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: “We are here to celebrate the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome. Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by human kind.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index W > Category: Wish

Wish Quotes (216 quotes)

… the truth is that the knowledge of external nature and of the sciences which that knowledge requires or includes, is not the great or the frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and justice are virtues, and excellencies, of all times and of all places; we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure. Physical knowledge is of such rare emergence, that one man may know another half his life without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy; but his moral and prudential character immediately appears.
In Lives of the Poets (1779-81).
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Action (342)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Being (1276)  |  Business (156)  |  Chance (244)  |  Character (259)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Event (222)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Mankind (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Include (93)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Justice (40)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Leisure (25)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Next (238)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Perpetually (20)  |  Physical (518)  |  Prove (261)  |  Rare (94)  |  Reasonableness (6)  |  Religious (134)  |  Require (229)  |  Right (473)  |  Skill (116)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Useful (260)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wrong (246)

… the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward, and so will space.
From Address at Rice Stadium (12 Sep 1962). On website of John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. [This go-to-the-moon speech was largely written by presidential advisor and speechwriter Ted Sorensen.]
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Build (211)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Country (269)  |  Forward (104)  |  Look (584)  |  Move (223)  |  Rest (287)  |  Space (523)  |  State (505)  |  United States (31)  |  Wait (66)  |  Will (2350)

“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.
“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light.”
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871, 1950), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Distance (171)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eye (440)  |  Light (635)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Observation (593)  |  People (1031)  |  See (1094)  |  Tone (22)  |  Why (491)

“Talent is a long patience.” We must look on what we wish to express long enough and with enough attention to discover an aspect that has not been seen and portrayed by another. There is, in everything, something unexplored, because we always use our eyes only with the recollection of what has been thought before on the subject we are contemplating.
From Pierre et Jean (1888), as translated by Alexina Loranger in 'Introduction', Pierre et Jean (Peter and John) (1890), 38-39. The opening words are quoted from Gustave Flaubert. From the original French, “Le talent est une longue patience. — Il s’agit de regarder tout ce qu’on veut exprimer assez longtemps et avec assez d’attention pour en découvrir un aspect qui n’ait été vu et dit par personne. Il y a, dans tout, de l’inexploré, parce que nous sommes habitués à ne nous servir de nos yeux qu’avec le souvenir de ce qu’on a pensé avant nous sur ce que nous contemplons.”
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Attention (196)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Discover (571)  |  Enough (341)  |  Everything (489)  |  Express (192)  |  Eye (440)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Must (1525)  |  Patience (58)  |  Portray (6)  |  Recollection (12)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Subject (543)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unexplored (15)  |  Use (771)

[In] the realm of science, … what we have achieved will be obsolete in ten, twenty or fifty years. That is the fate, indeed, that is the very meaning of scientific work. … Every scientific “fulfillment” raises new “questions” and cries out to be surpassed and rendered obsolete. Everyone who wishes to serve science has to resign himself to this.
Max Weber
From a Speech (1918) presented at Munich University, published in 1919, and collected in 'Wissenschaft als Beruf', Gessammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre (1922), 524-525. As translated by Rodney Livingstone in David Owen (ed.), The Vocation Lectures: Science as a Vocation: Politics as a Vocation (2004), 11. A different translation of a longer excerpt for this quote, beginning “In science, each of us knows …”, is also on the Max Weber Quotes web page on this site.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fulfillment (20)  |  Himself (461)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Meaning (244)  |  New (1273)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  Question (649)  |  Raise (38)  |  Realm (87)  |  Render (96)  |  Resign (4)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Serve (64)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

[Professor Pauling] confesses that he had harboured the feeling that sooner or later he would be the one to get the DNA structure; and although he was pleased with the double-helix, he ‘rather wished the idea had been his’.
‘The Need to Understand’, New Scientist (1971), 50, 755.
Science quotes on:  |  Confession (9)  |  DNA (81)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Harbor (8)  |  Helix (10)  |  Idea (881)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Professor (133)  |  Structure (365)

[T]he human desire to escape the flesh, which took one form in asceticism, might take another form in the creation of machines. Thus, the wish to rise above the bestial body manifested itself not only in angels but in mechanical creatures. Certainly, once machines existed, humans clearly attached to them feelings of escape from the flesh.
The Fourth Discontinuity: The Co-Evolution of Humans and Machines (1993), 218.
Science quotes on:  |  Angel (47)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Bestial (3)  |  Body (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Desire (212)  |  Escape (85)  |  Exist (458)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Flesh (28)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Machine (271)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Rise (169)

[The] second fundamental rule of historical science may be thus simply expressed:—we should not wish to explain every thing. Historical tradition must never be abandoned in the philosophy of history—otherwise we lose all firm ground and footing. But historical tradition, ever so accurately conceived and carefully sifted, doth not always, especially in the early and primitive ages, bring with it a full and demonstrative certainty.
In Friedrich von Schlegel and James Burton Robertson (trans.), The Philosophy of History (1835), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Age (509)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Demonstrative (14)  |  Early (196)  |  Everything (489)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Express (192)  |  Firm (47)  |  Footing (2)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Ground (222)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Lose (165)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Rule (307)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tradition (76)

[Colonel Ross:] “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
[Sherlock Holmes:] “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident.”
Fiction from 'XIII—The Adventure of the Silver Blaze', Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in The Strand Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly (Dec 1892), Vol. 4, 656-657.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Curious (95)  |  Dog (70)  |  Draw (140)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Point (584)  |  Sherlock Holmes (5)  |  Time (1911)

[When recording electrical impulses from a frog nerve-muscle preparation seemed to show a tiresomely oscillating electrical artefact—but only when the muscle was hanging unsupported.] The explanation suddenly dawned on me ... a muscle hanging under its own weight ought, if you come to think of it, to be sending sensory impulses up the nerves coming from the muscle spindles ... That particular day’s work, I think, had all the elements that one could wish for. The new apparatus seemed to be misbehaving very badly indeed, and I suddenly found it was behaving so well that it was opening up an entire new range of data ... it didn’t involve any particular hard work, or any particular intelligence on my part. It was just one of those things which sometimes happens in a laboratory if you stick apparatus together and see what results you get.
From 'Memorable experiences in research', Diabetes (1954), 3, 17-18. As cited in Alan McComa, Galvani's Spark: The Story of the Nerve Impulse (2011), 102-103.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Artefact (2)  |  Badly (32)  |  Behave (18)  |  Coming (114)  |  Data (162)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Element (322)  |  Entire (50)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Found (11)  |  Frog (44)  |  Hang (46)  |  Happen (282)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Insight (107)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Involve (93)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Nerve (82)  |  New (1273)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Range (104)  |  Recording (13)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Send (23)  |  Sensory (16)  |  Serendipity (17)  |  Show (353)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Together (392)  |  Unsupported (3)  |  Weight (140)  |  Work (1402)

Ac astronomye is an hard thyng,
And yvel for to knowe;
Geometrie and geomesie,
So gynful of speche,
Who so thynketh werche with tho two
Thryveth ful late,
For sorcerie is the sovereyn book
That to tho sciences bilongeth.

Now, astronomy is a difficult discipline, and the devil to learn;
And geometry and geomancy have confusing terminology:
If you wish to work in these two, you will not succeed quickly.
For sorcery is the chief study that these sciences entail.
In William Langland and B. Thomas Wright (ed.) The Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman (1842), 186. Modern translation by Terrence Tiller in Piers Plowman (1981, 1999), 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Book (413)  |  Chief (99)  |  Confusing (2)  |  Devil (34)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Hard (246)  |  Late (119)  |  Learn (672)  |  Quickly (21)  |  Sorcery (6)  |  Study (701)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Terminology (12)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Between the frontiers of the three super-states Eurasia, Oceania, and Eastasia, and not permanently in possession of any of them, there lies a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hongkong. These territories contain a bottomless reserve of cheap labour. Whichever power controls equatorial Africa, or the Middle East or Southern India or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies of hundreds of millions of ill-paid and hardworking coolies, expended by their conquerors like so much coal or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, to control more labour, to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, to control…
Thus George Orwell—in his only reference to the less-developed world.
I wish I could disagree with him. Orwell may have erred in not anticipating the withering of direct colonial controls within the “quadrilateral” he speaks about; he may not quite have gauged the vehemence of urges to political self-assertion. Nor, dare I hope, was he right in the sombre picture of conscious and heartless exploitation he has painted. But he did not err in predicting persisting poverty and hunger and overcrowding in 1984 among the less privileged nations.
I would like to live to regret my words but twenty years from now, I am positive, the less-developed world will be as hungry, as relatively undeveloped, and as desperately poor, as today.
'The Less-Developed World: How Can We be Optimists?' (1964). Reprinted in Ideals and Realities (1984), xv-xvi. Referencing a misquote from George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four (1949), Ch. 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  Archipelago (7)  |  Armament (6)  |  Bottomless (7)  |  Coal (64)  |  Conqueror (8)  |  Control (182)  |  Corner (59)  |  Dare (55)  |  Develop (278)  |  Direct (228)  |  Exploitation (14)  |  Frontier (41)  |  Heartless (3)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Labor (200)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Nation (208)  |  Oil (67)  |   George Orwell (4)  |  Persisting (2)  |  Picture (148)  |  Political (124)  |  Poor (139)  |  Positive (98)  |  Possession (68)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Power (771)  |  Race (278)  |  Regret (31)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Right (473)  |  Self (268)  |  Speak (240)  |  State (505)  |  Territory (25)  |  Today (321)  |  Turn (454)  |  Undeveloped (6)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Nulla (enim) res tantum ad dicendum proficit, quantum scriptio
Nothing so much assists learning as writing down what we wish to remember.
In Jon R. Stone, The Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations (2005), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Assist (9)  |  Down (455)  |  Learning (291)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Remember (189)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

A celebrated medical lecturer began one day “Fumigations, gentlemen, are of essential importance. They make such an abominable smell that they compel you to open the window.” I wish all the disinfecting fluids invented made such an “abominable smell” that they forced you to admit fresh air. That would be a useful invention.
In Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not (1860), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Abominable (4)  |  Admit (49)  |  Air (366)  |  Compel (31)  |  Disinfect (2)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Fumigation (2)  |  Importance (299)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lecturer (13)  |  Open (277)  |  Smell (29)  |  Useful (260)  |  Window (59)

A formative influence on my undergraduate self was the response of a respected elder statesmen of the Oxford Zoology Department when an American visitor had just publicly disproved his favourite theory. The old man strode to the front of the lecture hall, shook the American warmly by the hand and declared in ringing, emotional tones: “My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.” And we clapped our hands red. Can you imagine a Government Minister being cheered in the House of Commons for a similar admission? “Resign, Resign” is a much more likely response!
From a talk, 'Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder', (21 Dec 1996), published on edge.org website.
Science quotes on:  |  Admission (17)  |  American (56)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cheer (7)  |  Clap (3)  |  Common (447)  |  Declare (48)  |  Declared (24)  |  Department (93)  |  Disprove (25)  |  Elder (9)  |  Emotional (17)  |  Favourite (7)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Formative (2)  |  Front (16)  |  Government (116)  |  Hand (149)  |  House (143)  |  House Of Commons (2)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Influence (231)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Lecture Hall (2)  |  Likely (36)  |  Man (2252)  |  Minister (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Man (6)  |  Oxford (16)  |  Publicly (3)  |  Red (38)  |  Resign (4)  |  Respect (212)  |  Response (56)  |  Ring (18)  |  Self (268)  |  Shake (43)  |  Similar (36)  |  Statesman (20)  |  Stride (15)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thank You (8)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tone (22)  |  Undergraduate (17)  |  Visitor (3)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)  |  Zoology (38)

A patient pursuit of facts, and cautious combination and comparison of them, is the drudgery to which man is subjected by his Maker, if he wishes to attain sure knowledge.
In 'Productions Mineral, Vegetable and Animal', Notes on the State of Virginia (1787), 112.
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Cautious (4)  |  Combination (150)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Drudgery (6)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Maker (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Patient (209)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Subject (543)

A prominent official was asked to deliver an after-dinner speech at the banquet recently held in Cambridge, Mass., for the Mathematicians at the International Congress. “What do you wish me to speak about?" he asked. "About five minutes," was the answer.
Anonymous
Found as a space filler, Pi Mu Epsilon Journal (1949), 1, No. 1, 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Banquet (2)  |  Congress (20)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Do (1905)  |  International (40)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Minute (129)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speech (66)

A propos of Distempers, I am going to tell you a thing that I am sure will make you wish your selfe here. The Small Pox so fatal and so general amongst us is here entirely harmless by the invention of engrafting (which is the term they give it). There is a set of old Women who make it their business to perform the Operation.
Letter to Sarah Chiswell (1 Apr 1717). In Robert Halsband (ed.), The Complete Letters of the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1965), Vol. 1, 338.
Science quotes on:  |  Business (156)  |  Distemper (5)  |  General (521)  |  Harmless (9)  |  Inoculation (9)  |  Invention (400)  |  Old (499)  |  Operation (221)  |  Perform (123)  |  Set (400)  |  Small (489)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Tell (344)  |  Term (357)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

A weird happening has occurred in the case of a lansquenet named Daniel Burghammer, of the squadron of Captain Burkhard Laymann Zu Liebenau, of the honorable Madrucci Regiment in Piadena, in Italy. When the same was on the point of going to bed one night he complained to his wife, to whom he had been married by the Church seven years ago, that he had great pains in his belly and felt something stirring therein. An hour thereafter he gave birth to a child, a girl. When his wife was made aware of this, she notified the occurrence at once. Thereupon he was examined and questioned. … He confessed on the spot that he was half man and half woman and that for more than seven years he had served as a soldier in Hungary and the Netherlands… . When he was born he was christened as a boy and given in baptism the name of Daniel… . He also stated that while in the Netherlands he only slept once with a Spaniard, and he became pregnant therefrom. This, however, he kept a secret unto himself and also from his wife, with whom he had for seven years lived in wedlock, but he had never been able to get her with child… . The aforesaid soldier is able to suckle the child with his right breast only and not at all on the left side, where he is a man. He has also the natural organs of a man for passing water. Both are well, the child is beautiful, and many towns have already wished to adopt it, which, however, has not as yet been arranged. All this has been set down and described by notaries. It is considered in Italy to be a great miracle, and is to be recorded in the chronicles. The couple, however, are to be divorced by the clergy.
Anonymous
'From Piadena in Italy, the 26th day of May 1601'. As quoted in George Tennyson Matthews (ed.) The Fugger Newsletter (1970), 247-248. A handwritten collection of news reports (1568-1604) by the powerful banking and merchant house of Fugger in Ausburg. This was footnoted in The Story of the Secret Service (1937), 698. https://books.google.com/books?id=YfssAAAAMAAJ Richard Wilmer Rowan - 1937
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Birth (154)  |  Both (496)  |  Boy (100)  |  Captain (16)  |  Child (333)  |  Church (64)  |  Confess (42)  |  Consider (428)  |  Divorce (7)  |  Down (455)  |  Girl (38)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happening (59)  |  Himself (461)  |  Honorable (14)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hungary (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Miracle (85)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Never (1089)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Organ (118)  |  Pain (144)  |  Passing (76)  |  Point (584)  |  Question (649)  |  Record (161)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Right (473)  |  Secret (216)  |  Set (400)  |  Side (236)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Something (718)  |  Water (503)  |  Wife (41)  |  Woman (160)  |  Year (963)

According to Democritus, atoms had lost the qualities like colour, taste, etc., they only occupied space, but geometrical assertions about atoms were admissible and required no further analysis. In modern physics, atoms lose this last property, they possess geometrical qualities in no higher degree than colour, taste, etc. The atom of modern physics can only be symbolized by a partial differential equation in an abstract multidimensional space. Only the experiment of an observer forces the atom to indicate a position, a colour and a quantity of heat. All the qualities of the atom of modern physics are derived, it has no immediate and direct physical properties at all, i.e. every type of visual conception we might wish to design is, eo ipso, faulty. An understanding of 'the first order' is, I would almost say by definition, impossible for the world of atoms.
Philosophic Problems of Nuclear Science, trans. F. C. Hayes (1952), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  According (236)  |  Admissible (6)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Atom (381)  |  Conception (160)  |  Definition (238)  |  Degree (277)  |  Design (203)  |  Differential Equation (18)  |  Direct (228)  |  Equation (138)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Heat (180)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Last (425)  |  Lose (165)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Physics (23)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Order (638)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possess (157)  |  Property (177)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Required (108)  |  Say (989)  |  Space (523)  |  Taste (93)  |  Type (171)  |  Understanding (527)  |  World (1850)

Although [Charles Darwin] would patiently go on repeating experiments where there was any good to be gained, he could not endure having to repeat an experiment which ought, if complete care had been taken, to have told its story at first—and this gave him a continual anxiety that the experiment should not be wasted; he felt the experiment to be sacred, however slight a one it was. He wished to learn as much as possible from an experiment, so that he did not confine himself to observing the single point to which the experiment was directed, and his power of seeing a number of other things was wonderful. ... Any experiment done was to be of some use, and ... strongly he urged the necessity of keeping the notes of experiments which failed, and to this rule he always adhered.
In Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of his Published Letters (1908), 92.
Science quotes on:  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Care (203)  |  Complete (209)  |  Continual (44)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Direct (228)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Note (39)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Single (365)  |  Story (122)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Waste (109)  |  Wonderful (155)

And how admirable and rare an ornament, O good God, is mildenesse in a divine? And how much is it to be wished in this age, that all divines were mathematicians? that is men gentle and meeke.
Trigonometria (1595), trans. R. Handson (1614), Epistle Dedicatorie.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Age (509)  |  Divine (112)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mildness (2)  |  Ornament (20)  |  Rare (94)  |  Rarity (11)

And ye who wish to represent by words the form of man and all the aspects of his membrification, get away from that idea. For the more minutely you describe, the more you will confuse the mind of the reader and the more you will prevent him from a knowledge of the thing described. And so it is necessary to draw and describe.
From Notebooks (AnA, 14v; Cf. QII, 1), as translated by J. Playfair McMurrich, in Leonardo da Vinci the Anatomist (1930), 76, (Institution Publication 411, Carnegie Institution of Washington).
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Confuse (22)  |  Describe (132)  |  Draw (140)  |  Form (976)  |  Idea (881)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Reader (42)  |  Represent (157)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

Any time you wish to demonstrate something, the number of faults is proportional to the number of viewers.
Anonymous
Bye's First Law of Model Railroading. In Paul Dickson, The Official Rules, (1978), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Failure (176)  |  Fault (58)  |  Number (710)  |  Something (718)  |  Time (1911)

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
From The Art of Living, Day by Day 91972), 77. Frequently misattributed to Henry David Thoreau.
Science quotes on:  |  Deep (241)  |  Dominate (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Footstep (5)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Path (159)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Physical (518)  |  Single (365)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Walk (138)  |  Will (2350)

As for France and England, with all their pre-eminence in science, the one is a den of robbers, and the other of pirates. If science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine, and destitution of national morality, I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest, and estimable as our neighboring savages are.
Letter (21 Jan 1812) to John Adams. Collected in Thomas Jefferson Randolph (ed.), Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers (1829), Vol. 4, 173.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Country (269)  |  Destitution (2)  |  Eminence (25)  |  England (43)  |  Estimable (2)  |  France (29)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Honest (53)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Morality (55)  |  Murder (16)  |  National (29)  |  Neighboring (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pirate (2)  |  Pre-eminence (4)  |  Savage (33)  |  Tyranny (15)

As pilgrimages to the shrines of saints draw thousands of English Catholics to the Continent, there may be some persons in the British Islands sufficiently in love with science, not only to revere the memory of its founders, but to wish for a description of the locality and birth-place of a great master of knowledge—John Dalton—who did more for the world’s civilisation than all the reputed saints in Christendom.
In The Worthies of Cumberland (1874), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Birth (154)  |  Britain (26)  |  British (42)  |  Catholic (18)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Continent (79)  |  John Dalton (25)  |  Draw (140)  |  Founder (26)  |  Great (1610)  |  Island (49)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Love (328)  |  Master (182)  |  Memory (144)  |  More (2558)  |  Person (366)  |  Pilgrimage (4)  |  Repute (3)  |  Revere (2)  |  Saint (17)  |  Shrine (8)  |  Thousand (340)  |  World (1850)

At present we begin to feel impatient, and to wish for a new state of chemical elements. For a time the desire was to add to the metals, now we wish to diminish their number. They increase upon us continually, and threaten to enclose within their ranks the bounds of our fair fields of chemical science. The rocks of the mountain and the soil of the plain, the sands of the sea and the salts that are in it, have given way to the powers we have been able to apply to them, but only to be replaced by metals.
In his 16th Lecture of 1818, in Bence Jones, The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870), Vol. 1, 256-257.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Begin (275)  |  Bound (120)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Desire (212)  |  Element (322)  |  Feel (371)  |  Field (378)  |  Impatience (13)  |  Increase (225)  |  Metal (88)  |  Mountain (202)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Rank (69)  |  Rock (176)  |  Salt (48)  |  Sand (63)  |  Sea (326)  |  Soil (98)  |  State (505)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)

At this point, however, I have no intention whatever of criticizing the false teachings of Galen, who is easily first among the professors of dissection, for I certainly do not wish to start off by gaining a reputation for impiety toward him, the author of all good things, or by seeming insubordinate to his authority. For I am well aware how upset the practitioners (unlike the followers of Aristotle) invariably become nowadays, when they discover in the course of a single dissection that Galen has departed on two hundred or more occasions from the true description of the harmony, function, and action of the human parts, and how grimly they examine the dissected portions as they strive with all the zeal at their command to defend him. Yet even they, drawn by their love of truth, are gradually calming down and placing more faith in their own not ineffective eyes and reason than in Galen’s writings.
From De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem: (1543), Book I, iv, as translated by William Frank Richardson, in On The Fabric of the Human Body: Book I: The Bones and Cartilages (1998), Preface, liv.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Author (175)  |  Authority (99)  |  Become (821)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Command (60)  |  Course (413)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Description (89)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Examine (84)  |  Eye (440)  |  Faith (209)  |  False (105)  |  First (1302)  |  Follower (11)  |  Function (235)  |  Galen (20)  |  Good (906)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Ineffective (6)  |  Intention (46)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Love (328)  |  More (2558)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Point (584)  |  Portion (86)  |  Practitioner (21)  |  Professor (133)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reputation (33)  |  Single (365)  |  Start (237)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teachings (11)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Upset (18)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Writing (192)  |  Zeal (12)

Because intelligence is our own most distinctive feature, we may incline to ascribe superior intelligence to the basic primate plan, or to the basic plan of the mammals in general, but this point requires some careful consideration. There is no question at all that most mammals of today are more intelligent than most reptiles of today. I am not going to try to define intelligence or to argue with those who deny thought or consciousness to any animal except man. It seems both common and scientific sense to admit that ability to learn, modification of action according to the situation, and other observable elements of behavior in animals reflect their degrees of intelligence and permit us, if only roughly, to compare these degrees. In spite of all difficulties and all the qualifications with which the expert (quite properly) hedges his conclusions, it also seems sensible to conclude that by and large an animal is likely to be more intelligent if it has a larger brain at a given body size and especially if its brain shows greater development of those areas and structures best developed in our own brains. After all, we know we are intelligent, even though we wish we were more so.
In The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of its Significance for Man (1949), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  According (236)  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Area (33)  |  Argument (145)  |  Ascribe (18)  |  Basic (144)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Best (467)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Brain (281)  |  Care (203)  |  Common (447)  |  Compare (76)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Degree (277)  |  Deny (71)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Element (322)  |  Expert (67)  |  Feature (49)  |  General (521)  |  Greater (288)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Know (1538)  |  Large (398)  |  Larger (14)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modification (57)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Observable (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  Permit (61)  |  Plan (122)  |  Point (584)  |  Primate (11)  |  Qualification (15)  |  Question (649)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Require (229)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)  |  Show (353)  |  Situation (117)  |  Size (62)  |  Spite (55)  |  Structure (365)  |  Superior (88)  |  Thought (995)  |  Today (321)  |  Try (296)

Becoming serious is a grievous fault in hobbyists. It is an axiom that no hobby should either seek or need rational justification. To wish to do it is reason enough. To find reasons why it is useful or beneficial converts it at once from an avocation into an industry–lowers it at once to the ignominious category of an 'exercise' undertaken for health, power, or profit. Lifting dumbbells is not a hobby. It is a confession of subservience, not an assertion of liberty.
From 'A Man’s Leisure Time' (1920), collected in Luna B. Leopold (ed.) Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold (1953, 1972), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Assertion (35)  |  Avocation (5)  |  Beneficial (16)  |  Category (19)  |  Confession (9)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fault (58)  |  Grievous (4)  |  Health (210)  |  Hobby (14)  |  Ignominious (2)  |  Industry (159)  |  Justification (52)  |  Liberty (29)  |  Lift (57)  |  Power (771)  |  Profit (56)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reason (766)  |  Serious (98)  |  Subservience (4)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Useful (260)

But indeed, the English generally have been very stationary in latter times, and the French, on the contrary, so active and successful, particularly in preparing elementary books, in the mathematical and natural sciences, that those who wish for instruction, without caring from what nation they get it, resort universally to the latter language.
Letter (29 Jan 1824) to Patrick K. Rodgers. Collected in Andrew A. Lipscomb (ed.), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1904), Vol. 16, 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Book (413)  |  Caring (6)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Elementary (98)  |  English (35)  |  French (21)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nation (208)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Preparing (21)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Successful (134)  |  Time (1911)

But, as we consider the totality of similarly broad and fundamental aspects of life, we cannot defend division by two as a natural principle of objective order. Indeed, the ‘stuff’ of the universe often strikes our senses as complex and shaded continua, admittedly with faster and slower moments, and bigger and smaller steps, along the way. Nature does not dictate dualities, trinities, quarterings, or any ‘objective’ basis for human taxonomies; most of our chosen schemes, and our designated numbers of categories, record human choices from a cornucopia of possibilities offered by natural variation from place to place, and permitted by the flexibility of our mental capacities. How many seasons (if we wish to divide by seasons at all) does a year contain? How many stages shall we recognize in a human life?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admittedly (2)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Basis (180)  |  Big (55)  |  Broad (28)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Category (19)  |  Choice (114)  |  Choose (116)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Complex (202)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contain (68)  |  Continua (3)  |  Defend (32)  |  Designation (13)  |  Dictate (11)  |  Divide (77)  |  Division (67)  |  Fast (49)  |  Faster (50)  |  Flexibility (6)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mental (179)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Objective (96)  |  Offer (142)  |  Often (109)  |  Order (638)  |  Permit (61)  |  Place (192)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Principle (530)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Record (161)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Season (47)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shade (35)  |  Similarly (4)  |  Slow (108)  |  Small (489)  |  Stage (152)  |  Step (234)  |  Strike (72)  |  Stuff (24)  |  Taxonomy (19)  |  Totality (17)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Variation (93)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

But, because my private lectures and domestic pupils are a great hinderance and interruption of my studies, I wish to live entirely exempt from the former, and in great measure from the latter. … in short, I should wish to gain my bread from my writings.
Reply upon being offered a professorship. Quoted in John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune, Life of Galileo Galilei (1832), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Bread (42)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Former (138)  |  Gain (146)  |  Great (1610)  |  Interruption (5)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Live (650)  |  Measure (241)  |  Money (178)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Research (753)  |  Short (200)  |  Writing (192)

Charles Darwin [is my personal favorite Fellow of the Royal Society]. I suppose as a physical scientist I ought to have chosen Newton. He would have won hands down in an IQ test, but if you ask who was the most attractive personality then Darwin is the one you'd wish to meet. Newton was solitary and reclusive, even vain and vindictive in his later years when he was president of the society.
From interview with Graham Lawton, 'One Minute with Martin Rees', in New Scientist (12 Dec 2009), 204, No. 2738.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Attractive (25)  |  Choice (114)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Down (455)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Fellow (88)  |  IQ (5)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Personal (75)  |  Personality (66)  |  Physical (518)  |  President (36)  |  Reclusive (2)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Society (350)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Test (221)  |  Vain (86)  |  Year (963)

Chemists have made of phlogiston a vague principle which is not at all rigorously defined, and which, in consequence, adapts itself to all explanations in which it is wished it shall enter; sometimes it is free fire, sometimes it is fire combined with the earthy element; sometimes it passes through the pores of vessels, sometimes they are impenetrable to it; it explains both the causticity and non-causticity, transparency and opacity, colours and absence of colours. It is a veritable Proteus which changes its form every instant. It is time to conduct chemistry to a more rigorous mode of reasoning ... to distinguish fact and observation from what is systematic and hypothetical.
'Réflexions sur le phlogistique', Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences, 1783, 505-38. Reprinted in Oeuvres de Lavoisier (1864), Vol. 2, 640, trans. M. P. Crosland.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Both (496)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Definition (238)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Element (322)  |  Enter (145)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fire (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Instant (46)  |  More (2558)  |  Observation (593)  |  Phlogiston (9)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transparency (7)  |  Vague (50)  |  Vessel (63)

Deprived, therefore, as regards this period, of any assistance from history, but relieved at the same time from the embarrassing interference of tradition, the archaeologist is free to follow the methods which have been so successfully pursued in geology—the rude bone and stone implements of bygone ages being to the one what the remains of extinct animals are to the other. The analogy may be pursued even further than this. Many mammalia which are extinct in Europe have representatives still living in other countries. Our fossil pachyderms, for instance, would be almost unintelligible but for the species which still inhabit some parts of Asia and Africa; the secondary marsupials are illustrated by their existing representatives in Australia and South America; and in the same manner, if we wish clearly to understand the antiquities of Europe, we must compare them with the rude implements and weapons still, or until lately, used by the savage races in other parts of the world. In fact, the Van Diemaner and South American are to the antiquary what the opossum and the sloth are to the geologist.
Pre-historic Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages, (2nd ed. 1869, 1890), 429-430.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  Age (509)  |  America (143)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Animal (651)  |  Antiquary (4)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Archaeologist (18)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Australia (11)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bone (101)  |  Bygone (4)  |  Compare (76)  |  Europe (50)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Follow (389)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Free (239)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Geology (240)  |  History (716)  |  Implement (13)  |  Interference (22)  |  Living (492)  |  Marsupial (2)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Opossum (3)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Race (278)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remain (355)  |  Savage (33)  |  Sloth (7)  |  South (39)  |  South America (6)  |  Species (435)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Understand (648)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  World (1850)

Do we really wish to replace the fateful but impartial workings of chance with the purposeful self-interested workings of human will?
Reported in 1981, expressing concern for the future of gene-splicing.
'Shaping Life in the Lab'. In Time (9 Mar 1981).
Science quotes on:  |  Chance (244)  |  Concern (239)  |  Do (1905)  |  Future (467)  |  Gene (105)  |  Gene Splicing (5)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Interest (416)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Interest (3)  |  Will (2350)

Dreams are wishes cast upon stars, so catch a shining one ~ take your friend’s hand~ and hold on forever.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Cast (69)  |  Catch (34)  |  Dream (222)  |  Forever (111)  |  Friend (180)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hold (96)  |  Shine (49)  |  Shining (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)

Early in my school days a boy had a copy of the “Wonders of the World,” which I often read, and disputed with other boys about the veracity of some of the statements; and I believe that this book first gave me a wish to travel in remote countries, which was ultimately fulfilled by the voyage of the Beagle.
In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), 'Autobiography', The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887, 1896), Vol. 1, 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Beagle (14)  |  Belief (615)  |  Book (413)  |  Boy (100)  |  Copy (34)  |  Country (269)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Early (196)  |  First (1302)  |  Other (2233)  |  Read (308)  |  Remote (86)  |  School (227)  |  Statement (148)  |  Travel (125)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Veracity (2)  |  Voyage (13)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

Every consideration that did not relate to “what is best for the patient” was dismissed. This was Sir William [Gull]’s professional axiom. … But the carrying of it out not unfrequently involved him in difficulty, and led occasionally to his being misunderstood. … He would frequently refuse to repeat a visit or consultation on the ground that he wished the sufferer to feel that it was unnecessary.
In Memoir, as Editor, prefacing Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), xviii.
Science quotes on:  |  Axiom (65)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Consulting (13)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Dismiss (12)  |  Feel (371)  |  Good (906)  |  Ground (222)  |  Sir William Withey Gull (39)  |  Involved (90)  |  Patient (209)  |  Professional (77)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Sufferer (7)  |  Unnecessary (23)  |  Visit (27)

Everything material which is the subject of knowledge has number, order, or position; and these are her first outlines for a sketch of the universe. If our feeble hands cannot follow out the details, still her part has been drawn with an unerring pen, and her work cannot be gainsaid. So wide is the range of mathematical sciences, so indefinitely may it extend beyond our actual powers of manipulation that at some moments we are inclined to fall down with even more than reverence before her majestic presence. But so strictly limited are her promises and powers, about so much that we might wish to know does she offer no information whatever, that at other moments we are fain to call her results but a vain thing, and to reject them as a stone where we had asked for bread. If one aspect of the subject encourages our hopes, so does the other tend to chasten our desires, and he is perhaps the wisest, and in the long run the happiest, among his fellows, who has learned not only this science, but also the larger lesson which it directly teaches, namely, to temper our aspirations to that which is possible, to moderate our desires to that which is attainable, to restrict our hopes to that of which accomplishment, if not immediately practicable, is at least distinctly within the range of conception.
From Presidential Address (Aug 1878) to the British Association, Dublin, published in the Report of the 48th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1878), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Actual (118)  |  Ask (420)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Attainable (3)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bread (42)  |  Call (781)  |  Chasten (2)  |  Conception (160)  |  Desire (212)  |  Detail (150)  |  Directly (25)  |  Distinctly (5)  |  Down (455)  |  Draw (140)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Everything (489)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fall (243)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Fellow (88)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Hand (149)  |  Happy (108)  |  Hope (321)  |  Immediately (115)  |  In The Long Run (18)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Indefinitely (10)  |  Information (173)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Least (75)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Material (366)  |  Moderate (6)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Namely (11)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Number (710)  |  Offer (142)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outline (13)  |  Part (235)  |  Pen (21)  |  Position (83)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Practicable (2)  |  Presence (63)  |  Promise (72)  |  Range (104)  |  Reject (67)  |  Restrict (13)  |  Result (700)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Sketch (8)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Temper (12)  |  Tend (124)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unerring (4)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vain (86)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wise (143)  |  Work (1402)

Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their development. Feeling and longing are the motive force behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present themselves to us.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Concern (239)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Creation (350)  |  Deeply (17)  |  Development (441)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Exalted (22)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Force (497)  |  Guise (6)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Keep (104)  |  Latter (21)  |  Long (778)  |  Longing (19)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motive (62)  |  Movement (162)  |  Need (320)  |  Pain (144)  |  Present (630)  |  Race (278)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understand (648)

Exercise in the most rigorous thinking that is possible will of its own accord strengthen the sense of truth and right, for each advance in the ability to distinguish between correct and false thoughts, each habit making for rigour in thought development will increase in the sound pupil the ability and the wish to ascertain what is right in life and to defend it.
In Anleitung zum mathematischen Unterricht in den höheren Schulen (1906), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Advance (298)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Correct (95)  |  Defend (32)  |  Development (441)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Exercise (113)  |  False (105)  |  Habit (174)  |  Increase (225)  |  Life (1870)  |  Making (300)  |  Most (1728)  |  Possible (560)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Right (473)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sound (187)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Will (2350)

Experiments may be of two kinds: experiments of simple fact, and experiments of quantity. ...[In the latter] the conditions will ... vary, not in quality, but quantity, and the effect will also vary in quantity, so that the result of quantitative induction is also to arrive at some mathematical expression involving the quantity of each condition, and expressing the quantity of the result. In other words, we wish to know what function the effect is of its conditions. We shall find that it is one thing to obtain the numerical results, and quite another thing to detect the law obeyed by those results, the latter being an operation of an inverse and tentative character.
Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1874, 1892), 439.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Character (259)  |  Condition (362)  |  Detect (45)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Function (235)  |  Induction (81)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Obey (46)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Operation (221)  |  Other (2233)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Result (700)  |  Simple (426)  |  Tentative (18)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Variation (93)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

Finally, since I thought that we could have all the same thoughts, while asleep, as we have while we are awake, although none of them is true at that time, I decided to pretend that nothing that ever entered my mind was any more true than the illusions of my dreams. But I noticed, immediately afterwards, that while I thus wished to think that everything was false, it was necessarily the case that I, who was thinking this, was something. When I noticed that this truth “I think, therefore I am” was so firm and certain that all the most extravagant assumptions of the sceptics were unable to shake it, I judged that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy for which I was searching. Then, when I was examining what I was, I realized that I could pretend that I had no body, and that there was no world nor any place in which I was present, but I could not pretend in the same way that I did not exist. On the contrary, from the very fact that I was thinking of doubting the truth of other things, it followed very evidently and very certainly that I existed; whereas if I merely ceased to think, even if all the rest of what I had ever imagined were true, I would have no reason to believe that I existed. I knew from this that I was a substance, the whole essence or nature of which was to think and which, in order to exist, has no need of any place and does not depend on anything material. Thus this self—that is, the soul by which I am what I am—is completely distinct from the body and is even easier to know than it, and even if the body did not exist the soul would still be everything that it is.
Discourse on Method in Discourse on Method and Related Writings (1637), trans. Desmond M. Clarke, Penguin edition (1999), Part 4, 24-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Awake (19)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Completely (137)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Depend (238)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Dream (222)  |  Easier (53)  |  Enter (145)  |  Essence (85)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Exist (458)  |  Extravagant (10)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Firm (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Know (1538)  |  Material (366)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rest (287)  |  Self (268)  |  Shake (43)  |  Something (718)  |  Soul (235)  |  Still (614)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Following the example of Archimedes who wished his tomb decorated with his most beautiful discovery in geometry and ordered it inscribed with a cylinder circumscribed by a sphere, James Bernoulli requested that his tomb be inscribed with his logarithmic spiral together with the words, “Eadem mutata resurgo,” a happy allusion to the hope of the Christians, which is in a way symbolized by the properties of that curve.
From 'Eloge de M. Bernoulli', Oeuvres de Fontenelle, t. 5 (1768), 112. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 143-144. [The Latin phrase, Eadem numero mutata resurgo means as “Though changed, I arise again exactly the same”. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Allusion (2)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Jacob Bernoulli (6)  |  Christian (44)  |  Circumscribe (3)  |  Curve (49)  |  Cylinder (11)  |  Decorate (2)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Example (98)  |  Follow (389)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Happy (108)  |  Hope (321)  |  Inscribe (4)  |  Logarithmic (5)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Most (1728)  |  Order (638)  |  Property (177)  |  Request (7)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spiral (19)  |  Symbolize (8)  |  Together (392)  |  Tomb (15)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

For my part, I wish all guns with their belongings and everything could be sent to hell, which is the proper place for their exhibition and use.
As quoted in Erik Bergengren, Alfred Nobel: The Man and his Work (1960), 124.
Science quotes on:  |  Belonging (36)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exhibition (7)  |  Gun (10)  |  Hell (32)  |  Proper (150)  |  Use (771)

From the rocket we can see the huge sphere of the planet in one or another phase of the Moon. We can see how the sphere rotates, and how within a few hours it shows all its sides successively ... and we shall observe various points on the surface of the Earth for several minutes and from different sides very closely. This picture is so majestic, attractive and infinitely varied that I wish with all my soul that you and I could see it. (1911)
As translated in William E. Burrows, The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth (2007), 147. From Tsiolkovsky's 'The Investigation of Universal Space by Means of Reactive Devices', translated in K.E. Tsiolkovsky, Works on Rocket Technology (NASA, NASATT F-243, n.d.), 76-77.
Science quotes on:  |  Attractive (25)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Hour (192)  |  Infinitely (13)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Minute (129)  |  Moon (252)  |  Observe (179)  |  Phase (37)  |  Picture (148)  |  Planet (402)  |  Point (584)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Rotate (8)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Side (236)  |  Soul (235)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Varied (6)  |  Various (205)

From the sexual, or amatorial, generation of plants new varieties, or improvements, are frequently obtained; as many of the young plants from seeds are dissimilar to the parent, and some of them superior to the parent in the qualities we wish to possess... Sexual reproduction is the chef d'oeuvre, the master-piece of nature.
Phytologia. (1800), 115, 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Chef (3)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Generation (256)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Master (182)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Parent (80)  |  Plant (320)  |  Possess (157)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Seed (97)  |  Sexual (27)  |  Superior (88)  |  Young (253)

Gardner writes about various kinds of cranks with the conscious superiority of the scientist…. He asserts that the scientist, unlike the crank, does his best to remain open-minded, so how can he be so sure that no sane person has ever seen a flying saucer…? … A.J. Ayer once remarked wryly “I wish I was as certain of anything as he seems to be about everything”.
In The Quest For Wilhelm Reich (1981), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (69)  |  Best (467)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Crank (18)  |  Everything (489)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Saucer (3)  |  Martin Gardner (50)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Open (277)  |  Open-Minded (2)  |  Person (366)  |  Remain (355)  |  Sane (5)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Various (205)  |  Write (250)

Geometry, which should only obey Physics, when united with it sometimes commands it. If it happens that the question which we wish to examine is too complicated for all the elements to be able to enter into the analytical comparison which we wish to make, we separate the more inconvenient [elements], we substitute others for them, less troublesome, but also less real, and we are surprised to arrive, notwithstanding a painful labour, only at a result contradicted by nature; as if after having disguised it, cut it short or altered it, a purely mechanical combination could give it back to us.
From Essai d’une nouvelle théorie de la résistance des fluides (1752), translated as an epigram in Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Convolutions in French Mathematics, 1800-1840: From the Calculus and Mechanics to Mathematical Analysis and Mathematical Physics (1990), Vol. 1, 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Back (395)  |  Combination (150)  |  Command (60)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Cut (116)  |  Disguise (12)  |  Element (322)  |  Enter (145)  |  Examine (84)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Happen (282)  |  Inconvenient (5)  |  Labor (200)  |  Less (105)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obey (46)  |  Other (2233)  |  Painful (12)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Purely (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Real (159)  |  Result (700)  |  Separate (151)  |  Short (200)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Troublesome (8)  |  United (15)

He (Anaxagoras) is said to have been twenty years old at the time of Xerxes' crossing, and to have lived to seventy-two. Apollodorus says in his Chronicles that he was born in the seventieth Olympiad (500-497 B.C.) and died in the first year of the eighty-eighth (428/7). He began to be a philosopher at Athens in the archonship of Callias (456/5), at the age of twenty, as Demetrius Phalereus tells us in his Register of Archons, and they say he spent thirty years there. … There are different accounts given of his trial. Sotion, in his Succession of Philosophers, says that he was prosecuted by Cleon for impiety, because he maintained that the sun was a red hot mass of metal, and after that Pericles, his pupil, had made a speech in his defence, he was fined five talents and exiled. Satyrus in his Uves, on the other hand, says that the charge was brought by Thucydides in his political campaign against Pericles; and he adds that the charge was not only for the impiety but for Medism as well; and he was condemned to death in his absence. ... Finally he withdrew to Lampsacus, and there died. It is said that when the rulers of the city asked him what privilege he wished to be granted, he replied that the children should be given a holiday every year in the month in which he died. The custom is preserved to the present day. When he died the Lampsacenes buried him with full honours.
Diogenes Laërtius 2.7. In G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield (eds.), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1983), p. 353.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Against (332)  |  Age (509)  |  Anaxagoras (11)  |  Ask (420)  |  Charge (63)  |  Children (201)  |  City (87)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Custom (44)  |  Death (406)  |  Defence (16)  |  Different (595)  |  First (1302)  |  Grant (76)  |  Holiday (12)  |  Honour (58)  |  Hot (63)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mass (160)  |  Metal (88)  |  Month (91)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Political (124)  |  Present (630)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Register (22)  |  Ruler (21)  |  Say (989)  |  Speech (66)  |  Spent (85)  |  Succession (80)  |  Sun (407)  |  Talent (99)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trial (59)  |  Two (936)  |  Year (963)

He [Sylvester] had one remarkable peculiarity. He seldom remembered theorems, propositions, etc., but had always to deduce them when he wished to use them. In this he was the very antithesis of Cayley, who was thoroughly conversant with everything that had been done in every branch of mathematics.
I remember once submitting to Sylvester some investigations that I had been engaged on, and he immediately denied my first statement, saying that such a proposition had never been heard of, let alone proved. To his astonishment, I showed him a paper of his own in which he had proved the proposition; in fact, I believe the object of his paper had been the very proof which was so strange to him.
As quoted by Florian Cajori, in Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 268.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Antithesis (7)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Belief (615)  |  Branch (155)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Conversant (6)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Deny (71)  |  Engage (41)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Hear (144)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Let (64)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Never (1089)  |  Object (438)  |  Paper (192)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Prove (261)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Remember (189)  |  Say (989)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Show (353)  |  Statement (148)  |  Strange (160)  |  Submit (21)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Use (771)

Here lies one who for medicines would not give
A little gold, and so his life he lost;
I fancy now he’d wish again to live,
Could he but guess how much his funeral cost.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Cost (94)  |  Death (406)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Funeral (5)  |  Gold (101)  |  Guess (67)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Money (178)

How is it that there are so many minds that are incapable of understanding mathematics? ... the skeleton of our understanding, ... and actually they are the majority. ... We have here a problem that is not easy of solution, but yet must engage the attention of all who wish to devote themselves to education.
Science and Method (1914, 2003), 117-118.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Easy (213)  |  Education (423)  |  Engage (41)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Majority (68)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Problem (731)  |  Skeleton (25)  |  Solution (282)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Understanding (527)

However, all scientific statements and laws have one characteristic in common: they are “true or false” (adequate or inadequate). Roughly speaking, our reaction to them is “yes” or “no.” The scientific way of thinking has a further characteristic. The concepts which it uses to build up its coherent systems are not expressing emotions. For the scientist, there is only “being,” but no wishing, no valuing, no good, no evil; no goal. As long as we remain within the realm of science proper, we can never meet with a sentence of the type: “Thou shalt not lie.” There is something like a Puritan's restraint in the scientist who seeks truth: he keeps away from everything voluntaristic or emotional.
Essays in Physics (1950), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Being (1276)  |  Build (211)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Common (447)  |  Concept (242)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evil (122)  |  False (105)  |  Goal (155)  |  Good (906)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  Law (913)  |  Lie (370)  |  Long (778)  |  Never (1089)  |  Proper (150)  |  Puritan (3)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Realm (87)  |  Remain (355)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seek (218)  |  Something (718)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Statement (148)  |  System (545)  |  Thinking (425)  |  True (239)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Type (171)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Way (1214)

I ... express a wish that you may, in your generation, be fit to compare to a candle; that you may, like it, shine as lights to those about you; that, in all your actions, you may justify the beauty of the taper by making your deeds honourable and effectual in the discharge of your duty to your fellow-men.
[Concluding remarks for the final lecture (Christmas 1860-61) for children at the Royal Institution. These six lectures were the first series in the tradition of Christmas lectures continued to the present day.]
A Course of Six Lectures on the Chemical History of a Candle (1861), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Candle (32)  |  Children (201)  |  Christmas (13)  |  Compare (76)  |  Deed (34)  |  Discharge (21)  |  Express (192)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Final (121)  |  First (1302)  |  Fit (139)  |  Generation (256)  |  Institution (73)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Light (635)  |  Making (300)  |  Present (630)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Institution (4)  |  Series (153)  |  Tradition (76)

I am a firm believer in the theory that you can do or be anything that you wish in this world, within reason, if you are prepared to make the sacrifices, think and work hard enough and long enough.
From Cameron Prize Lecture (1928), delivered before the University of Edinburgh. As quoted and cited in Editorial Section, 'Sir Frederick Banting', Canadian Public Health Journal (May 1941), 32, No. 5, 266-267.
Science quotes on:  |  Believer (26)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enough (341)  |  Firm (47)  |  Hard (246)  |  Long (778)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Work (1402)  |  Work Hard (14)  |  World (1850)

I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
'Preface', A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), Vol. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Daughter (30)  |  Decay (59)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Forget (125)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Idea (881)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Language (308)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Word (650)

I believe—and human psychologists, particularly psychoanalysts should test this—that present-day civilized man suffers from insufficient discharge of his aggressive drive. It is more than probable that the evil effects of the human aggressive drives, explained by Sigmund Freud as the results of a special death wish, simply derive from the fact that in prehistoric times intra-specific selection bred into man a measure of aggression drive for which in the social order today he finds no adequate outlet.
On Aggression, trans. M. Latzke (1966), 209.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Aggression (10)  |  Death (406)  |  Derive (70)  |  Discharge (21)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evil (122)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Sigmund Freud (70)  |  Human (1512)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Prehistoric (12)  |  Present (630)  |  Psychoanalyst (4)  |  Psychologist (26)  |  Result (700)  |  Selection (130)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Order (8)  |  Special (188)  |  Specific (98)  |  Test (221)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)

I can certainly wish for new, large, and properly constructed instruments, and enough of them, but to state where and by what means they are to be procured, this I cannot do. Tycho Brahe has given Mastlin an instrument of metal as a present, which would be very useful if Mastlin could afford the cost of transporting it from the Baltic, and if he could hope that it would travel such a long way undamaged… . One can really ask for nothing better for the observation of the sun than an opening in a tower and a protected place underneath.
As quoted in James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, The Portable Renaissance Reader (1968), 605.
Science quotes on:  |  Afford (19)  |  Ask (420)  |  Better (493)  |  Tycho Brahe (24)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Construct (129)  |  Cost (94)  |  Damage (38)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enough (341)  |  Hope (321)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Large (398)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Metal (88)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Opening (15)  |  Place (192)  |  Present (630)  |  Procure (6)  |  Protect (65)  |  State (505)  |  Sun (407)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Tower (45)  |  Transport (31)  |  Travel (125)  |  Underneath (4)  |  Useful (260)  |  Way (1214)

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Creature (242)  |  Death (406)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeble (28)  |  God (776)  |  Individual (420)  |  Notion (120)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physical (518)  |  Punish (8)  |  Reward (72)  |  Soul (235)  |  Survive (87)  |  Type (171)  |  Will (2350)

I confess, that after I began … to discern how useful mathematicks may be made to physicks, I have often wished that I had employed about the speculative part of geometry, and the cultivation of the specious Algebra I had been taught very young, a good part of that time and industry, that I had spent about surveying and fortification (of which I remember I once wrote an entire treatise) and other parts of practick mathematicks.
In 'The Usefulness of Mathematiks to Natural Philosophy', Works (1772), Vol. 3, 426.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Begin (275)  |  Confess (42)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Discern (35)  |  Employ (115)  |  Entire (50)  |  Fortification (6)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Good (906)  |  Industry (159)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Often (109)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physics (564)  |  Practical (225)  |  Remember (189)  |  Specious (3)  |  Speculative (12)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Survey (36)  |  Surveying (6)  |  Teach (299)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Write (250)  |  Young (253)

I could almost wish, at this point, that I were in the habit of expressing myself in theological terms, for if I were, I might be able to compress my entire thesis into a sentence. All knowledge of every variety (I might say) is in the mind of God—and the human intellect, even the best, in trying to pluck it forth can but “see through a glass, darkly.”
In Asimov on Physics (1976), 146. Also in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 279.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Darkly (2)  |  Glass (94)  |  God (776)  |  Habit (174)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Myself (211)  |  Point (584)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  See (1094)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thesis (17)  |  Through (846)  |  Trying (144)  |  Variety (138)

I could wish that it [instruction in moral philosophy] were more expository, less polemical, and above all less dogmatic.
In Inaugural Address: Delivered to the University of St. Andrews, Feb. 1st, 1867 (1867), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Dogmatic (8)  |  Expository (2)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Less (105)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Philosophy (409)

I don’t know whether there is a finite set of basic laws of physics or whether there are infinite sets of structure like an infinite set of Chinese boxes. Will the electron turn out to have an interior structure? I wish I knew!
In Kendrick Frazier, 'A Mind at Play: An Interview with Martin Gardner', Skeptical Inquirer (Mar/Apr 1998), 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Box (22)  |  Chinese (22)  |  Electron (96)  |  Finite (60)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Interior (35)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Set (400)  |  Structure (365)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turn Out (9)  |  Will (2350)

I have no other wish than a close fusion with nature, and I desire no other fate than to have worked and lived in harmony with her laws.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Close (77)  |  Desire (212)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fusion (16)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Law (913)  |  Live (650)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Work (1402)

I have now said enough to show you that it is indispensable for this country to have a scientific education in connexion with manufacturers, if we wish to outstrip the intellectual competition which now, happily for the world, prevails in all departments of industry. As surely as darkness follows the setting of the sun, so surely will England recede as a manufacturing nation, unless her industrial population become much more conversant with science than they are now.
In 'The Study of Abstract Science Essential to the Progress of Industry', Records of the School of Mines (1852) 1, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Competition (45)  |  Connection (171)  |  Conversant (6)  |  Country (269)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Department (93)  |  Education (423)  |  England (43)  |  Enough (341)  |  Follow (389)  |  Industry (159)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Manufacturer (10)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  More (2558)  |  Nation (208)  |  Outstrip (4)  |  Population (115)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Recede (11)  |  Science Education (16)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Setting (44)  |  Show (353)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surely (101)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

I have wished to see chemistry applied to domestic objects, to malting, for instance, brewing, making cider, to fermentation and distillation generally, to the making of bread, butter, cheese, soap, to the incubation of eggs, &c.
Letter to Thomas Cooper (Monticello, 1812). In Thomas Jefferson and John P. Foley (ed.), The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia (1900), 135. From H.A. Washington, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1853-54). Vol 6, 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Bread (42)  |  Brewing (2)  |  Butter (8)  |  Cheese (10)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Cider (3)  |  Distillation (11)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Egg (71)  |  Fermentation (15)  |  Incubation (3)  |  Making (300)  |  Object (438)  |  See (1094)  |  Soap (11)

I have, also, a good deal of respect for the job they [physicists] did in the first months after Hiroshima. The world desperately needed information on this new problem in the daily life of the planet, and the physicists, after a slow start, did a good job of giving it to them. It hasn’t come out with a fraction of the efficiency that the teachers might have wished, but it was infinitely more effective than anyone would have dared expect.
In 'A Newsman Looks at Physicists', Physics Today (May 1948), 1, No. 1, 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Daily (91)  |  Daily Life (18)  |  Deal (192)  |  Effective (68)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Expect (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Hiroshima (18)  |  Information (173)  |  Job (86)  |  Life (1870)  |  Month (91)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Planet (402)  |  Problem (731)  |  Respect (212)  |  Slow (108)  |  Start (237)  |  Teacher (154)  |  World (1850)

I just wish the world was twice as big and half of it was still unexplored.
Epigraph Bruce L. Smith, Stories from Afield: Adventures with Wild Things in Wild Places (2016), Chap. 16, citing the TV program Life on Earth.
Science quotes on:  |  Big (55)  |  Half (63)  |  Twice (20)  |  Unexplored (15)  |  World (1850)

I read in the proof sheets of Hardy on Ramanujan: “As someone said, each of the positive integers was one of his personal friends.” My reaction was, “I wonder who said that; I wish I had.” In the next proof-sheets I read (what now stands), “It was Littlewood who said…”. What had happened was that Hardy had received the remark in silence and with poker face, and I wrote it off as a dud.
In Béla Bollobás (ed.), Littlewood’s Miscellany, (1986), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Face (214)  |  Friend (180)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  G. H. Hardy (71)  |  Integer (12)  |  Next (238)  |  Personal (75)  |  Positive (98)  |  Proof (304)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Read (308)  |  Remark (28)  |  Say (989)  |  Sheet (8)  |  Silence (62)  |  Stand (284)  |  Wonder (251)

I therefore took this opportunity and also began to consider the possibility that the Earth moved. Although it seemed an absurd opinion, nevertheless, because I knew that others before me had been granted the liberty of imagining whatever circles they wished to represent the phenomena of the stars, I thought that I likewise would readily be allowed to test whether, by assuming some motion of the Earth's, more dependable representations than theirs could be found for the revolutions of the heavenly spheres.
'To His Holiness Pope Paul III', in Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543), trans. A. M. Duncan (1976), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Circle (117)  |  Consider (428)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Grant (76)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Represent (157)  |  Representation (55)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Test (221)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Whatever (234)

I think that physics is the most important—indeed the only—means we have of finding out the origins and fundamentals of our universe, and this is what interests me most about it. I believe that as science advances religion necessarily recedes, and this is a process I wish to encourage, because I consider that, on the whole, the influence of religion is malign.
Quoted in Contemporary Authors Online Gale (2007)
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interest (416)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Origin (250)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Process (439)  |  Recede (11)  |  Religion (369)  |  Think (1122)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)

I took biology in high school and didn't like it at all. It was focused on memorization. ... I didn't appreciate that biology also had principles and logic ... [rather than dealing with a] messy thing called life. It just wasn't organized, and I wanted to stick with the nice pristine sciences of chemistry and physics, where everything made sense. I wish I had learned sooner that biology could be fun as well.
Interview (23 May 1998), 'Creating the Code to Life', Academy of Achievement web site.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Appreciation (37)  |  Biology (232)  |  Call (781)  |  Called (9)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Everything (489)  |  Focus (36)  |  Fun (42)  |  High (370)  |  High School (15)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Like (23)  |  Logic (311)  |  Making (300)  |  Memorization (2)  |  Messy (6)  |  Nice (15)  |  Organization (120)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pristine (5)  |  School (227)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soon (187)  |  Sticking (3)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Want (504)

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Walden (1854), 143.
Science quotes on:  |  Death (406)  |  Deliberately (6)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Front (16)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  See (1094)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Wood (97)  |  Woods (15)

I wish I had my beta-blockers handy.
[Comment when told that he had won a Nobel prize, referring to the drug he discovered for the treatment of heart disease.]
As quoted in Obituary, The Times (24 Mar 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Discover (571)  |  Disease (340)  |  Drug (61)  |  Handy (2)  |  Heart (243)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Treatment (135)

I wish I had the voice of Homer
To sing of rectal carcinoma,
Which kills a lot more chaps, in fact,
Than were bumped off when Troy was sacked.
From poem, 'Cancer’s a Funny Thing', New Statesman (21 Feb 1964). He is describing experience with his own colostomy.
Science quotes on:  |  Cancer (61)  |  Carcinoma (3)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Homer (11)  |  Kill (100)  |  Lot (151)  |  More (2558)  |  Seige (2)  |  Troy (3)

I wish I were a glow-worm.
A glow-worm’s never glum.
How can you be unhappy,
When a light shines out your bum.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Bum (3)  |  Glow-Worm (3)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Light (635)  |  Never (1089)  |  Shining (35)  |  Unhappy (16)  |  Worm (47)

I wish people would more generally bring back the seeds of pleasing foreign plants and introduce them broadcast, sowing them by our waysides and in our fields, or in whatever situation is most likely to suit them. It is true, this would puzzle botanists, but there is no reason why botanists should not be puzzled. A botanist is a person whose aim is to uproot, kill and exterminate every plant that is at all remarkable for rarity or any special virtue, and the rarer it is the more bitterly he will hunt it down.
Samuel Butler, Henry Festing Jones (ed.), The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1917), 281.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Back (395)  |  Bitterly (2)  |  Botanist (25)  |  Down (455)  |  Exterminate (10)  |  Field (378)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Kill (100)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Plant (320)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Rarity (11)  |  Reason (766)  |  Seed (97)  |  Situation (117)  |  Sowing (9)  |  Special (188)  |  Uproot (2)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wayside (4)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

I wish that one would be persuaded that psychological experiments, especially those on the complex functions, are not improved [by large studies]; the statistical method gives only mediocre results; some recent examples demonstrate that. The American authors, who love to do things big, often publish experiments that have been conducted on hundreds and thousands of people; they instinctively obey the prejudice that the persuasiveness of a work is proportional to the number of observations. This is only an illusion.
L' Études expérimentale de l'intelligence (1903), 299.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Complex (202)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Function (235)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Large (398)  |  Love (328)  |  Mediocre (14)  |  Method (531)  |  Number (710)  |  Obey (46)  |  Observation (593)  |  People (1031)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Recent (78)  |  Result (700)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Work (1402)

I wish the lecturers to treat their subject as a strictly natural science, the greatest of all possible sciences, indeed, in one sense, the only science, that of Infinite Being, without reference to or reliance upon any supposed special exception or so-called miraculous revelation. I wish it considered just as astronomy or chemistry is.
Statement in deed of foundation of the Gifford Lectures on natural theology (1885).
Quoted in Michael A. Arbib and Mary B. Hesse, The Construction of Reality (1986), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Consider (428)  |  Deed (34)  |  Exception (74)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Lecturer (13)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Possible (560)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Special (188)  |  Statement (148)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theology (54)

I wish there was a verb to otter, ottering around in pure play, to honour Otter ludens, which plays in my mind long after I’ve seen one.
In 'Fifty Years On, the Silence of Rachel Carson’s Spring Consumes Us', The Guardian (25 Sep 2012),
Science quotes on:  |  Honor (57)  |  Honour (58)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Otter (2)  |  Play (116)  |  Pure (299)  |  Word (650)

I wish they don’t forget to keep those treasures pure which they have in excellence over the west: their artistic building of life, the simplicity a nd modesty in personal need, and the pureness and calmness of Japanese soul.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Artistic (24)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Calmness (2)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Forget (125)  |  Japanese (7)  |  Keep (104)  |  Life (1870)  |  Modesty (18)  |  Nd (2)  |  Need (320)  |  Personal (75)  |  Pure (299)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Soul (235)  |  Treasure (59)  |  West (21)

I wish they would use English instead of Greek words. When I want to know why a leaf is green, they tell me it is coloured by “chlorophyll,” which at first sounds very instructive; but if they would only say plainly that a leaf is coloured green by a thing which is called “green leaf,” we should see more precisely how far we had got.
The word “chlorophyll” is formed from the Greek words for “green” “leaf.” In The Queen of the Air: a Study of the Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm (1869, 1889), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Chlorophyll (5)  |  Color (155)  |  English (35)  |  First (1302)  |  Greek (109)  |  Green (65)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leaf (73)  |  More (2558)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sound (187)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Want (504)  |  Why (491)  |  Word (650)

I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Calculation (134)  |  Execute (7)  |  God (776)  |  Steam (81)

I wish, my dear Kepler, that we could have a good laugh together at the extraordinary stupidity of the mob. What do you think of the foremost philosophers of this University? In spite of my oft-repeated efforts and invitations, they have refused, with the obstinacy of a glutted adder, to look at the planets or the Moon or my glass [telescope].
Opere ed Nas. X, 423. As cited in Alan Mackay, A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991), 99. Galileo wished others to use his telescope to see for themselves the moons of Jupiter which he had himself first seen in Jan 1610. If you have a primary source for this letter giving the date it was written, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Adder (3)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Foremost (11)  |  Glass (94)  |  Good (906)  |  Invitation (12)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Look (584)  |  Mob (10)  |  Moon (252)  |  Obstinacy (3)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Planet (402)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Spite (55)  |  Stupidity (40)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Think (1122)  |  Together (392)  |  University (130)

I wished to show that Pythagoras, the first founder of the vegetable regimen, was at once a very great physicist and a very great physician; that there has been no one of a more cultured and discriminating humanity; that he was a man of wisdom and of experience; that his motive in commending and introducing the new mode of living was derived not from any extravagant superstition, but from the desire to improve the health and the manners of men.
From Dell Vitto Pitagorico (1743), (The Pythagorean Diet: for the Use of the Medical Faculty), as translated quotes in Howard Williams, The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-Eating (1883), 158.
Science quotes on:  |  Commend (7)  |  Culture (157)  |  Desire (212)  |  Diet (56)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extravagant (10)  |  First (1302)  |  Founder (26)  |  Great (1610)  |  Health (210)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Improve (64)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Motive (62)  |  New (1273)  |  Physician (284)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Show (353)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Vegetarian (13)  |  Wisdom (235)

Iconography becomes even more revealing when processes or concepts, rather than objects, must be depicted–for the constraint of a definite ‘thing’ cedes directly to the imagination. How can we draw ‘evolution’ or ‘social organization,’ not to mention the more mundane ‘digestion’ or ‘self-interest,’ without portraying more of a mental structure than a physical reality? If we wish to trace the history of ideas, iconography becomes a candid camera trained upon the scholar’s mind.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Camera (7)  |  Candid (3)  |  Concept (242)  |  Constraint (13)  |  Definite (114)  |  Depict (3)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Directly (25)  |  Draw (140)  |  Evolution (635)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Interest (416)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Mundane (2)  |  Must (1525)  |  Object (438)  |  Organization (120)  |  Physical (518)  |  Portray (6)  |  Process (439)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Interest (3)  |  Social (261)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trace (109)  |  Train (118)

If [in a rain forest] the traveler notices a particular species and wishes to find more like it, he must often turn his eyes in vain in every direction. Trees of varied forms, dimensions, and colors are around him, but he rarely sees any of them repeated. Time after time he goes towards a tree which looks like the one he seeks, but a closer examination proves it to be distinct.
In 'Equitorial Vegetation', Natural Selection and Tropical Nature Essays on Descriptive and Theoretical Biology (1891), 267.
Science quotes on:  |  Close (77)  |  Closer (43)  |  Color (155)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Direction (185)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Examination (102)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forestry (17)  |  Form (976)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Notice (81)  |  Prove (261)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Repeat (44)  |  See (1094)  |  Seek (218)  |  Species (435)  |  Time (1911)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Tree (269)  |  Turn (454)  |  Vain (86)

If I wished to express the basic principle of my ideas in a somewhat strongly worded sentence, I would say that man, in his bodily development, is a primate fetus that has become sexually mature [einen zur Geschlechsreife gelangten Primatenfetus].
Das Problem der Menschwerdung (1926), 8. Trans. in Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (1977), 361.
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Become (821)  |  Development (441)  |  Express (192)  |  Idea (881)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mature (17)  |  Primate (11)  |  Principle (530)  |  Say (989)  |  Word (650)

If one might wish for impossibilities, I might then wish that my children might be well versed in physical science, but in due subordination to the fulness and freshness of their knowledge on moral subjects. ... Rather than have it the principal thing in my son's mind, I would gladly have him think that the sun went round the earth, and that the stars were so many spangles set in the bright blue firmament.
Letter to Dr. Greenhill (9 May 1836). In Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold (2nd Ed., 1846), 277.
Science quotes on:  |  Bright (81)  |  Children (201)  |  Due (143)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Firmament (18)  |  Freshness (8)  |  Geocentric (6)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Principal (69)  |  Set (400)  |  Son (25)  |  Spangle (2)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)

If there is anything that we wish to change in a child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could be better changed in ourselves.
Carl Jung
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Change (639)  |  Child (333)  |  Examine (84)  |  First (1302)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)

If we are ever in doubt what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done.
The Pleasures of Life (1887, 2007), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Ask (420)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Good (906)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Rule (307)

If we compare a mathematical problem with an immense rock, whose interior we wish to penetrate, then the work of the Greek mathematicians appears to us like that of a robust stonecutter, who, with indefatigable perseverance, attempts to demolish the rock gradually from the outside by means of hammer and chisel; but the modern mathematician resembles an expert miner, who first constructs a few passages through the rock and then explodes it with a single blast, bringing to light its inner treasures.
In Die Entwickelung der Mathematik in den letzten Jahrhunderten (1869), 9. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 114. From the original German, “Vergleichen wir ein mathematisches Problem mit einem gewaltigen Felsen, in dessen Inneres wir eindringen wollen, so erscheint die Arbeit der griechischen Mathematiker uns als die eines rüstigen Steinhauers, der mit Hammer und Meissel in unermüdlicher Ausdauer den Felsen langsam von aussen her zu zerbröckeln beginnt; der moderne Mathematiker aber als ein trefflicher Minirer, der diesen Felsen zunächst mit wenigen Gängen durchzieht, von denen aus er dann den Felsblock mit einem gewaltigem Schlage zersprengt und die Schätze des Inneren zu Tage fördert.”
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Blast (13)  |  Bring (95)  |  Chisel (2)  |  Compare (76)  |  Construct (129)  |  Demolish (8)  |  Expert (67)  |  Explode (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Greek (109)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inner (72)  |  Interior (35)  |  Light (635)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Miner (9)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Outside (141)  |  Passage (52)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Problem (731)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Robust (7)  |  Rock (176)  |  Single (365)  |  Through (846)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Work (1402)

If we had nothing but pecuniary rewards and worldly honours to look to, our profession would not be one to be desired. But in its practice you will find it to be attended with peculiar privileges, second to none in intense interest and pure pleasures. It is our proud office to tend the fleshly tabernacle of the immortal spirit, and our path, rightly followed, will be guided by unfettered truth and love unfeigned. In the pursuit of this noble and holy calling I wish you all God-speed.
Conclusion of Graduation Address, University of Edinburgh (1876). In John Vaughan, 'Lord Lister', The Living Age (1918), 297, 361.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flesh (28)  |  Follow (389)  |  God (776)  |  Holy (35)  |  Honour (58)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Interest (416)  |  Look (584)  |  Love (328)  |  Noble (93)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Path (159)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pecuniary (2)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Practice (212)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Profession (108)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Reward (72)  |  Speed (66)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Tabernacle (5)  |  Tend (124)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)

If we wish to foresee the future of mathematics, our proper course is to study the history and present condition of the science.
Science and Method (1914, 2003), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Condition (362)  |  Course (413)  |  Foresee (22)  |  Future (467)  |  History (716)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Present (630)  |  Proper (150)  |  Study (701)

If we wish to give an account of the atomic constitution of the aromatic compounds, we are bound to explain the following facts:
1) All aromatic compounds, even the most simple, are relatively richer in carbon than the corresponding compounds in the class of fatty bodies.
2) Among the aromatic compounds, as well as among the fatty bodies, a large number of homologous substances exist.
3) The most simple aromatic compounds contain at least six atoms of carbon.
4) All the derivatives of aromatic substances exhibit a certain family likeness; they all belong to the group of 'Aromatic compounds'. In cases where more vigorous reactions take place, a portion of the carbon is often eliminated, but the chief product contains at least six atoms of carbon These facts justify the supposition that all aromatic compounds contain a common group, or, we may say, a common nucleus consisting of six atoms of carbon. Within this nucleus a more intimate combination of the carbon atoms takes place; they are more compactly placed together, and this is the cause of the aromatic bodies being relatively rich in carbon. Other carbon atoms can be joined to this nucleus in the same way, and according to the same law, as in the case of the group of fatty bodies, and in this way the existence of homologous compounds is explained.
Bulletin de la Societé Chimique de France (1865), 1, 98. Trans. W. H. Brock.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Account (195)  |  Aromatic (4)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Bound (120)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chief (99)  |  Class (168)  |  Combination (150)  |  Common (447)  |  Compound (117)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Family (101)  |  Homologous (4)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Likeness (18)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Portion (86)  |  Product (166)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Say (989)  |  Simple (426)  |  Substance (253)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Together (392)  |  Way (1214)

If we wish to imitate the physical sciences, we must not imitate them in their contemporary, most developed form; we must imitate them in their historical youth, when their state of development was comparable to our own at the present time. Otherwise we should behave like boys who try to copy the imposing manners of full-grown men without understanding their raison d’être, also without seeing that in development one cannot jump over intermediate and preliminary phases.
Gestalt Psychology (1929), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Boy (100)  |  Copy (34)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Form (976)  |  Historical (70)  |  Imitate (18)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Jump (31)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Phase (37)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Present (630)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Seeing (143)  |  State (505)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Youth (109)

If we wish to make a new world we have the material ready. The first one, too, was made out of chaos.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Chaos (99)  |  First (1302)  |  Material (366)  |  New (1273)  |  New World (6)  |  Ready (43)  |  World (1850)

If you have an idea that you wish your audience to carry away, turn it upside down and inside out, rephrasing it from different angles. Remember that the form in which the thing may appear best to you may not impress half your audience.
Advice to the writer of his first paper for presentation at a scientific meeting. As expressed in quotation marks by Charles Thom in 'Robert Almer Harper', National Academy Biographical Memoirs (1948), 25, 233-234. Also, in Thom's words, “[Harper] added that a miscellaneous audience can not he expected to carry away a lot of separate facts but one good idea, well pictured out, will be remembered by some of them.”
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Audience (28)  |  Best (467)  |  Carry (130)  |  Different (595)  |  Down (455)  |  Form (976)  |  Half (63)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inside Out (3)  |  Remember (189)  |  Rephrasing (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Upside Down (8)

If you wish to die young, make your physician your heir.
In H. Pullar-Strecker, Proverbs for Pleasure (1954), 193.
Science quotes on:  |  Death (406)  |  Heir (12)  |  Making (300)  |  Physician (284)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

If you wish to learn from the theoretical physicist anything about the methods which he uses, I would give you the following piece of advice: Don’t listen to his words, examine his achievements. For to the discoverer in that field, the constructions of his imagination appear so necessary and so natural that he is apt to treat them not as the creations of his thoughts but as given realities.
In Herbert Spencer Lecture at Oxford (10 Jun 1933), 'On the Methods of Theoretical Physics'. Printed inPhilosophy of Science (Apr 1934), 1, No. 2, 163.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Advice (57)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Construction (114)  |  Creation (350)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Examine (84)  |  Field (378)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Learn (672)  |  Listen (81)  |  Method (531)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Reality (274)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Thought (995)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
From Cosmos (1980), 218. Variants are found which switch words such as: want/wish ; from/truly from ; invent/create.
Science quotes on:  |  Apple (46)  |  Apple Pie (2)  |  Create (245)  |  First (1302)  |  Must (1525)  |  Scratch (14)  |  Universe (900)  |  Want (504)

Imagination is the Discovering Faculty, pre-eminently. … It is that which feels & discovers what is, the REAL which we see not, which exists not for our senses. … Mathematical science shows what is. It is the language of unseen relations between things. … Imagination too shows what is. … Hence she is or should be especially cultivated by the truly Scientific, those who wish to enter into the worlds around us!
Lovelace Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford University, 175, folio 199, journal entry for 5 Jan 1841. As quoted and cited in Dorothy Stein (ed.), 'In Time I Will Do All, I Dare Say', Ada: A Life and a Legacy (1985), 128.
Science quotes on:  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enter (145)  |  Exist (458)  |  Feel (371)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Show (353)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truly (118)  |  Unseen (23)  |  World (1850)

In 1906 I indulged my temper by hurling invectives at Neo-Darwinians in the following terms. “I really do not wish to be abusive [to Neo-Darwinians]; but when I think of these poor little dullards, with their precarious hold of just that corner of evolution that a blackbeetle can understand—with their retinue of twopenny-halfpenny Torquemadas wallowing in the infamies of the vivisector’s laboratory, and solemnly offering us as epoch-making discoveries their demonstrations that dogs get weaker and die if you give them no food; that intense pain makes mice sweat; and that if you cut off a dog’s leg the three-legged dog will have a four-legged puppy, I ask myself what spell has fallen on intelligent and humane men that they allow themselves to be imposed on by this rabble of dolts, blackguards, imposters, quacks, liars, and, worst of all, credulous conscientious fools.”
In Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch (1921), lxi
Science quotes on:  |  Abuse (25)  |  Ask (420)  |  Conscientious (7)  |  Corner (59)  |  Credulity (16)  |  Credulous (9)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dog (70)  |  Dullard (2)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Food (213)  |  Fool (121)  |  Humane (19)  |  Hurling (2)  |  Impostor (4)  |  Infamy (2)  |  Inquisitor (6)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Invective (2)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Leg (35)  |  Liar (8)  |  Little (717)  |  Making (300)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Myself (211)  |  Pain (144)  |  Poor (139)  |  Quack (18)  |  Retinue (3)  |  Starvation (13)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Temper (12)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Weakening (2)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worst (57)

In 1945, therefore, I proved a sentimental fool; and Mr. Truman could safely have classified me among the whimpering idiots he did not wish admitted to the presidential office. For I felt that no man has the right to decree so much suffering, and that science, in providing and sharpening the knife and in upholding the ram, had incurred a guilt of which it will never get rid. It was at that time that the nexus between science and murder became clear to me. For several years after the somber event, between 1947 and 1952, I tried desperately to find a position in what then appeared to me as a bucolic Switzerland,—but I had no success.
Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before Nature (1978), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Biography (254)  |  Decree (9)  |  Event (222)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fool (121)  |  Guilt (13)  |  Idiot (22)  |  Knife (24)  |  Man (2252)  |  Never (1089)  |  Office (71)  |  Right (473)  |  Success (327)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

In a sense cosmology contains all subjects because it is the story of everything, including biology, psychology and human history. In that single sense it can be said to contain an explanation also of time's arrow. But this is not what is meant by those who advocate the cosmological explanation of irreversibility. They imply that in some way the time arrow of cosmology imposes its sense on the thermodynamic arrow. I wish to disagree with this view. The explanation assumes that the universe is expanding. While this is current orthodoxy, there is no certainty about it. The red-shifts might be due to quite different causes. For example, when light passes through the expanding clouds of gas it will be red-shifted. A large number of such clouds might one day be invoked to explain these red shifts. It seems an odd procedure to attempt to 'explain' everyday occurrences, such as the diffusion of milk into coffee, by means of theories of the universe which are themselves less firmly established than the phenomena to be explained. Most people believe in explaining one set of things in terms of others about which they are more certain, and the explanation of normal irreversible phenomena in terms of the cosmological expansion is not in this category.
'Thermodynamics, Cosmology) and the Physical Constants', in J. T. Fraser (ed.), The Study of Time III (1973), 117-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Advocate (20)  |  Arrow (22)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Biology (232)  |  Category (19)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Coffee (21)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Current (122)  |  Different (595)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Due (143)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Gas (89)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Irreversibility (4)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Large (398)  |  Light (635)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Milk (23)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Orthodoxy (11)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Red-Shift (4)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Shift (45)  |  Single (365)  |  Story (122)  |  Subject (543)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

In an examination those who do not wish to know ask questions of those who cannot tell.
'Some Thoughts on Examinations', inLaughter from a Cloud (1923), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Cannot (8)  |  Do (1905)  |  Examination (102)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Question (649)  |  Tell (344)  |  Telling (24)

In New England they once thought blackbirds useless, and mischievous to the corn. They made efforts to destroy them. The consequence was, the blackbirds were diminished; but a kind of worm, which devoured their grass, and which the blackbirds used to feed on, increased prodigiously; then, finding their loss in grass much greater than their saving in corn, they wished again for their blackbirds.
Letter to Richard Jackson, 5 May 1753. In Albert Henry Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1905), Vol. 3, 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Consequence (220)  |  Corn (20)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Devour (29)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Effort (243)  |  Grass (49)  |  Greater (288)  |  Kind (564)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mischievous (12)  |  New (1273)  |  Thought (995)  |  Worm (47)

In the course of this short tour, I became convinced that we must turn to the New World if we wish to see in perfection the oldest monuments of the earth’s history, so far at least as relates to its earliest inhabitants.
Travels in North America (1845), Vol. 1, 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Course (413)  |  Earth (1076)  |  History (716)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Monument (45)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  North America (5)  |  Perfection (131)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Tour (2)  |  Turn (454)  |  World (1850)

In this communication I wish first to show in the simplest case of the hydrogen atom (nonrelativistic and undistorted) that the usual rates for quantization can be replaced by another requirement, in which mention of “whole numbers” no longer occurs. Instead the integers occur in the same natural way as the integers specifying the number of nodes in a vibrating string. The new conception can be generalized, and I believe it touches the deepest meaning of the quantum rules.
'Quantisierung als Eigenwertproblem', Annalen der Physik (1926), 79, 361. Trans. Walter Moore, Schrödinger: Life and Thought (1989), 200-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Case (102)  |  Communication (101)  |  Conception (160)  |  First (1302)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Integer (12)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mention (84)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Occur (151)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Rule (307)  |  Show (353)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  String (22)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)

It appears to me that those who rely simply on the weight of authority to prove any assertion, without searching out the arguments to support it, act absurdly. I wish to question freely and to answer freely without any sort of adulation. That well becomes any who are sincere in the search for truth.
Quoted in James Reston, Jr., Galileo, a Life, p. 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Answer (389)  |  Argument (145)  |  Authority (99)  |  Become (821)  |  Prove (261)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Search (175)  |  Support (151)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Weight (140)

It is a great folly to wish to be exclusively wise.
In Moral Reflections, Sentences and Maxims (1851), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Exclusively (10)  |  Folly (44)  |  Great (1610)  |  Wise (143)

It is almost a universal fact that the rattlesnake will do all that it reasonably can to avoid man. The rattler's first wish is to get away from anything as large and as potentially dangerous as man. If the snake strikes, it is because it is cornered or frightened for its own safety.
Science quotes on:  |  Avoid (123)  |  Corner (59)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Large (398)  |  Man (2252)  |  Safety (58)  |  Snake (29)  |  Strike (72)  |  Universal (198)  |  Will (2350)

It is often said that experiments should be made without preconceived ideas. That is impossible. Not only would it make every experiment fruitless, but even if we wished to do so, it could not be done. Every man has his own conception of the world, and this he cannot so easily lay aside. We must, example, use language, and our language is necessarily steeped in preconceived ideas. Only they are unconscious preconceived ideas, which are a thousand times the most dangerous of all.
Science and Hypothesis (1902), trans. W.J.G. (1905), 143.
Science quotes on:  |  Conception (160)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fruitless (9)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Language (308)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  World (1850)

It is plainly the popularization of science that is responsible for the fever and instability apparent on all sides. To withhold knowledge from people, or to place unassimilable knowledge in their hands, are both equally effective, if you wish to render them helpless.
In The Art of Being Ruled (1926), 423.
Science quotes on:  |  Effective (68)  |  Fever (34)  |  Hand (149)  |  Helpless (14)  |  Instability (4)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  People (1031)  |  Place (192)  |  Popularization (3)  |  Render (96)  |  Responsible (19)  |  Withhold (2)

It is popular to believe that the age of the individual and, above all, of the free individual, is past in science. There are many administrators of science and a large component of the general population who believe that mass attacks can do anything, and even that ideas are obsolete. Behind this drive to the mass attack there are a number of strong psychological motives. Neither the public or the big administrator has too good an understanding of the inner continuity of science, but they both have seen its world-shaking consequences, and they are afraid of it. Both of them wish to decerebrate the scientist, even as the Byzantine State emasculated its civil servants. Moreover, the great administrator who is not sure of his own intellectual level can aggrandize himself only by cutting his scientific employees down to size.
In I am a Mathematician (1956), Epilogue, 363-364.
Science quotes on:  |  Administrator (11)  |  Age (509)  |  Attack (86)  |  Behind (139)  |  Both (496)  |  Civil (26)  |  Component (51)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Cutting (6)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Free (239)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inner (72)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Large (398)  |  Mass (160)  |  Motive (62)  |  Number (710)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  Past (355)  |  Population (115)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Servant (40)  |  Size (62)  |  State (505)  |  Strong (182)  |  Understanding (527)  |  World (1850)

It is strange, but the longer I live the more I am governed by the feeling of Fatalism, or rather predestination. The feeling or free-will, said to be innate in man, fails me more and more. I feel so deeply that however much I may struggle, I cannot change fate one jot. I am now almost resigned. I work because I feel I am at the worst. I can neither wish nor hope for anything. You have no idea how indifferent I am to everything.
In Letter to Anna Carlotta, collected in Anna Charlotte Leffler, Sonya Kovalevsky: A Biography (1895), 133, as translated by A. De Furuhjelm and A.M. Clive Bayley.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Deeply (17)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fatalism (2)  |  Fate (76)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Free (239)  |  Free Will (15)  |  Govern (66)  |  Hope (321)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indifferent (17)  |  Innate (14)  |  Jot (3)  |  Live (650)  |  Longer (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Resign (4)  |  Strange (160)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worst (57)

It is very desirable to have a word to express the Availability for work of the heat in a given magazine; a term for that possession, the waste of which is called Dissipation. Unfortunately the excellent word Entropy, which Clausius has introduced in this connexion, is applied by him to the negative of the idea we most naturally wish to express. It would only confuse the student if we were to endeavour to invent another term for our purpose. But the necessity for some such term will be obvious from the beautiful examples which follow. And we take the liberty of using the term Entropy in this altered sense ... The entropy of the universe tends continually to zero.
Sketch of Thermodynamics (1868), 100-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Altered (32)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Availability (10)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Call (781)  |  Rudolf Clausius (9)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Connection (171)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Desire (212)  |  Dissipation (2)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Example (98)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Express (192)  |  Expression (181)  |  Follow (389)  |  Heat (180)  |  Idea (881)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Invention (400)  |  Liberty (29)  |   Magazine (26)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Negative (66)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Possession (68)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Sense (785)  |  Student (317)  |  Tend (124)  |  Term (357)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Universe (900)  |  Waste (109)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Zero (38)

It was not until 1901 that humanity knew that nuclear energy existed. It is understandable now—but useless—to wish that we still lived in the ignorance of 1900.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 176.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Energy (25)  |  Energy (373)  |  Exist (458)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Know (1538)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Energy (18)  |  Still (614)  |  Understandable (12)

It were indeed to be wish’d that our art had been less ingenious, in contriving means destructive to mankind; we mean those instruments of war, which were unknown to the ancients, and have made such havoc among the moderns. But as men have always been bent on seeking each other’s destruction by continual wars; and as force, when brought against us, can only be repelled by force; the chief support of war, must, after money, be now sought in chemistry.
A New Method of Chemistry, 3rd edition (1753), Vol. I, trans. P. Shaw, 189-90.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Chief (99)  |  Continual (44)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Force (497)  |  Havoc (7)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Modern (402)  |  Money (178)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Support (151)  |  Unknown (195)  |  War (233)

It would be our worst enemy who would wish us to live only on the glories of the past and die off from the face of the earth in sheer passivity. By continuous achievement alone we can justify our great ancestry. We do not honour our ancestors by the false claim that they are omniscient and had nothing more to learn.
From 'Sir J.C. Bose’s Address', Benares Hindu University 1905-1935 (1936), 423. Collected in J. Lourdusamy, Science and National Consciousness in Bengal: 1870-1930 (2004), 106.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Alone (324)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Ancestry (13)  |  Claim (154)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Die (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Face (214)  |  Face Of The Earth (5)  |  False (105)  |  Glory (66)  |  Great (1610)  |  Honour (58)  |  Justify (26)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Omniscient (6)  |  Passivity (2)  |  Past (355)  |  Worst (57)  |  Worst Enemy (5)

It... [can] be easily shown:
1. That all present mountains did not exist from the beginning of things.
2. That there is no growing of mountains.
3. That the rocks or mountains have nothing in common with the bones of animals except a certain resemblance in hardness, since they agree in neither matter nor manner of production, nor in composition, nor in function, if one may be permitted to affirm aught about a subject otherwise so little known as are the functions of things.
4. That the extension of crests of mountains, or chains, as some prefer to call them, along the lines of certain definite zones of the earth, accords with neither reason nor experience.
5. That mountains can be overthrown, and fields carried over from one side of a high road across to the other; that peaks of mountains can be raised and lowered, that the earth can be opened and closed again, and that other things of this kind occur which those who in their reading of history wish to escape the name of credulous, consider myths.
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), 232-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Aught (6)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bone (101)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Closed (38)  |  Common (447)  |  Composition (86)  |  Consider (428)  |  Credulous (9)  |  Definite (114)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Escape (85)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extension (60)  |  Field (378)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Function (235)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growth (200)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Little (717)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Myth (58)  |  Name (359)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Occur (151)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overthrown (8)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Reading (136)  |  Reason (766)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Rock (176)  |  Side (236)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)

Its [mathematical analysis] chief attribute is clearness; it has no means for expressing confused ideas. It compares the most diverse phenomena and discovers the secret analogies which unite them. If matter escapes us, as that of air and light because of its extreme tenuity, if bodies are placed far from us in the immensity of space, if man wishes to know the aspect of the heavens at successive periods separated by many centuries, if gravity and heat act in the interior of the solid earth at depths which will forever be inaccessible, mathematical analysis is still able to trace the laws of these phenomena. It renders them present and measurable, and appears to be the faculty of the human mind destined to supplement the brevity of life and the imperfection of the senses, and what is even more remarkable, it follows the same course in the study of all phenomena; it explains them in the same language, as if in witness to the unity and simplicity of the plan of the universe, and to make more manifest the unchangeable order which presides over all natural causes.
From Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur (1822), Discours Préliminaire, xiv, (Theory of Heat, Introduction), as translated by Alexander Freeman in The Analytical Theory of Heat (1878), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Air (366)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Appear (122)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Body (557)  |  Brevity (8)  |  Cause (561)  |  Century (319)  |  Chief (99)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Compare (76)  |  Confused (13)  |  Course (413)  |  Depth (97)  |  Destined (42)  |  Discover (571)  |  Diverse (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Escape (85)  |  Explain (334)  |  Express (192)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Far (158)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forever (111)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Heat (180)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Inaccessible (18)  |  Interior (35)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measurable (3)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Order (638)  |  Period (200)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Place (192)  |  Plan (122)  |  Present (630)  |  Preside (3)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Render (96)  |  Same (166)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sense (785)  |  Separate (151)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Solid (119)  |  Space (523)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Successive (73)  |  Supplement (7)  |  Tenuity (2)  |  Trace (109)  |  Unchangeable (11)  |  Unite (43)  |  Unity (81)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Witness (57)

J. J. Sylvester was an enthusiastic supporter of reform [in the teaching of geometry]. The difference in attitude on this question between the two foremost British mathematicians, J. J. Sylvester, the algebraist, and Arthur Cayley, the algebraist and geometer, was grotesque. Sylvester wished to bury Euclid “deeper than e’er plummet sounded” out of the schoolboy’s reach; Cayley, an ardent admirer of Euclid, desired the retention of Simson’s Euclid. When reminded that this treatise was a mixture of Euclid and Simson, Cayley suggested striking out Simson’s additions and keeping strictly to the original treatise.
In History of Elementary Mathematics (1910), 285.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Admirer (9)  |  Ardent (6)  |  Attitude (84)  |  British (42)  |  Bury (19)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Deep (241)  |  Desire (212)  |  Difference (355)  |  Enthusiastic (7)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Foremost (11)  |  Geometer (24)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Grotesque (6)  |  Keep (104)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Original (61)  |  Plummet (2)  |  Question (649)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reform (22)  |  Remind (16)  |  Retention (5)  |  Schoolboy (9)  |  Sound (187)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Strike (72)  |  Striking (48)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Supporter (4)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Two (936)

Knowing how contented, free and joyful is life in the realms of science, one fervently wishes that many would enter their portals.
In The Principles of Chemistry (1891), Vol. 1, preface, footnote, ix, as translated from the Russian 5th edition by George Kamensky, edited by A. J. Greenaway.
Science quotes on:  |  Contentment (11)  |  Enter (145)  |  Fervent (6)  |  Free (239)  |  Joy (117)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Portal (9)  |  Realm (87)

Knowing what we now know about living systems—how they replicate and how they mutate—we are beginning to know how to control their evolutionary futures. To a considerable extent we now do that with the plants we cultivate and the animals we domesticate. This is, in fact, a standard application of genetics today. We could even go further, for there is no reason why we cannot in the same way direct our own evolutionary futures. I wish to emphasize, however—and emphatically—that whether we should do this and, if so, how, are not questions science alone can answer. They are for society as a whole to think about. Scientists can say what the consequences might be, but they are not justified in going further except as responsible members of society.
The Place of Genetics in Modern Biology (1959), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Application (257)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Control (182)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Emphatically (8)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Future (467)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Living (492)  |  Plant (320)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Society (350)  |  System (545)  |  Think (1122)  |  Today (321)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)

Laws of Serendi[ity:
(1) In order to discover anything, you must be looking for something.
(2) If you wish to make an improved product, you must already be engaged in making an inferior one.
In Dr. N Sreedharan, Quotations of Wit and Wisdom (2007), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Law (913)  |  Looking (191)  |  Making (300)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Product (166)  |  Something (718)

Looking at the thunder machine which had been set up, I saw not the slightest indication of the presence of electricity. However, while they were putting the food on the table, I obtained extraordinary electric sparks from the wire. My wife and others approached from it, for the reason that I wished to have witnesses see the various colors of fire about which the departed Professor Richmann used to argue with me. Suddenly it thundered most violently at the exact time that I was holding my hand to the metal, and sparks crackled. All fled away from me, and my wife implored that I go away. Curiosity kept me there two or three minutes more, until they told me that the soup was getting cold. By that time the force of electricity greatly subsided. I had sat at table only a few minutes when the man servant of the departed Richmann suddenly opened the door, all in tears and out of breath from fear. I thought that some one had beaten him as he was on his way to me, but he said, with difficulty, that the professor had been injured by thunder… . Nonetheless, Mr. Richmann died a splendid death, fulfilling a duty of his profession.
As quoted in Boris Menshutkin, 'Lomonosov: Excerpts', collected in Thomas Riha (ed.), Readings for Introduction to Russian Civilization (1963), Vol. 2, 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Argue (25)  |  Breath (61)  |  Cold (115)  |  Color (155)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Death (406)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Door (94)  |  Duty (71)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flee (9)  |  Food (213)  |  Force (497)  |  Fulfill (19)  |  Hand (149)  |  Indication (33)  |  Injure (3)  |  Looking (191)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Metal (88)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Presence (63)  |  Profession (108)  |  Professor (133)  |  Reason (766)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Servant (40)  |  Set (400)  |  Soup (10)  |  Spark (32)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Table (105)  |  Tear (48)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wife (41)  |  Wire (36)

Mathematics may be likened to a large rock whose interior composition we wish to examine. The older mathematicians appear as persevering stone cutters slowly attempting to demolish the rock from the outside with hammer and chisel. The later mathematicians resemble expert miners who seek vulnerable veins, drill into these strategic places, and then blast the rock apart with well placed internal charges.
From In Mathematical Circles (1969), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Blast (13)  |  Charge (63)  |  Chisel (2)  |  Composition (86)  |  Cutter (2)  |  Demolish (8)  |  Drill (12)  |  Examine (84)  |  Expert (67)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Interior (35)  |  Internal (69)  |  Large (398)  |  Later (18)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Miner (9)  |  Older (7)  |  Outside (141)  |  Place (192)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Rock (176)  |  Seek (218)  |  Stone (168)  |  Vein (27)  |  Vulnerable (7)

Men who have excessive faith in their theories … make poor observations, because they choose among the results of their experiments only what suits their object, neglecting whatever is unrelated to it and carefully setting aside everything which might tend toward the idea they wish to combat.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1957), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 38. Note: the ellipsis condenses the quote from two paragraphs, beginning with the same clause as another quote on this web page, beginning, “Men who have excessive faith….” From the original French by Claude Bernard: “Les hommes qui ont une foi excessive dans leurs théories … font de mauvaises observations parce qu'ils ne prennent dans les résultats de leurs expériences que ce qui convient à leur but en négligeant ce qui ne s'y rapporte pas, et en écartant bien soigneusement tout ce qui pourrait aller dans le sens de l'idée qu'ils veulent combattre.” (1865), 67-68. A Google translation gives: “Men who have excessive faith in their theories … make bad observations because they only take from the results of their experiments what suits their purpose, neglecting what does not relate to it, and carefully discarding everything that could go in the direction of the idea they want to fight.”
Science quotes on:  |  Care (203)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Choose (116)  |  Combat (16)  |  Everything (489)  |  Excessive (24)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Faith (209)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ignoring (11)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Poor (139)  |  Result (700)  |  Setting (44)  |  Suit (12)  |  Tend (124)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unrelated (6)  |  Whatever (234)

Mr Hooke sent, in his next letter [to Sir Isaac Newton] the whole of his Hypothesis, scil that the gravitation was reciprocall to the square of the distance: ... This is the greatest Discovery in Nature that ever was since the World's Creation. It was never so much as hinted by any man before. I wish he had writt plainer, and afforded a little more paper.
Brief Lives (1680), edited by Oliver Lawson Dick (1949), 166-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Creation (350)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distance (171)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hint (21)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Inverse Square Law (5)  |  Letter (117)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Next (238)  |  Paper (192)  |  Square (73)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

My only wish would be to have ten more lives to live on this planet. If that were possible, I’d spend one lifetime each in embryology, genetics, physics, astronomy and geology. The other lifetimes would be as a pianist, backwoodsman, tennis player, or writer for the National Geographic. … I’d like to keep open the option for another lifetime as a surgeon-scientist.
In Tore Frängsmyr and Jan E. Lindsten (eds.), Nobel Lectures: Physiology Or Medicine: 1981-1990 (1993), 557.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Embryology (18)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Geographic (10)  |  Geology (240)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  National Geographic (2)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Pianist (2)  |  Planet (402)  |  Possible (560)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Spend (97)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Tennis (8)  |  Writer (90)

My young friend, I wish that science would intoxicate you as much as our good Göttingen beer! Upon seeing a student staggering down a street.
Attributed. Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 416.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Beer (10)  |  Down (455)  |  Friend (180)  |  Good (906)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Student (317)  |  Young (253)

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

No, Sir, I am not a botanist; and (alluding, no doubt, to his near sightedness) should I wish to become a botanist, I must first turn myself into a reptile.
Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1820), Vol. 1, 177.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Botanist (25)  |  Doubt (314)  |  First (1302)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Turn (454)

Nothing can so quickly blur and distort the facts as desire—the wish to use the facts for some purpose of your own—and nothing can so surely destroy the truth. As soon as the witness wants to prove something he is no longer impartial and his evidence is no longer to be trusted.
From 'Getting at the Truth', The Saturday Review (19 Sep 1953), 36, No. 38, 12. Excerpted in Meta Riley Emberger and Marian Ross Hall, Scientific Writing (1955), 400.
Science quotes on:  |  Blur (8)  |  Desire (212)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Distort (22)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Impartial (4)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Prove (261)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Surely (101)  |  Trust (72)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Use (771)  |  Want (504)  |  Witness (57)

Oh, my dear Kepler, how I wish that we could have one hearty laugh together. Here, at Padua, is the principal professor of philosophy, whom I have repeatedly and urgently requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass, [telescope] which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you not here? what shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious folly! and to hear the professor of philosophy at Pisa laboring before the grand duke with logical arguments, as if with magical incantations, to charm the new planets out of the sky.
From Letter to Johannes Kepler. As translated in John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune, Life of Galileo Galilei: With Illustrations of the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy (1832), 92-93.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Charm (54)  |  Do (1905)  |  Folly (44)  |  Glass (94)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Hearty (3)  |  Incantation (6)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Logic (311)  |  Look (584)  |  Magic (92)  |  Moon (252)  |  New (1273)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Planet (402)  |  Principal (69)  |  Professor (133)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Repeated (5)  |  Request (7)  |  Shout (25)  |  Sky (174)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Urgent (15)  |  Why (491)

Oh! But I have better news for you, Madam, if you have any patriotism as citizen of this world and wish its longevity. Mr. Herschel has found out that our globe is a comely middle-aged personage, and has not so many wrinkles as seven stars, who are evidently our seniors. Nay, he has discovered that the Milky Way is not only a mob of stars, but that there is another dairy of them still farther off, whence, I conclude, comets are nothing but pails returning from milking, instead of balloons filled with inflammable air.
Letter to the Countess of Upper Ossory (4 Jul 1785) in W. S. Lewis (ed.), Horace Walpole's Correspondence with the Countess of Upper Ossory (1965), Vol. 33, 474.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Better (493)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Comet (65)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Dairy (2)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Farther (51)  |  Find (1014)  |  Globe (51)  |  Sir John Herschel (24)  |  Inflammable (5)  |  Longevity (6)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Mob (10)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pail (3)  |  Patriotism (9)  |  Person (366)  |  Personage (4)  |  Senior (7)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Still (614)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrinkle (4)

On principle, there is nothing new in the postulate that in the end exact science should aim at nothing more than the description of what can really be observed. The question is only whether from now on we shall have to refrain from tying description to a clear hypothesis about the real nature of the world. There are many who wish to pronounce such abdication even today. But I believe that this means making things a little too easy for oneself.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Belief (615)  |  Clear (111)  |  Description (89)  |  Easy (213)  |  End (603)  |  Exact Science (11)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Little (717)  |  Making (300)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Oneself (33)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pronounce (11)  |  Question (649)  |  Real (159)  |  Really (77)  |  Refrain (9)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tie (42)  |  Today (321)  |  World (1850)

One feature which will probably most impress the mathematician accustomed to the rapidity and directness secured by the generality of modern methods is the deliberation with which Archimedes approaches the solution of any one of his main problems. Yet this very characteristic, with its incidental effects, is calculated to excite the more admiration because the method suggests the tactics of some great strategist who foresees everything, eliminates everything not immediately conducive to the execution of his plan, masters every position in its order, and then suddenly (when the very elaboration of the scheme has almost obscured, in the mind of the spectator, its ultimate object) strikes the final blow. Thus we read in Archimedes proposition after proposition the bearing of which is not immediately obvious but which we find infallibly used later on; and we are led by such easy stages that the difficulties of the original problem, as presented at the outset, are scarcely appreciated. As Plutarch says: “It is not possible to find in geometry more difficult and troublesome questions, or more simple and lucid explanations.” But it is decidedly a rhetorical exaggeration when Plutarch goes on to say that we are deceived by the easiness of the successive steps into the belief that anyone could have discovered them for himself. On the contrary, the studied simplicity and the perfect finish of the treatises involve at the same time an element of mystery. Though each step depends on the preceding ones, we are left in the dark as to how they were suggested to Archimedes. There is, in fact, much truth in a remark by Wallis to the effect that he seems “as it were of set purpose to have covered up the traces of his investigation as if he had grudged posterity the secret of his method of inquiry while he wished to extort from them assent to his results.” Wallis adds with equal reason that not only Archimedes but nearly all the ancients so hid away from posterity their method of Analysis (though it is certain that they had one) that more modern mathematicians found it easier to invent a new Analysis than to seek out the old.
In The Works of Archimedes (1897), Preface, vi.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Add (42)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Anyone (38)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Approach (112)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Assent (12)  |  Bear (162)  |  Belief (615)  |  Blow (45)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Certain (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conducive (3)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Cover (40)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Decidedly (2)  |  Deliberation (5)  |  Depend (238)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discover (571)  |  Easier (53)  |  Easiness (4)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elaboration (11)  |  Element (322)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Equal (88)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exaggeration (16)  |  Excite (17)  |  Execution (25)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extort (2)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feature (49)  |  Final (121)  |  Find (1014)  |  Finish (62)  |  Foresee (22)  |  Generality (45)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grudge (2)  |  Hide (70)  |  Himself (461)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Impress (66)  |  Incidental (15)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Invent (57)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Involve (93)  |  Late (119)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leave (138)  |  Lucid (9)  |  Main (29)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nearly (137)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Old (499)  |  Order (638)  |  Original (61)  |  Outset (7)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Plan (122)  |  Plutarch (16)  |  Position (83)  |  Possible (560)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Precede (23)  |  Present (630)  |  Probably (50)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Read (308)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remark (28)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Secret (216)  |  Secure (23)  |  Secured (18)  |  Seek (218)  |  Set (400)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spectator (11)  |  Stage (152)  |  Step (234)  |  Strike (72)  |  Study (701)  |  Successive (73)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Tactic (9)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Troublesome (8)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  John Wallis (3)  |  Will (2350)

One rarely hears of the mathematical recitation as a preparation for public speaking. Yet mathematics shares with these studies [foreign languages, drawing and natural science] their advantages, and has another in a higher degree than either of them.
Most readers will agree that a prime requisite for healthful experience in public speaking is that the attention of the speaker and hearers alike be drawn wholly away from the speaker and concentrated upon the thought. In perhaps no other classroom is this so easy as in the mathematical, where the close reasoning, the rigorous demonstration, the tracing of necessary conclusions from given hypotheses, commands and secures the entire mental power of the student who is explaining, and of his classmates. In what other circumstances do students feel so instinctively that manner counts for so little and mind for so much? In what other circumstances, therefore, is a simple, unaffected, easy, graceful manner so naturally and so healthfully cultivated? Mannerisms that are mere affectation or the result of bad literary habit recede to the background and finally disappear, while those peculiarities that are the expression of personality and are inseparable from its activity continually develop, where the student frequently presents, to an audience of his intellectual peers, a connected train of reasoning. …
One would almost wish that our institutions of the science and art of public speaking would put over their doors the motto that Plato had over the entrance to his school of philosophy: “Let no one who is unacquainted with geometry enter here.”
In A Scrap-book of Elementary Mathematics: Notes, Recreations, Essays (1908), 210-211.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Alike (60)  |  Art (680)  |  Attention (196)  |  Audience (28)  |  Background (44)  |  Bad (185)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Classroom (11)  |  Command (60)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Connect (126)  |  Count (107)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Develop (278)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  Door (94)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entrance (16)  |  Experience (494)  |  Expression (181)  |  Feel (371)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Habit (174)  |  Hear (144)  |  Inseparable (18)  |  Institution (73)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Language (308)  |  Listener (7)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peer (13)  |  Personality (66)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plato (80)  |  Power (771)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Present (630)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Recede (11)  |  Recitation (2)  |  Result (700)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  School (227)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Share (82)  |  Simple (426)  |  Speaker (6)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Student (317)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Unaffected (6)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)

Our confused wish finds expression in the confused question as to the nature of force and electricity. But the answer which we want is not really an answer to this question. It is not by finding out more and fresh relations and connections that it can be answered; but by removing the contradictions existing between those already known, and thus perhaps by reducing their number. When these painful contradictions are removed, the question as to the nature of force will not have been answered; but our minds, no longer vexed, will cease to ask illegitimate questions.
Principles of Mechanics (1899), 7-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Cease (81)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Connection (171)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Expression (181)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Question (649)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Relation (166)  |  Removal (12)  |  Vex (10)  |  Vexation (2)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

Our indirect methods have taught us a mountain of things about horses, but if you wished to learn even more, would you rather be Whirlaway in the stretch, than interview Eddie Arcaro afterwards?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Horse (78)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Interview (5)  |  Learn (672)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thing (1914)

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)  |  Way Of Life (15)

Peace cannot be obtained by wishing for it. We live in the same world with Russia, whose leader has said he “wants to bury us”—and he means it. Disarmament, the cessation of tests, will not automatically bring us closer to peace.
From debate (20 Feb 1958) between Linus Pauling and Edward Teller on WQED-TV, San Francisco. Transcript published as Fallout and Disarmament: The Pauling-Teller Debate (1958). Reprinted in 'Fallout and Disarmament: A Debate between Linus Pauling and Edward Teller', Daedalus (Spring 1958), 87, No. 2, 153.
Science quotes on:  |  Automatic (16)  |  Bury (19)  |  Cessation (13)  |  Closer (43)  |  Disarmament (6)  |  Leader (51)  |  Live (650)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Peace (116)  |  Russia (14)  |  Say (989)  |  Test (221)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Physics is very muddled again at the moment; it is much too hard for me anyway, and I wish I were a movie comedian or something like that and had never heard anything about physics.
Letter to R. Kronig (21 May 1925). Quoted in R. Kronig, 'The Turning Point', in M. Fierz and V. F. Weisskopf (eds.), Theoretical Physics in the Twentieth Century. A Memorial Volume to Wolfgang Pauli (1960),as trans. in M. Klein, Letters on Wave Mechanics, x.
Science quotes on:  |  Hard (246)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Moment (260)  |  Movie (21)  |  Never (1089)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Something (718)

Preconceived ideas are like searchlights which illumine the path of experimenter and serve him as a guide to interrogate nature. They become a danger only if he transforms them into fixed ideas – this is why I should like to see these profound words inscribed on the threshold of all the temples of science: “The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.”
Speech (8 Jul 1876), to the French Academy of Medicine. As translated in René J. Dubos, Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science (1950, 1986), 376. Date of speech identified in Maurice B. Strauss, Familiar Medical Quotations (1968), 502.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Danger (127)  |  Derangement (2)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Guide (107)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Interrogate (4)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Path (159)  |  Preconceive (3)  |  Profound (105)  |  Searchlight (5)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Temple (45)  |  Threshold (11)  |  Transform (74)  |  Why (491)  |  Word (650)

Questioning the status quo can result in banishment, imprisonment, ridicule or being burned at the stake, depending on your era, your locale, and the sacred cows you wish to butcher.
From post 're:The Pursuit of Knowledge, from Genesis to Google' to the 'Interesting People' List (6 Jan 2005) maintained by David J. Farber, now archived at interesting-people.org website.
Science quotes on:  |  Banishment (3)  |  Being (1276)  |  Burn (99)  |  Butcher (9)  |  Cow (42)  |  Depend (238)  |  Era (51)  |  Imprisonment (2)  |  Locale (2)  |  Question (649)  |  Result (700)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Sacred Cow (3)  |  Stake (20)  |  Status (35)  |  Status Quo (5)

Relatively few benefits have flowed to the people who live closest to the more than 3,000 protected areas that have been established in tropical countries during the past 50 years. For this reason, the preservation of biodiversity is often thought of as something that poor people are asked to do to fulfill the wishes of rich people living in comfort thousands of miles away.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Area (33)  |  Ask (420)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Biodiversity (25)  |  Close (77)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Country (269)  |  Do (1905)  |  Establish (63)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fulfill (19)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Mile (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Often (109)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Poor (139)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Protect (65)  |  Reason (766)  |  Relatively (8)  |  Rich (66)  |  Something (718)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tropical (9)  |  Year (963)

Said M. Waldman, “…Chemistry is that branch of natural philosophy in which the greatest improvements have been and may be made; it is on that account that I have made it my peculiar study; but at the same time, I have not neglected the other branches of science. A man would make but a very sorry chemist if he attended to that department of human knowledge alone. If your wish is to become really a man of science and not merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics.”
In Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus (1823), Vol. 1, 73-74. Webmaster note: In the novel, when the fictional characters meet, M. Waldman, professor of chemistry, sparks Victor Frankenstein’s interest in science. Shelley was age 20 when the first edition of the novel was published anonymously (1818).
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Alone (324)  |  Apply (170)  |  Attend (67)  |  Become (821)  |  Branch (155)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Department (93)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Human (1512)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Petty (9)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)

Science deals with judgments on which it is possible to obtain universal agreement. These judgments do not concern individual facts and events, but the invariable association of facts and events known as the laws of science. Agreement is secured by observation and experiment—impartial courts of appeal to which all men must submit if they wish to survive. The laws are grouped and explained by theories of ever increasing generality. The theories at first are ex post facto—merely plausible interpretations of existing bodies of data. However, they frequently lead to predictions that can be tested by experiments and observations in new fields, and, if the interpretations are verified, the theories are accepted as working hypotheses until they prove untenable. The essential requirements are agreement on the subject matter and the verification of predictions. These features insure a body of positive knowledge that can be transmitted from person to person, and that accumulates from generation to generation.
From manuscript on English Science in the Renaissance (1937), Edwin Hubble collection, Box 2, Huntington Library, San Marino, California. As cited by Norriss S. Hetherington in 'Philosophical Values and Observation in Edwin Hubble's Choice of a Model of the Universe', Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences (1982), 13, No. 1, 41. (Hetherington comments parenthetically that the references to court, judgment and appeal may be attributable to his prior experiences as a Rhodes Scholar reading Roman law at Oxford, and to a year's practice as an attorney in Louisville, Kentucky.)
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Appeal (46)  |  Association (49)  |  Body (557)  |  Concern (239)  |  Court (35)  |  Data (162)  |  Deal (192)  |  Do (1905)  |  Essential (210)  |  Event (222)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Generality (45)  |  Generation (256)  |  Impartiality (7)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Science (2)  |  Lead (391)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Obervation (4)  |  Observation (593)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Person (366)  |  Plausibility (7)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Positive (98)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Prove (261)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Secured (18)  |  Subject (543)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survive (87)  |  Test (221)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Universal (198)  |  Untenable (5)  |  Verification (32)

Science in England, in America, is jealous of theory, hates the name of love and moral purpose. There's revenge for this humanity. What manner of man does science make? The boy is not attracted. He says, I do not wish to be such a kind of man as my professor is.
In essay. 'Beauty', collected in The Conduct of Life (1860), 250.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Attract (25)  |  Boy (100)  |  Do (1905)  |  England (43)  |  Hate (68)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Jealous (3)  |  Kind (564)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manner (62)  |  Moral (203)  |  Name (359)  |  Professor (133)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Revenge (10)  |  Say (989)  |  Theory (1015)

Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the actions of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a supernatural Being.
However, it must be admitted that our actual knowledge of these laws is only imperfect and fragmentary, so that, actually, the belief in the existence of basic all-embracing laws in Nature also rests on a sort of faith. All the same this faith has been largely justified so far by the success of scientific research.
Letter (24 Jan 1936) replying to a a letter (19 Jan 1936) asking if scientists pray, from a child in the sixth grade in a Sunday School in New York City. In Albert Einstein, Helen Dukas (ed.) and Banesh Hoffmann (ed.), Albert Einstein, The Human Side (1981), 32-33.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Actual (118)  |  Basic (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Event (222)  |  Everything (489)  |  Existence (481)  |  Faith (209)  |  Fragmentary (8)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  People (1031)  |  Prayer (30)  |  Reason (766)  |  Research (753)  |  Rest (287)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Success (327)  |  Supernatural (26)  |  Will (2350)

Some few, & I am one, even wish to God, though at the loss of millions of lives, that the North would proclaim a crusade against Slavery. In the long run, a million horrid deaths would be amply repaid in the cause of humanity. ... Great God how I shd like to see that greatest curse on Earth Slavery abolished.
Letter to Asa Gray (5 Jun 1861). In Charles Darwin, Frederick Burkhardt, Sydney Smith, The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: Vol. 9, 1861 (1994), xx. An attack by Confederate forces at Fort Sumter on 12 Apr 1861 marked the beginning of the American Civil war. In Sep 1862, President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a goal of the war. (Lincoln and Darwin were born on the same day.)
Science quotes on:  |  Abolish (13)  |  Against (332)  |  Cause (561)  |  Crusade (6)  |  Curse (20)  |  Death (406)  |  Earth (1076)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Humanity (186)  |  In The Long Run (18)  |  Live (650)  |  Loss (117)  |  Proclaim (31)  |  See (1094)  |  Slavery (13)

Someone sent me a postcard picture of the earth. On the back it said, “Wish you were here.”
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Joke (90)  |  Picture (148)

Stop the mindless wishing that things would be different. Rather than wasting time and emotional and spiritual energy in explaining why we don’t have what we want, we can start to pursue other ways to get it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Different (595)  |  Emotional (17)  |  Energy (373)  |  Explain (334)  |  Mindless (4)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Start (237)  |  Stop (89)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Want (504)  |  Waste (109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)

Such pretensions to nicety in experiments of this nature, are truly laughable! They will be telling us some day of the WEIGHT of the MOON, even to drams, scruples and grains—nay, to the very fraction of a grain!—I wish there were infallible experiments to ascertain the quantum of brains each man possesses, and every man's integrity and candour:—This is a desideratum in science which is most of all wanted.
The Death Warrant of the French Theory of Chemistry (1804), 217.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Brain (281)  |  Desideratum (5)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Grain (50)  |  Infallible (18)  |  Integrity (21)  |  Laughable (4)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Moon (252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Truly (118)  |  Want (504)  |  Weight (140)  |  Will (2350)

Suddenly, there was an enormous flash of light, the brightest light I have ever seen or that I think anyone has ever seen. It blasted; it pounced; it bored its way into you. It was a vision which was seen with more than the eye. It was seen to last forever. You would wish it would stop; altogether it lasted about two seconds.
[Witnessing the first atomic bomb test explosion.]
Science: the Center of Culture (1970), 139.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Blast (13)  |  Bore (3)  |  Brightest (12)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Flash (49)  |  Forever (111)  |  Last (425)  |  Light (635)  |  More (2558)  |  Pounce (4)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Test (221)  |  Think (1122)  |  Two (936)  |  Vision (127)  |  Way (1214)

Superstrings are totally lacking in empirical support, yet they offer an elegant theory with great explanatory power. I wish I could be around fifty years from now to know whether superstrings turn out to be a fruitful theory or whether they are just another blind alley in the search for a “theory of everything.”
As quoted in Kendrick Frazier, 'A Mind at Play: An Interview with Martin Gardner', Skeptical Inquirer (Mar/Apr 1998), 22, No. 2, 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Blind (98)  |  Blind Alley (4)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Everything (489)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Great (1610)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lack (127)  |  Offer (142)  |  Power (771)  |  Search (175)  |  Superstring (4)  |  Support (151)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Everything (2)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turn Out (9)  |  Year (963)

The advanced course in physics began with Rutherford’s lectures. I was the only woman student who attended them and the regulations required that women should sit by themselves in the front row. There had been a time when a chaperone was necessary but mercifully that day was past. At every lecture Rutherford would gaze at me pointedly, as I sat by myself under his very nose, and would begin in his stentorian voice: “Ladies and Gentlemen”. All the boys regularly greeted this witticism with thunderous applause, stamping with their feet in the traditional manner, and at every lecture I wished I could sink into the earth. To this day I instinctively take my place as far back as possible in a lecture room.
In Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections (1996), 118.
Science quotes on:  |  Applause (9)  |  Attend (67)  |  Back (395)  |  Begin (275)  |  Boy (100)  |  Course (413)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Foot (65)  |  Front (16)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Gentleman (26)  |  Lady (12)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Manner (62)  |  Myself (211)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Past (355)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possible (560)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Regulations (3)  |  Required (108)  |  Row (9)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Sink (38)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Student (317)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Traditional (16)  |  Voice (54)  |  Witticism (2)  |  Woman (160)

The chemists who uphold dualism are far from being agreed among themselves; nevertheless, all of them in maintaining their opinion, rely upon the phenomena of chemical reactions. For a long time the uncertainty of this method has been pointed out: it has been shown repeatedly, that the atoms put into movement during a reaction take at that time a new arrangement, and that it is impossible to deduce the old arrangement from the new one. It is as if, in the middle of a game of chess, after the disarrangement of all the pieces, one of the players should wish, from the inspection of the new place occupied by each piece, to determine that which it originally occupied.
Chemical Method (1855), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Reaction (17)  |  Chemical Reactions (13)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chess (27)  |  Determine (152)  |  Dualism (4)  |  Game (104)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Long (778)  |  Method (531)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  New (1273)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Point (584)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uncertainty (58)

The information reported in this section [about the two different forms, A and B, of DNA] was very kindly reported to us prior to its publication by Drs Wilkins and Franklin. We are most heavily indebted in this respect to the Kings College Group, and we wish to point out that without this data the formation of the picture would have been most unlikely, if not impossible.
[Co-author with Francis Crick]
In 'The Complementary Structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A (1954), 223, 82, footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  College (71)  |  Data (162)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  DNA (81)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Rosalind Franklin (18)  |  Group (83)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indebted (8)  |  Information (173)  |  Most (1728)  |  Picture (148)  |  Point (584)  |  Prior (6)  |  Publication (102)  |  Respect (212)  |  Two (936)  |  Unlikely (15)

The iron labor of conscious logical reasoning demands great perseverance and great caution; it moves on but slowly, and is rarely illuminated by brilliant flashes of genius. It knows little of that facility with which the most varied instances come thronging into the memory of the philologist or historian. Rather is it an essential condition of the methodical progress of mathematical reasoning that the mind should remain concentrated on a single point, undisturbed alike by collateral ideas on the one hand, and by wishes and hopes on the other, and moving on steadily in the direction it has deliberately chosen.
In Ueber das Verhältniss der Naturwissenschaften zur Gesammtheit der Wissenschaft, Vorträge und Reden (1896), Bd. 1, 178.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Caution (24)  |  Choose (116)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Collateral (4)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Deliberately (6)  |  Demand (131)  |  Direction (185)  |  Essential (210)  |  Facility (14)  |  Flash (49)  |  Genius (301)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hand (149)  |  Historian (59)  |  Hope (321)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Instance (33)  |  Iron (99)  |  Know (1538)  |  Labor (200)  |  Little (717)  |  Logical (57)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Memory (144)  |  Methodical (8)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Philologist (3)  |  Point (584)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Remain (355)  |  Single (365)  |  Slowly (19)  |  Steadily (7)  |  Throng (3)  |  Undisturbed (4)  |  Vary (27)

The King saw them with no common satisfaction, expressing his desire in no particular to have yt Stellar fish engraven and printed. We wish very much, Sir, yt you could procure for us a particular description of yesd Fish, viz. whether it be common there; what is observable in it when alive; what colour it then hath; what kind of motion in the water; what use it maketh of all that curious workmanship, wch Nature hath adorn'd it with?
Letter to John Winthrop, Jr. (26 Mar 1670), concerning specimens provided by Winthrop to the Society. In A. Rupert Hall & Marie Boas Hall (eds.), The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg (1969), Vol. 6, 594.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Color (155)  |  Common (447)  |  Curious (95)  |  Desire (212)  |  Engraving (4)  |  Fish (130)  |  Kind (564)  |  King (39)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observable (21)  |  Observation (593)  |  Printing (25)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Saw (160)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Workmanship (7)

The mathematical intellectualism is henceforth a positive doctrine, but one that inverts the usual doctrines of positivism: in place of originating progress in order, dynamics in statics, its goal is to make logical order the product of intellectual progress. The science of the future is not enwombed, as Comte would have had it, as Kant had wished it, in the forms of the science already existing; the structure of these forms reveals an original dynamism whose onward sweep is prolonged by the synthetic generation of more and more complicated forms. No speculation on number considered as a category a priori enables one to account for the questions set by modern mathematics … space affirms only the possibility of applying to a multiplicity of any elements whatever, relations whose type the intellect does not undertake to determine in advance, but, on the contrary, it asserts their existence and nourishes their unlimited development.
As translated in James Byrnie Shaw, Lectures on the Philosophy of Mathematics (1918), 193. From Léon Brunschvicg, Les Étapes de La Philosophie Mathématique (1912), 567-568, “L’intellectualisme mathématique est désormais une doctrine positive, mais qui intervertira les formules habituelles du positivisme: au lieu de faire sortir le progrès de l’ordre, ou le dynamique du statique, il tend à faire de l'ordre logique le produit du progrès intellectuel. La science à venir n'est pas enfermée, comme l’aurait voulu Comte, comme le voulait déjà Kant, dans les formes de la science déjà faite; la constitution de ces formes révèle un dynamisme originel dont l’élan se prolonge par la génération synthétique de notions de plus en plus compliquées. Aucune spéculation sur le nombre, considéré comme catégorie a priori, ne permet de rendre compte des questions qui se sont posées pour la mathématique moderne … … l’espace ne fait qu'affirmer la possibilité d'appliquer sur une multiplicité d’éléments quelconques des relations dont l’intelligence ne cherche pas à déterminer d’avance le type, dont elle constate, au contraire, dont elle suscite le développement illimité.”
Science quotes on:  |  A Priori (26)  |  Account (195)  |  Advance (298)  |  Already (226)  |  Assert (69)  |  Category (19)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Auguste Comte (24)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Determine (152)  |  Development (441)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Dynamics (11)  |  Element (322)  |  Enable (122)  |  Existence (481)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Goal (155)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Immanuel Kant (50)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  More (2558)  |  Multiplicity (14)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Original (61)  |  Positive (98)  |  Positivism (3)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Product (166)  |  Progress (492)  |  Prolong (29)  |  Question (649)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Set (400)  |  Space (523)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Statics (6)  |  Structure (365)  |  Sweep (22)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Type (171)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Unlimited (24)  |  Whatever (234)

The most important and urgent problems of the technology of today are no longer the satisfactions of the primary needs or of archetypal wishes, but the reparation of the evils and damages by technology of yesterday.
Innovations: Scientific Technological and Social (1970), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Archetype (5)  |  Damage (38)  |  Evil (122)  |  Importance (299)  |  Most (1728)  |  Need (320)  |  Primary (82)  |  Problem (731)  |  Repair (11)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Technology (281)  |  Today (321)  |  Urgent (15)  |  Yesterday (37)

The most striking characteristic of the written language of algebra and of the higher forms of the calculus is the sharpness of definition, by which we are enabled to reason upon the symbols by the mere laws of verbal logic, discharging our minds entirely of the meaning of the symbols, until we have reached a stage of the process where we desire to interpret our results. The ability to attend to the symbols, and to perform the verbal, visible changes in the position of them permitted by the logical rules of the science, without allowing the mind to be perplexed with the meaning of the symbols until the result is reached which you wish to interpret, is a fundamental part of what is called analytical power. Many students find themselves perplexed by a perpetual attempt to interpret not only the result, but each step of the process. They thus lose much of the benefit of the labor-saving machinery of the calculus and are, indeed, frequently incapacitated for using it.
In 'Uses of Mathesis', Bibliotheca Sacra (Jul 1875), 32, 505.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attend (67)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Definition (238)  |  Desire (212)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Incapacitate (2)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Interpret (25)  |  Labor (200)  |  Labor-Saving (3)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Logic (311)  |  Lose (165)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Perform (123)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Perplex (6)  |  Power (771)  |  Process (439)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sharp (17)  |  Sharpness (9)  |  Stage (152)  |  Step (234)  |  Striking (48)  |  Student (317)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Visible (87)

THE OATH. I swear by Apollo [the healing God], the physician and Aesclepius [son of Apollo], and Health [Hygeia], and All-heal [Panacea], and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation—to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further, from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, trans. Francis Adams (1886), Vol. 2, 344-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Abortion (4)  |  Abroad (19)  |  Abstain (7)  |  According (236)  |  Act (278)  |  Art (680)  |  Ask (420)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Bound (120)  |  Brother (47)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continue (179)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Counsel (11)  |  Cut (116)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Enter (145)  |  Equally (129)  |  Female (50)  |  Follow (389)  |  God (776)  |  Grant (76)  |  Healing (28)  |  Health (210)  |  Hear (144)  |  Holiness (7)  |  House (143)  |  Impart (24)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mischief (13)  |  Mischievous (12)  |  Oath (10)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pass (241)  |  Patient (209)  |  Person (366)  |  Physician (284)  |  Practice (212)  |  Practitioner (21)  |  Precept (10)  |  Professional (77)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Required (108)  |  Respect (212)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seduction (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Share (82)  |  Sick (83)  |  Slave (40)  |  Stone (168)  |  Substance (253)  |  Swear (7)  |  System (545)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trespass (5)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)  |  Work (1402)

The psychiatric interviewer is supposed to be doing three things: considering what the patient could mean by what he says; considering how he himself can best phrase what he wishes to communicate to the patient; and, at the same time, observing the general pattern of the events being communicated. In addition to that, to make notes which will be of more than evocative value, or come anywhere near being a verbatim record of what is said, in my opinion is beyond the capacity of most human beings.
From The Psychiatric Interview (1954, 1970), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Communication (101)  |  Considering (6)  |  Doing (277)  |  Event (222)  |  Evocative (2)  |  General (521)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Note (39)  |  Observation (593)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Patient (209)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Psychiatry (26)  |  Record (161)  |  Say (989)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Value (393)  |  Verbatim (4)  |  Will (2350)

The ridge of the Lammer-muir hills... consists of primary micaceous schistus, and extends from St Abb's head westward... The sea-coast affords a transverse section of this alpine tract at its eastern extremity, and exhibits the change from the primary to the secondary strata... Dr HUTTON wished particularly to examine the latter of these, and on this occasion Sir JAMES HALL and I had the pleasure to accompany him. We sailed in a boat from Dunglass ... We made for a high rocky point or head-land, the SICCAR ... On landing at this point, we found that we actually trode [sic] on the primeval rock... It is here a micaceous schistus, in beds nearly vertical, highly indurated, and stretching from S.E. to N. W. The surface of this rock... has thin covering of red horizontal sandstone laid over it, ... Here, therefore, the immediate contact of the two rocks is not only visible, but is curiously dissected and laid open by the action of the waves... On us who saw these phenomena for the first time, the impression will not easily be forgotten. The palpable evidence presented to us, of one of the most extraordinary and important facts in the natural history of the earth, gave a reality and substance to those theoretical speculations, which, however probable had never till now been directly authenticated by the testimony of the senses... What clearer evidence could we have had of the different formation of these rocks, and of the long interval which separated their formation, had we actually seen them emerging from the bosom of the deep? ... The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time; and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much farther reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow.
'Biographical Account of the Late Dr James Hutton, F.R.S. Edin.' (read 1803), Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1805), 5, 71-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Accompany (22)  |  Action (342)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Change (639)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contact (66)  |  Covering (14)  |  Deep (241)  |  Different (595)  |  Earnestness (3)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Examine (84)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Extremity (7)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Farther (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Formation (100)  |  Grow (247)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  James Hutton (22)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Impression (118)  |  Listen (81)  |  Long (778)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Never (1089)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Open (277)  |  Order (638)  |  Palpable (8)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Primary (82)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sail (37)  |  Sandstone (3)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Strata (37)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Unfolding (16)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wave (112)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)

The scientific method cannot lead mankind because it is based upon experiment, and every experiment postpones the present moment until one knows the result. We always come to each other and even to ourselves too late so soon as we wish to know in advance what to do.
As quoted in H.W. Auden, The Faber Book of Aphorisms (1962), 260.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Based (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Know (1538)  |  Late (119)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Method (531)  |  Moment (260)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Postpone (5)  |  Present (630)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Soon (187)

The skein of human continuity must often become this tenuous across the centuries (hanging by a thread, in the old cliché), but the circle remains unbroken if I can touch the ink of Lavoisier’s own name, written by his own hand. A candle of light, nurtured by the oxygen of his greatest discovery, never burns out if we cherish the intellectual heritage of such unfractured filiation across the ages. We may also wish to contemplate the genuine physical thread of nucleic acid that ties each of us to the common bacterial ancestor of all living creatures, born on Lavoisier’s ancienne terre more than 3.5 billion years ago—and never since disrupted, not for one moment, not for one generation. Such a legacy must be worth preserving from all the guillotines of our folly.
From The Lying Stones of Marrakech (2000, 2011), 114, previously published in an article in Natural History Magazine. Gould was writing about tangibly having Lavoisier’s signature on proof plates bought at an auction. (The plates were made to accompany Lavoisier’s sole geological article of 1789.)
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Across (32)  |  Age (509)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bear (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Billion (104)  |  Burn (99)  |  Candle (32)  |  Century (319)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Circle (117)  |  Cliche (8)  |  Common (447)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Creature (242)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disrupt (2)  |  Folly (44)  |  Generation (256)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Guillotine (5)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hang (46)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ink (11)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (41)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Light (635)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Often (109)  |  Old (499)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Physical (518)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Remain (355)  |  Skein (2)  |  Tenuous (3)  |  Thread (36)  |  Tie (42)  |  Touch (146)  |  Unbroken (10)  |  Worth (172)  |  Write (250)  |  Year (963)

The symptoms of neurosis, as we have learnt, are essentially substitute gratifications for unfulfilled sexual wishes.
In Sigmund Freud and Joan Riviere (trans.), Civilization and Its Discontents (1930, 1994), 65.
Science quotes on:  |  Essential (210)  |  Gratification (22)  |  Neurosis (9)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Sexual (27)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Unfulfilled (3)

The ultimate origin of the difficulty lies in the fact (or philosophical principle) that we are compelled to use the words of common language when we wish to describe a phenomenon, not by logical or mathematical analysis, but by a picture appealing to the imagination. Common language has grown by everyday experience and can never surpass these limits. Classical physics has restricted itself to the use of concepts of this kind; by analysing visible motions it has developed two ways of representing them by elementary processes; moving particles and waves. There is no other way of giving a pictorial description of motions—we have to apply it even in the region of atomic processes, where classical physics breaks down.
Max Born
Atomic Physics (1957), 97.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Apply (170)  |  Break (109)  |  Classical (49)  |  Classical Physics (6)  |  Common (447)  |  Concept (242)  |  Describe (132)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Down (455)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Lie (370)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Motion (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Picture (148)  |  Principle (530)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Two (936)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Use (771)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wave (112)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.
'Space And Time', a translation of an address delivered at the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians, at Cologne, 21 Sep 1908. In H.A. Lorentz, H. Weyl, H. Minkowski, et al., The Principle of Relativity: A Collection of Original Memoirs on the Special and General Theory of Relativity (1952), 74. Also seen translated as, “From henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, have vanished into the merest shadows and only a kind of blend of the two exists in its own right.”
Science quotes on:  |  Doom (34)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lie (370)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Radical (28)  |  Reality (274)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Soil (98)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Space-Time (20)  |  Strength (139)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Union (52)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

The views of the Earth are really beautiful. If you’ve ever seen a space IMAX movie, that’s really what it looks like. I wish I’d had more time just to sit and look out the window with a map, but our science program kept us very busy in the lab most of the time.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Busy (32)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Keep (104)  |  Look (584)  |  Map (50)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movie (21)  |  Program (57)  |  Really (77)  |  See (1094)  |  Sit (51)  |  Space (523)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)  |  Window (59)

The whole question of imagination in science is often misunderstood by people in other disciplines. They try to test our imagination in the following way. They say, “Here is a picture of some people in a situation. What do you imagine will happen next?” When we say, “I can’t imagine,” they may think we have a weak imagination. They overlook the fact that whatever we are allowed to imagine in science must be consistent with everything else we know; that the electric fields and the waves we talk about are not just some happy thoughts which we are free to make as we wish, but ideas which must be consistent with all the laws of physics we know. We can’t allow ourselves to seriously imagine things which are obviously in contradiction to the laws of nature. And so our kind of imagination is quite a difficult game. One has to have the imagination to think of something that has never been seen before, never been heard of before. At the same time the thoughts are restricted in a strait jacket, so to speak, limited by the conditions that come from our knowledge of the way nature really is. The problem of creating something which is new, but which is consistent with everything which has been seen before, is one of extreme difficulty
In The Feynman Lectures in Physics (1964), Vol. 2, Lecture 20, p.20-10 to p.20-11.
Science quotes on:  |  Allow (51)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Create (245)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electric Field (3)  |  Everything (489)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Field (378)  |  Free (239)  |  Game (104)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happy (108)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Physics (5)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Misunderstand (3)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Overlook (33)  |  People (1031)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Picture (148)  |  Problem (731)  |  Question (649)  |  Say (989)  |  Situation (117)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Wave (112)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weak (73)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

The wish to believe, even against evidence, fuels all the pseudosciences from astrology to creationism.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Astrology (46)  |  Belief (615)  |  Creationism (8)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Pseudoscience (17)

The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern “knowledge” is that it is wrong.
The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. “If I am the wisest man,” said Socrates, “it is because I alone know that I know nothing.” The implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.
Alas, none of this was new to me. (There is very little that is new to me; I wish my correspondents would realize this.) This particular theme was addressed to me a quarter of a century ago by John Campbell, who specialized in irritating me. He also told me that all theories are proven wrong in time.
My answer to him was, “John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
In The Relativity of Wrong (1989), 214.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Answer (389)  |  Both (496)  |  Century (319)  |  Deal (192)  |  Delphic (4)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flat (34)  |  Follow (389)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impression (118)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Learning (291)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modern (402)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  People (1031)  |  Proclaim (31)  |  Realize (157)  |  Say (989)  |   Socrates, (17)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Theme (17)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Understood (155)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Young (253)

There appears to be a total absence of place names [in southern Sudan]; there are indeed names for regions, areas, but all hamlets (there are scarcely any villages) bear the name of their headman or district head…, which is as ephemeral as the existence of the bearer himself in this unquiet country. Furthermore, residences are shifted every few years, in order to have fresh farmland; added to this the frequent wars, many deaths etc. In contrast, all bodies of water, even the most insignificant ditches, are permanently named. These will be the only guides if future travelers follow my path in this country or wish to trace it.
On the diffuse difficulties and contradictions in placing permanent names on the maps was making. In August Petermann, Petermann’s Geographische Mittheilungen (1871), 137. As quoted and cited in Kathrin Fritsch, '"You Have Everything Confused And Mixed Up…!" Georg Schweinfurth, Knowledge And Cartography Of Africa In The 19th Century', History in Africa (2009), 36, 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Absence (21)  |  Area (33)  |  Country (269)  |  Death (406)  |  District (11)  |  Ditch (2)  |  Ephemeral (5)  |  Existence (481)  |  Farmland (2)  |  Follow (389)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Future (467)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hamlet (10)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Nubian (6)  |  Path (159)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Region (40)  |  Residence (3)  |  Shift (45)  |  Trace (109)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Village (13)  |  War (233)  |  Water (503)

There is another form of temptation even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. ... It is this which drives us on to try to discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing and which men should not wish to learn.
In Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan (1977).
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Danger (127)  |  Discover (571)  |  Disease (340)  |  Form (976)  |  Learn (672)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Secret (216)  |  Try (296)  |  Understanding (527)

These symptoms are formed in such a particular way that they form a disease group in themselves and thus merit being designated and described as a definite disease ... It is this group of symptoms which I wish to designate by the name Alcoholismus chronicus.
Alcoholismus chronicus: Chronisk alcoholisjudkom: Ett bidrag till dyskrasiarnas känndom (1849). Trans. quoted in John William Crowley, William L. White, Drunkard's Refuge (2004), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Alcoholism (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Definite (114)  |  Disease (340)  |  Form (976)  |  Merit (51)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Way (1214)

This science, Geometry, is one of indispensable use and constant reference, for every student of the laws of nature; for the relations of space and number are the alphabet in which those laws are written. But besides the interest and importance of this kind which geometry possesses, it has a great and peculiar value for all who wish to understand the foundations of human knowledge, and the methods by which it is acquired. For the student of geometry acquires, with a degree of insight and clearness which the unmathematical reader can but feebly imagine, a conviction that there are necessary truths, many of them of a very complex and striking character; and that a few of the most simple and self-evident truths which it is possible for the mind of man to apprehend, may, by systematic deduction, lead to the most remote and unexpected results.
In The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences Part 1, Bk. 2, chap. 4, sect. 8 (1868).
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Alphabet (14)  |  Apprehend (5)  |  Character (259)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Complex (202)  |  Constant (148)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Degree (277)  |  Evident (92)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Insight (107)  |  Interest (416)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Man (2252)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mind Of Man (7)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Number (710)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reader (42)  |  Reference (33)  |  Relation (166)  |  Remote (86)  |  Result (700)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Simple (426)  |  Space (523)  |  Strike (72)  |  Striking (48)  |  Student (317)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Write (250)

Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.
Cosmos (1985), 275.
Science quotes on:  |  Avoid (123)  |  Being (1276)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Confront (18)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Courage (82)  |  Differ (88)  |  Envision (3)  |  Fleeting (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Pretend (18)  |  Profound (105)  |  Structure (365)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Universe (900)  |  Weave (21)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Those who take refuge behind theological barbed wire fences, quite often wish they could have more freedom of thought, but fear the change to the great ocean of truth as they would a cold bath.
Quoted in Dr. D. M. Brooks, The Necessity of Atheism (1933), 341.
Science quotes on:  |  Barbed Wire (2)  |  Bath (11)  |  Behind (139)  |  Change (639)  |  Cold (115)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fence (11)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Great (1610)  |  More (2558)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Refuge (15)  |  Theology (54)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Wire (36)

To say that, a scientific man puts forth a theory and, supports it and adheres to it, not because he thinks it true, but because he wishes it to be true, is the same thing as saying that he is not a seeker after truth at all, and is therefore a traitor to his profession.
In Reason and Belief (1910), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Adhere (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Profession (108)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seeker (8)  |  Support (151)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Traitor (3)  |  Truth (1109)

To understand [our cosmological roots]...is to give voice to the silent stars. Stand under the stars and say what you like to them. Praise them or blame them, question them, pray to them, wish upon them. The universe will not answer. But it will have spoken.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Blame (31)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Give (208)  |  Praise (28)  |  Pray (19)  |  Question (649)  |  Root (121)  |  Say (989)  |  Silent (31)  |  Speak (240)  |  Stand (284)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)  |  Voice (54)  |  Will (2350)

Today I am more than ever frightened. I wish it would dawn upon engineers that, in order to be an engineer, it is not enough to be an engineer.
In Toward a Philosophy of History (1941), 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Dawn (31)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Enough (341)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Realize (157)  |  Today (321)

Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man … and wishes to have his admirers. … Those who write against it want to have the glory of having written well, and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it….
In Pensées (1670), Section 2, No. 3. As translated in Blaise Pascal and W.F. Trotter (trans.), 'Thoughts', No. 150, collected in Charles W. Eliot (ed.), The Harvard Classics (1910), Vol. 48, 60. A similar translation is in W.H. Auden and L. Kronenberger (eds.) The Viking Book of Aphorisms (1966), 40. From the original French, “La vanité est si ancrée dans le cœur de l’homme … et veut avoir ses admirateurs;… Ceux qui écrivent contre veulent avoir la gloire d’avoir bien écrit; et ceux qui le lisent veulent avoir la gloire de l’avoir lu; et moi qui écris ceci, ai peut-être cette envie; et peut-être que ceux qui le liront…” in Ernest Havet (ed.), Pensées de Pascal (1892), 122.
Science quotes on:  |  Admirer (9)  |  Against (332)  |  Anchor (10)  |  Desire (212)  |  Glory (66)  |  Heart (243)  |  Man (2252)  |  Read (308)  |  Vanity (20)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)  |  Write (250)

We are so presumptuous that we would wish to be known by all the world, even by people who shall come after, when we shall be no more; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six neighbours delights and contents us.
In Pensées (1670), Section 2, No. 5. As translated in Blaise Pascal and W.F. Trotter (trans.), 'Thoughts', No. 148, collected in Charles W. Eliot (ed.), The Harvard Classics (1910), Vol. 48, 60. A similar translation is in W.H. Auden and L. Kronenberger (eds.) The Viking Book of Aphorisms (1966). From the original French, “Nous sommes si présomptueux, que nous voudrions être connus de toute la terre, et même des gens qui viendront quand nous ne serons plus; et nous sommes si vains, que l'estime de cinq ou six personnes qui nous environment, nous amuse et nous contente,” in Ernest Havet (ed.), Pensées de Pascal (1892), 122-123.
Science quotes on:  |  Content (75)  |  Delight (111)  |  Esteem (18)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  More (2558)  |  People (1031)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Presumptuous (3)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Vain (86)  |  Vanity (20)  |  World (1850)

We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe[s,] to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.
In Notebook N (1838), 36. Excerpted in Charles Darwin, Thomas F. Glick (ed.) and David Kohn (ed.) On Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection (1996), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Govern (66)  |  Insect (89)  |  Law (913)  |  Planet (402)  |  Satellite (30)  |  Special (188)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)

We have decided to call the entire field of control and communication theory, whether in the machine or in the animal, by the name Cybernetics, which we form from the Greek … for steersman. In choosing this term, we wish to recognize that the first significant paper on feedback mechanisms is an article on governors, which was published by Clerk Maxwell in 1868, and that governor is derived from a Latin corruption … We also wish to refer to the fact that the steering engines of a ship are indeed one of the earliest and best-developed forms of feedback mechanisms.
In Cybernetics (1948), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Article (22)  |  Best (467)  |  Call (781)  |  Clerk (13)  |  Communication (101)  |  Control (182)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Cybernetic (5)  |  Cybernetics (5)  |  Decision (98)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feedback (10)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Governor (13)  |  Greek (109)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Latin (44)  |  Machine (271)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Name (359)  |  Paper (192)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Ship (69)  |  Significant (78)  |  Term (357)  |  Theory (1015)

We have reason not to be afraid of the machine, for there is always constructive change, the enemy of machines, making them change to fit new conditions.
We suffer not from overproduction but from undercirculation. You have heard of technocracy. I wish I had those fellows for my competitors. I'd like to take the automobile it is said they predicted could be made now that would last fifty years. Even if never used, this automobile would not be worth anything except to a junkman in ten years, because of the changes in men's tastes and ideas. This desire for change is an inherent quality in human nature, so that the present generation must not try to crystallize the needs of the future ones.
We have been measuring too much in terms of the dollar. What we should do is think in terms of useful materials—things that will be of value to us in our daily life.
In 'Quotation Marks: Against Technocracy', New York Times (1 Han 1933), E4.
Science quotes on:  |  Afraid (24)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Change (639)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Competitor (4)  |  Condition (362)  |  Construction (114)  |  Constructive (15)  |  Crystallization (2)  |  Crystallize (12)  |  Daily (91)  |  Daily Life (18)  |  Desire (212)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Dollar (22)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Fifty (17)  |  Fit (139)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Junk (6)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Making (300)  |  Material (366)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reason (766)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Taste (93)  |  Technocracy (2)  |  Ten (3)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Try (296)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

We may lay it down that a happy person never phantasises, only an unsatisfied one... The motive forces of phantasies are unsatisfied wishes, and every single phantasy is the fulfilment of a wish, a correction of unsatisfying reality. These motivating wishes vary according to the sex, character and circumstances of the person who is having the phantasy; but they fall naturally into two main groups. They are either ambitious wishes, which serve to elevate the subject's personality; or they are erotic ones. It was shocking when Nietzsche said this, but today it is commonplace; our historical position—and no end to it is in sight—is that of having to philosophise without 'foundations'.
Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming (1906), In James Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychcological Works of Sigmund Freud (1959), Vol 9, 146-7.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Character (259)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Correction (42)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Fall (243)  |  Force (497)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Happy (108)  |  Historical (70)  |  Motive (62)  |  Never (1089)  |  Person (366)  |  Personality (66)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Reality (274)  |  Sex (68)  |  Sight (135)  |  Single (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Today (321)  |  Two (936)

We must protect each other against the attacks of those self-appointed watchdogs of patriotism now abroad in the land who irresponsibly pin red labels on anyone whom they wish to destroy. ... [Academic professionals are the only person competant to differentiate between honest independents and the Communists.] This is our responsibility. It is not a pleasant task. But if it is left to outsiders, the distinction is not likely to be made and those independent critics of social institutions among us who are one of the glories of a true university could be silenced.
As quoted by William L. Laurence in 'Professors Urged to Guard Freedom', New York Times (19 Sep 1952), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Abroad (19)  |  Against (332)  |  Appointment (12)  |  Attack (86)  |  Communist (9)  |  Critic (21)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Glory (66)  |  Honest (53)  |  Institution (73)  |  Irresponsibility (5)  |  Label (11)  |  Like (23)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outsider (7)  |  Patriotism (9)  |  Person (366)  |  Pin (20)  |  Pleasant (22)  |  Professional (77)  |  Protect (65)  |  Red (38)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Self (268)  |  Silence (62)  |  Social (261)  |  Task (152)  |  University (130)

We need go back only a few centuries to find the great mass of people depending on religion for the satisfaction of practically all their wishes. From rain out of the sky to good health on earth, they sought their desires at the altars of their gods. Whether they wanted large families, good crops, freedom from pestilence, or peace of mind, they conceived themselves as dependent on the favor of heaven. Then science came with its alternative, competitive method of getting what we want. That is science’s most important attribute. As an intellectual influence it is powerful enough, but as a practical way of achieving man’s desires it is overwhelming.
In 'The Real Point of Conflict between Science and Religion', collected in Living Under Tension: Sermons On Christianity Today (1941), 140-141.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieving (3)  |  Altar (11)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Back (395)  |  Century (319)  |  Conceived (3)  |  Crop (26)  |  Desire (212)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enough (341)  |  Family (101)  |  Favor (69)  |  Find (1014)  |  Freedom (145)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Health (210)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Important (229)  |  Influence (231)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Large (398)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Peace (116)  |  Peace Of Mind (4)  |  People (1031)  |  Pestilence (14)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Practical (225)  |  Rain (70)  |  Religion (369)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sky (174)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)

We spend our years as a tale that is told, but the tale varies in a hundred different ways, varies between man and man, between year and year, between youth and age, sorrow and joy, laughter and tears. How different the story of the child’s year from the man’s; how much longer it seems; how far apart seem the vacations, and the Christmases, and the New Years! But let the child become a man, and he will find that he can tell full fast enough these stories of a year; that if he is disposed to make good use of them he has no hours to wish away; the plot develops very rapidly, and the conclusion gallops on the very heels of that first chapter which records the birth of a new year.
In Edward Parsons Day (ed.), Day’s Collacon: An Encyclopaedia of Prose Quotations (1884), 1050.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Become (821)  |  Birth (154)  |  Chapter (11)  |  Child (333)  |  Christmas (13)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Develop (278)  |  Different (595)  |  Dispose (10)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fast (49)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Full (68)  |  Good (906)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Joy (117)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Longer (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  New (1273)  |  Plot (11)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Record (161)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Spend (97)  |  Story (122)  |  Tale (17)  |  Tear (48)  |  Tell (344)  |  Use (771)  |  Vacation (4)  |  Vary (27)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)  |  Youth (109)

We wish to discuss a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid. (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest. [Co-author with Francis Crick]
From James Watson and Francis Crick, 'Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid', Nature (25 Apr 1953), 171, No. 4356, 737. (Note: in W.F. Bynum and Roy Porter (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 226, this quote is listed under Rosalind Elsie Franklin and cited, incorrectly, as from “Rosalind Franklin and R. G. Gosling, 'Molecular Structures of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid', Nature, 1953, 171, 737.” However, the actual Franklin and Gosling article in that issue, is on pp.740-741, and titled 'Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate'.)
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Author (175)  |  Biological (137)  |  Considerable (75)  |  DNA (81)  |  Interest (416)  |  Molecular Structure (9)  |  Novel (35)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Salt (48)  |  Structure (365)

We wish to put forward a radically different structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid. This structure has two helical chains each coiled round the same axis (see diagram).
[Co-author with Francis Crick]
From James Watson and Francis Crick, 'Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid', Nature (25 Apr 1953), 171, No. 4356, 737.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Author (175)  |  Axis (9)  |  Chain (51)  |  Coil (4)  |  Francis Crick (62)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  DNA (81)  |  Forward (104)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Radical (28)  |  Salt (48)  |  See (1094)  |  Structure (365)  |  Two (936)

We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.
[Opening remark in the paper by Watson and Crick announcing discovery of the structure of DNA.]
In J.D. Watson and F.H.C. Crick, 'A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid,' Letter in Nature (25 Apr 1953), 171, 737. Quoted in Diane Dowdey, The Researching Reader: Source-based Writings Across the Disciplines (1990), 203.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Biological (137)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Discovery (837)  |  DNA (81)  |  Interest (416)  |  Novel (35)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Paper (192)  |  Salt (48)  |  Structure (365)  |  Structure Of DNA (5)  |  James Watson (33)

When I received the Nobel Prize, the only big lump sum of money I have ever seen, I had to do something with it. The easiest way to drop this hot potato was to invest it, to buy shares. I knew that World War II was coming and I was afraid that if I had shares which rise in case of war, I would wish for war. So I asked my agent to buy shares which go down in the event of war. This he did. I lost my money and saved my soul.
In The Crazy Ape (1970), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Buy (21)  |  Case (102)  |  Coming (114)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Drop (77)  |  Ease (40)  |  Event (222)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fear (212)  |  Hot (63)  |  Invest (20)  |  Loss (117)  |  Lump (5)  |  Money (178)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Potato (11)  |  Rise (169)  |  Save (126)  |  Share (82)  |  Something (718)  |  Soul (235)  |  Sum (103)  |  War (233)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)  |  World War II (9)

When I saw the alpha-helix and saw what a beautiful, elegant structure it was, I was thunderstruck and was furious with myself for not having built this, but on the other hand, I wondered, was it really right?
So I cycled home for lunch and was so preoccupied with the turmoil in my mind that didn’t respond to anything. Then I had an idea, so I cycled back to the lab. I realized that I had a horse hair in a drawer. I set it up on the X-ray camera and gave it a two hour exposure, then took the film to the dark room with my heart in my mouth, wondering what it showed, and when I developed it, there was the 1.5 angstrom reflection which I had predicted and which excluded all structures other than the alpha-helix.
So on Monday morning I stormed into my professor’s office, into Bragg’s office and showed him this, and Bragg said, 'Whatever made you think of that?' And I said, 'Because I was so furious with myself for having missed that beautiful structure.' To which Bragg replied coldly, 'I wish I had made you angry earlier.'
From transcript of audio of Max Perutz in BBC programme, 'Lifestory: Linus Pauling' (1997). On 'Linus Pauling and the Race for DNA' webpage 'I Wish I Had Made You Angry Earlier.'
Science quotes on:  |  Anger (21)  |  Back (395)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Sir William Bragg (9)  |  Dark (145)  |  Develop (278)  |  Earlier (9)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Fury (6)  |  Heart (243)  |  Helix (10)  |  Home (184)  |  Horse (78)  |  Hour (192)  |  Idea (881)  |  Lunch (6)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Miss (51)  |  Morning (98)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Myself (211)  |  Office (71)  |  Other (2233)  |  Predict (86)  |  Professor (133)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Right (473)  |  Saw (160)  |  Set (400)  |  Show (353)  |  Storm (56)  |  Structure (365)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Turmoil (8)  |  Two (936)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wonder (251)  |  X-ray (43)  |  X-ray Crystallography (12)

When I undertake the dissection of a human cadaver I pass a stout rope tied like a noose beneath the lower jaw and through the two zygomas up to the top of the head, either more toward the forehead or more toward the occiput according as I want the cadaver to hang with its head up or down. The longer end of the noose I run through a pulley fixed to a beam in the room so that I may raise or lower the cadaver as it hangs there or may turn it round in any direction to suit my purpose; and should I so wish I can allow it to recline at an angle upon a table, since a table can easily be placed underneath the pulley. This is how the cadaver was suspended for drawing all the muscle tables... though while that one was being drawn the rope was passed around the occiput so as to show the muscles in the neck. If the lower jaw has been removed in the course of dissection, or the zygomas have been broken, the hollows for the temporal muscles will nonetheless hold the noose sufficiently firmly. You must take care not to put the noose around the neck, unless some of the muscles connected to the occipital bone have already been cut away. It is best to suspend the cadaver like this because a human body lying on a table is very difficult to turn over on to its chest or its back.
From De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (1543), Book II, 268, as translated by William Frank Richardson and John Burd Carman, in 'How the Cadaver Can Be Held Erect While These Muscles are Dissected', On The Fabric of the Human Body: Book II: The Ligaments and Muscles (1998), 234.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Already (226)  |  Back (395)  |  Beam (26)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Best (467)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Broken (56)  |  Cadaver (2)  |  Care (203)  |  Connect (126)  |  Course (413)  |  Cut (116)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direction (185)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Down (455)  |  Drawing (56)  |  End (603)  |  Hang (46)  |  Head (87)  |  Human (1512)  |  Jaw (4)  |  Lying (55)  |  More (2558)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Must (1525)  |  Neck (15)  |  Noose (2)  |  Pass (241)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rope (9)  |  Run (158)  |  Show (353)  |  Suspended (5)  |  Table (105)  |  Through (846)  |  Top (100)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

When the solution is simple, God is answering. Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admire (19)  |  Answer (389)  |  Art (680)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cease (81)  |  Enter (145)  |  Face (214)  |  Free (239)  |  God (776)  |  Hope (321)  |  Observe (179)  |  Personal (75)  |  Realm (87)  |  Scene (36)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solution (282)  |  World (1850)

When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.
In Norbert Guterman, The Anchor Book of Latin Quotations (1990), 193.
Science quotes on:  |  Brief (37)  |  Brimming (4)  |  Faithfully (3)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Pour (9)  |  Retain (57)  |  Say (989)  |  Side (236)  |  Unnecessary (23)  |  Word (650)

Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science. If what is seen is seen and experienced is portrayed in the language of logic, we are engaged in science. If it is communicated through forms whose connections are not accessible to the conscious mind but are recognized intuitively as meaningful, then we are engaged in art.
'What Artistic and Scientific Experience Have in Common', Menschen (27 Jan 1921). In Albert Einstein, Helen Dukas, Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein, The Human Side (1981), 37-38. The article was published in a German magazine on modern art, upon a request from the editor, Walter Hasenclever, for a few paragraphs on the idea that there was a close connection between the artistic developments and the scientific results belonging to a given epoch. (The magazine name, and editor's name are given by Ze'ev Rosenkranz, The Einstein Scrapbook (2002), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Accessible (27)  |  Admire (19)  |  Art (680)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cease (81)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Connection (171)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Engage (41)  |  Enter (145)  |  Experience (494)  |  Face (214)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Hope (321)  |  Language (308)  |  Logic (311)  |  Meaningful (19)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Observe (179)  |  Personal (75)  |  Portray (6)  |  Realm (87)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Scene (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Through (846)  |  World (1850)

Why does man behave like perfect idiot? This is the problem I wish to deal with.
The Crazy Ape (1970), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Deal (192)  |  Dealing (11)  |  Idiot (22)  |  Man (2252)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Problem (731)  |  Why (491)

William James used to preach the “will to believe.” For my part, I should wish to preach the “will to doubt.” … What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.
From Conway Memorial Lecture, South Place Institute, London (24 Mar 1922), printed as Free Thought and Official Propaganda (1922), 14. Collected in Sceptical Essays (1928, 2004), 129.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Find (1014)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which numbers holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
In 'Prologue: What I Have Lived For', The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1969). 3-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieved (2)  |  Flux (21)  |  Heart (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Number (710)  |  Passion (121)  |  Power (771)  |  Seek (218)  |  Shine (49)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Understand (648)  |  Why (491)

Yes indeed: the human mind, so blind and languid, shamefully and dishonourably wishes to hide, and yet does not wish anything to be concealed from itself. But it is repaid on the principle that while the human mind lies open to the truth, truth remains hidden from it. Yet even thus, in its miserable condition, it prefers to find joy in true rather than false things. It will be happy if it comes to find joy only in that truth by which all things are true—without any distraction interfering.
Confessions [c.397], Book X, chapter 23 (34), trans. H. Chadwick (1991), 200.
Science quotes on:  |  Blind (98)  |  Concealed (25)  |  Condition (362)  |  Find (1014)  |  Happy (108)  |  Hide (70)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Joy (117)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Open (277)  |  Principle (530)  |  Remain (355)  |  Research (753)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)

You almost wish you could turn off the COMM and just appreciate the deafening quiet.
As quoted in Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin, First on the Moon: The Astronauts’ Own Story (1970), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Silence (62)  |  Turn (454)

Your Grace will no doubt have learnt from the weekly reports of one Marco Antonio Bragadini, called Mamugnano. … He is reported to be able to turn base metal into gold… . He literally throws gold about in shovelfuls. This is his recipe: he takes ten ounces of quicksilver, puts it into the fire, and mixes it with a drop of liquid, which he carries in an ampulla. Thus it promptly turns into good gold. He has no other wish but to be of good use to his country, the Republic. The day before yesterday he presented to the Secret Council of Ten two ampullas with this liquid, which have been tested in his absence. The first test was found to be successful and it is said to have resulted in six million ducats. I doubt not but that this will appear mighty strange to your Grace.
Anonymous
'The Famous Alchemist Bragadini. From Vienna on the 1st day of November 1589'. As quoted in George Tennyson Matthews (ed.) News and Rumor in Renaissance Europe: The Fugger Newsletters (1959), 173. A handwritten collection of news reports (1568-1604) by the powerful banking and merchant house of Fugger in Ausburg.
Science quotes on:  |  Base (120)  |  Call (781)  |  Council (9)  |  Country (269)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Drop (77)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Gold (101)  |  Good (906)  |  Grace (31)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Literally (30)  |  Mamugnano (2)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Metal (88)  |  Other (2233)  |  Present (630)  |  Quicksilver (8)  |  Recipe (8)  |  Republic (16)  |  Result (700)  |  Secret (216)  |  Strange (160)  |  Successful (134)  |  Test (221)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  Yesterday (37)

Your mysterious mountains I wish to see closer. May I land my kinky machine?
Third Stone from the Sun
Science quotes on:  |  Close (77)  |  Closer (43)  |  Land (131)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  See (1094)


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.