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

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

Looking Quotes (191 quotes)

… however useful the words may have been in the past, they have now become handicaps to the further development of knowledge. Words like botany and zoology imply that plants and animals are quite different things. … But the differences rapidly become blurred when we start looking at the world through a microscope. … The similarities between plants and animals became more important than their differences with the discoveries that both were built up of cells, had sexual reproduction,… nutrition and respiration … and with the development of evolutionary theory.
In The Forest and the Sea (1960), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Become (821)  |  Blur (8)  |  Botany (63)  |  Both (496)  |  Cell (146)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Handicap (7)  |  Imply (20)  |  Important (229)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Look (584)  |  Microscope (85)  |  More (2558)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Nutrition (25)  |  Past (355)  |  Plant (320)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Sex (68)  |  Sexual (27)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Start (237)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Useful (260)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)  |  Zoology (38)

[On the practical applications of particle physics research with the Large Hadron Collider.] Sometimes the public says, “What's in it for Numero Uno? Am I going to get better television reception? Am I going to get better Internet reception?” Well, in some sense, yeah. … All the wonders of quantum physics were learned basically from looking at atom-smasher technology. … But let me let you in on a secret: We physicists are not driven to do this because of better color television. … That's a spin-off. We do this because we want to understand our role and our place in the universe.
As quoted in Alan Boyle, 'Discovery of Doom? Collider Stirs Debate', article (8 Sep 2008) on a msnbc.com web page. The article writer included the information that Kaku noted that past discoveries from the world of particle physics ushered in many of the innovations we enjoy today, ranging from satellite communications and handheld media players to medical PET scanners (which put antimatter to practical use)."
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Atom (381)  |  Atom Smasher (2)  |  Better (493)  |  Color (155)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Internet (24)  |  Large (398)  |  Large Hadron Collider (6)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Particle (200)  |  Particle Physics (13)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Practical (225)  |  Public (100)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Reception (16)  |  Research (753)  |  Role (86)  |  Satellite (30)  |  Say (989)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sense (785)  |  Spin (26)  |  Spin-Off (2)  |  Technology (281)  |  Television (33)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)  |  Want (504)  |  Wonder (251)

[Science] is sort of a game. Any fundamental advances in our field are made by looking at it with the smile of a child who plays a game.
As quoted in Lewis Wolpert and Alison Richards (eds.), Passionate Minds: The Inner World of Scientists (1997), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Child (333)  |  Field (378)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Game (104)  |  Play (116)  |  Smile (34)  |  Sort (50)

[Urbain Jean Joseph] Le Verrier—without leaving his study, without even looking at the sky—had found the unknown planet [Neptune] solely by mathematical calculation, and, as it were, touched it with the tip of his pen!
In Camille Flammarion, Astronomy (1914), 171.
Science quotes on:  |  Calculation (134)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Neptune (13)  |  Pen (21)  |  Planet (402)  |  Sky (174)  |  Study (701)  |  Tip (2)  |  Touch (146)  |  Tribute (10)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier (4)

[Answering whether there was life in other worlds, he said there probably was.] After all, there's plenty of unearthly looking things moving around in my refrigerator, so there's always a chance of life springing up almost anywhere.
In Keith Colquhoun and Ann Wroe, Economist Book of Obituaries (2008), 79.
Science quotes on:  |  Chance (244)  |  Life (1870)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Other (2233)  |  Refrigerator (8)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unearthly (2)  |  World (1850)

Indiana Jones: Archaeology is the search for fact… not truth. If it’s truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree’s philosophy class is right down the hall. … So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and “X” never, ever marks the spot. Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library. Research. Reading.
Spoken by actor Harrison Ford as character Indiana Jones in movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).
Science quotes on:  |  Archaeology (51)  |  Class (168)  |  Digging (11)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forget (125)  |  Idea (881)  |  Library (53)  |  Map (50)  |  Movie (21)  |  Never (1089)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Reading (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Right (473)  |  Search (175)  |  Travel (125)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Truth (1109)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Howler (15)  |  Last (425)  |  Leaving (10)  |  Listen (81)  |  Look (584)  |  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)

~~[Unverified attribution]~~ Most people stop looking when they find the proverbial needle in the haystack. I would continue looking to see if there were other needles.
Alice Calaprice, the most definitive editor of Einstein’s quotes, relegates this to the end of her book under 'Attributed to Einstein', meaning no primary source could be verified for it when published. See Alice Calaprice (ed.), The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2013), 481.
Science quotes on:  |  Continue (179)  |  Find (1014)  |  Needle In A Haystack (4)  |  Research (753)

1104 … In this year the first day of Whitsuntide was on 5 June, and on the following Tuesday at noon there appeared four intersecting halos around the sun, white in color, and looking as if they had been painted. All who saw it were astonished, for they did not remember seeing anything like it before.
From the 'Peterborough Chronicle (Laud Manuscript)', The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as translated in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Issue 1624 (1975), 239. The Chronicle is the work of many successive hands at several monasteries across England.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonish (39)  |  Color (155)  |  First (1302)  |  Halo (7)  |  Intersect (5)  |  Noon (14)  |  Remember (189)  |  Saw (160)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sun (407)  |  White (132)  |  Year (963)

A fox looked at his shadow at sunrise and said, “I will have a camel for lunch today.” And all morning he went about looking for camels. But at noon he saw his shadow again - and he said, “A mouse will do.”
In Kahlil Gibran: The Collected Works (2007), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Camel (12)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fox (9)  |  Look (584)  |  Lunch (6)  |  Morning (98)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Noon (14)  |  Saw (160)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Sunrise (14)  |  Today (321)  |  Will (2350)

A large number of areas of the brain are involved when viewing equations, but when one looks at a formula rated as beautiful it activates the emotional brain—the medial orbito-frontal cortex—like looking at a great painting or listening to a piece of music. … Neuroscience can’t tell you what beauty is, but if you find it beautiful the medial orbito-frontal cortex is likely to be involved; you can find beauty in anything.
As quoted in James Gallagher, 'Mathematics: Why The Brain Sees Maths As Beauty,' BBC News (13 Feb 2014), on bbc.co.uk web site.
Science quotes on:  |  Activate (3)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Brain (281)  |  Cortex (3)  |  Emotional (17)  |  Equation (138)  |  Find (1014)  |  Formula (102)  |  Frontal (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Involved (90)  |  Large (398)  |  Listen (81)  |  Listening (26)  |  Look (584)  |  Music (133)  |  Neuroscience (3)  |  Number (710)  |  Painting (46)  |  Rat (37)  |  Tell (344)  |  View (496)

A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that doesn’t exist. [Misattributed to Charles Darwin.]
Anonymous
Traced by quoteinvestigator.com to Tomlinson Fort, 'Mathematics and the Sciences', The American Mathematical Monthly (Nov 1940), 47, No. 9, 606. The article writer skeptically noted that: “I have heard it said that Charles Darwin gave the following. (He probably never did.)” Quote Investigator cites a number of wide variations of the metaphor, from various authors and sources, going back to at least 1846.
Science quotes on:  |  Black (46)  |  Blind (98)  |  Cat (52)  |  Dark (145)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Exist (458)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Misattributed (19)  |  Room (42)

A school teacher probably never enjoys anything she reads, she is so intently looking for errors.
In Sinner Sermons: A Selection of the Best Paragraphs of E. W. Howe (1926), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Error (339)  |  Intently (2)  |  Never (1089)  |  Read (308)  |  School (227)  |  Teacher (154)

Accurate and minute measurement seems to the non-scientific imagination, a less lofty and dignified work than looking for something new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient long-continued labour in the minute sifting of numerical results.
Presidential inaugural address, to the General Meeting of the British Association, Edinburgh (2 Aug 1871). In Report of the Forty-First Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1872), xci.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Grandest (10)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Labor (200)  |  Lofty (16)  |  Long (778)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Minute (129)  |  Minuteness (8)  |  Nearly (137)  |  New (1273)  |  Non-Scientific (7)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Patience (58)  |  Patient (209)  |  Result (700)  |  Reward (72)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Something (718)  |  Work (1402)

All our contemporary philosophers perhaps without knowing it are looking through eyeglasses that Baruch Spinoza polished.
Quoted in Frank Heynick, Jews and Medicine: An Epic Saga (2002), 204. Heynick adds some background that, “Heine’s quote alludes to the fact that Spinoza earned his livelihood by grinding lenses.”
Science quotes on:  |  Knowing (137)  |  Lens (15)  |  Livelihood (13)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Polish (17)  |  Spinoza (11)  |  Through (846)

Alvarez seemed to care less about the way the picture in the puzzle would look, when everything fit together, than about the fun of looking for pieces that fit. He loved nothing more than doing something that everybody else thought impossible. His designs were clever, and usually exploited some little-known principle that everyone else had forgotten.
As quoted in Walter Sullivan, 'Luis W. Alvarez, Nobel Physicist Who Explored Atom, Dies at 77: Obituary', New York Times (2 Sep 1988).
Science quotes on:  |  Luis W. Alvarez (24)  |  Care (203)  |  Clever (41)  |  Design (203)  |  Doing (277)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exploit (19)  |  Fit (139)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Fun (42)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Known (453)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Picture (148)  |  Piece (39)  |  Principle (530)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Something (718)  |  Thought (995)  |  Together (392)  |  Usually (176)  |  Way (1214)

An astronomer is a guy who stands around looking at heavenly bodies.
Anonymous
Quoted in M. Goran, A Treasury of Science Jokes (1986), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Stand (284)

And from my pillow, looking forth by light
Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold
The antechapel where the statue stood
Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
'Residence at Cambridge', The Prelude, or, Growth of a Poet's Mind: An Autobiographical Poem (1850), Book 3, 57-58.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Chapel (3)  |  Face (214)  |  Index (5)  |  Light (635)  |  Marble (21)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moon (252)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Pillow (4)  |  Poem (104)  |  Prism (8)  |  Sea (326)  |  Silence (62)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Statue (17)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)

Andrade [who was looking after wartime inventions] is like an inverted Micawber, waiting for something to turn down.
As quoted by C.P. Snow in his Lectures at Harvard University (1960), in which he spoke extensively about Henry Tizard. Collected in print as Science and Government (1960), 6. Snow gave this quote to exemplify what he called Tizard's “lively satirical tongue,” but Tizard probably did not originate the epigram. The article 'A Spectator's Notebook' The Spectator (21 Dec 1944), 4, states it was coined by Philip Guedalla, “unless, indeed, which is unlikely, it goes back farther still.” As early as during the first World War, Guedalla “applied it to the Inventions Board under Lord Fisher, sitting in an office in Cockspur Street, and ‘waiting like a kind of inverted Mr. Micawber, for something to turn down.’” Webmaster assumes Tizard's quote refers to Edward Neville da Costa Andrade, also a wartime science consultant.
Science quotes on:  |  Down (455)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inverted (2)  |  Something (718)  |  Turn (454)  |  Waiting (42)  |  Wartime (4)  |  World War II (9)

As far as I see, such a theory [of the primeval atom] remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being. He may keep, for the bottom of space-time, the same attitude of mind he has been able to adopt for events occurring in non-singular places in space-time. For the believer, it removes any attempt to familiarity with God, as were Laplace’s chiquenaude or Jeans’ finger. It is consonant with the wording of Isaiah speaking of the “Hidden God” hidden even in the beginning of the universe … Science has not to surrender in face of the Universe and when Pascal tries to infer the existence of God from the supposed infinitude of Nature, we may think that he is looking in the wrong direction.
From 'The Primeval Atom Hypothesis and the Problem of Clusters of Galaxies', in R. Stoops (ed.), La Structure et l'Evolution de l'Univers (1958), 1-32. As translated in Helge Kragh, Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Universe (1996), 60.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Believer (26)  |  Bible (105)  |  Deny (71)  |  Direction (185)  |  Event (222)  |  Existence (481)  |  Face (214)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Free (239)  |  God (776)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Sir James Jeans (34)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Materialist (4)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Outside (141)  |  Blaise Pascal (81)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Question (649)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remove (50)  |  See (1094)  |  Singular (24)  |  Space (523)  |  Space-Time (20)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Surrender (21)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transcendental (11)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wrong (246)

As science has supplanted its predecessors, so it may hereafter be superseded by some more perfect hypothesis, perhaps by some totally different way of looking at the phenomena—of registering the shadows on the screen—of which we in this generation can form no idea. The advance of knowledge is an infinite progression towards a goal that for ever recedes.
In The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (1890, 1900), Vol. 3, 460.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Different (595)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  Goal (155)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  More (2558)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Progression (23)  |  Recede (11)  |  Register (22)  |  Screen (8)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Supersede (8)  |  Supplant (4)  |  Way (1214)

As the Director of the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos, I participated at the most senior level in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic weapons.
Now, at age 88, I am one of the few remaining such senior persons alive. Looking back at the half century since that time, I feel the most intense relief that these weapons have not been used since World War II, mixed with the horror that tens of thousands of such weapons have been built since that time—one hundred times more than any of us at Los Alamos could ever have imagined.
Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear weapons. But in some countries nuclear weapons development still continues. Whether and when the various Nations of the World can agree to stop this is uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills.
Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons - and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons.
[On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Hiroshima.]
Letter, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Nov 1995), 51:6, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Alive (97)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Back (395)  |  Biological (137)  |  Call (781)  |  Cease (81)  |  Century (319)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Continue (179)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Development (441)  |  Disarmament (6)  |  Division (67)  |  Era (51)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Hiroshima (18)  |  Horror (15)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individual (420)  |  Influence (231)  |  Los Alamos (6)  |  Manhattan Project (15)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Weapon (17)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Potential (75)  |  Process (439)  |  Produced (187)  |  Project (77)  |  Relief (30)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Senior (7)  |  Skill (116)  |  Still (614)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Various (205)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

At length being at Clapham where there is, on the common, a large pond which, I observed to be one day very rough with the wind, I fetched out a cruet of oil and dropt a little of it on the water. I saw it spread itself with surprising swiftness upon the surface; but the effect of smoothing the waves was not produced; for I had applied it first on the leeward side of the pond, where the waves were largest, and the wind drove my oil back upon the shore. I then went to the windward side, where they began to form; and there the oil, though not more than a tea-spoonful, produced an instant calm over a space several yards square, which spread amazingly, and extended itself gradually till it reached the leeside, making all that quarter of the pond, perhaps half an acre, as smooth as a looking-glass.
[Experiment to test an observation made at sea in 1757, when he had seen the wake of a ship smoothed, explained by the captain as presumably due to cooks emptying greasy water in to the sea through the scuppers.]
Letter, extract in 'Of the still of Waves by Means of Oil The Gentleman's Magazine (1775), Vol. 45, 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Acre (13)  |  Applied (176)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Calm (32)  |  Captain (16)  |  Common (447)  |  Due (143)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  Extend (129)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Glass (94)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Instant (46)  |  Large (398)  |  Largest (39)  |  Little (717)  |  Making (300)  |  More (2558)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Oil (67)  |  Pond (17)  |  Produced (187)  |  Reach (286)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Side (236)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Space (523)  |  Spread (86)  |  Square (73)  |  Still (614)  |  Surface (223)  |  Tea (13)  |  Test (221)  |  Through (846)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wind (141)

At the age of three I began to look around my grandfather’s library. My first knowledge of astronomy came from reading and looking at pictures at that time. By the time I was six I remember him buying books for me. … I think I was eight, he bought me a three-inch telescope on a brass mounting. It stood on a table. … So, as far back as I can remember, I had an early interest in science in general, astronomy in particular.
Oral History Transcript of interview with Dr. Jesse Greenstein by Paul Wright (31 Jul 1974), on website of American Institute of Physics.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Back (395)  |  Book (413)  |  Early (196)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Interest (416)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Library (53)  |  Look (584)  |  Particular (80)  |  Picture (148)  |  Reading (136)  |  Remember (189)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)

Beware of finding what you're looking for.
A favorite aphorism he often used.
Though widely seen attributed as a caution Hamming often used, webmaster has found no evidence that he originated the saying. If you know a primary source, please contact webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Aphorism (22)  |  Beware (16)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Finding (34)  |  Research (753)

By looking at the sun at different wavelengths, we can peel off the different layers in the (solar) atmosphere, just like peeling an onion.
Primary Source needed. Can you help?
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Different (595)  |  Layer (41)  |  Onion (9)  |  Peel (6)  |  Solar (8)  |  Sun (407)  |  Wavelength (10)

By research in pure science I mean research made without any idea of application to industrial matters but solely with the view of extending our knowledge of the Laws of Nature. I will give just one example of the ‘utility’ of this kind of research, one that has been brought into great prominence by the War—I mean the use of X-rays in surgery. Now, not to speak of what is beyond money value, the saving of pain, or, it may be, the life of the wounded, and of bitter grief to those who loved them, the benefit which the state has derived from the restoration of so many to life and limb, able to render services which would otherwise have been lost, is almost incalculable. Now, how was this method discovered? It was not the result of a research in applied science starting to find an improved method of locating bullet wounds. This might have led to improved probes, but we cannot imagine it leading to the discovery of X-rays. No, this method is due to an investigation in pure science, made with the object of discovering what is the nature of Electricity. The experiments which led to this discovery seemed to be as remote from ‘humanistic interest’ —to use a much misappropriated word—as anything that could well be imagined. The apparatus consisted of glass vessels from which the last drops of air had been sucked, and which emitted a weird greenish light when stimulated by formidable looking instruments called induction coils. Near by, perhaps, were great coils of wire and iron built up into electro-magnets. I know well the impression it made on the average spectator, for I have been occupied in experiments of this kind nearly all my life, notwithstanding the advice, given in perfect good faith, by non-scientific visitors to the laboratory, to put that aside and spend my time on something useful.
In Speech made on behalf of a delegation from the Conjoint Board of Scientific Studies in 1916 to Lord Crewe, then Lord President of the Council. In George Paget Thomson, J. J. Thomson and the Cavendish Laboratory in His Day (1965), 167-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Air (366)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Average (89)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bitter (30)  |  Call (781)  |  Consist (223)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Drop (77)  |  Due (143)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Faith (209)  |  Find (1014)  |  Glass (94)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grief (20)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impression (118)  |  Induction (81)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Interest (416)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Iron (99)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Method (531)  |  Money (178)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Non-Scientific (7)  |  Object (438)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Pain (144)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Probe (12)  |  Prominence (5)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Ray (115)  |  Remote (86)  |  Render (96)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Service (110)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Spend (97)  |  State (505)  |  Suck (8)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Utility (52)  |  Value (393)  |  Vessel (63)  |  View (496)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wire (36)  |  Word (650)  |  Wound (26)  |  X-ray (43)

By the act of observation we have selected a ‘real’ history out of the many realities, and once someone has seen a tree in our world it stays there even when nobody is looking at it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  History (716)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Observation (593)  |  Real (159)  |  Reality (274)  |  See (1094)  |  Select (45)  |  Someone (24)  |  Stay (26)  |  Tree (269)  |  World (1850)

Conscience is the inner voice warning us that someone may be looking.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Conscience (52)  |  Inner (72)  |  Someone (24)  |  Voice (54)  |  Warn (7)  |  Warning (18)

Edward [Teller] isn’t the cloistered kind of scientist. He gets his ideas in conversation and develops them by trying them out on people. We were coming back from Europe on the Ile de France and I was standing in the ship’s nightclub when he came up and said, 'Freddie, I think I have an idea.’ It was something he’d just thought of about magnetohydrodynamics. I was a bachelor then and I’d located several good-looking girls on the ship, but I knew what I had to do, so I disappeared and started working on the calculations. I’d get something finished and start prowling on the deck again when Edward would turn up out of the night and we’d walk the deck together while he talked and I was the brick wall he was bouncing these things off of. By the end of the trip we had a paper. He’d had the ideas, and I’d done some solving of equations. But he insisted that we sign in alphabetical order, which put my name first.
As quoted in Robert Coughlan, 'Dr. Edward Teller’s Magnificent Obsession', Life (6 Sep 1954), 61-62.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Bounce (2)  |  Brick (20)  |  Brick Wall (2)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Coming (114)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Develop (278)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Equation (138)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Girl (38)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Insist (22)  |  Kind (564)  |  Name (359)  |  Order (638)  |  Paper (192)  |  People (1031)  |  Reclusive (2)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Ship (69)  |  Solve (145)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Edward Teller (43)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Together (392)  |  Trying (144)  |  Turn (454)  |  Walk (138)  |  Wall (71)

Envy is an eyesore engendered by looking at another’s success thru the spectacles of our own inferiority.
Aphorism in The Philistine (Apr 1905), 20, No. 5, 160.
Science quotes on:  |  Engender (3)  |  Envy (15)  |  Inferiority (7)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Spectacles (10)  |  Success (327)

Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark side. Dr. Johnson has said that the habit of looking at the best side of a thing is worth more to a man than a thousand pounds a year. And we possess the power, to a great extent, of so exercising the will as to direct the thoughts upon objects calculated to yield happiness and improvement rather than their opposites.
In Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859, 1861), 405-406.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Best (467)  |  Bright (81)  |  Dark (145)  |  Direct (228)  |  Extent (142)  |  Great (1610)  |  Habit (174)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Samuel Johnson (51)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Object (438)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Side (236)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)  |  Yield (86)

Exper. I. I made a small hole in a window-shutter, and covered it with a piece of thick paper, which I perforated with a fine needle. For greater convenience of observation I placed a small looking-glass without the window-shutter, in such a position as to reflect the sun's light, in a direction nearly horizontal, upon the opposite wall, and to cause the cone of diverging light to pass over a table on which were several little screens of card-paper. I brought into the sunbeam a slip of card, about one-thirtieth of an inch in breadth, and observed its shadow, either on the wall or on other cards held at different distances. Besides the fringes of colour on each side of the shadow, the shadow itself was divided by similar parallel fringes, of smaller dimensions, differing in number, according to the distance at which the shadow was observed, but leaving the middle of the shadow always white. Now these fringes were the joint effects of the portions of light passing on each side of the slip of card and inflected, or rather diffracted, into the shadow. For, a little screen being placed a few inches from the card, so as to receive either edge of the shadow on its margin, all the fringes which had before been observed in the shadow on the wall, immediately disappeared, although the light inflected on the other side was allowed to retain its course, and although this light must have undergone any modification that the proximity of the other edge of the slip of card might have been capable of occasioning... Nor was it for want of a sufficient intensity of light that one of the two portions was incapable of producing the fringes alone; for when they were both uninterrupted, the lines appeared, even if the intensity was reduced to one-tenth or one-twentieth.
'Experiments and Calculations Relative to Physical Optics' (read in 1803), Philosophical Transactions (1804), 94, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Alone (324)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Breadth (15)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cone (8)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Course (413)  |  Different (595)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Distance (171)  |  Divided (50)  |  Edge (51)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fringe (7)  |  Glass (94)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hole (17)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Interference (22)  |  Joint (31)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Modification (57)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Portion (86)  |  Receive (117)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Retain (57)  |  Screen (8)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Side (236)  |  Small (489)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunbeam (3)  |  Table (105)  |  Two (936)  |  Uninterrupted (7)  |  Wall (71)  |  Want (504)  |  White (132)  |  Window (59)

For more than two years, ever since August 6, 1945, I have been looking at physicists as science writer for The New York Herald Tribune.
The context of this quote makes it interesting. White had been a staff reporter at the newspaper since 1943. The day he became science writer is notable. The first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 Aug 1945. The newspaper immediately responded to the need to provide information on science for the public’s interest stimulated by that event. (The newspaper also had to compete with the New York Times science reporter, William L. Laurence, who had been on the inside track at the Manhattan Project, and covered the news of the atomic attacks on Japan.) In 'A Newsman Looks at Physicists', Physics Today (May 1948), 1, No. 1, 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom Bomb (4)  |  Hiroshima (18)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Newspaper (39)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Reporter (5)  |  Two (936)  |  Writer (90)  |  Year (963)

For three million years we were hunter-gatherers, and it was through the evolutionary pressures of that way of life that a brain so adaptable and so creative eventually emerged. Today we stand with the brains of hunter-gatherers in our heads, looking out on a modern world made comfortable for some by the fruits of human inventiveness, and made miserable for others by the scandal of deprivation in the midst of plenty.
Co-author with American science writer Roger Amos Lewin (1946), Origins: What New Discoveries Reveal about the Emergence of our Species and its Possible Future (1977), 249.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptability (7)  |  Brain (281)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Deprivation (5)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Hunter-Gatherer (2)  |  Inventiveness (8)  |  Life (1870)  |  Modern (402)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Stand (284)  |  Through (846)  |  Today (321)  |  Way (1214)  |  Way Of Life (15)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Genetics as a whole is the great over-hyped science, and geneticists know that even if they don't say it. All that genetics really is is anatomy plus an enormous research group grant. It's what anatomists did in the fifteenth century-looking at the heart and seeing how it worked. Now, we are doing the same with DNA
Quoted by Sean O'Hagan, in 'End of sperm report', The Observer (14 Sep 2002).
Science quotes on:  |  15th Century (5)  |  Anatomist (24)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Century (319)  |  DNA (81)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Geneticist (16)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Grant (76)  |  Great (1610)  |  Group (83)  |  Heart (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Now (5)  |  Plus (43)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)  |  Working (23)

Hot things, sharp things, sweet things, cold things
All rot the teeth, and make them look like old things.
In Poor Richard's Almanack (1734).
Science quotes on:  |  Cold (115)  |  Dentistry (3)  |  Health (210)  |  Hot (63)  |  Look (584)  |  Old (499)  |  Rot (9)  |  Sharpness (9)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Thing (1914)

Hubble touches people. When you're looking that far out, you're giving people their place in the universe, it touches people. Science is often visual, so it doesn't need translation. It's like poetry, it touches you.
Interview (22 May 1997). On Academy of Achievement website.
Science quotes on:  |  Hubble Space Telescope (9)  |  Look (584)  |  People (1031)  |  Place (192)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Touch (146)  |  Translation (21)  |  Universe (900)  |  Visual (16)

Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery. A mystery is a phenomenon that people don’t know how to think about—yet. There have been other great mysteries: the mystery of the origin of the universe, the mystery of life and reproduction, the mystery of the design to be found in nature, the mysteries of time, space, and gravity. These were not just areas of scientific ignorance, but of utter bafflement and wonder. We do not yet have the final answers to any of the questions of cosmology and particle physics, molecular genetics and evolutionary theory, but we do know how to think about them. The mysteries haven't vanished, but they have been tamed. They no longer overwhelm our efforts to think about the phenomena, because now we know how to tell the misbegotten questions from the right questions, and even if we turn out to be dead wrong about some of the currently accepted answers, we know how to go about looking for better answers. With consciousness, however, we are still in a terrible muddle. Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist—and hope—that there will never be a demystification of consciousness.
Consciousness Explained (1991), 21-22.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Alone (324)  |  Answer (389)  |  Bafflement (3)  |  Better (493)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Design (203)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Final (121)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of The Universe (20)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Particle Physics (13)  |  People (1031)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Question (649)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Space (523)  |  Stand (284)  |  Still (614)  |  Tell (344)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Topic (23)  |  Turn (454)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wrong (246)

I am opposed to looking upon logic as a kind of game. … One might think that it is a matter of choice or convention which logic one adopts. I disagree with this view.
Objective Knowledge: an Evolutionary Approach (1972), 304.
Science quotes on:  |  Adoption (7)  |  Choice (114)  |  Convention (16)  |  Disagreement (14)  |  Game (104)  |  Kind (564)  |  Logic (311)  |  Matter (821)  |  Think (1122)  |  View (496)

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy—and when he talks about a nonscientific matter, he will sound as naive as anyone untrained in the matter.
In 'The Value of Science' (Dec 1955), collected in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman (1999, 2005), 142.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Dumb (11)  |  Guy (5)  |  Next (238)  |  Problem (731)  |  Scientist (881)

I can’t work well under the conditions at Bell Labs. Walter [Brattain] and I are looking at a few questions relating to point-contact transistors, but [William] Shockley keeps all the interesting problems for himself.
From conversation with Frederick Seitz as quoted in Lillian Hoddeson, 'John Bardeen: A Place to Win Two Nobel Prizes and Make a Hole in One', collected in Lillian Hoddeson (ed.), No Boundaries: University of Illinois Vignettes (2004), Chap. 16, 242.
Science quotes on:  |  Bell (35)  |  Bell Laboratories (3)  |  Walter H. Brattain (4)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contact (66)  |  Himself (461)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Keep (104)  |  Point (584)  |  Problem (731)  |  Question (649)  |  Relate (26)  |  William B. Shockley (4)  |  Transistor (6)  |  Work (1402)

I cannot see of what use these slides can be to a field man. I don't believe in looking at a mountain through a microscope.
In Archibald Geikie, Memoir of Sir Andrew Crombie Ramsey (1895), 343.
Science quotes on:  |  Field (378)  |  Field Work (2)  |  Man (2252)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mountain (202)  |  See (1094)  |  Slide (5)  |  Through (846)  |  Use (771)

I had this experience at the age of eight. My parents gave me a microscope. I don’t recall why, but no matter. I then found my own little world, completely wild and unconstrained, no plastic, no teacher, no books, no anything predictable. At first I did not know the names of the water-drop denizens or what they were doing. But neither did the pioneer microscopists. Like them, I graduated to looking at butterfly scales and other miscellaneous objects. I never thought of what I was doing in such a way, but it was pure science. As true as could be of any child so engaged, I was kin to Leeuwenhoek, who said that his work “was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more that most other men.”
In The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth (2010), 143-144.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Book (413)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Child (333)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completely (137)  |  Craving (5)  |  Doing (277)  |  Drop (77)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Graduation (6)  |  Kin (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (17)  |  Little (717)  |  Matter (821)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Microscopist (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Never (1089)  |  Notice (81)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Praise (28)  |  Predictability (7)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Reside (25)  |  Scale (122)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unconstrained (2)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Wild (96)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

I have always looked upon alchemy in natural philosophy to be like enthusiasm in divinity, and to have troubled the world much to the same.
In The Works of Sir William Temple, Bart (1814), 506.
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Divinity (23)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Look (584)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Trouble (117)  |  World (1850)

I have never really had dreams to fulfil…. You just want to go on looking at these ecosystems and trying to understand them and they are all fascinating. To achieve a dream suggests snatching a prize from the top of a tree and running off with it, and that’s the end of it. It isn’t like that. … What you are trying to achieve is understanding and you don’t do that just by chasing dreams.
From interview with Michael Bond, 'It’s a Wonderful Life', New Scientist (14 Dec 2002), 176, No. 2373, 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Chase (14)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Ecosystem (33)  |  End (603)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Never (1089)  |  Prize (13)  |  Running (61)  |  Top (100)  |  Tree (269)  |  Trying (144)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Want (504)

I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that this delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it. I remember, in the winter of our first experiments, just seven years ago, looking on snow with new eyes. There the snow lay around my doorstep—great heaps of protons quietly precessing in the earth’s magnetic field. To see the world for a moment as something rich and strange is the private reward of many a discovery.
Opening remark, Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1952).
Science quotes on:  |  Delicate (45)  |  Delight (111)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Look (584)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Magnetic Field (7)  |  Moment (260)  |  Motion (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Private (29)  |  Proton (23)  |  Remember (189)  |  Reside (25)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Reward (72)  |  Rich (66)  |  See (1094)  |  Snow (39)  |  Something (718)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Winter (46)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

I have nothing to offer except a way of looking at things.
(1986)
Science quotes on:  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)

I just looked up at a fine twinkling star and thought that a voyager whom I know, now many a days’ sail from this coast, might possibly be looking up at that same star with me. The stars are the apexes of what triangles!
In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: I: 1837-1846 (1906), 486.
Science quotes on:  |  Apex (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Look (584)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Sail (37)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Thought (995)  |  Triangle (20)  |  Twinkling (2)

I keep looking for some … problem where someone has made an observation that doesn’t fit into my picture of the universe. If it doesn't fit in, then I find some way of fitting it in.
Interview with George B. Kauffman and Laurie M. Kauffman, in 'Linus Pauling: Reflections', American Scientist (Nov-Dec 1994), 82, No. 6, 522.
Science quotes on:  |  Find (1014)  |  Fit (139)  |  Observation (593)  |  Picture (148)  |  Problem (731)  |  Research (753)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)

I like to find mavericks, students who don’t know what they’re looking for, who are sensitive and vulnerable and have unusual pasts. If you do enough work with these students you can often transform their level of contribution. After all, the real breakthroughs come from the mavericks.
As quoted in interview with Frances Glennon, 'Student and Teacher of Human Ways', Life (14 Sep 1959), 143. Mead attributes her own pioneering approach to being educated at home by her grandmother, a retired schoolteacher, whom she said “was about 50 years ahead of her time—for instance, she taught me algebra before arithmetic.”
Science quotes on:  |  Breakthrough (18)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enough (341)  |  Find (1014)  |  Know (1538)  |  Look (584)  |  Past (355)  |  Real (159)  |  Sensitive (15)  |  Student (317)  |  Transform (74)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Vulnerable (7)  |  Work (1402)

I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself “Dijkstra would not have liked this”, well, that would be enough immortality for me.
In concluding paragraph of 'Introducing a Course on Calculi' (30 Aug 1995) in the E. W. Dijkstra Archive manuscript EWD1213.
Science quotes on:  |  Dirty (17)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enough (341)  |  Immortality (11)  |  Mean (810)  |  Quick (13)  |  Say (989)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Something (718)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Visualize (8)  |  Year (963)

I suppose that I tend to be optimistic about the future of physics. And nothing makes me more optimistic than the discovery of broken symmetries. In the seventh book of the Republic, Plato describes prisoners who are chained in a cave and can see only shadows that things outside cast on the cave wall. When released from the cave at first their eyes hurt, and for a while they think that the shadows they saw in the cave are more real than the objects they now see. But eventually their vision clears, and they can understand how beautiful the real world is. We are in such a cave, imprisoned by the limitations on the sorts of experiments we can do. In particular, we can study matter only at relatively low temperatures, where symmetries are likely to be spontaneously broken, so that nature does not appear very simple or unified. We have not been able to get out of this cave, but by looking long and hard at the shadows on the cave wall, we can at least make out the shapes of symmetries, which though broken, are exact principles governing all phenomena, expressions of the beauty of the world outside.
In Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1989), 'Conceptual Foundations of the Unified Theory of Weak and Electromagnetic Interactions.' Nobel Lectures: Physics 1971-1980 (1992), 556.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Book (413)  |  Broken (56)  |  Cast (69)  |  Cave (17)  |  Describe (132)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Expression (181)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Governing (20)  |  Hard (246)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Long (778)  |  Low (86)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Outside (141)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plato (80)  |  Principle (530)  |  Prisoner (8)  |  Reality (274)  |  Republic (16)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Shape (77)  |  Simple (426)  |  Study (701)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Tend (124)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vision (127)  |  Wall (71)  |  World (1850)

I think every child born on this planet up to the age of about four or five is fascinated by the natural world. If they aren’t it’s because we deprive them of the opportunity. Over half the world’s population is urbanised and the thought that some children may grow up not looking at a pond or knowing how plants grow is a terrible thing. If you lose that delight and joy and intoxication, you’ve lost something hugely precious.
From interview with Alice Roberts, 'Attenborough: My Life on Earth', The Biologist (Aug 2015), 62, No. 4, 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Delight (111)  |  Fascinated (2)  |  Grow (247)  |  Intoxication (7)  |  Joy (117)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Lose (165)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural World (33)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plant (320)  |  Pond (17)  |  Population (115)  |  Precious (43)  |  Something (718)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Urban (12)  |  World (1850)

I think it is a peculiarity of myself that I like to play about with equations, just looking for beautiful mathematical relations which maybe don’t have any physical meaning at all. Sometimes they do.
At age 60.
"Interview with T. Kuhn (7 May 1963), Niels Bohr Library, American Intitute of Physics, New York. In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Do (1905)  |  Equation (138)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Myself (211)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Physical (518)  |  Think (1122)

I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Electron (96)  |  Forth (14)  |  Independent (74)  |  Location (15)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Moon (252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Particle (200)  |  Reality (274)  |  Separate (151)  |  Spin (26)  |  Think (1122)

I was interested in flying beginning at age 7, when a close family friend took me in his little airplane. And I remember looking at the wheel of the airplane as we rolled down the runway, because I wanted to remember the exact moment that I first went flying... the other thing growing up is that I was always interested in science.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Close (77)  |  Down (455)  |  Exact (75)  |  Family (101)  |  First (1302)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Friend (180)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growing Up (4)  |  Interest (416)  |  Little (717)  |  Moment (260)  |  Other (2233)  |  Remember (189)  |  Roll (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Want (504)  |  Wheel (51)

I was thrown out of NYU in my freshman year … for cheating on my metaphysics final. You know, I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
As character Alvy Singer doing a stand-up comedy act to a college audience, in movie Annie Hall (1977). Screenplay by Woody Allen with Marshall Brickman, transcript printed in Four films of Woody Allen (1982), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Boy (100)  |  Cheating (2)  |  Examination (102)  |  Final (121)  |  Freshman (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Look (584)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Next (238)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Soul (235)  |  Thrown Out (3)  |  Year (963)

I was working with these very long-chain … extended-chain polymers, where you had a lot of benzene rings in them. … Transforming a polymer solution from a liquid to a fiber requires a process called spinning. … We spun it and it spun beautifully. It [Kevlar] was very strong and very stiff—unlike anything we had made before. I knew that I had made a discovery. I didn’t shout “Eureka!” but I was very excited, as was the whole laboratory excited, and management was excited, because we were looking for something new. Something different. And this was it.
From transcript for video interview (2007, published Aug 2012), 'Stephanie Kwolek: Curiosity and the Discovery of Kevlar', in the series Women in Chemistry, on Chemical Heritage Foundation website.
Science quotes on:  |  Benzene (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Different (595)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Eureka (13)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fiber (16)  |  Invention (400)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Long (778)  |  Lot (151)  |  Management (23)  |  New (1273)  |  Polymer (4)  |  Process (439)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Research (753)  |  Ring (18)  |  Shout (25)  |  Solution (282)  |  Something (718)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Stiff (3)  |  Strong (182)  |  Transforming (4)  |  Whole (756)

I will be moving through the book as if on a train looking out at the beautiful landscape of the Arts.
Anonymous
An opinion posted on yougov.com (13 Jan 2017) describing reading a novel set after the Russian Revolution with much historical background, stimulating the reader’s interest on the literature, painting and performing arts of the time.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Arts (3)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Book (413)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Move (223)  |  Reading (136)  |  Through (846)  |  Train (118)  |  Will (2350)

I’ve never looked through a keyhole without finding someone was looking back.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Find (1014)  |  Keyhole (5)  |  Look (584)  |  Never (1089)  |  Someone (24)  |  Through (846)

I’ve never owned a telescope, but it’s something I'm thinking of looking into.
Brain Droppings (1998), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Never (1089)  |  Something (718)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Thinking (425)

If education really educates, there will, in time, be more and more citizens who understand that relics of the old West add meaning and value to the new. Youth yet unborn will pole up the Missouri with Lewis and Clark, or climb the Sierras with James Capen Adams, and each generation in turn will ask: Where is the big white bear? It will be a sorry answer to say he went under while conservationists weren’t looking.
Conclusion from article 'The Grizzly—A Problem in Land Planning', in Outdoor America (6 Apr 1942), 7, 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Bear (162)  |  Climb (39)  |  Conservationist (5)  |  Education (423)  |  Endangered Species (6)  |  Generation (256)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Missouri (2)  |  New (1273)  |  Old West (2)  |  Relic (8)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Understand (648)  |  Value (393)  |  White (132)  |  Youth (109)

If enough of us stop looking away and decide that climate change is a crisis worthy of Marshall Plan levels of response, then it will become one.
From This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (2014), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Crisis (25)  |  Decision (98)  |  Enough (341)  |  Level (69)  |  Plan (122)  |  Response (56)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worthy (35)

If I’m concerned about what an electron does in an amorphous mass then I become an electron. I try to have that picture in my mind and to behave like an electron, looking at the problem in all its dimensions and scales.
Quoted in Timothy L. O’Brien, 'Not Invented here: Are U.S. Innovators Losing Their Competitive Edge?', New York Times (13 Nov 2005), B6.
Science quotes on:  |  Amorphous (6)  |  Become (821)  |  Behave (18)  |  Concern (239)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Electron (96)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Picture (148)  |  Problem (731)  |  Scale (122)  |  Try (296)

If somebody’d said before the flight, “Are you going to get carried away looking at the earth from the moon?” I would have say, “No, no way.” But yet when I first looked back at the earth, standing on the moon, I cried.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Carry (130)  |  Cry (30)  |  Earth (1076)  |  First (1302)  |  Flight (101)  |  Look (584)  |  Moon (252)  |  Say (989)  |  Somebody (8)  |  Stand (284)  |  Way (1214)

If there is such a thing as luck, then I must be the most unlucky fellow in the world. I’ve never once made a lucky strike in all my life. When I get after something that I need, I start finding everything in the world that I don’t need—one damn thing after another. I find ninety-nine things that I don’t need, and then comes number one hundred, and that—at the very last—turns out to be just what I had been looking for.
In Martin André Rosanoff, 'Edison in His Laboratory', Harper’s Magazine (Sep 1932), 406.
Science quotes on:  |  Everything (489)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Luck (44)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Strike (72)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  World (1850)

If we drove an automobile the way we try to run civilization, I think we would face backwards, looking through the back window, admiring where we came from, and not caring where we are going. If you want a good life you must look to the future. … I think it is all right to have courses in history. But history is the “gonest” thing in the world. … Let’s keep history, but let’s take a small part of the time and study where we are going. … We can do something about the unmade history.
As quoted in book review, T.A. Boyd, 'Charles F. Kettering: Prophet of Progress', Science (30 Jan 1959), 256.
Science quotes on:  |  Automobile (23)  |  Back (395)  |  Backwards (18)  |  Caring (6)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Face (214)  |  Future (467)  |  Good (906)  |  History (716)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Must (1525)  |  Right (473)  |  Run (158)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Window (59)  |  World (1850)

If you are on the side whence the wind is blowing you will see the trees looking much lighter than you would see them on the other sides; and this is due to the fact that the wind turns up the reverse side of the leaves which in all trees is much whiter than the upper side.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Blow (45)  |  Blowing (22)  |  Due (143)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Leave (138)  |  Light (635)  |  Other (2233)  |  Reverse (33)  |  See (1094)  |  Side (236)  |  Tree (269)  |  Turn (454)  |  Upper (4)  |  White (132)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)

If you look into their [chimpanzees] eyes, you know you’re looking into a thinking mind. They teach us that we are not the only beings with personalities, minds capable of rational thought, altruism and a sense of humor. That leads to new respect for other animals, respect for the environment and respect for all life.
From interview by Tamar Lewin, 'Wildlife to Tireless Crusader, See Jane Run', New York Times (20 Nov 2000), F35.
Science quotes on:  |  Altruism (7)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chimpanzee (14)  |  Environment (239)  |  Eye (440)  |  Humor (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Personality (66)  |  Rational (95)  |  Respect (212)  |  Sense (785)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)

In 1963, when I assigned the name “quark” to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been “kwork.” Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word “quark” in the phrase “Three quarks for Muster Mark.” Since “quark” (meaning, for one thing, the cry of a gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with “Mark,” as well as “bark” and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as “kwork.” But the book represents the dreams of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the “portmanteau words” in Through the Looking Glass. From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry “Three quarks for Muster Mark” might be pronunciation for “Three quarts for Mister Mark,” in which case the pronunciation “kwork” would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature.
The Quark and the Jaguar (1994), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Bark (19)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Cry (30)  |  Dream (222)  |  Drink (56)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Glass (94)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Multiple (19)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Nucleon (5)  |  Number (710)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Occur (151)  |  Other (2233)  |  Partially (8)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Portmanteau (2)  |  Pronounce (11)  |  Quark (9)  |  Represent (157)  |  Rhyme (6)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spelling (8)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

In modern Europe, the Middle Ages were called the Dark Ages. Who dares to call them so now? … Their Dante and Alfred and Wickliffe and Abelard and Bacon; their Magna Charta, decimal numbers, mariner’s compass, gunpowder, glass, paper, and clocks; chemistry, algebra, astronomy; their Gothic architecture, their painting,—are the delight and tuition of ours. Six hundred years ago Roger Bacon explained the precession of the equinoxes, and the necessity of reform in the calendar; looking over how many horizons as far as into Liverpool and New York, he announced that machines can be constructed to drive ships more rapidly than a whole galley of rowers could do, nor would they need anything but a pilot to steer; carriages, to move with incredible speed, without aid of animals; and machines to fly into the air like birds.
In 'Progress of Culture', an address read to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, 18 July 1867. Collected in Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1883), 475.
Science quotes on:  |  Peter Abelard (3)  |  Age (509)  |  Aid (101)  |  Air (366)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Animal (651)  |  Announce (13)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Roger Bacon (20)  |  Bird (163)  |  Calendar (9)  |  Call (781)  |  Carriage (11)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Clock (51)  |  Compass (37)  |  Construct (129)  |  Dante Alighieri (10)  |  Dare (55)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Delight (111)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drive (61)  |  Equinox (5)  |  Europe (50)  |  Explain (334)  |  Far (158)  |  Fly (153)  |  Glass (94)  |  Gothic (4)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Liverpool (3)  |  Machine (271)  |  Magna Carta (3)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Number (710)  |  Painting (46)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pilot (13)  |  Precession (4)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Reform (22)  |  Ship (69)  |  Speed (66)  |  Steer (4)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Tuition (3)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

In our way of life … with every decision we make, we always keep in mind the seventh generation of children to come. … When we walk upon Mother Earth, we always plant our feet carefully, because we know that the faces of future generations are looking up at us from beneath the ground. We never forget them.
Earth Day Pledge (1993)
Science quotes on:  |  Beneath (68)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Decision (98)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Face (214)  |  Foot (65)  |  Forget (125)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Ground (222)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mother (116)  |  Never (1089)  |  Plant (320)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Way Of Life (15)

Is evolution a theory, a system or a hypothesis? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforth if they are to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow. ... The consciousness of each of us is evolution looking at itself and reflecting upon itself....Man is not the center of the universe as once we thought in our simplicity, but something much more wonderful—the arrow pointing the way to the final unification of the world in terms of life. Man alone constitutes the last-born, the freshest, the most complicated, the most subtle of all the successive layers of life. ... The universe has always been in motion and at this moment continues to be in motion. But will it still be in motion tomorrow? ... What makes the world in which we live specifically modern is our discovery in it and around it of evolution. ... Thus in all probability, between our modern earth and the ultimate earth, there stretches an immense period, characterized not by a slowing-down but a speeding up and by the definitive florescence of the forces of evolution along the line of the human shoot.
In The Phenomenon of Man (1975), pp 218, 220, 223, 227, 228, 277.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Arrow (22)  |  Bow (15)  |  Center (35)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Continue (179)  |  Curve (49)  |  Definitive (3)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Final (121)  |  Follow (389)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Immense (89)  |  Last (425)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Line (100)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modern (402)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Must (1525)  |  Period (200)  |  Pointing (4)  |  Probability (135)  |  Reflecting (3)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Shoot (21)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Something (718)  |  Still (614)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Successive (73)  |  System (545)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thinkable (5)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  True (239)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unification (11)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

It is always, our eyes alone, our way of looking at things. Nature alone knows what she means now, and what she had meant in the past.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 203.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Eye (440)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Past (355)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)

It is incumbent upon us to keep training and pruning the tree of knowledge without looking to the right or the left.
From United States Bureau of Animal Industry, 'Investigations of Diseases of Domesticated Animals', Annual Report: Fiscal Years 1895 and 1896 (1897), Vol. 12, 150.
Science quotes on:  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Left (15)  |  Prune (7)  |  Pruning (7)  |  Right (473)  |  Train (118)  |  Training (92)  |  Tree (269)  |  Tree Of Knowledge (8)

It is reported of Margaret Fuller that she said she accepted the universe. “Gad, she'd better!” retorted Carlyle. Carlyle himself did not accept the universe in a very whole-hearted manner. Looking up at the midnight stars, he exclaimed: “A sad spectacle! If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly; if they be na inhabited, what a waste of space!”
Opening paragraph of book of collected essays, Accepting the Universe (1920), 3. “‘I accept the universe’ is reported to have been a favorite utterance of our New England transcendentalist, Margaret Fuller…” was stated by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), 41. James continues, “and when some one repeated this phrase to Thomas Carlyle, his sardonic comment is said to have been: ‘Gad! she'd better!’” Note that James does not here merge Carlyle's remark about the universe. Burroughs’ attribution of the “sad spectacle” quote is, so far, the earliest found by the Webmaster, who has not located it in a printed work by Carlisle himself. If you know a primary source, or earlier attribution, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Better (493)  |  Exclaim (15)  |  Exclamation (3)  |  Folly (44)  |  Margaret Fuller (3)  |  Heart (243)  |  Himself (461)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Midnight (12)  |  Misery (31)  |  Report (42)  |  Retort (3)  |  Sadness (36)  |  Scope (44)  |  Space (523)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Universe (900)  |  Waste (109)  |  Whole (756)

It is the constant attempt in this country [Canada] to make fundamental science responsive to the marketplace. Because technology needs science, it is tempting to require that scientific projects be justified in terms of the worth of the technology they can be expected to generate. The effect of applying this criterion is, however, to restrict science to developed fields where the links to technology are most evident. By continually looking for a short-term payoff we disqualify the sort of science that … attempts to answer fundamental questions, and, having answered them, suggests fundamentally new approaches in the realm of applications.
'A Scientist and the World He Lives In', Speech to the Empire Club of Canada (27 Nov 1986) in C. Frank Turner and Tim Dickson (eds.), The Empire Club of Canada Speeches 1986-1987 (1987), 149-161.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Application (257)  |  Approach (112)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Canada (6)  |  Constant (148)  |  Country (269)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Develop (278)  |  Disqualification (2)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evident (92)  |  Expect (203)  |  Field (378)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Marketplace (4)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Payoff (3)  |  Project (77)  |  Question (649)  |  Realm (87)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Responsiveness (2)  |  Restriction (14)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Short (200)  |  Short-Term (3)  |  Technology (281)  |  Tempting (10)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Worth (172)

It’s becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only laboratory where sufficiently extreme conditions are ever achieved to test new ideas on particle physics. The energies in the Big Bang were far higher than we can ever achieve on Earth. So by looking at evidence for the Big Bang, and by studying things like neutron stars, we are in effect learning something about fundamental physics.
From editted transcript of BBC Radio 3 interview, collected in Lewis Wolpert and Alison Richards, A Passion For Science (1988), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Bang (29)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Condition (362)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Energy (373)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Idea (881)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Learning (291)  |  Neutron (23)  |  Neutron Star (3)  |  New (1273)  |  Particle (200)  |  Particle Physics (13)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Sense (785)  |  Something (718)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)

It’s misleading to suppose there’s any basic difference between education & entertainment. This distinction merely relieves people of the responsibility of looking into the matter.
In 'Classroom Without Walls', Explorations (May 1957), No. 7. Collected in Edmund Carpenter and Marshall McLuhan (eds.), Explorations in Communication, an Anthology (1960), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Education (423)  |  Entertainment (19)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mislead (6)  |  Misleading (21)  |  People (1031)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Suppose (158)

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Gift (105)  |  Joy (117)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)

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)  |  Hear (144)  |  Image (97)  |  Impression (118)  |  Insight (107)  |  Inspection (7)  |  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)

Laws of Serendi[ity:
(1) In order to discover anything, you must be looking for something.
(2) If you wish to make an improved product, you must already be engaged in making an inferior one.
In Dr. N Sreedharan, Quotations of Wit and Wisdom (2007), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Law (913)  |  Making (300)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Product (166)  |  Something (718)  |  Wish (216)

Looking at the thunder machine which had been set up, I saw not the slightest indication of the presence of electricity. However, while they were putting the food on the table, I obtained extraordinary electric sparks from the wire. My wife and others approached from it, for the reason that I wished to have witnesses see the various colors of fire about which the departed Professor Richmann used to argue with me. Suddenly it thundered most violently at the exact time that I was holding my hand to the metal, and sparks crackled. All fled away from me, and my wife implored that I go away. Curiosity kept me there two or three minutes more, until they told me that the soup was getting cold. By that time the force of electricity greatly subsided. I had sat at table only a few minutes when the man servant of the departed Richmann suddenly opened the door, all in tears and out of breath from fear. I thought that some one had beaten him as he was on his way to me, but he said, with difficulty, that the professor had been injured by thunder… . Nonetheless, Mr. Richmann died a splendid death, fulfilling a duty of his profession.
As quoted in Boris Menshutkin, 'Lomonosov: Excerpts', collected in Thomas Riha (ed.), Readings for Introduction to Russian Civilization (1963), Vol. 2, 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Argue (25)  |  Breath (61)  |  Cold (115)  |  Color (155)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Death (406)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Door (94)  |  Duty (71)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flee (9)  |  Food (213)  |  Force (497)  |  Fulfill (19)  |  Hand (149)  |  Indication (33)  |  Injure (3)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Metal (88)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Presence (63)  |  Profession (108)  |  Professor (133)  |  Reason (766)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Servant (40)  |  Set (400)  |  Soup (10)  |  Spark (32)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Table (105)  |  Tear (48)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wife (41)  |  Wire (36)  |  Wish (216)

Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.
In The Time Machine (1898), 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Distance (171)  |  Drift (14)  |  Dwarf (7)  |  Future (467)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Life (1870)  |  Movement (162)  |  Past (355)  |  Slow (108)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Unfathomable (11)  |  Unknown (195)

Looking back … over the long and labyrinthine path which finally led to the discovery [of the quantum theory], I am vividly reminded of Goethe’s saying that men will always be making mistakes as long as they are striving after something.
From Nobel Prize acceptance speech (2 Jun 1920), as quoted and translated by James Murphy in 'Introduction: Max Planck: a Biographical Sketch', in Max Planck and James Murphy (trans.), Where is Science Going (1932), 23. This passage of Planck’s speech is translated very differently for the Nobel Committee. See elsewhere on this web page, beginning, “When I look back…”.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Error (339)  |  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (150)  |  Labyrinth (12)  |  Lead (391)  |  Long (778)  |  Making (300)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Path (159)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Reminded (2)  |  Something (718)  |  Strive (53)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Vividly (11)  |  Will (2350)

Looking back across the long cycles of change through which the land has been shaped into its present form, let us realise that these geographical revolutions are not events wholly of the dim past, but that they are still in progress. So slow and measured has been their march, that even from the earliest times of human history they seem hardly to have advanced at all. But none the less are they surely and steadily transpiring around us. In the fall of rain and the flow of rivers, in the bubble of springs and the silence of frost, in the quiet creep of glaciers and the tumultuous rush of ocean waves, in the tremor of the earthquake and the outburst of the volcano, we may recognise the same play of terrestrial forces by which the framework of the continents has been step by step evolved.
Lecture at the Evening Meeting, Royal Geographical Society (24 Mar 1879), 'Discussion on Geographical Evolution', in Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record (1879), New Monthly Series, 1, 443.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Change (639)  |  Continent (79)  |  Creep (15)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Eruption (10)  |  Event (222)  |  Fall (243)  |  Flow (89)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Framework (33)  |  From The Earliest Times (2)  |  Frost (15)  |  Glacier (17)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Long (778)  |  March (48)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Past (355)  |  Present (630)  |  Progress (492)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Rain (70)  |  Revolution (133)  |  River (140)  |  Silence (62)  |  Slow (108)  |  Spring (140)  |  Step (234)  |  Step By Step (11)  |  Still (614)  |  Surely (101)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tremor (3)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wholly (88)

Looking back over the geological record it would seem that Nature made nearly every possible mistake before she reached her greatest achievement Man—or perhaps some would say her worst mistake of all. ... At last she tried a being of no great size, almost defenseless, defective in at least one of the more important sense organs; one gift she bestowed to save him from threatened extinction—a certain stirring, a restlessness, in the organ called the brain.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Back (395)  |  Bad (185)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bestow (18)  |  Brain (281)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Defective (4)  |  Defenseless (3)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Geological Record (2)  |  Gift (105)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Important (229)  |  Last (425)  |  Least (75)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Organ (118)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reach (286)  |  Record (161)  |  Restlessness (8)  |  Save (126)  |  Say (989)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sense (785)  |  Size (62)  |  Stir (23)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Try (296)  |  Worst (57)

Looking back over the last thousand years, one can divide the development of the machine and the machine civilization into three successive but over-lapping and interpenetrating phases: eotechnic, paleotechnic, neotechnic … Speaking in terms of power and characteristic materials, the eotechnic phase is a water-and-wood complex: the paleotechnic phase is a coal-and-wood complex… The dawn-age of our modern technics stretches roughly from the year 1000 to 1750. It did not, of course, come suddenly to an end in the middle of the eighteenth century. A new movement appeared in industrial society which had been gathering headway almost unnoticed from the fifteenth century on: after 1750 industry passed into a new phase, with a different source of power, different materials, different objectives.
Technics and Civilisation (1934), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  Age (509)  |  Back (395)  |  Century (319)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Coal (64)  |  Complex (202)  |  Course (413)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Divide (77)  |  End (603)  |  Gathering (23)  |  Headway (2)  |  Industry (159)  |  Last (425)  |  Machine (271)  |  Material (366)  |  Modern (402)  |  Movement (162)  |  New (1273)  |  Objective (96)  |  Paleotechnic (2)  |  Pass (241)  |  Phase (37)  |  Power (771)  |  Society (350)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Successive (73)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Technics (2)  |  Technology (281)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Water (503)  |  Wood (97)  |  Year (963)

Looking down on this great metropolis, the ingenuity with which we continue to reshape our planet is very striking. It’s also sobering. It reminds me of just how easy it is for us to lose our connection with the natural world. Yet it is on this connection that the future of both humanity and the natural world will depend.
From BBC TV series Planet Earth II, while at London from the top of a skyscraper. As quoted in interview with Joe Shute, 'David Attenborough at 90: ‘I think about my mortality every day’', The Telegraph (29 Oct 2016).
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Connection (171)  |  Continue (179)  |  Depend (238)  |  Down (455)  |  Easy (213)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Look (584)  |  Lose (165)  |  Metropolis (2)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural World (33)  |  Planet (402)  |  Reshape (5)  |  Striking (48)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Looking outward to the blackness of space, sprinkled with the glory of a universe of lights, I saw majesty—but no welcome. Below was a welcoming planet. There, contained in the thin, moving, incredibly fragile shell of the biosphere is everything that is dear to you, all the human drama and comedy. That’s where life is; that’s where all the good stuff is.
Observation as payload specialist on the Challenger Eight space shuttle mission. As quoted in Kevin W. Kelley (ed.), The Home Planet (1988), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Biosphere (14)  |  Black (46)  |  Comedy (4)  |  Drama (24)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fragile (26)  |  Glory (66)  |  Good (906)  |  Human (1512)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Majesty (21)  |  Planet (402)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Shell (69)  |  Space (523)  |  Sprinkle (3)  |  Stuff (24)  |  Universe (900)  |  Welcome (20)

Looking through the telescope, one saw a circle of deep blue and the little round planet swimming in the field. It seemed such a little thing, so bright and small and still, faintly marked with transverse stripes, and slightly flattened from the perfect round. But so little it was, so silvery warm—a pin’s-head of light! It was as if it quivered, but really this was the telescope vibrating with the activity of the clockwork that kept the planet in view.
As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller and to advance and recede, but that was simply that my eye was tired. Forty millions of miles it was from us—more than forty millions of miles of void. Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims.
The War of the Worlds (1898), editted by Frank D. McConnell (1977), 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Advance (298)  |  Bright (81)  |  Circle (117)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dust (68)  |  Eye (440)  |  Field (378)  |  Grow (247)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mars (47)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  People (1031)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Pin (20)  |  Planet (402)  |  Recede (11)  |  Saw (160)  |  Small (489)  |  Still (614)  |  Swim (32)  |  Swimming (19)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Void (31)  |  Warm (74)  |  Watch (118)

Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye. He must look through and beyond her, to look at her is fatal as to look at the head of Medusa. It turns the man of science to stone. I feel that I am dissipated by so many observations. I should be the magnet in the midst of all this dust and filings.
From Journal entry (23 Mar 1953), in Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), Journal (1906), Vol. 5, 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Afford (19)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Directly (25)  |  Dust (68)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feel (371)  |  Look (584)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Only (2)  |  Side (236)  |  Stone (168)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)

Man is the highest product of his own history. The discoverer finds nothing so grand or tall as himself, nothing so valuable to him. The greatest star is at the small end of the telescope, the star that is looking, not looked after nor looked at.
In Theodore Parker and Rufus Leighton (ed.), Lessons from the World of Matter and the World of Man: Selected from Notes of Unpublished Sermons (1865), 70.
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  End (603)  |  Find (1014)  |  Grand (29)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Highest (19)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Product (166)  |  Small (489)  |  Star (460)  |  Tall (11)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Value (393)

Mankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.
Karl Marx
In Karl Marx and N.I. Stone (trans.), A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1904), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Arise (162)  |  Condition (362)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find (1014)  |  Formation (100)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Will (2350)

Mars was surprising in its way but not flabbergasting; it was a disappointment not to find evidences of life, and there was some sadness in the pictures sent back to earth from the Mars Lander, that lonely long-legged apparatus poking about with its jointed arm, picking up sample after sample of the barren Mars soil, looking for any flicker of life and finding none; the only sign of life on Mars was the Lander itself, an extension of the human mind all the way from earth to Mars, totally alone.
In Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony (1984), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Arm (82)  |  Back (395)  |  Barren (33)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extension (60)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flicker (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Joint (31)  |  Leg (35)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Long (778)  |  Mars (47)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Pick (16)  |  Picture (148)  |  Poke (5)  |  Sadness (36)  |  Sample (19)  |  Send (23)  |  Sign (63)  |  Soil (98)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Totally (6)  |  Way (1214)

Neurophysiologists will not likely find what they are looking for, for that which they are looking for is that which is looking.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Find (1014)  |  Likely (36)  |  Will (2350)

New sources of power … will surely be discovered. Nuclear energy is incomparably greater than the molecular energy we use today. The coal a man can get in a day can easily do five hundred times as much work as himself. Nuclear energy is at least one million times more powerful still. If the hydrogen atoms in a pound of water could be prevailed upon to combine and form helium, they would suffice to drive a thousand-horsepower engine for a whole year. If the electrons, those tiny planets of the atomic systems, were induced to combine with the nuclei in hydrogen, the horsepower would be 120 times greater still. There is no question among scientists that this gigantic source of energy exists. What is lacking is the match to set the bonfire alight, or it may be the detonator to cause the dynamite to explode. The scientists are looking for this.
[In his last major speech to the House of Commons on 1 Mar 1955, Churchill quoted from his original printed article, nearly 25 years earlier.]
'Fifty Years Hence'. Strand Magazine (Dec 1931). Reprinted in Popular Mechanics (Mar 1932), 57:3, 395.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Cause (561)  |  Coal (64)  |  Combine (58)  |  Common (447)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dynamite (8)  |  Electron (96)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explode (15)  |  Form (976)  |  Fusion (16)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Greater (288)  |  Helium (11)  |  Himself (461)  |  House (143)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Last (425)  |  Major (88)  |  Man (2252)  |  Match (30)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearly (137)  |  New (1273)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Bomb (6)  |  Nuclear Energy (18)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Set (400)  |  Speech (66)  |  Still (614)  |  Surely (101)  |  System (545)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Today (321)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Nothing afflicted Marcellus so much as the death of Archimedes, who was then, as fate would have it, intent upon working out some problem by a diagram, and having fixed his mind alike and his eyes upon the subject of his speculation, he never noticed the incursion of the Romans, nor that the city was taken. In this transport of study and contemplation, a soldier, unexpectedly coming up to him, commanded him to follow to Marcellus, which he declined to do before he had worked out his problem to a demonstration; the soldier, enraged, drew his sword and ran him through. Others write, that a Roman soldier, running upon him with a drawn sword, offered to kill him; and that Archimedes, looking back, earnestly besought him to hold his hand a little while, that he might not leave what he was at work upon inconclusive and imperfect; but the soldier, nothing moved by his entreaty, instantly killed him. Others again relate, that as Archimedes was carrying to Marcellus mathematical instruments, dials, spheres, and angles, by which the magnitude of the sun might be measured to the sight, some soldiers seeing him, and thinking that he carried gold in a vessel, slew him. Certain it is, that his death was very afflicting to Marcellus; and that Marcellus ever after regarded him that killed him as a murderer; and that he sought for his kindred and honoured them with signal favours.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Afflict (4)  |  Alike (60)  |  Angle (25)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Back (395)  |  Beseech (3)  |  Carry (130)  |  Certain (557)  |  City (87)  |  Coming (114)  |  Command (60)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Death (406)  |  Decline (28)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Dial (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Earnestly (4)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fate (76)  |  Favor (69)  |  Fix (34)  |  Follow (389)  |  Gold (101)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hold (96)  |  Honour (58)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Inconclusive (3)  |  Incursion (2)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Intent (9)  |  Kill (100)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Leave (138)  |  Little (717)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Marcellus (2)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Move (223)  |  Murderer (4)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Regard (312)  |  Relate (26)  |  Roman (39)  |  Run (158)  |  Running (61)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Seek (218)  |  Sight (135)  |  Signal (29)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sword (16)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Through (846)  |  Transport (31)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)

Nothing afflicted Marcellus so much as the death of Archimedes, who was then, as fate would have it, intent upon working out some problem by a diagram, and having fixed his mind alike and his eyes upon the subject of his speculation, he never noticed the incursion of the Romans, nor that the city was taken. In this transport of study and contemplation, a soldier, unexpectedly coming up to him, commanded him to follow to Marcellus, which he declined to do before he had worked out his problem to a demonstration; the soldier, enraged, drew his sword and ran him through. Others write, that a Roman soldier, running upon him with a drawn sword, offered to kill him; and that Archimedes, looking back, earnestly besought him to hold his hand a little while, that he might not leave what he was at work upon inconclusive and imperfect; but the soldier, nothing moved by his entreaty, instantly killed him. Others again relate, that as Archimedes was carrying to Marcellus mathematical instruments, dials, spheres, and angles, by which the magnitude of the sun might be measured to the sight, some soldiers seeing him, and thinking that he carried gold in a vessel, slew him. Certain it is, that his death was very afflicting to Marcellus; and that Marcellus ever after regarded him that killed him as a murderer; and that he sought for his kindred and honoured them with signal favours.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Back (395)  |  Certain (557)  |  City (87)  |  Coming (114)  |  Command (60)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Death (406)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Dial (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fate (76)  |  Follow (389)  |  Gold (101)  |  Honour (58)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Kill (100)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Little (717)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Regard (312)  |  Roman (39)  |  Running (61)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sight (135)  |  Signal (29)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Through (846)  |  Transport (31)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)

October 9, 1863
Always, however great the height of the balloon, when I have seen the horizon it has roughly appeared to be on the level of the car though of course the dip of the horizon is a very appreciable quantity or the same height as the eye. From this one might infer that, could the earth be seen without a cloud or anything to obscure it, and the boundary line of the plane approximately the same height as the eye, the general appearance would be that of a slight concavity; but I have never seen any part of the surface of the earth other than as a plane.
Towns and cities, when viewed from the balloon are like models in motion. I shall always remember the ascent of 9th October, 1863, when we passed over London about sunset. At the time when we were 7,000 feet high, and directly over London Bridge, the scene around was one that cannot probably be equalled in the world. We were still so low as not to have lost sight of the details of the spectacle which presented itself to our eyes; and with one glance the homes of 3,000,000 people could be seen, and so distinct was the view, that every large building was easily distinguishable. In fact, the whole of London was visible, and some parts most clearly. All round, the suburbs were also very distinct, with their lines of detached villas, imbedded as it were in a mass of shrubs; beyond, the country was like a garden, its fields, well marked, becoming smaller and smaller as the eye wandered farther and farther away.
Again looking down, there was the Thames, throughout its whole length, without the slightest mist, dotted over its winding course with innumerable ships and steamboats, like moving toys. Gravesend was visible, also the mouth of the Thames, and the coast around as far as Norfolk. The southern shore of the mouth of the Thames was not so clear, but the sea beyond was seen for many miles; when at a higher elevation, I looked for the coast of France, but was unable to see it. On looking round, the eye was arrested by the garden-like appearance of the county of Kent, till again London claimed yet more careful attention.
Smoke, thin and blue, was curling from it, and slowly moving away in beautiful curves, from all except one part, south of the Thames, where it was less blue and seemed more dense, till the cause became evident; it was mixed with mist rising from the ground, the southern limit of which was bounded by an even line, doubtless indicating the meeting of the subsoils of gravel and clay. The whole scene was surmounted by a canopy of blue, everywhere free from cloud, except near the horizon, where a band of cumulus and stratus extended all round, forming a fitting boundary to such a glorious view.
As seen from the earth, the sunset this evening was described as fine, the air being clear and the shadows well defined; but, as we rose to view it and its effects, the golden hues increased in intensity; their richness decreased as the distance from the sun increased, both right and left; but still as far as 90º from the sun, rose-coloured clouds extended. The remainder of the circle was completed, for the most part, by pure white cumulus of well-rounded and symmetrical forms.
I have seen London by night. I have crossed it during the day at the height of four miles. I have often admired the splendour of sky scenery, but never have I seen anything which surpassed this spectacle. The roar of the town heard at this elevation was a deep, rich, continuous sound the voice of labour. At four miles above London, all was hushed; no sound reached our ears.
Travels in the Air (1871), 99-100.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attention (196)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Both (496)  |  Bound (120)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Building (158)  |  Canopy (8)  |  Car (75)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circle (117)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Completed (30)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Country (269)  |  Course (413)  |  Curve (49)  |  Deep (241)  |  Detail (150)  |  Distance (171)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evident (92)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Farther (51)  |  Field (378)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Free (239)  |  Garden (64)  |  General (521)  |  Glance (36)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Golden (47)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  High (370)  |  Home (184)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Limit (294)  |  Look (584)  |  Low (86)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mist (17)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  People (1031)  |  Present (630)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remainder (7)  |  Remember (189)  |  Right (473)  |  Rising (44)  |  Rose (36)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Ship (69)  |  Shrub (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Sound (187)  |  South (39)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Still (614)  |  Suburb (7)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Thames (6)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toy (22)  |  View (496)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wander (44)  |  White (132)  |  Whole (756)  |  Winding (8)  |  World (1850)

Official science is fully committed to the principle of muddling through and not looking beyond the tip of your nose. All past experience, it is said, teaches us to take only one step at a time.
From transcript of BBC radio Reith Lecture (12 Nov 1967), 'A Runaway World', on the bbc.co.uk website.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Commit (43)  |  Experience (494)  |  Muddle (3)  |  Nose (14)  |  Official (8)  |  Past (355)  |  Principle (530)  |  Step (234)  |  Teach (299)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tip (2)

On the way back [from the moon] we had an EVA [extra-vehicular activity, or spacewalk] I had a chance to look around while I was outside and Earth was off to the right, 180,000 miles away, a little thin sliver of blue and white like a new moon surrounded by this blackness of space. Back over my left shoulder was almost a full moon. I didn’t feel like I was a participant. It was like sitting in the last row of the balcony, looking down at all of that play going on down there. I had that insignificant feeling of the immensity of this, God’s creation.
Reflecting on his participation on the Apollo 16 moon mission. Contributed to Kevin W. Kelley (ed.), The Home Planet (1988), unpaginated, with photo 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Back (395)  |  Balcony (2)  |  Blackness (4)  |  Blue (63)  |  Chance (244)  |  Creation (350)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Full (68)  |  God (776)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Last (425)  |  Leave (138)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Mile (43)  |  Moon (252)  |  New (1273)  |  Outside (141)  |  Participant (6)  |  Play (116)  |  Right (473)  |  Row (9)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Sliver (2)  |  Space (523)  |  Surround (33)  |  Thin (18)  |  Way (1214)  |  White (132)

Once the hatch was opened, I turned the lock handle and bright rays of sunlight burst through it. I opened the hatch and dust from the station flew in like little sparklets, looking like tiny snowflakes on a frosty day. Space, like a giant vacuum cleaner, began to suck everything out. Flying out together with the dust were some little washers and nuts that dad got stuck somewhere; a pencil flew by.
My first impression when I opened the hatch was of a huge Earth and of the sense of unreality concerning everything that was going on. Space is very beautiful. There was the dark velvet of the sky, the blue halo of the Earth and fast-moving lakes, rivers, fields and clouds clusters. It was dead silence all around, nothing whatever to indicate the velocity of the flight… no wind whistling in your ears, no pressure on you. The panorama was very serene and majestic.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Begin (275)  |  Blue (63)  |  Bright (81)  |  Burst (41)  |  Clean (52)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Cluster (16)  |  Concern (239)  |  Dad (4)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dead (65)  |  Dust (68)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everything (489)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Frosty (3)  |  Giant (73)  |  Halo (7)  |  Handle (29)  |  Hatch (4)  |  Huge (30)  |  Impression (118)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Lake (36)  |  Little (717)  |  Lock (14)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nut (7)  |  Open (277)  |  Panorama (5)  |  Pencil (20)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Ray (115)  |  River (140)  |  Sense (785)  |  Serene (5)  |  Silence (62)  |  Sky (174)  |  Snowflake (15)  |  Space (523)  |  Station (30)  |  Stick (27)  |  Suck (8)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Through (846)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Together (392)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unreality (3)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Velvet (4)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whistle (3)  |  Wind (141)

One can say, looking at the papers in this symposium, that the elucidation of the genetic code is indeed a great achievement. It is, in a sense, the key to molecular biology because it shows how the great polymer languages, the nucleic acid language and the protein language, are linked together.
'The Genetic Code: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow', Cold Spring Harbour Symposium on Quantitative Biology, 1966, 31, 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Acid (83)  |  Biology (232)  |  Code (31)  |  DNA (81)  |  Elucidation (7)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Great (1610)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Language (308)  |  Molecular Biology (27)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Paper (192)  |  Polymer (4)  |  Protein (56)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Show (353)  |  Together (392)

One of the first and foremost duties of the teacher is not to give his students the impression that mathematical problems have little connection with each other, and no connection at all with anything else. We have a natural opportunity to investigate the connections of a problem when looking back at its solution.
In How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method (2004), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Connection (171)  |  Duty (71)  |  First (1302)  |  Foremost (11)  |  Giving (11)  |  Impression (118)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Natural (810)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Solution (282)  |  Student (317)  |  Teacher (154)

One of the memorable moments of my life was when Willard Libby came to Princeton with a little jar full of crystals of barium xenate. A stable compound, looking like common salt, but much heavier. This was the magic of chemistry, to see xenon trapped into a crystal.
Letter to Oliver Sacks. Quoted in Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (2001), footnote, 203.
Science quotes on:  |  Barium (4)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Common (447)  |  Compound (117)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Jar (9)  |  Willard Frank Libby (5)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Magic (92)  |  Memorable (4)  |  Moment (260)  |  Noble Gas (4)  |  Princeton (4)  |  Salt (48)  |  See (1094)  |  Stable (32)  |  Trap (7)  |  Visit (27)  |  Xenon (5)

One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.
Quoted, without source, in Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao, Statistics and Truth (1989), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Discovery (837)  |  Find (1014)  |  Luck (44)

Our educational system is like an automobile which has strong rear lights, brightly illuminating the past. But looking forward things are barely discernible.
As quoted by his daughter, as given in Marsha Freeman, How We Got to the Moon: The Story of the German Space Pioneers (1993), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Automobile (23)  |  Barely (5)  |  Bright (81)  |  Discernible (9)  |  Education (423)  |  Forward (104)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Light (635)  |  Past (355)  |  Rear (7)  |  Strong (182)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)

Arthur Stanley Eddington quote: Our story of evolution ended with a stirring in the brain-organ of the latest of Nature’s experi
Our story of evolution ended with a stirring in the brain-organ of the latest of Nature’s experiments; but that stirring of consciousness transmutes the whole story and gives meaning to its symbolism. Symbolically it is the end, but looking behind the symbolism it is the beginning.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Behind (139)  |  Brain (281)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  End (603)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organ (118)  |  Story (122)  |  Whole (756)

People declare as much, without, apparently, looking into the matter very closely. They seem able to dispense with the conscientious observer’s scruples, when inflating their bladder of theory.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparently (22)  |  Bladder (3)  |  Closely (12)  |  Conscientious (7)  |  Declare (48)  |  Dispense (10)  |  Matter (821)  |  Observer (48)  |  People (1031)  |  Scruple (2)  |  Seem (150)  |  Theory (1015)

People have been looking up at the skies for 10,000 years, wondering and dreaming. I hope we always do.
As quoted by Howard Wilkinson in 'John Glenn Had the Stuff U.S. Heroes are Made of', The Cincinnati Enquirer (20 Feb 2002)
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Hope (321)  |  Look (584)  |  People (1031)  |  Sky (174)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Year (963)

People looked at glaciers for thousands of years before they found out that ice was a fluid, so it has taken them and will continue to take them not less before they see that the inorganic is not wholly inorganic.
In Samuel Butler and Henry Festing Jones (ed.), 'Mind and Matter', The Note-books of Samuel Butler (1912, 1917), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Continue (179)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Glacier (17)  |  Ice (58)  |  Inorganic (14)  |  Look (584)  |  People (1031)  |  See (1094)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

People say to me, “Are you looking for the ultimate laws of physics?” No, I’m not; I’m just looking to find out more about the world and if it turns out there is a simple ultimate law which explains everything, so be it; that would be very nice to discover. If it turns out it’s like an onion with millions of layers, and we’re just sick and tired of looking at the layers, then that’s the way it is …
From Interview in BBC TV program Horizon (1981). As quoted in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman 1983, (1999), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Discover (571)  |  Everything (489)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Find (1014)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Law (913)  |  Layer (41)  |  Million (124)  |  More (2558)  |  Onion (9)  |  People (1031)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Say (989)  |  Sick (83)  |  Simple (426)  |  Turn (454)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

Perhaps the earliest memories I have are of being a stubborn, determined child. Through the years my mother has told me that it was fortunate that I chose to do acceptable things, for if I had chosen otherwise no one could have deflected me from my path. ... The Chairman of the Physics Department, looking at this record, could only say 'That A- confirms that women do not do well at laboratory work'. But I was no longer a stubborn, determined child, but rather a stubborn, determined graduate student. The hard work and subtle discrimination were of no moment.
Autobiography, Nobel Foundation
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptable (14)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biography (254)  |  Child (333)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Department (93)  |  Discrimination (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Graduate Student (13)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Moment (260)  |  Mother (116)  |  Path (159)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Record (161)  |  Say (989)  |  Stubborn (14)  |  Student (317)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Practical application is found by not looking for it, and one can say that the whole progress of civilization rests on that principle.
In An Essay on the Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field (1945), 124.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Find (1014)  |  Practical (225)  |  Principle (530)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Whole (756)

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Doing (277)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Quality (139)  |  Right (473)

Recollections [his autobiographical work] might possibly interest my children or their children. I know that it would have interested me greatly to have read even so short and dull a sketch of the mind of my grandfather, written by himself, and what he thought and did, and how he worked. I have attempted to write the following account of myself as if I were a dead man in another world looking back at my own life. Nor have I found this difficult, for life is nearly over with me.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Back (395)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Dead (65)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dull (58)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Himself (461)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Read (308)  |  Recollection (12)  |  Short (200)  |  Sketch (8)  |  Thought (995)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)

Rejoice when other scientists do not believe what you know to be true. It will give you extra time to work on it in peace. When they start claiming that they have discovered it before you, look for a new project.
'Resolution and Reconstitution of Biological Pathways from 1919 to 1984', Federation Proceedings (1983), 12, 2902.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Claiming (8)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Extra (7)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Look (584)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peace (116)  |  Project (77)  |  Rejoicing (2)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Start (237)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Remember the Three Princes of Serendip who went out looking for treasure? They didn't find what they were looking for, but they kept finding things just as valuable. That's serendipity, and our business [drugs] is full of it.
'What the Doctor Ordered&#-30;, Time (18 Aug 1952)
Science quotes on:  |  Business (156)  |  Drug (61)  |  Find (1014)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Remember (189)  |  Research (753)  |  Serendipity (17)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Treasure (59)

Scientists have come up with a fantastic invention for looking through solid walls. It’s called a window.
Anonymous
Found feral on the web attributed (spuriously?) to Richard Feynmann, but Webmaster has not yet found a primary source for Feynmann saying or writing this.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  Invention (400)  |  Joke (90)  |  Optics (24)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Solid (119)  |  Through (846)  |  Wall (71)  |  Window (59)

Several days after looking at the Earth a childish thought occurred to me - that we the cosmonauts are being deceived. If we are the first ones in space, then who was it who made the globe correctly? Then this thought was replaced by pride in the human capacity to see with our mind.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Childish (20)  |  Correctly (4)  |  Cosmonaut (5)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Earth (1076)  |  First (1302)  |  Globe (51)  |  Human (1512)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Occur (151)  |  Pride (84)  |  Replace (32)  |  See (1094)  |  Several (33)  |  Space (523)  |  Thought (995)

Standing now in diffused light, with the wind at my back, I experience suddenly a feeling of completeness–not a feeling of having achieved something or of being stronger than everyone who was ever here before, not a feeling of having arrived at the ultimate point, not a feeling of supremacy. Just a breath of happiness deep inside my mind and my breast. The summit seemed suddenly to me to be a refuge, and I had not expected to find any refuge up here. Looking at the steep, sharp ridges below us, I have the impression that to have come later would have been too late. Everything we now say to one another, we only say out of embarrassment. I don’t think anymore. As I pull the tape recorder, trancelike, from my rucksack, and switch it on wanting to record a few appropriate phrases, tears again well into my eyes. “Now we are on the summit of Everest,” I begin, “it is so cold that we cannot take photographs…” I cannot go on, I am immediately shaken with sobs. I can neither talk nor think, feeling only how this momentous experience changes everything. To reach only a few meters below the summit would have required the same amount of effort, the same anxiety and burden of sorrow, but a feeling like this, an eruption of feeling, is only possible on the summit itself.
In Everest: Expedition to the Ultimate (1979), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Amount (153)  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Anymore (5)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Back (395)  |  Begin (275)  |  Being (1276)  |  Below (26)  |  Breast (9)  |  Breath (61)  |  Burden (30)  |  Change (639)  |  Cold (115)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Deep (241)  |  Diffuse (5)  |  Effort (243)  |  Embarrassment (5)  |  Eruption (10)  |  Everest (10)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Find (1014)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inside (30)  |  Late (119)  |  Light (635)  |  Meter (9)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Momentous (7)  |  Photograph (23)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Pull (43)  |  Reach (286)  |  Record (161)  |  Recorder (5)  |  Refuge (15)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Ridge (9)  |  Rucksack (3)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Seem (150)  |  Shake (43)  |  Sharp (17)  |  Something (718)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Stand (284)  |  Steep (7)  |  Strong (182)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Summit (27)  |  Supremacy (4)  |  Switch (10)  |  Talk (108)  |  Tape (5)  |  Tear (48)  |  Think (1122)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Want (504)  |  Wind (141)

Strepsiades: But why do they look so fixedly on the ground?
Disciple of Socrates: They are seeking for what is below the ground. …
Strepsiades: And what is their rump looking at in the heavens?
Disciple: It is studying astronomy on its own account.
In The Clouds, Aristophanes Five Comedies (2003), 129.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ground (222)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Look (584)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Why (491)

Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven.
The Use of Life (1895), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Gate (33)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Through (846)

Talent deals with the actual, with discovered and realized truths, any analyzing, arranging, combining, applying positive knowledge, and, in action, looking to precedents. Genius deals with the possible, creates new combinations, discovers new laws, and acts from an insight into new principles.
In 'Genius', Wellman’s Miscellany (Dec 1871), 4, No. 6, 203.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Actual (118)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Applying (3)  |  Arranging (3)  |  Combination (150)  |  Create (245)  |  Deal (192)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Genius (301)  |  Insight (107)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  New (1273)  |  Positive (98)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precedent (9)  |  Principle (530)  |  Realize (157)  |  Talent (99)  |  Truth (1109)

That many very remarkable change and involuntary motions are sudden produced in the body by various affections of the mind, is undeniably evinced from a number of facts. Thus fear often causes a sudden and uncommon flow of pale urine. Looking much at one troubled with sore eyes, has sometimes affected the spectator with the same disease.—Certain sounds cause a shivering over the whole body.—The noise of a bagpipe has raised in some persons an inclination to make urine.—The sudden appearance of any frightful object, will, in delicate people, cause an uncommon palpitation of the heart.—The sight of an epileptic person agitated with convulsions, has brought on an epilepsy; and yawning is so very catching, as frequently to be propagated through whole companies.
In An Essay on the Vital and Other Involuntary Motions of Animals (1751), 253-254.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Body (557)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Convulsion (5)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Disease (340)  |  Epilepsy (3)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fear (212)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fright (11)  |  Heart (243)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Involuntary (4)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  Noise (40)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Produced (187)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sound (187)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Through (846)  |  Urine (18)  |  Various (205)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Yawn (2)

That’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.
Closing words of many monologues on NPR program, A Prairie Home Companion. As quoted in Sarah Begley, 'Garrison Keillor to Say So Long to Lake Wobegon', Time (20 Jul 2015).
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Good (906)  |  Lake (36)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Strong (182)  |  Woman (160)

The appearance of Professor Benjamin Peirce, whose long gray hair, straggling grizzled beard and unusually bright eyes sparkling under a soft felt hat, as he walked briskly but rather ungracefully across the college yard, fitted very well with the opinion current among us that we were looking upon a real live genius, who had a touch of the prophet in his make-up.
Writing as a Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, a former student of Peirce, in 'Benjamin Peirce: II. Reminiscences', The American Mathematical Monthly (Jan 1925), 32, No. 1, 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Beard (8)  |  Biography (254)  |  Bright (81)  |  Briskly (2)  |  College (71)  |  Current (122)  |  Eye (440)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gray (9)  |  Hair (25)  |  Hat (9)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Benjamin Peirce (11)  |  Professor (133)  |  Prophet (22)  |  Soft (30)  |  Sparkling (7)  |  Touch (146)  |  Walk (138)  |  Yard (10)

The assumptions of population thinking are diametrically opposed to those of the typologist. The populationist stresses the uniqueness of everything in the organic world. What is true for the human species,–that no two individuals are alike, is equally true for all other species of animals and plants ... All organisms and organic phenomena are composed of unique features and can be described collectively only in statistical terms. Individuals, or any kind of organic entities, form populations of which we can determine the arithmetic mean and the statistics of variation. Averages are merely statistical abstractions, only the individuals of which the populations are composed have reality. The ultimate conclusions of the population thinker and of the typologist are precisely the opposite. For the typologist, the type (eidos) is real and the variation. an illusion, while for the populationist the type (average) is an abstraction and only the variation is real. No two ways of looking at nature could be more different.
Darwin and the Evolutionary Theory in Biology (1959), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Alike (60)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Average (89)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Description (89)  |  Determine (152)  |  Diametrically (6)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Equally (129)  |  Everything (489)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Species (11)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Mean (810)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Population (115)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Reality (274)  |  Species (435)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unique (72)  |  Uniqueness (11)  |  Variation (93)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

The burgeoning field of computer science has shifted our view of the physical world from that of a collection of interacting material particles to one of a seething network of information. In this way of looking at nature, the laws of physics are a form of software, or algorithm, while the material world—the hardware—plays the role of a gigantic computer.
'Laying Down the Laws', New Scientist. In Clifford A. Pickover, Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them (2008), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Algorithm (5)  |  Burgeoning (2)  |  Collection (68)  |  Computer (131)  |  Computer Science (11)  |  Field (378)  |  Form (976)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Hardware (3)  |  Information (173)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Law (913)  |  Look (584)  |  Material (366)  |  Material World (8)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Network (21)  |  Particle (200)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Physics (564)  |  Role (86)  |  Seething (3)  |  Shift (45)  |  Software (14)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

The colors are stunning. In a single view, I see - looking out at the edge of the earth: red at the horizon line, blending to orange and yellow, followed by a thin white line, then light blue, gradually turning to dark blue and various gradually darker shades of gray, then black and a million stars above. It’s breathtaking.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Black (46)  |  Blend (9)  |  Blue (63)  |  Breathtaking (4)  |  Color (155)  |  Dark (145)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Edge (51)  |  Follow (389)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Gray (9)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Light (635)  |  Line (100)  |  Million (124)  |  Orange (15)  |  Red (38)  |  See (1094)  |  Shade (35)  |  Single (365)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Stunning (4)  |  Thin (18)  |  Turn (454)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  White (132)  |  Yellow (31)

The elements of human nature are the learning rules, emotional reinforcers, and hormonal feedback loops that guide the development of social behaviour into certain channels as opposed to others. Human nature is not just the array of outcomes attained in existing societies. It is also the potential array that might be achieved through conscious design by future societies. By looking over the realized social systems of hundreds of animal species and deriving the principles by which these systems have evolved, we can be certain that all human choices represent only a tiny subset of those theoretically possible. Human nature is, moreover, a hodgepodge of special genetic adaptations to an environment largely vanished, the world of the Ice­Age hunter-gatherer.
In On Human Nature (1978), 196.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Attain (126)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Certain (557)  |  Choice (114)  |  Design (203)  |  Development (441)  |  Element (322)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Environment (239)  |  Feedback (10)  |  Future (467)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hormone (11)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Hunter-Gatherer (2)  |  Ice (58)  |  Ice Age (10)  |  Learning (291)  |  Loop (6)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Potential (75)  |  Principle (530)  |  Represent (157)  |  Rule (307)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  System (545)  |  Through (846)  |  Tiny (74)  |  World (1850)

The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will never understand what he finds.
Attributed. Also seen as, “He who does not know what he is looking for will not lay hold of what he has found when he gets it.” If you know a primary source, perhaps in the original French, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Find (1014)  |  Know (1538)  |  Never (1089)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

The geologist strides across the landscape to get the big picture, but the paleontologist stays at one spot or shuffles along looking at the ground for his pet objects.
'Fossils—The How and Why of Collecting and Storing', Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington (1969), 82, 590.
Science quotes on:  |  Geologist (82)  |  Ground (222)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Look (584)  |  Object (438)  |  Paleontologist (19)  |  Pet (10)  |  Picture (148)  |  Shuffle (7)  |  Spot (19)  |  Stride (15)

The girls are all giggling, then one girl suddenly remembers
the wild goat. Up there, on the hilltop, in the woods
and rocky ravines, the peasants saw him butting his head
against the trees, looking for the nannies. He’s gone wild,
and the reason why is this: if you don’t make an animal work,
if you keep him only for stud, he likes to hurt, he kills.

From Poem, 'The Goat God', Hard Labor (1936, 1976), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Animal (651)  |  Butt (2)  |  Girl (38)  |  Goat (9)  |  Head (87)  |  Hurt (14)  |  Keep (104)  |  Kill (100)  |  Peasant (9)  |  Ravine (5)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remember (189)  |  Rocky (3)  |  Saw (160)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Tree (269)  |  Why (491)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wood (97)  |  Work (1402)

The historian of science may be tempted to claim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. even more important, during revolutions, scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before. It is rather as if the professional community had been suddenly transported to another planet where familiar objects are seen in a different light and are joined by unfamiliar ones as well.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962, 2nd ed. 1970). Excerpt 'Revolutions as Changes of World View', in Joseph Margolis and Jacques Catudal, The Quarrel between Invariance and Flux (2001), 35-36.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Claim (154)  |  Community (111)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Historian (59)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Paradigm (16)  |  Place (192)  |  Planet (402)  |  Profession (108)  |  Professional (77)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Temptation (14)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transport (31)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Unfamiliar (17)  |  Unfamiliarity (5)  |  World (1850)

The history of acceptance of new theories frequently shows the following steps: At first the new idea is treated as pure nonsense, not worth looking at. Then comes a time when a multitude of contradictory objections are raised, such as: the new theory is too fancy, or merely a new terminology; it is not fruitful, or simply wrong. Finally a state is reached when everyone seems to claim that he had always followed this theory. This usually marks the last state before general acceptance.
In 'Field Theory and the Phase Space', collected in Melvin Herman Marx, Psychological Theory: Contemporary Readings (1951), 299.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Claim (154)  |  Contradictory (8)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Finally (26)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Following (16)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  General (521)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Last (425)  |  Merely (315)  |  Multitude (50)  |  New (1273)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Objection (34)  |  Pure (299)  |  Raised (3)  |  Reach (286)  |  Show (353)  |  State (505)  |  Step (234)  |  Terminology (12)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Usually (176)  |  Worth (172)  |  Wrong (246)

The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed.’
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Appear (122)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Area (33)  |  Arise (162)  |  Change (639)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Feature (49)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fossil Record (12)  |  Fully (20)  |  Gradually (102)  |  History (716)  |  Include (93)  |  Inconsistent (9)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Local (25)  |  Morphological (3)  |  Most (1728)  |  Particularly (21)  |  Record (161)  |  Same (166)  |  Species (435)  |  Steady (45)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Tenure (8)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Two (936)  |  Usually (176)

The human mind prefers something which it can recognize to something for which it has no name, and, whereas thousands of persons carry field glasses to bring horses, ships, or steeples close to them, only a few carry even the simplest pocket microscope. Yet a small microscope will reveal wonders a thousand times more thrilling than anything which Alice saw behind the looking-glass.
In The World Was My Garden (1938, 1941), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Carry (130)  |  Field (378)  |  Glass (94)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Person (366)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Saw (160)  |  Ship (69)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)

The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis. Everywhere we look, it appears that the world was designed so that we could flourish.
In op-ed, 'A Universe Without Purpose', Los Angeles Times (1 Apr 2012).
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Confrontation (7)  |  Daily (91)  |  Design (203)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Flourishing (6)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Look (584)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pervasive (6)  |  Purpose (336)  |  World (1850)

The last few meters up to the summit no longer seem so hard. On reaching the top, I sit down and let my legs dangle into space. I don’t have to climb anymore. I pull my camera from my rucksack and, in my down mittens, fumble a long time with the batteries before I have it working properly. Then I film Peter. Now, after the hours of torment, which indeed I didn’t recognize as torment, now, when the monotonous motion of plodding upwards is at an end, and I have nothing more to do than breathe, a great peace floods my whole being. I breathe like someone who has run the race of his life and knows that he may now rest forever. I keep looking all around, because the first time I didn’t see anything of the panorama I had expected from Everest, neither indeed did I notice how the wind was continually chasing snow across the summit. In my state of spiritual abstraction, I no longer belong to myself and to my eyesight. I am nothing more than a single, narrow, gasping lung, floating over the mists and the summits.
In Everest: Expedition to the Ultimate (1979), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Across (32)  |  Anymore (5)  |  Battery (12)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Camera (7)  |  Chase (14)  |  Climb (39)  |  Continually (17)  |  Dangle (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Everest (10)  |  Expect (203)  |  Eyesight (5)  |  Film (12)  |  First (1302)  |  First Time (14)  |  Float (31)  |  Flood (52)  |  Forever (111)  |  Gasp (6)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hour (192)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Leg (35)  |  Let (64)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Lung (37)  |  Meter (9)  |  Mist (17)  |  Monotonous (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Myself (211)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Panorama (5)  |  Peace (116)  |  Plod (3)  |  Properly (21)  |  Pull (43)  |  Race (278)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rucksack (3)  |  Run (158)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Single (365)  |  Sit (51)  |  Snow (39)  |  Someone (24)  |  Space (523)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  State (505)  |  Summit (27)  |  Time (1911)  |  Top (100)  |  Torment (18)  |  Upward (44)  |  Upwards (6)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wind (141)  |  Work (1402)

The major credit I think Jim and I deserve … is for selecting the right problem and sticking to it. It’s true that by blundering about we stumbled on gold, but the fact remains that we were looking for gold. Both of us had decided, quite independently of each other, that the central problem in molecular biology was the chemical structure of the gene. … We could not see what the answer was, but we considered it so important that we were determined to think about it long and hard, from any relevant point of view.
In What Mad Pursuit (1990), 74-75.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Biology (232)  |  Both (496)  |  Central (81)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Consider (428)  |  Credit (24)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Gene (105)  |  Gold (101)  |  Hard (246)  |  Importance (299)  |  Independently (24)  |  Long (778)  |  Major (88)  |  Molecular Biology (27)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Problem (731)  |  Remain (355)  |  Right (473)  |  See (1094)  |  Structure (365)  |  Structure Of DNA (5)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Think (1122)  |  View (496)  |  James Watson (33)

The mind God is looking for in man is a doubting, questioning mind, not a dogmatic mind; dogmatic reasoning is wrong reasoning. Dogmatic reason ties a huge rock to a man’s foot and stops him forever from advancing.
From the play Galileo Galilei (2001) .
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Foot (65)  |  Forever (111)  |  God (776)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Progress (492)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Rock (176)  |  Tie (42)  |  Wrong (246)

The other line of argument, which leads to the opposite conclusion, arises from looking at artificial automata. Everyone knows that a machine tool is more complicated than the elements which can be made with it, and that, generally speaking, an automaton A, which can make an automaton B, must contain a complete description of B, and also rules on how to behave while effecting the synthesis. So, one gets a very strong impression that complication, or productive potentiality in an organization, is degenerative, that an organization which synthesizes something is necessarily more complicated, of a higher order, than the organization it synthesizes. This conclusion, arrived at by considering artificial automaton, is clearly opposite to our early conclusion, arrived at by considering living organisms.
From lecture series on self-replicating machines at the University of Illinois, Lecture 5 (Dec 1949), 'Re-evaluation of the Problems of Complicated Automata—Problems of Hierarchy and Evolution', Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata (1966).
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Arise (162)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Automaton (12)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Contain (68)  |  Degenerative (2)  |  Description (89)  |  Early (196)  |  Element (322)  |  Impression (118)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Living (492)  |  Machine (271)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Order (638)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Potentiality (9)  |  Productive (37)  |  Rule (307)  |  Something (718)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Strong (182)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Tool (129)

The Pacific. You don’t comprehend it by looking at a globe, but when you’re traveling at four miles a second and it still takes you twenty-five minutes to cross it, you know it’s big.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Big (55)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Cross (20)  |  Globe (51)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mile (43)  |  Minute (129)  |  Pacific (4)  |  Second (66)  |  Still (614)  |  Travel (125)

The poetic Wheeler is a prophet, standing like Moses on the top of Mount Pisgah, looking out over the promised land that his people will one day inherit.
Spoken at a 90th birthday celebration. 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:  |  Inherit (35)  |  Mount (43)  |  People (1031)  |  Prophet (22)  |  Top (100)  |  John Wheeler (40)  |  Will (2350)

The problem for a writer of a text-book has come now, in fact, to be this—to write a book so neatly trimmed and compacted that no coach, on looking through it, can mark a single passage which the candidate for a minimum pass can safely omit. Some of these text-books I have seen, where the scientific matter has been, like the lady’s waist in the nursery song, compressed “so gent and sma’,” that the thickness barely, if at all, surpasses what is devoted to the publisher’s advertisements. We shall return, I verily believe, to the Compendium of Martianus Capella. The result of all this is that science, in the hands of specialists, soars higher and higher into the light of day, while educators and the educated are left more and more to wander in primeval darkness.
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science (1885), Nature, 32, 448. [Martianus Capella, who flourished c.410-320, wrote a compendium of the seven liberal arts. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Advertisement (16)  |  Barely (5)  |  Book (413)  |  Candidate (8)  |  Coach (5)  |  Compact (13)  |  Compress (2)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Devote (45)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Educator (7)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Higher (37)  |  Lady (12)  |  Light (635)  |  Mark (47)  |  Matter (821)  |  Minimum (13)  |  More (2558)  |  Neat (5)  |  Nursery (4)  |  Omit (12)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passage (52)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Problem (731)  |  Publisher (3)  |  Result (700)  |  Return (133)  |  Safely (7)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Single (365)  |  Soar (23)  |  Song (41)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Student (317)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Text-Book (5)  |  Thickness (5)  |  Through (846)  |  Trim (4)  |  Waist (2)  |  Wander (44)  |  Write (250)  |  Writer (90)

The publication of the Darwin and Wallace papers in 1858, and still more that of the 'Origin' in 1859, had the effect upon them of the flash of light, which to a man who has lost himself in a dark night, suddenly reveals a road which, whether it takes him straight home or not, certainly goes his way. That which we were looking for, and could not find, was a hypothesis respecting the origin of known organic forms, which assumed the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to be actually at work. We wanted, not to pin our faith to that or any other speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite conceptions which could be brought face to face with facts and have their validity tested. The 'Origin' provided us with the working hypothesis we sought.
'On the Reception of the Origin of Species'. In F. Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter (1888), Vol 2, 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Conception (160)  |  Dark (145)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Definite (114)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faith (209)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flash (49)  |  Form (976)  |  Himself (461)  |  Home (184)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Known (453)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Operation (221)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pin (20)  |  Proof (304)  |  Publication (102)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Still (614)  |  Straight (75)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Test (221)  |  Validity (50)  |  Alfred Russel Wallace (41)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Never (1089)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  People (1031)  |  Reason (766)

The ridge of the Lammer-muir hills... consists of primary micaceous schistus, and extends from St Abb's head westward... The sea-coast affords a transverse section of this alpine tract at its eastern extremity, and exhibits the change from the primary to the secondary strata... Dr HUTTON wished particularly to examine the latter of these, and on this occasion Sir JAMES HALL and I had the pleasure to accompany him. We sailed in a boat from Dunglass ... We made for a high rocky point or head-land, the SICCAR ... On landing at this point, we found that we actually trode [sic] on the primeval rock... It is here a micaceous schistus, in beds nearly vertical, highly indurated, and stretching from S.E. to N. W. The surface of this rock... has thin covering of red horizontal sandstone laid over it, ... Here, therefore, the immediate contact of the two rocks is not only visible, but is curiously dissected and laid open by the action of the waves... On us who saw these phenomena for the first time, the impression will not easily be forgotten. The palpable evidence presented to us, of one of the most extraordinary and important facts in the natural history of the earth, gave a reality and substance to those theoretical speculations, which, however probable had never till now been directly authenticated by the testimony of the senses... What clearer evidence could we have had of the different formation of these rocks, and of the long interval which separated their formation, had we actually seen them emerging from the bosom of the deep? ... The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time; and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much farther reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow.
'Biographical Account of the Late Dr James Hutton, F.R.S. Edin.' (read 1803), Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1805), 5, 71-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Accompany (22)  |  Action (342)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Change (639)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contact (66)  |  Covering (14)  |  Deep (241)  |  Different (595)  |  Earnestness (3)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Examine (84)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Extremity (7)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Farther (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Formation (100)  |  Grow (247)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  James Hutton (22)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Impression (118)  |  Listen (81)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Never (1089)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Open (277)  |  Order (638)  |  Palpable (8)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Primary (82)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sail (37)  |  Sandstone (3)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Strata (37)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Unfolding (16)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wave (112)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Wonderful (155)

The shell model, although proposed by theoreticians, really corresponds to the experimentalist’s approach. It was born from a thorough study of the experimental data, plotting them in different ways, and looking for interconnections.
The Shell Model, Nobel Lecture.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Data (162)  |  Different (595)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Interconnection (12)  |  Model (106)  |  Shell (69)  |  Study (701)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Way (1214)

The Sun is no lonelier than its neighbors; indeed, it is a very common-place star,—dwarfish, though not minute,—like hundreds, nay thousands, of others. By accident the brighter component of Alpha Centauri (which is double) is almost the Sun's twin in brightness, mass, and size. Could this Earth be transported to its vicinity by some supernatural power, and set revolving about it, at a little less than a hundred million miles' distance, the star would heat and light the world just as the Sun does, and life and civilization might go on with no radical change. The Milky Way would girdle the heavens as before; some of our familiar constellations, such as Orion, would be little changed, though others would be greatly altered by the shifting of the nearer stars. An unfamiliar brilliant star, between Cassiopeia and Perseus would be—the Sun. Looking back at it with our telescopes, we could photograph its spectrum, observe its motion among the stars, and convince ourselves that it was the same old Sun; but what had happened to the rest of our planetary system we would not know.
The Solar System and its Origin (1935), 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Alpha Centauri (2)  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Altered (32)  |  Back (395)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Cassiopeia (2)  |  Change (639)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Common (447)  |  Component (51)  |  Constellation (18)  |  Convince (43)  |  Distance (171)  |  Double (18)  |  Dwarf (7)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Heat (180)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Loneliness (6)  |  Look (584)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mile (43)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Million (124)  |  Minute (129)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Nearness (3)  |  Neighbor (14)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Perseus (2)  |  Photograph (23)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Power (771)  |  Radical (28)  |  Rest (287)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Set (400)  |  Shift (45)  |  Size (62)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sun (407)  |  Supernatural (26)  |  System (545)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Transport (31)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Twin (16)  |  Unfamiliar (17)  |  Unfamiliarity (5)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

The year 1918 was the time of the great influenza epidemic, the schools were closed. And this was when, as far as I can remember, the first explicitly strong interest in astronomy developed ... I took a piece of bamboo, and sawed a piece in the middle of each end, to put a couple of spectacle lenses in it. Well, the Pleiades looked nice because the stars were big. I thought I was looking at stars magnified. Well, they weren’t. It was a little thing with two lenses at random on each end, and all you got were extra focal images, big things, but I thought I was looking at star surfaces. I was 12 years old.
'Oral History Transcript: Dr. William Wilson Morgan' (8 Aug 1978) in the Niels Bohr Library & Archives.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Biography (254)  |  Closed (38)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  End (603)  |  Epidemic (8)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Image (97)  |  Influenza (4)  |  Interest (416)  |  Lens (15)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Magnification (10)  |  Old (499)  |  Pleiades (4)  |  Random (42)  |  Remember (189)  |  Saw (160)  |  School (227)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Strong (182)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Year (963)

There are two kinds of biologists, those who are looking to see if there is one thing that can be understood and those who keep saying it is very complicated and that nothing can be understood. ... You must study the simplest system you think has the properties you are interested in.
As quoted, without source, by John R. Platt in 'Science, Strong Inference', Science (16 Oct 1964), 146, No. 3642, 349.
Science quotes on:  |  Biologist (70)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Interest (416)  |  Kind (564)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Property (177)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Simplest (10)  |  Study (701)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)

There cannot be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon practical applications of science. The life and soul of science is its practical application .
In Lecture 'Electrical Units of Measurement' delivered at the Institution of Civil Engineers (3 May 1883). Collected in Popular Lectures and Addresses (1889), Vol. 1, 79.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Greater (288)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Practical (225)  |  Soul (235)  |  Supercilious (2)

There is plenty of room left for exact experiment in art, and the gate has been opened for some time. What had been accomplished in music by the end of the eighteenth century has only begun in the fine arts. Mathematics and physics have given us a clue in the form of rules to be strictly observed or departed from, as the case may be. Here salutary discipline is come to grips first of all with the function of forms, and not with form as the final result … in this way we learn how to look beyond the surface and get to the root of things.
Paul Klee
Quoted in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Feb 1959), 59, citing Bauhaus-Zeitschrijt (1928).
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  Art (680)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Century (319)  |  Clue (20)  |  Discipline (85)  |  End (603)  |  Exact (75)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Final (121)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Function (235)  |  Gate (33)  |  Learn (672)  |  Look (584)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Music (133)  |  Observed (149)  |  Open (277)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Result (700)  |  Root (121)  |  Rule (307)  |  Salutary (5)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)

There must be some bond of union between mass and the chemical elements; and as the mass of a substance is ultimately expressed (although not absolutely, but only relatively) in the atom, a functional dependence should exist and be discoverable between the individual properties of the elements and their atomic weights. But nothing, from mushrooms to a scientific dependence can be discovered without looking and trying. So I began to look about and write down the elements with their atomic weights and typical properties, analogous elements and like atomic weights on separate cards, and soon this convinced me that the properties of the elements are in periodic dependence upon their atomic weights; and although I had my doubts about some obscure points, yet I have never doubted the universality of this law, because it could not possibly be the result of chance.
Principles of Chemistry (1905), Vol. 2, 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Bond (46)  |  Card (5)  |  Chance (244)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Down (455)  |  Element (322)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Express (192)  |  Individual (420)  |  Law (913)  |  Look (584)  |  Mass (160)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Point (584)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Property (177)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Separate (151)  |  Soon (187)  |  Substance (253)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Union (52)  |  Universality (22)  |  Weight (140)  |  Write (250)

There’s Nature and she’s going to come out the way She is. So therefore when we go to investigate we shouldn’t predecide what it is we’re looking for only to find out more about it. Now you ask: “Why do you try to find out more about it?” If you began your investigation to get an answer to some deep philosophical question, you may be wrong. It may be that you can’t get an answer to that particular question just by finding out more about the character of Nature. But that’s not my interest in science; my interest in science is to simply find out about the world and the more I find out the better it is, I like to find out...
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Begin (275)  |  Better (493)  |  Character (259)  |  Deep (241)  |  Do (1905)  |  Find (1014)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Finding Out (6)  |  Interest (416)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Particular (80)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Question (649)  |  Simply (53)  |  Try (296)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrong (246)

They were very different men. Or boys. Someone said they were both like curious children—Einstein the merry boy, Rutherford the boisterous one. They were looking and working in different directions—Einstein looking outward, rather dreamily trying to discover where we came from, and Rutherford drilling deep to discover what we were.
A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2007), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Boy (100)  |  Children (201)  |  Curious (95)  |  Deep (241)  |  Different (595)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discover (571)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Trying (144)

This is the reason why all attempts to obtain a deeper knowledge of the foundations of physics seem doomed to me unless the basic concepts are in accordance with general relativity from the beginning. This situation makes it difficult to use our empirical knowledge, however comprehensive, in looking for the fundamental concepts and relations of physics, and it forces us to apply free speculation to a much greater extent than is presently assumed by most physicists.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accordance (10)  |  Apply (170)  |  Assume (43)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Basic (144)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Concept (242)  |  Deep (241)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Doom (34)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Extent (142)  |  Force (497)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Free (239)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  General (521)  |  General Relativity (10)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Reason (766)  |  Relation (166)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Seem (150)  |  Situation (117)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Use (771)  |  Why (491)

Time is that which is measured by a clock. This is a sound way of looking at things. A quantity like time, or any other physical measurement, does not exist in a completely abstract way. We find no sense in talking about something unless we specify how we measure it. It is the definition by the method of measuring a quantity that is the one sure way of avoiding talking nonsense about this kind of thing.
From Relativity and Common Sense: A New Approach to Einstein (1980), 65.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Avoiding (2)  |  Clock (51)  |  Completely (137)  |  Definition (238)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find (1014)  |  Kind (564)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measured (2)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Method (531)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Sense (785)  |  Something (718)  |  Sound (187)  |  Specify (6)  |  Talking (76)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)

To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it more fit for its prime function of looking forward.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Eye (440)  |  Fit (139)  |  Forward (104)  |  Function (235)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Prime (11)  |  Refresh (5)  |  Render (96)  |  Restore (12)

Two men stood looking through the bars,
One saw the mud, the other saw the stars.
Anonymous
As given in Richard A. Gregory, Discovery: Or, The Spirit and Service of Science (1916), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Mud (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Saw (160)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)

Using any reasonable definition of a scientist, we can say that 80 to 90 percent of all the scientists that have ever lived are alive now. Alternatively, any young scientist, starting now and looking back at the end of his career upon a normal life span, will find that 80 to 90 percent of all scientific work achieved by the end of the period will have taken place before his very eyes, and that only 10 to 20 percent will antedate his experience.
Little Science, Big Science (1963), 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Back (395)  |  Career (86)  |  Definition (238)  |  End (603)  |  Experience (494)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Life (1870)  |  Period (200)  |  Reasonableness (6)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Young (253)

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Lady Windermere’s Fan. Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 22
Science quotes on:  |  Gutter (3)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)

We are looking to brands for poetry and for spirituality, because we’re not getting those things from our communities or from each other.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 30
Science quotes on:  |  Brand (2)  |  Community (111)  |  Other (2233)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Spirituality (8)  |  Thing (1914)

We can continue to try and clean up the gutters all over the world and spend all of our resources looking at just the dirty spots and trying to make them clean. Or we can lift our eyes up and look into the skies and move forward in an evolutionary way.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Clean (52)  |  Clean Up (5)  |  Continue (179)  |  Dirty (17)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Eye (440)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gutter (3)  |  Lift (57)  |  Look (584)  |  Move (223)  |  Resource (74)  |  Sky (174)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spot (19)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

We claim to be more moral than other nations, and to conquer and govern and tax and plunder weaker peoples for their good! While robbing them we actually claim to be benefactors! And then we wonder, or profess to wonder, why other Governments hate us! Are they not fully justified in hating us? Is it surprising that they seek every means to annoy us, that they struggle to get navies to compete with us, and look forward to a time when some two or three of them may combine together and thoroughly humble and cripple us? And who can deny that any just Being, looking at all the nations of the earth with impartiality and thorough knowledge, would decide that we deserve to be humbled, and that it might do us good?
In 'Practical Politics', The Clarion (30 Sep 1904), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Benefactor (6)  |  Claim (154)  |  Combine (58)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Deny (71)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Forward (104)  |  Good (906)  |  Govern (66)  |  Government (116)  |  Hate (68)  |  Humble (54)  |  Impartiality (7)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Look (584)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Nation (208)  |  Navy (10)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Plunder (6)  |  Profess (21)  |  Seek (218)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Tax (27)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)  |  Why (491)  |  Wonder (251)

We find it hard to picture to ourselves the state of mind of a man of older days who firmly believed that the Earth was the centre of the Universe, and that all the heavenly bodies revolved around it. He could feel beneath his feet the writhings of the damned amid the flames; very likely he had seen with his own eyes and smelt with his own nostrils the sulphurous fumes of Hell escaping from some fissure in the rocks. Looking upwards, he beheld ... the incorruptible firmament, wherein the stars hung like so many lamps.
The Garden of Epicurus (1894) translated by Alfred Allinson, in The Works of Anatole France in an English Translation (1920), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Beneath (68)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feel (371)  |  Find (1014)  |  Firmament (18)  |  Flame (44)  |  Fume (7)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hell (32)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Picture (148)  |  Rock (176)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  State (505)  |  Sulphur (19)  |  Universe (900)  |  Upward (44)

We have spent the best part of the past century enthusiastically testing the world to utter destruction; not looking closely enough at the long-term impact our actions will have.
Speech, awards ceremony for green entrepreneurs, Buckingham Palace (30 Jan 2014). As quoted in Benn Quinn, 'Climate Change Sceptics are ‘Headless Chickens’, Says Prince Charles', The Guardian (31 Jan 2014).
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Best (467)  |  Century (319)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Impact (45)  |  Long (778)  |  Past (355)  |  Spent (85)  |  Term (357)  |  Testing (5)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

We live in a glass-soaked civilization, but as for the bird in the Chinese proverb who finds it so difficult to discover air, the substance is almost invisible to us. To use a metaphor drawn from glass, it may be revealing for us to re-focus, to stop looking through glass, and let our eyes dwell on it for a moment to contemplate its wonder. [Co-author with Gerry Martin.]
Glass: A World History (2002), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Author (175)  |  Bird (163)  |  Chinese (22)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discover (571)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Focus (36)  |  Glass (94)  |  Invisibility (5)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Live (650)  |  Look (584)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Moment (260)  |  Proverb (29)  |  Substance (253)  |  Through (846)  |  Use (771)  |  Wonder (251)

We should admit in theory what is already very largely a case in practice, that the main currency of scientific information is the secondary sources in the forms of abstracts, reports, tables, &c., and that the primary sources are only for detailed reference by very few people. It is possible that the fate of most scientific papers will be not to be read by anyone who uses them, but with luck they will furnish an item, a number, some facts or data to such reports which may, but usually will not, lead to the original paper being consulted. This is very sad but it is the inevitable consequence of the growth of science. The number of papers that can be consulted is absolutely limited, no more time can be spent in looking up papers, by and large, than in the past. As the number of papers increase the chance of any one paper being looked at is correspondingly diminished. This of course is only an average, some papers may be looked at by thousands of people and may become a regular and fixed part of science but most will perish unseen.
'The Supply of Information to the Scientist: Some Problems of the Present Day', The Journal of Documentation, 1957, 13, 195.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Already (226)  |  Average (89)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chance (244)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Data (162)  |  Detail (150)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fate (76)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Growth (200)  |  Increase (225)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Information (173)  |  Large (398)  |  Lead (391)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Look (584)  |  Luck (44)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Paper (192)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Perish (56)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practice (212)  |  Primary (82)  |  Publication (102)  |  Read (308)  |  Regular (48)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spent (85)  |  Table (105)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unseen (23)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  Will (2350)

We should therefore, with grace and optimism, embrace NOMA’s tough-minded demand: Acknowledge the personal character of these human struggles about morals and meanings, and stop looking for definite answers in nature’s construction. But many people cannot bear to surrender nature as a ‘transitional object’–a baby’s warm blanket for our adult comfort. But when we do (for we must) , nature can finally emerge in her true form: not as a distorted mirror of our needs, but as our most fascinating companion. Only then can we unite the patches built by our separate magisteria into a beautiful and coherent quilt called wisdom.
From essay, 'Non-overlapping Magisteria', Natural History magazine (Mar 1997), 106, 16–22 and 60–62. Collected in Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (1999), 178. [NOMA or Non-overlapping magisteria, is viewpoint advocated by Gould, that science and religion each represent different areas of inquiry, fact vs. values, and thus he aims to resolve the supposed conflict between science and religion. He draws the term “magisterium” from an encyclical of Pope Pius XII. about science and religion. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Adult (24)  |  Answer (389)  |  Baby (29)  |  Bear (162)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Blanket (10)  |  Build (211)  |  Call (781)  |  Character (259)  |  Coherent (14)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Companion (22)  |  Construction (114)  |  Definite (114)  |  Demand (131)  |  Distort (22)  |  Do (1905)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Finally (26)  |  Form (976)  |  Grace (31)  |  Human (1512)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meanings (5)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Object (438)  |  Optimism (17)  |  Patch (9)  |  People (1031)  |  Personal (75)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Separate (151)  |  Stop (89)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Surrender (21)  |  Tough (22)  |  Transitional (2)  |  True (239)  |  Unite (43)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wisdom (235)

We will look upon the earth and her sister planets as being with us, not for us.
From Ch. 6, 'Sisterhood as Cosmic Covenant', Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (1973), 178.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Look (584)  |  Planet (402)  |  Sister (8)  |  Will (2350)

What can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains, and studying night and day how to fly? ... wearying himself with climbing upon every ascent, ... bruising himself with continual falls, and at last breaking his neck? And all this, from an imagination that it would be glorious to have the eyes of people looking up at him, and mighty happy to eat, and drink, and sleep, at the top of the highest trees in the kingdom.
In A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1732), 168. This was written before Montgolfier brothers, pioneer balloonists, were born.
Science quotes on:  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Ascent (7)  |  Brain (281)  |  Break (109)  |  Bruise (2)  |  Climb (39)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Continual (44)  |  Day (43)  |  Drink (56)  |  Eat (108)  |  Eating (46)  |  Extravagant (10)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fall (243)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Glory (66)  |  Happy (108)  |  Highest (19)  |  Himself (461)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Last (425)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Neck (15)  |  Night (133)  |  People (1031)  |  Silly (17)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Top (100)  |  Tree (269)

What clearer evidence could we have had of the different formation of these rocks, and of the long interval which separated their formation, had we actually seen them emerging from the bosom of the deep? … The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time.
As quoted in Dennis R. Dean, James Hutton and the History of Geology (1992), 122.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Clear (111)  |  Deep (241)  |  Different (595)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Far (158)  |  Formation (100)  |  Geology (240)  |  Giddy (3)  |  Grow (247)  |  Interval (14)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Rock (176)  |  Seem (150)  |  Separate (151)  |  Time (1911)

What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what’s going on.
In Christian Science Monitor (21 July 1971). As cited in Michael C. Thomsett, Linda Rose Thomsett, A Speaker's Treasury of Quotations: Maxims, Witticisms and Quips for Speeches and Presentations (2009), 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Curious (95)  |  Keyhole (5)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Through (846)  |  Trying (144)

When [Erwin Schrödinger] went to the Solvay conferences in Brussels, he would walk from the station to the hotel where the delegates stayed, carrying all his luggage in a rucksack and looking so like a tramp that it needed a great deal of argument at the reception desk before he could claim a room.
Quoted in Robert L. Weber, Pioneers of Science: Nobel Prize Winners in Physics (1980), 100.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Biography (254)  |  Claim (154)  |  Conference (18)  |  Deal (192)  |  Delegate (3)  |  Desk (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hotel (2)  |  Luggage (5)  |  Reception (16)  |  Room (42)  |  Rucksack (3)  |  Erwin Schrödinger (68)  |  Station (30)  |  Walk (138)

When Death lurks at the door, the physician is considered as a God. When danger has been overcome, the physician is looked upon as an angel. When the patient begins to convalesce, the physician becomes a mere human. When the physician asks for his fees, he is considered as the devil himself.
In Harper's Magazine (1931-32), 164, 512.
Science quotes on:  |  Angel (47)  |  Ask (420)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Danger (127)  |  Death (406)  |  Devil (34)  |  Door (94)  |  Fee (9)  |  God (776)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Look (584)  |  Lurking (7)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Overcoming (3)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physician (284)

When I observe the luminous progress and expansion of natural science in modern times, I seem to myself like a traveller going eastwards at dawn, and gazing at the growing light with joy, but also with impatience; looking forward with longing to the advent of the full and final light, but, nevertheless, having to turn away his eyes when the sun appeared, unable to bear the splendour he had awaited with so much desire.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 197-198.
Science quotes on:  |  Advent (7)  |  Await (6)  |  Bear (162)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Desire (212)  |  East (18)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Eye (440)  |  Final (121)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Growing (99)  |  Impatience (13)  |  Joy (117)  |  Light (635)  |  Longing (19)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Modern (402)  |  Myself (211)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Observe (179)  |  Progress (492)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unable (25)

When I was living with the Indians, my hostess, a fine looking woman, who wore numberless bracelets, and rings in her ears and on her fingers, and painted her face like a brilliant sunset, one day gave away a very fine horse. I was surprised, for I knew there had been no family talk on the subject, so I asked: “Will your husband like to have you give the horse away?” Her eyes danced, and, breaking into a peal of laughter, she hastened to tell the story to the other women gathered in the tent, and I became the target of many merry eyes. I tried to explain how a white woman would act, but laughter and contempt met my explanation of the white man’s hold upon his wife’s property.
Speech on 'The Legal Conditions of Indian Women', delivered to Evening Session (Thur 29 Mar 1888), collected in Report of the International Council of Women: Assembled by the National Woman Suffrage Association, Washington, D.C., U.S. of America, March 25 to April 1, 1888 (1888), Vol. 1, 240.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Ask (420)  |  Bracelet (2)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Contempt (20)  |  Ear (69)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Family (101)  |  Finger (48)  |  Gather (76)  |  Give (208)  |  Hasten (13)  |  Horse (78)  |  Hostess (2)  |  Husband (13)  |  Indian (32)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paint (22)  |  Property (177)  |  Ring (18)  |  Story (122)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Talk (108)  |  Target (13)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tent (13)  |  White (132)  |  Wife (41)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)

When the uncultured man sees a stone in the road it tells him no story other than the fact that he sees a stone … The scientist looking at the same stone perhaps will stop, and with a hammer break it open, when the newly exposed faces of the rock will have written upon them a history that is as real to him as the printed page.
In Nature’s Miracles: Familiar Talks on Science (1899), Vol. 1, 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Break (109)  |  Culture (157)  |  Expose (28)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Hammer (26)  |  History (716)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Page (35)  |  Print (20)  |  Reality (274)  |  Road (71)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stop (89)  |  Story (122)  |  Tell (344)  |  Telling (24)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writing (192)

When they [radio astronomers] grew weary at their electronic listening posts. When their eyes grew dim with looking at unrevealing dials and studying uneventful graphs, they could step outside their concrete cells and renew their dull spirits in communion with the giant mechanism they commanded, the silent, sensing instrument in which the smallest packets of energy, the smallest waves of matter, were detected in their headlong, eternal flight across the universe. It was the stethoscope with which they took the pulse of the all and noted the birth and death of stars, the probe which, here on an insignificant planet of an undistinguishable star on the edge of its galaxy, they explored the infinite.
The Listeners (1968, 1972), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Birth (154)  |  Command (60)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Death (406)  |  Detect (45)  |  Dial (9)  |  Dull (58)  |  Edge (51)  |  Energy (373)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Eye (440)  |  Flight (101)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Giant (73)  |  Graph (8)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Listening (26)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Outside (141)  |  Planet (402)  |  Probe (12)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Radio (60)  |  Radio Astronomy (3)  |  Renew (20)  |  Research (753)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Step (234)  |  Studying (70)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wave (112)  |  Weary (11)

When we ask advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
From the original French, “Demander un conseil, c’est presque toujours chercher un complice”, in Actes de l'Académie Nationale des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Bordeaux (1872), 479. Often seen misattributed to Saul Bellow.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Ask (420)  |  Usually (176)

Why do scientists call it research when looking for something new?
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Do (1905)  |  Joke (90)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Something (718)  |  Why (491)

Why don't they have a light bulb that only shines on things worth looking at?
In Napalm and Silly Putty (2002), 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Bulb (10)  |  Light (635)  |  Light Bulb (6)  |  Look (584)  |  Shine (49)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Why (491)  |  Worth (172)

X-rays. Their moral is this—that a right way of looking at things will see through almost anything.
Samuel Butler, edited by Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill, Samuel Butler’s Notebooks (1951), 282.
Science quotes on:  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Moral (203)  |  Ray (115)  |  Right (473)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  X-ray (43)

Years ago I used to worry about the degree to which I specialized. Vision is limited enough, yet I was not really working on vision, for I hardly made contact with visual sensations, except as signals, nor with the nervous pathways, nor the structure of the eye, except the retina. Actually my studies involved only the rods and cones of the retina, and in them only the visual pigments. A sadly limited peripheral business, fit for escapists. But it is as though this were a very narrow window through which at a distance, one can only see a crack of light. As one comes closer the view grows wider and wider, until finally looking through the same narrow window one is looking at the universe. It is like the pupil of the eye, an opening only two to three millimetres across in daylight, but yielding a wide angle of view, and manoeuvrable enough to be turned in all directions. I think this is always the way it goes in science, because science is all one. It hardly matters where one enters, provided one can come closer, and then one does not see less and less, but more and more, because one is not dealing with an opaque object, but with a window.
In Scientific American, 1960s, attributed.
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Business (156)  |  Closer (43)  |  Cone (8)  |  Contact (66)  |  Crack (15)  |  Daylight (23)  |  Dealing (11)  |  Degree (277)  |  Direction (185)  |  Distance (171)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enter (145)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fit (139)  |  Grow (247)  |  Involved (90)  |  Light (635)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Object (438)  |  Opaque (7)  |  Opening (15)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Peripheral (3)  |  Pigment (9)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Really (77)  |  Retina (4)  |  Rod (6)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Signal (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Vision (127)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wide (97)  |  Window (59)  |  Year (963)

You find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.
Winnie-the-Pooh
Science quotes on:  |  Different (595)  |  Find (1014)  |  Inside (30)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Thing (1914)

You’ve got to be fairly solemn [about the environment]. I mean the mere notion that there are three times as many people on Earth as there were when I started making television. How can the Earth accommodate them? When people, including politicians, set their faces against looking at the consequences—it’s just unbelievable that anyone could ignore it.
In Andrew Pettie, 'Sir David Attenborough interview', The Telegraph (23 Dec 2010). [Checking one population data source, it seems that at the time of the article, in 2010 at age 84, there had been a 2.6 (rounds to roughly three) times increase since 1954 when Attenborough first broadcast. By the year of his 97th birthday, in 2023, the increase was indeed three times (2.99). —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodate (17)  |  Against (332)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Environment (239)  |  Face (214)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Making (300)  |  Mean (810)  |  Notion (120)  |  People (1031)  |  Politician (40)  |  Population (115)  |  Set (400)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Solemnity (6)  |  Start (237)  |  Television (33)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unbelievable (7)


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.