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: “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index R > Category: Revelation

Revelation Quotes (51 quotes)

…The present revolution of scientific thought follows in natural sequence on the great revolutions at earlier epochs in the history of science. Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which explains the indeterminateness of the frame of space and time, crowns the work of Copernicus who first led us to give up our insistence on a geocentric outlook on nature; Einstein's general theory of relativity, which reveals the curvature or non-Euclidean geometry of space and time, carries forward the rudimentary thought of those earlier astronomers who first contemplated the possibility that their existence lay on something which was not flat. These earlier revolutions are still a source of perplexity in childhood, which we soon outgrow; and a time will come when Einstein’s amazing revelations have likewise sunk into the commonplaces of educated thought.
In The Theory of Relativity and its Influence on Scientific Thought (1922), 31-32
Science quotes on:  |  Amazing (35)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Crown (39)  |  Curvature (8)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  First (1302)  |  Flat (34)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forward (104)  |  General (521)  |  Geocentric (6)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Insistence (12)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Non-Euclidean (7)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Present (630)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Thought (17)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Special (188)  |  Still (614)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Relativity (33)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

[I]t is truth alone—scientific, established, proved, and rational truth—which is capable of satisfying nowadays the awakened minds of all classes. We may still say perhaps, 'faith governs the world,'—but the faith of the present is no longer in revelation or in the priest—it is in reason and in science.
Entry for 15 Nov 1876 in Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, trans. Humphry Ward (1893), 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Capable (174)  |  Faith (209)  |  Govern (66)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Present (630)  |  Priest (29)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Still (614)  |  Truth (1109)  |  World (1850)

A discovery is like falling in love and reaching the top of a mountain after a hard climb all in one, an ecstasy not induced by drugs but by the revelation of a face of nature that no one has seen before and that often turns out to be more subtle and wonderful than anyone had imagined.
'True Science', review of Peter Medawar, Advice to a Young Scientist (1980). In The London Review of Books (Mar 1981), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Climb (39)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Drug (61)  |  Ecstasy (9)  |  Face (214)  |  Fall (243)  |  Hard (246)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inducement (3)  |  Love (328)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Reach (286)  |  Top (100)  |  Turn (454)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wonderful (155)

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.
Pale Blue Dot: a Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Awe (43)  |  Convention (16)  |  Conventional (31)  |  Draw (140)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Faith (209)  |  Magnificence (14)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Religion (369)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Stress (22)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

A short, broad man of tremendous vitality, the physical type of Hereward, the last of the English, and his brother-in-arms, Winter, Sylvester’s capacious head was ever lost in the highest cloud-lands of pure mathematics. Often in the dead of night he would get his favorite pupil, that he might communicate the very last product of his creative thought. Everything he saw suggested to him something new in the higher algebra. This transmutation of everything into new mathematics was a revelation to those who knew him intimately. They began to do it themselves. His ease and fertility of invention proved a constant encouragement, while his contempt for provincial stupidities, such as the American hieroglyphics for π and e, which have even found their way into Webster’s Dictionary, made each young worker apply to himself the strictest tests.
In Florian Cajori, Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 265.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  American (56)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Broad (28)  |  Brother (47)  |  Capacious (2)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contempt (20)  |  Creative (144)  |  Dead (65)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ease (40)  |  Encouragement (27)  |  English (35)  |  Everything (489)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Fertility (23)  |  Head (87)  |  Hieroglyphic (6)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Invention (400)  |  Last (425)  |  Lost (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  New (1273)  |  Night (133)  |  Often (109)  |  Physical (518)  |  Pi (14)  |  Product (166)  |  Provincial (2)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Saw (160)  |  Short (200)  |  Something (718)  |  Strict (20)  |  Stupidity (40)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Test (221)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transmutation (24)  |  Tremendous (29)  |  Type (171)  |  Vitality (24)  |  Way (1214)  |  Winter (46)  |  Worker (34)  |  Young (253)

All revolutionary advances in science may consist less of sudden and dramatic revelations than a series of transformations, of which the revolutionary significance may not be seen (except afterwards, by historians) until the last great step. In many cases the full potentiality and force of a most radical step in such a sequence of transformations may not even be manifest to its author.
The Newtonian Revolution (1980), 162.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Author (175)  |  Consist (223)  |  Consisting (5)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Force (497)  |  Great (1610)  |  Historian (59)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Last (425)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Potentiality (9)  |  Radical (28)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Series (153)  |  Significance (114)  |  Step (234)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Transformation (72)

Astronomers have built telescopes which can show myriads of stars unseen before; but when a man looks through a tear in his own eye, that is a lens which opens reaches into the unknown, and reveals orbs which no telescope, however skilfully constructed, could do.
Life Thoughts (1858), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Building (158)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eye (440)  |  Lens (15)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Open (277)  |  Opening (15)  |  Orb (20)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Show (353)  |  Showing (6)  |  Skill (116)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Tear (48)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Through (846)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Unseen (23)

At the origin, the [space travel] pioneers of the greatest adventure of all times were motivated by the drive to explore, by the pure spirit of conquest, by the lofty desire to open up new fields to human genius. … From their exceptional journeys, they all came back with the revelation of beauty. Beauty of the black sky, beauty and variety of our planet, beauty of the Earth seen from the Moon, girdled by a scintillating belt of equatorial thunderstorms. They all emphasize that our planet is one, that borderlines are artificial, that humankind is one single community on board spaceship Earth. They all insist that this fragile gem is at our mercy and that we must all endeavor to protect it.
Written for 'Foreword' to Kevin W. Kelley (ed.), The Home Planet (1988), paragraphs 6-7 (unpaginated).
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Belt (4)  |  Black (46)  |  Board (13)  |  Borderline (2)  |  Community (111)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Desire (212)  |  Drive (61)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Equatorial (3)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Field (378)  |  Fragile (26)  |  Gem (17)  |  Genius (301)  |  Girdle (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humankind (15)  |  Insist (22)  |  Journey (48)  |  Lofty (16)  |  Moon (252)  |  Motivate (8)  |  New (1273)  |  Open Up (2)  |  Origin (250)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Planet (402)  |  Protect (65)  |  Pure (299)  |  See (1094)  |  Single (365)  |  Sky (174)  |  Space Travel (23)  |  Spaceship Earth (3)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Thunderstorm (7)  |  Variety (138)  |  Vulnerable (7)

By God’s mercy British and American science outpaced all German efforts. … This revelation of the secrets of nature, long mercifully withheld from man, should arouse the most solemn reflections in the mind and conscience of every human being capable of comprehension. We must indeed pray that these awful agencies will be made to conduce to peace among the nations, and that instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe, may become a perennial fountain of world prosperity.
[Concerning use of the atomic bomb.]
Statement drafted by Churchill following the use of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Due to the change in government, the statement was released by Clement Attlee (6 Aug 1945). In Sir Winston Churchill, Victory: War Speeches by the Right Hon. Winston Churchill (1946), 289.
Science quotes on:  |  Agency (14)  |  Arousal (2)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Awful (9)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  British (42)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Conduce (2)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Effort (243)  |  Fountain (18)  |  German (37)  |  Globe (51)  |  God (776)  |  Havoc (7)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mercy (12)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Peace (116)  |  Perennial (9)  |  Prayer (30)  |  Prosperity (31)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Secret (216)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Chance … in the accommodation peculiar to sensorimotor intelligence, plays the same role as in scientific discovery. It is only useful to the genius and its revelations remain meaningless to the unskilled.
In The Origin of Intelligence in the Child (1936), trans. Margaret Cook (1953), 303.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodation (9)  |  Chance (244)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Genius (301)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Meaningless (17)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Play (116)  |  Remain (355)  |  Role (86)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Unskilled (4)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)

Complexity is the prodigy of the world. Simplicity is the sensation of the universe. Behind complexity, there is always simplicity to be revealed. Inside simplicity, there is always complexity to be discovered
Gang Yu
In course Syllabus for 'Algorithm Design and Implementations' (2004) on mccombs.utexas.edu web site.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Prodigy (5)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

Every fool believes what his teachers tell him, and calls his credulity science or morality as confidently as his father called it divine revelation.
In 'Maxims for Revolutionists: Education', in Man and Superman (1905), 230.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Credulity (16)  |  Divine (112)  |  Education (423)  |  Father (113)  |  Fool (121)  |  Morality (55)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Tell (344)

Every new discovery of science is a further 'revelation' of the order which God has built into His universe.
Magazine, Look (5 Apr 1955), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Building (158)  |  Discovery (837)  |  God (776)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Universe (900)

For me, the study of these laws is inseparable from a love of Nature in all its manifestations. The beauty of the basic laws of natural science, as revealed in the study of particles and of the cosmos, is allied to the litheness of a merganser diving in a pure Swedish lake, or the grace of a dolphin leaving shining trails at night in the Gulf of California.
Nobel Banquet Speech (10 Dec 1969), in Wilhelm Odelberg (ed.),Les Prix Nobel en 1969 (1970).
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Dive (13)  |  Dolphin (9)  |  Grace (31)  |  Gulf (18)  |  Inseparable (18)  |  Lake (36)  |  Law (913)  |  Love (328)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Night (133)  |  Particle (200)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Shining (35)  |  Study (701)  |  Sweden (3)  |  Trail (11)

God has not revealed all things to man and has entrusted us with but a fragment of His mighty work. But He who directs all things, who has established and laid the foundation of the world, who has clothed Himself with Creation, He is greater and better than that which He has wrought. Hidden from our eyes, He can only be reached by the spirit.
From Quaestiones Naturales as translated in Charles Singer, From Magic to Science (1958), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Creation (350)  |  Direct (228)  |  Eye (440)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fragment (58)  |  God (776)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hiding (12)  |  Himself (461)  |  Man (2252)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Science And God (5)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trust (72)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Human behaviour reveals uniformities which constitute natural laws. If these uniformities did not exist, then there would be neither social science nor political economy, and even the study of history would largely be useless. In effect, if the future actions of men having nothing in common with their past actions, our knowledge of them, although possibly satisfying our curiosity by way of an interesting story, would be entirely useless to us as a guide in life.
In Cours d’Economie Politique (1896-7), Vol. 2, 397.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Common (447)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Economy (59)  |  Effect (414)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Future (467)  |  Guide (107)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Past (355)  |  Political (124)  |  Politics (122)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Story (122)  |  Study (701)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Uselessness (22)  |  Way (1214)

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)  |  Remember (189)  |  Reside (25)  |  Reward (72)  |  Rich (66)  |  See (1094)  |  Snow (39)  |  Something (718)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Winter (46)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

I wish the lecturers to treat their subject as a strictly natural science, the greatest of all possible sciences, indeed, in one sense, the only science, that of Infinite Being, without reference to or reliance upon any supposed special exception or so-called miraculous revelation. I wish it considered just as astronomy or chemistry is.
Statement in deed of foundation of the Gifford Lectures on natural theology (1885).
Quoted in Michael A. Arbib and Mary B. Hesse, The Construction of Reality (1986), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Consider (428)  |  Deed (34)  |  Exception (74)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Lecturer (13)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Possible (560)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Special (188)  |  Statement (148)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theology (54)  |  Wish (216)

If the God of revelation is most appropriately worshipped in the temple of religion, the God of nature may be equally honored in the temple of science. Even from its lofty minarets the philosopher may summon the faithful to prayer, and the priest and sage exchange altars without the compromise of faith or knowledge.
In Tryon Edwards (ed.), A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1891), 507.
Science quotes on:  |  Altar (11)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Compromise (12)  |  Equally (129)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Faith (209)  |  Faithful (13)  |  God (776)  |  Honor (57)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Prayer (30)  |  Priest (29)  |  Religion (369)  |  Sage (25)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Summon (11)  |  Temple (45)  |  Temple Of Science (8)  |  Worship (32)

In … biological research one must resist the temptation to be deflected by details, to follow the fashion of putting the [dissection] pieces too early under the electron microscope. The magnitude of a scientific revelation is not always paralleled by the degree of magnification employed. It is easier to select the points on which attention should be concentrated once the plan is understood.
In 'Electric Location by Fishes', Scientific American (Mar 1963), 208, No. 3, 50.
Science quotes on:  |  Biology (232)  |  Detail (150)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Electron Microscope (3)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Magnification (10)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Research (753)  |  Temptation (14)

In all things, therefore, where we have clear evidence from our ideas, and those principles of knowledge I have above mentioned, reason is the proper judge; and revelation, though it may, in consenting with it, confirm its dictates, yet cannot in such cases invalidate its decrees: nor can we be obliged, where we have the clear and evident sentience of reason, to quit it for the contrary opinion, under a pretence that it is matter of faith: which can have no authority against the plain and clear dictates of reason.
in Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), book 4, ch. 18, sec. 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Authority (99)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Decree (9)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evident (92)  |  Faith (209)  |  Idea (881)  |  Judge (114)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mention (84)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reason (766)  |  Thing (1914)

In this age of space flight, when we use the modern tools of science to advance into new regions of human activity, the Bible ... this grandiose, stirring history of the gradual revelation and unfolding of the moral law ... remains in every way an up-to-date book. Our knowledge and use of the laws of nature that enable us to fly to the Moon also enable us to destroy our home planet with the atom bomb. Science itself does not address the question whether we should use the power at our disposal for good or for evil. The guidelines of what we ought to do are furnished in the moral law of God. It is no longer enough that we pray that God may be with us on our side. We must learn again that we may be on God's side.
Quoted in Bob Phillips, Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts & Funny Sayings (1993), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Advance (298)  |  Age (509)  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Bible (105)  |  Book (413)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enough (341)  |  Evil (122)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Furnish (97)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Grandiose (4)  |  Guideline (4)  |  History (716)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Modern (402)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moral (203)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Question (649)  |  Remain (355)  |  Side (236)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Tool (129)  |  Unfolding (16)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)

It has been said that science is opposed to, and in conflict with revelation. But the history of the former shown that the greater its progress, and the more accurate its investigations and results, the more plainly it is seen not only not to clash with the Latter, but in all things to confirm it. The very sciences from which objections have been brought against religion have, by their own progress, removed those objections, and in the end furnished fall confirmation of the inspired Word of God.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Against (332)  |  Bring (95)  |  Clash (10)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Confirmation (25)  |  Conflict (77)  |  End (603)  |  Fall (243)  |  Former (138)  |  Furnish (97)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  History (716)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Latter (21)  |  More (2558)  |  Objection (34)  |  Oppose (27)  |  Plainly (5)  |  Progress (492)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remove (50)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Word (650)

It is difficult to see anything but infatuation in the destructive temperament which leads to the action … that each of us is to rejoice that our several units are to be distinguished at death into countless millions of organisms; for such, it seems, is the latest revelation delivered from the fragile tripod of a modern Delphi.
In 'Dawn and the Creation of Worship', The Nineteenth Century, 1885, 18, 706.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Countless (39)  |  Death (406)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Fragile (26)  |  Lead (391)  |  Modern (402)  |  Organism (231)  |  See (1094)  |  Temperament (18)

Just as in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, an individual comes into being, so to speak, grows, remains in being, declines and passes on, will it not be the same for entire species? If our faith did not teach us that animals left the Creator's hands just as they now appear and, if it were permitted to entertain the slightest doubt as to their beginning and their end, may not a philosopher, left to his own conjectures, suspect that, from time immemorial, animal life had its own constituent elements, scattered and intermingled with the general body of matter, and that it happened when these constituent elements came together because it was possible for them to do so; that the embryo formed from these elements went through innumerable arrangements and developments, successively acquiring movement, feeling, ideas, thought, reflection, consciousness, feelings, emotions, signs, gestures, sounds, articulate sounds, language, laws, arts and sciences; that millions of years passed between each of these developments, and there may be other developments or kinds of growth still to come of which we know nothing; that a stationary point either has been or will be reached; that the embryo either is, or will be, moving away from this point through a process of everlasting decay, during which its faculties will leave it in the same way as they arrived; that it will disappear for ever from nature-or rather, that it will continue to exist there, but in a form and with faculties very different from those it displays at this present point in time? Religion saves us from many deviations, and a good deal of work. Had religion not enlightened us on the origin of the world and the universal system of being, what a multitude of different hypotheses we would have been tempted to take as nature's secret! Since these hypotheses are all equally wrong, they would all have seemed almost equally plausible. The question of why anything exists is the most awkward that philosophy can raise- and Revelation alone provides the answer.
Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature and Other Philosophical Works (1753/4), ed. D. Adams (1999), Section LVIII, 75-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Art (680)  |  Awkward (11)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Continue (179)  |  Creator (97)  |  Deal (192)  |  Decay (59)  |  Decline (28)  |  Development (441)  |  Deviation (21)  |  Different (595)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Element (322)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Emotion (106)  |  End (603)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightened (25)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Equally (129)  |  Exist (458)  |  Faith (209)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Kind (564)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remain (355)  |  Save (126)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Still (614)  |  System (545)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Universal (198)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)

Man does not limit himself to seeing; he thinks and insists on learning the meaning of phenomena whose existence has been revealed to him by observation. So he reasons, compares facts, puts questions to them, and by the answers which he extracts, tests one by another. This sort of control, by means of reasoning and facts, is what constitutes experiment, properly speaking; and it is the only process that we have for teaching ourselves about the nature of things outside us.
In Claude Bernard and Henry Copley Greene (trans.), An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1957), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Another (7)  |  Answer (389)  |  Compare (76)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Control (182)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extract (40)  |  Extraction (10)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Himself (461)  |  Insistence (12)  |  Learning (291)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Means (587)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Observation (593)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Outside (141)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)

My Opinion is this—that deep Thinking is attainable only by a man of deep Feeling, and that all Truth is a species of Revelation. The more I understand of Sir Isaac Newton’s works, the more boldly I dare utter to my own mind … that I believe the Souls of 500 Sir Isaac Newtons would go to the making up of a Shakspere [sic] or a Milton… Mind in his system is always passive—a lazy Looker-on on an external World. If the mind be not passive, if it be indeed made in God's Image, & that too in the sublimest sense—the image of the Creator—there is ground for suspicion, that any system built on the passiveness of the mind must be false, as a system.
Letter to Thomas Poole, 23 March 1801. In Earl Leslie Griggs (ed.), The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1956), Vol. 2, 709.
Science quotes on:  |  Creator (97)  |  Dare (55)  |  Deep (241)  |  Feeling (259)  |  God (776)  |  Ground (222)  |  Image (97)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  John Milton (31)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Sense (785)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |  Soul (235)  |  Species (435)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  System (545)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

No engineer can go upon a new work and not find something peculiar, that will demand his careful reflection, and the deliberate consideration of any advice that he may receive; and nothing so fully reveals his incapacity as a pretentious assumption of knowledge, claiming to understand everything.
In Railway Property: A Treatise on the Construction and Management of Railways (1866), 247.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Care (203)  |  Claim (154)  |  Claiming (8)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Deliberate (19)  |  Demand (131)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Everything (489)  |  Find (1014)  |  Incapacity (3)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pretentious (4)  |  Receive (117)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Something (718)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Occurrences that other men would have noted only with the most casual interest became for Whitney exciting opportunities to experiment. Once he became disturbed by a scientist's seemingly endless pursuit of irrelevant details in the course of an experiment, and criticized this as being as pointless as grabbing beans out of a pot, recording the numbers, and then analyzing the results. Later that day, after he had gone home, his simile began to intrigue him, and he asked himself whether it would really be pointless to count beans gathered in such a random manner. Another man might well have dismissed this as an idle fancy, but to Whitney an opportunity to conduct an experiment was not to be overlooked. Accordingly, he set a pot of beans beside his bed, and for several days each night before retiring he would take as many beans as he could grasp in one hand and make a note of how many were in the handful. After several days had passed he was intrigued to find that the results were not as unrewarding as he had expected. He found that each handful contained more beans than the one before, indicating that with practice he was learning to grasp more and more beans. “This might be called research in morphology, the science of animal structure,” he mused. “My hand was becoming webbed … so I said to myself: never label a real experiment useless, it may reveal something unthought of but worth knowing.”
'Willis Rodney Whitney', National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs (1960), 358-359.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Ask (420)  |  Bean (3)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Count (107)  |  Course (413)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Detail (150)  |  Dismissal (2)  |  Disturb (31)  |  Disturbed (15)  |  Endless (60)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gather (76)  |  Grab (5)  |  Hand (149)  |  Handful (14)  |  Himself (461)  |  Home (184)  |  Idle (34)  |  Idleness (15)  |  Interest (416)  |  Intrigued (4)  |  Irrelevance (4)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Label (11)  |  Learning (291)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Pass (241)  |  Pointless (7)  |  Pot (4)  |  Practice (212)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Random (42)  |  Recording (13)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Set (400)  |  Simile (8)  |  Something (718)  |  Structure (365)  |  Uselessness (22)  |  Worth (172)

Preferring a search for objective reality over revelation is another way of satisfying religious hunger. It is an endeavor almost as old as civilization and intertwined with traditional religion, but it follows a very different course—a stoic’s creed, an acquired taste, a guidebook to adventure plotted across rough terrain. It aims to save the spirit, not by surrender but by liberation of the human mind. Its central tenet, as Einstein knew, is the unification of knowledge. When we have unified enough certain knowledge, we will understand who we are and why we are here. If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way.
In Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Adventure (69)  |  Aim (175)  |  Central (81)  |  Certain (557)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Creed (28)  |  Different (595)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Liberation (12)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Objective (96)  |  Old (499)  |  Quest (39)  |  Reality (274)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Save (126)  |  Search (175)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Surrender (21)  |  Taste (93)  |  Terrain (6)  |  Understand (648)  |  Unification (11)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated “building blocks,” but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitute the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can be understood only in terms of the object’s interaction with the observer.
In The Tao of Physics (1975), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Atom (381)  |  Basic (144)  |  Building (158)  |  Building Block (9)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Decompose (10)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Essential (210)  |  Final (121)  |  Human (1512)  |  Include (93)  |  Independence (37)  |  Independently (24)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Observational (15)  |  Observer (48)  |  Oneness (6)  |  Part (235)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Process (439)  |  Property (177)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Relation (166)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Show (353)  |  Small (489)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understood (155)  |  Unit (36)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Web (17)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Seeing and thinking have done much for human progress; in the sphere of mind and morals everything, and could the world have been saved by armchair philosophy, the Greeks would have done it; but only a novum organon could do this, the powerful possibilities of which were only revealed when man began to search our the secrets of nature by way of experiment, to use the words of Harvey.
Address at the opening of the new Pathological Institute of the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow (4 Oct 1911). Printed in 'The Pathological Institute of a General Hospital', Glasgow Medical Journal (1911), 76, 326.
Science quotes on:  |  Armchair (7)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Greek (109)  |  William Harvey (30)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Progress (18)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organon (2)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Search (175)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

Such is the character of mathematics in its profounder depths and in its higher and remoter zones that it is well nigh impossible to convey to one who has not devoted years to its exploration a just impression of the scope and magnitude of the existing body of the science. An imagination formed by other disciplines and accustomed to the interests of another field may scarcely receive suddenly an apocalyptic vision of that infinite interior world. But how amazing and how edifying were such a revelation, if it only could be made.
In Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Art (1908), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Amazing (35)  |  Apocalyptic (2)  |  Body (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Convey (17)  |  Depth (97)  |  Devote (45)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Exist (458)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Field (378)  |  Form (976)  |  High (370)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Impression (118)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interior (35)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Other (2233)  |  Profound (105)  |  Receive (117)  |  Remote (86)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Scope (44)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)  |  Zone (5)

The breaking up of the terrestrial globe, this it is we witness. It doubtless began a long time ago, and the brevity of human life enables us to contemplate it without dismay. It is not only in the great mountain ranges that the traces of this process are found. Great segments of the earth's crust have sunk hundreds, in some cases, even thousands, of feet deep, and not the slightest inequality of the surface remains to indicate the fracture; the different nature of the rocks and the discoveries made in mining alone reveal its presence. Time has levelled all.
The Face of the Earth (1904), Vol. 1, 604.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Break (109)  |  Brevity (8)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Crust (43)  |  Deep (241)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dismay (5)  |  Doubtless (8)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enabling (7)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Fracture (7)  |  Globe (51)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Indication (33)  |  Inequality (9)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Mining (22)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Presence (63)  |  Process (439)  |  Range (104)  |  Remain (355)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Rock (176)  |  Segment (6)  |  Sinking (6)  |  Surface (223)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Witness (57)

The great revelation of the quantum theory was that features of discreteness were discovered in the Book of Nature, in a context in which anything other than continuity seemed to be absurd according to the views held until then.
What is Life? (1944), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  According (236)  |  Book (413)  |  Book Of Nature (12)  |  Context (31)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Feature (49)  |  Great (1610)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Theory (1015)  |  View (496)

The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can’t all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It’s a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I’m not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they’re called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation.
Contact (1997), 162.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Call (781)  |  Care (203)  |  Contention (14)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Major (88)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Right (473)  |  Scepticism (17)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skeptical (21)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Winnow (4)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
Written in 1926, and first published in magazine, Weird Tales (Feb 1928), 11, No. 2, first paragraph. In The Call of Cthulhu (2014), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Dark (145)  |  Direction (185)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Inability (11)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Island (49)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Mad (54)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Peace (116)  |  Reality (274)  |  Safety (58)  |  Sea (326)  |  Terrifying (3)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Together (392)  |  Vista (12)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The position of the anthropologist of to-day resembles in some sort the position of classical scholars at the revival of learning. To these men the rediscovery of ancient literature came like a revelation, disclosing to their wondering eyes a splendid vision of the antique world, such as the cloistered of the Middle Ages never dreamed of under the gloomy shadow of the minster and within the sound of its solemn bells. To us moderns a still wider vista is vouchsafed, a greater panorama is unrolled by the study which aims at bringing home to us the faith and the practice, the hopes and the ideals, not of two highly gifted races only, but of all mankind, and thus at enabling us to follow the long march, the slow and toilsome ascent, of humanity from savagery to civilization. And as the scholar of the Renaissance found not merely fresh food for thought but a new field of labour in the dusty and faded manuscripts of Greece and Rome, so in the mass of materials that is steadily pouring in from many sides—from buried cities of remotest antiquity as well as from the rudest savages of the desert and the jungle—we of to-day must recognise a new province of knowledge which will task the energies of generations of students to master.
'Author’s Introduction' (1900). In Dr Theodor H. Gaster (ed.), The New Golden Bough (1959), xxv-xxvi.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Aim (175)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Bell (35)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Classical (49)  |  Desert (59)  |  Dream (222)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fad (10)  |  Faith (209)  |  Field (378)  |  Follow (389)  |  Food (213)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Generation (256)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Greater (288)  |  Home (184)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Jungle (24)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Learning (291)  |  Literature (116)  |  Long (778)  |  Mankind (356)  |  March (48)  |  Mass (160)  |  Master (182)  |  Material (366)  |  Merely (315)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Panorama (5)  |  Practice (212)  |  Province (37)  |  Race (278)  |  Rediscovery (2)  |  Renaissance (16)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Rome (19)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Side (236)  |  Slow (108)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Sound (187)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Task (152)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Vision (127)  |  Vista (12)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The process of discovery is very simple. An unwearied and systematic application of known laws to nature, causes the unknown to reveal themselves. Almost any mode of observation will be successful at last, for what is most wanted is method.
In A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1862), 382.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Cause (561)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Method (531)  |  Mode (43)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Process (439)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Success (327)  |  Successful (134)  |  System (545)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Want (504)  |  Weariness (6)  |  Will (2350)

The science of optics, like every other physical science, has two different directions of progress, which have been called the ascending and the descending scale, the inductive and the deductive method, the way of analysis and of synthesis. In every physical science, we must ascend from facts to laws, by the way of induction and analysis; and we must descend from laws to consequences, by the deductive and synthetic way. We must gather and group appearances, until the scientific imagination discerns their hidden law, and unity arises from variety; and then from unity must reduce variety, and force the discovered law to utter its revelations of the future.
In On a General Method of Expressing the Paths of Light, & of the Planets, by the Coefficients of a Characteristic Function (1833), 7-8. [The spelling as “groupe” in the original text, has her been corrected to “group” to avoid an intrusive “sic”.]
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Arise (162)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Ascent (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Deductive (13)  |  Descend (49)  |  Different (595)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discover (571)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Force (497)  |  Future (467)  |  Gather (76)  |  Group (83)  |  Hide (70)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Law (913)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Optics (24)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Scale (122)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Two (936)  |  Unity (81)  |  Utter (8)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)

The treatises [of Archimedes] are without exception, monuments of mathematical exposition; the gradual revelation of the plan of attack, the masterly ordering of the propositions, the stern elimination of everything not immediately relevant to the purpose, the finish of the whole, are so impressive in their perfection as to create a feeling akin to awe in the mind of the reader.
In A History of Greek Mathematics (1921), Vol. 1, 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Attack (86)  |  Awe (43)  |  Create (245)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exception (74)  |  Exposition (16)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Finish (62)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monument (45)  |  Order (638)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Plan (122)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reader (42)  |  Relevant (5)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

The true contrast between science and religion is that science unites the world and makes it possible for people of widely differing backgrounds to work together and to cooperate. Religion, on the other hand, by its very claim to know “The Truth” through “revelation,” is inherently divisive and a creator of separatism and hostility.
Conclusion to 'Uniting the World—Or Dividing It: Which Outlook Is Truly Universal, which Parochial in the Extreme?', Free Inquiry (Spring 1998), 18, No.2. Collected in Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?, 148. Not found in that article, a widely circulated, brief form of this idea is: “Religion divides us, while it is our human characteristics that bind us to each other.” but Webmaster has not yet confirmed any source for that form. If you know a primary source for it, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Claim (154)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Creator (97)  |  Hostility (16)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Know (1538)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Possible (560)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unite (43)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Then followed months of intense thought in order to find out what the bewildering chaos of scattered observations meant until one day all of a sudden the whole became as clear and comprehensible as if it were illuminated with a flash of light … There are not many joys in human life equal to the joy of the sudden birth of a generalisation illuminating the mind after a long period of patient research.”
In Memoirs of a Revolutionist, 226-227. Concerning his geographical “meticulous research which resulted in his discovery of the configuration of the mountains of Asia—a discovery which he regarded as his most significant contribution to science.” As quoted, commented and cited in Caroline Cahm, Kropotkin: And the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism, 1872-1886 (2002), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Bewildering (5)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Intense (22)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Joy (117)  |  Observation (593)  |  Patient (209)  |  Research (753)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Thinking (425)

There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm.
African Game Trails (1910), ix. This is one of the quotations inscribed in the Roosevelt Memorial rotunda at the American Museum of Natural History.
Science quotes on:  |  Charm (54)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Tell (344)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Word (650)

There can be no real conflict between the two Books of the Great Author. Both are revelations made by Him to man,—the earlier telling of God-made harmonies coming up from the deep past, and rising to their height when man appeared, the later teaching man's relations to his Maker, and speaking of loftier harmonies in the eternal future.
Conclusion of 'Cosmogony', the last chapter in Manual of Geology, Treating of the Principles of the Science (1863), 746.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Bible (105)  |  Book (413)  |  Both (496)  |  Coming (114)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Deep (241)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Future (467)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Maker (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Past (355)  |  Rising (44)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Two (936)

There is at least as much mystery in science for the modern man as there ever was in religion; in a sense there is more mystery, for the logic of science is still altogether beyond his understanding, whereas the logic of revelation is the logic of his own feelings.
In A Preface to Morals (1929, 1982), 121.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Logic (311)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  Still (614)  |  Understanding (527)

There is nothing which Nature so clearly reveals, and upon which science so strongly insists, as the universal reign of law, absolute, universal, invariable law... Not one jot or tittle of the laws of Nature are unfulfilled. I do not believe it is possible to state this fact too strongly... Everything happens according to law, and, since law is the expression of Divine will, everything happens according to Divine will, i.e. is in some sense ordained, decreed.
Lecture 18, 'Predestination and Free-Will', Religion and Science: A Series of Sunday Lectures (1874), 278.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Accordance (10)  |  According (236)  |  Belief (615)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Decree (9)  |  Divine (112)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fulfillment (20)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Insistence (12)  |  Invariability (6)  |  Jot (3)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Ordinance (2)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reign (24)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  State (505)  |  Statement (148)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universality (22)  |  Will (2350)

We come no nearer the infinitude of the creative power of God, if we enclose the space of its revelation within a sphere described with the radius of the Milky Way, than if we were to limit it to a ball an inch in diameter. All that is finite, whatever has limits and a definite relation to unity, is equally far removed from the infinite... Eternity is not sufficient to embrace the manifestations of the Supreme Being, if it is not combined with the infinitude of space.
'Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens' (1755), part 2, ch.7. In W. Hastie (ed. and trans.), Kant's Cosmogony: As in his Essay on the Retardation of the Rotation of the Earth and his Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1900), 139-40.
Science quotes on:  |  Ball (64)  |  Being (1276)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creative (144)  |  Definite (114)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Equally (129)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Finite (60)  |  God (776)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Limit (294)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Power (771)  |  Space (523)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Supreme Being (8)  |  Unity (81)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)

When I hear to-day protests against the Bolshevism of modern science and regrets for the old-established order, I am inclined to think that Rutherford, not Einstein, is the real villain of the piece. When we compare the universe as it is now supposed to be with the universe as we had ordinarily preconceived it, the most arresting change is not the rearrangement of space and time by Einstein but the dissolution of all that we regard as most solid into tiny specks floating in void. That gives an abrupt jar to those who think that things are more or less what they seem. The revelation by modern physics of the void within the atom is more disturbing than the revelation by astronomy of the immense void of interstellar space.
In The Nature of the Physical World (1928, 2005), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Abrupt (6)  |  Against (332)  |  Arrest (9)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Atom (381)  |  Change (639)  |  Compare (76)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Dissolution (11)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Established (7)  |  Floating (4)  |  Hear (144)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Interstellar (8)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Physics (23)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Order (638)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Preconception (13)  |  Protest (9)  |  Rearrangement (5)  |  Regard (312)  |  Regret (31)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Solid (119)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Speck (25)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Universe (900)  |  Villain (5)  |  Void (31)

When scientists discovered that liquid water, which brought forth life on Earth, exists nowhere else in great quantities in the solar system, the most significant lesson they taught was not that water, or the life that depends on it, is necessarily the result of some chemical accident in space; their most important revelation was that water is rare in infinity, that we should prize it, preserve it, conserve it.
In Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein, The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World (2007), 201-202.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Conserve (7)  |  Depend (238)  |  Discover (571)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exist (458)  |  Great (1610)  |  Important (229)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Life (1870)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Prize (13)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Rare (94)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Significant (78)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Space (523)  |  System (545)  |  Teach (299)  |  Water (503)

When students hear the story of Andrew J. Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, it is not the result itself that stirs their emotions, but the revelation that a mathematician was driven by the same passion as any creative artist.
In 'Loving Math Infinitely', The Chronicle of Higher Education (19 Jan 2001).
Science quotes on:  |  Artist (97)  |  Creative (144)  |  Drive (61)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Fermat�s Last Theorem (3)  |  Pierre de Fermat (15)  |  Hear (144)  |  Last (425)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Passion (121)  |  Proof (304)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Stir (23)  |  Story (122)  |  Student (317)  |  Theorem (116)


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.