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

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

Execution Quotes (25 quotes)

Branches or types are characterized by the plan of their structure,
Classes, by the manner in which that plan is executed, as far as ways and means are concerned,
Orders, by the degrees of complication of that structure,
Families, by their form, as far as determined by structure,
Genera, by the details of the execution in special parts, and
Species, by the relations of individuals to one another and to the world in which they live, as well as by the proportions of their parts, their ornamentation, etc.
Essay on Classification (1857). Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of America (1857), Vol. I, 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Classification (102)  |  Complication (30)  |  Concern (239)  |  Degree (277)  |  Detail (150)  |  Form (976)  |  Individual (420)  |  Live (650)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Order (638)  |  Plan (122)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)  |  Type (171)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

As every circumstance relating to so capital a discovery as this (the greatest, perhaps, that has been made in the whole compass of philosophy, since the time of Sir Isaac Newton) cannot but give pleasure to all my readers, I shall endeavour to gratify them with the communication of a few particulars which I have from the best authority. The Doctor [Benjamin Franklin], after having published his method of verifying his hypothesis concerning the sameness of electricity with the matter lightning, was waiting for the erection of a spire in Philadelphia to carry his views into execution; not imagining that a pointed rod, of a moderate height, could answer the purpose; when it occurred to him, that, by means of a common kite, he could have a readier and better access to the regions of thunder than by any spire whatever. Preparing, therefore, a large silk handkerchief, and two cross sticks, of a proper length, on which to extend it, he took the opportunity of the first approaching thunder storm to take a walk into a field, in which there was a shed convenient for his purpose. But dreading the ridicule which too commonly attends unsuccessful attempts in science, he communicated his intended experiment to no body but his son, who assisted him in raising the kite.
The kite being raised, a considerable time elapsed before there was any appearance of its being electrified. One very promising cloud passed over it without any effect; when, at length, just as he was beginning to despair of his contrivance, he observed some loose threads of the hempen string to stand erect, and to avoid one another, just as if they had been suspended on a common conductor. Struck with this promising appearance, he inmmediately presented his knuckle to the key, and (let the reader judge of the exquisite pleasure he must have felt at that moment) the discovery was complete. He perceived a very evident electric spark. Others succeeded, even before the string was wet, so as to put the matter past all dispute, and when the rain had wetted the string, he collected electric fire very copiously. This happened in June 1752, a month after the electricians in France had verified the same theory, but before he had heard of any thing that they had done.
The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments (1767, 3rd ed. 1775), Vol. 1, 216-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Access (21)  |  Answer (389)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attend (67)  |  Authority (99)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Body (557)  |  Carry (130)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Common (447)  |  Communication (101)  |  Compass (37)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Despair (40)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electrician (6)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Evident (92)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Extend (129)  |  Field (378)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  France (29)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Judge (114)  |  Key (56)  |  Kite (4)  |  Large (398)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Moment (260)  |  Month (91)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Past (355)  |  Philadelphia (3)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Preparing (21)  |  Present (630)  |  Proper (150)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rain (70)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Sameness (3)  |  Silk (14)  |  Spark (32)  |  Spire (5)  |  Stand (284)  |  Storm (56)  |  String (22)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thread (36)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Verification (32)  |  View (496)  |  Waiting (42)  |  Walk (138)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whole (756)

Engineering is the science and art of efficient dealing with materials and forces … it involves the most economic design and execution … assuring, when properly performed, the most advantageous combination of accuracy, safety, durability, speed, simplicity, efficiency, and economy possible for the conditions of design and service.
As coauthor with Frank W. Skinner, and Harold E. Wessman, Vocational Guidance in Engineering Lines (1933), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Advantageous (10)  |  Art (680)  |  Assure (16)  |  Coauthor (2)  |  Combination (150)  |  Condition (362)  |  Deal (192)  |  Design (203)  |  Durability (2)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economy (59)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Efficient (34)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Force (497)  |  Frank (4)  |  Involve (93)  |  Material (366)  |  Most (1728)  |  Perform (123)  |  Possible (560)  |  Properly (21)  |  Safety (58)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Service (110)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Speed (66)

Execution is the chariot of genius.
Marginal note he wrote in his copy of the 'Discourses' of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1798). In The Real Blake (1908), 378. On page 371, the editor explains in a footnote that these marginalia of Blake date to either 1820 or perhaps 1810. In William Blake, David V. Erdman (ed.), The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake (2008), 643, Blake's note is identified as being written on page 15 and is a comment to Reynold's text, “...frivolous ambition of being thought masters of execution,...”
Science quotes on:  |  Chariot (9)  |  Genius (301)

However far the calculating reason of the mathematician may seem separated from the bold flight of the artist’s phantasy, it must be remembered that these expressions are but momentary images snatched arbitrarily from among the activities of both. In the projection of new theories the mathematician needs as bold and creative a phantasy as the productive artist, and in the execution of the details of a composition the artist too must calculate dispassionately the means which are necessary for the successful consummation of the parts. Common to both is the creation, the generation, of forms out of mind.
From Die Entwickelung der Mathematik im Zusammenhange mit der Ausbreitung der Kultur (1893), 4. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 185. From the original German, “Wie weit auch der rechnende Verstand des Mathematikers von dem kühnen Fluge der Phantasie des Künstlers getrennt zu sein scheint, so bezeichnen diese Ausdrücke doch blosse Augenblicksbilder, die willkürlich aus der Thätigkeit Beider herausgerissen sind. Bei dem Entwurfe neuer Theorieen bedarf der Mathematiker einer ebenso kühnen und schöpferischen Phantasie wie der schaffende Künstler, und bei der Ausführung der Einzelheiten eines Werkes muss auch der Künstler kühl alle Mittel berechnen, welche zum Gelingen der Theile erforderlich sind. Gemeinsam ist Beiden die Hervorbringung, die Erzeugung der Gebilde aus dem Geiste.”
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Artist (97)  |  Bold (22)  |  Both (496)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Common (447)  |  Composition (86)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creative (144)  |  Detail (150)  |  Dispassionate (9)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  Image (97)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Momentary (5)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Productive (37)  |  Projection (5)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remember (189)  |  Separate (151)  |  Snatch (14)  |  Successful (134)  |  Theory (1015)

Invention depends altogether upon Execution or Organisation, as that is right or wrong, so is the Invention perfect or imperfect.
Marginal note (c. 1808) written At head of account of Reynolds’ life in his copy of The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1798), beside “Much copying discountenanced”. As given in William Blake, Edwin John Ellis (ed.) and William Butler Yeats (ed.), The Works of William Blake (1893), Vol. 2, 319-320.
Science quotes on:  |  Depend (238)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Invention (400)  |  Organisation (7)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Right (473)  |  Wrong (246)

It has cost them but a moment to cut off that head; but a hundred years will not be sufficient to produce another like it.
Comment to Delambre about Lavoisier, who was executed on 8 May 1794. As quoted by Charles Hutton in A Philosophical and Mathematical Dictionary (1815), Vol. 1, 708. The quotation is given in Douglas McKie, Antoine Lavoisier: The Father of Modern Chemistry (1935), 299, as: “Only a moment to cut off this head and perhaps a hundred years before we shall have another like it.” In The Doctor Explains (1931), 134-135, Ralph Hermon Major words it as, “It took but an instant to cut off his head; a hundred years will not suffice to produce one like it,” but in A History of Medicine (1954), Vol. 2, 618, Major repeats it as, “A moment was sufficient to sever his head, but a hundred years will not be enough perhaps to produce another like it.” Please contact Webmaster if you know the primary source, presumably in French.
Science quotes on:  |  Cost (94)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (41)  |  Moment (260)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

It was my good fortune to be linked with Mme. Curie through twenty years of sublime and unclouded friendship. I came to admire her human grandeur to an ever growing degree. Her strength, her purity of will, her austerity toward herself, her objectivity, her incorruptible judgement—all these were of a kind seldom found joined in a single individual… The greatest scientific deed of her life—proving the existence of radioactive elements and isolating them—owes its accomplishment not merely to bold intuition but to a devotion and tenacity in execution under the most extreme hardships imaginable, such as the history of experimental science has not often witnessed.
Out of My Later Years (1950), 227-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Austerity (3)  |  Bold (22)  |  Marie Curie (37)  |  Deed (34)  |  Degree (277)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Element (322)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Friendship (18)  |  Good (906)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Growing (99)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Merely (315)  |  Most (1728)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Owe (71)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Single (365)  |  Strength (139)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Tenacity (10)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)  |  Witness (57)  |  Year (963)

Kirchhoff’s whole tendency, and its true counterpart, the form of his presentation, was different [from Maxwell’s “dramatic bulk”]. … He is characterized by the extreme precision of his hypotheses, minute execution, a quiet rather than epic development with utmost rigor, never concealing a difficulty, always dispelling the faintest obscurity. … he resembled Beethoven, the thinker in tones. — He who doubts that mathematical compositions can be beautiful, let him read his memoir on Absorption and Emission … or the chapter of his mechanics devoted to Hydrodynamics.
In Ceremonial Speech (15 Nov 1887) celebrating the 301st anniversary of the Karl-Franzens-University Graz. Published as Gustav Robert Kirchhoff: Festrede zur Feier des 301. Gründungstages der Karl-Franzens-Universität zu Graz (1888), 30, as translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 187. From the original German, “Kirchhoff … seine ganze Richtung war eine andere, und ebenso auch deren treues Abbild, die Form seiner Darstellung. … Ihn charakterisirt die schärfste Präcisirung der Hypothesen, feine Durchfeilung, ruhige mehr epische Fortentwicklung mit eiserner Consequenz ohne Verschweigung irgend einer Schwierigkeit, unter Aufhellung des leisesten Schattens. … er glich dem Denker in Tönen: Beethoven. – Wer in Zweifel zieht, dass mathematische Werke künstlerisch schön sein können, der lese seine Abhandlung über Absorption und Emission oder den der Hydrodynamik gewidmeten Abschnitt seiner Mechanik.” The memoir reference is Gesammelte Abhandlungen (1882), 571-598.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorption (13)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beethoven (14)  |  Beethoven_Ludwig (8)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Chapter (11)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Composition (86)  |  Conceal (19)  |  Counterpart (11)  |  Development (441)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Dispel (5)  |  Dispelling (4)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Emission (20)  |  Epic (12)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Faint (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Hydrodynamics (5)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (4)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Memoir (13)  |  Minute (129)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Precision (72)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Read (308)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Tone (22)  |  Utmost (12)  |  Whole (756)

Mathematics … engages, it fructifies, it quickens, compels attention, is as circumspect as inventive, induces courage and self-confidence as well as modesty and submission to truth. It yields the essence and kernel of all things, is brief in form and overflows with its wealth of content. It discloses the depth and breadth of the law and spiritual element behind the surface of phenomena; it impels from point to point and carries within itself the incentive toward progress; it stimulates the artistic perception, good taste in judgment and execution, as well as the scientific comprehension of things.
In Die Mathematik die Fackelträgerin einer neuen Zeit (1889), 40. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Artistic (24)  |  Attention (196)  |  Behind (139)  |  Breadth (15)  |  Brief (37)  |  Carry (130)  |  Circumspect (2)  |  Compel (31)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Content (75)  |  Courage (82)  |  Depth (97)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Element (322)  |  Engage (41)  |  Essence (85)  |  Form (976)  |  Good (906)  |  Impel (5)  |  Incentive (10)  |  Induce (24)  |  Inventive (10)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Kernel (4)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modesty (18)  |  Overflow (10)  |  Perception (97)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Point (584)  |  Progress (492)  |  Quicken (7)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Confidence (11)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Stimulate (21)  |  Submission (4)  |  Surface (223)  |  Taste (93)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Toward (45)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Yield (86)

Mathematics, like dialectics, is an organ of the inner higher sense; in its execution it is an art like eloquence. Both alike care nothing for the content, to both nothing is of value but the form. It is immaterial to mathematics whether it computes pennies or guineas, to rhetoric whether it defends truth or error.
From Wilhelm Meislers Wanderjahre (1829), Zweites Buch. Collected in Goethe’s Werke (1830), Vol. 22, 252. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 36-37. The same book has another translation on p.202: “Mathematics, like dialectics, is an organ of the higher sense, in its execution it is an art like eloquence. To both nothing but the form is of value; neither cares anything for content. Whether mathematics considers pennies or guineas, whether rhetoric defends truth or error, is perfectly immaterial to either.” From the original German, “Die Mathematik ist, wie die Dialektik, ein Organ des inneren höheren Sinnes, in der Ausübung ist sie eine Kunst wie die Beredsamkeit. Für beide hat nichts Wert als die Form; der Gehalt ist ihnen gleichgültig. Ob die Mathematik Pfennige oder oder Guineen berechne, die Rhetorik Wahres oder Falsches verteidige, ist beiden vollkommen gleich.”
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Art (680)  |  Both (496)  |  Care (203)  |  Compute (19)  |  Content (75)  |  Defend (32)  |  Dialectic (6)  |  Eloquence (7)  |  Error (339)  |  Form (976)  |  Guinea (2)  |  High (370)  |  Immaterial (6)  |  Inner (72)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Organ (118)  |  Penny (6)  |  Rhetoric (13)  |  Sense (785)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)

Medicine has made all its progress during the past fifty years. ... How many operations that are now in use were known fifty years ago?—they were not operations, they were executions.
Speech at the Twentieth Anniversary Dinner of the Society of Medical Jurisprudence, New York (8 Mar 1902). In Mark Twain and Paul Fatout (ed.,) Mark Twain Speaking (2006), 429-430.
Science quotes on:  |  Known (453)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Past (355)  |  Progress (492)  |  Use (771)  |  Year (963)

Men are impatient, and for precipitating things; but the Author of Nature appears deliberate throughout His operations, accomplishing His natural ends by slow, successive steps. And there is a plan of things beforehand laid out, which, from the nature of it, requires various systems of means, as well as length of time, in order to the carrying on its several parts into execution.
Analogy of Religion (1860), 239-240.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Deliberate (19)  |  End (603)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Order (638)  |  Plan (122)  |  Require (229)  |  Slow (108)  |  Step (234)  |  Successive (73)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Various (205)

One feature which will probably most impress the mathematician accustomed to the rapidity and directness secured by the generality of modern methods is the deliberation with which Archimedes approaches the solution of any one of his main problems. Yet this very characteristic, with its incidental effects, is calculated to excite the more admiration because the method suggests the tactics of some great strategist who foresees everything, eliminates everything not immediately conducive to the execution of his plan, masters every position in its order, and then suddenly (when the very elaboration of the scheme has almost obscured, in the mind of the spectator, its ultimate object) strikes the final blow. Thus we read in Archimedes proposition after proposition the bearing of which is not immediately obvious but which we find infallibly used later on; and we are led by such easy stages that the difficulties of the original problem, as presented at the outset, are scarcely appreciated. As Plutarch says: “It is not possible to find in geometry more difficult and troublesome questions, or more simple and lucid explanations.” But it is decidedly a rhetorical exaggeration when Plutarch goes on to say that we are deceived by the easiness of the successive steps into the belief that anyone could have discovered them for himself. On the contrary, the studied simplicity and the perfect finish of the treatises involve at the same time an element of mystery. Though each step depends on the preceding ones, we are left in the dark as to how they were suggested to Archimedes. There is, in fact, much truth in a remark by Wallis to the effect that he seems “as it were of set purpose to have covered up the traces of his investigation as if he had grudged posterity the secret of his method of inquiry while he wished to extort from them assent to his results.” Wallis adds with equal reason that not only Archimedes but nearly all the ancients so hid away from posterity their method of Analysis (though it is certain that they had one) that more modern mathematicians found it easier to invent a new Analysis than to seek out the old.
In The Works of Archimedes (1897), Preface, vi.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Add (42)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Anyone (38)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Approach (112)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Assent (12)  |  Bear (162)  |  Belief (615)  |  Blow (45)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Certain (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conducive (3)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Cover (40)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Decidedly (2)  |  Deliberation (5)  |  Depend (238)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discover (571)  |  Easier (53)  |  Easiness (4)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elaboration (11)  |  Element (322)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Equal (88)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exaggeration (16)  |  Excite (17)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extort (2)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feature (49)  |  Final (121)  |  Find (1014)  |  Finish (62)  |  Foresee (22)  |  Generality (45)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grudge (2)  |  Hide (70)  |  Himself (461)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Impress (66)  |  Incidental (15)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Invent (57)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Involve (93)  |  Late (119)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leave (138)  |  Lucid (9)  |  Main (29)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nearly (137)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Old (499)  |  Order (638)  |  Original (61)  |  Outset (7)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Plan (122)  |  Plutarch (16)  |  Position (83)  |  Possible (560)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Precede (23)  |  Present (630)  |  Probably (50)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Read (308)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remark (28)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Secret (216)  |  Secure (23)  |  Secured (18)  |  Seek (218)  |  Set (400)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spectator (11)  |  Stage (152)  |  Step (234)  |  Strike (72)  |  Study (701)  |  Successive (73)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Tactic (9)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Troublesome (8)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  John Wallis (3)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice.
An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). In R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner (eds.), An Enquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1976), Vol. 1, Book 1, Chapter 10, Part 2, 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Conspiracy (6)  |  Contrivance (12)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Diversion (10)  |  End (603)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Justice (40)  |  Law (913)  |  Liberty (29)  |  Meeting (22)  |  People (1031)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Prevention (37)  |  Price (57)  |  Public (100)  |  Raise (38)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Together (392)  |  Trade (34)

The development of an organism … may be considered as the execution of a 'developmental program' present in the fertilized egg. … A central task of developmental biology is to discover the underlying algorithm from the course of development.
Aristid Lindenmayer and Grzegorz Rozenberg, Automata, Languages, Development (1976), v.
Science quotes on:  |  Algorithm (5)  |  Biology (232)  |  Central (81)  |  Consider (428)  |  Course (413)  |  Development (441)  |  Discover (571)  |  Egg (71)  |  Organism (231)  |  Present (630)  |  Task (152)  |  Underlying (33)

The plan followed by nature in producing animals clearly comprises a predominant prime cause. This endows animal life with the power to make organization gradually more complex, and to bring increasing complexity and perfection not only to the total organization but also to each individual apparatus when it comes to be established by animal life. This progressive complication of organisms was in effect accomplished by the said principal cause in all existing animals. Occasionally a foreign, accidental, and therefore variable cause has interfered with the execution of the plan, without, however, destroying it. This has created gaps in the series, in the form either of terminal branches that depart from the series in several points and alter its simplicity, or of anomalies observable in specific apparatuses of various organisms.
Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertèbres (1815-22), Vol. 1, 133. In Pietro Corsi, The Age of Lamarck: Evolutionary Theories in France 1790-1830, trans. J. Mandelbaum (1988), 189.
Science quotes on:  |  Accidental (31)  |  Alter (64)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Anomaly (11)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Cause (561)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Complication (30)  |  Creation (350)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Follow (389)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Form (976)  |  Gap (36)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Individual (420)  |  Life (1870)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observable (21)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Plan (122)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Principal (69)  |  Series (153)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Specific (98)  |  Total (95)  |  Variable (37)  |  Variation (93)  |  Various (205)

The sense for style … is an aesthetic sense, based on admiration for the direct attainment of a foreseen end, simply and without waste. Style in art, style in literature, style in science, style in logic, style in practical execution have fundamentally the same aesthetic qualities, namely, attainment and restraint. The love of a subject in itself and for itself, where it is not the sleepy pleasure of pacing a mental quarter-deck, is the love of style as manifested in that study. Here we are brought back to the position from which we started, the utility of education. Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most useful. It pervades the whole being. The administrator with a sense for style hates waste; the engineer with a sense for style economises his material; the artisan with a sense for style prefers good work. Style is the ultimate morality of the mind.
In 'The Aims of Education', The Aims of Education and Other Essays (1929), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Administrator (11)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Art (680)  |  Artisan (9)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Direct (228)  |  Economy (59)  |  Education (423)  |  End (603)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Good (906)  |  Hate (68)  |  Last (425)  |  Literature (116)  |  Logic (311)  |  Love (328)  |  Material (366)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Morality (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Practical (225)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Sense (785)  |  Start (237)  |  Study (701)  |  Style (24)  |  Subject (543)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Useful (260)  |  Utility (52)  |  Waste (109)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

The success of any operation is as much dependent on execution as it is on planning and concept.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Concept (242)  |  Dependent (26)  |  Operation (221)  |  Plan (122)  |  Planning (21)  |  Success (327)

The whole of the developments and operations of analysis are now capable of being executed by machinery ... As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of science.
Passages From the Life of a Philosopher (1864), 136-137.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Analytical Engine (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capable (174)  |  Computer (131)  |  Course (413)  |  Development (441)  |  Engine (99)  |  Exist (458)  |  Future (467)  |  Guide (107)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Soon (187)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

There are three ways to encourage initiative. One is to cut off people’s heads as they do in Russia. Another is to subject people to public criticism, which is impossible in such secret work as this. A third way is to set up competition. This is Livermore’s most valuable function: simply to be a competitor.
Explaining the merit in setting up a second laboratory, at Livermore, California, to continue his thermonuclear research after he left Los Alamos due to disagreements he had there. As quoted in Robert Coughlan, 'Dr. Edward Teller’s Magnificent Obsession', Life (6 Sep 1954), 70-72.
Science quotes on:  |  Competition (45)  |  Competitor (4)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Cut (116)  |  Do (1905)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Function (235)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Initiative (17)  |  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Public (100)  |  Russia (14)  |  Secret (216)  |  Set (400)  |  Simply (53)  |  Subject (543)  |  Value (393)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance without a contriver; order without choice; arrangement, without any thing capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office in accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, relation of instruments to use, imply the preference of intelligence and mind.
Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of The Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature (1802), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Capable (174)  |  Choice (114)  |  Contrivance (12)  |  Contriver (2)  |  Design (203)  |  Designer (7)  |  Disposition (44)  |  End (603)  |  Implication (25)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Office (71)  |  Order (638)  |  Part (235)  |  Preference (28)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Relation (166)  |  Subservience (4)  |  Suitability (11)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)

They could have done it better with an axe.
(1890) On the first use of the electric chair—the horrendously botched execution of William Kemmler, condemned murderer. As quoted in 'Warden Durston's Record: The Man Who Botched the Kemmler Execution', New York Times (18 Aug 1890), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Axe (16)  |  Better (493)  |  Electric Chair (2)  |  Electricity (168)

Thought-economy is most highly developed in mathematics, that science which has reached the highest formal development, and on which natural science so frequently calls for assistance. Strange as it may seem, the strength of mathematics lies in the avoidance of all unnecessary thoughts, in the utmost economy of thought-operations. The symbols of order, which we call numbers, form already a system of wonderful simplicity and economy. When in the multiplication of a number with several digits we employ the multiplication table and thus make use of previously accomplished results rather than to repeat them each time, when by the use of tables of logarithms we avoid new numerical calculations by replacing them by others long since performed, when we employ determinants instead of carrying through from the beginning the solution of a system of equations, when we decompose new integral expressions into others that are familiar,—we see in all this but a faint reflection of the intellectual activity of a Lagrange or Cauchy, who with the keen discernment of a military commander marshalls a whole troop of completed operations in the execution of a new one.
In Populär-wissenschafliche Vorlesungen (1903), 224-225.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Activity (218)  |  Already (226)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Avoidance (11)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Call (781)  |  Carry (130)  |  Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (11)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completed (30)  |  Decompose (10)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Digit (4)  |  Discernment (4)  |  Economy (59)  |  Employ (115)  |  Equation (138)  |  Expression (181)  |  Faint (10)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Form (976)  |  Formal (37)  |  Frequently (21)  |  High (370)  |  Highly (16)  |  Instead (23)  |  Integral (26)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Keen (10)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Lie (370)  |  Logarithm (12)  |  Long (778)  |  Marshal (4)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Military (45)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perform (123)  |  Previously (12)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Replace (32)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Several (33)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Solution (282)  |  Strange (160)  |  Strength (139)  |  Symbol (100)  |  System (545)  |  Table (105)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Troop (4)  |  Unnecessary (23)  |  Use (771)  |  Utmost (12)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wonderful (155)

When they saw they would never be able to set a Catholic head on his shoulders they at least struck off the Protestant one.
Aphorism 94 in Notebook D (1773-1775), as translated by R.J. Hollingdale in Aphorisms (1990). Reprinted as The Waste Books (2000), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Catholic (18)  |  Head (87)  |  Never (1089)  |  Protestant (2)  |  Saw (160)  |  Set (400)  |  Shoulder (33)


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.