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 path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it... That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That�s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index F > Category: Falsehood

Falsehood Quotes (30 quotes)

... the besetting danger is not so much of embracing falsehood for truth, as of mistaking a part of the truth for the whole.
'Coleridge', essay in Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical (1864), Vol. 2, 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Beset (2)  |  Danger (127)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Part (235)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Whole (756)

That the Sun will not rise Tomorrow is no less intelligible a Proposition and implies no more contradiction than the Affirmation that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Affirmation (8)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  More (2558)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Rise (169)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Vain (86)  |  Will (2350)

~~[Attributed, authorship undocumented]~~ Mathematical demonstrations are a logic of as much or more use, than that commonly learned at schools, serving to a just formation of the mind, enlarging its capacity, and strengthening it so as to render the same capable of exact reasoning, and discerning truth from falsehood in all occurrences, even in subjects not mathematical. For which reason it is said, the Egyptians, Persians, and Lacedaemonians seldom elected any new kings, but such as had some knowledge in the mathematics, imagining those, who had not, men of imperfect judgments, and unfit to rule and govern.
From an article which appeared as 'The Usefulness of Mathematics', Pennsylvania Gazette (30 Oct 1735), No. 360. Collected, despite being without clear evidence of Franklin’s authorship, in The Works of Benjamin Franklin (1809), Vol. 4, 377. Evidence of actual authorship by Ben Franklin for the newspaper article has not been ascertained, and scholars doubt it. See Franklin documents at the website founders.archives.gov. The quote is included here to attach this caution.
Science quotes on:  |  Capable (174)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Egyptian (5)  |  Elect (5)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Exact (75)  |  Formation (100)  |  Govern (66)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  It Is Said (2)  |  Judgment (140)  |  King (39)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics And Logic (27)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Persian (4)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Render (96)  |  Rule (307)  |  School (227)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Serving (15)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  Subject (543)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unfit (13)  |  Use (771)

A people that were to honor falsehood, defamation, fraud, and murder would be unable, indeed, to subsist for very long.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Defamation (2)  |  Fraud (15)  |  Honor (57)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Long (778)  |  Murder (16)  |  People (1031)  |  Subsist (5)  |  Unable (25)

All err the more dangerously because each follows a truth. Their mistake lies not in following a falsehood but in not following another truth.
From Pensées, as translated in W.H. Auden and L. Kronenberger (eds.) The Viking Book of Aphorisms (1966), 325. From the original French, “Tous errent d'autant plus dangereusement qu’ils suivent chacun une vérité. Leur faute n’est pas de suivre une fausseté, mais de ne pas suivre une autre vérité,” in Oeuvres Complètes (1864), Vol. 1, 363.
Science quotes on:  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Error (339)  |  Follow (389)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Truth (1109)

Ars est sine arte, cujus principium est mentiri, medium laborare, et finis mendicare.
The art is devoid of art, whose beginning is falsehood, its middle labour, and its end beggary.
[On the character of the delusive science of alchemy].
Anonymous
In Henry Thomas Riley, Dictionary of Latin Quotations, Proverbs, Maxims, and Mottos (1866), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Art (680)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Character (259)  |  End (603)  |  Labor (200)

Chemistry is an art that has furnished the world with a great number of useful facts, and has thereby contributed to the improvement of many arts; but these facts lie scattered in many different books, involved in obscure terms, mixed with many falsehoods, and joined to a great deal of false philosophy; so that it is not great wonder that chemistry has not been so much studied as might have been expected with regard to so useful a branch of knowledge, and that many professors are themselves but very superficially acquainted with it. But it was particularly to be expected, that, since it has been taught in universities, the difficulties in this study should have been in some measure removed, that the art should have been put into form, and a system of it attempted—the scattered facts collected and arranged in a proper order. But this has not yet been done; chemistry has not yet been taught but upon a very narrow plan. The teachers of it have still confined themselves to the purposes of pharmacy and medicine, and that comprehends a small branch of chemistry; and even that, by being a single branch, could not by itself be tolerably explained.
John Thomson, An Account of the Life, Lectures and Writings of William Cullen, M.D. (1832), Vol. 1, 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Branch (155)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Deal (192)  |  Different (595)  |  Expect (203)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Great (1610)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Involved (90)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Measure (241)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Number (710)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Order (638)  |  Pharmacy (4)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plan (122)  |  Professor (133)  |  Proper (150)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Regard (312)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  System (545)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Useful (260)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult.
In Adam Bede (1859, 1860), 151.
Science quotes on:  |  Difficult (263)  |  Easy (213)  |  Truth (1109)

I conclude that, while it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.
Religion and Science (1935), 243.
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Decision (98)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Outside (141)  |  Question (649)  |  Realm (87)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)  |  Whatever (234)

I deal not with the perishing things of the hour—with statistics, … so fugitive,—that truth to-day is falsehood almost on the morrow.
In The Shoe and Canoe: Or Pictures of Travel in the Canadas (1850), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Fugitive (4)  |  Hour (192)  |  Perish (56)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Truth (1109)

It has been pointed out already that no knowledge of probabilities, less in degree than certainty, helps us to know what conclusions are true, and that there is no direct relation between the truth of a proposition and its probability. Probability begins and ends with probability. That a scientific investigation pursued on account of its probability will generally lead to truth, rather than falsehood, is at the best only probable.
In A Treatise on Probability (1921), 322.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Already (226)  |  Begin (275)  |  Best (467)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Degree (277)  |  Direct (228)  |  End (603)  |  Help (116)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Less (105)  |  Point (584)  |  Probability (135)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Relation (166)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)

It is admitted by all that a finished or even a competent reasoner is not the work of nature alone; the experience of every day makes it evident that education develops faculties which would otherwise never have manifested their existence. It is, therefore, as necessary to learn to reason before we can expect to be able to reason, as it is to learn to swim or fence, in order to attain either of those arts. Now, something must be reasoned upon, it matters not much what it is, provided it can be reasoned upon with certainty. The properties of mind or matter, or the study of languages, mathematics, or natural history, may be chosen for this purpose. Now of all these, it is desirable to choose the one which admits of the reasoning being verified, that is, in which we can find out by other means, such as measurement and ocular demonstration of all sorts, whether the results are true or not. When the guiding property of the loadstone was first ascertained, and it was necessary to learn how to use this new discovery, and to find out how far it might be relied on, it would have been thought advisable to make many passages between ports that were well known before attempting a voyage of discovery. So it is with our reasoning faculties: it is desirable that their powers should be exerted upon objects of such a nature, that we can tell by other means whether the results which we obtain are true or false, and this before it is safe to trust entirely to reason. Now the mathematics are peculiarly well adapted for this purpose, on the following grounds:
1. Every term is distinctly explained, and has but one meaning, and it is rarely that two words are employed to mean the same thing.
2. The first principles are self-evident, and, though derived from observation, do not require more of it than has been made by children in general.
3. The demonstration is strictly logical, taking nothing for granted except self-evident first principles, resting nothing upon probability, and entirely independent of authority and opinion.
4. When the conclusion is obtained by reasoning, its truth or falsehood can be ascertained, in geometry by actual measurement, in algebra by common arithmetical calculation. This gives confidence, and is absolutely necessary, if, as was said before, reason is not to be the instructor, but the pupil.
5. There are no words whose meanings are so much alike that the ideas which they stand for may be confounded. Between the meaning of terms there is no distinction, except a total distinction, and all adjectives and adverbs expressing difference of degrees are avoided.
In On the Study and Difficulties of Mathematics (1898), chap. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Actual (118)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adjective (3)  |  Admit (49)  |  Adverb (3)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Alike (60)  |  Alone (324)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Art (680)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Authority (99)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Being (1276)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Choose (116)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Common (447)  |  Competent (20)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Confound (21)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Derive (70)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Distinctly (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Employ (115)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Evident (92)  |  Exert (40)  |  Existence (481)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explain (334)  |  Express (192)  |  Faculty (76)  |  False (105)  |  Far (158)  |  Fence (11)  |  Find (1014)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Grant (76)  |  Ground (222)  |  Guide (107)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Independent (74)  |  Instructor (5)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lodestone (7)  |  Logical (57)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meanings (5)  |  Means (587)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ocular (3)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Peculiarly (4)  |  Port (2)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Property (177)  |  Provide (79)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Rely (12)  |  Require (229)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Safe (61)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Something (718)  |  Sort (50)  |  Stand (284)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Study (701)  |  Swim (32)  |  Tell (344)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Total (95)  |  True (239)  |  Trust (72)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Verify (24)  |  Voyage (13)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

It is in the name of Moses that Bellarmin thunderstrikes Galileo; and this great vulgarizer of the great seeker Copernicus, Galileo, the old man of truth, the magian of the heavens, was reduced to repeating on his knees word for word after the inquisitor this formula of shame: “Corde sincera et fide non ficta abjuro maledico et detestor supradictos errores et hereses.” Falsehood put an ass's hood on science.
[With a sincere heart, and of faith unfeigned, I deny by oath, condemn and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies.]
In Victor Hugo and Lorenzo O'Rourke (trans.) Victor Hugo's Intellectual Autobiography: (Postscriptum de ma vie) (1907), 313.
Science quotes on:  |  Condemn (44)  |  Nicolaus Copernicus (54)  |  Deny (71)  |  Error (339)  |  Faith (209)  |  Formula (102)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Heresy (9)  |  Inquisitor (6)  |  Knee (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moses (8)  |  Name (359)  |  Oath (10)  |  Old (499)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Seeker (8)  |  Shame (15)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Word (650)

Many climate sceptics seem to review scientific data and studies not as scientists but as attorneys, magnifying doubts and treating incomplete explanations as falsehoods rather than signs of progress towards the truth.
Editorial, Nature (28 Jul 2011), 475, 423-424.
Science quotes on:  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Data (162)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Magnify (4)  |  Progress (492)  |  Review (27)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sign (63)  |  Skeptic (8)  |  Study (701)  |  Treating (2)  |  Truth (1109)

Rules of Thumb
Thumb’s First Postulate: It is better to use a crude approximation and know the truth, plus or minus 10 percent, than demand an exact solution and know nothing at all.
Thumb’s Second Postulate: An easily understood, workable falsehood is more useful than a complex incomprehensible truth.
Anonymous
In Arthur Bloch, The Complete Murphy's Law: A Definitive Collection (1991), 126.
Science quotes on:  |  Approximation (32)  |  Better (493)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Crude (32)  |  Demand (131)  |  Ease (40)  |  Exactness (29)  |  First (1302)  |  Incomprehensibility (2)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Plus (43)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Rule (307)  |  Rule Of Thumb (3)  |  Solution (282)  |  Thumb (18)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)

Scientific education is a training in mental integrity. All along the history of culture from savagery to modern civilization men have imagined what ought to be, and then have tried to prove it true. This is the very spirit of metaphysic philosophy. When the imagination is not disciplined by unrelenting facts, it invents falsehood, and, when error has thus been invented, the heavens and the earth are ransacked for its proof.
From address (1 Oct 1884), at inauguration of the Corcoran School of Science and Arts, Columbian University, Washington, D.C. Published in 'The Larger Import of Scientific Education', Popular Science Monthly (Feb 1885), 26, 455.
Science quotes on:  |  Culture (157)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Education (423)  |  Error (339)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Heaven (266)  |  History (716)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Integrity (21)  |  Invent (57)  |  Mental (179)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Modern Civilization (3)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Proof (304)  |  Ransack (2)  |  Savage (33)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Training (92)  |  True (239)  |  Unrelenting (2)

The gold of truth cannot be altered by the acid of falsehood.
End of page filler in The Medico-pharmaceutical Critic and Guide (1910), 13, 261.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Gold (101)  |  Truth (1109)

The moral attitudes of a people that is supported by religion need always aim at preserving and promoting the sanity and vitality of the community and its individuals, since otherwise this community is bound to perish. A people that were to honor falsehood, defamation, fraud, and murder would be unable, indeed, to subsist for very long.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Bind (26)  |  Bound (120)  |  Community (111)  |  Defamation (2)  |  Fraud (15)  |  Honor (57)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Long (778)  |  Moral (203)  |  Murder (16)  |  Need (320)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  People (1031)  |  Perish (56)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Promote (32)  |  Religion (369)  |  Sanity (9)  |  Subsist (5)  |  Support (151)  |  Unable (25)  |  Vitality (24)

The time when we could tolerate accounts presenting us the native as a distorted, childish charicature of a human being are gone. This picture is false, and like many other falsehoods, it has been killed by Science.
Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1961), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Being (1276)  |  Childish (20)  |  Distort (22)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Kill (100)  |  Native (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Picture (148)  |  Time (1911)

There are three leading objects in the study of truth:—one, to discover it; another, to demonstrate it when discovered; the last, to separate it from all admixture of falsehood.
As translated in Blaise Pascal and M.P. Faugère (trans.), 'On The Geometrical Spirit', collected in The Miscellaneous Writings of Pascal; Consisting of Letters, Essays, Conversations, and Miscellaneous Thoughts (1849), 73. From the original French, “On peut avoir trois principaux objets dans l’etude de la vérité: l’un, de la découvrir quand on la cherche; l’autre, de la démontrer quand on la possède; le dernier, de la discerner d'avec le faux quand on l’examine,” in 'De l'Esprit Géométrique', Pascal: Opuscules Philosophiques (1887), 82. For an alternative translation, see the quote beginning, “We may have three principal objects…” on the Blaise Pascal Quotes page of this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Discover (571)  |  Last (425)  |  Leading (17)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Object (438)  |  Separate (151)  |  Study (701)  |  Truth (1109)

There is no such thing as absolute truth and absolute falsehood. The scientific mind should never recognise the perfect truth or the perfect falsehood of any supposed theory or observation. It should carefully weigh the chances of truth and error and grade each in its proper position along the line joining absolute truth and absolute error.
In 'The Highest Aim of the Physicist: Presidential Address Delivered at the 2nd Meeting of the Society, October 28th, 1899', Bulletin of the American Physical Society (1899), 1, 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Chance (244)  |  Error (339)  |  Join (32)  |  Joining (11)  |  Line (100)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observation (593)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Proper (150)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Mind (13)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Weigh (51)

Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field…. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?
In Areopagitica: A speech of Mr John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenced printing to the Parliament of England (23 Nov 1644), 35.
Science quotes on:  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Encounter (23)  |  Field (378)  |  Free (239)  |  Grapple (11)  |  Open (277)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Wind (141)  |  Worse (25)

Time’s glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light.
In 'Rape of Lucrece', The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare (1821), Vol. 20, 159.
Science quotes on:  |  Calm (32)  |  Contend (8)  |  Glory (66)  |  King (39)  |  Light (635)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)

To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.
In Time Enough For Love: the Lives of Lazarus Long (1973), 364.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Old (499)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Unceasing (3)  |  Unlearn (11)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

Truth and falsity, indeed understanding, is not necessarily something purely intellectual, remote from feelings and attitudes. ... It is in the total conduct of men rather than in their statements that truth or falsehood lives, more in what a man does, in his real reaction to other men and to things, in his will to do them justice, to live at one with them. Here lies the inner connection between truth and justice. In the realm of behavior and action, the problem recurs as to the difference between piece and part.
From 'On Truth', collected in Mary Henle (ed.), Documents of Gestalt Psychology (1961), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Connection (171)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Falsity (16)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inner (72)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Justice (40)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Piece (39)  |  Problem (731)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Real (159)  |  Realm (87)  |  Recur (4)  |  Remote (86)  |  Something (718)  |  Statement (148)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Total (95)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

Truth is an abstract word which most men use indifferently in their books and judgments, for error and falsehood.
In 'Truth', Philosophical Dictionary (1824), Vol. 6, 297.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Book (413)  |  Error (339)  |  Indifferent (17)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Most (1728)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

Unfortunately, where there is no experiment of exact science to settle the matter, it takes as much time and trouble to pull down a falsehood as to build up a truth.
In Robert Martin (ed.), 'General Remarks on the Practice of Medicine', The Collected Works of Dr. P. M. Latham (1873), Vol. 2, 398.
Science quotes on:  |  Build (211)  |  Down (455)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Matter (821)  |  Pull (43)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unfortunately (40)

We have to be ready to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.
Pragmatism (1907, 2008), 98.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Live (650)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Truth (1109)

What others strive to see dimly and blindly, like bats in twilight, he [Petrus Peregrinus] gazes at in the full light of day, because he is a master of experiment. Through experiment he gains knowledge of natural things, medical, chemical, and indeed of everything in the heavens or earth. … He has even taken note of the remedies, lot casting, and charms used by old women and by wizards and magicians, and of the deceptions and devices of conjurors, so that nothing which deserves inquiry should escape him, and that he may be able to expose the falsehoods of magicians.
Science quotes on:  |  Bat (10)  |  Casting (10)  |  Charm (54)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Deception (9)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Device (71)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Escape (85)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Expose (28)  |  Gain (146)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  Lot (151)  |  Magician (15)  |  Master (182)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)

Whether statistics be an art or a science... or a scientific art, we concern ourselves little. It is the basis of social and political dynamics, and affords the only secure ground on which the truth or falsehood of the theories and hypotheses of that complicated science can be brought to the test.
Letters on the Theory of Probabilities (1846), trans. O. G. Downes (1849).
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Basis (180)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Concern (239)  |  Dynamics (11)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Little (717)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Political (124)  |  Politics (122)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Security (51)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Test (221)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Truth (1109)


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.