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: “A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index O > Category: Oath

Oath Quotes (10 quotes)

[Having already asserted his opposition to communism in every respect by signing the regents' oath, his answer to a question why a non-Communist professor should refuse to take a non-Communist oath as a condition of University employment was that to do so would imply it was] up to an accused person to clear himself. ... That sort of thing is going on in Washington today and is a cause of alarm to thoughtful citizens. It is the method used in totalitarian countries. It sounds un-American to people who don’t like to be pushed around. If someone says I ought to do a certain thing the burden should be on him to show I why I should, not on me to show why I should not.
As quoted in 'Educator Scores Oath For Faculty', New York Times (16 Apr 1950), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Accusation (6)  |  Alarm (19)  |  Already (226)  |  Answer (389)  |  Assert (69)  |  Burden (30)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Communism (11)  |  Communist (9)  |  Condition (362)  |  Country (269)  |  Do (1905)  |  Employment (34)  |  Himself (461)  |  Method (531)  |  Opposition (49)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Professor (133)  |  Push (66)  |  Question (649)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Respect (212)  |  Say (989)  |  Show (353)  |  Sound (187)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thoughtful (16)  |  Today (321)  |  Totalitarian (6)  |  Un-American (3)  |  Unamerican (2)  |  University (130)  |  Washington (7)  |  Why (491)

[About the demand of the Board of Regents of the University of California that professors sign non-Communist loyalty oaths or lose their jobs within 65 days.] No conceivable damage to the university at the hands of hypothetical Communists among us could possibly have equaled the damage resulting from the unrest, ill-will and suspicion engendered by this series of events.
As quoted in 'Professors in West Call Oath “Indignity”', New York Times (26 Feb 1950), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Communist (9)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Damage (38)  |  Demand (131)  |  Engendering (3)  |  Equal (88)  |  Event (222)  |  Hypothetical (6)  |  Job (86)  |  Lose (165)  |  Loyalty (10)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Professor (133)  |  Result (700)  |  Series (153)  |  Sign (63)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  University (130)  |  University Of California (2)  |  Unrest (2)  |  Will (2350)

He was 40 yeares old before he looked on Geometry; which happened accidentally. Being in a Gentleman's Library, Euclid's Elements lay open, and 'twas the 47 El. Libri 1 [Pythagoras' Theorem]. He read the proposition. By G-, sayd he (he would now and then sweare an emphaticall Oath by way of emphasis) this is impossible! So he reads the Demonstration of it, which referred him back to such a Proposition; which proposition he read. That referred him back to another, which he also read. Et sic deinceps [and so on] that at last he was demonstratively convinced of that trueth. This made him in love with Geometry .
Of Thomas Hobbes, in 1629.
Brief Lives (1680), edited by Oliver Lawson Dick (1949), 150.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Element (322)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Gentleman (26)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Last (425)  |  Library (53)  |  Look (584)  |  Love (328)  |  Old (499)  |  Open (277)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Read (308)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Way (1214)

I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, being brought personally to judgment, and kneeling before your Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lords Cardinals, General Inquisitors of the universal Christian republic against heretical depravity, having before my eyes the Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own hands, swear that I have always believed, and now believe, and with the help of God will in future believe, every article which the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome holds, teaches, and preaches. But because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office altogether to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the sun is the centre and immovable, and forbidden to hold, defend, or teach the said false doctrine in any manner, and after it hath been signified to me that the said doctrine is repugnant with the Holy Scripture, I have written and printed a book, in which I treat of the same doctrine now condemned, and adduce reasons with great force in support of the same, without giving any solution, and therefore have been judged grievously suspected of heresy; that is to say, that I held and believed that the sun is the centre of the universe and is immovable, and that the earth is not the centre and is movable; willing, therefore, to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of every Catholic Christian, this vehement suspicion rightfully entertained toward me, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect contrary to Holy Church; and I swear that I will never more in future say or assert anything verbally, or in writing, which may give rise to a similar suspicion of me; but if I shall know any heretic, or anyone suspected of heresy, that I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be; I swear, moreover, and promise, that I will fulfil and observe fully, all the penances which have been or shall be laid on me by this Holy Office. But if it shall happen that I violate any of my said promises, oaths, and protestations (which God avert!), I subject myself to all the pains and punishments which have been decreed and promulgated by the sacred canons, and other general and particular constitutions, against delinquents of this description. So may God help me, and his Holy Gospels which I touch with my own hands. I, the above-named Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above, and in witness thereof with my own hand have subscribed this present writing of my abjuration, which I have recited word for word. At Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, June 22, 1633. I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand.
Abjuration, 22 Jun 1633. In J.J. Fahie, Galileo, His Life and Work (1903), 319-321.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Abjuration (3)  |  Against (332)  |  Assert (69)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Bound (120)  |  Cardinal (9)  |  Catholic (18)  |  Christian (44)  |  Church (64)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Curse (20)  |  Denounce (6)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Error (339)  |  Eye (440)  |  Faith (209)  |  Forbidden (18)  |  Force (497)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heliocentric Model (7)  |  Heretic (8)  |  Holy (35)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Late (119)  |  Lord (97)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observe (179)  |  Office (71)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pain (144)  |  Present (630)  |  Promise (72)  |  Punishment (14)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remove (50)  |  Republic (16)  |  Repugnant (8)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rome (19)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Say (989)  |  Solution (282)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sun (407)  |  Support (151)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Swear (7)  |  Teach (299)  |  Touch (146)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Willing (44)  |  Witness (57)  |  Word (650)  |  Writing (192)  |  Year (963)

Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.
Oath, in Hippocrates, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1923), Vol. 1, 301.
Science quotes on:  |  Abroad (19)  |  Abstain (7)  |  Bond (46)  |  Course (413)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enter (145)  |  Free (239)  |  Hear (144)  |  Holy (35)  |  House (143)  |  Man (2252)  |  Never (1089)  |  Outside (141)  |  Physician (284)  |  Profession (108)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Sick (83)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)  |  Wrong (246)

It is in the name of Moses that Bellarmin thunderstrikes Galileo; and this great vulgarizer of the great seeker Copernicus, Galileo, the old man of truth, the magian of the heavens, was reduced to repeating on his knees word for word after the inquisitor this formula of shame: “Corde sincera et fide non ficta abjuro maledico et detestor supradictos errores et hereses.” Falsehood put an ass's hood on science.
[With a sincere heart, and of faith unfeigned, I deny by oath, condemn and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies.]
In Victor Hugo and Lorenzo O'Rourke (trans.) Victor Hugo's Intellectual Autobiography: (Postscriptum de ma vie) (1907), 313.
Science quotes on:  |  Condemn (44)  |  Nicolaus Copernicus (54)  |  Deny (71)  |  Error (339)  |  Faith (209)  |  Falsehood (30)  |  Formula (102)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Heresy (9)  |  Inquisitor (6)  |  Knee (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moses (8)  |  Name (359)  |  Old (499)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Seeker (8)  |  Shame (15)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Word (650)

Knowledge and ability must be combined with ambition as well as with a sense of honesty and a severe conscience. Every analyst occasionally has doubts about the accuracy of his results, and also there are times when he knows his results to be incorrect. Sometimes a few drops of the solution were spilt, or some other slight mistake made. In these cases it requires a strong conscience to repeat the analysis and to make a rough estimate of the loss or apply a correction. Anyone not having sufficient will-power to do this is unsuited to analysis no matter how great his technical ability or knowledge. A chemist who would not take an oath guaranteeing the authenticity, as well as the accuracy of his work, should never publish his results, for if he were to do so, then the result would be detrimental not only to himself, but to the whole of science.
Anleitung zur Quantitativen Analyse (1847), preface. F. Szabadvary, History of Analytical Chemistry (1966), trans. Gyula Svehla, 176.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Ambition (46)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Apply (170)  |  Authenticity (5)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Correction (42)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Drop (77)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Honesty (29)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Loss (117)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Publication (102)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solution (282)  |  Strong (182)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

THE OATH. I swear by Apollo [the healing God], the physician and Aesclepius [son of Apollo], and Health [Hygeia], and All-heal [Panacea], and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation—to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further, from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, trans. Francis Adams (1886), Vol. 2, 344-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Abortion (4)  |  Abroad (19)  |  Abstain (7)  |  According (236)  |  Act (278)  |  Art (680)  |  Ask (420)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Bound (120)  |  Brother (47)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continue (179)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Counsel (11)  |  Cut (116)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Enter (145)  |  Equally (129)  |  Female (50)  |  Follow (389)  |  God (776)  |  Grant (76)  |  Healing (28)  |  Health (210)  |  Hear (144)  |  Holiness (7)  |  House (143)  |  Impart (24)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mischief (13)  |  Mischievous (12)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pass (241)  |  Patient (209)  |  Person (366)  |  Physician (284)  |  Practice (212)  |  Practitioner (21)  |  Precept (10)  |  Professional (77)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Required (108)  |  Respect (212)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seduction (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Share (82)  |  Sick (83)  |  Slave (40)  |  Stone (168)  |  Substance (253)  |  Swear (7)  |  System (545)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trespass (5)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Woman (160)  |  Work (1402)

Unconfusion submits
its confusion to proof; it's
not a Herod's oath that cannot change.
The Mind is an Enchanting Thing'. Complete Poems (1994), 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Proof (304)

When we think how narrow and devious this path of nature is, how dimly we can trace it, for all our lamps of science, and how from the darkness which girds it round great and terrible possibilities loom ever shadowly upwards, it is a bold and a confident man who will put a limit to the strange by-oaths into which the human spirit may wander.
Lot No. 249 (1892)
Science quotes on:  |  Bold (22)  |  Confident (25)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Limit (294)  |  Loom (20)  |  Man (2252)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Path (159)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Strange (160)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Think (1122)  |  Trace (109)  |  Upward (44)  |  Wander (44)  |  Will (2350)


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.