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

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “I was going to record talking... the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb',... and the machine reproduced it perfectly.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Personality

Personality Quotes (66 quotes)


Mathematical truth has validity independent of place, personality, or human authority. Mathematical relations are not established, nor can they be abrogated, by edict. The multiplication table is international and permanent, not a matter of convention nor of relying upon authority of state or church. The value of π is not amenable to human caprice. The finding of a mathematical theorem may have been a highly romantic episode in the personal life of the discoverer, but it cannot be expected of itself to reveal the race, sex, or temperament of this discoverer. With modern means of widespread communication even mathematical notation tends to be international despite all nationalistic tendencies in the use of words or of type.
Anonymous
In 'Light Thrown on the Nature of Mathematics by Certain Aspects of Its Development', Mathematics in General Education (1940), 256. This is the Report of the Committee on the Function of Mathematics in General Education of the Commission on Secondary School Curriculum, which was established by the Executive Board of the Progressive Education Association in 1932.
Science quotes on:  |  Amenable (4)  |  Authority (99)  |  Caprice (10)  |  Church (64)  |  Communication (101)  |  Convention (16)  |  Despite (7)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Episode (5)  |  Establish (63)  |  Expect (203)  |  Human (1512)  |  Independent (74)  |  International (40)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Modern (402)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Nation (208)  |  Notation (28)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Personal (75)  |  Place (192)  |  Race (278)  |  Relation (166)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Romantic (13)  |  Sex (68)  |  State (505)  |  Table (105)  |  Temperament (18)  |  Tend (124)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Type (171)  |  Use (771)  |  Validity (50)  |  Value (393)  |  Widespread (23)  |  Word (650)

Personality and salesmanship do not produce except in the competitive sense.
Aphorism listed Frederick Seitz, The Cosmic Inventor: Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (1866-1932) (1999), 55, being Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Held at Philadelphia For Promoting Useful Knowledge, Vol. 86, Pt. 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Competition (45)  |  Do (1905)  |  Production (190)  |  Sense (785)

A contemporary poet has characterized this sense of the personality of art and of the impersonality of science in these words,—“Art is myself; science is ourselves.”
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 43. The poet referred to was Victor Hugo, writing in William Shakespeare (1864).
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Myself (211)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Sense (785)  |  Word (650)

A person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonal value. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content and the depth of the conviction concerning its overpowering meaningfulness, regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Accordingly (5)  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Appear (122)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |   Buddha (5)  |  Capable (174)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Cling (6)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Content (75)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Count (107)  |  Definition (238)  |  Depth (97)  |  Desire (212)  |  Devout (5)  |  Divine (112)  |  Domain (72)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Effect (414)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightened (25)  |  Exist (458)  |  Extend (129)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Fetter (4)  |  Fetters (7)  |  Force (497)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Goal (155)  |  Himself (461)  |  Important (229)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Kind (564)  |  Liberate (10)  |  Loftiness (3)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Matter (821)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Object (438)  |  Old (499)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Outside (141)  |  Person (366)  |  Possible (560)  |  Rational (95)  |  Regardless (8)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Remain (355)  |  Require (229)  |  Same (166)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Seem (150)  |  Selfish (12)  |  Sense (785)  |  Significance (114)  |  Spinoza (11)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  Superpersonal (2)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unite (43)  |  Value (393)

A statistician is someone who is good with numbers but lacks the personality to be an accountant.
[Or economist]
Anonymous
Found, for example, in A Prairie Home Companion Pretty Good Joke Book (4th ed., 2005), 216. Also seen as defining an Economist in Eighteen Annual Institute on Securities Regulation (1987), 131, which quotes it as “Tim Wirth used to say.”
Science quotes on:  |  Accountant (4)  |  Economist (20)  |  Good (906)  |  Lack (127)  |  Number (710)  |  Statistician (27)

A week or so after I learned that I was to receive the Miller Award, our president, Marty Morton, phoned and asked me if I would utter a few words of scientific wisdom as a part of the ceremony. Unfortunately for me, and perhaps for you, I agreed to do so. In retrospect I fear that my response was a serious error, because I do not feel wise. I do not know whether to attribute my response to foolhardiness, to conceit, to an inordinate susceptibility to flattery, to stupidity, or to some combination of these unfortunate attributes all of which I have been told are recognizable in my personality. Personally, I tend to favor stupidity, because that is a condition over which I have little control.
Bartholomew, April 1993, unpublished remarks when receiving the Miller Award from the Cooper Ornithological Society.
Science quotes on:  |  Agree (31)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Award (13)  |  Ceremony (6)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conceit (15)  |  Condition (362)  |  Control (182)  |  Do (1905)  |  Error (339)  |  Favor (69)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feel (371)  |  Flattery (7)  |  Inordinate (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Little (717)  |  Miller (2)  |  Part (235)  |  Personally (7)  |  Phone (2)  |  President (36)  |  Receive (117)  |  Response (56)  |  Retrospect (3)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Serious (98)  |  Stupidity (40)  |  Susceptibility (3)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tend (124)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Utter (8)  |  Week (73)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)  |  Word (650)

Ampère was a mathematician of various resources & I think might rather be called excentric [sic] than original. He was as it were always mounted upon a hobby horse of a monstrous character pushing the most remote & distant analogies. This hobby horse was sometimes like that of a child ['s] made of heavy wood, at other times it resembled those [?] shapes [?] used in the theatre [?] & at other times it was like a hypogrif in a pantomime de imagie. He had a sort of faith in animal magnetism & has published some refined & ingenious memoirs to prove the identity of electricity & magnetism but even in these views he is rather as I said before excentric than original. He has always appeared to me to possess a very discursive imagination & but little accuracy of observation or acuteness of research.
'Davy’s Sketches of his Contemporaries', Chymia, 1967, 12, 135-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  André-Marie Ampère (11)  |  Animal (651)  |  Call (781)  |  Character (259)  |  Child (333)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Faith (209)  |  Horse (78)  |  Identity (19)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Little (717)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mount (43)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possess (157)  |  Prove (261)  |  Remote (86)  |  Research (753)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Wood (97)

Anthropologists are highly individual and specialized people. Each of them is marked by the kind of work he or she prefers and has done, which in time becomes an aspect of that individual’s personality.
In Margaret Mead and Rhoda Bubendey Métraux (ed.), Margaret Mead, Some Personal Views (1979), 258.
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropologist (8)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Become (821)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Marked (55)  |  People (1031)  |  Specialized (9)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)

As geology is essentially a historical science, the working method of the geologist resembles that of the historian. This makes the personality of the geologist of essential importance in the way he analyzes the past.
In 'The Scientific Character of Geology', The Journal of Geology (Jul 1961), 69, No. 4, 453.
Science quotes on:  |  Analyze (12)  |  Essential (210)  |  Essentially (15)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Geology (240)  |  Historian (59)  |  Historical (70)  |  Importance (299)  |  Method (531)  |  Past (355)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Way (1214)  |  Working (23)

Blaming others, or outside conditions for one’s own misbehavior may be the child’s privilege; if an adult denies responsibility for his actions, it is another step towards personality disintegration.
In Informed Heart: Autonomy in a Mass Age (1960), 192.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Adult (24)  |  Blame (31)  |  Child (333)  |  Condition (362)  |  Deny (71)  |  Disintegration (8)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Step (234)

Charles Darwin [is my personal favorite Fellow of the Royal Society]. I suppose as a physical scientist I ought to have chosen Newton. He would have won hands down in an IQ test, but if you ask who was the most attractive personality then Darwin is the one you'd wish to meet. Newton was solitary and reclusive, even vain and vindictive in his later years when he was president of the society.
From interview with Graham Lawton, 'One Minute with Martin Rees', in New Scientist (12 Dec 2009), 204, No. 2738.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Attractive (25)  |  Choice (114)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Down (455)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Fellow (88)  |  IQ (5)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Personal (75)  |  Physical (518)  |  President (36)  |  Reclusive (2)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Society (350)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Test (221)  |  Vain (86)  |  Wish (216)  |  Year (963)

Each new atom brings something of the personality of its element to the molecule, and this conspiracy of atoms results in a molecule with properties that are richer than those of each atom alone.
In Scientific American Library, Molecules (1987), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Atom (381)  |  Conspiracy (6)  |  Element (322)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Property (177)  |  Richer (2)

Florey was not an easy personality. His drive and ambition were manifest from the day he arrived ... He could be ruthless and selfish; on the other hand, he could show kindliness, a warm humanity and, at times, sentiment and a sense of humour. He displayed utter integrity and he was scathing of humbug and pretence. His attitude was always—&ldqo;You must take me as you find me” But to cope with him at times, you had to do battle, raise your voice as high as his and never let him shout you down. You had to raise your pitch to his but if you insisted on your right he was always, in the end, very fair. I must say that at times, he went out of his way to cut people down to size with some very destructive criticism. But I must also say in the years I knew him he did not once utter a word of praise about himself.
Personal communication (1970) to Florey's Australian biographer, Lennard Bickel. By letter, Drury described his experience as a peer, being a research collaborator while Florey held a Studentship at Cambridge in the 1920s. This quote appears without naming Drury, in Eric Lax, The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle (2004), 40. Dury is cited in Lennard Bickel, Rise Up to Life: A Biography of Howard Walter Florey Who Gave Penicillin to the World (1972), 24. Also in Eric Lax
Science quotes on:  |  Ambition (46)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Battle (36)  |  Coping (4)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Cut (116)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Drive (61)  |  Easy (213)  |  End (603)  |  Fairness (2)  |  Find (1014)  |  Sir Howard Walter Florey (3)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Humbug (6)  |  Humour (116)  |  Insistence (12)  |  Integrity (21)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Praise (28)  |  Pretense (2)  |  Right (473)  |  Ruthless (12)  |  Ruthlessness (3)  |  Say (989)  |  Selfish (12)  |  Selfishness (9)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sense of Humour (2)  |  Sentiment (16)  |  Shout (25)  |  Show (353)  |  Time (1911)  |  Voice (54)  |  Warm (74)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

For me too, the periodic table was a passion. ... As a boy, I stood in front of the display for hours, thinking how wonderful it was that each of those metal foils and jars of gas had its own distinct personality.
[Referring to the periodic table display in the Science Museum, London, with element samples in bottles]
Letter to Oliver Sacks. Quoted in Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (2001), footnote, 203.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Boy (100)  |  Display (59)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Element (322)  |  Foil (3)  |  Gas (89)  |  Hour (192)  |  Jar (9)  |  Metal (88)  |  Museum (40)  |  Passion (121)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Sample (19)  |  Science Museum (2)  |  Stand (284)  |  Table (105)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Wonderful (155)

Fortunately I experienced Max Wertheimer's teaching in Berlin and collaborated for over a decade with Wolfgang Köhler. I need not emphasize my debts to these outstanding personalities. The fundamental ideas of Gestalt theory are the foundation of all our investigations in the field of the will, of affection, and of the personality.
From A Dynamic Theory of Personality. Selected papers (1935), 240.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Debt (15)  |  Decade (66)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Field (378)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Gestalt (3)  |  Idea (881)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Wolfgang Köhler (6)  |  Outstanding (16)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Max Wertheimer (9)  |  Will (2350)

Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton…. The relationship between these very different personalities is like that of two complementary stages of a rocket. Galileo, the argumentative “wrangler” who demanded that the universe be examined through a telescope rather than by means of a philosophy book, provided the first liftoff, and Newton, the secretive mathematician who searched among his notes to find a mislaid proof for universal gravitation, put the world into orbit.
In 'Foreword', The Universe of Galileo and Newton (1964), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Complementary (15)  |  Demand (131)  |  Different (595)  |  Examine (84)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Liftoff (2)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Means (587)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Note (39)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Proof (304)  |  Provide (79)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Search (175)  |  Stage (152)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

How fortunate for civilization, that Beethoven, Michelangelo, Galileo and Faraday were not required by law to attend schools where their total personalities would have been operated upon to make them learn acceptable ways of participating as members of “the group.”
In speech, 'Education for Creativity in the Sciences', Conference at New York University, Washington Square. As quoted by Gene Currivan in 'I.Q. Tests Called Harmful to Pupil', New York Times (16 Jun 1963), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptable (14)  |  Attend (67)  |  Beethoven (14)  |  Beethoven_Ludwig (8)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Group (83)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Member (42)  |   Michelangelo, (3)  |  Operation (221)  |  Participation (15)  |  Required (108)  |  Requirement (66)  |  School (227)  |  Total (95)  |  Way (1214)

Human personality resembles a coral reef: a large hard/dead structure built and inhabited by tiny soft/live animals. The hard/dead part of our personality consists of habits, memories, and compulsions and will probably be explained someday by some sort of extended computer metaphor. The soft/live part of personality consists of moment-to-moment direct experience of being. This aspect of personality is familiar but somewhat ineffable and has eluded all attempts at physical explanation.
Quoted in article 'Nick Herbert', in Gale Cengage Learning, Contemporary Authors Online (2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Build (211)  |  Compulsion (19)  |  Computer (131)  |  Consist (223)  |  Coral Reef (15)  |  Dead (65)  |  Direct (228)  |  Elude (11)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extend (129)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Habit (174)  |  Hard (246)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ineffable (4)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Memory (144)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Moment (260)  |  Physical (518)  |  Probability (135)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Soft (30)  |  Someday (15)  |  Structure (365)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Will (2350)

I do believe that a scientist is a freelance personality. We’re driven by an impulse which is one of curiosity, which is one of the basic instincts that a man has. So we are … driven … not by success, but by a sort of passion, namely the desire of understanding better, to possess, if you like, a bigger part of the truth. I do believe that science, for me, is very close to art.
From 'Asking Nature', collected in Lewis Wolpert and Alison Richards (eds.), Passionate Minds: The Inner World of Scientists (1997), 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Basic (144)  |  Belief (615)  |  Better (493)  |  Bigger (5)  |  Close (77)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Desire (212)  |  Do (1905)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Man (2252)  |  Part (235)  |  Passion (121)  |  Possess (157)  |  Research (753)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Success (327)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

I’ve come to realize that whales are as individual and as unique as we are. … They have individual physical characteristics that identify them as individuals, and have different personalities, as well. Some are shy, some are curious, some are friendly.
As quoted in John Przybys, 'Whaling Wall’s Artist Looks For a New Canvas', . Las Vegas Review-Journal (22 Feb 1994).
Science quotes on:  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Friendly (7)  |  Individual (420)  |  Shy (5)  |  Whale (45)

If at this moment I am not a worn-out, debauched, useless carcass of a man, if it has been or will be my fate to advance the cause of science, if I feel that I have a shadow of a claim on the love of those about me, if in the supreme moment when I looked down into my boy’s grave my sorrow was full of submission and without bitterness, it is because these agencies have worked upon me, and not because I have ever cared whether my poor personality shall remain distinct forever from the All from whence it came and whither it goes.
And thus, my dear Kingsley, you will understand what my position is. I may be quite wrong, and in that case I know I shall have to pay the penalty for being wrong. But I can only say with Luther, “Gott helfe mir, ich kann nichts anders [God help me, I cannot do otherwise].”
In Letter (23 Sep 1860) to Charles Kingsley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (1901), 237.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boy (100)  |  Car (75)  |  Carcass (2)  |  Cause (561)  |  Claim (154)  |  Debauched (2)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Fate (76)  |  Feel (371)  |  Forever (111)  |  God (776)  |  Grave (52)  |  Know (1538)  |  Look (584)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moment (260)  |  Poor (139)  |  Remain (355)  |  Say (989)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Understand (648)  |  Whither (11)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)

If I get the impression that Nature itself makes the decisive choice [about] what possibility to realize, where quantum theory says that more than one outcome is possible, then I am ascribing personality to Nature, that is to something that is always everywhere. [An] omnipresent eternal personality which is omnipotent in taking the decisions that are left undetermined by physical law is exactly what in the language of religion is called God.
As quoted by John D. Barrow in The Universe that Discovered Itself (2000), 171.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascribe (18)  |  Call (781)  |  Choice (114)  |  Decision (98)  |  Decisive (25)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  God (776)  |  Impression (118)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Leave (138)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Omnipotent (13)  |  Omnipresent (3)  |  Outcome (15)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Law (15)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Realize (157)  |  Religion (369)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Something (718)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Undetermined (3)

If you look into their [chimpanzees] eyes, you know you’re looking into a thinking mind. They teach us that we are not the only beings with personalities, minds capable of rational thought, altruism and a sense of humor. That leads to new respect for other animals, respect for the environment and respect for all life.
From interview by Tamar Lewin, 'Wildlife to Tireless Crusader, See Jane Run', New York Times (20 Nov 2000), F35.
Science quotes on:  |  Altruism (7)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chimpanzee (14)  |  Environment (239)  |  Eye (440)  |  Humor (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Rational (95)  |  Respect (212)  |  Sense (785)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)

Intellect is void of affection and sees an object as it stands in the light of science, cool and disengaged. The intellect goes out of the individual, floats over its own personality, and regards it as a fact, and not as I and mine.
From 'Intellect', collected in The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1903), 326.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Cool (15)  |  Disengage (3)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Float (31)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Light (635)  |  Mine (78)  |  Object (438)  |  Regard (312)  |  See (1094)  |  Stand (284)  |  Void (31)

It is not enough to teach man a specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine, but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good. Otherwise he—with his specialized knowledge—more closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person.
From interview with Benjamin Fine, 'Einstein Stresses Critical Thinking', New York Times (5 Oct 1952), 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Become (821)  |  Develop (278)  |  Developed (11)  |  Dog (70)  |  Enough (341)  |  Essential (210)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Good (906)  |  Harmonious (18)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lively (17)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Person (366)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Sense (785)  |  Specialized (9)  |  Specialty (13)  |  Student (317)  |  Teach (299)  |  Through (846)  |  Train (118)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value (393)  |  Vivid (25)

It remains a real world if there is a background to the symbols—an unknown quantity which the mathematical symbol x stands for. We think we are not wholly cut off from this background. It is to this background that our own personality and consciousness belong, and those spiritual aspects of our nature not to be described by any symbolism… to which mathematical physics has hitherto restricted itself.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 37-38.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Background (44)  |  Belong (168)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Cut (116)  |  Mathematical Physics (12)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Remain (355)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Stand (284)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Think (1122)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Wholly (88)  |  World (1850)

It would be very unsafe, unwise, and incorrect to assume that a patient either can or wants to present all aspects of his or her personality fully to the eaxminer.
'Integration of Projective Techniques in the clinical case study.' In A. I. Rabin (Ed.), Assessment with projective techniques: A concise introduction (1981), 259. Cited in Donald J. Viglione and Bridget Rivera, 'Assessing Personality and Psychopathology with Projective Methods', in Irving B. Weiner et al., Handbook of Psychology (2003), 542.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Diagnosis (65)  |  Patient (209)  |  Present (630)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Want (504)

Natural law is not applicable to the unseen world behind the symbols, because it is unadapted to anything except symbols, and its perfection is a perfection of symbolic linkage. You cannot apply such a scheme to the parts of our personality which are not measurable by symbols any more than you can extract the square root of a sonnet.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Applicable (31)  |  Apply (170)  |  Behind (139)  |  Extract (40)  |  Law (913)  |  Linkage (5)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Root (121)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Unseen (23)  |  World (1850)

Nevertheless, his [Dostoyevsky’s] personality retained sadistic traits in plenty, which show themselves in his irritability, his love of tormenting, and his intolerance even towards people he loved, and which appear also in the way in which, as an author, he treats his readers. Thus in little things he was a sadist towards others, and in bigger things a sadist towards himself, in fact a masochist—that is to say the mildest, kindliest, most helpful person possible.
In James Strachey (ed.), 'Dostoyevsky and Parricide', The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (1953-74), Vol. 21, 178-179. Reprinted in Writings on Art and Literature (1997), 236
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Helpful (16)  |  Himself (461)  |  Intolerance (8)  |  Irritability (4)  |  Kind (564)  |  Little (717)  |  Love (328)  |  Mild (7)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Possible (560)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Reader (42)  |  Retain (57)  |  Sadist (2)  |  Say (989)  |  Show (353)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Torment (18)  |  Trait (23)  |  Treat (38)  |  Way (1214)

No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fill (67)  |  Gospel (8)  |  Jesus (9)  |  Life (1870)  |  Myth (58)  |  Presence (63)  |  Read (308)  |  Word (650)

Observation is simple, indefatigable, industrious, upright, without any preconceived opinion. Experiment is artificial, impatient, busy, digressive; passionate, unreliable. We see every day one experiment after another, the second outweighing the impression gained from the first, both, often enough, carried out by men who are neither much distinguished for their spirit, nor for carrying with them the truth of personality and self denial. Nothing is easier than to make a series of so-called interesting experiments. Nature can only in some way be forced, and in her distress, she will give her suffering answer. Nothing is more difficult than to explain it, nothing is more difficult than a valid physiological experiment. We consider as the first task of current physiology to point at it and comprehend it.
Inaugural lecture as docent of physiology at the University of Bonn (19 Oct) 1824. Published in Johannes Muller, Zur vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtssinnes des Menschen und der Thiere (1826), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Both (496)  |  Call (781)  |  Consider (428)  |  Current (122)  |  Denial (20)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Distress (9)  |  Easier (53)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Impression (118)  |  Industrious (12)  |  Interesting (153)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Passionate (22)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Point (584)  |  See (1094)  |  Self (268)  |  Series (153)  |  Simple (426)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Task (152)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

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

Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society–nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Community (111)  |  Conform (15)  |  Create (245)  |  Creative (144)  |  Development (441)  |  Independently (24)  |  Individual (420)  |  Judge (114)  |  Life (1870)  |  Moral (203)  |  New (1273)  |  Nourish (18)  |  Set (400)  |  Society (350)  |  Soil (98)  |  Standard (64)  |  Thereby (5)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Unthinkable (8)  |  Upward (44)  |  Value (393)

Personality is the supreme realization of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. It is an act of high courage flung in the face of life.
Carl Jung
In The Development of Personality (1953), 171. https://books.google.com/books?id= Carl Gustav Jung - 195
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Being (1276)  |  Courage (82)  |  Face (214)  |  Fling (5)  |  High (370)  |  Idiosyncrasy (3)  |  Innate (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Living Being (3)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Realization (44)  |  Supreme (73)

Religion has been compelled by science to give up one after another of its dogmas—of those assumed cognitions which it could not substantiate. In the mean time, Science substituted for the personalities to which Religion ascribed phenomena certain metaphysical entities; and in doing this it trespassed on the province of religion; since it classed among the things which it comprehended certain forms of the incomprehensible.
In First Principles (1864), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Class (168)  |  Cognition (7)  |  Compel (31)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Doing (277)  |  Entity (37)  |  Form (976)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Mean (810)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Province (37)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Substantiate (4)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trespass (5)

Society heaps honors on the unique, creative personality, but not until he has been dead for fifty years.
In Dr. N Sreedharan, Quotations of Wit and Wisdom (2007), 35.
Science quotes on:  |  Creative (144)  |  Death (406)  |  Fame (51)  |  Honor (57)  |  Society (350)  |  Unique (72)  |  Year (963)

Somewhere in the arrangement of this world there seems to be a great concern about giving us delight, which shows that, in the universe, over and above the meaning of matter and forces, there is a message conveyed through the magic touch of personality. ...
Is it merely because the rose is round and pink that it gives me more satisfaction than the gold which could buy me the necessities of life, or any number of slaves. ... Somehow we feel that through a rose the language of love reached our hearts.
The Religion of Man (1931), 102. Quoted in H. E. Hunter, The Divine Proportion (1970), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Concern (239)  |  Delight (111)  |  Feel (371)  |  Force (497)  |  Gold (101)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Magic (92)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Merely (315)  |  Message (53)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Number (710)  |  Pink (4)  |  Reach (286)  |  Rose (36)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Show (353)  |  Slave (40)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Through (846)  |  Touch (146)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

Take the rose—most people think it very beautiful: I don’t care for it at all. I prefer the cactus, for the simple reason that it has a more interesting personality. It has wonderfully adapted itself to its surroundings! It is the best illustration of the theory of evolution in plant life.
From George MacAdam, 'Steinmetz, Electricity’s Mastermind, Enters Politics', New York Times (2 Nov 1913), SM3.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Best (467)  |  Cactus (3)  |  Care (203)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Life (1870)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Plant (320)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rose (36)  |  Simple (426)  |  Surrounding (13)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wonderfully (2)

The general disposition of the land [in the Periodic Kingdom] is one of metals in the west, giving way, as you travel eastward, to a varied landscape of nonmetals, which terminates in largely inert elements at the eastern shoreline. To the south of the mainland, there is an offshore island, which we shall call the Southern Island. It consists entirely of metals of subtly modulated personality. North of the mainland, situated rather like Iceland off the northwestern edge of Europe, lies a single, isolated region-hydrogen. This simple but gifted element is an essential outpost of the kingdom, for despite its simplicity it is rich in chemical personality. It is also the most abundant element in the universe and the fuel of the stars.
In The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey Into the Land of the Chemical Elements (1995), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundant (23)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Consist (223)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Edge (51)  |  Element (322)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fuel (39)  |  General (521)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Inert (14)  |  Island (49)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Lie (370)  |  Metal (88)  |  Most (1728)  |  Outpost (2)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Rich (66)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Single (365)  |  South (39)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Travel (125)  |  Universe (900)  |  Varied (6)  |  Way (1214)

The goal of this presentation is to impress, rather than inform.
As quoted in obituary, A.L. Hodgkin, 'Some Recollections of William Rushton and his Contributions to Neurophysiology', Vision Research (1982), 22, 614. Hodgkin wrote that this quote was “confided to me before a 12 minute talk describing our work.”
Science quotes on:  |  Arrogance (22)  |  Charm (54)  |  Goal (155)  |  Impress (66)  |  Inform (50)  |  Misjudgment (2)  |  Presentation (24)

The invention of IQ did a great disservice to creativity in education. ... Individuality, personality, originality, are too precious to be meddled with by amateur psychiatrists whose patterns for a “wholesome personality” are inevitably their own.
In speech, 'Education for Creativity in the Sciences', Conference at New York University, Washington Square. As quoted by Gene Currivan in 'I.Q. Tests Called Harmful to Pupil', New York Times (16 Jun 1963), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Amateur (22)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Disservice (4)  |  Education (423)  |  Great (1610)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Inevitability (10)  |  Invention (400)  |  IQ (5)  |  Meddling (2)  |  Originality (21)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Precious (43)  |  Psychiatrist (16)  |  Wholesome (12)

The Lincoln Highway is to be something more than a road. It will be a road with a personality, a distinctive work of which the Americans of future generations can point with pride - an economic but also artistic triumph. (1914)
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Artistic (24)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Economic (84)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Lincoln Highway (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Point (584)  |  Pride (84)  |  Road (71)  |  Something (718)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

The one who stays in my mind as the ideal man of science is, not Huxley or Tyndall, Hooker or Lubbock, still less my friend, philosopher and guide Herbert Spencer, but Francis Galton, whom I used to observe and listen to—I regret to add, without the least reciprocity—with rapt attention. Even to-day. I can conjure up, from memory’s misty deep, that tall figure with its attitude of perfect physical and mental poise; the clean-shaven face, the thin, compressed mouth with its enigmatical smile; the long upper lip and firm chin, and, as if presiding over the whole personality of the man, the prominent dark eyebrows from beneath which gleamed, with penetrating humour, contemplative grey eyes. Fascinating to me was Francis Galton’s all-embracing but apparently impersonal beneficence. But, to a recent and enthusiastic convert to the scientific method, the most relevant of Galton’s many gifts was the unique contribution of three separate and distinct processes of the intellect; a continuous curiosity about, and rapid apprehension of individual facts, whether common or uncommon; the faculty for ingenious trains of reasoning; and, more admirable than either of these, because the talent was wholly beyond my reach, the capacity for correcting and verifying his own hypotheses, by the statistical handling of masses of data, whether collected by himself or supplied by other students of the problem.
In My Apprenticeship (1926), 134-135.
Science quotes on:  |  Admirable (20)  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Attention (196)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Beneficence (3)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Chin (2)  |  Clean (52)  |  Collected (2)  |  Common (447)  |  Compressed (3)  |  Conjuring (3)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Convert (22)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Dark (145)  |  Data (162)  |  Deep (241)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Enigma (16)  |  Enthusiastic (7)  |  Eye (440)  |  Eyebrow (2)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Figure (162)  |  Firm (47)  |  Friend (180)  |  Sir Francis Galton (18)  |  Gift (105)  |  Grey (10)  |  Guide (107)  |  Handling (7)  |  Himself (461)  |  Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (12)  |  Humour (116)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (132)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Impersonal (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Lip (4)  |  Listen (81)  |  Long (778)  |  John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) (26)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mental (179)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Misty (6)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Penetrating (3)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physical (518)  |  Poise (4)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Prominent (6)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapt (5)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Recent (78)  |  Reciprocity (2)  |  Regret (31)  |  Relevant (5)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Separate (151)  |  Smile (34)  |  Herbert Spencer (37)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Talent (99)  |  Tall (11)  |  Thin (18)  |  Train (118)  |  Uncommon (14)  |  Unique (72)  |  Upper (4)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wholly (88)

The open secret of real success is to throw your whole personality into your problem.
How to Solve it: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method (1957), 207.
Science quotes on:  |  Open (277)  |  Problem (731)  |  Secret (216)  |  Success (327)  |  Whole (756)

The philosophical implication of race-thinking is that by offering us the mystery of heredity as an explanation, it diverts our attention from the social and intellectual factors that make up personality.
Race(1937), 282.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Race (278)  |  Social (261)  |  Thinking (425)

The phrase 'nature and nurture' is a convenient jingle of words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which personality is composed. Nature is all that a man brings with himself into the world; nurture is every influence without that affects him after his birth.
English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture (1874), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Birth (154)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Element (322)  |  Himself (461)  |  Influence (231)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Man (8)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Separate (151)  |  Two (936)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

The private motives of scientists are not the trend of science. The trend of science is made by the needs of society: navigation before the eighteenth century, manufacture thereafter; and in our age I believe the liberation of personality. Whatever the part which scientists like to act, or for that matter which painters like to dress, science shares the aims of our society just as art does.
From The Common Sense of Science (1951), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  19th Century (41)  |  20th Century (40)  |  Act (278)  |  Age (509)  |  Aim (175)  |  Art (680)  |  Century (319)  |  Liberation (12)  |  Manufacture (30)  |  Matter (821)  |  Motive (62)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Need (320)  |  Painter (30)  |  Private (29)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Share (82)  |  Society (350)  |  Trend (23)  |  Whatever (234)

The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Create (245)  |  Creative (144)  |  Dull (58)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Herd (17)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Individual (420)  |  Life (1870)  |  Noble (93)  |  Pageant (3)  |  Really (77)  |  Remain (355)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sentient (8)  |  State (505)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Value (393)

The scientific world-picture vouchsafes a very complete understanding of all that happens–it makes it just a little too understandable. It allows you to imagine the total display as that of a mechanical clockwork which, for all that science knows, could go on just the same as it does, without there being consciousness, will, endeavor, pain and delight and responsibility connected with it–though they actually are. And the reason for this disconcerting situation is just this: that for the purpose of constructing the picture of the external world, we have used the greatly simplifying device of cutting our own personality out, removing it; hence it is gone, it has evaporated, it is ostensibly not needed.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Allow (51)  |  Being (1276)  |  Clockwork (7)  |  Complete (209)  |  Connect (126)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Construct (129)  |  Cut (116)  |  Delight (111)  |  Device (71)  |  Disconcerting (3)  |  Display (59)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Evaporate (5)  |  External (62)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Happen (282)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Need (320)  |  Pain (144)  |  Picture (148)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remove (50)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Same (166)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Simplify (14)  |  Situation (117)  |  Total (95)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understandable (12)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vouchsafe (3)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

There can be no doubt that science is in many ways the natural enemy of language. Language, either literary or colloquial, demands a rich store of living and vivid words—words that are “thoughtpictures,” and appeal to the senses, and also embody our feelings about the objects they describe. But science cares nothing about emotion or vivid presentation; her ideal is a kind of algebraic notation, to be used simply as an instrument of analysis; and for this she rightly prefers dry and abstract terms, taken from some dead language, and deprived of all life and personality.
In The English Language (1912), 124-125.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Appeal (46)  |  Care (203)  |  Dead (65)  |  Demand (131)  |  Deprive (14)  |  Describe (132)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dry (65)  |  Embody (18)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literary (15)  |  Live (650)  |  Natural (810)  |  Notation (28)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Picture (148)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Rich (66)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simple (426)  |  Store (49)  |  Term (357)  |  Thought (995)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Word (650)

There have, however, always been men of high and disciplined spirituality who have insisted on their direct experience of something greater than themselves. Their conviction of the reality of a spiritual life apart from and transcending the life of the body may not lend itself to scientific proof or disproof; nevertheless the remarkable transformation in personality seen in those who rightfully lay claim to such experience is as objective as tomorrow's sunrise. Millions of lesser men draw strength from the contacts they can make through prayer and meditation with this aspect of the inner life.
at a convention of scientists in 1967 at the University of Notre Dame
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Body (557)  |  Claim (154)  |  Contact (66)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Direct (228)  |  Draw (140)  |  Experience (494)  |  Greater (288)  |  High (370)  |  Inner (72)  |  Life (1870)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Objective (96)  |  Prayer (30)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reality (274)  |  Religion (369)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Something (718)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Strength (139)  |  Sunrise (14)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Transformation (72)

There is no fundamental difference in the ways of thinking of primitive and civilized man. A close connection between race and personality has never been established.
The Mind of Primitive Man (1938), preface, v.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Connection (171)  |  Difference (355)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Man (2252)  |  Never (1089)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Primitive Man (5)  |  Race (278)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Way (1214)

There is unquestionably a contradiction between an efficient technological machine and the flowering of human nature, of the human personality.
From interview (10 Nov 1964), with Walter Wager, in Walter Wager (ed.), The Playwrights Speak (1967), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Efficient (34)  |  Flower (112)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Machine (271)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Technological (62)  |  Unquestionably (3)

To educate means to influence the whole personality of the student.
Quoted as an epigraph, without citation, in Stanley Gudder, A Mathematical Journey (1976), xi.
Science quotes on:  |  Educate (14)  |  Influence (231)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Student (317)  |  Whole (756)

To expect a personality to survive the disintegration of the brain is like expecting a cricket club to survive when all of its members are dead.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Club (8)  |  Cricket (8)  |  Dead (65)  |  Disintegration (8)  |  Expect (203)  |  Member (42)  |  Survive (87)

Under certain given circumstances, and only under those circumstances, an agglomeration of men presents new characteristics very different from those of the individuals composing it. The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory, but presenting very clearly defined characteristics. The gathering has thus become what, in the absence of a better expression, I will call an organized crowd, or, if the term is considered preferable, a psychological crowd. It forms a single being and is subject to the law of the mental unity of crowds.
From Psychologie des Foules (1895), 12. English text in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897), Book 1, Chap. 1, 1-2. The original French text is, “Dans certaines circonstances données, et seulement dans ces circonstances, une agglomération d’hommes possède des caractères nouveaux fort différents de ceux des individus composant cette agglomération. La personnalité consciente s’évanouit, les sentiments et les idées de toutes les unités sont orientés dans une même direction. Il se forme une âme collective, transitoire sans doute, mais présentant des caractères très nets. La collectivité est alors devenue ce que, faute d’une expression meilleure, j’appellerai une foule organisée, ou, si l’on préfère, une foule psychologique. Elle forme un seul être et se trouve soumise à la loi de l'unité mentale des foules.”
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Consider (428)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Different (595)  |  Direction (185)  |  Expression (181)  |  Form (976)  |  Gathering (23)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Law (913)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Person (366)  |  Present (630)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Single (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Term (357)  |  Unity (81)  |  Will (2350)

Understanding a theory has, indeed, much in common with understanding a human personality. We may know or understand a man's system of dispositions pretty well; that is to say, we may be able to predict how he would act in a number of different situations. But since there are infinitely many possible situations, of infinite variety, a full understanding of a man's dispositions does not seem to be possible.
Objective Knowledge: an Evolutionary Approach (1972), 299.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Common (447)  |  Different (595)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Number (710)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Say (989)  |  Situation (117)  |  Solution (282)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Variety (138)

We build our personalities laboriously and through many years, and we cannot order fundamental changes just because we might value their utility; no button reading ‘positive attitude’ protrudes from our hearts, and no finger can coerce positivity into immediate action by a single and painless pressing.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Build (211)  |  Button (5)  |  Change (639)  |  Coerce (2)  |  Finger (48)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Heart (243)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Order (638)  |  Painless (2)  |  Positive (98)  |  Press (21)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Single (365)  |  Through (846)  |  Utility (52)  |  Value (393)  |  Year (963)

We have to build the spiritual world out of symbols taken from our own personality, as we build the scientific world out of the symbols of the mathematician.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Build (211)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Symbol (100)  |  World (1850)

We may lay it down that a happy person never phantasises, only an unsatisfied one... The motive forces of phantasies are unsatisfied wishes, and every single phantasy is the fulfilment of a wish, a correction of unsatisfying reality. These motivating wishes vary according to the sex, character and circumstances of the person who is having the phantasy; but they fall naturally into two main groups. They are either ambitious wishes, which serve to elevate the subject's personality; or they are erotic ones. It was shocking when Nietzsche said this, but today it is commonplace; our historical position—and no end to it is in sight—is that of having to philosophise without 'foundations'.
Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming (1906), In James Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychcological Works of Sigmund Freud (1959), Vol 9, 146-7.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Character (259)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Correction (42)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Fall (243)  |  Force (497)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Happy (108)  |  Historical (70)  |  Motive (62)  |  Never (1089)  |  Person (366)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Reality (274)  |  Sex (68)  |  Sight (135)  |  Single (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Today (321)  |  Two (936)  |  Wish (216)

We see, then, that the disappearance of the conscious personality, the predominance of the unconscious personality, the turning by means of suggestion and contagion of feelings and ideas in an identical direction, the tendency to immediately transform the suggested ideas into acts; these, we see, are the principal characteristics of the individual forming part of a crowd. He is no longer himself, but has become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will.
From Psychologie des Foules (1895), 20. English text in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897), Book 1, Chap. 1, 12. Original French text: “Donc, évanouissement de la personnalité consciente, prédominance de la personnalité inconsciente, orientation par voie de suggestion et de contagion des sentiments et des idées dans un même sens, tendance a transformer immédiatement en actes les idée suggérées, tels sont les principaux caractères de l’individu en foule. II n’est plus lui-même, il est devenu un automate que sa volonté ne guide plus.”
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Automaton (12)  |  Become (821)  |  Cease (81)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Contagion (9)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Forming (42)  |  Guided (3)  |  Himself (461)  |  Idea (881)  |  Identical (55)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Individual (420)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Part (235)  |  Predominance (3)  |  Principal (69)  |  See (1094)  |  Suggested (2)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Transform (74)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unconscious (24)  |  Will (2350)

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
From NBC radio broadcast for the United Jewish Appeal (11 Apr 1943), 'The Goal of Human Existence.' Einstein Archives 28-587. Transcript reprinted in full in David E. Rowe and Robert Schulmann (eds.), Einstein on Politics (2007), 322. Also in Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words (1956), 260-261.
Science quotes on:  |  Care (203)  |  Course (413)  |  God (776)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Powerful (145)

What friends do with us and for us is a real part of our life; for it strengthens and advances our personality. The assault of our enemies is not part of our life ; it is only part of our experience ; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 201.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Against (332)  |  Assault (12)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Evil (122)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  External (62)  |  Friend (180)  |  Frost (15)  |  Guard (19)  |  Hail (4)  |  Happen (282)  |  Life (1870)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Part (235)  |  Rain (70)  |  Real (159)  |  Storm (56)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  Throw (45)

What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind. What these blessed men have given us we must guard and try to keep alive with all our strength if humanity is not to lose its dignity, the security of its existence, and its joy in living.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Alive (97)  |  Bless (25)  |  Blessed (20)  |   Buddha (5)  |  Constructive (15)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Enquire (4)  |  Existence (481)  |  Give (208)  |  Guard (19)  |  High (370)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Jesus (9)  |  Joy (117)  |  Keep (104)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moses (8)  |  Must (1525)  |  Owe (71)  |  Rank (69)  |  Security (51)  |  Strength (139)  |  Try (296)

What was once called the objective world is a sort of Rorschach ink blot, into which each culture, each system of science and religion, each type of personality, reads a meaning only remotely derived from the shape and color of the blot itself.
In 'Orientation to Life,' The Conduct of Life (1951).
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Color (155)  |  Culture (157)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Objective (96)  |  Read (308)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  System (545)  |  Type (171)  |  World (1850)

When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality, they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a man’s name live for thousands of years. But above this level, far above, separated by an abyss, is the level where the highest things are achieved. These things are essentially anonymous.
In Simone Weil and Siân Miles (ed.), 'Human Personality', Simone Weil: An Anthology (2000), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Anonymous (567)  |  Art (680)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Literature (116)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Name (359)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Possible (560)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Year (963)


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

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

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

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


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