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: “Environmental extremists ... wouldn�t let you build a house unless it looked like a bird�s nest.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index T > Category: Trustworthy

Trustworthy Quotes (14 quotes)

“Does one error disappear only to make room for another?” … [L]et us look at the science of astronomy. How grand and magnificent have been the discoveries in that field of knowledge. What victories over error have been achieved by the telescope. That instrument did … bring down and dispel vast clouds of error, both in respect of the sky and of our planet. It must be confessed, too, that it took something from the importance of our planet. The idea that all the hosts of heaven are mere appendages to this earth is no longer entertained by average men, and … [almost no men] now stand by the old theory for which the church proposed to murder Galileo. Men are compelled to admit that the Genesis by Moses is less trustworthy as to the time of creating the heavens and the earth than are the rocks and the stars.
From speech (20 Nov 1883) delivered to the Bethel Literary and Historical Association, Washington D.C.,'It Moves, or Philosophy of Reform', collected in The Essential Douglass: Selected Writings and Speeches (2016), 290.
Science quotes on:  |  Admit (49)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Church (64)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Error (339)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |   Genesis (26)  |  Geocentric Theory (2)  |  Geology (240)  |  Moses (8)  |  Origin Of The Earth (13)  |  Planet (402)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Theory (1015)

[Modern science] passed through a long period of uncertainty and inconclusive experiment, but as the instrumental aids to research improved, and the results of observation accumulated, phantoms of the imagination were exorcised, idols of the cave were shattered, trustworthy materials were obtained for logical treatment, and hypotheses by long and careful trial were converted into theories.
In The Present Relations of Science and Religion (1913, 2004), 3
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Aid (101)  |  Careful (28)  |  Cave (17)  |  Conversion (17)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idol (5)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Inconclusive (3)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Logic (311)  |  Long (778)  |  Material (366)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Observation (593)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Pass (241)  |  Period (200)  |  Phantom (9)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Shatter (8)  |  Shattered (8)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Trial (59)  |  Uncertainty (58)

[Relativist] Rel. There is a well-known proposition of Euclid which states that “Any two sides of a triangle are together greater than the third side.” Can either of you tell me whether nowadays there is good reason to believe that this proposition is true?
[Pure Mathematician] Math. For my part, I am quite unable to say whether the proposition is true or not. I can deduce it by trustworthy reasoning from certain other propositions or axioms, which are supposed to be still more elementary. If these axioms are true, the proposition is true; if the axioms are not true, the proposition is not true universally. Whether the axioms are true or not I cannot say, and it is outside my province to consider.
In Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory (1920, 1921), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Axiom (65)  |  Certain (557)  |  Consider (428)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Good (906)  |  Greater (288)  |  Known (453)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Province (37)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Say (989)  |  Side (236)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Tell (344)  |  Together (392)  |  Triangle (20)  |  Two (936)

For the most part we humans live with the false impression of security and a feeling of being at home in a seemingly trustworthy physical and human environment. But when the expected course of everyday life is interrupted, we are like shipwrecked people on a miserable plank in the open sea, having forgotten where they came from and not knowing whither they are drifting. But once we fully accept this, life becomes easier and there is no longer any disappointment.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Course (413)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Drift (14)  |  Easier (53)  |  Easy (213)  |  Environment (239)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everyday Life (15)  |  Expect (203)  |  False (105)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Fully (20)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impression (118)  |  Interrupt (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Miserable (8)  |  Most (1728)  |  Open (277)  |  Part (235)  |  People (1031)  |  Physical (518)  |  Plank (4)  |  Sea (326)  |  Security (51)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Shipwreck (8)  |  Whither (11)

I will give you a “celestial multiplication table.” We start with a star as the unit most familiar to us, a globe comparable to the sun. Then—
A hundred thousand million Stars make one Galaxy;
A hundred thousand million Galaxies make one Universe.
The figures may not be very trustworthy, but I think they give a correct impression.
In The Expanding Universe (1933), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Billion (104)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Figure (162)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Impression (118)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Start (237)  |  Sun (407)  |  Table (105)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

If logical training is to consist, not in repeating barbarous scholastic formulas or mechanically tacking together empty majors and minors, but in acquiring dexterity in the use of trustworthy methods of advancing from the known to the unknown, then mathematical investigation must ever remain one of its most indispensable instruments. Once inured to the habit of accurately imagining abstract relations, recognizing the true value of symbolic conceptions, and familiarized with a fixed standard of proof, the mind is equipped for the consideration of quite other objects than lines and angles. The twin treatises of Adam Smith on social science, wherein, by deducing all human phenomena first from the unchecked action of selfishness and then from the unchecked action of sympathy, he arrives at mutually-limiting conclusions of transcendent practical importance, furnish for all time a brilliant illustration of the value of mathematical methods and mathematical discipline.
In 'University Reform', Darwinism and Other Essays (1893), 297-298.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Acquire (46)  |  Action (342)  |  Advance (298)  |  Angle (25)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Barbarous (4)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Conception (160)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Dexterity (8)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Empty (82)  |  Equip (6)  |  Familiarize (5)  |  Fix (34)  |  Forever (111)  |  Formula (102)  |  Habit (174)  |  Human (1512)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Known (453)  |  Limit (294)  |  Line (100)  |  Logic (311)  |  Major (88)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics And Logic (27)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minor (12)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Practical (225)  |  Proof (304)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Relation (166)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Scholastic (2)  |  Selfishness (9)  |  Adam Smith (8)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Standard (64)  |  Symbolic (16)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Training (92)  |  Transcendent (3)  |  Treatise (46)  |  True (239)  |  Twin (16)  |  Unchecked (4)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Value (393)

In my opinion, there is absolutely no trustworthy proof that talents have been improved by their exercise through the course of a long series of generations. The Bach family shows that musical talent, and the Bernoulli family that mathematical power, can be transmitted from generation to generation, but this teaches us nothing as to the origin of such talents. In both families the high-watermark of talent lies, not at the end of the series of generations, as it should do if the results of practice are transmitted, but in the middle. Again, talents frequently appear in some member of a family which has not been previously distinguished.
In 'On Heredity', Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems (1889), Vol. 1, 95-96.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Bach (7)  |  Bach_Johann (2)  |  Jacob Bernoulli (6)  |  Both (496)  |  Course (413)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Family (101)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Generation (256)  |  High (370)  |  Improve (64)  |  Lie (370)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Member (42)  |  Middle (19)  |  Musical (10)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Origin (250)  |  Power (771)  |  Practice (212)  |  Previous (17)  |  Proof (304)  |  Result (700)  |  Series (153)  |  Show (353)  |  Talent (99)  |  Teach (299)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmit (12)

My books have sold largely in England, have been translated into many languages, and passed through several editions in foreign countries. I have heard it said that the success of a work abroad is the best test of its enduring value. I doubt whether this is at all trustworthy; but judged by this standard my name ought to last for a few years.
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1896), 81-82.
Science quotes on:  |  Abroad (19)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Best (467)  |  Book (413)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Language (308)  |  Last (425)  |  Name (359)  |  Pass (241)  |  Success (327)  |  Test (221)  |  Through (846)  |  Value (393)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

My third teacher was by far the wisest and most trustworthy, though he used neither books nor pictures, and was a poor lecturer. He was painfully silent, would talk only after repeated urging, and then often spoke almost unintelligibly in a language which had to be translated to be understood. But what he had to say was final and exhaustive, and could be passed on in good conscience to those who either would not or could not go directly to him for information. This teacher was Nature itself.
In Hans Cloos, Ernst Cloos (ed.) and Curt Dietz (ed.), Conversation With the Earth (1953, 1959), 249-250, as translated by E.B. Garside from the original German edition, Gespräch mit der Erde (1947). [In the original text, “nature itself” was in all lower case. Webmaster has capitalized “Nature” for emphasis, to compensate for the cropped context about the great importance of geology field trips as an instructor.]
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Exhaustive (4)  |  Geology (240)  |  Information (173)  |  Language (308)  |  Lecturer (13)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Picture (148)  |  Poor (139)  |  Silent (31)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Translate (21)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Wise (143)

No excavation ought to ever be permitted except under the immediate eye of a responsible and trustworthy superintendent. ... Superfluous precision may be regarded as a fault on the right side. ... [P]ottery [i]s the human fossil, so widely is it distributed.
Some of the basic principals of digging he adopted.
Excavations in Cranborne Chase. Quoted in Alice Beck, The Land of Prehistory: A Critical History of American Archaeology (1998), 62-63.
Science quotes on:  |  Archaeology (51)  |  Basic (144)  |  Digging (11)  |  Excavation (8)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fault (58)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Human (1512)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Precision (72)  |  Principal (69)  |  Regard (312)  |  Right (473)  |  Side (236)  |  Superfluous (21)

Our most trustworthy safeguard in making general statements on this question is imagination. If we can imagine the breaking of a law of physics then… it is in some degree an empirical law. With a purely rational law we could not conceive an alternative… This ultimate criterion serves as an anchor to keep us from drifting unduly in a perilous sea of thought.
From concluding paragraph of 'Transition to General Relativity', The Special Theory of Relativity (1940, 2014), Chap 8, 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternative (32)  |  Anchor (10)  |  Break (109)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Degree (277)  |  Drift (14)  |  Empirical (58)  |  General (521)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Keep (104)  |  Law (913)  |  Making (300)  |  Most (1728)  |  Perilous (4)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Purely (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Rational (95)  |  Safeguard (8)  |  Sea (326)  |  Serve (64)  |  Statement (148)  |  Thought (995)  |  Ultimate (152)

The absorption of oxygen and the elimination of carbon dioxide in the lungs take place by diffusion alone. There is no trustworthy evidence of any regulation of this process on the part of the organism.
Krogh summing up his results related to a quote from The Mechanism of gas Exchange (1910), 257, as cited by E. Snorrason, 'Krogh, Schack August Steenberg', in Charles Coulton Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1973), Vol 7, 502.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorption (13)  |  Alone (324)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Lung (37)  |  Organism (231)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Process (439)  |  Regulation (25)

These days at ten o’clock at night a most alarming wonder has manifested itself in the skies. The firmament was rent asunder and through this gap one could distinguish chariots and armies, riders with yellow, white, red and black standards, though to do battle against each other. This awesome and unusual vision continued from ten at night till about two of the morning, and was witnessed with alarm and dismay by many honest and trustworthy people. The significance thereof is known but to God Almighty, Who may graciously prevent the shedding of innocent blood.
Anonymous
'Frightful Apparition in the Sky at Vienna. From Vienna, the 11th day of August 1590'. As quoted in George Tennyson Matthews (ed.) News and Rumor in Renaissance Europe: The Fugger Newsletters (1959), 188. A handwritten collection of news reports (1568-1604) by the powerful banking and merchant house of Fugger in Ausburg.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Alarm (19)  |  Alarming (4)  |  Almighty (23)  |  Army (35)  |  Asunder (4)  |  Awesome (15)  |  Battle (36)  |  Black (46)  |  Blood (144)  |  Chariot (9)  |  Clock (51)  |  Dismay (5)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Do (1905)  |  Firmament (18)  |  Gap (36)  |  God (776)  |  Graciously (2)  |  Honest (53)  |  Innocent (13)  |  Known (453)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Morning (98)  |  Most (1728)  |  Night (133)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Red (38)  |  Rent (2)  |  Rider (3)  |  Shedding (3)  |  Significance (114)  |  Sky (174)  |  Standard (64)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Vision (127)  |  White (132)  |  Witness (57)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Yellow (31)

With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind.
Letter to W. Graham (3 Jul 1881). In Francis Darwin (ed.) The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1959), 285. In Vinoth Ramachandra, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping our World (2008), 182-183.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Arise (162)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Develop (278)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Low (86)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Trust (72)  |  Value (393)


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.