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 P > Category: Prejudice

Prejudice Quotes (96 quotes)

[An] old Pythagorean prejudice … thought it a crime to eat eggs; because an egg was a microcosm, or universe in little; the shell being the earth; the white, water; fire, the yolk; and the air found between the shell and the white.
Anonymous
'Common Cookery'. Household Words (26 Jan 1856), 13, 43. An English weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Being (1276)  |  Crime (39)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eat (108)  |  Egg (71)  |  Fire (203)  |  Little (717)  |  Microcosm (10)  |  Old (499)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Shell (69)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)  |  Water (503)  |  White (132)

Mathematical Knowledge adds a manly Vigour to the Mind, frees it from Prejudice, Credulity, and Superstition.
In An Essay On the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning, (1701), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Credulity (16)  |  Free (239)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Vigour (18)

Wenige sind imstande, von den Vorurteilen der Umgebung abweichende Meinungen gelassen auszusprechen; die Meisten sind sogar unfähig, überhaupt zu solchen Meinungen zu gelangen.
Few people are able to express opinions that dissent from the prejudices of their social group. The majority are even incapable of forming such opinions at all.
Original German in Essays Presented to Leo Baeck on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (1954), 26. English text by Webmaster assisted by online translation tools.
Science quotes on:  |  Differ (88)  |  Environment (239)  |  Express (192)  |  Forming (42)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Majority (68)  |  Opinion (291)  |  People (1031)  |  Social (261)

~~[Attributed]~~ A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
Attributed without citation in Clifton Fadiman, American Treasury, 1455-1955 (1955), 719.
Science quotes on:  |  Great (1610)  |  Merely (315)  |  People (1031)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)

~~[Not in his own words]~~ Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Attributed, no citation found, and probably not by Einstein. For example, it is found without citation in Albert Einstein, Jerry Mayer and John P. Holms, Bite-size Einstein (1996), 25. Listed under heading 'Probably Not by Einstein' by Alice Calaprice, The New Quotable Einstein (2005), 294. It probably morphed from a writer’s restatement of how he understood Einstein’s views, expressed in the writer’s own words, without quotation marks as: But as Einstein has pointed out, common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen. This statement appeared in Lincoln Barnett, 'The Universe and Dr. Einstein', Harper’s Magazine (May 1948), 473. The quoteinvestigator.com site gives more background, with the speculation on how eventually quotation marks crept in, and then propagated that way.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Age (509)  |  Collection (68)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Sense (785)  |  Word (650)

A few days ago, a Master of Arts, who is still a young man, and therefore the recipient of a modern education, stated to me that until he had reached the age of twenty he had never been taught anything whatever regarding natural phenomena, or natural law. Twelve years of his life previously had been spent exclusively amongst the ancients. The case, I regret to say, is typical. Now we cannot, without prejudice to humanity, separate the present from the past.
'On the Study of Physics', From a Lecture delivered in the Royal Institution of Great Britain in the Spring of 1854. Fragments of Science for Unscientific People: A Series of Detached Essays, Lectures, and Reviews (1892), Vol. 1, 284-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Education (423)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Modern (402)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Never (1089)  |  Past (355)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Present (630)  |  Previous (17)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recipient (3)  |  Regret (31)  |  Say (989)  |  Separate (151)  |  Separation (60)  |  Spent (85)  |  Statement (148)  |  Still (614)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Twelve (4)  |  Twenty (4)  |  Typical (16)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

A few drops of science will often disinfect an entire barrel full of ignorance and prejudice.
In The Story of America (1921, 1934)
Science quotes on:  |  Barrel (5)  |  Disinfect (2)  |  Drop (77)  |  Entire (50)  |  Full (68)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Will (2350)

A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man—a man of restless and versatile intellect—who … plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice.
As recollected in a letter written by an undergraduate, John Richard Green, writing to his friend, afterwards Professor Boyd Dawkins. This was Huxley's rebuttal to Bishop Samuel Wilberforce who ridiculed Darwin's theory of evolution at a meeting of the British Association at Oxford (30 Jun 1860). After hearing Wilberforce's speech, and before rising himself, Huxley is said to have remarked, “The Lord has delivered him into my hands!” (No transcript was taken at the time, so the words are not verbatim. The version above is commonly seen, and was said by Huxley to be fair in substance, if not wholely accurate. The letter excerpt is in Leonard Huxley (ed.), Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (1916), Vol. 1, 199. Additional accounts of the debate are given in the book.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Aimless (5)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Ape (54)  |  Attention (196)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Feel (371)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Man (2252)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Plunge (11)  |  Point (584)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Rhetoric (13)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skill (116)  |  Versatile (6)  |  Samuel Wilberforce (3)

A person by study must try to disengage the subject from useless matter, and to seize on points capable of improvement. ... When subjects are viewed through the mists of prejudice, useful truths may escape.
In An Essay on Aërial Navigation, With Some Observations on Ships (1844), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Disengage (3)  |  Escape (85)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mist (17)  |  Must (1525)  |  Person (366)  |  Point (584)  |  Seize (18)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Uselessness (22)  |  View (496)

A prejudice, unlike a simple misconception, is actively resistant to all evidence that would unseat it
In The Nature of Prejudice (1954, 1958), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Evidence (267)  |  Misconception (6)  |  Resistant (4)

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

Almost everyone... seems to be quite sure that the differences between the methodologies of history and of the natural sciences are vast. For, we are assured, it is well known that in the natural sciences we start from observation and proceed by induction to theory. And is it not obvious that in history we proceed very differently? Yes, I agree that we proceed very differently. But we do so in the natural sciences as well.
In both we start from myths—from traditional prejudices, beset with error—and from these we proceed by criticism: by the critical elimination of errors. In both the role of evidence is, in the main, to correct our mistakes, our prejudices, our tentative theories—that is, to play a part in the critical discussion, in the elimination of error. By correcting our mistakes, we raise new problems. And in order to solve these problems, we invent conjectures, that is, tentative theories, which we submit to critical discussion, directed towards the elimination of error.
The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality (1993), 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Correction (42)  |  Critical (73)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Difference (355)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Do (1905)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Error (339)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Evidence (267)  |  History (716)  |  Induction (81)  |  Known (453)  |  Methodology (14)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Myth (58)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Order (638)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Role (86)  |  Solve (145)  |  Start (237)  |  Tentative (18)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Vast (188)

An apple falls in front of Newton, a pot boils before Papin, a flaming sheet of paper floats before the eyes of Montgolfier. At intervals a discovery bursts forth like a mine explosion in the deeps of science, and a whole ledge of prejudice crumbles, and the living rock of truth is suddenly laid bare.
In Victor Hugo and Lorenzo O'Rourke (trans.) Victor Hugo’s Intellectual Autobiography: (Postscriptum de ma vie) (1907), 323-324.
Science quotes on:  |  Apple (46)  |  Boil (24)  |  Burst (41)  |  Crumble (5)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fall (243)  |  Flame (44)  |  Float (31)  |  Interval (14)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pot (4)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sheet (8)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Truth (1109)

And science, we should insist, better than other discipline, can hold up to its students and followers an ideal of patient devotion to the search to objective truth, with vision unclouded by personal or political motive, not tolerating any lapse from precision or neglect of any anomaly, fearing only prejudice and preconception, accepting nature’s answers humbly and with courage, and giving them to the world with an unflinching fidelity. The world cannot afford to lose such a contribution to the moral framework of its civilisation.
Concluding statements of Pilgrim Trust Lecture (22 Oct 1946) delivered at National Academy of Science Washington, DC. Published in 'The Freedom of Science', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (25 Feb 1947), 91, No. 1, 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Accepting (22)  |  Anomaly (11)  |  Answer (389)  |  Better (493)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Courage (82)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Follower (11)  |  Framework (33)  |  Hold (96)  |  Humbly (8)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Insist (22)  |  Lose (165)  |  Moral (203)  |  Motive (62)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Objective (96)  |  Other (2233)  |  Patient (209)  |  Personal (75)  |  Political (124)  |  Precision (72)  |  Preconception (13)  |  Search (175)  |  Student (317)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)

As lightning clears the air of impalpable vapours, so an incisive paradox frees the human intelligence from the lethargic influence of latent and unsuspected assumptions. Paradox is the slayer of Prejudice.
In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Clear (111)  |  Free (239)  |  Human (1512)  |  Incisive (4)  |  Influence (231)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Latent (13)  |  Lethargic (2)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Unsuspected (7)  |  Vapour (16)

Be discontented. Be dissatisfied. Be as restless as the billows on the boundless sea. Let your discontent break mountain-high against the wall of prejudice and swamp it to the very foundation.
John Hope
Speech to a Black debating society in Nashville, Tennessee (1896).Excerpted in Ridgely Torrence, The Story of John Hope (1948), 114.
Science quotes on:  |  Billow (3)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Break (109)  |  Discontent (6)  |  Dissatisfaction (13)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Restless (13)  |  Sea (326)  |  Swamp (9)  |  Wall (71)

Break the chains of your prejudices and take up the torch of experience, and you will honour nature in the way she deserves, instead of drawing derogatory conclusions from the ignorance in which she has left you. Simply open your eyes and ignore what you cannot understand, and you will see that a labourer whose mind and knowledge extend no further than the edges of his furrow is no different essentially from the greatest genius, as would have been proved by dissecting the brains of Descartes and Newton; you will be convinced that the imbecile or the idiot are animals in human form, in the same way as the clever ape is a little man in another form; and that, since everything depends absolutely on differences in organisation, a well-constructed animal who has learnt astronomy can predict an eclipse, as he can predict recovery or death when his genius and good eyesight have benefited from some time at the school of Hippocrates and at patients' bedsides.
Machine Man (1747), in Ann Thomson (ed.), Machine Man and Other Writings (1996), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Ape (54)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Brain (281)  |  Break (109)  |  Clever (41)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Construct (129)  |  Death (406)  |  Depend (238)  |  Derogatory (3)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Edge (51)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Eyesight (5)  |  Form (976)  |  Genius (301)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hippocrates (49)  |  Honour (58)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idiot (22)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Imbecile (4)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Open (277)  |  Patient (209)  |  Predict (86)  |  Recovery (24)  |  School (227)  |  See (1094)  |  Time (1911)  |  Torch (13)  |  Understand (648)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

But the idea that any of the lower animals have been concerned in any way with the origin of man—is not this degrading? Degrading is a term, expressive of a notion of the human mind, and the human mind is liable to prejudices which prevent its notions from being invariably correct. Were we acquainted for the first time with the circumstances attending the production of an individual of our race, we might equally think them degrading, and be eager to deny them, and exclude them from the admitted truths of nature.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Concern (239)  |  Deny (71)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exclude (8)  |  Expressive (6)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Lower (11)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Man (9)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Production (190)  |  Race (278)  |  Term (357)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)

But, contrary to the lady’s prejudices about the engineering profession, the fact is that quite some time ago the tables were turned between theory and applications in the physical sciences. Since World War II the discoveries that have changed the world are not made so much in lofty halls of theoretical physics as in the less-noticed labs of engineering and experimental physics. The roles of pure and applied science have been reversed; they are no longer what they were in the golden age of physics, in the age of Einstein, Schrödinger, Fermi and Dirac.
'The Age of Computing: a Personal Memoir', Daedalus (1992), 121, 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Paul A. M. Dirac (45)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Enrico Fermi (20)  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physics (564)  |  Profession (108)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Role (86)  |  Erwin Schrödinger (68)  |  Table (105)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)  |  World War II (9)

By the worldly standards of public life, all scholars in their work are of course oddly virtuous. They do not make wild claims, they do not cheat, they do not try to persuade at any cost, they appeal neither to prejudice nor to authority, they are often frank about their ignorance, their disputes are fairly decorous, they do not confuse what is being argued with race, politics, sex or age, they listen patiently to the young and to the old who both know everything. These are the general virtues of scholarship, and they are peculiarly the virtues of science.
In Science and Human Values (1956).
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Authority (99)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Cheat (13)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cost (94)  |  Course (413)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  General (521)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Listen (81)  |  Old (499)  |  Politics (122)  |  Race (278)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Sex (68)  |  Try (296)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Virtuous (9)  |  Wild (96)  |  Work (1402)  |  Young (253)

Can science ever be immune from experiments conceived out of prejudices and stereotypes, conscious or not? (Which is not to suggest that it cannot in discrete areas identify and locate verifiable phenomena in nature.) I await the study that says lesbians have a region of the hypothalamus that resembles straight men and I would not be surprised if, at this very moment, some scientist somewhere is studying brains of deceased Asians to see if they have an enlarged ‘math region’ of the brain.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Area (33)  |  Asian (3)  |  Await (6)  |  Brain (281)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Discrete (11)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Identify (13)  |  Immune (3)  |  Locate (7)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Moment (260)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Region (40)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Stereotype (4)  |  Straight (75)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Verifiable (6)

Common sense is science exactly in so far as it fulfills the ideal of common sense; that is, sees facts as they are, or at any rate, without the distortion of prejudice, and reasons from them in accordance with the dictates of sound judgment. And science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.
The Crayfish: an Introduction to the Study of Zoölogy (1880), 2. Excerpted in Popular Science (Apr 1880), 16, 789.
Science quotes on:  |  Accordance (10)  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Best (467)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Dictate (11)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Fulfillment (20)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Logic (311)  |  Observation (593)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rigidity (5)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sound (187)

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live. We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
In 'A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' (8 Feb 1996). Published on Electronic Frontier Foundation website. Reproduced in Lawrence Lessig, Code: Version 2.0) (2008), 303.
Science quotes on:  |  Anyone (38)  |  Anywhere (16)  |  Array (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Birth (154)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Coercion (4)  |  Communication (101)  |  Conformity (15)  |  Consist (223)  |  Cyberspace (3)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economy (59)  |  Enter (145)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Express (192)  |  Fear (212)  |  Force (497)  |  Live (650)  |  Matter (821)  |  Military (45)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Power (771)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Race (278)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Silence (62)  |  Singular (24)  |  Station (30)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transaction (13)  |  Wave (112)  |  Web (17)  |  World (1850)

Education is a good thing generally, but most folks educate their prejudices.
Collected in Everybody’s Friend, or Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor (1874), 592. Quote restated in standard English above, from the original, “Edukashun iz a good thing generally, but most pholks eddukate their prejudices.”
Science quotes on:  |  Education (423)  |  Folk (10)  |  Good (906)

Education is the process of driving a set of prejudices down your throat.
Science quotes on:  |  Down (455)  |  Driving (28)  |  Education (423)  |  Process (439)  |  Set (400)

Error is often nourished by good sense. … The meaning is, that the powers of the understanding are frequently employed to defend favourite errors; and that a man of sense frequently fortifies himself in his prejudices, or in false opinions which he received without examination, by such arguments as would not have occurred to a fool.
In Maxims, Characters, and Reflections, Critical, Satyrical and Moral (2nd ed., 1757), 9. The meaning is given as a footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Defend (32)  |  Employ (115)  |  Employed (3)  |  Error (339)  |  Examination (102)  |  False (105)  |  Favourite (7)  |  Fool (121)  |  Fortify (4)  |  Frequently (21)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Nourished (2)  |  Occur (151)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Power (771)  |  Receive (117)  |  Sense (785)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

Even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds
On Liberty (1859), 95.
Science quotes on:  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Ground (222)  |  Little (717)  |  Most (1728)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Rational (95)  |  Receive (117)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

For it being the nature of the mind of man (to the extreme prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious liberty of generalities, as in a champion region, and not in the enclosures of particularity; the Mathematics were the goodliest fields to satisfy that appetite.
In De Augmentis, Bk. 8; Advancement of Learning, Bk. 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Appetite (20)  |  Being (1276)  |  Champion (6)  |  Delight (111)  |  Enclosure (4)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Field (378)  |  Generality (45)  |  Good (906)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Liberty (29)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mind Of Man (7)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Region (40)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Spacious (2)

For those who do not think, it is best at least to rearrange their prejudices once in a while.
As quoted in Forbes (1948). 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Do (1905)  |  Rearrange (5)  |  Think (1122)

Geneticists believe that anthropologists have decided what a race is. Ethnologists assume that their classifications embody principles which genetic science has proved correct. Politicians believe that their prejudices have the sanction of genetic laws and the findings of physical anthropology to sustain them.
'The Concept of Race.' In Genetic Principles in Medicine and Social Science (1931), 122.
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropologist (8)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Classification (102)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Geneticist (16)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Law (913)  |  Physical (518)  |  Politician (40)  |  Principle (530)  |  Race (278)  |  Sanction (8)  |  Sustain (52)

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Clear (111)  |  Courageously (2)  |  Duty (71)  |  Express (192)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Fulfill (19)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hereditary (7)  |  Honestly (10)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Latter (21)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mediocrity (8)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Result (700)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Submit (21)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thoughtlessly (2)  |  Understand (648)  |  Use (771)  |  Violent (17)

Husserl has shown that man’s prejudices go a great deal deeper than his intellect or his emotions. Consciousness itself is “prejudiced”—that is to say, intentional.
In Introduction to the New Existentialism (1966), 54.
Science quotes on:  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Deal (192)  |  Deep (241)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Great (1610)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intentional (4)  |  Man (2252)  |  Say (989)

I believed that, instead of the multiplicity of rules that comprise logic, I would have enough in the following four, as long as I made a firm and steadfast resolution never to fail to observe them.
The first was never to accept anything as true if I did not know clearly that it was so; that is, carefully to avoid prejudice and jumping to conclusions, and to include nothing in my judgments apart from whatever appeared so clearly and distinctly to my mind that I had no opportunity to cast doubt upon it.
The second was to subdivide each on the problems I was about to examine: into as many parts as would be possible and necessary to resolve them better.
The third was to guide my thoughts in an orderly way by beginning, as if by steps, to knowledge of the most complex, and even by assuming an order of the most complex, and even by assuming an order among objects in! cases where there is no natural order among them.
And the final rule was: in all cases, to make such comprehensive enumerations and such general review that I was certain not to omit anything.
The long chains of inferences, all of them simple and easy, that geometers normally use to construct their most difficult demonstrations had given me an opportunity to think that all the things that can fall within the scope of human knowledge follow from each other in a similar way, and as long as one avoids accepting something as true which is not so, and as long as one always observes the order required to deduce them from each other, there cannot be anything so remote that it cannot be reached nor anything so hidden that it cannot be uncovered.
Discourse on Method in Discourse on Method and Related Writings (1637), trans. Desmond M. Clarke, Penguin edition (1999), Part 2, 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Better (493)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Cast (69)  |  Certain (557)  |  Complex (202)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Construct (129)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enough (341)  |  Examine (84)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fall (243)  |  Final (121)  |  Firm (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  General (521)  |  Guide (107)  |  Human (1512)  |  Include (93)  |  Inference (45)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logic (311)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplicity (14)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observe (179)  |  Omit (12)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Order (638)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remote (86)  |  Required (108)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Review (27)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scope (44)  |  Simple (426)  |  Something (718)  |  Step (234)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)

I do not forget that Medicine and Veterinary practice are foreign to me. I desire judgment and criticism upon all my contributions. Little tolerant of frivolous or prejudiced contradiction, contemptuous of that ignorant criticism which doubts on principle, I welcome with open arms the militant attack which has a method of doubting and whose rule of conduct has the motto “More light.”
In Louis Pasteur and Harold Clarence Ernst (trans), The Germ Theory and Its Application to Medicine and Surgery, Chap. 12. Reprinted in Charles W. Eliot (ed.), The Harvard Classics: Scientific Papers: Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology (1897, 1910), Vol. 38, 401-402. Cited as read before French Academy of Science (20 Apr 1878), published in Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, 84, 1037-43.
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Attack (86)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Desire (212)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Forget (125)  |  Frivolous (8)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Method (531)  |  Militant (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Motto (29)  |  Open (277)  |  Practice (212)  |  Principle (530)  |  Rule (307)  |  Tolerant (4)  |  Veterinary (2)  |  Welcome (20)

I hope that in due time the chemists will justify their proceedings by some large generalisations deduced from the infinity of results which they have collected. For me I am left hopelessly behind and I will acknowledge to you that through my bad memory organic chemistry is to me a sealed book. Some of those here, [August] Hoffman for instance, consider all this however as scaffolding, which will disappear when the structure is built. I hope the structure will be worthy of the labour. I should expect a better and a quicker result from the study of the powers of matter, but then I have a predilection that way and am probably prejudiced in judgment.
Letter to Christian Schönbein (9 Dec 1852), The Letters of Faraday and Schoenbein, 1836-1862 (1899), 209-210.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Acknowledgment (13)  |  Bad (185)  |  Behind (139)  |  Better (493)  |  Book (413)  |  Building (158)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Collection (68)  |  Consider (428)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Due (143)  |  Expect (203)  |  Generalization (61)  |  August Wilhelm von Hofmann (7)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hopelessness (6)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Matter (821)  |  Memory (144)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Power (771)  |  Predilection (4)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Quickness (5)  |  Result (700)  |  Seal (19)  |  Sealed Book (2)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worth (172)

I recognize that to view the Earth as if it were alive is just a convenient, but different, way of organizing the facts of the Earth. I am, of course, prejudiced in favour of Gaia and have filled my life for the past 25 years with the thought that the Earth might be in certain ways be alive—not as the ancients saw her, a sentient goddess with purpose and foresight—more like a tree. A tree that exists, never moving except to sway in the wind, yet endlessly conversing with the sunlight and the soil. Using sunlight and water and nutrients to grow and change. But all done so imperceptibly that, to me, the old oak tree on the green is the same as it was when I was a child.
In Healing Gaia: Practical Medicine for the Planet (1991), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Child (333)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Converse (9)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endlessly (4)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Favor (69)  |  Fill (67)  |  Foresight (8)  |  Gaia (15)  |  Goddess (9)  |  Green (65)  |  Grow (247)  |  Imperceptibly (2)  |  Life (1870)  |  Move (223)  |  Nutrient (8)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Old (499)  |  Organize (33)  |  Past (355)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Same (166)  |  See (1094)  |  Sentient (8)  |  Soil (98)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Sway (5)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tree (269)  |  View (496)  |  Water (503)  |  Wind (141)  |  Year (963)

I wish that one would be persuaded that psychological experiments, especially those on the complex functions, are not improved [by large studies]; the statistical method gives only mediocre results; some recent examples demonstrate that. The American authors, who love to do things big, often publish experiments that have been conducted on hundreds and thousands of people; they instinctively obey the prejudice that the persuasiveness of a work is proportional to the number of observations. This is only an illusion.
L' Études expérimentale de l'intelligence (1903), 299.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Complex (202)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Function (235)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Large (398)  |  Love (328)  |  Mediocre (14)  |  Method (531)  |  Number (710)  |  Obey (46)  |  Observation (593)  |  People (1031)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Recent (78)  |  Result (700)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Wish (216)  |  Work (1402)

I would like it if everyone could make the prejudice vanish as I have that there is really a problem whether ants are machines, whether my brother is a machine, whether we are in the world, or the world is in us, if perhaps behind the word there is matter, power pushes or not, or if Locke is right that the intellect is between us and things. Or whether we are free or not free…
Given as “fashioned from Boltzmann’s notes for his lecture on natural philosophy on October 26, 1904” and translated in John Blackmore (ed.), Ludwig Boltzmann: His Later Life and Philosophy, 1900-1906 (1995), 136. Blackmore indicates (p.133) that since Boltzmann spoke freely, this may not be verbatim for what he actually said, because he did not read his lectures from his notes. However, it does “rather accurately represent his thinking” at the time he wrote his lecture. His Lectures on Natural Philosophy (1903-1906) were reconstructed from Boltzmann’s shorthand notes by Ilse M. Fasol-Boltzmann (ed.), in Ludwig Boltzmann Principien der Naturfolosofti (1990). This quote is translated from p.109.
Science quotes on:  |  Ant (34)  |  Brother (47)  |  Correct (95)  |  Free (239)  |  Intellect (251)  |  John Locke (61)  |  Machine (271)  |  Matter (821)  |  Power (771)  |  Problem (731)  |  Push (66)  |  Vanish (19)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

If I set out to prove something, I am no real scientist—I have to learn to follow where the facts lead me—I have to learn to whip my prejudices.
Attributed, as cited in Peter McDonald (ed.), Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations (2004), 95. Quoted earlier without citation as “If I want to find truth, I must have an open mind. I have to learn to follow where the facts lead me—I have to learn to whip my prejudices,” in World Order (1948), 14, 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Follow (389)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Prove (261)  |  Real (159)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Set (400)  |  Something (718)

If the Commission is to enquire into the conditions “to be observed,” it is to be presumed that they will give the result of their enquiries; or, in other words, that they will lay down, or at least suggest, “rules” and “conditions to be (hereafter) observed” in the construction of bridges, or, in other words, embarrass and shackle the progress of improvement to-morrow by recording and registering as law the prejudices or errors of to-day.
[Objecting to any interference by the State with the freedom of civil engineers in the conduct of their professional work.]
Letter (13 Mar 1848) to the Royal Commission on the Application of Iron in Railway Structures. Collected in The Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer (1870), 487. The above verbatim quote may be the original source of the following statement as seen in books and on the web without citation: “I am opposed to the laying down of rules or conditions to be observed in the construction of bridges lest the progress of improvement tomorrow might be embarrassed or shackled by recording or registering as law the prejudices or errors of today.” Webmaster has not yet found a primary source for his latter form, and suspects it may be a synopsis, rather than a verbatim quote. If you know of such a primary source, please inform Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Bridge (49)  |  Civil (26)  |  Civil Engineer (4)  |  Commission (3)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Construction (114)  |  Down (455)  |  Embarrassment (5)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Error (339)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Interference (22)  |  Law (913)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Presume (9)  |  Professional (77)  |  Progress (492)  |  Record (161)  |  Recording (13)  |  Register (22)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)  |  Shackle (4)  |  State (505)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

If this “critical openminded attitude” … is wanted, the question at once arises, Is it science that should be studied in order to achieve it? Why not study law? A judge has to do everything that a scientist is exhorted to do in the way of withholding judgment until all the facts are in, and then judging impartially on the merits of the case as well as he can. … Why not a course in Sherlock Holmes? The detectives, or at least the detective-story writers, join with the scientists in excoriating “dogmatic prejudice, lying, falsification of facts, and data, and willful fallacious reasoning.”
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 191.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Case (102)  |  Course (413)  |  Critical (73)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Data (162)  |  Detective (11)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dogmatism (15)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fallacious (13)  |  Falsification (11)  |  Impartiality (7)  |  Judge (114)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Law (913)  |  Lie (370)  |  Lying (55)  |  Merit (51)  |  Order (638)  |  Question (649)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sherlock Holmes (5)  |  Story (122)  |  Study (701)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Willful (3)  |  Writer (90)

If we would indicate an idea … striving to remove the barriers which prejudice and limited views of every kind have erected among men, and to treat all mankind, without reference to religion, nation, or color, as one fraternity, one great community, fitted for the attainment of one object, the unrestrained development of the physical powers. This is the ultimate and highest aim of society.
In Ueber die Kawi-Sprache, Vol. 3, 426. As quoted in Alexander von Humboldt, Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (1850), Vol. 1, 358, as translated by Elise C. Otté.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Color (155)  |  Community (111)  |  Development (441)  |  Fraternity (4)  |  Great (1610)  |  Highest (19)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Kind (564)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Nation (208)  |  Object (438)  |  Physical (518)  |  Power (771)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remove (50)  |  Society (350)  |  Strive (53)  |  Treat (38)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unrestrained (4)  |  View (496)

In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be, preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it.
In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters (1892), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Amusement (37)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Being (1276)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Existence (481)  |  Formation (100)  |  Habit (174)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Last (425)  |  Long (778)  |  Thomas Robert Malthus (13)  |  Month (91)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Plant (320)  |  Population (115)  |  Read (308)  |  Result (700)  |  Species (435)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Survival Of The Fittest (43)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Tend (124)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variation (93)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)

In the enfranchised mind of the scientific naturalist, the usual feelings of repugnance simply do not exist. Curiosity conquers prejudice.
Under pen-name of W. N. P. Barbellion, Journal of a Disappointed Man (1919), 215
Science quotes on:  |  Conquer (39)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exist (458)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Scientific (955)

In the first papers concerning the aetiology of tuberculosis I have already indicated the dangers arising from the spread of the bacilli-containing excretions of consumptives, and have urged moreover that prophylactic measures should be taken against the contagious disease. But my words have been unheeded. It was still too early, and because of this they still could not meet with full understanding. It shared the fate of so many similar cases in medicine, where a long time has also been necessary before old prejudices were overcome and the new facts were acknowledged to be correct by the physicians.
'The current state of the struggle against tuberculosis', Nobel Lecture (12 Dec 1905). In Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1901-1921 (1967), 169.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Already (226)  |  Arising (22)  |  Bacillus (9)  |  Contagious (5)  |  Danger (127)  |  Disease (340)  |  Early (196)  |  Excretion (7)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fate (76)  |  First (1302)  |  Long (778)  |  Measure (241)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Paper (192)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physician (284)  |  Spread (86)  |  Still (614)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tuberculosis (9)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Word (650)

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and repossession, and suffer his reason and feelings to determine for themselves; and that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of man, and generously enlarge his view beyond the present day.
In Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America (1792), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Character (259)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Determine (152)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Generous (17)  |  Himself (461)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plain (34)  |  Preliminary (6)  |  Present (630)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simple (426)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Themselves (433)  |  True (239)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

In the training and in the exercise of medicine a remoteness abides between the field of neurology and that of mental health, psychiatry. It is sometimes blamed to prejudice on the part of the one side or the other. It is both more grave and less grave than that. It has a reasonable basis. It is rooted in the energy-mind problem. Physiology has not enough to offer about the brain in relation to the mind to lend the psychiatrist much help.
In 'The Brain Collaborates With Psyche', Man On His Nature: The Gifford Lectures, Edinburgh 1937-8 (1940), 283.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Blame (31)  |  Both (496)  |  Brain (281)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enough (341)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Field (378)  |  Grave (52)  |  Health (210)  |  Help (116)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mental Health (5)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Problem (731)  |  Psychiatrist (16)  |  Psychiatry (26)  |  Remoteness (9)  |  Root (121)  |  Side (236)  |  Training (92)

It always bothers me that according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space and no matter how tiny a region of time … I have often made the hypothesis that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer board with all its apparent complexities. But this speculation is of the same nature as those other people make—“I like it”,“I don't like it”—and it is not good to be too prejudiced about these things.
In The Character of Physical Law (1965, 2001), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Computer (131)  |  End (603)  |  Figure (162)  |  Good (906)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Law (913)  |  Logic (311)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Require (229)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Simple (426)  |  Space (523)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Statement (148)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Today (321)  |  Turn (454)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)

It is always the case with the best work, that it is misrepresented, and disparaged at first, for it takes a curiously long time for new ideas to become current, and the older men who ought to be capable of taking them in freely, will not do so through prejudice.
From letter reprinted in Journal of Political Economy (Feb 1977), 85, No. 1, back cover, as cited in Stephen M. Stigler, The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty Before 1900 (1986), 307. Stigler notes the letter is held by David E. Butler of Nuffield College, Oxford.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Best (467)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Current (122)  |  Disparage (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Idea (881)  |  Long (778)  |  Misrepresentation (5)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

It is harder to crack a prejudice than an atom.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Crack (15)  |  Hard (246)

It is harder to crack prejudice than an atom.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Crack (15)  |  Hard (246)

It is the province of prejudice to blind; and scientific writers, not less than others, write to please, as well as to instruct, and even unconsciously to themselves, (sometimes), sacrifice what is true to what is popular.
In address, delivered at Commencement (12 Jul 1854), Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio, 'The Negro Ethnologically Considered', collected in The Speeches of Frederick Douglass (2018), 133. In his speech, Douglass challenged racially biased premises of ethnology, and Southern pretenders to science.
Science quotes on:  |  Bias (22)  |  Blind (98)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Please (68)  |  Popular (34)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  True (239)  |  Unconsciously (9)  |  Writer (90)

It is true that physics gives a wonderful training in precise, logical thinking-about physics. It really does depend upon accurate reproducible experiments, and upon framing hypotheses with the greatest possible freedom from dogmatic prejudice. And if these were the really important things in life, physics would be an essential study for everybody.
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 90-91.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Dogmatism (15)  |  Essential (210)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Importance (299)  |  Life (1870)  |  Logic (311)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precision (72)  |  Reproducibility (2)  |  Reproducible (9)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Training (92)  |  Wonderful (155)

It must, however, be confessed that this species of scepticism, when more moderate, may be understood in a very reasonable sense, and is a necessary preparative to the study of philosophy by preserving a proper impartiality in our judgments and weaning our mind from all those prejudices which we may have imbibed from education or rash opinion.
From 'An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding', Sec. 7, Pt. 1, collected in Essays and Treatises on Various Subjects: With a Brief Sketch of the (1849), 85.
Science quotes on:  |  Confess (42)  |  Education (423)  |  Impartiality (7)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moderate (6)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Proper (150)  |  Rash (15)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Scepticism (17)  |  Sense (785)  |  Skepticism (31)  |  Species (435)  |  Study (701)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Wean (2)

It seems perfectly clear that Economy, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science. There exists much prejudice against attempts to introduce the methods and language of mathematics into any branch of the moral sciences. Most persons appear to hold that the physical sciences form the proper sphere of mathematical method, and that the moral sciences demand some other method—I know not what.
The Theory of Political Economy (1871), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Branch (155)  |  Demand (131)  |  Economy (59)  |  Exist (458)  |  Form (976)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Proper (150)  |  Sphere (118)

It was not noisy prejudice that caused the work of Mendel to lie dead for thirty years, but the sheer inability of contemporary opinion to distinguish between a new idea and nonsense.
In 'The Commemoration of Great Men', British Medical Journal (20 Feb 1932). In The Adelphi (1932), 4, 480, and in The Collected Papers of Wilfred Trotter, FRS (1941), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Death (406)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inability (11)  |  Lie (370)  |  Gregor Mendel (22)  |  New (1273)  |  Noise (40)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Sheer (9)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Journalism must find the facts, it must not prejudge things in terms of conservatism or liberalism or radicalism; it must not decide in advance that it is to be conformist or non-conformist; it cannot fly in the face of facts without courting ultimate disaster.
Journalism must focus the facts; facts are not important for their own sake; they are important only as a basis for action; journalism must focus the facts it finds upon the issues its readers face.
Journalism must filter the facts; it must with conscientious care separate the facts from admixtures of prejudice, passion, partisanship, and selfish interest; facts that are diluted, colored, or perverted are valueless as a basis for action.
Journalism must face the facts; it must learn that the energy spent in trying to find ways to get around, under, or over the facts is wasted energy; facts have a ruthless way of winning the day sooner or later.
Journalism must follow the facts; journalism must say of facts as Job said, of God: though they slay us, yet shall we trust them; if the facts threaten to upset a paper's cherished policy, it always pays the journalist to re-examine his policy; that way lies realism, and realism is the ultimate good.
From address as president of the Wisconsin local chapter of Theta Sigma Phi, at its first annual Matrix Table (9 Jan 1926). quoted in 'Journalism News and Notes', in Robert S. Crawford (ed.), The Wisconsin Alumni Magazine (Feb 1926), 27, No. 4, 101. If you know any other example of Glenn Frank speaking about his five themes on facts, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Advance (298)  |  Basis (180)  |  Care (203)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Color (155)  |  Conscientious (7)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Energy (373)  |  Examine (84)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Filter (10)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fly (153)  |  Focus (36)  |  Follow (389)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interest (416)  |  Issue (46)  |  Job (86)  |  Journalism (4)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Must (1525)  |  Paper (192)  |  Passion (121)  |  Pervert (7)  |  Policy (27)  |  Realism (7)  |  Ruthless (12)  |  Sake (61)  |  Say (989)  |  Selfish (12)  |  Separate (151)  |  Slaying (2)  |  Spent (85)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Trust (72)  |  Trying (144)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Upset (18)  |  Waste (109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Winning (19)

Knowledge—it excites prejudices to call it science—is advancing as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore.
'The Poet at the Breakfast-Table', Chapter 10. The Atlantic Monthly (Oct 1872), 30, 428.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Move (223)  |  Ocean (216)

Mathematics can remove no prejudices and soften no obduracy. It has no influence in sweetening the bitter strife of parties, and in the moral world generally its action is perfectly null.
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 271:3.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Bitter (30)  |  Influence (231)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Moral (203)  |  Remove (50)  |  World (1850)

Men have been talking now for a week at the post office about the age of the great elm, as a matter interesting but impossible to be determined. The very choppers and travelers have stood upon its prostrate trunk and speculated upon its age, as if it were a profound mystery. I stooped and read its years to them (127 at nine and a half feet), but they heard me as the wind that once sighed through its branches. They still surmised that it might be two hundred years old, but they never stooped to read the inscription. Truly they love darkness rather than light. One said it was probably one hundred and fifty, for he had heard somebody say that for fifty years the elm grew, for fifty it stood still, and for fifty it was dying. (Wonder what portion of his career he stood still!) Truly all men are not men of science. They dwell within an integument of prejudice thicker than the bark of the cork-tree, but it is valuable chiefly to stop bottles with. Tied to their buoyant prejudices, they keep themselves afloat when honest swimmers sink.
(26 Jan 1856). In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: VIII: November 1, 1855-August 15, 1856 (1906), 145-146.
Science quotes on:  |  Afloat (4)  |  Age (509)  |  Bark (19)  |  Bottle (17)  |  Buoyant (6)  |  Career (86)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Cork (2)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Dwell (19)  |  Elm (4)  |  Forestry (17)  |  Great (1610)  |  Honest (53)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inscription (12)  |  Integument (4)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Light (635)  |  Love (328)  |  Matter (821)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Never (1089)  |  Office (71)  |  Old (499)  |  Portion (86)  |  Profound (105)  |  Read (308)  |  Say (989)  |  Sink (38)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Still (614)  |  Swimmer (4)  |  Talking (76)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Tree (269)  |  Truly (118)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Two (936)  |  Week (73)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Year (963)

Mr. [Granville T.] Woods says that he has been frequently refused work because of the previous condition of his race, but he has had great determination and will and never despaired because of disappointments. He always carried his point by persistent efforts. He says the day is past when colored boys will be refused work only because of race prejudice. There are other causes. First, the boy has not the nerve to apply for work after being refused at two or three places. Second, the boy should have some knowledge of mechanics. The latter could be gained at technical schools, which should be founded for the purpose. And these schools must sooner or later be established, and thereby, we should be enabled to put into the hands of our boys and girls the actual means of livelihood.
From William J. Simmons, Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising (1887), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  African American (8)  |  Application (257)  |  Apply (170)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boy (100)  |  Cause (561)  |  Color (155)  |  Condition (362)  |  Despair (40)  |  Determination (80)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Effort (243)  |  Establishment (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Girl (38)  |  Great (1610)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Livelihood (13)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Persistent (18)  |  Point (584)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Race (278)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wood (97)  |  Work (1402)

My own prejudices are exactly the opposite of the functionalists’: “If you want to understand function, study structure.” I was supposed to have said in my molecular biology days. (I believe I was sailing at the time.)
What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (1988), 150.
Science quotes on:  |  Biology (232)  |  Function (235)  |  Molecular Biology (27)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Sailing (14)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understand (648)  |  Want (504)

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a publick library; for who can see the wall crouded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditation, and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue, and preserved only to encrease the pomp of learning, without considering how many hours have been wasted in vain endeavours, how often imagination has anticipated the praises of futurity, how many statues have risen to the eye of vanity, how many ideal converts have elevated zeal, how often wit has exulted in the eternal infamy of his antagonists, and dogmatism has delighted in the gradual advances of his authority, the immutability of his decrees, and the perpetuity of his power.
Non unquam dedit
Documenta fors majora, quam fragili loco
Starent superbi.

Seneca, Troades, II, 4-6
Insulting chance ne'er call'd with louder voice,
On swelling mortals to be proud no more.
Of the innumerable authors whose performances are thus treasured up in magnificent obscurity, most are forgotten, because they never deserved to be remembered, and owed the honours which they have once obtained, not to judgment or to genius, to labour or to art, but to the prejudice of faction, the stratagem of intrigue, or the servility of adulation.
Nothing is more common than to find men whose works are now totally neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries, as the oracles of their age, and the legislators of science. Curiosity is naturally excited, their volumes after long enquiry are found, but seldom reward the labour of the search. Every period of time has produced these bubbles of artificial fame, which are kept up a while by the breath of fashion and then break at once and are annihilated. The learned often bewail the loss of ancient writers whose characters have survived their works; but perhaps if we could now retrieve them we should find them only the Granvilles, Montagus, Stepneys, and Sheffields of their time, and wonder by what infatuation or caprice they could be raised to notice.
It cannot, however, be denied, that many have sunk into oblivion, whom it were unjust to number with this despicable class. Various kinds of literary fame seem destined to various measures of duration. Some spread into exuberance with a very speedy growth, but soon wither and decay; some rise more slowly, but last long. Parnassus has its flowers of transient fragrance as well as its oaks of towering height, and its laurels of eternal verdure.
The Rambler, Number 106, 23 Mar 1751. In W. J. Bate and Albrecht B. Strauss (eds.), The Rambler (1969), Vol. 2, 200-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Advance (298)  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Author (175)  |  Authority (99)  |  Break (109)  |  Breath (61)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Call (781)  |  Caprice (10)  |  Chance (244)  |  Character (259)  |  Class (168)  |  Common (447)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Decay (59)  |  Decree (9)  |  Delight (111)  |  Destined (42)  |  Dogmatism (15)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Eye (440)  |  Faction (4)  |  Fame (51)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flower (112)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Genius (301)  |  Growth (200)  |  Honour (58)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hour (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Last (425)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Library (53)  |  Long (778)  |  Loss (117)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Measure (241)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Mention (84)  |  More (2558)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Number (710)  |  Oak (16)  |  Oblivion (10)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Performance (51)  |  Period (200)  |  Perpetuity (9)  |  Power (771)  |  Produced (187)  |  Remember (189)  |  Reward (72)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Search (175)  |  See (1094)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Side (236)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spread (86)  |  Statue (17)  |  Striking (48)  |  Time (1911)  |  Towering (11)  |  Transient (13)  |  Vain (86)  |  Various (205)  |  Wall (71)  |  Wit (61)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

One of the largest promises of science is, that the sum of human happiness will be increased, ignorance destroyed, and, with ignorance, prejudice and superstition, and that great truth taught to all, that this world and all it contains were meant for our use and service; and that where nature by her own laws has defined the limits of original unfitness, science may by extract so modify those limits as to render wholesome that which by natural wildness was hurtful, and nutritious that which by natural poverty was unnourishing. We do not yet know half that chemistry may do by way of increasing our food.
Anonymous
'Common Cookery'. Household Words (26 Jan 1856), 13, 45. An English weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Do (1905)  |  Extract (40)  |  Food (213)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hurtful (8)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Know (1538)  |  Largest (39)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Promise (72)  |  Render (96)  |  Service (110)  |  Sum (103)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wholesome (12)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Perhaps randomness is not merely an adequate description for complex causes that we cannot specify. Perhaps the world really works this way, and many events are uncaused in any conventional sense of the word. Perhaps our gut feeling that it cannot be so reflects only our hopes and prejudices, our desperate striving to make sense of a complex and confusing world, and not the ways of nature.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Cause (561)  |  Complex (202)  |  Confuse (22)  |  Conventional (31)  |  Description (89)  |  Desperate (5)  |  Event (222)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Gut Feeling (2)  |  Hope (321)  |  Merely (315)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Randomness (5)  |  Really (77)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sense Of The Word (6)  |  Specify (6)  |  Strive (53)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge.
In The Nature of Prejudice (1954, 1958), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Expose (28)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  New (1273)

Prejudice for regularity and simplicity is a source of error that has only too often infected philosophy.
'De litteraria expeditione per pontificiam ditionem', Accademia della scienze, Bologna, Commentarii, 1757, 4, 353, 361. Trans. J. L. Heilbron, Weighing Imponderables and Other Quantitative Science around 1800 (1993), 227.
Science quotes on:  |  Error (339)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Simplicity (175)

Science has taught us to think the unthinkable. Because when nature is the guide—rather than a priori prejudices, hopes, fears or desires—we are forced out of our comfort zone. One by one, pillars of classical logic have fallen by the wayside as science progressed in the 20th century, from Einstein's realization that measurements of space and time were not absolute but observer-dependent, to quantum mechanics, which not only put fundamental limits on what we can empirically know but also demonstrated that elementary particles and the atoms they form are doing a million seemingly impossible things at once.
In op-ed, 'A Universe Without Purpose', Los Angeles Times (1 Apr 2012).
Science quotes on:  |  20th Century (40)  |  A Priori (26)  |  Absolute (153)  |  Atom (381)  |  Century (319)  |  Classical (49)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Desire (212)  |  Doing (277)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Elementary Particle (2)  |  Falling (6)  |  Fear (212)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hope (321)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Know (1538)  |  Limit (294)  |  Logic (311)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observer (48)  |  Particle (200)  |  Pillar (10)  |  Progress (492)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Realization (44)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Unthinkable (8)  |  Wayside (4)

Science is not a system of certain, or -established, statements; nor is it a system which steadily advances towards a state of finality... And our guesses are guided by the unscientific, the metaphysical (though biologically explicable) faith in laws, in regularities which we can uncover—discover. Like Bacon, we might describe our own contemporary science—'the method of reasoning which men now ordinarily apply to nature'—as consisting of 'anticipations, rash and premature' and as 'prejudices'.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), 278.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Anticipation (18)  |  Application (257)  |  Apply (170)  |  Biology (232)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Describe (132)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Faith (209)  |  Finality (8)  |  Guess (67)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Law (913)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Premature (22)  |  Rash (15)  |  Rashness (2)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Regularity (40)  |  State (505)  |  Statement (148)  |  System (545)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Unscientific (13)  |  Well-Established (6)

Scientists, especially when they leave the particular field in which they are specialized, are just as ordinary, pig-headed, and unreasonable as everybody else, and their unusually high intelligence only makes their prejudices all the more dangerous.
Sense and Nonsense in Psychology (1957), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Field (378)  |  High (370)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  More (2558)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Unreasonable (5)

Several very eminent living paleontologists frequently emphasise the abruptness of some of the major changes that have occurred, and seek for an external cause. This is a heady wine and has intoxicated palaeontologists since the days when they could blame it all on Noah's flood. In fact, books are still being published by the lunatic fringe with the same explanation. In case this book should be read by some fundamentalist searching for straws to prop up his prejudices, let me state categorically that all my experience (such as it is) has led me to an unqualified acceptance of evolution by natural selection as a sufficient explanation for what I have seen in the fossil record
In The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record (1973), 19-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Abrupt (6)  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blame (31)  |  Book (413)  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Emphasis (18)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explanation (246)  |  External (62)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flood (52)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fossil Record (12)  |  Fringe (7)  |  Fundamentalist (4)  |  Heady (2)  |  Intoxication (7)  |  Living (492)  |  Lunatic (9)  |  Major (88)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Paleontologist (19)  |  Prop (6)  |  Publish (42)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Record (161)  |  Search (175)  |  Seek (218)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Selection (130)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Straw (7)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Wine (39)

So many people today–and even professional scientists–seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest . A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is–in my opinion–the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.
In unpublished Letter (7 Dec 1944) to R.A. Thornton, Einstein Archive, EA 6-574, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. As quoted and cited in Don A. Howard, 'Albert Einstein as a Philosopher of Science', Physics Today (Dec 2006), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Artisan (9)  |  Background (44)  |  Create (245)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Forest (161)  |  Generation (256)  |  Give (208)  |  Historic (7)  |  Independence (37)  |  Insight (107)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mark (47)  |  Mere (86)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  Opinion (291)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Professional (77)  |  Real (159)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeker (8)  |  Seem (150)  |  Someone (24)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Today (321)  |  Tree (269)  |  Truth (1109)

The Mathematics are Friends to Religion, inasmuch as they charm the Passions, restrain the Impetuosity of the Imagination, and purge the Mind from Error and Prejudice. Vice is Error, Confusion, and false Reasoning; and all Truth is more or less opposite to it. Besides, Mathematical Studies may serve for a pleasant Entertainment for those Hours which young Men are apt to throw away upon their Vices; the Delightfulness of them being such as to make Solitude not only easy, but desirable.
In An Essay On the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning, (1701) 8-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Charm (54)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Easy (213)  |  Entertainment (19)  |  Error (339)  |  Friend (180)  |  Hour (192)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Passion (121)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Religion (369)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vice (42)  |  Young (253)

The common perception of science as a rational activity, in which one confronts the evidence of fact with an open mind, could not be more false. Facts assume significance only within a pre-existing intellectual structure, which may be based as much on intuition and prejudice as on reason.
In The Guardian, September 28, 1989.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Common (447)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Open (277)  |  Perception (97)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reason (766)  |  Significance (114)  |  Structure (365)

The enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal only to those who have the courage to go deeply into it. But when a woman, who because of her sex and our prejudices encounters infinitely more obstacles that an man in familiarizing herself with complicated problems, succeeds nevertheless in surmounting these obstacles and penetrating the most obscure parts of them, without doubt she must have the noblest courage, quite extraordinary talents and superior genius.
in a letter to Sophie Germain (c.April 1807)
Science quotes on:  |  Charm (54)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Courage (82)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Genius (301)  |  Sophie Germain (4)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Sex (68)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Superior (88)  |  Talent (99)  |  Woman (160)  |  Women Scientists (18)

The great thing [about Kant’s philosophy] was to form the idea that this one thing—mind or world—may well be capable of other forms of appearance that we cannot grasp and that do not imply the notions of space and time. This means an imposing liberation from our inveterate prejudice.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Capable (174)  |  Do (1905)  |  Form (976)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imply (20)  |  Impose (22)  |  Inveterate (3)  |  Kants (2)  |  Liberation (12)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Notion (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  World (1850)

The greatest and noblest pleasure which we can have in this world is to discover new truths; and the next is to shake off old prejudices.
Epigraph, without citation, in Sir Richard Gregory, Discovery: Or, The Spirit and Service of Science (1916), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Discover (571)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Noble (93)  |  Old (499)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Shake (43)  |  Truth (1109)  |  World (1850)

The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples’ lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admirably (3)  |  Against (332)  |  Base (120)  |  Blend (9)  |  Both (496)  |  Civilized (20)  |  Continue (179)  |  Development (441)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Especially (31)  |  Fear (212)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guard (19)  |  High (370)  |  Illustrate (14)  |  Jewish (15)  |  Level (69)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Moral (203)  |  Morality (55)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  New Testament (3)  |  Orient (5)  |  People (1031)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Primarily (12)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Purely (111)  |  Religion (369)  |  Scripture (14)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Life (8)  |  Step (234)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Type (171)  |  Vary (27)

The kinetic concept of motion in classical theory will have to undergo profound modifications. (That is why I also avoided the term “orbit” in my paper throughout.) … We must not bind the atoms in the chains of our prejudices—to which, in my opinion, also belongs the assumption that electron orbits exist in the sense of ordinary mechanics—but we must, on the contrary, adapt our concepts to experience.
Letter to Niels Bohr (12 Dec 1924), in K. von Meyenn (ed.), Wolfgang Pauli - Wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz (1979), Vol. 1, 188. Quoted and cited in Daniel Greenberger, Klaus Hentschel and Friedel Weinert, Compendium of Quantum Physics: Concepts, Experiments, History and Philosophy (2009), 615.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Atom (381)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Belong (168)  |  Chain (51)  |  Classical (49)  |  Classical Theory (2)  |  Concept (242)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Electron (96)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Kinetic (12)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Model (106)  |  Modification (57)  |  Motion (320)  |  Must (1525)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Paper (192)  |  Profound (105)  |  Sense (785)  |  Term (357)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Blindly (2)  |  Bow (15)  |  Choose (116)  |  Conventional (31)  |  Courageously (2)  |  Express (192)  |  Honestly (10)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Instead (23)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mediocre (14)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

The multiplicity is only apparent. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not of the Upanishads only. The mystical experience of the union with God regularly leads to this view, unless strong prejudices stand in the West.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Apparent (85)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Experience (494)  |  God (776)  |  Lead (391)  |  Multiplicity (14)  |  Mystical (9)  |  Regularly (3)  |  Stand (284)  |  Strong (182)  |  Union (52)  |  View (496)  |  West (21)

The old metaphysical prejudice that man 'always thinks' has not yet entirely disappeared. I am myself inclined to hold that man really thinks very little and very seldom.
Science quotes on:  |  Disappear (84)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Myself (211)  |  Old (499)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)

The purpose of science is to develop, without prejudice or preconception of any kind, a knowledge of the facts, the laws, and the processes of nature. The even more important task of religion, on the other hand, is to develop the consciences, the ideals, and the aspirations of mankind.
'A Joint Statement Upon the Relations of Science and Religion' formulated by Millikan (1923), signed by forty-five leaders of religion, science and human affairs. Reproduced in Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors (May 1923), 9, No. 5, 47. Included in Science and Life (1924), 86. (Note the context in time: the contemporary social climate by 1925 led to the Butler Act banning the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools and the resulting trial of John Scopes.)
Science quotes on:  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Importance (299)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Mankind (356)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Preconception (13)  |  Process (439)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Purpose Of Science (5)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Task (152)

The scientific habit of mind is not alone the power to see straight and reason rightly; it is quite as much the power to wait, to sacrifice, to free one’s self from passion, prejudice, and fear.
In The Religion of an Educated Man (1903), 54.
Science quotes on:  |  Fear (212)  |  Free (239)  |  Habit (174)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Passion (121)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Self (268)  |  Wait (66)

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth—never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key.
In 'Wonder and Skepticism', Skeptical Enquirer (Jan-Feb 1995), 19, No. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Approach (112)  |  Asymptote (2)  |  Asymptotic (2)  |  Cleverness (15)  |  Closer (43)  |  Consonant (3)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Counterintuitive (4)  |  Design (203)  |  Desperation (6)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Finding (34)  |  Grapple (11)  |  Key (56)  |  Method (531)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Preference (28)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Puzzling (8)  |  Reach (286)  |  True (239)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Undiscovered (15)  |  Vast (188)  |  Want (504)  |  Work (1402)

There are, and always have been, destructive pseudo-scientific notions linked to race and religion; these are the most widespread and damaging. Hopefully, educated people can succeed in shedding light into these areas of prejudice and ignorance, for as Voltaire once said: “Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities.”
From an article in a periodical of Miami-Dade Junior College by Bernard Sussman, 'Exclusive Interview with Martin Gardner', Southwind (Fall 1968), 3, No. 1, 7-11. As quoted and cited in Dana Richards, 'Martin Gardner: A “Documentary”', collected in Elwyn R. Berlekamp and Tom Rodgers (ed.) The Mathemagician and Pied Puzzler: A Collection in Tribute to Martin Gardner (1999), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurdity (34)  |  Atrocity (6)  |  Belief (615)  |  Commit (43)  |  Damage (38)  |  Destructive (10)  |  Educated (12)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Light (635)  |  Link (48)  |  Long (778)  |  Most (1728)  |  Notion (120)  |  People (1031)  |  Pseudoscience (17)  |  Race (278)  |  Religion (369)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Shedding (3)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Widespread (23)  |  Will (2350)

There’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information—but rather information that confirms our prejudices. We may believe intellectually in the clash of opinions, but in practice we like to embed ourselves in the reassuring womb of an echo chamber.
In New York Times (18 Mar 2009).
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Clash (10)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Echo (12)  |  Embed (7)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Good (906)  |  Information (173)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Practice (212)  |  Reassure (7)  |  Truly (118)  |  Want (504)  |  Womb (25)

These Disciplines [mathematics] serve to inure and corroborate the Mind to a constant Diligence in Study; to undergo the Trouble of an attentive Meditation, and cheerfully contend with such Difficulties as lie in the Way. They wholly deliver us from a credulous Simplicity, most strongly fortify us against the Vanity of Scepticism, effectually restrain from a rash Presumption, most easily incline us to a due Assent, perfectly subject us to the Government of right Reason, and inspire us with Resolution to wrestle against the unjust Tyranny of false Prejudices. If the Fancy be unstable and fluctuating, it is to be poized by this Ballast, and steadied by this Anchor, if the Wit be blunt it is sharpened upon this Whetstone; if luxuriant it is pared by this Knife; if headstrong it is restrained by this Bridle; and if dull it is rouzed by this Spur. The Steps are guided by no Lamp more clearly through the dark Mazes of Nature, by no Thread more surely through the intricate Labyrinths of Philosophy, nor lastly is the Bottom of Truth sounded more happily by any other Line. I will not mention how plentiful a Stock of Knowledge the Mind is furnished from these, with what wholesome Food it is nourished, and what sincere Pleasure it enjoys. But if I speak farther, I shall neither be the only Person, nor the first, who affirms it; that while the Mind is abstracted and elevated from sensible Matter, distinctly views pure Forms, conceives the Beauty of Ideas, and investigates the Harmony of Proportions; the Manners themselves are sensibly corrected and improved, the Affections composed and rectified, the Fancy calmed and settled, and the Understanding raised and excited to more divine Contemplations. All which I might defend by Authority, and confirm by the Suffrages of the greatest Philosophers.
Prefatory Oration in Mathematical Lectures (1734), xxxi.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Affection (44)  |  Against (332)  |  Anchor (10)  |  Assent (12)  |  Attentive (15)  |  Authority (99)  |  Ballast (2)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Calm (32)  |  Chemical Biodynamics (2)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Credulous (9)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Diligence (22)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Divine (112)  |  Due (143)  |  Dull (58)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Farther (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Fortify (4)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Government (116)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Knife (24)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labyrinth (12)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Maze (11)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Presumption (15)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Pure (299)  |  Rash (15)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rectified (4)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Right (473)  |  Scepticism (17)  |  Settled (34)  |  Sharpen (22)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speak (240)  |  Spur (4)  |  Step (234)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suffrage (4)  |  Surely (101)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thread (36)  |  Through (846)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Tyranny (15)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Vanity (20)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whetstone (2)  |  Wholesome (12)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wit (61)

This Excellent Mathematician having given us, in the Transactions of February last, an account of the cause, which induced him to think upon Reflecting Telescopes, instead of Refracting ones, hath thereupon presented the curious world with an Essay of what may be performed by such Telescopes; by which it is found, that Telescopical Tubes may be considerably shortened without prejudice to their magnifiying effect.
On his invention of the catadioptrical telescope, as he communicated to the Royal Society.
'An Account of a New Catadioptrical Telescope Invented by Mr Newton', Philosophical Transactions (1672), 7, 4004.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Cause (561)  |  Curious (95)  |  Effect (414)  |  Essay (27)  |  Invention (400)  |  Last (425)  |  Magnification (10)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Perform (123)  |  Present (630)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Society (350)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Think (1122)  |  Transaction (13)  |  World (1850)

Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.
Cosmos (1985), 275.
Science quotes on:  |  Avoid (123)  |  Being (1276)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Confront (18)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Courage (82)  |  Differ (88)  |  Envision (3)  |  Fleeting (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Pretend (18)  |  Profound (105)  |  Structure (365)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Universe (900)  |  Weave (21)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  World (1850)

Twin sister of natural and revealed religion, and of heavenly birth, science will never belie her celestial origin, nor cease to sympathize with all that emanates from the same pure home. Human ignorance and prejudice may for a time seem to have divorced what God has joined together; but human ignorance and prejudice shall at length pass away, and then science and religion shall be seen blending their particolored rays into one beautiful bow of light, linking heaven to earth and earth to heaven.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Belie (3)  |  Birth (154)  |  Blend (9)  |  Bow (15)  |  Cease (81)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Divorce (7)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emanate (3)  |  God (776)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavenly (8)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Join (32)  |  Length (24)  |  Light (635)  |  Link (48)  |  Linking (8)  |  Natural (810)  |  Never (1089)  |  Origin (250)  |  Pass (241)  |  Pure (299)  |  Ray (115)  |  Religion (369)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Same (166)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sister (8)  |  Sympathize (2)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Twin (16)  |  Will (2350)

We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think–in fact they do so.
In The ABC of Relativity (1925), 166. A paraphrase from this quote is often seen as, “Most people would rather die than think; many do.”
Science quotes on:  |  Conform (15)  |  Die (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Involve (93)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Opposite (110)  |  People (1031)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  View (496)  |  World (1850)

What used to be called judgment is now called prejudice, and what used to be called prejudice is now called a null hypothesis.
Likelihood (1972), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Judgment (140)

When someone says his conclusions are objective, he means that they are based on prejudices which many other people share.
In The Decline and Fall of Science (1976), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Base (120)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Objective (96)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Say (989)  |  Share (82)

While the method of the natural sciences is... analytic, the method of the social sciences is better described as compositive or synthetic. It is the so-called wholes, the groups of elements which are structurally connected, which we learn to single out from the totality of observed phenomena... Insofar as we analyze individual thought in the social sciences the purpose is not to explain that thought, but merely to distinguish the possible types of elements with which we shall have to reckon in the construction of different patterns of social relationships. It is a mistake... to believe that their aim is to explain conscious action ... The problems which they try to answer arise only insofar as the conscious action of many men produce undesigned results... If social phenomena showed no order except insofar as they were consciously designed, there would indeed be no room for theoretical sciences of society and there would be, as is often argued, only problems of psychology. It is only insofar as some sort of order arises as a result of individual action but without being designed by any individual that a problem is raised which demands a theoretical explanation... people dominated by the scientistic prejudice are often inclined to deny the existence of any such order... it can be shown briefly and without any technical apparatus how the independent actions of individuals will produce an order which is no part of their intentions... The way in which footpaths are formed in a wild broken country is such an instance. At first everyone will seek for himself what seems to him the best path. But the fact that such a path has been used once is likely to make it easier to traverse and therefore more likely to be used again; and thus gradually more and more clearly defined tracks arise and come to be used to the exclusion of other possible ways. Human movements through the region come to conform to a definite pattern which, although the result of deliberate decision of many people, has yet not be consciously designed by anyone.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Aim (175)  |  Analytic (11)  |  Analyze (12)  |  Answer (389)  |  Anyone (38)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Argue (25)  |  Arise (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Break (109)  |  Briefly (5)  |  Broken (56)  |  Call (781)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Conform (15)  |  Connect (126)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Consciously (6)  |  Construction (114)  |  Country (269)  |  Decision (98)  |  Define (53)  |  Definite (114)  |  Deliberate (19)  |  Demand (131)  |  Deny (71)  |  Describe (132)  |  Design (203)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Dominate (20)  |  Easier (53)  |  Easy (213)  |  Element (322)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Exclusion (16)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Group (83)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Independent (74)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instance (33)  |  Intention (46)  |  Learn (672)  |  Likely (36)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Often (109)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Path (159)  |  Pattern (116)  |  People (1031)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possible (560)  |  Problem (731)  |  Produce (117)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Raise (38)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Region (40)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Result (700)  |  Room (42)  |  Seek (218)  |  Seem (150)  |  Show (353)  |  Single (365)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Society (350)  |  Sort (50)  |  Structurally (2)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Technical (53)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  Theoretical Science (4)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Totality (17)  |  Track (42)  |  Traverse (5)  |  Try (296)  |  Type (171)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wild (96)  |  Will (2350)

You are surprised at my working simultaneously in literature and in mathematics. Many people who have never had occasion to learn what mathematics is confuse it with arithmetic and consider it a dry and arid science. In actual fact it is the science which demands the utmost imagination. One of the foremost mathematicians of our century says very justly that it is impossible to be a mathematician without also being a poet in spirit. It goes without saying that to understand the truth of this statement one must repudiate the old prejudice by which poets are supposed to fabricate what does not exist, and that imagination is the same as “making things up”. It seems to me that the poet must see what others do not see, and see more deeply than other people. And the mathematician must do the same.
In letter (1890), quoted in S. Kovalevskaya and ‎Beatrice Stillman (trans. and ed.), Sofia Kovalevskaya: A Russian Childhood (2013), 35. Translated the Russian edition of Vospominaniya detstva (1974).
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Arid (6)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Century (319)  |  Consider (428)  |  Demand (131)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dry (65)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fabricate (6)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Learn (672)  |  Literature (116)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Poet (97)  |  Repudiate (7)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  See (1094)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Statement (148)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)


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.