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: “I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index W > Category: Way Of Life

Way Of Life Quotes (15 quotes)

A hundred years ago … an engineer, Herbert Spencer, was willing to expound every aspect of life, with an effect on his admiring readers which has not worn off today.
Things do not happen quite in this way nowadays. This, we are told, is an age of specialists. The pursuit of knowledge has become a profession. The time when a man could master several sciences is past. He must now, they say, put all his efforts into one subject. And presumably, he must get all his ideas from this one subject. The world, to be sure, needs men who will follow such a rule with enthusiasm. It needs the greatest numbers of the ablest technicians. But apart from them it also needs men who will converse and think and even work in more than one science and know how to combine or connect them. Such men, I believe, are still to be found today. They are still as glad to exchange ideas as they have been in the past. But we cannot say that our way of life is well-fitted to help them. Why is this?
In 'The Unification of Biology', New Scientist (11 Jan 1962), 13, No. 269, 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Able (2)  |  Age (509)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Become (821)  |  Combine (58)  |  Connect (126)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Effort (243)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Follow (389)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Happen (282)  |  Help (116)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Need (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Past (355)  |  Profession (108)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Several (33)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Herbert Spencer (37)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  Technician (9)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Willing (44)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

An example of such emergent phenomena is the origin of life from non-living chemical compounds in the oldest, lifeless oceans of the earth. Here, aided by the radiation energy received from the sun, countless chemical materials were synthesized and accumulated in such a way that they constituted, as it were, a primeval “soup.” In this primeval soup, by infinite variations of lifeless growth and decay of substances during some billions of years, the way of life was ultimately reached, with its metabolism characterized by selective assimilation and dissimilation as end stations of a sluiced and canalized flow of free chemical energy.
In 'The Scientific Character of Geology', The Journal of Geology (Jul 1961), 69, No. 4, 458.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Aid (101)  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Billion (104)  |  Canal (18)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Energy (3)  |  Compound (117)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Countless (39)  |  Decay (59)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emergent (3)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Flow (89)  |  Free (239)  |  Growth (200)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Metabolism (15)  |  Non-Living (3)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Reach (286)  |  Selective (21)  |  Sluice (2)  |  Soup (10)  |  Station (30)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sun (407)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Variation (93)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

Any child born into the hugely consumptionist way of life so common in the industrial world will have an impact that is, on average, many times more destructive than that of a child born in the developing world.
Al Gore
Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (2006), 308.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Child (333)  |  Common (447)  |  Impact (45)  |  Industrialisation (4)  |  Life (1870)  |  More (2558)  |  Population (115)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.
John Muir
As stated in Frederick W. Turner, John Muir: Rediscovering America (2000), 193. Also seen as “Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world,” in Thomas N. Taylor, Edith L. Taylor, Michael Krings, Paleobotany: the Biology and Evolution of Fossil Plants (2009), 805. “Between every two pines stood the door to the world's greatest cathedral,” in Robert Adrian de Jauralde Hart, Forest Gardening: Cultivating an Edible Landscape (1996), xi. Please contact Webmaster if you know the primary source and Muir's exact wording.
Science quotes on:  |  Cathedral (27)  |  Door (94)  |  Doorway (2)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  New (1273)  |  Pine (12)  |  Tree (269)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)

For three million years we were hunter-gatherers, and it was through the evolutionary pressures of that way of life that a brain so adaptable and so creative eventually emerged. Today we stand with the brains of hunter-gatherers in our heads, looking out on a modern world made comfortable for some by the fruits of human inventiveness, and made miserable for others by the scandal of deprivation in the midst of plenty.
Co-author with American science writer Roger Amos Lewin (1946), Origins: What New Discoveries Reveal about the Emergence of our Species and its Possible Future (1977), 249.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptability (7)  |  Brain (281)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Deprivation (5)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Hunter-Gatherer (2)  |  Inventiveness (8)  |  Life (1870)  |  Looking (191)  |  Modern (402)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Stand (284)  |  Through (846)  |  Today (321)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

I have said that science is impossible without faith. … Inductive logic, the logic of Bacon, is rather something on which we can act than something which we can prove, and to act on it is a supreme assertion of faith … Science is a way of life which can only fluorish when men are free to have faith.
In Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao, Statistics and Truth (1997), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Faith (209)  |  Free (239)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Life (1870)  |  Logic (311)  |  Prove (261)  |  Something (718)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Way (1214)

I intend to interpret Tuscarora values, beliefs, and institutions not as relics of the past, not as a step on the acculturation ladder to the successful emulation of White culture … but as a viable way of life that can stand on its own as an alternative among other American life styles.
Expressing his aim as author in Tuscarora: A History (2012), 27-28.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternative (32)  |  American (56)  |  Belief (615)  |  Culture (157)  |  Emulation (2)  |  Institution (73)  |  Intend (18)  |  Interpret (25)  |  Ladder (18)  |  Lifestyle (2)  |  Past (355)  |  Relic (8)  |  Stand (284)  |  Step (234)  |  Successful (134)  |  Value (393)  |  Viable (2)  |  White (132)

If the universe is not meaningless, what is its meaning? For me, this meaning is to be found in the structure of the universe, which happens to be such as to produce thought by way of life and mind. Thought, in turn, is a faculty whereby the universe can reflect upon itself, discover its own structure, and apprehend such immanent entities as truth, beauty, goodness, and love. Such is the meaning of the universe, as I see it.
In Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative (1995), 301.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Love (328)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)

In our way of life … with every decision we make, we always keep in mind the seventh generation of children to come. … When we walk upon Mother Earth, we always plant our feet carefully, because we know that the faces of future generations are looking up at us from beneath the ground. We never forget them.
Earth Day Pledge (1993)
Science quotes on:  |  Beneath (68)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Decision (98)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Face (214)  |  Foot (65)  |  Forget (125)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Ground (222)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mother (116)  |  Never (1089)  |  Plant (320)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)

Is what you are doing fun? Of course, physics is also fun—indeed it is an enjoyable way of life. One reason physics is fun is that each element of progress transforms an area of ignorance into knowledge, but it also creates, as a by-product, an amount of new and additional ignorance in excess of that which was reduced to understanding. Thus, the volume of delicious ignorance we produce is ever-expanding, like our exponentially exploding universe.
In 'Physics and the APS in 1979', Physics Today (Apr 1980), 33, No. 4, 50.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  By-Product (8)  |  Course (413)  |  Create (245)  |  Doing (277)  |  Element (322)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Excess (23)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Fun (42)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  New (1273)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Product (166)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reason (766)  |  Transform (74)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)

James Watt patented his steam engine on the eve of the American Revolution, consummating a relationship between coal and the new Promethean spirit of the age, and humanity made its first tentative steps into an industrial way of life that would, over the next two centuries, forever change the world.
In The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth (2002), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Century (319)  |  Change (639)  |  Coal (64)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Engine (99)  |  Eve (4)  |  First (1302)  |  Forever (111)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Patent (34)  |  Prometheus (7)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Step (234)  |  Tentative (18)  |  Two (936)  |  James Watt (11)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

Only rarely do we see beyond the needs of humanity. … Now that we are over six billion hungry and greedy individuals, all aspiring to a first-world lifestyle, our urban way of life encroaches upon the domain of the living Earth. We are taking so much that it is no longer able to sustain the familiar and comfortable world we have taken for granted. Now it is changing, according to its own internal rules, to a state where we are no longer welcome.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 9. The first sentence is a concept acknowledged to John Gray, Straw Dogs (2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  Aspire (15)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Billion (104)  |  Change (639)  |  Comfortable (13)  |  Domain (72)  |  Encroach (2)  |  Environmentalism (9)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Greed (17)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Hungry (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Internal (69)  |  Lifestyle (2)  |  Living Earth (5)  |  Need (320)  |  Rare (94)  |  Rule (307)  |  State (505)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Urban (12)  |  Welcome (20)  |  World (1850)

Our way of life has been influenced by the way technology has developed. In future, it seems to me, we ought to try to reverse this and so develop our technology that it meets the needs of the sort of life we wish to lead.
Men, Machines and Sacred Cows (1984).
Science quotes on:  |  By The Way (3)  |  Develop (278)  |  Future (467)  |  Influence (231)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Meet (36)  |  Need (320)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sort (50)  |  Technology (281)  |  Try (296)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wish (216)

The whole apparatus of using loyalty-security hearings for working off personal political spite has been firmly established as a part of our “way of life” and I do not see anything happening yet to loosen the hold of this machinery on us.
In letter to Linus Pauling (8 Sep 1955). Cited on Oregon State University Library web site.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Do (1905)  |  Establishing (7)  |  Happening (59)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Hold (96)  |  Life (1870)  |  Loyalty (10)  |  Machinery (59)  |  McCarthy_Joseph (2)  |  Personal (75)  |  Political (124)  |  Politics (122)  |  Security (51)  |  See (1094)  |  Spite (55)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)

We don’t teach our students enough of the intellectual content of experiments—their novelty and their capacity for opening new fields… . My own view is that you take these things personally. You do an experiment because your own philosophy makes you want to know the result. It’s too hard, and life is too short, to spend your time doing something because someone else has said it’s important. You must feel the thing yourself—feel that it will change your outlook and your way of life.
In Bernstein, 'Profiles: Physicists: I', The New Yorker (13 Oct 1975), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Capacity (105)  |  Change (639)  |  Content (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Feel (371)  |  Field (378)  |  Hard (246)  |  Important (229)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Result (700)  |  Science And Education (17)  |  Short (200)  |  Something (718)  |  Spend (97)  |  Student (317)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  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.