TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Dangerous... to take shelter under a tree, during a thunder-gust. It has been fatal to many, both men and beasts.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index S > Category: Style

Style Quotes (24 quotes)

[In the Royal Society, there] has been, a constant Resolution, to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style: to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when men deliver'd so many things, almost in an equal number of words. They have exacted from all their members, a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions; clear senses; a native easiness: bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness, as they can: and preferring the language of Artizans, Countrymen, and Merchants, before that, of Wits, or Scholars.
The History of the Royal Society (1667), 113.
Science quotes on:  |  Amplification (3)  |  Back (395)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Constant (148)  |  Countryman (4)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Digression (3)  |  Easiness (4)  |  Expression (181)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Member (42)  |  Merchant (7)  |  Native (41)  |  Natural (810)  |  Number (710)  |  Plainness (2)  |  Positive (98)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Purity (15)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Return (133)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Sense (785)  |  Society (350)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Swelling (5)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wit (61)  |  Word (650)

How have people come to be taken in by The Phenomenon of Man? Just as compulsory primary education created a market catered for by cheap dailies and weeklies, so the spread of secondary and latterly of tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought … [The Phenomenon of Man] is written in an all but totally unintelligible style, and this is construed as prima-facie evidence of profundity.
Medawar’s book review of The Phenomenon of Man by Teilhard de Chardin first appeared as 'Critical Notice' in the journal Mind (1961), 70, No. 277, 105. The book review was reprinted in The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and Originality in Science (1967).
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Cheap (13)  |  Compulsory (8)  |  Construed (2)  |  Created (6)  |  Daily (91)  |  Develop (278)  |  Developed (11)  |  Educated (12)  |  Education (423)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Large (398)  |  Literary (15)  |  Man (2252)  |  Market (23)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Population (115)  |  Prima Facie (2)  |  Primary (82)  |  Profundity (6)  |  Scholarly (2)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Spread (86)  |  Taste (93)  |  Tertiary (4)  |  Thought (995)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Written (6)

If Watson and I had not discovered the [DNA] structure, instead of being revealed with a flourish it would have trickled out and that its impact would have been far less. For this sort of reason Stent had argued that a scientific discovery is more akin to a work of art than is generally admitted. Style, he argues, is as important as content. I am not completely convinced by this argument, at least in this case.
What Mad Pursuit (1990), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Art (680)  |  Being (1276)  |  Completely (137)  |  Content (75)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  DNA (81)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Impact (45)  |  Importance (299)  |  More (2558)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Scientific (955)  |   Gunther Siegmund Stent (3)  |  Structure (365)  |  Structure Of DNA (5)  |  James Watson (33)  |  Work (1402)

In order to give my talk some local color, I wanted to imitate Schopenhauer’s style in my very title. His style distinguishes itself especially by the mode of expression associated in the past with fishwives but which today would be called “parliamentary.”
From Lecture (21 Jan 1905) given to Vienna Philosophical Society, 'On a Thesis of Schopenhauer’s', as translated in John Blackmore (ed.), Ludwig Boltzmann: His Later Life and Philosophy, 1900-1906 (1995), 143.
Science quotes on:  |  Expression (181)  |  Arthur Schopenhauer (19)

In our preoccupations with sex, our submission to gods and leaders, our sometimes suicidal commitment to ideas, religions, and trivial details of cultural style, we become the unconscious creators of the social organism’s exploits.
In 'The Clint Eastwood Conundrum', The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History (1997), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Creator (97)  |  Cultural (26)  |  Detail (150)  |  Exploit (19)  |  God (776)  |  Idea (881)  |  Leader (51)  |  Organism (231)  |  Preoccupation (7)  |  Religion (369)  |  Sex (68)  |  Social (261)  |  Submission (4)  |  Suicide (23)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Unconscious (24)

It is a serious question whether America, following England’s lead, has not gone into problem-solving too extensively. Certain it is that we are producing no text-books in which the theory is presented in the delightful style which characterizes many of the French works … , or those of the recent Italian school, or, indeed, those of the continental writers in general.
In The Teaching of Elementary Mathematics (1902), 219.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Book (413)  |  Certain (557)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Continental (2)  |  Delightful (18)  |  England (43)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Follow (389)  |  French (21)  |  General (521)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Italian (13)  |  Lead (391)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Problem-Solving (3)  |  Produce (117)  |  Question (649)  |  Recent (78)  |  School (227)  |  Serious (98)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

Mathematical rigor is like clothing; in its style it ought to suit the occasion, and it diminishes comfort and restrains freedom of movement if it is either too loose or too tight.
In Differential Equations: With Applications and Historical Notes (1972), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Clothing (11)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Diminish (17)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Loose (14)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Movement (162)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Restrain (6)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Suit (12)  |  Tight (4)

Natural historians tend to avoid tendentious preaching in this philosophical mode (although I often fall victim to such temptations in these essays). Our favored style of doubting is empirical: if I wish to question your proposed generality, I will search for a counterexample in flesh and blood. Such counterexamples exist in abundance, for the form a staple in a standard genre of writing in natural history–the “wonderment of oddity” or “strange ways of the beaver” tradition.
In 'Reversing Established Orders', Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (2011), 394.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Beaver (8)  |  Blood (144)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Essay (27)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fall (243)  |  Favor (69)  |  Flesh (28)  |  Form (976)  |  Generality (45)  |  Genre (3)  |  Historian (59)  |  History (716)  |  Mode (43)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Historian (2)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Oddity (4)  |  Often (109)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Preach (11)  |  Propose (24)  |  Question (649)  |  Search (175)  |  Standard (64)  |  Staple (3)  |  Strange (160)  |  Temptation (14)  |  Tend (124)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Victim (37)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Wonderment (2)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

Plants do it with style.
Anonymous
Note: the style of a flower is a tube that connects the pollen on the stigma to the ovary and enables reproduction.
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Plant (320)

Science demands great linguistic austerity and discipline, and the canons of good style in scientific writing are different from those in other kinds of literature.
In Biology and Language: An Introduction to the Methodology of the (1952), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Austerity (3)  |  Canon (3)  |  Demand (131)  |  Different (595)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Kind (564)  |  Linguistic (3)  |  Literature (116)  |  Other (2233)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

Scientists are not robotic inducing machines that infer structures of explanation only from regularities observed in natural phenomena (assuming, as I doubt, that such a style of reasoning could ever achieve success in principle). Scientists are human beings, immersed in culture, and struggling with all the curious tools of inference that mind permits ... Culture can potentiate as well as constrain–as Darwin’s translation of Adam Smith’s laissez-faire economic models into biology as the theory of natural selection. In any case, objective minds do not exist outside culture, so we must make the best of our ineluctable embedding.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Assume (43)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Biology (232)  |  Case (102)  |  Constrain (11)  |  Culture (157)  |  Curious (95)  |  Darwins (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Economic (84)  |  Embed (7)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Immerse (6)  |  Induce (24)  |  Infer (12)  |  Inference (45)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Model (106)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Objective (96)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Outside (141)  |  Permit (61)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Potentiate (2)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Selection (130)  |  Structure (365)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Success (327)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tool (129)  |  Translation (21)

Strategy is a style of thinking, a conscious and deliberate process, an intensive implementation system, the science of insuring future success.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Conscious (46)  |  Deliberate (19)  |  Future (467)  |  Insure (4)  |  Intensive (9)  |  Process (439)  |  Strategy (13)  |  Success (327)  |  System (545)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)

The effects of general change in literature are most tellingly recorded not in alteration of the best products, but in the transformation of the most ordinary workaday books; for when potboilers adopt the new style, then the revolution is complete.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adopt (22)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Best (467)  |  Book (413)  |  Change (639)  |  Complete (209)  |  Effect (414)  |  General (521)  |  Literature (116)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Product (166)  |  Record (161)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Transformation (72)

The great masters of modern analysis are Lagrange, Laplace, and Gauss, who were contemporaries. It is interesting to note the marked contrast in their styles. Lagrange is perfect both in form and matter, he is careful to explain his procedure, and though his arguments are general they are easy to follow. Laplace on the other hand explains nothing, is indifferent to style, and, if satisfied that his results are correct, is content to leave them either with no proof or with a faulty one. Gauss is as exact and elegant as Lagrange, but even more difficult to follow than Laplace, for he removes every trace of the analysis by which he reached his results, and studies to give a proof which while rigorous shall be as concise and synthetical as possible.
In History of Mathematics (3rd Ed., 1901), 468.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Anecdote (21)  |  Argument (145)  |  Both (496)  |  Concise (9)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Content (75)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Correct (95)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Easy (213)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Exact (75)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Faulty (3)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Leave (138)  |  Marked (55)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Possible (560)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Remove (50)  |  Result (700)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Trace (109)

The mathematic, then, is an art. As such it has its styles and style periods. It is not, as the layman and the philosopher (who is in this matter a layman too) imagine, substantially unalterable, but subject like every art to unnoticed changes form epoch to epoch. The development of the great arts ought never to be treated without an (assuredly not unprofitable) side-glance at contemporary mathematics.
In Oswald Spengler and Charles Francis Atkinson (trans.), The Decline of the West (1926), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Assured (4)  |  Change (639)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Development (441)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Form (976)  |  Glance (36)  |  Great (1610)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Layman (21)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics And Art (8)  |  Matter (821)  |  Never (1089)  |  Notice (81)  |  Period (200)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Side (236)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Treat (38)  |  Unalterable (7)  |  Unprofitable (7)

The sense for style … is an aesthetic sense, based on admiration for the direct attainment of a foreseen end, simply and without waste. Style in art, style in literature, style in science, style in logic, style in practical execution have fundamentally the same aesthetic qualities, namely, attainment and restraint. The love of a subject in itself and for itself, where it is not the sleepy pleasure of pacing a mental quarter-deck, is the love of style as manifested in that study. Here we are brought back to the position from which we started, the utility of education. Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most useful. It pervades the whole being. The administrator with a sense for style hates waste; the engineer with a sense for style economises his material; the artisan with a sense for style prefers good work. Style is the ultimate morality of the mind.
In 'The Aims of Education', The Aims of Education and Other Essays (1929), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Administrator (11)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Art (680)  |  Artisan (9)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Direct (228)  |  Economy (59)  |  Education (423)  |  End (603)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Execution (25)  |  Good (906)  |  Hate (68)  |  Last (425)  |  Literature (116)  |  Logic (311)  |  Love (328)  |  Material (366)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Morality (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Practical (225)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Sense (785)  |  Start (237)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Useful (260)  |  Utility (52)  |  Waste (109)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

There are many different styles of composition. I characterize them always as Mozart versus Beethoven. When Mozart began to write at that time he had the composition ready in his mind. He wrote the manuscript and it was ‘aus einem Guss’ (casted as one). And it was also written very beautiful. Beethoven was an indecisive and a tinkerer and wrote down before he had the composition ready and plastered parts over to change them. There was a certain place where he plastered over nine times and one did remove that carefully to see what happened and it turned out the last version was the same as the first one.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beethoven (14)  |  Begin (275)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Cast (69)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Composition (86)  |  Different (595)  |  Down (455)  |  First (1302)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Last (425)  |  Manuscript (10)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mozart (3)  |  Part (235)  |  Place (192)  |  Plaster (5)  |  Ready (43)  |  Remove (50)  |  Same (166)  |  See (1094)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turned Out (5)  |  Version (7)  |  Write (250)

There was, I think, a feeling that the best science was that done in the simplest way. In experimental work, as in mathematics, there was “style” and a result obtained with simple equipment was more elegant than one obtained with complicated apparatus, just as a mathematical proof derived neatly was better than one involving laborious calculations. Rutherford's first disintegration experiment, and Chadwick's discovery of the neutron had a “style” that is different from that of experiments made with giant accelerators.
From 'Physics in a University Laboratory Before and After World War II', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, (1975), 342, 463. As cited in Alan McComas, Galvani's Spark: The Story of the Nerve Impulse (2011), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Accelerator (11)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Sir James Chadwick (9)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Different (595)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disintegration (8)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Feeling (259)  |  First (1302)  |  Giant (73)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Neatness (6)  |  Neutron (23)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Obtaining (5)  |  Proof (304)  |  Result (700)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Think (1122)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

Two extreme views have always been held as to the use of mathematics. To some, mathematics is only measuring and calculating instruments, and their interest ceases as soon as discussions arise which cannot benefit those who use the instruments for the purposes of application in mechanics, astronomy, physics, statistics, and other sciences. At the other extreme we have those who are animated exclusively by the love of pure science. To them pure mathematics, with the theory of numbers at the head, is the only real and genuine science, and the applications have only an interest in so far as they contain or suggest problems in pure mathematics.
Of the two greatest mathematicians of modern tunes, Newton and Gauss, the former can be considered as a representative of the first, the latter of the second class; neither of them was exclusively so, and Newton’s inventions in the science of pure mathematics were probably equal to Gauss’s work in applied mathematics. Newton’s reluctance to publish the method of fluxions invented and used by him may perhaps be attributed to the fact that he was not satisfied with the logical foundations of the Calculus; and Gauss is known to have abandoned his electro-dynamic speculations, as he could not find a satisfying physical basis. …
Newton’s greatest work, the Principia, laid the foundation of mathematical physics; Gauss’s greatest work, the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, that of higher arithmetic as distinguished from algebra. Both works, written in the synthetic style of the ancients, are difficult, if not deterrent, in their form, neither of them leading the reader by easy steps to the results. It took twenty or more years before either of these works received due recognition; neither found favour at once before that great tribunal of mathematical thought, the Paris Academy of Sciences. …
The country of Newton is still pre-eminent for its culture of mathematical physics, that of Gauss for the most abstract work in mathematics.
In History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1903), 630.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Academy (37)  |  Academy Of Sciences (4)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Animated (5)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Mathematics (15)  |  Arise (162)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Basis (180)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Both (496)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Cease (81)  |  Class (168)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contain (68)  |  Country (269)  |  Culture (157)  |  Deterrent (3)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Due (143)  |  Easy (213)  |  Equal (88)  |  Exclusively (10)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Far (158)  |  Favor (69)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Fluxion (7)  |  Fluxions (2)  |  Form (976)  |  Former (138)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Head (87)  |  High (370)  |  Hold (96)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Interest (416)  |  Invent (57)  |  Invention (400)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Laid (7)  |  Latter (21)  |  Lead (391)  |  Logical (57)  |  Love (328)  |  Mathematical Physics (12)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paris (11)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Preeminent (6)  |  Principia (14)  |  Probably (50)  |  Problem (731)  |  Publish (42)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reader (42)  |  Real (159)  |  Receive (117)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Reluctance (6)  |  Representative (14)  |  Result (700)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Second (66)  |  Snake (29)  |  Soon (187)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Step (234)  |  Still (614)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Numbers (7)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tribunal (2)  |  Tune (20)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  View (496)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)  |  Year (963)

Until I became a published writer, I remained completely ignorant of books on how to write and courses on the subject ... they would have spoiled my natural style; made me observe caution; would have hedged me with rules.
In Isaac Asimov and Janet Asimov (ed.), It's Been a Good Life (2002), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Caution (24)  |  Completely (137)  |  Course (413)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Natural (810)  |  Observe (179)  |  Publication (102)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rule (307)  |  Spoil (8)  |  Subject (543)  |  Write (250)  |  Writer (90)

Very little comes easily to our poor, benighted species (the first creature, after all, to experiment with the novel evolutionary inventions of self-conscious philosophy and art). Even the most ‘obvious,’ ‘accurate,’ and ‘natural’ style of thinking or drawing must be regulated by history and won by struggle. Solutions must therefore arise within a social context and record the complex interactions of mind and environment that define the possibility of human improvement.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Arise (162)  |  Art (680)  |  Benighted (2)  |  Complex (202)  |  Context (31)  |  Creature (242)  |  Define (53)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Easily (36)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Invention (400)  |  Little (717)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Novel (35)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Poor (139)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Record (161)  |  Regulate (11)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Conscious (3)  |  Social (261)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Species (435)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Win (53)

We do not inhabit a perfected world where natural selection ruthlessly scrutinizes all organic structures and then molds them for optimal utility. Organisms inherit a body form and a style of embryonic development; these impose constraint s upon future change and adaptation. In many cases, evolutionary pathways reflect inherited patterns more than current environmental demands. These inheritances constrain, but they also provide opportunity. A potentially minor genetic change ... entails a host of complex, nonadaptive consequences ... What ‘play’ would evolution have if each structure were built for a restricted purpose and could be used for nothing else? How could humans learn to write if our brain had not evolved for hunting, social cohesion, or whatever, and could not transcend the adaptive boundaries of its original purpose?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Adaptive (3)  |  Body (557)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Brain (281)  |  Build (211)  |  Case (102)  |  Change (639)  |  Cohesion (7)  |  Complex (202)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Constrain (11)  |  Constraint (13)  |  Current (122)  |  Demand (131)  |  Development (441)  |  Do (1905)  |  Embryonic (6)  |  Entail (4)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Host (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Hunting (23)  |  Impose (22)  |  Inhabit (18)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Inherited (21)  |  Learn (672)  |  Minor (12)  |  Mold (37)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Optimal (4)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organism (231)  |  Original (61)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Play (116)  |  Provide (79)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Restrict (13)  |  Scrutinize (7)  |  Selection (130)  |  Social (261)  |  Structure (365)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Utility (52)  |  Whatever (234)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)

When Cayley had reached his most advanced generalizations he proceeded to establish them directly by some method or other, though he seldom gave the clue by which they had first been obtained: a proceeding which does not tend to make his papers easy reading. …
His literary style is direct, simple and clear. His legal training had an influence, not merely upon his mode of arrangement but also upon his expression; the result is that his papers are severe and present a curious contrast to the luxuriant enthusiasm which pervades so many of Sylvester’s papers. He used to prepare his work for publication as soon as he carried his investigations in any subject far enough for his immediate purpose. … A paper once written out was promptly sent for publication; this practice he maintained throughout life. … The consequence is that he has left few arrears of unfinished or unpublished papers; his work has been given by himself to the world.
In Proceedings of London Royal Society (1895), 58, 23-24.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Arrears (2)  |  Carry (130)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Clear (111)  |  Clue (20)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Curious (95)  |  Direct (228)  |  Directly (25)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Establish (63)  |  Expression (181)  |  Far (158)  |  First (1302)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Give (208)  |  Himself (461)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Influence (231)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Leave (138)  |  Legal (9)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literary (15)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Mode (43)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pervade (10)  |  Practice (212)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Present (630)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Prompt (14)  |  Publication (102)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reach (286)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Result (700)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Send (23)  |  Severe (17)  |  Simple (426)  |  Soon (187)  |  Subject (543)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Tend (124)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Training (92)  |  Unfinished (4)  |  Unpublished (2)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)

When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man.
In Pensées (1670), Section 7, No. 28. As translated in Blaise Pascal and W.F. Trotter (trans.), 'Thoughts', No. 29, collected in Charles W. Eliot (ed.), The Harvard Classics (1910), Vol. 48, 16. Translated as “When we encounter a natural style we are always surprised and delighted, for we thought to see an author and found a man,” in W.H. Auden and L. Kronenberger (eds.) The Viking Book of Aphorisms (1966), 277. From the original French, “Quand on voit le style naturel, on est tout étonné et ravi, car on s’attendait de voir un auteur, et on trouve un homme,” in Ernest Havet (ed.), Pensées de Pascal (1892), 222.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonish (39)  |  Author (175)  |  Delight (111)  |  Encounter (23)  |  Expect (203)  |  Find (1014)  |  Man (2252)  |  Natural (810)  |  See (1094)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Thought (995)


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.