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: “Dangerous... to take shelter under a tree, during a thunder-gust. It has been fatal to many, both men and beasts.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index M > Category: Miracle

Miracle Quotes (85 quotes)


“They were apes only yesterday. Give them time.”
“Once an ape—always an ape.”…
“No, it will be different. … Come back here in an age or so and you shall see. …”
[The gods, discussing the Earth, in the movie version of Wells’ The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936).]
The Man Who Could Work Miracles: a film by H.G. Wells based on the short story (1936), 105-106. Quoted in Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain (1979, 1986), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ape (54)  |  Back (395)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  God (776)  |  Man (2252)  |  See (1094)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yesterday (37)

[In 1909,] Paris was the center of the aviation world. Aeronautics was neither an industry nor even a science; both were yet to come. It was an “art” and I might say a “passion”. Indeed, at that time it was a miracle. It meant the realization of legends and dreams that had existed for thousands of years and had been pronounced again and again as impossible by scientific authorities. Therefore, even the brief and unsteady flights of that period were deeply impressive. Many times I observed expressions of joy and tears in the eyes of witnesses who for the first time watched a flying machine carrying a man in the air.
In address (16 Nov 1964) presented to the Wings Club, New York City, Recollections and Thoughts of a Pioneer (1964), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Air (366)  |  Art (680)  |  Aviation (8)  |  Both (496)  |  Brief (37)  |  Carry (130)  |  Center (35)  |  Dream (222)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expression (181)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Flight (101)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Industry (159)  |  Joy (117)  |  Legend (18)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Paris (11)  |  Passion (121)  |  Period (200)  |  Realization (44)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Tear (48)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Watch (118)  |  Witness (57)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

[On the 11th day of November 1572], in the evening, after sunset, when, according to my habit, I was contemplating the stars in a clear sky, I noticed that a new and unusual star, surpassing all others in brilliancy, was shining almost directly over my head; and since I had, almost from boyhood, known all the stars of the heavens perfectly (there is no great difficulty in gaining that knowledge), it was quite evident to me that there had never before been any star in that place in the sky, even the smallest, to say nothing of a star so conspicuously bright as this. I was so astonished at this sight that I was not ashamed to doubt the trustworthiness of my own eyes. But when I observed that others, too, on having the place pointed out to them, could see that there was a star there, I had no further doubts. A miracle indeed, either the greatest of all that have occurred in the whole range of nature since the beginning of the world, or one certainly that is to be classed with those attested by the Holy Oracles.
De Stello. Nova (On the New Star) (1573). Quoted in H. Shapley and A. E. Howarth (eds.), Source Book in Astronomy (1929), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bright (81)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Class (168)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Evident (92)  |  Eye (440)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Habit (174)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Holy (35)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nova (7)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Range (104)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Shining (35)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surpassing (12)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Dogbert (gazing at night sky) No matter how bad the day is, the stars are always there.
Dilbert Actually, many of them burned out years ago, but their light is just now reaching earth.
DogbertThank you for shattering my comfortable misconception.
DilbertIt's the miracle of science.
Dilbert comic strip (21 Nov 1990).
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Comfortable (13)  |  Day (43)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Light (635)  |  Matter (821)  |  Misconception (6)  |  Reach (286)  |  Shattering (2)  |  Sky (174)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thank You (8)  |  Year (963)

When asked what he meant by a miracle:
Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%.
Attributed.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Biography (254)  |  Probability (135)

A magician of old waved a wand that he might banish disease, a physician to-day peers through a microscope to detect the bacillus of that disease and plan its defeat. The belief in miracles was premature, that is all; it was based on dreams now coming true.
From chapter 'Jottings from a Note-book', in Canadian Stories (1918), 176.
Science quotes on:  |  Bacillus (9)  |  Banish (11)  |  Based (10)  |  Belief (615)  |  Come (4)  |  Coming (114)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Detect (45)  |  Disease (340)  |  Dream (222)  |  Magician (15)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Old (499)  |  Peer (13)  |  Physician (284)  |  Plan (122)  |  Premature (22)  |  Through (846)  |  Today (321)  |  True (239)  |  Wand (3)  |  Wave (112)

A Miracle is a Violation of the Laws of Nature; and as a firm and unalterable Experience has established these Laws, the Proof against a Miracle, from the very Nature of the Fact, is as entire as any Argument from Experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all Men must die; that Lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the Air; that Fire consumes Wood, and is extinguished by Water; unless it be, that these Events are found agreeable to the Laws of Nature, and there is required a Violation of these Laws, or in other Words, a Miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteem'd a Miracle, if it ever happen in the common Course of Nature... There must, therefore, be a uniform Experience against every miraculous Event, otherwise the Event would not merit that Appellation. And as a uniform Experience amounts to a Proof, there is here a direct and full Proof, from the Nature of the Fact, against the Existence of any Miracle; nor can such a Proof be destroy'd, or the Miracle render'd credible, but by an opposite Proof, which is superior.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), 180-181.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Agreeable (20)  |  Air (366)  |  Amount (153)  |  Argument (145)  |  Common (447)  |  Course (413)  |  Death (406)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Direct (228)  |  Event (222)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fire (203)  |  Firm (47)  |  Happen (282)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Merit (51)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Probable (24)  |  Proof (304)  |  Remain (355)  |  Render (96)  |  Required (108)  |  Superior (88)  |  Violation (7)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)  |  Wood (97)  |  Word (650)

A physician is an unfortunate gentleman who is every day required to perform a miracle; namely to reconcile health with intemperance.
In Great Thoughts from Master Minds (1887), 8, 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Gentleman (26)  |  Health (210)  |  Intemperance (3)  |  Perform (123)  |  Physician (284)  |  Reconcile (19)  |  Required (108)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Unfortunate (19)

A weird happening has occurred in the case of a lansquenet named Daniel Burghammer, of the squadron of Captain Burkhard Laymann Zu Liebenau, of the honorable Madrucci Regiment in Piadena, in Italy. When the same was on the point of going to bed one night he complained to his wife, to whom he had been married by the Church seven years ago, that he had great pains in his belly and felt something stirring therein. An hour thereafter he gave birth to a child, a girl. When his wife was made aware of this, she notified the occurrence at once. Thereupon he was examined and questioned. … He confessed on the spot that he was half man and half woman and that for more than seven years he had served as a soldier in Hungary and the Netherlands… . When he was born he was christened as a boy and given in baptism the name of Daniel… . He also stated that while in the Netherlands he only slept once with a Spaniard, and he became pregnant therefrom. This, however, he kept a secret unto himself and also from his wife, with whom he had for seven years lived in wedlock, but he had never been able to get her with child… . The aforesaid soldier is able to suckle the child with his right breast only and not at all on the left side, where he is a man. He has also the natural organs of a man for passing water. Both are well, the child is beautiful, and many towns have already wished to adopt it, which, however, has not as yet been arranged. All this has been set down and described by notaries. It is considered in Italy to be a great miracle, and is to be recorded in the chronicles. The couple, however, are to be divorced by the clergy.
Anonymous
'From Piadena in Italy, the 26th day of May 1601'. As quoted in George Tennyson Matthews (ed.) The Fugger Newsletter (1970), 247-248. A handwritten collection of news reports (1568-1604) by the powerful banking and merchant house of Fugger in Ausburg. This was footnoted in The Story of the Secret Service (1937), 698. https://books.google.com/books?id=YfssAAAAMAAJ Richard Wilmer Rowan - 1937
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Birth (154)  |  Both (496)  |  Boy (100)  |  Captain (16)  |  Child (333)  |  Church (64)  |  Confess (42)  |  Consider (428)  |  Divorce (7)  |  Down (455)  |  Girl (38)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happening (59)  |  Himself (461)  |  Honorable (14)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hungary (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Never (1089)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Organ (118)  |  Pain (144)  |  Passing (76)  |  Point (584)  |  Question (649)  |  Record (161)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Right (473)  |  Secret (216)  |  Set (400)  |  Side (236)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Something (718)  |  Water (503)  |  Wife (41)  |  Wish (216)  |  Woman (160)  |  Year (963)

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. But this should not be taken to imply that there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too long, the many microenvironments on the earth’s surface too diverse, the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago, especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check our ideas against.
In Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature (1981), 88.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Arm (82)  |  Available (80)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Reaction (17)  |  Chemical Reactions (13)  |  Condition (362)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Good (906)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Honest (53)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moment (260)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Start (237)  |  State (505)  |  Surface (223)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unravel (16)  |  Various (205)

And this is a miracle of nature in part known, namely, that iron follows the part of a magnet that touches it, and flies from the other part of the same magnet. And the iron turns itself after moving to the part of the heavens conformed to the part of the magnet which it touched.
Science quotes on:  |  Follow (389)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Iron (99)  |  Known (453)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Mineralogy (24)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Touch (146)  |  Turn (454)

Anybody who looks at living organisms knows perfectly well that they can produce other organisms like themselves. This is their normal function, they wouldn’t exist if they didn’t do this, and it’s not plausible that this is the reason why they abound in the world. In other words, living organisms are very complicated aggregations of elementary parts, and by any reasonable theory of probability or thermodynamics highly improbable. That they should occur in the world at all is a miracle of the first magnitude; the only thing which removes, or mitigates, this miracle is that they reproduce themselves. Therefore, if by any peculiar accident there should ever be one of them, from there on the rules of probability do not apply, and there will be many of them, at least if the milieu is reasonable. But a reasonable milieu is already a thermodynamically much less improbable thing. So, the operations of probability somehow leave a loophole at this point, and it is by the process of self-reproduction that they are pierced.
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:  |  Abound (17)  |  Accident (92)  |  Aggregation (6)  |  Already (226)  |  Anybody (42)  |  Apply (170)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Do (1905)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Exist (458)  |  First (1302)  |  Function (235)  |  Improbable (15)  |  In Other Words (9)  |  Know (1538)  |  Living (492)  |  Look (584)  |  Loophole (2)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Milieu (5)  |  Mitigate (5)  |  Normal (29)  |  Occur (151)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pierce (4)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Point (584)  |  Probability (135)  |  Process (439)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remove (50)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Rule (307)  |  Self (268)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

Atoms for peace. Man is still the greatest miracle and the greatest problem on earth. [Message tapped out by Sarnoff using a telegraph key in a tabletop circuit demonstrating an RCA atomic battery as a power source.]
The Wisdom of Sarnoff and the World of RCA (1967), 251.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Power (9)  |  Battery (12)  |  Circuit (29)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Man (2252)  |  Message (53)  |  Peace (116)  |  Power (771)  |  Problem (731)  |  Still (614)  |  Telegraph (45)

Decades spent in contact with science and its vehicles have directed my mind and senses to areas beyond their reach. I now see scientific accomplishments as a path, not an end; a path leading to and disappearing in mystery. Science, in fact, forms many paths branching from the trunk of human progress; and on every periphery they end in the miraculous. Following these paths far enough, one must eventually conclude that science itself is a miracle—like the awareness of man arising from and then disappearing in the apparent nothingness of space. Rather than nullifying religion and proving that “God is dead,” science enhances spiritual values by revealing the magnitudes and minitudes—from cosmos to atom—through which man extends and of which he is composed.
A Letter From Lindbergh', Life (4 Jul 1969), 60B. In Eugene C. Gerhart, Quote it Completely! (1998), 409.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Arising (22)  |  Atom (381)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Branching (10)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Contact (66)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Decade (66)  |  Direct (228)  |  End (603)  |  Enhance (17)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Progress (18)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nothingness (12)  |  Path (159)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reach (286)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Space (523)  |  Spent (85)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Through (846)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Value (393)  |  Vehicle (11)

Does it seem all but incredible to you that intelligence should travel for two thousand miles, along those slender copper lines, far down in the all but fathomless Atlantic; never before penetrated … save when some foundering vessel has plunged with her hapless company to the eternal silence and darkness of the abyss? Does it seem … but a miracle … that the thoughts of living men … should burn over the cold, green bones of men and women, whose hearts, once as warm as ours, burst as the eternal gulfs closed and roared over them centuries ago?
A tribute to the Atlantic telegraph cable by Edward Everett, one of the topics included in his inauguration address at the Washington University of St. Louis (22 Apr 1857). In Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions: Volume 3 (1870), 509-511.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Atlantic Ocean (7)  |  Bone (101)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burst (41)  |  Century (319)  |  Closed (38)  |  Cold (115)  |  Company (63)  |  Copper (25)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Down (455)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Fathomless (3)  |  Foundering (2)  |  Green (65)  |  Gulf (18)  |  Heart (243)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Line (100)  |  Living (492)  |  Mile (43)  |  Never (1089)  |  Save (126)  |  Shipwreck (8)  |  Silence (62)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Travel (125)  |  Two (936)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Warm (74)

Each human life is unique, born of a miracle that reaches beyond laboratory science.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 42
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Life (1870)  |  Reach (286)  |  Unique (72)

For the religious, passivism [i.e., objects are obedient to the laws of nature] provides a clear role of God as the author of the laws of nature. If the laws of nature are God’s commands for an essentially passive world…, God also has the power to suspend the laws of nature, and so perform miracles.
In The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism (2002), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Clear (111)  |  Command (60)  |  God (776)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obedience (20)  |  Obedient (9)  |  Object (438)  |  Passive (8)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Power (771)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Role (86)  |  Suspend (11)  |  World (1850)

From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It’s not a miracle; we just decided to go.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Decide (50)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moon (252)  |  Walk (138)  |  World (1850)

From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. It wasn’t a miracle, we just decided to go.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Decide (50)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moon (252)  |  Walk (138)  |  World (1850)

Herewith I offer you the Omnipotent Finger of God in the anatomy of a louse: wherein you will find miracles heaped on miracles and will see the wisdom of God clearly manifested in a minute point.
Letter to Melchisedec Thevenot (Apr 1678). In G. A. Lindeboom (ed.), The Letters of Jan Swammerdam to Melchisedec Thivenot (1975), 104-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Find (1014)  |  God (776)  |  Louse (6)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Minute (129)  |  Offer (142)  |  Omnipotence (4)  |  Omnipotent (13)  |  Point (584)  |  See (1094)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)

His [Thomas Edison] method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 per cent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense. In view of this, the truly prodigious amount of his actual accomplishments is little short of a miracle.
As quoted in 'Tesla Says Edison Was an Empiricist', The New York Times (19 Oct 1931), 25. In 1884, Tesla had moved to America to assist Edison in the designing of motors and generators.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Actual (118)  |  American (56)  |  Amount (153)  |  Blind (98)  |  Book (413)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Chance (244)  |  Contempt (20)  |  Doing (277)  |  Thomas Edison (83)  |  Extreme (78)  |  First (1302)  |  Ground (222)  |  Himself (461)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inefficient (3)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Learning (291)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Practical (225)  |  Prodigious (20)  |  Saving (20)  |  Sense (785)  |  Short (200)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Truly (118)  |  Trust (72)  |  View (496)  |  Witness (57)

Hope is the companion of power and the mother of success, for those of us who hope strongest have within us the gift of miracles.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Companion (22)  |  Gift (105)  |  Hope (321)  |  Mother (116)  |  Power (771)  |  Strong (182)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Success (327)

However improbable we regard [the spontaneous origin of life],… it will almost certainly happen at least once…. The time… is of the order of two billion years.… Given so much time, the “impossible” becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One only has to wait: time itself performs the miracles.
In 'The Origin of Life', Scientific American (Aug 1954), 191, No. 2, 46. Note that the quoted time of 2 billion years is rejected as impossibly short by such authors as H. J. Morowitz, in Energy Flow in Biology (1968), 317.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Billion (104)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Event (222)  |  Generation (256)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Improbable (15)  |  Life (1870)  |  Once (4)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Perform (123)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Probability (135)  |  Regard (312)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Spontaneous Generation (9)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Virtual (5)  |  Wait (66)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)  |  Years (5)

I believe the universe created us—we are an audience for miracles.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 7
Science quotes on:  |  Audience (28)  |  Belief (615)  |  Create (245)  |  Universe (900)

I don’t know if I would call it a miracle. I would call it a spectacular example of what people can do. To me, it’s like putting the first man on the moon or splitting the atom. We’ve shown that if the right treatment is given to people who have a catastrophic injury that they could walk away from it.
Expressing optimism for further recovery for Kevin Everett, a Buffalo Bills football player who suffered a paralyzing spinal injury during a game (9 Sep 2007), but after two days of hospital treatment had begun voluntarily moving his arms and legs. Green credits as significant to the recovery was that within minutes of his injury, the patient was quickly treated with intravenous ice-cold saline solution to induce hypothermia.
Quoted in John Wawrow, 'Bills' Everett Improves, May Walk Again', Associated Press news report, Washington Post (12 Sep 2007).
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Atom (381)  |  Buffalo (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Catastrophic (10)  |  Cold (115)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Football (11)  |  Game (104)  |  Green (65)  |  Hospital (45)  |  Ice (58)  |  Induce (24)  |  Injury (36)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leg (35)  |  Man (2252)  |  Minute (129)  |  Moon (252)  |  Neurosurgery (3)  |  Optimism (17)  |  Paralysis (9)  |  Patient (209)  |  People (1031)  |  Recovery (24)  |  Right (473)  |  Significant (78)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spectacular (22)  |  Splitting The Atom (4)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Two (936)  |  Walk (138)

I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery, but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing.
As quoted in John Noble Wilford, 'Sizing up the Cosmos: An Astronomers Quest', New York Times (12 Mar 1991), C10.
Science quotes on:  |  Chaos (99)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Find (1014)  |  God (776)  |  Improbable (15)  |  Instead (23)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Order (638)  |  Organize (33)  |  Principle (530)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Something (718)  |  Why (491)

I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, then that this universall Frame, is without a Minde. And therefore, God never wrought Miracle, to convince Atheisme, because his Ordinary Works Convince it. It is true, that a little Philosophy inclineth Mans Minde to Atheisme; But depth in Philosophy, bringeth Mens Mindes about to Religion.
'Of Atheisme' (1625) in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1887-1901), Vol. 6, 413.
Science quotes on:  |  Atheism (11)  |  Convince (43)  |  Depth (97)  |  Fable (12)  |  God (776)  |  Legend (18)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Religion (369)  |  Work (1402)

I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.
In The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation (1976, 1987), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Real (159)  |  Thin (18)  |  Think (1122)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)

I thought it was a miracle that I got this faculty appointment and was so happy to be there for a few years that I just wanted to follow what was exciting for me. I didn’t have expectations of getting tenure. So this was an aspect of gender inequality that was extremely positive. It allowed me to be fearless.
As quoted in Anna Azvolinsky, 'Fearless About Folding', The Scientist (Jan 2016).
Science quotes on:  |  Allow (51)  |  Appointment (12)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fearless (7)  |  Follow (389)  |  Gender (3)  |  Happy (108)  |  Inequality (9)  |  Positive (98)  |  Tenure (8)  |  Thought (995)  |  Want (504)  |  Year (963)

I undertake my scientific research with the confident assumption that the earth follows the laws of nature which God established at creation. … My studies are performed with the confidence that God will not capriciously confound scientific results by “slipping in” a miracle.
Quoted in Lenny Flank, Deception by Design: The Intelligent Design Movement in America (2007), 81. Also seen as cited from Arthur Newell Strahler, Science and Earth History: the Evolution/Creation Controversy (1987), 40-41.
Science quotes on:  |  Assumption (96)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Confident (25)  |  Confound (21)  |  Confounding (8)  |  Creation (350)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Establish (63)  |  Follow (389)  |  Following (16)  |  God (776)  |  Law (913)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Slip (6)  |  Study (701)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Undertaking (17)  |  Will (2350)

I waited for Rob and, linking arms, we took our final steps together onto the rooftop of the world. It was 8.15 am on 24 May 2004; there was nowhere higher on the planet that we could go, the world lay at our feet. Holding each other tightly, we tried to absorb where we were. To be standing here, together, exactly three years since Rob’s cancer treatment, was nothing short of a miracle. Standing on top of Everest was more than just climbing a mountain - it was a gift of life. With Pemba and Nawang we crowded together, wrapping our arms around each other. They had been more than Sherpas, they had been our guardian angels.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Angel (47)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Climb (39)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Everest (10)  |  Exactly (14)  |  Final (121)  |  Foot (65)  |  Gift (105)  |  Guardian (3)  |  High (370)  |  Hold (96)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Link (48)  |  Linking (8)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planet (402)  |  Rob (6)  |  Short (200)  |  Stand (284)  |  Step (234)  |  Tightly (2)  |  Together (392)  |  Top (100)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Try (296)  |  Wait (66)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrap (7)  |  Year (963)

If matter is not eternal, its first emergence into being is a miracle beside which all others dwindle into absolute insignificance. But, as has often been pointed out, the process is unthinkable; the sudden apocalypse of a material world out of blank nonentity cannot be imagined; its emergence into order out of chaos when “without form and void” of life, is merely a poetic rendering of the doctrine of its slow evolution.
In Nineteenth Century (Sep c.1879?). Quoted in John Tyndall, 'Professor Virchow and Evolution', Fragments of Science (1879), Vol. 2, 377.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Apocalypse (2)  |  Being (1276)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Black (46)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Dwindle (6)  |  Dwindling (3)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Insignificance (12)  |  Life (1870)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  Nonentity (2)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Point (584)  |  Pointing (4)  |  Process (439)  |  Rendering (6)  |  Slow (108)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Unthinkable (8)  |  Void (31)  |  World (1850)

If we can combine our knowledge of science with the wisdom of wildness, if we can nurture civilization through roots in the primitive, man’s potentialities appear to be unbounded, Through this evolving awareness, and his awareness of that awareness, he can emerge with the miraculous—to which we can attach what better name than “God”? And in this merging, as long sensed by intuition but still only vaguely perceived by rationality, experience may travel without need for accompanying life.
A Letter From Lindbergh', Life (4 Jul 1969), 61. In Eugene C. Gerhart, Quote it Completely! (1998), 409.
Science quotes on:  |  Accompany (22)  |  Attach (57)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Better (493)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Combine (58)  |  Experience (494)  |  God (776)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Name (359)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Potential (75)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Root (121)  |  Still (614)  |  Through (846)  |  Travel (125)  |  Wildness (6)  |  Wisdom (235)

If you had come to me a hundred years ago, do you think I should have dreamed of the telephone? Why, even now I cannot understand it! I use it every day, I transact half my correspondence by means of it, but I don’t understand it. Thnk of that little stretched disk of iron at the end of a wire repeating in your ear not only sounds, but words—not only words, but all the most delicate and elusive inflections and nuances of tone which separate one human voice from another! Is not that something of a miracle?
Quoted in Harold Begbie in Pall Mall magazine (Jan 1903). In Albert Shaw, The American Monthly Review of Reviews (1903), 27, 232.
Science quotes on:  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Ear (69)  |  End (603)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Iron (99)  |  Little (717)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Most (1728)  |  Separate (151)  |  Something (718)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tone (22)  |  Understand (648)  |  Use (771)  |  Why (491)  |  Wire (36)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

If, as a chemist, I see a flower, I know all that is involved in synthesizing a flower’s elements. And I know that even the fact that it exists is not something that is natural. It is a miracle.
In Pamela Weintraub (ed.), 'Through the Looking Glass', The Omni Interviews (1984), 161.
Science quotes on:  |  Biochemist (9)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Element (322)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flower (112)  |  Involved (90)  |  Know (1538)  |  Natural (810)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Synthesize (3)

In earlier times they had no statistics and so they had to fall back on lies. Hence the huge exaggerations of primitive literature, giants, miracles, wonders! It's the size that counts. They did it with lies and we do it with statistics: but it's all the same.
In Model Memoirs and Other Sketches from Simple to Serious (1971), 265.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Count (107)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exaggeration (16)  |  Fall (243)  |  Giant (73)  |  Lie (370)  |  Literature (116)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Size (62)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wonder (251)

In my understanding of God I start with certain firm beliefs. One is that the laws of nature are not broken. We do not, of course, know all these laws yet, but I believe that such laws exist. I do not, therefore, believe in the literal truth of some miracles which are featured in the Christian Scriptures, such as the Virgin Birth or water into wine. ... God works, I believe, within natural laws, and, according to natural laws, these things happen.
Essay 'Science Will Never Give Us the Answers to All Our Questions', collected in Henry Margenau, and Roy Abraham Varghese (eds.), Cosmos, Bios, Theos (1992), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Belief (615)  |  Birth (154)  |  Broken (56)  |  Certain (557)  |  Christian (44)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exist (458)  |  Firm (47)  |  God (776)  |  Happen (282)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Literal (12)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scripture (14)  |  Start (237)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Virgin (11)  |  Water (503)  |  Wine (39)  |  Work (1402)

In the early days of telephone engineering, the mere sending of a message was so much of a miracle that nobody asked how it should be sent.
In The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (1950), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Communication (101)  |  Early (196)  |  Early Days (3)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Mere (86)  |  Message (53)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Send (23)  |  Telephone (31)

In those parts of the world where learning and science has prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue.
In Reason, the Only Oracle of Man (1836), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Barbarous (4)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Learning (291)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Still (614)  |  Vogue (4)  |  World (1850)

In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.
Declaring a preference for contact with nature rather than with technology. In 'The Wisdom of Wilderness', Life (22 Dec 1967), 63, No. 25, 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Behind (139)  |  Fade (12)  |  Life (1870)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)  |  Trivia (2)  |  Wilderness (57)

It is almost a miracle that modern teaching methods have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry; for what this delicate little plant needs more than anything, besides stimulation, is freedom.
Quoted in H. Eves, Return to Mathematical Circles.
Science quotes on:  |  Delicate (45)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Holy (35)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Little (717)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Need (320)  |  Plant (320)  |  Stimulation (18)  |  Strangle (3)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)

It is childish to assume that science began in Greece; the Greek “miracle” was prepared by millenia of work in Egypt, Mesopotamia and possibly in other regions. Greek science was less an invention than a revival.
In A History of Science: Volume 1: Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece (1952), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Egypt (31)  |  Greek Science (2)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Invention (400)  |  Millenium (2)  |  Revival (2)

It is sometimes helpful to differentiate between the God of Miracles and the God of Order. When scientists use the word God, they usually mean the God of Order. …The God of Miracles intervenes in our affairs, performs miracles, destroys wicked cities, smites enemy armies, drowns the Pharaoh's troops, and avenges the pure and noble. …This is not to say that miracles cannot happen, only that they are outside what is commonly called science.
In 'Conclusion', Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension (1995), 330-331.
Science quotes on:  |  Affair (29)  |  Army (35)  |  Avenge (2)  |  Call (781)  |  Called Science (14)  |  City (87)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Drown (14)  |  Enemy (86)  |  God (776)  |  Happen (282)  |  Intervene (8)  |  Mean (810)  |  Noble (93)  |  Order (638)  |  Outside (141)  |  Perform (123)  |  Pharaoh (4)  |  Pure (299)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Smite (4)  |  Troop (4)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  Wicked (5)  |  Word (650)

It is, as Schrödinger has remarked, a miracle that in spite of the baffling complexity of the world, certain regularities in the events could be discovered. One such regularity, discovered by Galileo, is that two rocks, dropped at the same time from the same height, reach the ground at the same time. The laws of nature are concerned with such regularities.
In 'The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,' Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics (Feb 1960), 13, No. 1 (February 1960). Collected in Eugene Paul Wigner, A.S. Wightman (ed.), Jagdish Mehra (ed.), The Collected Works of Eugene Paul Wigner (1955), Vol. 6, 537.
Science quotes on:  |  Baffling (5)  |  Certain (557)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Concern (239)  |  Discover (571)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dropped (17)  |  Event (222)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Ground (222)  |  Height (33)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Reach (286)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Remark (28)  |  Rock (176)  |  Erwin Schrödinger (68)  |  Spite (55)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  World (1850)

It seems a miracle that young children easily learn the language of any environment into which they were born. The generative approach to grammar, pioneered by Chomsky, argues that this is only explicable if certain deep, universal features of this competence are innate characteristics of the human brain. Biologically speaking, this hypothesis of an inheritable capability to learn any language means that it must somehow be encoded in the DNA of our chromosomes. Should this hypothesis one day be verified, then lingusitics would become a branch of biology.
'The Generative Grammar of the Immune System', Nobel Lecture, 8 Dec 1984. In Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1981-1990 (1993), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Become (821)  |  Biology (232)  |  Birth (154)  |  Brain (281)  |  Branch (155)  |  Capability (44)  |  Certain (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Avram Noam Chomsky (7)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Chromosomes (17)  |  Competence (13)  |  Deep (241)  |  DNA (81)  |  Environment (239)  |  Grammar (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Innate (14)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Linguistics (39)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Universal (198)  |  Young (253)

Life is not a miracle. It is a natural phenomenon, and can be expected to appear whenever there is a planet whose conditions duplicate those of the earth.
[Stating his belief that planets supporting life cannot be rare.]
Lecture at New York Academy of Medicine. Quoted in article, 'Life Begins,' Time (24 Nov 1952).
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Condition (362)  |  Duplicate (9)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Expect (203)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Life (1870)  |  Natural (810)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Planet (402)  |  Rare (94)  |  Whenever (81)

M. Waldman … concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry…:— “The ancient teachers of this science” said he, “Promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera. But these philosophers seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.”
In Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus (1823), Vol. 1, 73-74. Webmaster note: In the novel, when the fictional characters meet, M. Waldman, professor of chemistry, sparks Victor Frankenstein’s interest in science. Shelley was age 20 when the first edition of the novel was published anonymously (1818).
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Alchemist (23)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Blood (144)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Chimera (10)  |  Command (60)  |  Crucible (8)  |  Dabble (2)  |  Dirt (17)  |  Discover (571)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Elixir (6)  |  Elixir Of Life (2)  |  Eye (440)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Hiding (12)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Master (182)  |  Metal (88)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mimic (2)  |  Mock (7)  |  Modern (402)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perform (123)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Promise (72)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Show (353)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Transmutation (24)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

No true geologist holds by the development hypothesis;—it has been resigned to sciolists and smatterers;—and there is but one other alternative. They began to be, through the miracle of creation. From the evidence furnished by these rocks we are shut down either to belief in miracle, or to something else infinitely harder of reception, and as thoroughly unsupported by testimony as it is contrary to experience. Hume is at length answered by the severe truths of the stony science.
The Foot-prints of the Creator: Or, The Asterolepis of Stromness (1850, 1859), 301.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternative (32)  |  Answer (389)  |  Belief (615)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Creation (350)  |  Development (441)  |  Down (455)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experience (494)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Geologist (82)  |   David Hume (34)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Other (2233)  |  Reception (16)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sciolist (2)  |  Shut (41)  |  Something (718)  |  Superficial (12)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)

One may say “the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility” … The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.
‘Physics and Reality’, Franklin Institute Journal (Mar 1936). Collected in Out of My Later Years (1950), 60.
Science quotes on:  |  Comprehensibility (2)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Say (989)  |  World (1850)

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child - our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
In The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation (1987), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Black (46)  |  Blue (63)  |  Child (333)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Consider (428)  |  Curious (95)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Engage (41)  |  Eye (440)  |  Green (65)  |  Leave (138)  |  People (1031)  |  Real (159)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Sky (174)  |  Thin (18)  |  Think (1122)  |  Two (936)  |  Usually (176)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)  |  White (132)

Religion shows a pattern of heredity which I think is similar to genetic heredity. ... There are hundreds of different religious sects, and every religious person is loyal to just one of these. ... The overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one their parents belonged to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained-glass, the best music when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing compared to the matter of heredity.
From edited version of a speech, at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (15 Apr 1992), as reprinted from the Independent newspaper in Alec Fisher, The Logic of Real Arguments (2004), 82-83.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Belong (168)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Best (467)  |  Cathedral (27)  |  Choose (116)  |  Code (31)  |  Count (107)  |  Different (595)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Favor (69)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Glass (94)  |  Happen (282)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Loyal (5)  |  Majority (68)  |  Matter (821)  |  Moral (203)  |  Music (133)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Person (366)  |  Potential (75)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Sect (5)  |  Show (353)  |  Similar (36)  |  Stained Glass (2)  |  Think (1122)  |  Virtue (117)

Science can give us only the tools in the box, these mechanical miracles that it has already given us. But of what use to us are miraculous tools until we have mastered the humane, cultural use of them? We do not want to live in a world where the machine has mastered the man; we want to live in a world where man has mastered the machine.
Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture: Selected Writings 1894-1940 (1941), 258.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Box (22)  |  Cultural (26)  |  Do (1905)  |  Humane (19)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Tool (129)  |  Use (771)  |  Want (504)  |  World (1850)

Science surpasses the old miracles of mythology, to fly with them over the sea, and to send their messages under it.
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), 473.
Science quotes on:  |  Fly (153)  |  Message (53)  |  Mythology (19)  |  Old (499)  |  Sea (326)  |  Send (23)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Under (7)

Science surpasses the old miracles of mythology.
'Progress of Culture', an address read to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, 18 July 1867. In Emerson's Complete Works (1883), Vol. 8, 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Myth (58)  |  Mythology (19)  |  Old (499)

Scientific training gives its votaries freedom from the impositions of modern quackery. Those who know nothing of the laws and processes of Nature fall an easy prey to quacks and impostors. Perfectionism in the realm of religion; a score of frauds in the realm of medicine, as electric shoe soles, hair brushes and belts, electropises, oxydonors, insulating bed casters, and the like; Christian science, in the presence of whose unspeakable stillness and self-stultifying idealism a wise man knows not whether to laugh or cry; Prof. Weltmer’s magnetic treatment of disease; divine healing and miracle working by long-haired peripatetics—these and a score of other contagious fads and rank impostures find their followers among those who have no scientific training. Among their deluded victims are thousands of men and women of high character, undoubted piety, good intentions, charitable impulses and literary culture, but none trained to scientific research. Vaccinate the general public with scientific training and these epidemics will become a thing of the past.
As quoted by S.D. Van Meter, Chairman, closing remarks for 'Report of Committee on Public Policy and Legislation', to the Colorado State Medical Society in Denver, printed in Colorado Medicine (Oct 1904), 1, No. 12, 363. Van Meter used the quote following his statement, “In conclusion, allow me to urge once more the necessity of education of the public as well as the profession if we ever expect to correct the evils we are striving to reach by State and Society legislation. Much can be accomplished toward this end by the publication of well edited articles in the secular press upon medical subjects the public is eager to know about.” Prof. Weltmer is presumably Sidney A. Weltmer, founder of The Weltmer Institute of Suggestive Therapeutics, who offered a Course in Magnetic Healing by mail order correspondence (1899). [The word printed as “electropises” in the article is presumably a typo for “electropoises”. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Bed (25)  |  Belt (4)  |  Brush (5)  |  Character (259)  |  Charity (13)  |  Christian (44)  |  Christian Science (3)  |  Contagious (5)  |  Cry (30)  |  Culture (157)  |  Deluded (7)  |  Disease (340)  |  Divine (112)  |  Eager (17)  |  Easy (213)  |  Education (423)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Epidemic (8)  |  Fad (10)  |  Fall (243)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follower (11)  |  Fraud (15)  |  Freedom (145)  |  General (521)  |  General Public (7)  |  Good (906)  |  Good Intention (2)  |  Hair (25)  |  Healing (28)  |  High (370)  |  Idealism (4)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Imposition (5)  |  Impostor (4)  |  Imposture (6)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Insulating (3)  |  Intelligent Design (5)  |  Intention (46)  |  Know (1538)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Law (913)  |  Literary (15)  |  Long (778)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Man (2252)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Modern (402)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Perfectionism (2)  |  Peripatetic (3)  |  Piety (5)  |  Presence (63)  |  Prey (13)  |  Process (439)  |  Quack (18)  |  Quackery (4)  |  Rank (69)  |  Realm (87)  |  Religion (369)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Self (268)  |  Shoe (12)  |  Sole (50)  |  Stillness (5)  |  Stultify (5)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Train (118)  |  Trained (5)  |  Training (92)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Victim (37)  |  Votary (3)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wise (143)  |  Wise Man (17)  |  Woman (160)  |  Work (1402)

Some may claim that is it unscientific to speak of the operations of nature as “miracles.” But the point of the title lies in the paradox of finding so many wonderful things … subservient to the rule of law.
In Nature’s Miracles: Familiar Talks on Science (1899), Vol. 1, Introduction, v.
Science quotes on:  |  Claim (154)  |  Find (1014)  |  Law (913)  |  Lie (370)  |  Lying (55)  |  Many (4)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Point (584)  |  Rule (307)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Subservient (5)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Title (20)  |  Unscientific (13)  |  Wonderful (155)

The Mathematics, I say, which effectually exercises, not vainly deludes or vexatiously torments studious Minds with obscure Subtilties, perplexed Difficulties, or contentious Disquisitions; which overcomes without Opposition, triumphs without Pomp, compels without Force, and rules absolutely without Loss of Liberty; which does not privately over-reach a weak Faith, but openly assaults an armed Reason, obtains a total Victory, and puts on inevitable Chains; whose Words are so many Oracles, and Works as many Miracles; which blabs out nothing rashly, nor designs anything from the Purpose, but plainly demonstrates and readily performs all Things within its Verge; which obtrudes no false Shadow of Science, but the very Science itself, the Mind firmly adhering to it, as soon as possessed of it, and can never after desert it of its own Accord, or be deprived of it by any Force of others: Lastly the Mathematics, which depends upon Principles clear to the Mind, and agreeable to Experience; which draws certain Conclusions, instructs by profitable Rules, unfolds pleasant Questions; and produces wonderful Effects; which is the fruitful Parent of, I had almost said all, Arts, the unshaken Foundation of Sciences, and the plentiful Fountain of Advantage to human Affairs.
Address to the University of Cambridge upon being elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics (14 Mar 1664). In Mathematical Lectures (1734), xxviii.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Agreeable (20)  |  Arm (82)  |  Art (680)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chain (51)  |  Compel (31)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Delude (3)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Depend (238)  |  Desert (59)  |  Design (203)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Draw (140)  |  Effect (414)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Experience (494)  |  Faith (209)  |  False (105)  |  Force (497)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fountain (18)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Liberty (29)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Oracle (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Parent (80)  |  Perform (123)  |  Pomp (2)  |  Possess (157)  |  Principle (530)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Rashly (2)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Soon (187)  |  Studious (5)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Torment (18)  |  Total (95)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Verge (10)  |  Victory (40)  |  Weak (73)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses. No creature who began as a mathematical improbability, who was selected through millions of years of unprecedented environmental hardship and change for ruggedness, ruthlessness, cunning, and adaptability, and who in the short ten thousand years of what we may call civilization has achieved such wonders as we find about us, may be regarded as a creature without promise.
African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man (1961), 348.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptability (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Creature (242)  |  Cunning (17)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Find (1014)  |  Improbability (11)  |  Known (453)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature Of Man (8)  |  Poem (104)  |  Promise (72)  |  Regard (312)  |  Select (45)  |  Short (200)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Unprecedented (11)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Year (963)

The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.
In 'The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences', Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics (Feb 1960), 13, No. 1, 14. Collected in Eugene Paul Wigner, A.S. Wightman (ed.), Jagdish Mehra (ed.), The Collected Works of Eugene Paul Wigner (1955), Vol. 6, 537.
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriateness (7)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Gift (105)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Understand (648)  |  Wonderful (155)

The moral principle inherent in evolution, that nothing can be gained in this world without an effort; the ethical principle inherent in evolution is that only the best has the right to survive; the spiritual principle in evolution is the evidence of beauty, of order, and of design in the daily myriad of miracles to which we owe our existence.
'Evolution and Religion', New York Times (5 Mar 1922), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Best (467)  |  Daily (91)  |  Design (203)  |  Effort (243)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Gain (146)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Moral (203)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Order (638)  |  Owe (71)  |  Principle (530)  |  Right (473)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survive (87)  |  World (1850)

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Everything (489)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)

There has never been an age so full of humbug. Humbug everywhere, even in science. For years now the scientists have been promising us every morning a new miracle, a new element, a new metal, guaranteeing to warm us with copper discs immersed in water, to feed us with nothing, to kill us at no expense whatever on a grand scale, to keep us alive indefinitely, to make iron out of heaven knows what. And all this fantastic, scientific humbugging leads to membership of the Institut, to decorations, to influence, to stipends, to the respect of serious people. In the meantime the cost of living rises, doubles, trebles; there is a shortage of raw materials; even death makes no progress—as we saw at Sebastopol, where men cut each other to ribbons—and the cheapest goods are still the worst goods in the world.
With co-author Jules de Goncourt (French writer, 1830-70)
Diary entry, 7 Jan 1857. In R. Baldick (ed. & trans.), Pages from the Goncourt Journal (1978), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Alive (97)  |  Author (175)  |  Copper (25)  |  Cost (94)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Element (322)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  Good (906)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Humbug (6)  |  Influence (231)  |  Iron (99)  |  Kill (100)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Metal (88)  |  Morning (98)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Progress (492)  |  Raw (28)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rise (169)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scale (122)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Serious (98)  |  Still (614)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)  |  Whatever (234)  |  World (1850)  |  Worst (57)  |  Writer (90)  |  Year (963)

There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth: the first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors—this is robbery; the second by commerce, which is generally cheating; the third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.
In 'Positions to be Examined', The Works of Benjamin Franklin Consisting of Essays, Humorous, Moral and Literary (1824), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Cheat (13)  |  Cheating (2)  |  Commerce (23)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Continual (44)  |  Favor (69)  |  First (1302)  |  God (776)  |  Ground (222)  |  Honest (53)  |  Increase (225)  |  Industry (159)  |  Innocent (13)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nation (208)  |  Plunder (6)  |  Real (159)  |  Receive (117)  |  Reward (72)  |  Robbery (6)  |  Roman (39)  |  Seed (97)  |  Throw (45)  |  Virtuous (9)  |  War (233)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wealth (100)

This universe whose chief miracle is that it exists,… [is] a great garden in which life is trying to obtain a foothold.
In The Philosopher’s Stone (1969), 232.
Science quotes on:  |  Chief (99)  |  Exist (458)  |  Foothold (2)  |  Garden (64)  |  Great (1610)  |  Life (1870)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Trying (144)  |  Universe (900)

This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.
In Lecture 1 (5 May 1840), collected in On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (1841), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Magic (92)  |  More (2558)  |  Still (614)  |  Think (1122)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

Throw out opium, which the Creator himself seems to prescribe, for we often see the scarlet poppy growing in the cornfields, as if it were foreseen that wherever there is hunger to be fed there must also be a pain to be soothed; throw out a few specifics which our art did not discover, and it is hardly needed to apply; throw out wine, which is a food, and the vapors which produce the miracle of anaesthesia, and I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica [medical drugs], as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind,—and all the worse for the fishes.
'Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science', Address to Massachusetts Medical Society (30 May 1860). In Medical Essays 1842-1882 (1891), 202-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Anaesthesia (4)  |  Apply (170)  |  Art (680)  |  Better (493)  |  Bottom Of The Sea (5)  |  Creator (97)  |  Discover (571)  |  Drug (61)  |  Food (213)  |  Growing (99)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Must (1525)  |  Opium (7)  |  Pain (144)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Specific (98)  |  Vapor (12)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wine (39)

To me every hour of light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
In poem, 'Miracles', Leaves of Grass (1867), 336.
Science quotes on:  |  Cubic (2)  |  Dark (145)  |  Hour (192)  |  Inch (10)  |  Light (635)  |  Space (523)

To me every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.
Science quotes on:  |  Hour (192)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Work (1402)

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves— the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
In poem, 'Miracles', Leaves of Grass (1867), 336.
Science quotes on:  |  Continual (44)  |  Fish (130)  |  Motion (320)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sailor (21)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Strange (160)  |  Swim (32)  |  Wave (112)

Today we are on the eve of launching a new industry, based on imagination, on scientific research and accomplishment. … Now we add radio sight to sound. It is with a feeling of humbleness that I come to this moment of announcing the birth in this country of a new art so important in its implications that it is bound to affect all society. It is an art which shines like a torch of hope in the troubled world. It is a creative force which we must learn to utilize for the benefit of all mankind. This miracle of engineering skill which one day will bring the world to the home also brings a new American industry to serve man’s material welfare … [Television] will become an important factor in American economic life.
Address at dedication of RCA Exhibit Building, New York World Fair before unveiling the RCA television exhibit (20 Apr 1939). In RCA Review: A Technical Journal (1938), Vols 3-4, 4. As quoted in Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, 'Father of Broadcasting: David Sarnoff (Time 100)', Time (7 Dec 1998), 152, No. 23, 88; and in Eugene Lyons, David Sarnoff: A Biography (1966), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Art (680)  |  Become (821)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Birth (154)  |  Bound (120)  |  Country (269)  |  Creative (144)  |  Economic (84)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Force (497)  |  Home (184)  |  Hope (321)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Industry (159)  |  Invention (400)  |  Learn (672)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Material (366)  |  Moment (260)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Radio (60)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sight (135)  |  Skill (116)  |  Society (350)  |  Sound (187)  |  Television (33)  |  Today (321)  |  Torch (13)  |  Welfare (30)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

True Agnosticism will not forget that existence, motion, and law-abiding operation in nature are more stupendous miracles than any recounted by the mythologies, and that there may be things, not only in the heavens and earth, but beyond the intelligible universe, which “are not dreamt of in our philosophy.” The theological “gnosis” would have us believe that the world is a conjurer’s house; the anti-theological “gnosis” talks as if it were a “dirt-pie,” made by the two blind children, Law and Force. Agnosticism simply says that we know nothing of what may be behind phenomena.
In Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (1913), Vol. 3, 98, footnote 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Agnosticism (2)  |  Behind (139)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Blind (98)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Dirt (17)  |  Dream (222)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Existence (481)  |  Force (497)  |  Forget (125)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  House (143)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mythology (19)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Operation (221)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Say (989)  |  Simply (53)  |  Stupendous (13)  |  Talk (108)  |  Theology (54)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received unwillingly. To expect the world to receive a new truth, or even an old truth, without challenging it, is to look for one of those miracles which do not occur.
In 'Alfred Russel Wallace: An interview by W. B. Northrop', The Outlook (1913), 105, 622.
Science quotes on:  |  Born (37)  |  Challenging (3)  |  Do (1905)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Look (584)  |  New (1273)  |  Occur (151)  |  Old (499)  |  Receive (117)  |  Tribulation (2)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unwillingly (2)  |  World (1850)

We believe that ‘buckytubes’ are best thought of as a new miracle polymer, However, in this case, the polymer conducts electricity, and that’s a new play.
In Paul Dempsey. 'The Good of Small Things', Power Engineer (Feb/Mar 2005), 23. Note: ‘Buckytubes’ refers to nanotubes.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Best (467)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Electricity (168)  |  New (1273)  |  Polymer (4)  |  Thought (995)

We never attempted to decipher the meaning of life; we wanted only to testify to the miracle of life.
In Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein, The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World (2007), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Decipher (7)  |  Life (1870)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Never (1089)  |  Testify (7)  |  Want (504)

We reverence ancient Greece as the cradle of western science. Here for the first time the world witnessed the miracle of a logical system which proceeded from step to step with such precision that every single one of its propositions was absolutely indubitable—I refer to Euclid’s geometry. This admirable triumph of reasoning gave the human intellect the necessary confidence in itself for its subsequent achievements. If Euclid failed to kindle your youthful enthusiasm, then you were not born to be a scientific thinker.
From 'On the Method of Theoretical Physics', in Essays in Science (1934, 2004), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Admirable (20)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Born (37)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Cradle (19)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failed (3)  |  First (1302)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Greece (9)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Indubitable (3)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Kindle (9)  |  Logic (311)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Precision (72)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Single (365)  |  Step (234)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  System (545)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Time (1911)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Western (45)  |  Witness (57)  |  World (1850)  |  Youthful (2)

Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: “Great God, grant that twice two be not four”.
First lines of 'Prayer' (Jul 1881), collected in Constance Garnett (trans.), 'Poems in Prose', Novels of Ivan Turgenev: Dream Tales and Prose Poems (1906), Vol. 10, 323.
Science quotes on:  |  God (776)  |  Grant (76)  |  Great (1610)  |  Man (2252)  |  Pray (19)  |  Prayer (30)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Two (936)  |  Whatever (234)

When we accept tough jobs as a challenge and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Happen (282)  |  Job (86)  |  Joy (117)  |  Tough (22)  |  Wade (2)

When you study natural science and the miracles of creation, if you don’t turn into a mystic you are not a natural scientist.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 39
Science quotes on:  |  Creation (350)  |  Mystic (23)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Natural Scientist (6)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Study (701)  |  Turn (454)

While the Jeffersonian did not flatly deny the Creator’s power to perform miracles, he admired His refusal to do so.
In The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948, 1993), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Admire (19)  |  Creator (97)  |  Deny (71)  |  Do (1905)  |  Thomas Jefferson (70)  |  Perform (123)  |  Power (771)  |  Refusal (23)

Who are so rich as the poet and the man of science? “The meanest flower that blows” is an unfathomable mine of thought to the one, and “the poor beetle that we tread upon” holds a whole museum of nature’s miracles for the other.
In 'Professor Jeffries Wyman: A Memorial Outline', The Atlantic Monthly (Nov 1874), 621.
Science quotes on:  |  Beetle (19)  |  Entomologist (7)  |  Flower (112)  |  Museum (40)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Poet (97)  |  Science And Poetry (17)  |  Thought (995)

Who vagrant transitory comets sees,
Wonders because they’re rare; but a new star
Whose motion with the firmament agrees,
Is miracle; for there no new things are.
Science quotes on:  |  Agree (31)  |  Comet (65)  |  Firmament (18)  |  Motion (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Rare (94)  |  See (1094)  |  Star (460)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transitory (4)  |  Vagrant (5)  |  Wonder (251)

Why do the laws that govern [the universe] seem constant in time? One can imagine a Universe in which laws are not truly law-full. Talk of miracle does just this, invoking God to make things work. Physics aims to find the laws instead, and hopes that they will be uniquely constrained, as when Einstein wondered whether God had any choice when He made the Universe.
Gregory Benford, in John Brockman, What We Believe But Cannot Prove. In Clifford A. Pickover, Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them (2008), 182-183.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Choice (114)  |  Constant (148)  |  Constraint (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Find (1014)  |  God (776)  |  Govern (66)  |  Hope (321)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Invoke (7)  |  Law (913)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)  |  Unique (72)  |  Universe (900)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Work (1402)

Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know of nothing else but miracles…
“Miracles”. Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 21
Science quotes on:  |  Know (1538)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Why (491)

You can swim (uncomfortably) in water at a temperature slightly above freezing; a tiny drop in temperature—or a miracle—allows you to walk on water.
Co-authored with Bruce A. Albrecht.
Craig F. Bohren and Bruce A. Albrecht. In Michael Dudley Sturge , Statistical and Thermal Physics (2003), 273.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Drop (77)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Swim (32)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)

You don’t need an explanation for everything. Recognize that there are such things as miracles - events for which there are no ready explanations. Later knowledge may explain those events quite easily.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Easily (36)  |  Event (222)  |  Everything (489)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Late (119)  |  Need (320)  |  Ready (43)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Thing (1914)


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.