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: “Genius is two percent inspiration, ninety-eight percent perspiration.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index D > Category: Direction

Direction Quotes (185 quotes)

... one of the main functions of an analogy or model is to suggest extensions of the theory by considering extensions of the analogy, since more is known about the analogy than is known about the subject matter of the theory itself … A collection of observable concepts in a purely formal hypothesis suggesting no analogy with anything would consequently not suggest either any directions for its own development.
'Operational Definition and Analogy in Physical Theories', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (Feb 1952), 2, No. 8, 291.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Collection (68)  |  Concept (242)  |  Development (441)  |  Extension (60)  |  Function (235)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Known (453)  |  Matter (821)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Observable (21)  |  Purely (111)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theory (1015)

.…yes, sitting on the bank of the Kibali itself and philosophizing about river systems with the much-traveled Abu Ssamat and his people, … I caught him out there and then in blatant contradictions and inaccuracies. Well then, I finally said, quite beside myself, so show me how you speak of rivers: here is the Kibali, show me with your hand: where does it come from and in what direction does it flow? To which all pointed eastwards and said: it is flowing in that direction, and then pointing west: it comes from there, that is how we say it. I could have gone through the roof. No, I cried, you Moslem, you have everything confused and mixed up, what must it be like inside your heads!
In August Petermann, Petermann’s Geographische Mittheilungen (1871), 135. As quoted and cited in Kathrin Fritsch, '"You Have Everything Confused And Mixed Up…!" Georg Schweinfurth, Knowledge And Cartography Of Africa In The 19th Century', History in Africa (2009), 36, 94. Fritsch comments on their misunderstandings caused by “different spatial conceptions [and] language barriers.”
Science quotes on:  |  Blatant (4)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Flow (89)  |  Inaccuracy (4)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Point (584)  |  River (140)  |  Show (353)

...those experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but those principally which are of most universal consequence for invention of other experiments, and those which give more light to the invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner's needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation than the invention of the sails, which give the motion.
The Second Book of Francis Bacon of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning (1605). In Francis Bacon and Basil Montagu, The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England (1852), 200
Science quotes on:  |  Benefit (123)  |  Cause (561)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Invention (400)  |  Light (635)  |  Mariner (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Present (630)  |  Sail (37)  |  Universal (198)  |  Use (771)

“Science studies everything,” say the scientists. But, really, everything is too much. Everything is an infinite quantity of objects; it is impossible at one and the same time to study all. As a lantern cannot light up everything, but only lights up the place on which it is turned or the direction in which the man carrying it is walking, so also science cannot study everything, but inevitably only studies that to which its attention is directed. And as a lantern lights up most strongly the place nearest to it, and less and less strongly objects that are more and more remote from it, and does not at all light up those things its light does not reach, so also human science, of whatever kind, has always studied and still studies most carefully what seems most important to the investigators, less carefully what seems to them less important, and quite neglects the whole remaining infinite quantity of objects. ... But men of science to-day ... have formed for themselves a theory of “science for science's sake,” according to which science is to study not what mankind needs, but everything.
In 'Modern Science', Essays and Letters (1903), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Attention (196)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Direct (228)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Importance (299)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lantern (8)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Need (320)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Object (438)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Remote (86)  |  Sake (61)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whole (756)

[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)  |  Air (366)  |  Answer (389)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Available (80)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Crude (32)  |  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)

[Coleridge] selected an instance of what was called the sublime, in DARWIN, who imagined the creation of the universe to have taken place in a moment, by the explosion of a mass of matter in the womb, or centre of space. In one and the same instant of time, suns and planets shot into systems in every direction, and filled and spangled the illimitable void! He asserted this to be an intolerable degradation—referring, as it were, all the beauty and harmony of nature to something like the bursting of a barrel of gunpowder! that spit its combustible materials into a pock-freckled creation!
In Seamus Perry (eds.), Coleridge’s Responses: Vol. 1: Coleridge on Writers and Writing (2007), 338-339.
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (69)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Call (781)  |  Creation (350)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Degradation (18)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Instant (46)  |  Mass (160)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Moment (260)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Planet (402)  |  Select (45)  |  Something (718)  |  Space (523)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Void (31)  |  Womb (25)

[D]iscovery should come as an adventure rather than as the result of a logical process of thought. Sharp, prolonged thinking is necessary that we may keep on the chosen road but it does not itself necessarily lead to discovery. The investigator must be ready and on the spot when the light comes from whatever direction.
Letter to Dr. E. B. Krumhaar (11 Oct 1933), in Journal of Bacteriology (Jan 1934), 27, No. 1, 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Choice (114)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leading (17)  |  Light (635)  |  Logic (311)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Process (439)  |  Prolong (29)  |  Prolonged (7)  |  Readiness (9)  |  Result (700)  |  Sharp (17)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Whatever (234)

[The chemical bond] First, it is related to the disposition of two electrons (remember, no one has ever seen an electron!): next, these electrons have their spins pointing in opposite directions (remember, no one can ever measure the spin of a particular electron!): then, the spatial distribution of these electrons is described analytically with some degree of precision (remember, there is no way of distinguishing experimentally the density distribution of one electron from another!): concepts like hybridization, covalent and ionic structures, resonance, all appear, not one of which corresponds to anything that is directly measurable. These concepts make a chemical bond seem so real, so life-like, that I can almost see it. Then I wake with a shock to the realization that a chemical bond does not exist; it is a figment of the imagination that we have invented, and no more real than the square root of - 1. I will not say that the known is explained in terms of the unknown, for that is to misconstrue the sense of intellectual adventure. There is no explanation: there is form: there is structure: there is symmetry: there is growth: and there is therefore change and life.
Quoted in his obituary, Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society 1974, 20, 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Bond (46)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Concept (242)  |  Covalent (2)  |  Degree (277)  |  Density (25)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Electron (96)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Growth (200)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Precision (72)  |  Realization (44)  |  Remember (189)  |  Resonance (7)  |  Root (121)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shock (38)  |  Spin (26)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Structure (365)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Two (936)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

[The Elements] are mutually bound together, the lighter being restrained by the heavier, so that they cannot fly off; while, on the contrary, from the lighter tending upwards, the heavier are so suspended, that they cannot fall down. Thus, by an equal tendency in an opposite direction, each of them remains in its appropriate place, bound together by the never-ceasing revolution of the world.
In The Natural History of Pliny (1855), Vol. 1, 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bound (120)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Down (455)  |  Element (322)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fly (153)  |  Heavier (2)  |  Lighter (2)  |  Never (1089)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Suspended (5)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Together (392)  |  Upward (44)  |  Upwards (6)  |  World (1850)

[To] mechanical progress there is apparently no end: for as in the past so in the future, each step in any direction will remove limits and bring in past barriers which have till then blocked the way in other directions; and so what for the time may appear to be a visible or practical limit will turn out to be but a bend in the road.
Opening address to the Mechanical Science Section, Meeting of the British Association, Manchester. In Nature (15 Sep 1887), 36, 475.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparent (85)  |  Appear (122)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Bend (13)  |  Block (13)  |  Bring (95)  |  End (603)  |  Future (467)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Practical (225)  |  Progress (492)  |  Remove (50)  |  Road (71)  |  Step (234)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Visible (87)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

1106. … In the first week of Lent, on the Friday, 16 February, a strange star appeared in the evening, and for a long time afterwards was seen shining for a while each evening. The star made its appearance in the south-west, and seemed to be small and dark, but the light that shone from it was very bright, and appeared like an enormous beam of light shining north-east; and one evening it seemed as if the beam were flashing in the opposite direction towards the star. Some said that they had seen other unknown stars about this time, but we cannot speak about these without reservation, because we did not ourselves see them.
In George Norman Garmonsway (ed., trans.), 'The Parker Chronicle', The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (1953), 240. This translation from the original Saxon, is a modern printing of an ancient anthology known as The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Manuscript copies were held at various English monasteries. These copies of the Chronicle include content first recorded in the late 9th century. This quote comes from the copy known as the Peterborough Chronicle (a.k.a. Laud manuscript).
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Beam (26)  |  Bright (81)  |  Comet (65)  |  Dark (145)  |  Enormous (44)  |  First (1302)  |  Flash (49)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  See (1094)  |  Shine (49)  |  Shining (35)  |  Small (489)  |  South (39)  |  Speak (240)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Strange (160)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Week (73)

A casual glance at crystals may lead to the idea that they were pure sports of nature, but this is simply an elegant way of declaring one’s ignorance. With a thoughtful examination of them, we discover laws of arrangement. With the help of these, calculation portrays and links up the observed results. How variable and at the same time how precise and regular are these laws! How simple they are ordinarily, without losing anything of their significance! The theory which has served to develop these laws is based entirely on a fact, whose existence has hitherto been vaguely discerned rather than demonstrated. This fact is that in all minerals which belong to the same species, these little solids, which are the crystal elements and which I call their integrant molecules, have an invariable form, in which the faces lie in the direction of the natural fracture surfaces corresponding to the mechanical division of the crystals. Their angles and dimensions are derived from calculations combined with observation.
Traité de mineralogie … Publié par le conseil des mines (1801), Vol. 1, xiii-iv, trans. Albert V. and Marguerite Carozzi.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Belong (168)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Call (781)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Develop (278)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discover (571)  |  Division (67)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Element (322)  |  Examination (102)  |  Existence (481)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Fracture (7)  |  Glance (36)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Little (717)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Precise (71)  |  Pure (299)  |  Regular (48)  |  Result (700)  |  Significance (114)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solid (119)  |  Species (435)  |  Sport (23)  |  Surface (223)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thoughtful (16)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variable (37)  |  Way (1214)

A good theoretical physicist today might find it useful to have a wide range of physical viewpoints and mathematical expressions of the same theory (for example, of quantum electrodynamics) available to him. This may be asking too much of one man. Then new students should as a class have this. If every individual student follows the same current fashion in expressing and thinking about electrodynamics or field theory, then the variety of hypotheses being generated to understand strong interactions, say, is limited. Perhaps rightly so, for possibly the chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off-chance that it is in another direction—a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory—who will find it?
In his Nobel Prize Lecture (11 Dec 1965), 'The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics'. Collected in Stig Lundqvist, Nobel Lectures: Physics, 1963-1970 (1998), 177.
Science quotes on:  |  Asking (74)  |  Available (80)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chance (244)  |  Class (168)  |  Current (122)  |  Electrodynamics (10)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fashionable (15)  |  Field (378)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Generate (16)  |  Good (906)  |  High (370)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Lie (370)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  New (1273)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Electrodynamics (3)  |  Range (104)  |  Say (989)  |  Strong (182)  |  Student (317)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Today (321)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)  |  Unfashionable (2)  |  Useful (260)  |  Variety (138)  |  View (496)  |  Viewpoint (13)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)

A nutritive centre, anatomically considered, is merely a cell, the nucleus of which is the permanent source of successive broods of young cells, which from time to time fill the cavity of their parent, and carrying with them the cell wall of the parent, pass off in certain directions, and under various forms, according to the texture or organ of which their parent forms a part.
Anatomical and Pathological Observations (1845), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Cavity (9)  |  Cell (146)  |  Cell Nucleus (2)  |  Certain (557)  |  Consider (428)  |  Form (976)  |  Merely (315)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Organ (118)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pass (241)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Successive (73)  |  Time (1911)  |  Various (205)  |  Wall (71)  |  Young (253)

All living forms are the results of physical influences which are still in operation, and vary only in degree and direction
Entry for Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus in Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), Vol. 27, 256.
Science quotes on:  |  Degree (277)  |  Difference (355)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Form (976)  |  Influence (231)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Operation (221)  |  Physical (518)  |  Result (700)  |  Still (614)

All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony, not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, “Whatever IS, is RIGHT.”
'An Essay on Man' (1733-4), Epistle I. In John Butt (ed.), The Poems of Alexander Pope (1965), 515.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Chance (244)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Discord (10)  |  Evil (122)  |  Existence (481)  |  Good (906)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Partial (10)  |  Pride (84)  |  Reason (766)  |  Right (473)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Spite (55)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)  |  Universal (198)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Whatever (234)

An amoeba never is torn apart through indecision, though, for even if two parts of the amoeba are inclined to go in different directions, a choice is always made. We could interpret this as schizophrenia or just confusion, but it could also be a judicious simultaneous sampling of conditions, in order to make a wise choice of future direction.
In The Center of Life: A Natural History of the Cell (1977, 1978), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Amoeba (21)  |  Choice (114)  |  Condition (362)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Future (467)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Indecision (4)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Never (1089)  |  Order (638)  |  Sample (19)  |  Schizophrenia (4)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Through (846)  |  Torn (17)  |  Two (936)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)

An inventor is an opportunist, one who takes occasion by the hand; who, having seen where some want exists, successfully applies the right means to attain the desired end. The means may be largely, or even wholly, something already known, or there may be a certain originality or discovery in the means employed. But in every case the inventor uses the work of others. If I may use a metaphor, I should liken him to the man who essays the conquest of some virgin alp. At the outset he uses the beaten track, and, as he progresses in the ascent, he uses the steps made by those who have preceded him, whenever they lead in the right direction; and it is only after the last footprints have died out that he takes ice-axe in hand and cuts the remaining steps, few or many, that lift him to the crowning height which is his goal.
In Kenneth Raydon Swan, Sir Joseph Swan (1946), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Alp (9)  |  Already (226)  |  Application (257)  |  Ascent (7)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Beaten Track (4)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Crown (39)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Desire (212)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Employ (115)  |  End (603)  |  Essay (27)  |  Exist (458)  |  Footprint (16)  |  Goal (155)  |  Height (33)  |  Ice (58)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Last (425)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leading (17)  |  Lift (57)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Opportunist (3)  |  Originality (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outset (7)  |  Preceded (2)  |  Progress (492)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Right (473)  |  Something (718)  |  Step (234)  |  Success (327)  |  Track (42)  |  Use (771)  |  Virgin (11)  |  Want (504)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Work (1402)

An iron rod being placed on the outside of a building from the highest part continued down into the moist earth, in any direction strait or crooked, following the form of the roof or other parts of the building, will receive the lightning at its upper end, attracting it so as to prevent it's striking any other part; and, affording it a good conveyance into the earth, will prevent its damaging any part of the building.
Of Lightning, and the Method (now used in America) of securing Buildings and Persons from its mischievous Effects', Paris 1767. In I. Bernard Cohen (ed.), Benjamin Franklin's Experiments (1941), 390.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Building (158)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Form (976)  |  Good (906)  |  Invention (400)  |  Iron (99)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Moist (13)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Receive (117)  |  Striking (48)  |  Will (2350)

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Big (55)  |  Complex (202)  |  Courage (82)  |  Fool (121)  |  Genius (301)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Lot (151)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touch (146)  |  Violent (17)

Any opinion as to the form in which the energy of gravitation exists in space is of great importance, and whoever can make his opinion probable will have, made an enormous stride in physical speculation. The apparent universality of gravitation, and the equality of its effects on matter of all kinds are most remarkable facts, hitherto without exception; but they are purely experimental facts, liable to be corrected by a single observed exception. We cannot conceive of matter with negative inertia or mass; but we see no way of accounting for the proportionality of gravitation to mass by any legitimate method of demonstration. If we can see the tails of comets fly off in the direction opposed to the sun with an accelerated velocity, and if we believe these tails to be matter and not optical illusions or mere tracks of vibrating disturbance, then we must admit a force in that direction, and we may establish that it is caused by the sun if it always depends upon his position and distance.
Letter to William Huggins (13 Oct 1868). In P. M. Hannan (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1995), Vol. 2, 1862-1873, 451-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparent (85)  |  Comet (65)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Depend (238)  |  Distance (171)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Effect (414)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equality (34)  |  Exception (74)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fly (153)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Importance (299)  |  Inertia (17)  |  Kind (564)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Negative (66)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Optical (11)  |  Physical (518)  |  Position (83)  |  Proportionality (2)  |  Purely (111)  |  See (1094)  |  Single (365)  |  Space (523)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Stride (15)  |  Sun (407)  |  Track (42)  |  Universality (22)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whoever (42)  |  Will (2350)

As far as I see, such a theory [of the primeval atom] remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being. He may keep, for the bottom of space-time, the same attitude of mind he has been able to adopt for events occurring in non-singular places in space-time. For the believer, it removes any attempt to familiarity with God, as were Laplace’s chiquenaude or Jeans’ finger. It is consonant with the wording of Isaiah speaking of the “Hidden God” hidden even in the beginning of the universe … Science has not to surrender in face of the Universe and when Pascal tries to infer the existence of God from the supposed infinitude of Nature, we may think that he is looking in the wrong direction.
From 'The Primeval Atom Hypothesis and the Problem of Clusters of Galaxies', in R. Stoops (ed.), La Structure et l'Evolution de l'Univers (1958), 1-32. As translated in Helge Kragh, Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Universe (1996), 60.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Believer (26)  |  Bible (105)  |  Deny (71)  |  Event (222)  |  Existence (481)  |  Face (214)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Free (239)  |  God (776)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Sir James Jeans (34)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Looking (191)  |  Materialist (4)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Outside (141)  |  Blaise Pascal (81)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Question (649)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remove (50)  |  See (1094)  |  Singular (24)  |  Space (523)  |  Space-Time (20)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Surrender (21)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transcendental (11)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wrong (246)

As science is more and more subject to grave misuse as well as to use for human benefit it has also become the scientist's responsibility to become aware of the social relations and applications of his subject, and to exert his influence in such a direction as will result in the best applications of the findings in his own and related fields. Thus he must help in educating the public, in the broad sense, and this means first educating himself, not only in science but in regard to the great issues confronting mankind today.
Message to University Students Studying Science', Kagaku Asahi 11, no. 6 (1951), 28-29. Quoted in Elof Axel Carlson, Genes, Radiation, and Society: The Life and Work of H. J. Muller (1981), 371.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Become (821)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Best (467)  |  Education (423)  |  Exert (40)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Grave (52)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Influence (231)  |  Issue (46)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Misuse (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Regard (312)  |  Relation (166)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sense (785)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Subject (543)  |  Today (321)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)

Biology today is moving in the direction of chemistry. Much of what is understood in the field is based on the structure of molecules and the properties of molecules in relation to their structure. If you have that basis, then biology isn’t just a collection of disconnected facts.
From interview with Neil A. Campbell, in 'Crossing the Boundaries of Science', BioScience (Dec 1986), 36, No. 11, 737.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biology (232)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Collection (68)  |  Disconnected (3)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Field (378)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Property (177)  |  Relation (166)  |  Structure (365)  |  Today (321)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)

Buoyed by water, he can fly in any direction—up, down, sideways—by merely flipping his hand. Under water, man becomes an archangel.
Quoted in 'Sport: Poet of the Depths', Time (28 Mar 1960)
Science quotes on:  |  Archangel (2)  |  Become (821)  |  Down (455)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Hand (149)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merely (315)  |  Sideways (2)  |  Underwater (5)  |  Up (5)  |  Water (503)

But if we are to control evolution we shall have to find out how to influence gene reproduction in a definite direction, just as organic chemists nowadays work for definite ends. Such a possibility is at present entirely beyond our grasp, but a century hence it may not be so.
In 'The Biochemistry of the Individual' (1937), collected in Neurath Hans (ed.), Perspectives in Biochemistry (1989), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Century (319)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Control (182)  |  Definite (114)  |  End (603)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gene (105)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Influence (231)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Present (630)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Work (1402)

But it will be found... that one universal law prevails in all these phenomena. Where two portions of the same light arrive in the eye by different routes, either exactly or very nearly in the same direction, the appearance or disappearance of various colours is determined by the greater or less difference in the lengths of the paths.
Lecture XIV. 'Of Physical Optics'. In A Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy (1802), 112-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Color (155)  |  Determination (80)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Eye (440)  |  Greater (288)  |  Law (913)  |  Length (24)  |  Light (635)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Path (159)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Portion (86)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Route (16)  |  Two (936)  |  Universal (198)  |  Various (205)  |  Will (2350)

Can the cultural evolution of higher ethical values gain a direction and momentum of its own and completely replace genetic evolution? I think not. The genes hold culture an a leash. The leash is very long, but inevitably values will be constrained in accordance with their effects in the human gene pool. The brain is a product of evolution. Human behaviour—like the deepest capacities for emotional response which drive and guide it—is the circuitous technique by which human genetic material has been and will be kept intact. Morality has no other demonstrable ultimate function.
In On Human Nature (1978), 167. In William Andrew Rottschaefer, The Biology and Psychology of Moral Agency (1998), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Brain (281)  |  Completely (137)  |  Culture (157)  |  Effect (414)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Function (235)  |  Gain (146)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Guide (107)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Intact (9)  |  Long (778)  |  Material (366)  |  Momentum (10)  |  Morality (55)  |  Other (2233)  |  Product (166)  |  Response (56)  |  Technique (84)  |  Think (1122)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)

Comprehension, inventiveness, direction, and criticism: intelligence is contained in these four words.
Les idées modernes sur les enfants (1909), 118.
Science quotes on:  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Inventiveness (8)  |  Word (650)

Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well informed man is the most useless bore on God’s earth. What we should aim at producing is men who possess both culture and expert knowledge in some special direction.
Opening sentences of Chapter 1,'The Aims of Education', in Aims of Education and Other Essays (1917), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Aim (175)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Both (496)  |  Culture (157)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Expert (67)  |  Feeling (259)  |  God (776)  |  Humane (19)  |  Inform (50)  |  Information (173)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merely (315)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Possess (157)  |  Special (188)  |  Thought (995)

Despite rapid progress in the right direction, the program of the average elementary school has been primarily devoted to teaching the fundamental subjects, the three R’s, and closely related disciplines… Artificial exercises, like drills on phonetics, multiplication tables, and formal writing movements, are used to a wasteful degree. Subjects such as arithmetic, language, and history include content that is intrinsically of little value. Nearly every subject is enlarged unwisely to satisfy the academic ideal of thoroughness… Elimination of the unessential by scientific study, then, is one step in improving the curriculum.
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Average (89)  |  Curriculum (11)  |  Degree (277)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Education (423)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  History (716)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Include (93)  |  Language (308)  |  Little (717)  |  Movement (162)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Progress (492)  |  Right (473)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Step (234)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Table (105)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thoroughness (4)  |  Value (393)  |  Writing (192)

Diamond, for all its great beauty, is not nearly as interesting as the hexagonal plane of graphite. It is not nearly as interesting because we live in a three-dimensional space, and in diamond each atom is surrounded in all three directions in space by a full coordination. Consequently, it is very difficult for an atom inside the diamond lattice to be confronted with anything else in this 3D world because all directions are already taken up.
From Nobel Lecture (7 Dec 1996), 'Discovering the Fullerenes', collected in Ingmar Grenthe (ed.), Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1996-2000 (2003).
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Atom (381)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Coordination (11)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Graphite (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Lattice (2)  |  Live (650)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Plane (22)  |  Space (523)  |  Three-Dimensional (11)  |  World (1850)

Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases.
In 'The Direction of Time', New Scientist (9 Jul 1987), 115, No. 1568, 47. Also in 'The Arrow of Time', A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (1988, 1998), Chap. 9, 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrow Of Time (2)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Increase (225)  |  Measure (241)  |  Time (1911)

EMBALM, v.t. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his neighbor's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long inutility. We shall get him after awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime the violet and rose are languishing for a nibble at his glutæus maximus.
The Cynic's Word Book (1906), 90. Also published later as The Devil's Dictionary.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Balance (82)  |  Barren (33)  |  Cheat (13)  |  Country (269)  |  Doom (34)  |  Embalming (2)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Humour (116)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Rose (36)  |  Step (234)  |  Table (105)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Violet (11)

Every lecture should state one main point and repeat it over and over, like a theme with variations. An audience is like a herd of cows, moving slowly in the direction they are being driven towards. If we make one point, we have a good chance that the audience will take the right direction; if we make several points, then the cows will scatter all over the field. The audience will lose interest and everyone will go back to the thoughts they interrupted in order to come to our lecture.
In 'Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught', Indiscrete Thoughts (2008), 196.
Science quotes on:  |  Audience (28)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chance (244)  |  Cow (42)  |  Drive (61)  |  Field (378)  |  Good (906)  |  Herd (17)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interrupt (6)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Lose (165)  |  Main (29)  |  Move (223)  |  Order (638)  |  Point (584)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Right (473)  |  Scatter (7)  |  Slowly (19)  |  State (505)  |  Theme (17)  |  Thought (995)  |  Toward (45)  |  Variation (93)  |  Will (2350)

Evolution in the biosphere is therefore a necessarily irreversible process defining a direction in time; a direction which is the same as that enjoined by the law of increasing entropy, that is to say, the second law of thermodynamics. This is far more than a mere comparison: the second law is founded upon considerations identical to those which establish the irreversibility of evolution. Indeed, it is legitimate to view the irreversibility of evolution as an expression of the second law in the biosphere.
In Jacques Monod and Austryn Wainhouse (trans.), Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (1971), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Biosphere (14)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expression (181)  |  Identical (55)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Irreversibility (4)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Law (913)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Process (439)  |  Say (989)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)

Exper. I. I made a small hole in a window-shutter, and covered it with a piece of thick paper, which I perforated with a fine needle. For greater convenience of observation I placed a small looking-glass without the window-shutter, in such a position as to reflect the sun's light, in a direction nearly horizontal, upon the opposite wall, and to cause the cone of diverging light to pass over a table on which were several little screens of card-paper. I brought into the sunbeam a slip of card, about one-thirtieth of an inch in breadth, and observed its shadow, either on the wall or on other cards held at different distances. Besides the fringes of colour on each side of the shadow, the shadow itself was divided by similar parallel fringes, of smaller dimensions, differing in number, according to the distance at which the shadow was observed, but leaving the middle of the shadow always white. Now these fringes were the joint effects of the portions of light passing on each side of the slip of card and inflected, or rather diffracted, into the shadow. For, a little screen being placed a few inches from the card, so as to receive either edge of the shadow on its margin, all the fringes which had before been observed in the shadow on the wall, immediately disappeared, although the light inflected on the other side was allowed to retain its course, and although this light must have undergone any modification that the proximity of the other edge of the slip of card might have been capable of occasioning... Nor was it for want of a sufficient intensity of light that one of the two portions was incapable of producing the fringes alone; for when they were both uninterrupted, the lines appeared, even if the intensity was reduced to one-tenth or one-twentieth.
'Experiments and Calculations Relative to Physical Optics' (read in 1803), Philosophical Transactions (1804), 94, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Alone (324)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Breadth (15)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cone (8)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Course (413)  |  Different (595)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Distance (171)  |  Divided (50)  |  Edge (51)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fringe (7)  |  Glass (94)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hole (17)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Interference (22)  |  Joint (31)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Looking (191)  |  Modification (57)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Portion (86)  |  Receive (117)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Retain (57)  |  Screen (8)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Side (236)  |  Small (489)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunbeam (3)  |  Table (105)  |  Two (936)  |  Uninterrupted (7)  |  Wall (71)  |  Want (504)  |  White (132)  |  Window (59)

Experience hobbles progress and leads to abandonment of difficult problems; it encourages the initiated to walk on the shady side of the street in the direction of experiences that have been pleasant. Youth without experience attacks the unsolved problems which maturer age with experience avoids, and from the labors of youth comes progress. Youth has dreams and visions, and will not be denied.
From speech 'In the Time of Henry Jacob Bigelow', given to the Boston Surgical Society, Medalist Meeting (6 Jun 1921). Printed in Journal of the Medical Association (1921), 77, 599.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Age (509)  |  Attack (86)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Denial (20)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dream (222)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Encouragement (27)  |  Experience (494)  |  Initiated (2)  |  Labor (200)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mature (17)  |  Pleasant (22)  |  Problem (731)  |  Progress (492)  |  Side (236)  |  Street (25)  |  Unsolved (15)  |  Vision (127)  |  Walk (138)  |  Will (2350)  |  Youth (109)

Extremely hazardous is the desire to explain everything, and to supply whatever appears a gap in history—for in this propensity lies the first cause and germ of all those violent and arbitrary hypotheses which perplex and pervert the science of history far more than the open avowal of our ignorance, or the uncertainty of our knowledge: hypotheses which give an oblique direction, or an exaggerated and false extension, to a view of the subject originally not incorrect.
In Friedrich von Schlegel and James Burton Robertson (trans.), The Philosophy of History (1835), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Arbitrary (27)  |  Cause (561)  |  Desire (212)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exaggeration (16)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extension (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Gap (36)  |  Germ (54)  |  Hazard (21)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  More (2558)  |  Open (277)  |  Perplexing (2)  |  Pervert (7)  |  Subject (543)  |  Supply (100)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  View (496)  |  Whatever (234)

Far be it from me to suggest that geologists should be reckless in their drafts upon the bank of Time; but nothing whatever is gained, and very much is lost, by persistent niggardliness in this direction.
Proceedings of the Geological Society of London (1903), 59, lxxii.
Science quotes on:  |  Bank (31)  |  Draft (6)  |  Gain (146)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Loss (117)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Persistent (18)  |  Reckless (6)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whatever (234)

Formerly one sought the feeling of the grandeur of man by pointing to his divine origin: this has now become a forbidden way, for at its portal stands the ape, together with other gruesome beasts, grinning knowingly as if to say: no further in this direction! One therefore now tries the opposite direction: the way mankind is going shall serve as proof of his grandeur and kinship with God. Alas this, too, is vain! At the end of this way stands the funeral urn of the last man and gravedigger (with the inscription “nihil humani a me alienum puto”). However high mankind may have evolved—and perhaps at the end it will stand even lower than at the beginning!— it cannot pass over into a higher order, as little as the ant and the earwig can at the end of its “earthly course” rise up to kinship with God and eternal life. The becoming drags the has-been along behind it: why should an exception to this eternal spectacle be made on behalf of some little star or for any little species upon it! Away with such sentimentalities!
Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality (1881), trans. R. J. Hollingdale (1982), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Ant (34)  |  Ape (54)  |  Beast (58)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Behind (139)  |  Course (413)  |  Divine (112)  |  End (603)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exception (74)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Forbidden (18)  |  Funeral (5)  |  God (776)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  High (370)  |  Inscription (12)  |  Kinship (5)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Portal (9)  |  Proof (304)  |  Rise (169)  |  Say (989)  |  Species (435)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Stand (284)  |  Star (460)  |  Together (392)  |  Vain (86)  |  Vanity (20)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

From whence it is obvious to conclude that, since our Faculties are not fitted to penetrate into the internal Fabrick and real Essences of Bodies; but yet plainly discover to us the Being of a GOD, and the Knowledge of our selves, enough to lead us into a full and clear discovery of our Duty, and great Concernment, it will become us, as rational Creatures, to imploy those Faculties we have about what they are most adapted to, and follow the direction of Nature, where it seems to point us out the way.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book 4, Chapter 12, Section 11, 646.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Creature (242)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Duty (71)  |  Enough (341)  |  Essence (85)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Follow (389)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Internal (69)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Point (584)  |  Rational (95)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

Gauss was not the son of a mathematician; Handel’s father was a surgeon, of whose musical powers nothing is known; Titian was the son and also the nephew of a lawyer, while he and his brother, Francesco Vecellio, were the first painters in a family which produced a succession of seven other artists with diminishing talents. These facts do not, however, prove that the condition of the nerve-tracts and centres of the brain, which determine the specific talent, appeared for the first time in these men: the appropriate condition surely existed previously in their parents, although it did not achieve expression. They prove, as it seems to me, that a high degree of endowment in a special direction, which we call talent, cannot have arisen from the experience of previous generations, that is, by the exercise of the brain in the same specific direction.
In 'On Heredity', Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems (1889), Vol. 1, 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Appear (122)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Artist (97)  |  Brain (281)  |  Brother (47)  |  Call (781)  |  Centre (31)  |  Condition (362)  |  Degree (277)  |  Determine (152)  |  Diminish (17)  |  Do (1905)  |  Endowment (16)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Family (101)  |  Father (113)  |  First (1302)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Generation (256)  |  High (370)  |  Known (453)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Music (133)  |  Nephew (2)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Painter (30)  |  Parent (80)  |  Power (771)  |  Previous (17)  |  Produced (187)  |  Prove (261)  |  Son (25)  |  Special (188)  |  Specific (98)  |  Succession (80)  |  Surely (101)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Talent (99)  |  Time (1911)  |  Titian (2)

Gyroscope, n.: A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpendicular to each other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the two mutually perpendicular axes results from application of torque to the other when the wheel is spinning and so that the entire apparatus offers considerable opposition depending on the angular momentum to any torque that would change the direction of the axis of spin.
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (8th Ed., 1973), 513. (Webmaster comments: A definition which is perfectly easy to understand. Right?)
Science quotes on:  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Application (257)  |  Axis (9)  |  Both (496)  |  Change (639)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Definition (238)  |  Free (239)  |  Momentum (10)  |  Mount (43)  |  Offer (142)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Other (2233)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Result (700)  |  Rotate (8)  |  Rotation (13)  |  Spin (26)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Two (936)  |  Wheel (51)

He attends constantly the Meetings both of ye Society and the Council; noteth the Observables said and done there; digesteth ym in private; takes care to have ym entered in the Journal- and Register-Books; reads over and corrects all entrys; sollicites the performances of taskes recommended and undertaken; writes all Letters abroad and answers the returns made to ym, entertaining a correspondence with at least 30. persons; employs a great deal of time, and takes much pain in inquiring after and satisfying foorain demands about philosophical matters, dispenseth farr and near store of directions and inquiries for the society’s purpose, and sees them well recommended etc.
Description of his duties as Secretary of the Royal Society, in his own words, but in the third person. As quoted from A. Rupert Hall, 'Henry Oldenburg', in Charles Coulston Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of National Biography (1974), Vol. 10, 201.
Science quotes on:  |  Abroad (19)  |  Answer (389)  |  Attend (67)  |  Books (2)  |  Care (203)  |  Correct (95)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Council (9)  |  Demand (131)  |  Digest (10)  |  Dispense (10)  |  Enter (145)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Journal (31)  |  Letter (117)  |  Meeting (22)  |  Note (39)  |  Observation (593)  |  Performance (51)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Private (29)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Read (308)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Register (22)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Solicit (2)  |  Task (152)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Write (250)

His mother’s favorite, he [Freud] possessed the self-confidence that told him he would achieve something worth while in life, and the ambition to do so, though for long the direction this would take remained uncertain.
In The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud: The Formative Years and the Great Discoveries, 1856-1900 (1957), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Ambition (46)  |  Biography (254)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Sigmund Freud (70)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Mother (116)  |  Possess (157)  |  Remain (355)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Confidence (11)  |  Something (718)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Worth (172)

I can see him [Sylvester] now, with his white beard and few locks of gray hair, his forehead wrinkled o’er with thoughts, writing rapidly his figures and formulae on the board, sometimes explaining as he wrote, while we, his listeners, caught the reflected sounds from the board. But stop, something is not right, he pauses, his hand goes to his forehead to help his thought, he goes over the work again, emphasizes the leading points, and finally discovers his difficulty. Perhaps it is some error in his figures, perhaps an oversight in the reasoning. Sometimes, however, the difficulty is not elucidated, and then there is not much to the rest of the lecture. But at the next lecture we would hear of some new discovery that was the outcome of that difficulty, and of some article for the Journal, which he had begun. If a text-book had been taken up at the beginning, with the intention of following it, that text-book was most likely doomed to oblivion for the rest of the term, or until the class had been made listeners to every new thought and principle that had sprung from the laboratory of his mind, in consequence of that first difficulty. Other difficulties would soon appear, so that no text-book could last more than half of the term. In this way his class listened to almost all of the work that subsequently appeared in the Journal. It seemed to be the quality of his mind that he must adhere to one subject. He would think about it, talk about it to his class, and finally write about it for the Journal. The merest accident might start him, but once started, every moment, every thought was given to it, and, as much as possible, he read what others had done in the same direction; but this last seemed to be his real point; he could not read without finding difficulties in the way of understanding the author. Thus, often his own work reproduced what had been done by others, and he did not find it out until too late.
A notable example of this is in his theory of cyclotomic functions, which he had reproduced in several foreign journals, only to find that he had been greatly anticipated by foreign authors. It was manifest, one of the critics said, that the learned professor had not read Rummer’s elementary results in the theory of ideal primes. Yet Professor Smith’s report on the theory of numbers, which contained a full synopsis of Kummer’s theory, was Professor Sylvester’s constant companion.
This weakness of Professor Sylvester, in not being able to read what others had done, is perhaps a concomitant of his peculiar genius. Other minds could pass over little difficulties and not be troubled by them, and so go on to a final understanding of the results of the author. But not so with him. A difficulty, however small, worried him, and he was sure to have difficulties until the subject had been worked over in his own way, to correspond with his own mode of thought. To read the work of others, meant therefore to him an almost independent development of it. Like the man whose pleasure in life is to pioneer the way for society into the forests, his rugged mind could derive satisfaction only in hewing out its own paths; and only when his efforts brought him into the uncleared fields of mathematics did he find his place in the Universe.
In Florian Cajori, Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 266-267.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Adhere (3)  |  Anticipate (20)  |  Appear (122)  |  Article (22)  |  Author (175)  |  Beard (8)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Board (13)  |  Book (413)  |  Bring (95)  |  Class (168)  |  Companion (22)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contain (68)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Critic (21)  |  Derive (70)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doom (34)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Elucidate (4)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Error (339)  |  Example (98)  |  Explain (334)  |  Field (378)  |  Figure (162)  |  Final (121)  |  Finally (26)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forehead (3)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Forest (161)  |  Formula (102)  |  Full (68)  |  Function (235)  |  Genius (301)  |  Give (208)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Hair (25)  |  Half (63)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hear (144)  |  Help (116)  |  Hew (3)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intention (46)  |  Journal (31)  |  Ernst Eduard Kummer (3)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Last (425)  |  Late (119)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Likely (36)  |  Listen (81)  |  Listener (7)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mode (43)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Notable (6)  |  Number (710)  |  Oblivion (10)  |  Often (109)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outcome (15)  |  Oversight (4)  |  Pass (241)  |  Path (159)  |  Pause (6)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Place (192)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prime (11)  |  Principle (530)  |  Professor (133)  |  Quality (139)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Read (308)  |  Real (159)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Report (42)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Rugged (7)  |  Rum (3)  |  Same (166)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Several (33)  |  Small (489)  |  Smith (3)  |  Society (350)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spring (140)  |  Start (237)  |  Stop (89)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subsequently (2)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Synopsis (2)  |  Talk (108)  |  Term (357)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Numbers (7)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weakness (50)  |  White (132)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worry (34)  |  Wrinkle (4)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adjust (11)  |  Change (639)  |  Destination (16)  |  Reach (286)  |  Sail (37)  |  Wind (141)

I have long recognized the theory and aesthetic of such comprehensive display: show everything and incite wonder by sheer variety. But I had never realized how power fully the decor of a cabinet museum can promote this goal until I saw the Dublin [Natural History Museum] fixtures redone right ... The exuberance is all of one piece–organic and architectural. I write this essay to offer my warmest congratulations to the Dublin Museum for choosing preservation–a decision not only scientifically right, but also ethically sound and decidedly courageous. The avant-garde is not an exclusive locus of courage; a principled stand within a reconstituted rear unit may call down just as much ridicule and demand equal fortitude. Crowds do not always rush off in admirable or defendable directions.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admirable (20)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Cabinet (5)  |  Call (781)  |  Choose (116)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Congratulation (5)  |  Congratulations (3)  |  Courage (82)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Decidedly (2)  |  Decision (98)  |  Demand (131)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Dublin (3)  |  Equal (88)  |  Essay (27)  |  Ethically (4)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Exuberance (3)  |  Fixture (2)  |  Fortitude (2)  |  Fully (20)  |  Goal (155)  |  History (716)  |  Incite (3)  |  Locus (5)  |  Long (778)  |  Museum (40)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Never (1089)  |  Offer (142)  |  Organic (161)  |  Piece (39)  |  Power (771)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Principle (530)  |  Promote (32)  |  Realize (157)  |  Rear (7)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Reconstitute (2)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Right (473)  |  Rush (18)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scientifically (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Sheer (9)  |  Show (353)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stand (284)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unit (36)  |  Variety (138)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Write (250)

I have no doubt that it is possible to give a new direction to technological development, a direction that shall lead it back to the real needs of man, and that also means: to the actual size of man. Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful. To go
Small is Beautiful (1973).
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Back (395)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Development (441)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Give (208)  |  Lead (391)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Possible (560)  |  Real (159)  |  Size (62)  |  Small (489)  |  Technological (62)

I have satisfied myself that the [cosmic] rays are not generated by the formation of new matter in space, a process which would be like water running up a hill. Nor do they come to any appreciable amount from the stars. According to my investigations the sun emits a radiation of such penetrative power that it is virtually impossible to absorb it in lead or other substances. ... This ray, which I call the primary solar ray, gives rise to a secondary radiation by impact against the cosmic dust scattered through space. It is the secondary radiation which now is commonly called the cosmic ray, and comes, of course, equally from all directions in space. [The article continues: The phenomena of radioactivity are not the result of forces within the radioactive substances but are caused by this ray emitted by the sun. If radium could be screened effectively against this ray it would cease to be radioactive, he said.]
Quoted in 'Tesla, 75, Predicts New Power Source', New York Times (5 Jul 1931), Section 2, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  According (236)  |  Against (332)  |  Amount (153)  |  Call (781)  |  Cease (81)  |  Continue (179)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dust (68)  |  Emit (15)  |  Equally (129)  |  Force (497)  |  Formation (100)  |  Hill (23)  |  Impact (45)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Lead (391)  |  Matter (821)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Power (771)  |  Primary (82)  |  Process (439)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Radium (29)  |  Ray (115)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Running (61)  |  Solar Energy (21)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sun (407)  |  Through (846)  |  Water (503)

I know of no department of natural science more likely to reward a man who goes into it thoroughly than anthropology. There is an immense deal to be done in the science pure and simple, and it is one of those branches of inquiry which brings one into contact with the great problems of humanity in every direction.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Branch (155)  |  Bring (95)  |  Contact (66)  |  Deal (192)  |  Department (93)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Know (1538)  |  Likely (36)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reward (72)  |  Simple (426)  |  Thoroughly (67)

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
In Walden: or, Life in the Woods (1854, 1893), 496.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Common (447)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Dream (222)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hour (192)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Success (327)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Will (2350)

I never really paused for a moment to question the idea that the progressive Spiritualization of Matter—so clearly demonstrated to me by Paleontology—could be anything other, or anything less, than an irreversible process. By its gravitational nature, the Universe, I saw, was falling—falling forwards—in the direction of spirit as upon its stable form. In other words, Matter was not ultra-materialized as I would at first have believed, but was instead metamorphosed in Psyche.
In The Heart of Matter (1978), 27-28.
Science quotes on:  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Fall (243)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Idea (881)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Materialize (2)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metamorphose (2)  |  Moment (260)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paleontology (32)  |  Process (439)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Psyche (9)  |  Question (649)  |  Saw (160)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spiritualization (2)  |  Stable (32)  |  Universe (900)  |  Word (650)

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind.
John Muir
In Linnie Marsh Wolfe (ed.), John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir (1938 1979), 313. Entered in journal while on sled trip exploring Muir Glacier, its boundaries and tributaries; Hemlock Mountain (11-21 Jul 1890).
Science quotes on:  |  Discontented (2)  |  Far (158)  |  Grip (10)  |  Ground (222)  |  Root (121)  |  Travel (125)  |  Tree (269)  |  Wander (44)  |  Wind (141)

I shall explain a System of the World differing in many particulars from any yet known, answering in all things to the common Rules of Mechanical Motions: This depends upon three Suppositions. First, That all Cœlestial Bodies whatsoever, have an attraction or gravitating power towards their own Centers, whereby they attract not only their own parts, and keep them from flying from them, as we may observe the Earth to do, but that they do also attract all the other Cœlestial bodies that are within the sphere of their activity; and consequently that not only the Sun and Moon have an influence upon the body and motion the Earth, and the Earth upon them, but that Mercury also Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter by their attractive powers, have a considerable influence upon its motion in the same manner the corresponding attractive power of the Earth hath a considerable influence upon every one of their motions also. The second supposition is this, That all bodies whatsoever that are put into a direct and simple motion, will continue to move forward in a streight line, till they are by some other effectual powers deflected and bent into a Motion, describing a Circle, Ellipse, or some other more compounded Curve Line. The third supposition is, That these attractive powers are so much the more powerful in operating, by how much the nearer the body wrought upon is to their own Centers. Now what these several degrees are I have not yet experimentally verified; but it is a notion, which if fully prosecuted as it ought to be, will mightily assist the Astronomer to reduce all the Cœlestial Motions to a certain rule, which I doubt will never be done true without it. He that understands the nature of the Circular Pendulum and Circular Motion, will easily understand the whole ground of this Principle, and will know where to find direction in Nature for the true stating thereof. This I only hint at present to such as have ability and opportunity of prosecuting this Inquiry, and are not wanting of Industry for observing and calculating, wishing heartily such may be found, having myself many other things in hand which I would first compleat and therefore cannot so well attend it. But this I durst promise the Undertaker, that he will find all the Great Motions of the World to be influenced by this Principle, and that the true understanding thereof will be the true perfection of Astronomy.
An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth from Observations (1674), 27-8. Based on a Cutlerian Lecture delivered by Hooke at the Royal Society four years earlier.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Activity (218)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Attend (67)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Attractive (25)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Circle (117)  |  Circular (19)  |  Circular Motion (7)  |  Common (447)  |  Compound (117)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Continue (179)  |  Curve (49)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depend (238)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ellipse (8)  |  Explain (334)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Flying (74)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hint (21)  |  Industry (159)  |  Inertia (17)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Mars (47)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Never (1089)  |  Notion (120)  |  Observe (179)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Promise (72)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Rule (307)  |  Saturn (15)  |  Simple (426)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Sun (407)  |  Supposition (50)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Venus (21)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

I think all this superstring stuff is crazy and is in the wrong direction. I don’t like that they’re not calculating anything. I don’t like that they don’t check their ideas. I don’t like that for anything that disagrees with an experiment, they cook up an explanation… It doesn’t look right.
Interview published in Paul C.W. Davies and Julian R. Brown (eds.),Superstrings: A Theory of Everything? (1988, 1992), 194.
Science quotes on:  |  Calculate (58)  |  Check (26)  |  Cook (20)  |  Crazy (27)  |  Disagree (14)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Idea (881)  |  Look (584)  |  Right (473)  |  Superstring (4)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wrong (246)

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:  |  Air (366)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Battery (12)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Consist (223)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Current (122)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Direct (228)  |  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 wanted to preserve the spontaneity of thought in speech… [and to] guard the spontaneity of the argument. A spoken argument is informal and heuristic; it singles out the heart of the matter and shows in what way it is crucial and new; and it gives the direction and line of the solution so that, simplified as it is, still the logic is right. For me, this philosophic form of argument is the foundation of science, and nothing should be allowed to obscure it.
On his philosophy in presenting the TV series, from which the book followed. In 'Foreward', The Ascent of Man, (1973), 14-15.
Science quotes on:  |  Allow (51)  |  Argument (145)  |  Crucial (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Guard (19)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heuristic (6)  |  Informal (5)  |  Line (100)  |  Logic (311)  |  Matter (821)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Right (473)  |  Simplify (14)  |  Solution (282)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speech (66)  |  Spontaneity (7)  |  Thought (995)

If [in a rain forest] the traveler notices a particular species and wishes to find more like it, he must often turn his eyes in vain in every direction. Trees of varied forms, dimensions, and colors are around him, but he rarely sees any of them repeated. Time after time he goes towards a tree which looks like the one he seeks, but a closer examination proves it to be distinct.
In 'Equitorial Vegetation', Natural Selection and Tropical Nature Essays on Descriptive and Theoretical Biology (1891), 267.
Science quotes on:  |  Close (77)  |  Closer (43)  |  Color (155)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Examination (102)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forestry (17)  |  Form (976)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Notice (81)  |  Prove (261)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Repeat (44)  |  See (1094)  |  Seek (218)  |  Species (435)  |  Time (1911)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Tree (269)  |  Turn (454)  |  Vain (86)  |  Wish (216)

If catastrophic geology had at times pushed Nature to almost indecent extremes of haste, uniformitarian geology, on the other hand, had erred in the opposite direction, and pictured Nature when she was “young and wantoned in her prime”, as moving with the lame sedateness of advanced middle age. It became necessary, therefore, as Dr. Haughton expresses it, “to hurry up the phenomena”.
From British Association Address to Workingmen, 'Geology and Deluges', published in Nature (1984), 50, 505-510. Also printed in Popular Science Monthly (Dec 1894), 46 251. “Wontoned” (sic) was likely used for “wanton.” and Dr. Samuel Haughton was an Irish scientific writer —Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Age Of The Earth (12)  |  Catastrophe (35)  |  Catastrophic (10)  |  Err (5)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Geology (240)  |  Haste (6)  |  Hurry (16)  |  Lame (5)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Push (66)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uniformitarianism (9)  |  Wanton (2)  |  Young (253)

If I make a decision it is a possession. I take pride in it, I tend to defend it and not listen to those who question it. If I make sense, then this is more dynamic, and I listen and I can change it. A decision is something you polish. Sensemaking is a direction for the next period.
Personal communication (13 Jun 1995). In Karl E. Weick, 'The Experience of Theorizing: Sensemaking as Topic and Resource'. Quoted in Ken G. Smith (ed.) and Michael A. Hitt (ed), Great Minds in Management: the Theory of Process Development (2005), 398. Weick writes that Gleason explains how leadership needs 'sensemaking rather than decision making.' As a highly skilled wildland firefighter he would make sense of an unfolding fire, giving directives that are open to revision at any time, so they can be self-correcting, responsive, with a transparent rationale. By contrast, decision making eats up valuable time with polishing the decision to get it 'right' and defending it, and also encourages blind spots.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Decision (98)  |  Defend (32)  |  Dynamic (16)  |  Listen (81)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Period (200)  |  Polish (17)  |  Possession (68)  |  Pride (84)  |  Question (649)  |  Sense (785)  |  Something (718)  |  Tend (124)

If the expansion of the space of the universe is uniform in all directions, an observer located in anyone of the galaxies will see all other galaxies running away from him at velocities proportional to their distances from the observer.
The Creation of the Universe (1952), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Distance (171)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Other (2233)  |  Running (61)  |  See (1094)  |  Space (523)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

If the human race wants to go to hell in a basket, technology can help it get there by jet. It won’t change the desire or the direction, but it can greatly speed the passage.
In a speech at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, April 25, 1967.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Desire (212)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Passage (52)  |  Race (278)  |  Speed (66)  |  Technology (281)  |  Want (504)

If the mysterious influence to which the dissymmetry of nature is due should come to change in sense or direction, the constituting elements of all living beings would take an inverse dissymmetry. Perhaps a new world would be presented to us. Who could foresee the organization of living beings, if the cellulose, which is right, should become left, if the left albumen of the blood should become right? There are here mysteries which prepare immense labours for the future, and from this hour invite the most serious meditations in science.
Lecture (3 Feb 1860), to the Chemical Society of Paris, 'On the Molecular Dissymetry of Natural Organic Products', reprinted in The Chemical News and Journal of Industrial Science (3 May 1862), 5, No. 126, 248.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blood (144)  |  Cellulose (3)  |  Change (639)  |  Due (143)  |  Element (322)  |  Foresee (22)  |  Future (467)  |  Hour (192)  |  Immense (89)  |  Influence (231)  |  Labor (200)  |  Left (15)  |  Living (492)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Organization (120)  |  Present (630)  |  Right (473)  |  Sense (785)  |  Serious (98)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  World (1850)

If the world has begun with a single quantum, the notions of space and would altogether fail to have any meaning at the beginning; they would only begin to have a sensible meaning when the original quantum had been divided into a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world happened a little before the beginning of space and time. I think that such a beginning of the world is far enough from the present order of Nature to be not at all repugnant. It may be difficult to follow up the idea in detail as we are not yet able to count the quantum packets in every case. For example, it may be that an atomic nucleus must be counted as a unique quantum, the atomic number acting as a kind of quantum number. If the future development of quantum theory happens to turn in that direction, we could conceive the beginning of the universe in the form of a unique atom, the atomic weight of which is the total mass of the universe. This highly unstable atom would divide in smaller and smaller atoms by a kind of super-radioactive process.
In a seminal short letter (457 words), 'The Beginning of the World from the Point of View of Quantum Theory', Nature (9 May 1931), 127, 706.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Number (3)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Count (107)  |  Detail (150)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Divide (77)  |  Divided (50)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fail (191)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Idea (881)  |  Kind (564)  |  Little (717)  |  Mass (160)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin Of The Universe (20)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Number (2)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Repugnant (8)  |  Single (365)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Total (95)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unique (72)  |  Universe (900)  |  Weight (140)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Air (366)  |  Arising (22)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Atom (381)  |  Beryllium (3)  |  Charge (63)  |  Collaboration (16)  |  Collision (16)  |  Consist (223)  |  Course (413)  |  Difficult (263)  |  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 you could stop every atom in its position and direction, and if your mind could comprehend all the actions thus suspended, then if you were really, really good at algebra you could write the formula for all the future; and although nobody can be so clever as to do it, the formula must exist just as if one could.
Spoken by Thomasina in Arcadia (1993), Act I, Scene 1, 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Atom (381)  |  Clever (41)  |  Cleverness (15)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exist (458)  |  Formula (102)  |  Future (467)  |  Good (906)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Position (83)  |  Stop (89)  |  Suspension (7)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

In August, 1896, I exposed the sodium flame to large magnetic forces by placing it between the poles of a strong electromagnet. Again I studied the radiation of the flame by means of Rowland's mirror, the observations being made in the direction perpendicular to the lines of force. Each line, which in the absence of the effect of the magnetic forces was very sharply defined, was now broadened. This indicated that not only the original oscillations, but also others with greater and again others with smaller periods of oscillation were being radiated by the flame. The change was however very small. In an easily produced magnetic field it corresponded to a thirtieth of the distance between the two sodium lines, say two tenths of an Angstrom, a unit of measure whose name will always recall to physicists the meritorious work done by the father of my esteemed colleague.
'Light Radiation in a Magnetic Field', Nobel Lecture, 2 May 1903. In Nobel Lectures: Physics 1901-1921 (1967), 34-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Distance (171)  |  Effect (414)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Father (113)  |  Field (378)  |  Flame (44)  |  Force (497)  |  Greater (288)  |  Large (398)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Magnetic Field (7)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Name (359)  |  Observation (593)  |  Oscillation (13)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Pole (49)  |  Produced (187)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Say (989)  |  Small (489)  |  Sodium (15)  |  Spectral Line (5)  |  Spectroscopy (11)  |  Strong (182)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

In every section of the entire area where the word science may properly be applied, the limiting factor is a human one. We shall have rapid or slow advance in this direction or in that depending on the number of really first-class men who are engaged in the work in question. ... So in the last analysis, the future of science in this country will be determined by our basic educational policy.
Quoted in Vannevar Bush, Science, the Endless Frontier: A Report to the President, July 1945. In Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science: Volumes 48-49, 246.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Basic (144)  |  Class (168)  |  Country (269)  |  Depending (2)  |  Education (423)  |  First (1302)  |  First-Class (2)  |  Future (467)  |  Human (1512)  |  Last (425)  |  Number (710)  |  Policy (27)  |  Question (649)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Section (11)  |  Slow (108)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

In France, where an attempt has been made to deprive me of the originality of these discoveries, experiments without number and without mercy have been made on living animals; not under the direction of anatomical knowledge, or the guidance of just induction, but conducted with cruelty and indifference, in hope to catch at some of the accidental facts of a system, which, is evident, the experimenters did not fully comprehend.
An Exposition of the Natural System of the Nerves of the Human Body (1824), 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Accidental (31)  |  Animal (651)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Evident (92)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Hope (321)  |  Induction (81)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Living (492)  |  Number (710)  |  System (545)  |  Vivisection (7)

In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.
Often seen quoted in a condensed form: If you cannot measure it, then it is not science.
From lecture to the Institution of Civil Engineers, London (3 May 1883), 'Electrical Units of Measurement', Popular Lectures and Addresses (1889), Vol. 1, 80-81.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Connect (126)  |  Essential (210)  |  Express (192)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learning (291)  |  Matter (821)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Method (531)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Principle (530)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Say (989)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Something (718)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Stage (152)  |  Step (234)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thought (995)  |  Whatever (234)

In the last two months I have been very busy with my own mathematical speculations, which have cost me much time, without my having reached my original goal. Again and again I was enticed by the frequently interesting prospects from one direction to the other, sometimes even by will-o'-the-wisps, as is not rare in mathematic speculations.
Letter to Ernst Weber (21 May 1843). Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 416.
Science quotes on:  |  Cost (94)  |  Goal (155)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Last (425)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Month (91)  |  Other (2233)  |  Prospect (31)  |  Rare (94)  |  Reach (286)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)

In the main, Bacon prophesied the direction of subsequent progress. But he “anticipated” the advance. He did not see that the new science was for a long time to be worked in the interest of old ends of human exploitation. He thought that it would rapidly give man new ends. Instead, it put at the disposal of a class the means to secure their old ends of aggrandizement at the expense of another class. The industrial revolution followed, as he foresaw, upon a revolution in scientific method. But it is taking the revolution many centuries to produce a new mind.
In Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (1916), 330-331.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Aggrandizement (2)  |  Anticipate (20)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Century (319)  |  Class (168)  |  End (603)  |  Expense (21)  |  Exploitation (14)  |  Follow (389)  |  Foresee (22)  |  Human (1512)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Interest (416)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Produce (117)  |  Progress (492)  |  Prophesy (11)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Secure (23)  |  See (1094)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)

In the next twenty centuries … humanity may begin to understand its most baffling mystery—where are we going? The earth is, in fact, traveling many thousands of miles per hour in the direction of the constellation Hercules—to some unknown destination in the cosmos. Man must understand his universe in order to understand his destiny. Mystery, however, is a very necessary ingredient in our lives. Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis for man’s desire to understand. Who knows what mysteries will be solved in our lifetime, and what new riddles will become the challenge of the new generation? Science has not mastered prophesy. We predict too much for the next year yet far too little for the next ten. Responding to challenges is one of democracy’s great strengths. Our successes in space can be used in the next decade in the solution of many of our planet’s problems.
In a speech to a Joint Meeting of the Two Houses of Congress to Receive the Apollo 11 Astronauts (16 Sep 1969), in the Congressional Record.
Science quotes on:  |  Baffling (5)  |  Basis (180)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Century (319)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Constellation (18)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Create (245)  |  Decade (66)  |  Democracy (36)  |  Desire (212)  |  Destination (16)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hercules (9)  |  Hour (192)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Ingredient (16)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Order (638)  |  Planet (402)  |  Predict (86)  |  Problem (731)  |  Prophesy (11)  |  Respond (14)  |  Riddle (28)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Space (523)  |  Strength (139)  |  Success (327)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Travel (125)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Year (963)

Intellectual work is an act of creation. It is as if the mental image that is studied over a period of time were to sprout appendages like an ameba—outgrowths that extend in all directions while avoiding one obstacle after another—before interdigitating with related ideas.
From Reglas y Consejos sobre Investigacíon Cientifica: Los tónicos de la voluntad. (1897), as translated by Neely and Larry W. Swanson, in Advice for a Young Investigator (1999), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Amoeba (21)  |  Appendage (2)  |  Avoiding (2)  |  Creation (350)  |  Extend (129)  |  Idea (881)  |  Image (97)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Mental (179)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Period (200)  |  Related (5)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)

It appears, according to the reported facts, that the electric conflict is not restricted to the conducting wire, but that it has a rather extended sphere of activity around it … the nature of the circular action is such that movements that it produces take place in directions precisely contrary to the two extremities of a given diameter. Furthermore, it seems that the circular movement, combined with the progressive movement in the direction of the length of the conjunctive wire, should form a mode of action which is exerted as a helix around this wire as an axis.
Recherches sur l’identité des forces chimiques et électriques (1813), 248. In James R. Hofmann, André-Marie Ampère (1996), 231.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Action (342)  |  Activity (218)  |  Circular (19)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Current (122)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Exert (40)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Field (378)  |  Form (976)  |  Helix (10)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Two (936)  |  Wire (36)

It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors, as his knowledge. Mal-information is more hopeless than non-information: for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one on which we first erase. Ignorance is contented to stand still with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds, in the same direction. Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one. The consequence is, that error, when she retraces her footsteps, has farther to go, before we can arrive at the truth, than ignorance.
Reflection 1, in Lacon: or Many things in Few Words; Addressed to Those Who Think (1820), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Error (339)  |  Farther (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Hopeless (17)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Information (173)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Stand (284)  |  Still (614)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unlearn (11)  |  Write (250)

It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions; but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.
'The Struggle for Existence in Human Society' (1888). In Collected Essays (1894), Vol. 9, 199.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constant (148)  |  Depend (238)  |  Effect (414)  |  Error (339)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Involve (93)  |  Modification (57)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Organism (231)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Process (439)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Upward (44)

It is impossible for a Die, with such determin'd force and direction, not to fall on such determin'd side, only I don't know the force and direction which makes it fall on such determin'd side, and therefore I call it Chance, which is nothing but the want of art.... .
Of the Laws of Chance (1692), preface
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Call (781)  |  Chance (244)  |  Fall (243)  |  Force (497)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Know (1538)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Probability (135)  |  Side (236)  |  Want (504)

It is natural selection that gives direction to changes, orients chance, and slowly, progressively produces more complex structures, new organs, and new species. Novelties come from previously unseen association of old material. To create is to recombine.
In 'Evolution and Tinkering', Science (10 Jun 1977), 196, 1163.
Science quotes on:  |  Association (49)  |  Chance (244)  |  Change (639)  |  Complex (202)  |  Create (245)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Organ (118)  |  Selection (130)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)  |  Unseen (23)

It is of interest to inquire what happens when the aviator’s speed… approximates to the velocity of light. Lengths in the direction of flight become smaller and smaller, until for the speed of light they shrink to zero. The aviator and the objects accompanying him shrink to two dimensions. We are saved the difficulty of imagining how the processes of life can go on in two dimensions, because nothing goes on. Time is arrested altogether. This is the description according to the terrestrial observer. The aviator himself detects nothing unusual; he does not perceive that he has stopped moving. He is merely waiting for the next instant to come before making the next movement; and the mere fact that time is arrested means that he does not perceive that the next instant is a long time coming.
In Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory (1920, 1921), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Approximate (25)  |  Become (821)  |  Coming (114)  |  Detect (45)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flight (101)  |  Happen (282)  |  Himself (461)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Instant (46)  |  Interest (416)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Making (300)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Merely (315)  |  Movement (162)  |  Next (238)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Shrink (23)  |  Speed (66)  |  Speed Of Light (18)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Waiting (42)  |  Zero (38)

It is open to every man to choose the direction of his striving; and also every man may draw comfort from Lessing's fine saying, that the search for truth is more precious than its possession.
From 'E=mc2', in Science Illustrated (Apr 1946). In Albert Einstein, The Einstein Reader (2006), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Choose (116)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Draw (140)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Open (277)  |  Possession (68)  |  Precious (43)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Search (175)  |  Strive (53)  |  Truth (1109)

It is the duty of every man of good will to strive steadfastly in his own little world to make this teaching of pure humanity a living force, so far as he can. If he makes an honest attempt in this direction without being crushed and trampled under foot by his contemporaries, he may consider himself and the community to which he belongs lucky.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Community (111)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Crush (19)  |  Duty (71)  |  Far (158)  |  Foot (65)  |  Force (497)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Honest (53)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Lucky (13)  |  Man (2252)  |  Pure (299)  |  Strive (53)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Trample (3)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

It must happen that in some cases the author is not understood, or is very imperfectly understood; and the question is what is to be done. After giving a reasonable amount of attention to the passage, let the student pass on, reserving the obscurity for future efforts. … The natural tendency of solitary students, I believe, is not to hurry away prematurely from a hard passage, but to hang far too long over it; the just pride that does not like to acknowledge defeat, and the strong will that cannot endure to be thwarted, both urge to a continuance of effort even when success seems hopeless. It is only by experience we gain the conviction that when the mind is thoroughly fatigued it has neither the power to continue with advantage its course in .an assigned direction, nor elasticity to strike out a new path; but that, on the other hand, after being withdrawn for a time from the pursuit, it may return and gain the desired end.
In 'Private Study of Mathematics', Conflict of Studies and other Essays (1873), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Amount (153)  |  Assign (15)  |  Attention (196)  |  Author (175)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Both (496)  |  Case (102)  |  Continuance (2)  |  Continue (179)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Course (413)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Desire (212)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elasticity (8)  |  End (603)  |  Endure (21)  |  Experience (494)  |  Far (158)  |  Fatigue (13)  |  Future (467)  |  Gain (146)  |  Give (208)  |  Hang (46)  |  Happen (282)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hopeless (17)  |  Hurry (16)  |  Imperfectly (2)  |  Let (64)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passage (52)  |  Path (159)  |  Power (771)  |  Premature (22)  |  Pride (84)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Question (649)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Return (133)  |  Seem (150)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Strike (72)  |  Strong (182)  |  Student (317)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Success (327)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Urge (17)  |  Will (2350)  |  Withdraw (11)

Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise–even in their own field.
In The Roving Mind (1983), 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Easier (53)  |  Field (378)  |  Grow (247)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)

Leibnitz’s discoveries lay in the direction in which all modern progress in science lies, in establishing order, symmetry, and harmony, i.e., comprehensiveness and perspicuity,—rather than in dealing with single problems, in the solution of which followers soon attained greater dexterity than himself.
In Leibnitz (1884), 112.
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Deal (192)  |  Dexterity (8)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Establish (63)  |  Follower (11)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Himself (461)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Modern (402)  |  Order (638)  |  Perspicuity (2)  |  Problem (731)  |  Progress (492)  |  Single (365)  |  Solution (282)  |  Soon (187)  |  Symmetry (44)

Magic and all that is ascribed to it is a deep presentiment of the powers of science. The shoes of swiftness, the sword of sharpness, the power of subduing the elements, of using the secret virtues of minerals, of understanding the voices of birds, are the obscure efforts of the mind in a right direction.
From 'History', collected in The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1903), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Deep (241)  |  Effort (243)  |  Element (322)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Power (771)  |  Presentiment (2)  |  Right (473)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sharpness (9)  |  Shoe (12)  |  Swiftness (5)  |  Sword (16)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Using (6)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Voice (54)

Man has risen, not fallen. He can choose to develop his capacities as the highest animal and to try to rise still farther, or he can choose otherwise. The choice is his responsibility, and his alone. There is no automatism that will carry him upward without choice or effort and there is no trend solely in the right direction. Evolution has no purpose; man must supply this for himself. The means to gaining right ends involve both organic evolution and human evolution, but human choice as to what are the right ends must be based on human evolution.
The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of its Significance for Man (1949), 310.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Automatism (2)  |  Basis (180)  |  Both (496)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Carry (130)  |  Choice (114)  |  Choose (116)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Effort (243)  |  End (603)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fall (243)  |  Farther (51)  |  Highest (19)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Involve (93)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Organic (161)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Right (473)  |  Rise (169)  |  Still (614)  |  Supply (100)  |  Trend (23)  |  Try (296)  |  Upward (44)  |  Will (2350)

Many will, no doubt, prefer to retain old unsystematic names as far as possible, but it is easy to see that the desire to avoid change may carry us too far in this direction; it will undoubtedly be very inconvenient to the present generation of chemists to abandon familiar and cherished names, but nevertheless it may be a wise course to boldly face the difficulty, rather than inflict on coming generations a partially illogical and unsystematic nomenclature.
'International Conference on Chemical Nomenclature', Nature (19 May 1892), 46, 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Carry (130)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Coming (114)  |  Course (413)  |  Desire (212)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Easy (213)  |  Face (214)  |  Generation (256)  |  Inconvenience (3)  |  Name (359)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Old (499)  |  Partially (8)  |  Possible (560)  |  Preference (28)  |  Present (630)  |  Retain (57)  |  See (1094)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wise (143)

Mathematics is a structure providing observers with a framework upon which to base healthy, informed, and intelligent judgment. Data and information are slung about us from all directions, and we are to use them as a basis for informed decisions. … Ability to critically analyze an argument purported to be logical, free of the impact of the loaded meanings of the terms involved, is basic to an informed populace.
In 'Mathematics Is an Edifice, Not a Toolbox', Notices of the AMS (Oct 1996), 43, No. 10, 1108.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Analyze (12)  |  Argument (145)  |  Base (120)  |  Basic (144)  |  Basis (180)  |  Critical (73)  |  Data (162)  |  Decision (98)  |  Framework (33)  |  Free (239)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Impact (45)  |  Inform (50)  |  Information (173)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Loaded (4)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Observer (48)  |  Populace (3)  |  Provide (79)  |  Purport (3)  |  Sling (4)  |  Structure (365)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Use (771)

Modern music, headstrong, wayward, tragically confused as to what to say and how to say it, has mounted its horse, as the joke goes, and ridden off in all directions. If we require of an art that it be unified as a whole and expressed in a universal language known to all, if it must be a consistent symbolization of the era, then modern music is a disastrous failure. It has many voices, many symbolizations. It it known to one, unknown to another. But if an art may be as variable and polyvocal as the different individuals and emotional regions from which it comes in this heterogeneous modern world, then the diversity and contradiction of modern music may be acceptable.
In Art Is Action: A Discussion of Nine Arts in a Modern World (1939), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptable (14)  |  Art (680)  |  Confused (13)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Different (595)  |  Disastrous (3)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Era (51)  |  Express (192)  |  Failure (176)  |  Horse (78)  |  Individual (420)  |  Joke (90)  |  Known (453)  |  Language (308)  |  Modern (402)  |  Mount (43)  |  Music (133)  |  Must (1525)  |  Require (229)  |  Say (989)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Tragic (19)  |  Unified (10)  |  Universal (198)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Variable (37)  |  Wayward (3)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Moreover, the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 8. Translated as The New Organon: Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man), collected in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 4, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Chance (244)  |  Due (143)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  New (1273)  |  Nice (15)  |  Order (638)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possessing (3)  |  Setting (44)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Work (1402)

Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricty goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires.
In The Taming of the Screw: How to Sidestep Several Million Homeowner’s Problems (1983), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternating Current (5)  |  Current (122)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electron (96)  |  Harm (43)  |  Home (184)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Wire (36)

Most people regard scientists as explorers … Imagine a handful of people shipwrecked on a strange island and setting out to explore it. One of them cuts a solitary path through the jungle, going on and on until he is exhausted or lost or both. He eventually returns to his companions, and they listen to him with goggling eyes as he describes what he saw; what he fell into, and what bit him. After a rest he demands more supplies and sets off again to explore the unknown. Many of his companions will be doing the same, each choosing his own direction and pursuing his pioneering path.
In The Development of Design (1981), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Companion (22)  |  Cut (116)  |  Demand (131)  |  Describe (132)  |  Doing (277)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Eye (440)  |  Handful (14)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Island (49)  |  Jungle (24)  |  Listen (81)  |  Listening (26)  |  Lost (34)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Path (159)  |  People (1031)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Regard (312)  |  Rest (287)  |  Return (133)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Set (400)  |  Setting (44)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Strange (160)  |  Through (846)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Will (2350)

Nature has not arranged her productions on a single and direct line. They branch at every step, and in every direction, and he who attempts to reduce them into departments is left to do it by the lines of his own fancy.
In Letter (22 Feb 1814) to Dr. John Manners. Collected in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1905), Vol 13, 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrange (33)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Branch (155)  |  Department (93)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Line (100)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Production (190)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Single (365)  |  Step (234)  |  Taxonomy (19)

Nature prefers the more probable states to the less probable because in nature processes take place in the direction of greater probability. Heat goes from a body at higher temperature to a body at lower temperature because the state of equal temperature distribution is more probable than a state of unequal temperature distribution.
'The Atomic Theory of Matter', third lecture at Columbia University (1909), in Max Planck and A. P. Wills (trans.), Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics (1915), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Equal (88)  |  Greater (288)  |  Heat (180)  |  Higher (37)  |  Less (105)  |  Lower (11)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Preference (28)  |  Probability (135)  |  Process (439)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  State (505)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Unequal (12)

Newton supposed that the case of the planet was similar to that of [a ball spun around on the end of an elastic string]; that it was always pulled in the direction of the sun, and that this attraction or pulling of the sun produced the revolution of the planet, in the same way that the traction or pulling of the elastic string produces the revolution of the ball. What there is between the sun and the planet that makes each of them pull the other, Newton did not know; nobody knows to this day; and all we are now able to assert positively is that the known motion of the planet is precisely what would be produced if it were fastened to the sun by an elastic string, having a certain law of elasticity. Now observe the nature of this discovery, the greatest in its consequences that has ever yet been made in physical science:—
I. It begins with an hypothesis, by supposing that there is an analogy between the motion of a planet and the motion of a ball at the end of a string.
II. Science becomes independent of the hypothesis, for we merely use it to investigate the properties of the motion, and do not trouble ourselves further about the cause of it.
'On Some of the Conditions of Mental Development,' a discourse delivered at the Royal Institution, 6 Mar 1868, in Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock (eds.), Lectures and Essays, by the Late William Kingdon Clifford (1886), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Assert (69)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Ball (64)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Elasticity (8)  |  End (603)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Gravitation (23)  |  Merely (315)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Planet (402)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Produced (187)  |  Pull (43)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Sun (407)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)

Now it is a well-known principle of zoological evolution that an isolated region, if large and sufficiently varied in its topography, soil, climate and vegetation, will give rise to a diversified fauna according to the law of adaptive radiation from primitive and central types. Branches will spring off in all directions to take advantage of every possible opportunity of securing food. The modifications which animals undergo in this adaptive radiation are largely of mechanical nature, they are limited in number and kind by hereditary, stirp or germinal influences, and thus result in the independent evolution of similar types in widely-separated regions under the law of parallelism or homoplasy. This law causes the independent origin not only of similar genera but of similar families and even of our similar orders. Nature thus repeats herself upon a vast scale, but the similarity is never complete and exact.
'The Geological and Faunal Relations of Europe and America during the Tertiary Period and the Theory of the Successive Invasions of an African Fauna', Science (1900), 11, 563-64.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Animal (651)  |  Branch (155)  |  Cause (561)  |  Central (81)  |  Climate (102)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Diversification (2)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exactness (29)  |  Family (101)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Food (213)  |  Genus (27)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Independence (37)  |  Influence (231)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Modification (57)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Parallelism (2)  |  Possible (560)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Principle (530)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Region (40)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scale (122)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spring (140)  |  Type (171)  |  Variation (93)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Will (2350)  |  Zoology (38)

Observation by means of the microscope will reveal more wonderful things than those viewed in regard to mere structure and connection: for while the heart is still beating the contrary (i.e., in opposite directions in the different vessels) movement of the blood is observed in the vessels—though with difficulty—so that the circulation of the blood is clearly exposed.
De Pulmonibus (1661), trans. James Young, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine (1929-30), 23, 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Beat (42)  |  Blood (144)  |  Capillary (4)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Connection (171)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Heart (243)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Microscope (85)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Regard (312)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Still (614)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vessel (63)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wonderful (155)

Occasionally and frequently the exercise of the judgment ought to end in absolute reservation. It may be very distasteful, and great fatigue, to suspend a conclusion; but as we are not infallible, so we ought to be cautious; we shall eventually find our advantage, for the man who rests in his position is not so far from right as he who, proceeding in a wrong direction, is ever increasing his distance.
Lecture at the Royal Institution, 'Observations on the Education of the Judgment'. Collected in Edward Livingston Youmans (ed)., Modern Culture (1867), 219.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Caution (24)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Distance (171)  |  End (603)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fatigue (13)  |  Find (1014)  |  Frequently (21)  |  Great (1610)  |  Infallible (18)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Man (2252)  |  Occasionally (5)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Reservation (7)  |  Rest (287)  |  Right (473)  |  Suspend (11)  |  Wrong (246)

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)  |  Air (366)  |  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)  |  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)

Perhaps the majority of paleontologists of the present time, who believe in orthogenesis, the irreversibility of evolution and the polyphyletic origin families, will assume that a short molar must keep on getting shorter, that it can never get longer and then again grow relatively shorter and therefore that Propliopithecus with its extremely short third molar and Dryopithecus its long m3 are alike excluded from ancestry of the Gorilla, in which the is a slight retrogression in length of m3. After many years reflection and constant study of the evolution of the vertebrates however, I conclude that 'orthogenesis' should mean solely that structures and races evolve in a certain direction, or toward a certain goal, only until the direction of evolution shifts toward some other goal. I believe that the 'irreversibility of evolution' means only that past changes irreversibly limit and condition future possibilities, and that, as a matter of experience, if an organ is once lost the same (homogenous) organ can be regained, although nature is fertile in substituting imitations. But this not mean, in my judgement, that if one tooth is smaller than its fellows it will in all cases continue to grow smaller.
'Studies on the Evolution of the Primates’, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 1916, 35, 307.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Ancestry (13)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constant (148)  |  Continue (179)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Future (467)  |  Goal (155)  |  Gorilla (19)  |  Grow (247)  |  Irreversibility (4)  |  Limit (294)  |  Long (778)  |  Majority (68)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Organ (118)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paleontologist (19)  |  Past (355)  |  Present (630)  |  Race (278)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Retrogression (6)  |  Shift (45)  |  Short (200)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Philosophers have said that if the same circumstances don't always produce the same results, predictions are impossible and science will collapse. Here is a circumstance—identical photons are always coming down in the same direction to the piece of glass—that produces different results. We cannot predict whether a given photon will arrive at A or B. All we can predict is that out of 100 photons that come down, an average of 4 will be reflected by the front surface. Does this mean that physics, a science of great exactitude, has been reduced to calculating only the probability of an event, and not predicting exactly what will happen? Yes. That's a retreat, but that's the way it is: Nature permits us to calculate only probabilities. Yet science has not collapsed.
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Coming (114)  |  Different (595)  |  Down (455)  |  Event (222)  |  Exactitude (10)  |  Glass (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Identical (55)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Mean (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Permit (61)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Photon (11)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Probability (135)  |  Result (700)  |  Surface (223)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

Politicians, real-estate agents, used-car salesmen, and advertising copy-writers are expected to stretch facts in self-serving directions, but scientists who falsify their results are regarded by their peers as committing an inexcusable crime. Yet the sad fact is that the history of science swarms with cases of outright fakery and instances of scientists who unconsciously distorted their work by seeing it through lenses of passionately held beliefs.
Science Good, Bad and Bogus (1981), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Advertising (9)  |  Agent (73)  |  Belief (615)  |  Car (75)  |  Case (102)  |  Commit (43)  |  Copy (34)  |  Crime (39)  |  Data (162)  |  Distort (22)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Falsify (3)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Inexcusable (4)  |  Lens (15)  |  Passion (121)  |  Peer (13)  |  Politician (40)  |  Preconception (13)  |  Regard (312)  |  Regarded (4)  |  Result (700)  |  Sadness (36)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Self (268)  |  Serving (15)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Swarm (15)  |  Through (846)  |  Unconsciously (9)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

Politicians, real-estate agents, used-car salesmen, and advertising copy-writers are expected to stretch facts in self-serving directions, but scientists who falsify their results are regarded by their peers as committing an inexcusable crime. Yet the sad fact is that the history of science swarms with cases of outright fakery and instances of scientists who unconsciously distorted their work by seeing it through lenses of passionately held beliefs.
In 'Great Fakes Of Science', Science Good, Bad and Bogus (1983), 123. Excerpted in John Carey (ed.), Eyewitness to Science (1995), 451.
Science quotes on:  |  Advertising (9)  |  Agent (73)  |  Belief (615)  |  Car (75)  |  Copy (34)  |  Crime (39)  |  Distort (22)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Inexcusable (4)  |  Politician (40)  |  Regard (312)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Self (268)  |  Serving (15)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Through (846)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
The Life of Reason, or the Phases of Human Progress (1954), 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Condemnation (16)  |  Depend (238)  |  Experience (494)  |  Human Progress (18)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Past (355)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Possible (560)  |  Progress (492)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remember (189)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Retain (57)  |  Retention (5)  |  Set (400)

Proposition VIII. When two Undulations, from different Origins, coincide either perfectly or very nearly in Direction, their joint effect is a Combination of the Motions belonging to each.
'On the Theory of Light and Colours' (read in 1801), Philosophical Transactions (1802), 92, 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Belonging (36)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conincidence (4)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Effect (414)  |  Effort (243)  |  Joint (31)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Origin (250)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Two (936)  |  Undulation (4)

Research in neurophysiology is much more like paddling a small canoe on a mountain river. The river which is fed by many distant springs carries you along all right though often in a peculiar direction. You have to paddle quite hard to keep afloat. And sooner or later some of your ideas are upset and are carried downstream like an upturned canoe.
From Speech (10 Dec 1963) at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, Sweden. Collected inGöran Liljestrand (ed.), Les Prix Nobel en 1963, (1964).
Science quotes on:  |  Afloat (4)  |  Canoe (6)  |  Distant (33)  |  Downstream (2)  |  Hard (246)  |  Idea (881)  |  Keep (104)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Neurophysiology (2)  |  Paddle (3)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Research (753)  |  Right (473)  |  River (140)  |  Small (489)  |  Sooner Or Later (7)  |  Spring (140)  |  Upset (18)

Science can point out dangers, but science cannot turn the direction of minds and hearts. That is the province of spiritual powers within and without our very beings—powers that are the mysteries of life itself.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Danger (127)  |  Heart (243)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Point Out (9)  |  Power (771)  |  Province (37)  |  Spiritual (94)

So far as modern science is concerned, we have to abandon completely the idea that by going into the realm of the small we shall reach the ultimate foundations of the universe. I believe we can abandon this idea without any regret. The universe is infinite in all directions, not only above us in the large but also below us in the small. If we start from our human scale of existence and explore the content of the universe further and further, we finally arrive, both in the large and in the small, at misty distances where first our senses and then even our concepts fail us.
To the German Society of Scientists and Physicists, Braunschweig, Germany (Sep 1896). As quoted in Anton Z. Capri, Quips, Quotes, and Quanta: An Anecdotal History of Physics (2011), 20. Wiechert was reporting his measurement of the mass of the moving particles in a cathode ray beam (electrons).
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Belief (615)  |  Below (26)  |  Both (496)  |  Completely (137)  |  Concept (242)  |  Concern (239)  |  Distance (171)  |  Existence (481)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Fail (191)  |  First (1302)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Large (398)  |  Misty (6)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Reach (286)  |  Realm (87)  |  Regret (31)  |  Scale (122)  |  Sense (785)  |  Small (489)  |  Start (237)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Universe (900)

So when light generates itself in one direction drawing matter with it, it produces local motion; and when the light within matter is sent out and what is outside is sent in, it produces qualitative change. From this it is clear that corporeal motion is a multiplicative power of light, and this is a corporeal and natural appetite.
As quoted in Alistair Cameron Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science, 1100-1700 (1971), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Appetite (20)  |  Change (639)  |  Corporeal (5)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Generate (16)  |  Light (635)  |  Local (25)  |  Matter (821)  |  Motion (320)  |  Natural (810)  |  Outside (141)  |  Power (771)  |  Produce (117)  |  Qualitative (15)

Students who have attended my [medical] lectures may remember that I try not only to teach them what we know, but also to realise how little this is: in every direction we seem to travel but a very short way before we are brought to a stop; our eyes are opened to see that our path is beset with doubts, and that even our best-made knowledge comes but too soon to an end.
In Notes on the Composition of Scientific Papers (1904), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Best (467)  |  Doubt (314)  |  End (603)  |  Eye (440)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Little (717)  |  Open (277)  |  Opening (15)  |  Path (159)  |  Realize (157)  |  Remember (189)  |  Remembering (7)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Soon (187)  |  Stop (89)  |  Student (317)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Travel (125)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Way (1214)

Sylvester’s writings are flowery and eloquent. He was able to make the dullest subject bright, fresh and interesting. His enthusiasm is evident in every line. He would get quite close up to his subject, so that everything else looked small in comparison, and for the time would think and make others think that the world contained no finer matter for contemplation. His handwriting was bad, and a trouble to his printers. His papers were finished with difficulty. No sooner was the manuscript in the editor’s hands than alterations, corrections, ameliorations and generalizations would suggest themselves to his mind, and every post would carry further directions to the editors and printers.
In Nature (1897), 55, 494.
Science quotes on:  |  Alteration (31)  |  Ameliorate (2)  |  Bad (185)  |  Bright (81)  |  Carry (130)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Correction (42)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Dull (58)  |  Editor (10)  |  Eloquent (2)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evident (92)  |  Finish (62)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Hand (149)  |  Handwriting (2)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Look (584)  |  Manuscript (10)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Post (8)  |  Printer (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Sooner (6)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suggest (38)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trouble (117)  |  World (1850)  |  Writing (192)

The alchemists of past centuries tried hard to make the elixir of life: ... Those efforts were in vain; it is not in our power to obtain the experiences and the views of the future by prolonging our lives forward in this direction. However, it is well possible in a certain sense to prolong our lives backwards by acquiring the experiences of those who existed before us and by learning to know their views as well as if we were their contemporaries. The means for doing this is also an elixir of life.
Foreword to Die Entwicklung der Chemie in der neueren Zeit (1873), trans. W. H. Brock.
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemist (23)  |  Backwards (18)  |  Certain (557)  |  Doing (277)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elixir (6)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Forward (104)  |  Future (467)  |  Hard (246)  |  History (716)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Past (355)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Prolong (29)  |  Sense (785)  |  Vain (86)  |  View (496)

The biggest danger we face is overfishing. We have too many boats out there. We literally could fish out our oceans, some scientists believe, in the next 40, 50, 60 years. We are trending in that direction. … Every year, for the first time in history, we catch fewer and fewer fish with more and more sophisticated boats going out trying to find them.
From transcript of PBS TV interview by Tavis Smiley (28 Mar 2011).
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Biggest (8)  |  Boat (17)  |  Catch (34)  |  Danger (127)  |  Face (214)  |  Fewer (11)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Fish (130)  |  History (716)  |  Literally (30)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Overfishing (27)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sophisticated (16)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trend (23)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Year (963)

The calculus is to mathematics no more than what experiment is to physics, and all the truths produced solely by the calculus can be treated as truths of experiment. The sciences must proceed to first causes, above all mathematics where one cannot assume, as in physics, principles that are unknown to us. For there is in mathematics, so to speak, only what we have placed there… If, however, mathematics always has some essential obscurity that one cannot dissipate, it will lie, uniquely, I think, in the direction of the infinite; it is in that direction that mathematics touches on physics, on the innermost nature of bodies about which we know little….
In Elements de la géométrie de l'infini (1727), Preface, ciii. Quoted as a footnote to Michael S. Mahoney, 'Infinitesimals and Transcendent Relations: The Mathematics of Motion in the Late Seventeenth Century', collected in David C. Lindberg and Robert S. Westman (eds.), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (1990), 489-490, footnote 46
Science quotes on:  |  Assume (43)  |  Body (557)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Cause (561)  |  Dissipate (8)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Innermost (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lie (370)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Produced (187)  |  Speak (240)  |  Think (1122)  |  Touching (16)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Will (2350)

The conception of correspondence plays a great part in modern mathematics. It is the fundamental notion in the science of order as distinguished from the science of magnitude. If the older mathematics were mostly dominated by the needs of mensuration, modern mathematics are dominated by the conception of order and arrangement. It may be that this tendency of thought or direction of reasoning goes hand in hand with the modern discovery in physics, that the changes in nature depend not only or not so much on the quantity of mass and energy as on their distribution or arrangement.
In History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1903), Vol. 2, 736.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Change (639)  |  Conception (160)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Depend (238)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Dominate (20)  |  Energy (373)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hand In Hand (5)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mensuration (2)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Notion (120)  |  Old (499)  |  Order (638)  |  Part (235)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Play (116)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Thought (995)

The double horror of two Japanese city names [Hiroshima and Nagasaki] grew for me into another kind of double horror; an estranging awareness of what the United States was capable of, the country that five years before had given me its citizenship; a nauseating terror at the direction the natural sciences were going. Never far from an apocalyptic vision of the world, I saw the end of the essence of mankind an end brought nearer, or even made, possible, by the profession to which I belonged. In my view, all natural sciences were as one; and if one science could no longer plead innocence, none could.
Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before Nature (1978), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Belong (168)  |  Capable (174)  |  City (87)  |  Country (269)  |  End (603)  |  Essence (85)  |  Hiroshima (18)  |  Horror (15)  |  Innocence (13)  |  Japanese (7)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Nagasaki (3)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Never (1089)  |  Possible (560)  |  Profession (108)  |  Saw (160)  |  State (505)  |  Terror (32)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

The Earth would only have to move a few million kilometers sunward—or starward—for the delicate balance of climate to be destroyed. The Antarctic icecap would melt and flood all low-lying land; or the oceans would freeze and the whole world would be locked in eternal winter. Just a nudge in either direction would be enough.
In Rendezvous With Rama (1973), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Antarctic (7)  |  Balance (82)  |  Climate (102)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Flood (52)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Kilometer (10)  |  Land (131)  |  Lock (14)  |  Low (86)  |  Lying (55)  |  Melting (6)  |  Million (124)  |  Move (223)  |  Nudge (2)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Sunward (2)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  Winter (46)  |  World (1850)

The Einsteinian and the Newtonian vision of the world are two faithful reflectors of it: just as the two images, polarized in opposite directions, which Iceland spar shows us in its strange crystal both share the light of the same object.
In Einstein and the Universe; A Popular Exposition of the Famous Theory (1922), 239.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Faithful (13)  |  Iceland (3)  |  Image (97)  |  Light (635)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Object (438)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Polarize (2)  |  Reflector (4)  |  Share (82)  |  Show (353)  |  Strange (160)  |  Two (936)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)

The energy of a covalent bond is largely the energy of resonance of two electrons between two atoms. The examination of the form of the resonance integral shows that the resonance energy increases in magnitude with increase in the overlapping of the two atomic orbitals involved in the formation of the bond, the word ‘overlapping” signifying the extent to which regions in space in which the two orbital wave functions have large values coincide... Consequently it is expected that of two orbitals in an atom the one which can overlap more with an orbital of another atom will form the stronger bond with that atom, and, moreover, the bond formed by a given orbital will tend to lie in that direction in which the orbital is concentrated.
Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals (1939), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Bond (46)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Conincidence (4)  |  Covalent (2)  |  Electron (96)  |  Energy (373)  |  Examination (102)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Extent (142)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Function (235)  |  Increase (225)  |  Integral (26)  |  Involved (90)  |  Large (398)  |  Lie (370)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  More (2558)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Orbital (4)  |  Orbitals (2)  |  Overlap (9)  |  Region (40)  |  Resonance (7)  |  Show (353)  |  Significance (114)  |  Space (523)  |  Strength (139)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Tend (124)  |  Two (936)  |  Value (393)  |  Wave (112)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.
Plato
The Republic
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Excessive (24)  |  Increase (225)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Reaction (106)

The first difficulty of all is the production of a lamp which shall be thoroughly reliable, and neither complicated nor expensive. All attempts up to the present lamp in this direction are acknowledged to be failures, and, as I have pointed out, there does not seem to be any novelty such as would authorize us to hope for a better success in the present one.
In 'A Scientific View of It: Prof. Henry Morton Not Sanguine About Edison’s Success', New York Times (28 Dec 1879), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Authorize (5)  |  Better (493)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Expensive (10)  |  Failure (176)  |  First (1302)  |  Hope (321)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Reliable (13)  |  Success (327)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Thoroughly (67)

THE fundamental questions in chemistry,—those questions the answers to which would convert chemistry into a branch of exact science, and enable us to predict with absolute certainty the result of every reaction—are (1) What is the nature of the forces which retain the several molecules or atoms of a compound together? and (2) How may their direction and amount be determined? We may safely say that, in the present state of the science, these questions cannot be answered; and it is extremely doubtful whether any future advances will render their solution possible.
Opening paragraph of his University of Edinburgh M.D. thesis, 'On the Theory of Chemical Combination' (1861).
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Answer (389)  |  Atom (381)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Exact (75)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Question (649)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Result (700)  |  Solution (282)

The goal of science is clear—it is nothing short of the complete interpretation of the universe. But the goal is an ideal one—it marks the direction in which we move and strive, but never the point we shall actually reach.
From The Grammar of Science (1892), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Complete (209)  |  Goal (155)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Move (223)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Point (584)  |  Reach (286)  |  Short (200)  |  Strive (53)  |  Universe (900)

The greatest spiritual revolutionary Western history, Saint Francis, proposed what he thought was an alternative Christian view of nature and man’s relation to it: he tried to substitute the idea of the equality of creatures, including man, for the idea of man’s limitless rule of creation. He failed. Both our present science and our present technology are so tinctured with orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature that no solution for our ecologic crisis can be expected from them alone. Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not. We must rethink and refeel our nature and destiny. The profoundly religious, but heretical, sense of the primitive Franciscans for the spiritual autonomy of all parts of nature may point a direction. I propose Francis as a patron saint for ecologists.
In The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis (1967), 1207.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Arrogance (22)  |  Autonomy (6)  |  Both (496)  |  Call (781)  |  Christian (44)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Crisis (25)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Ecologist (9)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Equality (34)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fail (191)  |  Greatest (330)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Limitless (14)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Relation (166)  |  Religious (134)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Root (121)  |  Rule (307)  |  Saint (17)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trouble (117)  |  View (496)  |  Western (45)

The honor you have given us goes not to us as a crew, but to ... all Americans, who believed, who persevered with us. What Apollo has begun we hope will spread out in many directions, not just in space, but underneath the seas, and in the cities to tell us unforgettably what we will and must do. There are footprints on the moon. Those footprints belong to each and every one of you, to all mankind. They are there because of the blood, sweat, and tears of millions of people. Those footprints are the symbol of true human spirit.
From his acceptance speech (13 Aug 1969) for the Medal of Freedom presented to him as one of the three astronauts on the first manned moon landing mission. In Leon Wagener, One Giant Leap: Neil Armstrong's Stellar American Journey (2004), 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Apollo 11 (7)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belong (168)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Blood (144)  |  City (87)  |  Crew (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Footprint (16)  |  Honor (57)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Spirit (12)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Million (124)  |  Moon (252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ocean (216)  |  People (1031)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Sea (326)  |  Space (523)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spread (86)  |  Spreading (5)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Tear (48)  |  Tears (2)  |  Tell (344)  |  True (239)  |  Underneath (4)  |  Will (2350)

The increase of disorder or entropy with time is one example of what is called an arrow of time something that gives a direction to time and distinguishes the past from the future. There are at least three different directions of time. First, there is the thermodynamic arrow of time—the direction of time in which disorder or entropy increases. Second, there is the psychological arrow of time. This is the direction in which we feel time passes—the direction of time in which we remember the past, but not the future. Third, there is the cosmological arrow of time. This is the direction of time in which the universe is expanding rather than contracting.
In 'The Direction of Time', New Scientist (9 Jul 1987), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrow (22)  |  Arrow Of Time (2)  |  Call (781)  |  Contract (11)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Different (595)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Expand (56)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Increase (225)  |  Past (355)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Remember (189)  |  Something (718)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)

The iron labor of conscious logical reasoning demands great perseverance and great caution; it moves on but slowly, and is rarely illuminated by brilliant flashes of genius. It knows little of that facility with which the most varied instances come thronging into the memory of the philologist or historian. Rather is it an essential condition of the methodical progress of mathematical reasoning that the mind should remain concentrated on a single point, undisturbed alike by collateral ideas on the one hand, and by wishes and hopes on the other, and moving on steadily in the direction it has deliberately chosen.
In Ueber das Verhältniss der Naturwissenschaften zur Gesammtheit der Wissenschaft, Vorträge und Reden (1896), Bd. 1, 178.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Caution (24)  |  Choose (116)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Collateral (4)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Deliberately (6)  |  Demand (131)  |  Essential (210)  |  Facility (14)  |  Flash (49)  |  Genius (301)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hand (149)  |  Historian (59)  |  Hope (321)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Instance (33)  |  Iron (99)  |  Know (1538)  |  Labor (200)  |  Little (717)  |  Logical (57)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Memory (144)  |  Methodical (8)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Philologist (3)  |  Point (584)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Remain (355)  |  Single (365)  |  Slowly (19)  |  Steadily (7)  |  Throng (3)  |  Undisturbed (4)  |  Vary (27)  |  Wish (216)

The lame (as they say) in the path outstrip the swift who wander from it, and it is clear that the very skill and swiftness of him who runs not in the right direction must increase his aberration.
From Novum Organum, Book 1, as translated in Francis Bacon, The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 3, 350.
Science quotes on:  |  Aberration (10)  |  Increase (225)  |  Lame (5)  |  Path (159)  |  Right (473)  |  Run (158)  |  Skill (116)  |  Swift (16)  |  Swiftness (5)  |  Wander (44)

The literature of science is filled with answers found when the question propounded had an entirely different direction and end.
In John Steinbeck and Edward Flanders Ricketts Sea of Cortez: a Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941), 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  End (603)  |  Literature (116)  |  Question (649)

The lives of scientists, considered as Lives, almost always make dull reading. For one thing, the careers of the famous and the merely ordinary fall into much the same pattern, give or take an honorary degree or two, or (in European countries) an honorific order. It could be hardly otherwise. Academics can only seldom lead lives that are spacious or exciting in a worldly sense. They need laboratories or libraries and the company of other academics. Their work is in no way made deeper or more cogent by privation, distress or worldly buffetings. Their private lives may be unhappy, strangely mixed up or comic, but not in ways that tell us anything special about the nature or direction of their work. Academics lie outside the devastation area of the literary convention according to which the lives of artists and men of letters are intrinsically interesting, a source of cultural insight in themselves. If a scientist were to cut his ear off, no one would take it as evidence of a heightened sensibility; if a historian were to fail (as Ruskin did) to consummate his marriage, we should not suppose that our understanding of historical scholarship had somehow been enriched.
'J.B.S: A Johnsonian Scientist', New York Review of Books (10 Oct 1968), reprinted in Pluto's Republic (1982), and inThe Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science (1996), 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Academic (20)  |  According (236)  |  Artist (97)  |  Career (86)  |  Cogent (6)  |  Comic (5)  |  Company (63)  |  Consider (428)  |  Convention (16)  |  Culture (157)  |  Cut (116)  |  Degree (277)  |  Devastation (6)  |  Distress (9)  |  Dull (58)  |  Ear (69)  |  Enrich (27)  |  Enrichment (7)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fame (51)  |  Historian (59)  |  Historical (70)  |  Insight (107)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Lead (391)  |  Letter (117)  |  Library (53)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literary (15)  |  Live (650)  |  Man Of Letters (6)  |  Marriage (39)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Privacy (7)  |  Privation (5)  |  Reading (136)  |  John Ruskin (25)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensibility (5)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Special (188)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unhappiness (9)  |  Unhappy (16)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

The maladies that affect the clerks aforesaid arise from three causes. First, constant sitting, secondly, the incessant movement of the the hand and always in the same direction, thirdly, the strain on the mind from the effort not to disfigure the books by errors or cause loss to their employers when they add, subtract, or do other sums in arithmetic. The diseases brought about by sitting constantly are easily understood; they are obstructions of the viscera, e.g. the liver and spleen, indigestion in the stomach, numbness of the legs, a considerable hindrance in the circulation of the blood, and an unhealthy habit.
De Morbis Artificum (1713), supplement, ch. 2, translated by W.C. Wright (1964).
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Blood (144)  |  Book (413)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Clerk (13)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Constant (148)  |  Disease (340)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Error (339)  |  First (1302)  |  Habit (174)  |  Health (210)  |  Indigestion (5)  |  Leg (35)  |  Liver (22)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Movement (162)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Sum (103)  |  Understood (155)  |  Viscera (2)

The mind of man may be compared to a musical instrument with a certain range of notes, beyond which in both directions we have an infinitude of silence. The phenomena of matter and force lie within our intellectual range, and as far as they reach we will at all hazards push our inquiries. But behind, and above, and around all, the real mystery of this universe [Who made it all?] lies unsolved, and, as far as we are concerned, is incapable of solution.
In 'Matter and Force', Fragments of Science for Unscientific People (1871), 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Above (7)  |  Around (7)  |  Behind (139)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Both (496)  |  Certain (557)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Concern (239)  |  Creation (350)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Force (497)  |  Hazard (21)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Incapability (2)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Lie (370)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Music (133)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Note (39)  |  Origin Of The Universe (20)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Push (66)  |  Range (104)  |  Reach (286)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Silence (62)  |  Solution (282)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unsolved (15)  |  Will (2350)  |  Within (7)

The most abstract statements or propositions in science are to be regarded as bundles of hypothetical maxims packed into a portable shape and size. Every scientific fact is a short-hand expression for a vast number of practical directions: if you want so-and-so, do so-and-so.
In 'On The Scientific Basis of Morals', Contemporary Review (Sep 1875), collected in Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock (eds.), Lectures and Essays: By the Late William Kingdon Clifford, F.R.S. (1886), 289.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Bundle (7)  |  Do (1905)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Maxim (19)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Portable (4)  |  Practical (225)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Regard (312)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Short (200)  |  Statement (148)  |  Vast (188)  |  Want (504)

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
Written in 1926, and first published in magazine, Weird Tales (Feb 1928), 11, No. 2, first paragraph. In The Call of Cthulhu (2014), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Dark (145)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Inability (11)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Island (49)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Mad (54)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Peace (116)  |  Reality (274)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Safety (58)  |  Sea (326)  |  Terrifying (3)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Together (392)  |  Vista (12)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The most striking difference … from our way of expressing things is in the identification of the direction in which rivers flow: the Nubian custom is exactly the opposite of our own. The people say the Nile goes to the mountains, not: it comes from the mountains…
In August Petermann, Petermann’s Geographische Mittheilungen (1871), 135. As quoted and cited in Kathrin Fritsch, '"You Have Everything Confused And Mixed Up…!" Georg Schweinfurth, Knowledge And Cartography Of Africa In The 19th Century', History in Africa (2009), 36, 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Custom (44)  |  Difference (355)  |  Express (192)  |  Flow (89)  |  Identification (20)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nile (5)  |  Nubian (6)  |  Opposite (110)  |  River (140)

The natural scientists of the previous age knew less than we do and believed they were very close to the goal: we have taken very great steps in its direction and now discover we are still very far away from it. With the most rational philosophers an increase in their knowledge is always attended by an increased conviction of their ignorance.
Aphorisms, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (1990), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Attend (67)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Goal (155)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Increase (225)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rational (95)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Step (234)  |  Still (614)

The observations, so numerous and so important, of the pendulum as object are especially relevant to the length of its oscillations. Those that I propose to make known to the [Paris] Academy [of Sciences] are principally addressed to the direction of the plane of its oscillation, which, moving gradually from east to west, provides evidence to the senses of the diurnal movement of the terrestrial globe.
'Demonstration Physique du Mouvement de Rotation de la Terre', 3 Feb 1851. In C. M. Gariel and J. Bertrand (eds.), Recueil des Travaux Scientifiques de Lion Foucault (1878), Vol. 2, 378. Trans. Harold Burstyn.
Science quotes on:  |  Academy (37)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Known (453)  |  Movement (162)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Oscillation (13)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Sense (785)  |  Terrestrial (62)

The outlook seems grim. Natural selection under civilized conditions may lead mankind to evolve towards a state of genetic overspecialization for living in gadget-ridden environments. It is certainly up to man to decide whether this direction of his evolution is or is not desirable. If it is not, man has, or soon will have, the knowledge requisite to redirect the evolution of his species pretty much as he sees fit. Perhaps we should not be too dogmatic about this choice of direction. We may be awfully soft compared to paleolithic men when it comes to struggling, unaided by gadgets, with climatic difficulties and wild beasts. Most of us feel most of the time that this is not a very great loss. If our remote descendants grow to be even more effete than we are, they may conceivably be compensated by acquiring genotypes conducive to kindlier dispositions and greater intellectual capacities than those prevalent in mankind today.
[Co-author with American statistician Gordon Allen.]
Theodosius Dobzhansky and Gordon Allen, 'Does Natural Selection Continue to Operate in Modern Mankind?', American Anthropologist, 1956, 58 599.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Beast (58)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Choice (114)  |  Condition (362)  |  Descendant (18)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fit (139)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Genotype (8)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Grow (247)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Living (492)  |  Loss (117)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Paleolithic (2)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Selection (130)  |  Soft (30)  |  Soon (187)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Statistician (27)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Wild (96)  |  Will (2350)

The power of the eye could not be extended further in the opened living animal, hence I had believed that this body of the blood breaks into the empty space, and is collected again by a gaping vessel and by the structure of the walls. The tortuous and diffused motion of the blood in divers directions, and its union at a determinate place offered a handle to this. But the dried lung of the frog made my belief dubious. This lung had, by chance, preserved the redness of the blood in (what afterwards proved to be) the smallest vessels, where by means of a more perfect lens, no more there met the eye the points forming the skin called Sagrino, but vessels mingled annularly. And, so great is the divarication of these vessels as they go out, here from a vein, there from an artery, that order is no longer preserved, but a network appears made up of the prolongations of both vessels. This network occupies not only the whole floor, but extends also to the walls, and is attached to the outgoing vessel, as I could see with greater difficulty but more abundantly in the oblong lung of a tortoise, which is similarly membranous and transparent. Here it was clear to sense that the blood flows away through the tortuous vessels, that it is not poured into spaces but always works through tubules, and is dispersed by the multiplex winding of the vessels.
De Pulmonibus (1661), trans. James Young, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine (1929-30), 23, 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Artery (10)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Belief (615)  |  Blood (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Break (109)  |  Call (781)  |  Capillary (4)  |  Chance (244)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Empty (82)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Flow (89)  |  Forming (42)  |  Frog (44)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Handle (29)  |  Lens (15)  |  Living (492)  |  Lung (37)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Membrane (21)  |  Microscope (85)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Network (21)  |  Offer (142)  |  Open (277)  |  Order (638)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Skin (48)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Through (846)  |  Tortoise (10)  |  Transparency (7)  |  Transparent (16)  |  Union (52)  |  Vein (27)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Wall (71)  |  Whole (756)  |  Winding (8)  |  Work (1402)

The question of a possible physiological significance, in the resemblance between the action of choline esters and the effects of certain divisions of the involuntary nervous system, is one of great interest, but one for the discussion of which little evidence is available. Acetyl-choline is, of all the substances examined, the one whose action is most suggestive in this direction. The fact that its action surpasses even that of adrenaline, both in intensity and evanescence, when considered in conjunction with the fact that each of these two bases reproduces those effects of involuntary nerves which are absent from the action of the other, so that the two actions are in many directions at once complementary and antagonistic, gives plenty of scope for speculation.
In 'The Action of Certain Esters and Ethers of Choline, and Their Relation to Muscarine', The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, 1914-15, 6, 188.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Adrenaline (5)  |  Available (80)  |  Base (120)  |  Both (496)  |  Certain (557)  |  Complementary (15)  |  Conjunction (12)  |  Consider (428)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Division (67)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Great (1610)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Interest (416)  |  Little (717)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Possible (560)  |  Question (649)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Scope (44)  |  Significance (114)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Substance (253)  |  System (545)  |  Two (936)

The real scientist … is ready to bear privation and if need be starvation rather than let anyone dictate to him which direction his work must take.
In 'Science Needs Freedom', World Digest (1943), 55, 50. As cited in John R. Baker, Science and the Planned State (1945), 43 and 115, footnote 98.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Dictate (11)  |  Must (1525)  |  Privation (5)  |  Ready (43)  |  Real (159)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Starvation (13)  |  Work (1402)

The science of optics, like every other physical science, has two different directions of progress, which have been called the ascending and the descending scale, the inductive and the deductive method, the way of analysis and of synthesis. In every physical science, we must ascend from facts to laws, by the way of induction and analysis; and we must descend from laws to consequences, by the deductive and synthetic way. We must gather and group appearances, until the scientific imagination discerns their hidden law, and unity arises from variety; and then from unity must reduce variety, and force the discovered law to utter its revelations of the future.
In On a General Method of Expressing the Paths of Light, & of the Planets, by the Coefficients of a Characteristic Function (1833), 7-8. [The spelling as “groupe” in the original text, has her been corrected to “group” to avoid an intrusive “sic”.]
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Arise (162)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Ascent (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Deductive (13)  |  Descend (49)  |  Different (595)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discover (571)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Force (497)  |  Future (467)  |  Gather (76)  |  Group (83)  |  Hide (70)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Law (913)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Optics (24)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Scale (122)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Two (936)  |  Unity (81)  |  Utter (8)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)

The stars are laboratories in which the evolution of matter proceeds in the direction of large molecules.
In Teilhard de Chardin and Bernard Wall (trans.), The Phenomenon of Man (1959, 2008), 50. Originally published in French as Le Phénomene Humain (1955).
Science quotes on:  |  Evolution (635)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Large (398)  |  Matter (821)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)

The study of economics does not seem to require any specialised gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy and pure science? Yet good, or even competent, economists are the rarest of birds. An easy subject, at which very few excel! The paradox finds its explanation, perhaps, in that the master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must reach a high standard in several different directions and must combine talents not often found together. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher—in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man's nature or his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near the earth as a politician.
'Alfred Marshall: 1842-1924' (1924). In Geoffrey Keynes (ed.), Essays in Biography (1933), 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Artist (97)  |  Bird (163)  |  Combination (150)  |  Combine (58)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flight (101)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Gift (105)  |  Good (906)  |  High (370)  |  Historian (59)  |  Institution (73)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Outside (141)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Past (355)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Politician (40)  |  Possess (157)  |  Present (630)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rare (94)  |  Reach (286)  |  Regard (312)  |  Require (229)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Speak (240)  |  Statesman (20)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Talent (99)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thought (995)  |  Together (392)  |  Touch (146)  |  Understand (648)  |  Word (650)

The theory here developed is that mega-evolution normally occurs among small populations that become preadaptive and evolve continuously (without saltation, but at exceptionally rapid rates) to radically different ecological positions. The typical pattern involved is probably this: A large population is fragmented into numerous small isolated lines of descent. Within these, inadaptive differentiation and random fixation of mutations occur. Among many such inadaptive lines one or a few are preadaptive, i.e., some of their characters tend to fit them for available ecological stations quite different from those occupied by their immediate ancestors. Such groups are subjected to strong selection pressure and evolve rapidly in the further direction of adaptation to the new status. The very few lines that successfully achieve this perfected adaptation then become abundant and expand widely, at the same time becoming differentiated and specialized on lower levels within the broad new ecological zone.
Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Abundant (23)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Available (80)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Character (259)  |  Descent (30)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expand (56)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Fit (139)  |  Fixation (5)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Group (83)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Involved (90)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Large (398)  |  Level (69)  |  Mutation (40)  |  New (1273)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Occur (151)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Population (115)  |  Position (83)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Probability (135)  |  Radically (5)  |  Random (42)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Selection (130)  |  Small (489)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Station (30)  |  Status (35)  |  Strong (182)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tend (124)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Typical (16)  |  Zone (5)

The true mathematician is always a good deal of an artist, an architect, yes, of a poet. Beyond the real world, though perceptibly connected with it, mathematicians have intellectually created an ideal world, which they attempt to develop into the most perfect of all worlds, and which is being explored in every direction. None has the faintest conception of this world, except he who knows it.
In Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung, 32, 381. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 184.
Science quotes on:  |  Architect (32)  |  Artist (97)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Conception (160)  |  Connect (126)  |  Create (245)  |  Deal (192)  |  Develop (278)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Faint (10)  |  Good (906)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics And Art (8)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Most (1728)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Poet (97)  |  Real World (15)  |  True (239)  |  World (1850)

The word, “Vitamine,” served as a catchword which meant something even to the uninitiated, and it was not by mere accident that just at that time, research developed so markedly in this direction. Our view as to the fortunate choice of this name is strengthened, on the one hand, because it has become popular (and a badly chosen catchword, like a folksong without feeling, can never become popular), and on the other, because of the untiring efforts of other workers to introduce a varied nomenclature, for example, “accessory food factors, food hormones, water-soluble B and fat-soluble A, nutramine, and auximone” (for plants). Some of these designations are certainly not better, while others are much worse than “Vitamine.”
The Vitamines translated by Harry Ennis Dubin (1922), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Badly (32)  |  Become (821)  |  Better (493)  |  Catchword (3)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Choice (114)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Designation (13)  |  Develop (278)  |  Effort (243)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Food (213)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Hormone (11)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Name (359)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nomencalture (4)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Popularity (4)  |  Research (753)  |  Soluble (5)  |  Something (718)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)  |  Vitamin (13)  |  Water (503)  |  Word (650)

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)  |  Air (366)  |  Assault (12)  |  Century (319)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Clean (52)  |  Cleaning (7)  |  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 many arts and sciences of which a miner should not be ignorant. First there is Philosophy, that he may discern the origin, cause, and nature of subterranean things; for then he will be able to dig out the veins easily and advantageously, and to obtain more abundant results from his mining. Secondly there is Medicine, that he may be able to look after his diggers and other workman ... Thirdly follows astronomy, that he may know the divisions of the heavens and from them judge the directions of the veins. Fourthly, there is the science of Surveying that he may be able to estimate how deep a shaft should be sunk … Fifthly, his knowledge of Arithmetical Science should be such that he may calculate the cost to be incurred in the machinery and the working of the mine. Sixthly, his learning must comprise Architecture, that he himself may construct the various machines and timber work required underground … Next, he must have knowledge of Drawing, that he can draw plans of his machinery. Lastly, there is the Law, especially that dealing with metals, that he may claim his own rights, that he may undertake the duty of giving others his opinion on legal matters, that he may not take another man’s property and so make trouble for himself, and that he may fulfil his obligations to others according to the law.
In De Re Metallica (1556), trans. H.C. and L.H. Hoover (1950), 3-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundant (23)  |  According (236)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Art (680)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Cause (561)  |  Claim (154)  |  Construct (129)  |  Cost (94)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dig (25)  |  Discern (35)  |  Division (67)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Estimate (59)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Himself (461)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Judge (114)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Learning (291)  |  Look (584)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Metal (88)  |  Mine (78)  |  Mining (22)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Next (238)  |  Obligation (26)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plan (122)  |  Property (177)  |  Required (108)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Surveying (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Underground (12)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Various (205)  |  Vein (27)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

There are, at present, fundamental problems in theoretical physics … the solution of which … will presumably require a more drastic revision of our fundmental concepts than any that have gone before. Quite likely, these changes will be so great that it will be beyond the power of human intelligence to get the necessary new ideas by direct attempts to formulate the experimental data in mathematical terms. The theoretical worker in the future will, therefore, have to proceed in a more direct way. The most powerful method of advance that can be suggested at present is to employ all the resources of pure mathematics in attempts to perfect and generalize the mathematical formalism that forms the existing basis of theoretical physics, and after each success in this direction, to try to interpret the new mathematical features in terms of physical entities.
At age 28.
Proceedings of the Royal Society (1931), A133, 60. In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Age (509)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Basis (180)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Change (639)  |  Concept (242)  |  Data (162)  |  Direct (228)  |  Employ (115)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Form (976)  |  Formalism (7)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  Generalize (19)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Require (229)  |  Revision (7)  |  Solution (282)  |  Success (327)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Try (296)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

There is only one law of Nature—the second law of thermodynamics—which recognises a distinction between past and future more profound than the difference of plus and minus. It stands aloof from all the rest. … It opens up a new province of knowledge, namely, the study of organisation; and it is in connection with organisation that a direction of time-flow and a distinction between doing and undoing appears for the first time.
In The Nature of the Physical World (1928, 2005), 67-68.
Science quotes on:  |  Connection (171)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Doing (277)  |  First (1302)  |  Flow (89)  |  Future (467)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Organization (120)  |  Past (355)  |  Plus (43)  |  Profound (105)  |  Province (37)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Rest (287)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  Stand (284)  |  Study (701)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  Undoing (2)

There was positive, clear-cut, unquestioned direction of the project at all levels. Authority was invariably delegated with responsibility, and this delegation was absolute and without reservation. Only in this way could the many apparently autonomous organizations working on the many apparently independent tasks be pulled together to achieve our final objective.
In And Now It Can Be Told: The Story Of The Manhattan Project (1962), 415.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Authority (99)  |  Autonomy (6)  |  Clear-Cut (10)  |  Cut (116)  |  Final (121)  |  Independent (74)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Level (69)  |  Manhattan Project (15)  |  Objective (96)  |  Organization (120)  |  Positive (98)  |  Project (77)  |  Pull (43)  |  Reservation (7)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Task (152)  |  Together (392)  |  Unify (7)  |  Unquestioned (7)  |  Way (1214)  |  Working (23)

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)  |  Air (366)  |  Animal (651)  |  Behind (139)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Common (447)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Consider (428)  |  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)

They were very different men. Or boys. Someone said they were both like curious children—Einstein the merry boy, Rutherford the boisterous one. They were looking and working in different directions—Einstein looking outward, rather dreamily trying to discover where we came from, and Rutherford drilling deep to discover what we were.
A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2007), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Boy (100)  |  Children (201)  |  Curious (95)  |  Deep (241)  |  Different (595)  |  Discover (571)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Looking (191)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Trying (144)

Things of all kinds are subject to a universal law which may be called the law of large numbers. It consists in the fact that, if one observes very considerable numbers of events of the same nature, dependent on constant causes and causes which vary irregularly, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in the other, it is to say without their variation being progressive in any definite direction, one shall find, between these numbers, relations which are almost constant.
Poisson’s Law of Large Numbers (16 Nov 1837), in Recherches sur la Probabilités (1837), 7. English version by Webmaster using Google Translate, from the original French, “Les choses de toutes natures sont soumises à une loi universelle qu’on) peut appeler la loi des grands nombres. Elle consiste en ce que, si l’on observe des nombres très considérables d’événements d’une même nature, dépendants de causes constantes et de causes qui varient irrégulièrement, tantôt dans un sens, tantôt daus l’autre, c’est-à-dire sans que leur variation soit progressive dans aucun sens déterminé, on trouvera, entre ces nombres, des rapports a très peu près constants.”
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Consist (223)  |  Constant (148)  |  Definite (114)  |  Dependent (26)  |  Event (222)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Probability (135)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Relation (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universal Law (4)  |  Variation (93)  |  Vary (27)

Thinking consists in envisaging, realizing structural features and structural requirements; proceeding in accordance with, and determined by, these requirements; thereby changing the situation in the direction of structural improvements.
In Productive Thinking (1959), 235.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Consist (223)  |  Envisage (2)  |  Feature (49)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Realize (157)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Situation (117)  |  Structural (29)  |  Thinking (425)

This leads us to ask for the reasons which call for this new theory of transmutation. The beginning of things must needs lie in obscurity, beyond the bounds of proof, though within those of conjecture or of analogical inference. Why not hold fast to the customary view, that all species were directly, instead of indirectly, created after their respective kinds, as we now behold them,--and that in a manner which, passing our comprehension, we intuitively refer to the supernatural? Why this continual striving after “the unattained and dim,”—these anxious endeavors, especially of late years, by naturalists and philosophers of various schools and different tendencies, to penetrate what one of them calls “the mystery of mysteries,” the origin of species? To this, in general, sufficient answer may be found in the activity of the human intellect, “the delirious yet divine desire to know,” stimulated as it has been by its own success in unveiling the laws and processes of inorganic Nature,—in the fact that the principal triumphs of our age in physical science have consisted in tracing connections where none were known before, in reducing heterogeneous phenomena to a common cause or origin, in a manner quite analogous to that of the reduction of supposed independently originated species to a common ultimate origin,—thus, and in various other ways, largely and legitimately extending the domain of secondary causes. Surely the scientific mind of an age which contemplates the solar system as evolved from a common, revolving, fluid mass,— which, through experimental research, has come to regard light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, and mechanical power as varieties or derivative and convertible forms of one force, instead of independent species,—which has brought the so-called elementary kinds of matter, such as the metals, into kindred groups, and raised the question, whether the members of each group may not be mere varieties of one species,—and which speculates steadily in the direction of the ultimate unity of matter, of a sort of prototype or simple element which may be to the ordinary species of matter what the protozoa or component cells of an organism are to the higher sorts of animals and plants,—the mind of such an age cannot be expected to let the old belief about species pass unquestioned.
Asa Gray
'Darwin on the Origin of Species', The Atlantic Monthly (Jul 1860), 112-3. Also in 'Natural Selection Not Inconsistent With Natural Theology', Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism (1876), 94-95.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Affinity (27)  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bound (120)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Common (447)  |  Component (51)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consist (223)  |  Continual (44)  |  Customary (18)  |  Desire (212)  |  Different (595)  |  Divine (112)  |  Domain (72)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Element (322)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Heat (180)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Independently (24)  |  Inference (45)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Kind (564)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Late (119)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Metal (88)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Principal (69)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prototype (9)  |  Protozoa (6)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Regard (312)  |  Research (753)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Mind (13)  |  Simple (426)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Species (435)  |  Success (327)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supernatural (26)  |  Surely (101)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmutation (24)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unity (81)  |  Unquestioned (7)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Year (963)

Throughout his last half-dozen books, for example, Arthur Koestler has been conducting a campaign against his own misunderstanding of Darwinism. He hopes to find some ordering force, constraining evolution to certain directions and overriding the influence of natural selection ... Darwinism is not the theory of capricious change that Koestler imagines. Random variation may be the raw material of change, but natural selection builds good design by rejecting most variants while accepting and accumulating the few that improve adaptation to local environments.
In The Panda’s Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History (1990, 2010), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Against (332)  |  Book (413)  |  Build (211)  |  Campaign (6)  |  Capricious (9)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Constrain (11)  |  Darwinism (3)  |  Design (203)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Example (98)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Good (906)  |  Hope (321)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Improve (64)  |  Influence (231)  |  Arthur Koestler (39)  |  Last (425)  |  Local (25)  |  Material (366)  |  Misunderstanding (13)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Order (638)  |  Random (42)  |  Raw (28)  |  Reject (67)  |  Selection (130)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Variant (9)  |  Variation (93)

Thus one becomes entangled in contradictions if one speaks of the probable position of the electron without considering the experiment used to determine it ... It must also be emphasized that the statistical character of the relation depends on the fact that the influence of the measuring device is treated in a different manner than the interaction of the various parts of the system on one another. This last interaction also causes changes in the direction of the vector representing the system in the Hilbert space, but these are completely determined. If one were to treat the measuring device as a part of the system—which would necessitate an extension of the Hilbert space—then the changes considered above as indeterminate would appear determinate. But no use could be made of this determinateness unless our observation of the measuring device were free of indeterminateness. For these observations, however, the same considerations are valid as those given above, and we should be forced, for example, to include our own eyes as part of the system, and so on. The chain of cause and effect could be quantitatively verified only if the whole universe were considered as a single system—but then physics has vanished, and only a mathematical scheme remains. The partition of the world into observing and observed system prevents a sharp formulation of the law of cause and effect. (The observing system need not always be a human being; it may also be an inanimate apparatus, such as a photographic plate.)
The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory, trans. Carl Eckart and Frank C. Hoyt (1949), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cause And Effect (21)  |  Change (639)  |  Character (259)  |  Completely (137)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Depend (238)  |  Determine (152)  |  Device (71)  |  Different (595)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electron (96)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extension (60)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Free (239)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Include (93)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Remain (355)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Single (365)  |  Space (523)  |  Speak (240)  |  System (545)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Various (205)  |  Vector (6)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

To any action there is always an opposite and equal reaction; in other words, the actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal and always opposite in direction.
The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687), 3rd edition (1726), trans. I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman (1999), Axioms, or Laws of Motion, Law 3, 417.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Force (497)  |  Law Of Motion (14)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Two (936)  |  Word (650)

True, no one can absolutely control the direction of his life; but each person can certainly influence it. The armchair explorers who complain that they never got their “one lucky shot” were never really infected by the incurable drive to explore. Those who have the bug—go.
In Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein, The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World (2007), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Armchair (7)  |  Bug (10)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Complain (10)  |  Control (182)  |  Drive (61)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Incurable (10)  |  Influence (231)  |  Life (1870)  |  Luck (44)  |  Never (1089)  |  Person (366)

Under certain given circumstances, and only under those circumstances, an agglomeration of men presents new characteristics very different from those of the individuals composing it. The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory, but presenting very clearly defined characteristics. The gathering has thus become what, in the absence of a better expression, I will call an organized crowd, or, if the term is considered preferable, a psychological crowd. It forms a single being and is subject to the law of the mental unity of crowds.
From Psychologie des Foules (1895), 12. English text in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897), Book 1, Chap. 1, 1-2. The original French text is, “Dans certaines circonstances données, et seulement dans ces circonstances, une agglomération d’hommes possède des caractères nouveaux fort différents de ceux des individus composant cette agglomération. La personnalité consciente s’évanouit, les sentiments et les idées de toutes les unités sont orientés dans une même direction. Il se forme une âme collective, transitoire sans doute, mais présentant des caractères très nets. La collectivité est alors devenue ce que, faute d’une expression meilleure, j’appellerai une foule organisée, ou, si l’on préfère, une foule psychologique. Elle forme un seul être et se trouve soumise à la loi de l'unité mentale des foules.”
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Consider (428)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Different (595)  |  Expression (181)  |  Form (976)  |  Gathering (23)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Law (913)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Person (366)  |  Personality (66)  |  Present (630)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Single (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Term (357)  |  Unity (81)  |  Will (2350)

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)  |  Air (366)  |  Billion (104)  |  Billions (7)  |  Cold (115)  |  Destination (16)  |  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)

We are the children of chaos, and the deep structure of change is decay. At root, there is only corruption, and the unstemmable tide of chaos. Gone is purpose; all that is left is direction. This is the bleakness we have to accept as we peer deeply and dispassionately into the heart of the Universe.
In The Second Law (1984), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Bleakness (2)  |  Change (639)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Child (333)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Decay (59)  |  Dispassionate (9)  |  Heart (243)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Structure (365)  |  Tide (37)  |  Universe (900)

We cannot but think there is something like a fallacy in Mr. Buckle’s theory that the advance of mankind is necessarily in the direction of science, and not in that of morals.
In 'Dante', The Writings of James Russell Lowell: Literary Essays (1890), 254. [The reclusive Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862) began writing his History of Civilization, trying to construct a science of society on the basis of inductions from history. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Buckle (5)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Moral (203)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Something (718)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)

We have now got what seems to be definite proof that an X ray which spreads out in a spherical form from a source as a wave through the aether can when it meets an atom collect up all its energy from all round and concentrate it on the atom. It is as if when a circular wave on water met an obstacle, the wave were all suddenly to travel round the circle and disappear all round and concentrate its energy on attacking the obstacle. Mechanically of course this is absurd, but mechanics have in this direction been for some time a broken reed.
Letter to Margery Moseley (2 Feb 1913). In J. L. Heilbron (ed.), H. G. J. Moseley: The Life and Letters of an English Physicist 1887-1915 (1974), 201.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Aether (13)  |  Atom (381)  |  Broken (56)  |  Circle (117)  |  Circular (19)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Course (413)  |  Definite (114)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Energy (373)  |  Form (976)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Proof (304)  |  Ray (115)  |  Spread (86)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travel (125)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  X-ray (43)

We may conclude, that the flux and reflux of the ocean have produced all the mountains, valleys, and other inequalities on the surface of the earth; that currents of the sea have scooped out the valleys, elevated the hills, and bestowed on them their corresponding directions; that that same waters of the ocean, by transporting and depositing earth, &c., have given rise to the parallel strata; that the waters from the heavens gradually destroy the effects of the sea, by continually diminishing the height of the mountains, filling up the valleys, and choking the mouths of rivers; and, by reducing every thing to its former level, they will, in time, restore the earth to the sea, which, by its natural operations, will again create new continents, interspersed with mountains and valleys, every way similar to those we inhabit.
'Second Discours: Histoire et Théorie de la Terre', Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière, Avec la Description du Cabinet du Roi (1749), Vol. I, 124; Natural History, General and Particular (1785), Vol. I, Irans. W. Smellie, 57-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Bestow (18)  |  Choking (3)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Continent (79)  |  Create (245)  |  Current (122)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Flux (21)  |  Former (138)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Produced (187)  |  Rain (70)  |  Reflux (2)  |  Rise (169)  |  River (140)  |  Sea (326)  |  Strata (37)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Valley (37)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

We reached the village of Watervliet, [New York] … and here we crossed the Hudson in a horse-tow-boat. Having never witnessed, except in America, this ingenious contrivance for crossing a river, I shall explain to you what it is … On each side of the boat, and standing on a revolving platform constructed a foot below the surface of the deck, is placed a horse, harnessed and attached to a splinter-bar which is fastened to the boat, so as to keep him in his proper position. When every thing is ready for departure, the animal is made to walk, and by the action of his feet puts the platform in motion, which, communicating with the paddle-wheels, gives them their rotatory evolution; and by this means the boat is propelled in any direction in which the helmsman wishes to go.
In Letter VIII, to a friend in England, from Lockport, New York (25 Jul 1831), collected in Narrative of a Tour in North America (1834), Vol. 1, 184-184.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  America (143)  |  Animal (651)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Boat (17)  |  Construct (129)  |  Contrivance (12)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explain (334)  |  Ferry (4)  |  Harness (25)  |  Horse (78)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Invention (400)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Motion (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Platform (3)  |  Proper (150)  |  Propulsion (10)  |  Reach (286)  |  Revolving (2)  |  River (140)  |  Side (236)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Walk (138)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Witness (57)

We see, then, that the disappearance of the conscious personality, the predominance of the unconscious personality, the turning by means of suggestion and contagion of feelings and ideas in an identical direction, the tendency to immediately transform the suggested ideas into acts; these, we see, are the principal characteristics of the individual forming part of a crowd. He is no longer himself, but has become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will.
From Psychologie des Foules (1895), 20. English text in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897), Book 1, Chap. 1, 12. Original French text: “Donc, évanouissement de la personnalité consciente, prédominance de la personnalité inconsciente, orientation par voie de suggestion et de contagion des sentiments et des idées dans un même sens, tendance a transformer immédiatement en actes les idée suggérées, tels sont les principaux caractères de l’individu en foule. II n’est plus lui-même, il est devenu un automate que sa volonté ne guide plus.”
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Automaton (12)  |  Become (821)  |  Cease (81)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Contagion (9)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Forming (42)  |  Guided (3)  |  Himself (461)  |  Idea (881)  |  Identical (55)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Individual (420)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Part (235)  |  Personality (66)  |  Predominance (3)  |  Principal (69)  |  See (1094)  |  Suggested (2)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Transform (74)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unconscious (24)  |  Will (2350)

We shall therefore take an appropriately correct view of the origin of our life, if we consider our own embryos to have sprung immediately from those embryos whence our parents were developed, and these from the embryos of their parents, and so on for ever. We should in this way look on the nature of mankind, and perhaps on that of the whole animated creation, as one Continuous System, ever pushing out new branches in all directions, that variously interlace, and that bud into separate lives at every point of interlacement.
'Hereditary Talent and Character', Macmillan's Magazine, 1865, 12, 322.
Science quotes on:  |  Consider (428)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Creation (350)  |  Develop (278)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Look (584)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Origin (250)  |  Parent (80)  |  Point (584)  |  Separate (151)  |  System (545)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)

We were able to see the plankton blooms resulting from the upwelling off the coast of Chile. The plankton itself extended along the coastline and had some long tenuous arms reaching out to sea. The arms or lines of plankton were pushed around in a random direction, fairly well-defined yet somewhat weak in color, in contrast with the dark blue ocean. The fishing ought to be good down there.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Bloom (11)  |  Blue (63)  |  Coast (13)  |  Coastline (2)  |  Color (155)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Dark (145)  |  Down (455)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fairly (4)  |  Fish (130)  |  Fishing (20)  |  Good (906)  |  Line (100)  |  Long (778)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Plankton (3)  |  Push (66)  |  Random (42)  |  Reach (286)  |  Result (700)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Tenuous (3)  |  Weak (73)  |  Well-Defined (9)

Were the succession of stars endless, then the background of the sky would present us an uniform luminosity, like that displayed by the Galaxy—since there could be absolutely no point, in all that background, at which would not exist a star. The only mode, therefore, in which, under such a state of affairs, we could comprehend the voids which our telescopes find in innumerable directions, would be by supposing the distance of the invisible background so immense that no ray from it has yet been able to reach us at all.
'Eureka: An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe' (1848). Collected in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (1857), Vol. 2, 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Display (59)  |  Distance (171)  |  Endless (60)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find (1014)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Immense (89)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Invisibility (5)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Luminosity (6)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reach (286)  |  Sky (174)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  State (505)  |  Succession (80)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Void (31)

What makes planets go around the sun? At the time of Kepler, some people answered this problem by saying that there were angels behind them beating their wings and pushing the planets around an orbit. As you will see, the answer is not very far from the truth. The only difference is that the angels sit in a different direction and their wings push inward.
In The Character of Physical Law (1965), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Angel (47)  |  Answer (389)  |  Beating (4)  |  Behind (139)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Inward (6)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Orbit (85)  |  People (1031)  |  Planet (402)  |  Problem (731)  |  Push (66)  |  See (1094)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wing (79)

What, then, is light according to the electromagnetic theory? It consists of alternate and opposite rapidly recurring transverse magnetic disturbances, accompanied with electric displacements, the direction of the electric displacement being at the right angles to the magnetic disturbance, and both at right angles to the direction of the ray.
'A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field' (1864). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell(1890), Vol. 2, 1862-1973, 195.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Consist (223)  |  Displacement (9)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electromagnetic Theory (5)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Ray (115)  |  Recurring (12)  |  Right (473)  |  Theory (1015)

When entering on new ground we must not be afraid to express even risky ideas so as to stimulate research in all directions. As Priestley put it, we must not remain inactive through false modesty based on fear of being mistaken.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 164-165.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Being (1276)  |  Entering (3)  |  Express (192)  |  Expressing (3)  |  False (105)  |  Fear (212)  |  Ground (222)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inactivity (4)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Modesty (18)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Joseph Priestley (16)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Research (753)  |  Risk (68)  |  Stimulation (18)  |  Through (846)

When I started on this problem I surveyed the field and selected the best road, regardless of the roads which others have taken. I knew the direction in which others had attempted to solve the problem, and was careful not to fall into the same rut which had led every previous effort into failure and ruin.
From short Speech at the Chamberlain Hotel, Washington, D.C. (Feb 1885), concluding the exhibition of his own Linotype invention. As given in Carl Schlesinger (ed.), 'Mr. Mergenthaler’s Speech', The Biography of Ottmar Merganthaler: Inventor of the Linotype (1989), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Best (467)  |  Careful (28)  |  Effort (243)  |  Failure (176)  |  Fall (243)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lead (391)  |  Previous (17)  |  Problem (731)  |  Road (71)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Rut (2)  |  Same (166)  |  Select (45)  |  Solve (145)  |  Start (237)  |  Survey (36)

When I undertake the dissection of a human cadaver I pass a stout rope tied like a noose beneath the lower jaw and through the two zygomas up to the top of the head, either more toward the forehead or more toward the occiput according as I want the cadaver to hang with its head up or down. The longer end of the noose I run through a pulley fixed to a beam in the room so that I may raise or lower the cadaver as it hangs there or may turn it round in any direction to suit my purpose; and should I so wish I can allow it to recline at an angle upon a table, since a table can easily be placed underneath the pulley. This is how the cadaver was suspended for drawing all the muscle tables... though while that one was being drawn the rope was passed around the occiput so as to show the muscles in the neck. If the lower jaw has been removed in the course of dissection, or the zygomas have been broken, the hollows for the temporal muscles will nonetheless hold the noose sufficiently firmly. You must take care not to put the noose around the neck, unless some of the muscles connected to the occipital bone have already been cut away. It is best to suspend the cadaver like this because a human body lying on a table is very difficult to turn over on to its chest or its back.
From De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (1543), Book II, 268, as translated by William Frank Richardson and John Burd Carman, in 'How the Cadaver Can Be Held Erect While These Muscles are Dissected', On The Fabric of the Human Body: Book II: The Ligaments and Muscles (1998), 234.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Already (226)  |  Back (395)  |  Beam (26)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Best (467)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Broken (56)  |  Cadaver (2)  |  Care (203)  |  Connect (126)  |  Course (413)  |  Cut (116)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Down (455)  |  Drawing (56)  |  End (603)  |  Hang (46)  |  Head (87)  |  Human (1512)  |  Jaw (4)  |  Lying (55)  |  More (2558)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Must (1525)  |  Neck (15)  |  Noose (2)  |  Pass (241)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rope (9)  |  Run (158)  |  Show (353)  |  Suspended (5)  |  Table (105)  |  Through (846)  |  Top (100)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

When Ramanujan was sixteen, he happened upon a copy of Carr’s Synopsis of Mathematics. This chance encounter secured immortality for the book, for it was this book that suddenly woke Ramanujan into full mathematical activity and supplied him essentially with his complete mathematical equipment in analysis and number theory. The book also gave Ramanujan his general direction as a dealer in formulas, and it furnished Ramanujan the germs of many of his deepest developments.
In Mathematical Circles Squared (1972), 158. George Shoobridge Carr (1837-1914) wrote his Synopsis of Elementary Results in Mathematics in 1886.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Book (413)  |  Chance (244)  |  Complete (209)  |  Copy (34)  |  Deep (241)  |  Development (441)  |  Encounter (23)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Essential (210)  |  Formula (102)  |  Furnish (97)  |  General (521)  |  Germ (54)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Immortality (11)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Number (710)  |  Number Theory (6)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  Secured (18)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Supply (100)  |  Synopsis (2)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Wake (17)

Why then be concerned about the conservation of wildlife when for all practical purposes we would be much better off if humans and their domestic animals and pets were the only living creatures on the face of the earth? There is no obvious and demolishing answer to this rather doubtful logic although in practice the destruction of all wild animals would certainly bring devastating changes to our existence on this planet as we know it today… The trouble is that everything in nature is completely interdependent. Tinker with one part of it and the repercussions ripple out in all directions… Wildlife—and that includes everything from microbes to blue whales and from a fungus to a redwood tree—has been so much part of life on the earth that we are inclined to take its continued existence for granted… Yet the wildlife of the world is disappearing, not because of a malicious and deliberate policy of slaughter and extermination, but simply because of a general and widespread ignorance and neglect.
World Wildlife Fund Dinner, York, (1969). As quoted and cited in 'The Mirror of a Duke', The Dorset Eye on dorseteye.com website
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Better Off (7)  |  Blue Whale (3)  |  Bring (95)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Change (639)  |  Completely (137)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Continue (179)  |  Creature (242)  |  Deliberate (19)  |  Demolish (8)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Devastating (6)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everything (489)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extermination (14)  |  Face (214)  |  Face Of The Earth (5)  |  Fungus (8)  |  General (521)  |  Grant (76)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Include (93)  |  Interdependent (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Logic (311)  |  Malicious (8)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Microbes (14)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Part (235)  |  Pet (10)  |  Planet (402)  |  Policy (27)  |  Practical (225)  |  Practice (212)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Redwood (8)  |  Repercussion (5)  |  Ripple (12)  |  Simply (53)  |  Slaughter (8)  |  Tinker (6)  |  Today (321)  |  Tree (269)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Whale (45)  |  Why (491)  |  Widespread (23)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wild Animal (9)  |  Wildlife (16)  |  World (1850)

Years ago I used to worry about the degree to which I specialized. Vision is limited enough, yet I was not really working on vision, for I hardly made contact with visual sensations, except as signals, nor with the nervous pathways, nor the structure of the eye, except the retina. Actually my studies involved only the rods and cones of the retina, and in them only the visual pigments. A sadly limited peripheral business, fit for escapists. But it is as though this were a very narrow window through which at a distance, one can only see a crack of light. As one comes closer the view grows wider and wider, until finally looking through the same narrow window one is looking at the universe. It is like the pupil of the eye, an opening only two to three millimetres across in daylight, but yielding a wide angle of view, and manoeuvrable enough to be turned in all directions. I think this is always the way it goes in science, because science is all one. It hardly matters where one enters, provided one can come closer, and then one does not see less and less, but more and more, because one is not dealing with an opaque object, but with a window.
In Scientific American, 1960s, attributed.
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Business (156)  |  Closer (43)  |  Cone (8)  |  Contact (66)  |  Crack (15)  |  Daylight (23)  |  Dealing (11)  |  Degree (277)  |  Distance (171)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enter (145)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fit (139)  |  Grow (247)  |  Involved (90)  |  Light (635)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Looking (191)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Object (438)  |  Opaque (7)  |  Opening (15)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Peripheral (3)  |  Pigment (9)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Really (77)  |  Retina (4)  |  Rod (6)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Signal (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Vision (127)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wide (97)  |  Window (59)  |  Year (963)

You have read my writings, and from them you have certainly understood which was the true and real motive that caused, under the lying mask of religion, this war against me that continually restrains and undercuts me in all directions, so that neither can help come to me from outside nor can I go forth to defend myself, there having been issued an express order to all Inquisitors that they should not allow any of my works to be reprinted which had been printed many years ago or grant permission to any new work that I would print. … a most rigorous and general order, I say, against all my works, omnia et edenda; so that it is left to me only to succumb in silence under the flood of attacks, exposures, derision, and insult coming from all sides.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Allow (51)  |  Attack (86)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Coming (114)  |  Defend (32)  |  Derision (8)  |  Exposure (9)  |  Express (192)  |  Flood (52)  |  General (521)  |  Grant (76)  |  Inquisitor (6)  |  Insult (16)  |  Lying (55)  |  Mask (12)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motive (62)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Outside (141)  |  Permission (7)  |  Print (20)  |  Read (308)  |  Religion (369)  |  Restrain (6)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Side (236)  |  Silence (62)  |  Succumb (6)  |  Undercut (3)  |  Understood (155)  |  War (233)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)  |  Year (963)

You have read my writings, and from them you have certainly understood which was the true and real motive that caused, under the lying mask of religion, this war against me that continually restrains and undercuts me in all directions, so that neither can help come to me from outside nor can I go forth to defend myself, there having been issued an express order to all Inquisitors that they should not allow any of my works to be reprinted which had been printed many years ago or grant permission to any new work that I would print. … a most rigorous and general order, I say, against all my works, omnia et edenda; so that it is left to me only to succumb in silence under the flood of attacks, exposures, derision, and insult coming from all sides.
In Letter to Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (16 Mar 1635). As quoted in translation in Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo (1976), 324, with footnote that “he had known about the reserved orders to the provincial Inquisitors from Micanzio in Venice. On September 8, 1633, the Pope had further reprimanded the Inquisitor of Florence for giving permission to reprint some past works.”
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Attack (86)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Coming (114)  |  Express (192)  |  Flood (52)  |  General (521)  |  Grant (76)  |  Insult (16)  |  Lying (55)  |  Mask (12)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motive (62)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Outside (141)  |  Read (308)  |  Religion (369)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Say (989)  |  Side (236)  |  Silence (62)  |  Undercut (3)  |  Understood (155)  |  War (233)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)  |  Year (963)


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.