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: “The Superfund legislation... may prove to be as far-reaching and important as any accomplishment of my administration. The reduction of the threat to America's health and safety from thousands of toxic-waste sites will continue to be an urgent�issue �”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index F > Category: Face

Face Quotes (214 quotes)

… the fact has always been for the physicist the one ultimate thing from which there is no appeal, and in the face of which the only possible attitude is a humility almost religious.
In The Logic of Modern Physics (1927).
Science quotes on:  |  Attitude (84)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Humility (31)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Possible (560)  |  Religious (134)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Ultimate (152)

“I should have more faith,” he said; “I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears opposed to a long train of deductions it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.”
Spoken by character, Sherlock Holmes, in A Study in Scarlet (1887), in Works of Arthur Conan Doyle (1902), Vol. 11, 106.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Bearing (10)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faith (209)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Time (1911)  |  Train (118)

[Dubious attribution] We are all continually faced with great opportunities which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems.
Attributed. (?) Note: So far, Webmaster has been unable to find a primary source for this quote. It can be found seen quoted in several books, but always without citation. The earliest found with attribution to Mead is in Brian E. Walsh, Unleashing Your Brilliance (2005). However, earlier books attribute differently, for example to Lee Iacocca (2000), and to John Gardner (1986). Also found without any attribution (“it has been said”), without any citation, in Christopher H. Lovelock and Charles B. Weinberg, Readings in Public and Nonprofit Marketing (1978), 152. If you know the primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Brilliantly (2)  |  Continually (17)  |  Great (1610)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Problem (731)  |  Unsolvable (2)

[Intellectual courage is] the quality that allows one to believe in one's judgement in the face of disappointment and widespread skepticism. Intellectual courage is even rarer than physical courage.
'A Scientist and the World He Lives In', Speech to the Empire Club of Canada (27 Nov 1986) in C. Frank Turner and Tim Dickson (eds.), The Empire Club of Canada Speeches 1986-1987 (1987), 149-161.
Science quotes on:  |  Courage (82)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Physical (518)  |  Quality (139)  |  Skepticism (31)  |  Widespread (23)

[Music as a] language may be the best we have for explaining what we are like to others in space, with least ambiguity. I would vote for Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space, over and over again … to put the best possible face on at the beginning of such an acquaintance. We can tell the harder truths later.
In 'Ceti', The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Ambiguity (17)  |  Bach (7)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Best (467)  |  Explain (334)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Language (308)  |  Music (133)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Space (523)  |  Stream (83)  |  Tell (344)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vote (16)

[With] our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition. … We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. We might get away with it for a while, but eventually this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
In 'With Science on Our Side', Washington Post (9 Jan 1994).
Science quotes on:  |  Arranged (4)  |  Back (395)  |  Blow (45)  |  Blow Up (8)  |  Combustible (2)  |  Critical (73)  |  Decline (28)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Eventual (9)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Feel (371)  |  Good (906)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Power (771)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  Slide (5)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thing (1914)  |  True (239)  |  Understand (648)

Quelquefois, par exemple, je me figure que je suis suspendu en l’air, et que j’y demeure sans mouvement, pendant que la Terre tourne sous moi en vingt-quatre heures. Je vois passer sous mes yeux tous ces visages différents, les uns blancs, les autres noirs, les autres basanés, les autres olivâtres. D’abord ce sont des chapeaux et puis des turbans, et puis des têtes chevelues, et puis des têtes rasées; tantôt des villes à clochers, tantôt des villes à longues aiguilles qui ont des croissants, tantôt des villes à tours de porcelaine, tantôt de grands pays qui n’ont que des cabanes; ici de vastes mers, là des déserts épouvantables; enfin, toute cette variété infinie qui est sur la surface de la Terre.
Sometimes, for instance, I imagine that I am suspended in the air, and remain there motionless, while the earth turns under me in four-and-twenty hours. I see pass beneath me all these different countenances, some white, others black, others tawny, others olive-colored. At first they wear hats, and then turbans, then heads with long hair, then heads shaven; sometimes towns with steeples, sometimes towns with long spires, which have crescents, sometimes towns with porcelain towers, sometimes extensive countries that have only huts; here wide seas; there frightful deserts; in short, all this infinite variety on the surface of the earth.
In 'Premier Soir', Entretiens Sur La Pluralité Des Mondes (1686, 1863), 43. French and translation in Craufurd Tait Ramage, Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors (1866), 117-118.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Black (46)  |  Color (155)  |  Countenance (9)  |  Country (269)  |  Crescent (4)  |  Desert (59)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Hair (25)  |  Hat (9)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hut (2)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Long (778)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Porcelain (4)  |  Remain (355)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Spire (5)  |  Steeple (4)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Tawny (3)  |  Tower (45)  |  Turban (2)  |  Turn (454)  |  Variety (138)  |  White (132)  |  Wide (97)

Question: Show how the hypothenuse face of a right-angled prism may be used as a reflector. What connection is there between the refractive index of a medium and the angle at which an emergent ray is totally reflected?
Answer: Any face of any prism may be used as a reflector. The con nexion between the refractive index of a medium and the angle at which an emergent ray does not emerge but is totally reflected is remarkable and not generally known.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 182-3, Question 29. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Answer (389)  |  Connection (171)  |  Emergent (3)  |  Examination (102)  |  Howler (15)  |  Hypotenuse (4)  |  Index (5)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Medium (15)  |  Prism (8)  |  Question (649)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Reflector (4)  |  Refraction (13)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Right (473)  |  Show (353)  |  Total (95)

~~[Reinterpretation]~~ The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
Yet another of the Einstein-like quotes in common circulation for which there appears to be no known source in the given wording. There are also a number of variations on the the theme. It resembles an authentic quote, “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels,” from a longer discussion, in 'Atomic Education Urged by Einstein', New York Times (25 May 1946), 13. Other reinterpretations, not in exactly Einstein’s wording, include: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” “The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation.” “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.” “The world we have made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them.” For more context, see the authentic quote that begins, “Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived…,” on the Albert Einstein Quotes page on this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Create (245)  |  Level (69)  |  Problem (731)  |  Same (166)  |  Significant (78)  |  Solve (145)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)

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)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discover (571)  |  Division (67)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Element (322)  |  Examination (102)  |  Existence (481)  |  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 discovery is like falling in love and reaching the top of a mountain after a hard climb all in one, an ecstasy not induced by drugs but by the revelation of a face of nature that no one has seen before and that often turns out to be more subtle and wonderful than anyone had imagined.
'True Science', review of Peter Medawar, Advice to a Young Scientist (1980). In The London Review of Books (Mar 1981), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Climb (39)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Drug (61)  |  Ecstasy (9)  |  Fall (243)  |  Hard (246)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inducement (3)  |  Love (328)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Reach (286)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Top (100)  |  Turn (454)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wonderful (155)

A fire-mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jellyfish and a saurian,
And caves where the cavemen dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty,
And a face turned from the clod—
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
'Each in his Own Tongue', in Kansas in Literature: Part One, Poetry (1900), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Call (781)  |  Cave (17)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fire (203)  |  God (776)  |  Jellyfish (4)  |  Law (913)  |  Mist (17)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planet (402)  |  Sense (785)  |  Turn (454)

A most vile face! and yet she spends me forty pound a year in Mercury and Hogs Bones. All her teeth were made in the Black-Fryars, both her Eyebrows i’ the Strand, and her Hair in Silver-street. Every part of Town owns a Piece of her.
A reference to artificial teeth by character Otter, speaking of his wife, in Epicoene: or, The Silent Woman (1609), Act IV, Sc. 2, 64. Also, True-wit makes a specific reference to “false Teeth” in Act I, Sc. 1, 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Bone (101)  |  Both (496)  |  Dentistry (3)  |  Eyebrow (2)  |  Hair (25)  |  Hog (4)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Most (1728)  |  Silver (49)  |  Spend (97)  |  Stand (284)  |  Strand (9)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Year (963)

Theodore Roosevelt quote “people without children would face a hopeless future…without trees…as helpless” tree stump background
background by Pilgrim on Wheels (CC by SA 2.0) (source)
A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless.
Letter to the School Children of the United States, Arbor Day (15 Apr 1907), in Presidential Addresses and State Papers (1910), Vol. 6, 1208.
Science quotes on:  |  Arbor Day (4)  |  Children (201)  |  Country (269)  |  Future (467)  |  Helpless (14)  |  Hopeless (17)  |  People (1031)  |  Tree (269)

A thorough advocate in a just cause, a penetrating mathematician facing the starry heavens, both alike bear the semblance of divinity
In Wilhelm Meister, Wanderjahre, Zweites Buch, in 'Sprüche in Prosa' Natur, VI, 947.
Science quotes on:  |  Advocate (20)  |  Alike (60)  |  Bear (162)  |  Both (496)  |  Cause (561)  |  Divinity (23)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Semblance (5)  |  Star (460)  |  Thorough (40)

Across the road from my cabin was a huge clear-cut—hundreds of acres of massive spruce stumps interspersed with tiny Douglas firs—products of what they call “Reforestation,” which I guess makes the spindly firs en masse a “Reforest,” which makes an individual spindly fir a “Refir,” which means you could say that Weyerhauser, who owns the joint, has Refir Madness, since they think that sawing down 200-foot-tall spruces and replacing them with puling 2-foot Refirs is no different from farming beans or corn or alfalfa. They even call the towering spires they wipe from the Earth’s face forever a “crop”--as if they’d planted the virgin forest! But I'm just a fisherman and may be missing some deeper significance in their nomenclature and stranger treatment of primordial trees.
In David James Duncan, The River Why (1983), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Acre (13)  |  Bean (3)  |  Cabin (5)  |  Call (781)  |  Clear-Cut (10)  |  Corn (20)  |  Crop (26)  |  Cut (116)  |  Deeper (4)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Douglas Fir (2)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Farming (8)  |  Fisherman (9)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forever (111)  |  Guess (67)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individual (420)  |  Joint (31)  |  Madness (33)  |  Massive (9)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Miss (51)  |  Missing (21)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Plant (320)  |  Primordial (14)  |  Product (166)  |  Reforestation (6)  |  Replacement (13)  |  Road (71)  |  Sawing (3)  |  Say (989)  |  Significance (114)  |  Spire (5)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Stump (3)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Towering (11)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Tree (269)  |  Virgin (11)

Adventure isn’t hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude that we must apply to the day to day obstacles of life - facing new challenges, seizing new opportunities, testing our resources against the unknown and in the process, discovering our own unique potential.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Against (332)  |  Apply (170)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Discover (571)  |  Hang (46)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Potential (75)  |  Process (439)  |  Resource (74)  |  Rope (9)  |  Seize (18)  |  Side (236)  |  Test (221)  |  Unique (72)  |  Unknown (195)

All fossil anthropoids found hitherto have been known only from mandibular or maxillary fragments, so far as crania are concerned, and so the general appearance of the types they represented had been unknown; consequently, a condition of affairs where virtually the whole face and lower jaw, replete with teeth, together with the major portion of the brain pattern, have been preserved, constitutes a specimen of unusual value in fossil anthropoid discovery. Here, as in Homo rhodesiensis, Southern Africa has provided documents of higher primate evolution that are amongst the most complete extant. Apart from this evidential completeness, the specimen is of importance because it exhibits an extinct race of apes intermediate between living anthropoids and man ... Whether our present fossil is to be correlated with the discoveries made in India is not yet apparent; that question can only be solved by a careful comparison of the permanent molar teeth from both localities. It is obvious, meanwhile, that it represents a fossil group distinctly advanced beyond living anthropoids in those two dominantly human characters of facial and dental recession on one hand, and improved quality of the brain on the other. Unlike Pithecanthropus, it does not represent an ape-like man, a caricature of precocious hominid failure, but a creature well advanced beyond modern anthropoids in just those characters, facial and cerebral, which are to be anticipated in an extinct link between man and his simian ancestor. At the same time, it is equally evident that a creature with anthropoid brain capacity and lacking the distinctive, localised temporal expansions which appear to be concomitant with and necessary to articulate man, is no true man. It is therefore logically regarded as a man-like ape. I propose tentatively, then, that a new family of Homo-simidæ be created for the reception of the group of individuals which it represents, and that the first known species of the group be designated Australopithecus africanus, in commemoration, first, of the extreme southern and unexpected horizon of its discovery, and secondly, of the continent in which so many new and important discoveries connected with the early history of man have recently been made, thus vindicating the Darwinian claim that Africa would prove to be the cradle of mankind.
'Australopithicus africanus: The Man-Ape of South Africa', Nature, 1925, 115, 195.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Anthropoid (9)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Ape (54)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Both (496)  |  Brain (281)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Character (259)  |  Claim (154)  |  Commemoration (2)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Concern (239)  |  Condition (362)  |  Connect (126)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Continent (79)  |  Cradle (19)  |  Creature (242)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Early (196)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evident (92)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Failure (176)  |  Family (101)  |  First (1302)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fragment (58)  |  General (521)  |  History (716)  |  Hominid (4)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Human (1512)  |  Importance (299)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Known (453)  |  Living (492)  |  Major (88)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Portion (86)  |  Present (630)  |  Primate (11)  |  Prove (261)  |  Quality (139)  |  Question (649)  |  Race (278)  |  Reception (16)  |  Regard (312)  |  Represent (157)  |  Species (435)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Value (393)  |  Whole (756)

All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them. If, like me, you have looked at the stars, and tried to make sense of what you see, you too have started to wonder what makes the universe exist.
From website for PBS program, Stephen Hawking's Universe (1997).
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fascination (35)  |  Find (1014)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Start (237)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wonder (251)

All science is full of statements where you put your best face on your ignorance, where you say: … we know awfully little about this, but more or less irrespective of the stuff we don’t know about, we can make certain useful deductions.
From Assumption and Myth in Physical Theory (1967), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Certain (557)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Say (989)  |  Statement (148)  |  Useful (260)

An evolutionary view of human health and disease is not surprising or new; it is merely inevitable in the face of evidence and time.
Epigraph, without citation, in Robert Perlman, Evolution and Medicine (2013), xiii. Webmaster has not yet found the primary source; can you help?
Science quotes on:  |  Disease (340)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Health (210)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Merely (315)  |  New (1273)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)

And from my pillow, looking forth by light
Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold
The antechapel where the statue stood
Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
'Residence at Cambridge', The Prelude, or, Growth of a Poet's Mind: An Autobiographical Poem (1850), Book 3, 57-58.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Chapel (3)  |  Index (5)  |  Light (635)  |  Looking (191)  |  Marble (21)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moon (252)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Pillow (4)  |  Poem (104)  |  Prism (8)  |  Sea (326)  |  Silence (62)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Statue (17)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)

And yet, it will be no cool process of mere science … with which we face this new age of right and opportunity….
Inaugural Address (4 Mar 1913). In 'President Wilson’s Inaugural Address', New York Times (5 Mar 1913), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Cool (15)  |  Mere (86)  |  New (1273)  |  New Age (6)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Process (439)  |  Right (473)  |  Will (2350)

Apart from its healthful mental training as a branch of ordinary education, geology as an open-air pursuit affords an admirable training in habits of observation, furnishes a delightful relief from the cares and routine of everyday life, takes us into the open fields and the free fresh face of nature, leads us into all manner of sequestered nooks, whither hardly any other occupation or interest would be likely to send us, sets before us problems of the highest interest regarding the history of the ground beneath our feet, and thus gives a new charm to scenery which may be already replete with attractions.
Outlines of Field-Geology (1900), 251-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Already (226)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Branch (155)  |  Care (203)  |  Charm (54)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Education (423)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everyday Life (15)  |  Field (378)  |  Free (239)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Geology (240)  |  Ground (222)  |  Habit (174)  |  History (716)  |  Interest (416)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mental (179)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Open (277)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Relief (30)  |  Routine (26)  |  Sequester (2)  |  Set (400)  |  Training (92)  |  Whither (11)

Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion. Remember he is face to face with his enemy all the time.
In Notes on Nursing: What it is, and What it is Not (1860), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Exertion (17)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Fear (212)  |  Harm (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Patient (209)  |  Remember (189)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Waiting (42)

Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth.
'The Lie of the Truth'. (1938) translated by Phil Powrie (1989). In Carol A. Dingle, Memorable Quotations (2000), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Double (18)  |  Error (339)  |  Expression (181)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Phantom (9)  |  Reality (274)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Truth (1109)

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)  |  Direction (185)  |  Event (222)  |  Existence (481)  |  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 I stood behind the coffin of my little son the other day, with my mind bent on anything but disputation, the officiating minister read, as part of his duty, the words, 'If the dead rise not again, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' I cannot tell you how inexpressibly they shocked me. Paul had neither wife nor child, or he must have known that his alternative involved a blasphemy against all that well best and noblest in human nature. I could have laughed with scorn. What! Because I am face to face with irreparable loss, because I have given back to the source from whence it came, the cause of a great happiness, still retaining through all my life the blessings which have sprung and will spring from that cause, I am to renounce my manhood, and, howling, grovel in bestiality? Why, the very apes know better, and if you shoot their young, the poor brutes grieve their grief out and do not immediately seek distraction in a gorge.
Letter to Charles Kingsley (23 Sep 1860). In L. Huxley, The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (1903), Vol. 1, 318.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Ape (54)  |  Back (395)  |  Behind (139)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Blasphemy (8)  |  Blessing (26)  |  Blessings (17)  |  Brute (30)  |  Cause (561)  |  Child (333)  |  Coffin (7)  |  Death (406)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drink (56)  |  Eat (108)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grief (20)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Involved (90)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Poor (139)  |  Read (308)  |  Renounce (6)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Seek (218)  |  Shock (38)  |  Son (25)  |  Spring (140)  |  Still (614)  |  Tell (344)  |  Through (846)  |  Why (491)  |  Wife (41)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Young (253)

At first, the sea, the earth, and the heaven, which covers all things, were the only face of nature throughout the whole universe, which men have named Chaos; a rude and undigested mass, and nothing more than an inert weight, and the discordant atoms of things not harmonizing, heaped together in the same spot.
Describing the creation of the universe from chaos, at the beginning of Book I of Metamorphoses, lines 5-9. As translated by Henry T. Riley, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Vol I: Books I-VII (1858), 1-2. Riley footnoted: “A rude and undigested mass.—Ver. 7. This is very similar to the words of the Scriptures, ‘And the earth was without form and void,’ Genesis, ch. i. ver. 2.”
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Creation (350)  |  Discord (10)  |  Earth (1076)  |  First (1302)  |  Harmonize (4)  |  Heap (15)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Inert (14)  |  Mass (160)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Rude (6)  |  Sea (326)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Together (392)  |  Undigested (2)  |  Universe (900)  |  Weight (140)  |  Whole (756)

Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And Heav’n’s high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion’d, and unfram’d,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam’d.
As translated by John Dryden, et al. and Sir Samuel Garth (ed.), Metamorphoses (1998), 3. Ovid started writing the 14 books of Metamorphoses in about 1 a.d.. Dryden died in 1700. He had translated about one-third of the full Metamorphoses. His work was finished by others, and the translation was published in 1717.
Science quotes on:  |  Ball (64)  |  Canopy (8)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Cover (40)  |  Digested (2)  |  Frame (26)  |  Heaven (266)  |  High (370)  |  Jar (9)  |  Justly (7)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Lump (5)  |  Mass (160)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Rude (6)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seed (97)  |  Terrestrial (62)

But here it may be objected, that the present Earth looks like a heap of Rubbish and Ruines; And that there are no greater examples of confusion in Nature than Mountains singly or jointly considered; and that there appear not the least footsteps of any Art or Counsel either in the Figure and Shape, or Order and Disposition of Mountains and Rocks. Wherefore it is not likely they came so out of God's hands ... To which I answer, That the present face of the Earth with all its Mountains and Hills, its Promontaries and Rocks, as rude and deformed as they appear, seems to me a very beautiful and pleasant object, and with all the variety of Hills, and Valleys, and Inequalities far more grateful to behold, than a perfectly level Countrey without any rising or protuberancy, to terminate the sight: As anyone that hath but seen the Isle of Ely, or any the like Countrey must need acknowledge.
John Ray
Miscellaneous Discourses Concerning the Dissolution and Changes of the World (1692), 165-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Acknowledgment (13)  |  Answer (389)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Art (680)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Counsel (11)  |  Country (269)  |  Deformation (3)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Example (98)  |  Figure (162)  |  Footstep (5)  |  God (776)  |  Gratitude (14)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hand (149)  |  Heap (15)  |  Hill (23)  |  Inequality (9)  |  Isle (6)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Objection (34)  |  Order (638)  |  Pleasantness (3)  |  Present (630)  |  Promontory (3)  |  Protuberance (3)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Rock (176)  |  Rubbish (12)  |  Rudeness (5)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Shape (77)  |  Sight (135)  |  Termination (4)  |  Valley (37)  |  Variety (138)

But when we face the great questions about gravitation Does it require time? Is it polar to the 'outside of the universe' or to anything? Has it any reference to electricity? or does it stand on the very foundation of matter–mass or inertia? then we feel the need of tests, whether they be comets or nebulae or laboratory experiments or bold questions as to the truth of received opinions.
Letter to Michael Faraday, 9 Nov 1857. In P. M. Harman (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1990), Vol. 1, 1846-1862, 551-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Bold (22)  |  Comet (65)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Feel (371)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inertia (17)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nebula (16)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Outside (141)  |  Polar (13)  |  Question (649)  |  Require (229)  |  Stand (284)  |  Test (221)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)

But, on the other hand, every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
Letter (24 Jan 1936). Quoted in Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1981), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Feel (371)  |  Humble (54)  |  Involved (90)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modest (19)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Superior (88)  |  Universe (900)

Changes That Have Occurred in the Globe: When we have seen with our own eyes a mountain progressing into a plain; that is to say, an immense boulder separating from this mountain and covering the fields; an entire castle broken into pieces over the ground; a river swallowed up which then bursts out from its abyss; clear marks of a vast amount of water having once flooded regions now inhabited, and a hundred vestiges of other transformations, then we are much more willing to believe that great changes altered the face of the earth, than a Parisian lady who knows only that the place where her house was built was once a cultivated field. However, a lady from Naples who has seen the buried ruins of Herculaneum, is much less subject to the bias which leads us to believe that everything has always been as it is today.
From article 'Changements arrivées dans le globe', in Dictionnaire philosophique (1764), collected in Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire (1878), Vol. 2, 427-428. Translated by Ian Ellis, from the original French: “Changements arrivées dans le globe: Quand on a vu de ses yeux une montagne s’avancer dans une plaine, c’est-à-dire un immense rocher de cette montagne se détacher et couvrir des champs, un château tout entier enfoncé dans la terre, un fleuve englouti qui sort ensuite de son abîme, des marques indubitables qu’un vaste amas d’eau inondait autrefois un pays habité aujourd’hui, et cent vestiges d’autres révolutions, on est alors plus disposé à croire les grands changements qui ont altéré la face du monde, que ne l’est une dame de Paris qui sait seulement que la place où est bâtie sa maison était autrefois un champ labourable. Mais une dame de Naples, qui a vu sous terre les ruines d’Herculanum, est encore moins asservie au préjugé qui nous fait croire que tout a toujours été comme il est aujourd’hui.”
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Altered (32)  |  Amount (153)  |  Belief (615)  |  Bias (22)  |  Boulder (8)  |  Breaking (3)  |  Broken (56)  |  Built (7)  |  Buried (2)  |  Burst (41)  |  Castle (5)  |  Change (639)  |  Country (269)  |  Cover (40)  |  Covering (14)  |  Dire (6)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entire (50)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Everything (489)  |  Eye (440)  |  Field (378)  |  Flood (52)  |  Geologic History (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Herculaneum (4)  |  House (143)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inhabitation (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lady (12)  |  Land (131)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mark (47)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Move (223)  |  Naples (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paris (11)  |  Place (192)  |  Plain (34)  |  Plus (43)  |  River (140)  |  Rock (176)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Say (989)  |  Sinking (6)  |  Subject (543)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Today (321)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vestige (11)  |  Water (503)  |  Willing (44)

Consider the plight of a scientist of my age. I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1940. In the 41 years since then the amount of biological information has increased 16 fold; during these 4 decades my capacity to absorb new information has declined at an accelerating rate and now is at least 50% less than when I was a graduate student. If one defines ignorance as the ratio of what is available to be known to what is known, there seems no alternative to the conclusion that my ignorance is at least 25 times as extensive as it was when I got my bachelor’s degree. Although I am sure that my unfortunate condition comes as no surprise to my students and younger colleagues, I personally find it somewhat depressing. My depression is tempered, however, by the fact that all biologists, young or old, developing or senescing, face the same melancholy situation because of an interlocking set of circumstances.
In 'Scientific innovation and creativity: a zoologist’s point of view', American Zoologist (1982), 22, 228.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Accelerate (11)  |  Age (509)  |  Alternative (32)  |  Amount (153)  |  Available (80)  |  Bachelor (3)  |  Berkeley (3)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consider (428)  |  Decade (66)  |  Decline (28)  |  Define (53)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depressing (3)  |  Depression (26)  |  Develop (278)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fold (9)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Graduate Student (13)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Increase (225)  |  Information (173)  |  Interlocking (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Least (75)  |  Less (105)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Personally (7)  |  Plight (5)  |  Rate (31)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Same (166)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seem (150)  |  Set (400)  |  Situation (117)  |  Student (317)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Temper (12)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  University (130)  |  University Of California (2)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)  |  Younger (21)

Each species has evolved a special set of solutions to the general problems that all organisms must face. By the fact of its existence, a species demonstrates that its members are able to carry out adequately a series of general functions. … These general functions offer a framework within which one can integrate one’s view of biology and focus one’s research. Such a view helps one to avoid becoming lost in a morass of unstructured detail—even though the ways in which different species perform these functions may differ widely. A few obvious examples will suffice. Organisms must remain functionally integrated. They must obtain materials from their environments, and process and release energy from these materials. … They must differentiate and grow, and they must reproduce. By focusing one’s questions on one or another of these obligatory and universal capacities, one can ensure that one’s research will not be trivial and that it will have some chance of achieving broad general applicability.
In 'Integrative Biology: An Organismic Biologist’s Point of View', Integrative and Comparative Biology (2005), 45, 331.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Adequately (4)  |  Applicability (7)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Biology (232)  |  Broad (28)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Carry (130)  |  Chance (244)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Detail (150)  |  Differ (88)  |  Different (595)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Energy (373)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Example (98)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Focus (36)  |  Framework (33)  |  Function (235)  |  General (521)  |  Grow (247)  |  Help (116)  |  Integrate (8)  |  Integrated (10)  |  Lose (165)  |  Material (366)  |  Member (42)  |  Morass (2)  |  Must (1525)  |  Obligatory (3)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Offer (142)  |  Organism (231)  |  Perform (123)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Release (31)  |  Remain (355)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Research (753)  |  Series (153)  |  Set (400)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Suffice (7)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Universal (198)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Widely (9)  |  Will (2350)

Empirical sciences prosecuted purely for their own sake, and without philosophic tendency are like a face without eyes.
The World as Will and Idea translated by Richard Burdon Haldane Haldane, John Kemp (3rd. Ed.,1888), Vol. 2, 318-319.
Science quotes on:  |  Empirical (58)  |  Empirical Science (9)  |  Eye (440)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Prosecute (3)  |  Purely (111)  |  Sake (61)  |  Tendency (110)

Every living language, like the perspiring bodies of living creatures, is in perpetual motion and alteration; some words go off, and become obsolete; others are taken in, and by degrees grow into common use; or the same word is inverted to a new sense and notion, which in tract of time makes as observable a change in the air and features of a language as age makes in the lines and mien of a face.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Air (366)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Common (447)  |  Creature (242)  |  Degree (277)  |  Grow (247)  |  Language (308)  |  Living (492)  |  Motion (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Notion (120)  |  Observable (21)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Perpetual Motion (14)  |  Perspire (2)  |  Sense (785)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

Every physical fact, every expression of nature, every feature of the earth, the work of any and all of those agents which make the face of the world what it is, and as we see it, is interesting and instructive. Until we get hold of a group of physical facts, we do not know what practical bearings they may have, though right-minded men know that they contain many precious jewels, which science, or the expert hand of philosophy will not fail top bring out, polished, and bright, and beautifully adapted to man's purposes.
In The Physical Geography of the Sea (1855), 209-210. Maury was in particular referring to the potential use of deep-sea soundings.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Agent (73)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Bright (81)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Expert (67)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fail (191)  |  Feature (49)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Jewel (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Polish (17)  |  Practical (225)  |  Precious (43)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Right (473)  |  See (1094)  |  Top (100)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Everyone faces at all times two fateful possibilities: one is to grow older, the other not.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Grow (247)  |  Other (2233)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)

Exits sun; enters moon.
This moon is never alone.
Stars are seen all around.
These twinklers do not make a sound.
The tiny ones shine from their place.
Mother moon watches with a smiling face.
Its light is soothing to the eyes.
Night’s darkness hides its face.
Cool and calm is its light.
Heat and sweat are never felt.
Some days, moon is not seen.
Makes kids wonder, where had it been?
Partial eclipse shades the moon.
In summers it does not arrive soon.
Beautiful is this milky ball.
It is the love of one and all.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Ball (64)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Calm (32)  |  Cool (15)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Enter (145)  |  Exit (4)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feel (371)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hide (70)  |  Kid (18)  |  Light (635)  |  Love (328)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mother (116)  |  Never (1089)  |  Night (133)  |  Partial (10)  |  Place (192)  |  See (1094)  |  Shade (35)  |  Shine (49)  |  Smile (34)  |  Soon (187)  |  Soothing (3)  |  Sound (187)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Summer (56)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Watch (118)  |  Wonder (251)

Face this world. Learn its ways, watch it, be careful of too hasty guesses at its meaning. In the end you will find clues to it all.
In The Time Machine (1898), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Careful (28)  |  Clue (20)  |  End (603)  |  Find (1014)  |  Guess (67)  |  Hasty (7)  |  Learn (672)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Watch (118)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Facts are certainly the solid and true foundation of all sectors of nature study ... Reasoning must never find itself contradicting definite facts; but reasoning must allow us to distinguish, among facts that have been reported, those that we can fully believe, those that are questionable, and those that are false. It will not allow us to lend faith to those that are directly contrary to others whose certainty is known to us; it will not allow us to accept as true those that fly in the face of unquestionable principles.
Memoires pour Servir a l'Histoire des Insectes (1736), Vol. 2, xxxiv. Quoted in Jacques Roger, The Life Sciences in Eighteenth-Century French Thought, ed. Keith R. Benson and trans. Robert Ellrich (1997), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Belief (615)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Definite (114)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faith (209)  |  Falsity (16)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fly (153)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Known (453)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Questionable (3)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Report (42)  |  Sector (7)  |  Solid (119)  |  Solidity (3)  |  Study (701)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unquestionable (10)  |  Will (2350)

Feeling weightless… it’s so many things together. A feeling of pride, of healthy solitude, of dignified freedom from everything that’s dirty, sticky. You feel exquisitely comfortable . . . and you feel you have so much energy, such an urge to do things, such an ability to do things. And you work well, yes, you think well, without sweat, without difficulty as if the biblical curse in the sweat of thy face and in sorrow no longer exists, As if you’ve been born again.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Bear (162)  |  Bible (105)  |  Comfortable (13)  |  Curse (20)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Dirty (17)  |  Do (1905)  |  Energy (373)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exist (458)  |  Exquisitely (2)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Long (778)  |  Pride (84)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thou (9)  |  Together (392)  |  Urge (17)  |  Work (1402)

For all these years you were merely
A smear of light through our telescopes
On the clearest, coldest night; a hint
Of a glint, just a few pixels wide
On even your most perfectly-framed portraits.
But now, now we see you!
Swimming out of the dark - a great
Stone shark, your star-tanned skin pitted
And pocked, scarred after eons of drifting
Silently through the endless ocean of space.
Here on Earth our faces lit up as we saw
You clearly for the first time; eyes wide
With wonder we traced the strangely familiar
Grooves raked across your sides,
Wondering if Rosetta had doubled back to Mars
And raced past Phobos by mistake –
Then you were gone, falling back into the black,
Not to be seen by human eyes again for a thousand
Blue Moons or more. But we know you now,
We know you; you’ll never be just a speck of light again.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Back (395)  |  Black (46)  |  Blue (63)  |  Clear (111)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Cold (115)  |  Dark (145)  |  Double (18)  |  Drift (14)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endless (60)  |  Eon (12)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fall (243)  |  Familiar (47)  |  First (1302)  |  First Time (14)  |  Glint (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Groove (3)  |  Hint (21)  |  Human (1512)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Mars (47)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  Night (133)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Past (355)  |  Pit (20)  |  Pixel (2)  |  Portrait (5)  |  Race (278)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scar (8)  |  See (1094)  |  Shark (11)  |  Side (236)  |  Silently (4)  |  Skin (48)  |  Smear (3)  |  Space (523)  |  Speck (25)  |  Star (460)  |  Stone (168)  |  Strangely (5)  |  Swim (32)  |  Swimming (19)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Year (963)

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know…
Bible
In The Bible, King James Version, 1 Corinthians 13:12.
Science quotes on:  |  Dark (145)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Face To Face (4)  |  Glass (94)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  See (1094)  |  Through (846)

For the environmentalists, The Space Option is the ultimate environmental solution. For the Cornucopians, it is the technological fix that they are relying on. For the hard core space community, the obvious by-product would be the eventual exploration and settlement of the solar system. For most of humanity however, the ultimate benefit is having a realistic hope in a future with possibilities.... If our species does not soon embrace this unique opportunity with sufficient commitment, it may miss its one and only chance to do so. Humanity could soon be overwhelmed by one or more of the many challenges it now faces. The window of opportunity is closing as fast as the population is increasing. Our future will be either a Space Age or a Stone Age.
Arthur Woods and Marco Bernasconi
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Benefit (123)  |  By-Product (8)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Chance (244)  |  Close (77)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Community (111)  |  Core (20)  |  Do (1905)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Environment (239)  |  Environmentalist (7)  |  Eventual (9)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Fast (49)  |  Fix (34)  |  Future (467)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Increase (225)  |  Miss (51)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Option (10)  |  Overwhelm (5)  |  Overwhelmed (6)  |  Population (115)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Product (166)  |  Realistic (6)  |  Rely (12)  |  Settlement (3)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Solution (282)  |  Soon (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Age (4)  |  Species (435)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  System (545)  |  Technological (62)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unique (72)  |  Will (2350)  |  Window (59)

For they are not given to idleness, nor go in a proud habit, or plush and velvet garments, often showing their rings upon their fingers, or wearing swords with silver hilts by their sides, or fine and gay gloves upon their hands, but diligently follow their labours, sweating whole days and nights by their furnaces. They do not spend their time abroad for recreation, but take delight in their laboratory. They wear leather garments with a pouch, and an apron wherewith they wipe their hands. They put their fingers amongst coals, into clay, and filth, not into gold rings. They are sooty and black like smiths and colliers, and do not pride themselves upon clean and beautiful faces.
As translated in Paracelsus and Arthur Edward Waite (ed.), The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus (1894, 1976), Vol. 1, 167.
Science quotes on:  |  Abroad (19)  |  Apron (2)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Blacksmith (5)  |  Clay (11)  |  Clean (52)  |  Coal (64)  |  Day And Night (3)  |  Delight (111)  |  Diligence (22)  |  Do (1905)  |  Filth (5)  |  Follow (389)  |  Furnace (13)  |  Garment (13)  |  Glove (4)  |  Gold (101)  |  Habit (174)  |  Idleness (15)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Leather (4)  |  Pride (84)  |  Recreation (23)  |  Ring (18)  |  Side (236)  |  Silver (49)  |  Soot (11)  |  Spend (97)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Sword (16)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Velvet (4)  |  Wear (20)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wipe (6)

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Give (208)  |  God (776)

He [Robert Hooke] is but of midling stature, something crooked, pale faced, and his face but little belowe, but his head is lardge; his eie full and popping, and not quick; a grey eie. He haz a delicate head of haire, browne, and of an excellent moist curle. He is and ever was very temperate, and moderate in dyet, etc. As he is of prodigious inventive head, so is a person of great vertue and goodnes. Now when I have sayd his Inventive faculty is so great, you cannot imagine his Memory to be excellent, for they are like two Bucketts, as one goes up, the other goes downe. He is certainly the greatest Mechanick this day in the World.
Brief Lives (1680), edited by Oliver Lawson Dick (1949), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Robert Hooke (20)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Little (717)  |  Memory (144)  |  Moist (13)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Prodigious (20)  |  Something (718)  |  Two (936)  |  World (1850)

He saw virus particles shaped like snakes, in negative images. They were white cobras tangled among themselves, like the hair of Medusa. They were the face of nature herself, the obscene goddess revealed naked. This life form thing was breathtakingly beautiful. As he stared at it, he found himself being pulled out of the human world into a world where moral boundaries blur and finally dissolve completely. He was lost in wonder and admiration, even though he knew that he was the prey.
The Hot Zone
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blur (8)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Cobra (2)  |  Completely (137)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Finally (26)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Goddess (9)  |  Hair (25)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Image (97)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life Form (6)  |  Lose (165)  |  Moral (203)  |  Naked (10)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Negative (66)  |  Obscene (3)  |  Particle (200)  |  Prey (13)  |  Pull (43)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Shape (77)  |  Snake (29)  |  Star (460)  |  Stare (9)  |  Tangle (8)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Virus (32)  |  White (132)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.
On Aggression, trans. M. Latzke (1966), 260.
Science quotes on:  |  Culture (157)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Historian (59)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Selection (130)  |  Species (435)  |  Will (2350)

I am concerned about the air we breathe and the water we drink. If overfishing continues, if pollution continues, many of these species will disappear off the face of the earth.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Air Pollution (13)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Continue (179)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Drink (56)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Face Of The Earth (5)  |  Fish (130)  |  Ocean Pollution (10)  |  Overfishing (27)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Species (435)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Pollution (17)  |  Will (2350)

I am the family face:
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.
'Heredity'. In James Gibson (ed.), The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy (1976), 434.
Science quotes on:  |  Family (101)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Live (650)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)

I am truly a ‘lone traveler’ and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Country (269)  |  Distance (171)  |  Family (101)  |  Friend (180)  |  Heart (243)  |  Home (184)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Lone (3)  |  Lose (165)  |  Need (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Tie (42)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Truly (118)  |  Whole (756)

I attained a triumph so complete that it is now rare to meet an American with marks of small pox on his face... Benefits are valuable according to their duration and extent, like the showers from heaven, but the benign remedy Vaccination saves millions of lives every century, like the blessing of the sun, universal and everlasting.
(Remark made near the end of his life.)
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Attain (126)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Biography (254)  |  Blessing (26)  |  Century (319)  |  Complete (209)  |  End (603)  |  Extent (142)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Rare (94)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Save (126)  |  Small (489)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Sun (407)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Universal (198)  |  Vaccination (7)

I can hear the sizzle of newborn stars, and know anything of meaning, of the fierce magic emerging here. I am witness to flexible eternity, the evolving past, and I know we will live forever, as dust or breathe in the face of stars, in the shifting pattern of winds.
In Secrets from the Center of the World (1989), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Breathe (49)  |  Dust (68)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fierce (8)  |  Flexible (7)  |  Forever (111)  |  Hear (144)  |  Know (1538)  |  Live (650)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Newborn (5)  |  Past (355)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Shift (45)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Witness (57)

I can see him now at the blackboard, chalk in one hand and rubber in the other, writing rapidly and erasing recklessly, pausing every few minutes to face the class and comment earnestly, perhaps on the results of an elaborate calculation, perhaps on the greatness of the Creator, perhaps on the beauty and grandeur of Mathematics, always with a capital M. To him mathematics was not the handmaid of philosophy. It was not a humanly devised instrument of investigation, it was Philosophy itself, the divine revealer of TRUTH.
Writing as a Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, a former student of Peirce, in 'Benjamin Peirce: II. Reminiscences', The American Mathematical Monthly (Jan 1925), 32, No. 1, 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Blackboard (11)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Capital (16)  |  Chalk (9)  |  Class (168)  |  Comment (12)  |  Creator (97)  |  Devised (3)  |  Divine (112)  |  Earnestly (4)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Handmaid (6)  |  Humanly (4)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Mathematical Beauty (19)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Minute (129)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Recklessly (2)  |  Result (700)  |  Rubber (11)  |  See (1094)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Writing (192)

Sigmund Freud quote: I cannot face with comfort the idea of life without work; work and the free play of the imagination are for
I cannot face with comfort the idea of life without work; work and the free play of the imagination are for me the same thing, I take no pleasure in anything else.
Letter to Oskar Pfister, 3 Jun 1910. Quoted in H. Meng and E. Freud (eds.), Psycho-Analysis and Faith: The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister (1963), 146.
Science quotes on:  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Free (239)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Life (1870)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Work (1402)

I find in Geology a never failing interest, as [it] has been remarked, it creates the same gran[d] ideas respecting this world, which Astronomy do[es] for the universe.—We have seen much fine scenery that of the Tropics in its glory & luxuriance, exceeds even the language of Humboldt to describe. A Persian writer could alone do justice to it, & if he succeeded he would in England, be called the 'grandfather of all liars'.— But I have seen nothing, which more completely astonished me, than the first sight of a Savage; It was a naked Fuegian his long hair blowing about, his face besmeared with paint. There is in their countenances, an expression, which I believe to those who have not seen it, must be inconceivably wild. Standing on a rock he uttered tones & made gesticulations than which, the cries of domestic animals are far more intelligible.
Letter to Charles Whitley, 23 July 1834. In F. Burkhardt and S. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin 1821-1836 (1985), Vol. I, 397.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Blowing (22)  |  Call (781)  |  Completely (137)  |  Countenance (9)  |  Create (245)  |  Describe (132)  |  Do (1905)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Expression (181)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Geology (240)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinan von Humboldt (5)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Interest (416)  |  Justice (40)  |  Language (308)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Persian (4)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sight (135)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Tone (22)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wild (96)  |  World (1850)  |  Writer (90)

I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude–a feeling which increases with the years.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Country (269)  |  Detachment (8)  |  Family (101)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Friend (180)  |  Gang (4)  |  Heart (243)  |  Home (184)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Increase (225)  |  Lose (165)  |  Need (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obstinate (5)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Tie (42)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

I have from my childhood, in conformity with the precepts of a mother void of all imaginary fear, been in the constant habit of taking toads in my hand, and applying them to my nose and face as it may happen. My motive for doing this very frequently is to inculcate the opinion I have held, since I was told by my mother, that the toad is actually a harmless animal; and to whose manner of life man is certainly under some obligation as its food is chiefly those insects which devour his crops and annoy him in various ways.
Letter to an unknown correspondent, quoted by Bowdler Sharpe, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1900), Vol. 1, 69. In Averil M. Lysaght, Joseph Banks in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1766: his Diary, Manuscripts, and Collections (1971), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Annoyance (4)  |  Biography (254)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Conformity (15)  |  Constant (148)  |  Crop (26)  |  Devour (29)  |  Doing (277)  |  Fear (212)  |  Food (213)  |  Habit (174)  |  Happen (282)  |  Harmless (9)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inculcate (7)  |  Insect (89)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mother (116)  |  Motive (62)  |  Nose (14)  |  Obligation (26)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Precept (10)  |  Toad (10)  |  Various (205)  |  Void (31)  |  Way (1214)

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves–this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts–possessions, outward success, luxury–have always seemed to me contemptible.
In 'What I Believe,' Forum and Century (1930).
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Basis (180)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Call (781)  |  Cheerfully (2)  |  Contemptible (8)  |  Courage (82)  |  Critical (73)  |  Ease (40)  |  Effort (243)  |  Empty (82)  |  End (603)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Eternally (4)  |  Field (378)  |  Give (208)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Kindness (14)  |  Kinship (5)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  Luxury (21)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Objective (96)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Outward (7)  |  Possession (68)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sense (785)  |  Success (327)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trite (5)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unattainable (6)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

I have no doubt that the fundamental problem the planet faces is the enormous increase in the human population. You see it overrunning everywhere. Places that were very remote when I went there 50 years ago are now overrun.
From interview with Michael Bond, 'It’s a Wonderful Life', New Scientist (14 Dec 2002), 176, No. 2373, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Doubt (314)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Human (1512)  |  Increase (225)  |  Overpopulation (6)  |  Planet (402)  |  Population (115)  |  Problem (731)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Year (963)

I once lodged in Hanover in a room whose window gave on to a narrow Street which formed a communicating link between two bigger streets. It was very pleasant to see how people's faces changed when they entered the little Street, where they thought they were less observed; how here one pissed, there another fixed her garter, one gave way to private laughter and another shook his head. Girls thought with a smile of the night before and adjusted their ribbons for conquests in the big Street ahead.
Aphorism 19 in Notebook C (1772-1773), as translated by R.J. Hollingdale in Aphorisms (1990). Reprinted as The Waste Books (2000), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Conquest (31)  |  Enter (145)  |  Form (976)  |  Girl (38)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Little (717)  |  Lodging (2)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  People (1031)  |  Ribbon (2)  |  See (1094)  |  Smile (34)  |  Street (25)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Window (59)

I prefer not to eat food that has a face.
'Holy cow! We’re crazy to farm livestock like this', in The Times (16 Oct 2007)
Science quotes on:  |  Eat (108)  |  Food (213)  |  Meat (19)  |  Vegetarian (13)

I read in the proof sheets of Hardy on Ramanujan: “As someone said, each of the positive integers was one of his personal friends.” My reaction was, “I wonder who said that; I wish I had.” In the next proof-sheets I read (what now stands), “It was Littlewood who said…”. What had happened was that Hardy had received the remark in silence and with poker face, and I wrote it off as a dud.
In Béla Bollobás (ed.), Littlewood’s Miscellany, (1986), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Friend (180)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  G. H. Hardy (71)  |  Integer (12)  |  Next (238)  |  Personal (75)  |  Positive (98)  |  Proof (304)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Read (308)  |  Remark (28)  |  Say (989)  |  Sheet (8)  |  Silence (62)  |  Stand (284)  |  Wish (216)  |  Wonder (251)

I think each individual is never a plane but a polyhedron. Naturally, whenever a ray of light falls on a face, a vertex, an edge of this polyhedron; the arc that it reflects is undoubtedly variable, very complex and single or multicoloured. I don’t believe in plane men, I think we’re all multiple. We don’t have a double life, we have a multiple life. However, it is no less true that we’re thought to have a common denominator. I think I am or I aspire to be an honest man that tries not to bother too many people in this valley of tears.
From Cela Foundation biography webpage.
Science quotes on:  |  Arc (14)  |  Aspire (15)  |  Belief (615)  |  Bother (8)  |  Complex (202)  |  Double (18)  |  Edge (51)  |  Fall (243)  |  Honest (53)  |  Individual (420)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Multiple (19)  |  People (1031)  |  Plane (22)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Single (365)  |  Tear (48)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  True (239)  |  Valley (37)  |  Variable (37)  |  Vortex (10)

If a little less time was devoted to the translation of letters by Julius Caesar describing Britain 2000 years ago and a little more time was spent on teaching children how to describe (in simple modern English) the method whereby ethylene was converted into polythene in 1933 in the ICI laboratories at Northwich, and to discussing the enormous social changes which have resulted from this discovery, then I believe that we should be training future leaders in this country to face the world of tomorrow far more effectively than we are at the present time.
Quoted in an Obituary, D. P. Craig, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (1972), 18, 461.
Science quotes on:  |  2000 (15)  |  Britain (26)  |  Caesar_Julius (2)  |  Change (639)  |  Children (201)  |  Conversion (17)  |  Country (269)  |  Describe (132)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Education (423)  |  Future (467)  |  History (716)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Leader (51)  |  Letter (117)  |  Little (717)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Obituary (11)  |  Politician (40)  |  Present (630)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Science And Society (25)  |  Simple (426)  |  Social (261)  |  Spent (85)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Training (92)  |  Translation (21)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

If that's how it all started, then we might as well face the fact that what's left out there is a great deal of shrapnel and a whole bunch of cinders (one of which is, fortunately, still hot enough and close enough to be good for tanning). Trying to find some sense and order in this mess may be as futile as trying to … reconstruct the economy of Iowa from a bowl of popcorn. [On searching for evidence of the Big Bang.]
From essay 'First Person Secular: Blocking the Gates to Heaven', Mother Jones Magazine (Jun 1986), 48. Collected in The Worst Years of our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed (1995), 267.
Science quotes on:  |  Bang (29)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Bowl (4)  |  Bunch (7)  |  Cinder (6)  |  Close (77)  |  Deal (192)  |  Economy (59)  |  Enough (341)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Futile (13)  |  Futility (7)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hot (63)  |  Left (15)  |  Mess (14)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin Of The Universe (20)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Sense (785)  |  Start (237)  |  Still (614)  |  Tanning (3)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)

If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.
This is regarded as probably NOT a quote by Einstein.
This is something Einstein most probably did NOT say! Since scholarly search for this quote has thus far found no reliable source for it, it must at least be classed as undetermined. Furthermore, since its first appearance is 40 years after his death, in dubious context for authenticity, it deserves to be regarded as spurious. See snopes.com article. It is added here to serve as a caution to the reader.
Science quotes on:  |  Bee (44)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Face Of The Earth (5)  |  Four (6)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Only (2)  |  Quote (46)  |  Regard (312)  |  Year (963)  |  Years (5)

If we drove an automobile the way we try to run civilization, I think we would face backwards, looking through the back window, admiring where we came from, and not caring where we are going. If you want a good life you must look to the future. … I think it is all right to have courses in history. But history is the “gonest” thing in the world. … Let’s keep history, but let’s take a small part of the time and study where we are going. … We can do something about the unmade history.
As quoted in book review, T.A. Boyd, 'Charles F. Kettering: Prophet of Progress', Science (30 Jan 1959), 256.
Science quotes on:  |  Automobile (23)  |  Back (395)  |  Backwards (18)  |  Caring (6)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Future (467)  |  Good (906)  |  History (716)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Must (1525)  |  Right (473)  |  Run (158)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Window (59)  |  World (1850)

If we use resources productively and take to heart the lessons learned from coping with the energy crisis, we face a future confronted only, as Pogo, once said, by insurmountable opportunities. The many crises facing us should be seen, then, not as threats, but as chances to remake the future so it serves all beings.
Utne Reader (Nov-Dec 1989).
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Chance (244)  |  Confront (18)  |  Coping (4)  |  Crisis (25)  |  Energy (373)  |  Future (467)  |  Heart (243)  |  Insurmountable (3)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Productive (37)  |  Resource (74)  |  Serve (64)  |  Threat (36)  |  Use (771)

If you ask a person, “What were you thinking?” you may get an answer that is richer and more revealing of the human condition than any stream of thoughts a novelist could invent. I try to see through people’s faces into their minds and listen through their words into their lives, and what I find there is beyond imagining.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Condition (362)  |  Find (1014)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Condition (6)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Invent (57)  |  Listen (81)  |  Live (650)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Novelist (9)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Rich (66)  |  See (1094)  |  Stream (83)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Try (296)  |  Word (650)

In a strange way, Marcion understood the situation better than the more conventional followers of the church, for Lucifer is merely one of the faces of a larger force. Evil is a by-product, a component, of creation.
In 'Who is Lucifer?', The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History (1997), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  By-Product (8)  |  Church (64)  |  Component (51)  |  Conventional (31)  |  Creation (350)  |  Evil (122)  |  Follower (11)  |  Force (497)  |  Lucifer (2)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Product (166)  |  Situation (117)  |  Strange (160)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Way (1214)

In acute diseases the physician must conduct his inquiries in the following way. First he must examine the face of the patient, and see whether it is like the faces of healthy people, and especially whether it is like its usual self. Such likeness will be the best sign, and the greatest unlikeness will be the most dangerous sign. The latter will be as follows. Nose sharp, eyes hollow, temples sunken, ears cold and contracted with their lobes turned outwards, the skin about the face hard and tense and parched, the colour of the face as a whole being yellow or black.
Prognostic, in Hippocrates, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1923), Vol. 2, 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Cold (115)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Diagnosis (65)  |  Disease (340)  |  Ear (69)  |  Examine (84)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hard (246)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Patient (209)  |  People (1031)  |  Physician (284)  |  See (1094)  |  Self (268)  |  Skin (48)  |  Temple (45)  |  Turn (454)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Yellow (31)

In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer’s saying, that ‘a man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants,’ has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others. This feeling mercifully not only mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralysing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humour, above all, has its due place.
In The World As I See It (1934), 238.
Science quotes on:  |  Accordance (10)  |  Act (278)  |  Become (821)  |  Compulsion (19)  |  Conduce (2)  |  Consolation (9)  |  Continual (44)  |  Definitely (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Due (143)  |  Easily (36)  |  Everybody (72)  |  External (62)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Hardship (4)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humour (116)  |  Inner (72)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mitigate (5)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Patience (58)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Place (192)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Say (989)  |  Schopenhauer (6)  |  Schopenhauers (2)  |  Sense (785)  |  Seriously (20)  |  Spring (140)  |  Unfailing (6)  |  View (496)  |  View Of Life (7)  |  Will (2350)  |  Youth (109)

In light of new knowledge ... an eventual world state is not just desirable in the name of brotherhood, it is necessary for survival ... Today we must abandon competition and secure cooperation. This must be the central fact in all our considerations of international affairs; otherwise we face certain disaster. Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Affair (29)  |  Brotherhood (6)  |  Central (81)  |  Certain (557)  |  Competition (45)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Eventual (9)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Future (467)  |  International (40)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Past (355)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Secure (23)  |  State (505)  |  Survival (105)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Today (321)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)

In our way of life … with every decision we make, we always keep in mind the seventh generation of children to come. … When we walk upon Mother Earth, we always plant our feet carefully, because we know that the faces of future generations are looking up at us from beneath the ground. We never forget them.
Earth Day Pledge (1993)
Science quotes on:  |  Beneath (68)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Decision (98)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Foot (65)  |  Forget (125)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Ground (222)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mother (116)  |  Never (1089)  |  Plant (320)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Way Of Life (15)

In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth … Which beginning of time, according to our Cronologie, fell upon the entrance of the night preceding the twenty third day of Octob. in the year of the Julian Calendar, 710 [or 4004 B.C.]. Upon the first day therefore of the world, or Octob. 23. being our Sunday, God, together with the highest Heaven, created the Angels. Then having finished, as it were, the roofe of this building, he fell in hand with the foundation of this wonderfull Fabrick of the World, he fashioned this lowermost Globe, consisting of the Deep, and of the Earth; all the Quire of Angels singing together and magnifying his name therefore … And when the Earth was void and without forme, and darknesse covered the face of the Deepe, on the very middle of the first day, the light was created; which God severing from the darknesses, called the one day, and the other night.
In 'Annals of the Old Testament', The Annals of the World (1658), excerpted in Louis A. Ruprecht, God Gardened East: A Gardener's Meditation on the Dynamics of Genesis (2008), 53-54.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Angel (47)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Building (158)  |  Calendar (9)  |  Call (781)  |  Creation (350)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Day (43)  |  Deep (241)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entrance (16)  |  Fabric (27)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Globe (51)  |  God (776)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnifying (2)  |  Name (359)  |  Night (133)  |  October (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Roof (14)  |  Singing (19)  |  Sunday (8)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Void (31)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

In the beginning God created the heaven and earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. … God said, “Let there be a vault in the waters to divide the waters in two.” And so it was. God made the vault, and it divided the waters above the vault from the waters under the vault. God called the vault “heaven.”
Bible
Genesis 1:1 in The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments Translated Out of the Original Tongues. Printed for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge (1895), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Call (781)  |  Creation (350)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Deep (241)  |  Divide (77)  |  Divided (50)  |  Earth (1076)  |  God (776)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Two (936)  |  Void (31)  |  Waste (109)  |  Water (503)

In the case of the Sun, we have a new understanding of the cosmological meaning of sacrifice. The Sun is, with each second, transforming four million tons of itself into light—giving itself over to become energy that we, with every meal, partake of. The Sun converts itself into a flow of energy that photosynthesis changes into plants that are consumed by animals. Humans have been feasting on the Sun’s energy stored in the form of wheat or maize or reindeer as each day the Sun dies as Sun and is reborn as the vitality of Earth. These solar flares are in fact the very power of the vast human enterprise. Every child of ours needs to learn the simple truth: she is the energy of the Sun. And we adults should organize things so her face shines with the same radiant joy.
In The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story (1996), 40-41.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Child (333)  |  Consume (13)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Die (94)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flow (89)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Joy (117)  |  Learn (672)  |  Light (635)  |  Maize (4)  |  Meal (19)  |  Meaning (244)  |  New (1273)  |  Organize (33)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Radiant (15)  |  Reborn (2)  |  Reindeer (2)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Same (166)  |  Shine (49)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solar Flare (2)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Ton (25)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vitality (24)  |  Wheat (10)

In the field one has to face a chaos of facts, some of which are so small that they seem insignificant; others loom so large that they are hard to encompass with one synthetic glance. But in this crude form they are not scientific facts at all; they are absolutely elusive, and can be fixed only by interpretation, by seeing them sub specie aeternitatis, by grasping what is essential in them and fixing this. Only laws and gerneralizations are scientific facts, and field work consists only and exclusively in the interpretation of the chaotic social reality, in subordinating it to general rules.
Baloma (1954), 238.
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Consist (223)  |  Crude (32)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Field (378)  |  Field Work (2)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Glance (36)  |  Hard (246)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Loom (20)  |  Other (2233)  |  Reality (274)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Small (489)  |  Social (261)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Work (1402)

In the twenties the late Dr. Glenn Frank, an eminent social scientist, developed a new statement of the scientific code, which has been referred to as the “Five Fingers of the Scientific Method.” It may be outlined as follows: find the facts; filter the facts; focus the facts; face the facts; follow the facts. The facts or truths are found by experimentation; the motivation is material. The facts are filtered by research into the literature; the motivation is material. The facts are focused by the publication of results; again the motivation is material. Thus the first three-fifths of the scientific method have a material motivation. It is about time scientists acknowledge that there is more to the scientific convention than the material aspect. Returning to the fourth and fifth fingers of Dr. Frank's conception of the scientific method, the facts should be faced by the proper interpretation of them for society. In other words, a scientist must assume social responsibility for his discoveries, which means that he must have a moral motivation. Finally, in the fifth definition of the scientific method, the facts are to be followed by their proper application to everyday life in society, which means moral motivation through responsibility to society.
From 'Scientists and Society', American Scientist (Jul 1954), 42, No. 3, 495.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Acknowledgment (13)  |  Application (257)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Code (31)  |  Conception (160)  |  Definition (238)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everyday Life (15)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Filter (10)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Focus (36)  |  Follow (389)  |  Glenn Frank (3)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Late (119)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literature (116)  |  Material (366)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Motivation (28)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proper (150)  |  Publication (102)  |  Research (753)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Responsibility (3)  |  Social Scientist (5)  |  Society (350)  |  Statement (148)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Word (650)

Investigators are commonly said to be engaged in a search for the truth. I think they themselves would usually state their aims less pretentiously. What the experimenter is really trying to do is to learn whether facts can be established which will be recognized as facts by others and which will support some theory that in imagination he has projected. But he must be ingenuously honest. He must face facts as they arise in the course of experimental procedure, whether they are favourable to his idea or not. In doing this he must be ready to surrender his theory at any time if the facts are adverse to it.
The Way of an Investigator: A Scientist's Experiences in Medical Research (1945), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Arise (162)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Honest (53)  |  Honesty (29)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Learn (672)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Project (77)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Search (175)  |  State (505)  |  Support (151)  |  Surrender (21)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Trying (144)  |  Usually (176)  |  Will (2350)

It did not cause anxiety that Maxwell’s equations did not apply to gravitation, since nobody expected to find any link between electricity and gravitation at that particular level. But now physics was faced with an entirely new situation. The same entity, light, was at once a wave and a particle. How could one possibly imagine its proper size and shape? To produce interference it must be spread out, but to bounce off electrons it must be minutely localized. This was a fundamental dilemma, and the stalemate in the wave-photon battle meant that it must remain an enigma to trouble the soul of every true physicist. It was intolerable that light should be two such contradictory things. It was against all the ideals and traditions of science to harbor such an unresolved dualism gnawing at its vital parts. Yet the evidence on either side could not be denied, and much water was to flow beneath the bridges before a way out of the quandary was to be found. The way out came as a result of a brilliant counterattack initiated by the wave theory, but to tell of this now would spoil the whole story. It is well that the reader should appreciate through personal experience the agony of the physicists of the period. They could but make the best of it, and went around with woebegone faces sadly complaining that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays they must look on light as a wave; on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, as a particle. On Sundays they simply prayed.
The Strange Story of the Quantum (1947), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Agony (7)  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Apply (170)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Best (467)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Cause (561)  |  Dilemma (11)  |  Dualism (4)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electron (96)  |  Enigma (16)  |  Entity (37)  |  Equation (138)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Interference (22)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Particle (200)  |  Period (200)  |  Photon (11)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Proper (150)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Remain (355)  |  Result (700)  |  Saturday (11)  |  Side (236)  |  Situation (117)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spread (86)  |  Story (122)  |  Tell (344)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Two (936)  |  Vital (89)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)

It has become, in my view, a bit too trendy to regard the acceptance of death as something tantamount to intrinsic dignity. Of course I agree with the preacher of Ecclesiastes that there is a time to love and a time to die - and when my skein runs out I hope to face the end calmly and in my own way. For most situations, however, I prefer the more martial view that death is the ultimate enemy - and I find nothing reproachable in those who rage mightily against the dying of the light.
Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections on Natural History (1991).
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Against (332)  |  Become (821)  |  Biography (254)  |  Course (413)  |  Death (406)  |  Dignity (44)  |  End (603)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hope (321)  |  Intrinsic (18)  |  Light (635)  |  Love (328)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Preacher (13)  |  Regard (312)  |  Run (158)  |  Situation (117)  |  Something (718)  |  Time (1911)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)

It has the property of detonating very violently in certain circumstances. On one occasion a small amount of ether solution of pyroglycerin condensed in a glass bowl. ... When the bowl was heated over a spirit lamp, an extremely violent explosion occurred, which shattered it into small fragments. On another occasion a drop was heated in a test-tube, and exploded with such violence that the glass splinters cut deep into my face and hands, and hurt other people who were standing some distance off in the room.
[Describing early experiments on his discovery of nitroglycerin.]
From speech to the Royal Academy of Turin (1847). In Robert Shaplen, 'Annals of Science, Adventures of a Pacifist,' The New Yorker (15 Mar 1958), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Amount (153)  |  Certain (557)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Cut (116)  |  Deep (241)  |  Detonation (2)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distance (171)  |  Drop (77)  |  Early (196)  |  Ether (37)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Exploded (11)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Glass (94)  |  Heat (180)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Property (177)  |  Shattered (8)  |  Small (489)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Test (221)  |  Test Tube (13)  |  Violence (37)

It is common wonder of all men, how among so many millions of faces, there should be none alike.
Religio Medici (1642), Part 2, Section 2. In L. C. Martin (ed.), Thomas Browne: Religio Medki and Other Works (1964), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Common (447)  |  Man (2252)  |  Wonder (251)

It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.
The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (1977, 1993), 154.
Science quotes on:  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Cold (115)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Condition (362)  |  Early (196)  |  Endless (60)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Future (467)  |  Heat (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Pointless (7)  |  Present (630)  |  Realize (157)  |  Unfamiliar (17)  |  Universe (900)

It is for such inquiries the modern naturalist collects his materials; it is for this that he still wants to add to the apparently boundless treasures of our national museums, and will never rest satisfied as long as the native country, the geographical distribution, and the amount of variation of any living thing remains imperfectly known. He looks upon every species of animal and plant now living as the individual letters which go to make up one of the volumes of our earth’s history; and, as a few lost letters may make a sentence unintelligible, so the extinction of the numerous forms of life which the progress of cultivation invariably entails will necessarily render obscure this invaluable record of the past. It is, therefore, an important object, which governments and scientific institutions should immediately take steps to secure, that in all tropical countries colonised by Europeans the most perfect collections possible in every branch of natural history should be made and deposited in national museums, where they may be available for study and interpretation. If this is not done, future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations. They will charge us with having culpably allowed the destruction of some of those records of Creation which we had it in our power to preserve; and while professing to regard every living thing as the direct handiwork and best evidence of a Creator, yet, with a strange inconsistency, seeing many of them perish irrecoverably from the face of the earth, uncared for and unknown.
In 'On the Physical Geography of the Malay Archipelago', Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1863), 33, 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Age (509)  |  Allowed (3)  |  Amount (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apparently (22)  |  Available (80)  |  Back (395)  |  Best (467)  |  Blind (98)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Branch (155)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Charge (63)  |  Collect (19)  |  Collection (68)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Country (269)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Direct (228)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entail (4)  |  European (5)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Geographical (6)  |  Government (116)  |  Handiwork (6)  |  Higher (37)  |  History (716)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Imperfectly (2)  |  Important (229)  |  Inconsistency (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Institution (73)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Invaluable (11)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Known (453)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Lost (34)  |  Made (14)  |  Material (366)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Museum (40)  |  National (29)  |  Native (41)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Never (1089)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Object (438)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perish (56)  |  Person (366)  |  Plant (320)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Professing (2)  |  Progress (492)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Record (161)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remain (355)  |  Render (96)  |  Rest (287)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Secure (23)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Species (435)  |  Step (234)  |  Still (614)  |  Strange (160)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Tropical (9)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Variation (93)  |  Volume (25)  |  Want (504)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Will (2350)

It is not the conscience which raises a blush, for a man may sincerely regret some slight fault committed in solitude, or he may suffer the deepest remorse for an undetected crime, but he will not blush... It is not the sense of guilt, but the thought that others think or know us to be guilty which crimsons the face.
The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals
Science quotes on:  |  Blush (3)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Crime (39)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Fault (58)  |  Guilt (13)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Other (2233)  |  Regret (31)  |  Remorse (9)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Will (2350)

It is well to observe the force and virtue and consequence of discoveries, and these are to be seen nowhere more conspicuously than in those three which were unknown to the ancients, and of which the origins, although recent, are obscure and inglorious; namely, printing, gunpowder, and the magnet. For these three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, insomuch that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 129. 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, 114.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Change (639)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Exert (40)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Force (497)  |  Greater (288)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Human (1512)  |  Influence (231)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Invention (400)  |  Literature (116)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Observe (179)  |  Origin (250)  |  Power (771)  |  Printing (25)  |  Recent (78)  |  Star (460)  |  State (505)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Warfare (12)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

It seems as though no laws, not even fairly old ones, can safely be regarded as unassailable. The force of gravity, which we have always ascribed to the “pull of the earth,” was reinterpreted the other day by a scientist who says that when we fall it is not earth pulling us, it is heaven pushing us. This blasts the rock on which we sit. If science can do a rightabout-face on a thing as fundamental as gravity, maybe Newton was a sucker not to have just eaten the apple.
In 'Talk of the Town,', The New Yorker (3 Apr 1937). As cited in Martha White (ed.), In the Words of E.B. White (2011), 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Apple (46)  |  Blast (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eat (108)  |  Fall (243)  |  Force (497)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Gravity (16)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pull (43)  |  Push (66)  |  Regard (312)  |  Reinterpret (2)  |  Rock (176)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sucker (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unassailable (3)

It was badly received by the generation to which it was first addressed, and the outpouring of angry nonsense to which it gave rise is sad to think upon. But the present generation will probably behave just as badly if another Darwin should arise, and inflict upon them that which the generality of mankind most hate—the necessity of revising their convictions. Let them, then, be charitable to us ancients; and if they behave no better than the men of my day to some new benefactor, let them recollect that, after all, our wrath did not come to much, and vented itself chiefly in the bad language of sanctimonious scolds. Let them as speedily perform a strategic right-about-face, and follow the truth wherever it leads.
'On the Reception of the Origin of Species'. In F. Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter (1888), Vol. 2, 204.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Arise (162)  |  Bad (185)  |  Badly (32)  |  Better (493)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Generality (45)  |  Generation (256)  |  Hate (68)  |  Language (308)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessity (197)  |  New (1273)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Perform (123)  |  Present (630)  |  Right (473)  |  Rise (169)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Will (2350)

It was eerie. I saw myself in that machine. I never thought my work would come to this.
Upon seeing a distorted image of his face, reflected on the inside cylindrical surface of the bore while inside an MRI (magnetic-resonance-imaging) machine—a device made possible by his early physical researches on nuclear magnetic resonance (1938).
Quoted from conversation with the author, John S. Rigden, in Rabi, Scientist and Citizen (2000), xxii. Rabi was recalling having an MRI, in late 1987, a few months before his death. He had been awarded the Nobel Prize in 1944, for his discovery of the magnetic resonance method.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Device (71)  |  Distort (22)  |  Early (196)  |  Image (97)  |  Machine (271)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Myself (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  NMR (2)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possible (560)  |  Research (753)  |  Resonance (7)  |  Saw (160)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thought (995)  |  Work (1402)

It would be our worst enemy who would wish us to live only on the glories of the past and die off from the face of the earth in sheer passivity. By continuous achievement alone we can justify our great ancestry. We do not honour our ancestors by the false claim that they are omniscient and had nothing more to learn.
From 'Sir J.C. Bose’s Address', Benares Hindu University 1905-1935 (1936), 423. Collected in J. Lourdusamy, Science and National Consciousness in Bengal: 1870-1930 (2004), 106.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Alone (324)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Ancestry (13)  |  Claim (154)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Die (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Face Of The Earth (5)  |  False (105)  |  Glory (66)  |  Great (1610)  |  Honour (58)  |  Justify (26)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Omniscient (6)  |  Passivity (2)  |  Past (355)  |  Wish (216)  |  Worst (57)  |  Worst Enemy (5)

It’s not the critic who counts; not the man which points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again … who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
In Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Inside: A Public and Private Life (2005), 356.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Arena (4)  |  Belong (168)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Blood (144)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cold (115)  |  Count (107)  |  Credit (24)  |  Critic (21)  |  Dare (55)  |  Daring (17)  |  Deed (34)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Dust (68)  |  End (603)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Error (339)  |  Fail (191)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marred (3)  |  Never (1089)  |  Point (584)  |  Short (200)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spend (97)  |  Strive (53)  |  Strong (182)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Timidity (5)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Valiantly (2)  |  Victory (40)  |  Worst (57)

Journalism must find the facts, it must not prejudge things in terms of conservatism or liberalism or radicalism; it must not decide in advance that it is to be conformist or non-conformist; it cannot fly in the face of facts without courting ultimate disaster.
Journalism must focus the facts; facts are not important for their own sake; they are important only as a basis for action; journalism must focus the facts it finds upon the issues its readers face.
Journalism must filter the facts; it must with conscientious care separate the facts from admixtures of prejudice, passion, partisanship, and selfish interest; facts that are diluted, colored, or perverted are valueless as a basis for action.
Journalism must face the facts; it must learn that the energy spent in trying to find ways to get around, under, or over the facts is wasted energy; facts have a ruthless way of winning the day sooner or later.
Journalism must follow the facts; journalism must say of facts as Job said, of God: though they slay us, yet shall we trust them; if the facts threaten to upset a paper's cherished policy, it always pays the journalist to re-examine his policy; that way lies realism, and realism is the ultimate good.
From address as president of the Wisconsin local chapter of Theta Sigma Phi, at its first annual Matrix Table (9 Jan 1926). quoted in 'Journalism News and Notes', in Robert S. Crawford (ed.), The Wisconsin Alumni Magazine (Feb 1926), 27, No. 4, 101. If you know any other example of Glenn Frank speaking about his five themes on facts, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Advance (298)  |  Basis (180)  |  Care (203)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Color (155)  |  Conscientious (7)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Energy (373)  |  Examine (84)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Filter (10)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fly (153)  |  Focus (36)  |  Follow (389)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interest (416)  |  Issue (46)  |  Job (86)  |  Journalism (4)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Must (1525)  |  Paper (192)  |  Passion (121)  |  Pervert (7)  |  Policy (27)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Realism (7)  |  Ruthless (12)  |  Sake (61)  |  Say (989)  |  Selfish (12)  |  Separate (151)  |  Slaying (2)  |  Spent (85)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Trust (72)  |  Trying (144)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Upset (18)  |  Waste (109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Winning (19)

Jupiter is the largest of all the solar system’s planets, more than ten times bigger and three hundred times as massive as Earth. Jupiter is so immense it could swallow all the other planets easily. Its Great Red Spot, a storm that has raged for centuries, is itself wider than Earth. And the Spot is merely one feature visible among the innumerable vortexes and streams of Jupiter’s frenetically racing cloud tops. Yet Jupiter is composed mainly of the lightest elements, hydrogen and helium, more like a star than a planet. All that size and mass, yet Jupiter spins on its axis in less than ten hours, so fast that the planet is clearly not spherical: Its poles are noticeably flattened. Jupiter looks like a big, colorfully striped beach ball that’s squashed down as if some invisible child were sitting on it. Spinning that fast, Jupiter’s deep, deep atmosphere is swirled into bands and ribbons of multihued clouds: pale yellow, saffron orange, white, tawny yellow-brown, dark brown, bluish, pink and red. Titanic winds push the clouds across the face of Jupiter at hundreds of kilometers per hour.
Ben Bova
Jupiter
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Axis (9)  |  Ball (64)  |  Band (9)  |  Beach (23)  |  Big (55)  |  Brown (23)  |  Century (319)  |  Child (333)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Compose (20)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deep (241)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easily (36)  |  Element (322)  |  Fast (49)  |  Feature (49)  |  Great (1610)  |  Helium (11)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hundreds (6)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Immense (89)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Kilometer (10)  |  Large (398)  |  Largest (39)  |  Less (105)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  Mainly (10)  |  Mass (160)  |  Massive (9)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Orange (15)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pale (9)  |  Pink (4)  |  Planet (402)  |  Pole (49)  |  Push (66)  |  Race (278)  |  Rage (10)  |  Red (38)  |  Ribbon (2)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Size (62)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Solar Systems (5)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spin (26)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Spot (19)  |  Squash (4)  |  Star (460)  |  Storm (56)  |  Stream (83)  |  Stripe (4)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Swirl (10)  |  System (545)  |  Tawny (3)  |  Time (1911)  |  Titanic (4)  |  Top (100)  |  Visible (87)  |  Vortex (10)  |  White (132)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wind (141)  |  Yellow (31)

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Keep (104)  |  See (1094)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Sunshine (12)

Let him look at that dazzling light hung aloft as an eternal lamp to lighten the universe; let him behold the earth, a mere dot compared with the vast circuit which that orb describes, and stand amazed to find that the vast circuit itself is but a very fine point compared with the orbit traced by the stars as they roll their course on high. But if our vision halts there, let imagination pass beyond; it will fail to form a conception long before Nature fails to supply material. The whole visible world is but an imperceptible speck in the ample bosom of Nature. No notion comes near it. Though we may extend our thought beyond imaginable space, yet compared with reality we bring to birth mere atoms. Nature is an infinite sphere whereof the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. In short, imagination is brought to silence at the thought, and that is the most perceptible sign of the all-power of God.
Let man reawake and consider what he is compared with the reality of things; regard himself lost in this remote corner of Nature; and from the tiny cell where he lodges, to wit the Universe, weigh at their true worth earth, kingdoms, towns, himself. What is a man face to face with infinity?
Pensées (1670), Section 1, aphorism 43. In H. F. Stewart (ed.), Pascal’s Pensées (1950), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Aloft (5)  |  Amazement (19)  |  Ample (4)  |  Atom (381)  |  Behold (19)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Birth (154)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Cell (146)  |  Centre (31)  |  Circuit (29)  |  Circumference (23)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Corner (59)  |  Course (413)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Describe (132)  |  Dot (18)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Halt (10)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imperceptibility (2)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Light (635)  |  Lodge (3)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Lost (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Orb (20)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perception (97)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Reality (274)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remote (86)  |  Roll (41)  |  Short (200)  |  Sign (63)  |  Silence (62)  |  Space (523)  |  Speck (25)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Stand (284)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Supply (100)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Town (30)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Visibility (6)  |  Visible (87)  |  Vision (127)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wit (61)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

Man must at all costs overcome the Earth’s gravity and have, in reserve, the space at least of the Solar System. All kinds of danger wait for him on the Earth… We are talking of disaster that can destroy the whole of mankind or a large part of it… For instance, a cloud of bolides [meteors] or a small planet a few dozen kilometers in diameter could fall on the Earth, with such an impact that the solid, liquid or gaseous blast produced by it could wipe off the face of the Earth all traces of man and his buildings. The rise of temperature accompanying it could alone scorch or kill all living beings… We are further compelled to take up the struggle against gravity, and for the utilization of celestial space and all its wealth, because of the overpopulation of our planet. Numerous other terrible dangers await mankind on the Earth, all of which suggest that man should look for a way into the Cosmos. We have said a great deal about the advantages of migration into space, but not all can be said or even imagined.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Against (332)  |  Alone (324)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blast (13)  |  Building (158)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Cost (94)  |  Danger (127)  |  Deal (192)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fall (243)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impact (45)  |  Kill (100)  |  Kilometer (10)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Living (492)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Meteor (19)  |  Migration (12)  |  Must (1525)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Overpopulation (6)  |  Planet (402)  |  Produced (187)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Rise (169)  |  Small (489)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Solid (119)  |  Space (523)  |  Struggle (111)  |  System (545)  |  Talking (76)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Trace (109)  |  Utilization (16)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Whole (756)

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)  |  Direction (185)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Easy (213)  |  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)

May the road rise to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields and, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Fall (243)  |  Field (378)  |  God (776)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hold (96)  |  Meet (36)  |  Palm (5)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rise (169)  |  Road (71)  |  Shine (49)  |  Soft (30)  |  Sun (407)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wind (141)

Most of the work performed by a development engineer results in failure. The occasional visit of success provides just the excitement an engineer needs to face work the following day.
In Tore Frängsmyr (ed.), Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 2002 (2003), 193.
Science quotes on:  |  Development (441)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Failure (176)  |  Most (1728)  |  Need (320)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Perform (123)  |  Provide (79)  |  Result (700)  |  Success (327)  |  Visit (27)  |  Work (1402)

Most, if not all, of the great ideas of modern mathematics have had their origin in observation. Take, for instance, the arithmetical theory of forms, of which the foundation was laid in the diophantine theorems of Fermat, left without proof by their author, which resisted all efforts of the myriad-minded Euler to reduce to demonstration, and only yielded up their cause of being when turned over in the blow-pipe flame of Gauss’s transcendent genius; or the doctrine of double periodicity, which resulted from the observation of Jacobi of a purely analytical fact of transformation; or Legendre’s law of reciprocity; or Sturm’s theorem about the roots of equations, which, as he informed me with his own lips, stared him in the face in the midst of some mechanical investigations connected (if my memory serves me right) with the motion of compound pendulums; or Huyghen’s method of continued fractions, characterized by Lagrange as one of the principal discoveries of that great mathematician, and to which he appears to have been led by the construction of his Planetary Automaton; or the new algebra, speaking of which one of my predecessors (Mr. Spottiswoode) has said, not without just reason and authority, from this chair, “that it reaches out and indissolubly connects itself each year with fresh branches of mathematics, that the theory of equations has become almost new through it, algebraic geometry transfigured in its light, that the calculus of variations, molecular physics, and mechanics” (he might, if speaking at the present moment, go on to add the theory of elasticity and the development of the integral calculus) “have all felt its influence”.
In 'A Plea for the Mathematician', Nature, 1, 238 in Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2, 655-56.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Appear (122)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Author (175)  |  Authority (99)  |  Automaton (12)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blow (45)  |  Branch (155)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chair (25)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Compound (117)  |  Connect (126)  |  Construction (114)  |  Continue (179)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Development (441)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Double (18)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elasticity (8)  |  Equation (138)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feel (371)  |  Pierre de Fermat (15)  |  Flame (44)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fraction (16)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Christiaan Huygens (11)  |  Idea (881)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inform (50)  |  Instance (33)  |  Integral (26)  |  Integral Calculus (7)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Karl Jacobi (11)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Laid (7)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leave (138)  |  Adrien-Marie Legendre (3)  |  Light (635)  |  Lip (4)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Memory (144)  |  Method (531)  |  Midst (8)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Molecular (7)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Origin (250)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Periodicity (6)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Present (630)  |  Principal (69)  |  Proof (304)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reciprocity (2)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Resist (15)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Root (121)  |  Say (989)  |  Serve (64)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  William Spottiswoode (3)  |  Star (460)  |  Stare (9)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Transcendent (3)  |  Transfigure (2)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Turn (454)  |  Variation (93)  |  Year (963)  |  Yield (86)

My profession often gets bad press for a variety of sins, both actual and imagined: arrogance, venality, insensitivity to moral issues about the use of knowledge, pandering to sources of funding with insufficient worry about attendant degradation of values. As an advocate for science, I plead ‘mildly guilty now and then’ to all these charges. Scientists are human beings subject to all the foibles and temptations of ordinary life. Some of us are moral rocks; others are reeds. I like to think (though I have no proof) that we are better, on average, than members of many other callings on a variety of issues central to the practice of good science: willingness to alter received opinion in the face of uncomfortable data, dedication to discovering and publicizing our best and most honest account of nature’s factuality, judgment of colleagues on the might of their ideas rather than the power of their positions.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Actual (118)  |  Advocate (20)  |  Alter (64)  |  Arrogance (22)  |  Attendant (3)  |  Average (89)  |  Bad (185)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Both (496)  |  Central (81)  |  Charge (63)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Data (162)  |  Dedication (12)  |  Degradation (18)  |  Discover (571)  |  Factuality (2)  |  Foible (2)  |  Fund (19)  |  Funding (20)  |  Good (906)  |  Guilty (8)  |  Honest (53)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Insufficient (10)  |  Issue (46)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Member (42)  |  Mildly (2)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Often (109)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pander (3)  |  Plead (3)  |  Position (83)  |  Power (771)  |  Practice (212)  |  Press (21)  |  Profession (108)  |  Proof (304)  |  Receive (117)  |  Reed (8)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sin (45)  |  Source (101)  |  Subject (543)  |  Temptation (14)  |  Think (1122)  |  Uncomfortable (7)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Variety (138)  |  Willingness (10)  |  Worry (34)

Nearly anyone in this line of work would take a bullet for the last pregnant dodo. But should we not admire the person who, when faced with an overwhelmingly sad reality beyond and personal blame or control, strives valiantly to rescue what ever can be salvaged, rather than retreating to the nearest corner to weep or assign fault?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admire (19)  |  Anyone (38)  |  Assign (15)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Blame (31)  |  Bullet (6)  |  Control (182)  |  Corner (59)  |  Dodo (7)  |  Fault (58)  |  Last (425)  |  Line (100)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Overwhelmingly (3)  |  Person (366)  |  Personal (75)  |  Pregnant (4)  |  Reality (274)  |  Rescue (14)  |  Retreat (13)  |  Sadness (36)  |  Salvage (2)  |  Strive (53)  |  Valiantly (2)  |  Weep (5)  |  Work (1402)

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Everything (489)  |  Nothing (1000)

Now the whole earth had one language and few words… . Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth… .
Bible
(circa 725 B.C.)
Science quotes on:  |  Abroad (19)  |  Babel (3)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Call (781)  |  City (87)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Language (308)  |  Lord (97)  |  Name (359)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  People (1031)  |  Scatter (7)  |  See (1094)  |  Speech (66)  |  Top (100)  |  Tower (45)  |  Understand (648)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
you have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew
and, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Blue (63)  |  Bond (46)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Chase (14)  |  Climb (39)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Craft (11)  |  Dance (35)  |  Delirious (2)  |  Dream (222)  |  Eager (17)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Fling (5)  |  Fly (153)  |  God (776)  |  Grace (31)  |  Hall (5)  |  Hand (149)  |  Height (33)  |  High (370)  |  Hover (8)  |  Hovering (5)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Join (32)  |  Lark (2)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Lift (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mirth (3)  |  Never (1089)  |  Sanctity (4)  |  Shout (25)  |  Silence (62)  |  Silent (31)  |  Silver (49)  |  Sky (174)  |  Slip (6)  |  Soar (23)  |  Space (523)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunlit (2)  |  Sunward (2)  |  Swing (12)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Top (100)  |  Touch (146)  |  Tread (17)  |  Tumble (3)  |  Tumbling (2)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wing (79)

On coming down the stairs at dinner Tris [Trismegistus = Frankland] who walked before me seemed impressed by a mechanical impulse which impelled him along the corridor with a fervid velocity. On reaching the stair bottom I discovered the cause of the attraction. Miss Edmondson, like a pure planet, had checked his gravitating tendencies and lo! He stood radiant with smiles dropping joysparkes from his eyes as he clasped her hand. His countenance became a transparency through which the full proportions of his soul shone manifest; his blood tingled from his eyebrows to his finger ends, and wealthy with rich emotions his face became the avenue of what he felt.
Journals of John Tyndall, 18 Jan 1848. Royal Institution Archives.
Science quotes on:  |  Attraction (61)  |  Avenue (14)  |  Biography (254)  |  Blood (144)  |  Cause (561)  |  Coming (114)  |  Countenance (9)  |  Discover (571)  |  Down (455)  |  Dropping (8)  |  Emotion (106)  |  End (603)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fervid (2)  |  Sir Edward Frankland (2)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Miss (51)  |  Planet (402)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Pure (299)  |  Radiant (15)  |  Smile (34)  |  Soul (235)  |  Through (846)  |  Transparency (7)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Walk (138)

On consideration, it is not surprising that Darwin's finches should recognize their own kind primarily by beak characters. The beak is the only prominent specific distinction, and it features conspicuously both in attacking behaviour, when the birds face each other and grip beaks, and also in courtship, when food is passed from the beak of the male to the beak of the female. Hence though the beak differences are primarily correlated with differences in food, secondarily they serve as specific recognition marks, and the birds have evolved behaviour patterns to this end.
Darwin's Finches (1947), 54.
Science quotes on:  |  Beak (5)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Bird (163)  |  Both (496)  |  Character (259)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinction (72)  |  End (603)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Female (50)  |  Finch (4)  |  Food (213)  |  Kind (564)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Specific (98)

One of the differences between the natural and the social sciences is that in the natural sciences, each succeeding generation stands on the shoulders of those that have gone before, while in the social sciences, each generation steps in the faces of its predecessors.
Skinner's Theory of Teaching Machines (1959), 167.
Science quotes on:  |  Difference (355)  |  Generation (256)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Stand (284)  |  Step (234)  |  Succeeding (14)

Organic chemistry has literally placed a new nature beside the old. And not only for the delectation and information of its devotees; the whole face and manner of society has been altered by its products. We are clothed, ornamented and protected by forms of matter foreign to Nature; we travel and are propelled, in, on and by them. Their conquest of our powerful insect enemies, their capacity to modify the soil and control its microscopic flora, their ability to purify and protect our water, have increased the habitable surface of the earth and multiplied our food supply; and the dramatic advances in synthetic medicinal chemistry comfort and maintain us, and create unparalleled social opportunities (and problems).
In 'Synthesis', in A. Todd (ed.), Perspectives in Organic Chemistry (1956), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Advance (298)  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Control (182)  |  Create (245)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Food (213)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Form (976)  |  Information (173)  |  Insect (89)  |  Literally (30)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Matter (821)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Ornament (20)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Problem (731)  |  Product (166)  |  Protect (65)  |  Purification (10)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Soil (98)  |  Supply (100)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Travel (125)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)

Our earth is very old, an old warrior that has lived through many battles. Nevertheless, the face of it is still changing, and science sees no certain limit of time for its stately evolution. Our solid earth, apparently so stable, inert, and finished, is changing, mobile, and still evolving. Its major quakings are largely the echoes of that divine far-off event, the building of our noble mountains. The lava floods and intriguing volcanoes tell us of the plasticity, mobility, of the deep interior of the globe. The slow coming and going of ancient shallow seas on the continental plateaus tell us of the rhythmic distortion of the deep interior-deep-seated flow and changes of volume. Mountain chains prove the earth’s solid crust itself to be mobile in high degree. And the secret of it all—the secret of the earthquake, the secret of the “temple of fire,” the secret of the ocean basin, the secret of the highland—is in the heart of the earth, forever invisible to human eyes.
In Our Mobile Earth (1926), 320.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Building (158)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Coming (114)  |  Crust (43)  |  Deep (241)  |  Degree (277)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Divine (112)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Event (222)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Eye (440)  |  Finish (62)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flood (52)  |  Flow (89)  |  Forever (111)  |  Heart (243)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inert (14)  |  Interior (35)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Lava (12)  |  Limit (294)  |  Lithosphere (2)  |  Magma (4)  |  Major (88)  |  Mobility (11)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Noble (93)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Old (499)  |  Plasticity (7)  |  Prove (261)  |  Sea (326)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Slow (108)  |  Solid (119)  |  Stable (32)  |  Stately (12)  |  Still (614)  |  Tell (344)  |  Temple (45)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Volcano (46)

Our notion of symmetry is derived from the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breadth only, not vertically nor in depth.
In Pensées (1670), Section 1, No. 28. As paraphrased in W.H. Auden and L. Kronenberger (eds.) The Viking Book of Aphorisms (1966). From the more complete translation, “Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference, and based also on the face of man; whence it happens that symmetry is only wanted in breadth, not in height or depth,” in Blaise Pascal and W.F. Trotter (trans.), 'Thoughts', collected in Charles W. Eliot (ed.), The Harvard Classics (1910), Vol. 48, 15. From the French, “Symétrie, en ce qu’on voit d’une vue, fondée sur ce qu’il n’y a pas de raison de faire autrement: et fondée aussi sur la figure de l’homme, d’où il arrive qu’on ne veut la symétrie qu’en largeur, non en hauteur ni profondeur,” in Blaise Pascal and Léon Brunschvicg (ed.), Pensées de Blaise Pascal (1904), Vol. 1, 37-38.
Science quotes on:  |  Breadth (15)  |  Demand (131)  |  Depth (97)  |  Derive (70)  |  Form (976)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  Human (1512)  |  Notion (120)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Vertical (4)

Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. We scientists who released this immense power have an overwhelming responsibility in this world life-and-death struggle to harness the atom for the benefit of mankind and not for humanity’s destruction. … We need two hundred thousand dollars at once for a nation-wide campaign to let people know that a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels. This appeal is sent to you only after long consideration of the immense crisis we face. … We ask your help at this fateful moment as a sign that we scientists do not stand alone.
In 'Atomic Education Urged by Einstein', New York Times (25 May 1946), 13. Extract from a telegram (24 May 1946) to “several hundred prominent Americans”, signed by Albert Einstein as Chairman, with other members, of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists. It was also signed by the Federation of American Scientists.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Appeal (46)  |  Ask (420)  |  Atom (381)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Campaign (6)  |  Catastrophe (35)  |  Change (639)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Crisis (25)  |  Death (406)  |  Decision (98)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dollar (22)  |  Drift (14)  |  Essential (210)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evil (122)  |  Fateful (2)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Harness (25)  |  Help (116)  |  Higher Level (3)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Immense (89)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Moment (260)  |  Move (223)  |  Nation (208)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  People (1031)  |  Power (771)  |  Release (31)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Save (126)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Send (23)  |  Sign (63)  |  Stand (284)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Survive (87)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Unleash (2)  |  Wide (97)  |  World (1850)

People are ready enough to laugh at you. Don’t make funny faces in order to encourage them.
Aphorism as given by the fictional character Dezhnev Senior, in Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain (1987), 181.
Science quotes on:  |  Encourage (43)  |  Enough (341)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Order (638)  |  People (1031)

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.
Carl Jung
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 121
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Do (1905)  |  Matter (821)  |  Order (638)  |  People (1031)  |  Soul (235)  |  Will (2350)

Perhaps the central problem we face in all of computer science is how we are to get to the situation where we build on top of the work of others rather than redoing so much of it in a trivially different way.
From Turing Award lecture (1968), 'One Man's View of Computer Science', collected in ACM Turing Award Lectures: The First Twenty Years, 1966 to 1985 (1987), 216. ACM is the Association for Computing Machinery. The lecture is also published in Journal of the ACM (Jan 1969), 16, No. 1, 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Center (35)  |  Central (81)  |  Computer (131)  |  Computer Science (11)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Situation (117)  |  Top (100)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

Personality is the supreme realization of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. It is an act of high courage flung in the face of life.
Carl Jung
In The Development of Personality (1953), 171. https://books.google.com/books?id= Carl Gustav Jung - 195
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Being (1276)  |  Courage (82)  |  Fling (5)  |  High (370)  |  Idiosyncrasy (3)  |  Innate (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Living Being (3)  |  Personality (66)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Realization (44)  |  Supreme (73)

Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavour to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility or the meaning of such a comparison. But he certainly believes that, as his knowledge increases, his picture of reality will become simpler and simpler and will explain a wider and wider range of his sensuous impressions. He may also believe in the existence of the ideal limit of knowledge and that it is approached by the human mind. He may call this ideal limit the objective truth.
Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics (1938), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Closed (38)  |  Compare (76)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Concept (242)  |  Creation (350)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impression (118)  |  Increase (225)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Objective (96)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Physical (518)  |  Picture (148)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Range (104)  |  Reality (274)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Trying (144)  |  Understand (648)  |  Watch (118)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Physical misery is great everywhere out here [Africa]. Are we justified in shutting our eyes and ignoring it because our European newspapers tell us nothing about it? We civilised people have been spoilt. If any one of us is ill the doctor comes at once. Is an operation necessary, the door of some hospital or other opens to us immediately. But let every one reflect on the meaning of the fact that out here millions and millions live without help or hope of it. Every day thousands and thousands endure the most terrible sufferings, though medical science could avert them. Every day there prevails in many and many a far-off hut a despair which we could banish. Will each of my readers think what the last ten years of his family history would have been if they had been passed without medical or surgical help of any sort? It is time that we should wake from slumber and face our responsibilities!
In On the Edge of the Primeval Forest, trans. C. T. Campion (1948, 1998), 126-127.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  Awakening (11)  |  Banish (11)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Despair (40)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Door (94)  |  Europe (50)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Family (101)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hospital (45)  |  Ignoring (11)  |  Illness (35)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Justification (52)  |  Last (425)  |  Live (650)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Medical Science (19)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Million (124)  |  Misery (31)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Newspaper (39)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Open (277)  |  Operation (221)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  People (1031)  |  Physical (518)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Slumber (6)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Tell (344)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Ploughing deep, your recipe for killing weeds, is also the recipe for almost every good thing in farming. … We now plough horizontally following the curvatures of the hills and hollows, on the dead level, however crooked the lines may be. Every furrow thus acts as a reservoir to receive and retain the waters, all of which go to the benefit of the growing plant, instead of running off into streams … In point of beauty nothing can exceed that of the waving lines and rows winding along the face of the hills and vallies.
In letter (17 Apr 1813) from Jefferson at Monticello to Charles Willson Peale. Collected in The Jefferson Papers: 1770-1826 (1900), 178-180.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Crooked (3)  |  Curvature (8)  |  Deep (241)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Farming (8)  |  Following (16)  |  Furrow (5)  |  Good (906)  |  Growing (99)  |  Hill (23)  |  Hollow (6)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  Killing (14)  |  Level (69)  |  Line (100)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Plant (320)  |  Plough (15)  |  Ploughing (3)  |  Point (584)  |  Receive (117)  |  Recipe (8)  |  Reservoir (9)  |  Retain (57)  |  Row (9)  |  Running (61)  |  Stream (83)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Valley (37)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Conservation (3)  |  Weed (19)  |  Winding (8)

Professor Cayley has since informed me that the theorem about whose origin I was in doubt, will be found in Schläfli’s De Eliminatione. This is not the first unconscious plagiarism I have been guilty of towards this eminent man whose friendship I am proud to claim. A more glaring case occurs in a note by me in the Comptes Rendus, on the twenty-seven straight lines of cubic surfaces, where I believe I have followed (like one walking in his sleep), down to the very nomenclature and notation, the substance of a portion of a paper inserted by Schlafli in the Mathematical Journal, which bears my name as one of the editors upon the face.
In Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1864), 642.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Belief (615)  |  Case (102)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cubic (2)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Down (455)  |  Editor (10)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Friendship (18)  |  Glare (3)  |  Guilty (8)  |  Inform (50)  |  Insert (4)  |  Journal (31)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Notation (28)  |  Note (39)  |  Occur (151)  |  Origin (250)  |  Paper (192)  |  Plagiarism (10)  |  Portion (86)  |  Pride (84)  |  Professor (133)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Unconscious (24)  |  Walk (138)  |  Will (2350)

Reality is never skin-deep. The true nature of the earth and its full wealth of hidden treasures cannot be argued from the visible rocks, the rocks upon which we live and out of which we make our living. The face of the earth, with its upstanding continents and depressed ocean-deeps, its vast ornament of plateau and mountain-chain, is molded by structure and process in hidden depths.
Science quotes on:  |  Continent (79)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deep Sea (10)  |  Depressed (3)  |  Depth (97)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Geology (240)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Mold (37)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Ornament (20)  |  Plateau (8)  |  Process (439)  |  Reality (274)  |  Rock (176)  |  Skin (48)  |  Structure (365)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Vast (188)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wealth (100)

Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science. Its principles may be eternal, but the expression of those principles requires continual development.
In 'Religion and Science', The Atlantic (Aug 1925).
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Continual (44)  |  Development (441)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Expression (181)  |  Old (499)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Religion (369)  |  Require (229)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Will (2350)

Religious people split into three main groups when faced with science. I shall label them the “know-nothings”, the “know-alls”, and the “no-contests”.
From speech at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (15 Apr 1992), published in the Independent newspaper. An excerpt appears in Alec Fisher, The Logic of Real Arguments (2004), 84. The full speech was published in The Nullifidian, (Dec 1994), transcribed online in the Richard Dawkins archive, article 89, titled: Lecture from 'The Nullifidian' (Dec 94). Since the excerpt in Fisher’s book appears as part of the The Nullifidian article, they must refer to the same speech at Edinburgh, although the location and original date was not noted in the latter source.
Science quotes on:  |  Group (83)  |  Know (1538)  |  Label (11)  |  Main (29)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  People (1031)  |  Religious (134)  |  Split (15)

Roger, Tranquility. Be advised there are lots of smiling faces in this room and all over the world. Over.
From the taped recording of Air-to-Ground Transmissions during Apollo 11 moon mission, after the Lunar Module had just landed on the moon surface. Charlie Duke was the designated Communicator at Mission Control. Also in Bob Blaisdell (ed.), Essential Documents of American History: From Reconstruction to the Twenty-First Century (2016), Vol. 2, 329
Science quotes on:  |  Advise (7)  |  Lot (151)  |  Roger (3)  |  Room (42)  |  Smile (34)  |  Tranquility (8)  |  World (1850)

Science enhances the moral value of life, because it furthers a love of truth and reverence—love of truth displaying itself in the constant endeavor to arrive at a more exact knowledge of the world of mind and matter around us, and reverence, because every advance in knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our own being.
In Max Planck and James Vincent Murphy (trans.), Where is Science Going?, (1932), 169.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Arrival (15)  |  Being (1276)  |  Constant (148)  |  Display (59)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Enhance (17)  |  Exact (75)  |  Face To Face (4)  |  Further (6)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)  |  World (1850)

Science has blown to atoms, as she can rend and rive in the rocks themselves; but in those rocks she has found, and read aloud, the great stone book which is the history of the earth, even when darkness sat upon the face of the deep. Along their craggy sides she has traced the footprints of birds and beasts, whose shapes were never seen by man. From within them she has brought the bones, and pieced together the skeletons, of monsters that would have crushed the noted dragons of the fables at a blow.
Book review of Robert Hunt, Poetry of Science (1848), in the London Examiner (1848). Although uncredited in print, biographers identified his authorship from his original handwritten work. Collected in Charles Dickens and Frederic George Kitton (ed.) Old Lamps for New Ones: And Other Sketches and Essays (1897), 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Beast (58)  |  Bird (163)  |  Blow (45)  |  Bone (101)  |  Book (413)  |  Crag (6)  |  Crush (19)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dragon (6)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fable (12)  |  Footprint (16)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Man (2252)  |  Monster (33)  |  Never (1089)  |  Piece (39)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Rock (176)  |  Shape (77)  |  Side (236)  |  Skeleton (25)  |  Stone (168)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Together (392)  |  Tracing (3)

Science is not about control. It is about cultivating a perpetual sense of wonder in the face of something that forever grows one step richer and subtler than our latest theory about it. It is about reverence, not mastery.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Control (182)  |  Cultivate (24)  |  Forever (111)  |  Grow (247)  |  Late (119)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Rich (66)  |  Sense (785)  |  Something (718)  |  Step (234)  |  Subtl (2)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Wonder (251)

Science, being human enquiry, can hear no answer except an answer couched somehow in human tones. Primitive man stood in the mountains and shouted against a cliff; the echo brought back his own voice, and he believed in a disembodied spirit. The scientist of today stands counting out loud in the face of the unknown. Numbers come back to him—and he believes in the Great Mathematician.
Concluding paragraph of chapter, 'Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics: Or Beyond Common-Sense', contributed to Naomi Mitchison (ed.), An Outline For Boys And Girls And Their Parents (1932), 357.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Couch (2)  |  Count (107)  |  Counting (26)  |  Disembodied (6)  |  Echo (12)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Number (710)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Primitive Man (5)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Shout (25)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stand (284)  |  Today (321)  |  Tone (22)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Voice (54)

Sea-water is, of course, opaque and this is the first difficulty that faces the oceanographer. Most of the tools needed to investigate the sea must use physical principles which are more complicated than the optical methods that are so satisfactory for studying the surface features of the land.
In 'Man Explores the Sea', Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (Sep 1963), 111, No. 5086, 786.
Science quotes on:  |  Complicated (117)  |  Course (413)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  First (1302)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Land (131)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Need (320)  |  Opaque (7)  |  Optical (11)  |  Physical (518)  |  Principle (530)  |  Sea (326)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Surface (223)  |  Tool (129)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)

She has the sort of body you go to see in marble. She has golden hair. Quickly, deftly, she reaches with both hands behind her back and unclasps her top. Setting it on her lap, she swivels ninety degrees to face the towboat square. Shoulders back, cheeks high, she holds her pose without retreat. In her ample presentation there is defiance of gravity. There is no angle of repose. She is a siren and these are her songs.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ample (4)  |  Angle (25)  |  Back (395)  |  Behind (139)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Cheek (3)  |  Defiance (7)  |  Degree (277)  |  Golden (47)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Hair (25)  |  Hand (149)  |  High (370)  |  Hold (96)  |  Lap (9)  |  Marble (21)  |  Ninety (2)  |  Pose (9)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Quickly (21)  |  Reach (286)  |  Repose (9)  |  Retreat (13)  |  See (1094)  |  Set (400)  |  Setting (44)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Siren (4)  |  Song (41)  |  Sort (50)  |  Square (73)  |  Top (100)

Speaking of libraries: A big open-stack academic or public library is no small pleasure to work in. You’re, say, trying to do a piece on something in Nevada, and you go down to C Floor, deep in the earth, and out to what a miner would call a remote working face. You find 10995.497S just where the card catalog and the online computer thought it would be, but that is only the initial nick. The book you knew about has led you to others you did not know about. To the ceiling the shelves are loaded with books about Nevada. You pull them down, one at a time, and sit on the floor and look them over until you are sitting on a pile five feet high, at which point you are late home for dinner and you get up and walk away. It’s an incomparable boon to research, all that; but it is also a reason why there are almost no large open-stack libraries left in the world.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Academic (20)  |  Big (55)  |  Book (413)  |  Boon (7)  |  C (2)  |  Call (781)  |  Card (5)  |  Catalog (5)  |  Ceiling (5)  |  Computer (131)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dinner (15)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Find (1014)  |  Five (16)  |  Floor (21)  |  Foot (65)  |  Get Up (5)  |  High (370)  |  Home (184)  |  Incomparable (14)  |  Initial (17)  |  Know (1538)  |  Large (398)  |  Late (119)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leave (138)  |  Library (53)  |  Load (12)  |  Look (584)  |  Miner (9)  |  Nick (2)  |  Online (4)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Piece (39)  |  Pile (12)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Public (100)  |  Pull (43)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remote (86)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Shelve (2)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Walk (138)  |  Why (491)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

That hemisphere of the moon which faces us is better known than the earth itself; its vast desert plains have been surveyed to within a few acres; its mountains and craters have been measured to within a few yards; while on the earth's surface there are 30,000,000 square kilometres (sixty times the extent of France), upon which the foot of man has never trod, which the eye of man has never seen.
In 'Mars, by the Latest Observations', Popular Science (Dec 1873), 4, 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Acre (13)  |  Better (493)  |  Crater (8)  |  Desert (59)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extent (142)  |  Eye (440)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Never (1089)  |  Plain (34)  |  Square (73)  |  Surface (223)  |  Survey (36)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tread (17)  |  Vast (188)

The American farmer should in no sense be the prototype of Edwin Markham’s brainless fellow, whom he so graphically portrays—
“Bowed by the weight of centuries, he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face, …
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox.”
In Farmer’s Leaflet 7: The Need of Scientific Agriculture in the South (1902). Reprinted in The Review of Reviews (1902), 25, 322. Edwin Markham composed his poem, Man With a Hoe, after viewing a painting of the same name by Jean-François Millet.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  American (56)  |  Brother (47)  |  Emptiness (13)  |  Farmer (35)  |  Hoe (2)  |  Hope (321)  |  Ox (5)  |  Stunned (2)

The beauty of crystals lies in the planeness of their faces.
In The Natural History of Crystals (1924), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Lie (370)

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)  |  Direction (185)  |  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 book of Nature is the book of Fate. She turns the gigantic pages,—leaf after leaf,—never re-turning one. One leaf she lays down, a floor of granite; then a thousand ages, and a bed of slate; a thousand ages, and a measure of coal; a thousand ages, and a layer of marl and mud: vegetable forms appear; her first misshapen animals, zoophyte, trilobium, fish; then, saurians,—rude forms, in which she has only blocked her future statue, concealing under these unwieldy monsters the fine type of her coming king. The face of the planet cools and dries, the races meliorate, and man is born. But when a race has lived its term, it comes no more again.
From 'Fate', collected in The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 6: The Conduct of Life (1860), 15. This paragraph is the prose version of his poem, 'Song of Nature'.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Bed (25)  |  Birth (154)  |  Block (13)  |  Book (413)  |  Book Of Fate (2)  |  Book Of Nature (12)  |  Coal (64)  |  Coming (114)  |  Concealing (2)  |  Cool (15)  |  Down (455)  |  Dry (65)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fine (37)  |  First (1302)  |  Fish (130)  |  Floor (21)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Granite (8)  |  King (39)  |  Layer (41)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  Monster (33)  |  More (2558)  |  Mud (26)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Page (35)  |  Planet (402)  |  Race (278)  |  Returning (2)  |  Rude (6)  |  Saurian (2)  |  Slate (6)  |  Statue (17)  |  Term (357)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Trilobite (6)  |  Turn (454)  |  Type (171)  |  Unwieldy (2)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Zoophyte (5)

The Chameleon’s face reminded Aristotle of a Baboon. Aristotle wasn’t much of a looker himself.
How to Become Extinct (1941), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Baboon (2)  |  Himself (461)

The Chemical conviction
That Nought be lost
Enable in Disaster
My fractured Trust—
The Faces of the Atoms
If I shall see
How more the Finished Creatures
Departed Me!
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Creature (242)  |  Depart (5)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Enable (122)  |  Finish (62)  |  Fracture (7)  |  More (2558)  |  See (1094)  |  Trust (72)

The Chemical conviction
That Nought be lost
Enable in Disaster
My fractured Trust—
The Faces of the Atoms
If I shall see
How more the Finished Creatures
Departed Me!
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Creature (242)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Enable (122)  |  Finish (62)  |  More (2558)  |  See (1094)  |  Trust (72)

The dangers that face the world can, every one of them, be traced back to science. The salvations that may save the world will, every one of them, be traced back to science.
In Today and Tomorrow (1974), 304.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Danger (127)  |  Salvation (13)  |  Save (126)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The dodo never had a chance. He seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct and that was all he was good for. … I’m not blaming the Dodo but he was a mess. He had an ugly face with a large hooked beak, a tail in the wrong place, wings too small … and a very prominent stomach.
In 'The Dodo', How to Become Extinct (1941), 163.
Science quotes on:  |  Beak (5)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Blame (31)  |  Chance (244)  |  Dodo (7)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Good (906)  |  Hook (7)  |  Invented (4)  |  Large (398)  |  Mess (14)  |  Never (1089)  |  Place (192)  |  Prominent (6)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Small (489)  |  Sole (50)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Tail (21)  |  Ugly (14)  |  Wing (79)  |  Wrong (246)

The eye transmits its own image through the air to all the objects which face it, and also receives them on its own surface, whence the “sensus communis” takes them and considers them.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Consider (428)  |  Eye (440)  |  Image (97)  |  Object (438)  |  Receive (117)  |  Surface (223)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmit (12)

The fact that stares one in the face is that people of the greatest sincerity and of all levels of intelligence differ and have always differed in their religious beliefs. Since at most one faith can be true, it follows that human beings are extremely liable to believe firmly and honestly in something untrue in the field of revealed religion. One would have expected this obvious fact to lead to some humility, to some thought that however deep one's faith, one may conceivably be mistaken. Nothing is further from the believer, any believer, than this elementary humility. All in his power … must have his faith rammed down their throats. In many cases children are indeed indoctrinated with the disgraceful thought that they belong to the one group with superior knowledge who alone have a private wire to the office of the Almighty, all others being less fortunate than they themselves.
From 'Religion is a Good Thing', collected in R. Duncan and M. Wesson-Smith (eds.) Lying Truths: A Critical Scruting of Current Beliefs and Conventions (1979), 205. As quoted in Paul Davies, God and the New Physics (1984), 6-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Almighty (23)  |  Alone (324)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Believer (26)  |  Belong (168)  |  Children (201)  |  Deep (241)  |  Differ (88)  |  Down (455)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faith (209)  |  Field (378)  |  Follow (389)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Honestly (10)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Humility (31)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Office (71)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Power (771)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Sincerity (8)  |  Something (718)  |  Superior (88)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Untrue (12)  |  Wire (36)

The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the great enterprises and ideals of American society.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  American (56)  |  Apathetic (2)  |  Belong (168)  |  Blend (9)  |  Bold (22)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Common (447)  |  Content (75)  |  Courage (82)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Fearful (7)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Man (2252)  |  New (1273)  |  New Ideas (17)  |  Passion (121)  |  Personal (75)  |  Problem (731)  |  Project (77)  |  Reason (766)  |  Society (350)  |  Timid (6)  |  Today (321)  |  Toward (45)  |  Will (2350)

The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we’re told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Challenge (91)  |  Daily (91)  |  Decide (50)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Must (1525)  |  Offer (142)  |  Problem (731)  |  Propaganda (13)  |  Real (159)  |  Reality (274)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Tell (344)  |  Threat (36)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)

The Humorless Person: I have a friend who has about as much sense of humor as the wooden Indian of commerce. Some time ago he made a trip through the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. … He did his sight-seeing very thoroughly. He didn’t miss a single ramification in that great crack in the face of Mother Nature. … I asked him what he thought of the Mammoth Cave. “Well,” said he, “taking it as a hole, it is all right.”
In A Sample Case of Humor (1919), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Commerce (23)  |  Crack (15)  |  Friend (180)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hole (17)  |  Humor (10)  |  Indian (32)  |  Kentucky (4)  |  Mammoth (9)  |  Miss (51)  |  Mother (116)  |  Mother Nature (5)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Person (366)  |  Ramification (8)  |  Right (473)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sight-Seeing (2)  |  Single (365)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trip (11)

The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket; and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it.
Love à la Mode, Act 2. Scene 1. In John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations (1868), 304.
Science quotes on:  |  Glorious (49)  |  Justice (40)  |  Law (913)  |  Pocket (11)  |  Professor (133)  |  Smile (34)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Use (771)

The least thing contains something of the unknown. Let us find it. To describe a fire that flames and a tree in a field, we must remain facing that fire and that tree until they no longer resemble, to us, any other tree, or fire. This is the way we become original.
From 'Le Roman', Pierre et Jean (1888), as translated by Alexina Loranger in 'Introduction: The Novel', Pierre et Jean (Peter and John) (1890), 39. The opening words are quoted from Gustave Flaubert. From the original French, “La moindre chose contient un peu d’inconnu. Trouvons-le. Pour décrire un feu qui flambe et un arbre dans une plaine, demeurons en face de ce feu et de cet arbre jusqu’à ce 'qu’ils ne ressemblent plus, pour nous, à aucun autre arbre et à aucun autre feu. C’est de cette façon qu’on devient original.” [Because “devient” is present tense, where the original text gave “became”, the present tense “become” has been substituted in the above quote by Webmaster.]
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Contain (68)  |  Describe (132)  |  Field (378)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flame (44)  |  Least (75)  |  Long (778)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Original (61)  |  Originality (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  Remain (355)  |  Research (753)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tree (269)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Way (1214)

The long-range trend toward federal regulation, which found its beginnings in the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Act of 1890, which was quickened by a large number of measures in the Progressive era, and which has found its consummation in our time, was thus at first the response of a predominantly individualistic public to the uncontrolled and starkly original collectivism of big business. In America the growth of the national state and its regulative power has never been accepted with complacency by any large part of the middle-class public, which has not relaxed its suspicion of authority, and which even now gives repeated evidence of its intense dislike of statism. In our time this growth has been possible only under the stress of great national emergencies, domestic or military, and even then only in the face of continuous resistance from a substantial part of the public. In the Progressive era it was possible only because of widespread and urgent fear of business consolidation and private business authority. Since it has become common in recent years for ideologists of the extreme right to portray the growth of statism as the result of a sinister conspiracy of collectivists inspired by foreign ideologies, it is perhaps worth emphasizing that the first important steps toward the modern organization of society were taken by arch-individualists—the tycoons of the Gilded Age—and that the primitive beginning of modern statism was largely the work of men who were trying to save what they could of the eminently native Yankee values of individualism and enterprise.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Act (278)  |  Age (509)  |  America (143)  |  Arch (12)  |  Authority (99)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beginnings (5)  |  Big Business (2)  |  Business (156)  |  Class (168)  |  Collectivism (2)  |  Commerce (23)  |  Common (447)  |  Consolidation (4)  |  Conspiracy (6)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Dislike (16)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Emergency (10)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Era (51)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fear (212)  |  Federal (6)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Gilded (3)  |  Give (208)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growth (200)  |  Ideology (15)  |  Important (229)  |  Individualism (3)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Intense (22)  |  Large (398)  |  Largely (14)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Range (3)  |  Measure (241)  |  Middle-Class (2)  |  Military (45)  |  Modern (402)  |  National (29)  |  Native (41)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Organization (120)  |  Original (61)  |  Part (235)  |  Portray (6)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Predominantly (4)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Private (29)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Public (100)  |  Quicken (7)  |  Range (104)  |  Recent (78)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Relax (3)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Response (56)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Save (126)  |  Sinister (8)  |  Society (350)  |  State (505)  |  Step (234)  |  Stress (22)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toward (45)  |  Trend (23)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Uncontrolled (2)  |  Urgent (15)  |  Value (393)  |  Widespread (23)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)  |  Yankee (2)  |  Year (963)

The mechanist is intimately convinced that a precise knowledge of the chemical constitution, structure, and properties of the various organelles of a cell will solve biological problems. This will come in a few centuries. For the time being, the biologist has to face such concepts as orienting forces or morphogenetic fields. Owing to the scarcity of chemical data and to the complexity of life, and despite the progresses of biochemistry, the biologist is still threatened with vertigo.
Problems of Morphogenesis in Ciliates: The Kinetosomes in Development, Reproduction and Evolution (1950), 92-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Concept (242)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Data (162)  |  Field (378)  |  Force (497)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mechanist (3)  |  Owing (39)  |  Precise (71)  |  Problem (731)  |  Solve (145)  |  Still (614)  |  Structure (365)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Time (1911)  |  Various (205)  |  Will (2350)

The methods of science aren’t foolproof, but they are indefinitely perfectible. Just as important: there is a tradition of criticism that enforces improvement whenever and wherever flaws are discovered. The methods of science, like everything else under the sun, are themselves objects of scientific scrutiny, as method becomes methodology, the analysis of methods. Methodology in turn falls under the gaze of epistemology, the investigation of investigation itself—nothing is off limits to scientific questioning. The irony is that these fruits of scientific reflection, showing us the ineliminable smudges of imperfection, are sometimes used by those who are suspicious of science as their grounds for denying it a privileged status in the truth-seeking department—as if the institutions and practices they see competing with it were no worse off in these regards. But where are the examples of religious orthodoxy being simply abandoned in the face of irresistible evidence? Again and again in science, yesterday’s heresies have become today’s new orthodoxies. No religion exhibits that pattern in its history.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Arent (6)  |  Badly (32)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Compete (6)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Deny (71)  |  Department (93)  |  Discover (571)  |  Enforce (11)  |  Epistemology (8)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Example (98)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Fall (243)  |  Flaw (18)  |  Foolproof (5)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Ground (222)  |  Heresy (9)  |  History (716)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Important (229)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Indefinitely (10)  |  Institution (73)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Irony (9)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Limit (294)  |  Method (531)  |  Methodology (14)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Orthodoxy (11)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Practice (212)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Question (649)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Regard (312)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scrutiny (15)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Simply (53)  |  Smudge (2)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Status (35)  |  Sun (407)  |  Suspicious (3)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Today (321)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Yesterday (37)

The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved.
New Hopes for a Changing World (1952), 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Amazing (35)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Force (497)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Impotence (8)  |  Minuteness (8)  |  More (2558)  |  Realize (157)

The most important and lasting truths are the most obvious ones. Nature cheats us with her mysteries, one after another, like a juggler with his tricks; but shews us her plain honest face, without our paying for it.
Characteristics: In the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1837), 149.
Science quotes on:  |  Cheat (13)  |  Honest (53)  |  Important (229)  |  Juggler (3)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Trick (36)  |  Truth (1109)

The one who stays in my mind as the ideal man of science is, not Huxley or Tyndall, Hooker or Lubbock, still less my friend, philosopher and guide Herbert Spencer, but Francis Galton, whom I used to observe and listen to—I regret to add, without the least reciprocity—with rapt attention. Even to-day. I can conjure up, from memory’s misty deep, that tall figure with its attitude of perfect physical and mental poise; the clean-shaven face, the thin, compressed mouth with its enigmatical smile; the long upper lip and firm chin, and, as if presiding over the whole personality of the man, the prominent dark eyebrows from beneath which gleamed, with penetrating humour, contemplative grey eyes. Fascinating to me was Francis Galton’s all-embracing but apparently impersonal beneficence. But, to a recent and enthusiastic convert to the scientific method, the most relevant of Galton’s many gifts was the unique contribution of three separate and distinct processes of the intellect; a continuous curiosity about, and rapid apprehension of individual facts, whether common or uncommon; the faculty for ingenious trains of reasoning; and, more admirable than either of these, because the talent was wholly beyond my reach, the capacity for correcting and verifying his own hypotheses, by the statistical handling of masses of data, whether collected by himself or supplied by other students of the problem.
In My Apprenticeship (1926), 134-135.
Science quotes on:  |  Admirable (20)  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Attention (196)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Beneficence (3)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Chin (2)  |  Clean (52)  |  Collected (2)  |  Common (447)  |  Compressed (3)  |  Conjuring (3)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Convert (22)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Dark (145)  |  Data (162)  |  Deep (241)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Enigma (16)  |  Enthusiastic (7)  |  Eye (440)  |  Eyebrow (2)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Figure (162)  |  Firm (47)  |  Friend (180)  |  Sir Francis Galton (18)  |  Gift (105)  |  Grey (10)  |  Guide (107)  |  Handling (7)  |  Himself (461)  |  Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (12)  |  Humour (116)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (132)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Impersonal (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Lip (4)  |  Listen (81)  |  Long (778)  |  John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) (26)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mental (179)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Misty (6)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Penetrating (3)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Personality (66)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physical (518)  |  Poise (4)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Prominent (6)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapt (5)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Recent (78)  |  Reciprocity (2)  |  Regret (31)  |  Relevant (5)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Separate (151)  |  Smile (34)  |  Herbert Spencer (37)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Talent (99)  |  Tall (11)  |  Thin (18)  |  Train (118)  |  Uncommon (14)  |  Unique (72)  |  Upper (4)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wholly (88)

The only thing we know for sure about the future is that it will be radically different from the past. In the face of this enormous uncertainty, the least we can do for future generations is to pass on as many of the planet’s resources as possible.
In The Sinking Ark: A New Look at the Problem of Disappearing Species (1979), 189.
Science quotes on:  |  Conservation (187)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Know (1538)  |  Least (75)  |  Pass (241)  |  Past (355)  |  Planet (402)  |  Possible (560)  |  Radically (5)  |  Resource (74)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Will (2350)

The primary rocks, … I regard as the deposits of a period in which the earth’s crust had sufficiently cooled down to permit the existence of a sea, with the necessary denuding agencies,—waves and currents,—and, in consequence, of deposition also; but in which the internal heat acted so near the surface, that whatever was deposited came, matter of course, to be metamorphosed into semi-plutonic forms, that retained only the stratification. I dare not speak of the scenery of the period. We may imagine, however, a dark atmosphere of steam and vapour, which for age after age conceals the face of the sun, and through which the light of moon or star never penetrates; oceans of thermal water heated in a thousand centres to the boiling point; low, half-molten islands, dim through the log, and scarce more fixed than the waves themselves, that heave and tremble under the impulsions of the igneous agencies; roaring geysers, that ever and anon throw up their intermittent jets of boiling fluid, vapour, and thick steam, from these tremulous lands; and, in the dim outskirts of the scene, the red gleam of fire, shot forth from yawning cracks and deep chasms, and that bears aloft fragments of molten rock and clouds of ashes. But should we continue to linger amid a scene so featureless and wild, or venture adown some yawning opening into the abyss beneath, where all is fiery and yet dark,—a solitary hell, without suffering or sin,—we would do well to commit ourselves to the guidance of a living poet of the true faculty,—Thomas Aird and see with his eyes.
Lecture Sixth, collected in Popular Geology: A Series of Lectures Read Before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's Portfolio (1859), 297-298.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Act (278)  |  Age (509)  |  Ash (21)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Bear (162)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Chasm (9)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Commit (43)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continue (179)  |  Course (413)  |  Crack (15)  |  Crust (43)  |  Current (122)  |  Dare (55)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deposition (4)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Existence (481)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Form (976)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hell (32)  |  Igneous (3)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Internal (69)  |  Island (49)  |  Light (635)  |  Linger (14)  |  Living (492)  |  Low (86)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metamorphosis (5)  |  Molten (3)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Period (200)  |  Permit (61)  |  Poet (97)  |  Point (584)  |  Primary (82)  |  Regard (312)  |  Retain (57)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Sin (45)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Speak (240)  |  Star (460)  |  Steam (81)  |  Stratification (2)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Vapour (16)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wild (96)

The publication of the Darwin and Wallace papers in 1858, and still more that of the 'Origin' in 1859, had the effect upon them of the flash of light, which to a man who has lost himself in a dark night, suddenly reveals a road which, whether it takes him straight home or not, certainly goes his way. That which we were looking for, and could not find, was a hypothesis respecting the origin of known organic forms, which assumed the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to be actually at work. We wanted, not to pin our faith to that or any other speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite conceptions which could be brought face to face with facts and have their validity tested. The 'Origin' provided us with the working hypothesis we sought.
'On the Reception of the Origin of Species'. In F. Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter (1888), Vol 2, 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Conception (160)  |  Dark (145)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Definite (114)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faith (209)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flash (49)  |  Form (976)  |  Himself (461)  |  Home (184)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Known (453)  |  Light (635)  |  Looking (191)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Operation (221)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pin (20)  |  Proof (304)  |  Publication (102)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Still (614)  |  Straight (75)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Test (221)  |  Validity (50)  |  Alfred Russel Wallace (41)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

The ravages committed by man subvert the relations and destroy the balance which nature had established between her organized and her inorganic creations; and she avenges herself upon the intruder, by letting loose upon her defaced provinces destructive energies hitherto kept in check by organic forces destined to be his best auxiliaries, but which he has unwisely dispersed and driven from the field of action. When the forest is gone, the great reservoir of moisture stored up in its vegetable mould is evaporated, and returns only in deluges of rain to wash away the parched dust into which that mould has been converted. The well-wooded and humid hills are turned to ridges of dry rock, which encumbers the low grounds and chokes the watercourses with its debris, and–except in countries favored with an equable distribution of rain through the seasons, and a moderate and regular inclination of surface–the whole earth, unless rescued by human art from the physical degradation to which it tends, becomes an assemblage of bald mountains, of barren, turfless hills, and of swampy and malarious plains. There are parts of Asia Minor, of Northern Africa, of Greece, and even of Alpine Europe, where the operation of causes set in action by man has brought the face of the earth to a desolation almost as complete as that of the moon; and though, within that brief space of time which we call “the historical period,” they are known to have been covered with luxuriant woods, verdant pastures, and fertile meadows, they are now too far deteriorated to be reclaimable by man, nor can they become again fitted for human use, except through great geological changes, or other mysterious influences or agencies of which we have no present knowledge, and over which we have no prospective control. The earth is fast becoming an unfit home for its noblest inhabitant, and another era of equal human crime and human improvidence, and of like duration with that through which traces of that crime and that improvidence extend, would reduce it to such a condition of impoverished productiveness, of shattered surface, of climatic excess, as to threaten the depravation, barbarism, and perhaps even extinction of the species.
Man and Nature, (1864), 42-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Africa (38)  |  Art (680)  |  Assemblage (17)  |  Balance (82)  |  Balance Of Nature (7)  |  Barbarism (8)  |  Barren (33)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Best (467)  |  Brief (37)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Complete (209)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Control (182)  |  Creation (350)  |  Crime (39)  |  Degradation (18)  |  Deluge (14)  |  Destined (42)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Dry (65)  |  Dust (68)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Excess (23)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Favor (69)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Field (378)  |  Force (497)  |  Forest (161)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Historical (70)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impoverished (3)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Low (86)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meadow (21)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Mold (37)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Operation (221)  |  Organic (161)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Physical (518)  |  Present (630)  |  Productivity (23)  |  Prospective (7)  |  Province (37)  |  Rain (70)  |  Ravage (7)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Regular (48)  |  Reservoir (9)  |  Return (133)  |  Rock (176)  |  Season (47)  |  Set (400)  |  Shattered (8)  |  Space (523)  |  Species (435)  |  Surface (223)  |  Tend (124)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Use (771)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Verdant (3)  |  Wash (23)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wood (97)

The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 28
Science quotes on:  |  Crisis (25)  |  Faith (209)  |  Moral (203)  |  Real (159)  |  Root (121)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Test (221)  |  Today (321)  |  Will (2350)

The real difficulty, however, that we all have to face in life is not so much the science of cookery as the stupidity of cooks.
In Epigrams of Oscar Wilde (2007), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Cook (20)  |  Cookery (7)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Life (1870)  |  Real (159)  |  Stupidity (40)

The responsibility which rests upon man is proportional to the ability which he possesses and the opportunity which he faces. Perhaps that responsibility is no greater for him than was that of Notharctus or Eohippus or a trilobite, each in his own day, but because of man’s unique abilities it is the greatest responsibility that has ever rested upon any of the earth’s offspring.
In Sons of the Earth: The Geologist’s View of History (1930), 258.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Greater (288)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Man (2252)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Rest (287)  |  Trilobite (6)  |  Unique (72)

The test of an invention is the power of an inventor to push it through in the face of staunch—not opposition, but indifference—in society.
Speaking at a shareholders' meeting (1975) as quoted by Victor K. McElheny, in Insisting On The Impossible: The Life Of Edwin Land (1999), 404.
Science quotes on:  |  Indifference (16)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Power (771)  |  Push (66)  |  Society (350)  |  Test (221)  |  Through (846)

The traditional mathematics professor of the popular legend is absentminded. He usually appears in public with a lost umbrella in each hand. He prefers to face a blackboard and to turn his back on the class. He writes a, he says b, he means c, but it should be d. Some of his sayings are handed down from generation to generation:
“In order to solve this differential equation you look at it till a solution occurs to you.”
“This principle is so perfectly general that no particular application of it is possible.”
“Geometry is the science of correct reasoning on incorrect figures.”
“My method to overcome a difficulty is to go round it.”
“What is the difference between method and device? A method is a device which you used twice.”
In How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method (2004), 208.
Science quotes on:  |  Absent-Minded (4)  |  Application (257)  |  Back (395)  |  Blackboard (11)  |  Class (168)  |  Correct (95)  |  Device (71)  |  Difference (355)  |  Differential Equation (18)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Down (455)  |  Equation (138)  |  Figure (162)  |  General (521)  |  Generality (45)  |  Generation (256)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Handed Down (2)  |  Incorrect (6)  |  Legend (18)  |  Look (584)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Occur (151)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Order (638)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Overcoming (3)  |  Particular (80)  |  Popular (34)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Professor (133)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Say (989)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Turn (454)  |  Twice (20)  |  Umbrella (4)  |  Using (6)  |  Usually (176)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

The weeping philosopher too often impairs his eyesight by his woe, and becomes unable from his tears to see the remedies for the evils which he deplores. Thus it will often be found that the man of no tears is the truest philanthropist, as he is the best physician who wears a cheerful face, even in the worst of cases.
From Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (1841), Vol. 1, 323.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Best (467)  |  Case (102)  |  Cheerful (10)  |  Deplore (2)  |  Evil (122)  |  Eyesight (5)  |  Find (1014)  |  Impair (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Philanthropist (4)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physician (284)  |  Remedy (63)  |  See (1094)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Tear (48)  |  True (239)  |  Unable (25)  |  Weep (5)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woe (4)  |  Worst (57)

The X-ray spectrometer opened up a new world. It proved to be a far more powerful method of analysing crystal structure…. One could examine the various faces of a crystal in succession, and by noting the angles at which and the intensity with which they reflected the X-rays, one could deduce the way in which the atoms were arranged in sheets parallel to these faces. The intersections of these sheets pinned down the positions of the atoms in space.… It was like discovering an alluvial gold field with nuggets lying around waiting to be picked up.… It was a glorious time when we worked far into every night with new worlds unfolding before us in the silent laboratory.
In The History of X-ray Analysis (1943), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Alluvial (2)  |  Analyse (4)  |  Angle (25)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Discover (571)  |  Down (455)  |  Examine (84)  |  Field (378)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Gold (101)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Intersection (2)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Located (2)  |  Lying (55)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Night (133)  |  Nugget (3)  |  Open (277)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Pick Up (5)  |  Position (83)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Sheet (8)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unfolding (16)  |  Various (205)  |  Waiting (42)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  X-ray (43)

The young genius early exults in the contemplation of power and beauty. During Scott’s childhood, a frightful thunder-storm raged at Edinburgh, which made his brothers and the domestics huddle together in one room, shivering with fear at every peal. Young Walter was found lying on his back in the garden, the rain pitilessly pelting his face, while he, almost convulsed with delight, shouted, at every flash, “bonnie! bonnie!” Schiller was found by his father, on a similar occasion, perched upon a tree, and, on being harshly questioned as to his object, whimpered out that he wanted to see where the thunder came from.
In 'Genius', Wellman’s Miscellany (Dec 1871), 4, No. 6, 204. A variation of the anecdote about Walter Scott is given in George Gilfillan (ed.), 'Memoir of Sir Walter Scott', The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott: With memoir and critical dissertation (1857), viii. The anecdote about Schiller is of dubious authenticity, according to Charles Follen (ed.), The Life of Friedrich Schiller: Comprehending an Examination of His Works (1837), 7
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brother (47)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Delight (111)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Early (196)  |  Edinburgh (2)  |  Father (113)  |  Fear (212)  |  Flash (49)  |  Garden (64)  |  Genius (301)  |  Lying (55)  |  Object (438)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Peal (2)  |  Perch (7)  |  Power (771)  |  Question (649)  |  Rain (70)  |  Friedrich Schiller (10)  |  Scott_Walter (2)  |  See (1094)  |  Shout (25)  |  Storm (56)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Thunderstorm (7)  |  Together (392)  |  Tree (269)  |  Want (504)  |  Young (253)

There are few enough people with sufficient independence to see the weaknesses and follies of their contemporaries and remain themselves untouched by them. And these isolated few usually soon lose their zeal for putting things to rights when they have come face to face with human obduracy. Only to a tiny minority is it given to fascinate their generation by subtle humour and grace and to hold the mirror up to it by the impersonal agency of art. To-day I salute with sincere emotion the supreme master of this method, who has delighted–and educated–us all.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Agency (14)  |  Art (680)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Delight (111)  |  Educate (14)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Enough (341)  |  Face To Face (4)  |  Fascinate (12)  |  Folly (44)  |  Generation (256)  |  Give (208)  |  Grace (31)  |  Hold (96)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humour (116)  |  Impersonal (5)  |  Independence (37)  |  Isolate (24)  |  Lose (165)  |  Master (182)  |  Method (531)  |  Minority (24)  |  Mirror (43)  |  People (1031)  |  Remain (355)  |  Right (473)  |  Salute (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Sincere (4)  |  Soon (187)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tiny (74)  |  To-Day (6)  |  Untouched (5)  |  Usually (176)  |  Weakness (50)  |  Zeal (12)

There is a mask of theory over the whole face of nature, if it be theory to infer more than we see.
The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences: Founded Upon Their History (1840), Vol. 1, 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Inference (45)  |  Mask (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Whole (756)

There is beauty in discovery. There is mathematics in music, a kinship of science and poetry in the description of nature, and exquisite form in a molecule. Attempts to place different disciplines in different camps are revealed as artificial in the face of the unity of knowledge. All illiterate men are sustained by the philosopher, the historian, the political analyst, the economist, the scientist, the poet, the artisan, and the musician.
From address (1958), upon being appointed Chancellor of the University of California.
Science quotes on:  |  Analyst (8)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Artisan (9)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Camp (12)  |  Description (89)  |  Different (595)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Economist (20)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Form (976)  |  Historian (59)  |  Illiterate (6)  |  Kinship (5)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Music (133)  |  Musician (23)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Poet (97)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Political (124)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Science And Poetry (17)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Unity (81)

There's no art To find the mind's construction in the face.
Macbeth (1606), I, iv.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Construction (114)  |  Find (1014)  |  Mind (1377)

They were in orbit around the planet now, and its giant curving bulk loomed so huge that he could see nothing else, nothing but the bands and swirls of clouds that raced fiercely across Jupiter’s face. The clouds shifted and flowed before his eyes, spun into eddies the size of Asia, moved and throbbed and pulsed like living creatures. Lightning flashed down there, sudden explosions of light that flickered back and forth across the clouds, like signalling lamps.
Ben Bova
Jupiter
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Asia (7)  |  Back (395)  |  Band (9)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Creature (242)  |  Curve (49)  |  Down (455)  |  Eddy (4)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Eye (440)  |  Flash (49)  |  Flicker (2)  |  Flow (89)  |  Forth (14)  |  Giant (73)  |  Huge (30)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Light (635)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Loom (20)  |  Move (223)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Planet (402)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Race (278)  |  See (1094)  |  Shift (45)  |  Signal (29)  |  Size (62)  |  Spin (26)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Swirl (10)  |  Throb (6)

This Academy [at Lagado] is not an entire single Building, but a Continuation of several Houses on both Sides of a Street; which growing waste, was purchased and applied to that Use.
I was received very kindly by the Warden, and went for many Days to the Academy. Every Room hath in it ' one or more Projectors; and I believe I could not be in fewer than five Hundred Rooms.
The first Man I saw was of a meagre Aspect, with sooty Hands and Face, his Hair and Beard long, ragged and singed in several Places. His Clothes, Shirt, and Skin were all of the same Colour. He had been Eight Years upon a Project for extracting Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers, which were to be put into Vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the Air in raw inclement Summers. He told me, he did not doubt in Eight Years more, that he should be able to supply the Governor's Gardens with Sunshine at a reasonable Rate; but he complained that his Stock was low, and interested me to give him something as an Encouragement to Ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear Season for Cucumbers. I made him a small Present, for my Lord had furnished me with Money on purpose, because he knew their Practice of begging from all who go to see them.
I saw another at work to calcine Ice into Gunpowder; who likewise shewed me a Treatise he had written concerning the Malleability of Fire, which he intended to publish.
There was a most ingenious Architect who had contrived a new Method for building Houses, by beginning at the Roof, and working downwards to the Foundation; which he justified to me by the life Practice of those two prudent Insects the Bee and the Spider.
In another Apartment I was highly pleased with a Projector, who had found a device of plowing the Ground with Hogs, to save the Charges of Plows, Cattle, and Labour. The Method is this: In an Acre of Ground you bury at six Inches Distance, and eight deep, a quantity of Acorns, Dates, Chestnuts, and other Masts or Vegetables whereof these Animals are fondest; then you drive six Hundred or more of them into the Field, where in a few Days they will root up the whole Ground in search of their Food, and make it fit for sowing, at the same time manuring it with their Dung. It is true, upon Experiment they found the Charge and Trouble very great, and they had little or no Crop. However, it is not doubted that this Invention may be capable of great Improvement.
I had hitherto seen only one Side of the Academy, the other being appropriated to the Advancers of speculative Learning.
Some were condensing Air into a dry tangible Substance, by extracting the Nitre, and letting the acqueous or fluid Particles percolate: Others softening Marble for Pillows and Pin-cushions. Another was, by a certain Composition of Gums, Minerals, and Vegetables outwardly applied, to prevent the Growth of Wool upon two young lambs; and he hoped in a reasonable Time to propagate the Breed of naked Sheep all over the Kingdom.
Gulliver's Travels (1726, Penguin ed. 1967), Part III, Chap. 5, 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Academy (37)  |  Acorn (5)  |  Acre (13)  |  Air (366)  |  Animal (651)  |  Applied (176)  |  Architect (32)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Beam (26)  |  Bee (44)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Breed (26)  |  Building (158)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Certain (557)  |  Charge (63)  |  Chestnut (2)  |  Composition (86)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Crop (26)  |  Cucumber (4)  |  Date (14)  |  Deep (241)  |  Device (71)  |  Distance (171)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dry (65)  |  Dung (10)  |  Encouragement (27)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Field (378)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Fit (139)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Food (213)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Garden (64)  |  Governor (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growth (200)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Hermetic Seal (2)  |  Hog (4)  |  House (143)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Ice (58)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Insect (89)  |  Interest (416)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Labor (200)  |  Lamb (6)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Lord (97)  |  Low (86)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marble (21)  |  Mast (3)  |  Method (531)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Money (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Pillow (4)  |  Pin (20)  |  Plow (7)  |  Practice (212)  |  Present (630)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Project (77)  |  Projector (3)  |  Publish (42)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Raw (28)  |  Root (121)  |  Save (126)  |  Saw (160)  |  Seal (19)  |  Search (175)  |  Season (47)  |  See (1094)  |  Sheep (13)  |  Side (236)  |  Single (365)  |  Skin (48)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Soot (11)  |  Sowing (9)  |  Spider (14)  |  Substance (253)  |  Summer (56)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunbeam (3)  |  Supply (100)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Vial (4)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Waste (109)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wool (4)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

This weapon [the atomic bomb] has added an additional responsibility—or, better, an additional incentive—to find a sound basis for lasting peace. It provides an overwhelming inducement for the avoidance of war. It emphasizes the crisis we face in international matters and strengthens the conviction that adequate safeguards for peace must be found.
Opening address (7 Nov 1945) of Town Hall’s annual lecture series, as quoted in 'Gen. Groves Warns on Atom ‘Suicide’', New York Times (8 Nov 1945), 4. (Just three months before he spoke, two atom bombs dropped on Japan in Aug 1945 effectively ended WW II.)
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Avoidance (11)  |  Basis (180)  |  Better (493)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Crisis (25)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Find (1014)  |  Incentive (10)  |  Inducement (3)  |  Intentional (4)  |  International (40)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Peace (116)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Safeguard (8)  |  Sound (187)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)

Though thou art far away, thy rays are on Earth;
Though thou art in their faces, no one knows thy going.
Akhenaten
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Far (158)  |  Know (1538)  |  Ray (115)  |  Thou (9)

Through and through the world is infected with quantity: To talk sense is to talk quantities. It is not use saying the nation is large—How large? It is no use saying the radium is scarce—How scarce? You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves.
In 'The Aims of Education', The Aims of Education: & Other Essays (1917), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Evade (4)  |  Fly (153)  |  Infect (3)  |  Large (398)  |  Music (133)  |  Nation (208)  |  Number (710)  |  Octave (3)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Radium (29)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Say (989)  |  Scarce (11)  |  Sense (785)  |  Talk (108)  |  Through (846)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Thus the great drama of universal life is perpetually sustained; and though the individual actors undergo continual change, the same parts are ever filled by another and another generation; renewing the face of the earth, and the bosom of the deep, with endless successions of life and happiness.
Geology and Mineralogy, Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (1836), Vol. I, 134.
Science quotes on:  |  Bosom (14)  |  Change (639)  |  Continual (44)  |  Deep (241)  |  Drama (24)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endless (60)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Individual (420)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Perpetually (20)  |  Succession (80)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Universal (198)

Time is a fixed income and, as with any income, the real problem facing most of us is how to live successfully within our daily allotment.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Daily (91)  |  Fix (34)  |  Income (18)  |  Live (650)  |  Most (1728)  |  Problem (731)  |  Real (159)  |  Successful (134)  |  Time (1911)

To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall. Teach him something of natural history, and you place in his hands a catalogue of those which are worth turning around. Surely our innocent pleasures are not so abundant in this life, that we can afford to despise this or any other source of them.
On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences' (1854). In Collected Essays (1893). Vol. 3, 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundant (23)  |  Art (680)  |  Country (269)  |  Education (423)  |  Gallery (7)  |  History (716)  |  Life (1870)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Sea (326)  |  Side (236)  |  Something (718)  |  Surely (101)  |  Teach (299)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Walk (138)  |  Wall (71)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)

Today when the public thinks of the products of science it is likely to think about environmental problems, an unproductive armament industry, careless or dishonest 'scientific' reports, Livermore cheers for 'nukes forever' and a huge amount of self-serving noise on every subject from global warming to 'the face of God'.
'Hard Times', Physics Today (Oct 1992), 45, 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Dishonest (7)  |  Dishonesty (9)  |  Environment (239)  |  Forever (111)  |  Global (39)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  God (776)  |  Industry (159)  |  Noise (40)  |  Problem (731)  |  Product (166)  |  Publication (102)  |  Science And Society (25)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Self (268)  |  Serving (15)  |  Subject (543)  |  Think (1122)  |  Today (321)  |  Warming (24)

Truth travels down from the heights of philosophy to the humblest walks of life, and up from the simplest perceptions of an awakened intellect to the discoveries which almost change the face of the world. At every stage of its progress it is genial, luminous, creative. When first struck out by some distinguished and fortunate genius, it may address itself only to a few minds of kindred power. It exists then only in the highest forms of science; it corrects former systems, and authorizes new generalizations. Discussion, controversy begins; more truth is elicited, more errors exploded, more doubts cleared up, more phenomena drawn into the circle, unexpected connexions of kindred sciences are traced, and in each step of the progress, the number rapidly grows of those who are prepared to comprehend and carry on some branches of the investigation,— till, in the lapse of time, every order of intellect has been kindled, from that of the sublime discoverer to the practical machinist; and every department of knowledge been enlarged, from the most abstruse and transcendental theory to the daily arts of life.
In An Address Delivered Before the Literary Societies of Amherst College (25 Aug 1835), 16-17.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstruse (12)  |  Art (680)  |  Authorize (5)  |  Awakened (2)  |  Begin (275)  |  Carry (130)  |  Change (639)  |  Circle (117)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Connection (171)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Creative (144)  |  Daily (91)  |  Department (93)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Down (455)  |  Error (339)  |  Exist (458)  |  Exploded (11)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Former (138)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Genial (3)  |  Genius (301)  |  Grow (247)  |  Height (33)  |  Humblest (4)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Perception (97)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Power (771)  |  Practical (225)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Simplest (10)  |  Stage (152)  |  Step (234)  |  Sublime (50)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transcendental (11)  |  Travel (125)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Walk (138)  |  Walk Of Life (2)  |  World (1850)

Very great charm of shadow and light is to be found in the faces of those who sit in the doors of dark houses. The eye of the spectator sees that part of the face which is in shadow lost in the darkness of the house, and that part of the face which is lit draws its brilliancy from the splendor of the sky. From this intensification of light and shade the face gains greatly in relief and beauty by showing the subtlest shadows in the light part and the subtlest lights in the dark part.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Brilliancy (3)  |  Charm (54)  |  Dark (145)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Door (94)  |  Draw (140)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gain (146)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatly (12)  |  House (143)  |  Intensification (2)  |  Light (635)  |  Lose (165)  |  Part (235)  |  Relief (30)  |  See (1094)  |  Shade (35)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Show (353)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sky (174)  |  Spectator (11)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Subtl (2)

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds.
In Four Articles on Metalinguistics (1950), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Category (19)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Dissect (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flux (21)  |  Impression (118)  |  Isolate (24)  |  Kaleidoscope (5)  |  Language (308)  |  Linguistics (39)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Native (41)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observer (48)  |  Organize (33)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Present (630)  |  Stare (9)  |  System (545)  |  Type (171)  |  World (1850)

We entered into shadow. Contact with Moscow was gone. Japan floated by beneath us and I could clearly see its cities ablaze with lights. We left Japan behind to face the dark emptiness of the Pacific Ocean. No moon. Only stars, bright and far away. I gripped the handle like a man hanging onto a streetcar. Very slowly, agonizingly, half an hour passed, and with that, dawn on Earth. First, a slim greenish-blue line on the farthest horizon turning within a couple of minutes into a rainbow that hugged the Earth and in turn exploded into a golden sun. You’re out of your mind, I told myself, hanging onto a ship in space, and to your life, and getting ready to admire a sunrise.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admire (19)  |  Behind (139)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Bright (81)  |  City (87)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Contact (66)  |  Couple (9)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emptiness (13)  |  Enter (145)  |  Explode (15)  |  Exploded (11)  |  Far (158)  |  First (1302)  |  Float (31)  |  Golden (47)  |  Grip (10)  |  Half (63)  |  Handle (29)  |  Hang (46)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hug (3)  |  Japan (9)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Line (100)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moscow (5)  |  Myself (211)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pacific Ocean (5)  |  Pass (241)  |  Rainbow (17)  |  Ready (43)  |  See (1094)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Ship (69)  |  Slim (2)  |  Slowly (19)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Streetcar (2)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunrise (14)  |  Tell (344)  |  Turn (454)

We have an extraordinary opportunity that has arisen only twice before in the history of Western civilization—the opportunity to see everything afresh through a new cosmological lens. We are the first humans privileged to see a face of the universe no earlier culture ever imagined.
As co-author with Nancy Ellen Abrams, in The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos (2006), 297.
Science quotes on:  |  Afresh (4)  |  Arise (162)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Culture (157)  |  Early (196)  |  Everything (489)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  First (1302)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Lens (15)  |  New (1273)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Privilege (41)  |  See (1094)  |  Through (846)  |  Twice (20)  |  Universe (900)  |  Western (45)

We may have to live with the failure to control atomic energy for the rest of our lives. If that is to be our lot, let us face it steadfastly with faith in the civilisation we defend. The acid test of the strength of our society is the self-discipline of its adherents.
As quoted in 'On This Day', The Times (1 Feb 2001), 21, reprinting the article 'United States to Develop Hydrogen Bomb' from The Times (1 Feb 1950), which in turn was quoting Baruch from 'International Control of Atomic Energy', Air Affairs (Spring 1950), 319.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Adherent (6)  |  Atomic Energy (25)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Control (182)  |  Defend (32)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Energy (373)  |  Failure (176)  |  Faith (209)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Lot (151)  |  Rest (287)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Discipline (2)  |  Society (350)  |  Steadfast (4)  |  Strength (139)  |  Test (221)

We woke periodically throughout the night to peel off leeches. In the light of the head torch, the ground was a sea of leeches - black, slithering, standing up on one end to sniff the air and heading inexorably our way to feed. Our exposed faces were the main problem, with leeches feeding off our cheeks and becoming entangled in our hair. I developed a fear of finding one feeding in my ear, and that it would become too large to slither out, causing permanent damage.
Kinabalu Escape: The Soldiers’ Story
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Black (46)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cheek (3)  |  Damage (38)  |  Develop (278)  |  Ear (69)  |  End (603)  |  Expose (28)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feed (31)  |  Find (1014)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hair (25)  |  Head (87)  |  Inexorably (2)  |  Large (398)  |  Leech (6)  |  Light (635)  |  Main (29)  |  Night (133)  |  Peel (6)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Problem (731)  |  Sea (326)  |  Slither (2)  |  Stand (284)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Torch (13)  |  Wake (17)  |  Way (1214)

We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most critical elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Blow (45)  |  Blow Up (8)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Combustible (2)  |  Critical (73)  |  Depend (238)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Element (322)  |  Global (39)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Most (1728)  |  Power (771)  |  Prescription (18)  |  Profoundly (13)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)

What is the use of this history, what the use of all this minute research? I well know that it will not produce a fall in the price of pepper, a rise in that of crates of rotten cabbages, or other serious events of this kind, which cause fleets to be manned and set people face to face intent upon one another's extermination. The insect does not aim at so much glory. It confines itself to showing us life in the inexhaustible variety of its manifestations; it helps us to decipher in some small measure the obscurest book of all, the book of ourselves.
Introducing the natural history and his study of the insect Minotaurus typhoeus. In Jean-Henri Fabre and Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (trans.), The Life and Love of the Insect (1918), 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Book (413)  |  Cabbage (5)  |  Cause (561)  |  Decipher (7)  |  Event (222)  |  Extermination (14)  |  Fall (243)  |  History (716)  |  Inexhaustible (26)  |  Insect (89)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Measure (241)  |  Minute (129)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  People (1031)  |  Pepper (2)  |  Price (57)  |  Research (753)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rotten (3)  |  Serious (98)  |  Set (400)  |  Small (489)  |  Use (771)  |  Variety (138)  |  Will (2350)

What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people’s faces as unfinished as their minds.
In Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monstrosity (6)  |  People (1031)  |  Street (25)  |  Unfinished (4)  |  Walk (138)

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.
Leviathan (1651), ed. C. B. Macpherson (1968), Part 1, Chapter 13, 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Art (680)  |  Building (158)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Continual (44)  |  Culture (157)  |  Danger (127)  |  Death (406)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Fear (212)  |  Force (497)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Industry (159)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Require (229)  |  Sea (326)  |  Security (51)  |  Short (200)  |  Society (350)  |  Strength (139)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Use (771)  |  War (233)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Worst (57)

When asked what it was like to set about proving something, the mathematician likened proving a theorem to seeing the peak of a mountain and trying to climb to the top. One establishes a base camp and begins scaling the mountain’s sheer face, encountering obstacles at every turn, often retracing one’s steps and struggling every foot of the journey. Finally when the top is reached, one stands examining the peak, taking in the view of the surrounding countryside and then noting the automobile road up the other side!
Space-filler in The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal (Nov 1980), 11, No. 5, 295.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Base (120)  |  Begin (275)  |  Camp (12)  |  Climb (39)  |  Countryside (5)  |  Encounter (23)  |  Establish (63)  |  Examine (84)  |  Journey (48)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peak (20)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reach (286)  |  Retrace (3)  |  Road (71)  |  Scale (122)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Set (400)  |  Sheer (9)  |  Side (236)  |  Something (718)  |  Stand (284)  |  Step (234)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Surrounding (13)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Top (100)  |  Trying (144)  |  Turn (454)  |  View (496)

When I was living with the Indians, my hostess, a fine looking woman, who wore numberless bracelets, and rings in her ears and on her fingers, and painted her face like a brilliant sunset, one day gave away a very fine horse. I was surprised, for I knew there had been no family talk on the subject, so I asked: “Will your husband like to have you give the horse away?” Her eyes danced, and, breaking into a peal of laughter, she hastened to tell the story to the other women gathered in the tent, and I became the target of many merry eyes. I tried to explain how a white woman would act, but laughter and contempt met my explanation of the white man’s hold upon his wife’s property.
Speech on 'The Legal Conditions of Indian Women', delivered to Evening Session (Thur 29 Mar 1888), collected in Report of the International Council of Women: Assembled by the National Woman Suffrage Association, Washington, D.C., U.S. of America, March 25 to April 1, 1888 (1888), Vol. 1, 240.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Ask (420)  |  Bracelet (2)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Contempt (20)  |  Ear (69)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Eye (440)  |  Family (101)  |  Finger (48)  |  Gather (76)  |  Give (208)  |  Hasten (13)  |  Horse (78)  |  Hostess (2)  |  Husband (13)  |  Indian (32)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Looking (191)  |  Man (2252)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paint (22)  |  Property (177)  |  Ring (18)  |  Story (122)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Talk (108)  |  Target (13)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tent (13)  |  White (132)  |  Wife (41)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)

When it comes to understanding the planet’s blue [ocean] frontier, one of the largest challenges we face can be encapsulated by a simple phrase: Out of sight, out of mind.
huffingtonpost.com/philippe-cousteau/ocean-oases-protecting-ca_b_873016.html
Science quotes on:  |  Challenge (91)  |  Frontier (41)  |  Largest (39)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Planet (402)  |  Sight (135)  |  Simple (426)  |  Understanding (527)

When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws.
'To the Rainbow.' In Samuel Rogers, Thomas Campbell, et al, The Poetical Works of Rogers, Campbell, J. Montgomery, Lamb, and Kirke White (1830), 153.
Science quotes on:  |  Cold (115)  |  Creation (350)  |  Enchantment (9)  |  Law (913)  |  Material (366)  |  Veil (27)  |  Vision (127)  |  Withdraw (11)  |  Yield (86)

When the face, the back of the hand, or another part of the body the sensitivity of which is not too weakened by touch is brought near an electrified conductor, there is felt the impression of a fresh breeze, of a light breath, or of a cobweb.
In biography article by Louis Dulieu, in Charles Coulston Gillispie, Dictionary of Scientific Biographt (1980), Vol. 2, 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Body (557)  |  Breath (61)  |  Breeze (8)  |  Cobweb (6)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electrostatics (6)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Hand (149)  |  Impression (118)  |  Light (635)  |  Sensitivity (10)  |  Touch (146)

When the solution is simple, God is answering. Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admire (19)  |  Answer (389)  |  Art (680)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cease (81)  |  Enter (145)  |  Free (239)  |  God (776)  |  Hope (321)  |  Observe (179)  |  Personal (75)  |  Realm (87)  |  Scene (36)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solution (282)  |  Wish (216)  |  World (1850)

When the uncultured man sees a stone in the road it tells him no story other than the fact that he sees a stone … The scientist looking at the same stone perhaps will stop, and with a hammer break it open, when the newly exposed faces of the rock will have written upon them a history that is as real to him as the printed page.
In Nature’s Miracles: Familiar Talks on Science (1899), Vol. 1, 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Break (109)  |  Culture (157)  |  Expose (28)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Hammer (26)  |  History (716)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Man (2252)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Page (35)  |  Print (20)  |  Reality (274)  |  Road (71)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stop (89)  |  Story (122)  |  Tell (344)  |  Telling (24)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writing (192)

When we had no computers, we had no programming problem either. When we had a few computers, we had a mild programming problem. Confronted with machines a million times as powerful, we are faced with a gigantic programming problem.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Computer (131)  |  Confront (18)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mild (7)  |  Million (124)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Problem (731)  |  Program (57)  |  Time (1911)

Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science. If what is seen is seen and experienced is portrayed in the language of logic, we are engaged in science. If it is communicated through forms whose connections are not accessible to the conscious mind but are recognized intuitively as meaningful, then we are engaged in art.
'What Artistic and Scientific Experience Have in Common', Menschen (27 Jan 1921). In Albert Einstein, Helen Dukas, Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein, The Human Side (1981), 37-38. The article was published in a German magazine on modern art, upon a request from the editor, Walter Hasenclever, for a few paragraphs on the idea that there was a close connection between the artistic developments and the scientific results belonging to a given epoch. (The magazine name, and editor's name are given by Ze'ev Rosenkranz, The Einstein Scrapbook (2002), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Accessible (27)  |  Admire (19)  |  Art (680)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cease (81)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Connection (171)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Engage (41)  |  Enter (145)  |  Experience (494)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Hope (321)  |  Language (308)  |  Logic (311)  |  Meaningful (19)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Observe (179)  |  Personal (75)  |  Portray (6)  |  Realm (87)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Scene (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Through (846)  |  Wish (216)  |  World (1850)

Whereas you have a very expensive dept. for destroying human life, would it not be for the honour of the New World to have a little national establishment for the preservation of human life; more especially as the devouring monster, small pox, has already destroyed many millions (some say 40) more lives than there are people now on the face of the earth.
(Conclusion of a letter (14 Dec 1826) to Massachusetts Congressman Edward Everett (1794-1865), in which he outlined his experience with vaccination.)
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Experience (494)  |  Honour (58)  |  Human (1512)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Monster (33)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  People (1031)  |  Say (989)  |  Small (489)  |  Vaccination (7)  |  World (1850)

Why does a man want to be a scientist? There are many goals: fame, position, a thirst for understanding. The first two can be attained without intellectual integrity; the third cannot. … The thirst for knowledge, what Thomas Huxley called the ‘Divine dipsomania’, can only be satisfied by complete intellectual integrity. It seems to me the only one of the three goals that continues to reward the pursuer. He presses on, “knowing that Nature never did betray the heart that loved her”. Here is another kind of love, that has so many faces. Love is neither passion, nor pride, nor pity, nor blind adoration, but it can be any or all of these if they are transfigured by deep and unbiased understanding.
In Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections (1996), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Adoration (4)  |  Attain (126)  |  Betray (8)  |  Blind (98)  |  Call (781)  |  Complete (209)  |  Continue (179)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dipsomania (2)  |  Divine (112)  |  Fame (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Goal (155)  |  Heart (243)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (132)  |  Integrity (21)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Passion (121)  |  Pity (16)  |  Position (83)  |  Press On (2)  |  Pride (84)  |  Reward (72)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Third (17)  |  Thirst (11)  |  Transfigure (2)  |  Two (936)  |  Unbiased (7)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Want (504)  |  Why (491)

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)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everything (489)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extermination (14)  |  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)

Will none wipe the sneer of the face of the cosmos?
The Broken Sword (1954)
Science quotes on:  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Sneer (9)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

Winter opened its vaults last night, flinging fistfuls of crystalline diamonds into the darkening sky. Like white-tulled ballerinas dancing gracefully on heaven’s stage, silent stars stood entranced by their intricate beauty. Motionless, I watched each lacy gem drift softly by my upturned face, as winter’s icy hands guided them gently on their swirling lazy way, and blanketed the waiting earth in cold splendor. The shivering rustling of reeds, the restless fingers of the trees snapping in the frosty air, broke the silent stillness, as winter quietly pulled up its white coverlet over the sleepy earth.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Ballerina (2)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Blanket (10)  |  Break (109)  |  Cold (115)  |  Crystalline (3)  |  Dance (35)  |  Darken (2)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Drift (14)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entrance (16)  |  Finger (48)  |  Fling (5)  |  Frosty (3)  |  Gem (17)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hand (149)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Icy (3)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Last (425)  |  Lazy (10)  |  Motionless (4)  |  Night (133)  |  Open (277)  |  Pull (43)  |  Quietly (5)  |  Reed (8)  |  Restless (13)  |  Rustle (2)  |  Shiver (2)  |  Silent (31)  |  Sky (174)  |  Snap (7)  |  Softly (6)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Stage (152)  |  Stand (284)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Stillness (5)  |  Swirl (10)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vault (2)  |  Wait (66)  |  Waiting (42)  |  Watch (118)  |  Way (1214)  |  White (132)  |  Winter (46)

You can always tell the pioneers because they are face down in the mud with arrows in their backs.
Anonymous
Seen in various paraphrases, such as $ldquo;in the dirt”.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrow (22)  |  Back (395)  |  Dirt (17)  |  Down (455)  |  Mud (26)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Tell (344)

You’ve got to be fairly solemn [about the environment]. I mean the mere notion that there are three times as many people on Earth as there were when I started making television. How can the Earth accommodate them? When people, including politicians, set their faces against looking at the consequences—it’s just unbelievable that anyone could ignore it.
In Andrew Pettie, 'Sir David Attenborough interview', The Telegraph (23 Dec 2010). [Checking one population data source, it seems that at the time of the article, in 2010 at age 84, there had been a 2.6 (rounds to roughly three) times increase since 1954 when Attenborough first broadcast. By the year of his 97th birthday, in 2023, the increase was indeed three times (2.99). —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodate (17)  |  Against (332)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Environment (239)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Looking (191)  |  Making (300)  |  Mean (810)  |  Notion (120)  |  People (1031)  |  Politician (40)  |  Population (115)  |  Set (400)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Solemnity (6)  |  Start (237)  |  Television (33)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unbelievable (7)

Zoological taxonomists in general are inclined to be practical workers rather than philosophers, if only because they face such an unending task that they are not encouraged to sit back and philosophize.
In 'Illogicality in Criticism', Systematic Zoology (Dec 1969), 18, No. 4, 470.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  General (521)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Practical (225)  |  Task (152)  |  Unending (5)  |  Zoological (5)


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.