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 S > Category: Shadow

Shadow Quotes (73 quotes)


“I see no shadows,” saith the sun:
Yet he casts them every one.
Quoted without citation in George Iles, Canadian Stories (1918), 150. Webmaster has found no other source for this couplet, and wonders if it was coined by the author himself to ornament a chapter heading, or not. Please contact Webmaster if you know the primary source.
Science quotes on:  |  Cast (69)  |  See (1094)  |  Sun (407)

Combien de gens se font abstraits pour paraître profonds! La plupart des termes abstraits sont des ombres qui cachent des vides.
How many people become abstract in order to appear profound! Most abstract terms are shadows that conceal a void.
Quoted in M. Paul De Raynal, Pensées de J. Joubert (1862), 456.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Become (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Order (638)  |  People (1031)  |  Profound (105)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Void (31)

Etiam capillus unus habet umbram suam.
The smallest hair casts a shadow.
In 'Ornamenta Rationalia, or, Elegant Sentences' (1625). As given in Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political: A New Edition, With the Latin Quotations Translated (1813), No. 10, 362.
Science quotes on:  |  Cast (69)  |  Hair (25)  |  Smallest (9)

A fox looked at his shadow at sunrise and said, “I will have a camel for lunch today.” And all morning he went about looking for camels. But at noon he saw his shadow again - and he said, “A mouse will do.”
In Kahlil Gibran: The Collected Works (2007), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Camel (12)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fox (9)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Lunch (6)  |  Morning (98)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Noon (14)  |  Saw (160)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sunrise (14)  |  Today (321)  |  Will (2350)

All truth is a shadow except the last—yet every Truth is true in its kind. It is substance in its own place, though it be but a shadow in another place, (for it is but a shadow from an intenser substance;) and the shadow is a true shadow, as the substance is a true substance.
The Life of a Christian (1653), first page (unnumbered). In Elizabeth Waterhouse, et al., A Little Book of Life and Death (1902), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  Substance (253)  |  Truth (1109)

An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
From 'Self-Reliance', collected in The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1903), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Institution (73)  |  Man (2252)  |  One (6)

And Lady Luck remains tantalizingly in the shadows, pulling some of evolution's strings—but nobody knows how many.
'Weird Wonders', Scientific American, June 1992, 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Evolution (635)  |  Know (1538)  |  Luck (44)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Remain (355)

Architects who have aimed at acquiring manual skill without scholarship have never been able to reach a position of authority to correspond to their pains, while those who relied only upon theories and scholarship were obviously hunting the shadow, not the substance. But those who have a thorough knowledge of both, like men armed at all points, have the sooner attained their object and carried authority with them.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 1, Chap 1, Sec. 2. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Architect (32)  |  Arm (82)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Authority (99)  |  Both (496)  |  Education (423)  |  Hunting (23)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Manual (7)  |  Never (1089)  |  Object (438)  |  Pain (144)  |  Point (584)  |  Reach (286)  |  Rely (12)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Skill (116)  |  Substance (253)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thorough (40)

As I strayed into the study of an eminent physicist, I observed hanging against the wall, framed like a choice engraving, several dingy, ribbon-like strips of, I knew not what... My curiosity was at once aroused. What were they? ... They might be shreds of mummy-wraps or bits of friable bark-cloth from the Pacific, ... [or] remnants from a grandmother’s wedding dress... They were none of these... He explained that they were carefully-prepared photographs of portions of the Solar Spectrum. I stood and mused, absorbed in the varying yet significant intensities of light and shade, bordered by mystic letters and symbolic numbers. As I mused, the pale legend began to glow with life. Every line became luminous with meaning. Every shadow was suffused with light shining from behind, suggesting some mighty achievement of knowledge; of knowledge growing more daring in proportion to the remoteness of the object known; of knowledge becoming more positive in its answers, as the questions which were asked seemed unanswerable. No Runic legend, no Babylonish arrowhead, no Egyptian hieroglyph, no Moabite stone, could present a history like this, or suggest thoughts of such weighty import or so stimulate and exalt the imagination.
The Sciences of Nature Versus the Science of Man: A Plea for the Science of Man (1871), 7-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arrowhead (4)  |  Ask (420)  |  Bark (19)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Behind (139)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Choice (114)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Daring (17)  |  Engraving (4)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Explain (334)  |  Growing (99)  |  Hieroglyph (3)  |  History (716)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Legend (18)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Meaning (244)  |  More (2558)  |  Mummy (7)  |  Mystic (23)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Observed (149)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Portion (86)  |  Positive (98)  |  Present (630)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Question (649)  |  Remnant (7)  |  Remoteness (9)  |  Shade (35)  |  Shining (35)  |  Significant (78)  |  Solar Spectrum (4)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Stone (168)  |  Study (701)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wall (71)  |  Wedding (7)

As science has supplanted its predecessors, so it may hereafter be superseded by some more perfect hypothesis, perhaps by some totally different way of looking at the phenomena—of registering the shadows on the screen—of which we in this generation can form no idea. The advance of knowledge is an infinite progression towards a goal that for ever recedes.
In The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (1890, 1900), Vol. 3, 460.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Different (595)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  Goal (155)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Looking (191)  |  More (2558)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Progression (23)  |  Recede (11)  |  Register (22)  |  Screen (8)  |  Supersede (8)  |  Supplant (4)  |  Way (1214)

Astrology is a disease, not a science... It is a tree under the shadow of which all sorts of superstitions thrive. ... Only fools and charlatans lend value to it.
Letter to Marseilles, 1195. Responsa, ii. 25b. In Philip Birnbaum (ed.), Mishneh Torah: Maimonides' Code of Law and Ethics (1974), 35.
Science quotes on:  |  Astrology (46)  |  Charlatan (8)  |  Disease (340)  |  Fool (121)  |  Lend (4)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Thrive (22)  |  Tree (269)  |  Value (393)

But however secure and well-regulated civilized life may become, bacteria, Protozoa, viruses, infected fleas, lice, ticks, mosquitoes, and bedbugs will always lurk in the shadows ready to pounce when neglect, poverty, famine, or war lets down the defenses.
Rats, Lice and History (1934), 13-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Become (821)  |  Bedbug (2)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Defense (26)  |  Down (455)  |  Famine (18)  |  Flea (11)  |  Infection (27)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lurk (5)  |  Mosquito (16)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Pounce (4)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Protozoa (6)  |  Secure (23)  |  Tick (9)  |  Virus (32)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)

But why, it has been asked, did you go there [the Antarctic]? Of what use to civilization can this lifeless continent be? ... [Earlier] expeditions contributed something to the accumulating knowledge of the Antarctic ... that helps us thrust back further the physical and spiritual shadows enfolding our terrestrial existence. Is it not true that one of the strongest and most continuously sustained impulses working in civilization is that which leads to discovery? As long as any part of the world remains obscure, the curiosity of man must draw him there, as the lodestone draws the mariner's needle, until he comprehends its secret.
In 'Hoover Presents Special Medal to Byrd...', New York Times (21 Jun 1930), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Antarctic (7)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Back (395)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Continent (79)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Draw (140)  |  Existence (481)  |  Expedition (9)  |  Going (6)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Lodestone (7)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Physical (518)  |  Remain (355)  |  Secret (216)  |  Something (718)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Thrust (13)  |  Use (771)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

Eratosthenes of Cyrene, employing mathematical theories and geometrical methods, discovered from the course of the sun, the shadows cast by an equinoctial gnomon, and the inclination of the heaven that the circumference of the earth is two hundred and fifty-two thousand stadia, that is, thirty-one million five hundred thousand paces.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 1, Chap 6, Sec. 9. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 27-28.
Science quotes on:  |  Cast (69)  |  Circumference (23)  |  Course (413)  |  Discover (571)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eratosthenes (6)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Pace (18)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Two (936)

Even now, the imprisoned winds which the earliest poet made the Grecian warrior bear for the protection of his fragile bark; or those which, in more modern times, the Lapland wizards sold to the deluded sailors;—these, the unreal creations of fancy or of fraud, called, at the command of science, from their shadowy existence, obey a holier spell: and the unruly masters of the poet and the seer become the obedient slaves of civilized man.
In 'Future Prospects', On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1st ed., 1832), chap. 32, 280.
Science quotes on:  |  Bark (19)  |  Bear (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Civilized (20)  |  Command (60)  |  Creation (350)  |  Delude (3)  |  Deluded (7)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Fragile (26)  |  Fraud (15)  |  Grecian (2)  |  Imprison (11)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Obedient (9)  |  Obey (46)  |  Poet (97)  |  Protection (41)  |  Renewable Energy (15)  |  Sailor (21)  |  Seer (5)  |  Sell (15)  |  Ship (69)  |  Slave (40)  |  Spell (9)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unreal (4)  |  Unruly (4)  |  Warrior (6)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wind Power (10)  |  Wizard (4)

Eventually, we reach … the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial.
In Realm of the Nebulae: The Silliman Memorial Lectures Series (1936), 201-202. The lecture series was delivered at Yale University in Fall 1935. Part of a longer quote on this page that begins: “The explorations of space…”.
Science quotes on:  |  Error (339)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Landmark (9)  |  Limit (294)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Reach (286)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Search (175)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Telescope (106)

Exper. I. I made a small hole in a window-shutter, and covered it with a piece of thick paper, which I perforated with a fine needle. For greater convenience of observation I placed a small looking-glass without the window-shutter, in such a position as to reflect the sun's light, in a direction nearly horizontal, upon the opposite wall, and to cause the cone of diverging light to pass over a table on which were several little screens of card-paper. I brought into the sunbeam a slip of card, about one-thirtieth of an inch in breadth, and observed its shadow, either on the wall or on other cards held at different distances. Besides the fringes of colour on each side of the shadow, the shadow itself was divided by similar parallel fringes, of smaller dimensions, differing in number, according to the distance at which the shadow was observed, but leaving the middle of the shadow always white. Now these fringes were the joint effects of the portions of light passing on each side of the slip of card and inflected, or rather diffracted, into the shadow. For, a little screen being placed a few inches from the card, so as to receive either edge of the shadow on its margin, all the fringes which had before been observed in the shadow on the wall, immediately disappeared, although the light inflected on the other side was allowed to retain its course, and although this light must have undergone any modification that the proximity of the other edge of the slip of card might have been capable of occasioning... Nor was it for want of a sufficient intensity of light that one of the two portions was incapable of producing the fringes alone; for when they were both uninterrupted, the lines appeared, even if the intensity was reduced to one-tenth or one-twentieth.
'Experiments and Calculations Relative to Physical Optics' (read in 1803), Philosophical Transactions (1804), 94, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Alone (324)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Breadth (15)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cone (8)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Course (413)  |  Different (595)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Distance (171)  |  Divided (50)  |  Edge (51)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fringe (7)  |  Glass (94)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hole (17)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Interference (22)  |  Joint (31)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Looking (191)  |  Modification (57)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Portion (86)  |  Receive (117)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Retain (57)  |  Screen (8)  |  Side (236)  |  Small (489)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunbeam (3)  |  Table (105)  |  Two (936)  |  Uninterrupted (7)  |  Wall (71)  |  Want (504)  |  White (132)  |  Window (59)

For terrestrial vertebrates, the climate in the usual meteorological sense of the term would appear to be a reasonable approximation of the conditions of temperature, humidity, radiation, and air movement in which terrestrial vertebrates live. But, in fact, it would be difficult to find any other lay assumption about ecology and natural history which has less general validity. … Most vertebrates are much smaller than man and his domestic animals, and the universe of these small creatures is one of cracks and crevices, holes in logs, dense underbrush, tunnels, and nests—a world where distances are measured in yards rather than miles and where the difference between sunshine and shadow may be the difference between life and death. Actually, climate in the usual sense of the term is little more than a crude index to the physical conditions in which most terrestrial animals live.
From 'Interaction of physiology and behavior under natural conditions', collected in R.I. Bowman (ed.), The Galapagos (1966), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Air (366)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appear (122)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Climate (102)  |  Condition (362)  |  Crack (15)  |  Creature (242)  |  Crude (32)  |  Death (406)  |  Dense (5)  |  Difference (355)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Distance (171)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  General (521)  |  History (716)  |  Hole (17)  |  Humidity (3)  |  Index (5)  |  Less (105)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Log (7)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mile (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nest (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Sense (785)  |  Small (489)  |  Sunshine (12)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Term (357)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Tunnel (13)  |  Underbrush (2)  |  Universe (900)  |  Validity (50)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  World (1850)  |  Yard (10)

From this fountain (the free will of God) it is those laws, which we call the laws of nature, have flowed, in which there appear many traces of the most wise contrivance, but not the least shadow of necessity. These therefore we must not seek from uncertain conjectures, but learn them from observations and experimental. He who is presumptuous enough to think that he can find the true principles of physics and the laws of natural things by the force alone of his own mind, and the internal light of his reason, must either suppose the world exists by necessity, and by the same necessity follows the law proposed; or if the order of Nature was established by the will of God, the [man] himself, a miserable reptile, can tell what was fittest to be done.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Appear (122)  |  Call (781)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Contrivance (12)  |  Enough (341)  |  Establish (63)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fit (139)  |  Flow (89)  |  Follow (389)  |  Force (497)  |  Fountain (18)  |  Free (239)  |  Free Will (15)  |  God (776)  |  Himself (461)  |  Internal (69)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Least (75)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Miserable (8)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Presumptuous (3)  |  Principle (530)  |  Propose (24)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Same (166)  |  Seek (218)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Trace (109)  |  True (239)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wise (143)  |  World (1850)

HIBERNATE, v. i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it has to try twice before it can cast a shadow. 
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  137.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bear (162)  |  Cast (69)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Hibernation (3)  |  Humour (116)  |  Notion (120)  |  Pass (241)  |  Retirement (8)  |  Season (47)  |  Singular (24)  |  Spring (140)  |  Try (296)  |  Various (205)  |  Whole (756)  |  Winter (46)

I am always humbled by the infinite ingenuity of the lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.
In 'A Winter Diary', (Jan 1941), collected in One Man’s Meat (1942, 1982), 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Barn (6)  |  Blue (63)  |  Cast (69)  |  Humble (54)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Lord (97)  |  Red (38)

I fear that the character of my knowledge is from year to year becoming more distinct and scientific; that, in exchange for vistas wide as heaven’s scope, I am being narrowed down to the field of the microscope. I see details, not wholes nor the shadow of the whole. I count some parts, and say, “I know.”
(19 Aug 1851). In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: II: 1850-September 15, 1851 (1906), 406.
Science quotes on:  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Character (259)  |  Count (107)  |  Detail (150)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Fear (212)  |  Field (378)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Microscope (85)  |  More (2558)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Part (235)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Scope (44)  |  See (1094)  |  Vista (12)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wide (97)  |  Year (963)

I have heard articulate speech produced by sunlight I have heard a ray of the sun laugh and cough and sing! … I have been able to hear a shadow, and I have even perceived by ear the passage of a cloud across the sun's disk.
Letter to his father (26 Feb 1880), describing his photophone research. Transcript with Bell Papers, Library of Congress.
Science quotes on:  |  Articulate (8)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Cough (8)  |  Ear (69)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Passage (52)  |  Perceived (4)  |  Produced (187)  |  Ray (115)  |  Sing (29)  |  Speech (66)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunlight (29)

I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it,
Time, in hours, days, years,
Driv’n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world
And all her train were hurl’d.
In 'The World', in Silex Scintillans (1650), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Beneath (68)  |  Bright (81)  |  Calm (32)  |  Day (43)  |  Endless (60)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hour (192)  |  Light (635)  |  Night (133)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pure (299)  |  Ring (18)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Time (1911)  |  Train (118)  |  Vast (188)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

I suppose that I tend to be optimistic about the future of physics. And nothing makes me more optimistic than the discovery of broken symmetries. In the seventh book of the Republic, Plato describes prisoners who are chained in a cave and can see only shadows that things outside cast on the cave wall. When released from the cave at first their eyes hurt, and for a while they think that the shadows they saw in the cave are more real than the objects they now see. But eventually their vision clears, and they can understand how beautiful the real world is. We are in such a cave, imprisoned by the limitations on the sorts of experiments we can do. In particular, we can study matter only at relatively low temperatures, where symmetries are likely to be spontaneously broken, so that nature does not appear very simple or unified. We have not been able to get out of this cave, but by looking long and hard at the shadows on the cave wall, we can at least make out the shapes of symmetries, which though broken, are exact principles governing all phenomena, expressions of the beauty of the world outside.
In Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1989), 'Conceptual Foundations of the Unified Theory of Weak and Electromagnetic Interactions.' Nobel Lectures: Physics 1971-1980 (1992), 556.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Book (413)  |  Broken (56)  |  Cast (69)  |  Cave (17)  |  Describe (132)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Expression (181)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Governing (20)  |  Hard (246)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Long (778)  |  Looking (191)  |  Low (86)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Outside (141)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plato (80)  |  Principle (530)  |  Prisoner (8)  |  Reality (274)  |  Republic (16)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Shape (77)  |  Simple (426)  |  Study (701)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Tend (124)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vision (127)  |  Wall (71)  |  World (1850)

I used to measure the Heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. The mind belonged to Heaven, the body’s shadow lies here.
Epitaph that Kepler wrote for himself, a few months before he died. As translated from the original Latin, “Mensus eram coelos, nunc Terrae metior umbras. Mens coelestis erat, corporis umbra jacet.” In M. Caspar et al. (eds.), Johannes Kepler Gesammelte Werke (1937), 19, 393.
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Body (557)  |  Earth (1076)  |   Epitaph (19)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Himself (461)  |  Lie (370)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mind (1377)

If at this moment I am not a worn-out, debauched, useless carcass of a man, if it has been or will be my fate to advance the cause of science, if I feel that I have a shadow of a claim on the love of those about me, if in the supreme moment when I looked down into my boy’s grave my sorrow was full of submission and without bitterness, it is because these agencies have worked upon me, and not because I have ever cared whether my poor personality shall remain distinct forever from the All from whence it came and whither it goes.
And thus, my dear Kingsley, you will understand what my position is. I may be quite wrong, and in that case I know I shall have to pay the penalty for being wrong. But I can only say with Luther, “Gott helfe mir, ich kann nichts anders [God help me, I cannot do otherwise].”
In Letter (23 Sep 1860) to Charles Kingsley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (1901), 237.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boy (100)  |  Car (75)  |  Carcass (2)  |  Cause (561)  |  Claim (154)  |  Debauched (2)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Fate (76)  |  Feel (371)  |  Forever (111)  |  God (776)  |  Grave (52)  |  Know (1538)  |  Look (584)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moment (260)  |  Personality (66)  |  Poor (139)  |  Remain (355)  |  Say (989)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Understand (648)  |  Whither (11)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)

If God is as real as the shadow of the Great War on Armistice Day, need we seek further reason for making a place for God in our thoughts and lives? We shall not be concerned if the scientific explorer reports that he is perfectly satisfied that he has got to the bottom of things without having come across either.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Concern (239)  |  Explorer (30)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Live (650)  |  Making (300)  |  Reason (766)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seek (218)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  War (233)

If our so-called facts are changing shadows, they are shadows cast by the light of constant truth. So too in religion we are repelled by that confident theological doctrine… but we need not turn aside from the measure of light that comes into our experience showing us a Way through the unseen world.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Cast (69)  |  Confident (25)  |  Constant (148)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Light (635)  |  Measure (241)  |  Religion (369)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unseen (23)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

Wilhelm Röntgen quote: If the hand be held between the discharge-tube and the screen, the darker shadow of the bones is seen wit
If the hand be held between the discharge-tube and the screen, the darker shadow of the bones is seen within the slightly dark shadow-image of the hand itself… For brevity’s sake I shall use the expression “rays”; and to distinguish them from others of this name I shall call them “X-rays”.
From 'On a New Kind of Rays' (1895). In Herbert S. Klickstein, Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen: On a New Kind of Rays, A Bibliographic Study (1966), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Bone (101)  |  Brevity (8)  |  Call (781)  |  Dark (145)  |  Discharge (21)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Expression (181)  |  Hand (149)  |  Image (97)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ray (115)  |  Sake (61)  |  Screen (8)  |  Use (771)  |  X-ray (43)

Imperceptibly a change had been wrought in me until I no longer felt alone in a strange, silent country. I had learned to hear the echoes of a time when every living thing upon this land and even the varied overshadowing skies had its voice, a voice that was attentively heard and devoutly heeded by the ancient people of America. Henceforth, to me the plants, the trees, the clouds and all things had become vocal with human hopes, fears and supplications.
From Preface, Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs (1915), v.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  America (143)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Attentive (15)  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Country (269)  |  Devout (5)  |  Echo (12)  |  Fear (212)  |  Hear (144)  |  Heed (12)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imperceptible (8)  |  Land (131)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Living (492)  |  People (1031)  |  Plant (320)  |  Silent (31)  |  Sky (174)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vocal (2)  |  Voice (54)

In the world of physics we watch a shadowgraph performance of the drama of familiar life. The shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper. It is all symbolic, and as a symbol the physicist leaves it. ... The frank realization that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant of recent advances.
In The Nature of the Physical World (1928, 2005), xiv-xv.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Concern (239)  |  Drama (24)  |  Elbow (3)  |  Flow (89)  |  Ink (11)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Paper (192)  |  Performance (51)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Realization (44)  |  Recent (78)  |  Rest (287)  |  Significant (78)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Table (105)  |  Watch (118)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Remember (189)  |  Simple (426)  |  Stone (168)  |  Thing (1914)

It was astonishing that for some considerable distance around the mould growth the staphococcal colonies were undergoing lysis. What had formerly been a well-grown colony was now a faint shadow of its former self...I was sufficiently interested to pursue the subject.
[Sep 1928, the first observation of penicillin. Lysis is the dissolution or destruction of cells.]
Sarah R. Riedman and Elton T. Gustafson, Portraits of Nobel Laureates in Medicine and Physiology (1964), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Dissolution (11)  |  Distance (171)  |  First (1302)  |  Former (138)  |  Growth (200)  |  Interest (416)  |  Lysis (4)  |  Mold (37)  |  Observation (593)  |  Penicillin (18)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Self (268)  |  Staphylococcus (2)  |  Subject (543)

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Face (214)  |  Keep (104)  |  See (1094)  |  Sunshine (12)

Lice, ticks, mosquitoes and bedbugs will always lurk in the shadows when neglect, poverty, famine or war lets down the defenses.
Rats, Lice and History (1935)
Science quotes on:  |  Defense (26)  |  Disease (340)  |  Down (455)  |  Famine (18)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Tick (9)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)

M. Waldman … concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry…:— “The ancient teachers of this science” said he, “Promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera. But these philosophers seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.”
In Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus (1823), Vol. 1, 73-74. Webmaster note: In the novel, when the fictional characters meet, M. Waldman, professor of chemistry, sparks Victor Frankenstein’s interest in science. Shelley was age 20 when the first edition of the novel was published anonymously (1818).
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Alchemist (23)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Blood (144)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Chimera (10)  |  Command (60)  |  Crucible (8)  |  Dabble (2)  |  Dirt (17)  |  Discover (571)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Elixir (6)  |  Elixir Of Life (2)  |  Eye (440)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Hiding (12)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Master (182)  |  Metal (88)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mimic (2)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Mock (7)  |  Modern (402)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perform (123)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Promise (72)  |  Show (353)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Transmutation (24)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Metaphysical ghosts cannot be killed, because they cannot be touched; but they may be dispelled by dispelling the twilight in which shadows and solidities are easily confounded. The Vital Principle is an entity of this ghostly kind; and although the daylight has dissipated it, and positive Biology is no longer vexed with its visitations, it nevertheless reappears in another shape in the shadowy region of mystery which surrounds biological and all other questions.
The History of Philosophy from Thales to Comte (1867), lxxxiv.
Science quotes on:  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Confound (21)  |  Daylight (23)  |  Dispelling (4)  |  Entity (37)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Kill (100)  |  Kind (564)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Other (2233)  |  Positive (98)  |  Principle (530)  |  Question (649)  |  Touch (146)  |  Vex (10)  |  Vital (89)

Nature will be reported. Everything in nature is engaged in writing its own history; the planet and the pebble are attended by their shadows, the rolling rock leaves its furrows on the mountain-side, the river its channel in the soil; the animal, its bones in the stratum; the fern and leaf, their modest epitaph in the coal.
In The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1847, 1872), Vol. 2, 141.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attend (67)  |  Bone (101)  |  Channel (23)  |  Coal (64)  |   Epitaph (19)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fern (10)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Furrow (5)  |  History (716)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Modest (19)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Planet (402)  |  River (140)  |  Rock (176)  |  Side (236)  |  Soil (98)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Will (2350)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

Nearly every subject has a shadow, or imitation. It would, I suppose, be quite possible to teach a deaf and dumb child to play the piano. When it played a wrong note, it would see the frown of its teacher, and try again. But it would obviously have no idea of what it was doing, or why anyone should devote hours to such an extraordinary exercise. It would have learnt an imitation of music. and it would fear the piano exactly as most students fear what is supposed to be mathematics.
In Mathematician's Delight (1943), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Deaf (4)  |  Devote (45)  |  Doing (277)  |  Dumb (11)  |  Exactly (14)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fear (212)  |  Frown (5)  |  Hour (192)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imitation (24)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Music (133)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Note (39)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Piano (12)  |  Play (116)  |  Possible (560)  |  See (1094)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Try (296)  |  Why (491)  |  Wrong (246)

Never in its life has the sun seen shade,
Never in its life seen a shadow where it falls:
There, always there, in the sun-swept glade,
It lurks below the leaf; behind bodies, under walls,
Creeps, clings, hides. Be it millions, be it one—
The sun sees no shadow, and no shadow sees the sun.
Poem, as quoted in Arthur E. Shipley, Life: A Book for Elementary Students (1925, 2013), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Cling (6)  |  Creep (15)  |  Fall (243)  |  Hide (70)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Million (124)  |  Never (1089)  |  See (1094)  |  Shade (35)  |  Sun (407)  |  Wall (71)

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)  |  Remember (189)  |  Right (473)  |  Rising (44)  |  Rose (36)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  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)

Painting the desert, sun-setting the tone
Starving backstage, morning-stars are jaded
The moonshine murmur still shivers alone
Curved slice of sliver, shear breath shadows stone
Suspending twilight shiny and shaded
Painting the desert, sun-setting the tone
Carving solace into silver in June
On horizons’ glow from forgotten gold
The moonshine’s’ shilling delivers alone
Gleaming duels of knights, pierce deathly silence
Steel tines of starlight, clashing swords they hold
Painting the desert, sun-setting the tone
Dimples aware, sparkle sand on the dune
Winking at comets, after tails are told
The moon-sand whispers, sift rivers alone
Sharpness they hone, filing skills onto stone
Starlight dazzles, its own space created
Painting the desert, sun-setting the tone
From owls’ talon, moonlight shimmers alone
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Aware (36)  |  Breath (61)  |  Carve (5)  |  Clash (10)  |  Comet (65)  |  Create (245)  |  Curve (49)  |  Dazzle (4)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Desert (59)  |  Duel (4)  |  Dune (4)  |  File (6)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Gleam (13)  |  Glow (15)  |  Gold (101)  |  Hold (96)  |  Hone (3)  |  Horizon (47)  |  June (2)  |  Knight (6)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moonlight (5)  |  Moonshine (5)  |  Morning (98)  |  Murmur (4)  |  Owl (3)  |  Painting (46)  |  Pierce (4)  |  River (140)  |  Sand (63)  |  Setting (44)  |  Shade (35)  |  Sharpness (9)  |  Shear (2)  |  Shilling (5)  |  Shiny (3)  |  Shiver (2)  |  Sift (3)  |  Silence (62)  |  Silver (49)  |  Skill (116)  |  Slice (3)  |  Sliver (2)  |  Solace (7)  |  Space (523)  |  Sparkle (8)  |  Star (460)  |  Starlight (5)  |  Stars (304)  |  Starvation (13)  |  Steel (23)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Sun (407)  |  Suspend (11)  |  Sword (16)  |  Tail (21)  |  Talon (2)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tone (22)  |  Twilight (6)  |  Whisper (11)  |  Wink (3)

Physical investigation, more than anything besides, helps to teach us the actual value and right use of the Imagination—of that wondrous faculty, which, left to ramble uncontrolled, leads us astray into a wilderness of perplexities and errors, a land of mists and shadows; but which, properly controlled by experience and reflection, becomes the noblest attribute of man; the source of poetic genius, the instrument of discovery in Science, without the aid of which Newton would never have invented fluxions, nor Davy have decomposed the earths and alkalies, nor would Columbus have found another Continent.
Presidential Address to Anniversary meeting of the Royal Society (30 Nov 1859), Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (1860), 10, 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Aid (101)  |  Alkali (6)  |  America (143)  |  Astray (13)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Become (821)  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Continent (79)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Error (339)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fluxion (7)  |  Genius (301)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Lead (391)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mist (17)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Physical (518)  |  Ramble (3)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Right (473)  |  Teach (299)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Wondrous (22)

Poets need be in no degree jealous of the geologists. The stony science, with buried creations for its domains, and half an eternity charged with its annals, possesses its realms of dim and shadowy fields, in which troops of fancies already walk like disembodied ghosts in the old fields of Elysium, and which bid fair to be quite dark and uncertain enough for all the purposes of poesy for centuries to come.
Lecture Third, collected in Popular Geology: A Series of Lectures Read Before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's Portfolio (1859), 127.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Annal (3)  |  Creation (350)  |  Dark (145)  |  Degree (277)  |  Disembodied (6)  |  Domain (72)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Field (378)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Jealousy (9)  |  Old (499)  |  Poet (97)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Realm (87)  |  Science And Poetry (17)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Walk (138)

Sand is a substance that is beautiful, mysterious, and infinitely variable; each grain on a beach is the result of processes that go back into the shadowy beginnings of life, or of the earth itself.
In The Edge of the Sea (1955), 125.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Beach (23)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beginnings (5)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Go Back (4)  |  Grain (50)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Process (439)  |  Result (700)  |  Sand (63)  |  Substance (253)  |  Variable (37)

Science is a body of truths which offers clear and certain knowledge about the real world and is therefore superior to tradition philosophy religion dogma and superstition which offer shadowy knowledge about an ideal world.
Need primary source (can you help?).
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Clear (111)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Offer (142)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Real World (15)  |  Religion (369)  |  Superior (88)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Truth (1109)  |  World (1850)

Sometime in my early teens, I started feeling an inner urgency, ups and downs of excitement and frustration, caused by such unlikely occupations as reading Granville’s course of calculus ... I found this book in the attic of a friend’s apartment. Among other standard stuff, it contained the notorious epsilon-delta definition of continuous functions. After struggling with this definition for some time (it was the hot Crimean summer, and I was sitting in the shadow of a dusty apple tree), I got so angry that I dug a shallow grave for the book between the roots, buried it there, and left in disdain. Rain started in an hour. I ran back to the tree and exhumed the poor thing. Thus, I discovered that I loved it, regardless.
'Mathematics as Profession and vocation', in V. Arnold et al. (eds.), Mathematics: Frontiers and Perspectives (2000), 153. Reprinted in Mathematics as Metaphor: Selected Essays of Yuri I. Manin (2007), 79.
Science quotes on:  |  Anger (21)  |  Angry (10)  |  Apartment (4)  |  Apple (46)  |  Attic (3)  |  Back (395)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Burial (8)  |  Bury (19)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Cause (561)  |  Contain (68)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Course (413)  |  Definition (238)  |  Dig (25)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disdain (10)  |  Down (455)  |  Dusty (8)  |  Early (196)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Find (1014)  |  Friend (180)  |  Frustration (14)  |  Function (235)  |  Grave (52)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hour (192)  |  Inner (72)  |  Leave (138)  |  Love (328)  |  Notorious (8)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Other (2233)  |  Poor (139)  |  Rain (70)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Regardless (8)  |  Root (121)  |  Run (158)  |  Shallow (8)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Sometime (4)  |  Standard (64)  |  Start (237)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Stuff (24)  |  Summer (56)  |  Teen (2)  |  Teenager (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tree (269)  |  Unlikely (15)  |  Urgency (13)

The exploration of the external world by the methods of physical science leads not to a concrete reality but to a shadow world of symbols, beneath which those methods are unadapted for penetrating.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Beneath (68)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Lead (391)  |  Method (531)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Reality (274)  |  Symbol (100)  |  World (1850)

The explorations of space end on a note of uncertainty. And necessarily so. … We know our immediate neighborhood rather intimately. With increasing distance our knowledge fades, and fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundary—the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.
From conclusion of The Silliman Memorial Lectures Series delivered at Yale University (Fall 1935). Collected in The Realm of the Nebulae: The Silliman Memorial Lectures Series (1936), 201-202.
Science quotes on:  |  Boundary (55)  |  Continue (179)  |  Dim (11)  |  Distance (171)  |  Empirical (58)  |  End (603)  |  Error (339)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Exhaust (22)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Fade (12)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Increase (225)  |  Intimately (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Landmark (9)  |  Limit (294)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Neighborhood (12)  |  Observation (593)  |  Pass (241)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Reach (286)  |  Realm (87)  |  Resource (74)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Search (175)  |  Space (523)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Utmost (12)  |  Will (2350)

The external world of physics has … become a world of shadows. In removing our illusions we have removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions. Later perhaps we may inquire whether in our zeal to cut out all that is unreal we may not have used the knife too ruthlessly. Perhaps, indeed, reality is a child which cannot survive without its nurse illusion. But if so, that is of little concern to the scientist, who has good and sufficient reasons for pursuing his investigations in the world of shadows and is content to leave to the philosopher the determination of its exact status in regard to reality.
In Introduction to The Nature of the Physical World (1928), xiv.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Child (333)  |  Concern (239)  |  Cut (116)  |  Determination (80)  |  Exact (75)  |  External (62)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Knife (24)  |  Little (717)  |  Nurse (33)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regard (312)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Status (35)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Survive (87)  |  Unreal (4)  |  World (1850)  |  Zeal (12)

The history of the cosmos
is the history of the struggle of becoming.
When the dim flux of unformed life
struggled, convulsed back and forth upon itself,
and broke at last into light and dark
came into existence as light,
came into existence as cold shadow
then every atom of the cosmos trembled with delight.
God is Born', David Herbert Lawrence, The Works of D.H. Lawrence (1994), 571.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Back (395)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Cold (115)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Dark (145)  |  Delight (111)  |  Existence (481)  |  Flux (21)  |  God (776)  |  History (716)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Poem (104)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Universe (900)

The man in the street will, therefore, twist the statement that the scientist has come to the end of meaning into the statement that the scientist has penetrated as far as he can with the tools at his command, and that there is something beyond the ken of the scientist. This imagined beyond, which the scientist has proved he cannot penetrate, will become the playground of the imagination of every mystic and dreamer. The existence of such a domain will be made the basis of an orgy of rationalizing. It will be made the substance of the soul; the spirits of the dead will populate it; God will lurk in its shadows; the principle of vital processes will have its seat here; and it will be the medium of telepathic communication. One group will find in the failure of the physical law of cause and effect the solution of the age-long problem of the freedom of the will; and on the other hand the atheist will find the justification of his contention that chance rules the universe.
Reflections of a Physicist (1950),102-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Atheist (16)  |  Basis (180)  |  Become (821)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cause And Effect (21)  |  Chance (244)  |  Command (60)  |  Communication (101)  |  Contention (14)  |  Domain (72)  |  Dreamer (14)  |  Effect (414)  |  End (603)  |  Existence (481)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Freedom (145)  |  God (776)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Justification (52)  |  Law (913)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mystic (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Law (15)  |  Playground (6)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Solution (282)  |  Something (718)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Statement (148)  |  Substance (253)  |  Tool (129)  |  Twist (10)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Vital (89)  |  Will (2350)

The Mathematics, I say, which effectually exercises, not vainly deludes or vexatiously torments studious Minds with obscure Subtilties, perplexed Difficulties, or contentious Disquisitions; which overcomes without Opposition, triumphs without Pomp, compels without Force, and rules absolutely without Loss of Liberty; which does not privately over-reach a weak Faith, but openly assaults an armed Reason, obtains a total Victory, and puts on inevitable Chains; whose Words are so many Oracles, and Works as many Miracles; which blabs out nothing rashly, nor designs anything from the Purpose, but plainly demonstrates and readily performs all Things within its Verge; which obtrudes no false Shadow of Science, but the very Science itself, the Mind firmly adhering to it, as soon as possessed of it, and can never after desert it of its own Accord, or be deprived of it by any Force of others: Lastly the Mathematics, which depends upon Principles clear to the Mind, and agreeable to Experience; which draws certain Conclusions, instructs by profitable Rules, unfolds pleasant Questions; and produces wonderful Effects; which is the fruitful Parent of, I had almost said all, Arts, the unshaken Foundation of Sciences, and the plentiful Fountain of Advantage to human Affairs.
Address to the University of Cambridge upon being elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics (14 Mar 1664). In Mathematical Lectures (1734), xxviii.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Agreeable (20)  |  Arm (82)  |  Art (680)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chain (51)  |  Compel (31)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Delude (3)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Depend (238)  |  Desert (59)  |  Design (203)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Draw (140)  |  Effect (414)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Experience (494)  |  Faith (209)  |  False (105)  |  Force (497)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fountain (18)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Liberty (29)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Oracle (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Parent (80)  |  Perform (123)  |  Pomp (2)  |  Possess (157)  |  Principle (530)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Rashly (2)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Soon (187)  |  Studious (5)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Torment (18)  |  Total (95)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Verge (10)  |  Victory (40)  |  Weak (73)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.
Adonais (1821), St. 52. In K. Raine (ed.), Shelley (1974), 209.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Color (155)  |  Death (406)  |  Dome (9)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Fly (153)  |  Forever (111)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Glass (94)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Pass (241)  |  Radiance (7)  |  Remain (355)  |  Shine (49)  |  Stain (10)  |  Trample (3)  |  White (132)

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)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Rome (19)  |  Scholar (52)  |  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 view of the moon that we’ve been having recently is really spectacular. It fills about three-quarters of the hatch window, and of course we can see the entire circumference even though part of it is in complete shadow and part of it is in earthshine. It’s a view worth the price of the trip.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Circumference (23)  |  Complete (209)  |  Course (413)  |  Entire (50)  |  Fill (67)  |  Hatch (4)  |  Moon (252)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Part (235)  |  Price (57)  |  Really (77)  |  Recently (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Spectacular (22)  |  Three-Quarters (3)  |  Trip (11)  |  View (496)  |  Window (59)  |  Worth (172)

The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.
'Space And Time', a translation of an address delivered at the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians, at Cologne, 21 Sep 1908. In H.A. Lorentz, H. Weyl, H. Minkowski, et al., The Principle of Relativity: A Collection of Original Memoirs on the Special and General Theory of Relativity (1952), 74. Also seen translated as, “From henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, have vanished into the merest shadows and only a kind of blend of the two exists in its own right.”
Science quotes on:  |  Doom (34)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lie (370)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Radical (28)  |  Reality (274)  |  Soil (98)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Space-Time (20)  |  Strength (139)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Union (52)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.
Opening narration of the first season episodes of CBS TV Series, The Twilight Zone (1959). Collected in Vincent Terrace, Television Introductions: Narrated TV Program Openings since 1949 (2013), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Dimension (64)  |  Fear (212)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  Science Fiction (35)  |  Superstition (70)

There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O earth, what changes hast thou seen!
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850), canto 123. Collected in Alfred Tennyson and William James Rolfe (ed.) The Poetic and Dramatic works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1898), 194.
Science quotes on:  |  Central (81)  |  Change (639)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Deep (241)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Flow (89)  |  Form (976)  |  Hill (23)  |  Land (131)  |  Long (778)  |  Melting (6)  |  Mist (17)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Roar (6)  |  Roll (41)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Shape (77)  |  Solid (119)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stillness (5)  |  Street (25)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Tree (269)

Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,
Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine
In even monochrome and curving line Of imperturbable serenity.
How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry
With the torn troubled form I know as thine,
That profile, placid as a brow divine,
With continents of moil and misery?
'At a Lunar Eclipse'. In James Gibson (ed.), The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy (1976), 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Cast (69)  |  Central (81)  |  Continent (79)  |  Divine (112)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Form (976)  |  Know (1538)  |  Misery (31)  |  Moon (252)  |  Pole (49)  |  Sea (326)  |  Serenity (11)  |  Sun (407)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Torn (17)

Tonight, the moon came out, it was nearly full.
Way down here on earth, I could feel it’s pull.
The weight of gravity or just the lure of life,
Made me want to leave my only home tonight.
I’m just wondering how we know where we belong
Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn
In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn
Singing in between here and gone
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Arc (14)  |  Belong (168)  |  Bird (163)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Feel (371)  |  Firefly (8)  |  Full (68)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Home (184)  |  In Between (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lawn (5)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lure (9)  |  Moon (252)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Path (159)  |  Pull (43)  |  Sing (29)  |  Singing (19)  |  Single (365)  |  Tonight (9)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)  |  Wonder (251)

Tragically isolated, imprisoned in his own “self,” man has made a desperate effort to “leap beyond his shadow,” to embrace the external world. From this effort was born science….
In Einstein and the Universe; A Popular Exposition of the Famous Theory (1922), 239.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Born (37)  |  Desperate (5)  |  Effort (243)  |  Embrace (47)  |  External (62)  |  Imprison (11)  |  Isolated (15)  |  Leap (57)  |  Man (2252)  |  Self (268)  |  Tragic (19)  |  World (1850)

True rigor is productive, being distinguished in this from another rigor which is purely formal and tiresome, casting a shadow over the problems it touches.
From address to the section of Algebra and Analysis, International Congress of Arts and Sciences, St. Louis (22 Sep 1904), 'On the Development of Mathematical Analysis and its Relation to Certain Other Sciences,' as translated by M.W. Haskell in Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (May 1905), 11, 417.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Casting (10)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Formal (37)  |  Problem (731)  |  Productive (37)  |  Purely (111)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Tiresome (2)  |  Touch (146)  |  True (239)

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
'The Present Crisis', The poetical works of James R. Lowell (1858), 161.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Forever (111)  |  Future (467)  |  God (776)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Watch (118)  |  Wrong (246)

Very great charm of shadow and light is to be found in the faces of those who sit in the doors of dark houses. The eye of the spectator sees that part of the face which is in shadow lost in the darkness of the house, and that part of the face which is lit draws its brilliancy from the splendor of the sky. From this intensification of light and shade the face gains greatly in relief and beauty by showing the subtlest shadows in the light part and the subtlest lights in the dark part.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Brilliancy (3)  |  Charm (54)  |  Dark (145)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Door (94)  |  Draw (140)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gain (146)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatly (12)  |  House (143)  |  Intensification (2)  |  Light (635)  |  Lose (165)  |  Part (235)  |  Relief (30)  |  See (1094)  |  Shade (35)  |  Show (353)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sky (174)  |  Spectator (11)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Subtl (2)

We are told that “Mathematics is that study which knows nothing of observation, nothing of experiment, nothing of induction, nothing of causation.” I think no statement could have been made more opposite to the facts of the case; that mathematical analysis is constantly invoking the aid of new principles, new ideas, and new methods, not capable of being defined by any form of words, but springing direct from the inherent powers and activities of the human mind, and from continually renewed introspection of that inner world of thought of which the phenomena are as varied and require as close attention to discern as those of the outer physical world (to which the inner one in each individual man may, I think, be conceived to stand somewhat in the same relation of correspondence as a shadow to the object from which it is projected, or as the hollow palm of one hand to the closed fist which it grasps of the other), that it is unceasingly calling forth the faculties of observation and comparison, that one of its principal weapons is induction, that it has frequent recourse to experimental trial and verification, and that it affords a boundless scope for the exercise of the highest efforts of the imagination and invention.
In Presidential Address to British Association, Exeter British Association Report (1869), pp. 1-9, in Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2, 654.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Afford (19)  |  Aid (101)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Attention (196)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Call (781)  |  Capable (174)  |  Case (102)  |  Causation (14)  |  Close (77)  |  Closed (38)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Continually (17)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Define (53)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discern (35)  |  Effort (243)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fist (3)  |  Form (976)  |  Forth (14)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Hand (149)  |  High (370)  |  Hollow (6)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Individual (420)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Inner (72)  |  Introspection (6)  |  Invention (400)  |  Invoke (7)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  New (1273)  |  New Ideas (17)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outer (13)  |  Palm (5)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Power (771)  |  Principal (69)  |  Principle (530)  |  Project (77)  |  Recourse (12)  |  Relation (166)  |  Renew (20)  |  Require (229)  |  Same (166)  |  Scope (44)  |  Spring (140)  |  Stand (284)  |  Statement (148)  |  Study (701)  |  Tell (344)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trial (59)  |  Unceasingly (2)  |  Vary (27)  |  Verification (32)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

We entered into shadow. Contact with Moscow was gone. Japan floated by beneath us and I could clearly see its cities ablaze with lights. We left Japan behind to face the dark emptiness of the Pacific Ocean. No moon. Only stars, bright and far away. I gripped the handle like a man hanging onto a streetcar. Very slowly, agonizingly, half an hour passed, and with that, dawn on Earth. First, a slim greenish-blue line on the farthest horizon turning within a couple of minutes into a rainbow that hugged the Earth and in turn exploded into a golden sun. You’re out of your mind, I told myself, hanging onto a ship in space, and to your life, and getting ready to admire a sunrise.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admire (19)  |  Behind (139)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Bright (81)  |  City (87)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Contact (66)  |  Couple (9)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emptiness (13)  |  Enter (145)  |  Explode (15)  |  Exploded (11)  |  Face (214)  |  Far (158)  |  First (1302)  |  Float (31)  |  Golden (47)  |  Grip (10)  |  Half (63)  |  Handle (29)  |  Hang (46)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hug (3)  |  Japan (9)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Line (100)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moscow (5)  |  Myself (211)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pacific Ocean (5)  |  Pass (241)  |  Rainbow (17)  |  Ready (43)  |  See (1094)  |  Ship (69)  |  Slim (2)  |  Slowly (19)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Streetcar (2)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunrise (14)  |  Tell (344)  |  Turn (454)

What beauty. I saw clouds and their light shadows on the distant dear earth…. The water looked like darkish, slightly gleaming spots…. When I watched the horizon, I saw the abrupt, contrasting transition from the earth’s light-colored surface to the absolutely black sky. I enjoyed the rich color spectrum of the earth. It is surrounded by a light blue aureole that gradually darkens, becomes turquoise, dark blue, violet, and finally coal black.
Describing his view while making the first manned orbit of the earth (12 Apr 1961). As quoted in Don Knefel, Writing and Life: A Rhetoric for Nonfiction with Readings (1986), 93. Front Cover
Science quotes on:  |  Abrupt (6)  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Become (821)  |  Black (46)  |  Blue (63)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Coal (64)  |  Color (155)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Dark (145)  |  Distant (33)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Gleam (13)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  Rich (66)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sky (174)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Spot (19)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surround (33)  |  Transition (28)  |  Violet (11)  |  Watch (118)  |  Water (503)

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Breath (61)  |  Buffalo (7)  |  Firefly (8)  |  Flash (49)  |  Grass (49)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Lose (165)  |  Night (133)  |  Run (158)  |  Sunset (27)

When the sun is covered by clouds, objects are less conspicuous, because there is little difference between the light and shade of the trees and the buildings being illuminated by the brightness of the atmosphere which surrounds the objects in such a way that the shadows are few, and these few fade away so that their outline is lost in haze.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Building (158)  |  Buildings (5)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Conspicuous (13)  |  Cover (40)  |  Difference (355)  |  Fade (12)  |  Haze (3)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Less (105)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Lose (165)  |  Object (438)  |  Outline (13)  |  Shade (35)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surround (33)  |  Tree (269)  |  Way (1214)

You see but your shadow when you turn your back to the sun.
In Kahlil Gibran: The Collected Works (2007), 188.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  See (1094)  |  Sun (407)  |  Turn (454)

You see layers as you look down. You see clouds towering up. You see their shadows on the sunlit plains, and you see a ship’s wake in the Indian Ocean and brush fires in Africa and a lightning storm walking its way across Australia. You see the reds and the pinks of the Australian desert, and it’s just like a stereoscopic view of all nature, except you’re a hundred ninety miles up.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Africa (38)  |  Australia (11)  |  Australian (2)  |  Brush (5)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Desert (59)  |  Down (455)  |  Fire (203)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Indian (32)  |  Layer (41)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Look (584)  |  Look Down (3)  |  Mile (43)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ninety (2)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pink (4)  |  Plain (34)  |  Red (38)  |  See (1094)  |  Ship (69)  |  Storm (56)  |  Sunlit (2)  |  Tower (45)  |  Towering (11)  |  View (496)  |  Wake (17)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)


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.