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: “Environmental extremists ... wouldn�t let you build a house unless it looked like a bird�s nest.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Profound

Profound Quotes (105 quotes)

…the ideal doctor would be a man endowed with profound knowledge of life and of the soul, intuitively divining any suffering or disorder of whatever kind, and restoring peace by his mere presence.
Amiel's Journal The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel (22 Aug 1873), trans. By Mrs Humphry Ward (1889), Vol 2., 153.
Science quotes on:  |  Disorder (45)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Peace (116)  |  Physician (284)  |  Presence (63)  |  Soul (235)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Whatever (234)

[The blame for the future 'plight of civilization] must rest on scientific men, equally with others, for being incapable of accepting the responsibility for the profound social upheavals which their own work primarily has brought about in human relationships.
Quoted in Thaddeus Trenn, 'The Central Role of Energy in Soddy's Holistic and Critical Approach to Nuclear Science, Economics, and Social Responsibility', British Journal for the History of Science (1979), 42, 261.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blame (31)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Equality (34)  |  Equally (129)  |  Future (467)  |  Human (1512)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plight (5)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Rest (287)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Social (261)  |  Upheaval (4)  |  Work (1402)

[The Book of Genesis is] [p]rofoundly interesting and indeed pathetic to me are those attempts of the opening mind of man to appease its hunger for a Cause. But the Book of Genesis has no voice in scientific questions. It is a poem, not a scientific treatise. In the former aspect it is for ever beautiful; in the latter it has been, and it will continue to be, purely obstructive and hurtful.'
In 'Professor Virchow and Evolution', Fragments of Science (1879), Vol. 2, 377. Tyndall is quoting himself from “four years ago”&mdashthus c.1875.
Science quotes on:  |  Appease (6)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Bible (105)  |  Book (413)  |  Cause (561)  |  Continue (179)  |  Early (196)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Former (138)  |   Genesis (26)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Hurtful (8)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Obstruction (4)  |  Origin Of The Universe (20)  |  Pathetic (4)  |  Poem (104)  |  Purely (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Will (2350)

..und Juwele wägt man nicht mit der Krämerwaage
... and jewels are not weighed on a grocery scale.
Comment on Dirichlet's publication as being not prolific, but profound.
Letter to Alexander von Humbolt (9 Jul 1845). In Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg, The Historical Development of Quantum Theory, 267. By
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Being (1276)  |  Man (2252)  |  Publication (102)  |  Scale (122)  |  Weigh (51)

Combien de gens se font abstraits pour paraître profonds! La plupart des termes abstraits sont des ombres qui cachent des vides.
How many people become abstract in order to appear profound! Most abstract terms are shadows that conceal a void.
Quoted in M. Paul De Raynal, Pensées de J. Joubert (1862), 456.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Become (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Order (638)  |  People (1031)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Void (31)

To the Memory of Fourier
Fourier! with solemn and profound delight,
Joy born of awe, but kindling momently
To an intense and thrilling ecstacy,
I gaze upon thy glory and grow bright:
As if irradiate with beholden light;
As if the immortal that remains of thee
Attuned me to thy spirit’s harmony,
Breathing serene resolve and tranquil might.
Revealed appear thy silent thoughts of youth,
As if to consciousness, and all that view
Prophetic, of the heritage of truth
To thy majestic years of manhood due:
Darkness and error fleeing far away,
And the pure mind enthroned in perfect day.
In R. Graves, Life of W. R. Hamilton (1882), Vol. l, 696.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Attune (2)  |  Awe (43)  |  Bear (162)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Bright (81)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Delight (111)  |  Due (143)  |  Error (339)  |  Flee (9)  |  Fourier (5)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Glory (66)  |  Grow (247)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Intense (22)  |  Joy (117)  |  Kindle (9)  |  Light (635)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Manhood (3)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Prophetic (4)  |  Pure (299)  |  Remain (355)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Serene (5)  |  Silent (31)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thrill (26)  |  Tranquil (2)  |  Truth (1109)  |  View (496)  |  Year (963)  |  Youth (109)

A great part of its [higher arithmetic] theories derives an additional charm from the peculiarity that important propositions, with the impress of simplicity on them, are often easily discovered by induction, and yet are of so profound a character that we cannot find the demonstrations till after many vain attempts; and even then, when we do succeed, it is often by some tedious and artificial process, while the simple methods may long remain concealed.
Quoted in H. Eves, Mathematical Circles (1977) .
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Character (259)  |  Charm (54)  |  Concealed (25)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Derive (70)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Find (1014)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impress (66)  |  Induction (81)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Process (439)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Remain (355)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Tedious (15)  |  Vain (86)

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
In A Tale of Two Cities, originally serialized in 31 weekly parts in All the Year Round. This quote is from Chapter III, which appeared in Vol. 1. No. 1 (30 Apr 1859).
Science quotes on:  |  Constituted (5)  |  Creature (242)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Human (1512)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Other (2233)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Secret (216)  |  Wonderful (155)

Although with the majority of those who study and practice in these capacities [engineers, builders, surveyors, geographers, navigators, hydrographers, astronomers], secondhand acquirements, trite formulas, and appropriate tables are sufficient for ordinary purposes, yet these trite formulas and familiar rules were originally or gradually deduced from the profound investigations of the most gifted minds, from the dawn of science to the present day. … The further developments of the science, with its possible applications to larger purposes of human utility and grander theoretical generalizations, is an achievement reserved for a few of the choicest spirits, touched from time to time by Heaven to these highest issues. The intellectual world is filled with latent and undiscovered truth as the material world is filled with latent electricity.
In Orations and Speeches, Vol. 3 (1870), 513.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Acquirement (3)  |  Application (257)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Builder (16)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Development (441)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Far (158)  |  Fill (67)  |  Formula (102)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Geographer (7)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Grand (29)  |  Heaven (266)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hydrographer (3)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Issue (46)  |  Large (398)  |  Latent (13)  |  Majority (68)  |  Material (366)  |  Material World (8)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Navigator (8)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Originally (7)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practice (212)  |  Present (630)  |  Present Day (5)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Rule (307)  |  Secondhand (6)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Study (701)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Surveyor (5)  |  Table (105)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  Time (1911)  |  Touch (146)  |  Trite (5)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Undiscovered (15)  |  Utility (52)  |  World (1850)

Always preoccupied with his profound researches, the great Newton showed in the ordinary-affairs of life an absence of mind which has become proverbial. It is related that one day, wishing to find the number of seconds necessary for the boiling of an egg, he perceived, after waiting a minute, that he held the egg in his hand, and had placed his seconds watch (an instrument of great value on account of its mathematical precision) to boil!
This absence of mind reminds one of the mathematician Ampere, who one day, as he was going to his course of lectures, noticed a little pebble on the road; he picked it up, and examined with admiration the mottled veins. All at once the lecture which he ought to be attending to returned to his mind; he drew out his watch; perceiving that the hour approached, he hastily doubled his pace, carefully placed the pebble in his pocket, and threw his watch over the parapet of the Pont des Arts.
Popular Astronomy: a General Description of the Heavens (1884), translated by J. Ellard Gore, (1907), 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Admiration (61)  |  André-Marie Ampère (11)  |  Anecdote (21)  |  Approach (112)  |  Art (680)  |  Become (821)  |  Boil (24)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Course (413)  |  Egg (71)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forgetfulness (8)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hastily (7)  |  Hour (192)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Number (710)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Pace (18)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Precision (72)  |  Proverbial (8)  |  Research (753)  |  Return (133)  |  Show (353)  |  Value (393)  |  Vein (27)  |  Waiting (42)  |  Watch (118)

Among those whom I could never pursuade to rank themselves with idlers, and who speak with indignation of my morning sleeps and nocturnal rambles, one passes the day in catching spiders, that he may count their eyes with a microscope; another exhibits the dust of a marigold separated from the flower with a dexterity worthy of Leuwenhoweck himself. Some turn the wheel of electricity; some suspend rings to a lodestone, and find that what they did yesterday, they can do again to-day.—Some register the changes of the wind, and die fully convinced that the wind is changeable.—There are men yet more profound, who have heard that two colorless liquors may produce a color by union, and that two cold bodies will grow hot of they are mingled: they mingle them, and produce the effect expected, say it is strange, and mingle them again.
In Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), 243.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Cold (115)  |  Color (155)  |  Count (107)  |  Dexterity (8)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dust (68)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Entomologist (7)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flower (112)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heat (180)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hot (63)  |  Idleness (15)  |  Indignation (5)  |  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (17)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Lodestone (7)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mingle (9)  |  More (2558)  |  Morning (98)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observation (593)  |  Persuade (11)  |  Physics (564)  |  Pollen (6)  |  Ramble (3)  |  Rank (69)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Register (22)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Speak (240)  |  Spider (14)  |  Strange (160)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Union (52)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Yesterday (37)

Another error is a conceit that … the best has still prevailed and suppressed the rest: so as, if a man should begin the labor of a new search, he were but like to light upon somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection brought into oblivion; as if the multitude, or the wisest for the multitude’s sake, were not ready to give passage rather to that which is popular and superficial, than to that which is substantial and profound: for the truth is, that time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty and solid.
Advancement of Learning, Book 1. Collected in The Works of Francis Bacon (1826), Vol 1, 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Best (467)  |  Conceit (15)  |  Down (455)  |  Error (339)  |  Labor (200)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Passage (52)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Rest (287)  |  River (140)  |  Sake (61)  |  Search (175)  |  Solid (119)  |  Still (614)  |  Stream (83)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)

Archimedes possessed so high a spirit, so profound a soul, and such treasures of highly scientific knowledge, that though these inventions [used to defend Syracuse against the Romans] had now obtained him the renown of more than human sagacity, he yet would not deign to leave behind him any commentary or writing on such subjects; but, repudiating as sordid and ignoble the whole trade of engineering, and every sort of art that lends itself to mere use and profit, he placed his whole affection and ambition in those purer speculations where there can be no reference to the vulgar needs of life; studies, the superiority of which to all others is unquestioned, and in which the only doubt can be whether the beauty and grandeur of the subjects examined, or the precision and cogency of the methods and means of proof, most deserve our admiration.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Affection (44)  |  Against (332)  |  Ambition (46)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Art (680)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Behind (139)  |  Commentary (3)  |  Defend (32)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Examine (84)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  High (370)  |  Highly (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignoble (2)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Leave (138)  |  Lend (4)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mere (86)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Need (320)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Other (2233)  |  Place (192)  |  Possess (157)  |  Precision (72)  |  Profit (56)  |  Proof (304)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reference (33)  |  Renown (3)  |  Repudiate (7)  |  Roman (39)  |  Sagacity (11)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Knowledge (11)  |  Sordid (3)  |  Sort (50)  |  Soul (235)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Syracuse (5)  |  Trade (34)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Unquestioned (7)  |  Use (771)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Whole (756)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

As children we all possess a natural, uninhibited curiosity, a hunger for explanation, which seems to die slowly as we age—suppressed, I suppose, by the high value we place on conformity and by the need not to appear ignorant.
It betokens a conviction that somehow science is innately incomprehensible. It precludes reaching deeper, thereby denying the profound truth that understanding enriches experience, that explanation vastly enhances the beauty of the natural world in the eye of the beholder.
In Toward the Habit of Truth (1990).
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Children (201)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Enhance (17)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Eye (440)  |  High (370)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Natural (810)  |  Possess (157)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Value (393)  |  World (1850)

As Crystallography was born of a chance observation by Haüy of the cleavage-planes of a single fortunately fragile specimen, … so out of the slender study of the Norwich Spiral has sprung the vast and interminable Calculus of Cyclodes, which strikes such far-spreading and tenacious roots into the profoundest strata of denumeration, and, by this and the multitudinous and multifarious dependent theories which cluster around it, reminds one of the Scriptural comparison of the Kingdom of Heaven “to a grain of mustard-seed which a man took and cast into his garden, and it grew and waxed a great tree, and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it.”
From 'Outline Trace of the Theory of Reducible Cyclodes', Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society (1869), 2, 155, collected in Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester (1908), Vol. 2, 683-684.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Bird (163)  |  Branch (155)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Cast (69)  |  Chance (244)  |  Cleavage (2)  |  Cluster (16)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Crystallography (9)  |  Dependent (26)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Fowl (6)  |  Fragile (26)  |  Garden (64)  |  Grain (50)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  René-Just Haüy (4)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Interminable (3)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Kingdom Of Heaven (3)  |  Lodge (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Multitudinous (4)  |  Mustard (2)  |  Observation (593)  |  Plane (22)  |  Root (121)  |  Scripture (14)  |  Seed (97)  |  Single (365)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Spiral (19)  |  Spread (86)  |  Spring (140)  |  Strata (37)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Strike (72)  |  Study (701)  |  Tenacious (2)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vast (188)  |  Wax (13)

Ask a scientist a very profound question on his science, and he will be silent. Ask a religious person a very simple question on his religion, and he will be frenzied.
Quotations: Superultramodern Science and Philosophy (2005).
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Frenzy (6)  |  Person (366)  |  Question (649)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Silence (62)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Will (2350)

Astronomy may be revolutionized more than any other field of science by observations from above the atmosphere. Study of the planets, the Sun, the stars, and the rarified matter in space should all be profoundly influenced by measurements from balloons, rockets, probes and satellites. ... In a new adventure of discovery no one can foretell what will be found, and it is probably safe to predict that the most important new discovery that will be made with flying telescopes will be quite unexpected and unforeseen. (1961)
Opening and closing of 'Flying Telescopes', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (May 1961), Vol. 17, No. 5, 191 and 194.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Field (378)  |  Flying (74)  |  Foretell (12)  |  Matter (821)  |  Measurement (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planet (402)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Probe (12)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Safe (61)  |  Satellite (30)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Study (701)  |  Sun (407)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Unforeseen (11)  |  Will (2350)

Being in love with the one parent and hating the other are among the essential constituents of the stock of psychical impulses which is formed at that time and which is of such importance in determining the symptoms of the later neurosis... This discovery is confirmed by a legend that has come down to us from classical antiquity: a legend whose profound and universal power to move can only be understood if the hypothesis I have put forward in regard to the psychology of children has an equally universal validity. What I have in mind is the legend of King Oedipus and Sophocles' drama which bears his name.
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), In James Strachey (ed.) The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (1953), Vol. 4, 260-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Children (201)  |  Classical (49)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Down (455)  |  Drama (24)  |  Equally (129)  |  Essential (210)  |  Form (976)  |  Forward (104)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Importance (299)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Legend (18)  |  Love (328)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Move (223)  |  Name (359)  |  Neurosis (9)  |  Oedipus (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Power (771)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Regard (312)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understood (155)  |  Universal (198)  |  Validity (50)

By the end of the next century, the “greenhouse effect” may increase temperatures worldwide to levels that have not been reached for at least 100,000 years. And the effects on sea level and on agriculture and other human activities are likely to be so profound that we should be planning for them now.
In 'Temperatures Rise in the Global Greenhouse', New Scientist (15 May 1986), 110, No. 1508, 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Century (319)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Effect (414)  |  End (603)  |  Greenhouse Effect (5)  |  Human (1512)  |  Increase (225)  |  Next (238)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plan (122)  |  Planning (21)  |  Reach (286)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sea Level (5)  |  Temperature (82)  |  World (1850)  |  Worldwide (19)  |  Year (963)

Cavendish gave me once some bits of platinum for my experiments, and came to see my results on the decomposition of the alkalis, and seemed to take an interest in them; but he encouraged no intimacy with any one, and received nobody at his own house. … He was acute, sagacious, and profound, and, I think, the most accomplished British philosopher of his time.
As quoted in Victor Robinson, Pathfinders in Medicine (1912), 143.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Acute (8)  |  Alkali (6)  |  British (42)  |  Henry Cavendish (7)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Give (208)  |  House (143)  |  Interest (416)  |  Intimacy (6)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Platinum (6)  |  Receive (117)  |  Result (700)  |  Sagacious (7)  |  See (1094)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)

Cavendish was a great Man with extraordinary singularities—His voice was squeaking his manner nervous He was afraid of strangers & seemed when embarrassed to articulate with difficulty—He wore the costume of our grandfathers. Was enormously rich but made no use of his wealth... He Cavendish lived latterly the life of a solitary, came to the Club dinner & to the Royal Society: but received nobody at his home. He was acute sagacious & profound & I think the most accomplished British Philosopher of his time.
Quoted in J. Z. Fullmer, 'Davy's Sketches of his Contemporaries', Chymia, 1967, 12, 133.
Science quotes on:  |  British (42)  |  Henry Cavendish (7)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Great (1610)  |  Home (184)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Sagacious (7)  |  Society (350)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Wealth (100)

Chemistry works with an enormous number of substances, but cares only for some few of their properties; it is an extensive science. Physics on the other hand works with rather few substances, such as mercury, water, alcohol, glass, air, but analyses the experimental results very thoroughly; it is an intensive science. Physical chemistry is the child of these two sciences; it has inherited the extensive character from chemistry. Upon this depends its all-embracing feature, which has attracted so great admiration. But on the other hand it has its profound quantitative character from the science of physics.
In Theories of Solutions (1912), xix.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Air (366)  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Care (203)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Child (333)  |  Depend (238)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Feature (49)  |  Few (15)  |  Glass (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Inherited (21)  |  Intensive (9)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Chemistry (6)  |  Physics (564)  |  Property (177)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Result (700)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)

Darwin's theory was received in Russia with profound sympathy. While in Western Europe it met firmly established old traditions which it had first to overcome, in Russia its appearance coincided with the awakening of our society after the Crimean War and here it immediately received the status of full citizenship and ever since has enjoyed widespread popularity.
Quoted in Thomas F. Glick (ed.), The Comparative Reception of Darwinism (1988), 229-30.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Awakening (11)  |  Crimean War (2)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  First (1302)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Old (499)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Russia (14)  |  Society (350)  |  Status (35)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tradition (76)  |  War (233)  |  Western (45)  |  Widespread (23)

Democritus said; “That truth did lie in profound pits, and when it was got it need much refining.”
In 'A Collection of Apophthegms, New and Old' (1625). As given in Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political: A New Edition, With the Latin Quotations Translated (1813), 'Contained in the original edition in octavo but omitted in later copies', No. 263, 353.
Science quotes on:  |  Democritus of Abdera (17)  |  Lie (370)  |  Pit (20)  |  Refining (4)  |  Truth (1109)

Educators may bring upon themselves unnecessary travail by taking a tactless and unjustifiable position about the relation between scientific and religious narratives. … The point is that profound but contradictory ideas may exist side by side, if they are constructed from different materials and methods and have different purposes. Each tells us something important about where we stand in the universe, and it is foolish to insist that they must despise each other.
In The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School (1995), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Construct (129)  |  Contradictory (8)  |  Creationism (8)  |  Despise (16)  |  Different (595)  |  Educator (7)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Idea (881)  |  Important (229)  |  Insist (22)  |  Material (366)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Narrative (9)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Position (83)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Relation (166)  |  Religious (134)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Side (236)  |  Side By Side (2)  |  Something (718)  |  Stand (284)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Travail (5)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unjustifiable (2)  |  Unnecessary (23)

Even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
From paper 'Science, Philosophy and Religion', prepared for initial meeting of the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York City (9-11 Sep 1940). Collected in Albert Einstein: In His Own Words (2000), 212.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Belong (168)  |  Blind (98)  |  Comprehensible (3)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Determine (152)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Express (192)  |  Faith (209)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Goal (155)  |  Image (97)  |  Lame (5)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Rational (95)  |  Realm (87)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reciprocal (7)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Regulations (3)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Situation (117)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spring (140)  |  Strong (182)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Everything around us is filled with mystery and magic. I find this no cause for despair, no reason to turn for solace to esoteric formulae or chariots of gods. On the contrary, our inability to find easy answers fills me with a fierce pride in our ambivalent biology … with a constant sense of wonder and delight that we should be part of anything so profound.
In Lifetide: A Biology of the Unconscious (1979), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambivalent (2)  |  Answer (389)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chariot (9)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Delight (111)  |  Despair (40)  |  Easy (213)  |  Esoteric (4)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fierce (8)  |  Fill (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Formula (102)  |  God (776)  |  Inability (11)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Part (235)  |  Pride (84)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solace (7)  |  Turn (454)  |  Wonder (251)

Gay-Lussac was quick, lively, ingenious and profound, with great activity of mind and great facility of manipulation. I should place him at the head of all the living chemists in France.
In Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements (1934), 161, citing J. Davy, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. (1836) Vol. 1, 469.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Facility (14)  |  France (29)  |  Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (7)  |  Great (1610)  |  Head (87)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Lively (17)  |  Living (492)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Place (192)  |  Quick (13)

I abide in a goodly Museum,
Frequented by sages profound:
'Tis a kind of strange mausoleum,
Where the beasts that have vanished abound.
There's a bird of the ages Triassic,
With his antediluvian beak,
And many a reptile Jurassic,
And many a monster antique.
'Ballad of the Ichthyosaurus', Dreams to Sell (1887), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Age (509)  |  Antediluvian (5)  |  Beast (58)  |  Bird (163)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Jurassic (3)  |  Kind (564)  |  Monster (33)  |  Museum (40)  |  Paleontology (32)  |  Poem (104)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Sage (25)  |  Strange (160)

Benjamin Banneker quote: I am of the African race, and in the colour which is natural to them of the deepest dye
I am of the African race, and in the colour which is natural to them of the deepest dye; and it is under a sense of the most profound gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.
Letter to Thomas Jefferson included with a copy of Banneker’s first almanacs. In George Washington Williams, History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 (1882), Vol. 1, 395.
Science quotes on:  |  African (11)  |  African American (8)  |  Color (155)  |  Dye (10)  |  God (776)  |  Gratitude (14)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Race (278)  |  Ruler (21)  |  Sense (785)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Universe (900)

I came to biochemistry through chemistry; I came to chemistry, partly by the labyrinthine routes that I have related, and partly through the youthful romantic notion that the natural sciences had something to do with nature. What I liked about chemistry was its clarity surrounded by darkness; what attracted me, slowly and hesitatingly, to biology was its darkness surrounded by the brightness of the givenness of nature, the holiness of life. And so I have always oscillated between the brightness of reality and the darkness of the unknowable. When Pascal speaks of God in hiding, Deus absconditus, we hear not only the profound existential thinker, but also the great searcher for the reality of the world. I consider this unquenchable resonance as the greatest gift that can be bestowed on a naturalist.
Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before Nature (1978), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Bestow (18)  |  Biochemist (9)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biology (232)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Consider (428)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Do (1905)  |  Gift (105)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hiding (12)  |  Holiness (7)  |  Life (1870)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Blaise Pascal (81)  |  Reality (274)  |  Resonance (7)  |  Romantic (13)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Through (846)  |  World (1850)

I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can.
Letter to Asa Gray (22 May 1860). 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), 236.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Belief (615)  |  Brute (30)  |  Brute Force (4)  |  Call (781)  |  Chance (244)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Content (75)  |  Design (203)  |  Detail (150)  |  Dog (70)  |  Everything (489)  |  Feel (371)  |  Force (497)  |  Good (906)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Law (913)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Man (8)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Notion (120)  |  Result (700)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Subject (543)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wonderful (155)

I don’t profess to be profound, but I do lay claim to common sense.
Fictional character, Miss Murstone, in 'My Holidays, Especially One Happy Afternoon', David Copperfield (1849-1850, 1878), Chap. 8, 70
Science quotes on:  |  Claim (154)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Do (1905)  |  Profess (21)  |  Sense (785)

I have therefore tried to show the tendency displayed throughout history, by the most profound investigators, to pass from the world of the senses to a world where vision becomes spiritual, where principles are elaborated, and from which the explorer emerges with conceptions and conclusions, to be approved or rejected according as they coincide with sensible things.
Heat, A Mode of Motion (1880, 1915), 6th ed., viii.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Approve (6)  |  Become (821)  |  Coincide (6)  |  Conception (160)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Display (59)  |  Elaborated (7)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Explorer (30)  |  History (716)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Pass (241)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensible (28)  |  Show (353)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)

I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the play which is named after him. That would be claiming too much. But it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is singularly exact. For Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very charming-and a little mad. Let us grant that the pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit, a refuge from the goading urgency of contingent happenings.
In Science and the Modern World (1926), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainly (185)  |  Claiming (8)  |  Construct (129)  |  Contingent (12)  |  Divine (112)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Essential (210)  |  Grant (76)  |  Hamlet (10)  |  Happening (59)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Little (717)  |  Mad (54)  |  Madness (33)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Refuge (15)  |  Say (989)  |  Simile (8)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Study (701)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thought (995)  |  Urgency (13)  |  Will (2350)

If I were a comet, I should consider the men of our present age a degenerate breed. In former times, the respect for comets was universal and profound.
In 'On Comets', collected in In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Breed (26)  |  Comet (65)  |  Consider (428)  |  Degenerate (14)  |  Former (138)  |  Present (630)  |  Respect (212)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universal (198)

If there is one thing I’ve learned in my years on this planet, it’s that the happiest and most fulfilled people I’ve known are those who devoted themselves to something bigger and more profound than merely their own self interest.
From speech (3 Oct 1977) announcing he was donating his papers to Ohio State University. As quoted on the OSU website.
Science quotes on:  |  Bigger (5)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Fulfilled (2)  |  Happiest (2)  |  Interest (416)  |  Known (453)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Mere (86)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Planet (402)  |  Self (268)  |  Something (718)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Year (963)

In 1975, ... [speaking with Shiing Shen Chern], I told him I had finally learned ... the beauty of fiber-bundle theory and the profound Chern-Weil theorem. I said I found it amazing that gauge fields are exactly connections on fiber bundles, which the mathematicians developed without reference to the physical world. I added, “this is both thrilling and puzzling, since you mathematicians dreamed up these concepts out of nowhere.” He immediately protested: “No, no. These concepts were not dreamed up. They were natural and real.”
In 'Einstein's Impact on Theoretical Physics', collected in Jong-Ping Hsu, Leonard Hsu (eds.), JingShin Theoretical Physics Symposium in Honor of Professor Ta-You Wu (1998), 70. Reprinted from Physics Today (Jun 1980), 49. The article was adapted from a talk given at the Second Marcel Grossman meeting, held in Trieste, Italy (Jul 1979), in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Albert Einstein.
Science quotes on:  |  Amazing (35)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Both (496)  |  Concept (242)  |  Connection (171)  |  Develop (278)  |  Dream (222)  |  Dreamed Up (2)  |  Fiber (16)  |  Field (378)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Protest (9)  |  Puzzling (8)  |  Real (159)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thrill (26)  |  World (1850)

In due time the evolution theory will have to abate its vehemence, cannot be allow’d to dominate everything else, and will have to take its place as a segment of the circle, the cluster—as but one of many theories, many thoughts, of profoundest value—and readjusting the differentiating much, yet leaving the divine secrets just as inexplicable and unreachable as before—maybe more so.
In Specimen days & Collect (1883), 326.
Science quotes on:  |  Abate (2)  |  Circle (117)  |  Cluster (16)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Divine (112)  |  Dominate (20)  |  Due (143)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Inexplicable (8)  |  More (2558)  |  Secret (216)  |  Segment (6)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unreachable (2)  |  Value (393)  |  Vehemence (2)  |  Will (2350)

In the company of friends, writers can discuss their books, economists the state of the economy, lawyers their latest cases, and businessmen their latest acquisitions, but mathematicians cannot discuss their mathematics at all. And the more profound their work, the less understandable it is.
Reflections: Mathematics and Creativity', New Yorker (1972), 47, No. 53, 39-45. In Douglas M. Campbell, John C. Higgins (eds.), Mathematics: People, Problems, Results (1984), Vol. 2, 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Author (175)  |  Book (413)  |  Businessman (4)  |  Company (63)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Economist (20)  |  Friend (180)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  State (505)  |  Understandable (12)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

In the dog two conditions were found to produce pathological disturbances by functional interference, namely, an unusually acute clashing of the excitatory and inhibitory processes, and the influence of strong and extraordinary stimuli. In man precisely similar conditions constitute the usual causes of nervous and psychic disturbances. Different conditions productive of extreme excitation, such as intense grief or bitter insults, often lead, when the natural reactions are inhibited by the necessary restraint, to profound and prolonged loss of balance in nervous and psychic activity.
Ivan Pavlov and G. V. Anrep (ed., trans.), Conditioned Reflexes—An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex (1927), 397.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Acuteness (3)  |  Balance (82)  |  Bitter (30)  |  Bitterness (4)  |  Cause (561)  |  Clash (10)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Dog (70)  |  Excitation (9)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Function (235)  |  Grief (20)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inhibition (13)  |  Insult (16)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Interference (22)  |  Lead (391)  |  Loss (117)  |  Man (2252)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Nervousness (2)  |  Pathological (21)  |  Pathology (19)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Production (190)  |  Productive (37)  |  Profoundness (2)  |  Prolong (29)  |  Psychic (15)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Strong (182)  |  Two (936)  |  Unusual (37)

In the spring of 1760, [I] went to William and Mary college, where I continued two years. It was my great good fortune, and what probably fixed the destinies of my life, that Dr. William Small of Scotland, was then Professor of Mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly manners, and an enlarged and liberal mind. He, most happily for me, became soon attached to me, and made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science, and of the system of things in which we are placed.
In Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Adgate Lipscomb (ed.), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1904), Vol. 1, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Biography (254)  |  College (71)  |  Communication (101)  |  Companion (22)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Daily (91)  |  Expansion (43)  |  First (1302)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happy (108)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Professor (133)  |  School (227)  |  Scotland (6)  |  Small (489)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spring (140)  |  System (545)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Useful (260)  |  View (496)  |  Year (963)

It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find him writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians have usually similar feelings; there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
In A Mathematician's Apology (1940, reprint with Foreward by C.P. Snow 1992), 61 (Hardy's opening lines after Snow's foreward).
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciation (37)  |  Art (680)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explain (334)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Find (1014)  |  Function (235)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Painter (30)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physiologist (31)  |  Professional (77)  |  Prove (261)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Something (718)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Usually (176)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)

It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.
Epigraph in Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Deep (241)  |  Find (1014)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Possible (560)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Useful (260)

It is easy without any very profound logical analysis to perceive the difference between a succession of favorable deviations from the laws of chance, and on the other hand, the continuous and cumulative action of these laws. It is on the latter that the principle of Natural Selection relies.
In The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930), 37. Reprinted as A Complete Variorum Edition (2003), 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Chance (244)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Cumulative (14)  |  Deviation (21)  |  Difference (355)  |  Easy (213)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Law (913)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Selection (130)  |  Succession (80)

It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.
Quoted in Return to Mathematical Circles H. Eves (Boston 1988).
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Apollonius (6)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Computation (28)  |  First (1302)  |  Genius (301)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Invention (400)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Merit (51)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Produced (187)  |  Rank (69)  |  Remember (189)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Two (936)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value (393)

It is my belief that the basic knowledge that we're providing to the world will have a profound impact on the human condition and the treatments for disease and our view of our place on the biological continuum.
From Text of Remarks on the Completion of the First Survey of the First Survey of the Entire Human Genome Project (26 Jun 2000).
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Belief (615)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Condition (362)  |  Continuum (8)  |  Disease (340)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Condition (6)  |  Impact (45)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Provide (79)  |  Treatment (135)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

It is with theories as with wells: you may see to the bottom of the deepest if there be any water there, while another shall pass for wondrous profound when ‘tis merely shallow, dark, and empty.
As quoted, citing only the author, in 'New Publications: Dr. Wigan', The Edinburgh Review: Or Critical Journal (Oct 1844), 80, 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Bottom (36)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deep (241)  |  Empty (82)  |  Merely (315)  |  Pass (241)  |  See (1094)  |  Shallow (8)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Water (503)  |  Wondrous (22)

It was a profound saying of Wilhelm Humboldt, that 'Man is man only by means of speech, but in order to invent speech he must be already man.'
The Antiquity of Man (1863), 468.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Speech (66)

It will be noticed that the fundamental theorem proved above bears some remarkable resemblances to the second law of thermodynamics. Both are properties of populations, or aggregates, true irrespective of the nature of the units which compose them; both are statistical laws; each requires the constant increase of a measurable quantity, in the one case the entropy of a physical system and in the other the fitness, measured by m, of a biological population. As in the physical world we can conceive the theoretical systems in which dissipative forces are wholly absent, and in which the entropy consequently remains constant, so we can conceive, though we need not expect to find, biological populations in which the genetic variance is absolutely zero, and in which fitness does not increase. Professor Eddington has recently remarked that “The law that entropy always increases—the second law of thermodynamics—holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of nature.” It is not a little instructive that so similar a law should hold the supreme position among the biological sciences. While it is possible that both may ultimately be absorbed by some more general principle, for the present we should note that the laws as they stand present profound differences—-(1) The systems considered in thermodynamics are permanent; species on the contrary are liable to extinction, although biological improvement must be expected to occur up to the end of their existence. (2) Fitness, although measured by a uniform method, is qualitatively different for every different organism, whereas entropy, like temperature, is taken to have the same meaning for all physical systems. (3) Fitness may be increased or decreased by changes in the environment, without reacting quantitatively upon that environment. (4) Entropy changes are exceptional in the physical world in being irreversible, while irreversible evolutionary changes form no exception among biological phenomena. Finally, (5) entropy changes lead to a progressive disorganization of the physical world, at least from the human standpoint of the utilization of energy, while evolutionary changes are generally recognized as producing progressively higher organization in the organic world.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biological (137)  |  Both (496)  |  Change (639)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (135)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exception (74)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Existence (481)  |  Expect (203)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  General (521)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Human (1512)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Increase (225)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Little (717)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occur (151)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Population (115)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Professor (133)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Remain (355)  |  Require (229)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  Species (435)  |  Stand (284)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Supreme (73)  |  System (545)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Think (1122)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Utilization (16)  |  Variance (12)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Zero (38)

Magic is a faculty of wonderful virtue, full of most high mysteries, containing the most profound contemplation of most secret things, together with the nature, power, quality, substance and virtues thereof, as also the knowledge of whole Nature, and it doth instruct us concerning the differing and agreement of things amongst themselves, whence it produceth its wonderful effects, by uniting the virtues of things through the application of them one to the other.
In De Occulta Philosophia (1533), Vol. 1. Translation by J.F. (1651) reprinted as The Philosophy of Natural Magic (1913), 38-39.
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Application (257)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Effect (414)  |  High (370)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Magic (92)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Quality (139)  |  Secret (216)  |  Substance (253)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Unite (43)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wonderful (155)

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)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  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)

Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence—whether much that is glorious—whether all that is profound—does not spring from disease of thought—from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.
In Eleonora (1850). Collected on The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (1859), Vol. 1, 446.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Disease (340)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Exalted (22)  |  Expense (21)  |  General (521)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Lofty (16)  |  Mad (54)  |  Madness (33)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mood (15)  |  Question (649)  |  Settle (23)  |  Settled (34)  |  Spring (140)  |  Thought (995)

Microbiology is usually regarded as having no relevance to the feelings and aspirations of the man of flesh and bone. Yet, never in my professional life do I find myself far removed from the man of flesh and bone. It is not only because microbes are ubiquitous in our environment, and therefore must be studied for the sake of human welfare. More interesting, and far more important in the long run, is the fact that microbes exhibit profound resemblances to man. They resemble him in their physical makeup, in their properties, in their responses to various stimuli; they also display associations with other living things which have perplexing and illuminating analogies with human societies.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Association (49)  |  Bone (101)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flesh (28)  |  Human (1512)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  In The Long Run (18)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Microbes (14)  |  Microbiology (11)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perplex (6)  |  Physical (518)  |  Professional (77)  |  Regard (312)  |  Relevance (18)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Response (56)  |  Sake (61)  |  Society (350)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Ubiquitous (5)  |  Usually (176)  |  Various (205)  |  Welfare (30)

Mr Justus Liebig is no doubt a very clever gentleman and a most profound chemist, but in our opinion he knows as much of agriculture as the horse that ploughs the ground, and there is not an old man that stands between the stilts of a plough in Virginia, that cannot tell him of facts totally at variance with his finest spun theories.
The Southern Planter (1845), 3, 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Clever (41)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Gentleman (26)  |  Ground (222)  |  Horse (78)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Know (1538)  |  Justus von Liebig (39)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Plough (15)  |  Stand (284)  |  Tell (344)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Variance (12)  |  Virginia (2)

One dictionary that I consulted remarks that “natural history” now commonly means the study of animals and plants “in a popular and superficial way,” meaning popular and superficial to be equally damning adjectives. This is related to the current tendency in the biological sciences to label every subdivision of science with a name derived from the Greek. “Ecology” is erudite and profound; while “natural history” is popular and superficial. Though, as far as I can see, both labels apply to just about the same package of goods.
In The Nature of Natural History (1961, 2014), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Adjective (3)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apply (170)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Both (496)  |  Common (447)  |  Current (122)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Dictionary (15)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equally (129)  |  Erudite (2)  |  Good (906)  |  Goods (9)  |  Greek (109)  |  History (716)  |  Label (11)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Means (587)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Package (6)  |  Plant (320)  |  Popular (34)  |  Related (5)  |  See (1094)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Study (701)  |  Subdivision (2)  |  Superficial (12)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Way (1214)

Pavlov’s data on the two fundamental antagonistic nervous processes—stimulation and inhibition—and his profound generalizations regarding them, in particular, that these processes are parts of a united whole, that they are in a state of constant conflict and constant transition of the one to the other, and his views on the dominant role they play in the formation of the higher nervous activity—all those belong to the most established natural—scientific validation of the Marxist dialectal method. They are in complete accord with the Leninist concepts on the role of the struggle between opposites in the evolution, the motion of matter.
In E. A. Asratyan, I. P. Pavlov: His Life and Work (1953), 153.
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  Activity (218)  |  Antagonist (2)  |  Belong (168)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Complete (209)  |  Concept (242)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Constancy (12)  |  Constant (148)  |  Data (162)  |  Dominance (5)  |  Dominant (26)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Formation (100)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Higher (37)  |  Inhibition (13)  |  Vladimir Lenin (3)  |  Karl Marx (22)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Particular (80)  |  Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (18)  |  Play (116)  |  Process (439)  |  Profoundness (2)  |  Regard (312)  |  Role (86)  |  Scientific (955)  |  State (505)  |  Stimulation (18)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Transition (28)  |  Two (936)  |  Union (52)  |  Validation (2)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)

Preconceived ideas are like searchlights which illumine the path of experimenter and serve him as a guide to interrogate nature. They become a danger only if he transforms them into fixed ideas – this is why I should like to see these profound words inscribed on the threshold of all the temples of science: “The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.”
Speech (8 Jul 1876), to the French Academy of Medicine. As translated in René J. Dubos, Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science (1950, 1986), 376. Date of speech identified in Maurice B. Strauss, Familiar Medical Quotations (1968), 502.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Danger (127)  |  Derangement (2)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Guide (107)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Interrogate (4)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Path (159)  |  Preconceive (3)  |  Searchlight (5)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Temple (45)  |  Threshold (11)  |  Transform (74)  |  Why (491)  |  Wish (216)  |  Word (650)

Profound thoughts arise only in debate, with a possibility of counterargument, only when there is a possibility of expressing not only correct ideas but also dubious ideas.
In Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom (1968).
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Debate (40)  |  Idea (881)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Thought (995)

Run the tape again, and let the tiny twig of Homo sapiens expire in Africa. Other hominids may have stood on the threshold of what we know as human possibilities, but many sensible scenarios would never generate our level of mentality. Run the tape again, and this time Neanderthal perishes in Europe and Homo erectus in Asia (as they did in our world). The sole surviving human stock, Homo erectus in Africa, stumbles along for a while, even prospers, but does not speciate and therefore remains stable. A mutated virus then wipes Homo erectus out, or a change in climate reconverts Africa into inhospitable forest. One little twig on the mammalian branch, a lineage with interesting possibilities that were never realized, joins the vast majority of species in extinction. So what? Most possibilities are never realized, and who will ever know the difference? Arguments of this form lead me to the conclusion that biology's most profound insight into human nature, status, and potential lies in the simple phrase, the embodiment of contingency: Homo sapiens is an entity, not a tendency.
Wonderful Life (1989), 320.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  Argument (145)  |  Biology (232)  |  Branch (155)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Difference (355)  |  Embodiment (9)  |  Entity (37)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Forest (161)  |  Form (976)  |  Hominid (4)  |  Homo Sapiens (23)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Insight (107)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Little (717)  |  Majority (68)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neanderthal (7)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Potential (75)  |  Prosper (8)  |  Remain (355)  |  Run (158)  |  Simple (426)  |  Sole (50)  |  Species (435)  |  Stable (32)  |  Status (35)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Threshold (11)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Twig (15)  |  Vast (188)  |  Virus (32)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Science has “explained” nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.
Along the Road: Notes and Essays of a Tourist (1928), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Surrounding (13)  |  World (1850)

Science is always simple and profound. It is only the half truths that are dangerous.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Half (63)  |  Simple (426)  |  Truth (1109)

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual ... The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.
In Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Both (496)  |  Compatible (4)  |  Disservice (4)  |  Elation (2)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Humility (31)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Intricacy (8)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Light-Years (2)  |  Mutually (7)  |  Notion (120)  |  Passage (52)  |  Place (192)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soaring (9)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Source (101)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Spirituality (8)  |  Subtlety (19)  |  Surely (101)  |  Year (963)

Since the examination of consistency is a task that cannot be avoided, it appears necessary to axiomatize logic itself and to prove that number theory and set theory are only parts of logic. This method was prepared long ago (not least by Frege’s profound investigations); it has been most successfully explained by the acute mathematician and logician Russell. One could regard the completion of this magnificent Russellian enterprise of the axiomatization of logic as the crowning achievement of the work of axiomatization as a whole.
Address (11 Sep 1917), 'Axiomatisches Denken' delivered before the Swiss Mathematical Society in Zürich. Translated by Ewald as 'Axiomatic Thought', (1918), in William Bragg Ewald, From Kant to Hilbert (1996), Vol. 2, 1113.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Acute (8)  |  Appear (122)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Completion (23)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Crown (39)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Examination (102)  |  Explain (334)  |  Gottlob Frege (12)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Least (75)  |  Logic (311)  |  Logician (18)  |  Long (778)  |  Long Ago (12)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Number (710)  |  Number Theory (6)  |  Prepared (5)  |  Prove (261)  |  Regard (312)  |  Bertrand Russell (198)  |  Set (400)  |  Set Theory (6)  |  Successful (134)  |  Task (152)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

Srinivasa Ramanujan was the strangest man in all of mathematics, probably in the entire history of science. He has been compared to a bursting supernova, illuminating the darkest, most profound corners of mathematics, before being tragically struck down by tuberculosis at the age of 33... Working in total isolation from the main currents of his field, he was able to rederive 100 years’ worth of Western mathematics on his own. The tragedy of his life is that much of his work was wasted rediscovering known mathematics.
In Hyperspace:A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension (1994), 172.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bursting (3)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Corner (59)  |  Current (122)  |  Dark (145)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Down (455)  |  Field (378)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  Strangest (4)  |  Supernova (7)  |  Total (95)  |  Tragedy (31)  |  Tuberculosis (9)  |  Waste (109)  |  Western (45)  |  Work (1402)  |  Working (23)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

Such is the advantage of a well constructed language that its simplified notation often becomes the source of profound theories.
Quoted in Nicholas J. Rose, Mathematical Maxims and Minims (1988).
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Become (821)  |  Construct (129)  |  Language (308)  |  Notation (28)

Such is the character of mathematics in its profounder depths and in its higher and remoter zones that it is well nigh impossible to convey to one who has not devoted years to its exploration a just impression of the scope and magnitude of the existing body of the science. An imagination formed by other disciplines and accustomed to the interests of another field may scarcely receive suddenly an apocalyptic vision of that infinite interior world. But how amazing and how edifying were such a revelation, if it only could be made.
In Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Art (1908), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Amazing (35)  |  Apocalyptic (2)  |  Body (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Convey (17)  |  Depth (97)  |  Devote (45)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Exist (458)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Field (378)  |  Form (976)  |  High (370)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Impression (118)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interior (35)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Other (2233)  |  Receive (117)  |  Remote (86)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Scope (44)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)  |  Zone (5)

That the main results of the astronomer’s work are not so immediately practical does not detract from their value. They are, I venture to think, the more to be prized on that account. Astronomy has profoundly influenced the thought of the race. In fact, it has been the keystone in the arch of the sciences under which we have marched out from the darkness of the fifteenth and preceding centuries to the comparative light of to-day.
In 'The Nature of the Astronomer’s Work', North American Review (Jun 1908), 187, No. 631, 915.
Science quotes on:  |  15th Century (5)  |  Account (195)  |  Arch (12)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Comparative (14)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Detract (2)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Influence (231)  |  Keystone (3)  |  Light (635)  |  March (48)  |  More (2558)  |  Practical (225)  |  Prize (13)  |  Race (278)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Value (393)  |  Work (1402)

The artificial products do not have any molecular dissymmetry; and I could not indicate the existence of a more profound separation between the products born under the influence of life and all the others.
Quoted in Joseph S. Fruton, Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1999), 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Artificiality (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Existence (481)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Indication (33)  |  Influence (231)  |  Life (1870)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Product (166)  |  Separation (60)  |  Symmetry (44)

The discovery which has been pointed to by theory is always one of profound interest and importance, but it is usually the close and crown of a long and fruitful period, whereas the discovery which comes as a puzzle and surprise usually marks a fresh epoch and opens a new chapter in science.
Becquerel Memorial Lecture, Journal of the Chemical Society, Transactions (1912), 101(2), 2005. Quoted by Simon Flexnor in 'The Scientific Career for Women', a commencement address at Bryn Mawr College (2 Jun 1921), The Scientific Monthly (Aug 1921), 13, 98.
Science quotes on:  |  Crown (39)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interest (416)  |  Long (778)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Period (200)  |  Point (584)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Usually (176)

The game of status seeking, organized around committees, is played in roughly the same fashion in Africa and in America and in the Soviet Union. Perhaps the aptitude for this game is a part of our genetic inheritance, like the aptitude for speech and for music. The game has had profound consequences for science. In science, as in the quest for a village water supply, big projects bring enhanced status; small projects do not. In the competition for status, big projects usually win, whether or not they are scientifically justified. As the committees of academic professionals compete for power and influence, big science becomes more and more preponderant over small science. The large and fashionable squeezes out the small and unfashionable. The space shuttle squeezes out the modest and scientifically more useful expendable launcher. The Great Observatory squeezes out the Explorer. The centralized adduction system squeezes out the village well. Fortunately, the American academic system is pluralistic and chaotic enough that first-rate small science can still be done in spite of the committees. In odd corners, in out-of the-way universities, and in obscure industrial laboratories, our Fulanis are still at work.
From a Danz lecture at University of Washington, 'Six Cautionary Tales for Scientists' (1988), collected in From Eros to Gaia (1992), Vol. 5, 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  America (143)  |  Aptitude (19)  |  Become (821)  |  Competition (45)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Corner (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enough (341)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Fashionable (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Game (104)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Great (1610)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Large (398)  |  Modest (19)  |  More (2558)  |  Music (133)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Observatory (18)  |  Power (771)  |  Professional (77)  |  Project (77)  |  Quest (39)  |  Small (489)  |  Soviet (10)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Shuttle (12)  |  Speech (66)  |  Spite (55)  |  Status (35)  |  Still (614)  |  Supply (100)  |  System (545)  |  Union (52)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usually (176)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Win (53)  |  Work (1402)

The genuine spirit of Mathesis is devout. No intellectual pursuit more truly leads to profound impressions of the existence and attributes of a Creator, and to a deep sense of our filial relations to him, than the study of these abstract sciences. Who can understand so well how feeble are our conceptions of Almighty Power, as he who has calculated the attraction of the sun and the planets, and weighed in his balance the irresistible force of the lightning? Who can so well understand how confused is our estimate of the Eternal Wisdom, as he who has traced out the secret laws which guide the hosts of heaven, and combine the atoms on earth? Who can so well understand that man is made in the image of his Creator, as he who has sought to frame new laws and conditions to govern imaginary worlds, and found his own thoughts similar to those on which his Creator has acted?
In 'The Imagination in Mathematics', North American Review, 85, 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Act (278)  |  Almighty (23)  |  Atom (381)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Balance (82)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Combine (58)  |  Conception (160)  |  Condition (362)  |  Confused (13)  |  Creator (97)  |  Deep (241)  |  Devout (5)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Existence (481)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Frame (26)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Govern (66)  |  Guide (107)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Host (16)  |  Image (97)  |  Imaginary (16)  |  Impression (118)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  New (1273)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Relation (166)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seek (218)  |  Sense (785)  |  Similar (36)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Study (701)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trace (109)  |  Truly (118)  |  Understand (648)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  World (1850)

The great upheavals which precede changes of civilisation, such as the fall of the Roman Empire and the founding of the Arabian Empire, for example, seem to have been determined mainly by considerable political transformations, invasions, or the overthrow of dynasties. But … most often, the real cause is … a profound modification in the ideas of the peoples. … The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought. … The present epoch is one of these critical moments in which the thought of mankind is undergoing a process of transformation.
From Psychologie des Foules (1895), Introduction, 1-2. English text in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897), Introduction, xiii-xiv, tweaked by Webmaster. Original French text: “Les grands bouleversements qui précèdent les changements de civilisations, tels que la chute de l’Empire romain et la fondation de l’Empire arabe par exemple semblent … déterminés surtout par des transformations politiques considérables: invasions de peuples ou renversements de dynasties. Mais … se trouve le plus souvent, comme cause réelle, une modification profonde dans les peuples. … Les événements mémorables de l’histoire sont les effets visibles des invisibles changements de la pensée des hommes. … L’époque actuelle constitue un de ces moments critiques où la pensée des hommes est en voie de se transformer.”
Science quotes on:  |  Arabian (2)  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Critical (73)  |  Effect (414)  |  Empire (17)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Event (222)  |  Fall (243)  |  Founding (5)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Thought (7)  |  Idea (881)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Memorable (4)  |  Modification (57)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Political (124)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Roman (39)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Upheaval (4)  |  Visible (87)

The human mind delights in finding pattern–so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning. No other habit of thought lies so deeply within the soul of a small creature trying to make sense of a complex world not constructed for it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Complex (202)  |  Construct (129)  |  Creature (242)  |  Deeply (17)  |  Delight (111)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Habit (174)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Often (109)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Sense (785)  |  Small (489)  |  Soul (235)  |  Thought (995)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  World (1850)

The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man; no other idea has so fruitfully stimulated his intellect; yet no other concept stands in greater need of clarification than that of the infinite.
Address in memory of Karl Weierstrass. As quoted in Journal of the University of Bombay (1933), 2, 201. Also in Tobias Dantzig, Number: The Language of Science (1937), 237. Also partially quoted as epigraph in in James Roy Newman, The World of Mathematics (1956), Vol. 3, 1593. which dates the address as 1921. Another translation for perhaps the same address ('On the Infinite'), in honor of Weierstrass, dates it as 4 Jun 1925, in Paul Benacerraf (ed.) Philosophy of Mathematics (1983), 183. See this alternate version elsewhere on this page, beginning, “From time immemorial…”.
Science quotes on:  |  Clarification (8)  |  Concept (242)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Greater (288)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Man (2252)  |  Move (223)  |  Need (320)  |  Other (2233)  |  Question (649)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stimulate (21)

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)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Sense (785)  |  Term (357)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
Webmaster has not yet found a primary source for this quote verbatim. However, it is very widely seen quoted in this wording, and seemingly always without a citation to the original source. Hans Bohr, the son of Niels Bohr, gives his first-hand knowledge that: “One of the favorite maxims of my father was the distinction between the two sorts of truth, profound truths recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd.” (Webmaster has not been able to verify a source for that which cited it as Hans Bohr, My Father: His Life and Work (1967), 328. In any case, notice that the son’s narrative does not give his father’s words in quotation marks.
Science quotes on:  |  Correct (95)  |  False (105)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Statement (148)  |  Truth (1109)

The profound mathematical ability of Bolyai János showed itself physically not only in his handling of the violin, where he was a master, but also of arms, where he was unapproachable.
In János Bolyai, Science Absolute of Space, translated from the Latin by George Bruce Halsted (1896), Translator's Introduction, xxix. [Bolyai was the victor in many duels. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  János Bolyai (6)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Physical (518)  |  Show (353)  |  Violin (6)

The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens. And let no one believe that the reading of the most exalted thoughts which are inscribed upon these pages is to be accomplished through merely staring up at the radiance of the stars. There are such profound secrets and such lofty conceptions that the night labors and the researches of hundreds and yet hundreds of the keenest minds, in investigations extending over thousands of years would not penetrate them, and the delight of the searching and finding endures forever.
As stated by William H. Hobbs, 'The Making of Scientific Theories,' Address of the president of Michigan Academy of Science at the Annual Meeting, Ann Arbor (28 Mar 1917) in Science (11 May 1917), N.S. 45, No. 1167, 443.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Conception (160)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Delight (111)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Exalted (22)  |  Forever (111)  |  God (776)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Labor (200)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Open (277)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Prohibition (3)  |  Radiance (7)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Secret (216)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

The really profound changes in human life all have their ultimate origin in knowledge pursued for its own sake. The use of the compass was not introduced into Europe till the end of the twelfth century A.D., more than three thousand years after its first use in China. The importance which the science of electromagnetism has since assumed in every department of human life is due not to the superior practical bias of Europeans, but to the fact that in the West electrical and magnetic phenomena were studied by men who were dominated by abstract theoretic interests.
In Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 32-33.
Science quotes on:  |  12th Century (3)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Change (639)  |  China (27)  |  Compass (37)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Europe (50)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Origin (250)  |  Practical (225)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Sake (61)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Ultimate (152)

The recurrence of a phenomenon like Edison is not very likely. The profound change of conditions and the ever increasing necessity of theoretical training would seem to make it impossible. He will occupy a unique and exalted position in the history of his native land, which might well be proud of his great genius and undying achievements in the interest of humanity.
As quoted in 'Tesla Says Edison Was an Empiricist', The New York Times (19 Oct 1931), 25. In 1884, Tesla had moved to America to assist Edison in the designing of motors and generators.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Change (639)  |  Condition (362)  |  Thomas Edison (83)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Exalted (22)  |  Genius (301)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Interest (416)  |  Likelihood (10)  |  Native (41)  |  Native Land (3)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Position (83)  |  Pride (84)  |  Recurrence (5)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Training (92)  |  Unique (72)  |  Will (2350)

The respect which in all ages and countries has ever been paid to inventors seems, indeed, to rest on something more profound than mere gratitude for the benefits which they have been the means of conferring on mankind; and to imply, if it does not express, a consciousness that by the grand and original conceptions of their minds they approach somewhat more nearly than their fellows to the qualities and pre-eminence of a higher order of being.
The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (1854), Vol.1, 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Approach (112)  |  Being (1276)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Express (192)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Gratitude (14)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Order (638)  |  Pre-eminence (4)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rest (287)  |  Something (718)

The science of systematics has long been affected by profound philosophical preconceptions, which have been all the more influential for being usually covert, even subconscious.
The Major Features of Evolution (1953), 340.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Influence (231)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Preconception (13)  |  Subconscious (4)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Systematics (4)  |  Usually (176)

The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. ... It was hay that allowed populations to grow and civilizations to flourish among the forests of Northern Europe. Hay moved the greatness of Rome to Paris and London, and later to Berlin and Moscow and New York.
[The year-round growth of green grass in the Mediterranean climate meant that hay was not needed by the Romans. North of the Alps, hay maintained horses and oxen and thus their motive power, and productivity.]
In 'Quick is Beautiful', Infinite in All Directions: Gifford Lectures Given at Aberdeen, Scotland (1988, 2004), 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Alp (9)  |  Alps (9)  |  Berlin (10)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Climate (102)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Effect (414)  |  Europe (50)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Forest (161)  |  Good (906)  |  Grass (49)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Green (65)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Hay (6)  |  Historical (70)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Life (1870)  |  London (15)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mediterranean (9)  |  Moscow (5)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motive (62)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Oxen (8)  |  Paris (11)  |  Population (115)  |  Power (771)  |  Productivity (23)  |  Roman (39)  |  Rome (19)  |  Simple (426)  |  Technology (281)  |  Usually (176)  |  Year (963)

The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know is that the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages. According to the Hay Theory of History, the invention of hay was the decisive event which moved the center of gravity of urban civilization from the Mediterranean basin to Northern and Western Europe. The Roman Empire did not need hay because in a Mediterranean climate the grass grows well enough in winter for animals to graze. North of the Alps, great cities dependent on horses and oxen for motive power could not exist without hay. So it was hay that allowed populations to grow and civilizations to flourish among the forests of Northern Europe. Hay moved the greatness of Rome to Paris and London, and later to Berlin and Moscow and New York. ... Great inventions like hay and printing, whatever their immediate social costs may be, result in a permanent expansion of our horizons, a lasting acquisition of new territory for human bodies and minds to cultivate.
Infinite In All Directions (1988, 2004), 135. The book is a revised version of a series of the Gifford Lectures under the title 'In Praise of Diversity', given at Aberdeen, Scotland.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Age (509)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Alive (97)  |  Alp (9)  |  Alps (9)  |  Animal (651)  |  Autumn (11)  |  Berlin (10)  |  Call (781)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Climate (102)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Cost (94)  |  Cow (42)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Decisive (25)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enough (341)  |  Europe (50)  |  Event (222)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Forest (161)  |  Good (906)  |  Grass (49)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hay (6)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Invention (400)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  London (15)  |  Medieval (12)  |  Mediterranean (9)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moscow (5)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motive (62)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxen (8)  |  Paris (11)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Population (115)  |  Power (771)  |  Printing (25)  |  Result (700)  |  Roman (39)  |  Rome (19)  |  Simple (426)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Social (261)  |  Technology (281)  |  Territory (25)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Urban (12)  |  Usually (176)  |  Western (45)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Winter (46)

The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Devious (2)  |  Habit (174)  |  Influence (231)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Tool (129)  |  Use (771)

The Wegener hypothesis has been so stimulating and has such fundamental implications in geology as to merit respectful and sympathetic interest from every geologist. Some striking arguments in his favor have been advanced, and it would be foolhardy indeed to reject any concept that offers a possible key to the solution of profound problems in the Earth’s history.
Published while geologists remained sceptical of Alfred Wegener’s idea of Continental Drift, Though unconvinced, he published these thoughts suggesting that critics should be at least be open-minded. His patience was proven justified when two decades later, the theory of plate tectonics provided a mechanism for the motion of the continents.
Some Thoughts on the Evidence for Continental Drift (1944).
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Concept (242)  |  Continent (79)  |  Continental Drift (15)  |  Decade (66)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Favor (69)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Geology (240)  |  History (716)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Interest (416)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Merit (51)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  Offer (142)  |  Open (277)  |  Patience (58)  |  Plate Tectonics (22)  |  Possible (560)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reject (67)  |  Remain (355)  |  Solution (282)  |  Striking (48)  |  Sympathetic (10)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Alfred L. Wegener (12)

There are hosts of men, of the profoundest thought, who find nothing in the disclosures of science to shake their faith in the eternal virtues of reason and religion.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Disclosure (7)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Faith (209)  |  Find (1014)  |  Host (16)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Shake (43)  |  Thought (995)  |  Virtue (117)

There are science teachers who actually claim that they teach “a healthy skepticism.” They do not. They teach a profound gullibility, and their dupes, trained not to think for themselves, will swallow any egregious rot, provided it is dressed up with long words and an affectation of objectivity to make it sound scientific.
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 189.
Science quotes on:  |  Affectation (4)  |  Claim (154)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dupe (5)  |  Gullibility (3)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Long (778)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Rot (9)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skepticism (31)  |  Sound (187)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Train (118)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

There is only one law of Nature—the second law of thermodynamics—which recognises a distinction between past and future more profound than the difference of plus and minus. It stands aloof from all the rest. … It opens up a new province of knowledge, namely, the study of organisation; and it is in connection with organisation that a direction of time-flow and a distinction between doing and undoing appears for the first time.
In The Nature of the Physical World (1928, 2005), 67-68.
Science quotes on:  |  Connection (171)  |  Difference (355)  |  Direction (185)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Doing (277)  |  First (1302)  |  Flow (89)  |  Future (467)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Organization (120)  |  Past (355)  |  Plus (43)  |  Province (37)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Rest (287)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  Stand (284)  |  Study (701)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  Undoing (2)

There is something irreversible about acquiring knowledge; and the simulation of the search for it differs in a most profound way from the reality.
In Physics in the Contemporary World (1949), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Most (1728)  |  Reality (274)  |  Search (175)  |  Simulation (7)  |  Something (718)  |  Way (1214)

These specimens, which I could easily multiply, may suffice to justify a profound distrust of Auguste Comte, wherever he may venture to speak as a mathematician. But his vast general ability, and that personal intimacy with the great Fourier, which I most willingly take his own word for having enjoyed, must always give an interest to his views on any subject of pure or applied mathematics.
In R. Graves, Life of W. R. Hamilton (1882-89), Vol. 3, 475.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Mathematics (15)  |  Auguste Comte (24)  |  Distrust (11)  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Fourier (5)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Interest (416)  |  Intimacy (6)  |  Justify (26)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Must (1525)  |  Personal (75)  |  Pure (299)  |  Speak (240)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Subject (543)  |  Vast (188)  |  Venture (19)  |  View (496)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Willing (44)  |  Word (650)

This change in the conception of reality is the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton.
Refering to James Clerk Maxwell's contributions to physics.
'Maxwell's Influence on the Development of the Conception of Physical Reality', James Clerk Maxwell: A Commemorative Volume 1831-1931 (1931), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Clerk (13)  |  Conception (160)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Electrodynamics (10)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Reality (274)  |  Time (1911)

This is, in truth, the first charm of chemistry, and the secret of the almost universal interest excited by its discoveries. The serious complacency which is afforded by the sense of truth, utility, permanence, and progression, blends with and ennobles the exhilarating surprise and the pleasurable sting of curiosity, which accompany the propounding and the solving of an Enigma... If in SHAKPEARE [sic] we find Nature idealized into Poetry, through the creative power of a profound yet observant meditation, so through the meditative observation of a DAVY, a WOOLLASTON [sic], or a HATCHETT; we find poetry, as if were, substantiated and realized in nature.
Essays on the Principle of Method, Essay VI (1818). In The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Friend (1969), Vol. 4, 1, Barbara E. Rooke (ed.), 471.
Science quotes on:  |  Accompany (22)  |  Charm (54)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Creative (144)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Enigma (16)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Charles Hatchett (3)  |  Interest (416)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Power (771)  |  Progression (23)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sense (785)  |  Serious (98)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universal (198)  |  Utility (52)  |  William Hyde Wollaston (3)

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)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Pretend (18)  |  Structure (365)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Universe (900)  |  Weave (21)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  World (1850)

Those to whom the harmonious doors
Of Science have unbarred celestial stores,
To whom a burning energy has given
That other eye which darts thro’ earth and heaven,
Roams through all space and unconfined,
Explores the illimitable tracts of mind,
And piercing the profound of time can see
Whatever man has been and man can be.
In An Evening Walk (1793). In E. de Selincourt (ed.), The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth (1940), Vol. 1, 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Burning (49)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Door (94)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Eye (440)  |  Harmonious (18)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Other (2233)  |  See (1094)  |  Space (523)  |  Store (49)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Whatever (234)

Those who consider James Watt only as a great practical mechanic form a very erroneous idea of his character: he was equally distinguished as a natural philosopher and a chemist, and his inventions demonstrate his profound knowledge of those sciences, and that peculiar characteristic of genius, the union of them for practical application.
As reported in Proceedings of the Public Meeting held at Preemasons' Hall, on the 18th June, 1824, for Erecting a Monument to the Late James Watt (1824), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Character (259)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Consider (428)  |  Considered (12)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equally (129)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Error (339)  |  Form (976)  |  Genius (301)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Invention (400)  |  James (3)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosopher (4)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Practical (225)  |  Union (52)  |  James Watt (11)

Very few, even among those who have taken the keenest interest in the progress of the revolution in natural knowledge set afoot by the publication of the “Origin of Species”; and who have watched, not without astonishment, the rapid and complete change which has been effected both inside and outside the boundaries of the scientific world in the attitude of men’s minds towards the doctrines which are expounded in that great work, can have been prepared for the extraordinary manifestation of affectionate regard for the man, and of profound reverence for the philosopher, which followed the announcement, on Thursday last, of the death of Mr Darwin.
'Obituary [of Charles Darwin]' (1882). In Collected Essays (1893), Vol. 2, 244.
Science quotes on:  |  Announcement (15)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Both (496)  |  Change (639)  |  Complete (209)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Death (406)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Effect (414)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Follow (389)  |  Great (1610)  |  Interest (416)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Natural (810)  |  Obituary (11)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Outside (141)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Progress (492)  |  Publication (102)  |  Regard (312)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Set (400)  |  Species (435)  |  Watch (118)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

We don't know what we are talking about. Many of us believed that string theory was a very dramatic break with our previous notions of quantum theory. But now we learn that string theory, well, is not that much of a break. The state of physics today is like it was when we were mystified by radioactivity. They were missing something absolutely fundamental. We are missing perhaps something as profound as they were back then.
Closing address to the 23rd Solvay Conference in Physics, Brussels, Belgium (Dec 2005). Quoted in Ashok Sengupta, Chaos, Nonlinearity, Complexity: The Dynamical Paradigm of Nature (2006), vii. Cite in Alfred B. Bortz, Physics: Decade by Decade (2007), 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Back (395)  |  Belief (615)  |  Break (109)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Missing (21)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Notion (120)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Previous (17)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Something (718)  |  State (505)  |  String Theory (14)  |  Talking (76)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Today (321)

We have found that where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind has put into nature.
We have found a strange foot-print on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the foot-print. And Lo! it is our own.
Concluding sentences in Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory (1921), 200-201
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Creature (242)  |  Devising (7)  |  Find (1014)  |  Footprint (16)  |  Last (425)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Origin (250)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Shore (25)  |  Strange (160)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unknown (195)

We have three approaches at our disposal: the observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation serves to assemble the data, reflection to synthesise them and experimentation to test the results of the synthesis. The observation of nature must be assiduous, just as reflection must be profound, and experimentation accurate. These three approaches are rarely found together, which explains why creative geniuses are so rare.
Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature and Other Philosophical Works (1753/4), ed. D. Adams (1999), section XV, 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Assemble (14)  |  Creative (144)  |  Data (162)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Rare (94)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Result (700)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Test (221)  |  Together (392)  |  Why (491)

We have three principal means: observation of nature, reflection, and experiment. Observation gathers the facts, reflection combines them, experiment verifies the result of the combination. It is essential that the observation of nature be assiduous, that reflection be profound, and that experimentation be exact. Rarely does one see these abilities in combination. And so, creative geniuses are not common.
In On the Interpretation of Nature (1753).
Science quotes on:  |  Combination (150)  |  Combine (58)  |  Common (447)  |  Creative (144)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Gather (76)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Principal (69)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)

What about the magical number seven? What about the seven wonders of the world, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven daughters of Atlas in the Pleiades, the seven ages of man, the seven levels of hell, the seven primary colors, the seven notes of the musical scale, and the seven days of the week? What about the seven-point rating scale, the seven categories for absolute judgment, the seven objects in the span of attention, and the seven digits in the span of immediate memory? For the present I propose to withhold judgment. Perhaps there is something deep and profound behind all these sevens, something just calling out for us to discover it. But I suspect that it is only a pernicious, Pythagorean coincidence.
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two (1956), 42-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Age (509)  |  Attention (196)  |  Behind (139)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Color (155)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Deep (241)  |  Discover (571)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Magic (92)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Pernicious (9)  |  Pleiades (4)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Primary (82)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Scale (122)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seven (5)  |  Sin (45)  |  Something (718)  |  Week (73)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

What has been learned in physics stays learned. People talk about scientific revolutions. The social and political connotations of revolution evoke a picture of a body of doctrine being rejected, to be replaced by another equally vulnerable to refutation. It is not like that at all. The history of physics has seen profound changes indeed in the way that physicists have thought about fundamental questions. But each change was a widening of vision, an accession of insight and understanding. The introduction, one might say the recognition, by man (led by Einstein) of relativity in the first decade of this century and the formulation of quantum mechanics in the third decade are such landmarks. The only intellectual casualty attending the discovery of quantum mechanics was the unmourned demise of the patchwork quantum theory with which certain experimental facts had been stubbornly refusing to agree. As a scientist, or as any thinking person with curiosity about the basic workings of nature, the reaction to quantum mechanics would have to be: “Ah! So that’s the way it really is!” There is no good analogy to the advent of quantum mechanics, but if a political-social analogy is to be made, it is not a revolution but the discovery of the New World.
From Physics Survey Committee, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, 'The Nature of Physics', in report Physics in Perspective (1973), 61-62. As cited in I. Bernard Cohen, Revolution in Science (1985), 554-555.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Basic (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Century (319)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Decade (66)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evoke (13)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Good (906)  |  History (716)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Insight (107)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Landmark (9)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  New World (6)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Picture (148)  |  Political (124)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Question (649)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Replace (32)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Revolution (13)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Social (261)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vision (127)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

Whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances made in [science], is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Intense (22)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Move (223)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Successful (134)  |  Undergo (18)  |  Whoever (42)


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.