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: “Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index V > Category: Victory

Victory Quotes (40 quotes)

[John Scott Haldane] preferred to work on himself or other human beings who were sufficiently interested in the work to ignore pain or fear … [His] object was not to achieve this state of [pain or fear] but to achieve knowledge which could save other men's lives. His attitute was much more like a good soldier who will risk his life and endure wounds in order to gain victory than that of an ascetic who deliberately undergoes pain. The soldier does not get himself wounded deliberately, and my father did not seek pain in his work though he greeted pain which would have made some people writhe or groan, with laughter.
In R.W. Clark, JBS: The Life and Work of J.B.S. Haldane (1968), quoted in Lawrence K. Altman, Who Goes First? (1986), 215.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Biography (254)  |  Father (113)  |  Fear (212)  |  Gain (146)  |  Good (906)  |  John Scott Haldane (3)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Interest (416)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pain (144)  |  People (1031)  |  Risk (68)  |  Save (126)  |  Seek (218)  |  Soldier (28)  |  State (505)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wound (26)

[Magic] enables man to carry out with confidence his important tasks, to maintain his poise and his mental integrity in fits of anger, in the throes of hate, of unrequited love, of despair and anxiety. The function of magic is to ritualize man's optimism, to enhance his faith in the victory of hope over fear. Magic expresses the greater value for man of confidence over doubt, of steadfastness over vacillation, of optimism over pessimism.
Magic, Science and Religion (1925), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Anger (21)  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Carry (130)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Despair (40)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enhance (17)  |  Faith (209)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fit (139)  |  Function (235)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hate (68)  |  Hope (321)  |  Importance (299)  |  Integrity (21)  |  Love (328)  |  Magic (92)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Optimism (17)  |  Pessimism (4)  |  Poise (4)  |  Ritual (9)  |  Steadfastness (2)  |  Task (152)  |  Value (393)

[The ancient monuments] were all dwarfs in size and pigmies in spirit beside this mighty Statue of Liberty, and its inspiring thought. Higher than the monument in Trafalgar Square which commemorates the victories of Nelson on the sea; higher than the Column Vendome, which perpetuates the triumphs of Napoleon on the land; higher than the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge, which exhibit the latest and greatest results of science, invention, and industrial progress, this structure rises toward the heavens to illustrate an idea ... which inspired the charter in the cabin of the Mayflower and the Declaration of Independence from the Continental Congress.
Speech at unveiling of the Statue of Liberty, New York. In E.S. Werner (ed.), Werner's Readings and Recitations (1908), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte (20)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Brooklyn Bridge (2)  |  Charter (4)  |  Column (15)  |  Commemorate (3)  |  Congress (20)  |  Declaration (10)  |  Declaration Of Independence (5)  |  Dwarf (7)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Higher (37)  |  Idea (881)  |  Industrial (15)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Invention (400)  |  Mighty (13)  |  Monument (45)  |  Napoleon (16)  |  Perpetuate (11)  |  Pigmy (4)  |  Progress (492)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Sea (326)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Square (73)  |  Statue (17)  |  Statue Of Liberty (2)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tower (45)  |  Trafalgar (2)  |  Triumph (76)

Die ganze Natur ist ein gewaltiges Ringen zwischen Kraft und Schwache, ein ewiger Sieg des Starken über den Schwachen.
The whole of Nature is a mighty struggle between strength and weakness, an eternal victory of the strong over the weak.
(1923). In The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939 1980, 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Eternal (113)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Weak (73)  |  Weakness (50)  |  Whole (756)

Ihm in vollem Maaße das Schicksal werde, welches in jeder Erkenntniß, … allezeit der Wahrheit zu Theil ward, der nur ein kurzes Siegesfest beschieden ist, zwischen den beiden langen Zeiträumen, wo sie als parador verdammt und als trivial geringgeschätzt wird.
[It] has always fallen to the lot of truth in every branch of knowledge, … [that] to truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial. The author of truth also usually meets with the former fate.
Conclusion for Preface, written at Dresden in August 1818, first German edition, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 4 Bücher nebst einem Anhange der die Kritik der Kentischen Philosophie (1819), xvi. As translated by E.F.J. Payne in The World as Will and Representation (1958, 1969), Vol. 1, xvii. In the preface, Schopenhauer is writing his hope that what he has written in the book will be accepted by those it reaches. Notice the statement of three stages of truth: condemnation; acceptance; trivializing. It may be the source of a condensed quote attributed (wrongly?) to Schopenhauer—seen in this collection as the quote that begins, “All truth passes through three stages…”
Science quotes on:  |  Allowed (3)  |  Author (175)  |  Branch (155)  |  Brief (37)  |  Celebration (7)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Condemned (5)  |  Disparage (5)  |  Fate (76)  |  Former (138)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  Lot (151)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Period (200)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Usually (176)  |  Ward (7)

L’homme n’est qu’un roseau, le plus faible de la nature, mais c’est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l’univers entier s’arme pour l’écraser; une vapeur, une goutte d’eau suffit pour le tuer. Mais quand l’univers l’écraserait, l’homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, parce qu’il sait qu’il meurt et l’avantage que l’univers a sur lui; l’univers n'en sait rien.
Man is a reed, the feeblest thing in nature. But a reed that can think. The whole universe need not fly to arms to kill him ; for a little heat or a drop of water can slay a man. But, even then, man would be nobler than his destroyer, for he would know he died, while the whole universe would know nothing of its victory.
Pensées. As given and translated in Hugh Percy Jones (ed.), Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Classical Quotations (1908), 292.
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Death (406)  |  Drop (77)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Fly (153)  |  Heat (180)  |  Kill (100)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Noble (93)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Plus (43)  |  Reed (8)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vapor (12)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)

And so, after many years, victory has come, and the romance of exploration, of high hopes and bitter disappointment, will in a few years simply be recorded in the text-books of organic chemistry in a few terse sentences.
Recent Developments in the Vitamin A Field', The Pedlar Lecture, 4 Dec 1947, Journal of the Chemical Society, Part I (1948), 393.
Science quotes on:  |  Bitter (30)  |  Book (413)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Exploration (161)  |  High (370)  |  Hope (321)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Record (161)  |  Research (753)  |  Romance (18)  |  Vitamin (13)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Epitaph on monument over his grave. Quoted in Thomas Williams Bicknell et al., Education (1912), 647
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Death (406)  |   Epitaph (19)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Shame (15)

But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men...
The First Book of Francis Bacon of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning (1605). In Francis Bacon and Basil Montagu, The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England (1852), 174
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Appetite (20)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Delight (111)  |  Desire (212)  |  Enable (122)  |  End (603)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Error (339)  |  Gift (105)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Learning (291)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Ornament (20)  |  Profession (108)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reputation (33)  |  Rest (287)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Variety (138)  |  Wit (61)

Civilization is simply a series of victories over nature.
In Where are We and Whither Tending?: Three Lectures on the Reality and Worth of Human Progress (1886), Lecture 1, 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Human Progress (18)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Series (153)  |  Sociology (46)

Considering the difficulties represented by the lack of water, by extremes of temperature, by the full force of gravity unmitigated by the buoyancy of water, it must be understood that the spread to land of life forms that evolved to meet the conditions of the ocean represented the greatest single victory won by life over the inanimate environment.
(1965). In Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 194.
Science quotes on:  |  Buoyancy (7)  |  Condition (362)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Inanimate (18)  |  Lack (127)  |  Land (131)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life Form (6)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Represent (157)  |  Single (365)  |  Spread (86)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Water (503)

Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth. There are certain rules and procedures to debate that really have nothing to do with establishing fact–which creationists have mastered. Some of those rules are: never say anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked, but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent’s position. They are good at that. I don’t think I could beat the creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in courtrooms they are terrible, because in courtrooms you cannot give speeches. In a courtroom you have to answer direct questions about the positive status of your belief. We destroyed them in Arkansas. On the second day of the two-week trial we had our victory party!
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Appear (122)  |  Argument (145)  |  Arkansas (2)  |  Art (680)  |  Attack (86)  |  Beat (42)  |  Belief (615)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chip (4)  |  Creationist (16)  |  Debate (40)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Establish (63)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Give (208)  |  Good (906)  |  Master (182)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Opponent (23)  |  Party (19)  |  Position (83)  |  Positive (98)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Question (649)  |  Really (77)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Second (66)  |  Speech (66)  |  Status (35)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tie (42)  |  Trial (59)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Weakness (50)  |  Week (73)  |  Win (53)  |  Winning (19)

Doctor Johnson said, that in sickness there were three things that were material; the physician, the disease, and the patient: and if any two of these joined, then they get the victory; for, Ne Hercules quidem contra duos [Not even Hercules himself is a match for two]. If the physician and the patient join, then down goes the disease; for then the patient recovers: if the physician and the disease join, that is a strong disease; and the physician mistaking the cure, then down goes the patient: if the patient and the disease join, then down goes the physician; for he is discredited.
In 'A Collection of Apophthegms, New and Old' (1625). As given in Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political: A New Edition, With the Latin Quotations Translated (1813), No. 147, 308. The doctor is identified Ben Johnson by Forbes Winslow in his notes appended to Physic and Physicians (1842). Notes section, 39. Perhaps he means poet and playwright of stage comedy, Ben Jonson (1572-1637), also referred to in the book as “Benjamin Johnson” and once as “Dr. Johnson.” Note that Francis Bacon (1561-1626) died well before the life of writer Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).
Science quotes on:  |  Cure (124)  |  Death (406)  |  Diagnosis (65)  |  Discredit (8)  |  Disease (340)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Down (455)  |  Hercules (9)  |  Himself (461)  |  Joined (2)  |  Ben Jonson (5)  |  Match (30)  |  Material (366)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physician (284)  |  Recovery (24)  |  Sickness (26)  |  Strong (182)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Two (936)

Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.
In The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Vol. 1, 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Genius (301)  |  Sincerity (8)  |  Truth (1109)

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much or suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Speech (15 Apr 1899), 'The Strenuous Life', to the Hamilton Club of Chicago. Collected in Murat Halstead (ed.), The Life of Theodore Roosevelt: Twenty-fifth President of the United States (1902), 161.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Dare (55)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Enjoy (48)  |  Failure (176)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Gray (9)  |  Know (1538)  |  Live (650)  |  Poor (139)  |  Rank (69)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Twilight (6)  |  Win (53)

He who gives a portion of his time and talent to the investigation of mathematical truth will come to all other questions with a decided advantage over his opponents. He will be in argument what the ancient Romans were in the field: to them the day of battle was a day of comparative recreation, because they were ever accustomed to exercise with arms much heavier than they fought; and reviews differed from a real battle in two respects: they encountered more fatigue, but the victory was bloodless.
Reflection 352, in Lacon: or Many things in Few Words; Addressed to Those Who Think (1820), 159.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Argument (145)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Battle (36)  |  Bloodless (2)  |  Comparative (14)  |  Decide (50)  |  Differ (88)  |  Encounter (23)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fatigue (13)  |  Field (378)  |  Fight (49)  |  Give (208)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Opponent (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  Portion (86)  |  Question (649)  |  Real (159)  |  Recreation (23)  |  Respect (212)  |  Review (27)  |  Roman (39)  |  Talent (99)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Will (2350)

How can you shorten the subject? That stern struggle with the multiplication table, for many people not yet ended in victory, how can you make it less? Square root, as obdurate as a hardwood stump in a pasture nothing but years of effort can extract it. You can’t hurry the process. Or pass from arithmetic to algebra; you can’t shoulder your way past quadratic equations or ripple through the binomial theorem. Instead, the other way; your feet are impeded in the tangled growth, your pace slackens, you sink and fall somewhere near the binomial theorem with the calculus in sight on the horizon. So died, for each of us, still bravely fighting, our mathematical training; except for a set of people called “mathematicians”—born so, like crooks.
In Too Much College: Or, Education Eating up Life, with Kindred Essays in Education and Humour (1939), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Binomial (6)  |  Binomial Theorem (5)  |  Brave (16)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Call (781)  |  Crook (2)  |  Die (94)  |  Effort (243)  |  End (603)  |  Equation (138)  |  Extract (40)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fight (49)  |  Foot (65)  |  Growth (200)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Hurry (16)  |  Impede (4)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pace (18)  |  Pass (241)  |  Past (355)  |  Pasture (15)  |  People (1031)  |  Process (439)  |  Ripple (12)  |  Root (121)  |  Set (400)  |  Shorten (5)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sink (38)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Stern (6)  |  Still (614)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Stump (3)  |  Subject (543)  |  Table (105)  |  Tangle (8)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Through (846)  |  Training (92)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

I like a deep and difficult investigation when I happen to have made it easy to myself, if not to all others; and there is a spirit of gambling in this, whether, as by the cast of a die, a calculation è perte de vue shall bring out a beautiful and perfect result or shall be wholly thrown away. Scientific investigations are a sort of warfare carried on in the closet or on the couch against all one's contemporaries and predecessors; I have often gained a signal victory when I have been half asleep, but more frequently have found, upon being thoroughly awake, that the enemy had still the advantage of me, when I thought I had him fast in a corner, and all this you see keeps me alive.
Letter to Hudson Gurney, quoted in George Peacock, The Life of Thomas Young (1855), 239.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Against (332)  |  Alive (97)  |  Asleep (4)  |  Awake (19)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Being (1276)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Cast (69)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Corner (59)  |  Couch (2)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dice (21)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Gain (146)  |  Happen (282)  |  Investigation (250)  |  More (2558)  |  Myself (211)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Signal (29)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Still (614)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Thought (995)  |  Throw Away (4)  |  Warfare (12)  |  Wholly (88)

If I have succeeded in discovering any truths in the sciences…, I can declare that they are but the consequences and results of five or six principal difficulties which I have surmounted, and my encounters with which I reckoned as battles in which victory declared for me.
In Discours de la Méthode (1637), as translated by J. Veitch, A Discourse on Method (1912), 53. Also seen translated as, “If I found any new truths in the sciences…, I can say that they follow from, or depend on, five or six principal problems which I succeeded in solving and which I regard as so many battles where the fortunes of war were on my side.”
Science quotes on:  |  Battle (36)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Declare (48)  |  Declared (24)  |  Discover (571)  |  Principal (69)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Result (700)  |  Solve (145)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Truth (1109)

If the arrangement of society is bad (as ours is), and a small number of people have power over the majority and oppress it, every victory over Nature will inevitably serve only to increase that power and that oppression.
In Science, Liberty and Peace by Aldous Huxley (1947).
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Bad (185)  |  Increase (225)  |  Majority (68)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Power (771)  |  Small (489)  |  Society (350)  |  Will (2350)

In engineering, that only is great which achieves. It matters not what the intention is, he who in the day of battle is not victorious is not saved by his intention.
In Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Battle (36)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Intention (46)  |  Matter (821)

In formal logic a contradiction is the signal of a defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory. This is one great reason for the utmost toleration of variety of opinion. Once and forever, this duty of toleration has been summed up in the words, “Let both grow together until the harvest.”
In 'Religion and Science', The Atlantic (Aug 1925).
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Forever (111)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Harvest (28)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logic (311)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reason (766)  |  Signal (29)  |  Step (234)  |  Together (392)  |  Variety (138)  |  Word (650)

Is there perhaps some magical power in the subject [mathematics] that, although it had fought under the invincible banner of truth, has actually achieved its victories through some inner mysterious strength?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Actually (27)  |  Banner (9)  |  Fight (49)  |  Inner (72)  |  Invincible (6)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Power (771)  |  Strength (139)  |  Subject (543)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)

It’s not the critic who counts; not the man which points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again … who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
In Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Inside: A Public and Private Life (2005), 356.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Arena (4)  |  Belong (168)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Blood (144)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cold (115)  |  Count (107)  |  Credit (24)  |  Critic (21)  |  Dare (55)  |  Daring (17)  |  Deed (34)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Dust (68)  |  End (603)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Error (339)  |  Face (214)  |  Fail (191)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marred (3)  |  Never (1089)  |  Point (584)  |  Short (200)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spend (97)  |  Strive (53)  |  Strong (182)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Timidity (5)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Valiantly (2)  |  Worst (57)

Let the mind rise from victory to victory over surrounding nature, let it but conquer for human life and activity not only the surface of the earth but also all that lies between the depth of the sea and the outer limits of the atmosphere; let it command for its service prodigious energy to flow from one part of the universe to the other, let it annihilate space for the transference of its thoughts.
In Ivan Pavlov and William Horsley Gantt (trans.), Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes (1928, 1941), Preface, 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Annihilate (10)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Command (60)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Depth (97)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Flow (89)  |  Human (1512)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Prodigious (20)  |  Rise (169)  |  Sea (326)  |  Service (110)  |  Space (523)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)

Mankind never gains anything without cost. There never has been a bloodless victory over nature.
From newspaper interview, as few weeks after the funeral of cosmonaut Komarov. As quoted in Space World (1974), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Blood (144)  |  Cost (94)  |  Gain (146)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)

One is hard pressed to think of universal customs that man has successfully established on earth. There is one, however, of which he can boast the universal adoption of the Hindu-Arabic numerals to record numbers. In this we perhaps have man’s unique worldwide victory of an idea.
In Mathematical Circles Squared (1972), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Adoption (7)  |  Arabic (4)  |  Boast (22)  |  Custom (44)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Establish (63)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hindu (4)  |  Idea (881)  |  Man (2252)  |  Number (710)  |  Numeral (2)  |  Record (161)  |  Successful (134)  |  Think (1122)  |  Unique (72)  |  Universal (198)  |  Worldwide (19)

Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death.
'On Statistics'. In On the Silence of the Sea and Other Essays (1941),199-200.
Science quotes on:  |  Death (406)  |  Method (531)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Sterility (10)  |  Triumph (76)

The history of mathematics is exhilarating, because it unfolds before us the vision of an endless series of victories of the human mind, victories without counterbalancing failures, that is, without dishonorable and humiliating ones, and without atrocities.
In The Study of the History of Mathematics (1936), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Atrocity (6)  |  Counterbalance (4)  |  Dishonorable (2)  |  Endless (60)  |  Exhilarating (3)  |  Failure (176)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Mathematics (7)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Series (153)  |  Unfold (15)  |  Vision (127)

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)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Soon (187)  |  Studious (5)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Torment (18)  |  Total (95)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Verge (10)  |  Weak (73)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

The mutton in the study gathered over it a thick blanket of Penicillium. On the 13th [December 1875] it had assumed a light brown colour as if by a faint admixture of clay; but the infusion became transparent. The ‘clay’ here was the slime of dead or dormant Bacteria, the cause of their quiescence being the blanket of Penicillium. I found no active life in this tube, while all the others swarmed with Bacteria. In every case where the mould was thick and coherent the Bacteria died, or became dormant, and fell to the bottom of the sediment … The Bacteria which manufacture a green pigment appear to be uniformly victorious in their fight with the Penicillium.
From paper read to the Royal Institution (1 Jan 1876). In 'Professor Tyndall on the Optical Deportment of the Atmosphere in Relation to Putrefaction and Infection' , Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1876), 166, 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blanket (10)  |  Bottom (36)  |  Brown (23)  |  Cause (561)  |  Clay (11)  |  Coherence (13)  |  Death (406)  |  Dormant (4)  |  Fight (49)  |  Gather (76)  |  Green (65)  |  Infusion (4)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Manufacture (30)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Mold (37)  |  Mutton (4)  |  Other (2233)  |  Penicillium (3)  |  Pigment (9)  |  Quiescence (2)  |  Sediment (9)  |  Slime (6)  |  Study (701)  |  Swarm (15)  |  Transparent (16)

The rockets that have made spaceflight possible are an advance that, more than any other technological victory of the twentieth century, was grounded in science fiction… . One thing that no science fiction writer visualized, however, as far as I know, was that the landings on the Moon would be watched by people on Earth by way of television.
In Asimov on Physics (1976), 35. Also in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 307.
Science quotes on:  |  20th Century (40)  |  Advance (298)  |  Century (319)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ground (222)  |  Know (1538)  |  Landing (3)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Possible (560)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Science Fiction (35)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)  |  Television (33)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Visualize (8)  |  Watch (118)  |  Way (1214)  |  Writer (90)

The trees are man’s best friends; but man has treated them as his worst enemies. The history of our race may be said to be the history of warfare upon the tree world. But while man has seemed to be the victor, his victories have brought upon him inevitable disasters.
'What We Owe to the Trees', Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Apr 1882), 46, No. 383, 675.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Best Friend (4)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Friend (180)  |  History (716)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Man (2252)  |  Race (278)  |  Treat (38)  |  Tree (269)  |  Victor (5)  |  Warfare (12)  |  World (1850)  |  Worst (57)  |  Worst Enemy (5)

The universality of parasitism as an offshoot of the predatory habit negatives the position taken by man that it is a pathological phenomenon or a deviation from the normal processes of nature. The pathological manifestations are only incidents in a developing parasitism. As human beings intent on maintaining man's domination over nature we may regard parasitism as pathological insofar as it becomes a drain upon human resources. In our efforts to protect ourselves we may make every kind of sacrifice to limit, reduce, and even eliminate parasitism as a factor in human life. Science attempts to define the terms on which this policy of elimination may or may not succeed. We must first of all thoroughly understand the problem, put ourselves in possession of all the facts in order to estimate the cost. Too often it has been assumed that parasitism was abnormal and that it needed only a slight force to reestablish what was believed to be a normal equilibrium without parasitism. On the contrary, biology teaches us that parasitism is a normal phenomenon and if we accept this view we shall be more ready to pay the price of freedom as a permanent and ever recurring levy of nature for immunity from a condition to which all life is subject. The greatest victory of man over nature in the physical realm would undoubtedly be his own delivery from the heavy encumbrance of parasitism with which all life is burdened.
Parasitism and Disease (1934), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Abnormality (2)  |  Accept (198)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biology (232)  |  Burden (30)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Cost (94)  |  Development (441)  |  Deviation (21)  |  Domination (12)  |  Drain (12)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Encumbrance (5)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Habit (174)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Immunity (8)  |  Incident (4)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Maintenance (21)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Negative (66)  |  Order (638)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Pathological (21)  |  Pathology (19)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Policy (27)  |  Possession (68)  |  Predator (6)  |  Price (57)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Protect (65)  |  Protection (41)  |  Realm (87)  |  Recurring (12)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Regard (312)  |  Resource (74)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Subject (543)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universality (22)  |  View (496)

This day relenting God
Hath placed within my hand
A wondrous thing; and God
Be praised. At His command,
Seeking His secret deeds
With tears and toiling breath,
I find thy cunning seeds,
O million-murdering Death.
I know this little thing
A myriad men will save.
O Death, where is thy sting?
Thy victory, O Grave?
Poem he wrote following the discovery that the malaria parasite was carried by the amopheline mosquito.
From a privately printed book of verse, anonymously published, by R.R., In Exile (1906). As cited by S. Weir Mitchell, in 'The Literary Side of a Physician’s Life—Ronald Ross as a Poet', Journal of the American Medical Association (7 Sep 1907), 49, No. 10, 853. In his book, Ronald Ross stated “These verses were written in India between the years 1891 and 1899, as a means of relief after the daily labors of a long, scientific research.”
Science quotes on:  |  Breath (61)  |  Command (60)  |  Cunning (17)  |  Death (406)  |  Deed (34)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Find (1014)  |  God (776)  |  Grave (52)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Malaria (10)  |  Mosquito (16)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Poem (104)  |  Save (126)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seed (97)  |  Sting (3)  |  Tear (48)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wondrous (22)

Two contrary laws seem to be wrestling with each other nowadays: the one, a law of blood and of death, ever imagining new means of destruction and forcing nations to be constantly ready for the battlefield—the other, a law of peace, work and health, ever evolving new means for delivering man from he scourges which beset him. The one seeks violent conquests, the other the relief of humanity. The latter places one human life above any victory: while the former would sacrifice hundreds and thousands of lives to the ambition of one.
Address at the Inauguration of the Pasteur Institute. In René Vallery-Radot, The Life of Pasteur, translated by Mrs. R. L. Devonshire (1919), 444.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambition (46)  |  Battlefield (9)  |  Blood (144)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Death (406)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Former (138)  |  Health (210)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nation (208)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peace (116)  |  Relief (30)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Scourge (3)  |  Seek (218)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Two (936)  |  Violent (17)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrestle (3)

Victory [in war] is the beautiful, bright-coloured flower. Transport is the stem without which it could never have blossomed. (1899)
In The River War (2004), 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Blossom (22)  |  Bright (81)  |  Flower (112)  |  Never (1089)  |  Stem (31)  |  Transport (31)  |  War (233)

We will not act prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of world­wide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth. But neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.
(1962) From address televised during the Cuban missile crisis (22 Oct 1962). As quoted in The Uncommon Wisdom of JFK: A Portrait in His Own Words 92003), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Ash (21)  |  Cost (94)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Weapon (17)  |  Risk (68)  |  Shrink (23)  |  Time (1911)  |  War (233)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

What is wanted in architecture, as in so many things, is a man. ... One suggestion might be made—no profession in England has done its duty until it has furnished a victim. ... Even our boasted navy never achieved a great victory until we shot an admiral. Suppose an architect were hanged? Terror has its inspiration, as well as competition.
Tancred: Or, The New Crusade (1907), 112.
Science quotes on:  |  Architect (32)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Competition (45)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hang (46)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Man (2252)  |  Never (1089)  |  Profession (108)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Terror (32)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Victim (37)  |  Want (504)

Without tracing back to the Tower of Babel, one can observe that the very idea of building a very tall tower has long haunted human imagination. That kind of victory over the formidable law of gravity that tethers man to the ground has always appeared to him a symbol of the force and the challenges overcome.
From the original French, “Sans remonter à la Tour de Babel, on peut observer que l’idée même de la construction d’une tour de très grande hauteur a depuis longtemps hanté l'imagination des hommes. Celle sorte de victoire sur cette terrible loi de la pesanteur qui attache l’homme au sol lui a toujours paru un symbole de la force et des difficultés vaincues.” First sentences of Chap. 1, in Travaux Scientifiques Exécutés à la Tour de 300 Mètres de 1889 à 1900 (1900), 1. English translation by Webmaster using online resources.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Eiffel Tower (13)  |  Force (497)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Ground (222)  |  Haunt (6)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Kind (564)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Gravity (16)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Observe (179)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Tall (11)  |  Tower (45)  |  Tower Of Babel (2)


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.