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Who said: “The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.”
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Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index D > Category: Dedication

Dedication Quotes (12 quotes)

[Vikram Sarabhai] said that the performer must have emotional attachment with the project along with the physical: otherwise one can’t attain dedication and devotion for it.
As given in narrative form by Mahesh Sharma, P. Bhalla and P.K. Das, in 'Prof. Vikram Sarabhai in the Opinion of Dr. Kalam', Pride Of The Nation: Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (2004), 46.
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A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society (1978), 6.
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Among people I have met, the few whom I would term “great” all share a kind of unquestioned, fierce dedication; an utter lack of doubt about the value of their activities (or at least an internal impulse that drives through any such angst); and above all, a capacity to work (or at least to be mentally alert for unexpected insights) at every available moment of every day of their lives.
From The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History (2000), 76.
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I love to read the dedications of old books written in monarchies—for they invariably honor some (usually insignificant) knight or duke with fulsome words of sycophantic insincerity, praising him as the light of the universe (in hopes, no doubt, for a few ducats to support future work); this old practice makes me feel like such an honest and upright man, by comparison, when I put a positive spin, perhaps ever so slightly exaggerated, on a grant proposal.
From essay 'The Razumovsky Duet', collected in The Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History (1995, 1997), 263.
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In the year 2000, the solar water heater behind me, which is being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy. A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people: harnessing the power of the Sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.
[The next President, Republican Ronald Reagan, removed the solar panels and gutted renewable energy research budgets. The road was not taken, nationally, in the eight years of his presidency. Several of the panels are, indeed, now in museums. Most were bought as government surplus and put to good use on a college roof.]
Speech, at dedication of solar panels on the White House roof, 'Solar Energy Remarks Announcing Administration Proposals' (20 Jun 1979).
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My profession often gets bad press for a variety of sins, both actual and imagined: arrogance, venality, insensitivity to moral issues about the use of knowledge, pandering to sources of funding with insufficient worry about attendant degradation of values. As an advocate for science, I plead ‘mildly guilty now and then’ to all these charges. Scientists are human beings subject to all the foibles and temptations of ordinary life. Some of us are moral rocks; others are reeds. I like to think (though I have no proof) that we are better, on average, than members of many other callings on a variety of issues central to the practice of good science: willingness to alter received opinion in the face of uncomfortable data, dedication to discovering and publicizing our best and most honest account of nature’s factuality, judgment of colleagues on the might of their ideas rather than the power of their positions.
…...
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Only for you, children of doctrine and learning, have we written this work. Examine this book, ponder the meaning we have dispersed in various places and gathered again; what we have concealed in one place we have disclosed in another, that it may be understood by your wisdom.
In De Occulta Philosophia (1531), Vol. 3, 65. As quoted and cited in epigraph, Umberto Eco and William Weaver (trans.), Foucault’s Pendulum (2007), Front matter before title page.
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Scheele, it was said, never forgot anything if it had to do with chemistry. He never forgot the look, the feel, the smell of a substance, or the way it was transformed in chemical reactions, never forgot anything he read, or was told, about the phenomena of chemistry. He seemed indifferent, or inattentive, to most things else, being wholly dedicated to his single passion, chemistry. It was this pure and passionate absorption in phenomena—noticing everything, forgetting nothing—that constituted Scheele's special strength.
Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (2001), 44.
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The intellectual craves a social order in which uncommon people perform uncommon tasks every day. He wants a society throbbing with dedication, reverence, and worshiHe sees it as scandalous that the discoveries of science and the feats of heroes should have as their denouement the comfort and affluence of common folk. A social order run by and for the people is to him a mindless organism motivated by sheer physiologism.
In 'Concerning Individual Freedom', The Ordeal of Change (1963, 1990), 100.
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They assembled together and dedicated these as the first-fruits of their love to Apollo in his Delphic temple, inscribing there those maxims which are on every tongue- “know thyself” and “Nothing overmuch”.
Plato
In Protagoras 343ab, trans. W. R. M. Lamb, in Plato: Laches Protagoras Meno Euthydemus (1924), 197.
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To use Newton’s words, our efforts up till this moment have but turned over a pebble or shell here and there on the beach, with only a forlorn hope that under one of them was the gem we were seeking. Now we have the sieve, the minds, the hands, the time, and, particularly, the dedication to find those gems—no matter in which favorite hiding place the children of distant worlds have placed them.
[Co-author with Dava Sobel.]
In Frank Drake and Dava Sobel, Is Anyone Out There? (1993), 236.
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We have taken to the Moon the wealth of this nation,
the vision of its political leaders,
the intelligence of its scientists,
the dedication of its engineers,
the careful craftsmanship of its workers,
and the enthusiastic support of its people.
We have brought back rocks, and I think it is a fair trade . . .
Man has always gone where he has been able to go. It’s that simple.
He will continue pushing back his frontier,
no matter how far it may carry him from his homeland.
…...
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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
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Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
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- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
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Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
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Andre Ampere
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- 80 -
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- 70 -
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- 60 -
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- 50 -
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- 40 -
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- 30 -
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- 20 -
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- 10 -
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