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: “Environmental extremists ... wouldn�t let you build a house unless it looked like a bird�s nest.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index F > Category: Fragment

Fragment Quotes (58 quotes)

A l’aide de ces sciences expérimentales actives, l’homme devient un inventeur de phénomènes, un véritable contremaître de la création; et l'on ne saurait, sous ce rapport, assigner de limites à la puissance qu’il peut acquérir sur la nature, par les progrès futurs des sciences expérimentales
With the aid of these active experimental sciences man becomes an inventor of phenomena, a real foreman of creation; and under this head we cannot set limits to the power that he may gain over nature through future progress of the experimental sciences.
Original French text in Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1898), 32. English version from An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Aid (101)  |  Become (821)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Creation (350)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Find (1014)  |  Future (467)  |  Gain (146)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Power (771)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rising (44)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Set (400)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universal (198)  |  Wholeness (9)

I believe in logic, the sequence of cause and effect, and in science its only begotten son our law, which was conceived by the ancient Greeks, thrived under Isaac Newton, suffered under Albert Einstein…
That fragment of a 'creed for materialism' which a friend in college had once shown him rose through Donald's confused mind.
Stand on Zanzibar (1969)
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cause And Effect (21)  |  College (71)  |  Creed (28)  |  Effect (414)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Friend (180)  |  Greek (109)  |  Law (913)  |  Logic (311)  |  Materialism (11)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Rose (36)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Through (846)

A fossil hunter needs sharp eyes and a keen search image, a mental template that subconsciously evaluates everything he sees in his search for telltale clues. A kind of mental radar works even if he isn’t concentrating hard. A fossil mollusk expert has a mollusk search image. A fossil antelope expert has an antelope search image. … Yet even when one has a good internal radar, the search is incredibly more difficult than it sounds. Not only are fossils often the same color as the rocks among which they are found, so they blend in with the background; they are also usually broken into odd-shaped fragments. … In our business, we don’t expect to find a whole skull lying on the surface staring up at us. The typical find is a small piece of petrified bone. The fossil hunter’s search therefore has to have an infinite number of dimensions, matching every conceivable angle of every shape of fragment of every bone on the human body.
Describing the skill of his co-worker, Kamoya Kimeu, who discovered the Turkana Boy, the most complete specimen of Homo erectus, on a slope covered with black lava pebbles.
Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin, Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human (1992), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Boy (100)  |  Broken (56)  |  Business (156)  |  Color (155)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Discover (571)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expert (67)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Good (906)  |  Hard (246)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Image (97)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Internal (69)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lava (12)  |  Lying (55)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mollusk (6)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Paleontology (32)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Radar (9)  |  Rock (176)  |  Search (175)  |  See (1094)  |  Skill (116)  |  Slope (10)  |  Small (489)  |  Sound (187)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Surface (223)  |  Usually (176)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

A fractal is a mathematical set or concrete object that is irregular or fragmented at all scales.
Cited as from Fractals: Form, Chance, and Dimension (1977), by J.W. Cannon, in review of The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982) in The American Mathematical Monthly (Nov 1984), 91, No. 9, 594.
Science quotes on:  |  Concrete (55)  |  Definition (238)  |  Fractal (11)  |  Irregular (7)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Object (438)  |  Scale (122)  |  Set (400)

A man of science rises ever, in seeking truth; and if he never finds it in its wholeness, he discovers nevertheless very significant fragments; and these fragments of universal truth are precisely what constitutes science.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1957), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1927, 1957), 222. From the original French by Claude Bernard: “le savant monte toujours en cherchant la vérité, et s'il ne la trouve jamais tout entière, il en découvre néanmoins des fragments très-importants, et ce sont précisément ces fragments de la vérité générale qui constituent la science.” (1865), 389. A Google translation gives: “The scientist always rises by seeking the truth, and if he never finds it entirely, he nevertheless discovers very important fragments of it, and it is precisely these fragments of the general truth which constitute science.”
Science quotes on:  |  Constitute (99)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Discover (571)  |  Find (1014)  |  Man (2252)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Significant (78)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universal (198)  |  Wholeness (9)

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)  |  Face (214)  |  Failure (176)  |  Family (101)  |  First (1302)  |  Fossil (143)  |  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 knowledge is good. It is impossible to say any fragment of knowledge, however insignificant or remote from one’s ordinary pursuits, may not some day be turned to account.
'Address on University Education' (12 Sep 1876) delivered at the formal opening of the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore. Collected in Science and Education: Essays (1897), 248.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Good (906)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Insignificance (12)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Remote (86)  |  Remoteness (9)  |  Say (989)  |  Turn (454)

As an antiquary of a new order, I have been obliged to learn the art of deciphering and restoring these remains, of discovering and bringing together, in their primitive arrangement, the scattered and mutilated fragments of which they are composed, of reproducing in all their original proportions and characters, the animals to which these fragments formerly belonged, and then of comparing them with those animals which still live on the surface of the earth; an art which is almost unknown, and which presupposes, what had scarcely been obtained before, an acquaintance with those laws which regulate the coexistence of the forms by which the different parts of organized being are distinguished.
'Preliminary discourse', to Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles (1812), trans. R. Kerr Essay on the Theory of the Earth (1813), 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Animal (651)  |  Antiquary (4)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Art (680)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Character (259)  |  Classification (102)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  New (1273)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Order (638)  |  Presuppose (15)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Remain (355)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Still (614)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Together (392)  |  Unknown (195)

At first men try with magic charms
To fertilize the earth,
To keep their flocks and herds from harm
And bring new young to birth.

Then to capricious gods they turn
To save from fire or flood;
Their smoking sacrifices burn
On altars red with blood.

Next bold philosopher and sage
A settled plan decree
And prove by thought or sacred page
What Nature ought to be.

But Nature smiles—a Sphinx-like smile
Watching their little day
She waits in patience for a while—
Their plans dissolve away.

Then come those humbler men of heart
With no completed scheme,
Content to play a modest part,
To test, observe, and dream.

Till out of chaos come in sight
Clear fragments of a Whole;
Man, learning Nature’s ways aright
Obeying, can control.
Epigraph in A History of Science and Its Relation with Philosophy & Religion (1968), vi.
Science quotes on:  |  Altar (11)  |  Birth (154)  |  Blood (144)  |  Burn (99)  |  Capricious (9)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Clear (111)  |  Complete (209)  |  Content (75)  |  Control (182)  |  Decree (9)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Dream (222)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fertilize (4)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flock (4)  |  Flood (52)  |  God (776)  |  Harm (43)  |  Heart (243)  |  Humble (54)  |  Learn (672)  |  Magic (92)  |  Modest (19)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Obey (46)  |  Observe (179)  |  Page (35)  |  Patience (58)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Plan (122)  |  Poem (104)  |  Prove (261)  |  Red (38)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Sage (25)  |  Save (126)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Settle (23)  |  Sight (135)  |  Smile (34)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Sphinx (2)  |  Test (221)  |  Thought (995)  |  Turn (454)  |  Wait (66)  |  Watch (118)  |  Whole (756)  |  Young (253)

At the outset do not be worried about this big question—Truth. It is a very simple matter if each one of you starts with the desire to get as much as possible. No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition. In this unsatisfied quest the attitude of mind, the desire, the thirst—a thirst that from the soul must arise!—the fervent longing, are the be-all and the end-all.
'The Student Life' (1905). In G. L. Keynes (ed.), Selected Writings of Sir William Osler (1951), 172.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Contentment (11)  |  Desire (212)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Fervent (6)  |  Fruition (2)  |  Glimpse (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Know (1538)  |  Longing (19)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Outset (7)  |  Possible (560)  |  Quest (39)  |  Question (649)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Soul (235)  |  Start (237)  |  Thirst (11)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Whole (756)

At the sea shore you pick up a pebble, fashioned after a law of nature, in the exact form that best resists pressure, and worn as smooth as glass. It is so perfect that you take it as a keepsake. But could you know its history from the time when a rough fragment of rock fell from the overhanging cliff into the sea, to be taken possession of by the under currents, and dragged from one ocean to another, perhaps around the world, for a hundred years, until in reduced and perfect form it was cast upon the beach as you find it, you would have a fit illustration of what many principles, now in familiar use, have endured, thus tried, tortured and fashioned during the ages.
From Address (1 Aug 1875), 'The Growth of Principles' at Saratoga. Collected in William L. Snyder (ed.), Great Speeches by Great Lawyers: A Collection of Arguments and Speeches (1901), 246.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Beach (23)  |  Best (467)  |  Cast (69)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Current (122)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fit (139)  |  Form (976)  |  Glass (94)  |  History (716)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Possession (68)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reduced (3)  |  Rock (176)  |  Rough (5)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seashore (7)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Wear (20)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

At the sight of a single bone, of a single piece of bone, I recognize and reconstruct the portion of the whole from which it would have been taken. The whole being to which this fragment belonged appears in my mind's eye.
Cited by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Comptes-Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences. 1837, 7, 116. Trans. Franck Bourdier, 'Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire versus Cuvier: The Campaign for Paleontological Evolution (1825- 1838)', Cecil J. Schneer (ed.), Toward a History of Geology (1969), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Bone (101)  |  Eye (440)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mind�s Eye (3)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Piece (39)  |  Portion (86)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Sight (135)  |  Single (365)  |  Whole (756)

At the voice of comparative anatomy, every bone, and fragment of a bone, resumed its place. I cannot find words to express the pleasure I have in seeing, as I discovered one character, how all the consequences, which I predicted from it, were successively confirmed; the feet were found in accordance with the characters announced by the teeth; the teeth in harmony with those indicated beforehand by the feet; the bones of the legs and thighs, and every connecting portion of the extremities, were found set together precisely as I had arranged them, before my conjectures were verified by the discovery of the parts entire: in short, each species was, as it were, reconstructed from a single one of its component elements.
Geology and Mineralogy (1836), Vol. I, 83-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Bone (101)  |  Character (259)  |  Component (51)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Element (322)  |  Express (192)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Leg (35)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Portion (86)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Predict (86)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Set (400)  |  Short (200)  |  Single (365)  |  Species (435)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Together (392)  |  Word (650)

But nature is remarkably obstinate against purely logical operations; she likes not schoolmasters nor scholastic procedures. As though she took a particular satisfaction in mocking at our intelligence, she very often shows us the phantom of an apparently general law, represented by scattered fragments, which are entirely inconsistent. Logic asks for the union of these fragments; the resolute dogmatist, therefore, does not hesitate to go straight on to supply, by logical conclusions, the fragments he wants, and to flatter himself that he has mastered nature by his victorious intelligence.
'On the Principles of Animal Morphology', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2 Apr 1888), 15, 289. Original as Letter to Mr John Murray, communicated to the Society by Professor Sir William Turner. Page given as in collected volume published 1889.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Apparently (22)  |  Ask (420)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Dogmatist (4)  |  General (521)  |  Hesitate (24)  |  Himself (461)  |  Inconsistent (9)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Law (913)  |  Like (23)  |  Logic (311)  |  Master (182)  |  Mocking (4)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obstinate (5)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Phantom (9)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Purely (111)  |  Remarkably (3)  |  Represent (157)  |  Resolute (2)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Scattered (5)  |  Scholastic (2)  |  Schoolmaster (5)  |  Show (353)  |  Straight (75)  |  Supply (100)  |  Union (52)  |  Want (504)

Cuvier … brings the void to life again, without uttering abracadabras, he excavates a fragment of gypsum, spies a footprint and shouts: “Look!” And suddenly the marbles are teeming with creatures, the dead come to life again, the world turns!
From 'La Peau de Chagrin' (1831). As translated as by Helen Constantine The Wild Ass’s Skin (2012), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Abracadabra (2)  |  Creature (242)  |  Cuvier_George (2)  |  Dead (65)  |  Excavate (4)  |  Footprint (16)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Gypsum (2)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Marble (21)  |  Shout (25)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Teeming (5)  |  Turn (454)  |  Utter (8)  |  Void (31)  |  World (1850)

Dream analysis stands or falls with [the hypothesis of the unconscious]. Without it the dream appears to be merely a freak of nature, a meaningless conglomerate of memory-fragments left over from the happenings of the day.
Carl Jung
Dream Analysis in its Practical Application (1930), 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Conglomerate (2)  |  Dream (222)  |  Fall (243)  |  Happening (59)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Memory (144)  |  Merely (315)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Stand (284)

ELECTRICITY, n. The power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else. It is the same thing as lightning, and its famous attempt to strike Dr. Franklin is one of the most picturesque incidents in that great and good man's career. The memory of Dr. Franklin is justly held in great reverence, particularly in France, where a waxen effigy of him was recently on exhibition, bearing the following touching account of his life and services to science:
Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity. This illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages, of whom not a single fragment was ever recovered.
Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the arts and industries. The question of its economical application to some purposes is still unsettled, but experiment has already proved that it will propel a street car better than a gas jet and give more light than a horse.
The Cynic's Word Book (1906), 87. Also published later as The Devil's Dictionary.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Already (226)  |  Application (257)  |  Art (680)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Better (493)  |  Car (75)  |  Career (86)  |  Cause (561)  |  Destined (42)  |  Devour (29)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Exhibition (7)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  Gas (89)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Horse (78)  |  Humour (116)  |  Illustrious (10)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Island (49)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Power (771)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Service (110)  |  Single (365)  |  Something (718)  |  Still (614)  |  Strike (72)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touching (16)  |  Unsettled (3)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Even more difficult to explain, than the breaking-up of a single mass into fragments, and the drifting apart of these blocks to form the foundations of the present-day continents, is the explanation of the original production of the single mass, or PANGAEA, by the concentration of the former holosphere of granitic sial into a hemisphere of compressed and crushed gneisses and schists. Creep and the effects of compression, due to shrinking or other causes, have been appealed to but this is hardly a satisfactory explanation. The earth could no more shrug itself out of its outer rock-shell unaided, than an animal could shrug itself out of its hide, or a man wriggle out of his skin, or even out of his closely buttoned coat, without assistance either of his own hands or those of others.
The Rhythm of Ages (1940), 9-10.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Cause (561)  |  Compression (7)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Continent (79)  |  Creep (15)  |  Crush (19)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Due (143)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Form (976)  |  Former (138)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Hide (70)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plate Tectonics (22)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Rock (176)  |  Shell (69)  |  Single (365)  |  Skin (48)

Fragments of the natural method must be sought with the greatest care. This is the first and last desideratum among botanists.
Nature makes no jumps.
[Natura non facit saltus]
All taxa show relationships on all sides like the countries on a map of the world.
Philosophia Botanica (1751), aphorism 77. Trans. Frans A. Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789 (1971), 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Botanist (25)  |  Care (203)  |  Country (269)  |  Desideratum (5)  |  First (1302)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Jump (31)  |  Last (425)  |  Map (50)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Show (353)  |  Side (236)  |  World (1850)

Geologists on the whole are inconsistent drivers. When a roadcut presents itself, they tend to lurch and weave. To them, the roadcut is a portal, a fragment of a regional story, a proscenium arch that leads their imaginations into the earth and through the surrounding terrane.
Annals of the Former World
Science quotes on:  |  Arch (12)  |  Driver (5)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inconsistent (9)  |  Lead (391)  |  Portal (9)  |  Present (630)  |  Roadcut (2)  |  Story (122)  |  Surround (33)  |  Tend (124)  |  Through (846)  |  Weave (21)  |  Whole (756)

God has not revealed all things to man and has entrusted us with but a fragment of His mighty work. But He who directs all things, who has established and laid the foundation of the world, who has clothed Himself with Creation, He is greater and better than that which He has wrought. Hidden from our eyes, He can only be reached by the spirit.
From Quaestiones Naturales as translated in Charles Singer, From Magic to Science (1958), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Creation (350)  |  Direct (228)  |  Eye (440)  |  Foundation (177)  |  God (776)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hiding (12)  |  Himself (461)  |  Man (2252)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Science And God (5)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trust (72)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

I claim that many patterns of Nature are so irregular and fragmented, that, compared with Euclid—a term used in this work to denote all of standard geometry—Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity … The existence of these patterns challenges us to study these forms that Euclid leaves aside as being “formless,” to investigate the morphology of the “amorphous.”
Cited as from Fractals: Form, Chance, and Dimension (1977), by J.W. Cannon, in review of The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982) in The American Mathematical Monthly (Nov 1984), 91, No. 9, 594.
Science quotes on:  |  Amorphous (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Claim (154)  |  Compared (8)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Existence (481)  |  Form (976)  |  Formless (4)  |  Fragmented (2)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Irregular (7)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Level (69)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Standard (64)  |  Study (701)  |  Term (357)  |  Work (1402)

I conceived and developed a new geometry of nature and implemented its use in a number of diverse fields. It describes many of the irregular and fragmented patterns around us, and leads to full-fledged theories, by identifying a family of shapes I call fractals.
The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1977, 1983), Introduction, xiii.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Describe (132)  |  Develop (278)  |  Family (101)  |  Field (378)  |  Fractal (11)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Implement (13)  |  Lead (391)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Number (710)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Shape (77)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Use (771)

I observed on most collected stones the imprints of innumerable plant fragments which were so different from those which are growing in the Lyonnais, in the nearby provinces, and even in the rest of France, that I felt like collecting plants in a new world… The number of these leaves, the way they separated easily, and the great variety of plants whose imprints I saw, appeared to me just as many volumes of botany representing in the same quarry the oldest library of the world.
In 'Examen des causes des Impressions des Plantes marquees sur certaines Pierres des environs de Saint-Chaumont dans le Lionnais', Memoires de l’ Academie Royale des Sciences (1718), 364, as trans. by Albert V. and Marguerite Carozzi.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Botany (63)  |  Different (595)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growing (99)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Library (53)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Observed (149)  |  Plant (320)  |  Province (37)  |  Quarry (14)  |  Rest (287)  |  Saw (160)  |  Stone (168)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

In my work on Fossil Bones, I set myself the task of recognizing to which animals the fossilized remains which fill the surface strata of the earth belong. ... As a new sort of antiquarian, I had to learn to restore these memorials to past upheavals and, at the same time, to decipher their meaning. I had to collect and put together in their original order the fragments which made up these animals, to reconstruct the ancient creatures to which these fragments belonged, to create them once more with their proportions and characteristics, and finally to compare them to those alive today on the surface of the earth. This was an almost unknown art, which assumed a science hardly touched upon up until now, that of the laws which govern the coexistence of forms of the various parts in organic beings.
Discours sur les révolutions du globe, (Discourse on the Revolutions of the Surface of the Globe), originally the introduction to Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles des quadrupèdes (1812). Translated by Ian Johnston from the 1825 edition. Online at Vancouver Island University website.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Animal (651)  |  Antiquarian (2)  |  Art (680)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Bone (101)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Compare (76)  |  Create (245)  |  Creature (242)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Govern (66)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Meaning (244)  |  More (2558)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Organic (161)  |  Past (355)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Remain (355)  |  Set (400)  |  Strata (37)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Task (152)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Together (392)  |  Touch (146)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Various (205)  |  Work (1402)

In my youth I regarded the universe as an open book, printed in the language of physical equations, whereas now it appears to me as a text written in invisible ink, of which in our rare moments of grace we are able to decipher a small fragment.
From Epilogue in Bricks to Babel (1980).
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Book (413)  |  Decipher (7)  |  Equation (138)  |  Grace (31)  |  Ink (11)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Language (308)  |  Moment (260)  |  Open (277)  |  Physical (518)  |  Printed (3)  |  Rare (94)  |  Regard (312)  |  Small (489)  |  Text (16)  |  Universe (900)  |  Written (6)  |  Youth (109)

In the Anthropocene, the time of humans[,] … rocks … are forming today. Not only will they contain fewer species than the rocks that preceded them but they will contain markers that are completely new—fragments of plastic, plutonium from nuclear activity, and a worldwide distribution of the bones of domesticated chickens.
In 'Conclusion', A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future (2020), 215.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Bone (101)  |  Chicken (12)  |  Completely (137)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Domesticated (2)  |  Fewer (11)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  New (1273)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Plutonium (5)  |  Rock (176)  |  Species (435)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Worldwide (19)

In the course of centuries the naïve self-love of men has had to submit to two major blows at the hands of science. The first was when they learnt that our earth was not the centre of the universe but only a tiny fragment of a cosmic system of scarcely imaginable vastness… the second blow fell when biological research destroyed man’s supposedly privileged place in creation and proved his descent from the animal kingdom and his ineradicable animal nature… But human megalomania will have suffered its third and most wounding blow from the psychological research of the present time which seeks to prove to the ego that it is not even master in its own house, but must content itself with scanty information of what is going on unconsciously in its mind.
Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalyis (1916), in James Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (1963), Vol. 16, 284-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Kingdom (21)  |  Biological (137)  |  Blow (45)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Course (413)  |  Creation (350)  |  Descent (30)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ego (17)  |  First (1302)  |  House (143)  |  Human (1512)  |  Information (173)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Love (328)  |  Major (88)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Present (630)  |  Prove (261)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Research (753)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Seek (218)  |  Self (268)  |  System (545)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vastness (15)  |  Will (2350)

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)  |  Face (214)  |  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 possible to read books on Natural History with intelligence and profit, and even to make good observations, without a scientific groundwork of biological instruction; and it is possible to arrive at empirical facts of hygiene and medical treatment without any physiological instruction. But in all three cases the absence of a scientific basis will render the knowledge fragmentary and incomplete; and this ought to deter every one from offering an opinion on debatable questions which pass beyond the limit of subjective observations. The psychologist who has not prepared himself by a study of the organism has no more right to be heard on the genesis of the psychical states, or of the relations between body and mind, than one of the laity has a right to be heard on a question of medical treatment.
The Physical Basis of Mind (1877), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Body (557)  |  Book (413)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fragmentary (8)  |   Genesis (26)  |  Good (906)  |  Groundwork (4)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Hygiene (13)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Observation (593)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organism (231)  |  Pass (241)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Possible (560)  |  Profit (56)  |  Psychologist (26)  |  Question (649)  |  Read (308)  |  Render (96)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientific (955)  |  State (505)  |  Study (701)  |  Subjective (20)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Will (2350)

It is supposed that the ancients were ignorant of the law in hydraulics, by which water, in a tube, will rise as high as the fountain-head; and hence they carried their stupendous aqueducts horizontally, from hill-top to hill-top, upon lofty arches, with an incredible expenditure of labor and money. The knowledge of a single law, now familiar to every well-instructed school-boy,— namely, that water seeks a level, and, if not obstructed, will find it,—enables the poorest man of the present day to do what once demanded the wealth of an empire. The beautiful fragments of the ancient Roman aqueducts, which have survived the ravage of centuries, are often cited to attest the grandeur and power of their builders. To me, they are monuments, not of their power, but of their weakness.
In Thoughts Selected From the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), 231.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Aqueduct (4)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Boy (100)  |  Demand (131)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enable (122)  |  Expenditure (16)  |  Find (1014)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  High (370)  |  Hydraulic (5)  |  Hydraulics (2)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Law (913)  |  Level (69)  |  Man (2252)  |  Money (178)  |  Monument (45)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Ravage (7)  |  Rise (169)  |  Roman (39)  |  School (227)  |  Seek (218)  |  Single (365)  |  Stupendous (13)  |  Top (100)  |  Water (503)  |  Weakness (50)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Will (2350)

It’s impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of personal information.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bit (21)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Information (173)  |  Leave (138)  |  Level (69)  |  Live (650)  |  Meaningless (17)  |  Move (223)  |  Operate (19)  |  Personal (75)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Trace (109)

Life, therefore, has been often disturbed on this earth by terrible events—calamities which, at their commencement, have perhaps moved and overturned to a great depth the entire outer crust of the globe, but which, since these first commotions, have uniformly acted at a less depth and less generally. Numberless living beings have been the victims of these catastrophes; some have been destroyed by sudden inundations, others have been laid dry in consequence of the bottom of the seas being instantaneously elevated. Their races even have become extinct, and have left no memorial of them except some small fragments which the naturalist can scarcely recognise.
'Preliminary discourse', to Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles (1812), trans. R. Kerr Essay on the Theory of the Earth (1813), 16-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bottom Of The Sea (5)  |  Catastrophe (35)  |  Commencement (14)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Crust (43)  |  Depth (97)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Disturb (31)  |  Disturbed (15)  |  Dry (65)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Event (222)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Extinction (80)  |  First (1302)  |  Flood (52)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Great (1610)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Other (2233)  |  Race (278)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Sea (326)  |  Small (489)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Victim (37)

Men can construct a science with very few instruments, or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth could construct a science with unreliable instruments. A man might work out the whole of mathematics with a handful of pebbles, but not with a handful of clay which was always falling apart into new fragments, and falling together into new combinations. A man might measure heaven and earth with a reed, but not with a growing reed.
Heretics (1905), 146-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Combination (150)  |  Construct (129)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Growing (99)  |  Handful (14)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  New (1273)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Together (392)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

No other explanation of living forms is allowed than heredity, and any which is founded on another basis must be rejected. The present fashion requires that even the smallest and most indifferent inquiry must be dressed in phylogenetic costume, and whilst in former centuries authors professed to read in every natural detail some intention of the creator mundi, modern scientists have the aspiration to pick out from every occasional observation a fragment of the ancestral history of the living world.
'On the Principles of Animal Morphology', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2 Apr 1888), 15, 294. Original as Letter to Mr John Murray, communicated to the Society by Professor Sir William Turner. Page given as in collected volume published 1889.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Author (175)  |  Basis (180)  |  Creator (97)  |  Detail (150)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Form (976)  |  Former (138)  |  Founded (22)  |  Heredity (62)  |  History (716)  |  Indifferent (17)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Intention (46)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phylogenetic (3)  |  Pick (16)  |  Present (630)  |  Profess (21)  |  Read (308)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Require (229)  |  Scientist (881)  |  World (1850)

Nobody knows more than a tiny fragment of science well enough to judge its validity and value at first hand. For the rest he has to rely on views accepted at second hand on the authority of a community of people accredited as scientists. But this accrediting depends in its turn on a complex organization. For each member of the community can judge at first hand only a small number of his fellow members, and yet eventually each is accredited by all. What happens is that each recognizes as scientists a number of others by whom he is recognized as such in return, and these relations form chains which transmit these mutual recognitions at second hand through the whole community. This is how each member becomes directly or indirectly accredited by all. The system extends into the past. Its members recognize the same set of persons as their masters and derive from this allegiance a common tradition, of which each carries on a particular strand.
Personal Knowledge (1958), 163.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Allegiance (5)  |  Authority (99)  |  Become (821)  |  Carrying (7)  |  Chain (51)  |  Common (447)  |  Community (111)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependance (4)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Derive (70)  |  Directly (25)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extension (60)  |  Fellow (88)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Indirectly (7)  |  Judge (114)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Master (182)  |  Member (42)  |  More (2558)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Number (710)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particular (80)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Rest (287)  |  Return (133)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Secondhand (6)  |  Set (400)  |  Small (489)  |  Strand (9)  |  System (545)  |  Through (846)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Turn (454)  |  Validity (50)  |  Value (393)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)

On the question of the world as a whole, science founders. For scientific knowledge the world lies in fragments, the more so the more precise our scientific knowledge becomes.
Kleine Schule des philosophischen Denkens (1965), trans. R. F. C. Hull and G. Wels, Philosophy is for Everyman: A Short Course in Philosophical Thinking (1969), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Founder (26)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  More (2558)  |  Precise (71)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Remembering is not the re-excitation of innumerable fixed, lifeless and fragmentary traces. It is an imaginative reconstruction, or construction, built out of the relation of our attitude towards a whole active mass of organised past reactions and experience, and to a little outstanding detail which commonly appears in image or in language form. It is thus hardly ever really exact, even in the most rudimentary cases of rote recapitulation, and it is not at all important that it should be so.
From the summary section of Chapter 10, 'A Theory of Remembering', Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (1932, 1995), 213.
Science quotes on:  |  Attitude (84)  |  Experience (494)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Memory (144)  |  Recapitulation (6)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Remember (189)  |  Rote (5)

Science usually advances by a succession of small steps, through a fog in which even the most keen-sighted explorer can seldom see more than a few paces ahead. Occasionally the fog lifts, an eminence is gained, and a wider stretch of territory can be surveyed—sometimes with startling results. A whole science may then seem to undergo a kaleidoscopic rearrangement, fragments of knowledge sometimes being found to fit together in a hitherto unsuspected manner. Sometimes the shock of readjustment may spread to other sciences; sometimes it may divert the whole current of human thought.
Opening paragraph, Physics and Philosophy (1943), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Being (1276)  |  Current (122)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Fit (139)  |  Fog (10)  |  Gain (146)  |  Human (1512)  |  Kaleidoscope (5)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lift (57)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pace (18)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rearrangement (5)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Shock (38)  |  Sight (135)  |  Small (489)  |  Spread (86)  |  Startling (15)  |  Step (234)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Succession (80)  |  Survey (36)  |  Territory (25)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Usually (176)  |  Whole (756)

Sociobiology is not just any statement that biology, genetics, and evolutionary theory have something to do with human behavior. Sociobiology is a specific theory about the nature of genetic and evolutionary input into human behavior. It rests upon the view that natural selection is a virtually omnipotent architect, constructing organisms part by part as best solutions to problems of life in local environments. It fragments organisms into “traits,” explains their existence as a set of best solutions, and argues that each trait is a product of natural selection operating “for” the form or behavior in question. Applied to humans, it must view specific behaviors (not just general potentials) as adaptations built by natural selection and rooted in genetic determinants, for natural selection is a theory of genetic change. Thus, we are presented with unproved and unprovable speculations about the adaptive and genetic basis of specific human behaviors: why some (or all) people are aggressive, xenophobic, religious, acquisitive, or homosexual.
In Hen's Teeth and Horses Toes (1983, 2010), 242-243.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Aggression (10)  |  Applied (176)  |  Architect (32)  |  Basis (180)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Best (467)  |  Biology (232)  |  Change (639)  |  Do (1905)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Behavior (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Omnipotent (13)  |  Organism (231)  |  People (1031)  |  Potential (75)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Product (166)  |  Question (649)  |  Religious (134)  |  Rest (287)  |  Root (121)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Selection (130)  |  Set (400)  |  Sociobiology (5)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Something (718)  |  Specific (98)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Statement (148)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Trait (23)  |  View (496)  |  Why (491)

Tedious as it may appear to some to dwell on the discovery of odds and ends that have, no doubt, been thrown away by the owner as rubbish ... yet it is by the study of such trivial details that Archaeology is mainly dependent for determining the date of earthworks. ... Next to coins fragments of pottery afford the most reliable of all evidence ... In my judgement, a fragment of pottery, if it throws light on the history of our own country and people, is of more interest to the scientific collector of evidence in England, than even a work of art and merit that is associated only with races that we are remotely connected with.
On the importance of pottery to an archaeologist.
Excavations in Bokerly and Wansdyke, vol. 3, ix-30. Quoted in Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Proceedings (1895), vol. 8, 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Archaeologist (18)  |  Archaeology (51)  |  Art (680)  |  Connect (126)  |  Country (269)  |  Detail (150)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doubt (314)  |  End (603)  |  Evidence (267)  |  History (716)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interest (416)  |  Light (635)  |  Merit (51)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Next (238)  |  People (1031)  |  Pottery (4)  |  Race (278)  |  Rubbish (12)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Study (701)  |  Tedious (15)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Work (1402)

The dice of God are always loaded.
[A fragment from a lost play of Sophocles, “Ever the dice of Zeus fall well.”]
A colloquial translation, presumably ironic, from the original Greek phrase (preceding it), as given in 'Compensation', collected in The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1903), 102. The more literal translation of the original Greek is discussed in the added Notes section by Joseph Slater in The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: First Series, Essays (1979), 234. Fragment translation from Paul Shorey, 'The Influence of Classics on American Literature', The Chautauquan (1906), 43, 129.
Science quotes on:  |  Always (7)  |  Chance (244)  |  Dice (21)  |  Fall (243)  |  God (776)  |  Loaded (4)  |  Luck (44)  |  Sophocles (9)  |  Zeus (6)

The entire world we apprehend through our senses is no more than a tiny fragment in the vastness of Nature.
The Universe in the Light of Modern Physics (1931), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Sense (785)  |  Through (846)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Vastness (15)  |  World (1850)

The extraordinary development of modern science may be her undoing. Specialism, now a necessity, has fragmented the specialities themselves in a way that makes the outlook hazardous. The workers lose all sense of proportion in a maze of minutiae.
'The Old Humanities and the New Science' (1919). In G. L. Keynes (ed.), Selected Writings of Sir William Osler (1951), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Development (441)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Hazard (21)  |  Lose (165)  |  Loss (117)  |  Maze (11)  |  Minutiae (7)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Sense (785)  |  Specialty (13)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Undoing (2)  |  Way (1214)  |  Worker (34)

The ingenuity and effective logic that enabled chemists to determine complex molecular structures from the number of isomers, the reactivity of the molecule and of its fragments, the freezing point, the empirical formula, the molecular weight, etc., is one of the outstanding triumphs of the human mind.
'Trends in Chemistry', Chemical Engineering News, 7 Jan 1963, 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Complex (202)  |  Determine (152)  |  Effective (68)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Formula (102)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Freezing Point (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Isomer (6)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Molecular Structure (9)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Number (710)  |  Outstanding (16)  |  Point (584)  |  Structure (365)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Weight (140)

The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.
Adonais (1821), St. 52. In K. Raine (ed.), Shelley (1974), 209.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Color (155)  |  Death (406)  |  Dome (9)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Fly (153)  |  Forever (111)  |  Glass (94)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Pass (241)  |  Radiance (7)  |  Remain (355)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Shine (49)  |  Stain (10)  |  Trample (3)  |  White (132)

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)  |  Face (214)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Form (976)  |  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 sciences have sworn among themselves an inviolable partnership; it is almost impossible to separate them, for they would rather suffer than be torn apart; and if anyone persists in doing so, he gets for his trouble only imperfect and confused fragments. Yet they do not arrive all together, but they hold each other by the hand so that they follow one another in a natural order which it is dangerous to change, because they refuse to enter in any other way where they are called. ...
Les Préludes de l'Harmonie Universelle (1634), 135-139. In Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1974), Vol. 9, 316.
Science quotes on:  |  Apart (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Danger (127)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enter (145)  |  Follow (389)  |  Following (16)  |  Hold (96)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inviolable (2)  |  Natural (810)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Partnership (4)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Separate (151)  |  Separation (60)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Tear (48)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Together (392)  |  Torn (17)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Way (1214)

The superstition that the hounds of truth will rout the vermin of error seems, like a fragment of Victorian lace, quaint, but too brittle to be lifted out of the showcase.
In National Review (16 Jan 1962), 12, 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Brittle (2)  |  Error (339)  |  Lace (2)  |  Lift (57)  |  Quaint (7)  |  Seem (150)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vermin (3)  |  Victorian (6)  |  Will (2350)

The theory here developed is that mega-evolution normally occurs among small populations that become preadaptive and evolve continuously (without saltation, but at exceptionally rapid rates) to radically different ecological positions. The typical pattern involved is probably this: A large population is fragmented into numerous small isolated lines of descent. Within these, inadaptive differentiation and random fixation of mutations occur. Among many such inadaptive lines one or a few are preadaptive, i.e., some of their characters tend to fit them for available ecological stations quite different from those occupied by their immediate ancestors. Such groups are subjected to strong selection pressure and evolve rapidly in the further direction of adaptation to the new status. The very few lines that successfully achieve this perfected adaptation then become abundant and expand widely, at the same time becoming differentiated and specialized on lower levels within the broad new ecological zone.
Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Abundant (23)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Available (80)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Character (259)  |  Descent (30)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Direction (185)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expand (56)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Fit (139)  |  Fixation (5)  |  Group (83)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Involved (90)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Large (398)  |  Level (69)  |  Mutation (40)  |  New (1273)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Occur (151)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Population (115)  |  Position (83)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Probability (135)  |  Radically (5)  |  Random (42)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Selection (130)  |  Small (489)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Station (30)  |  Status (35)  |  Strong (182)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tend (124)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Typical (16)  |  Zone (5)

The world is the geologist’s great puzzle-box; he stands before it like the child to whom the separate pieces of his puzzle remain a mystery till he detects their relation and sees where they fit, and then his fragments grow at once into a connected picture beneath his hand.
Geological Sketches (1866), II.
Science quotes on:  |  Beneath (68)  |  Box (22)  |  Child (333)  |  Connect (126)  |  Detect (45)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fit (139)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Geology (240)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Picture (148)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Remain (355)  |  See (1094)  |  Separate (151)  |  Stand (284)  |  World (1850)

There are notable examples enough of demonstration outside of mathematics, and it may be said that Aristotle has already given some in his “Prior Analytics.” In fact logic is as susceptible of demonstration as geometry, … Archimedes is the first, whose works we have, who has practised the art of demonstration upon an occasion where he is treating of physics, as he has done in his book on Equilibrium. Furthermore, jurists may be said to have many good demonstrations; especially the ancient Roman jurists, whose fragments have been preserved to us in the Pandects.
In G.W. Leibniz and Alfred Gideon Langley (trans.), New Essay on Human Understanding (1896), Bk. 4, Chap. 2, Sec. 9, 414-415.
Science quotes on:  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Example (98)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Jurist (6)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics And Logic (27)  |  Notable (6)  |  Physics (564)  |  Preserve (91)

There is not a soul on Earth who can read the deluge of physics publications in its entirety. As a result, it is sad but true that physics has irretrievably fallen apart from a cohesive to a fragmented discipline. … It was not that long ago that people were complaining about two cultures. If we only had it that good today.
In 'The Physical Review Then and Now', in H. Henry Stroke, Physical Review: The First Hundred Years: a Selection of Seminal Papers and Commentaries, Vol. 1, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Cohesive (4)  |  Complaint (13)  |  Culture (157)  |  Deluge (14)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entirety (6)  |  Good (906)  |  Long (778)  |  Long Ago (12)  |  People (1031)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Publication (102)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Result (700)  |  Soul (235)  |  Today (321)  |  Two (936)

Through the discovery of Buchner, Biology was relieved of another fragment of mysticism. The splitting up of sugar into CO2 and alcohol is no more the effect of a 'vital principle' than the splitting up of cane sugar by invertase. The history of this problem is instructive, as it warns us against considering problems as beyond our reach because they have not yet found their solution.
The Dynamics of Living Matter (1906), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Biology (232)  |  Eduard Buchner (3)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effect (414)  |  History (716)  |  Insoluble (15)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Mysticism (14)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reach (286)  |  Solution (282)  |  Sugar (26)  |  Through (846)  |  Vital (89)

We’re very safety conscious, aren’t we? [In 1989,] I did a programme on fossils, Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives, and got a letter from a geologist saying, “You should have been wearing protective goggles when you were hitting that rock. Fragments could have flown into your eye and blinded you. What a bad example you are.” I thought, “Oh, for goodness sake...”
As reported by Adam Lusher in 'Sir David Attenborough', Daily Mail (28 Feb 2014).
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Blind (98)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Example (98)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Goggles (2)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Hit (20)  |  Letter (117)  |  Live (650)  |  Lost (34)  |  Program (57)  |  Protective (5)  |  Rock (176)  |  Safety (58)  |  Sake (61)  |  Thought (995)  |  Vanish (19)  |  World (1850)

When a physician is called to a patient, he should decide on the diagnosis, then the prognosis, and then the treatment. … Physicians must know the evolution of the disease, its duration and gravity in order to predict its course and outcome. Here statistics intervene to guide physicians, by teaching them the proportion of mortal cases, and if observation has also shown that the successful and unsuccessful cases can be recognized by certain signs, then the prognosis is more certain.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 213.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Course (413)  |  Diagnosis (65)  |  Disease (340)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Guide (107)  |  Know (1538)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  More (2558)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physician (284)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prognosis (5)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Rising (44)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Successful (134)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universal (198)  |  Wholeness (9)

While a glacier is moving, it rubs and wears down the bottom on which it moves, scrapes its surface (now smooth), triturates the broken-off material that is found between the ice and the rock, pulverizes or reduces it to a clayey paste, rounds angular blocks that resist its pressure, and polishes those having a larger surface. At the surface of the glacier, other processes occur. Fragments of rocks that are broken-off from the neighbouring walls and fall on the ice, remain there or can be transported to the sides; they advance in this way on the top of the glacier, without moving or rubbing against each other … and arrive at the extremity of the glacier with their angles, sharp edges, and their uneven surfaces intact.
La théorie des glaciers et ses progrès les plus récents. Bibl. universelle de Genève, (3), Vol. 41, p.127. Trans. Karin Verrecchia.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Against (332)  |  Broken (56)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Edge (51)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Extremity (7)  |  Fall (243)  |  Geology (240)  |  Glacier (17)  |  Ice (58)  |  Intact (9)  |  Material (366)  |  Move (223)  |  Occur (151)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paste (4)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rock (176)  |  Side (236)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Surface (223)  |  Top (100)  |  Transport (31)  |  Wall (71)  |  Way (1214)

You are literally filled with the fruit of your own devices, with rats and mice and such small deer, paramecia, and entomostraceæ, and kicking things with horrid names, which you see in microscopes at the Polytechnic, and rush home and call for brandy—without the water—stone, and gravel, and dyspepsia, and fragments of your own muscular tissue tinged with your own bile.
'The Water Supply of London', North British Review (1851), 15, 246
Science quotes on:  |  Bile (5)  |  Call (781)  |  Deer (11)  |  Device (71)  |  Dyspepsia (2)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Home (184)  |  Literally (30)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Name (359)  |  Paramecium (2)  |  Polytechnic (2)  |  Rat (37)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Stone (168)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Water (503)


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.