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: “Genius is two percent inspiration, ninety-eight percent perspiration.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index R > Category: Remember

Remember Quotes (189 quotes)

…it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.
The Prince (1532). W. K. Marriott (translator) and Rob McMahon (editor), The Prince (2008), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Condition (362)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Defender (5)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lukewarm (2)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Order (638)  |  Peril (9)  |  Success (327)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Uncertain (45)

“True is it, my incorporate friends,” quoth he, “That I receive the general food at first, Which you do live upon; and fit it is, Because I am the storehouse and the shop Of the whole body. But, if you do remember, I send it through the rivers of your blood, Even to the court, the heart, to th’ seat o’ th’ brain; And, through the cranks and offices of man, The strongest nerves and small inferior veins From me receive that natural competency Whereby they live. And though that all at once”— You, good friends, this says the belly, mark me.
[Told as a fable, this is the belly’s answer to a complaint from the other members of the body that it received all the food but did no work.] In Coriolanus (1623), Act 1, Scene 1, line 130-141. Webmaster’s note: The Fable of the Belly has its roots in antiquity. William Harvey delivered a lecture in Apr 1616 on his discovery the circulation of blood in the body, but did not publish until 1628.
Science quotes on:  |  Belly (4)  |  Blood (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Brain (281)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Court (35)  |  Crank (18)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Fit (139)  |  Food (213)  |  Friend (180)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Heart (243)  |  Incorporate (9)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Nutrition (25)  |  Office (71)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Receive (117)  |  River (140)  |  Say (989)  |  Shop (11)  |  Small (489)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Store (49)  |  Storehouse (6)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Through (846)  |  Vein (27)  |  Whole (756)

[Boswell]: Sir Alexander Dick tells me, that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there.
[Johnson]: That, Sir, is about three a day.
[Boswell]: How your statement lessens the idea.
[Johnson]: That, Sir, is the good of counting. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind indefinitely.
Entry for Fri 18 Apr 1783. In George Birkbeck-Hill (ed.), Boswell's Life of Johnson (1934-50), Vol. 4, 204.
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Counting (26)  |  Float (31)  |  Good (906)  |  House (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Statement (148)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Year (963)

[For] those suffering under the thraldom of the vice [of opium eating] … it is well to avoid undue harshness with the patient; and it should be carefully remembered, that in many instances the sufferers are more objects of pity than of blame.
In 'Clinical Lecture On The Treatment Of The Habit Of Opium-Eating', The British Medical Journal (15 Feb 1868), 1, No. 372, 137.
Science quotes on:  |  Addiction (6)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Blame (31)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Eating (46)  |  More (2558)  |  Object (438)  |  Opium (7)  |  Patient (209)  |  Pity (16)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Sufferer (7)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Vice (42)

[I have a great] distaste for controversy…. I have often seen it do great harm, and yet remember few cases in natural knowledge where it has helped much either to pull down error or advance truth. Criticism, on the other hand, is of much value.
In letter (6 May 1841) to Robert Hare, an American Chemist, collected in Experimental Researches in Electricity (1844), Vol. 2, 275, as a footnote added to a reprint of 'On Dr. Hare’s Second Letter, and on the Chemical and Contact Theories of the Voltaic Battery', London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine (1843), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Distaste (3)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Error (339)  |  Great (1610)  |  Harm (43)  |  Help (116)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Natural (810)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pull (43)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)

[It has been ascertained by statistical observation that in engineering enterprises one man is killed for every million francs that is spent on the works.] Supposing you have to build a bridge at an expense of one hundred million francs, you must be prepared for the death of one hundred men. In building the Eiffel Tower, which was a construction costing six million and a half, we only lost four men, thus remaining below the average. In the construction of the Forth Bridge, 55 men were lost in over 45,000,000 francs’ worth of work. That would appear to be a large number according to the general rule, but when the special risks are remembered, this number shows as a very small one.
As quoted in 'M. Eiffel and the Forth Bridge', The Tablet (15 Mar 1890), 75, 400. Similarly quoted in Robert Harborough Sherard, Twenty Years in Paris: Being Some Recollections of a Literary Life (1905), 169, which adds to the end “, and reflects very great credit on the engineers for the precautions which they took on behalf of their men.” Sherard gave the context that Eiffel was at the inauguration [4 Mar 1890] of the Forth Bridge, and gave this compliment when conversing there with the Prince of Wales.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Average (89)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Construction (114)  |  Cost (94)  |  Death (406)  |  Eiffel Tower (13)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Expense (21)  |  General (521)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Kill (100)  |  Large (398)  |  Man (2252)  |  Million (124)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Risk (68)  |  Rule (307)  |  Show (353)  |  Small (489)  |  Special (188)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Tower (45)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)

[Our work on the structure of DNA] was fairly fast, but you know, we were lucky. One must remember, it was based on the X-ray work done here in London started off by Morris Wilkins and carried on by Rosalind Franklin, and we wouldn’t have got to the stage of at least having a molecular model, if it hadn't been for their work.
Quoted and cited from BBC radio (1999) in transcript of Australian ABC radio program PM (30 Jul 2004) on the ABC website.
Science quotes on:  |  DNA (81)  |  Rosalind Franklin (18)  |  Know (1538)  |  Model (106)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ray (115)  |  Stage (152)  |  Start (237)  |  Structure (365)  |  Structure Of DNA (5)  |  Maurice Wilkins (4)  |  Work (1402)  |  X-ray (43)

[The chemical bond] First, it is related to the disposition of two electrons (remember, no one has ever seen an electron!): next, these electrons have their spins pointing in opposite directions (remember, no one can ever measure the spin of a particular electron!): then, the spatial distribution of these electrons is described analytically with some degree of precision (remember, there is no way of distinguishing experimentally the density distribution of one electron from another!): concepts like hybridization, covalent and ionic structures, resonance, all appear, not one of which corresponds to anything that is directly measurable. These concepts make a chemical bond seem so real, so life-like, that I can almost see it. Then I wake with a shock to the realization that a chemical bond does not exist; it is a figment of the imagination that we have invented, and no more real than the square root of - 1. I will not say that the known is explained in terms of the unknown, for that is to misconstrue the sense of intellectual adventure. There is no explanation: there is form: there is structure: there is symmetry: there is growth: and there is therefore change and life.
Quoted in his obituary, Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society 1974, 20, 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Bond (46)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Concept (242)  |  Covalent (2)  |  Degree (277)  |  Density (25)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Electron (96)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Growth (200)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Precision (72)  |  Realization (44)  |  Resonance (7)  |  Root (121)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shock (38)  |  Spin (26)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Structure (365)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Two (936)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

[The] complex pattern of the misallocation of credit for scientific work must quite evidently be described as “the Matthew effect,” for, as will be remembered, the Gospel According to St. Matthew puts it this way: For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Put in less stately language, the Matthew effect consists of the accruing of greater increments of recognition for particular scientific contributions to scientists of considerable repute and the withholding of such recognition from scientists who have not yet made their mark.
'The Matthew Effect in Science', Science (1968), 159, 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  According (236)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Credit (24)  |  Description (89)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Give (208)  |  Gospel (8)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hath (2)  |  Increment (2)  |  Language (308)  |  Mark (47)  |  Must (1525)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Stately (12)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Nulla (enim) res tantum ad dicendum proficit, quantum scriptio
Nothing so much assists learning as writing down what we wish to remember.
In Jon R. Stone, The Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations (2005), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Assist (9)  |  Down (455)  |  Learning (291)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Wish (216)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

~~[Misattributed?]~~ Just remember—when you think all is lost, the future remains.
This probably is NOT an authentic Robert H. Goddard quote, but most likely an anonymous aphorism, which was merely repeated by a different “Bob Goddard.” As given in Reader’s Digest (1975), 106, 23, it is cited as “Quoted by Bob Goddard in St. Louis Globe Democrat.” Later publications and web pages sometimes ascribe the quote to “Bob Goddard” or more vaguely just “Goddard”. In other examples it has morphed, presumably incorrectly, into a quote attributed to “Robert Goddard” or even “Robert H. Goddard” the rocket engineer. And then, as misquotations are wont to do, the likely misattribution has spread virally. Webmaster, as yet, has found no earlier example in print. Since Robert H. Goddard died in 1945, and having found no reliable source earlier than the Reader’s Digest of 1975, Webmaster has confidence, but not certainty, that this “Bob Goddard” is not THE “Robert H. Goddard.” [Webmaster’s note revised 27 Aug 2018.]
Science quotes on:  |  Future (467)  |  Loss (117)  |  Misattributed (19)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)

1104 … In this year the first day of Whitsuntide was on 5 June, and on the following Tuesday at noon there appeared four intersecting halos around the sun, white in color, and looking as if they had been painted. All who saw it were astonished, for they did not remember seeing anything like it before.
From the 'Peterborough Chronicle (Laud Manuscript)', The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as translated in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Issue 1624 (1975), 239. The Chronicle is the work of many successive hands at several monasteries across England.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonish (39)  |  Color (155)  |  First (1302)  |  Halo (7)  |  Intersect (5)  |  Looking (191)  |  Noon (14)  |  Saw (160)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sun (407)  |  White (132)  |  Year (963)

A noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and our grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us.
(1907) As quoted in 'Closing In', Charles Moore, Daniel H. Burnham, Architect, Planner of Cities (1921), Vol. 2, 147.
Science quotes on:  |  Amaze (5)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Do (1905)  |  Future (467)  |  Growing (99)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Logical (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Never (1089)  |  Noble (93)  |  Record (161)  |  Recorded (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

A pair of Siamese twins in Australia, surgically separated six months ago, has been sewn back together. Apparently, each of them could remember only half the combination to their locker.
In Napalm and Silly Putty (2002), 104.
Science quotes on:  |  Australia (11)  |  Back (395)  |  Combination (150)  |  Half (63)  |  Month (91)  |  Separate (151)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Together (392)  |  Twin (16)

About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!
Letter to Henry Fawcett (18 Sep 1861). In Charles Darwin, Francis Darwin, Albert Charles Seward, More Letters of Charles Darwin (1903), Vol. 1, 195.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Color (155)  |  Count (107)  |  Describe (132)  |  Description (89)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Gravel (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Pit (20)  |  See (1094)  |  Service (110)  |  Theory (1015)  |  View (496)  |  Year (963)

Although a science fair can seem like a big “pain” it can help you understand important scientific principles, such as Newton’s First Law of Inertia, which states: “A body at rest will remain at rest until 8:45 p.m. the night before the science fair project is due, at which point the body will come rushing to the body’s parents, who are already in their pajamas, and shout, “I JUST REMEMBERED THE SCIENCE FAIR IS TOMORROW AND WE GOTTA GO TO THE STORE RIGHT NOW!”
'Science: It’s Just Not Fair', Miami Herald (22 Mar 1998)
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Body (557)  |  Due (143)  |  First (1302)  |  Important (229)  |  Inertia (17)  |  Law (913)  |  Pain (144)  |  Parent (80)  |  Point (584)  |  Principle (530)  |  Project (77)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rest (287)  |  Right (473)  |  Science Fair (7)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Shout (25)  |  State (505)  |  Store (49)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion. Remember he is face to face with his enemy all the time.
In Notes on Nursing: What it is, and What it is Not (1860), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Exertion (17)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Face (214)  |  Fear (212)  |  Harm (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Patient (209)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Waiting (42)

Godfrey Harold Hardy quote “Languages die and mathematical ideas do not.”
background by Tom_Brown 6117, CC by 2.0 (source)
Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. “Immortality” may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean.
In A Mathematician's Apology (1940, reprint with Foreward by C.P. Snow 1992), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Aeschylus (5)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Best (467)  |  Chance (244)  |  Do (1905)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Idea (881)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Silly (17)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

As a graduate student at Columbia University, I remember the a priori derision of my distinguished stratigraphy professor toward a visiting Australian drifter ... Today my own students would dismiss with even more derision anyone who denied the evident truth of continental drift–a prophetic madman is at least amusing; a superannuated fuddy-duddy is merely pitiful.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  A Priori (26)  |  Amusing (2)  |  Anyone (38)  |  Australian (2)  |  Columbia (2)  |  Continental Drift (15)  |  Deny (71)  |  Derision (8)  |  Dismiss (12)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Evident (92)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Graduate Student (13)  |  Least (75)  |  Madman (6)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Pitiful (5)  |  Professor (133)  |  Prophetic (4)  |  Stratigraphy (7)  |  Student (317)  |  Today (321)  |  Toward (45)  |  Truth (1109)  |  University (130)  |  Visit (27)

As a nation, we are too young to have true mythic heroes, and we must press real human beings into service. Honest Abe Lincoln the legend is quite a different character from Abraham Lincoln the man. And so should they be. And so should both be treasured, as long as they are distinguished. In a complex and confusing world, the perfect clarity of sports provides a focus for legitimate, utterly unambiguous support or disdain. The Dodgers are evil, the Yankees good. They really are, and have been for as long as anyone in my family can remember.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Anyone (38)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Character (259)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Complex (202)  |  Confuse (22)  |  Different (595)  |  Disdain (10)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Evil (122)  |  Family (101)  |  Focus (36)  |  Good (906)  |  Hero (45)  |  Honest (53)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Legend (18)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Abraham Lincoln (13)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Press (21)  |  Provide (79)  |  Real (159)  |  Really (77)  |  Service (110)  |  Sport (23)  |  Support (151)  |  Treasure (59)  |  True (239)  |  Unambiguous (6)  |  Utterly (15)  |  World (1850)  |  Yankee (2)  |  Young (253)

At the age of three I began to look around my grandfather’s library. My first knowledge of astronomy came from reading and looking at pictures at that time. By the time I was six I remember him buying books for me. … I think I was eight, he bought me a three-inch telescope on a brass mounting. It stood on a table. … So, as far back as I can remember, I had an early interest in science in general, astronomy in particular.
Oral History Transcript of interview with Dr. Jesse Greenstein by Paul Wright (31 Jul 1974), on website of American Institute of Physics.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Back (395)  |  Book (413)  |  Early (196)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Interest (416)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Library (53)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Particular (80)  |  Picture (148)  |  Reading (136)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)

Be enthusiastic. Remember the placebo effect—30% of medicine is showbiz.
advising his medical colleagues, in Medical World News, February 16, 1981.
Science quotes on:  |  Effect (414)  |  Medicine (392)

Being also in accord with Goethe that discoveries are made by the age and not by the individual, I should consider the instances to be exceedingly rare of men who can be said to be living before their age, and to be the repository of knowledge quite foreign to the thought of the time. The rule is that a number of persons are employed at a particular piece of work, but one being a few steps in advance of the others is able to crown the edifice with his name, or, having the ability to generalise already known facts, may become in time to be regarded as their originator. Therefore it is that one name is remembered whilst those of coequals have long been buried in obscurity.
In Historical Notes on Bright's Disease, Addison's Disease, and Hodgkin's Disease', Guy's Hospital Reports (1877), 22, 259-260.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Advance (298)  |  Age (509)  |  Already (226)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Coequal (2)  |  Consider (428)  |  Crown (39)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Employ (115)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (150)  |  Individual (420)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Name (359)  |  Number (710)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Originator (7)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Rare (94)  |  Regard (312)  |  Repository (5)  |  Rule (307)  |  Step (234)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)

Cleveland, even now I can remember
Cause the Cuyahoga River
Goes smokin’ through my dreams
Burn on, big river, burn on
Burn on, big river, burn on
Now the Lord can make you tumble
And the Lord can make you turn
And the Lord can make you overflow
But the Lord can’t make you burn.
From lyrics of 'Burn On', released on LP album Sail Away (May 1972), track 8. The song 'Burn On' was used as the opening song in Major League (7 Apr 1989).
Science quotes on:  |  Burn (99)  |  Can�t (16)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cleveland (3)  |  Cuyahoga River (3)  |  Dream (222)  |  Lord (97)  |  Overflow (10)  |  River (140)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Tumble (3)  |  Turn (454)

Creative imagination is likely to find corroborating novel evidence even for the most 'absurd' programme, if the search has sufficient drive. This look-out for new confirming evidence is perfectly permissible. Scientists dream up phantasies and then pursue a highly selective hunt for new facts which fit these phantasies. This process may be described as “science creating its own universe” (as long as one remembers that “creating” here is used in a provocative-idiosyncratic sense). A brilliant school of scholars (backed by a rich society to finance a few well-planned tests) might succeed in pushing any fantastic programme ahead, or alternatively, if so inclined, in overthrowing any arbitrarily chosen pillar of “established knowledge”.
In 'Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes', in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge: Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, London 1965 (1970), Vol. 4, 187-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Back (395)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Creative (144)  |  Dream (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fit (139)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Novel (35)  |  Permissible (9)  |  Process (439)  |  Program (57)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Research (753)  |  Scholar (52)  |  School (227)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Search (175)  |  Selective (21)  |  Sense (785)  |  Society (350)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Test (221)  |  Universe (900)

Distrust even Mathematics; albeit so sublime and highly perfected, we have here a machine of such delicacy it can only work in vacuo, and one grain of sand in the wheels is enough to put everything out of gear. One shudders to think to what disaster such a grain of sand may bring a Mathematical brain. Remember Pascal.
The Garden of Epicurus (1894) translated by Alfred Allinson, in The Works of Anatole France in an English Translation (1920), 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Delicacy (8)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Distrust (11)  |  Enough (341)  |  Everything (489)  |  Grain (50)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Blaise Pascal (81)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Sand (63)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Work (1402)

Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.
Spoken by character, Sherlock Holmes, in A Study in Scarlet (1887), Chap. 5. Collected in Works of Arthur Conan Doyle (1902), Vol. 11, 68-69.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Century (319)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Claim (154)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exist (458)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Influence (231)  |  Long (778)  |  Memory (144)  |  Misty (6)  |  Music (133)  |  Power (771)  |  Produce (117)  |  Race (278)  |  Say (989)  |  Soul (235)  |  Speech (66)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Vague (50)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

Doubtless the reasoning faculty, the mind, is the leading and characteristic attribute of the human race. By the exercise of this, man arrives at the properties of the natural bodies. This is science, properly and emphatically so called. It is the science of pure mathematics; and in the high branches of this science lies the truly sublime of human acquisition. If any attainment deserves that epithet, it is the knowledge, which, from the mensuration of the minutest dust of the balance, proceeds on the rising scale of material bodies, everywhere weighing, everywhere measuring, everywhere detecting and explaining the laws of force and motion, penetrating into the secret principles which hold the universe of God together, and balancing worlds against worlds, and system against system. When we seek to accompany those who pursue studies at once so high, so vast, and so exact; when we arrive at the discoveries of Newton, which pour in day on the works of God, as if a second fiat had gone forth from his own mouth; when, further, we attempt to follow those who set out where Newton paused, making his goal their starting-place, and, proceeding with demonstration upon demonstration, and discovery upon discovery, bring new worlds and new systems of worlds within the limits of the known universe, failing to learn all only because all is infinite; however we may say of man, in admiration of his physical structure, that “in form and moving he is express and admirable,” it is here, and here without irreverence, we may exclaim, “In apprehension how like a god!” The study of the pure mathematics will of course not be extensively pursued in an institution, which, like this [Boston Mechanics’ Institute], has a direct practical tendency and aim. But it is still to be remembered, that pure mathematics lie at the foundation of mechanical philosophy, and that it is ignorance only which can speak or think of that sublime science as useless research or barren speculation.
In Works (1872), Vol. 1, 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Accompany (22)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Admirable (20)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Against (332)  |  Aim (175)  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Balance (82)  |  Barren (33)  |  Body (557)  |  Boston (7)  |  Branch (155)  |  Bring (95)  |  Call (781)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Course (413)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Detect (45)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doubtless (8)  |  Dust (68)  |  Emphatically (8)  |  Epithet (3)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Exact (75)  |  Exclaim (15)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Explain (334)  |  Express (192)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fail (191)  |  Far (158)  |  Fiat (7)  |  Follow (389)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Forth (14)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Goal (155)  |  God (776)  |  High (370)  |  Hold (96)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Institution (73)  |  Irreverence (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Limit (294)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mensuration (2)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Move (223)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  New Worlds (5)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Pause (6)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Pour (9)  |  Practical (225)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Properly (21)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Race (278)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Research (753)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Say (989)  |  Scale (122)  |  Second (66)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seek (218)  |  Set (400)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Starting Point (16)  |  Still (614)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Sublime (50)  |  System (545)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Think (1122)  |  Together (392)  |  Truly (118)  |  Universe (900)  |  Useless (38)  |  Vast (188)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
In his dialogue 'The Critic As Artist', collected in Intentions (1904), 101.
Science quotes on:  |  Admirable (20)  |  Education (423)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Worth (172)

Every new theory as it arises believes in the flush of youth that it has the long sought goal; it sees no limits to its applicability, and believes that at last it is the fortunate theory to achieve the 'right' answer. This was true of electron theory—perhaps some readers will remember a book called The Electrical Theory of the Universe by de Tunzelman. It is true of general relativity theory with its belief that we can formulate a mathematical scheme that will extrapolate to all past and future time and the unfathomed depths of space. It has been true of wave mechanics, with its first enthusiastic claim a brief ten years ago that no problem had successfully resisted its attack provided the attack was properly made, and now the disillusionment of age when confronted by the problems of the proton and the neutron. When will we learn that logic, mathematics, physical theory, are all only inventions for formulating in compact and manageable form what we already know, like all inventions do not achieve complete success in accomplishing what they were designed to do, much less complete success in fields beyond the scope of the original design, and that our only justification for hoping to penetrate at all into the unknown with these inventions is our past experience that sometimes we have been fortunate enough to be able to push on a short distance by acquired momentum.
The Nature of Physical Theory (1936), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Age (509)  |  Already (226)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arise (162)  |  Attack (86)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Book (413)  |  Brief (37)  |  Call (781)  |  Claim (154)  |  Compact (13)  |  Complete (209)  |  Depth (97)  |  Design (203)  |  Disillusionment (2)  |  Distance (171)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electron (96)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experience (494)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  General Relativity (10)  |  Goal (155)  |  Invention (400)  |  Justification (52)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Learn (672)  |  Limit (294)  |  Logic (311)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Momentum (10)  |  Neutron (23)  |  New (1273)  |  Past (355)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Physical (518)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proton (23)  |  Push (66)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Right (473)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Scope (44)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Space (523)  |  Success (327)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Wave (112)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)  |  Youth (109)

Every work of science great enough to be well remembered for a few generations affords some exemplification of the defective state of the art of reasoning of the time when it was written; and each chief step in science has been a lesson in logic.
'The Fixation of Belief (1877). In Justus Buchler, The Philosophy of Pierce (1940), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Affording (2)  |  Art (680)  |  Chief (99)  |  Defect (31)  |  Enough (341)  |  Few (15)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Logic (311)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  State (505)  |  Step (234)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)

FAUSTUS: How many heavens or spheres are there?
MEPHASTOPHILIS: Nine: the seven planets, the firmament, and the empyreal heaven.
FAUSTUS: But is there not coelum igneum, et crystallinum?
MEPH.: No Faustus, they be but fables.
FAUSTUS: Resolve me then in this one question: Why are not conjunctions, oppositions, aspects, eclipses all at one time, but in some years we have more, in some less?
MEPH.: Per inaequalem motum respectu totius.
FAUSTUS: Well, I am answered. Now tell me who made the world.
MEPH.: I will not.
FAUSTUS: Sweet Mephastophilis, tell me.
MEPH.: Move me not, Faustus.
FAUSTUS: Villain, have I not bound thee to tell me any thing?
MEPH.: Ay, that is not against our kingdom.
This is. Thou are damn'd, think thou of hell.
FAUSTUS: Think, Faustus, upon God that made the world!
MEPH.: Remember this.
Doctor Faustus: A 1604-Version Edition, edited by Michael Keefer (1991), Act II, Scene iii, lines 60-77, 43-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Bound (120)  |  Conjunction (12)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Fable (12)  |  Firmament (18)  |  God (776)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Maker (34)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Planet (402)  |  Question (649)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

For a while he [Charles S. Mellen] trampled with impunity on laws human and divine but, as he was obsessed with the delusion that two and two makes five, he fell, at last a victim to the relentless rules of humble Arithmetic.
Remember, O stranger: “Arithmetic is the first of the sciences and the mother of safety.”
In a private letter (29 Sep 1911) to Norman Hapgood, editor of Harper’s Weekly, referenced in Hapgood’s editorial, 'Arithmetic', which was quoted in Hapgood’s Preface to Louis Brandeis, Other People’s Money and How The Bankers Use It (1914), xli. Brandeis was describing Mellen, president of the New Haven Railroad, whom he correctly predicted would resign in the face of reduced dividends caused by his bad financial management. The embedded quote, “Arithmetic…”, is footnoted in Louis D. Brandeis, Letters of Louis D. Brandeis: Volume II, 1907-1912: People's Attorney (1971), 501, citing its source as from a novel by Victor Cherbuliez, Samuel Brohl and Partner (probably 1881 edition), which LDB had transcribed “into his literary notebook at an early age.”
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Delusion (26)  |  Divine (112)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humble (54)  |  Impunity (6)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Mother (116)  |  Obsessed (2)  |  Relentless (9)  |  Rule (307)  |  Safety (58)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Trample (3)  |  Two (936)  |  Victim (37)

For twenty pages perhaps, he read slowly, carefully, dutifully, with pauses for self-examination and working out examples. Then, just as it was working up and the pauses should have been more scrupulous than ever, a kind of swoon and ecstasy would fall on him, and he read ravening on, sitting up till dawn to finish the book, as though it were a novel. After that his passion was stayed; the book went back to the Library and he was done with mathematics till the next bout. Not much remained with him after these orgies, but something remained: a sensation in the mind, a worshiping acknowledgment of something isolated and unassailable, or a remembered mental joy at the rightness of thoughts coming together to a conclusion, accurate thoughts, thoughts in just intonation, coming together like unaccompanied voices coming to a close.
In Mr. Fortune’s Maggot (1927), 161.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Acknowledgment (13)  |  Back (395)  |  Book (413)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Coming (114)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Ecstasy (9)  |  Examination (102)  |  Fall (243)  |  Finish (62)  |  Joy (117)  |  Kind (564)  |  Library (53)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Novel (35)  |  Passion (121)  |  Read (308)  |  Remain (355)  |  Scrupulous (7)  |  Self (268)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Something (718)  |  Thought (995)  |  Together (392)

From a man’s hat, or a horse’s tail, we can reconstruct the age we live in, like that scientist, you remember, who reconstructed a mastodon from its funny-bone.
In paper, 'For Love of Beasts', Pall Mall Gazette (1912). Collected and cited in A Sheaf (1916), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Bone (101)  |  Hat (9)  |  Horse (78)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mastodon (4)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Tail (21)

Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.
Remarking on the complexity of Ptolemaic model of the universe after it was explained to him.
Footnote: Carlyle says, in his History of Frederick the Great, book ii. chap. vii. that this saying of Alphonso about Ptolemy's astronomy, 'that it seemed a crank machine; that it was pity the Creator had not taken advice,' is still remembered by mankind, — this and no other of his many sayings.
In John Bartlett and Nathan Haskell Dole (Ed.), Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources (1914), 954.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Better (493)  |  Book (413)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Crank (18)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Explain (334)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hint (21)  |  History (716)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Model (106)  |  Other (2233)  |  Present (630)  |  Ptolemy (19)  |  Say (989)  |  Still (614)  |  Universe (900)  |  Useful (260)

He [Samuel Johnson] bid me always remember this, that after a system is well settled upon positive evidence, a few objections ought not to shake it. “The human mind is so limited that it cannot take in all parts of a subject; so that there may be objections raised against anything. There are objections against a plenum, and objections against a vacuum. Yet one of them must certainly be true.”
Note: Whereas vacuum means devoid of matter, plenum regards a space with matter throughout.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Samuel Johnson (51)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Objection (34)  |  Positive (98)  |  Settled (34)  |  Shake (43)  |  Subject (543)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Vacuum (41)

He [Sylvester] had one remarkable peculiarity. He seldom remembered theorems, propositions, etc., but had always to deduce them when he wished to use them. In this he was the very antithesis of Cayley, who was thoroughly conversant with everything that had been done in every branch of mathematics.
I remember once submitting to Sylvester some investigations that I had been engaged on, and he immediately denied my first statement, saying that such a proposition had never been heard of, let alone proved. To his astonishment, I showed him a paper of his own in which he had proved the proposition; in fact, I believe the object of his paper had been the very proof which was so strange to him.
As quoted by Florian Cajori, in Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 268.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Antithesis (7)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Belief (615)  |  Branch (155)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Conversant (6)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Deny (71)  |  Engage (41)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Hear (144)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Let (64)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Never (1089)  |  Object (438)  |  Paper (192)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Prove (261)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Say (989)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Show (353)  |  Statement (148)  |  Strange (160)  |  Submit (21)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Use (771)  |  Wish (216)

He adhered, with a severity most unusual in Indians resident in England, to the religious observances of his caste; but his religion was a matter of observance and not of intellectual conviction, and I remember well his telling me (much to my surprise) that all religions seemed to him more or less equally true.
In obituary notice by G.H. Hardy in the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society (2) (1921), 19, xl—lviii. Reprinted in G.H. Hardy, P.V. Seshu Aiyar and B.M. Wilson (eds.) Collected Papers of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1927), xxxi.
Science quotes on:  |  Caste (3)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Equally (129)  |  Indian (32)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Severity (6)  |  Surprise (91)  |  True (239)  |  Unusual (37)

His [Marvin Minsky’s] basic interest seemed to be in the workings of the human mind and in making machine models of the mind. Indeed, about that time he and a friend made one of the first electronic machines that could actually teach itself to do something interesting. It monitored electronic “rats” that learned to run mazes. It was being financed by the Navy. On one notable occasion, I remember descending to the basement of Memorial Hall, while Minsky worked on it. It had an illuminated display panel that enabled one to follow the progress of the “rats.” Near the machine was a hamster in a cage. When the machine blinked, the hamster would run around its cage happily. Minsky, with his characteristic elfin grin, remarked that on a previous day the Navy contract officer had been down to see the machine. Noting the man’s interest in the hamster, Minsky had told him laconically, “The next one we build will look like a bird.”
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bird (163)  |  Build (211)  |  Cage (12)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Electronics (21)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Friend (180)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Look (584)  |  Machine (271)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Maze (11)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Marvin Minsky (10)  |  Model (106)  |  Monitor (10)  |  Navy (10)  |  Next (238)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Officer (12)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rat (37)  |  Run (158)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Teach (299)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

However far the calculating reason of the mathematician may seem separated from the bold flight of the artist’s phantasy, it must be remembered that these expressions are but momentary images snatched arbitrarily from among the activities of both. In the projection of new theories the mathematician needs as bold and creative a phantasy as the productive artist, and in the execution of the details of a composition the artist too must calculate dispassionately the means which are necessary for the successful consummation of the parts. Common to both is the creation, the generation, of forms out of mind.
From Die Entwickelung der Mathematik im Zusammenhange mit der Ausbreitung der Kultur (1893), 4. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 185. From the original German, “Wie weit auch der rechnende Verstand des Mathematikers von dem kühnen Fluge der Phantasie des Künstlers getrennt zu sein scheint, so bezeichnen diese Ausdrücke doch blosse Augenblicksbilder, die willkürlich aus der Thätigkeit Beider herausgerissen sind. Bei dem Entwurfe neuer Theorieen bedarf der Mathematiker einer ebenso kühnen und schöpferischen Phantasie wie der schaffende Künstler, und bei der Ausführung der Einzelheiten eines Werkes muss auch der Künstler kühl alle Mittel berechnen, welche zum Gelingen der Theile erforderlich sind. Gemeinsam ist Beiden die Hervorbringung, die Erzeugung der Gebilde aus dem Geiste.”
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Artist (97)  |  Bold (22)  |  Both (496)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Common (447)  |  Composition (86)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creative (144)  |  Detail (150)  |  Dispassionate (9)  |  Execution (25)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  Image (97)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Momentary (5)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Productive (37)  |  Projection (5)  |  Reason (766)  |  Separate (151)  |  Snatch (14)  |  Successful (134)  |  Theory (1015)

I am awaiting the day when people remember the fact that discovery does not work by deciding what you want and then discovering it.
In 'How Not to Create Tigers', Physics Today (Aug 1999), 52, No. 8, 12. Collected in Why Quark Rhymes with Pork: And Other Scientific Diversions (2012), 150.
Science quotes on:  |  Await (6)  |  Decide (50)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Fact (1257)  |  People (1031)  |  Want (504)  |  Work (1402)

I approached the bulk of my schoolwork as a chore rather than an intellectual adventure. The tedium was relieved by a few courses that seem to be qualitatively different. Geometry was the first exciting course I remember. Instead of memorizing facts, we were asked to think in clear, logical steps. Beginning from a few intuitive postulates, far reaching consequences could be derived, and I took immediately to the sport of proving theorems.
Autobiography in Gösta Ekspong (ed.), Nobel Lectures: Physics 1996-2000 (2002), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Approach (112)  |  Ask (420)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Biography (254)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Different (595)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Logic (311)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Proof (304)  |  School (227)  |  Sport (23)  |  Step (234)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Think (1122)

I asked Fermi whether he was not impressed by the agreement between our calculated numbers and his measured numbers. He replied, “How many arbitrary parameters did you use for your calculations?" I thought for a moment about our cut-off procedures and said, “Four." He said, “I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann used to say, with four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.” With that, the conversation was over.
As given in 'A Meeting with Enrico Fermi', Nature (22 Jan 2004), 427, 297. As quoted in Steven A. Frank, Dynamics of Cancer: Incidence, Inheritance, and Evolution (2007), 87. Von Neumann meant nobody need be impressed when a complex model fits a data set well, because if manipulated with enough flexible parameters, any data set can be fitted to an incorrect model, even one that plots a curve on a graph shaped like an elephant!
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Arbitrary (27)  |  Ask (420)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Curve (49)  |  Cut (116)  |  Data (162)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Enrico Fermi (20)  |  Fit (139)  |  Friend (180)  |  Graph (8)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Moment (260)  |  Number (710)  |  Parameter (4)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Say (989)  |  Shape (77)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Use (771)  |  John von Neumann (29)

I can remember … starting to gather all sorts of things like rocks and beetles when I was about nine years old. There was no parental encouragement—nor discouragement either—nor any outside influence that I can remember in these early stages. By about the age of twelve, I had settled pretty definitely on butterflies, largely I think because the rocks around my home were limited to limestone, while the butterflies were varied, exciting, and fairly easy to preserve with household moth-balls. … I was fourteen, I remember, when … I decided to be scientific, caught in some net of emulation, and resolutely threw away all of my “childish” specimens, mounted haphazard on “common pins” and without “proper labels.” The purge cost me a great inward struggle, still one of my most vivid memories, and must have been forced by a conflict between a love of my specimens and a love for orderliness, for having everything just exactly right according to what happened to be my current standards.
In The Nature of Natural History (1950, 1990), 255.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Age (509)  |  Ball (64)  |  Beetle (19)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Child (333)  |  Childish (20)  |  Common (447)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Cost (94)  |  Current (122)  |  Discouragement (10)  |  Early (196)  |  Easy (213)  |  Emulation (2)  |  Encouragement (27)  |  Everything (489)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Fourteen (2)  |  Gather (76)  |  Great (1610)  |  Haphazard (3)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Home (184)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inward (6)  |  Label (11)  |  Limestone (6)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Love (328)  |  Memory (144)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mount (43)  |  Must (1525)  |  Old (499)  |  Orderliness (9)  |  Outside (141)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pin (20)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Proper (150)  |  Purge (11)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Right (473)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Settled (34)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Stage (152)  |  Standard (64)  |  Start (237)  |  Still (614)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Twelve (4)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Year (963)

I cannot let the year run out without sending you a sign of my continued existence and to extend my sincere wishes for the well-being of you and your dear ones in the New Year. We will not be able to send New Year greetings much longer; but even when we have passed away and have long since decomposed, the bonds that united us in life will remain and we shall be remembered as a not too common example of two men, who truly without envy and jealousy, contended and struggled in the same field, yet nevertheless remained always closely bound in friendship.
Letter from Liebig to Wohler (31 Dec 1871). Quoted in Ralph Oesper, The Human Side of Scientists (1975), 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Bond (46)  |  Bound (120)  |  Common (447)  |  Envy (15)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extend (129)  |  Field (378)  |  Friend (180)  |  Friendship (18)  |  Greeting (10)  |  Jealousy (9)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  New (1273)  |  Pass (241)  |  Remain (355)  |  Run (158)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Truly (118)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

I confess, that after I began … to discern how useful mathematicks may be made to physicks, I have often wished that I had employed about the speculative part of geometry, and the cultivation of the specious Algebra I had been taught very young, a good part of that time and industry, that I had spent about surveying and fortification (of which I remember I once wrote an entire treatise) and other parts of practick mathematicks.
In 'The Usefulness of Mathematiks to Natural Philosophy', Works (1772), Vol. 3, 426.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Begin (275)  |  Confess (42)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Discern (35)  |  Employ (115)  |  Entire (50)  |  Fortification (6)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Good (906)  |  Industry (159)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Often (109)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physics (564)  |  Practical (225)  |  Specious (3)  |  Speculative (12)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Survey (36)  |  Surveying (6)  |  Teach (299)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Wish (216)  |  Write (250)  |  Young (253)

I do not remember having felt, as a boy, any passion for mathematics, and such notions as I may have had of the career of a mathematician were far from noble. I thought of mathematics in terms of examinations and scholarships: I wanted to beat other boys, and this seemed to be the way in which I could do so most decisively.
In A Mathematician's Apology (1940, reprint with Foreward by C.P. Snow 1992), 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Beat (42)  |  Boy (100)  |  Career (86)  |  Do (1905)  |  Examination (102)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Noble (93)  |  Notion (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thought (995)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)

I do not remember how it got into my head to make first calculations related to rocket. It seems to me the first seeds were planted by famous fantaseour, J. Verne.
As quoted, without source, in LIFE: 100 People Who Changed the World (2010), 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Calculation (134)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Plant (320)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Seed (97)  |  Jules Verne (14)

I don’t think many people remember what life was like in those days. This was the era when the Russians were claiming superiority, and they could make a pretty good case—they put up Sputnik in ’57; they had already sent men into space to orbit the earth. There was this fear that perhaps communism was the wave of the future. The astronauts, all of us, really believed we were locked in a battle of democracy versus communism, where the winner would dominate the world.
As reported by Howard Wilkinson in 'John Glenn Had the Stuff U.S. Heroes are Made of', The Cincinnati Enquirer (20 Feb 2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Astronaut (34)  |  Battle (36)  |  Belief (615)  |  Claim (154)  |  Claiming (8)  |  Communism (11)  |  Democracy (36)  |  Dominate (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Fear (212)  |  Future (467)  |  Good (906)  |  Life (1870)  |  Orbit (85)  |  People (1031)  |  Russia (14)  |  Space (523)  |  Sputnik (5)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wave (112)  |  Winner (4)  |  World (1850)

I have been especially fortunate for about 50 years in having two memory banks available—whenever I can't remember something I ask my wife, and thus I am able to draw on this auxiliary memory bank. Moreover, there is a second way In which I get ideas ... I listen carefully to what my wife says, and in this way I often get a good idea. I recommend to ... young people ... that you make a permanent acquisition of an auxiliary memory bank that you can become familiar with and draw upon throughout your lives.
T. Goertzel and B. Goertzel, Linus Pauling (1995), 240.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Ask (420)  |  Auxiliary (11)  |  Available (80)  |  Bank (31)  |  Become (821)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Draw (140)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Life (1870)  |  Listen (81)  |  Listening (26)  |  Live (650)  |  Memory (144)  |  People (1031)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Recommendation (12)  |  Remembering (7)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Wife (41)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

I have had a fairly long life, above all a very happy one, and I think that I shall be remembered with some regrets and perhaps leave some reputation behind me. What more could I ask? The events in which I am involved will probably save me from the troubles of old age. I shall die in full possession of my faculties, and that is another advantage that I should count among those that I have enjoyed. If I have any distressing thoughts, it is of not having done more for my family; to be unable to give either to them or to you any token of my affection and my gratitude is to be poor indeed.
Letter to Augez de Villiers, undated. Quoted in D. McKie, Antoine Lavoisier: Scientist, Economist, Social Reformer (1952), 303.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Affection (44)  |  Age (509)  |  Ask (420)  |  Behind (139)  |  Count (107)  |  Death (406)  |  Event (222)  |  Family (101)  |  Gratitude (14)  |  Happy (108)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Involved (90)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Poor (139)  |  Possession (68)  |  Regret (31)  |  Reputation (33)  |  Save (126)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Token (10)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Will (2350)

I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that this delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it. I remember, in the winter of our first experiments, just seven years ago, looking on snow with new eyes. There the snow lay around my doorstep—great heaps of protons quietly precessing in the earth’s magnetic field. To see the world for a moment as something rich and strange is the private reward of many a discovery.
Opening remark, Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1952).
Science quotes on:  |  Delicate (45)  |  Delight (111)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Magnetic Field (7)  |  Moment (260)  |  Motion (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Private (29)  |  Proton (23)  |  Reside (25)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Reward (72)  |  Rich (66)  |  See (1094)  |  Snow (39)  |  Something (718)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Winter (46)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

I have seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from which all heights and depths are measured.
Speech (5 Jun 1880) at the 7th Republican National Convention, Chicago to nominate John Sherman to be President. In John Tweedy, A History of the Republican National Conventions from 1856 to 1908 (1910), 191. The Convention subsequently nominated Garfield to run for President. He won the election, and was inaugurated on 4 Mar 1881.
Science quotes on:  |  Billow (3)  |  Calm (32)  |  Calmness (2)  |  Depth (97)  |  Dull (58)  |  Fury (6)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Height (33)  |  Lash (3)  |  Level (69)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Move (223)  |  Moving (11)  |  Sea (326)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spray (5)  |  Toss (8)

I kind of like scientists, in a funny way. … I'm kind of interested in genetics though. I think I would have liked to have met Gregor Mendel. Because he was a monk who just sort of figured this stuff out on his own. That's a higher mind, that’s a mind that's connected. … But I would like to know about Mendel, because I remember going to the Philippines and thinking “this is like Mendel’s garden” because it had been invaded by so many different countries over the years, and you could see the children shared the genetic traits of all their invaders over the years, and it made for this beautiful varietal garden.
Answering question: “If you could go back in time and have a conversation with one person, who would it be and why?” by Anniedog03 during an Internet Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) online session (17 Jan 2014).
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Connect (126)  |  Country (269)  |  Different (595)  |  Garden (64)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Interest (416)  |  Invader (2)  |  Invasion (9)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Like (23)  |  Meeting (22)  |  Gregor Mendel (22)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monk (5)  |  Philippines (3)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Share (82)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Trait (23)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

I recall my own emotions: I had just been initiated into the mysteries of the complex number. I remember my bewilderment: here were magnitudes patently impossible and yet susceptible of manipulations which lead to concrete results. It was a feeling of dissatisfaction, of restlessness, a desire to fill these illusory creatures, these empty symbols, with substance. Then I was taught to interpret these beings in a concrete geometrical way. There came then an immediate feeling of relief, as though I had solved an enigma, as though a ghost which had been causing me apprehension turned out to be no ghost at all, but a familiar part of my environment.
In Tobias Dantzig and Joseph Mazur (ed.), 'The Two Realities', Number: The Language of Science (1930, ed. by Joseph Mazur 2007), 254.
Science quotes on:  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bewilderment (8)  |  Cause (561)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complex Number (3)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Creature (242)  |  Desire (212)  |  Dissatisfaction (13)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Empty (82)  |  Enigma (16)  |  Environment (239)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fill (67)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Illusory (2)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Initiate (13)  |  Interpret (25)  |  Lead (391)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Number (710)  |  Patently (4)  |  Recall (11)  |  Relief (30)  |  Restless (13)  |  Restlessness (8)  |  Result (700)  |  Solve (145)  |  Substance (253)  |  Susceptible (8)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Teach (299)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turn Out (9)  |  Way (1214)

I remember asking an adult, “What goes on inside a cocoon?” and he said, “The caterpillar is totally broken down into a kind of soup. And then it starts again.” And I remember saying, “That can’t be right.” As a procedure, you can’t imagine how it evolved.
From 'Interview: Of Mind and Matter: David Attenborough Meets Richard Dawkins', The Guardian (11 Sep 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Adult (24)  |  Ask (420)  |  Belief (615)  |  Broken Down (2)  |  Can�t (16)  |  Caterpillar (5)  |  Change (639)  |  Cocoon (4)  |  Dragonfly (3)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Inside (30)  |  Kind (564)  |  Larva (8)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Right (473)  |  Soup (10)  |  Start (237)  |  Totally (6)

I remember being with my grandmother and mother and my uncle came in and asked what I wanted to be when grew up. I said ‘A doctor,’ which took him aback. He was expecting me to say ‘nurse’ or ‘actress.’ And my mother and grandmother laughed like, ‘Kids say the darndest things.’ I grew up in a time when women were not expected to do anything interesting.
As quoted in Anna Azvolinsky, 'Fearless About Folding', The Scientist (Jan 2016).
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Being (1276)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Expect (203)  |  Grandmother (4)  |  Grow Up (9)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Kid (18)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Mother (116)  |  Nurse (33)  |  Say (989)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Want (504)  |  Woman (160)

I remember discussions with Bohr which went through many hours till very late at night and ended almost in despair; and when at the end of the discussion I went alone for a walk in the neighboring park I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature possibly be as absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?
In Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (1958, 1962), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Alone (324)  |  Atom (381)  |  Niels Bohr (55)  |  Despair (40)  |  Discussion (78)  |  End (603)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hour (192)  |  Late (119)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Park (10)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Seem (150)  |  Through (846)  |  Walk (138)

I remember growing up thinking that astronauts and their job was the coolest thing you could possibly do... But I absolutely couldn’t identify with the people who were astronauts. I thought they were movie stars.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Astronaut (34)  |  Cool (15)  |  Do (1905)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growing Up (4)  |  Identify (13)  |  Job (86)  |  Movie (21)  |  People (1031)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)

I remember my father had a sermon he used to preach when we were in Florida, in which he gave a reference to the Southern Cross—about the stars, the colors, in the Southern Cross, which thrilled me very much. I must have been around 5 years old. ... Now, it turns out that the Southern Cross itself does have one red star, together with three blue ones.
'Oral History Transcript: Dr. William Wilson Morgan' (8 Aug 1978) in the Niels Bohr Library & Archives.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Color (155)  |  Father (113)  |  Must (1525)  |  Old (499)  |  Sermon (9)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Thrill (26)  |  Together (392)  |  Turn (454)  |  Year (963)

I remember my first look at the great treatise of Maxwell’s when I was a young man… I saw that it was great, greater and greatest, with prodigious possibilities in its power… I was determined to master the book and set to work. I was very ignorant. I had no knowledge of mathematical analysis (having learned only school algebra and trigonometry which I had largely forgotten) and thus my work was laid out for me. It took me several years before I could understand as much as I possibly could. Then I set Maxwell aside and followed my own course. And I progressed much more quickly… It will be understood that I preach the gospel according to my interpretation of Maxwell.
From translations of a letter (24 Feb 1918), cited in Paul J. Nahin, Oliver Heaviside: The Life, Work, and Times of an Electrical Genius of the Victorian Age (2002), 24. Nahin footnotes that the words are not verbatim, but are the result of two translations. Heaviside's original letter in English was quoted, translated in to French by J. Bethenode, for the obituary he wrote, "Oliver Heaviside", in Annales des Posies Telegraphs (1925), 14, 521-538. The quote was retranslated back to English in Nadin's book. Bethenode footnoted that he made the original translation "as literally as possible in order not to change the meaning." Nadin assures that the retranslation was done likewise. Heaviside studyied Maxwell's two-volume Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Book (413)  |  Course (413)  |  Determination (80)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Gospel (8)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  More (2558)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Power (771)  |  Preach (11)  |  Prodigious (20)  |  Progress (492)  |  Saw (160)  |  School (227)  |  Set (400)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Trigonometry (7)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

I remember once going to see him when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. “No,” he replied, “it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.”
Quoted in G.H. Hardy, Ramanujan; Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by his Life and Work (1940, reprint 1999), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Cube (14)  |  Different (595)  |  Dull (58)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Lying (55)  |  Number (710)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  See (1094)  |  Sum (103)  |  Taxi (4)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)

I remember one occasion when I tried to add a little seasoning to a review, but I wasn’t allowed to. The paper was by Dorothy Maharam, and it was a perfectly sound contribution to abstract measure theory. The domains of the underlying measures were not sets but elements of more general Boolean algebras, and their range consisted not of positive numbers but of certain abstract equivalence classes. My proposed first sentence was: “The author discusses valueless measures in pointless spaces.”
In I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography (1985), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Allow (51)  |  Author (175)  |  Boolean Algebra (2)  |  Certain (557)  |  Class (168)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Domain (72)  |  Element (322)  |  Equivalence (7)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  Little (717)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pointless (7)  |  Positive (98)  |  Propose (24)  |  Range (104)  |  Review (27)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Set (400)  |  Sound (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Valueless (3)

I remember vividly my student days, spending hours at the light microscope, turning endlessly the micrometric screw, and gazing at the blurred boundary which concealed the mysterious ground substance where the secret mechanisms of cell life might be found.
Nobel Lecture, The Coming Age of the Cell, 12 Dec 1974
Science quotes on:  |  Boundary (55)  |  Cell (146)  |  Concealed (25)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hour (192)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Research (753)  |  Screw (17)  |  Secret (216)  |  Spending (24)  |  Student (317)  |  Substance (253)  |  Vividly (11)

I remember working out a blueprint for my future when I was twelve years old I resolved first to make enough money so I'd never be stopped from finishing anything; second, that to accumulate money in a hurry—and I was in a hurry—I'd have to invent something that people wanted. And third, that if I ever was going to stand on my own feet, I'd have to leave home.
In Sidney Shalett, 'Aviation’s Stormy Genius', Saturday Evening Post (13 Oct 1956), 229, No. 15, 26 & 155
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Blueprint (9)  |  Enough (341)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Home (184)  |  Hurry (16)  |  Invention (400)  |  Money (178)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  People (1031)  |  Something (718)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stop (89)  |  Want (504)  |  Year (963)

I see no good reason why the views given this volume [The Origin of Species] should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, “as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.”
The Origin of Species (1909), 520.
Science quotes on:  |  Attack (86)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Good (906)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Impression (118)  |  Law (913)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Man (2252)  |  Natural (810)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  See (1094)  |  Shock (38)  |  Species (435)  |  Transient (13)  |  View (496)  |  Why (491)

I should like to compare this rearrangement which the proteins undergo in the animal or vegetable organism to the making up of a railroad train. In their passage through the body parts of the whole may be left behind, and here and there new parts added on. In order to understand fully the change we must remember that the proteins are composed of Bausteine united in very different ways. Some of them contain Bausteine of many kinds. The multiplicity of the proteins is determined by many causes, first through the differences in the nature of the constituent Bausteine; and secondly, through differences in the arrangement of them. The number of Bausteine which may take part in the formation of the proteins is about as large as the number of letters in the alphabet. When we consider that through the combination of letters an infinitely large number of thoughts may be expressed, we can understand how vast a number of the properties of the organism may be recorded in the small space which is occupied by the protein molecules. It enables us to understand how it is possible for the proteins of the sex-cells to contain, to a certain extent, a complete description of the species and even of the individual. We may also comprehend how great and important the task is to determine the structure of the proteins, and why the biochemist has devoted himself with so much industry to their analysis.
'The Chemical Composition of the Cell', The Harvey Lectures (1911), 7, 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Behind (139)  |  Biochemist (9)  |  Body (557)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cell (146)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Combination (150)  |  Compare (76)  |  Complete (209)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Determine (152)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Enable (122)  |  Express (192)  |  Extent (142)  |  First (1302)  |  Formation (100)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Individual (420)  |  Industry (159)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Letter (117)  |  Making (300)  |  Model (106)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Multiplicity (14)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Order (638)  |  Organism (231)  |  Passage (52)  |  Possible (560)  |  Protein (56)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Rearrangement (5)  |  Record (161)  |  Sex (68)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)  |  Task (152)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Train (118)  |  Understand (648)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)

I think this case will be remembered because it is the first case of this sort since we stopped trying people in America for witchcraft, because here we have done our best to turn back the tide that has sought to force itself upon this modern world, of testing every fact in science by a religious dictum.
Final remarks to the Court after the jury verdict was read at the Scopes Monkey Trial Eighth day's proceedings (21 Jul 1925) in John Thomas Scopes, The World's Most Famous Court Trial: Tennessee Evolution Case: a Complete Stenographic Report of the Famous Court Test of the Tennessee Anti-Evolution Act, at Dayton, July 10 to 21, 1925, Including Speeches and Arguments of Attorneys (1925), 316.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Back (395)  |  Best (467)  |  Case (102)  |  Dictum (10)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern World (5)  |  People (1031)  |  Religious (134)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scopes Monkey Trial (9)  |  Test (221)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tide (37)  |  Trying (144)  |  Turn (454)  |  Will (2350)  |  Witchcraft (6)  |  World (1850)

I was interested in flying beginning at age 7, when a close family friend took me in his little airplane. And I remember looking at the wheel of the airplane as we rolled down the runway, because I wanted to remember the exact moment that I first went flying... the other thing growing up is that I was always interested in science.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Close (77)  |  Down (455)  |  Exact (75)  |  Family (101)  |  First (1302)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Friend (180)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growing Up (4)  |  Interest (416)  |  Little (717)  |  Looking (191)  |  Moment (260)  |  Other (2233)  |  Roll (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Want (504)  |  Wheel (51)

I wrote a great deal during the next ten [early] years,but very little of any importance; there are not more than four or five papers which I can still remember with some satisfaction.
In A Mathematician’s Apology (1940, reprint with Foreward by C.P. Snow 1992), 147.
Science quotes on:  |  Deal (192)  |  Early (196)  |  Great (1610)  |  Importance (299)  |  Little (717)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Paper (192)  |  Publication (102)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Still (614)  |  Year (963)

If I could remember the names of all these particles I’d be a botanist.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Botanist (25)  |  Name (359)  |  Particle (200)

If there is a regulation that says you have to do something—whether it be putting in seat belts, catalytic converters, clean air for coal plants, clean water—the first tack that the lawyers use, among others things, and that companies use, is that it’s going to drive the electricity bill up, drive the cost of cars up, drive everything up. It repeatedly has been demonstrated that once the engineers start thinking about it, it’s actually far less than the original estimates. We should remember that when we hear this again, because you will hear it again.
Talk (Apr 2007) quoted in 'Obama's Energy and Environment Team Includes a Nobel Laureate', Kent Garber, US News website (posted 11 Dec 2008).
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Car (75)  |  Clean (52)  |  Coal (64)  |  Cost (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Everything (489)  |  First (1302)  |  Hear (144)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Money (178)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

If you ask me whether science has solved, or is likely to solve, the problem of this universe, I must shake my head in doubt. We have been talking of matter and force; but whence came matter, and whence came force? You remember the first Napoleon’s question, when the savans who accompanied him to Egypt discussed in his presence the problem of the universe, and solved it to their apparent satisfaction. He looked aloft to the starry heavens, and said—“It is all very well, gentlemen, but who made all these!” That question still remains unanswered, and science makes no attempt to answer it.
Lecture 'On Matter and Force', to nearly 3,000 working men, at the Dundee Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Sep 1867), reported in 'Dundee Meeting, 1867', Chemical News and Journal of Physical Science (Nov 1867)
Science quotes on:  |  Accompany (22)  |  Aloft (5)  |  Answer (389)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte (20)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Egypt (31)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Gentleman (26)  |  Head (87)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Look (584)  |  Make (25)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Napoleon (16)  |  Presence (63)  |  Problem (731)  |  Question (649)  |  Remain (355)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Shake (43)  |  Solve (145)  |  Star (460)  |  Still (614)  |  Talk (108)  |  Talking (76)  |  Unanswered (8)  |  Universe (900)

If you don’t know anything about computers, just remember that they are machines that do exactly what you tell them but often surprise you in the result.
The Blind Watchmaker (1996), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Computer (131)  |  Do (1905)  |  Know (1538)  |  Machine (271)  |  Result (700)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Tell (344)

If you have an idea that you wish your audience to carry away, turn it upside down and inside out, rephrasing it from different angles. Remember that the form in which the thing may appear best to you may not impress half your audience.
Advice to the writer of his first paper for presentation at a scientific meeting. As expressed in quotation marks by Charles Thom in 'Robert Almer Harper', National Academy Biographical Memoirs (1948), 25, 233-234. Also, in Thom's words, “[Harper] added that a miscellaneous audience can not he expected to carry away a lot of separate facts but one good idea, well pictured out, will be remembered by some of them.”
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Audience (28)  |  Best (467)  |  Carry (130)  |  Different (595)  |  Down (455)  |  Form (976)  |  Half (63)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inside Out (3)  |  Rephrasing (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Upside Down (8)  |  Wish (216)

In 1905, a physicist measuring the thermal conductivity of copper would have faced, unknowingly, a very small systematic error due to the heating of his equipment and sample by the absorption of cosmic rays, then unknown to physics. In early 1946, an opinion poller, studying Japanese opinion as to who won the war, would have faced a very small systematic error due to the neglect of the 17 Japanese holdouts, who were discovered later north of Saipan. These cases are entirely parallel. Social, biological and physical scientists all need to remember that they have the same problems, the main difference being the decimal place in which they appear.
In William G. Cochran, Frederick Mosteller and John W. Tukey, 'Principles of Sampling', Journal of the American Statistical Society, 1954, 49, 31. Collected in Selected Papers of Frederick Mosteller (2006), 290.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorption (13)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biological (137)  |  Conductivity (4)  |  Copper (25)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Due (143)  |  Early (196)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Error (339)  |  Japanese (7)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Problem (731)  |  Ray (115)  |  Sample (19)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Small (489)  |  Social (261)  |  Studying (70)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Unknown (195)  |  War (233)

In assessing Audubon, whose firm grip on the popular imagination has scarcely lessened since 1826, we must as historians of science seriously ask who would remember him if he had not been an artist of great imagination and flair. ... The chances seem to be very poor that had he not been an artist, he would be an unlikely candidate for a dictionary of scientific biography, if remembered to science at all.
In Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1972), Vol. 1, 331.
Science quotes on:  |  Artist (97)  |  Ask (420)  |  John James Audubon (9)  |  Biography (254)  |  Candidate (8)  |  Chance (244)  |  Dictionary (15)  |  Firm (47)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grip (10)  |  Historian (59)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Must (1525)  |  Poor (139)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Unlikely (15)

In attempting to understand the elements out of which mental phenomena are compounded, it is of the greatest importance to remember that from the protozoa to man there is nowhere a very wide gap either in structure or in behaviour. From this fact it is a highly probable inference that there is also nowhere a very wide mental gap.
Lecture II, 'Instinct and Habit', The Analysis of Mind
Science quotes on:  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Compound (117)  |  Element (322)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Gap (36)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Importance (299)  |  Inference (45)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Protozoa (6)  |  Structure (365)  |  Understand (648)  |  Wide (97)

In the discussion of the. energies involved in the deformation of nuclei, the concept of surface tension of nuclear matter has been used and its value had been estimated from simple considerations regarding nuclear forces. It must be remembered, however, that the surface tension of a charged droplet is diminished by its charge, and a rough estimate shows that the surface tension of nuclei, decreasing with increasing nuclear charge, may become zero for atomic numbers of the order of 100. It seems therefore possible that the uranium nucleus has only small stability of form, and may, after neutron capture, divide itself into two nuclei of roughly equal size (the precise ratio of sizes depending on liner structural features and perhaps partly on chance). These two nuclei will repel each other and should gain a total kinetic energy of c. 200 Mev., as calculated from nuclear radius and charge. This amount of energy may actually be expected to be available from the difference in packing fraction between uranium and the elements in the middle of the periodic system. The whole 'fission' process can thus be described in an essentially classical way, without having to consider quantum-mechanical 'tunnel effects', which would actually be extremely small, on account of the large masses involved.
[Co-author with Otto Robert Frisch]
Lise Meitner and O. R. Frisch, 'Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: a New Type of Nuclear Reaction', Nature (1939), 143, 239.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Amount (153)  |  Atomic Number (3)  |  Author (175)  |  Available (80)  |  Become (821)  |  Chance (244)  |  Charge (63)  |  Classical (49)  |  Concept (242)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Deformation (3)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Divide (77)  |  Effect (414)  |  Element (322)  |  Energy (373)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fission (10)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Gain (146)  |  Involved (90)  |  Kinetic (12)  |  Kinetic Energy (3)  |  Large (398)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Must (1525)  |  Neutron (23)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precise (71)  |  Process (439)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Radius (5)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Repulsion (7)  |  Show (353)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  Stability (28)  |  Structural (29)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Tension (2)  |  System (545)  |  Tension (24)  |  Total (95)  |  Tunnel (13)  |  Two (936)  |  Uranium (21)  |  Value (393)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Zero (38)

In the early days of dealing with climate change, I wouldn’t go out on a limb one way or another, because I don’t have the qualifications there. But I do have the qualifications to measure the scientific community and see what the consensus is about climate change. I remember the moment when I suddenly thought it was incontrovertible. There was a lecture given by a distinguished American expert in atmospheric science and he showed a series of graphs about the temperature changes in the upper atmosphere. He plotted time against population growth and industrialisation. It was incontrovertible, and once you think it’s really totally incontrovertible, then you have a responsibility to say so.
From interview with Brian Cox and Robert Ince, in 'A Life Measured in Heartbeats', New Statesman (21 Dec 2012), 141, No. 5138, 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Community (111)  |  Consensus (8)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  Early (196)  |  Expert (67)  |  Graph (8)  |  Growth (200)  |  Incontrovertible (8)  |  Industrialisation (4)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Measure (241)  |  Moment (260)  |  Population (115)  |  Population Growth (9)  |  Qualification (15)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Series (153)  |  Show (353)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)

In the sphere of natural science let us remember that we have always to deal with an insoluble problem. Let us prove keen and honest in attending to anything which is in any way brought to our notice, most of all when it does not fit in with our previous ideas. For it is only thereby that we perceive the problem, which does indeed lie in nature, but still more in man.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Deal (192)  |  Fit (139)  |  Honest (53)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Insoluble (15)  |  Keen (10)  |  Lie (370)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notice (81)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Previous (17)  |  Problem (731)  |  Prove (261)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Still (614)  |  Way (1214)

In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.
In Adventure of Ideas (1933), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Clarity (49)  |  Cost (94)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Float (31)  |  Function (235)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Hard (246)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Insistence (12)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Mist (17)  |  Mode (43)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Premise (40)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Sentiment (16)  |  Straw (7)  |  Study (701)  |  Superstition (70)

Indeed, we need not look back half a century to times which many now living remember well, and see the wonderful advances in the sciences and arts which have been made within that period. Some of these have rendered the elements themselves subservient to the purposes of man, have harnessed them to the yoke of his labors and effected the great blessings of moderating his own, of accomplishing what was beyond his feeble force, and extending the comforts of life to a much enlarged circle, to those who had before known its necessaries only.
From paper 'Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Fix the Site of the University of Virginia' (Dec 1818), reprinted in Annual Report of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia for the Fiscal Year Ending May 31, 1879 (1879), 10. Collected in Commonwealth of Virginia, Annual Reports of Officers, Boards, and Institutions of the Commonwealth of Virginia, for the Year Ending September 30, 1879 (1879).
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Advance (298)  |  Art (680)  |  Back (395)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Blessing (26)  |  Blessings (17)  |  Century (319)  |  Circle (117)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Effect (414)  |  Element (322)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Force (497)  |  Great (1610)  |  Harness (25)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Known (453)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Period (200)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Render (96)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  See (1094)  |  Subservient (5)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Yoke (3)

Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought—particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things.
Side Effects (1981), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Finite (60)  |  Modern (402)  |  Never (1089)  |  People (1031)  |  Space (523)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)

Is no one inspired by our present picture of the universe? This value of science remains unsung by singers: you are reduced to hearing not a song or poem, but an evening lecture about it. This is not yet a scientific age.
Perhaps one of the reasons for this silence is that you have to know how to read music. For instance, the scientific article may say, “The radioactive phosphorus content of the cerebrum of the rat decreases to one-half in a period of two weeks.” Now what does that mean?
It means that phosphorus that is in the brain of a rat—and also in mine, and yours—is not the same phosphorus as it was two weeks ago. It means the atoms that are in the brain are being replaced: the ones that were there before have gone away.
So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week’s potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago—a mind which has long ago been replaced. To note that the thing I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of the brain to be replaced by other atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and then go out—there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday.
'What do You Care What Other People Think?' Further Adventures of a Curious Character (1988), 244.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brain (281)  |  Call (781)  |  Cerebrum (10)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Dance (35)  |  Discover (571)  |  Doing (277)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mine (78)  |  Music (133)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Period (200)  |  Phosphorus (18)  |  Picture (148)  |  Poem (104)  |  Present (630)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Rat (37)  |  Read (308)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remain (355)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Silence (62)  |  Song (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unsung (4)  |  Value (393)  |  Week (73)  |  Year (963)  |  Yesterday (37)

It behooves us always to remember that in physics it has taken great men to discover simple things. They are very great names indeed which we couple with the explanation of the path of a stone, the droop of a chain, the tints of a bubble, the shadows of a cup.
In On Growth and Form (1917).
Science quotes on:  |  Behoove (6)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Discover (571)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Great (1610)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Name (359)  |  Path (159)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Simple (426)  |  Stone (168)  |  Thing (1914)

It is curious to reflect on how history repeats itself the world over. Why, I remember the same thing was done when I was a boy on the Mississippi River. There was a proposition in a township there to discontinue public schools because they were too expensive. An old farmer spoke up and said if they stopped the schools they would not save anything, because every time a school was closed a jail had to be built.
It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. He'll never get fat. I believe it is better to support schools than jails.
Address at a meeting of the Berkeley Lyceum, New York (23 Nov 1900). Mark Twain's Speeches (2006), 69-70.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Boy (100)  |  Build (211)  |  Close (77)  |  Closed (38)  |  Curious (95)  |  Discontinue (3)  |  Dog (70)  |  Education (423)  |  Expensive (10)  |  Farmer (35)  |  Fat (11)  |  Feed (31)  |  History (716)  |  Jail (4)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Public (100)  |  River (140)  |  Save (126)  |  School (227)  |  Support (151)  |  Tail (21)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Profound (105)  |  Rank (69)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Two (936)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value (393)

It is Surgery that, long after it has passed into obsolescence, will be remembered as the glory of Medicine.
In Letters to a Young Doctor (1982), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Glory (66)  |  Long (778)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Obsolescence (4)  |  Pass (241)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Will (2350)

It is well to remember that most arguments in favor of not trying an experiment are too flimsily based.
Quoted in a lecture published in Experientia, Supplementum II (1955), 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Base (120)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Favor (69)  |  Flimsy (2)  |  Most (1728)  |  Trying (144)

It’s worth remembering that it is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change.
Concluding remark of the 2019 Christmas broadcast.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Giant (73)  |  Leap (57)  |  Small (489)  |  Step (234)

Just remember—when you think all is lost, the future remains.
Anonymous
As given in Reader’s Digest (1975), 106, 23, it is cited as “Quoted by Bob Goddard in St. Louis Globe Democrat.” This “Bob Goddard” was likely repeating an anonymous aphorism. However, Webmaster has seen multiple examples of the quote being attributed, presumably by incorrect assumption, to Robert H. Goddard, the rocket engineer. As yet, Webmaster has found no primary source for the latter Goddard, and strongly suggests this is an anonymous aphorism, and not should not be further misattributed as originated by either Goddard. See also the Robert H. Goddard Quotes page on this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Future (467)  |  Lost (34)  |  Remain (355)  |  Think (1122)

Langmuir is the most convincing lecturer that I have ever heard. I have heard him talk to an audience of chemists when I knew they did not understand more than one-third of what he was saying; but they thought they did. It’s very easy to be swept off one's feet by Langmuir. You remember in [Kipling’s novel] Kim that the water jar was broken and Lurgan Sahib was trying to hypnotise Kim into seeing it whole again. Kim saved himself by saying the multiplication table [so] I have heard Langmuir lecture when I knew he was wrong, but I had to repeat to myself: “He is wrong; I know he is wrong; he is wrong”, or I should have believed like the others.
In 'How to Ripen Time', Journal of Physical Chemistry 1931, 35, 1917.
Science quotes on:  |  Audience (28)  |  Broken (56)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Easy (213)  |  Error (339)  |  Himself (461)  |  Rudyard Kipling (8)  |  Know (1538)  |  Irving Langmuir (7)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Lecturer (13)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Myself (211)  |  Novel (35)  |  Other (2233)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Table (105)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trying (144)  |  Understand (648)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wrong (246)

Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I have remembered, and remembered more than I have seen.
By character Essper, in Vivian Grey (1827), Vol. 5, 311.
Science quotes on:  |  Great (1610)  |  More (2558)  |  See (1094)  |  Traveler (33)

Look at those animals and remember the greatest scientists in the world have never discovered how to make grass into milk.
As quoted in Dorothy Caruso, Enrico Caruso: His Life and Death (1963), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Grass (49)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Look (584)  |  Milk (23)  |  Never (1089)  |  Scientist (881)  |  World (1850)

Make it compulsory for a doctor using a brass plate to have inscribed on it, in addition to the letters indicating his qualifications, the words “Remember that I too am mortal.”
In 'Preface on Doctors', The Doctor’s Dilemma (1909, 1911), xci.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Brass (5)  |  Compulsory (8)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Inscribe (4)  |  Letter (117)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Plate (7)  |  Qualification (15)  |  Word (650)

May every young scientist remember … and not fail to keep his eyes open for the possibility that an irritating failure of his apparatus to give consistent results may once or twice in a lifetime conceal an important discovery.
Commenting on the discovery of thoron gas because one of Rutherford’s students had found his measurements of the ionizing property of thorium were variable. His results even seemed to relate to whether the laboratory door was closed or open. After considering the problem, Rutherford realized a radioactive gas was emitted by thorium, which hovered close to the metal sample, adding to its radioactivity—unless it was dissipated by air drafts from an open door. (Thoron was later found to be argon.)
In Barbara Lovett Cline, Men Who Made a New Physics (1987), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Argon (3)  |  Closed (38)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Door (94)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Gas (89)  |  Hover (8)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Metal (88)  |  Open (277)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Problem (731)  |  Property (177)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Result (700)  |  Sample (19)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Student (317)  |  Thorium (5)  |  Variable (37)  |  Young (253)

Medals are great encouragement to young men and lead them to feel their work is of value, I remember how keenly I felt this when in the 1890s. I received the Darwin Medal and the Huxley Medal. When one is old, one wants no encouragement and one goes on with one's work to the extent of one’s power, because it has become habitual.
Letter to Major Greenwood (8 Dec 1933). Quoted in M. E. Magnello, 'Karl Pearson', in P. Armitage and T. Colton (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Biostatistics (1998), Vol. 4, 3314.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Encouragement (27)  |  Extent (142)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Great (1610)  |  Habit (174)  |  Lead (391)  |  Medal (4)  |  Old (499)  |  Power (771)  |  Receive (117)  |  Value (393)  |  Want (504)  |  Work (1402)  |  Young (253)

Modern cytological work involves an intricacy of detail, the significance of which can be appreciated by the specialist alone; but Miss Stevens had a share in a discovery of importance, and her work will be remembered for this, when the minutiae of detailed investigations that she carried out have become incorporated in the general body of the subject.
In obituary, 'The Scientific Work of Miss N.M. Steves', Science (11 Oct 1912), 36, No. 928, 468.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Become (821)  |  Body (557)  |  Carry (130)  |  Cytology (7)  |  Detail (150)  |  Discovery (837)  |  General (521)  |  Importance (299)  |  Incorporate (9)  |  Intricacy (8)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Involve (93)  |  Minutiae (7)  |  Miss (51)  |  Modern (402)  |  Share (82)  |  Significance (114)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Nettie Maria Stevens (4)  |  Subject (543)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

My mother, my dad and I left Cuba when I was two [January, 1959]. Castro had taken control by then, and life for many ordinary people had become very difficult. My dad had worked [as a personal bodyguard for the wife of Cuban president Batista], so he was a marked man. We moved to Miami, which is about as close to Cuba as you can get without being there. It’s a Cuba-centric society. I think a lot of Cubans moved to the US thinking everything would be perfect. Personally, I have to say that those early years were not particularly happy. A lot of people didn’t want us around, and I can remember seeing signs that said: “No children. No pets. No Cubans.” Things were not made easier by the fact that Dad had begun working for the US government. At the time he couldn’t really tell us what he was doing, because it was some sort of top-secret operation. He just said he wanted to fight against what was happening back at home. [Estefan’s father was one of the many Cuban exiles taking part in the ill-fated, anti-Castro Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow dictator Fidel Castro.] One night, Dad disappeared. I think he was so worried about telling my mother he was going that he just left her a note. There were rumors something was happening back home, but we didn’t really know where Dad had gone. It was a scary time for many Cubans. A lot of men were involved—lots of families were left without sons and fathers. By the time we found out what my dad had been doing, the attempted coup had taken place, on April 17, 1961. Initially he’d been training in Central America, but after the coup attempt he was captured and spent the next two years as a political prisoner in Cuba. That was probably the worst time for my mother and me. Not knowing what was going to happen to Dad. I was only a kid, but I had worked out where my dad was. My mother was trying to keep it a secret, so she used to tell me Dad was on a farm. Of course, I thought that she didn’t know what had really happened to him, so I used to keep up the pretense that Dad really was working on a farm. We used to do this whole pretending thing every day, trying to protect each other. Those two years had a terrible effect on my mother. She was very nervous, just going from church to church. Always carrying her rosary beads, praying her little heart out. She had her religion, and I had my music. Music was in our family. My mother was a singer, and on my father’s side there was a violinist and a pianist. My grandmother was a poet.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  America (143)  |  April (9)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Back (395)  |  Bad (185)  |  Bay Of Pigs (2)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capture (11)  |  Carry (130)  |  Fidel Castro (3)  |  Central (81)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Church (64)  |  Close (77)  |  Control (182)  |  Coup (2)  |  Course (413)  |  Cuba (2)  |  Dad (4)  |  Dictator (3)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Early (196)  |  Easier (53)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effect (414)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exile (6)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Family (101)  |  Farm (28)  |  Father (113)  |  Fight (49)  |  Find (1014)  |  Government (116)  |  Grandmother (4)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Happening (59)  |  Happy (108)  |  Heart (243)  |  Home (184)  |  Invasion (9)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Keep (104)  |  Kid (18)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Lot (151)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mark (47)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mother (116)  |  Move (223)  |  Music (133)  |  Nervous (7)  |  Next (238)  |  Night (133)  |  Note (39)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Operation (221)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overthrow (5)  |  Part (235)  |  Particularly (21)  |  People (1031)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Personal (75)  |  Personally (7)  |  Pet (10)  |  Pianist (2)  |  Place (192)  |  Poet (97)  |  Political (124)  |  Pray (19)  |  President (36)  |  Pretence (7)  |  Pretend (18)  |  Prisoner (8)  |  Probably (50)  |  Protect (65)  |  Really (77)  |  Religion (369)  |  Rumour (2)  |  Say (989)  |  Scary (3)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Side (236)  |  Sign (63)  |  Society (350)  |  Something (718)  |  Son (25)  |  Sort (50)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Tell (344)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Top (100)  |  Training (92)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Two (936)  |  Want (504)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wife (41)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worry (34)  |  Worst (57)  |  Year (963)

Nature has been for me, for as long as I remember a source of solace, inspiration, adventure, and delight; a home, a teacher, a companion.
In Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry (1991), Preface, xv.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Companion (22)  |  Delight (111)  |  Home (184)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Long (778)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Solace (7)  |  Source (101)  |  Teacher (154)

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.
Anonymous
Ralph Keyes, in The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When (2007), 116, states “This is a new saw that floats about in search of an originator.” It was seen, for example, in the her advice column, shortly before Abby stopped writing her column. A variant, with only the “amateurs” and “professionals" clauses, appears as early 1984 in The World Economy, Vol. 7, 406.
Science quotes on:  |  Afraid (24)  |  Amateur (22)  |  Ark (6)  |  Build (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Professional (77)  |  Something (718)  |  Titanic (4)  |  Try (296)

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralisation of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accompany (22)  |  Achievement (187)  |  All-Powerful (2)  |  Assure (16)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Bureaucracy (8)  |  Complete (209)  |  Democratic (12)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economy (59)  |  Enslavement (3)  |  Extremely (17)  |  Far-Reaching (9)  |  Individual (420)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Plan (122)  |  Political (124)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Problem (731)  |  Protect (65)  |  Require (229)  |  Right (473)  |  Socialism (4)  |  Solution (282)  |  View (496)

No creature is too bulky or formidable for man's destructive energies—none too minute and insignificant for his keen detection and skill of capture. It was ordained from the beginning that we should be the masters and subduers of all inferior animals. Let us remember, however, that we ourselves, like the creatures we slay, subjugate, and modify, are the results of the same Almighty creative will—temporary sojourners here, and co-tenants with the worm and the whale of one small planet. In the exercise, therefore, of those superior powers that have been intrusted to us, let us ever bear in mind that our responsibilities are heightened in proportion.
Lecture to the London Society of Arts, 'The Raw Materials of the Animal Kingdom', collected in Lectures on the Results of the Great Exhibition of 1851' (1852), 131.
Science quotes on:  |  Almighty (23)  |  Animal (651)  |  Bear (162)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Capture (11)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creature (242)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Detection (19)  |  Energy (373)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Formidable (8)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Keen (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Modify (15)  |  Ordained (2)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Result (700)  |  Skill (116)  |  Slaying (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Subdue (7)  |  Superior (88)  |  Temporary (24)  |  Tenant (2)  |  Whale (45)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worm (47)

No other subject has such clear-cut or unanimously accepted standards, and the men who are remembered are almost always the men who merit it. Mathematical fame, if you have the cash to pay for it, is one of the soundest and steadiest of investments.
In A Mathematician's Apology (1940, 2012), 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Cash (2)  |  Clear-Cut (10)  |  Cut (116)  |  Fame (51)  |  Investment (15)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merit (51)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pay (45)  |  Remembering (7)  |  Standard (64)  |  Subject (543)  |  Unanimous (2)

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

Seneca, Troades, II, 4-6
Insulting chance ne'er call'd with louder voice,
On swelling mortals to be proud no more.
Of the innumerable authors whose performances are thus treasured up in magnificent obscurity, most are forgotten, because they never deserved to be remembered, and owed the honours which they have once obtained, not to judgment or to genius, to labour or to art, but to the prejudice of faction, the stratagem of intrigue, or the servility of adulation.
Nothing is more common than to find men whose works are now totally neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries, as the oracles of their age, and the legislators of science. Curiosity is naturally excited, their volumes after long enquiry are found, but seldom reward the labour of the search. Every period of time has produced these bubbles of artificial fame, which are kept up a while by the breath of fashion and then break at once and are annihilated. The learned often bewail the loss of ancient writers whose characters have survived their works; but perhaps if we could now retrieve them we should find them only the Granvilles, Montagus, Stepneys, and Sheffields of their time, and wonder by what infatuation or caprice they could be raised to notice.
It cannot, however, be denied, that many have sunk into oblivion, whom it were unjust to number with this despicable class. Various kinds of literary fame seem destined to various measures of duration. Some spread into exuberance with a very speedy growth, but soon wither and decay; some rise more slowly, but last long. Parnassus has its flowers of transient fragrance as well as its oaks of towering height, and its laurels of eternal verdure.
The Rambler, Number 106, 23 Mar 1751. In W. J. Bate and Albrecht B. Strauss (eds.), The Rambler (1969), Vol. 2, 200-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Advance (298)  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Author (175)  |  Authority (99)  |  Break (109)  |  Breath (61)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Call (781)  |  Caprice (10)  |  Chance (244)  |  Character (259)  |  Class (168)  |  Common (447)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Decay (59)  |  Decree (9)  |  Delight (111)  |  Destined (42)  |  Dogmatism (15)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Eye (440)  |  Faction (4)  |  Fame (51)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flower (112)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Genius (301)  |  Growth (200)  |  Honour (58)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hour (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Last (425)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Library (53)  |  Long (778)  |  Loss (117)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Measure (241)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Mention (84)  |  More (2558)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Number (710)  |  Oak (16)  |  Oblivion (10)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Performance (51)  |  Period (200)  |  Perpetuity (9)  |  Power (771)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Produced (187)  |  Reward (72)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Search (175)  |  See (1094)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Side (236)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spread (86)  |  Statue (17)  |  Striking (48)  |  Time (1911)  |  Towering (11)  |  Transient (13)  |  Vain (86)  |  Various (205)  |  Wall (71)  |  Wit (61)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

O’ Great Spirit, help me always to speak the truth quietly, to listen with an open mind when others speak, and to remember the peace that may be found in silence.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 180
Science quotes on:  |  Find (1014)  |  Great (1610)  |  Help (116)  |  Listen (81)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peace (116)  |  Quietly (5)  |  Silence (62)  |  Speak (240)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Truth (1109)

October 9, 1863
Always, however great the height of the balloon, when I have seen the horizon it has roughly appeared to be on the level of the car though of course the dip of the horizon is a very appreciable quantity or the same height as the eye. From this one might infer that, could the earth be seen without a cloud or anything to obscure it, and the boundary line of the plane approximately the same height as the eye, the general appearance would be that of a slight concavity; but I have never seen any part of the surface of the earth other than as a plane.
Towns and cities, when viewed from the balloon are like models in motion. I shall always remember the ascent of 9th October, 1863, when we passed over London about sunset. At the time when we were 7,000 feet high, and directly over London Bridge, the scene around was one that cannot probably be equalled in the world. We were still so low as not to have lost sight of the details of the spectacle which presented itself to our eyes; and with one glance the homes of 3,000,000 people could be seen, and so distinct was the view, that every large building was easily distinguishable. In fact, the whole of London was visible, and some parts most clearly. All round, the suburbs were also very distinct, with their lines of detached villas, imbedded as it were in a mass of shrubs; beyond, the country was like a garden, its fields, well marked, becoming smaller and smaller as the eye wandered farther and farther away.
Again looking down, there was the Thames, throughout its whole length, without the slightest mist, dotted over its winding course with innumerable ships and steamboats, like moving toys. Gravesend was visible, also the mouth of the Thames, and the coast around as far as Norfolk. The southern shore of the mouth of the Thames was not so clear, but the sea beyond was seen for many miles; when at a higher elevation, I looked for the coast of France, but was unable to see it. On looking round, the eye was arrested by the garden-like appearance of the county of Kent, till again London claimed yet more careful attention.
Smoke, thin and blue, was curling from it, and slowly moving away in beautiful curves, from all except one part, south of the Thames, where it was less blue and seemed more dense, till the cause became evident; it was mixed with mist rising from the ground, the southern limit of which was bounded by an even line, doubtless indicating the meeting of the subsoils of gravel and clay. The whole scene was surmounted by a canopy of blue, everywhere free from cloud, except near the horizon, where a band of cumulus and stratus extended all round, forming a fitting boundary to such a glorious view.
As seen from the earth, the sunset this evening was described as fine, the air being clear and the shadows well defined; but, as we rose to view it and its effects, the golden hues increased in intensity; their richness decreased as the distance from the sun increased, both right and left; but still as far as 90º from the sun, rose-coloured clouds extended. The remainder of the circle was completed, for the most part, by pure white cumulus of well-rounded and symmetrical forms.
I have seen London by night. I have crossed it during the day at the height of four miles. I have often admired the splendour of sky scenery, but never have I seen anything which surpassed this spectacle. The roar of the town heard at this elevation was a deep, rich, continuous sound the voice of labour. At four miles above London, all was hushed; no sound reached our ears.
Travels in the Air (1871), 99-100.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attention (196)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Both (496)  |  Bound (120)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Building (158)  |  Canopy (8)  |  Car (75)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circle (117)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Completed (30)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Country (269)  |  Course (413)  |  Curve (49)  |  Deep (241)  |  Detail (150)  |  Distance (171)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evident (92)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Farther (51)  |  Field (378)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Free (239)  |  Garden (64)  |  General (521)  |  Glance (36)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Golden (47)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  High (370)  |  Home (184)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Limit (294)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Low (86)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mist (17)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  People (1031)  |  Present (630)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remainder (7)  |  Right (473)  |  Rising (44)  |  Rose (36)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Ship (69)  |  Shrub (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Sound (187)  |  South (39)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Still (614)  |  Suburb (7)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Thames (6)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toy (22)  |  View (496)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wander (44)  |  White (132)  |  Whole (756)  |  Winding (8)  |  World (1850)

Once I found out the secret of the universe. I have forgotten what it was, but I know that the Creator does not take Creation seriously, for I remember that He sat in Space with all His work in front of Him and laughed.
In The Hashish Man, collected in E.F. Bleiler (ed.), Gods, Men and Ghosts: The Best Supernatural Fiction of Lord Dunsany (1972), 158.
Science quotes on:  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Know (1538)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seriously (20)  |  Space (523)  |  Universe (900)  |  Work (1402)

One would have to have completely forgotten the history of science so as not to remember that the desire to know nature has had the most constant and the happiest influence on the development of mathematics.
In Henri Poincaré and George Bruce Halsted (trans.), The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare (1907), 79.
Science quotes on:  |  Completely (137)  |  Constant (148)  |  Desire (212)  |  Development (441)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Happy (108)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Influence (231)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)

Probably the most important skill that children learn is how to learn. … Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. This is a mistake.
In 'Observing the Brain Through a Cat's Eyes', Saturday Review World (1974), 2, 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Importance (299)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Most (1728)  |  Problem (731)  |  Remembering (7)  |  Skill (116)  |  Solve (145)  |  Solving (6)

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
The Life of Reason, or the Phases of Human Progress (1954), 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Condemnation (16)  |  Depend (238)  |  Direction (185)  |  Experience (494)  |  Human Progress (18)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Past (355)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Possible (560)  |  Progress (492)  |  Remain (355)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Retain (57)  |  Retention (5)  |  Set (400)

Remember a networked learning machine’s most basic rule: strengthen the connections to those who succeed, weaken them to those who fail.
In 'The Conformity Police', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Connection (171)  |  Fail (191)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Machine (271)  |  Most (1728)  |  Network (21)  |  Rule (307)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Weaken (5)

Remember that [scientific thought] is the guide of action; that the truth which it arrives at is not that which we can ideally contemplate without error, but that which we may act upon without fear; and you cannot fail to see that scientific thought is not an accompaniment or condition of human progress, but human progress itself.
'Aims and Instruments of Scientific Thought,' a lecture delivered to the British Association on 19 Aug 1872. In Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock (eds.), Lectures and Essays, by the Late William Kingdon Clifford (1886), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Condition (362)  |  Error (339)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fear (212)  |  Guide (107)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Progress (18)  |  Progress (492)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Thought (17)  |  See (1094)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)

Charles Babbage quote: Remember that accumulated knowledge, like accumulated capital, increases at compound interest: but it dif
Remember that accumulated knowledge, like accumulated capital, increases at compound interest: but it differs from the accumulation of capital in this; that the increase of knowledge produces a more rapid rate of progress, whilst the accumulation of capital leads to a lower rate of interest. Capital thus checks its own accumulation: knowledge thus accelerates its own advance. Each generation, therefore, to deserve comparison with its predecessor, is bound to add much more largely to the common stock than that which it immediately succeeds.
The Exposition of 1851: Or the Views of Industry, Science and Government of England (1851), 192-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Accelerate (11)  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Advance (298)  |  Bound (120)  |  Common (447)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Compound (117)  |  Compound Interest (4)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Differ (88)  |  Generation (256)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Increase (225)  |  Interest (416)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  More (2558)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Progress (492)  |  Succeed (114)

George E.P. Box quote: Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not
[Co-author with Norman R. Draper] (source)
Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful. [Co-author with Norman R. Draper]
In George E.P. Box and Norman R. Draper, Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces (1987), 74.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Do (1905)  |  Error (339)  |  Model (106)  |  Practical (225)  |  Question (649)  |  Useful (260)  |  Wrong (246)

Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.
In Life’s Instructions for Wisdom, Success, and Happiness (2000),
Science quotes on:  |  Care (203)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Flower (112)  |  Garden (64)  |  Kind (564)  |  Marriage (39)  |  Reflect (39)

Remember the Three Princes of Serendip who went out looking for treasure? They didn't find what they were looking for, but they kept finding things just as valuable. That's serendipity, and our business [drugs] is full of it.
'What the Doctor Ordered&#-30;, Time (18 Aug 1952)
Science quotes on:  |  Business (156)  |  Drug (61)  |  Find (1014)  |  Looking (191)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Research (753)  |  Serendipity (17)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Treasure (59)

Remember this, the rule for giving an extempore lecture is—let the the mind rest from the subject entirely for an interval preceding the lecture, after the notes are prepared; the thoughts will ferment without your knowing it, and enter into new combinations; but if you keep the mind active upon the subject up to the moment, the subject will not ferment but stupefy.
In Letter (10 Jul 1854) to William Rowan Hamilton, collected in Robert Perceval Graves, Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1882-89), Vol. 3, 487.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Combination (150)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Ferment (6)  |  Give (208)  |  Interval (14)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Let (64)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  New (1273)  |  Note (39)  |  Precede (23)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rule (307)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Thought (995)  |  Will (2350)

Remembering is not the re-excitation of innumerable fixed, lifeless and fragmentary traces. It is an imaginative reconstruction, or construction, built out of the relation of our attitude towards a whole active mass of organised past reactions and experience, and to a little outstanding detail which commonly appears in image or in language form. It is thus hardly ever really exact, even in the most rudimentary cases of rote recapitulation, and it is not at all important that it should be so.
From the summary section of Chapter 10, 'A Theory of Remembering', Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (1932, 1995), 213.
Science quotes on:  |  Attitude (84)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Memory (144)  |  Recapitulation (6)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Rote (5)

Sarcastic Science, she would like to know,
In her complacent ministry of fear,
How we propose to get away from here
When she has made things so we have to go
Or be wiped out. Will she be asked to show
Us how by rocket we may hope to steer
To some star off there, say, a half light-year
Through temperature of absolute zero?
Why wait for Science to supply the how
When any amateur can tell it now?
The way to go away should be the same
As fifty million years ago we came—
If anyone remembers how that was
I have a theory, but it hardly does.
'Why Wait for Science?' In Edward Connery Latham (ed.), The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged (1979), 395.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Ask (420)  |  Fear (212)  |  Hope (321)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Say (989)  |  Show (353)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Star (460)  |  Supply (100)  |  Tell (344)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)  |  Zero (38)

Science must be your passion. Remember that science claims a man’s whole life. Had he two lives they would not suffice. Science demands an undivided allegiance from its followers. In your work and in your research there must always be passion.
Translation of a note, 'Bequest of Pavlov to the Academic Youth of his Country', written a few days before his death for a student magazine, The Generation of the Victors. As published in 'Pavlov and the Spirit of Science', Nature (4 Apr 1936), 137, 572.
Science quotes on:  |  Allegiance (5)  |  Claim (154)  |  Demand (131)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Passion (121)  |  Research (753)  |  Two (936)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

Scientists don’t really ever grow up. I read, as a 10-or-so-year-old, a book for kids by Einstein. I think it was The Meaning of Relativity. It was exciting! Science was compared to a detective story, replete with clues, and the solution was the search for a coherent account of all the known events. Then I remember some very entrapping biographies: Crucibles, by Bernard Jaffe, was the story of chemistry told through the lives of great chemists; Microbe Hunters, by Paul de Kruif, did the same for biologists. Also, the novel Arrowsmith, by Sinclair Lewis, about a medical researcher. These books were a crucial component of getting hooked into science.
When asked by Discover magazine what books helped inspire his passion as a scientist.
In 'The 1998 Discover Science Gift Guide: Fantastic Voyages Children's Books That Mattered', Discover (Dec 1998).
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Ask (420)  |  Biography (254)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Book (413)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Component (51)  |  Crucible (8)  |  Detective (11)  |  Discover (571)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Event (222)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Known (453)  |  Live (650)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Novel (35)  |  Old (499)  |  Passion (121)  |  Read (308)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Search (175)  |  Solution (282)  |  Story (122)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Year (963)

Seventeen years—quite a large slice out of a life, when you come to think about it. And yet the ways I have earned my living since—by writing newspaper articles, novels, and film scenarios—were not taught me at any of these schools and colleges. Furthermore, though I won scholarships and passed examinations, I do not think I now remember more than twenty per cent of all I learned during these seventeen years, and I do not think I could now scrape through any of the examinations I passed after the age of twelve.
In To You, Mr. Chips (1938), in Goodbye, Mr. Chips; and, To You, Mr. Chips (1995), 118.
Science quotes on:  |  Career (86)  |  Education (423)  |  Examination (102)  |  Learn (672)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Writer (90)

She is a reflection of comfortable middle-class values that do not take seriously the continuing unemployment. What I particularly regret is that she does not take seriously the intellectual decline. Having given up the Empire and the mass production of industrial goods, Britain's future lay in its scientific and artistic pre-eminence. Mrs Thatcher will be long remembered for the damage she has done.
On Mrs Margaret H. Thatcher.
The Guardian, 15 Oct 1988.
Science quotes on:  |  Artistic (24)  |  Britain (26)  |  Class (168)  |  Damage (38)  |  Decline (28)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Future (467)  |  Good (906)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Long (778)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mass Production (4)  |  Pre-eminence (4)  |  Production (190)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Regret (31)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)

Since the measuring device has been constructed by the observer … we have to remember that what we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. Our scientific work in physics consists in asking questions about nature in the language that we possess and trying to get an answer from experiment by the means that are at our disposal.
Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (1958), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Asking (74)  |  Consist (223)  |  Construct (129)  |  Device (71)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Language (308)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possess (157)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Trying (144)  |  Work (1402)

Something to remember. If you have remembered every word in this article, your memory will have recorded about 150 000 bits of information. Thus, the order in your brain will have increased by about 150 000 units. However, while you have been reading the article, you will have converted about 300 000 joules of ordered energy, in the form of food, into disordered energy, in the form of heat which you lose to the air around you by convection and sweat. This will increase the disorder of the Universe by about 3 x 1024 units, about 20 million million million times the increase in order because you remember my article.
An afterword to his three-page article discussing thermodynamics and entropy, in 'The Direction of Time', New Scientist (9 Jul 1987), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Article (22)  |  Bit (21)  |  Brain (281)  |  Convection (3)  |  Convert (22)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Energy (373)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Heat (180)  |  Increase (225)  |  Information (173)  |  Joule (3)  |  Lose (165)  |  Memory (144)  |  Million (124)  |  Order (638)  |  Reading (136)  |  Record (161)  |  Something (718)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

Students who have attended my [medical] lectures may remember that I try not only to teach them what we know, but also to realise how little this is: in every direction we seem to travel but a very short way before we are brought to a stop; our eyes are opened to see that our path is beset with doubts, and that even our best-made knowledge comes but too soon to an end.
In Notes on the Composition of Scientific Papers (1904), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Best (467)  |  Direction (185)  |  Doubt (314)  |  End (603)  |  Eye (440)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Little (717)  |  Open (277)  |  Opening (15)  |  Path (159)  |  Realize (157)  |  Remembering (7)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Soon (187)  |  Stop (89)  |  Student (317)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Travel (125)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Way (1214)

The earliest of my childhood recollections is being taken by my grandfather when he set out in the first warm days of early spring with a grubbing hoe (we called it a mattock) on his shoulder to seek the plants, the barks and roots from which the spring medicine for the household was prepared. If I could but remember all that went into that mysterious decoction and the exact method of preparation, and with judicious advertisement put the product upon the market, I would shortly be possessed of wealth which might be made to serve the useful purpose of increasing the salaries of all pathologists. … But, alas! I remember only that the basic ingredients were dogwood bark and sassafras root, and to these were added q.s. bloodroot, poke and yellow dock. That the medicine benefited my grandfather I have every reason to believe, for he was a hale, strong old man, firm in body and mind until the infection came against which even spring medicine was of no avail. That the medicine did me good I well know, for I can see before me even now the green on the south hillside of the old pasture, the sunlight in the strip of wood where the dogwood grew, the bright blossoms and the delicate pale green of the leaf of the sanguinaria, and the even lighter green of the tender buds of the sassafras in the hedgerow, and it is good to have such pictures deeply engraved in the memory.
From address, 'A Medical Retrospect'. Published in Yale Medical Journal (Oct 1910), 17, No. 2, 57. [Note: q.s. in an abbreviation for quantum sufficit meaning “as much as is sufficient,” when used as a quantity specification in medicine and pharmacology. -Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Bark (19)  |  Basic (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Blossom (22)  |  Body (557)  |  Body And Mind (3)  |  Bright (81)  |  Call (781)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Early (196)  |  Exact (75)  |  Firm (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Green (65)  |  Hedgerow (2)  |  Hillside (4)  |  Household (8)  |  Infection (27)  |  Ingredient (16)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Man (2252)  |  Market (23)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Memory (144)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Man (6)  |  Pasture (15)  |  Pathologist (6)  |  Picture (148)  |  Plant (320)  |  Poke (5)  |  Possess (157)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Product (166)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recollection (12)  |  Root (121)  |  Salary (8)  |  See (1094)  |  Seek (218)  |  Set (400)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  South (39)  |  Spring (140)  |  Strong (182)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Useful (260)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Wood (97)  |  Yellow (31)

The faculty for remembering is not diminished in proportion to what one has learnt, just as little as the number of moulds in which you cast sand lessens its capacity for being cast in new moulds.
Religion: a Dialogue, and Other Essays (1890), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Cast (69)  |  Diminish (17)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Learn (672)  |  Little (717)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mold (37)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Sand (63)

The following story is true. There was a little boy, and his father said, “Do try to be like other people. Don’t frown.” And he tried and tried, but could not. So his father beat him with a strap; and then he was eaten up by lions. Reader, if young, take warning by his sad life and death. For though it may be an honour to be different from other people, if Carlyle’s dictum about the 30 million be still true, yet other people do not like it. So, if you are different, you had better hide it, and pretend to be solemn and wooden-headed. Until you make your fortune. For most wooden-headed people worship money; and, really, I do not see what else they can do. In particular, if you are going to write a book, remember the wooden-headed. So be rigorous; that will cover a multitude of sins. And do not frown.
From 'Electromagnetic Theory, CXII', The Electrician (23 Feb 1900), Vol. 44, 615.
Science quotes on:  |  Beat (42)  |  Better (493)  |  Book (413)  |  Boy (100)  |  Thomas Carlyle (38)  |  Cover (40)  |  Death (406)  |  Dictum (10)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Father (113)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Frown (5)  |  Hide (70)  |  Hiding (12)  |  Honour (58)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lion (23)  |  Little (717)  |  Money (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Reader (42)  |  Remembering (7)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Sadness (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Sin (45)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Still (614)  |  Story (122)  |  Strap (3)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Try (296)  |  Warning (18)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worship (32)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)  |  Young (253)

The freely roaming dinosaurs, I like to remember, had no plumbing.
From Of Stars and Men: The Human Response to an Expanding Universe (1958), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Dinosaur (26)  |  Plumbing (5)  |  Roam (3)

The girls are all giggling, then one girl suddenly remembers
the wild goat. Up there, on the hilltop, in the woods
and rocky ravines, the peasants saw him butting his head
against the trees, looking for the nannies. He’s gone wild,
and the reason why is this: if you don’t make an animal work,
if you keep him only for stud, he likes to hurt, he kills.

From Poem, 'The Goat God', Hard Labor (1936, 1976), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Animal (651)  |  Butt (2)  |  Girl (38)  |  Goat (9)  |  Head (87)  |  Hurt (14)  |  Keep (104)  |  Kill (100)  |  Looking (191)  |  Peasant (9)  |  Ravine (5)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rocky (3)  |  Saw (160)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Tree (269)  |  Why (491)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wood (97)  |  Work (1402)

The history of thought should warn us against concluding that because the scientific theory of the world is the best that has yet been formulated, it is necessarily complete and final. We must remember that at bottom the generalizations of science or, in common parlance, the laws of nature are merely hypotheses devised to explain that ever-shifting phantasmagoria of thought which we dignify with the high-sounding names of the world and the universe. In the last analysis magic, religion, and science are nothing but theories of thought.
In The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (1890, 1900), Vol. 3, 460.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Best (467)  |  Common (447)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Devise (16)  |  Dignify (2)  |  Explain (334)  |  Final (121)  |  Formulate (16)  |  Generalization (61)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mere (86)  |  Merely (315)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Parlance (2)  |  Phantasmagoria (3)  |  Religion (369)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Shifting (5)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)  |  Warn (7)  |  World (1850)

The increase of disorder or entropy with time is one example of what is called an arrow of time something that gives a direction to time and distinguishes the past from the future. There are at least three different directions of time. First, there is the thermodynamic arrow of time—the direction of time in which disorder or entropy increases. Second, there is the psychological arrow of time. This is the direction in which we feel time passes—the direction of time in which we remember the past, but not the future. Third, there is the cosmological arrow of time. This is the direction of time in which the universe is expanding rather than contracting.
In 'The Direction of Time', New Scientist (9 Jul 1987), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrow (22)  |  Arrow Of Time (2)  |  Call (781)  |  Contract (11)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Different (595)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Expand (56)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Increase (225)  |  Past (355)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Something (718)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)

The largest land animal is the elephant, and it is the nearest to man in intelligence: it understands the language of its country and obeys orders, remembers duties that it has been taught, is pleased by affection and by marks of honour, nay more it possesses virtues rare even in man, honesty, wisdom, justice, also respect for the stars and reverence for the sun and moon.
Natural History, 8, I. Trans. H. Rackham, Pliny: Natural History (1947), Vol. 3, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Animal (651)  |  Country (269)  |  Duty (71)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Honesty (29)  |  Honour (58)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Justice (40)  |  Language (308)  |  Largest (39)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mark (47)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Obedience (20)  |  Obey (46)  |  Order (638)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Possession (68)  |  Rare (94)  |  Rarity (11)  |  Remembering (7)  |  Respect (212)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sun (407)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wisdom (235)

The love of experiment was very strong in him [Charles Darwin], and I can remember the way he would say, “I shan't be easy till I have tried it,” as if an outside force were driving him. He enjoyed experimenting much more than work which only entailed reasoning, and when he was engaged on one of his books which required argument and the marshalling of facts, he felt experimental work to be a rest or holiday.
In Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of his Published Letters (1908), 95.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Driving (28)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Force (497)  |  Holiday (12)  |  Love (328)  |  More (2558)  |  Outside (141)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Required (108)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Strong (182)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

The moon is a very nice place. When we landed, we were 20 minutes behind. Because time on the Moon was so precious, what I remember most is trying to catch up.
As quoted in 'NASA Mourns the Passing of Astronaut John Young' (6 Jan 2018) on nasa.gov website.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Catch Up (2)  |  Land (131)  |  Late (119)  |  Minute (129)  |  Moon (252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nice (15)  |  Place (192)  |  Precious (43)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trying (144)

The more man inquires into the laws which regulate the material universe, the more he is convinced that all its varied forms arise from the action of a few simple principles. These principles themselves converge, with accelerating force, towards some still more comprehensive law to which all matter seems to be submitted. Simple as that law may possibly be, it must be remembered that it is only one amongst an infinite number of simple laws: that each of these laws has consequences at least as extensive as the existing one, and therefore that the Creator who selected the present law must have foreseen the consequences of all other laws.
In Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), 402.
Science quotes on:  |  Accelerate (11)  |  Action (342)  |  Among (3)  |  Arise (162)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Converge (10)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Creator (97)  |  Exist (458)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Force (497)  |  Foresee (22)  |  Form (976)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Law (913)  |  Least (75)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Regulate (11)  |  Seem (150)  |  Select (45)  |  Simple (426)  |  Still (614)  |  Submit (21)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vary (27)

The most striking impression was that of an overwhelming bright light. I had seen under similar conditions the explosion of a large amount—100 tons—of normal explosives in the April test, and I was flabbergasted by the new spectacle. We saw the whole sky flash with unbelievable brightness in spite of the very dark glasses we wore. Our eyes were accommodated to darkness, and thus even if the sudden light had been only normal daylight it would have appeared to us much brighter than usual, but we know from measurements that the flash of the bomb was many times brighter than the sun. In a fraction of a second, at our distance, one received enough light to produce a sunburn. I was near Fermi at the time of the explosion, but I do not remember what we said, if anything. I believe that for a moment I thought the explosion might set fire to the atmosphere and thus finish the earth, even though I knew that this was not possible.
In Enrico Fermi: Physicist (1970), 147.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodation (9)  |  Amount (153)  |  April (9)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Bright (81)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Condition (362)  |  Dark (145)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Daylight (23)  |  Distance (171)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enough (341)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Eye (440)  |  Enrico Fermi (20)  |  Finish (62)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flabbergast (2)  |  Flash (49)  |  Fraction (16)  |  Glasses (2)  |  Impression (118)  |  Know (1538)  |  Large (398)  |  Light (635)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Saw (160)  |  Second (66)  |  Set (400)  |  Sky (174)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Spite (55)  |  Striking (48)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Sun (407)  |  Test (221)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Ton (25)  |  Unbelievable (7)  |  Whole (756)

The night spread out of the east in a great flood, quenching the red sunlight in a single minute. We wriggled by breathless degrees deep into our sleeping bags. Our sole thought was of comfort; we were not alive to the beauty or the grandeur of our position; we did not reflect on the splendor of our elevation. A regret I shall always have is that I did not muster up the energy to spend a minute or two stargazing. One peep I did make between the tent flaps into the night, and I remember dimly an appalling wealth of stars, not pale and remote as they appear when viewed through the moisture-laden air of lower levels, but brilliant points of electric blue fire standing out almost stereoscopically. It was a sight an astronomer would have given much to see, and here were we lying dully in our sleeping bags concerned only with the importance of keeping warm and comfortable.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Alive (97)  |  Appalling (10)  |  Appear (122)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Bag (4)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Blue (63)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Comfortable (13)  |  Concern (239)  |  Deep (241)  |  Degree (277)  |  Dimly (6)  |  East (18)  |  Electric (76)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Energy (373)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flap (2)  |  Flood (52)  |  Give (208)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Great (1610)  |  Importance (299)  |  Keep (104)  |  Level (69)  |  Lie (370)  |  Low (86)  |  Lying (55)  |  Minute (129)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Muster (2)  |  Night (133)  |  Pale (9)  |  Peep (4)  |  Point (584)  |  Position (83)  |  Red (38)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Regret (31)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Sight (135)  |  Single (365)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Sole (50)  |  Spend (97)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Spread (86)  |  Stand (284)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Tent (13)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Wriggle (3)

The Nubians never remember the native name for a river; thus their statements are of little value to geographical criticism. Hence they never speak of the River Bah or Ibba, for example, but always say the “Penio’s river,” because this is the name of the district head whose seat is on this river. In other places they are quite helpless…. This is a dreadful fact. Were the well-traveled and well-informed Arab leaders able to remember the names of the rivers, it would be wonderfully easy to draw a map of the entire country.
In August Petermann, Petermann’s Geographische Mittheilungen (1871), 137. As quoted and cited in Kathrin Fritsch, '"You Have Everything Confused And Mixed Up…!" Georg Schweinfurth, Knowledge And Cartography Of Africa In The 19th Century', History in Africa (2009), 36, 92.
Science quotes on:  |  Arab (5)  |  Country (269)  |  Criticism (85)  |  District (11)  |  Draw (140)  |  Dreadful (16)  |  Easy (213)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Geography (39)  |  Head (87)  |  Helpless (14)  |  Leader (51)  |  Map (50)  |  Name (359)  |  Native (41)  |  Nubian (6)  |  Place (192)  |  River (140)  |  Seat (7)  |  Statement (148)  |  Value (393)  |  Well-Informed (7)

The philosopher may very justly be delighted with the extent of his views, the artificer with the readiness of his hands, but let the one remember that without mechanical performance, refined speculation is an empty dream, and the other that without theoretical reasoning, dexterity is little more than brute instinct.
In 'The Rambler' (17 Apr 1750), No. 9. Collected in The Rambler (1763), Vol. 1, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Artificer (5)  |  Brute (30)  |  Delight (111)  |  Dexterity (8)  |  Dream (222)  |  Empty (82)  |  Extent (142)  |  Hand (149)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Justly (7)  |  Little (717)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Performance (51)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Readiness (9)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Refined (8)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  View (496)

The phosphorous smell which is developed when electricity (to speak the profane language) is passing from the points of a conductor into air, or when lightning happens to fall upon some terrestrial object, or when water is electrolysed, has been engaging my attention the last couple of years, and induced me to make many attempts at clearing up that mysterious phenomenon. Though baffled for a long time, at last, I think, I have succeeded so far as to have got the clue which will lead to the discovery of the true cause of the smell in question.
[His first reference to investigating ozone, for which he is remembered.]
Letter to Michael Faraday (4 Apr 1840), The Letters of Faraday and Schoenbein, 1836-1862 (1899), 73. This letter was communicated to the Royal Society on 7 May, and an abstract published in the Philosophical Magazine.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attention (196)  |  Baffle (6)  |  Cause (561)  |  Clue (20)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electrolysis (8)  |  Fall (243)  |  First (1302)  |  Happen (282)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Language (308)  |  Last (425)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Long (778)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Object (438)  |  Ozone (7)  |  Passing (76)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Phosphorus (18)  |  Point (584)  |  Profane (6)  |  Question (649)  |  Research (753)  |  Smell (29)  |  Speak (240)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

The point to remember is that a giant leap into space can be a giant leap toward peace down below.
Willy Ley
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Below (26)  |  Down (455)  |  Giant (73)  |  Leap (57)  |  Peace (116)  |  Point (584)  |  Space (523)  |  Toward (45)

The scientist has marched in and taken the place of the poet. But one day somebody will find the solution to the problems of the world and remember, it will be a poet, not a scientist.
As quoted in The Star (1959). Collected in Jonathon Green, Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982).
Science quotes on:  |  Find (1014)  |  March (48)  |  Place (192)  |  Poet (97)  |  Problem (731)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Solution (282)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The spectacular thing about Johnny [von Neumann] was not his power as a mathematician, which was great, or his insight and his clarity, but his rapidity; he was very, very fast. And like the modern computer, which no longer bothers to retrieve the logarithm of 11 from its memory (but, instead, computes the logarithm of 11 each time it is needed), Johnny didn’t bother to remember things. He computed them. You asked him a question, and if he didn’t know the answer, he thought for three seconds and would produce and answer.
From interview with Donald J. Albers. In John H. Ewing and Frederick W. Gehring, Paul Halmos Celebrating 50 Years of Mathematics (1991), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Compute (19)  |  Computer (131)  |  Great (1610)  |  Insight (107)  |  Know (1538)  |  Know The Answer (9)  |  Logarithm (12)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Memory (144)  |  Modern (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Question (649)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Spectacular (22)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  John von Neumann (29)

The ten most important two-letter words in the English language: “if it is to be, it is up to me.” …
[Remember] the African parable of the sparrow who while flying through the sky heard a clap of thunder. He fell to the ground with his two little legs sticking up.
An eagle flying nearby saw the sparrow and asked “Hey, man, what’s happening?”
Replied the sparrow, “The sky is falling down.”
Mocked the eagle, “And what are you going to do, hold it up with those two little legs of yours?”
Replied the sparrow, “One does what one can with what one has.”
In address, to the Economic Club of Detroit (14 Jan 1990), 'Where Do We Go From Here?' on the massiechairs.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  African (11)  |  Ask (420)  |  Clap (3)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Fall (243)  |  Flying (74)  |  Ground (222)  |  Happening (59)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hold (96)  |  Importance (299)  |  Language (308)  |  Leg (35)  |  Letter (117)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mocking (4)  |  Most (1728)  |  Parable (5)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sparrow (6)  |  Sticking (3)  |  Through (846)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Two (936)  |  Word (650)

The way in which the persecution of Galileo has been remembered is a tribute to the quiet commencement of the most intimate change in outlook which the human race had yet encountered. Since a babe was born in a manger, it may be doubted whether so great a thing has happened with so little stir
In Science and the Modern World (1925), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Baby (29)  |  Birth (154)  |  Change (639)  |  Commencement (14)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Encounter (23)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Intimate (21)  |  Little (717)  |  Most (1728)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Persecution (14)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Race (278)  |  Stir (23)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tribute (10)  |  Way (1214)

The year 1918 was the time of the great influenza epidemic, the schools were closed. And this was when, as far as I can remember, the first explicitly strong interest in astronomy developed ... I took a piece of bamboo, and sawed a piece in the middle of each end, to put a couple of spectacle lenses in it. Well, the Pleiades looked nice because the stars were big. I thought I was looking at stars magnified. Well, they weren’t. It was a little thing with two lenses at random on each end, and all you got were extra focal images, big things, but I thought I was looking at star surfaces. I was 12 years old.
'Oral History Transcript: Dr. William Wilson Morgan' (8 Aug 1978) in the Niels Bohr Library & Archives.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Biography (254)  |  Closed (38)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  End (603)  |  Epidemic (8)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Image (97)  |  Influenza (4)  |  Interest (416)  |  Lens (15)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Magnification (10)  |  Old (499)  |  Pleiades (4)  |  Random (42)  |  Saw (160)  |  School (227)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Strong (182)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Year (963)

There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.
From interview with Mary R. Mullett, 'How to Keep Young Mentally', The American Magazine (Dec 1921), 92, 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Atrophy (8)  |  Continue (179)  |  Mental (179)  |  Observe (179)  |  Person (366)  |  Seek (218)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unceasing (3)  |  Why (491)

There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.
In The Analysis of Mind (1921) 159–160.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Connection (171)  |  Different (595)  |  Disprove (25)  |  Event (222)  |  Future (467)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Logic (311)  |  Minute (129)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Past (355)  |  Population (115)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unreal (4)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar quote: it is well to remember that there is in general no correlation between the judgment of posteri
This [Nobel Prize makes] a huge perturbation in my life [and] is not something which I have particularly liked … in many ways I would have much preferred not to have received it … it is well to remember that there is in general no correlation between the judgment of posterity and the judgment of contemporaries.
From Kameshwar C. Wall, 'Conversations with Chandra', Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar (1991), 296-298.
Science quotes on:  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Correlation (19)  |  General (521)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Perturbation (7)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Receive (117)  |  Something (718)  |  Way (1214)

Those who suggest that the “dark ages” were a time of violence and superstition would do well to remember the appalling cruelties of our own time, truly without parallel in past ages, as well as the fact that the witch-hunts were not strictly speaking a medieval phenomenon but belong rather to the so-called Renaissance.
From Interview (2003) on the Exhibition, 'Il Medioevo Europeo di Jacques le Goff' (The European Middle Ages by Jacques Le Goff), at Parma, Italy (27 Sep 2003—11 Jan 2004). Published among web pages about the Exhibition, that were on the website of the Province of Parma.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Appalling (10)  |  Belong (168)  |  Call (781)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Medieval (12)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Past (355)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Renaissance (16)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)  |  Violence (37)

To me, it [the 1962 space flight of Friendship 7] is not something that happened a long time ago. It seems like a couple of days ago, really. It’s a rare day I don’t think about it, relive it in my mind. I can remember every switch I flipped, every move I made, every word I spoke and every word spoken to me. Clear as a bell.
As reported by Howard Wilkinson in 'John Glenn Had the Stuff U.S. Heroes are Made of', The Cincinnati Enquirer (20 Feb 2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Bell (35)  |  Flight (101)  |  Friendship (18)  |  Friendship 7 (3)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Move (223)  |  Rare (94)  |  Relive (2)  |  Something (718)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Switch (10)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Word (650)

To most people, I fancy, the stars are beautiful; but if you asked why, they would be at a loss to reply, until they remembered what they had heard about astronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation of those orbs. ... [We] persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts.
In The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory (1896), 100-101.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Distance (171)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Great (1610)  |  Habitation (7)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Lie (370)  |  Loss (117)  |  Most (1728)  |  Orb (20)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  People (1031)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Reply (58)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Why (491)

To remember simplified pictures is better than to forget accurate figures.
In Otto Neurath, Empiricism and Sociology (1973), 220.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Better (493)  |  Figure (162)  |  Forget (125)  |  Maxim (19)  |  Picture (148)  |  Simplification (20)  |  Statistics (170)

Today, everybody remembers Galileo. How many can name the bishops and professors who refused to look through his telescope?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bishop (3)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Look (584)  |  Name (359)  |  Professor (133)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Through (846)  |  Today (321)

Unless we can “remember” ourselves, we are completely mechanical. Self-observation is possible only through self-remembering. These are the first steps in self-consciousness.
In On Love & Psychological Exercises: With Some Aphorisms & Other Essays (1998), 54.
Science quotes on:  |  Complete (209)  |  Completely (137)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  First (1302)  |  First Step (3)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Observation (593)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Possible (560)  |  Self (268)  |  Step (234)  |  Through (846)

We all remember the fairy tales of science in our infancy, which played with the supposition that large animals could jump in the proportion of small ones. If an elephant were as strong as a grasshopper, he could (I suppose) spring clean out of the Zoological Gardens and alight trumpeting upon Primrose Hill. If a whale could leap from the water like a trout, perhaps men might look up and see one soaring above Yarmouth like the winged island of Laputa.
In Manalive (1912), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Clean (52)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Fairy Tale (7)  |  Garden (64)  |  Grasshopper (8)  |  Island (49)  |  Jump (31)  |  Large (398)  |  Leap (57)  |  Look (584)  |  Proportion (140)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Soaring (9)  |  Spring (140)  |  Strong (182)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Trout (4)  |  Water (503)  |  Whale (45)  |  Wing (79)  |  Zoo (9)

We are concerned to understand the motivation for the development of pure mathematics, and it will not do simply to point to aesthetic qualities in the subject and leave it at that. It must be remembered that there is far more excitement to be had from creating something than from appreciating it after it has been created. Let there be no mistake about it, the fact that the mathematician is bound down by the rules of logic can no more prevent him from being creative than the properties of paint can prevent the artist. … We must remember that the mathematician not only finds the solutions to his problems, he creates the problems themselves.
In A Signpost to Mathematics (1951), 19. As quoted and cited in William L. Schaaf, 'Memorabilia Mathematica', The Mathematics Teacher (Mar 1957), 50, No. 3, 230. Note that this paper incorrectly attributes “A.H. Head”.
Science quotes on:  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Artist (97)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bound (120)  |  Concern (239)  |  Create (245)  |  Creative (144)  |  Development (441)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Motivation (28)  |  Must (1525)  |  Paint (22)  |  Point (584)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Problem (731)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Quality (139)  |  Rule (307)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Something (718)  |  Subject (543)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)

We do not remember days, we remember moments.
In The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1961), 188.
Science quotes on:  |  Day (43)  |  Do (1905)  |  Moment (260)

We fall from womb to tomb, from one blackness and toward another, remembering little of the one and knowing nothing of the other… except through faith.
Danse Macabre. Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 14
Science quotes on:  |  Blackness (4)  |  Faith (209)  |  Fall (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Little (717)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Through (846)  |  Tomb (15)  |  Toward (45)  |  Womb (25)

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita: Vishnu is trying to pursue the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that one way or another. There was a great deal of solemn talk that this was the end of the great wars of the century.
At the first atomic bomb test (16 Jul 1945), in Len Giovanitti and Fred Freed, The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965), 197
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (82)  |  Become (821)  |  Century (319)  |  Cry (30)  |  Deal (192)  |  Death (406)  |  Destroyer (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Duty (71)  |  End (603)  |  Form (976)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hindu (4)  |  Impress (66)  |  Know (1538)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Line (100)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Prince (13)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Scripture (14)  |  Silent (31)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Talk (108)  |  Thought (995)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  War (233)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

We must remember that all our [models of flying machine] inventions are but developments of crude ideas; that a commercially successful result in a practically unexplored field cannot possibly be got without an enormous amount of unremunerative work. It is the piled-up and recorded experience of many busy brains that has produced the luxurious travelling conveniences of to-day, which in no way astonish us, and there is no good reason for supposing that we shall always be content to keep on the agitated surface of the sea and air, when it is possible to travel in a superior plane, unimpeded by frictional disturbances.
Paper to the Royal Society of New South Wales (4 Jun 1890), as quoted in Octave Chanute, Progress in Flying Machines (1894), 2226.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Amount (153)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Brain (281)  |  Busy (32)  |  Commercially (3)  |  Content (75)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Crude (32)  |  Development (441)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Experience (494)  |  Field (378)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Invention (400)  |  Machine (271)  |  Model (106)  |  Must (1525)  |  Plane (22)  |  Possible (560)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Practically (10)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Reason (766)  |  Record (161)  |  Recorded (2)  |  Result (700)  |  Sea (326)  |  Successful (134)  |  Superior (88)  |  Supposing (3)  |  Surface (223)  |  Today (321)  |  Travel (125)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Unexplored (15)  |  Unimpeded (2)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

We must remember that in nature there are neither rewards nor punishments—there are consequences.
'Some Reasons Why' (1896) In Lectures and Essays (1907), Series 3, 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Consequence (220)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Punishment (14)  |  Reward (72)

We need to remember that we are spiritual beings spending some time in a human body.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 32
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Need (320)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spending (24)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Time (1911)

We remember our dreams; we do not remember our sleep.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Sleep (81)

We should remember that there was once a discipline called natural philosophy. Unfortunately, this discipline seems not to exist today. It has been renamed science, but science of today is in danger of losing much of the natural philosophy aspect.
[Pointing out the increasing specialization of science during the century to explain the resistance to his ideas,]
(1986) Quoted in Anthony L. Peratt, 'Dean of the Plasma Dissidents', Washington Times, supplement: The World and I (May 1988),192.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Call (781)  |  Century (319)  |  Danger (127)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explain (334)  |  Idea (881)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Today (321)  |  Unfortunately (40)

We should willingly take risks in supporting new projects. The tendency is to play it safe when funding is low, but we need to remember that the greatest risks have the greatest payoffs.
From keynote address, 'Will Innovation Flourish in the Future?' (2002), as adapted for Opinion article in The Industrial Physicist (Dec-Jan 2003-03), 8, No. 6, 24. The address was presented at Conference, 'Infrastructure for e-Business, e-Education, e-Science, and e-Medicine', at Scuola Superiore G. Reiss Romoli in L’Aquila, Italy (Jul 29-Aug 4, 2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Fund (19)  |  Low (86)  |  New (1273)  |  Payoff (3)  |  Project (77)  |  Risk (68)  |  Safe (61)  |  Support (151)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Willingly (2)

We speak erroneously of “artificial” materials, “synthetics”, and so forth. The basis for this erroneous terminology is the notion that Nature has made certain things which we call natural, and everything else is “man-made”, ergo artificial. But what one learns in chemistry is that Nature wrote all the rules of structuring; man does not invent chemical structuring rules; he only discovers the rules. All the chemist can do is find out what Nature permits, and any substances that are thus developed or discovered are inherently natural. It is very important to remember that.
From 'The Comprehensive Man', Ideas and Integrities: A Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure (1963), 75-76.
Science quotes on:  |  Artificial (38)  |  Basis (180)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Error (339)  |  Everything (489)  |  Find (1014)  |  Importance (299)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Invention (400)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Man (2252)  |  Man-Made (10)  |  Material (366)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Permit (61)  |  Rule (307)  |  Speak (240)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Terminology (12)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Writing (192)

We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear. The better we have remembered it, the larger they have been.
Address to the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond (1 Dec 1950). Quoted in James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, Built to Last (1994, 1997), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Fail (191)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forget (125)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Never (1089)  |  People (1031)  |  Profit (56)  |  Try (296)

Well do I remember that dark hot little office in the hospital at Begumpett, with the necessary gleam of light coming in from under the eaves of the veranda. I did not allow the punka to be used because it blew about my dissected mosquitoes, which were partly examined without a cover-glass; and the result was that swarms of flies and of 'eye-flies' - minute little insects which try to get into one's ears and eyelids - tormented me at their pleasure
In Memoirs, With a Full Account of the Great Malaria Problem and its Solution (1923), 221.
Science quotes on:  |  Blowing (22)  |  Coming (114)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ear (69)  |  Examination (102)  |  Eye (440)  |  Eyelid (2)  |  Fly (153)  |  Glass (94)  |  Gleam (13)  |  Hospital (45)  |  Hot (63)  |  Insect (89)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Minute (129)  |  Mosquito (16)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Office (71)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Result (700)  |  Swarm (15)  |  Torment (18)  |  Try (296)  |  Under (7)

What appear to be the most valuable aspects of the theoretical physics we have are the mathematical descriptions which enable us to predict events. These equations are, we would argue, the only realities we can be certain of in physics; any other ways we have of thinking about the situation are visual aids or mnemonics which make it easier for beings with our sort of macroscopic experience to use and remember the equations.
In The Lost Cause: Causation and the Mind-body Problem (2003).
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Appear (122)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Being (1276)  |  Certain (557)  |  Description (89)  |  Easier (53)  |  Enable (122)  |  Equation (138)  |  Event (222)  |  Experience (494)  |  Macroscopic (2)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mnemonic (2)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Predict (86)  |  Reality (274)  |  Situation (117)  |  Sort (50)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Way (1214)

What I remember most clearly was that when I put down a suggestion that seemed to me cogent and reasonable, Einstein did not in the least contest this, but he only said, 'Oh, how ugly.' As soon as an equation seemed to him to be ugly, he really rather lost interest in it and could not understand why somebody else was willing to spend much time on it. He was quite convinced that beauty was a guiding principle in the search for important results in theoretical physics.
quoted in Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics (1987)
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Cogent (6)  |  Down (455)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Equation (138)  |  Interest (416)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Principle (530)  |  Result (700)  |  Search (175)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spend (97)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understand (648)  |  Why (491)  |  Willing (44)

What we remember, belonging more particularly to some special active pattern, is always normally checked by the reconstructed or the striking material of other active settings. It is, accordingly, apt to take on a peculiarity of some kind which, in any given case, expresses the temperament, or the character, of the person who effects the recall. This may be why, in almost all psychological descriptions of memory processes, memory is said to have a characteristically personal flavour … depending upon an interplay of appetites, instincts, interests and ideals peculiar to any given subject.
In Chapter 10, 'A Theory of Remembering', Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (1932, 1995), 213.
Science quotes on:  |  Appetite (20)  |  Character (259)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Description (89)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interplay (9)  |  Memory (144)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Personal (75)  |  Process (439)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Recall (11)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Subject (543)  |  Temperament (18)

Whatever be the detail with which you cram your student, the chance of his meeting in after life exactly that detail is almost infinitesimal; and if he does meet it, he will probably have forgotten what you taught him about it. The really useful training yields a comprehension of a few general principles with a thorough grounding in the way they apply to a variety of concrete details. In subsequent practice the men will have forgotten your particular details; but they will remember by an unconscious common sense how to apply principles to immediate circumstances. Your learning is useless to you till you have lost your textbooks, burnt your lecture notes, and forgotten the minutiae which you learned by heart for the examination. What, in the way of detail, you continually require will stick in your memory as obvious facts like the sun and the moon; and what you casually require can be looked up in any work of reference. The function of a University is to enable you to shed details in favor of principles. When I speak of principles I am hardly even thinking of verbal formulations. A principle which has thoroughly soaked into you is rather a mental habit than a formal statement. It becomes the way the mind reacts to the appropriate stimulus in the form of illustrative circumstances. Nobody goes about with his knowledge clearly and consciously before him. Mental cultivation is nothing else than the satisfactory way in which the mind will function when it is poked up into activity.
In 'The Rhythm of Education', The Aims of Education: & Other Essays (1917), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Apply (170)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Become (821)  |  Chance (244)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Cram (5)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Detail (150)  |  Education (423)  |  Enable (122)  |  Examination (102)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Favor (69)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Form (976)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Function (235)  |  General (521)  |  Generality (45)  |  Habit (174)  |  Heart (243)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minutiae (7)  |  Moon (252)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Practice (212)  |  Principle (530)  |  Require (229)  |  Sense (785)  |  Speak (240)  |  Statement (148)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Student (317)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Sun (407)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Training (92)  |  University (130)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yield (86)

When I call to mind my earliest impressions, I wonder whether the process ordinarily referred to as growing up is not actually a process of growing down; whether experience, so much touted among adults as the thing children lack, is not actually a progressive dilution of the essentials by the trivialities of living.
In 'Red Legs Kicking', A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There (1949, 1987), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Adult (24)  |  Child (333)  |  Dilution (5)  |  Down (455)  |  Early (196)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experience (494)  |  Growing Up (4)  |  Impression (118)  |  Lack (127)  |  Life (1870)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Triviality (3)

When men are engaged in war and conquest, the tools of science become as dangerous as a razor in the hands of a child of three. We must not condemn man because his inventiveness and patient conquest of the forces of nature are being exploited for false and destructive purposes. Rather, we should remember that the fate of mankind hinges entirely upon man’s moral development.
In 'I Am an American' (22 Jun 1940), Einstein Archives 29-092. Excerpted in David E. Rowe and Robert J. Schulmann, Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb (2007), 470. The British Library Sound Archive holds a recording of this statement by Einstein. It was during a radio broadcast for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, interviewed by a State Department Official. Einstein spoke following an examination on his application for American citizenship in Trenton, New Jersey. The attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s declaration of war on Japan was still over a year in the future.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Child (333)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Condemnation (16)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Development (441)  |  Exploit (19)  |  Exploitation (14)  |  False (105)  |  Fate (76)  |  Force (497)  |  Force Of Nature (9)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hinge (4)  |  Inventiveness (8)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Moral (203)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Patience (58)  |  Patient (209)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Razor (4)  |  Tool (129)  |  War (233)

When the body becomes Your mirror,
how can it serve?
When the mind becomes Your mind,
what is left to remember?
Once my life is Your gesture,
how can I pray?
When all my awareness is Yours,
what can there be to know?
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 190
Science quotes on:  |  Awareness (42)  |  Become (821)  |  Body (557)  |  Gesture (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Pray (19)  |  Serve (64)

When you are identifying science of the motion of water, remember to include under each subject its application and use, so that the science will be useful.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Identify (13)  |  Include (93)  |  Motion (320)  |  Subject (543)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

When you try to explain the behavior of water, remember to demonstrate the experiment first and the cause next.
As quoted in George H. de Thierry, Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers (Jan 1928), 15, No. 1, 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Behavior (95)  |  Cause (561)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  First (1302)  |  Hydraulics (2)  |  Next (238)  |  Try (296)  |  Water (503)

Wherever we go on land, these small creatures [insects, worms] are within a few inches of our feet—often disregarded. We would do very well to remember them.
From BBC TV series Life in the Undergrowth (2005), as quoted in BBC press release (10 Oct 2005).
Science quotes on:  |  Creature (242)  |  Disregard (12)  |  Foot (65)  |  Inch (10)  |  Insect (89)  |  Invertebrate (6)  |  Land (131)  |  Small (489)  |  Worm (47)

While DNA could be claimed to be both simple and elegant, it must be remembered that DNA almost certainly originated fairly close to the origin of life when things were necessarily simple or they would not have got going.
In What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (1988), 138.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Claim (154)  |  DNA (81)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Life (1870)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Originate (39)  |  Simple (426)  |  Thing (1914)

Within each of us there is a silence, a silence as vast as the universe. And when we experience that silence, we remember who we are.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 189
Science quotes on:  |  Experience (494)  |  Silence (62)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)

You have … been told that science grows like an organism. You have been told that, if we today see further than our predecessors, it is only because we stand on their shoulders. But this [Nobel Prize Presentation] is an occasion on which I should prefer to remember, not the giants upon whose shoulders we stood, but the friends with whom we stood arm in arm … colleagues in so much of my work.
From Nobel Banquet speech (10 Dec 1960).
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (82)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Friend (180)  |  Further (6)  |  Giant (73)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growing (99)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Organism (231)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Remembering (7)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Stand (284)  |  Standing (11)  |  Today (321)  |  Work (1402)

You must remember that nothing happens quite by chance. It’s a question of accretion of information and experience … it’s just chance that I happened to be here at this particular time when there was available and at my disposal the great experience of all the investigators who plodded along for a number of years.
on his discovery of the polio vaccine, in Breakthrough: The Saga of Jonas Salk by Richard Carter (1965).
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Chance (244)  |  Experience (494)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Information (173)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Question (649)  |  Time (1911)  |  Year (963)

Young man, if I could remember the names of these particles, I would have been a botanist.
Given as a reply to Leon M. Lederman (then a young researcher) when he asked Fermi for his opinion of the evidence of a particle named the K-zero-two, while standing next to him in a conference lunch line. Lederman wrote his recollection of the answer in his book, The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, what is the Question? (1993), 15. Lederman mentioned this statement much earlier, as “If I could remember the names of these particles, I would have been a botanist,” in a lecture (9 Jan 1963) on 'Neutrino Physics,' collected in Brookhaven Lecture Series (Dec 1963), 23, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Botanist (25)  |  Man (2252)  |  Name (359)  |  Particle (200)  |  Young (253)


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.