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: “A change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed and takes place along the straight line in which that force is impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index T > Category: Tread

Tread Quotes (17 quotes)

[William Gull] endeavoured, above all things, to study the natural history of disease, uncomplicated by the action of unnecessary drugs, and he resented all useless interference with the course of nature. He would say of meddlesome poly-pharmacy—“Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.”
Stated in Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), xxv-xxvi.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Angel (47)  |  Course (413)  |  Disease (340)  |  Drug (61)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fool (121)  |  Sir William Withey Gull (39)  |  History (716)  |  Interference (22)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pharmacy (4)  |  Rush (18)  |  Say (989)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unnecessary (23)

For forty-nine months between 1968 and 1972, two dozen Americans had the great good fortune to briefly visit the Moon. Half of us became the first emissaries from Earth to tread its dusty surface. We who did so were privileged to represent the hopes and dreams of all humanity. For mankind it was a giant leap for a species that evolved from the Stone Age to create sophisticated rockets and spacecraft that made a Moon landing possible. For one crowning moment, we were creatures of the cosmic ocean, an epoch that a thousand years hence may be seen as the signature of our century.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  American (56)  |  Become (821)  |  Briefly (5)  |  Century (319)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Create (245)  |  Creature (242)  |  Crown (39)  |  Dozen (10)  |  Dream (222)  |  Dusty (8)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Forty-Nine (2)  |  Giant (73)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Half (63)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Leap (57)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Moment (260)  |  Month (91)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moon Landing (9)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Possible (560)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Represent (157)  |  Rocket (52)  |  See (1094)  |  Signature (4)  |  Sophisticated (16)  |  Spacecraft (6)  |  Species (435)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Two (936)  |  Visit (27)  |  Year (963)

Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein.
'The Laws of Habit', The Popular Science Monthly (Feb 1887), 447.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Alone (324)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bound (120)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Conservative (16)  |  Desert (59)  |  Envy (15)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flywheel (2)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Habit (174)  |  Hard (246)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Ordnance (2)  |  Poor (139)  |  Precious (43)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Repulsive (7)  |  Save (126)  |  Society (350)  |  Walk (138)  |  Walk Of Life (2)  |  Wheel (51)

Srinivasa Ramanujan quote: I have not trodden through a conventional university course, but I am striking out a new path for mys
I have not trodden through a conventional university course, but I am striking out a new path for myself. I have made a special investigation of divergent series in general and the results I get are termed by the local mathematicians as “startling.”
First letter to G.H. Hardy (16 Jan 1913). In Collected Papers of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1927), xxiii. Hardy notes he did “seem to remember his telling me that his friends had given him some assistance” in writing the letter because Ramanujan's “knowledge of English, at that stage of his life, could scarcely have been sufficient.”
Science quotes on:  |  Conventional (31)  |  Course (413)  |  Divergent (6)  |  General (521)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Local (25)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  Path (159)  |  Result (700)  |  Series (153)  |  Special (188)  |  Startling (15)  |  Striking (48)  |  Term (357)  |  Termed (2)  |  Through (846)  |  University (130)

I have said that the investigation for which the teeth of the shark had furnished an opportunity, was very near an end... But thereafter, while I was examining more carefully these details of both places and bodies [sedimentary deposits and shells], these day by day presented points of doubt to me as they followed one another in indissoluble connection, so that I saw myself again and again brought back to the starting-place, as it were, when I thought I was nearest the goal. I might compare those doubts to the heads of the Lernean Hydra, since when one of them had been got rid of, numberless others were born; at any rate, I saw that I was wandering about in a sort of labyrinth, where the nearer one approaches the exit, the wider circuits does one tread.
The Prodromus of Nicolaus Steno's Dissertation Concerning a Solid Body enclosed by Process of Nature within a Solid (1669), trans. J. G. Winter (1916), 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Care (203)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Circuit (29)  |  Compare (76)  |  Connection (171)  |  Detail (150)  |  Doubt (314)  |  End (603)  |  Examination (102)  |  Exit (4)  |  Follow (389)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Goal (155)  |  Hydra (3)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Labyrinth (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Other (2233)  |  Place (192)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sediment (9)  |  Shark (11)  |  Shell (69)  |  Starting Point (16)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Wandering (6)

In fields of air he writes his name,
And treads the chambers of the sky;
He reads the stars, and grasps the flame
That quivers in the realms on high.
In poem 'Art', collected in Samuel Kettell (ed.), Specimens of American Poetry, with Critical and Biographical Notices (1829), Vol. 3, 198.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Chamber (7)  |  Field (378)  |  Flame (44)  |  Grasp (65)  |  High (370)  |  Name (359)  |  Quiver (3)  |  Read (308)  |  Realm (87)  |  Sky (174)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Write (250)

In theory one is aware that the earth revolves but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground on which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one's life. (1918)
'À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs', À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27).
Science quotes on:  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ground (222)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Move (223)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Practice (212)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)

In years gone by, we would just take, take, take from the oceans but today we realize this is not an option, that the oceans keep us alive, and that we need to tread more carefully. This is now both a governance issue and a choice issue.
In 'Can We Stop Killing Our Oceans Now, Please?', Huffington Post (14 Aug 2013).
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Both (496)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Choice (114)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Government (116)  |  Issue (46)  |  More (2558)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Overfishing (27)  |  Realize (157)  |  Today (321)  |  Year (963)

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
you have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew
and, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Blue (63)  |  Bond (46)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Chase (14)  |  Climb (39)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Craft (11)  |  Dance (35)  |  Delirious (2)  |  Dream (222)  |  Eager (17)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Face (214)  |  Fling (5)  |  Fly (153)  |  God (776)  |  Grace (31)  |  Hall (5)  |  Hand (149)  |  Height (33)  |  High (370)  |  Hover (8)  |  Hovering (5)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Join (32)  |  Lark (2)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Lift (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mirth (3)  |  Never (1089)  |  Sanctity (4)  |  Shout (25)  |  Silence (62)  |  Silent (31)  |  Silver (49)  |  Sky (174)  |  Slip (6)  |  Soar (23)  |  Space (523)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunlit (2)  |  Sunward (2)  |  Swing (12)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Top (100)  |  Touch (146)  |  Tumble (3)  |  Tumbling (2)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wing (79)

That hemisphere of the moon which faces us is better known than the earth itself; its vast desert plains have been surveyed to within a few acres; its mountains and craters have been measured to within a few yards; while on the earth's surface there are 30,000,000 square kilometres (sixty times the extent of France), upon which the foot of man has never trod, which the eye of man has never seen.
In 'Mars, by the Latest Observations', Popular Science (Dec 1873), 4, 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Acre (13)  |  Better (493)  |  Crater (8)  |  Desert (59)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extent (142)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Never (1089)  |  Plain (34)  |  Square (73)  |  Surface (223)  |  Survey (36)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vast (188)

The [Moon] surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers like powdered charcoal to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine sandy particles.
[First report, immediately after stepping on to the Moon and saying “That's one small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind.”]
NASA web site. Also in David Michael Harland, The First Men on the Moon: the Story of Apollo 11 (2007), 461.
Science quotes on:  |  Adhesion (6)  |  Boot (5)  |  Charcoal (10)  |  Fine (37)  |  First (1302)  |  Footprint (16)  |  Giant (73)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Kick (11)  |  Layer (41)  |  Leap (57)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Moon (252)  |  Particle (200)  |  Powder (9)  |  See (1094)  |  Side (236)  |  Small (489)  |  Sole (50)  |  Step (234)  |  Surface (223)

The earth in its rapid motion round the sun possesses a degree of living force so vast that, if turned into the equivalent of heat, its temperature would be rendered at least one thousand times greater than that of red-hot iron, and the globe on which we tread would in all probability be rendered equal in brightness to the sun itself.
'On Matter, Living Force, and Heat' (1847). In The Scientific Papers of James Prescott Joule (1884), Vol. 1, 271.
Science quotes on:  |  Brightness (12)  |  Degree (277)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Force (497)  |  Greater (288)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hot (63)  |  Iron (99)  |  Living (492)  |  Motion (320)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Probability (135)  |  Render (96)  |  Sun (407)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Vast (188)

They say,
The solid earth whereon we tread
In tracts of fluent heat began,
And grew to seeming-random forms,
The seeming prey of cyclic storms,
Till at the last arose the Man. …
From poem, 'In Memoriam A.H.H.' written between 1833-50, and first published anonymously in 1850. Collected in Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson (1860), Vol.2, 147.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Begin (275)  |  Cyclic (3)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fluent (2)  |  Form (976)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heat (180)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Prey (13)  |  Random (42)  |  Say (989)  |  Seem (150)  |  Solid (119)  |  Storm (56)  |  Storms (18)  |  Tract (7)

To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. And yet those with the courage to tread this path to real discovery are not only offered practically no guidance on how to do so, they are actively discouraged and have to set about it in secret, pretending meanwhile to be diligently engaged in the frantic diversions and to conform with the deadening personal opinions which are continually being thrust upon them.
In 'Appendix 1', The Laws of Form (1969), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Actively (3)  |  Activity (218)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Being (1276)  |  Busy (32)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Conform (15)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Continual (44)  |  Courage (82)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Discourage (14)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Diversion (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Engage (41)  |  Frantic (3)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Making (300)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Offer (142)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Path (159)  |  Personal (75)  |  Practically (10)  |  Practice (212)  |  Pretend (18)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Real (159)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Require (229)  |  Secret (216)  |  Set (400)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simply (53)  |  Talk (108)  |  Talking (76)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thrust (13)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Year (963)

Treading the soil of the moon, palpating its pebbles, tasting the panic and splendor of the event, feeling in the pit of one’s stomach the separation from terra … these form the most romantic sensation an explorer has ever known … this is the only thing I can say about the matter. … The utilitarian results do not interest me.
In 'Reactions to Man’s Landing on the Moon Show Broad Variations in Opinions', The New York Times (21 Jul 1969), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Event (222)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Form (976)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Matter (821)  |  Moon (252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Panic (4)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Pit (20)  |  Result (700)  |  Romantic (13)  |  Say (989)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Separation (60)  |  Soil (98)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Taste (93)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Utilitarian (3)

We cannot conceive how the Foetus is form'd in the Womb, nor as much as how a Plant springs from the Earth we tread on ... And if we are ignorant of the most obvious things about us, and the most considerable within our selves, 'tis then no wonder that we know not the constitution and powers of the creatures, to whom we are such strangers.
Saducismus Triumphatus or Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions (1689),72-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Conceive (100)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Creature (242)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Form (976)  |  Growth (200)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Spring (140)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Womb (25)  |  Wonder (251)

Where the untrained eye will see nothing but mire and dirt, Science will often reveal exquisite possibilities. The mud we tread under our feet in the street is a grimy mixture of clay and sand, soot and water. Separate the sand, however, as Ruskinn observes—let the atoms arrange themselves in peace according to their nature—and you have the opal. Separate the clay, and it becomes a white earth, fit for the finest porcelain; or if it still further purifies itself, you have a sapphire. Take the soot, and it properly treated it will give you a diamond. While lastly, the water, purified and distilled, will become a dew-drop, or crystallize into a lovely star. Or, again, you may see as you will in any shallow pool either the mud lying at the bottom, or the image of the heavens above.
The Pleasures of Life (1887, 2007), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Atom (381)  |  Become (821)  |  Crystallize (12)  |  Dew (10)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Dirt (17)  |  Drop (77)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fit (139)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Image (97)  |  Lying (55)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Mud (26)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Peace (116)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Sand (63)  |  Sapphire (4)  |  See (1094)  |  Separate (151)  |  Soot (11)  |  Star (460)  |  Still (614)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Untrained (2)  |  Water (503)  |  White (132)  |  Will (2350)


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.