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 conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index H > Category: Hear

Hear Quotes (144 quotes)

… (T)he same cause, such as electricity, can simultaneously affect all sensory organs, since they are all sensitive to it; and yet, every sensory nerve reacts to it differently; one nerve perceives it as light, another hears its sound, another one smells it; another tastes the electricity, and another one feels it as pain and shock. One nerve perceives a luminous picture through mechanical irritation, another one hears it as buzzing, another one senses it as pain… He who feels compelled to consider the consequences of these facts cannot but realize that the specific sensibility of nerves for certain impressions is not enough, since all nerves are sensitive to the same cause but react to the same cause in different ways… (S)ensation is not the conduction of a quality or state of external bodies to consciousness, but the conduction of a quality or state of our nerves to consciousness, excited by an external cause.
Law of Specific Nerve Energies.
Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen für Vorlesungen, 2nd Ed. translation by Edwin Clarke and Charles Donald O'Malley
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conduction (8)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consider (428)  |  Different (595)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Feel (371)  |  Impression (118)  |  Law (913)  |  Light (635)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Organ (118)  |  Pain (144)  |  Picture (148)  |  Quality (139)  |  Realize (157)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensory (16)  |  Shock (38)  |  Smell (29)  |  Sound (187)  |  Specific (98)  |  State (505)  |  Taste (93)  |  Through (846)  |  Way (1214)

[1665-06-10] ...In the evening home to supper, and there to my great trouble hear that the plague is come into the City (though it hath these three or four weeks since its beginning been wholly out of the City); but where it begin but in my good friend and neighbour's, Dr Burnett in Fanchurch Street - which in both points troubles me mightily. To the office to finish my letters, and then home to bed, being troubled at the sickness ... and particularly how to put my things and estate in order, in case it should please God to call me away.
Diary of Samuel Pepys (10 Jun 1665)
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Call (781)  |  City (87)  |  Finish (62)  |  Friend (180)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Home (184)  |  Letter (117)  |  Office (71)  |  Order (638)  |  Plague (42)  |  Please (68)  |  Point (584)  |  Sickness (26)  |  Supper (10)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Week (73)  |  Wholly (88)

[1665-06-11] I out of doors a little to show forsooth my new suit, and back again; and in going, saw poor Dr Burnets door shut. But he hath, I hear, gained goodwill among his neighbours; for he discovered it himself first, and caused himself to be shut up of his own accord - which was very handsome.
Diary of Samuel Pepys (11 Jun 1665)
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Discover (571)  |  Door (94)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Goodwill (6)  |  Handsome (4)  |  Himself (461)  |  Little (717)  |  New (1273)  |  Plague (42)  |  Poor (139)  |  Saw (160)  |  Show (353)  |  Shut (41)

[1665-09-14] ...my finding that although the Bill [total of dead] in general is abated, yet the City within the walls is encreasd and likely to continue so (and is close to our house there) - my meeting dead corps's of the plague, carried to be buried close to me at noonday through the City in Fanchurch-street - to see a person sick of the sores carried close by me by Grace-church in a hackney-coach - my finding the Angell tavern at the lower end of Tower-hill shut up; and more then that, the alehouse at the Tower-stairs; and more then that, that the person was then dying of the plague when I was last there, a little while ago at night, to write a short letter there, and I overheard the mistress of the house sadly saying to her husband somebody was very ill, but did not think it was of the plague - to hear that poor Payne my waterman hath buried a child and is dying himself - to hear that a labourer I sent but the other day to Dagenhams to know how they did there is dead of the plague and that one of my own watermen, that carried me daily, fell sick as soon as he had landed me on Friday morning last, when I had been all night upon the water ... is now dead of the plague - to hear ... that Mr Sidny Mountagu is sick of a desperate fever at my Lady Carteret's at Scott's hall - to hear that Mr. Lewes hath another daughter sick - and lastly, that both my servants, W Hewers and Tom Edwards, have lost their fathers, both in St. Sepulcher's parish, of the plague this week - doth put me into great apprehensions of melancholy, and with good reason. But I put off the thoughts of sadness as much as I can, and the rather to keep my wife in good heart and family also.
Diary of Samuel Pepys (14 Sep 1665)
Science quotes on:  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Both (496)  |  Child (333)  |  Church (64)  |  City (87)  |  Continue (179)  |  Daily (91)  |  Daughter (30)  |  End (603)  |  Family (101)  |  Father (113)  |  Fever (34)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Grace (31)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Himself (461)  |  House (143)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Letter (117)  |  Little (717)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  More (2558)  |  Morning (98)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Plague (42)  |  Poor (139)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sadness (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Servant (40)  |  Short (200)  |  Shut (41)  |  Sick (83)  |  Soon (187)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Total (95)  |  Tower (45)  |  Wall (71)  |  Water (503)  |  Week (73)  |  Wife (41)  |  Write (250)

[It] is not the nature of things for any one man to make a sudden, violent discovery; science goes step by step and every man depends on the work of his predecessors. When you hear of a sudden unexpected discovery—a bolt from the blue—you can always be sure that it has grown up by the influence of one man or another, and it is the mutual influence which makes the enormous possibility of scientific advance. Scientists are not dependent on the ideas of a single man, but on the combined wisdom of thousands of men, all thinking of the same problem and each doing his little bit to add to the great structure of knowledge which is gradually being erected.
Concluding remark in Lecture ii (1936) on 'Forty Years of Physics', revised and prepared for publication by J.A. Ratcliffe, collected in Needham and Pagel (eds.), Background to Modern Science: Ten Lectures at Cambridge Arranged by the History of Science Committee, (1938), 73-74. Note that the words as prepared for publication may not be verbatim as spoken in the original lecture by the then late Lord Rutherford.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Advance (298)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bit (21)  |  Blue (63)  |  Bolt (11)  |  Bolt From The Blue (2)  |  Combined (3)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependent (26)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Erected (2)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Influence (231)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Make (25)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Problem (731)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Single (365)  |  Step (234)  |  Step By Step (11)  |  Structure (365)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Violent (17)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)

[Like people] if you torture statistics long enough, they'll tell you anything you want to hear.
Anonymous
In Erica Beecher-Monas, Evaluating Scientific Evidence (2007), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Enough (341)  |  Long (778)  |  People (1031)  |  Quip (81)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Tell (344)  |  Torture (30)  |  Want (504)

[Simplicio] is much puzzled and perplexed. I think I hear him say, 'To whom then should we repair for the decision of our controversies if Aristotle were removed from the choir? What other author should we follow in the schools, academies, and studies? What philosopher has written all the divisions of Natural Philosophy, and so methodically, without omitting as much as a single conclusion? Shall we then overthrow the building under which so many voyagers find shelter? Shall we destroy that sanctuary, that Prytaneum, where so many students find commodious harbour; where without exposing himself to the injuries of the air, with only the turning over of a few leaves, one may learn all the secrets of Nature.'
Dialogue on the Great World Systems (1632). Revised and Annotated by Giorgio De Santillana (1953), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Author (175)  |  Building (158)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Decision (98)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Division (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Himself (461)  |  Learn (672)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Sanctuary (12)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Secret (216)  |  Shelter (23)  |  Single (365)  |  Student (317)  |  Think (1122)

[The toughest part of being in charge is] killing ideas that are great but poorly timed. And delivering tough feedback that’s difficult to hear but that I know will help people—and the team—in the long term.
In Issie Lapowsky, 'Scott Belsky', Inc. (Nov 2013), 140. Biography in Context,
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Business (156)  |  Charge (63)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Feedback (10)  |  Great (1610)  |  Help (116)  |  Idea (881)  |  Kill (100)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leadership (13)  |  Long (778)  |  Long Term (4)  |  People (1031)  |  Poorly (2)  |  Team (17)  |  Term (357)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tough (22)  |  Will (2350)

In primis, hominis est propria VERI inquisitio atque investigato. Itaque cum sumus negotiis necessariis, curisque vacui, tum avemus aliquid videre, audire, ac dicere, cognitionemque rerum, aut occultarum aut admirabilium, ad benè beatéque vivendum necessariam ducimus; —ex quo intelligitur, quod VERUM, simplex, sincerumque sit, id esse naturæ hominis aptissimum. Huic veri videndi cupiditati adjuncta est appetitio quædam principatûs, ut nemini parere animus benè a naturâ informatus velit, nisi præcipienti, aut docenti, aut utilitatis causâ justè et legitimè imperanti: ex quo animi magnitudo existit, et humanarum rerum contemtio.
Before all other things, man is distinguished by his pursuit and investigation of TRUTH. And hence, when free from needful business and cares, we delight to see, to hear, and to communicate, and consider a knowledge of many admirable and abstruse things necessary to the good conduct and happiness of our lives: whence it is clear that whatsoever is TRUE, simple, and direct, the same is most congenial to our nature as men. Closely allied with this earnest longing to see and know the truth, is a kind of dignified and princely sentiment which forbids a mind, naturally well constituted, to submit its faculties to any but those who announce it in precept or in doctrine, or to yield obedience to any orders but such as are at once just, lawful, and founded on utility. From this source spring greatness of mind and contempt of worldly advantages and troubles.
In De Officiis, Book 1. Sect. 13. As given in epigraph to John Frederick William Herschel, A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1830), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstruse (12)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Announce (13)  |  Business (156)  |  Care (203)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Communication (101)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Congenial (3)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contempt (20)  |  Delight (111)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Direct (228)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Forbid (14)  |  Free (239)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lawful (7)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Longing (19)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Obedience (20)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Precept (10)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  See (1094)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Spring (140)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Utility (52)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Yield (86)

Question: Explain how to determine the time of vibration of a given tuning-fork, and state what apparatus you would require for the purpose.
Answer: For this determination I should require an accurate watch beating seconds, and a sensitive ear. I mount the fork on a suitable stand, and then, as the second hand of my watch passes the figure 60 on the dial, I draw the bow neatly across one of its prongs. I wait. I listen intently. The throbbing air particles are receiving the pulsations; the beating prongs are giving up their original force; and slowly yet surely the sound dies away. Still I can hear it, but faintly and with close attention; and now only by pressing the bones of my head against its prongs. Finally the last trace disappears. I look at the time and leave the room, having determined the time of vibration of the common “pitch” fork. This process deteriorates the fork considerably, hence a different operation must be performed on a fork which is only lent.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 176-7, Question 4. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Against (332)  |  Air (366)  |  Answer (389)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beat (42)  |  Bone (101)  |  Bow (15)  |  Close (77)  |  Common (447)  |  Deterioration (10)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Dial (9)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Ear (69)  |  Examination (102)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Faint (10)  |  Figure (162)  |  Force (497)  |  Head (87)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Howler (15)  |  Last (425)  |  Leaving (10)  |  Listen (81)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mount (43)  |  Mounting (2)  |  Must (1525)  |  Operation (221)  |  Original (61)  |  Particle (200)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Pressing (2)  |  Process (439)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Require (229)  |  Room (42)  |  Second (66)  |  Sensitivity (10)  |  Slow (108)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stand (284)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Sure (15)  |  Surely (101)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Tuning Fork (2)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Watch (118)

Question: If you walk on a dry path between two walls a few feet apart, you hear a musical note or “ring” at each footstep. Whence comes this?
Answer: This is similar to phosphorescent paint. Once any sound gets between two parallel reflectors or walls, it bounds from one to the other and never stops for a long time. Hence it is persistent, and when you walk between the walls you hear the sounds made by those who walked there before you. By following a muffin man down the passage within a short time you can hear most distinctly a musical note, or, as it is more properly termed in the question, a “ring” at every (other) step.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 175-6, Question 2. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Before (8)  |  Bound (120)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Dry (65)  |  Examination (102)  |  Following (16)  |  Footstep (5)  |  Howler (15)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Music (133)  |  Never (1089)  |  Note (39)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paint (22)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Passage (52)  |  Path (159)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Persistent (18)  |  Phosphorescent (3)  |  Question (649)  |  Reflector (4)  |  Short (200)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Sound (187)  |  Step (234)  |  Stop (89)  |  Term (357)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Walk (138)  |  Wall (71)

~~[Attributed]~~ Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.
Widely quoted and seen as an epigraph in various books, but without source citation, for example, in Thomas R. Flanagan and Alexander N. Christakis, The Talking Point: Creating an Environment for Exploring Complex Meaning (2010), 13. Webmaster has not been able to validate with a primary written source. Please contact if you can cite it.
Science quotes on:  |  Border (10)  |  Exist (458)  |  Mind (1377)  |  People (1031)  |  See (1094)

All programs on jungles had previously been filmed from the bottom up, with dead leaves and a dead animal or two. Suddenly, I realized that it’s at the top that everything is blossoming and populating and having a ball. So, I wrote it from the top. The director happened to be a young, ludicrously athletic fellow who decided to film me up a 200-foot kapok tree on a rope. Sheer vanity from elder to younger led me to say yes. At 5 feet off the ground it’s interesting. At 10 feet you say, “Hmmm a bit high.” At 50 feet it’s exhausting and at 90 feet terrifying because you realize that no one can get to you if you decide you don’t like it. To get down you have to retie all the ropes. You don’t just come down. I was so petrified I had forgotten I’d left my radio on, so everyone down below was falling about with laughter listening to me praying and swearing to myself in terror. By the time I came down I had recovered my cool and was going around saying it had all been fine without realizing they’d all heard me.
In Justine de Lacy, 'Around the World With Attenborough', New York Times (27 Jan 1985), Sec. 2, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Athletic (5)  |  Blossom (22)  |  Bottom (36)  |  Dead (65)  |  Decide (50)  |  Descend (49)  |  Director (3)  |  Exhausting (2)  |  Fear (212)  |  Film (12)  |  Fine (37)  |  High (370)  |  Interest (416)  |  Jungle (24)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Like (23)  |  Listen (81)  |  Petrified (2)  |  Pray (19)  |  Program (57)  |  Radio (60)  |  Realize (157)  |  Recover (14)  |  Rope (9)  |  Swear (7)  |  Terror (32)  |  Tie (42)  |  Top (100)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vanity (20)  |  Young (253)

All the different classes of beings which taken together make up the universe are, in the ideas of God who knows distinctly their essential gradations, only so many ordinates of a single curve so closely united that it would be impossible to place others between any two of them, since that would imply disorder and imperfection. Thus men are linked with the animals, these with the plants and these with the fossils which in turn merge with those bodies which our senses and our imagination represent to us as absolutely inanimate. And, since the law of continuity requires that when the essential attributes of one being approximate those of another all the properties of the one must likewise gradually approximate those of the other, it is necessary that all the orders of natural beings form but a single chain, in which the various classes, like so many rings, are so closely linked one to another that it is impossible for the senses or the imagination to determine precisely the point at which one ends and the next begins?all the species which, so to say, lie near the borderlands being equivocal, at endowed with characters which might equally well be assigned to either of the neighboring species. Thus there is nothing monstrous in the existence zoophytes, or plant-animals, as Budaeus calls them; on the contrary, it is wholly in keeping with the order of nature that they should exist. And so great is the force of the principle of continuity, to my thinking, that not only should I not be surprised to hear that such beings had been discovered?creatures which in some of their properties, such as nutrition or reproduction, might pass equally well for animals or for plants, and which thus overturn the current laws based upon the supposition of a perfect and absolute separation of the different orders of coexistent beings which fill the universe;?not only, I say, should I not be surprised to hear that they had been discovered, but, in fact, I am convinced that there must be such creatures, and that natural history will perhaps some day become acquainted with them, when it has further studied that infinity of living things whose small size conceals them for ordinary observation and which are hidden in the bowels of the earth and the depth of the sea.
Lettre Prétendue de M. De Leibnitz, à M. Hermann dont M. Koenig a Cité le Fragment (1753), cxi-cxii, trans. in A. O. Lovejoy, Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (1936), 144-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Approximate (25)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Being (1276)  |  Borderland (6)  |  Bowel (17)  |  Call (781)  |  Character (259)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Creature (242)  |  Current (122)  |  Curve (49)  |  Depth (97)  |  Determine (152)  |  Different (595)  |  Discover (571)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Equally (129)  |  Essential (210)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  God (776)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Lie (370)  |  Living (492)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Next (238)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nutrition (25)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Plant (320)  |  Point (584)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Principle (530)  |  Represent (157)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Require (229)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sense (785)  |  Separation (60)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Species (435)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Together (392)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)

All versions written for nonscientists speak of fused males as the curious tale of the anglerfish–just as we so often hear about the monkey swinging through the trees, or the worm burrowing through soil. But if nature teaches us any lesson, it loudly proclaims life’s diversity. There ain’t no such abstraction as the clam, the fly, or the anglerfish. Ceratioid anglerfishes come in nearly 100 species, and each has its own peculiarity.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Aint (4)  |  Burrow (2)  |  Curious (95)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Fly (153)  |  Fuse (5)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Life (1870)  |  Male (26)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Nonscientist (3)  |  Often (109)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Proclaim (31)  |  Soil (98)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Swing (12)  |  Tale (17)  |  Teach (299)  |  Through (846)  |  Tree (269)  |  Version (7)  |  Worm (47)  |  Write (250)

Although we often hear that data speak for themselves, their voices can be soft and sly.
In Frederick Mosteller, Stephen E. Fienberg and Robert E. K. Rourke, Beginning Statistics with Data Analysis (1983), 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Data (162)  |  Soft (30)  |  Speak (240)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Voice (54)

An old medical friend gave me some excellent practical advice. He said: “You will have for some time to go much oftener down steps than up steps. Never mind! win the good opinions of washerwomen and such like, and in time you will hear of their recommendations of you to the wealthier families by whom they are employed.” I did so, and found it succeed as predicted.
[On beginning a medical practice.]
From Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist (1896), 94. Going “down steps” refers to the homes of lower-class workers of the era that were often in basements and entered by exterior steps down from street level.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Down (455)  |  Employ (115)  |  Employment (34)  |  Family (101)  |  Friend (180)  |  Good (906)  |  Medical (31)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Practical (225)  |  Practice (212)  |  Predict (86)  |  Recommendation (12)  |  Step (234)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Time (1911)  |  Up (5)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Will (2350)  |  Win (53)

And men ought to know that from nothing else but thence [from the brain] come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear, and know what are foul and hat are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet, and what unsavory... And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us... All these things we endure from the brain, when it is not healthy... In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man. This is the interpreter to us of those things which emanate from the air, when it [the brain] happens to be in a sound state.
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, trans. Francis Adams (1886), Vol. 2, 344-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Bad (185)  |  Become (821)  |  Brain (281)  |  Delight (111)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fear (212)  |  Foul (15)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Grief (20)  |  Happen (282)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Mad (54)  |  Man (2252)  |  Neuroscience (3)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organ (118)  |  Power (771)  |  See (1094)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Sound (187)  |  Sport (23)  |  State (505)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Terror (32)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wisdom (235)

As soon as I hear the phrase “everybody knows,” I start to wonder. I start asking, “Does everybody know this? And how do they know it?”
As quoted in interview about earthquake predictions for magazine article in Joshua Fischman, 'Falling Into the Gap', Discover (Oct 1992), 13, No. 10, 58. The article writer appears to be quoting, but throughout the article has used no double quote marks. The article is also online.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Know (1538)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Soon (187)  |  Start (237)  |  Wonder (251)

At a distance in the meadow I hear still, at long intervals, the hurried commencement of the bobolink s strain, the bird just dashing into song, which is as suddenly checked, as it were, by the warder of the seasons, and the strain is left incomplete forever. Like human beings they are inspired to sing only for a short season.
(29 Jun 1851). In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: II: 1850-September 15, 1851 (1906), 275.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Bird (163)  |  Commencement (14)  |  Distance (171)  |  Forever (111)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Long (778)  |  Meadow (21)  |  Ornithology (21)  |  Season (47)  |  Short (200)  |  Sing (29)  |  Song (41)  |  Still (614)  |  Strain (13)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Warder (2)

Beauty, I hear you ask, do not the Graces flee where integrals stretch forth their necks?
In Ceremonial Speech (15 Nov 1887) celebrating the 301st anniversary of the Karl-Franzens-University Graz. Published as Gustav Robert Kirchhoff: Festrede zur Feier des 301. Gründungstages der Karl-Franzens-Universität zy Graz (1888), 28-29, as translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 186. From the original German, “Schönheit höre ich Sie da fragen; entfliehen nicht die Grazien, wo Integrate ihre Hälse reckon.” [In Greek mythology, the Graces are three beautiful daughters of Zeus personifying charm, grace, and beauty. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Do (1905)  |  Flee (9)  |  Grace (31)  |  Integral (26)  |  Neck (15)  |  Stretch (39)

Before you tell the ‘truth’ to the patient, be sure you know the ‘truth’ and that the patient wants to hear it.
Chinese proverb.
Science quotes on:  |  Know (1538)  |  Patient (209)  |  Tell (344)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Want (504)

Bias has to be taught. If you hear your parents downgrading women or people of different backgrounds, why, you are going to do that.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Bias (22)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Downgrade (2)  |  Parent (80)  |  People (1031)  |  Teach (299)  |  Why (491)  |  Woman (160)

But come, hear my words, for truly learning causes the mind to grow. For as I said before in declaring the ends of my words … at one time there grew to be the one alone out of many, and at another time it separated so that there were many out of the one; fire and water and earth and boundless height of air, and baneful Strife apart from these, balancing each of them, and Love among them, their equal in length and breadth.
From The Fragments, Bk. 1, line 74. In Arthur Fairbanks (ed., trans.), Quotations from The First Philosophers of Greece (1898), 167-168.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Alone (324)  |  Balance (82)  |  Baneful (2)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Breadth (15)  |  Cause (561)  |  Declare (48)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Equal (88)  |  Fire (203)  |  Grow (247)  |  Height (33)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Length (24)  |  Love (328)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Separate (151)  |  Strife (9)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)  |  Water (503)  |  Word (650)

But for the persistence of a student of this university in urging upon me his desire to study with me the modern algebra I should never have been led into this investigation; and the new facts and principles which I have discovered in regard to it (important facts, I believe), would, so far as I am concerned, have remained still hidden in the womb of time. In vain I represented to this inquisitive student that he would do better to take up some other subject lying less off the beaten track of study, such as the higher parts of the calculus or elliptic functions, or the theory of substitutions, or I wot not what besides. He stuck with perfect respectfulness, but with invincible pertinacity, to his point. He would have the new algebra (Heaven knows where he had heard about it, for it is almost unknown in this continent), that or nothing. I was obliged to yield, and what was the consequence? In trying to throw light upon an obscure explanation in our text-book, my brain took fire, I plunged with re-quickened zeal into a subject which I had for years abandoned, and found food for thoughts which have engaged my attention for a considerable time past, and will probably occupy all my powers of contemplation advantageously for several months to come.
In Johns Hopkins Commemoration Day Address, Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 3, 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Advantageous (10)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beaten Track (4)  |  Belief (615)  |  Better (493)  |  Book (413)  |  Brain (281)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Continent (79)  |  Desire (212)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ellipse (8)  |  Engage (41)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  Food (213)  |  Function (235)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Hide (70)  |  High (370)  |  Important (229)  |  In Vain (12)  |  Inquisitive (5)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Invincible (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Less (105)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Lying (55)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Modern (402)  |  Month (91)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obliged (6)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Past (355)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Pertinacity (2)  |  Plunge (11)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probably (50)  |  Quicken (7)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remain (355)  |  Represent (157)  |  Several (33)  |  Stick (27)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Text-Book (5)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Throw (45)  |  Time (1911)  |  Track (42)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  University (130)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Urge (17)  |  Vain (86)  |  Will (2350)  |  Womb (25)  |  Year (963)  |  Yield (86)  |  Zeal (12)

But for us, it’s different. Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Being (1276)  |  Child (333)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Confident (25)  |  Corrupt (4)  |  Couple (9)  |  Coward (5)  |  Creator (97)  |  Destroyer (5)  |  Different (595)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Dot (18)  |  Dust (68)  |  Economic (84)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Father (113)  |  Hero (45)  |  History (716)  |  Home (184)  |  Hopeful (6)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Ideology (15)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Joy (117)  |  King (39)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leader (51)  |  Live (650)  |  Look (584)  |  Love (328)  |  Moral (203)  |  Mote (3)  |  Mother (116)  |  Peasant (9)  |  Politician (40)  |  Religion (369)  |  Saint (17)  |  Sinner (2)  |  Species (435)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Sunbeam (3)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Suspend (11)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Young (253)

Charlie Holloway (human): “What we hoped to achieve was to meet our makers. To get answers. Why they even made us in the first place.”
David (AI robot): “Why do you think your people made me?”
Charlie Holloway (human): “We made you because we could.”
David (AI robot): “Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same thing from your creator?”
Charlie Holloway (human): “I guess it’s good you can’t be disappointed.”
Prometheus (2012)
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Answer (389)  |  Artificial Intelligence (12)  |  Creator (97)  |  David (6)  |  Disappoint (14)  |  Disappointed (6)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Guess (67)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Maker (34)  |  Meet (36)  |  People (1031)  |  Place (192)  |  Robot (14)  |  Same (166)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Why (491)

Courage is the price that
Life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, knows no release
From little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
From poem 'Courage' (1927), opening lines, included in magazine article by Marion Perkins, 'Who Is Amelia Earhart?', Survey (1 Jul 1928), 60. Quoted as epigraph, and cited in Mary S. Lovell, The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart (1989), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Bitter (30)  |  Courage (82)  |  Fear (212)  |  Height (33)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Loneliness (6)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Peace (116)  |  Price (57)  |  Release (31)  |  Soul (235)  |  Sound (187)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Wing (79)

Crowds of silent voices whisper in our ears, transforming the nature of what we see and hear. Some are those of childhood authorities and heroes; others come from family and peers. The strangest emerge from beyond the grave.
In 'Reality is a Shared Hallucination', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Authority (99)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Ear (69)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Family (101)  |  Grave (52)  |  Hero (45)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peer (13)  |  See (1094)  |  Silent (31)  |  Strange (160)  |  Transform (74)  |  Voice (54)  |  Whisper (11)

Curves that have no tangents are the rule. … Those who hear of curves without tangents, or of functions without derivatives, often think at first that Nature presents no such complications. … The contrary however is true. … Consider, for instance, one of the white flakes that are obtained by salting a solution of soap. At a distance its contour may appear sharply defined, but as we draw nearer its sharpness disappears. The eye can no longer draw a tangent at any point. … The use of a magnifying glass or microscope leaves us just as uncertain, for fresh irregularities appear every time we increase the magnification. … An essential characteristic of our flake … is that we suspect … that any scale involves details that absolutely prohibit the fixing of a tangent.
(1906). As quoted “in free translation” in Benoit B. Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1977, 1983), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Appear (122)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Complication (30)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contour (3)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Curve (49)  |  Defined (4)  |  Derivative (6)  |  Detail (150)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Distance (171)  |  Draw (140)  |  Essential (210)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Fixing (2)  |  Flake (7)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Function (235)  |  Glass (94)  |  Increase (225)  |  Involve (93)  |  Irregularity (12)  |  Magnification (10)  |  Magnifying Glass (3)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Prohibit (3)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scale (122)  |  Sharply (4)  |  Sharpness (9)  |  Soap (11)  |  Solution (282)  |  Suspect (18)  |  Tangent (6)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Use (771)  |  White (132)

Did you hear Oxygen cheated on Magnesium? OMg.
Anonymous
Joke found on the Web
Science quotes on:  |  Cheat (13)  |  Joke (90)  |  Magnesium (4)  |  Oxygen (77)

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.
Poem, 'Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare", collected in Wallace Warner Douglas and Hallett Darius Smith (eds.), The Critical Reader: Poems, Stories, Essays (1949), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Alone (324)  |  Bare (33)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Blind (98)  |  Bondage (6)  |  Cease (81)  |  Draw (140)  |  Dusty (8)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Euclid (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Goose (13)  |  Hero (45)  |  Hold (96)  |  Holy (35)  |  Hour (192)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Let (64)  |  Light (635)  |  Lineage (3)  |  Look (584)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Massive (9)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Peace (116)  |  Ponder (15)  |  Prone (7)  |  Release (31)  |  Sandal (3)  |  Seek (218)  |  Set (400)  |  Shaft (5)  |  Shape (77)  |  Shift (45)  |  Shine (49)  |  Stare (9)  |  Stone (168)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Vision (127)

Euler was a believer in God, downright and straightforward. The following story is told by Thiebault, in his Souvenirs de vingt ans de séjour à Berlin, … Thiebault says that he has no personal knowledge of the truth of the story, but that it was believed throughout the whole of the north of Europe. Diderot paid a visit to the Russian Court at the invitation of the Empress. He conversed very freely, and gave the younger members of the Court circle a good deal of lively atheism. The Empress was much amused, but some of her counsellors suggested that it might be desirable to check these expositions of doctrine. The Empress did not like to put a direct muzzle on her guest’s tongue, so the following plot was contrived. Diderot was informed that a learned mathematician was in possession of an algebraical demonstration of the existence of God, and would give it him before all the Court, if he desired to hear it. Diderot gladly consented: though the name of the mathematician is not given, it was Euler. He advanced toward Diderot, and said gravely, and in a tone of perfect conviction:
Monsieur, (a + bn) / n = x, donc Dieu existe; repondez!

Diderot, to whom algebra was Hebrew, was embarrassed and disconcerted; while peals of laughter rose on all sides. He asked permission to return to France at once, which was granted.
In Budget of Paradoxes (1878), 251. [The declaration in French expresses, “therefore God exists; please answer!” This Euler-Diderot anecdote, as embellished by De Morgan, is generally regarded as entirely fictional. Diderot before he became an encyclopedist was an accomplished mathematician and fully capable of recognizing—and responding to—the absurdity of an algebraic expression in proving the existence of God. See B.H. Brown, 'The Euler-Diderot Anecdote', The American Mathematical Monthly (May 1942), 49, No. 5, 392-303. —Webmaster.]
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Amused (3)  |  Ask (420)  |  Atheism (11)  |  Belief (615)  |  Believer (26)  |  Check (26)  |  Circle (117)  |  Consent (14)  |  Contrive (10)  |  Converse (9)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Counselor (2)  |  Court (35)  |  Deal (192)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Desire (212)  |  Denis Diderot (6)  |  Direct (228)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Embarrass (2)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Europe (50)  |  Existence (481)  |  Exposition (16)  |  Follow (389)  |  France (29)  |  Freely (13)  |  Gladly (2)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Grant (76)  |  Gravely (2)  |  Guest (5)  |  Hebrew (10)  |  Inform (50)  |  Invitation (12)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lively (17)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Member (42)  |  Name (359)  |  North (12)  |  Peal (2)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Permission (7)  |  Personal (75)  |  Plot (11)  |  Possession (68)  |  Return (133)  |  Rose (36)  |  Russia (14)  |  Say (989)  |  Side (236)  |  Story (122)  |  Straightforward (10)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Tell (344)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Tone (22)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Toward (45)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Visit (27)  |  Whole (756)  |  Young (253)  |  Younger (21)

Everybody likes to hear about a man laying down his life for his country, but nobody wants to hear about a country giving her shirt for her planet.
In 'The Wild Flag', The New Yorker (9 Sep 1944), 35. Quote collected in In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America’s Most Companionable of Writers (2011), 150.
Science quotes on:  |  Conservation (187)  |  Country (269)  |  Down (455)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Give (208)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Planet (402)  |  Shirt (3)  |  Want (504)

Evil communication corrupts good manners. I hope to live to hear that good communication corrects bad manners.
On a leaf of one of Banneker’s almanacs, in his own handwriting. As quoted in George Washington Williams, History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 (1882), Vol. 1, 390.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Communication (101)  |  Correction (42)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Evil (122)  |  Good (906)  |  Hope (321)  |  Live (650)  |  Manners (3)

Five centuries ago the printing press sparked a radical reshaping of the nature of education. By bringing a master’s words to those who could not hear a master’s voice, the technology of printing dissolved the notion that education must be reserved for those with the means to hire personal tutors. Today we are approaching a new technological revolution, one whose impact on education may be as far-reaching as that of the printing press: the emergence of powerful computers that are sufficiently inexpensive to be used by students for learning, play and exploration. It is our hope that these powerful but simple tools for creating and exploring richly interactive environments will dissolve the barriers to the production of knowledge as the printing press dissolved the barriers to its transmission.
As co-author with A.A. diSessa, from 'Preface', Turtle Geometry: The Computer as a Medium for Exploring Mathematics (1986), xiii.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Bring (95)  |  Century (319)  |  Computer (131)  |  Create (245)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Education (423)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Far-Reaching (9)  |  Hire (7)  |  Hope (321)  |  Impact (45)  |  Inexpensive (2)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Master (182)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Notion (120)  |  Personal (75)  |  Play (116)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Print (20)  |  Printing (25)  |  Printing Press (5)  |  Production (190)  |  Radical (28)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Reshape (5)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Rich (66)  |  Simple (426)  |  Spark (32)  |  Student (317)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)  |  Today (321)  |  Tool (129)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Tutor (3)  |  Voice (54)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

For a billion years the patient earth amassed documents and inscribed them with signs and pictures which lay unnoticed and unused. Today, at last, they are waking up, because man has come to rouse them. Stones have begun to speak, because an ear is there to hear them. Layers become history and, released from the enchanted sleep of eternity, life’s motley, never-ending dance rises out of the black depths of the past into the light of the present.
In 'Prologue', Conversation with the Earth (1954), 4. As translated by E.B. Garside from Gespräch mit der Erde (1947).
Science quotes on:  |  Amass (6)  |  Become (821)  |  Billion (104)  |  Dance (35)  |  Depth (97)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Geology (240)  |  History (716)  |  Last (425)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Never (1089)  |  Past (355)  |  Patient (209)  |  Picture (148)  |  Present (630)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Speak (240)  |  Stone (168)  |  Today (321)  |  Waking (17)  |  Year (963)

Get into any taxi and tell the driver you are a mathematician and the response is predictable … you will hear the immortal words: “I was never any good at mathematics.” My response is: “I was never any good at being a taxi driver so I went into mathematics.”
In paper, 'A Mathematician’s Survival Guide', pdf document linked from his homepage at math.missouri.edu (undated, but 2011 or earlier, indicated by an “accessed on” date elsewhere.) Collected in Peter Casazza, Steven G. Krantz and Randi D. Ruden (eds.) I, Mathematician (2005), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Driver (5)  |  Good (906)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Never (1089)  |  Response (56)  |  Taxi (4)  |  Tell (344)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

He [Sylvester] had one remarkable peculiarity. He seldom remembered theorems, propositions, etc., but had always to deduce them when he wished to use them. In this he was the very antithesis of Cayley, who was thoroughly conversant with everything that had been done in every branch of mathematics.
I remember once submitting to Sylvester some investigations that I had been engaged on, and he immediately denied my first statement, saying that such a proposition had never been heard of, let alone proved. To his astonishment, I showed him a paper of his own in which he had proved the proposition; in fact, I believe the object of his paper had been the very proof which was so strange to him.
As quoted by Florian Cajori, in Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 268.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Antithesis (7)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Belief (615)  |  Branch (155)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Conversant (6)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Deny (71)  |  Engage (41)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Let (64)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Never (1089)  |  Object (438)  |  Paper (192)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Prove (261)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Remember (189)  |  Say (989)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Show (353)  |  Statement (148)  |  Strange (160)  |  Submit (21)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Use (771)  |  Wish (216)

He who has heard the same thing told by twelve thousand ocular [eye]witnesses, has only twelve thousand probabilities, equal to one strong one, which is not equal to certainty.
In 'Truth', Philosophical Dictionary (1824), Vol. 6, 297.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainty (180)  |  Equal (88)  |  Eye (440)  |  Probability (135)  |  Strong (182)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (340)

He will also find that the high and independent spirit, which usually dwells in the breast of those who are deeply versed in scientific pursuits, is ill adapted for administrative appointments; and that even if successful, he must hear many things he disapproves, and raise no voice against them.
Reflections on the Decline of Science in England and on Some of its Causes, (1830), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Against (332)  |  Appointment (12)  |  Find (1014)  |  High (370)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Must (1525)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Successful (134)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Usually (176)  |  Will (2350)

Hear how the ripples make a sound of chaos!
From 'Sound of Breaking', collected in Selected Poems (1918, 2003), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Chaos (99)  |  Ripple (12)  |  Sound (187)

I advise my students to listen carefully the moment they decide to take no more Mathematics courses. They might be able to hear the sound of closing doors.
From 'Everybody a Mathematician', CAIP Quarterly (Fall 1989), 2, as quoted and cited, as a space filler following article Reinhard C. Laubenbacher and Michael Siddoway, 'Great Problems of Mathematics: A Summer Workshop for High School Students', The College Mathematics Journal (Mar 1994), 25, No. 2, 114.
Science quotes on:  |  Advise (7)  |  Careful (28)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Closed (38)  |  Course (413)  |  Decide (50)  |  Door (94)  |  Listen (81)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Sound (187)  |  Student (317)

I always rejoice to hear of your being still employed in experimental researches into nature, and of the success you meet with. The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon: it is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter; we may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its labour and double its produce; all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured (not excepting even that of old age), and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard. Oh! that moral science were in as fair a way of improvement; that men would cease to be wolves to one another; and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity!
Letter to Dr Priestley, 8 Feb 1780. In Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (1845), Vol. 2, 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Age (509)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Antediluvian (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Cease (81)  |  Disease (340)  |  Easy (213)  |  Employ (115)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moral (203)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Power (771)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Progress (492)  |  Sake (61)  |  Soon (187)  |  Still (614)  |  Success (327)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Transport (31)  |  True Science (25)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

I am afraid I am not in the flight for “aerial navigation”. I was greatly interested in your work with kites; but I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the aëronautical Society.
Letter (8 Dec 1896) to Baden Powell. This is the full text of the letter. An image of the handwritten original is on the zapatopi.net website
Science quotes on:  |  Aerial (11)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Care (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Faith (209)  |  Flight (101)  |  Good (906)  |  Interest (416)  |  Kite (4)  |  Member (42)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Result (700)  |  Smallest (9)  |  Society (350)  |  Trial (59)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

I came to biochemistry through chemistry; I came to chemistry, partly by the labyrinthine routes that I have related, and partly through the youthful romantic notion that the natural sciences had something to do with nature. What I liked about chemistry was its clarity surrounded by darkness; what attracted me, slowly and hesitatingly, to biology was its darkness surrounded by the brightness of the givenness of nature, the holiness of life. And so I have always oscillated between the brightness of reality and the darkness of the unknowable. When Pascal speaks of God in hiding, Deus absconditus, we hear not only the profound existential thinker, but also the great searcher for the reality of the world. I consider this unquenchable resonance as the greatest gift that can be bestowed on a naturalist.
Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before Nature (1978), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Bestow (18)  |  Biochemist (9)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biology (232)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Consider (428)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Do (1905)  |  Gift (105)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hiding (12)  |  Holiness (7)  |  Life (1870)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Blaise Pascal (81)  |  Profound (105)  |  Reality (274)  |  Resonance (7)  |  Romantic (13)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Through (846)  |  World (1850)

I can hear the sizzle of newborn stars, and know anything of meaning, of the fierce magic emerging here. I am witness to flexible eternity, the evolving past, and I know we will live forever, as dust or breathe in the face of stars, in the shifting pattern of winds.
In Secrets from the Center of the World (1989), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Breathe (49)  |  Dust (68)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Face (214)  |  Fierce (8)  |  Flexible (7)  |  Forever (111)  |  Know (1538)  |  Live (650)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Newborn (5)  |  Past (355)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Shift (45)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Witness (57)

I can see him [Sylvester] now, with his white beard and few locks of gray hair, his forehead wrinkled o’er with thoughts, writing rapidly his figures and formulae on the board, sometimes explaining as he wrote, while we, his listeners, caught the reflected sounds from the board. But stop, something is not right, he pauses, his hand goes to his forehead to help his thought, he goes over the work again, emphasizes the leading points, and finally discovers his difficulty. Perhaps it is some error in his figures, perhaps an oversight in the reasoning. Sometimes, however, the difficulty is not elucidated, and then there is not much to the rest of the lecture. But at the next lecture we would hear of some new discovery that was the outcome of that difficulty, and of some article for the Journal, which he had begun. If a text-book had been taken up at the beginning, with the intention of following it, that text-book was most likely doomed to oblivion for the rest of the term, or until the class had been made listeners to every new thought and principle that had sprung from the laboratory of his mind, in consequence of that first difficulty. Other difficulties would soon appear, so that no text-book could last more than half of the term. In this way his class listened to almost all of the work that subsequently appeared in the Journal. It seemed to be the quality of his mind that he must adhere to one subject. He would think about it, talk about it to his class, and finally write about it for the Journal. The merest accident might start him, but once started, every moment, every thought was given to it, and, as much as possible, he read what others had done in the same direction; but this last seemed to be his real point; he could not read without finding difficulties in the way of understanding the author. Thus, often his own work reproduced what had been done by others, and he did not find it out until too late.
A notable example of this is in his theory of cyclotomic functions, which he had reproduced in several foreign journals, only to find that he had been greatly anticipated by foreign authors. It was manifest, one of the critics said, that the learned professor had not read Rummer’s elementary results in the theory of ideal primes. Yet Professor Smith’s report on the theory of numbers, which contained a full synopsis of Kummer’s theory, was Professor Sylvester’s constant companion.
This weakness of Professor Sylvester, in not being able to read what others had done, is perhaps a concomitant of his peculiar genius. Other minds could pass over little difficulties and not be troubled by them, and so go on to a final understanding of the results of the author. But not so with him. A difficulty, however small, worried him, and he was sure to have difficulties until the subject had been worked over in his own way, to correspond with his own mode of thought. To read the work of others, meant therefore to him an almost independent development of it. Like the man whose pleasure in life is to pioneer the way for society into the forests, his rugged mind could derive satisfaction only in hewing out its own paths; and only when his efforts brought him into the uncleared fields of mathematics did he find his place in the Universe.
In Florian Cajori, Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 266-267.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Adhere (3)  |  Anticipate (20)  |  Appear (122)  |  Article (22)  |  Author (175)  |  Beard (8)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Board (13)  |  Book (413)  |  Bring (95)  |  Class (168)  |  Companion (22)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contain (68)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Critic (21)  |  Derive (70)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doom (34)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Elucidate (4)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Error (339)  |  Example (98)  |  Explain (334)  |  Field (378)  |  Figure (162)  |  Final (121)  |  Finally (26)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forehead (3)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Forest (161)  |  Formula (102)  |  Full (68)  |  Function (235)  |  Genius (301)  |  Give (208)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Hair (25)  |  Half (63)  |  Hand (149)  |  Help (116)  |  Hew (3)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intention (46)  |  Journal (31)  |  Ernst Eduard Kummer (3)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Last (425)  |  Late (119)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Likely (36)  |  Listen (81)  |  Listener (7)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mode (43)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Notable (6)  |  Number (710)  |  Oblivion (10)  |  Often (109)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outcome (15)  |  Oversight (4)  |  Pass (241)  |  Path (159)  |  Pause (6)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Place (192)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prime (11)  |  Principle (530)  |  Professor (133)  |  Quality (139)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Read (308)  |  Real (159)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Report (42)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Rugged (7)  |  Rum (3)  |  Same (166)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Several (33)  |  Small (489)  |  Smith (3)  |  Society (350)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spring (140)  |  Start (237)  |  Stop (89)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subsequently (2)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Synopsis (2)  |  Talk (108)  |  Term (357)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Numbers (7)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weakness (50)  |  White (132)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worry (34)  |  Wrinkle (4)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. “When I hear you give your reasons,” I remarked, “the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled, until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.”
“Quite so,” he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an arm-chair. “You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.”
“Frequently.”
“How often?”
“'Well, some hundreds of times.”
“Then how many are there?”
“How many! I don't know.”
“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.”
From 'Adventure I.—A Scandal in Bohemia', Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in The Strand Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly (Jul 1891), 2, 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Arm (82)  |  Both (496)  |  Chair (25)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Explain (334)  |  Eye (440)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Myself (211)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Point (584)  |  Process (439)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  See (1094)  |  Simple (426)  |  Step (234)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throwing (17)  |  Time (1911)

I don't quite hear what you say, but I beg to differ entirely with you.
Science quotes on:  |  Differ (88)  |  Quip (81)  |  Say (989)

I grew up in Japan and Hong Kong and then came to the States. Japan was a huge influence on me because, as a child, I would hear the oxcarts come and collect our sewage at night out of our house from the latrine and then take it off to the farms as fertilizer. And then the food would come back in oxcarts during the day. I always had this sort of “our poop became food” mental model. The idea of “waste equals food” was pretty inculcated, that everything was precious and the systems were coherent and cyclical.
In interview with Kerry A. Dolan, 'William McDonough On Cradle-to-Cradle Design', Forbes (4 Aug 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Child (333)  |  Coherent (14)  |  Collect (19)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Equal (88)  |  Everything (489)  |  Farm (28)  |  Fertilizer (13)  |  Food (213)  |  House (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Influence (231)  |  Japan (9)  |  Mental (179)  |  Model (106)  |  Night (133)  |  Precious (43)  |  Sewage (9)  |  State (505)  |  System (545)  |  Waste (109)

I have heard articulate speech produced by sunlight I have heard a ray of the sun laugh and cough and sing! … I have been able to hear a shadow, and I have even perceived by ear the passage of a cloud across the sun's disk.
Letter to his father (26 Feb 1880), describing his photophone research. Transcript with Bell Papers, Library of Congress.
Science quotes on:  |  Articulate (8)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Cough (8)  |  Ear (69)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Passage (52)  |  Perceived (4)  |  Produced (187)  |  Ray (115)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Sing (29)  |  Speech (66)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunlight (29)

I have occasionally had the exquisite thrill of putting my finger on a little capsule of truth, and heard it give the faint squeak of mortality under my pressure.
Letter to Stanley Hart White (Jan 1929), collected in The Letters of E.B. White (1976, 1989), 85.
Science quotes on:  |  Capsule (7)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Faint (10)  |  Finger (48)  |  Little (717)  |  Mortality (16)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Squeak (3)  |  Thrill (26)  |  Truth (1109)

I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the range of sight,
New earths and skies and seas around,
And in my day the sun doth pale his light.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Light (635)  |  New (1273)  |  Pale (9)  |  Range (104)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sound (187)  |  Sun (407)

I hear one day the word “mountain,” and I ask someone “what is a mountain? I have never seen one.”
I join others in discussions of mountains.
One day I see in a book a picture of a mountain.
And I decide I must climb one.
I travel to a place where there is a mountain.
At the base of the mountain I see there are lots of paths to climb.
I start on a path that leads to the top of the mountain.
I see that the higher I climb, the more the paths join together.
After much climbing the many paths join into one.
I climb till I am almost exhausted but I force myself and continue to climb.
Finally I reach the top and far above me there are stars.
I look far down and the village twinkles far below.
It would be easy to go back down there but it is so beautiful up here.
I am just below the stars.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Back (395)  |  Base (120)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Below (26)  |  Book (413)  |  Climb (39)  |  Continue (179)  |  Decide (50)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Down (455)  |  Easy (213)  |  Exhaust (22)  |  Far (158)  |  Finally (26)  |  Force (497)  |  High (370)  |  Join (32)  |  Lead (391)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  Picture (148)  |  Place (192)  |  Reach (286)  |  See (1094)  |  Someone (24)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Start (237)  |  Together (392)  |  Top (100)  |  Travel (125)  |  Twinkle (6)  |  Village (13)  |  Word (650)

I hear the scream of a great hawk, sailing with a ragged wing against the high wood-side, apparently to scare his prey and so detect it—shrill, harsh, fitted to excite terror in sparrows and to issue from his split and curved bill. I see his open bill the while against the sky. Spit with force from his mouth with an undulatory quaver imparted to it from his wings or motion as he flies.
(15 Jun 1852). In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: IV: May 1, 1852-February 27,, 1853 (1906), 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Bill (14)  |  Detect (45)  |  Excite (17)  |  Fly (153)  |  Force (497)  |  Great (1610)  |  Harsh (9)  |  Hawk (4)  |  High (370)  |  Impart (24)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Open (277)  |  Ornithology (21)  |  Prey (13)  |  Sailing (14)  |  Scare (6)  |  Scream (7)  |  See (1094)  |  Shrill (2)  |  Side (236)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sparrow (6)  |  Terror (32)  |  Wing (79)  |  Wood (97)

I hear you say “Why?” Always “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”
Back to Methuselah: a Metabiological Pentateuch (1921), 6. Often seen attributed to John F. Kennedy or Bobby Kennedy who restated this quote as “Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?”
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Dream (222)  |  Look (584)  |  Never (1089)  |  Say (989)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Why (491)

I hear you say “Why?” Always “Why?” You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”
The Serpent. Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 121
Science quotes on:  |  Dream (222)  |  Never (1089)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Why (491)

I heard there the nightingale in all its perfection: and I do not hesitate to pronounce that in America it would be deemed a bird of the third rank only, our mocking-bird and fox-coloured thrush being unquestionably superior to it.
Letter (21 Jun 1785) to Mrs. John (Abigail) Adams. Collected in Paul Leicester Ford (ed.), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: 1784-1787 (1894), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bird (163)  |  Do (1905)  |  Hesitate (24)  |  Nightingale (2)  |  Ornithology (21)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Pronounce (11)  |  Rank (69)  |  Superior (88)  |  Thrush (2)

I sometimes hear preachers speak of the sad condition of men who live without God in the world, but a scientist who lives without God in the world seems to me worse off than ordinary men.
As quoted in E.P. Whipple, 'Recollections of Agassiz', in Henry Mills Alden (ed.), Harper's New Monthly Magazine (June 1879), 59, 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Condition (362)  |  God (776)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Preacher (13)  |  Sadness (36)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seem (150)  |  Speak (240)  |  World (1850)  |  Worse (25)

I’m a lapel-clutcher by nature. I’m always running up to people and shaking them and saying, “Have you heard?” I believe man has a compulsion to communicate and his evolutionary success is due to it. And I’ve got it. I relive the pleasure I found in it when I tell someone about it.
In Justine de Lacy, 'Around the World With Attenborough', New York Times (27 Jan 1985), Sec. 2, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Clutch (4)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Compulsion (19)  |  Due (143)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Find (1014)  |  Nature (2017)  |  People (1031)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Relive (2)  |  Say (989)  |  Shake (43)  |  Someone (24)  |  Success (327)  |  Tell (344)

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured and far away.
In Walden: Or, Life in the Woods (1854, 1906), 358.
Science quotes on:  |  Companion (22)  |  Different (595)  |  Drummer (3)  |  Eccentric (11)  |  Far (158)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Keep (104)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  Music (133)  |  Pace (18)  |  Step (234)

If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses.
Letter to Henry Acland (24 May 1851).
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Bible (105)  |  Cadence (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dreadful (16)  |  End (603)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Verse (11)

If there is a regulation that says you have to do something—whether it be putting in seat belts, catalytic converters, clean air for coal plants, clean water—the first tack that the lawyers use, among others things, and that companies use, is that it’s going to drive the electricity bill up, drive the cost of cars up, drive everything up. It repeatedly has been demonstrated that once the engineers start thinking about it, it’s actually far less than the original estimates. We should remember that when we hear this again, because you will hear it again.
Talk (Apr 2007) quoted in 'Obama's Energy and Environment Team Includes a Nobel Laureate', Kent Garber, US News website (posted 11 Dec 2008).
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Car (75)  |  Clean (52)  |  Coal (64)  |  Cost (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Everything (489)  |  First (1302)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Money (178)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Remember (189)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

If you enquire about him [J.J. Sylvester], you will hear his genius universally recognized but his power of teaching will probably be said to be quite deficient. Now there is no man living who is more luminary in his language, to those who have the capacity to comprehend him than Sylvester, provided the hearer is in a lucid interval. But as the barn yard fowl cannot understand the flight of the eagle, so it is the eaglet only who will be nourished by his instruction.
Letter (18 Sep 1875) to Daniel C. Gilman. In Daniel C. Gilman Papers, Ms. 1, Special Collections Division, Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University. As quoted in Karen Hunger Parshall, 'America’s First School of Mathematical Research: James Joseph Sylvester at The Johns Hopkins University 1876—1883', Archive for History of Exact Sciences (1988), 38, No. 2, 167.
Science quotes on:  |  Capacity (105)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Deficient (3)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fowl (6)  |  Genius (301)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Interval (14)  |  Language (308)  |  Living (492)  |  Lucid (9)  |  Luminary (4)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Nourish (18)  |  Power (771)  |  Recognize (136)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)

If you want to hear, you must begin by listening.
Aphorism as given by the fictional character Dezhnev Senior, in Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain (1987), 238.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Listening (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Want (504)

Imperceptibly a change had been wrought in me until I no longer felt alone in a strange, silent country. I had learned to hear the echoes of a time when every living thing upon this land and even the varied overshadowing skies had its voice, a voice that was attentively heard and devoutly heeded by the ancient people of America. Henceforth, to me the plants, the trees, the clouds and all things had become vocal with human hopes, fears and supplications.
From Preface, Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs (1915), v.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  America (143)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Attentive (15)  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Country (269)  |  Devout (5)  |  Echo (12)  |  Fear (212)  |  Heed (12)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imperceptible (8)  |  Land (131)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Living (492)  |  People (1031)  |  Plant (320)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Silent (31)  |  Sky (174)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vocal (2)  |  Voice (54)

In every enterprise … the mind is always reasoning, and, even when we seem to act without a motive, an instinctive logic still directs the mind. Only we are not aware of it, because we begin by reasoning before we know or say that we are reasoning, just as we begin by speaking before we observe that we are speaking, and just as we begin by seeing and hearing before we know what we see or what we hear.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 146.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Begin (275)  |  Direct (228)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Know (1538)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motive (62)  |  Observe (179)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Still (614)

In our popular discussions, unwise ideas must have a hearing as well as wise ones, dangerous ideas as well as safe.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Idea (881)  |  Must (1525)  |  Popular (34)  |  Safe (61)  |  Unwise (4)  |  Wise (143)

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. It’s very rare that a senator, say, replies, “That’s a good argument. I will now change my political affiliation.”
From keynote address at CSICOP conference, Pasadena, California (3 Apr 1987). Printed in 'The Burden of Skepticism', Skeptical Inquirer (1987), 12, No. 1. Collected in Kendrick Frazier (ed.), The Hundredth Monkey: And Other Paradigms of the Paranormal (1991), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Change (639)  |  Do (1905)  |  Good (906)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Human (1512)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  Political (124)  |  Politics (122)  |  Rare (94)  |  Religion (369)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Something (718)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

In that dawn chorus [of birds] one hears the throb of life itself.
In The Sense of Wonder (1956, 1965), 69
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Chorus (6)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Life (1870)  |  Throb (6)

In the American colleges, anon and anon, there goes on a crusade against the gross over-accentuation of athletic sports and pastimes, but it is not likely that it will ever yield any substantial reform … against an enterprise that brings in such large sums of money. … The most one hears … is that it is somehow immoral for college stadiums to cost five times as much as college libraries; no one ever argues that the stadiums ought to be abolished altogether.
From American Mercury (Jun 1931). Collected in A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949, 1956), 370.
Science quotes on:  |  Abolish (13)  |  Against (332)  |  America (143)  |  Argue (25)  |  Athletic (5)  |  College (71)  |  Cost (94)  |  Crusade (6)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Football (11)  |  Immoral (5)  |  Large (398)  |  Library (53)  |  Money (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Pastime (6)  |  Reform (22)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Sport (23)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Sum (103)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Yield (86)

In Winter, [the Antarctic] is perhaps the dreariest of places. Our base, Little America, lay in a bowl of ice, near the edge of the Ross Ice Barrier. The temperature fell as low as 72 degrees below zero. One could actually hear one's breath freeze.
In 'Hoover Presents Special Medal to Byrd...', New York Times (21 Jun 1930), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Antarctic (7)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Base (120)  |  Bowl (4)  |  Breath (61)  |  Coldness (2)  |  Degree (277)  |  Dreariness (3)  |  Edge (51)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Ice (58)  |  Little (717)  |  Low (86)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Winter (46)  |  Zero (38)

Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.
Oath, in Hippocrates, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1923), Vol. 1, 301.
Science quotes on:  |  Abroad (19)  |  Abstain (7)  |  Bond (46)  |  Course (413)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enter (145)  |  Free (239)  |  Holy (35)  |  House (143)  |  Man (2252)  |  Never (1089)  |  Oath (10)  |  Outside (141)  |  Physician (284)  |  Profession (108)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Sick (83)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)  |  Wrong (246)

It is … a sign of the times—though our brothers of physics and chemistry may smile to hear me say so—that biology is now a science in which theories can be devised: theories which lead to predictions and predictions which sometimes turn out to be correct. These facts confirm me in a belief I hold most passionately—that biology is the heir of all the sciences.
From Nobel Banquet speech (10 Dec 1960).
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Biology (232)  |  Brother (47)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Confirmation (25)  |  Correct (95)  |  Devised (3)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Heir (12)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leading (17)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Say (989)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Sign (63)  |  Smile (34)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)

It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman (1759-67), Penguin edition (1997), 121-122.
Science quotes on:  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Conception (160)  |  First (1302)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moment (260)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nourishment (26)  |  Proper (150)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  See (1094)  |  Strength (139)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

It was shortly after midday on December 12, 1901, [in a hut on the cliffs at St. John’s, Newfoundland] that I placed a single earphone to my ear and started listening. The receiver on the table before me was very crude—a few coils and condensers and a coherer—no valves [vacuum tubes], no amplifiers, not even a crystal. I was at last on the point of putting the correctness of all my beliefs to test. … [The] answer came at 12:30. … Suddenly, about half past twelve there sounded the sharp click of the “tapper” … Unmistakably, the three sharp clicks corresponding to three dots sounded in my ear. “Can you hear anything, Mr. Kemp?” I asked, handing the telephone to my assistant. Kemp heard the same thing as I. … I knew then that I had been absolutely right in my calculations. The electric waves which were being sent out from Poldhu [Cornwall, England] had travelled the Atlantic, serenely ignoring the curvature of the earth which so many doubters considered a fatal obstacle. … I knew that the day on which I should be able to send full messages without wires or cables across the Atlantic was not far distant.
As quoted in Degna Marconi, My Father, Marconi (2000), 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Amplifier (3)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Atlantic Ocean (7)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Cable (11)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Click (4)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Coil (4)  |  Condenser (4)  |  Consider (428)  |  Correctness (12)  |  Crude (32)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Curvature (8)  |  Dot (18)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electric (76)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Ignoring (11)  |  Last (425)  |  Listening (26)  |  Message (53)  |  Midday (4)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Past (355)  |  Point (584)  |  Radio (60)  |  Receiver (5)  |  Right (473)  |  Single (365)  |  Sound (187)  |  Start (237)  |  Success (327)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Table (105)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Vacuum Tube (2)  |  Valve (2)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wire (36)

Just as the musician is able to form an acoustic image of a composition which he has never heard played by merely looking at its score, so the equation of a curve, which he has never seen, furnishes the mathematician with a complete picture of its course. Yea, even more: as the score frequently reveals to the musician niceties which would escape his ear because of the complication and rapid change of the auditory impressions, so the insight which the mathematician gains from the equation of a curve is much deeper than that which is brought about by a mere inspection of the curve.
In Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereiningung, 13, 864. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 190
Science quotes on:  |  Acoustic (3)  |  Auditory (2)  |  Change (639)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complication (30)  |  Composition (86)  |  Course (413)  |  Curve (49)  |  Deep (241)  |  Ear (69)  |  Equation (138)  |  Escape (85)  |  Form (976)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Gain (146)  |  Image (97)  |  Impression (118)  |  Insight (107)  |  Inspection (7)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Mere (86)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Musician (23)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nice (15)  |  Picture (148)  |  Play (116)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Score (8)

Living with my Indian friends I found I was a stranger in my native land. As time went on, the outward aspect of nature remained the same, but change was wrought in me. I learned to hear the echoes of a time when every living thing even the sky had a voice. That voice devoutly heard by the ancient people of America I desired to make audible to others.
On the plaque over her cremated remains in the patio of the Art Museum at Sante Fe. Edited by William Henry Homes from the preface she wrote in her last book, a small collection of Indian Games and Dances (1915). As stated in concluding pages of Joan T. Mark, A Stranger in Her Native Land: Alice Fletcher and the American Indians (1988), 354-355.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Audible (4)  |  Change (639)  |  Desire (212)  |  Devout (5)  |  Echo (12)  |  Friend (180)  |  Indian (32)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Native (41)  |  Native Land (3)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outward (7)  |  People (1031)  |  Remain (355)  |  Sky (174)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Voice (54)

Lo! the poor Indian! whose untutor’d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way.
Essay on Man. Epistle I. Line 99. In Alexander Pope, Maynard Mack (Ed.), An Essay on Man (reprint of the Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope, 1982), 27. by Alexander Pope, Maynard Mack - Poetry - 1982 - 186 pages
Science quotes on:  |  Cloud (111)  |  God (776)  |  Indian (32)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Poor (139)  |  See (1094)  |  Solar (8)  |  Soul (235)  |  Stray (7)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wind (141)

Man alone amongst the animals speaks and has gestures and expression which we call rational, because he alone has reason in him. And if anyone should say in contradiction that certain birds talk, as seems to be the case with some, especially the magpie and the parrot, and that certain beasts have expression or gestures, as the ape and some others seem to have, I answer that it is not true that they speak, nor that they have gestures, because they have no reason, from which these things need proceed; nor do they purpose to signify anything by them, but they merely reproduce what they see and hear.
In 'The Third Treatise', The Convivio of Dante Alighieri (1903), Chap. 7, 175. This footnoted: Compare De Vulgari Eloquentia, Book 1, Chap 2: 43-65.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ape (54)  |  Beast (58)  |  Bird (163)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Do (1905)  |  Expression (181)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merely (315)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Signify (17)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speech (66)  |  Thing (1914)

Marly 30 July 1705. From all I hear of Leibniz he must be very intelligent, and pleasant company in consequence. It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.
From Letter (30 Jul 1705), to Sophie of Hanover, in Maria Kroll (trans.), Letters from Liselotte: Elisabeth-Charlotte, Princess Palatine and Duchess of Orléans, "Madame" 1652-1722 (1970), 131. Also seen in Alan L. MacKay, A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991), 175. Also seen attributed to Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu, in Alan L. MacKay, Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1977), 175, citing Letter LXVI (30 Jul 1705) in Les Lettres Persanes. However, Webmaster does not find this quote when looking at Letter LXVI in Les Lettres Persanes (1721), text prepared by André Lefèvre (1873). (Can you help).
Science quotes on:  |  Clean (52)  |  Company (63)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Do (1905)  |  Find (1014)  |  Humour (116)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Must (1525)  |  Pleasant (22)  |  Rare (94)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sense of Humour (2)  |  Stink (8)

Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. Through it, in particular, we think, see, hear, and distinguish the ugly from the beautiful, the bad from the good, the pleasant from the unpleasant, in some cases using custom as a test, in others perceiving them from their utility. It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread or fear, whether by night or by day, brings sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness, and acts that are contrary to habit. These things that we suffer all come from the brain, when it is not healthy, but becomes abnormally hot, cold, moist, or dry, or suffers any other unnatural affection to which it was not accustomed. Madness comes from its moistness.
The Sacred Disease, in Hippocrates, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1923), Vol. 2, 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Act (278)  |  Affection (44)  |  Aimless (5)  |  Arise (162)  |  Bad (185)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Become (821)  |  Brain (281)  |  Cold (115)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Custom (44)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Dry (65)  |  Fear (212)  |  Good (906)  |  Grief (20)  |  Habit (174)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Hot (63)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Mad (54)  |  Madness (33)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Moist (13)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pain (144)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  See (1094)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Tear (48)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Unnatural (15)  |  Unpleasant (15)  |  Utility (52)

Music may be called the sister of painting, for she is dependent upon hearing, the sense which comes second and her harmony is composed of the union of proportional parts sounded simultaneously, rising and falling in one or more harmonic rhythms.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Compose (20)  |  Dependent (26)  |  Fall (243)  |  Harmonic (4)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Hearing (50)  |  More (2558)  |  Music (133)  |  Painting (46)  |  Part (235)  |  Proportional (5)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Second (66)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Sister (8)  |  Sound (187)  |  Union (52)

My son, all my life I have loved this science so deeply that I can now hear my heart beat for joy.
Commenting about Pasteur's accomplishment of separating two asymmetric forms of tartaric acid crystals.
Quoted in Ralph Oesper, The Human Side of Scientists (1975), 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Acid (83)  |  Beat (42)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Form (976)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Heart (243)  |  Joy (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Two (936)

Newton lectured now and then to the few students who chose to hear him; and it is recorded that very frequently he came to the lecture-room and found it empty. On such occasions he would remain fifteen minutes, and then, if no one came, return to his apartments.
In 'Sir Isaac Newton', People’s Book of Biography: Or, Short Lives of the Most Interesting Persons of All Ages and Countries (1868), 250.
Science quotes on:  |  Apartment (4)  |  Choose (116)  |  Empty (82)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Minute (129)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Record (161)  |  Remain (355)  |  Return (133)  |  Student (317)

Oh, my dear Kepler, how I wish that we could have one hearty laugh together. Here, at Padua, is the principal professor of philosophy, whom I have repeatedly and urgently requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass, [telescope] which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you not here? what shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious folly! and to hear the professor of philosophy at Pisa laboring before the grand duke with logical arguments, as if with magical incantations, to charm the new planets out of the sky.
From Letter to Johannes Kepler. As translated in John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune, Life of Galileo Galilei: With Illustrations of the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy (1832), 92-93.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Charm (54)  |  Do (1905)  |  Folly (44)  |  Glass (94)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Hearty (3)  |  Incantation (6)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Logic (311)  |  Look (584)  |  Magic (92)  |  Moon (252)  |  New (1273)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Planet (402)  |  Principal (69)  |  Professor (133)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Repeated (5)  |  Request (7)  |  Shout (25)  |  Sky (174)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Urgent (15)  |  Why (491)  |  Wish (216)

On the morning of 1 November 1956 the US physicist John Bardeen dropped the frying-pan of eggs that he was cooking for breakfast, scattering its contents on the kitchen floor. He had just heard that he had won the Nobel Prize for Physics along with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for their invention of the transistor. That evening Bardeen was startled again, this time by a parade of his colleagues from the University of Illinois marching to the door of his home bearing champagne and singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”.
In Abstract for 'John Bardeen: An Extraordinary Physicist', Physics World (2008), 21, No. 4, 22.
Science quotes on:  |  John Bardeen (6)  |  Biography (254)  |  Walter H. Brattain (4)  |  Breakfast (10)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Cook (20)  |  Cooking (12)  |  Door (94)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dropped (17)  |  Egg (71)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Good (906)  |  Home (184)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kitchen (14)  |  Morning (98)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Parade (3)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Scattering (4)  |  William B. Shockley (4)  |  Sing (29)  |  Singing (19)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transistor (6)  |  University (130)  |  Win (53)

One began to hear it said that World War I was the chemists’ war, World War II was the physicists’ war, World War III (may it never come) will be the mathematicians’ war.
Co-author with and Reuben Hersh, The Mathematical Experience (1981), 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemist (169)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Never (1089)  |  Physicist (270)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  World War I (3)  |  World War II (9)  |  World War III (4)

One hears a lot of talk about the hostility between scientists and engineers. I don't believe in any such thing. In fact I am quite certain it is untrue... There cannot possibly be anything in it because neither side has anything to do with the other.
Quoted in A. Rosenfeld, Langmuir: The Man and the Scientist (1962), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Hostility (16)  |  Lot (151)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Side (236)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Untrue (12)

One more word on “designed laws” and “undesigned results.” - I see a bird which I want for food, take my gun and kill it, I do this designedly.—An innocent and good man stands under a tree and is killed by a flash of lightning. Do you believe (& I really should like to hear) that God designedly killed this man? Many or most persons do believe this; I can’t and don’t.—If you believe so, do you believe that when a swallow snaps up a gnat that God designed that that particular swallow should snap up that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that the man and the gnat are in the same predicament. If the death of neither man nor gnat are designed, I see no good reason to believe that their first birth or production should be necessarily designed.
Letter to Asa Gray, 3 July 1860. In F. Burkhardt and S. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin 1860 (1993), Vol. 8, 275.
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Birth (154)  |  Death (406)  |  Design (203)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Flash (49)  |  Food (213)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Instant (46)  |  Kill (100)  |  Law (913)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Person (366)  |  Production (190)  |  Reason (766)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Snap (7)  |  Stand (284)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Tree (269)  |  Want (504)  |  Word (650)

One rarely hears of the mathematical recitation as a preparation for public speaking. Yet mathematics shares with these studies [foreign languages, drawing and natural science] their advantages, and has another in a higher degree than either of them.
Most readers will agree that a prime requisite for healthful experience in public speaking is that the attention of the speaker and hearers alike be drawn wholly away from the speaker and concentrated upon the thought. In perhaps no other classroom is this so easy as in the mathematical, where the close reasoning, the rigorous demonstration, the tracing of necessary conclusions from given hypotheses, commands and secures the entire mental power of the student who is explaining, and of his classmates. In what other circumstances do students feel so instinctively that manner counts for so little and mind for so much? In what other circumstances, therefore, is a simple, unaffected, easy, graceful manner so naturally and so healthfully cultivated? Mannerisms that are mere affectation or the result of bad literary habit recede to the background and finally disappear, while those peculiarities that are the expression of personality and are inseparable from its activity continually develop, where the student frequently presents, to an audience of his intellectual peers, a connected train of reasoning. …
One would almost wish that our institutions of the science and art of public speaking would put over their doors the motto that Plato had over the entrance to his school of philosophy: “Let no one who is unacquainted with geometry enter here.”
In A Scrap-book of Elementary Mathematics: Notes, Recreations, Essays (1908), 210-211.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Alike (60)  |  Art (680)  |  Attention (196)  |  Audience (28)  |  Background (44)  |  Bad (185)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Classroom (11)  |  Command (60)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Connect (126)  |  Count (107)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Develop (278)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  Door (94)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entrance (16)  |  Experience (494)  |  Expression (181)  |  Feel (371)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Habit (174)  |  Inseparable (18)  |  Institution (73)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Language (308)  |  Listener (7)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peer (13)  |  Personality (66)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plato (80)  |  Power (771)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Present (630)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Recede (11)  |  Recitation (2)  |  Result (700)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  School (227)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Share (82)  |  Simple (426)  |  Speaker (6)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Student (317)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Unaffected (6)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

Only simpletons go to fortune-tellers. Who else would be in such a hurry to hear bad news.
Aphorism as given by the fictional character Dezhnev Senior, in Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain (1987), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Hurry (16)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)

People are usually surprised to discover that I hate the phrase “constitutional rights.” I hate the phrase because it is terribly misleading. Most of the people who say it or hear it have the impression that the Constitution “grants” them their rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. Strictly speaking it is the Bill of Rights that enumerates our rights, but none of our founding documents bestow anything on you at all [...] The government can burn the Constitution and shred the Bill of Rights, but those actions wouldn’t have the slightest effect on the rights you’ve always had.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Bestow (18)  |  Bill (14)  |  Burn (99)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Discover (571)  |  Document (7)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enumerate (3)  |  Far (158)  |  Founding (5)  |  Government (116)  |  Grant (76)  |  Hate (68)  |  Impression (118)  |  Misleading (21)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  People (1031)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  Shred (7)  |  Slight (32)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Usually (176)

Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavour to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility or the meaning of such a comparison. But he certainly believes that, as his knowledge increases, his picture of reality will become simpler and simpler and will explain a wider and wider range of his sensuous impressions. He may also believe in the existence of the ideal limit of knowledge and that it is approached by the human mind. He may call this ideal limit the objective truth.
Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics (1938), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Closed (38)  |  Compare (76)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Concept (242)  |  Creation (350)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  Face (214)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impression (118)  |  Increase (225)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Objective (96)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Physical (518)  |  Picture (148)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Range (104)  |  Reality (274)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Trying (144)  |  Understand (648)  |  Watch (118)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Psychological experiments have shown … that humans tend to seek out even weak evidence to support their existing beliefs, and to ignore evidence that undercuts those beliefs. In the process, we apply stringent tests to evidence we don't want to hear, while letting slide uncritically into our minds any information that suits our needs.
As co-author with Kathleen Hall Jamieson, in unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation (2007), 69-70.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Belief (615)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Information (173)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Process (439)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Seek (218)  |  Stringent (2)  |  Support (151)  |  Tend (124)  |  Test (221)  |  Uncritical (3)  |  Undercut (3)  |  Want (504)  |  Weak (73)

Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, “How did he do it? He must be a genius!”
In 'Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught', Indiscrete Thoughts (2008), 202.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Against (332)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dormant (4)  |  Dozen (10)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Richard P. Feynman (125)  |  Fond (13)  |  Genius (301)  |  Help (116)  |  Hit (20)  |  Keep (104)  |  Large (398)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  People (1031)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Read (308)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  State (505)  |  Test (221)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trick (36)  |  Twelve (4)  |  Will (2350)

Science, being human enquiry, can hear no answer except an answer couched somehow in human tones. Primitive man stood in the mountains and shouted against a cliff; the echo brought back his own voice, and he believed in a disembodied spirit. The scientist of today stands counting out loud in the face of the unknown. Numbers come back to him—and he believes in the Great Mathematician.
Concluding paragraph of chapter, 'Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics: Or Beyond Common-Sense', contributed to Naomi Mitchison (ed.), An Outline For Boys And Girls And Their Parents (1932), 357.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Couch (2)  |  Count (107)  |  Counting (26)  |  Disembodied (6)  |  Echo (12)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Face (214)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Number (710)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Primitive Man (5)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Shout (25)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stand (284)  |  Today (321)  |  Tone (22)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Voice (54)

Since light travels faster than sound, isn’t that why some people appear bright until you hear them speak?
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Bright (81)  |  Faster (50)  |  Joke (90)  |  Light (635)  |  People (1031)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speed Of Light (18)  |  Travel (125)  |  Why (491)

Ten builders rear an arch, each in turn lifting it higher; but it is the tenth man, who drops in the keystone, who hears our huzzas.
From chapter 'Jottings from a Note-book', in Canadian Stories (1918), 167.
Science quotes on:  |  Arch (12)  |  Builder (16)  |  Drop (77)  |  Higher (37)  |  Invention (400)  |  Keystone (3)  |  Lift (57)  |  Man (2252)  |  Rear (7)  |  Research (753)  |  Turn (454)

The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me purely factitious, fabricated on the one hand by short-sighted religious people, who confound theology with religion; and on the other by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Antagonism (6)  |  Appear (122)  |  Clear (111)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Confound (21)  |  Equally (129)  |  Fabricate (6)  |  Forget (125)  |  Hand (149)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Province (37)  |  Purely (111)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Short (200)  |  Short-Sighted (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Susceptible (8)  |  Theology (54)

The business of their weekly Meetings shall be, To order, take account, consider, and discourse of Philosophical Experiments, and Observations: to read, hear, and discourse upon Letters, Reports, and other Papers containing Philosophical matters, as also to view, and discourse upon the productions and rarities of Nature, and Art: and to consider what to deduce from them, or how they may be improv'd for use, or discovery.
'An Abstract of the Statutes of the Royal Society', in Thomas Sprat, History of the Royal Society (1667), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Art (680)  |  Business (156)  |  Consider (428)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Discourse (19)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Letter (117)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meeting (22)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Production (190)  |  Rarity (11)  |  Read (308)  |  Use (771)  |  View (496)

The doctor listens in with a stethoscope and hears sounds of a warpath Indian drum.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Doctor (191)  |  Drum (8)  |  Indian (32)  |  Listen (81)  |  Sound (187)

The dog [in Pavlov’s experiments] does not continue to salivate whenever it hears a bell unless sometimes at least an edible offering accompanies the bell. But there are innumerable instances in human life where a single association, never reinforced, results in the establishment of a life-long dynamic system. An experience associated only once with a bereavement, an accident, or a battle, may become the center of a permanent phobia or complex, not in the least dependent on a recurrence of the original shock.
Personality: A Psychological Interpretation(1938), 199.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Association (49)  |  Become (821)  |  Bell (35)  |  Complex (202)  |  Continue (179)  |  Dog (70)  |  Edible (7)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Human (1512)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (18)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Phobia (3)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Result (700)  |  Shock (38)  |  Single (365)  |  System (545)  |  Whenever (81)

The earth itself assures us it is a living entity. Deep below surface one can hear its slow pulse, feel its vibrant rhythm. The great breathing mountains expand and contract. The vast sage desert undulates with almost imperceptible tides like the oceans. From the very beginning, throughout all its cataclysmic upthrusts and deep sea submergences, the planet Earth seems to have maintained an ordered rhythm.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Assure (16)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Below (26)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Contract (11)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deep Sea (10)  |  Desert (59)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entity (37)  |  Expand (56)  |  Feel (371)  |  Great (1610)  |  Imperceptible (8)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Order (638)  |  Planet (402)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Sage (25)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seem (150)  |  Slow (108)  |  Surface (223)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Tide (37)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vibrant (2)

The Earth Speaks, clearly, distinctly, and, in many of the realms of Nature, loudly, to William Jennings Bryan, but he fails to hear a single sound. The earth speaks from the remotest periods in its wonderful life history in the Archaeozoic Age, when it reveals only a few tissues of its primitive plants. Fifty million years ago it begins to speak as “the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life.” In successive eons of time the various kinds of animals leave their remains in the rocks which compose the deeper layers of the earth, and when the rocks are laid bare by wind, frost, and storm we find wondrous lines of ascent invariably following the principles of creative evolution, whereby the simpler and more lowly forms always precede the higher and more specialized forms.
The earth speaks not of a succession of distinct creations but of a continuous ascent, in which, as the millions of years roll by, increasing perfection of structure and beauty of form are found; out of the water-breathing fish arises the air-breathing amphibian; out of the land-living amphibian arises the land-living, air-breathing reptile, these two kinds of creeping things resembling each other closely. The earth speaks loudly and clearly of the ascent of the bird from one kind of reptile and of the mammal from another kind of reptile.
This is not perhaps the way Bryan would have made the animals, but this is the way God made them!
The Earth Speaks to Bryan (1925), 5-6. Osborn wrote this book in response to the Scopes Monkey Trial, where William Jennings Bryan spoke against the theory of evolution. They had previously been engaged in the controversy about the theory for several years. The title refers to a Biblical verse from the Book of Job (12:8), “Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.”
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Air (366)  |  Amphibian (7)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arise (162)  |  Bare (33)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Begin (275)  |  Bird (163)  |  Breath (61)  |  Breathing (23)  |  William Jennings Bryan (20)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eon (12)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fish (130)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Frost (15)  |  God (776)  |  History (716)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Kind (564)  |  Land (131)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Million (124)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Period (200)  |  Plant (320)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Principle (530)  |  Realm (87)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remains (9)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Rock (176)  |  Roll (41)  |  Single (365)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Storm (56)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Two (936)  |  Various (205)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Wondrous (22)  |  Year (963)

The ecologist cannot remain a voice crying in the wilderness—if he is to be heard and understood.
In M.W. Holdgate and M.J. Woodman (eds.) The Breakdown and Restoration of Ecosystems: Proceedings of the Conference (2012), 478. This is part of a final Conclusions. Hildgate as editor summarized the remarks of Talbot and Nicholson.
Science quotes on:  |  Cry (30)  |  Ecologist (9)  |  Remain (355)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Voice (54)  |  Wilderness (57)

The first thing the intellect does with an object is to class it along with something else. But any object that is infinitely important to us and awakens our devotion feels to us also as if it must be sui generis and unique. Probably a crab would be filled with a sense of personal outrage if it could hear us class it without ado or apology as a crustacean, and thus dispose of it. 'I am no such thing,' it would say; 'I am MYSELF, MYSELF alone.
The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Apology (8)  |  Class (168)  |  Classification (102)  |  Crab (6)  |  Crustacean (3)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Object (438)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unique (72)

The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can’t all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It’s a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I’m not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they’re called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation.
Contact (1997), 162.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Call (781)  |  Care (203)  |  Contention (14)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Major (88)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Right (473)  |  Scepticism (17)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skeptical (21)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Winnow (4)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)

The members of the department became like the Athenians who, according to the Apostle Paul, “spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.” Anyone who thought he had a bright idea rushed out to try it out on a colleague. Groups of two or more could be seen every day in offices, before blackboards or even in corridors, arguing vehemently about these 'brain storms.' It is doubtful whether any paper ever emerged for publication that had not run the gauntlet of such criticism. The whole department thus became far greater than the sum of its individual members.
Obituary of Gilbert Newton Lewis, Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Science (1958), 31, 212.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Blackboard (11)  |  Brain (281)  |  Brainstorm (2)  |  Bright (81)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Department (93)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Greater (288)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Gilbert Newton Lewis (11)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obituary (11)  |  Office (71)  |  Paper (192)  |  Publication (102)  |  Run (158)  |  Spent (85)  |  Storm (56)  |  Storms (18)  |  Sum (103)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Two (936)  |  Whole (756)

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny....'
In Ashton Applewhite, William R. Evans and Andrew Frothingham, And I Quote (2003), 467
Science quotes on:  |  Eureka (13)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Phrase (61)

THE OATH. I swear by Apollo [the healing God], the physician and Aesclepius [son of Apollo], and Health [Hygeia], and All-heal [Panacea], and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation—to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further, from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, trans. Francis Adams (1886), Vol. 2, 344-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Abortion (4)  |  Abroad (19)  |  Abstain (7)  |  According (236)  |  Act (278)  |  Art (680)  |  Ask (420)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Bound (120)  |  Brother (47)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continue (179)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Counsel (11)  |  Cut (116)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Enter (145)  |  Equally (129)  |  Female (50)  |  Follow (389)  |  God (776)  |  Grant (76)  |  Healing (28)  |  Health (210)  |  Holiness (7)  |  House (143)  |  Impart (24)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mischief (13)  |  Mischievous (12)  |  Oath (10)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pass (241)  |  Patient (209)  |  Person (366)  |  Physician (284)  |  Practice (212)  |  Practitioner (21)  |  Precept (10)  |  Professional (77)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Required (108)  |  Respect (212)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seduction (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Share (82)  |  Sick (83)  |  Slave (40)  |  Stone (168)  |  Substance (253)  |  Swear (7)  |  System (545)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trespass (5)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Woman (160)  |  Work (1402)

The products of the senses, especially those of sight, hearing, and touch, form the basis of all the higher thought processes. Hence the importance of developing accurate sense concepts. … The purpose of objective thinking is to enable the mind to think without the help of objects.
As quoted in William W. Speer, Primary Arithmetic (1896), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Basis (180)  |  Concept (242)  |  Develop (278)  |  Education (423)  |  Enable (122)  |  Form (976)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Help (116)  |  Importance (299)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Object (438)  |  Objective (96)  |  Process (439)  |  Product (166)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sight (135)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Touch (146)

The science and technology which have advanced man safely into space have brought about startling medical advances for man on earth. Out of space research have come new knowledge, techniques and instruments which have enabled some bedridden invalids to walk, the totally deaf to hear, the voiceless to talk, and, in the foreseeable future, may even make it possible for the blind to “see.”
'From Outer Space—Advances For Medicine on Earth', contributed in Lillian Levy, Space, Its Impact on Man and Society (1965, reprinted 1973), 117.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Blind (98)  |  Deaf (4)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Foreseeable (3)  |  Future (467)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Invalid (3)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Medicine (392)  |  New (1273)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Research (753)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  See (1094)  |  Space (523)  |  Startling (15)  |  Talk (108)  |  Technique (84)  |  Technology (281)  |  Voice (54)  |  Walk (138)

The ten most important two-letter words in the English language: “if it is to be, it is up to me.” …
[Remember] the African parable of the sparrow who while flying through the sky heard a clap of thunder. He fell to the ground with his two little legs sticking up.
An eagle flying nearby saw the sparrow and asked “Hey, man, what’s happening?”
Replied the sparrow, “The sky is falling down.”
Mocked the eagle, “And what are you going to do, hold it up with those two little legs of yours?”
Replied the sparrow, “One does what one can with what one has.”
In address, to the Economic Club of Detroit (14 Jan 1990), 'Where Do We Go From Here?' on the massiechairs.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  African (11)  |  Ask (420)  |  Clap (3)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Fall (243)  |  Flying (74)  |  Ground (222)  |  Happening (59)  |  Hold (96)  |  Importance (299)  |  Language (308)  |  Leg (35)  |  Letter (117)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mocking (4)  |  Most (1728)  |  Parable (5)  |  Remember (189)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sparrow (6)  |  Sticking (3)  |  Through (846)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Two (936)  |  Word (650)

The true man of science will know nature better by his finer organization; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, better than other men. His will be a deeper and finer experience.
In 'Natural history of Massachusetts', The Dial: A Magazine for Literature, Philosophy, and Religion (Jul 1842), 3, No. 1, 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Deep (241)  |  Direct (228)  |  Experience (494)  |  Feel (371)  |  Intercourse (5)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Man (2252)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  See (1094)  |  Smell (29)  |  Taste (93)  |  True (239)  |  Will (2350)

The world is full of signals that we don’t perceive. Tiny creatures live in a different world of unfamiliar forces. Many animals of our scale greatly exceed our range of perception for sensations familiar to us ... What an imperceptive lot we are. Surrounded by so much, so fascinating and so real, that we do not see (hear, smell, touch, taste) in nature, yet so gullible and so seduced by claims for novel power that we mistake the tricks of mediocre magicians for glimpses of a psychic world beyond our ken. The paranormal may be a fantasy; it is certainly a haven for charlatans. But ‘parahuman’ powers of perception lie all about us in birds, bees, and bacteria.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bacterium (6)  |  Bee (44)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bird (163)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Charlatan (8)  |  Claim (154)  |  Creature (242)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exceed (10)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Force (497)  |  Full (68)  |  Glimpse (16)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Haven (3)  |  Ken (2)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  Lot (151)  |  Magician (15)  |  Mediocre (14)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Novel (35)  |  Paranormal (3)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Perception (97)  |  Power (771)  |  Psychic (15)  |  Range (104)  |  Real (159)  |  Scale (122)  |  Seduce (4)  |  See (1094)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Signal (29)  |  Smell (29)  |  Surround (33)  |  Taste (93)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Touch (146)  |  Trick (36)  |  Unfamiliar (17)  |  World (1850)

There are wavelengths that people cannot see, there are sounds that people cannot hear, and maybe computers have thoughts that people cannot think.
Quoted by J.F. Kaiser, introducing Richard Hamming's address, 'You and Your Research', at the Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar, 7 Mar 1986.
Science quotes on:  |  Computer (131)  |  People (1031)  |  See (1094)  |  Sound (187)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wavelength (10)

This conviction of the solvability of every mathematical problem is a powerful incentive to the worker. We hear within us the perpetual call: There is the problem. Seek its solution. You can find it by pure reason, for in mathematics there is no ignorabimus!
Ignorabimus as used here, means “we will not know” (which is slightly different from ignoramus meaning present ignorance, “we do not know”). In Lecture (1900), 'Mathematische Probleme' (Mathematical Problems), to the International Congress of Mathematicians, Paris. From the original German reprinted in David Hilbert: Gesammelte Abhandlungen (Collected Treatises, 1970), Vol. 3, 298, “Diese Überzeugung von der Lösbarkeit eines jeden mathematischer Problems ist uns ein kräftiger Ansporn während der Arbeit ; wir hören in uns den steten Zuruf: Da ist das Problem, suche die Lösung. Du kannst sie durch reines Denken finden; denn in der Mathematik gibt es kein Ignorabimus. English version as translated by Dr. Maby Winton Newson for Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (1902), 8, 437-479. The address was first published in Göttinger Nachrichten is Nachrichten von der Königl. Gesellschaft der Wiss. zu Göttingen (1900), 253-297; and Archiv der Mathematik und Physik (1901), 3, No. 1, 44-63.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Find (1014)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Incentive (10)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reason (766)  |  Seek (218)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Worker (34)

This shall be the test of innocence—if I can hear a taunt, and look out on this friendly moon, pacing the heavens in queenlike majesty, with the accustomed yearning.
In 'Sin Destroys the Perception of the Beautiful' (13 Nov 1837). In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: I: 1837-1846 (1906), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Friendly (7)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Innocence (13)  |  Look (584)  |  Majesty (21)  |  Moon (252)  |  Queen (14)  |  Test (221)  |  Yearn (13)  |  Yearning (13)

Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.
Anonymous
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Dance (35)  |  Insane (9)  |  Music (133)  |  Thought (995)

To ask what qualities distinguish good from routine scientific research is to address a question that should be of central concern to every scientist. We can make the question more tractable by rephrasing it, “What attributes are shared by the scientific works which have contributed importantly to our understanding of the physical world—in this case the world of living things?” Two of the most widely accepted characteristics of good scientific work are generality of application and originality of conception. . These qualities are easy to point out in the works of others and, of course extremely difficult to achieve in one’s own research. At first hearing novelty and generality appear to be mutually exclusive, but they really are not. They just have different frames of reference. Novelty has a human frame of reference; generality has a biological frame of reference. Consider, for example, Darwinian Natural Selection. It offers a mechanism so widely applicable as to be almost coexistent with reproduction, so universal as to be almost axiomatic, and so innovative that it shook, and continues to shake, man’s perception of causality.
In 'Scientific innovation and creativity: a zoologist’s point of view', American Zoologist (1982), 22, 230.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Achieve (75)  |  Address (13)  |  Appear (122)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Application (257)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Axiomatic (2)  |  Biological (137)  |  Case (102)  |  Causality (11)  |  Central (81)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conception (160)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continue (179)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Course (413)  |  Darwinian (10)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Easy (213)  |  Example (98)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Extremely (17)  |  First (1302)  |  Frame (26)  |  Frame of Reference (5)  |  Generality (45)  |  Good (906)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Human (1512)  |  Importantly (3)  |  Innovative (3)  |  Living (492)  |  Living Things (8)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mutually (7)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Offer (142)  |  Originality (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perception (97)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Out (9)  |  Quality (139)  |  Question (649)  |  Really (77)  |  Reference (33)  |  Rephrase (2)  |  Rephrasing (2)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Research (753)  |  Routine (26)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Selection (130)  |  Shake (43)  |  Share (82)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universal (198)  |  Widely (9)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

To have heard without retaining does not make knowledge.
In 'Paradise', The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri (1308-1320), translated by Charles Eliot Norton (1902), Vol. 3, Canto 5, line 41-2, 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Retain (57)

Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Boast (22)  |  Cover (40)  |  Mile (43)  |  Often (109)  |  Rarely (21)  |  See (1094)

We have heard much about the poetry of mathematics, but very little of it has yet been sung. The ancients had a juster notion of their poetic value than we. The most distinct and beautiful statements of any truth must take at last the mathematical form.
In A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1862), 381.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Form (976)  |  Last (425)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Notion (120)  |  Poetic (7)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Sing (29)  |  Statement (148)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)

We know enough to be sure that the scientific achievements of the next fifty years will be far greater, more rapid, and more surprising, than those we have already experienced. … Wireless telephones and television, following naturally upon the their present path of development, would enable their owner to connect up to any room similarly equipped and hear and take part in the conversation as well as if he put his head in through the window.
From 'Fifty Years Hence', Strand Magazine (Dec 1931). Reprinted in Popular Mechanics (Mar 1932), 57, No. 3, 394-396.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Already (226)  |  Connect (126)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Development (441)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enough (341)  |  Equipped (17)  |  Experienced (2)  |  Greater (288)  |  Head (87)  |  Know (1538)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Path (159)  |  Present (630)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Room (42)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Surprising (4)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Television (33)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)  |  Window (59)  |  Wireless (7)  |  Year (963)

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
The Outermost House (1928), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attain (126)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Concept (242)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extension (60)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Finish (62)  |  Form (976)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Glass (94)  |  Image (97)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Survey (36)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tragic (19)  |  Universal (198)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

We often hear of people breaking down from overwork, but in nine cases out of ten they are really suffering from worry or anxiety.
The Pleasures of Life (1887, 2007), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Down (455)  |  People (1031)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Work (1402)

We often hear that mathematics consists mainly of “proving theorems.” Is a writer's job mainly that of “writing sentences?”
In Rota's 'Introduction' written (1980) to preface Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh, The Mathematical Experience (1981, 2012), xxii.
Science quotes on:  |  Consist (223)  |  Job (86)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Proof (304)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Writer (90)  |  Writing (192)

We say that knowing begins in our intrigue about some subject, but that intrigue is the result of the subject’s action upon us: geologists are people who hear rocks speak, historians are people who hear the voices of the long dead, writers are people who hear the music of words.
In The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (1998), 105.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Death (406)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Historian (59)  |  Intrigue (4)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Music (133)  |  Result (700)  |  Rock (176)  |  Speak (240)  |  Subject (543)  |  Voice (54)  |  Word (650)  |  Writer (90)

We’re going to see public attitudes [on climate change] switch not in proportion to scientific findings or graphs, but in proportion to the stories they hear, the people they know whose lives have been touched by climate change or some environmental calamity. That’s what really changed public opinion.
From interview with Mark Tercek, 'Q&A With Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment', Huffington Post (1 Jul 2013).
Science quotes on:  |  Attitude (84)  |  Calamity (11)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Environment (239)  |  Finding (34)  |  Graph (8)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Opinion (291)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Public (100)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Story (122)  |  Switch (10)  |  Touch (146)

What is this subject, which may be called indifferently either mathematics or logic? Is there any way in which we can define it? Certain characteristics of the subject are clear. To begin with, we do not, in this subject, deal with particular things or particular properties: we deal formally with what can be said about any thing or any property. We are prepared to say that one and one are two, but not that Socrates and Plato are two, because, in our capacity of logicians or pure mathematicians, we have never heard of Socrates or Plato. A world in which there were no such individuals would still be a world in which one and one are two. It is not open to us, as pure mathematicians or logicians, to mention anything at all, because, if we do so we introduce something irrelevant and not formal.
In Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1920), 196-197.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Call (781)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Certain (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Clear (111)  |  Deal (192)  |  Do (1905)  |  Formal (37)  |  Individual (420)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Irrelevant (11)  |  Logic (311)  |  Logician (18)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mention (84)  |  Never (1089)  |  Open (277)  |  Particular (80)  |  Plato (80)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Say (989)  |   Socrates, (17)  |  Something (718)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

Whatever you can teach him from the nature of things themselves, do not teach him by words. Leave him to himself to see, hear, find, stumble, rise again, and be mistaken. Give no words when action or deed is possible. What he can do for himself, let him do.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Deed (34)  |  Do (1905)  |  Find (1014)  |  Give (208)  |  Himself (461)  |  Leave (138)  |  Let (64)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Possible (560)  |  Rise (169)  |  See (1094)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Teach (299)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Word (650)

When a man sees a phenomenon before him, his thoughts often range beyond it; when he hears it only talked about, he has no thoughts at all.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 188.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Man (2252)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Range (104)  |  See (1094)  |  Talk (108)  |  Thought (995)

When I hear to-day protests against the Bolshevism of modern science and regrets for the old-established order, I am inclined to think that Rutherford, not Einstein, is the real villain of the piece. When we compare the universe as it is now supposed to be with the universe as we had ordinarily preconceived it, the most arresting change is not the rearrangement of space and time by Einstein but the dissolution of all that we regard as most solid into tiny specks floating in void. That gives an abrupt jar to those who think that things are more or less what they seem. The revelation by modern physics of the void within the atom is more disturbing than the revelation by astronomy of the immense void of interstellar space.
In The Nature of the Physical World (1928, 2005), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Abrupt (6)  |  Against (332)  |  Arrest (9)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Atom (381)  |  Change (639)  |  Compare (76)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Dissolution (11)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Established (7)  |  Floating (4)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Interstellar (8)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Physics (23)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Order (638)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Preconception (13)  |  Protest (9)  |  Rearrangement (5)  |  Regard (312)  |  Regret (31)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Solid (119)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Speck (25)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Universe (900)  |  Villain (5)  |  Void (31)

When students hear the story of Andrew J. Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, it is not the result itself that stirs their emotions, but the revelation that a mathematician was driven by the same passion as any creative artist.
In 'Loving Math Infinitely', The Chronicle of Higher Education (19 Jan 2001).
Science quotes on:  |  Artist (97)  |  Creative (144)  |  Drive (61)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Fermat�s Last Theorem (3)  |  Pierre de Fermat (15)  |  Last (425)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Passion (121)  |  Proof (304)  |  Result (700)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Same (166)  |  Stir (23)  |  Story (122)  |  Student (317)  |  Theorem (116)

When the principles of breeding and of inheritance are better understood, we shall not hear ignorant members of our legislature rejecting with scorn a plan for ascertaining by an easy method whether or not consanguineous marriages are injurious to man.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Better (493)  |  Breed (26)  |  Breeding (21)  |  Easy (213)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Injurious (14)  |  Legislature (4)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marriage (39)  |  Member (42)  |  Method (531)  |  Plan (122)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reject (67)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)

When you say A[tomic] P[ower] is ‘here to stay’ you remind me that Chesterton said that whenever he heard that, he knew that whatever it referred to would soon be replaced, and thought pitifully shabby and old-fashioned. So-called ‘atomic’ power is rather bigger than anything he was thinking of (I have heard it of trams, gas-light, steam-trains). But it surely is clear that there will have to be some ‘abnegation’ in its use, a deliberate refusal to do some of the things it is possible to do with it, or nothing will stay!
From Letter draft to Joanna de Bortadano (Apr 1956). In Humphrey Carpenter (ed.) assisted by Christopher Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1995, 2014), 246, Letter No. 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Power (9)  |  Call (781)  |  G. K. Chesterton (55)  |  Deliberate (19)  |  Do (1905)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gas Light (2)  |  Light (635)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Old-Fashioned (9)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Replace (32)  |  Say (989)  |  Shabby (2)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Soon (187)  |  Stay (26)  |  Steam (81)  |  Surely (101)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Tram (3)  |  Use (771)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)

Who … is not familiar with Maxwell’s memoirs on his dynamical theory of gases? … from one side enter the equations of state; from the other side, the equations of motion in a central field. Ever higher soars the chaos of formulae. Suddenly we hear, as from kettle drums, the four beats “put n=5.” The evil spirit v vanishes; and … that which had seemed insuperable has been overcome as if by a stroke of magic … One result after another follows in quick succession till at last … we arrive at the conditions for thermal equilibrium together with expressions for the transport coefficients.
In Ceremonial Speech (15 Nov 1887) celebrating the 301st anniversary of the Karl-Franzens-University Graz. Published as Gustav Robert Kirchhoff: Festrede zur Feier des 301. Gründungstages der Karl-Franzens-Universität zu Graz (1888), 29, as translated in Michael Dudley Sturge, Statistical and Thermal Physics (2003), 343. A more complete alternate translation also appears on the Ludwig Boltzmann Quotes page of this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Beat (42)  |  Central (81)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Coefficient (6)  |  Condition (362)  |  Drum (8)  |  Dynamical (15)  |  Enter (145)  |  Equation (138)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Evil (122)  |  Expression (181)  |  Field (378)  |  Follow (389)  |  Formula (102)  |  Kettle (3)  |  Last (425)  |  Magic (92)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  Motion (320)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Result (700)  |  Side (236)  |  Soar (23)  |  Spirit (278)  |  State (505)  |  Stroke (19)  |  Succession (80)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Together (392)  |  Transport (31)

Who ever thought up the word “Mammogram?” Every time I hear it, I think I’m supposed to put my breast in an envelope and send it to someone.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Breast (9)  |  Envelope (6)  |  Send (23)  |  Someone (24)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Word (650)

With respect to Committees as you would perceive I am very jealous of their formation. I mean working committees. I think business is always better done by few than by many. I think also the working few ought not to be embarrassed by the idle many and further I think the idle many ought not to be honoured by association with the working few.—I do not think that my patience has ever come nearer to an end than when compelled to hear … long rambling malapropros enquiries of members who still have nothing in consequence to propose that shall advance the business.
Letter to John William Lubbock (6 Dec 1833). In Frank A.J.L. James (ed.), The Correspondence of Michael Faraday: Volume 2, 1832-1840 (1993), 160. The original text spelling of “embarrased” has been edited for ease of reading in the above quote.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Association (49)  |  Better (493)  |  Business (156)  |  Committee (16)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Formation (100)  |  Honour (58)  |  Idle (34)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Patience (58)  |  Respect (212)  |  Still (614)  |  Think (1122)  |  Work (1402)

Ye daring ones! Ye venturers and adventurers, and whoever of you have embarked with cunning sails on unexplored seas! Ye enjoyers of enigmas! Solve unto me the enigma that I then beheld, interpret for me the vision of the loneliest one. ... O my brethren, I heard a laughter which was no human laughter.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adventurer (3)  |  Beheld (2)  |  Brother (47)  |  Cunning (17)  |  Dare (55)  |  Daring (17)  |  Embark (7)  |  Enigma (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Interpret (25)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Sail (37)  |  Sea (326)  |  Solve (145)  |  Unexplored (15)  |  Unto (8)  |  Vision (127)  |  Whoever (42)

You hear headlines from time to time about the Amazon rainforest disappearing at a greater or lesser rate.... The real story is that over time the rate has stayed just the same. Year after year, decade after decade, we have failed to stop or really even decrease deforestation...
Online transcript of interview, segment 'Amazon Deforestation' on NPR radio program, Living on Earth (25 Feb 2005).
Science quotes on:  |  Amazon (11)  |  Decade (66)  |  Decrease (16)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Greater (288)  |  Headline (8)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Rate (31)  |  Stop (89)  |  Story (122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Year (963)

You’re aware the boy failed my grade school math class, I take it? And not that many years later he’s teaching college. Now I ask you: Is that the sorriest indictment of the American educational system you ever heard? [pauses to light cigarette.] No aptitude at all for long division, but never mind. It’s him they ask to split the atom. How he talked his way into the Nobel prize is beyond me. But then, I suppose it’s like the man says, it’s not what you know...
Karl Arbeiter (former teacher of Albert Einstein)
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Aptitude (19)  |  Ask (420)  |  Atom (381)  |  Aware (36)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Boy (100)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Class (168)  |  College (71)  |  Division (67)  |  Educational (7)  |  Fail (191)  |  Grade (12)  |  Indictment (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Late (119)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Pause (6)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Split (15)  |  Suppose (158)  |  System (545)  |  Talk (108)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.