (6)  |  Store (49)  |  Support (151)  |  Switch (10)  |  System (545)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Verge (10)  |  World (1850)

Freedom is for science what the air is for an animal.
In Dernieres Pensees.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Freedom (145)

Gaia is a thin spherical shell of matter that surrounds the incandescent interior; it begins where the crustal rocks meet the magma of the Earth’s hot interior, about 100 miles below the surface, and proceeds another 100 miles outwards through the ocean and air to the even hotter thermosphere at the edge of space. It includes the biosphere and is a dynamic physiological system that has kept our planet fit for life for over three billion years. I call Gaia a physiological system because it appears to have the unconscious goal of regulating the climate and the chemistry at a comfortable state for life. Its goals are not set points but adjustable for whatever is the current environment and adaptable to whatever forms of life it carries.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptable (2)  |  Adjustable (2)  |  Appear (122)  |  Begin (275)  |  Below (26)  |  Billion (104)  |  Biosphere (14)  |  Call (781)  |  Carry (130)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Climate (102)  |  Comfortable (13)  |  Crust (43)  |  Current (122)  |  Dynamic (16)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Edge (51)  |  Environment (239)  |  Fit (139)  |  Form (976)  |  Gaia (15)  |  Goal (155)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Incandescent (7)  |  Include (93)  |  Interior (35)  |  Keep (104)  |  Life (1870)  |  Magma (4)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mile (43)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Planet (402)  |  Point (584)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Regulate (11)  |  Rock (176)  |  Set (400)  |  Shell (69)  |  Space (523)  |  Sphere (118)  |  State (505)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surround (33)  |  System (545)  |  Thin (18)  |  Unconscious (24)  |  Year (963)

Geology ... offers always some material for observation. ... [When] spring and summer come round, how easily may the hammer be buckled round the waist, and the student emerge from the dust of town into the joyous air of the country, for a few delightful hours among the rocks.
In The Story of a Boulder: or, Gleanings from the Note-book of a Field Geologist (1858), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Buckle (5)  |  Count (107)  |  Country (269)  |  Delight (111)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Dust (68)  |  Ease (40)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Geology (240)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Hour (192)  |  Joy (117)  |  Material (366)  |  Observation (593)  |  Offer (142)  |  Rock (176)  |  Season (47)  |  Spring (140)  |  Student (317)  |  Summer (56)  |  Town (30)  |  Waist (2)  |  Year (963)

Go into a room where the shutters are always shut (in a sick-room or a bed-room there should never be shutters shut), and though the room be uninhabited—though the air has never been polluted by the breathing of human beings, you will observe a close, musty smell of corrupt air—of air unpurified by the effect of the sun's rays.
Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not (1860), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Effect (414)  |  Health (210)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Light (635)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observe (179)  |  Ray (115)  |  Shut (41)  |  Sick (83)  |  Smell (29)  |  Sun (407)  |  Will (2350)

Go, wondrous creature, mount where science guides.
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old Time, and regulate the sun;
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule,
Then drop into thyself and be a fool.
Quoted in James Wood Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 125.
Science quotes on:  |  Creature (242)  |  Drop (77)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Fool (121)  |  Guide (107)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mount (43)  |  Old (499)  |  Orb (20)  |  Planet (402)  |  Rule (307)  |  Run (158)  |  State (505)  |  Sun (407)  |  Teach (299)  |  Tide (37)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wondrous (22)

Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun.
In An Essay on Man (1736), Epistle II, lines 19-22, 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Correct (95)  |  Creature (242)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Guide (107)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mount (43)  |  Old (499)  |  Orb (20)  |  Planet (402)  |  Regulate (11)  |  Run (158)  |  State (505)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tide (37)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wondrous (22)

He [Lord Bacon] appears to have been utterly ignorant of the discoveries which had just been made by Kepler’s calculations … he does not say a word about Napier’s Logarithms, which had been published only nine years before and reprinted more than once in the interval. He complained that no considerable advance had been made in Geometry beyond Euclid, without taking any notice of what had been done by Archimedes and Apollonius. He saw the importance of determining accurately the specific gravities of different substances, and himself attempted to form a table of them by a rude process of his own, without knowing of the more scientific though still imperfect methods previously employed by Archimedes, Ghetaldus and Porta. He speaks of the εὕρηκα of Archimedes in a manner which implies that he did not clearly appreciate either the problem to be solved or the principles upon which the solution depended. In reviewing the progress of Mechanics, he makes no mention either of Archimedes, or Stevinus, Galileo, Guldinus, or Ghetaldus. He makes no allusion to the theory of Equilibrium. He observes that a ball of one pound weight will fall nearly as fast through the air as a ball of two, without alluding to the theory of acceleration of falling bodies, which had been made known by Galileo more than thirty years before. He proposed an inquiry with regard to the lever,—namely, whether in a balance with arms of different length but equal weight the distance from the fulcrum has any effect upon the inclination—though the theory of the lever was as well understood in his own time as it is now. … He speaks of the poles of the earth as fixed, in a manner which seems to imply that he was not acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes; and in another place, of the north pole being above and the south pole below, as a reason why in our hemisphere the north winds predominate over the south.
From Spedding’s 'Preface' to De Interpretations Naturae Proœmium, in The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 3, 511-512. [Note: the Greek word “εὕρηκα” is “Eureka” —Webmaster.]
Science quotes on:  |  Acceleration (12)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Advance (298)  |  Apollonius (6)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Balance (82)  |  Ball (64)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Body (557)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Complain (10)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Depend (238)  |  Determine (152)  |  Different (595)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Employ (115)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Equinox (5)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Eureka (13)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fast (49)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Form (976)  |  Fulcrum (3)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Hemisphere (5)  |  Himself (461)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Importance (299)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Known (453)  |  Length (24)  |  Lever (13)  |  Logarithm (12)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mention (84)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  John Napier (4)  |  Nearly (137)  |  North Pole (5)  |  North Wind (2)  |  Notice (81)  |  Observe (179)  |  Pole (49)  |  Pound (15)  |  Precession (4)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regard (312)  |  Saw (160)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  South (39)  |  South Pole (3)  |  Speak (240)  |  Specific (98)  |  Specific Gravity (2)  |  Still (614)  |  Substance (253)  |  Table (105)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Weight (140)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.
Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Lemuel Gulliver (1726), Vol. 1, 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Cucumber (4)  |  Project (77)  |  Raw (28)  |  Seal (19)  |  Summer (56)  |  Vial (4)  |  Warm (74)  |  Year (963)

He that in ye mine of knowledge deepest diggeth, hath, like every other miner, ye least breathing time, and must sometimes at least come to terr. alt. for air.
[Explaining how he writes a letter as break from his study.]
Letter to Dr. Law (15 Dec 1716) as quoted in Norman Lockyer, (ed.), Nature (25 May 1881), 24, 39. The source refers to it as an unpublished letter.
Science quotes on:  |  Break (109)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Deepest (4)  |  Hath (2)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Least (75)  |  Letter (117)  |  Mine (78)  |  Miner (9)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Write (250)

I am concerned about the air we breathe and the water we drink. If overfishing continues, if pollution continues, many of these species will disappear off the face of the earth.
Science quotes on:  |  Air Pollution (13)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Continue (179)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Drink (56)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Face (214)  |  Face Of The Earth (5)  |  Fish (130)  |  Ocean Pollution (10)  |  Overfishing (27)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Species (435)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Pollution (17)  |  Will (2350)

I am inclined to think I shall owe ten years of my life to the good effects of the gas, for I inhale about 20 gallons every day in showing patients how to commence. The gas is just like air, only containing a little more oxygen. Oxygen is what gives life and vitality to the blood. We live on oxygen.
Quoted in The Electrical Review (11 Aug 1893), Vol. 33, 143.
Science quotes on:  |  Blood (144)  |  Effect (414)  |  Gas (89)  |  Good (906)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Nitrous Oxide (5)  |  Owe (71)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Patient (209)  |  Think (1122)  |  Vitality (24)  |  Year (963)

I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain,
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams,
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
The Cloud (1820). In K. Raine (ed.), Shelley (1974), 289.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Bare (33)  |  Build (211)  |  Cavern (9)  |  Cenotaph (2)  |  Change (639)  |  Child (333)  |  Convex (6)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Die (94)  |  Dome (9)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pass (241)  |  Pore (7)  |  Rain (70)  |  Shore (25)  |  Sky (174)  |  Stain (10)  |  Through (846)  |  Tomb (15)  |  Water (503)  |  Wind (141)  |  Womb (25)

I believe with Schopenhauer that one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from personal life into the world of objective perception and thought; this desire may be compared with the townsman’s irresistible longing to escape from his noisy, cramped surroundings into the silence of high mountains, where the eye ranges freely through the still, pure air and fondly traces out the restful contours apparently built for eternity.
Address at The Physical Society, Berlin (1918) for Max Planck’s 60th birthday, 'Principles of Research', collected in Essays in Science (1934) 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparently (22)  |  Art (680)  |  Belief (615)  |  Built (7)  |  Compared (8)  |  Contour (3)  |  Crudity (4)  |  Desire (212)  |  Dreariness (3)  |  Escape (85)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everyday Life (15)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fetter (4)  |  Fetters (7)  |  Finely (3)  |  Freely (13)  |  High (370)  |  Hopeless (17)  |  Hopelessness (6)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Longing (19)  |  Motive (62)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Noisy (3)  |  Objective (96)  |  Pain (144)  |  Perception (97)  |  Personal (75)  |  Pure (299)  |  Range (104)  |  Restful (2)  |  Schopenhauer (6)  |  Arthur Schopenhauer (19)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Shifting (5)  |  Silence (62)  |  Still (614)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Surrounding (13)  |  Tempered (2)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Trace (109)  |  World (1850)

I do not find that any one has doubted that there are four elements. The highest of these is supposed to be fire, and hence proceed the eyes of so many glittering stars. The next is that spirit, which both the Greeks and ourselves call by the same name, air. It is by the force of this vital principle, pervading all things and mingling with all, that the earth, together with the fourth element, water, is balanced in the middle of space.
In The Natural History of Pliny (1855), Vol. 1, 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Balance (82)  |  Both (496)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  Force (497)  |  Fourth (8)  |  Glittering (2)  |  Greek (109)  |  Middle (19)  |  Mingle (9)  |  Name (359)  |  Next (238)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Pervade (10)  |  Pervading (7)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Space (523)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Vital (89)  |  Water (503)

I experimented with all possible maneuvers—loops, somersaults and barrel rolls. I stood upside down on one finger and burst out laughing, a shrill, distorted laugh. Nothing I did altered the automatic rhythm of the air. Delivered from gravity and buoyancy, I flew around in space.
Describing his early test (1943) in the Mediterranean Sea of the Aqua-Lung he co-invented.
Quoted in 'Sport: Poet of the Depths', Time (28 Mar 1960)
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Automatic (16)  |  Buoyancy (7)  |  Burst (41)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Distort (22)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Down (455)  |  Early (196)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Finger (48)  |  Flying (74)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Loop (6)  |  Lung (37)  |  Maneuver (2)  |  Mediterranean (9)  |  Mediterranean Sea (6)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Possible (560)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Roll (41)  |  Sea (326)  |  Shrill (2)  |  Somersault (2)  |  Space (523)  |  Stand (284)  |  Test (221)  |  Upside Down (8)

I finally saw that the blood, forced by the action of the left ventricle into the arteries, was distributed to the body at large, and its several parts, in the same manner as it is sent through the lungs, impelled by the right ventricle into the pulmonary artery, and that it then passed through the veins and along the vena cava, and so round to the left ventricle in the manner already indicated. Which motion we may be allowed to call circular, in the same way as Aristotle says that the air and the rain emulate the circular motion of the superior bodies; for the moist earth, warmed by the sun, evaporates; the vapours drawn upwards are condensed, and descending in the form of rain, moisten the earth again; and by this arrangement are generations of living things produced.
From William Harvey and Robert Willis (trans.), The Works of William Harvey, M.D. (1847), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Already (226)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Artery (10)  |  Blood (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Circular (19)  |  Circular Motion (7)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emulate (2)  |  Evaporate (5)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  Impelled (2)  |  Large (398)  |  Living (492)  |  Lung (37)  |  Moist (13)  |  Moisten (2)  |  Motion (320)  |  Pass (241)  |  Produced (187)  |  Pulmonary (3)  |  Rain (70)  |  Right (473)  |  Saw (160)  |  Say (989)  |  Sun (407)  |  Superior (88)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Upward (44)  |  Upwards (6)  |  Vapour (16)  |  Vein (27)  |  Ventricle (7)  |  Warm (74)  |  Way (1214)

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went—and came, and brought no day.
Darkness (1816), lines 1-6. In Jerome J. McGann (ed.), Lord Byron: The Complete Poetical Works (1986), Vol. 4, 40-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Blind (98)  |  Bright (81)  |  Dream (222)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sun (407)  |  Wander (44)

I had at one time a very bad fever of which I almost died. In my fever I had a long consistent delirium. I dreamt that I was in Hell, and that Hell is a place full of all those happenings that are improbable but not impossible. The effects of this are curious. Some of the damned, when they first arrive below, imagine that they will beguile the tedium of eternity by games of cards. But they find this impossible, because, whenever a pack is shuffled, it comes out in perfect order, beginning with the Ace of Spades and ending with the King of Hearts. There is a special department of Hell for students of probability. In this department there are many typewriters and many monkeys. Every time that a monkey walks on a typewriter, it types by chance one of Shakespeare's sonnets. There is another place of torment for physicists. In this there are kettles and fires, but when the kettles are put on the fires, the water in them freezes. There are also stuffy rooms. But experience has taught the physicists never to open a window because, when they do, all the air rushes out and leaves the room a vacuum.
'The Metaphysician's Nightmare', Nightmares of Eminent Persons and Other Stories (1954), 38-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrival (15)  |  Bad (185)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Chance (244)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Curious (95)  |  Damned (4)  |  Death (406)  |  Delirium (3)  |  Department (93)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Effect (414)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fever (34)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Freeze (6)  |  Game (104)  |  Happening (59)  |  Heart (243)  |  Hell (32)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Improbable (15)  |  Kettle (3)  |  Long (778)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Never (1089)  |  Open (277)  |  Opening (15)  |  Order (638)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Probability (135)  |  Room (42)  |  Rush (18)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |  Shuffle (7)  |  Sonnet (5)  |  Special (188)  |  Student (317)  |  Tedium (3)  |  Time (1911)  |  Torment (18)  |  Type (171)  |  Typewriter (6)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)  |  Window (59)

I had gone on a walk on a fine Sabbath afternoon. I had entered the Green [of Glasgow] by the gate at the foot of Charlotte Street—had passed the old washing-house. I was thinking upon the engine at the time, and had gone as far as the herd's house, when the idea came into my mind that as steam was an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication were made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder. I then saw that I must get rid of the condensed steam and injection water if I used a jet, as in Newcomen's engine. Two ways of doing this occurred to me. First, the water might be run off by a descending pipe, if an outlet could be got at the depth of 35 or 36 feet, and any air might be extracted by a small pump. The second was to make the pump large enough to extract both water and air. ... I had not walked further than the Golf-house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind.
[In Robert Hart's words, a recollection of the description of Watt's moment of inspiration, in May 1765, for improving Thomas Newcomen's steam engine.]
In Robert Hart, 'Reminiscences of James Watt' (read 2 Nov 1857), Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society (1859), Vol. 1, 1. Note that these are not the verbatim words of James Watt, but are only a recollection of them by Robert Hart, who is quoting as best he can from memory of a conversation he and his brother had with James Watt that took place over 43 years previously. In his Reminiscences, Hart explains, “I have accordingly thrown together the following brief narrative:— As these meetings took place forty-three years since, many observations that were made at the time may have escaped me at present; yet, when the same subjects are touched on, I have as distinct recollection of his treatment of them as if it were yesterday.”
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Communication (101)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Cooling (10)  |  Cylinder (11)  |  Depth (97)  |  Doing (277)  |  Elastic (2)  |  Engine (99)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enter (145)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Extract (40)  |  First (1302)  |  Gate (33)  |  Green (65)  |  House (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Injection (9)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Invention (400)  |  Large (398)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  Must (1525)  |  Thomas Newcomen (2)  |  Old (499)  |  Pass (241)  |  Run (158)  |  Saw (160)  |  Small (489)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Word (650)

I have a friendly feeling towards pigs generally, and consider them the most intelligent of beasts, not excepting the elephant and the anthropoid ape—the dog is not to be mentioned in this connection. I also like his disposition and attitude towards all other creatures, especially man. He is not suspicious, or shrinkingly submissive, like horses, cattle, and sheep; nor an impudent devil-may-care like the goat; nor hostile like the goose; nor condescending like the cat; nor a flattering parasite like the dog. He views us from a totally different, a sort of democratic, standpoint as fellow-citizens and brothers, and takes it for granted, or grunted, that we understand his language, and without servility or insolence he has a natural, pleasant, camerados-all or hail-fellow-well-met air with us.
In The Book of a Naturalist (1919), 295-296.
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropoid (9)  |  Ape (54)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Beast (58)  |  Brother (47)  |  Care (203)  |  Cat (52)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Comrade (4)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cow (42)  |  Creature (242)  |  Democratic (12)  |  Devil (34)  |  Different (595)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Dog (70)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Flattery (7)  |  Goat (9)  |  Goose (13)  |  Grant (76)  |  Grunt (3)  |  Horse (78)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Language (308)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mention (84)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Pig (8)  |  Pleasant (22)  |  Sheep (13)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Understand (648)  |  View (496)

I have been battering away at Saturn, returning to the charge every now and then. I have effected several breaches in the solid ring, and now I am splash into the fluid one, amid a clash of symbols truly astounding. When I reappear it will be in the dusky ring, which is something like the state of the air supposing the siege of Sebastopol conducted from a forest of guns 100 miles one way, and 30,000 miles the other, and the shot never to stop, but go spinning away round a circle, radius 170,000 miles.
Letter to Lewis Campbell (28 Aug 1857). In P. M. Harman (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1990), Vol. 1, 1846-1862, 538.
Science quotes on:  |  Astounding (9)  |  Charge (63)  |  Circle (117)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Dusky (4)  |  Effect (414)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Forest (161)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ring (18)  |  Saturn (15)  |  Solid (119)  |  Something (718)  |  Spinning (18)  |  State (505)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Truly (118)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

I have procured air [oxygen] ... between five and six times as good as the best common air that I have ever met with.
Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775), Vol. 2, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Common (447)  |  Good (906)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Time (1911)

I know Teddy Kennedy had fun at the Democratic convention when he said that I said that trees and vegetation caused 80 percent of the air pollution in this country. ... Well, now he was a little wrong about what I said. I didn't say 80 percent. I said 92 percent—93 percent, pardon me. And I didn’t say air pollution, I said oxides of nitrogen. Growing and decaying vegetation in this land are responsible for 93 percent of the oxides of nitrogen. ... If we are totally successful and can eliminate all the manmade oxides of nitrogen, we’ll still have 93 percent as much as we have in the air today.
[Reagan reconfirming his own pathetic lack of understanding of air pollutants.]
Address to senior citizens at Sea World, Orlando, Florida (9 Oct 1980). As quoted later in Douglas E. Kneeland, 'Teamsters Back Republican', New York Times (10 Oct 1980), D14.
Science quotes on:  |  Air Pollution (13)  |  Cause (561)  |  Country (269)  |  Decay (59)  |  Democratic (12)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growing (99)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lack (127)  |  Little (717)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Pardon (7)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Say (989)  |  Still (614)  |  Successful (134)  |  Today (321)  |  Tree (269)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Wrong (246)

I observed that plants not only have a faculty to correct bad air in six to ten days, by growing in it…but that they perform this important office in a complete manner in a few hours; that this wonderful operation is by no means owing to the vegetation of the plant, but to the influence of light of the sun upon the plant.
In Tobias George Smollett (ed.), 'Experiments Upon Vegetables', The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature (1779), 48, 334.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Complete (209)  |  Growing (99)  |  Hour (192)  |  Influence (231)  |  Light (635)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Observed (149)  |  Office (71)  |  Operation (221)  |  Owing (39)  |  Perform (123)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Plant (320)  |  Sun (407)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Wonderful (155)

I return to the newborn world, and the soft-soil fields,
What their first birthing lifted to the shores
Of light, and trusted to the wayward winds.
First the Earth gave the shimmer of greenery
And grasses to deck the hills; then over the meadows
The flowering fields are bright with the color of springtime,
And for all the trees that shoot into the air.
On the Nature of Things, trans. Anthony M. Esolen (1995) Book 5, lines 777-84, 181.
Science quotes on:  |  Bright (81)  |  Color (155)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Grass (49)  |  Lift (57)  |  Light (635)  |  Meadow (21)  |  Newborn (5)  |  Return (133)  |  Soft (30)  |  Soil (98)  |  Springtime (5)  |  Tree (269)  |  Trust (72)  |  Wind (141)  |  World (1850)

I searched along the changing edge
Where, sky-pierced now the cloud had broken.
I saw no bird, no blade of wing,
No song was spoken.
I stood, my eyes turned upward still
And drank the air and breathed the light.
Then, like a hawk upon the wind,
I climbed the sky, I made the flight.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Blade (11)  |  Break (109)  |  Breath (61)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Broken (56)  |  Change (639)  |  Climb (39)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Drink (56)  |  Edge (51)  |  Eye (440)  |  Flight (101)  |  Hawk (4)  |  Light (635)  |  Saw (160)  |  Search (175)  |  See (1094)  |  Sky (174)  |  Song (41)  |  Speak (240)  |  Stand (284)  |  Still (614)  |  Turn (454)  |  Upward (44)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wing (79)

I shall never forget my first encounter with gorillas. Sound preceded sight. Odor preceded sound in the form of an overwhelming, musky-barnyard, humanlike scent. The air was suddenly rent by a high-pitched series of screams followed by the rhythmic rondo of sharp pok-pok chestbeats from a great silverbacked male obscured behind what seemed an impenetrable wall of vegetation.
Describing her 1963 trip to Kabara in Gorillas in the Mist (1983), 3. (The screams and chest-beating were of alarm, not ferocity.)
Science quotes on:  |  Barnyard (2)  |  Behind (139)  |  Encounter (23)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forget (125)  |  Form (976)  |  Gorilla (19)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Impenetrable (7)  |  Musk (2)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Odor (11)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Scent (7)  |  Scream (7)  |  Series (153)  |  Sharp (17)  |  Sight (135)  |  Silverback (2)  |  Sound (187)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Wall (71)

I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.
In The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation (1976, 1987), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Earth (1076)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Real (159)  |  Thin (18)  |  Think (1122)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)

I took a glass retort, capable of containing eight ounces of water, and distilled fuming spirit of nitre according to the usual method. In the beginning the acid passed over red, then it became colourless, and lastly again all red: no sooner did this happen, than I took away the receiver; and tied to the mouth of the retort a bladder emptied of air, which I had moistened in its inside with milk of lime lac calcis, (i.e. lime-water, containing more quicklime than water can dissolve) to prevent its being corroded by the acid. Then I continued the distillation, and the bladder gradually expanded. Here-upon I left every thing to cool, tied up the bladder, and took it off from the mouth of the retort.— I filled a ten-ounce glass with this air and put a small burning candle into it; when immediately the candle burnt with a large flame, of so vivid a light that it dazzled the eyes. I mixed one part of this air with three parts of air, wherein fire would not burn; and this mixture afforded air, in every respect familiar to the common sort. Since this air is absolutely necessary for the generation of fire, and makes about one-third of our common air, I shall henceforth, for shortness sake call it empyreal air, [literally fire-air] the air which is unserviceable for the fiery phenomenon, and which makes abut two-thirds of common air, I shall for the future call foul air [literally corrupted air].
Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer (1777), Chemical Observations and Experiments on Air and Fire (1780), trans. J. R. Forster, 34-5.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Acid (83)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bladder (3)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Call (781)  |  Candle (32)  |  Capable (174)  |  Common (447)  |  Corrosion (4)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Distillation (11)  |  Expand (56)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flame (44)  |  Foul (15)  |  Fume (7)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Glass (94)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Happen (282)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Large (398)  |  Light (635)  |  Lime (3)  |  Literally (30)  |  Method (531)  |  Milk (23)  |  Mixture (44)  |  More (2558)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nitric Acid (2)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pass (241)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Receiver (5)  |  Respect (212)  |  Retort (3)  |  Sake (61)  |  Small (489)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Water (503)

I use the word “attraction” here in a general sense for any endeavor whatever of bodies to approach one another, whether that endeavor occurs as a result of the action of the bodies either drawn toward one other or acting on one another by means of spirits emitted or whether it arises from the action of aether or of air or of any medium whatsoever—whether corporeal or incorporeal—in any way impelling toward one another the bodies floating therein. I use the word “impulse” in the same general sense, considering in this treatise not the species of forces and their physical qualities but their quantities and mathematical proportions, as I have explained in the definitions.
The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687), 3rd edition (1726), trans. I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman (1999), Book I, Section II, Scholium, 588.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Aether (13)  |  Approach (112)  |  Arise (162)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Definition (238)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Explain (334)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Occur (151)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Result (700)  |  Sense (785)  |  Species (435)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Word (650)

I use the word nursing for want of a better. It has been limited to signify little more than the administration of medicines and the application of poultices. It ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the proper selection and administration of diet—all at the least expense of vital power to the patient.
Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not (1860), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Better (493)  |  Cleanliness (6)  |  Diet (56)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Light (635)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Little (717)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  Nurse (33)  |  Nursing (9)  |  Patient (209)  |  Power (771)  |  Proper (150)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Selection (130)  |  Signify (17)  |  Use (771)  |  Vital (89)  |  Want (504)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Word (650)

I wanted some new names to express my facts in Electrical science without involving more theory than I could help & applied to a friend Dr Nicholl [his doctor], who has given me some that I intend to adopt for instance, a body decomposable by the passage of the Electric current, I call an ‘electrolyte’ and instead of saying that water is electro chemically decomposed I say it is ‘electrolyzed’. The intensity above which a body is decomposed beneath which it conducts without decomposition I call the ‘Electrolyte intensity’ &c &c. What have been called: the poles of the battery I call the electrodes they are not merely surfaces of metal, but even of water & air, to which the term poles could hardly apply without receiving a new sense. Electrolytes must consist of two parts which during the electrolization, are determined the one in the one direction, and the other towards the poles where they are evolved; these evolved substances I call zetodes, which are therefore the direct constituents of electrolites.
Letter to William Whewell (24 Apr 1834). In Frank A. J. L. James (ed.), The Correspondence of Michael Faraday: Volume 2, 1832-1840 (1993), 176.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Battery (12)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Consist (223)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Current (122)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Direct (228)  |  Direction (185)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electrolysis (8)  |  Electrolyte (4)  |  Express (192)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Friend (180)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Merely (315)  |  Metal (88)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Pole (49)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Term (357)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Two (936)  |  Want (504)  |  Water (503)

I will not now discuss the Controversie betwixt some of the Modern Atomists, and the Cartesians; the former of whom think, that betwixt the Earth and the Stars, and betwixt these themselves there are vast Tracts of Space that are empty, save where the beams of Light do pass through them; and the later of whom tell us, that the Intervals betwixt the Stars and Planets (among which the Earth may perhaps be reckon'd) are perfectly fill'd, but by a Matter far subtiler than our Air, which some call Celestial, and others Æther. I shall not, I say, engage in this controversie, but thus much seems evident, That If there be such a Celestial Matter, it must ' make up far the Greatest part of the Universe known to us. For the Interstellar part of the world (If I may so stile it) bears so very great a proportion to the Globes, and their Atmospheres too, (If other Stars have any as well as the Earth,) that It Is almost incomparably Greater in respect of them, than all our Atmosphere is in respect of the Clouds, not to make the comparison between the Sea and the Fishes that swim in it.
A Continuation of New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring and Weight of the Air, and their Effects (1669), 127.
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Beam (26)  |  Bear (162)  |  Call (781)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Dark Matter (4)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Empty (82)  |  Engage (41)  |  Ether (37)  |  Evident (92)  |  Former (138)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Interstellar (8)  |  Known (453)  |  Light (635)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modern (402)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Planet (402)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Respect (212)  |  Save (126)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Swim (32)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

If a small animal and a lighted candle be placed in a closed flask, so that no air can enter, in a short time the candle will go out, nor will the animal long survive. ... The animal is not suffocated by the smoke of the candle. ... The reason why the animal can live some time after the candle has gone out seems to be that the flame needs a continuous rapid and full supply of nitro-aereal particles. ... For animals, a less aereal spirit is sufficient. ... The movements of the lungs help not a little towards sucking in aereal particles which may remain in said flask and towards transferring them to the blood of the animal.
Remarking (a hundred years before Priestley identified oxygen) that a component of the air is taken into the blood.
Quoted in William Stirling, Some Apostles of Physiology (1902), 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Blood (144)  |  Candle (32)  |  Closed (38)  |  Component (51)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Enter (145)  |  Flame (44)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Lung (37)  |  Movement (162)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Particle (200)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remain (355)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Short (200)  |  Small (489)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supply (100)  |  Survive (87)  |  Time (1911)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

If experiments are performed thousands of times at all seasons and in every place without once producing the effects mentioned by your philosophers, poets, and historians, this will mean nothing and we must believe their words rather our own eyes? But what if I find for you a state of the air that has all the conditions you say are required, and still the egg is not cooked nor the lead ball destroyed? Alas! I should be wasting my efforts... for all too prudently you have secured your position by saying that 'there is needed for this effect violent motion, a great quantity of exhalations, a highly attenuated material and whatever else conduces to it.' This 'whatever else' is what beats me, and gives you a blessed harbor, a sanctuary completely secure.
'The Assayer' (1623), trans. Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957), 273.
Science quotes on:  |  Ball (64)  |  Beat (42)  |  Bless (25)  |  Blessed (20)  |  Completely (137)  |  Condition (362)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Effect (414)  |  Effort (243)  |  Egg (71)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Great (1610)  |  Historian (59)  |  Lead (391)  |  Material (366)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mention (84)  |  Motion (320)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Perform (123)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Required (108)  |  Sanctuary (12)  |  Say (989)  |  Season (47)  |  Secured (18)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

If it was the warmth of the sun, and not its light, that produced this operation, it would follow, that, by warming the water near the fire about as much as it would have been in the sun, this very air would be produced; but this is far from being the case.
In Tobias George Smollett (ed.), 'Experiments Upon Vegetables', The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature (1779), 48, 336.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Fire (203)  |  Follow (389)  |  Light (635)  |  Operation (221)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Produced (187)  |  Sun (407)  |  Warming (24)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Water (503)

If one of these elements, heat, becomes predominant in any body whatsoever, it destroys and dissolves all the others with its violence. …Again if too much moisture enters the channels of a body, and thus introduces disproportion, the other elements, adulterated by the liquid, are impaired, and the virtues of the mixture dissolved. This defect, in turn, may arise from the cooling properties of moist winds and breezes blowing upon the body. In the same way, increase or diminution of the proportion of air or of the earthy which is natural to the body may enfeeble the other elements.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 1, Chap 4, Sec. 6. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 18-19.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Blowing (22)  |  Body (557)  |  Cooling (10)  |  Defect (31)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Dominant (26)  |  Element (322)  |  Enter (145)  |  Heat (180)  |  Impair (3)  |  Increase (225)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Moist (13)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Natural (810)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phlogiston Theory (2)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Turn (454)  |  Violence (37)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Wind (141)

If the germ plasm wants to swim in the ocean, it makes itself a fish; if the germ plasm wants to fly in the air, it makes itself a bird. If it wants to go to Harvard, it makes itself a man. The strangest thing of all is that the germ plasm that we carry around within us has done all those things. There was a time, hundreds of millions of years ago, when it was making fish. Then … amphibia … reptiles … mammals, and now it’s making men.
In talk, 'Origin of Death' (1970). Wald gave the context whereby the most one-celled organisms continued to reproduce by cell division.
Science quotes on:  |  Amphibian (7)  |  Bird (163)  |  Carry (130)  |  Carrying (7)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fish (130)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Germ (54)  |  Harvard (7)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Making (300)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Man (2252)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Plasm (3)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Swim (32)  |  Swimming (19)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Want (504)  |  Year (963)

If the juices of the body were more chymically examined, especially by a naturalist, that knows the ways of making fixed bodies volatile, and volatile fixed, and knows the power of the open air in promoting the former of those operations; it is not improbable, that both many things relating to the nature of the humours, and to the ways of sweetening, actuating, and otherwise altering them, may be detected, and the importance of such discoveries may be discerned.
Quoted In Barbara Kaplan (ed.) Divulging of Useful Truths in Physick: The Medical Agenda of Robert Boyle (1993), 92.
Science quotes on:  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Detect (45)  |  Discern (35)  |  Former (138)  |  Humour (116)  |  Importance (299)  |  Know (1538)  |  Making (300)  |  More (2558)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Open (277)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Power (771)  |  Research (753)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)

If there be one man, more than another, who deserves to succeed in flying through the air, that man is Mr. Laurence Hargrave, of Sydney, New South Wales.
In Progress in Flying Machines (1894), 218.
Science quotes on:  |  Another (7)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Flying (74)  |  Lawrence Hargrave (4)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  South (39)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Through (846)

If there is a regulation that says you have to do something—whether it be putting in seat belts, catalytic converters, clean air for coal plants, clean water—the first tack that the lawyers use, among others things, and that companies use, is that it’s going to drive the electricity bill up, drive the cost of cars up, drive everything up. It repeatedly has been demonstrated that once the engineers start thinking about it, it’s actually far less than the original estimates. We should remember that when we hear this again, because you will hear it again.
Talk (Apr 2007) quoted in 'Obama's Energy and Environment Team Includes a Nobel Laureate', Kent Garber, US News website (posted 11 Dec 2008).
Science quotes on:  |  Car (75)  |  Clean (52)  |  Coal (64)  |  Cost (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Everything (489)  |  First (1302)  |  Hear (144)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Money (178)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Remember (189)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

If this fire determined by the sun, be received on the blackest known bodies, its heat will be long retain'd therein; and hence such bodies are the soonest and the strongest heated by the flame fire, as also the quickest dried, after having been moisten'd with water; and it may be added, that they also burn by much the readiest: all which points are confirm'd by daily observations. Let a piece of cloth be hung in the air, open to the sun, one part of it dyed black, another part of a white colour, others of scarlet, and diverse other colours; the black part will always be found to heat the most, and the quickest of all; and the others will each be found to heat more slowly, by how much they reflect the rays more strongly to the eye; thus the white will warm the slowest of them all, and next to that the red, and so of the rest in proportion, as their colour is brighter or weaker.
A New Method of Chemistry, 2nd edition (1741), 262.
Science quotes on:  |  Black Body (2)  |  Burn (99)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Daily (91)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flame (44)  |  Heat (180)  |  Known (453)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Next (238)  |  Observation (593)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Ray (115)  |  Rest (287)  |  Retain (57)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Sun (407)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)  |  White (132)  |  Will (2350)

If we ascribe the ejection of the proton to a Compton recoil from a quantum of 52 x 106 electron volts, then the nitrogen recoil atom arising by a similar process should have an energy not greater than about 400,000 volts, should produce not more than about 10,000 ions, and have a range in the air at N.T.P. of about 1-3mm. Actually, some of the recoil atoms in nitrogen produce at least 30,000 ions. In collaboration with Dr. Feather, I have observed the recoil atoms in an expansion chamber, and their range, estimated visually, was sometimes as much as 3mm. at N.T.P.
These results, and others I have obtained in the course of the work, are very difficult to explain on the assumption that the radiation from beryllium is a quantum radiation, if energy and momentum are to be conserved in the collisions. The difficulties disappear, however, if it be assumed that the radiation consists of particles of mass 1 and charge 0, or neutrons. The capture of the a-particle by the Be9 nucleus may be supposed to result in the formation of a C12 nucleus and the emission of the neutron. From the energy relations of this process the velocity of the neutron emitted in the forward direction may well be about 3 x 109 cm. per sec. The collisions of this neutron with the atoms through which it passes give rise to the recoil atoms, and the observed energies of the recoil atoms are in fair agreement with this view. Moreover, I have observed that the protons ejected from hydrogen by the radiation emitted in the opposite direction to that of the exciting a-particle appear to have a much smaller range than those ejected by the forward radiation.
This again receives a simple explanation on the neutron hypothesis.
'Possible Existence of a Neutron', Letter to the Editor, Nature, 1932, 129, 312.
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Arising (22)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Atom (381)  |  Beryllium (3)  |  Charge (63)  |  Collaboration (16)  |  Collision (16)  |  Consist (223)  |  Course (413)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Electron (96)  |  Energy (373)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Formation (100)  |  Forward (104)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Ion (21)  |  Mass (160)  |  Momentum (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Neutron (23)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Observed (149)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Process (439)  |  Proton (23)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Range (104)  |  Receive (117)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Simple (426)  |  Through (846)  |  Velocity (51)  |  View (496)  |  Work (1402)

If we lived on a planet where nothing ever changed, there would be little to do. There would be nothing to figure out. There would be no impetus for science. And if we lived in an unpredictable world, where things changed in random or very complex ways, we would not be able to figure things out. But we live in an in-between universe, where things change, but according to patterns, rules, or as we call them, laws of nature. If I throw a stick up in the air, it always falls down. If the sun sets in the west, it always rises again the next morning in the east. And so it becomes possible to figure things out. We can do science, and with it we can improve our lives.
Cosmos (1980, 1985), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  According (236)  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Down (455)  |  East (18)  |  Fall (243)  |  Figure (162)  |  Figure Out (7)  |  Impetus (5)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Morning (98)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Next (238)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Planet (402)  |  Possible (560)  |  Random (42)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rule (307)  |  Set (400)  |  Setting (44)  |  Stick (27)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throw (45)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unpredictability (7)  |  Unpredictable (18)  |  Way (1214)  |  West (21)  |  World (1850)

If we take a survey of our own world … our portion in the immense system of creation, we find every part of it, the earth, the waters, and the air that surround it, filled, and as it were crouded with life, down from the largest animals that we know of to the smallest insects the naked eye can behold, and from thence to others still smaller, and totally invisible without the assistance of the microscope. Every tree, every plant, every leaf, serves not only as an habitation, but as a world to some numerous race, till animal existence becomes so exceedingly refined, that the effluvia of a blade of grass would be food for thousands.
In The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology (27 Jan O.S. 1794), 60. The word “crouded” is as it appears in the original.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Become (821)  |  Behold (19)  |  Blade (11)  |  Creation (350)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effluvium (2)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Existence (481)  |  Eye (440)  |  Filled (3)  |  Find (1014)  |  Food (213)  |  Grass (49)  |  Habitation (7)  |  Immense (89)  |  Insect (89)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Largest (39)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Naked Eye (12)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Plant (320)  |  Portion (86)  |  Race (278)  |  Refined (8)  |  Smaller (4)  |  Smallest (9)  |  Still (614)  |  Surround (33)  |  Survey (36)  |  System (545)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Totally (6)  |  Tree (269)  |  Water (503)  |  World (1850)

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
In last chapter 'Conclusion', from Walden: or, Life in the Woods (1854), collected in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1894), Vol. 2, 499.
Science quotes on:  |  Building (158)  |  Castle (5)  |  Castle In The Air (4)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Loss (117)  |  Research (753)  |  Work (1402)

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, friends, and spirit - and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls - family, health, friends, and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Balance (82)  |  Ball (64)  |  Bounce (2)  |  Damage (38)  |  Drop (77)  |  Family (101)  |  Five (16)  |  Friend (180)  |  Game (104)  |  Glass (94)  |  Health (210)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Irrevocably (2)  |  Keep (104)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mark (47)  |  Marked (55)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nick (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Rubber (11)  |  Same (166)  |  Shatter (8)  |  Shattered (8)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Strive (53)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

In ancient days two aviators procured to themselves wings. Daedalus flew safely through the middle air and was duly honored on his landing. Icarus soared upwards to the sun till the wax melted which bound his wings and his flight ended in fiasco. In weighing their achievements, there is something to be said for Icarus. The classical authorities tell us that he was only “doing a stunt,” but I prefer to think of him as the man who brought to light a serious constructional defect in the flying machines of his day.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Authority (99)  |  Aviator (2)  |  Bind (26)  |  Bound (120)  |  Classical (49)  |  Defect (31)  |  Doing (277)  |  End (603)  |  Fiasco (2)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Honor (57)  |  Icarus (2)  |  Light (635)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Melt (16)  |  Serious (98)  |  Soar (23)  |  Something (718)  |  Stunt (7)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Upward (44)  |  Wax (13)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Wing (79)

In Cairo, I secured a few grains of wheat that had slumbered for more than thirty centuries in an Egyptian tomb. As I looked at them this thought came into my mind: If one of those grains had been planted on the banks of the Nile the year after it grew, and all its lineal descendants had been planted and replanted from that time until now, its progeny would to-day be sufficiently numerous to feed the teeming millions of the world. An unbroken chain of life connects the earliest grains of wheat with the grains that we sow and reap. There is in the grain of wheat an invisible something which has power to discard the body that we see, and from earth and air fashion a new body so much like the old one that we cannot tell the one from the other.…This invisible germ of life can thus pass through three thousand resurrections.
In In His Image (1922), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Bank (31)  |  Body (557)  |  Century (319)  |  Chain (51)  |  Connect (126)  |  Descendant (18)  |  Discard (32)  |  DNA (81)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Feeding (7)  |  Germ (54)  |  Grain (50)  |  Growth (200)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Million (124)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Nile (5)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Plant (320)  |  Planting (4)  |  Power (771)  |  Progeny (16)  |  Reap (19)  |  Resurrection (4)  |  Secured (18)  |  See (1094)  |  Slumber (6)  |  Something (718)  |  Sow (11)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Teeming (5)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomb (15)  |  Unbroken (10)  |  Wheat (10)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

In every combustion there is disengagement of the matter of fire or of light. A body can burn only in pure air [oxygen]. There is no destruction or decomposition of pure air and the increase in weight of the body burnt is exactly equal to the weight of air destroyed or decomposed. The body burnt changes into an acid by addition of the substance that increases its weight. Pure air is a compound of the matter of fire or of light with a base. In combustion the burning body removes the base, which it attracts more strongly than does the matter of heat, which appears as flame, heat and light.
'Memoire sur la combustion en général', Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences, 1777, 592. Reprinted in Oeuvres de Lavoisier (1864), Vol. 2, 225-33, trans. M. P. Crosland.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Addition (70)  |  Base (120)  |  Body (557)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Change (639)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Compound (117)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flame (44)  |  Heat (180)  |  Increase (225)  |  Light (635)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Remove (50)  |  Stoichiometry (2)  |  Substance (253)  |  Weight (140)

In fact, the thickness of the Earth's atmosphere, compared with the size of the Earth, is in about the same ratio as the thickness of a coat of shellac on a schoolroom globe is to the diameter of the globe. That's the air that nurtures us and almost all other life on Earth, that protects us from deadly ultraviolet light from the sun, that through the greenhouse effect brings the surface temperature above the freezing point. (Without the greenhouse effect, the entire Earth would plunge below the freezing point of water and we'd all be dead.) Now that atmosphere, so thin and fragile, is under assault by our technology. We are pumping all kinds of stuff into it. You know about the concern that chlorofluorocarbons are depleting the ozone layer; and that carbon dioxide and methane and other greenhouse gases are producing global warming, a steady trend amidst fluctuations produced by volcanic eruptions and other sources. Who knows what other challenges we are posing to this vulnerable layer of air that we haven't been wise enough to foresee?
In 'Wonder and Skepticism', Skeptical Enquirer (Jan-Feb 1995), 19, No. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Assault (12)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Concern (239)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Death (406)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eruption (10)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fluctuation (15)  |  Foresee (22)  |  Fragile (26)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Freezing Point (3)  |  Global (39)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  Globe (51)  |  Greenhouse Effect (5)  |  Greenhouse Gas (4)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Methane (9)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ozone (7)  |  Plunge (11)  |  Point (584)  |  Produced (187)  |  Protect (65)  |  Pump (9)  |  Ratio (41)  |  School (227)  |  Source (101)  |  Steady (45)  |  Stuff (24)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Technology (281)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thickness (5)  |  Thin (18)  |  Through (846)  |  Trend (23)  |  Ultraviolet (2)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Vulnerability (5)  |  Warming (24)  |  Water (503)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)

In fields of air he writes his name,
And treads the chambers of the sky;
He reads the stars, and grasps the flame
That quivers in the realms on high.
In poem 'Art', collected in Samuel Kettell (ed.), Specimens of American Poetry, with Critical and Biographical Notices (1829), Vol. 3, 198.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Chamber (7)  |  Field (378)  |  Flame (44)  |  Grasp (65)  |  High (370)  |  Name (359)  |  Quiver (3)  |  Read (308)  |  Realm (87)  |  Sky (174)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Tread (17)  |  Write (250)

In general, art has preceded science. Men have executed great, and curious, and beautiful works before they had a scientific insight into the principles on which the success of their labours was founded. There were good artificers in brass and iron before the principles of the chemistry of metals were known; there was wine among men before there was a philosophy of vinous fermentation; there were mighty masses raised into the air, cyclopean walls and cromlechs, obelisks and pyramids—probably gigantic Doric pillars and entablatures—before there was a theory of the mechanical powers. … Art was the mother of Science.
Lecture (26 Nov 1851), to the London Society of Arts, 'The General Bearing of the Great Exhibition on the Progress of Art and Science', collected in Lectures on the Results of the Great Exhibition of 1851' (1852), 7-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Artificer (5)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Brass (5)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Construction (114)  |  Curious (95)  |  Fermentation (15)  |  Founded (22)  |  General (521)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Insight (107)  |  Iron (99)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Labor (200)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Metal (88)  |  Mother (116)  |  Obelisk (2)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pillar (10)  |  Power (771)  |  Preceding (8)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pyramid (9)  |  Raised (3)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Success (327)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Wall (71)  |  Wine (39)  |  Work (1402)

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)  |  Age (509)  |  Aid (101)  |  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 my opinion, the cholera poison only produces its effects through the air when carried by insects, or when the evacuations become dry, and are wafted as a fine dust.
John Snow
In 'On the Mode of Communication of Cholera', The Edinburgh Medical Journal (Jan 1856), Vol. 1, No. 7, 669.
Science quotes on:  |  Cholera (7)  |  Disease (340)  |  Dry (65)  |  Dust (68)  |  Evacuation (3)  |  Infect (3)  |  Insect (89)  |  Poison (46)  |  Waft (2)

In one department of his [Joseph Black’s] lecture he exceeded any I have ever known, the neatness and unvarying success with which all the manipulations of his experiments were performed. His correct eye and steady hand contributed to the one; his admirable precautions, foreseeing and providing for every emergency, secured the other. I have seen him pour boiling water or boiling acid from a vessel that had no spout into a tube, holding it at such a distance as made the stream’s diameter small, and so vertical that not a drop was spilt. While he poured he would mention this adaptation of the height to the diameter as a necessary condition of success. I have seen him mix two substances in a receiver into which a gas, as chlorine, had been introduced, the effect of the combustion being perhaps to produce a compound inflammable in its nascent state, and the mixture being effected by drawing some string or wire working through the receiver's sides in an air-tight socket. The long table on which the different processes had been carried on was as clean at the end of the lecture as it had been before the apparatus was planted upon it. Not a drop of liquid, not a grain of dust remained.
In Lives of Men of Letters and Science, Who Flourished in the Time of George III (1845), 346-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Being (1276)  |  Joseph Black (14)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Clean (52)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Compound (117)  |  Condition (362)  |  Department (93)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Different (595)  |  Distance (171)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dust (68)  |  Effect (414)  |  Emergency (10)  |  End (603)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Gas (89)  |  Grain (50)  |  Inflammable (5)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Known (453)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Long (778)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Nascent (4)  |  Neatness (6)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perform (123)  |  Plant (320)  |  Remain (355)  |  Secured (18)  |  Side (236)  |  Small (489)  |  Spout (2)  |  State (505)  |  Steady (45)  |  Stream (83)  |  Substance (253)  |  Success (327)  |  Table (105)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Water (503)  |  Wire (36)

In the beginning there was an explosion. Not an explosion like those familiar on earth, starting from a definite center and spreading out to engulf more and more of the circumambient air, but an explosion which occurred simultaneously everywhere, filling all space from the beginning, with every particle of matter rushing apart from every other particle. ‘All space’ in this context may mean either all of an infinite universe, or all of a finite universe which curves back on itself like the surface of a sphere. Neither possibility is easy to comprehend, but this will not get in our way; it matters hardly at all in the early universe whether space is finite or infinite. At about one-hundredth of a second, the earliest time about which we can speak with any confidence, the temperature of the universe was about a hundred thousand million (1011) degrees Centigrade. This is much hotter than in the center of even the hottest star, so hot, in fact, that none of the components of ordinary matter, molecules, or atoms, or even the nuclei of atoms, could have held together. Instead, the matter rushing apart in this explosion consisted of various types of the so-called elementary particles, which are the subject of modern high­energy nuclear physics.
The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (1977), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Back (395)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Call (781)  |  Component (51)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Consist (223)  |  Context (31)  |  Curve (49)  |  Definite (114)  |  Degree (277)  |  Early (196)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Energy (373)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Finite (60)  |  High (370)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hottest (2)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Million (124)  |  Modern (402)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Physics (6)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Particle Physics (13)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibility (172)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Space (523)  |  Speak (240)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Star (460)  |  Subject (543)  |  Surface (223)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Type (171)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

In the benzene nucleus we have been given a soil out of which we can see with surprise the already-known realm of organic chemistry multiply, not once or twice but three, four, five or six times just like an equivalent number of trees. What an amount of work had suddenly become necessary, and how quickly were busy hands found to carry it out! First the eye moves up the six stems opening out from the tremendous benzene trunk. But already the branches of the neighbouring stems have become intertwined, and a canopy of leaves has developed which becomes more spacious as the giant soars upwards into the air. The top of the tree rises into the clouds where the eye cannot yet follow it. And to what an extent is this wonderful benzene tree thronged with blossoms! Everywhere in the sea of leaves one can spy the slender hydroxyl bud: hardly rarer is the forked blossom [Gabelblüte] which we call the amine group, the most frequent is the beautiful cross-shaped blossom we call the methyl group. And inside this embellishment of blossoms, what a richness of fruit, some of them shining in a wonderful blaze of color, others giving off an overwhelming fragrance.
A. W. Hofmann, after-dinner speech at Kekulé Benzolfest (Mar 1890). Trans. in W. H. Brock, O. Theodor Benfrey and Susanne Stark, 'Hofmann's Benzene Tree at the Kekulé Festivities', Journal of Chemical Education (1991), 68, 887-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Amine (2)  |  Amount (153)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Become (821)  |  Benzene (7)  |  Blossom (22)  |  Call (781)  |  Canopy (8)  |  Carry (130)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Color (155)  |  Develop (278)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Extent (142)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Giant (73)  |  Known (453)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Radical (28)  |  Realm (87)  |  Rise (169)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Shining (35)  |  Soar (23)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spy (9)  |  Stem (31)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Time (1911)  |  Top (100)  |  Tree (269)  |  Tremendous (29)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Upward (44)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Work (1402)

In the celestial spaces above the Earth’s atmosphere; in which spaces, where there is no air to resist their motions, all bodies will move with the greatest freedom; and the Planets and Comets will constantly pursue their revolutions in orbits … by the mere laws of gravity.
In 'General Scholium' from The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1729), Vol. 2, Book 3, 388.
Science quotes on:  |  Air Resistance (2)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Comet (65)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Gravity (16)  |  Mere (86)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Planet (402)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Space (523)  |  Will (2350)

In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.
Commencement Address at American University, Washington, D.C. (Jun 1963). In Steven Cohen, Understanding Environmental Policy (2006), Preface, xi. Also on web site of John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Basic (144)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Children (201)  |  Common (447)  |  Final (121)  |  Future (467)  |  Inhabit (18)  |  Link (48)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Planet (402)  |  Small (489)

In the infancy of physical science, it was hoped that some discovery might be made that would enable us to emancipate ourselves from the bondage of gravity, and, at least, pay a visit to our neighbour the moon. The poor attempts of the aeronaut have shewn the hopelessness of the enterprise. The success of his achievement depends on the buoyant power of the atmosphere, but the atmosphere extends only a few miles above the earth, and its action cannot reach beyond its own limits. The only machine, independent of the atmosphere, we can conceive of, would be one on the principle of the rocket. The rocket rises in the air, not from the resistance offered by the atmosphere to its fiery stream, but from the internal reaction. The velocity would, indeed, be greater in a vacuum than in the atmosphere, and could we dispense with the comfort of breathing air, we might, with such a machine, transcend the boundaries of our globe, and visit other orbs.
God's Glory in the Heavens (1862, 3rd Ed. 1867) 3-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Action (342)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bondage (6)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Buoyancy (7)  |  Buoyant (6)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Depend (238)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emancipate (2)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extend (129)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hopelessness (6)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Internal (69)  |  Limit (294)  |  Machine (271)  |  Moon (252)  |  Offer (142)  |  Orb (20)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Poor (139)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Space Travel (23)  |  Stream (83)  |  Success (327)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Velocity (51)

In the X-ray laboratory we are exposed, not only to the direct action of the rays, but to the effects of ionized air. This may be proved by hanging a charged silk tassel anywhere in the room. It will suddenly collapse when the current is turned on through the focus tube.
In 'Protection in X-Ray Work', Archives of the Roentgen Ray (July 1905), 10, No. 2, 38. [Note that this concern for protection, written in 1905, comes within 10 years of the discovery of X-Rays in 1895. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Charge (63)  |  Collapse (19)  |  Current (122)  |  Direct (228)  |  Effect (414)  |  Expose (28)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Prove (261)  |  Silk (14)  |  Sudden (70)  |  X-ray (43)

In your letter you apply the word imponderable to a molecule. Don’t do that again. It may also be worth knowing that the aether cannot be molecular. If it were, it would be a gas, and a pint of it would have the same properties as regards heat, etc., as a pint of air, except that it would not be so heavy.
Letter to Lewis Campbell (Sep 1874). In Lewis Campbell and William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882), 391.
Science quotes on:  |  Aether (13)  |  Apply (170)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ether (37)  |  Gas (89)  |  Heat (180)  |  Imponderable (4)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Letter (117)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Property (177)  |  Regard (312)  |  Word (650)  |  Worth (172)

It goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging, this majestic roof fretted with golden fire—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving, how express and admirable, in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god—the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Hamlet (1601), II, ii.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Admirable (20)  |  Angel (47)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Brave (16)  |  Canopy (8)  |  Congregation (3)  |  Delight (111)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Dust (68)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Express (192)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fire (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Foul (15)  |  Frame (26)  |  God (776)  |  Golden (47)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nobility (5)  |  Noble (93)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paragon (4)  |  Pestilence (14)  |  Promontory (3)  |  Quintessence (4)  |  Reason (766)  |  Roof (14)  |  Say (989)  |  Sterile (24)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vapor (12)  |  Vapour (16)  |  Why (491)  |  Woman (160)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

It has sometimes been said that the success of the Origin proved “that the subject was in the air,” or “that men's minds were prepared for it.” I do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally sounded not a few naturalists, and never happened to come across a single one who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species.
In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters (1892), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Never (1089)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Single (365)  |  Sound (187)  |  Species (435)  |  Subject (543)  |  Success (327)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)

It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. “The insect youth are on the wing.” Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity testify their joy and the exultation they feel in their lately discovered faculties … The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and under every variety of constitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the author of their nature has assigned to them.
Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of The Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature (1802), 490-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Assignment (12)  |  Author (175)  |  Being (1276)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Delight (111)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Employment (34)  |  Equality (34)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evening (12)  |  Existence (481)  |  Exultation (4)  |  Eye (440)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fly (153)  |  Gratification (22)  |  Happy (108)  |  Insect (89)  |  Intent (9)  |  Joy (117)  |  Lateness (4)  |  Maze (11)  |  Motion (320)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  New-born (2)  |  Noon (14)  |  Office (71)  |  Probability (135)  |  Proper (150)  |  Properness (2)  |  Side (236)  |  Sport (23)  |  Spring (140)  |  Summer (56)  |  Swarm (15)  |  Teeming (5)  |  Testament (4)  |  Tribe (26)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Turn (454)  |  Variety (138)  |  View (496)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wing (79)  |  World (1850)  |  Youth (109)

It is not the amount of oxygen that determines flammability, but its proportion in the mixture with nitrogen. About 40 per cent of the nitrogen on Earth is now buried in the crust; perhaps in the Cretaceous that nitrogen had not yet been buried and existed in the air and so kept the proportion of oxygen safer for trees [from greatly intensified forest fires].
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Bury (19)  |  Cretaceous (2)  |  Crust (43)  |  Determine (152)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exist (458)  |  Keep (104)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Safe (61)  |  Tree (269)

It is profitable nevertheless to permit ourselves to talk about 'meaningless' terms in the narrow sense if the preconditions to which all profitable operations are subject are so intuitive and so universally accepted as to form an almost unconscious part of the background of the public using the term. Physicists of the present day do constitute a homogenous public of this character; it is in the air that certain sorts of operation are valueless for achieving certain sorts of result. If one wants to know how many planets there are one counts them but does not ask a philosopher what is the perfect number.
Reflections of a Physicist (1950), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Ask (420)  |  Background (44)  |  Certain (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Count (107)  |  Do (1905)  |  Form (976)  |  Know (1538)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfect Number (6)  |  Permit (61)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Planet (402)  |  Present (630)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Result (700)  |  Sense (785)  |  Subject (543)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Want (504)

It is raining DNA outside. On the bank of the Oxford canal at the bottom of my garden is a large willow tree, and it is pumping downy seeds into the air. ... [spreading] DNA whose coded characters spell out specific instructions for building willow trees that will shed a new generation of downy seeds. … It is raining instructions out there; it’s raining programs; it’s raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading, algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth. It couldn’t be any plainer if it were raining floppy discs.
The Blind Watchmaker (1986), 111.
Science quotes on:  |  Algorithm (5)  |  Bank (31)  |  Building (158)  |  Canal (18)  |  Character (259)  |  DNA (81)  |  Garden (64)  |  Generation (256)  |  Growing (99)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Large (398)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  New (1273)  |  Outside (141)  |  Oxford (16)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Seed (97)  |  Specific (98)  |  Tree (269)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)

It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works—that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), 159.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Blue (63)  |  Color (155)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Figure (162)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Passion (121)  |  Reason (766)  |  Red (38)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Research (753)  |  Romance (18)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Transparent (16)  |  Understand (648)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wavelength (10)  |  Way (1214)  |  White (132)  |  White Light (5)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

It is the destiny of wine to be drunk, and it is the destiny of glucose to be oxidized. But it was not oxidized immediately: its drinker kept it in his liver for more than a week, well curled up and tranquil, as a reserve aliment for a sudden effort; an effort that he was forced to make the following Sunday, pursuing a bolting horse. Farewell to the hexagonal structure: in the space of a few instants the skein was unwound and became glucose again, and this was dragged by the bloodstream all the way to a minute muscle fiber in the thigh, and here brutally split into two molecules of lactic acid, the grim harbinger of fatigue: only later, some minutes after, the panting of the lungs was able to supply the oxygen necessary to quietly oxidize the latter. So a new molecule of carbon dioxide returned to the atmosphere, and a parcel of the energy that the sun had handed to the vine-shoot passed from the state of chemical energy to that of mechanical energy, and thereafter settled down in the slothful condition of heat, warming up imperceptibly the air moved by the running and the blood of the runner. 'Such is life,' although rarely is it described in this manner: an inserting itself, a drawing off to its advantage, a parasitizing of the downward course of energy, from its noble solar form to the degraded one of low-temperature heat. In this downward course, which leads to equilibrium and thus death, life draws a bend and nests in it.
The Periodic Table (1975), trans. Raymond Rosenthal (1984), 192-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Blood (144)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Energy (3)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conservation Of Energy (30)  |  Course (413)  |  Death (406)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Down (455)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Drunk (10)  |  Effort (243)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Fatigue (13)  |  Fiber (16)  |  Form (976)  |  Glucose (2)  |  Heat (180)  |  Horse (78)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Instant (46)  |  Lactic Acid (2)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Liver (22)  |  Low (86)  |  Lung (37)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Minute (129)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nest (26)  |  New (1273)  |  Noble (93)  |  Oxidation (8)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pass (241)  |  Plant (320)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Return (133)  |  Running (61)  |  Settled (34)  |  Space (523)  |  State (505)  |  Structure (365)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Sun (407)  |  Supply (100)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Two (936)  |  Warming (24)  |  Way (1214)  |  Week (73)  |  Wine (39)

It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick that, second only to their need of fresh air, is their need of light; that, after a close room, what hurts them most is a dark room and that it is not only light but direct sunlight they want.
Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not (1860), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Dark (145)  |  Direct (228)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Health (210)  |  Hospital (45)  |  Light (635)  |  Most (1728)  |  Patient (209)  |  Result (700)  |  Sick (83)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Want (504)

It was cold. Space, the air we breathed, the yellow rocks, were deadly cold. There was something ultimate, passionless, and eternal in this cold. It came to us as a single constant note from the depths of space. We stood on the very boundary of life and death.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Boundary (55)  |  Breath (61)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Cold (115)  |  Constant (148)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Death (406)  |  Depth (97)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Life (1870)  |  Note (39)  |  Rock (176)  |  Single (365)  |  Something (718)  |  Space (523)  |  Stand (284)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Yellow (31)

It was the movement of the air that provided the image of spirituality, since the spirit borrows its name from the breath of wind...
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 6
Science quotes on:  |  Borrow (31)  |  Breath (61)  |  Image (97)  |  Movement (162)  |  Name (359)  |  Provide (79)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spirituality (8)  |  Wind (141)

It will, perhaps appear probable, that one of the great laboratories of nature for cleaning and purifying the air of our atmosphere is placed in the substance of the leaves, and put in action by the influence of the light.
In Tobias George Smollett (ed.), 'Experiments Upon Vegetables', The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature (1779), 48, 336.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Clean (52)  |  Cleaning (7)  |  Great (1610)  |  Influence (231)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Light (635)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Purify (9)  |  Substance (253)  |  Will (2350)

Its [mathematical analysis] chief attribute is clearness; it has no means for expressing confused ideas. It compares the most diverse phenomena and discovers the secret analogies which unite them. If matter escapes us, as that of air and light because of its extreme tenuity, if bodies are placed far from us in the immensity of space, if man wishes to know the aspect of the heavens at successive periods separated by many centuries, if gravity and heat act in the interior of the solid earth at depths which will forever be inaccessible, mathematical analysis is still able to trace the laws of these phenomena. It renders them present and measurable, and appears to be the faculty of the human mind destined to supplement the brevity of life and the imperfection of the senses, and what is even more remarkable, it follows the same course in the study of all phenomena; it explains them in the same language, as if in witness to the unity and simplicity of the plan of the universe, and to make more manifest the unchangeable order which presides over all natural causes.
From Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur (1822), Discours Préliminaire, xiv, (Theory of Heat, Introduction), as translated by Alexander Freeman in The Analytical Theory of Heat (1878), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Appear (122)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Body (557)  |  Brevity (8)  |  Cause (561)  |  Century (319)  |  Chief (99)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Compare (76)  |  Confused (13)  |  Course (413)  |  Depth (97)  |  Destined (42)  |  Discover (571)  |  Diverse (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Escape (85)  |  Explain (334)  |  Express (192)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Far (158)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forever (111)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Heat (180)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Inaccessible (18)  |  Interior (35)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measurable (3)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Order (638)  |  Period (200)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Place (192)  |  Plan (122)  |  Present (630)  |  Preside (3)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Render (96)  |  Same (166)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sense (785)  |  Separate (151)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Solid (119)  |  Space (523)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Successive (73)  |  Supplement (7)  |  Tenuity (2)  |  Trace (109)  |  Unchangeable (11)  |  Unite (43)  |  Unity (81)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Witness (57)

Let the clean air blow the cobwebs from your body. Air is medicine.
Quoted in Reader's Digest (Mar 1922).
Science quotes on:  |  Blow (45)  |  Blowing (22)  |  Body (557)  |  Clean (52)  |  Cobweb (6)  |  Medicine (392)

Let us now recapitulate all that has been said, and let us conclude that by hermetically sealing the vials, one is not always sure to prevent the birth of the animals in the infusions, boiled or done at room temperature, if the air inside has not felt the ravages of fire. If, on the contrary, this air has been powerfully heated, it will never allow the animals to be born, unless new air penetrates from outside into the vials. This means that it is indispensable for the production of the animals that they be provided with air which has not felt the action of fire. And as it would not be easy to prove that there were no tiny eggs disseminated and floating in the volume of air that the vials contain, it seems to me that suspicion regarding these eggs continues, and that trial by fire has not entirely done away with fears of their existence in the infusions. The partisans of the theory of ovaries will always have these fears and will not easily suffer anyone's undertaking to demolish them.
Nouvelles Recherches sur les Découvertes Microscopiques, et la Génération des Corps Organisés (1769), 134-5. Quoted in Jacques Roger, The Life Sciences in Eighteenth-Century French Thought, ed. Keith R. Benson and trans. Robert Ellrich (1997), 510-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Birth (154)  |  Boil (24)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Continue (179)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Demolish (8)  |  Demolition (4)  |  Dissemination (3)  |  Ease (40)  |  Easy (213)  |  Egg (71)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fire (203)  |  Float (31)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hermetic (2)  |  Infusion (4)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Outside (141)  |  Ovary (2)  |  Partisan (5)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Pentration (2)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Prevention (37)  |  Production (190)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Provision (17)  |  Ravage (7)  |  Recapitulation (6)  |  Seal (19)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Trial (59)  |  Undertaking (17)  |  Vial (4)  |  Will (2350)

M. Waldman … concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry…:— “The ancient teachers of this science” said he, “Promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera. But these philosophers seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.”
In Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus (1823), Vol. 1, 73-74. Webmaster note: In the novel, when the fictional characters meet, M. Waldman, professor of chemistry, sparks Victor Frankenstein’s interest in science. Shelley was age 20 when the first edition of the novel was published anonymously (1818).
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemist (23)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Blood (144)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Chimera (10)  |  Command (60)  |  Crucible (8)  |  Dabble (2)  |  Dirt (17)  |  Discover (571)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Elixir (6)  |  Elixir Of Life (2)  |  Eye (440)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Hiding (12)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Master (182)  |  Metal (88)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mimic (2)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Mock (7)  |  Modern (402)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perform (123)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Promise (72)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Show (353)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Transmutation (24)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Many 'hard' scientists regard the term 'social science' as an oxymoron. Science means hypotheses you can test, and prove or disprove. Social science is little more than observation putting on airs.
'A Cuba Policy That's Stuck On Plan A', opinion column, The Washington Post (17 Apr 2009)
Science quotes on:  |  Disprove (25)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Little (717)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Observation (593)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Quip (81)  |  Regard (312)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Term (357)  |  Test (221)

May every young scientist remember … and not fail to keep his eyes open for the possibility that an irritating failure of his apparatus to give consistent results may once or twice in a lifetime conceal an important discovery.
Commenting on the discovery of thoron gas because one of Rutherford’s students had found his measurements of the ionizing property of thorium were variable. His results even seemed to relate to whether the laboratory door was closed or open. After considering the problem, Rutherford realized a radioactive gas was emitted by thorium, which hovered close to the metal sample, adding to its radioactivity—unless it was dissipated by air drafts from an open door. (Thoron was later found to be argon.)
In Barbara Lovett Cline, Men Who Made a New Physics (1987), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Argon (3)  |  Closed (38)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Door (94)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Gas (89)  |  Hover (8)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Metal (88)  |  Open (277)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Problem (731)  |  Property (177)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Remember (189)  |  Result (700)  |  Sample (19)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Student (317)  |  Thorium (5)  |  Variable (37)  |  Young (253)

Medicine rests upon four pillars—philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and ethics. The first pillar is the philosophical knowledge of earth and water; the second, astronomy, supplies its full understanding of that which is of fiery and airy nature; the third is an adequate explanation of the properties of all the four elements—that is to say, of the whole cosmos—and an introduction into the art of their transformations; and finally, the fourth shows the physician those virtues which must stay with him up until his death, and it should support and complete the three other pillars.
Vas Buch Paragranum (c.1529-30), in J. Jacobi (ed.), Paracelsus: Selected Writings (1951), 133-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequacy (10)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Art (680)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completion (23)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Death (406)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Ethic (39)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Four (6)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physician (284)  |  Pillar (10)  |  Property (177)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Show (353)  |  Stay (26)  |  Supply (100)  |  Support (151)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)

Mr. Hobbes told me that the cause of his Lordship’s [Francis Bacon s] death was trying an experiment: viz., as he was taking the air in a coach with Dr. Witherborne, a Scotchman, physician to the King, towards Highgate, snow lay on the ground, and it came into my Lord’s thoughts, why flesh might not be preserved in snow as in salt. They were resolved they would try the experiment presently. They alighted out of the coach and went into a poor woman s house at the bottom of Highgate Hill and bought a hen and made the woman exenterate it, and then stuffed the body with snow, and my Lord did help to do it himself The snow so chilled him that he immediately fell so extremely ill that he could not return to his lodgings.
In Brief Lives (late 17th century), as excerpted in The Retrospective Review (1821), 292.
Science quotes on:  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Body (557)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chill (10)  |  Death (406)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Ground (222)  |  Himself (461)  |  House (143)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Lord (97)  |  Physician (284)  |  Poor (139)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Refrigeration (3)  |  Return (133)  |  Salt (48)  |  Snow (39)  |  Thought (995)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Why (491)  |  Woman (160)

My theory of electrical forces is that they are called into play in insulating media by slight electric displacements, which put certain small portions of the medium into a state of distortion which, being resisted by the elasticity of the medium, produces an electromotive force ... I suppose the elasticity of the sphere to react on the electrical matter surrounding it, and press it downwards.
From the determination by Kohlrausch and Weber of the numerical relation between the statical and magnetic effects of electricity, I have determined the elasticity of the medium in air, and assuming that it is the same with the luminiferous ether I have determined the velocity of propagation of transverse vibrations.
The result is
193088 miles per second
(deduced from electrical & magnetic experiments).
Fizeau has determined the velocity of light
= 193118 miles per second
by direct experiment.
This coincidence is not merely numerical. I worked out the formulae in the country, before seeing Webers [sic] number, which is in millimetres, and I think we have now strong reason to believe, whether my theory is a fact or not, that the luminiferous and the electromagnetic medium are one.
Letter to Michael Faraday (19 Oct 1861). In P. M. Harman (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1990), Vol. 1, 1846-1862, 684-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Country (269)  |  Determination (80)  |  Direct (228)  |  Displacement (9)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elasticity (8)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Ether (37)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Force (497)  |  Formula (102)  |  Insulating (3)  |   Friedrich Wilhelm Georg Kohlrausch (2)  |  Light (635)  |  Light Wave (2)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Matter (821)  |  Media (14)  |  Merely (315)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Portion (86)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Reason (766)  |  Result (700)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Small (489)  |  Speed Of Light (18)  |  Sphere (118)  |  State (505)  |  Strong (182)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Work (1402)

Nature … is, as it were, a continual circulation. Water is rais'd in Vapour into the Air by one Quality and precipitated down in drops by another, the Rivers run into the Sea, and the Sea again supplies them.
In 'A Discourse of Earthquakes', Lectures and Discourses of Earthquakes (1668). In The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke, containing his Cutlerian Lectures and other Discourses read at the Meetings of the Illustrious Royal Society (1705), 312.
Science quotes on:  |  Circulation (27)  |  Continual (44)  |  Down (455)  |  Drop (77)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Precipitation (7)  |  Quality (139)  |  Raised (3)  |  River (140)  |  Run (158)  |  Sea (326)  |  Vapor (12)  |  Vapour (16)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Cycle (5)

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.
Essays, Lectures and Orations (1851), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Combination (150)  |  Endless (60)  |  Hum (4)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Old (499)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Through (846)  |  Variation (93)  |  Well-Known (4)

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:  |  Age (509)  |  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)

Neither the Army nor the Navy is of any protection, or very slight protection, against aerial raids. We may therefore look forward with certainty to the time that is coming, and indeed is almost now at hand, when sea power and land power will be secondary to air power, and that nation which gains control of the air will practically control the world.
In 'Preparedness for Aerial Defense', Addresses Before the Eleventh Annual Convention of the Navy League of the United States, Washington, D.C., April 10-13, 1916 (1916), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Aerial (11)  |  Against (332)  |  Army (35)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Coming (114)  |  Control (182)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gain (146)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Look (584)  |  Nation (208)  |  Navy (10)  |  Power (771)  |  Protection (41)  |  Raid (5)  |  Sea (326)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

No idea should be suppressed. … And it applies to ideas that look like nonsense. We must not forget that some of the best ideas seemed like nonsense at first. The truth will prevail in the end. Nonsense will fall of its own weight, by a sort of intellectual law of gravitation. If we bat it about, we shall only keep an error in the air a little longer. And a new truth will go into orbit.
In Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections (1996), 233.
Science quotes on:  |  Bat (10)  |  Best (467)  |  End (603)  |  Error (339)  |  Fall (243)  |  First (1302)  |  Forget (125)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Gravitation (23)  |  Little (717)  |  Longer (10)  |  Look (584)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Seem (150)  |  Suppress (6)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Weight (140)  |  Will (2350)

Nurses that attend lying-in women ought to have provided, and in order, every thing that may be necessary for the woman, accoucheur, midwife, and child; such as linnen and cloaths, well aired and warm, for the woman and the bed, which she must know how to prepare when there is occasion; together with nutmeg, sugar, spirit of hartshorn, vinegar, Hungary water, white or brown caudle ready made, and a glyster-pipe fitted.
In A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery (1766), 444
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Bed (25)  |  Brown (23)  |  Child (333)  |  Childbirth (2)  |  Cloth (6)  |  Fitted (2)  |  Hungary (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Linen (8)  |  Lying (55)  |  Midwife (3)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nurse (33)  |  Nutmeg (2)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Order (638)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Provide (79)  |  Ready-Made (2)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Sugar (26)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Vinegar (7)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)  |  White (132)  |  Woman (160)

Nymphs! you disjoin, unite, condense, expand,
And give new wonders to the Chemist’s hand;
On tepid clouds of rising steam aspire,
Or fix in sulphur all its solid fire;
With boundless spring elastic airs unfold,
Or fill the fine vacuities of gold
With sudden flash vitrescent sparks reveal,
By fierce collision from the flint and steel. …
Science quotes on:  |  Aspire (15)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Collision (16)  |  Expand (56)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flash (49)  |  Flint (7)  |  Gold (101)  |  New (1273)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Rising (44)  |  Solid (119)  |  Spark (32)  |  Spring (140)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steel (23)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Sulphur (19)  |  Unite (43)  |  Wonder (251)

October 9, 1863
Always, however great the height of the balloon, when I have seen the horizon it has roughly appeared to be on the level of the car though of course the dip of the horizon is a very appreciable quantity or the same height as the eye. From this one might infer that, could the earth be seen without a cloud or anything to obscure it, and the boundary line of the plane approximately the same height as the eye, the general appearance would be that of a slight concavity; but I have never seen any part of the surface of the earth other than as a plane.
Towns and cities, when viewed from the balloon are like models in motion. I shall always remember the ascent of 9th October, 1863, when we passed over London about sunset. At the time when we were 7,000 feet high, and directly over London Bridge, the scene around was one that cannot probably be equalled in the world. We were still so low as not to have lost sight of the details of the spectacle which presented itself to our eyes; and with one glance the homes of 3,000,000 people could be seen, and so distinct was the view, that every large building was easily distinguishable. In fact, the whole of London was visible, and some parts most clearly. All round, the suburbs were also very distinct, with their lines of detached villas, imbedded as it were in a mass of shrubs; beyond, the country was like a garden, its fields, well marked, becoming smaller and smaller as the eye wandered farther and farther away.
Again looking down, there was the Thames, throughout its whole length, without the slightest mist, dotted over its winding course with innumerable ships and steamboats, like moving toys. Gravesend was visible, also the mouth of the Thames, and the coast around as far as Norfolk. The southern shore of the mouth of the Thames was not so clear, but the sea beyond was seen for many miles; when at a higher elevation, I looked for the coast of France, but was unable to see it. On looking round, the eye was arrested by the garden-like appearance of the county of Kent, till again London claimed yet more careful attention.
Smoke, thin and blue, was curling from it, and slowly moving away in beautiful curves, from all except one part, south of the Thames, where it was less blue and seemed more dense, till the cause became evident; it was mixed with mist rising from the ground, the southern limit of which was bounded by an even line, doubtless indicating the meeting of the subsoils of gravel and clay. The whole scene was surmounted by a canopy of blue, everywhere free from cloud, except near the horizon, where a band of cumulus and stratus extended all round, forming a fitting boundary to such a glorious view.
As seen from the earth, the sunset this evening was described as fine, the air being clear and the shadows well defined; but, as we rose to view it and its effects, the golden hues increased in intensity; their richness decreased as the distance from the sun increased, both right and left; but still as far as 90º from the sun, rose-coloured clouds extended. The remainder of the circle was completed, for the most part, by pure white cumulus of well-rounded and symmetrical forms.
I have seen London by night. I have crossed it during the day at the height of four miles. I have often admired the splendour of sky scenery, but never have I seen anything which surpassed this spectacle. The roar of the town heard at this elevation was a deep, rich, continuous sound the voice of labour. At four miles above London, all was hushed; no sound reached our ears.
Travels in the Air (1871), 99-100.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attention (196)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Both (496)  |  Bound (120)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Building (158)  |  Canopy (8)  |  Car (75)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circle (117)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Completed (30)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Country (269)  |  Course (413)  |  Curve (49)  |  Deep (241)  |  Detail (150)  |  Distance (171)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evident (92)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Farther (51)  |  Field (378)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Free (239)  |  Garden (64)  |  General (521)  |  Glance (36)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Golden (47)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  High (370)  |  Home (184)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Limit (294)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Low (86)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mist (17)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  People (1031)  |  Present (630)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remainder (7)  |  Remember (189)  |  Right (473)  |  Rising (44)  |  Rose (36)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Ship (69)  |  Shrub (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Sound (187)  |  South (39)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Still (614)  |  Suburb (7)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Thames (6)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toy (22)  |  View (496)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wander (44)  |  White (132)  |  Whole (756)  |  Winding (8)  |  World (1850)

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
you have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew
and, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Blue (63)  |  Bond (46)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Chase (14)  |  Climb (39)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Craft (11)  |  Dance (35)  |  Delirious (2)  |  Dream (222)  |  Eager (17)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Face (214)  |  Fling (5)  |  Fly (153)  |  God (776)  |  Grace (31)  |  Hall (5)  |  Hand (149)  |  Height (33)  |  High (370)  |  Hover (8)  |  Hovering (5)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Join (32)  |  Lark (2)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Lift (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mirth (3)  |  Never (1089)  |  Sanctity (4)  |  Shout (25)  |  Silence (62)  |  Silent (31)  |  Silver (49)  |  Sky (174)  |  Slip (6)  |  Soar (23)  |  Space (523)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunlit (2)  |  Sunward (2)  |  Swing (12)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Top (100)  |  Touch (146)  |  Tread (17)  |  Tumble (3)  |  Tumbling (2)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wing (79)

Oh! But I have better news for you, Madam, if you have any patriotism as citizen of this world and wish its longevity. Mr. Herschel has found out that our globe is a comely middle-aged personage, and has not so many wrinkles as seven stars, who are evidently our seniors. Nay, he has discovered that the Milky Way is not only a mob of stars, but that there is another dairy of them still farther off, whence, I conclude, comets are nothing but pails returning from milking, instead of balloons filled with inflammable air.
Letter to the Countess of Upper Ossory (4 Jul 1785) in W. S. Lewis (ed.), Horace Walpole's Correspondence with the Countess of Upper Ossory (1965), Vol. 33, 474.
Science quotes on:  |  Balloon (16)  |  Better (493)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Comet (65)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Dairy (2)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Farther (51)  |  Find (1014)  |  Globe (51)  |  Sir John Herschel (24)  |  Inflammable (5)  |  Longevity (6)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Mob (10)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pail (3)  |  Patriotism (9)  |  Person (366)  |  Personage (4)  |  Senior (7)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Still (614)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wish (216)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrinkle (4)

On poetry and geometric truth,
And their high privilege of lasting life,
From all internal injury exempt,
I mused; upon these chiefly: and at length,
My senses yielding to the sultry air,
Sleep seized me, and I passed into a dream.
From 'The Prelude' in Book 5, collected in Henry Reed (ed.), The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth (1851), 497.
Science quotes on:  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Dream (222)  |  Exempt (3)  |  Geometry (271)  |  High (370)  |  Injury (36)  |  Internal (69)  |  Life (1870)  |  Muse (10)  |  Pass (241)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Seize (18)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Yield (86)

On the 1st of August, 1774, I endeavoured to extract air from mercurius calcinates per se [mercury oxide]; and I presently found that, by means of this lens, air was expelled from it very readily. … I admitted water to it [the extracted air], and found that it was not imbibed by it. But what surprized me more than I can well express, was, that a candle burned in this air with a remarkably vigorous flame… I was utterly at a loss how to account for it.
From Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775) Vol. 2, 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burned (2)  |  Candle (32)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Express (192)  |  Extract (40)  |  Flame (44)  |  Imbibed (3)  |  Lens (15)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mercury (54)  |  More (2558)  |  Readily (10)  |  Remarkably (3)  |  Utterly (15)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Water (503)

On the whole, I cannot help saying that it appears to me not a little extraordinary, that a theory so new, and of such importance, overturning every thing that was thought to be the best established in chemistry, should rest on so very narrow and precarious a foundation, the experiments adduced in support of it being not only ambiguous or explicable on either hypothesis, but exceedingly few. I think I have recited them all, and that on which the greatest stress is laid, viz. That of the formation of water from the decomposition of the two kinds of air, has not been sufficiently repeated. Indeed it required so difficult and expensive an apparatus, and so many precautions in the use of it, that the frequent repetition of the experiment cannot be expected; and in these circumstances the practised experimenter cannot help suspecting the accuracy of the result and consequently the certainty of the conclusion.
Considerations on the Doctrine of Phlogiston (1796), 57-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Ambiguity (17)  |  Ambiguous (14)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Establish (63)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Formation (100)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Kind (564)  |  Little (717)  |  Narrow (85)  |  New (1273)  |  Precarious (6)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Required (108)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Stress (22)  |  Support (151)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)

One of the most curious and interesting reptiles which I met with in Borneo was a large tree-frog, which was brought me by one of the Chinese workmen. He assured me that he had seen it come down in a slanting direction from a high tree, as if it flew. On examining it, I found the toes very long and fully webbed to their very extremity, so that when expanded they offered a surface much larger than the body. The forelegs were also bordered by a membrane, and the body was capable of considerable inflation. The back and limbs were of a very deep shining green colour, the undersurface and the inner toes yellow, while the webs were black, rayed with yellow. The body was about four inches long, while the webs of each hind foot, when fully expanded, covered a surface of four square inches, and the webs of all the feet together about twelve square inches. As the extremities of the toes have dilated discs for adhesion, showing the creature to be a true tree frog, it is difficult to imagine that this immense membrane of the toes can be for the purpose of swimming only, and the account of the Chinaman, that it flew down from the tree, becomes more credible. This is, I believe, the first instance known of a “flying frog,” and it is very interesting to Darwinians as showing that the variability of the toes which have been already modified for purposes of swimming and adhesive climbing, have been taken advantage of to enable an allied species to pass through the air like the flying lizard. It would appear to be a new species of the genus Rhacophorus, which consists of several frogs of a much smaller size than this, and having the webs of the toes less developed.
Malay Archipelago
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Adhesion (6)  |  Adhesive (2)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Ally (7)  |  Already (226)  |  Appear (122)  |  Assure (16)  |  Back (395)  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Black (46)  |  Body (557)  |  Border (10)  |  Borneo (3)  |  Bring (95)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chinese (22)  |  Climb (39)  |  Color (155)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Consist (223)  |  Cover (40)  |  Creature (242)  |  Credible (3)  |  Curious (95)  |  Darwinian (10)  |  Deep (241)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disk (3)  |  Down (455)  |  Enable (122)  |  Examine (84)  |  Expand (56)  |  Extremity (7)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Foot (65)  |  Frog (44)  |  Fully (20)  |  Genus (27)  |  Green (65)  |  High (370)  |  Hind (3)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inch (10)  |  Inflation (6)  |  Inner (72)  |  Instance (33)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Less (105)  |  Limb (9)  |  Lizard (7)  |  Long (778)  |  Meet (36)  |  Membrane (21)  |  Modify (15)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Offer (142)  |  Pass (241)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reptile (33)  |  See (1094)  |  Several (33)  |  Shine (49)  |  Shining (35)  |  Show (353)  |  Size (62)  |  Small (489)  |  Species (435)  |  Square (73)  |  Surface (223)  |  Swim (32)  |  Swimming (19)  |  Through (846)  |  Toe (8)  |  Together (392)  |  Tree (269)  |  Tree Frog (2)  |  True (239)  |  Underside (2)  |  Variability (5)  |  Web (17)  |  Workman (13)  |  Yellow (31)

ORGANIC LIFE beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in Ocean's pearly caves;
First, forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing.
Thus the tall Oak, the giant of the wood,
Which bears Britannia's thunders on the flood;
The Whale, unmeasured monster of the main,
The lordly Lion, monarch of the plain,
The Eagle soaring in the realms of air,
Whose eye undazzled drinks the solar glare,
Imperious man, who rules the bestial crowd,
Of language, reason, and reflection proud,
With brow erect, who scorns this earthy sod,
And styles himself the image of his God;
Arose from rudiments of form and sense,
An embryon point, or microscopic ens!
The Temple of Nature (1803), canto 1, lines 295-314, pages 26-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Countless (39)  |  Drink (56)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Flood (52)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  Giant (73)  |  Glass (94)  |  God (776)  |  Himself (461)  |  Image (97)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lion (23)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Minute (129)  |  Monster (33)  |  Move (223)  |  Mud (26)  |  New (1273)  |  Oak (16)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Organic (161)  |  Poem (104)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Realm (87)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Rudiment (6)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soaring (9)  |  Spring (140)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Unseen (23)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Wave (112)  |  Whale (45)  |  Wing (79)  |  Wood (97)

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)  |  Age (509)  |  Aging (9)  |  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 revels are now ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve.
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest (1611), IV, i.
Science quotes on:  |  Actor (9)  |  Behind (139)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Dream (222)  |  End (603)  |  Fabric (27)  |  Fad (10)  |  Foretelling (4)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Melt (16)  |  Pageant (3)  |  Palace (8)  |  Rack (4)  |  Revel (6)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Temple (45)  |  Tower (45)  |  Vision (127)

People say the effect is only on the mind. It is no such thing. The effect is on the body, too. Little as we know about the way in which we are affected by form, by color, and light, we do know this, that they have an actual physical effect. Variety of form and brilliancy of color in the objects presented to patients, are actual means of recovery.
Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not (1860), 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Body (557)  |  Color (155)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Form (976)  |  Health (210)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Object (438)  |  Patient (209)  |  People (1031)  |  Physical (518)  |  Present (630)  |  Recovery (24)  |  Say (989)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child - our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
In The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation (1987), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Black (46)  |  Blue (63)  |  Child (333)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Consider (428)  |  Curious (95)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Engage (41)  |  Eye (440)  |  Green (65)  |  Leave (138)  |  Miracle (85)  |  People (1031)  |  Real (159)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Sky (174)  |  Thin (18)  |  Think (1122)  |  Two (936)  |  Usually (176)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)  |  White (132)

Perfect as the wing of a bird may be, it will never enable the bird to fly if unsupported by the air. Facts are the air of science. Without them a man of science can never rise. Without them your theories are vain surmises. But while you are studying, observing, experimenting, do not remain content with the surface of things. Do not become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin. Seek obstinately for the laws that govern them.
Translation of a note, 'Bequest of Pavlov to the Academic Youth of his Country', written a few days before his death for a student magazine, The Generation of the Victors. As published in 'Pavlov and the Spirit of Science', Nature (4 Apr 1936), 137, 572.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Bird (163)  |  Content (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enable (122)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fly (153)  |  Govern (66)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observe (179)  |  Obstinately (2)  |  Origin (250)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Recorder (5)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rise (169)  |  Seek (218)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surmise (7)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Try (296)  |  Vain (86)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wing (79)

Physics is unable to stand on its own feet, but needs a metaphysics on which to support itself, whatever fine airs it may assume towards the latter.
The World as Will and Representation, trans. E. F. J. Byrne (1958), Vol. 2, 172.
Science quotes on:  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Stand (284)  |  Support (151)  |  Whatever (234)

Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Conservation (187)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Man (2252)  |  Plan (122)  |  Protect (65)  |  Water (503)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Wildlife (16)

Pollution of the air or of the land all ultimately ends up in the sea.
In 'Ocean Policy and Reasonable Utopias', The Forum (Summer 1981), 16, No. 5, 897
Science quotes on:  |  End (603)  |  Land (131)  |  Ocean Pollution (10)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ultimately (56)

Populations of bacteria live in the spumes of volcanic thermal vents on the ocean floor, multiplying in water above the boiling point. And far beneath Earth’s surface, to a depth of 2 miles (3.2 km) or more, dwell the SLIMES (subsurface lithoautotrophic microbial ecosystems), unique assemblages of bacteria and fungi that occupy pores in the interlocking mineral grains of igneous rock and derive their energy from inorganic chemicals. The SLIMES are independent of the world above, so even if all of it were burned to a cinder, they would carry on and, given enough time, probably evolve new life-forms able to re-enter the world of air and sunlight.
In 'Vanishing Before Our Eyes', Time (26 Apr 2000).
Science quotes on:  |  Assemblage (17)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Burn (99)  |  Carry (130)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Cinder (6)  |  Depth (97)  |  Derive (70)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ecosystem (33)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enter (145)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Form (976)  |  Fungus (8)  |  Grain (50)  |  Igneous (3)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life-Form (6)  |  Live (650)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Mineral (66)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Ocean Floor (6)  |  Point (584)  |  Population (115)  |  Pore (7)  |  Rock (176)  |  Slime (6)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unique (72)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Water (503)  |  World (1850)

Returning to the moon is an important step for our space program. Establishing an extended human presence on the moon could vastly reduce the costs of further space exploration, making possible ever more ambitious missions. Lifting heavy spacecraft and fuel out of the Earth’s gravity is expensive. Spacecraft assembled and provisioned on the moon could escape its far lower gravity using far less energy, and thus, far less cost. Also, the moon is home to abundant resources. Its soil contains raw materials that might be harvested and processed into rocket fuel or breathable air. We can use our time on the moon to develop and test new approaches and technologies and systems that will allow us to function in other, more challenging environments. The moon is a logical step toward further progress and achievement.
Speech, NASA Headquarters (14 Jan 2004). In Office of the Federal Register (U.S.) Staff (eds.), Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, George W. Bush (2007), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundant (23)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Allow (51)  |  Ambitious (4)  |  Approach (112)  |  Assemble (14)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Contain (68)  |  Cost (94)  |  Develop (278)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Environment (239)  |  Escape (85)  |  Establish (63)  |  Expensive (10)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extended (4)  |  Far (158)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Function (235)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Harvest (28)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Important (229)  |  Less (105)  |  Lift (57)  |  Logical (57)  |  Low (86)  |  Making (300)  |  Material (366)  |  Mission (23)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Presence (63)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Provision (17)  |  Raw (28)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Resource (74)  |  Return (133)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Soil (98)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Exploration (15)  |  Space Program (9)  |  Spacecraft (6)  |  Step (234)  |  System (545)  |  Technology (281)  |  Test (221)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toward (45)  |  Use (771)  |  Vastly (8)  |  Will (2350)

Science appears to us with a very different aspect after we have found out that it is not in lecture rooms only, and by means of the electric light projected on a screen, that we may witness physical phenomena, but that we may find illustrations of the highest doctrines of science in games and gymnastics, in travelling by land and by water, in storms of the air and of the sea, and wherever there is matter in motion.
'Introductory Lecture on Experimental Physics' (1871). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 243.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Different (595)  |  Electric (76)  |  Find (1014)  |  Game (104)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Light (635)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Motion (320)  |  Physical (518)  |  Project (77)  |  Projector (3)  |  Sea (326)  |  Storm (56)  |  Storms (18)  |  Travel (125)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Water (503)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Witness (57)

Science has gone down into the mines and coal-pits, and before the safety-lamp the Gnomes and Genii of those dark regions have disappeared… Sirens, mermaids, shining cities glittering at the bottom of quiet seas and in deep lakes, exist no longer; but in their place, Science, their destroyer, shows us whole coasts of coral reef constructed by the labours of minute creatures; points to our own chalk cliffs and limestone rocks as made of the dust of myriads of generations of infinitesimal beings that have passed away; reduces the very element of water into its constituent airs, and re-creates it at her pleasure.
Book review of Robert Hunt, Poetry of Science (1848), in the London Examiner (1848). Although uncredited in print, biographers identified his authorship from his original handwritten work. Collected in Charles Dickens and Frederic George Kitton (ed.) Old Lamps for New Ones: And Other Sketches and Essays (1897), 86-87.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Bottom (36)  |  Chalk (9)  |  City (87)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Coal (64)  |  Coast (13)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Construct (129)  |  Constructing (3)  |  Coral (10)  |  Coral Reef (15)  |  Create (245)  |  Creature (242)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deep (241)  |  Destroyer (5)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Down (455)  |  Dust (68)  |  Element (322)  |  Exist (458)  |  Generation (256)  |  Genius (301)  |  Glitter (10)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Labor (200)  |  Lake (36)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Limestone (6)  |  Mermaid (5)  |  Mine (78)  |  Minute (129)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Pass (241)  |  Pit (20)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Pointing (4)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Reef (7)  |  Region (40)  |  Rock (176)  |  Safety (58)  |  Safety Lamp (3)  |  Sea (326)  |  Shining (35)  |  Show (353)  |  Siren (4)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)

Science is a progressive activity. The outstanding peculiarity of man is that he stumbled onto the possibility of progressive activities. Such progress, the accumulation of experience from generation to generation, depended first on the development of language, then of writing and finally of printing. These allowed the accumulation of tradition and of knowledge, of the whole aura of cultural inheritance that surrounds us. This has so conditioned our existence that it is almost impossible for us to stop and examine the nature of our culture. We accept it as we accept the air we breathe; we are as unconscious of our culture as a fish, presumably, is of water.
In The Nature of Natural History (1950, 1961), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Activity (218)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Condition (362)  |  Culture (157)  |  Depend (238)  |  Development (441)  |  Examine (84)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  First (1302)  |  Fish (130)  |  Generation (256)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Language (308)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Outstanding (16)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Printing (25)  |  Progress (492)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  Writing (192)

Scientific truth is marvellous, but moral truth is divine; and whoever breathes its air and walks by its light has found the lost paradise.
'A Few Thoughts for a Young Man', Monthly Literary Miscellany (1851), Vol. 4 & 5, 155.
Science quotes on:  |  Breath (61)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Divine (112)  |  Light (635)  |  Lost (34)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Moral (203)  |  Paradise (15)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Truth (23)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Walk (138)  |  Whoever (42)

Scientists alone can establish the objectives of their research, but society, in extending support to science, must take account of its own needs. As a layman, I can suggest only with diffidence what some of the major tasks might be on your scientific agenda, but … First, I would suggest the question of the conservation and development of our natural resources. In a recent speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations, I proposed a world-wide program to protect land and water, forests and wildlife, to combat exhaustion and erosion, to stop the contamination of water and air by industrial as well as nuclear pollution, and to provide for the steady renewal and expansion of the natural bases of life.
From Address to the Centennial Convocation of the National Academy of Sciences (22 Oct 1963), 'A Century of Scientific Conquest'. Online at The American Presidency Project.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Agenda (4)  |  Alone (324)  |  Assembly (13)  |  Base (120)  |  Combat (16)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Contamination (4)  |  Development (441)  |  Diffidence (2)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Establish (63)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Expansion (43)  |  First (1302)  |  Forest (161)  |  General (521)  |  Industrial (15)  |  Land (131)  |  Layman (21)  |  Life (1870)  |  Major (88)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Resource (23)  |  Need (320)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Objective (96)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Program (57)  |  Propose (24)  |  Protect (65)  |  Question (649)  |  Recent (78)  |  Renewal (4)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Society (350)  |  Speech (66)  |  Steady (45)  |  Stop (89)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Support (151)  |  Task (152)  |  United Nations (3)  |  Water (503)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wildlife (16)  |  World (1850)  |  Worldwide (19)

Scientists and Drapers. Why should the botanist, geologist or other-ist give himself such airs over the draper’s assistant? Is it because he names his plants or specimens with Latin names and divides them into genera and species, whereas the draper does not formulate his classifications, or at any rate only uses his mother tongue when he does? Yet how like the sub-divisions of textile life are to those of the animal and vegetable kingdoms! A few great families—cotton, linen, hempen, woollen, silk, mohair, alpaca—into what an infinite variety of genera and species do not these great families subdivide themselves? And does it take less labour, with less intelligence, to master all these and to acquire familiarity with their various habits, habitats and prices than it does to master the details of any other great branch of science? I do not know. But when I think of Shoolbred’s on the one hand and, say, the ornithological collections of the British Museum upon the other, I feel as though it would take me less trouble to master the second than the first.
Samuel Butler, Henry Festing Jones (ed.), The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1917), 218.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Assistant (6)  |  Botanist (25)  |  Branch (155)  |  British (42)  |  British Museum (2)  |  Classification (102)  |  Collection (68)  |  Cotton (8)  |  Detail (150)  |  Divide (77)  |  Division (67)  |  Do (1905)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Family (101)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Genus (27)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Great (1610)  |  Habit (174)  |  Habitat (17)  |  Himself (461)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Labor (200)  |  Latin (44)  |  Life (1870)  |  Linen (8)  |  Master (182)  |  Mother (116)  |  Mother Tongue (3)  |  Museum (40)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Ornithology (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Price (57)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Silk (14)  |  Species (435)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Textile (2)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Use (771)  |  Variety (138)  |  Various (205)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Why (491)  |  Wool (4)

See with what force yon river’s crystal stream
Resists the weight of many a massy beam.
To sink the wood the more we vainly toil,
The higher it rebounds, with swift recoil.
Yet that the beam would of itself ascend
No man will rashly venture to contend.
Thus too the flame has weight, though highly rare,
Nor mounts but when compelled by heavier air.
De Rerum Natura, second book, as quoted in translation in Thomas Young, A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1845), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascend (30)  |  Beam (26)  |  Buoyancy (7)  |  Contend (8)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Flame (44)  |  Force (497)  |  Heavier (2)  |  Higher (37)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  More (2558)  |  Mount (43)  |  Rare (94)  |  Rashness (2)  |  Rebound (3)  |  Recoil (6)  |  River (140)  |  See (1094)  |  Sink (38)  |  Stream (83)  |  Swift (16)  |  Toil (29)  |  Vain (86)  |  Venture (19)  |  Water (503)  |  Weight (140)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wood (97)

See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being, which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see,
No glass can reach! from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing—On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
'An Essay on Man' (1733-4), Epistle I. In John Butt (ed.), The Poems of Alexander Pope (1965), 513.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Angel (47)  |  Beast (58)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Below (26)  |  Bird (163)  |  Birth (154)  |  Break (109)  |  Broken (56)  |  Burst (41)  |  Chain (51)  |  Creation (350)  |  Deep (241)  |  Depth (97)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ether (37)  |  Ethereal (9)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extension (60)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fish (130)  |  Glass (94)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Inferiority (7)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Insect (89)  |  Life (1870)  |  Link (48)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Might (3)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Power (771)  |  Press (21)  |  Progress (492)  |  Quickness (5)  |  Reach (286)  |  Scale (122)  |  See (1094)  |  Step (234)  |  Strike (72)  |  Superior (88)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vastness (15)  |  Void (31)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wide (97)  |  Width (5)

So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field… .
Bible
(circa 725 B.C.)
Science quotes on:  |  Beast (58)  |  Bird (163)  |  Call (781)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Field (378)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Ground (222)  |  Living (492)  |  Lord (97)  |  Man (2252)  |  Name (359)  |  See (1094)  |  Whatever (234)

Some guns were fired to give notice that the departure of the balloon was near. ... Means were used, I am told, to prevent the great balloon's rising so high as might endanger its bursting. Several bags of sand were taken on board before the cord that held it down was cut, and the whole weight being then too much to be lifted, such a quantity was discharged as would permit its rising slowly. Thus it would sooner arrive at that region where it would be in equilibrio with the surrounding air, and by discharging more sand afterwards, it might go higher if desired. Between one and two o’clock, all eyes were gratified with seeing it rise majestically from above the trees, and ascend gradually above the buildings, a most beautiful spectacle. When it was about two hundred feet high, the brave adventurers held out and waved a little white pennant, on both sides of their car, to salute the spectators, who returned loud claps of applause. The wind was very little, so that the object though moving to the northward, continued long in view; and it was a great while before the admiring people began to disperse. The persons embarked were Mr. Charles, professor of experimental philosophy, and a zealous promoter of that science; and one of the Messrs Robert, the very ingenious constructors of the machine.
While U.S. ambassador to France, writing about witnessing, from his carriage outside the garden of Tuileries, Paris, the first manned balloon ascent using hydrogen gas on the afternoon of 1 Dec 1783. A few days earlier, he had watched the first manned ascent in Montgolfier's hot-air balloon, on 21 Nov 1783.
Letter to Sir Charles Banks (1 Dec 1783). In The Writings of Benjamin Franklin: 1783-1788 (1906), Vol. 9, 119-120.
Science quotes on:  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Brave (16)  |  Building (158)  |  Car (75)  |  Jacques-Alexandre-César Charles (2)  |  Clock (51)  |  Cut (116)  |  Down (455)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Garden (64)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Lift (57)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Notice (81)  |  Object (438)  |  Outside (141)  |  People (1031)  |  Permit (61)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Professor (133)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Return (133)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Salute (3)  |  Sand (63)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Side (236)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Tree (269)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Watch (118)  |  Weight (140)  |  White (132)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wind (141)  |  Writing (192)

Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. …
In the course of the last four months it has been made probable … that it may become possible to set up nuclear chain reactions in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.
This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable—though much less certain—that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat or exploded in a port, might well destroy the whole port altogether with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.
Letter to President Franklin P. Roosevelt, (2 Aug 1939, delivered 11 Oct 1939). In Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden (Eds.) Einstein on Peace (1960, reprinted 1981), 294-95.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Amount (153)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Course (413)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Element (322)  |  Energy (373)  |  Expect (203)  |  Exploded (11)  |  Future (467)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Large (398)  |  Last (425)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mass (160)  |  Month (91)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Prove (261)  |  Radium (29)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Recent (78)  |  Set (400)  |  Single (365)  |  Situation (117)  |  Territory (25)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Turn (454)  |  Type (171)  |  Uranium (21)  |  Vast (188)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

Something to remember. If you have remembered every word in this article, your memory will have recorded about 150 000 bits of information. Thus, the order in your brain will have increased by about 150 000 units. However, while you have been reading the article, you will have converted about 300 000 joules of ordered energy, in the form of food, into disordered energy, in the form of heat which you lose to the air around you by convection and sweat. This will increase the disorder of the Universe by about 3 x 1024 units, about 20 million million million times the increase in order because you remember my article.
An afterword to his three-page article discussing thermodynamics and entropy, in 'The Direction of Time', New Scientist (9 Jul 1987), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Article (22)  |  Bit (21)  |  Brain (281)  |  Convection (3)  |  Convert (22)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Energy (373)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Heat (180)  |  Increase (225)  |  Information (173)  |  Joule (3)  |  Lose (165)  |  Memory (144)  |  Million (124)  |  Order (638)  |  Reading (136)  |  Record (161)  |  Remember (189)  |  Something (718)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clean air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste.
Letter (3 Dec 1960) written to David E. Pesonen of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. Collected in 'Coda: Wilderness Letter', The Sound of Mountain Water: The Changing American West (1969), 146.
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Book (413)  |  Case (102)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Clean (52)  |  Comic (5)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Country (269)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dirty (17)  |  Drive (61)  |  Exhaust (22)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Forest (161)  |  Free (239)  |  Human (1512)  |  Last (425)  |  Let (64)  |  Member (42)  |  Never (1089)  |  Noise (40)  |  Pave (8)  |  People (1031)  |  Permit (61)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Push (66)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Road (71)  |  Silence (62)  |  Something (718)  |  Species (435)  |  Stink (8)  |  Stream (83)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Virgin (11)  |  Waste (109)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Will (2350)  |  Zoo (9)

Soon shall thy arm, UNCONQUER’D STEAM! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying-chariot through the fields of air.
From 'Botanic Garden' (1781), part 1, canto 1, lines 289-92. The Botanic Garden, with Philosophical Notes (4th Ed., 1799). At the time Erasmus Darwin penned his poem, he would have been aware of a limited history of steam power: Edward Someset, 2nd Marquis of Worcester steam pump (1663), Thomas Savery's steam pump (1698), Thomas Newcomen atmospheric engine (1712), Matthew Boulton and James Watt first commercial steam engine (1776). Watt did not build his first 'double acting' engine, which enabled using a flywheel, until 1783 (two years after Darwin's poem). It was also after Darwin's poem was written that the first steamboat, using paddles, the Pyroscaphe steamed up a French river on 15 Jul 1783. Darwin's predicted future for the steam engine car did not come to pass until Richard Trevithick tested his Camborne road engine (1801). The Wrights' first airplane flight came a century later, in 1903.
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (82)  |  Bear (162)  |  Car (75)  |  Chariot (9)  |  Expand (56)  |  Field (378)  |  Flying (74)  |  Poem (104)  |  Slow (108)  |  Soon (187)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Through (846)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wing (79)

Spontaneous generation, to put the matter simply, takes place in smaller plants, especially in those that are annuals and herbaceous. But still it occasionally occurs too in larger plants whenever there is rainy weather or some peculiar condition of air or soil; for thus it is said that the silphium sprang up in Libya when a murky and heavy sort of wet weather condition occurred, and that the timber growth which is now there has come from some similar reason or other; for it was not there in former times.
De Causis Plantarum 1.5.1, in Robert Ewing Dengler (trans.) Theophrastus: De Causis Plantarum Book One: Text, Critical Apparatus, Translation, and Commentary, (1927), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Annual (5)  |  Condition (362)  |  Former (138)  |  Generation (256)  |  Growth (200)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Herbaceous (2)  |  Large (398)  |  Matter (821)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Occur (151)  |  Occurence (3)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Plant (320)  |  Rain (70)  |  Reason (766)  |  Small (489)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Spontaneous Generation (9)  |  Still (614)  |  Timber (8)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weather (49)  |  Whenever (81)

Take an arrow, and hold it in flame for the space of ten pulses, and when it cometh forth you shall find those parts of the arrow which were on the outsides of the flame more burned, blacked, and turned almost to coal, whereas the midst of the flame will be as if the fire had scarce touched it. This is an instance of great consequence for the discovery of the nature of flame; and sheweth manifestly, that flame burneth more violently towards the sides than in the midst.
Observing, but not with the knowledge, that a flame burns at its outside in contact with air, and there is no combustion within the flame which is not mixed with air. In Sylva Sylvarum; or a Natural History in Ten Centuries (1627), Century 1, Experiment 32. Collected in The Works of Francis Bacon (1740), Vol 3, 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrow (22)  |  Burn (99)  |  Charcoal (10)  |  Coal (64)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Contact (66)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flame (44)  |  Great (1610)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Manifestly (11)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Outside (141)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Side (236)  |  Space (523)  |  Touch (146)  |  Turn (454)  |  Will (2350)

Technology, when misused, poisons air, soil, water and lives. But a world without technology would be prey to something worse: the impersonal ruthlessness of the natural order, in which the health of a species depends on relentless sacrifice of the weak.
Editorial, 'Nature As Demon', (29 Aug 1986), A26.
Science quotes on:  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependance (4)  |  Health (210)  |  Impersonal (5)  |  Live (650)  |  Misuse (12)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Order (6)  |  Order (638)  |  Poison (46)  |  Prey (13)  |  Relentless (9)  |  Ruthlessness (3)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Soil (98)  |  Something (718)  |  Species (435)  |  Technology (281)  |  Water (503)  |  Weak (73)  |  World (1850)  |  Worse (25)

Thales thought that water was the primordial substance of all things. Heraclitus of Ephesus… thought that it was fire. Democritus and his follower Epicurus thought that it was the atoms, termed by our writers “bodies that cannot be cut up” or, by some “indivisibles.” The school of the Pythagoreans added air and the earthy to the water and fire. Hence, although Democritus did not in a strict sense name them, but spoke only of indivisible bodies, yet he seems to have meant these same elements, because when taken by themselves they cannot be harmed, nor are they susceptible of dissolution, nor can they be cut up into parts, but throughout time eternal they forever retain an infinite solidity.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 2, Chap 2, Sec. 1. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Cut (116)  |  Democritus of Abdera (17)  |  Dissolution (11)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Epicurus (6)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Fire (203)  |  Forever (111)  |  Heraclitus (15)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Name (359)  |  Primordial (14)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Retain (57)  |  School (227)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solid (119)  |  Substance (253)  |  Term (357)  |  Thales (9)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Water (503)  |  Writer (90)

That all plants immediately and substantially stem from the element water alone I have learnt from the following experiment. I took an earthern vessel in which I placed two hundred pounds of earth dried in an oven, and watered with rain water. I planted in it a willow tree weighing five pounds. Five years later it had developed a tree weighing one hundred and sixty-nine pounds and about three ounces. Nothing but rain (or distilled water) had been added. The large vessel was placed in earth and covered by an iron lid with a tin-surface that was pierced with many holes. I have not weighed the leaves that came off in the four autumn seasons. Finally I dried the earth in the vessel again and found the same two hundred pounds of it diminished by about two ounces. Hence one hundred and sixty-four pounds of wood, bark and roots had come up from water alone. (1648)
A diligent experiment that was quantitatively correct only as far as it goes. He overlooked the essential role of air and photosynthesis in the growth process.
Complex. atque mist. elem. fig., 30, Opp. pp. 104-5; Aufgang, 148. In Walter Pagel, Joan Baptista Van Helmont (2002) , 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Autumn (11)  |  Bark (19)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Develop (278)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Growth (200)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Iron (99)  |  Large (398)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Oven (5)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Plant (320)  |  Process (439)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Rain (70)  |  Role (86)  |  Root (121)  |  Season (47)  |  Stem (31)  |  Surface (223)  |  Tin (18)  |  Tree (269)  |  Two (936)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Water (503)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Wood (97)  |  Year (963)

That there is a Spring, or Elastical power in the Air we live in. By which ελατνρ [elater] or Spring of the Air, that which I mean is this: That our Air either consists of, or at least abounds with, parts of such a nature, that in case they be bent or compress'd by the weight of the incumbent part of the Atmosphere, or by any other Body, they do endeavour, as much as in them lies, to free themselves from that pressure, by bearing against the contiguous Bodies that keep them bent.
New Experiments Physico-Mechanical Touching the Spring of the Air (1660), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Against (332)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Body (557)  |  Consist (223)  |  Do (1905)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Free (239)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  Mean (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Spring (140)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Weight (140)

That which the sciences can add to the privileges of the human race has never been more marked than at the present moment. … The air seems to become as accessible to him as the waters…. The name of Montgolfier, the names of those hardy navigators of the new element, will live through time; but who among us, on seeing these superb experiments, has not felt his soul elevated, his ideas expanded, his mind enlarged?
As quoted by François Arago, in a biography of Bailly, read to the Academy of Sciences (26 Feb 1844), as translated by William Henry Smyth, Baden Powell and Robert Grant, published in 'Bailly', Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859), Vol. 1, 124.
Science quotes on:  |  Accessibility (3)  |  Accessible (27)  |  Become (821)  |  Element (322)  |  Expand (56)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hardy (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Idea (881)  |  Live (650)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Navigator (8)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Present (630)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Race (278)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Soul (235)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

The Admiralty said it was a plane and not a boat, the Royal Air Force said it was a boat and not a plane, the Army were plain not interested.
Describing his invention, the hovercraft. Webmaster has not yet found a source for this as a direct quote.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiralty (2)  |  Army (35)  |  Boat (17)  |  Force (497)  |  Hovercraft (2)  |  Interest (416)  |  Plane (22)  |  Royal (56)

The air of caricature never fails to show itself in the products of reason applied relentlessly and without correction. The observation of clinical facts would seem to be a pursuit of the physician as harmless as it is indispensable. [But] it seemed irresistibly rational to certain minds that diseases should be as fully classifiable as are beetles and butterflies. This doctrine … bore perhaps its richest fruit in the hands of Boissier de Sauvauges. In his Nosologia Methodica published in 1768 … this Linnaeus of the bedside grouped diseases into ten classes, 295 genera, and 2400 species.
In 'General Ideas in Medicine', The Lloyd Roberts lecture at House of the Royal Society of Medicine (30 Sep 1935), British Medical Journal (5 Oct 1935), 2, 609. In The Collected Papers of Wilfred Trotter, FRS (1941), 151.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Bedside (3)  |  Beetle (19)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Caricature (6)  |  Certain (557)  |  Class (168)  |  Classification (102)  |  Clinical (18)  |  Correction (42)  |  Disease (340)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Genus (27)  |  Harmless (9)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Carolus Linnaeus (36)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observation (593)  |  Physician (284)  |  Product (166)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Rational (95)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Reason (766)  |  Relentless (9)  |  Richness (15)  |  Seem (150)  |  Show (353)  |  Species (435)

The air, the water and the ground are free gifts to man and no one has the power to portion them out in parcels. Man must drink and breathe and walk and therefore each man has a right to his share of each.
The Prairie (1827).
Science quotes on:  |  Breathe (49)  |  Drink (56)  |  Free (239)  |  Gift (105)  |  Ground (222)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Portion (86)  |  Power (771)  |  Right (473)  |  Share (82)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)

The attitude of the intellectual community toward America is shaped not by the creative few but by the many who for one reason or another cannot transmute their dissatisfaction into a creative impulse, and cannot acquire a sense of uniqueness and of growth by developing and expressing their capacities and talents. There is nothing in contemporary America that can cure or alleviate their chronic frustration. They want power, lordship, and opportunities for imposing action. Even if we should banish poverty from the land, lift up the Negro to true equality, withdraw from Vietnam, and give half of the national income as foreign aid, they will still see America as an air-conditioned nightmare unfit for them to live in.
In 'Some Thoughts on the Present', The Temper of Our Time (1967), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Action (342)  |  Aid (101)  |  Alleviate (4)  |  America (143)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Banish (11)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Chronic (5)  |  Community (111)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Creative (144)  |  Cure (124)  |  Develop (278)  |  Dissatisfaction (13)  |  Equality (34)  |  Express (192)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Frustration (14)  |  Give (208)  |  Growth (200)  |  Half (63)  |  Impose (22)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Income (18)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Land (131)  |  Lift (57)  |  Live (650)  |  National (29)  |  Negro (8)  |  Nightmare (4)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Power (771)  |  Reason (766)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shape (77)  |  Still (614)  |  Talent (99)  |  Toward (45)  |  Transmute (6)  |  True (239)  |  Unfit (13)  |  Uniqueness (11)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)  |  Withdraw (11)

The beauty of his better self lives on
In minds he touched with fire, in many an eye
He trained to Truth’s exact severity;
He was a teacher: why be grieved for him
Whose living word still stimulates the air?
[On Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz.] 'Ode on the Death of Agassiz' (1888). In The Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (1978),381.
Science quotes on:  |  Louis Agassiz (43)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Better (493)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fire (203)  |  In Memoriam (2)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Self (268)  |  Still (614)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Touch (146)  |  Train (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Why (491)  |  Word (650)

The big blue area that dominates the view of earth from space was once our home and today represents 97 percent of the biosphere where life exists, providing the water we drink and the air we breathe. And we are destroying it.
In 'Can We Stop Killing Our Oceans Now, Please?', Huffington Post (14 Aug 2013).
Science quotes on:  |  Biosphere (14)  |  Blue (63)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dominate (20)  |  Drink (56)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Exist (458)  |  Home (184)  |  Life (1870)  |  Oceanography (17)  |  Provide (79)  |  Represent (157)  |  Space (523)  |  Today (321)  |  View (496)  |  Water (503)

The bird is a creature of the air, the fish is a creature of the water, and man is a creature of the mind.
In From Atlantis to the Sphinx (1996), 347.
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Creature (242)  |  Fish (130)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Water (503)

The blue distance, the mysterious Heavens, the example of birds and insects flying everywhere, are always beckoning Humanity to rise into the air.
In The Successes of Air Balloons in the 19th Century (1901), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Beckon (5)  |  Beckoning (4)  |  Bird (163)  |  Blue (63)  |  Distance (171)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Example (98)  |  Flying (74)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Insect (89)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Rise (169)

The body of the earth is of the nature of a fish... because it draws water as its breath instead of air.
'Philosophy', in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, trans. E. MacCurdy (1938), Vol. 1 70.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Breath (61)  |  Draw (140)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fish (130)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Water (503)

The cause of rain is now, I consider, no longer an object of doubt. If two masses of air of unequal temperatures, by the ordinary currents of the winds, are intermixed, when saturated with vapour, a precipitation ensues. If the masses are under saturation, then less precipitation takes place, or none at all, according to the degree. Also, the warmer the air, the greater is the quantity of vapour precipitated in like circumstances. ... Hence the reason why rains are heavier in summer than in winter, and in warm countries than in cold.
Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester (1819), 3, 507. Quoted in George Drysdale Dempsey and Daniel Kinnear Clark, On the Drainage of Lands, Towns, & Buildings (1887), 246.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Cold (115)  |  Consider (428)  |  Current (122)  |  Degree (277)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Greater (288)  |  Intermix (3)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Object (438)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Precipitation (7)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Rain (70)  |  Reason (766)  |  Saturation (9)  |  Summer (56)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Two (936)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Vapour (16)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Why (491)  |  Wind (141)  |  Winter (46)

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:  |  Age (509)  |  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 complacent manner in which geologists have produced their theories has been extremely amusing; for often with knowledge (and that frequently inaccurate) not extending beyond a given province, they have described the formation of a world with all the detail and air of eye-witnesses. That much good ensues, and that the science is greatly advanced, by the collision of various theories, cannot be doubted. Each party is anxious to support opinions by facts. Thus, new countries are explored, and old districts re-examined; facts come to light that do not suit either party; new theories spring up; and, in the end, a greater insight into the real structure of the earth's surface is obtained.
Sections and Views Illustrative of Geological Phenomena (1830), iii.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Collision (16)  |  Detail (150)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Formation (100)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Geology (240)  |  Good (906)  |  Greater (288)  |  Insight (107)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  New (1273)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Produced (187)  |  Province (37)  |  Spring (140)  |  Structure (365)  |  Support (151)  |  Surface (223)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Various (205)  |  World (1850)

The condensed air becomes attached to [the metallic calx], and adheres little by little to the smallest of its particles: thus its weight increases from the beginning to the end: but when all is saturated, it can take up no more.
Jean Rey
The Increase in Weight of Tin and Lead on Calcination (1630), Alembic Club Reprint (1895), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Adherence (2)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Attachment (7)  |  Become (821)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Calcination (4)  |  Condensation (12)  |  End (603)  |  Increase (225)  |  Lead (391)  |  Little (717)  |  Metal (88)  |  More (2558)  |  Particle (200)  |  Saturation (9)  |  Small (489)  |  Tin (18)  |  Weight (140)

The contradictory experiments of chemists leave us at liberty to conclude what we please. My conclusion is, that art has not yet invented sufficient aids to enable such subtle bodies [air, light, &c.] to make a well-defined impression on organs as blunt as ours; that it is laudable to encourage investigation but to hold back conclusion.
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:  |  Aid (101)  |  Art (680)  |  Back (395)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Enable (122)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Impression (118)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Light (635)  |  Organ (118)  |  Please (68)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Well-Defined (9)

The demonstration that no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which men shall fly along distances through the air, seems to the writer as complete as it is possible for the demonstration to be.
Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science (1906), 345.
Science quotes on:  |  Airplane (43)  |  Aviation (8)  |  Combination (150)  |  Complete (209)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Distance (171)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Known (453)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practical (225)  |  Substance (253)  |  Through (846)  |  Writer (90)

The desire to fly after the fashion of the birds is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air.
In The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright: Including the Chanute-Wright Letters (1953), 934.
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Bird (163)  |  Desire (212)  |  Down (455)  |  Fly (153)  |  Freely (13)  |  Full (68)  |  Grueling (2)  |  Handed Down (2)  |  Highway (15)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Land (131)  |  Look (584)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Prehistoric (12)  |  Soar (23)  |  Soaring (9)  |  Space (523)  |  Speed (66)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trackless (2)  |  Travel (125)

The discoveries of Darwin, himself a magnificent field naturalist, had the remarkable effect of sending the whole zoological world flocking indoors, where they remained hard at work for fifty years or more, and whence they are now beginning to put forth cautious heads into the open air.
(1960)
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effect (414)  |  Field (378)  |  Field Naturalist (3)  |  Hard (246)  |  Himself (461)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  More (2558)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Open (277)  |  Remain (355)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)  |  Zoologist (12)  |  Zoology (38)

The diseases which are hard to cure in neighborhoods… are catarrh, hoarseness, coughs, pleurisy, consumption, spitting of blood, and all others that are cured not by lowering the system but by building it up. They are hard to cure, first, because they are originally due to chills; secondly, because the patient's system being already exhausted by disease, the air there, which is in constant agitation owing to winds and therefore deteriorated, takes all the sap of life out of their diseased bodies and leaves them more meager every day. On the other hand, a mild, thick air, without drafts and not constantly blowing back and forth, builds up their frames by its unwavering steadiness, and so strengthens and restores people who are afflicted with these diseases.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 1, Chap 6, Sec. 3. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Agitation (10)  |  Already (226)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blood (144)  |  Blowing (22)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Catarrh (2)  |  Chill (10)  |  Constant (148)  |  Consumption (16)  |  Cough (8)  |  Cure (124)  |  Disease (340)  |  Draft (6)  |  Due (143)  |  First (1302)  |  Hard (246)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mild (7)  |  More (2558)  |  Neighborhood (12)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owing (39)  |  Patient (209)  |  People (1031)  |  System (545)  |  Wind (141)

The dolphin ... [in air] ... has a voice (and can therefore utter vocal or vowel sounds), for it is furnished with a lung and a windpipe; but its tongue is not loose, nor has it lips, so as to give utterance to an articulate sound (or a sound of vowel and consonant in combination.)
Other translations vary. Sometimes seen quoted more briefly as: The voice of the dolphin in air is like that of the human in that they can pronounce vowels and combinations of vowels, but have difficulties with the consonants.
Aristotle
Historia Animalium (c.350 BC) as translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, The History of Animals (1910, reprint, 2004), Book IV, 110; also online etext. Brief form as quoted in Communication Between Man and Dolphin (1987), 11. By John Cunningham Lilly
Science quotes on:  |  Combination (150)  |  Consonant (3)  |  Dolphin (9)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Human (1512)  |  Lung (37)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pronounce (11)  |  Sound (187)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Translation (21)  |  Utterance (11)  |  Voice (54)

The earth is flat, being borne upon air, and similarly the sun, moon and the other heavenly bodies, which are all fiery, ride upon the air through their flatness.
Hippolytus, Refutation 1.7.4. In G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M.Schofield (eds), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1983), p. 154.
Science quotes on:  |  Anaximander (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fiery (5)  |  Flat (34)  |  Moon (252)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ride (23)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Sun (407)  |  Through (846)

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:  |  Age (509)  |  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 edifice of science not only requires material, but also a plan. Without the material, the plan alone is but a castle in the air—a mere possibility; whilst the material without a plan is but useless matter.
In The Principles of Chemistry (1891), Vol. 1, preface, footnote, ix, as translated from the Russian 5th edition by George Kamensky, edited by A. J. Greenaway.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Castle In The Air (4)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Plan (122)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Uselessness (22)

The end of the ridge and the end of the world... then nothing but that clear, empty air. There was nowhere else to climb. I was standing on the top of the world.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Clear (111)  |  Climb (39)  |  Empty (82)  |  End (603)  |  End Of The World (6)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Ridge (9)  |  Stand (284)  |  Top (100)  |  World (1850)

The energy liberated when substrates undergo air oxidation is not liberated in one large burst, as was once thought, but is released in stepwise fashion. At least six separate steps seem to be involved. The process is not unlike that of locks in a canal. As each lock is passed in the ascent from a lower to a higher level a certain amount of energy is expended. Similarly, the total energy resulting from the oxidation of foodstuffs is released in small units or parcels, step by step. The amount of free energy released at each step is proportional to the difference in potential of the systems comprising the several steps.
'Oxidative Mechanisms in Animal Tissues', A Symposium on Respiratory Enzymes (1942), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Burst (41)  |  Canal (18)  |  Certain (557)  |  Difference (355)  |  Energy (373)  |  Free (239)  |  Involved (90)  |  Large (398)  |  Nutrition (25)  |  Oxidation (8)  |  Pass (241)  |  Potential (75)  |  Process (439)  |  Separate (151)  |  Small (489)  |  Step (234)  |  Step By Step (11)  |  System (545)  |  Thought (995)  |  Total (95)

The ether is not a fantastic creation of the speculative philosopher; it is as essential to us as the air we breathe.
In 'Address of the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science', Science (27 Aug 1909), 30, 267.
Science quotes on:  |  Breathe (49)  |  Creation (350)  |  Essential (210)  |  Ether (37)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  Philosopher (269)

The eye transmits its own image through the air to all the objects which face it, and also receives them on its own surface, whence the “sensus communis” takes them and considers them.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Consider (428)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Image (97)  |  Object (438)  |  Receive (117)  |  Surface (223)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmit (12)

The feeling of it to my lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air; but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards. Who can tell but that, in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury. Hitherto only two mice and myself have had the privilege of breathing it.
Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775), Vol. 2, 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Common (447)  |  Different (595)  |  Ease (40)  |  Easy (213)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Fashionable (15)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Light (635)  |  Lung (37)  |  Luxury (21)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Myself (211)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purity (15)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)

The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space. Everything else is merely thought to exist. The worlds are unlimited. They come into being and perish. Nothing can come into being from that which is not nor pass away into that which is not. Further, the atoms are unlimited in size and number, and they are borne along in the whole universe in a vortex, and thereby generate all composite things—-fire, water, air, earth. For even these are conglomerations of given atoms. And it is because of their solidarity that these atoms are impassive and unalterable. The sun and the moon have been composed of such smooth and spherical masses [i.e. atoms], and so also the soul, which is identical with reason.
Diogenes Laertius IX, 44. Trans. R. D. Hicks (1925), Vol. 2, 453-5. An alternate translation of the opening is "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion."
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Empty (82)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Identical (55)  |  Impassive (2)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  Moon (252)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perish (56)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Soul (235)  |  Space (523)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unlimited (24)  |  Vortex (10)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

The forests are the “lungs” of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
From 'A Presidential Statement on Receipt of the Award of the Schlich Forestry Medal' (29 Jan 1935) in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1935, Volume 4 (1938), 65. Roosevelt was awarded the medal by the Society of American Foresters. This is seen in a number of sources incorrectly joined with Roosevelt’s quote about the nation destroying is soil (q.v.), but Webmaster has only been able to find primary sources for these as separate quotes.
Science quotes on:  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Forest (161)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Land (131)  |  Lung (37)  |  People (1031)  |  Purifying (2)  |  Strength (139)

The generality of men are so accustomed to judge of things by their senses that, because the air is indivisible, they ascribe but little to it, and think it but one remove from nothing.
In Mary Elvira Weeks, The Discovery of the Elements (1934), 29, citing Boyle, 'Memoirs for a General History of the Air', in Shaw's Abridgment of Boyle's works (1725), Vol. 3, 61, and Ramsay, The Gases of the Atmosphere (1915), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Ascribe (18)  |  Generality (45)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Judge (114)  |  Little (717)  |  Men (20)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Remove (50)  |  Sense (785)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)

The great question of the seventies is, shall we surrender to our surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, our land, our water? Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of this country [America].
In State of the Union Address (22 Jan 1970).
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Cause (561)  |  Common (447)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Damage (38)  |  Faction (4)  |  Great (1610)  |  Land (131)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Party (19)  |  Peace (116)  |  People (1031)  |  Question (649)  |  Restore (12)  |  State (505)  |  Surrender (21)  |  Surroundings (6)  |  Water (503)

The Industrial Revolution as a whole was not designed. It took shape gradually as industrialists and engineers figured out how to make things. The result is that we put billions of pounds of toxic materials in the air, water and soil every year and generate gigantic amounts of waste. If our goal is to destroy the world—to produce global warming and toxicity and endocrine disruption—we're doing great.
In interview article, 'Designing For The Future', Newsweek (15 May 2005).
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Billion (104)  |  Design (203)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Disruption (3)  |  Doing (277)  |  Endocrine (2)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Environment (239)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Global (39)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  Goal (155)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Material (366)  |  Result (700)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Soil (98)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Toxicity (2)  |  Toxin (8)  |  Warming (24)  |  Waste (109)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

The inspired and expired air may be sometimes very useful, by condensing and cooling the blood that passeth through the lungs; I hold that the depuration of the blood in that passage, is not only one of the ordinary, but one of the principal uses of respiration.
New Experiments ... Touching the Spring of Air. In Works, Vol 1, 113. Quoted in Barbara Kaplan (ed.), Divulging of Useful Truths in Physick: The Medical Agenda of Robert Boyle (1993), 85.
Science quotes on:  |  Blood (144)  |  Cooling (10)  |  Lung (37)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Passage (52)  |  Principal (69)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Through (846)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)

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:  |  Age (509)  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Aggregation (6)  |  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 are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries.
In 'Table-Talk', The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Volume 3 (1883), 1354.
Science quotes on:  |  Burn (99)  |  Bury (19)  |  Cause (561)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consume (13)  |  Drown (14)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Fire (203)  |  Forbearance (3)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Inseparable (18)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Mercy (12)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Water (503)  |  Weak (73)

The modern airplane creates a new geographical dimension. A navigable ocean of air blankets the whole surface of the globe. There are no distant places any longer: the world is small and the world is one.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Airplane (43)  |  Blanket (10)  |  Create (245)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Distant (33)  |  Geographical (6)  |  Globe (51)  |  Long (778)  |  Modern (402)  |  New (1273)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Place (192)  |  Small (489)  |  Surface (223)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote. Nevertheless, it has been found that there are apparent exceptions to most of these laws, and this is particularly true when the observations are pushed to a limit, i.e., whenever the circumstances of experiment are such that extreme cases can be examined. Such examination almost surely leads, not to the overthrow of the law, but to the discovery of other facts and laws whose action produces the apparent exceptions. As instances of such discoveries, which are in most cases due to the increasing order of accuracy made possible by improvements in measuring instruments, may be mentioned: first, the departure of actual gases from the simple laws of the so-called perfect gas, one of the practical results being the liquefaction of air and all known gases; second, the discovery of the velocity of light by astronomical means, depending on the accuracy of telescopes and of astronomical clocks; third, the determination of distances of stars and the orbits of double stars, which depend on measurements of the order of accuracy of one-tenth of a second-an angle which may be represented as that which a pin's head subtends at a distance of a mile. But perhaps the most striking of such instances are the discovery of a new planet or observations of the small irregularities noticed by Leverrier in the motions of the planet Uranus, and the more recent brilliant discovery by Lord Rayleigh of a new element in the atmosphere through the minute but unexplained anomalies found in weighing a given volume of nitrogen. Many other instances might be cited, but these will suffice to justify the statement that “our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.”
In Light Waves and Their Uses (1903), 23-4. Michelson had some years earlier referenced “an eminent physicist” that he did not name who had “remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals,” near the end of his Convocation Address at the Dedication of the Ryerson Physical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, 'Some of the Objects and Methods of Physical Science' (4 Jul 1894), published in University of Chicago Quarterly Calendar (Aug 1894), 3, No.2, 15. Also
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Action (342)  |  Actual (118)  |  Angle (25)  |  Anomaly (11)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Call (781)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Clock (51)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Depend (238)  |  Determination (80)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distance (171)  |  Due (143)  |  Element (322)  |  Examination (102)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Exception (74)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  Gas (89)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Irregularity (12)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  LeVerrier_Urbain (3)  |  Light (635)  |  Limit (294)  |  Liquefaction (2)  |  Look (584)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mention (84)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  New (1273)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Observation (593)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overthrow (5)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Pin (20)  |  Planet (402)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practical (225)  |  Push (66)  |  Sir John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh (9)  |  Recent (78)  |  Remote (86)  |  Represent (157)  |  Result (700)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Speed Of Light (18)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Statement (148)  |  Striking (48)  |  Surely (101)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Through (846)  |  Unexplained (8)  |  Uranus (6)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier (4)  |  Volume (25)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)

The most part of leaves pour out the greatest quantity of this dephlogisticated air [oxygen] from their under surface, principally those of lofty trees.
In Tobias George Smollett (ed.), 'Experiments Upon Vegetables', The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature (1779), 48, 335.
Science quotes on:  |  Greatest (330)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Lofty (16)  |  Most (1728)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Surface (223)  |  Tree (269)  |  Underside (2)

The native intellectual powers of men in different times, are not so much the causes of the different success of their labours, as the peculiar nature of the means and artificial resources in their possession‎. Independent of vessels of glass, there could have been no accurate manipulations in common chemistry: the air pump was necessary for live investigation of the properties of gaseous matter; and without the Voltaic apparatus, there was no possibility of examining the relations of electrical polarities to chemical attractions.
In Elements of Chemical Philosophy (1812), Vol. 1, Part 1, 28-29.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Air Pump (2)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Common (447)  |  Different (595)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Examine (84)  |  Gas (89)  |  Glass (94)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Labor (200)  |  Live (650)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Native (41)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Polarity (5)  |  Possession (68)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Power (771)  |  Property (177)  |  Relation (166)  |  Resource (74)  |  Success (327)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Voltaic (9)

The next decade will perhaps raise us a step above despair to a cleaner, clearer wisdom and biology cannot fail to help in this. As we become increasingly aware of the ethical problems raised by science and technology, the frontiers between the biological and social sciences are clearly of critical importance—in population density and problems of hunger, psychological stress, pollution of the air and water and exhaustion of irreplaceable resources.
As quoted in 'H. Bentley Glass', New York Times (12 Jan 1970), 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Air Pollution (13)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Become (821)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cleaner (2)  |  Clearer (4)  |  Critical (73)  |  Decade (66)  |  Density (25)  |  Despair (40)  |  Environment (239)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Fail (191)  |  Frontier (41)  |  Help (116)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Importance (299)  |  Irreplaceable (3)  |  Next (238)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Population (115)  |  Problem (731)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Resource (74)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Step (234)  |  Stress (22)  |  Technology (281)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Pollution (17)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)

The night spread out of the east in a great flood, quenching the red sunlight in a single minute. We wriggled by breathless degrees deep into our sleeping bags. Our sole thought was of comfort; we were not alive to the beauty or the grandeur of our position; we did not reflect on the splendor of our elevation. A regret I shall always have is that I did not muster up the energy to spend a minute or two stargazing. One peep I did make between the tent flaps into the night, and I remember dimly an appalling wealth of stars, not pale and remote as they appear when viewed through the moisture-laden air of lower levels, but brilliant points of electric blue fire standing out almost stereoscopically. It was a sight an astronomer would have given much to see, and here were we lying dully in our sleeping bags concerned only with the importance of keeping warm and comfortable.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Appalling (10)  |  Appear (122)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Bag (4)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Blue (63)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Comfortable (13)  |  Concern (239)  |  Deep (241)  |  Degree (277)  |  Dimly (6)  |  East (18)  |  Electric (76)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Energy (373)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flap (2)  |  Flood (52)  |  Give (208)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Great (1610)  |  Importance (299)  |  Keep (104)  |  Level (69)  |  Lie (370)  |  Low (86)  |  Lying (55)  |  Minute (129)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Muster (2)  |  Night (133)  |  Pale (9)  |  Peep (4)  |  Point (584)  |  Position (83)  |  Red (38)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Regret (31)  |  Remember (189)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Sight (135)  |  Single (365)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Sole (50)  |  Spend (97)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Spread (86)  |  Stand (284)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Tent (13)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Wriggle (3)

The ocean … like the air, is the common birth-right of mankind.
Reply (29 Feb 1808) to public address by the Society of Tammany, or Columbian Order, No. 1, of the City of New York, collected in H.A. Washington (ed.), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8 (1854), 127.
Science quotes on:  |  Birth (154)  |  Common (447)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Right (473)

The other experiment (which I shall hardly, I confess, make again, because it was cruel) was with a dog, which, by means of a pair of bellows, wherewith I filled his lungs, and suffered them to empty again, I was able to preserve alive as long as I could desire, after I had wholly opened the thorax, and cut off all the ribs, and opened the belly. Nay, I kept him alive above an hour after I had cut off the pericardium and the mediastinum, and had handled and turned his lungs and heart and all the other parts of its body, as I pleased. My design was to make some enquiries into the nature of respiration. But though I made some considerable discovery of the necessity of fresh air, and the motion of the lungs for the continuance of the animal life, yet I could not make the least discovery in this of what I longed for, which was, to see, if I could by any means discover a passage of the air of the lungs into either the vessels or the heart; and I shall hardly be induced to make any further trials of this kind, because of the torture of this creature: but certainly the enquiry would be very noble, if we could any way find a way so to stupify the creature, as that it might not be sensible.
Letter from Robert Hooke to Robert Boyle (10 Nov 1664). In M. Hunter, A. Clericuzio and L. M. Principe (eds.), The Correspondence of Robert Boyle (2001), Vol. 2, 399.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Bellows (5)  |  Body (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Confess (42)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Creature (242)  |  Cruel (25)  |  Cut (116)  |  Design (203)  |  Desire (212)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dog (70)  |  Empty (82)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Heart (243)  |  Hour (192)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Lung (37)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Noble (93)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Rib (6)  |  See (1094)  |  Torture (30)  |  Trial (59)  |  Turn (454)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Vivisection (7)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wholly (88)

The overwhelming astonishment, the queerest structure we know about so far in the whole universe, the greatest of all cosmological scientific puzzles, confounding all our efforts to comprehend it, is the earth. We are only now beginning to appreciate how strange and splendid it is, how it catches the breath, the loveliest object afloat around the sun, enclosed in its own blue bubble of atmosphere, manufacturing and breathing its own oxygen, fixing its own nitrogen from the air into its own soil, generating its own weather at the surface of its rain forests, constructing its own carapace from living parts: chalk cliffs, coral reefs, old fossils from earlier forms of life now covered by layers of new life meshed together around the globe, Troy upon Troy.
In Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony (1984), 22-23.
Science quotes on:  |  Afloat (4)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Blue (63)  |  Breath (61)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Catch (34)  |  Chalk (9)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Confound (21)  |  Confounding (8)  |  Construct (129)  |  Coral Reef (15)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Cover (40)  |  Early (196)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effort (243)  |  Enclose (2)  |  Fix (34)  |  Forest (161)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Generate (16)  |  Geology (240)  |  Globe (51)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Know (1538)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Lovely (12)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Mesh (3)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  New (1273)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Object (438)  |  Old (499)  |  Overwhelm (5)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Part (235)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Queer (9)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Soil (98)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Strange (160)  |  Structure (365)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Together (392)  |  Troy (3)  |  Universe (900)  |  Weather (49)  |  Whole (756)

The phosphorous smell which is developed when electricity (to speak the profane language) is passing from the points of a conductor into air, or when lightning happens to fall upon some terrestrial object, or when water is electrolysed, has been engaging my attention the last couple of years, and induced me to make many attempts at clearing up that mysterious phenomenon. Though baffled for a long time, at last, I think, I have succeeded so far as to have got the clue which will lead to the discovery of the true cause of the smell in question.
[His first reference to investigating ozone, for which he is remembered.]
Letter to Michael Faraday (4 Apr 1840), The Letters of Faraday and Schoenbein, 1836-1862 (1899), 73. This letter was communicated to the Royal Society on 7 May, and an abstract published in the Philosophical Magazine.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attention (196)  |  Baffle (6)  |  Cause (561)  |  Clue (20)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electrolysis (8)  |  Fall (243)  |  First (1302)  |  Happen (282)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Language (308)  |  Last (425)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Long (778)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Object (438)  |  Ozone (7)  |  Passing (76)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Phosphorus (18)  |  Point (584)  |  Profane (6)  |  Question (649)  |  Remember (189)  |  Research (753)  |  Smell (29)  |  Speak (240)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

The point [is] largely scientific in character …[concerning] the methods which can be invented or adopted or discovered to enable the Earth to control the Air, to enable defence from the ground to exercise control—indeed dominance—upon aeroplanes high above its surface. … science is always able to provide something. We were told that it was impossible to grapple with submarines, but methods were found … Many things were adopted in war which we were told were technically impossible, but patience, perseverance, and above all the spur of necessity under war conditions, made men’s brains act with greater vigour, and science responded to the demands.
[Remarks made in the House of Commons on 7 June 1935. His speculation was later proved correct with the subsequent development of radar during World War II, which was vital in the air defence of Britain.]
Quoting himself in The Second World War: The Gathering Storm (1948, 1986), Vol. 1, 134.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Brain (281)  |  Britain (26)  |  Character (259)  |  Common (447)  |  Condition (362)  |  Control (182)  |  Defence (16)  |  Defense (26)  |  Demand (131)  |  Development (441)  |  Discover (571)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enable (122)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Grapple (11)  |  Greater (288)  |  Ground (222)  |  High (370)  |  House (143)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Invention (400)  |  Method (531)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Patience (58)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Point (584)  |  Radar (9)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Something (718)  |  Sonar (2)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Submarine (12)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Vital (89)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)

The pursuit of science has often been compared to the scaling of mountains, high and not so high. But who amongst us can hope, even in imagination, to scale the Everest and reach its summit when the sky is blue and the air is still, and in the stillness of the air survey the entire Himalayan range in the dazzling white of the snow stretching to infinity? None of us can hope for a comparable vision of nature and of the universe around us. But there is nothing mean or lowly in standing in the valley below and awaiting the sun to rise over Kinchinjunga.
Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science (1987), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  High (370)  |  Hope (321)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Range (104)  |  Reach (286)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scale (122)  |  Sky (174)  |  Snow (39)  |  Still (614)  |  Summit (27)  |  Sun (407)  |  Survey (36)  |  Universe (900)  |  Valley (37)  |  Vision (127)  |  White (132)

The ratio of the expanded air to the volume of that left above the mercury before the experiment is the same as that of twenty-eight inches of mercury, which is the whole weight of the atmosphere, to the excess of twenty-eight inches over the height at which [the mercury] remains after the experiment. This makes known sufficiently for one to take it as a certain rule of nature that air is condensed in proportion to the weight with which it is charged.
'De la Nature l’Air', collected in Oeuvres (1717), 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Boyle�s Law (2)  |  Condense (15)  |  Expand (56)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Rule (307)  |  Volume (25)  |  Weight (140)

The ships hung in the air the way that bricks don’t.
The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979, 1981), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Brick (20)  |  Hang (46)  |  Ship (69)  |  Way (1214)

The smallest particles of matter were said [by Plato] to be right-angled triangles which, after combining in pairs, ... joined together into the regular bodies of solid geometry; cubes, tetrahedrons, octahedrons and icosahedrons. These four bodies were said to be the building blocks of the four elements, earth, fire, air and water ... [The] whole thing seemed to be wild speculation. ... Even so, I was enthralled by the idea that the smallest particles of matter must reduce to some mathematical form ... The most important result of it all, perhaps, was the conviction that, in order to interpret the material world we need to know something about its smallest parts.
[Recalling how as a teenager at school, he found Plato's Timaeus to be a memorable poetic and beautiful view of atoms.]
In Werner Heisenberg and A.J. Pomerans (trans.) The Physicist's Conception of Nature (1958), 58-59. Quoted in Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg, The Historical Development of Quantum Theory (2001), Vol. 2, 12. Cited in Mauro Dardo, Nobel Laureates and Twentieth-Century Physics (2004), 178.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Body (557)  |  Building (158)  |  Building Block (9)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Cube (14)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Fire (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Idea (881)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Know (1538)  |  Material (366)  |  Material World (8)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Pair (10)  |  Particle (200)  |  Plato (80)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Regular (48)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  School (227)  |  Solid (119)  |  Solid Geometry (2)  |  Something (718)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Tetrahedron (4)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Triangle (20)  |  View (496)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wild (96)  |  World (1850)

The so-called Marxian dialectic is simply an effort by third-rate men to give an air of profundity to balderdash. Christianity has gone the same way. There are some sound ideas in it, but its advocates always add a lot of preposterous nonsense. The result is theology.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Advocate (20)  |  Call (781)  |  Christianity (11)  |  Dialectic (6)  |  Effort (243)  |  Give (208)  |  Idea (881)  |  Lot (151)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Preposterous (8)  |  Profundity (6)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Simply (53)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Sound (187)  |  Theology (54)  |  Third-Rate (2)  |  Way (1214)

The star [Tycho’s supernova] was at first like Venus and Jupiter, giving pleasing effects; but as it then became like Mars, there will next come a period of wars, seditions, captivity and death of princes, and destruction of cities, together with dryness and fiery meteors in the air, pestilence, and venomous snakes. Lastly, the star became like Saturn, and there will finally come a time of want, death, imprisonment and all sorts of sad things.
Science quotes on:  |  Tycho Brahe (24)  |  Death (406)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Dryness (5)  |  Effect (414)  |  First (1302)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Mars (47)  |  Meteor (19)  |  Next (238)  |  Observation (593)  |  Period (200)  |  Pestilence (14)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Saturn (15)  |  Snake (29)  |  Star (460)  |  Supernova (7)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Venus (21)  |  Want (504)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)

The stories of Whitney’s love for experimenting are legion. At one time he received a letter asking if insects could live in a vacuum. Whitney took the letter to one of the members of his staff and asked the man if he cared to run an experiment on the subject. The man replied that there was no point in it, since it was well established that life could not exist without a supply of oxygen. Whitney, who was an inveterate student of wild life, replied that on his farm he had seen turtles bury themselves in mud each fall, and, although the mud was covered with ice and snow for months, emerge again in the spring. The man exclaimed, “Oh, you mean hibernation!” Whitney answered, “I don’t know what I mean, but I want to know if bugs can live in a vacuum.”
He proceeded down the hall and broached the subject to another member of the staff. Faced with the same lack of enthusiasm for pursuing the matter further, Whitney tried another illustration. “I’ve been told that you can freeze a goldfish solidly in a cake of ice, where he certainly can’t get much oxygen, and can keep him there for a month or two. But if you thaw him out carefully he seems none the worse for his experience.” The second scientist replied, “Oh, you mean suspended animation.” Whitney once again explained that his interest was not in the terms but in finding an answer to the question.
Finally Whitney returned to his own laboratory and set to work. He placed a fly and a cockroach in a bell jar and removed the air. The two insects promptly keeled over. After approximately two hours, however, when he gradually admitted air again, the cockroach waved its feelers and staggered to its feet. Before long, both the cockroach and the fly were back in action.
'Willis Rodney Whitney', National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs (1960), 357-358.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Animation (6)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Back (395)  |  Bell (35)  |  Both (496)  |  Burial (8)  |  Car (75)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Cockroach (6)  |  Down (455)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Exclaim (15)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fall (243)  |  Farm (28)  |  Feeler (3)  |  Fly (153)  |  Freeze (6)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Hibernation (3)  |  Hour (192)  |  Ice (58)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Insect (89)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Lack (127)  |  Legion (4)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Month (91)  |  Mud (26)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Point (584)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Question (649)  |  Removal (12)  |  Return (133)  |  Run (158)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Set (400)  |  Snow (39)  |  Spring (140)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Supply (100)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thaw (2)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turtle (8)  |  Two (936)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Want (504)  |  Willis R. Whitney (17)  |  Wild (96)  |  Work (1402)

The sun has lost no beams, the earth no elements ; gravity is as adhesive, heat as expansive, light as joyful, air as virtuous, water as medicinal as on the first day. There is no loss, only transference. When the heat is less here it is not lost, but more heat is there.
In 'Perpetual Forces', North American Review (1877), No. 125. Collected in Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Elliot Cabot (ed.), Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1883), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Adhesive (2)  |  Beam (26)  |  Conservation Of Energy (30)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Expansive (5)  |  First (1302)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Heat (180)  |  Light (635)  |  Loss (117)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  Sun (407)  |  Transfer (21)  |  Virtuous (9)  |  Water (503)

The sun's rays are the ultimate source of almost every motion which takes place on the surface of the earth. By their heat are produced all winds, and those disturbances in the electric equilibrium of the atmosphere which give rise to the phenomena of terrestrial magnetism. By their vivifying action vegetables are elaborated from inorganic matter, and become in their turn the support of animals and of man, and the sources of those great deposits of dynamical efficiency which are laid up for human use in our coal strata. By them the waters of the sea are made to circulate in vapor through the air, and irrigate the land, producing springs and rivers. By them are produced all disturbances of the chemical equilibrium of the elements of nature which, by a series of compositions and decompositions, give rise to new products, and originate a transfer of materials. Even the slow degradation of the solid constituents of the surface, in which its chief geological changes consist, and their diffusion among the waters of the ocean, are entirely due to the abrasion of the wind, rain, and tides, which latter, however, are only in part the effect of solar influence and the alternate action of the seasons.
from Outlines of Astronomy (1849), 237.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chief (99)  |  Coal (64)  |  Composition (86)  |  Consist (223)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Degradation (18)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Due (143)  |  Dynamical (15)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Elaborated (7)  |  Electric (76)  |  Element (322)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heat (180)  |  Human (1512)  |  Influence (231)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Originate (39)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Produced (187)  |  Product (166)  |  Rain (70)  |  Ray (115)  |  Rise (169)  |  River (140)  |  Sea (326)  |  Season (47)  |  Series (153)  |  Slow (108)  |  Solar Energy (21)  |  Solid (119)  |  Spring (140)  |  Strata (37)  |  Sun (407)  |  Support (151)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Through (846)  |  Tide (37)  |  Transfer (21)  |  Turn (454)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Use (771)  |  Vapor (12)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Water (503)  |  Weather (49)  |  Wind (141)

The symptoms or the sufferings generally considered to be inevitable and incident to the disease are very often not symptoms of the disease at all, but of something quite different—of the want of fresh air, or of light, or of warmth, or of quiet, or of cleanliness, or of punctuality and care in the administration of diet, of each or of all of these.
In Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not (1859), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Care (203)  |  Cleanliness (6)  |  Consider (428)  |  Diet (56)  |  Different (595)  |  Disease (340)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Light (635)  |  Punctuality (2)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Something (718)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Want (504)  |  Warmth (21)

The time will come when people will travel in stages moved by steam engines, from city to city, almost as fast as birds fly,—fifteen or twenty miles an hour. Passing through the air with such velocity, changing the scene in such rapid succession, will be the most exhilarating exercise.
(about 1804). As quoted in Henry Howe, 'Oliver Evans', Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics: (1840), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Change (639)  |  City (87)  |  Engine (99)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Exhilarating (3)  |  Fast (49)  |  Fly (153)  |  Hour (192)  |  Most (1728)  |  Passing (76)  |  People (1031)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Scene (36)  |  Stage (152)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Succession (80)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travel (125)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Will (2350)

The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation.
Gifford lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh during the session 1927-28. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929, 1979), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Acute (8)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Flight (101)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Ground (222)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Method (531)  |  Observation (593)  |  Particular (80)  |  Rational (95)  |  Render (96)  |  Renew (20)  |  Start (237)  |  True (239)

The United States at this moment occupies a lamentable position as being perhaps the chief offender among civilized nations in permitting the destruction and pollution of nature. Our whole modern civilization is at fault in the matter. But we in America are probably most at fault ... We treasure pictures and sculpture. We regard Attic temples and Roman triumphal arches and Gothic cathedrals as of priceless value. But we are, as a whole, still in that low state of civilization where we do not understand that it is also vandalism wantonly to destroy or permit the destruction of what is beautiful in nature, whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird. Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping-grounds, we pollute the air, we destroy forests and exterminate fishes, birds and mammals'not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements.
'Our Vanishing Wild Life', The Outlook, 25 Jan 1913. In Donald Davidson (Ed.) The Wisdom of Theodore Roosevelt (2003), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bird (163)  |  Cathedral (27)  |  Chief (99)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fault (58)  |  Forest (161)  |  Gothic (4)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hideous (5)  |  Lamentable (5)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Low (86)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modern (402)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Permit (61)  |  Picture (148)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Priceless (9)  |  Regard (312)  |  River (140)  |  Roman (39)  |  Sewer (5)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Stream (83)  |  Temple (45)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Turn (454)  |  Understand (648)  |  Value (393)  |  Whole (756)

The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof.
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Common (447)  |  Custom (44)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ocean (216)  |  People (1031)  |  Permit (61)  |  Person (366)  |  Possession (68)  |  Public (100)  |  Sea (326)  |  Title (20)  |  Use (771)

The various elements had different places before they were arranged so as to form the universe. At first, they were all without reason and measure. But when the world began to get into order, fire and water and earth and air had only certain faint traces of themselves, and were altogether such as everything might be expected in the absence of God; this, I say, was their nature at that time, and God fashioned them by form and number.
Plato
In Plato and B. Jowett (trans.), The Dialogues of Plato: Republic (3rd ed., 1892), Vol. 3, 473.
Science quotes on:  |  Absence (21)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Certain (557)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Measure (241)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Place (192)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Water (503)  |  World (1850)

The velocity of light is one of the most important of the fundamental constants of Nature. Its measurement by Foucault and Fizeau gave as the result a speed greater in air than in water, thus deciding in favor of the undulatory and against the corpuscular theory. Again, the comparison of the electrostatic and the electromagnetic units gives as an experimental result a value remarkably close to the velocity of light–a result which justified Maxwell in concluding that light is the propagation of an electromagnetic disturbance. Finally, the principle of relativity gives the velocity of light a still greater importance, since one of its fundamental postulates is the constancy of this velocity under all possible conditions.
Studies in Optics (1927), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constancy (12)  |  Constant (148)  |  Corpuscle (14)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Electromagnetic (2)  |  Electrostatic (7)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Favor (69)  |  Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault (3)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Greater (288)  |  Importance (299)  |  Light (635)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Possible (560)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Principle (530)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Result (700)  |  Speed (66)  |  Speed Of Light (18)  |  Still (614)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unit (36)  |  Value (393)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)

The wild gas, the fixed air is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judgments until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of the troubled and frothy surface.
[About the “spirit of liberty;” alluding to Priestley’s Observations on Air]
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Agitation (10)  |  Break (109)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Clearing (2)  |  First (1302)  |  Fixed Air (2)  |  Gas (89)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Liberty (29)  |  Liquor (6)  |  Little (717)  |  Loose (14)  |  Observation (593)  |  Joseph Priestley (16)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Subsidence (2)  |  Surface (223)  |  Suspension (7)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wildness (6)

The wildest stretch of the imagination of that time would not have permitted us to believe that within a space of fifteen years actually thousands of these machines would be in the air engaged in deadly combat.
From radio message (16 Dec 1923) broadcast on Station WLW, Cincinnati for 20th anniversay of the first flight. As quoted in Peter L. Jakab and Rick Young (eds.), The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright (2004).
Science quotes on:  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Belief (615)  |  Combat (16)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Engage (41)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Machine (271)  |  Space (523)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Year (963)

The world looks so different after learning science. For example, trees are made of air, primarily. When they are burned, they go back to air, and in the flaming heat is released the flaming heat of the sun which was bound in to convert the air into tree, and in the ash is the small remnant of the part which did not come from air, that came from the solid earth, instead. These are beautiful things, and the content of science is wonderfully full of them. They are very inspiring, and they can be used to inspire others.
From address (1966) at the 14th Annual Convention of the National Science Teachers Association, New York City, printed in 'What is science?', The Physics Teacher (1969), 7, No. 6, 320.
Science quotes on:  |  Ash (21)  |  Back (395)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Bound (120)  |  Burn (99)  |  Content (75)  |  Convert (22)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Flame (44)  |  Heat (180)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Learning (291)  |  Look (584)  |  Other (2233)  |  Released (2)  |  Remnant (7)  |  Small (489)  |  Solid (119)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tree (269)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

The wound is granulating well, the matter formed is diminishing in quantity and is laudable. But the wound is still deep and must be dressed from the bottom to ensure sound healing. … In view of the fact that sinister stories continue to be manufactured and to be printed, it may again be stated, as emphatically as possible, that during the operation no trace of malignant disease was observed, … His Majesty will leave Buckingham Palace for change of air shortly, and the date of the Coronation will be announced almost immediately.
Anonymous
In 'The King’s Progress Towards Recovery', British Medical Journal (1902), 144. The appendectomy caused the coronation of King Edward VII to be postponed.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Continue (179)  |  Deep (241)  |  Disease (340)  |  Emphatically (8)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Healing (28)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Majesty (21)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observed (149)  |  Operation (221)  |  Possible (560)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Royalty (3)  |  Sound (187)  |  Still (614)  |  Trace (109)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wound (26)

There are fewer chemical pollutants in the air. Our drinking water is safer. Our food standards have been raised. We’ve cleaned up more toxic waste sites in three years than the previous administrations did in twelve. The environment is cleaner, and we have fought off the most vigorous assault on environmental protection since we began to protect the environment in 1970. We are moving in the right direction to the 21st century.
Remarks at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (29 Oct 1996) while seeking re-election. On the American Presidency Project web page.
Science quotes on:  |  21st Century (11)  |  Administration (15)  |  Assault (12)  |  Century (319)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Clean (52)  |  Cleaning (7)  |  Direction (185)  |  Drink (56)  |  Drinking (21)  |  Environment (239)  |  Food (213)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Pollutant (2)  |  Protect (65)  |  Protection (41)  |  Right (473)  |  Safety (58)  |  Site (19)  |  Standard (64)  |  Toxic Waste (4)  |  Waste (109)  |  Water (503)  |  Year (963)

There are no reptiles, and no snake can exist there [Ireland]; for although often brought over from Britain, as soon as the ship nears land, they breathe the scent of the air, and die.
Bede
Science quotes on:  |  Breathe (49)  |  Britain (26)  |  Die (94)  |  Exist (458)  |  Ireland (8)  |  Land (131)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Scent (7)  |  Ship (69)  |  Snake (29)  |  Soon (187)

There are some viviparous flies, which bring forth 2,000 young. These in a little time would fill the air, and like clouds intercept the rays of the sun, unless they were devoured by birds, spiders, and many other animals.
Oeconomia Naturae, The Oeconomy of Nature. Trans Benjamin Stillingfleet, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Natural History (1775), revised edition, 1777, 119.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bird (163)  |  Breeding (21)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Devour (29)  |  Fly (153)  |  Food Web (8)  |  Little (717)  |  Other (2233)  |  Prey (13)  |  Ray (115)  |  Spider (14)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Viviparous (2)  |  Young (253)

There are various causes for the generation of force: a tensed spring, an air current, a falling mass of water, fire burning under a boiler, a metal that dissolves in an acid—one and the same effect can be produced by means of all these various causes. But in the animal body we recognise only one cause as the ultimate cause of all generation of force, and that is the reciprocal interaction exerted on one another by the constituents of the food and the oxygen of the air. The only known and ultimate cause of the vital activity in the animal as well as in the plant is a chemical process.
'Der Lebensprocess im Thiere und die Atmosphare', Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie (1841), 41, 215-7. Trans. Kenneth L. Caneva, Robert Mo.yer and the Conservation of Energy (1993), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Activity (218)  |  Animal (651)  |  Body (557)  |  Boiler (7)  |  Burning (49)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Current (122)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Effect (414)  |  Exert (40)  |  Fire (203)  |  Food (213)  |  Force (497)  |  Generation (256)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Known (453)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Metal (88)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Plant (320)  |  Process (439)  |  Produced (187)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Spring (140)  |  Steam (81)  |  Tension (24)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Various (205)  |  Vital (89)  |  Water (503)  |  Wind (141)

There are, I believe, very few maxims in philosophy that have laid firmer hold upon the mind, than that air, meaning atmospherical air (free from various foreign matters, which were always supposed to be dissolved, and intermixed with it) is a simple elementary substance, indestructible, and unalterable, at least as much so as water is supposed to be. In the course of my enquiries, I was, however, soon satisfied that atmospherical air is not an unalterable thing; for that the phlogiston with which it becomes loaded from bodies burning in it, and animals breathing it, and various other chemical processes, so far alters and depraves it, as to render it altogether unfit for inflammation, respiration, and other purposes to which it is subservient; and I had discovered that agitation in water, the process of vegetation, and probably other natural processes, by taking out the superfluous phlogiston, restore it to its original purity.
'On Dephlogisticated Air, and the Constitution of the Atmosphere', in The Discovery of Oxygen, Part I, Experiments by Joseph Priestley 1775 (Alembic Club Reprint, 1894), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Agitation (10)  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Animal (651)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Become (821)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Burning (49)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Course (413)  |  Depravity (3)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Free (239)  |  Indestructible (12)  |  Inflammation (7)  |  Intermix (3)  |  Matter (821)  |  Maxim (19)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Natural (810)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Phlogiston (9)  |  Process (439)  |  Purity (15)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Render (96)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Restoration (5)  |  Simple (426)  |  Soon (187)  |  Subservience (4)  |  Substance (253)  |  Superfluous (21)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unfit (13)  |  Various (205)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Water (503)

There is a genuine thirst for scientific knowledge in most homes. Satisfying that thirst will, I believe, create a friendly attitude toward science and scientists which will favor the cause of science in the future. Science needs an informed and friendly public to back it up.
[Stating the goals of his NBC TV show, Nature of Things, which first aired on 5 Feb 1948.]
'Televising Science'. Physics Today (Jan 1949), 2, 26. Quoted in Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette, Science on the Air (2008), 215.
Science quotes on:  |  Attitude (84)  |  Back (395)  |  Cause (561)  |  Create (245)  |  Favor (69)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Goal (155)  |  Home (184)  |  Inform (50)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Show (353)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

There is no consumption, unless that which is lost by one body passes into another. Explanation. In nature there is no annihilation; and therefore the thing which is consumed either passes into the air, or is received into some adjacent body.
"Provisional Rules. Concerning the Duration of Life and the Form of Death. Rule 1.' Historia Vitæ et Mortis. Translation in Francis Bacon, James Spedding (ed.) et al., Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon (1861) Vol. 2, 320."
Science quotes on:  |  Annihilation (15)  |  Body (557)  |  Conservation Of Matter (7)  |  Consumption (16)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Thing (1914)

There were taken apples, and … closed up in wax. … After a month's space, the apple inclosed in was was as green and fresh as the first putting in, and the kernals continued white. The cause is, for that all exclusion of open air, which is ever predatory, maintaineth the body in its first freshness and moisture.
[In the U.S., since the 1920s, (to replace the fruit's original wax coating that is lost in the cleaning process after harvesting), natural waxes, such as carnauba wax, are applied in an extremely thin coating, to reduce loss of moisture and maintain crispness and appearance.]
Sylva Sylvarum; or a Natural History in Ten Centuries (1627), Century 4, Experiment 350-317. Collected in The Works of Francis Bacon (1826), Vol 1, 350-351.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Apple (46)  |  Applied (176)  |  Body (557)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cleaning (7)  |  Closed (38)  |  Exclusion (16)  |  First (1302)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Freshness (8)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Green (65)  |  Hermetic Seal (2)  |  Loss (117)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Month (91)  |  Natural (810)  |  Open (277)  |  Process (439)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Space (523)  |  Wax (13)  |  White (132)

Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound;
And through this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595-6), II, i.
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Alter (64)  |  Anger (21)  |  Disease (340)  |  Distemper (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fall (243)  |  Flood (52)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Frost (15)  |  Lap (9)  |  Moon (252)  |  Rheumatism (3)  |  Rose (36)  |  Season (47)  |  See (1094)  |  Through (846)

Therefore the solid body of the earth is reasonably considered as being the largest relative to those moving against it and as remaining unmoved in any direction by the force of the very small weights, and as it were absorbing their fall. And if it had some one common movement, the same as that of the other weights, it would clearly leave them all behind because of its much greater magnitude. And the animals and other weights would be left hanging in the air, and the earth would very quickly fallout of the heavens. Merely to conceive such things makes them appear ridiculous.
Ptolemy
'The Almagest 1', in Ptolemy: the Almagest; Nicolaus Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres; Johannes Kepler: Epitome of Copernican Astronomy: IV - V The Harmonies of the World: V, trans. R. Catesby Taliaferro (1952), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Animal (651)  |  Behind (139)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Common (447)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Consider (428)  |  Direction (185)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fall (243)  |  Force (497)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greater (288)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Largest (39)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Merely (315)  |  Movement (162)  |  Other (2233)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Ridiculous (24)  |  Small (489)  |  Solid (119)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Weight (140)

Thirty seconds after the explosion came, first the air blast pressing hard against people and things, to be followed almost immediately by the strong, sustained awesome roar which warned of doomsday and made us feel that we puny things were blasphemous to dare tamper with the forces heretofore reserved to the Almighty.
official report on the first atom bomb test, Alamogordo, New Mexico, July 16, 1945 [See Kenneth Tompkins Bainbridge and J. Robert Oppenheimer].
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Almighty (23)  |  Awesome (15)  |  Blast (13)  |  Dare (55)  |  Doomsday (5)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Force (497)  |  Hard (246)  |  Immediately (115)  |  People (1031)  |  Puny (8)  |  Strong (182)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Tamper (7)  |  Thing (1914)

This Academy [at Lagado] is not an entire single Building, but a Continuation of several Houses on both Sides of a Street; which growing waste, was purchased and applied to that Use.
I was received very kindly by the Warden, and went for many Days to the Academy. Every Room hath in it ' one or more Projectors; and I believe I could not be in fewer than five Hundred Rooms.
The first Man I saw was of a meagre Aspect, with sooty Hands and Face, his Hair and Beard long, ragged and singed in several Places. His Clothes, Shirt, and Skin were all of the same Colour. He had been Eight Years upon a Project for extracting Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers, which were to be put into Vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the Air in raw inclement Summers. He told me, he did not doubt in Eight Years more, that he should be able to supply the Governor's Gardens with Sunshine at a reasonable Rate; but he complained that his Stock was low, and interested me to give him something as an Encouragement to Ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear Season for Cucumbers. I made him a small Present, for my Lord had furnished me with Money on purpose, because he knew their Practice of begging from all who go to see them.
I saw another at work to calcine Ice into Gunpowder; who likewise shewed me a Treatise he had written concerning the Malleability of Fire, which he intended to publish.
There was a most ingenious Architect who had contrived a new Method for building Houses, by beginning at the Roof, and working downwards to the Foundation; which he justified to me by the life Practice of those two prudent Insects the Bee and the Spider.
In another Apartment I was highly pleased with a Projector, who had found a device of plowing the Ground with Hogs, to save the Charges of Plows, Cattle, and Labour. The Method is this: In an Acre of Ground you bury at six Inches Distance, and eight deep, a quantity of Acorns, Dates, Chestnuts, and other Masts or Vegetables whereof these Animals are fondest; then you drive six Hundred or more of them into the Field, where in a few Days they will root up the whole Ground in search of their Food, and make it fit for sowing, at the same time manuring it with their Dung. It is true, upon Experiment they found the Charge and Trouble very great, and they had little or no Crop. However, it is not doubted that this Invention may be capable of great Improvement.
I had hitherto seen only one Side of the Academy, the other being appropriated to the Advancers of speculative Learning.
Some were condensing Air into a dry tangible Substance, by extracting the Nitre, and letting the acqueous or fluid Particles percolate: Others softening Marble for Pillows and Pin-cushions. Another was, by a certain Composition of Gums, Minerals, and Vegetables outwardly applied, to prevent the Growth of Wool upon two young lambs; and he hoped in a reasonable Time to propagate the Breed of naked Sheep all over the Kingdom.
Gulliver's Travels (1726, Penguin ed. 1967), Part III, Chap. 5, 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Academy (37)  |  Acorn (5)  |  Acre (13)  |  Animal (651)  |  Applied (176)  |  Architect (32)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Beam (26)  |  Bee (44)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Breed (26)  |  Building (158)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Certain (557)  |  Charge (63)  |  Chestnut (2)  |  Composition (86)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Crop (26)  |  Cucumber (4)  |  Date (14)  |  Deep (241)  |  Device (71)  |  Distance (171)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dry (65)  |  Dung (10)  |  Encouragement (27)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Face (214)  |  Field (378)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Fit (139)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Food (213)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Garden (64)  |  Governor (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growth (200)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Hermetic Seal (2)  |  Hog (4)  |  House (143)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Ice (58)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Insect (89)  |  Interest (416)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Labor (200)  |  Lamb (6)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Lord (97)  |  Low (86)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marble (21)  |  Mast (3)  |  Method (531)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Money (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Pillow (4)  |  Pin (20)  |  Plow (7)  |  Practice (212)  |  Present (630)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Project (77)  |  Projector (3)  |  Publish (42)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Raw (28)  |  Root (121)  |  Save (126)  |  Saw (160)  |  Seal (19)  |  Search (175)  |  Season (47)  |  See (1094)  |  Sheep (13)  |  Side (236)  |  Single (365)  |  Skin (48)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Soot (11)  |  Sowing (9)  |  Spider (14)  |  Substance (253)  |  Summer (56)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunbeam (3)  |  Supply (100)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Vial (4)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Waste (109)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wool (4)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

This is the kingdom of the chemical elements, the substances from which everything tangible is made. It is not an extensive country, for it consists of only a hundred or so regions (as we shall often term the elements), yet it accounts for everything material in our actual world. From the hundred elements that are at the center of our story, all planets, rocks, vegetation, and animals are made. These elements are the basis of the air, the oceans, and the Earth itself. We stand on the elements, we eat the elements, we are the elements. Because our brains are made up of elements, even our opinions are, in a sense, properties of the elements and hence inhabitants of the kingdom.
In 'The Terrain', The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey Into the Land of the Chemical Elements (1995), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Actual (118)  |  Animal (651)  |  Basis (180)  |  Brain (281)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Consist (223)  |  Country (269)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eat (108)  |  Element (322)  |  Everything (489)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Material (366)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Planet (402)  |  Property (177)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sense (785)  |  Stand (284)  |  Story (122)  |  Substance (253)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Term (357)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  World (1850)

This is the right cavity of the two cavities of the heart. When the blood in this cavity has become thin, it must be transferred into the left cavity, where the pneuma is generated. But there is no passage between these two cavities, the substance of the heart there being impermeable. It neither contains a visible passage, as some people have thought, nor does it contain an invisible passage which would permit the passage of blood, as Galen thought. The pores of the heart there are compact and the substance of the heart is thick. It must, therefore, be that when the blood has become thin, it is passed into the arterial vein [pulmonary artery] to the lung, in order to be dispersed inside the substance of the lung, and to mix with the air. The finest parts of the blood are then strained, passing into the venous artery [pulmonary vein] reaching the left of the two cavities of the heart, after mixing with the air and becoming fit for the generation of pneuma.
Albert Z. Iskandar, 'Ibn al-Nafis', In Charles Coulston Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1974), Vol. 9, 603.
Science quotes on:  |  Artery (10)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blood (144)  |  Cavity (9)  |  Compact (13)  |  Fit (139)  |  Generation (256)  |  Heart (243)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Lung (37)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passage (52)  |  Passing (76)  |  People (1031)  |  Permit (61)  |  Pulmonary (3)  |  Right (473)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Vein (27)  |  Visible (87)

This pure species of air [oxygen] has the property of combining with the blood and … this combination constitutes its red colour.
From 'Expériences sur la respiration des animaux, et sur les changemens qui arrivent à l’air en passant par leur poumon', Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences for 1777 (1780) as translated by Thomas Henry in 'Experiments on the Respiration of Animals on the Changes effected on the Air passing through their Lungs', Essays, on the Effects Produced by Various Processes on Atmospheric Air, etc. (1783), 13-14. Also in John F. Fulton, Selected Readings in the History of Physiology (1930), 125.
Science quotes on:  |  Blood (144)  |  Color (155)  |  Combination (150)  |  Combine (58)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Hemoglobin (5)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Produce (117)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Red (38)  |  Species (435)

This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.
'A Meditation Upon a Broom-stick: According to The Style and Manner of the Honorable Robert Boyle's Meditations' (1703), collected in 'Thoughts On Various Subjects', The Works of Jonathan Swift (1746), Vol. 1, 55-56.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Behold (19)  |  Best (467)  |  Bough (10)  |  Bundle (7)  |  Busy (32)  |  Corner (59)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Flourishing (6)  |  Forest (161)  |  Full (68)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Lying (55)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Pretend (18)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Root (121)  |  Sap (5)  |  Single (365)  |  State (505)  |  Stick (27)  |  Tree (269)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turned (2)  |  Twig (15)  |  Tying (2)  |  Upside Down (8)  |  Vain (86)

This upper limit, of earth at our feet is visible and touches the air, but below it reaches to infinity
Quoted in Arthur Fairbanks (ed. And trans.), The First Philosophers of Greece (1898), 69, fragment 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Earth (1076)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Limit (294)  |  Visible (87)

Thursday, December 17 [1903]. In the afternoon about 5:30 we received the following telegram from Orvill[e], dated Kitty Hawk, N.C., Dec. 17. “Bishop M. Wright: “Success four flights Thursday morning all against a twenty-one mile wind started from level with engine power alone average speed through the air thirty one miles—longest 57 seconds. XXX home Christmas. Orville Wright.”
From Milton’s handwritten Diary entry for Thur, 17 Dec 1903. Milton is now age 75.
Science quotes on:  |  Christmas (13)  |  Engine (99)  |  Flight (101)  |  Home (184)  |  Kitty Hawk (5)  |  Morning (98)  |  Power (771)  |  Speed (66)  |  Success (327)  |  Telegram (5)  |  Wind (141)  |  Orville Wright (10)

To day we made the grand experiment of burning the diamond and certainly the phenomena presented were extremely beautiful and interesting… The Duke’s burning glass was the instrument used to apply heat to the diamond. It consists of two double convex lenses … The instrument was placed in an upper room of the museum and having arranged it at the window the diamond was placed in the focus and anxiously watched. The heat was thus continued for 3/4 of an hour (it being necessary to cool the globe at times) and during that time it was thought that the diamond was slowly diminishing and becoming opaque … On a sudden Sir H Davy observed the diamond to burn visibly, and when removed from the focus it was found to be in a state of active and rapid combustion. The diamond glowed brilliantly with a scarlet light, inclining to purple and, when placed in the dark, continued to burn for about four minutes. After cooling the glass heat was again applied to the diamond and it burned again though not for nearly so long as before. This was repeated twice more and soon after the diamond became all consumed. This phenomenon of actual and vivid combustion, which has never been observed before, was attributed by Sir H Davy to be the free access of air; it became more dull as carbonic acid gas formed and did not last so long.
Entry (Florence, 27 Mar 1814) in his foreign journal kept whilst on a continental tour with Sir Humphry Davy. In Michael Faraday, Bence Jones (ed.), The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870), Vol. 1, 119. Silvanus Phillips Thompson identifies the Duke as the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in Michael Faraday, His Life and Work (1901), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Access (21)  |  Acid (83)  |  Active (80)  |  Actual (118)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Consist (223)  |  Convex (6)  |  Cooling (10)  |  Dark (145)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Dull (58)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Focus (36)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Gas (89)  |  Glass (94)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hour (192)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Last (425)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Museum (40)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opaque (7)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Present (630)  |  Soon (187)  |  State (505)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Watch (118)  |  Window (59)

To every Form of being is assigned’
Thus calmly spoke the venerable Sage,
An active Principle:—howe’er remove!
From sense and observation, it subsists.
In all things, in all natures; in the stars
Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds,
In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone
That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,
The moving waters, and the invisible air.’
In The Excursion (1814). In The Works of William Wordsworth (1994), Book 9, 884.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Assignment (12)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brook (6)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Flower (112)  |  Form (976)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Pave (8)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Principle (530)  |  Remove (50)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sage (25)  |  Sense (785)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Stone (168)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tree (269)  |  Venerable (7)  |  Water (503)

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)  |  Age (509)  |  Aggregate (24)  |  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 our senses, the elements are four
and have ever been, and will ever be
for they are the elements of life, of poetry, and of perception,
the four Great Ones, the Four Roots, the First Four
of Fire and the Wet, Earth and the wide Air of the World.
To find the other many elements, you must go to the laboratory
and hunt them down.
But the four we have always with us, they are our world.
Or rather, they have us with them.
'The Four', David Herbert Lawrence, The Works of D.H. Lawrence (1994), 593.
Science quotes on:  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Life (1870)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perception (97)  |  Poem (104)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Root (121)  |  Sense (785)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

To speak of this subject you must... explain the nature of the resistance of the air, in the second the anatomy of the bird and its wings, in the third the method of working the wings in their various movements, in the fourth the power of the wings and the tail when the wings are not being moved and when the wind is favorable to serve as guide in various movements.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bird (163)  |  Explain (334)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Fourth (8)  |  Guide (107)  |  Method (531)  |  Move (223)  |  Movement (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Power (771)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Second (66)  |  Serve (64)  |  Speak (240)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tail (21)  |  Third (17)  |  Various (205)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wing (79)  |  Work (1402)

To vary the compression of the muscle therefore, and so to swell and shrink it, there needs nothing but to change the consistency of the included ether… . Thus may therefore the soul, by determining this ethereal animal spirit or wind into this or that nerve, perhaps with as much ease as air is moved in open spaces, cause all the motions we see in animals.
From 'An Hypothesis explaining the Properties of Light, discoursed of in my several Papers', in Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society (1757), Vol. 3, 252. This was from Newton’s Second Paper on Color and Light, read at the Royal Society (9 Dec 1675).
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Compression (7)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Determine (152)  |  Ether (37)  |  Ethereal (9)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Open (277)  |  Physiology (101)  |  See (1094)  |  Shrink (23)  |  Soul (235)  |  Space (523)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Swell (4)  |  Vary (27)  |  Wind (141)

Travelers are always discoverers, especially those who travel by air.
In North to the Orient (1935, 1963), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Travel (125)  |  Traveler (33)

Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Balance (82)  |  Brutality (4)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Dream (222)  |  Essential (210)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Force (497)  |  Friend (180)  |  Home (184)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Lose (165)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Tend (124)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Travel (125)  |  Trust (72)

Unlike the boundaries of the sea by the shorelines, the “ocean of air” laps at the border of every state, city, town and home throughout the world.
Science quotes on:  |  Border (10)  |  Boundary (55)  |  City (87)  |  Home (184)  |  Lap (9)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Sea (326)  |  Shore (25)  |  State (505)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Town (30)  |  World (1850)

Until that afternoon, my thoughts on planetary atmospheres had been wholly concerned with atmospheric analysis as a method of life detection and nothing more. Now that I knew the composition of the Martian atmosphere was so different from that of our own, my mind filled with wonderings about the nature of the Earth. If the air is burning, what sustains it at a constant composition? I also wondered about the supply of fuel and the removal of the products of combustion. It came to me suddenly, just like a flash of enlightenment, that to persist and keep stable, something must be regulating the atmosphere and so keeping it at its constant composition. Moreover, if most of the gases came from living organisms, then life at the surface must be doing the regulation.
Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scholar (2000), 253.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Burning (49)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Composition (86)  |  Concern (239)  |  Constant (148)  |  Detection (19)  |  Different (595)  |  Doing (277)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enlightenment (21)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Flash (49)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Gaia (15)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mars (47)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Organism (231)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Product (166)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Something (718)  |  Stable (32)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Supply (100)  |  Surface (223)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Wonder (251)

Visible from Earth orbit … tropical rain forests of equatorial regions are huge expanses of monotonous, mottled dark green. During the day they are frequently covered with enormous thunderstorms that extend for hundreds of miles. The view has an air of fantasy about it, and you grope for words to describe what you see. My personal reaction was one of feeling humble, awed, and privileged to be witness to such a scene.
In How Do You Go To The Bathroom In Space?: All the Answers to All the Questions You Have About Living in Space (1999), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Awe (43)  |  Covered (5)  |  Dark (145)  |  Describe (132)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Equatorial (3)  |  Expanse (6)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Forest (161)  |  Green (65)  |  Grope (5)  |  Humble (54)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Mile (43)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Scene (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Thunderstorm (7)  |  Tropical (9)  |  View (496)  |  Visible (87)  |  Witness (57)  |  Word (650)

Voice is a flowing breath of air, perceptible to the hearing by contact. It moves in an endless number of circular rounds, like the innumerably increasing circular waves which appear when a stone is thrown into smooth water, and which keep on spreading indefinitely from the centre.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 5, Chap 1, Sec. 6. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 138.
Science quotes on:  |  Breath (61)  |  Centre (31)  |  Circle (117)  |  Circular (19)  |  Contact (66)  |  Endless (60)  |  Flow (89)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Indefinitely (10)  |  Move (223)  |  Number (710)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spread (86)  |  Stone (168)  |  Throw (45)  |  Voice (54)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)

Walking home at night, I shine my flashlight up at the sky. I send billions of ... photons toward space. What is their destination? A tiny fraction will be absorbed by the air. An even smaller fraction will be intercepted by the surface of planets and stars. The vast majority ... will plod on forever. After some thousands of years they will leave our galaxy; after some millions of years they will leave our supercluster. They will wander through an even emptier, even colder realm. The universe is transparent in the direction of the future.
Atoms of Silence
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Billion (104)  |  Billions (7)  |  Cold (115)  |  Destination (16)  |  Direction (185)  |  Empty (82)  |  Forever (111)  |  Fraction (16)  |  Future (467)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Home (184)  |  Intercept (3)  |  Leave (138)  |  Majority (68)  |  Millions (17)  |  Night (133)  |  Photon (11)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plod (3)  |  Realm (87)  |  Send (23)  |  Shine (49)  |  Sky (174)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Toward (45)  |  Transparent (16)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Walk (138)  |  Wander (44)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Watson, if I can get a mechanism which will make a current of electricity vary in its intensity, as the air varies in density when a sound is passing through it, I can telegraph any sound, even the sound of speech.
As quoted by Thomas A. Watson, in Exploring Life: The Autobiography of Thomas A. Watson (1926), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Current (122)  |  Density (25)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Passing (76)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speech (66)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)

We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun,—a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal.
John Muir
In My First Summer in the Sierra (1911), 20. Based on Muir’s original journals and sketches of his 1869 stay in the Sierra.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Bone (101)  |  Cell (146)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Fill (67)  |  Flesh (28)  |  Glass (94)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Immortality (11)  |  Inseparable (18)  |  Kindling (2)  |  Making (300)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Old (499)  |  Pore (7)  |  Quiver (3)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sick (83)  |  Sickness (26)  |  Stream (83)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tabernacle (5)  |  Thrill (26)  |  Transparent (16)  |  Tree (269)  |  Truly (118)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wellness (3)  |  Young (253)

We can no longer afford to consider air and water common property, free to be abused by anyone without regard to the consequences. Instead, we should begin now to treat them as scarce resources, which we are no more free to contaminate than we are free to throw garbage into our neighbor’s yard.
In State of the Union Address (22 Jan 1970).
Science quotes on:  |  Abuse (25)  |  Common (447)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Contaminate (2)  |  Garbage (10)  |  Neighbor (14)  |  Property (177)  |  Resource (74)  |  Scarce (11)  |  Tragedy Of The Commons (2)  |  Water (503)

We do not doubt to assert, that air does not serve for the motion of the lungs, but rather to communicate something to the blood ... It is very likely that it is the fine nitrous particles, with which the air abounds, that are communicated to the blood through the lungs.
Tractatus duo. Quorum prior agit de respiratione: alter de rachitude (1668), 43. Quoted in Robert G. Frank Jr., Harvey and the Oxford Physiologists (1980), 228.
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Assert (69)  |  Blood (144)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Lung (37)  |  Motion (320)  |  Particle (200)  |  Something (718)  |  Through (846)

We have made many glass vessels... with tubes two cubits long. These were filled with mercury, the open end was closed with the finger, and the tubes were then inverted in a vessel where there was mercury. We saw that an empty space was formed and that nothing happened in the vessel where this space was formed ... I claim that the force which keeps the mercury from falling is external and that the force comes from outside the tube. On the surface of the mercury which is in the bowl rests the weight of a column of fifty miles of air. Is it a surprise that into the vessel, in which the mercury has no inclination and no repugnance, not even the slightest, to being there, it should enter and should rise in a column high enough to make equilibrium with the weight of the external air which forces it up?
Quoted in Archana Srinivasan, Great Inventors (2007), 27-28.
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Barometer (7)  |  Being (1276)  |  Claim (154)  |  Closed (38)  |  Empty (82)  |  End (603)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enter (145)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Glass (94)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  High (370)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Long (778)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Open (277)  |  Outside (141)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rise (169)  |  Saw (160)  |  Space (523)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Two (936)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Weight (140)

We live in a glass-soaked civilization, but as for the bird in the Chinese proverb who finds it so difficult to discover air, the substance is almost invisible to us. To use a metaphor drawn from glass, it may be revealing for us to re-focus, to stop looking through glass, and let our eyes dwell on it for a moment to contemplate its wonder. [Co-author with Gerry Martin.]
Glass: A World History (2002), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Bird (163)  |  Chinese (22)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discover (571)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Focus (36)  |  Glass (94)  |  Invisibility (5)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Live (650)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Moment (260)  |  Proverb (29)  |  Substance (253)  |  Through (846)  |  Use (771)  |  Wonder (251)

We must conquer [the atmosphere] in our struggle for existence. Now that our aeronauts Orville and Wilbur Wright have learned to fly, we must learn to utilize the air just as the mariners have learned to utilize the winds and avoid the storms.
From Address (16 Mar 1909) at Columbia University, printed in 'Meteorology of the Future', Popular Science Monthly (Dec 1910), 78, 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Aeronaut (2)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fly (153)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Storm (56)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Utilize (10)  |  Wind (141)  |  Orville Wright (10)  |  Wilbur Wright (14)

We must remember that all our [models of flying machine] inventions are but developments of crude ideas; that a commercially successful result in a practically unexplored field cannot possibly be got without an enormous amount of unremunerative work. It is the piled-up and recorded experience of many busy brains that has produced the luxurious travelling conveniences of to-day, which in no way astonish us, and there is no good reason for supposing that we shall always be content to keep on the agitated surface of the sea and air, when it is possible to travel in a superior plane, unimpeded by frictional disturbances.
Paper to the Royal Society of New South Wales (4 Jun 1890), as quoted in Octave Chanute, Progress in Flying Machines (1894), 2226.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Brain (281)  |  Busy (32)  |  Commercially (3)  |  Content (75)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Crude (32)  |  Development (441)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Experience (494)  |  Field (378)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Invention (400)  |  Machine (271)  |  Model (106)  |  Must (1525)  |  Plane (22)  |  Possible (560)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Practically (10)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Reason (766)  |  Record (161)  |  Recorded (2)  |  Remember (189)  |  Result (700)  |  Sea (326)  |  Successful (134)  |  Superior (88)  |  Supposing (3)  |  Surface (223)  |  Today (321)  |  Travel (125)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Unexplored (15)  |  Unimpeded (2)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Almost a third of us will die of cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all pervasive carcinogen, oxygen.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Anyway (3)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Carcinogen (2)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Die (94)  |  Fret (3)  |  Load (12)  |  Mainly (10)  |  Minute (129)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pervasive (6)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Risk (68)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Stop (89)  |  Third (17)

We prefer economic growth to clean air.
Quoted in H. Mark Roelofs and Gerald L. Houseman, The American Political System: Ideology and Myth (1983), 539.
Science quotes on:  |  Clean (52)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economy (59)  |  Growth (200)  |  Preference (28)

We share the Earth not only with our fellow human beings, but with all the other creatures that live on the land, in the sea or in the air.
In Julia Martin, Ecological Responsibility: A Dialogue With Buddhism: A Collection of Essays & Talks (1997), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Creature (242)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Live (650)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sea (326)  |  Share (82)

We urgently need [the landmark National Ocean Policy] initiative, as we use our oceans heavily: Cargo ships crisscross the sea, carrying goods between continents. Commercial and recreational fishing boats chase fish just offshore. Cruise ships cruise. Oil and gas drilling continues, but hopefully we will add renewable energy projects as well. Without planning, however, these various industrial activities amount to what we call “ocean sprawl,” steamrolling the resources we rely upon for our livelihoods, food, fun, and even the air we breathe. While humankind relies on many of these industries, we also need to keep the natural riches that support them healthy and thriving. As an explorer, I know firsthand there are many places in the ocean so full of life that they should be protected.
In 'A Blueprint for Our Blue Home', Huffington Post (18 Jul 2011).
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Amount (153)  |  Boat (17)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Call (781)  |  Cargo (6)  |  Carry (130)  |  Chase (14)  |  Commercial (28)  |  Continent (79)  |  Continue (179)  |  Cruise (2)  |  Drill (12)  |  Energy (373)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Firsthand (2)  |  Fish (130)  |  Fishing (20)  |  Food (213)  |  Full (68)  |  Fun (42)  |  Gas (89)  |  Good (906)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Humankind (15)  |  Industry (159)  |  Initiative (17)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Landmark (9)  |  Life (1870)  |  Livelihood (13)  |  National (29)  |  Natural (810)  |  Need (320)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Offshore (3)  |  Oil (67)  |  Place (192)  |  Plan (122)  |  Planning (21)  |  Policy (27)  |  Project (77)  |  Protect (65)  |  Recreation (23)  |  Rely (12)  |  Renewable Energy (15)  |  Resource (74)  |  Rich (66)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Sprawl (2)  |  Support (151)  |  Thrive (22)  |  Urgent (15)  |  Use (771)  |  Various (205)  |  Will (2350)

We woke periodically throughout the night to peel off leeches. In the light of the head torch, the ground was a sea of leeches - black, slithering, standing up on one end to sniff the air and heading inexorably our way to feed. Our exposed faces were the main problem, with leeches feeding off our cheeks and becoming entangled in our hair. I developed a fear of finding one feeding in my ear, and that it would become too large to slither out, causing permanent damage.
Kinabalu Escape: The Soldiers’ Story
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Black (46)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cheek (3)  |  Damage (38)  |  Develop (278)  |  Ear (69)  |  End (603)  |  Expose (28)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Face (214)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feed (31)  |  Find (1014)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hair (25)  |  Head (87)  |  Inexorably (2)  |  Large (398)  |  Leech (6)  |  Light (635)  |  Main (29)  |  Night (133)  |  Peel (6)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Problem (731)  |  Sea (326)  |  Slither (2)  |  Stand (284)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Torch (13)  |  Wake (17)  |  Way (1214)

Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate rival theories for explaining them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome. And human beings evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered … Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor).
'Evolution as Fact and Theory', in Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History (1983), 254-255.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Apple (46)  |  Argument (145)  |  Attack (86)  |  Being (1276)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Claim (154)  |  Creationist (16)  |  Data (162)  |  Debate (40)  |  Different (595)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Favor (69)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Hierarchy (17)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Mid-Air (3)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pending (2)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Rival (20)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Structure (365)  |  Suspend (11)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Gravitation (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  World (1850)

What a curious picture it is to find man, homo sapiens, of divine origin, we are told, seriously considering going underground to escape the consequences of his own folly. With a little wisdom and foresight, surely it is not yet necessary to forsake life in the fresh air and in the warmth of sunlight. What a paradox if our own cleverness in science should force us to live underground with the moles.
'The Effect of the Atomic Bomb on American Foreign Policy', address to the Foreign Policy Association, New York City, 20 Oct 1945. Congressional Record 2 Nov 1945, 91, Appendix, p. A4654.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Cleverness (15)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Curious (95)  |  Divine (112)  |  Escape (85)  |  Find (1014)  |  Folly (44)  |  Force (497)  |  Forsake (4)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Homo Sapiens (23)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mole (5)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Origin (250)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Picture (148)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Surely (101)  |  Underground (12)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Wisdom (235)

What makes the beauty of this flower which blows?
 Not nourishing earth, nor air, nor heaven’s blue,
 Nor sun, nor soil, nor the translucent dew;
But that which held in combination grows
Whole in each part, and perfect at the close.
 Chemist nor botanist no more than you
Can see that pure necessity wherethrough
Beauty is born—a rose within the rose.
In 'A Rose', Memorial Volume: Selections from the Prose and Poetical Writings of the Late John Savary (1912), 41. The quoted lines begin the first stanza, which ends similarly: “Upon the shooting of a seed
Our world depends for daily bread.”
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Blow (45)  |  Blue (63)  |  Born (37)  |  Botanist (25)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Close (77)  |  Combination (150)  |  Dew (10)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Flower (112)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Horticulture (10)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Nourish (18)  |  Part (235)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Rose (36)  |  Soil (98)  |  Sun (407)  |  Translucent (2)  |  Whole (756)

What more pleasing prospect can be opened to our view than the boundless field of nature? not only comprehending the inhabitants of earth, sea, and air; but earth, sea and air themselves—presenting an inexhaustible fund for amusing and useful enquiry.
From Introduction to a Course of Lectures on Natural History: Delivered in the University of Pennsylvania, Nov. 16, 1799 (1800), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Boundless (28)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Inexhaustible (26)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Sea (326)  |  Useful (260)

When air has been freshly and strongly tainted with putrefaction, so as to smell through the water, sprigs of mint have presently died, upon being put into it, their leaves turning black; but if they do not die presently, they thrive in a most surprizing manner. In no other circumstances have I ever seen vegetation so vigorous as in this kind of air, which is immediately fatal to animal life. Though these plants have been crouded in jars filled with this air, every leaf has been full of life; fresh shoots have branched out in various , and have grown much faster than other similiar plants, growing in the same exposure in common air.
This observation led me to conclude that plants, instead of affecting the air in the same manner with animal respiration, reverse the effects of breathing, and tend to keep the atmosphere sweet and wholesome, when it is become noxious, in consequence on animals living and breathing, or dying and putrefying in it.
In order to ascertain this, I took a quantity of air, made thoroughly noxious, by mice breathing and dying in it, and divided it into two parts; one of which I put into a phial immersed in water; and to the other (which was contained in a glass jar, standing in water) I put a sprig of mint. This was about the beginning of August 1771, and after eight or nine days, I found that a mouse lived perfectly well in that part of the air, in which the sprig of mint had grown, but died the moment it was put into the other part of the same original quantity of air; and which I had kept in the very same exposure, but without any plant growing in it.
'Observations on Different Kinds of Air', Philosophical Transactions (1772), 62, 193-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Become (821)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Branch (155)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Common (447)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Death (406)  |  Divided (50)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Faster (50)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Glass (94)  |  Growing (99)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Jar (9)  |  Kind (564)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mint (4)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Noxious (8)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Smell (29)  |  Spring (140)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Taint (10)  |  Tainted (5)  |  Tend (124)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Thrive (22)  |  Thriving (2)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Various (205)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Water (503)  |  Wholesome (12)

When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 28
Science quotes on:  |  Air Pollution (13)  |  Animal (651)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Cut (116)  |  Cut Down (4)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Discover (571)  |  Down (455)  |  Eat (108)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Money (178)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Tree (269)  |  Unsafe (5)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Pollution (17)  |  Will (2350)

When Galileo caused balls, the weights of which he had himself previously determined, to roll down an inclined plane; when Torricelli made the air carry a weight which he had calculated beforehand to be equal to that of a definite volume of water; or in more recent times, when Stahl changed metal into lime, and lime back into metal, by withdrawing something and then restoring it, a light broke upon all students of nature. They learned that reason has insight only into that which it produces after a plan of its own, and that it must not allow itself to be kept, as it were, in nature's leading-strings, but must itself show the way with principles of judgement based upon fixed laws, constraining nature to give answer to questions of reason's own determining. Accidental observations, made in obedience to no previously thought-out plan, can never be made to yield a necessary law, which alone reason is concerned to discover.
Critique of Pure Reason (1781), trans. Norman Kemp Smith (1929), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Accidental (31)  |  Alone (324)  |  Answer (389)  |  Back (395)  |  Ball (64)  |  Carry (130)  |  Concern (239)  |  Definite (114)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Down (455)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Himself (461)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Insight (107)  |  Judgement (8)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Light (635)  |  Metal (88)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obedience (20)  |  Observation (593)  |  Plan (122)  |  Principle (530)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recent (78)  |  Roll (41)  |  Show (353)  |  Something (718)  |  Georg Ernst Stahl (9)  |  Student (317)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |   Evangelista Torricelli, (6)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)  |  Yield (86)

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
In Leaves of Grass (1881, 1882), 214.
Science quotes on:  |  Applause (9)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Chart (7)  |  Column (15)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Divide (77)  |  Figure (162)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Look (584)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Moist (13)  |  Myself (211)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Proof (304)  |  Rising (44)  |  Sick (83)  |  Silence (62)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Soon (187)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tired (13)  |  Wander (44)

When important decisions have to be taken, the natural anxiety to come to a right decision will often keep us awake. Nothing, however, is more conducive to healthful sleep than plenty of open air.
The Pleasures of Life (1887, 2007), 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Awake (19)  |  Decision (98)  |  Health (210)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Open (277)  |  Right (473)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Will (2350)

When one studies strongly radioactive substances special precautions must be taken if one wishes to be able to take delicate measurements. The various objects used in a chemical laboratory and those used in a chemical laboratory, and those which serve for experiments in physics, become radioactive in a short time and act upon photographic plates through black paper. Dust, the air of the room, and one’s clothes all become radioactive.
Notebook entry. In Eve Curie, Madame Curie: a Biography by Eve Curie (1937, 2007), 196.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Become (821)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Clothes (11)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Dust (68)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Must (1525)  |  Object (438)  |  Paper (192)  |  Photography (9)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Precaution (5)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Short (200)  |  Special (188)  |  Study (701)  |  Substance (253)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Various (205)

When the great truth accidentally revealed and experimentally confirmed is fully recognized, that this planet, with all its appalling immensity, is to electric currents virtually no more than a small metal ball and that by this fact many possibilities, each baffling imagination and of incalculable consequence, are rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment; when the first plant is inaugurated and it is shown that a telegraphic message, almost as secret and non-interferable as a thought, can be transmitted to any terrestrial distance, the sound of the human voice, with all its intonations and inflections, faithfully and instantly reproduced at any other point of the globe, the energy of a waterfall made available for supplying light, heat or motive power, anywhere—on sea, or land, or high in the air—humanity will be like an ant heap stirred up with a stick: See the excitement coming!
In 'The Transmission of Electric Energy Without Wires', Electrical World and Engineer (5 Mar 1904), 43, No. 10, 431.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Accidentally (2)  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Ant (34)  |  Anywhere (16)  |  Appalling (10)  |  Available (80)  |  Baffle (6)  |  Ball (64)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Current (122)  |  Distance (171)  |  Electric (76)  |  Energy (373)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faithful (13)  |  First (1302)  |  Globe (51)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heap (15)  |  Heat (180)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Incalculable (4)  |  Inflection (4)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Interference (22)  |  Land (131)  |  Light (635)  |  Message (53)  |  Metal (88)  |  More (2558)  |  Motive (62)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plant (320)  |  Point (584)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Power (771)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Render (96)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Sea (326)  |  Secret (216)  |  Small (489)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stick (27)  |  Stir (23)  |  Supply (100)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transmit (12)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Virtually (6)  |  Voice (54)  |  Waterfall (5)

When the Heavens were a little blue Arch, stuck with Stars, methought the Universe was too straight and close: I was almost stifled for want of Air: but now it is enlarged in height and breadth, and a thousand Vortex’s taken in. I begin to breathe with more freedom, and I think the Universe to be incomparably more magnificent than it was before.
In A Plurality of Worlds (1688), 126, as translated by Mr. Glanvill.
Science quotes on:  |  Arch (12)  |  Begin (275)  |  Blue (63)  |  Breadth (15)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Close (77)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Height (33)  |  Incomparable (14)  |  Little (717)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  More (2558)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Stifled (2)  |  Straight (75)  |  Stuck (5)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vortex (10)  |  Want (504)

When we find facts within our knowledge exhibited by some new method, or even, it may be, described in a foreign language, they receive a peculiar charm of novelty and wear a fresh air.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Charm (54)  |  Describe (132)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Find (1014)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Language (308)  |  Method (531)  |  New (1273)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Receive (117)  |  Wear (20)

Where, precisely, is the location of—a rainbow? In the air? In the eye? In between? Or somewhere else?
In 'Philosophy, Religion, and So Forth', A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (1989), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Eye (440)  |  Location (15)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Rainbow (17)

Wherefore also these Kinds [elements] occupied different places even before the universe was organised and generated out of them. Before that time, in truth, all these were in a state devoid of reason or measure, but when the work of setting in order this Universe was being undertaken, fire and water and earth and air, although possessing some traces of their known nature, were yet disposed as everything is likely to be in the absence of God; and inasmuch as this was then their natural condition, God began by first marking them out into shapes by means of forms and numbers.
Plato
Timaeus 53ab, trans. R. G. Bury, in Plato: Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles (1929), 125-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Condition (362)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  God (776)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measure (241)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Order (638)  |  Organization (120)  |  Place (192)  |  Reason (766)  |  Setting (44)  |  State (505)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)

While all bodies are composed of the four elements, that is, of heat, moisture, the earthy, and air, yet there are mixtures according to natural temperament which make up the natures of all the different animals of the world, each after its kind.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 1, Chap 4, Sec. 5. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Animal (651)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Heat (180)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Phlogiston Theory (2)  |  Temperament (18)  |  World (1850)

While reading in a textbook of chemistry, … I came across the statement, “nitric acid acts upon copper.” I was getting tired of reading such absurd stuff and I determined to see what this meant. Copper was more or less familiar to me, for copper cents were then in use. I had seen a bottle marked “nitric acid” on a table in the doctor’s office where I was then “doing time.” I did not know its peculiarities, but I was getting on and likely to learn. The spirit of adventure was upon me. Having nitric acid and copper, I had only to learn what the words “act upon” meant … I put one of them [cent] on the table, opened the bottle marked “nitric acid”; poured some of the liquid on the copper; and prepared to make an observation. But what was this wonderful thing which I beheld? The cent was already changed, and it was no small change either. A greenish blue liquid foamed and fumed over the cent and over the table. The air in the neighborhood of the performance became colored dark red. A great colored cloud arose. This was disagreeable and suffocating—how should I stop this? I tried to get rid of the objectionable mess by picking it up and throwing it out of the window, which I had meanwhile opened. I learned another fact—nitric acid not only acts upon copper but it acts upon fingers. The pain led to another unpremeditated experiment. I drew my fingers across my trousers and another fact was discovered. Nitric acid acts upon trousers. Taking everything into consideration, that was the most impressive experiment, and, relatively, probably the most costly experiment I have ever performed.
In F.H. Getman, The Life of Ira Remsen (1940), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Absurdity (34)  |  Acid (83)  |  Act (278)  |  Adventure (69)  |  Already (226)  |  Biography (254)  |  Bottle (17)  |  Cent (5)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Color (155)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Copper (25)  |  Cost (94)  |  Dark (145)  |  Disagreeable (5)  |  Discover (571)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Doing (277)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Finger (48)  |  Foam (3)  |  Fume (7)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Impressiveness (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Marked (55)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mess (14)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Neighborhood (12)  |  Nitric Acid (2)  |  Observation (593)  |  Office (71)  |  Open (277)  |  Pain (144)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Reading (136)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Statement (148)  |  Suffocation (2)  |  Table (105)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throwing (17)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trousers (5)  |  Use (771)  |  Window (59)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Word (650)

While working with staphylococcus variants a number of culture-plates were set aside on the laboratory bench and examined from time to time. In the examinations these plates were necessarily exposed to the air and they became contaminated with various micro-organisms. It was noticed that around a large colony of a contaminating mould the staphylococcus colonies became transparent and were obviously undergoing lysis. Subcultures of this mould were made and experiments conducted with a view to ascertaining something of the properties of the bacteriolytic substance which had evidently been formed in the mould culture and which had diffused into the surrounding medium. It was found that broth in which the mould had been grown at room temperature for one or two weeks had acquired marked inhibitory, bacteriocidal and bacteriolytic properties to many of the more common pathogenic bacteria.
'On the Antibacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium, with Special Reference to their Use in the Isolation of B. Influenzae', British Journal of Experimental Pathology, 1929, 10, 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bacteriology (5)  |  Bench (8)  |  Common (447)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Culture (157)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Examination (102)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Form (976)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Large (398)  |  Lysis (4)  |  Marked (55)  |  Micro-Organism (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Number (710)  |  Organism (231)  |  Penicillin (18)  |  Set (400)  |  Something (718)  |  Staphylococcus (2)  |  Substance (253)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transparent (16)  |  Two (936)  |  Variant (9)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Week (73)

Who are the farmer’s servants? … Geology and Chemistry, the quarry of the air, the water of the brook, the lightning of the cloud, the castings of the worm, the plough of the frost.
From 'Farming' in Society and Solitude (1870). Collected in Emerson's Complete Works (1883), Vol. 7, 138.
Science quotes on:  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Brook (6)  |  Casting (10)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Farmer (35)  |  Frost (15)  |  Geology (240)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Plough (15)  |  Quarry (14)  |  Servant (40)  |  Water (503)  |  Worm (47)

Winter opened its vaults last night, flinging fistfuls of crystalline diamonds into the darkening sky. Like white-tulled ballerinas dancing gracefully on heaven’s stage, silent stars stood entranced by their intricate beauty. Motionless, I watched each lacy gem drift softly by my upturned face, as winter’s icy hands guided them gently on their swirling lazy way, and blanketed the waiting earth in cold splendor. The shivering rustling of reeds, the restless fingers of the trees snapping in the frosty air, broke the silent stillness, as winter quietly pulled up its white coverlet over the sleepy earth.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ballerina (2)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Blanket (10)  |  Break (109)  |  Cold (115)  |  Crystalline (3)  |  Dance (35)  |  Darken (2)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Drift (14)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entrance (16)  |  Face (214)  |  Finger (48)  |  Fling (5)  |  Frosty (3)  |  Gem (17)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hand (149)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Icy (3)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Last (425)  |  Lazy (10)  |  Motionless (4)  |  Night (133)  |  Open (277)  |  Pull (43)  |  Quietly (5)  |  Reed (8)  |  Restless (13)  |  Rustle (2)  |  Shiver (2)  |  Silent (31)  |  Sky (174)  |  Snap (7)  |  Softly (6)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Stage (152)  |  Stand (284)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Stillness (5)  |  Swirl (10)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vault (2)  |  Wait (66)  |  Waiting (42)  |  Watch (118)  |  Way (1214)  |  White (132)  |  Winter (46)

Without any doubt, the regularity which astronomy shows us in the movements of the comets takes place in all phenomena. The trajectory of a simple molecule of air or vapour is regulated in a manner as certain as that of the planetary orbits; the only difference between them is that which is contributed by our ignorance. Probability is relative in part to this ignorance, and in part to our knowledge.
Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (1814), 5th edition (1825), trans. Andrew I. Dale (1995), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Certain (557)  |  Comet (65)  |  Difference (355)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Movement (162)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Plant (320)  |  Probability (135)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Show (353)  |  Simple (426)  |  Trajectory (5)  |  Vapour (16)

Without some idea of oxidation processes, of the chemical structure of food, and of the chemical reactions in digestion, visceral behavior is a blank. And without some understanding of visceral behavior, psychic behavior is up in the air.
From Why We Behave Like Human Beings (1925), xiv.
Science quotes on:  |  Behavior (95)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Blank (14)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Reaction (17)  |  Chemical Reactions (13)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Food (213)  |  Idea (881)  |  Oxidation (8)  |  Process (439)  |  Psychic (15)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Structure (365)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Visceral (3)

Xenophanes of Kolophon ... says that ... [t]he sun is formed each day from small fiery particles which are gathered together: the earth is infinite, and is not surrounded by air or by sky; an infinite number of suns and moons exist, and all things come from earth. The sea, he said, is salt because so many things flow together and become mixed in it...
Doxographists, Epiph. adv. Haer. iii. 9; Dox. 590. Quoted in Arthur Fairbanks (ed. And trans.), The First Philosophers of Greece (1898), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fiery (5)  |  Flow (89)  |  Form (976)  |  Gather (76)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Moon (252)  |  Number (710)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Particle (200)  |  Salt (48)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sky (174)  |  Small (489)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Xenophanes (13)

Yesterday, a small white keel feather escaped from my goose and lodged in the bank boughs near the kitchen porch, where I spied it as I came home in the cold twilight. The minute I saw the feather, I was projected into May, knowing a barn swallow would be along to claim the prize and use it to decorate the front edge of its nest. Immediately, the December air seemed full of wings of swallows and the warmth of barns.
In 'Home-Coming' (10 Dec 1955), collected in Essays of E.B. White (1977), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Bank (31)  |  Barn (6)  |  Bough (10)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cold (115)  |  December (3)  |  Decorate (2)  |  Edge (51)  |  Feather (13)  |  Front (16)  |  Full (68)  |  Goose (13)  |  Home (184)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Kitchen (14)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Minute (129)  |  Nest (26)  |  Prize (13)  |  Project (77)  |  Saw (160)  |  Seem (150)  |  Small (489)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Use (771)  |  Warmth (21)  |  White (132)  |  Wing (79)  |  Yesterday (37)

You see, if the height of the mercury [barometer] column is less on the top of a mountain than at the foot of it (as I have many reasons for believing, although everyone who has so far written about it is of the contrary opinion), it follows that the weight of the air must be the sole cause of the phenomenon, and not that abhorrence of a vacuum, since it is obvious that at the foot of the mountain there is more air to have weight than at the summit, and we cannot possibly say that the air at the foot of the mountain has a greater aversion to empty space than at the top.
In letter to brother-in-law Perier (Nov 1647) as given in Daniel Webster Hering, Physics: the Science of the Forces of Nature (1922), 114. As also stated by Hering, Perier conducted an experiment on 19 Sep 1648 comparing readings on two barometers, one at the foot, and another at the top of 4,000-ft Puy-de-Dôme neighboring mountain.
Science quotes on:  |  Abhorrence (8)  |  Aversion (9)  |  Barometer (7)  |  Belief (615)  |  Cause (561)  |  Column (15)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Empty (82)  |  Follow (389)  |  Greater (288)  |  Height (33)  |  Mercury (54)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sole (50)  |  Space (523)  |  Summit (27)  |  Top (100)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Weight (140)

You will be astonished when I tell you what this curious play of carbon amounts to. A candle will burn some four, five, six, or seven hours. What, then, must be the daily amount of carbon going up into the air in the way of carbonic acid! ... Then what becomes of it? Wonderful is it to find that the change produced by respiration ... is the very life and support of plants and vegetables that grow upon the surface of the earth.
In A Course of Six Lectures on the Chemical History of a Candle (1861), 117.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Amount (153)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Become (821)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Candle (32)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Carbonic Acid (4)  |  Change (639)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Curious (95)  |  Daily (91)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Find (1014)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Hour (192)  |  Life (1870)  |  Must (1525)  |  Plant (320)  |  Play (116)  |  Produced (187)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Support (151)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Tell (344)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wonderful (155)


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.