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

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

Immutable Quotes (26 quotes)
Immutability Quotes

[Science] dissipates errors born of ignorance about our true relations with nature, errors the more damaging in that the social order should rest only on those relations. TRUTH! JUSTICE! Those are the immutable laws. Let us banish the dangerous maxim that it is sometimes useful to depart from them and to deceive or enslave mankind to assure its happiness.
Exposition du Système du Monde (1796), 2, 312, trans. Charles Coulston Gillispie, Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science (1997), 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Banish (11)  |  Damage (38)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Dissipate (8)  |  Enslave (2)  |  Error (339)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Justice (40)  |  Law (913)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Maxim (19)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Rest (287)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Order (8)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)

[The black hole] teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, that time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as “sacred,” as immutable, are anything but.
In John A. Wheeler and Kenneth Ford, Geons, Black Holes & Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics. Quoted in Dennis Overbye, 'John A. Wheeler, Physicist Who Coined the Term Black Hole, Is Dead at 96', New York Times (14 Apr 2008).
Science quotes on:  |  Black Hole (17)  |  Dot (18)  |  Flame (44)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Law (913)  |  Paper (192)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Regard (312)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Space (523)  |  Time (1911)

Above, far above the prejudices and passions of men soar the laws of nature. Eternal and immutable, they are the expression of the creative power they represent what is, what must be, what otherwise could not be. Man can come to understand them: he is incapable of changing them.
From Cours d’Economie Politique (1896-97), as given in Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences (1993), Issues 131-133, 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Creative (144)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Expression (181)  |  Far (158)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Passion (121)  |  Power (771)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Represent (157)  |  Soar (23)  |  Understand (648)

All the effects of Nature are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.
From the original French, “Tous les effets de la nature ne sont que résultats mathématiques d'un petit noinbre de lois immuables.”, in Oeuvres de Laplace, Vol. VII: Théorie des probabilités (1847), Introduction, cliv.
Science quotes on:  |  Consequence (220)  |  Effect (414)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Small (489)

Although species may be discrete, they have no immutable essence. Variation is the raw material of evolutionary change. It represents the fundamental reality of nature, not an accident about a created norm. Variation is primary; essences are illusory. Species must be defined as ranges of irreducible variation.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Change (639)  |  Create (245)  |  Define (53)  |  Discrete (11)  |  Essence (85)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Illusory (2)  |  Irreducible (7)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Norm (5)  |  Primary (82)  |  Range (104)  |  Raw (28)  |  Reality (274)  |  Represent (157)  |  Species (435)  |  Variation (93)

At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a “tendency to progression”, “adaptations from the slow willing of animals”, &c! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his; though the means of change are wholly so. I think I have found out (here’s presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends.
Letter to Sir Joseph Hooker (11 Jan 1844). In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters (1892), 173-174.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Animal (651)  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Different (595)  |  End (603)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (24)  |  Last (425)  |  Light (635)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Presumption (15)  |  Progression (23)  |  Simple (426)  |  Slow (108)  |  Species (435)  |  Start (237)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Think (1122)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Willing (44)

By firm immutable immortal laws Impress’d on Nature by the GREAT FIRST CAUSE,
Say, MUSE! how rose from elemental strife
Organic forms, and kindled into life;
How Love and Sympathy with potent charm
Warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm;
Allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains,
And bind Society in golden chains.
From 'Production of Life', The Temple of Nature; or, The Origin of Society: A Poem, with Philosophical Notes (1803), 3, Canto I, lines 1-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Alarm (19)  |  Allure (4)  |  Bind (26)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chain (51)  |  Charm (54)  |  Cold (115)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Firm (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Golden (47)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Kindled (2)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lift (57)  |  Love (328)  |  Muse (10)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Pain (144)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Poem (104)  |  Potent (15)  |  Rose (36)  |  Say (989)  |  Society (350)  |  Strife (9)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Warm (74)

By the 18th century science had been so successful in laying bare the laws of nature that many thought there was nothing left to discover. Immutable laws prescribed the motion of every particle in the universe, exactly and forever: the task of the scientist was to elucidate the implications of those laws for any particular phenomenon of interest. Chaos gave way to a clockwork world. But the world moved on ...Today even our clocks are not made of clockwork. ... With the advent of quantum mechanics, the clockwork world has become a lottery. Fundamental events, such as the decay of a radioactive atom, are held to be determined by chance, not law.
Does God Play Dice?: The New Mathematics of Chaos (2002). xi.
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  Atom (381)  |  Bare (33)  |  Become (821)  |  Century (319)  |  Chance (244)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Clock (51)  |  Decay (59)  |  Discover (571)  |  Event (222)  |  Forever (111)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Interest (416)  |  Law (913)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Particle (200)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Predictability (7)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Successful (134)  |  Task (152)  |  Thought (995)  |  Today (321)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

Characteristically skeptical of the idea that living things would faithfully follow mathematical formulas, [Robert Harper] seized upon factors in corn which seemed to blend in the hybrid—rather than be represented by plus or minus signs, and put several seasons into throwing doubt upon the concept of immutable hypothetical units of inheritance concocted to account for selected results.
In 'Robert Almer Harper', National Academy Biographical Memoirs (1948), 25, 233-234.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Blend (9)  |  Concept (242)  |  Concoct (3)  |  Corn (20)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Factor (47)  |  Follow (389)  |  Formula (102)  |  Robert Harper (2)  |  Hybrid (14)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Minus (7)  |  Plus (43)  |  Represent (157)  |  Representation (55)  |  Result (700)  |  Season (47)  |  Seize (18)  |  Select (45)  |  Selection (130)  |  Skeptic (8)  |  Skeptical (21)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throwing (17)

Everything is controlled by immutable mathematical laws, from which there is, and can be, no deviation whatsoever. We learn the complex from the simple. We arrive at the abstract by way of the concrete.
In The Science of Poetry and the Philosophy of Language (1910), xi.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Complex (202)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Deviation (21)  |  Everything (489)  |  Law (913)  |  Learning (291)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Simple (426)

For mathematics, in a wilderness of tragedy and change, is a creature of the mind, born to the cry of humanity in search of an invariant reality, immutable in substance, unalterable with time.
In The American Mathematical Monthly (1949), 56, 19. Excerpted in John Ewing (ed,), A Century of Mathematics: Through the Eyes of the Monthly (1996), 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Change (639)  |  Creature (242)  |  Cry (30)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Invariant (10)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Reality (274)  |  Search (175)  |  Substance (253)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tragedy (31)  |  Unalterable (7)  |  Wilderness (57)

For the holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word, the former as the dictate of the Holy Ghost and the latter as the observant executrix of God's commands. It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned. But Nature, on the other hand, is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men. For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words.
Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany: Concerning the Use of Biblical Quotations in Matters of Science (1615), trans. Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957), 182-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Abstruse (12)  |  Alike (60)  |  Bare (33)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Call (781)  |  Care (203)  |  Command (60)  |  Concern (239)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Differ (88)  |  Different (595)  |  Divine (112)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Former (138)  |  Ghost (36)  |  God (776)  |  Holy (35)  |  Inexorable (10)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Operation (221)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Physical (518)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Prove (261)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Speak (240)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understandable (12)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Word (650)

I assume that each organism which the Creator educed was stamped with an indelible specific character, which made it what it was, and distinguished it from everything else, however near or like. I assume that such character has been, and is, indelible and immutable; that the characters which distinguish species now, were as definite at the first instant of their creation as now and are as distinct now as they were then. If any choose to maintain... that species were gradually bought to their present maturity from humbler forms... he is welcome to his hypothesis, but I have nothing to do with it.
Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot (1857), 111.
Science quotes on:  |  Character (259)  |  Choose (116)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Definite (114)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Instant (46)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Maturity (14)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Organism (231)  |  Present (630)  |  Species (435)  |  Specific (98)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Welcome (20)

In the index to the six hundred odd pages of Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History, abridged version, the names of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes and Newton do not occur … yet their cosmic quest destroyed the mediaeval vision of an immutable social order in a walled-in universe and transformed the European landscape, society, culture, habits and general outlook, as thoroughly as if a new species had arisen on this planet.
First lines of 'Preface', in The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe (1959), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Nicolaus Copernicus (54)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Culture (157)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Do (1905)  |  Europe (50)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  General (521)  |  Habit (174)  |  History (716)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Mediaeval (3)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Occur (151)  |  Order (638)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Planet (402)  |  Quest (39)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Species (435)  |  Study (701)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Arnold J. Toynbee (3)  |  Transform (74)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vision (127)  |  Wall (71)

In the index to the six hundred odd pages of Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History, abridged version, the names of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes and Newton do not occur yet their cosmic quest destroyed the medieval vision of an immutable social order in a walled-in universe and transformed the European landscape, society, culture, habits and general outlook, as thoroughly as if a new species had arisen on this planet.
In The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959), Preface, 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Copernicus_Nicolaud (2)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Culture (157)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Do (1905)  |  Europe (50)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  General (521)  |  Habit (174)  |  History (716)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Medieval (12)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Occur (151)  |  Order (638)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Planet (402)  |  Quest (39)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Order (8)  |  Society (350)  |  Species (435)  |  Study (701)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Arnold J. Toynbee (3)  |  Transform (74)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vision (127)  |  Wall (71)

It is commonly considered that mathematics owes its certainty to its reliance on the immutable principles of formal logic. This … is only half the truth imperfectly expressed. The other half would be that the principles of formal logic owe such a degree of permanence as they have largely to the fact that they have been tempered by long and varied use by mathematicians. “A vicious circle!” you will perhaps say. I should rather describe it as an example of the process known by mathematicians as the method of successive approximation.
In 'The Fundamental Conceptions And Methods Of Mathematics', Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (3 Nov 1904), 11, No. 3, 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainty (180)  |  Consider (428)  |  Example (98)  |  Express (192)  |  Formal (37)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics And Logic (27)  |  Method (531)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Reliance (11)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vicious Circle (4)

It is curious to observe how differently these great men [Plato and Bacon] estimated the value of every kind of knowledge. Take Arithmetic for example. Plato, after speaking slightly of the convenience of being able to reckon and compute in the ordinary transactions of life, passes to what he considers as a far more important advantage. The study of the properties of numbers, he tells us, habituates the mind to the contemplation of pure truth, and raises us above the material universe. He would have his disciples apply themselves to this study, not that they may be able to buy or sell, not that they may qualify themselves to be shop-keepers or travelling merchants, but that they may learn to withdraw their minds from the ever-shifting spectacle of this visible and tangible world, and to fix them on the immutable essences of things.
Bacon, on the other hand, valued this branch of knowledge only on account of its uses with reference to that visible and tangible world which Plato so much despised. He speaks with scorn of the mystical arithmetic of the later Platonists, and laments the propensity of mankind to employ, on mere matters of curiosity, powers the whole exertion of which is required for purposes of solid advantage. He advises arithmeticians to leave these trifles, and employ themselves in framing convenient expressions which may be of use in physical researches.
In 'Lord Bacon', Edinburgh Review (Jul 1837). Collected in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Contributed to the Edinburgh Review (1857), Vol. 1, 394.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Advise (7)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arithmetician (3)  |  Bacon (4)  |  Being (1276)  |  Branch (155)  |  Buy (21)  |  Compute (19)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Curious (95)  |  Despise (16)  |  Different (595)  |  Disciple (8)  |  Employ (115)  |  Essence (85)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Example (98)  |  Exertion (17)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fix (34)  |  Frame (26)  |  Great (1610)  |  Habituate (3)  |  Important (229)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lament (11)  |  Late (119)  |  Learn (672)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merchant (7)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystical (9)  |  Number (710)  |  Observe (179)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Physical (518)  |  Plato (80)  |  Platonist (2)  |  Power (771)  |  Propensity (9)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Raise (38)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Reference (33)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Research (753)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Sell (15)  |  Shifting (5)  |  Solid (119)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Study (701)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transaction (13)  |  Travel (125)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Trifle (18)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Visible (87)  |  Whole (756)  |  Withdraw (11)  |  World (1850)

Language is simply alive, like an organism. We all tell each other this, in fact, when we speak of living languages, and I think we mean something more than an abstract metaphor. We mean alive. Words are the cells of language, moving the great body, on legs. Language grows and evolves, leaving fossils behind. The individual words are like different species of animals. Mutations occur. Words fuse, and then mate. Hybrid words and wild varieties or compound words are the progeny. Some mixed words are dominated by one parent while the other is recessive. The way a word is used this year is its phenotype, but it has deeply immutable meanings, often hidden, which is its genotype.... The separate languages of the Indo-European family were at one time, perhaps five thousand years ago, maybe much longer, a single language. The separation of the speakers by migrations had effects on language comparable to the speciation observed by Darwin on various islands of the Galapagos. Languages became different species, retaining enough resemblance to an original ancestor so that the family resemblance can still be seen.
in 'Living Language,' The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, (1974, 1984), 106.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Alive (97)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Animal (651)  |  Behind (139)  |  Body (557)  |  Compound (117)  |  Different (595)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Family (101)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Galapagos (5)  |  Genotype (8)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hybrid (14)  |  Individual (420)  |  Island (49)  |  Language (308)  |  Leg (35)  |  Living (492)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Migration (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Observed (149)  |  Occur (151)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Phenotype (5)  |  Progeny (16)  |  Recessive (6)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Separate (151)  |  Separation (60)  |  Single (365)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Still (614)  |  Tell (344)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wild (96)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

Nature's economy shall be the base for our own, for it is immutable, but ours is secondary. An economist without knowledge of nature is therefore like a physicist without knowledge of mathematics.
'Tankar om grunden til oeconomien', 1740, 406. Trans. Lisbet Koerner, Linnaeus: Nature and Nation (1999), 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Base (120)  |  Economy (59)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Physicist (270)

Physics is NOT a body of indisputable and immutable Truth; it is a body of well-supported probable opinion only .... Physics can never prove things the way things are proved in mathematics, by eliminating ALL of the alternative possibilities. It is not possible to say what the alternative possibilities are.... Write down a number of 20 figures; if you multiply this by a number of, say, 30 figures, you would arrive at some enormous number (of either 49 or 50 figures). If you were to multiply the 30-figure number by the 20-figure number you would arrive at the same enormous 49- or 50-figure number, and you know this to be true without having to do the multiplying. This is the step you can never take in physics.
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 68, 88, 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternative (32)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Figure (162)  |  Indisputable (8)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Say (989)  |  Step (234)  |  Support (151)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Write (250)

Science … is creating a firm and living faith in the existence of immutable moral and physical laws, perfect obedience to which is the highest possible aim of an intelligent being.
From lecture, 'On Zoology', delivered at The South Kensington Museum (14 May 1860), published as a 16-page pamphlet, Lectures Addressed to Teachers: Lecture IV (1869), 14. Also known in later collections by the title, 'A Lobster; or, The Study of Zoology', for example, in Twelve Lectures and Essays (1908), 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Existence (481)  |  Faith (209)  |  Highest (19)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Moral (203)  |  Obedience (20)

Science is a method for testing claims about the natural world, not an immutable compendium of absolute truths. The fundamentalists, by ‘knowing’ the answers before they start, and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science–or of any honest intellectual inquiry.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Answer (389)  |  Claim (154)  |  Compendium (5)  |  Discredit (8)  |  Domain (72)  |  Force (497)  |  Fundamentalist (4)  |  Honest (53)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Lie (370)  |  Method (531)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural World (33)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Outside (141)  |  Preconception (13)  |  Start (237)  |  Straitjacket (2)  |  Test (221)  |  Truth (1109)  |  World (1850)

Surely the immutable laws of the universe can teach more impressive and exalted lessons than the holy books of all the religions on earth.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Exalted (22)  |  Holy (35)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Law (913)  |  Lesson (58)  |  More (2558)  |  Religion (369)  |  Surely (101)  |  Teach (299)  |  Universe (900)

The equations of dynamics completely express the laws of the historical method as applied to matter, but the application of these equations implies a perfect knowledge of all the data. But the smallest portion of matter which we can subject to experiment consists of millions of molecules, not one of which ever becomes individually sensible to us. We cannot, therefore, ascertain the actual motion of anyone of these molecules; so that we are obliged to abandon the strict historical method, and to adopt the statistical method of dealing with large groups of molecules … Thus molecular science teaches us that our experiments can never give us anything more than statistical information, and that no law derived from them can pretend to absolute precision. But when we pass from the contemplation of our experiments to that of the molecules themselves, we leave a world of chance and change, and enter a region where everything is certain and immutable.
'Molecules' (1873). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 374.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Absolute (153)  |  Actual (118)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Become (821)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chance (244)  |  Change (639)  |  Completely (137)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Data (162)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Dynamics (11)  |  Enter (145)  |  Equation (138)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Express (192)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Information (173)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Portion (86)  |  Precision (72)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Subject (543)  |  Themselves (433)  |  World (1850)

The Religion that is afraid of science dishonours God and commits suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the whole of truth, that it legislates, tyrannizes over a village of God's empires but is not the immutable universal law. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion and making way for truth.
(4 Mar 1831). In William H. Gilman (ed.) The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Vol III, 1826-1832 (1963), 239.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Atheism (11)  |  Commit (43)  |  God (776)  |  Law (913)  |  Making (300)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Skepticism (31)  |  Suicide (23)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universal (198)  |  Useful (260)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)

We have no right to assume that any physical law exists, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.
Max Planck and Walter Henry Johnston, The Universe in the Light of Modern Physics (1931), 58. This is part of a longer quote also on this web page, which begins: “How do we discover…”.
Science quotes on:  |  Existence (481)  |  Physical Law (15)


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.