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Who said: “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index A > John Quincy Adams Quotes

John Quincy Adams
(11 Jul 1767 - 23 Feb 1848)

president, diplomat and lawyer who was the sixth President of the United States (1825-29).

Science Quotes by John Quincy Adams (4 quotes)

~~[No known source from Adams]~~ If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
— John Quincy Adams
No primary source seems to exist to attribute this quote to Adams. A documented source found on the quoteinvestigator website is from Dolly Parton, in 1997. See the quote that begins, “If your actions create a legacy…”, on the Dolly Parton Quotes page of this website.
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Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
— John Quincy Adams
From An Oration, Delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1802, at the Anniversary Commemoration of the First Landing of our Ancestors at that Place (1802), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Courage (82)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Magic (92)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Vanish (19)

The attainment of knowledge is the high and exclusive attribute of man, among the numberless myriads of animated beings, inhabitants of the terrestrial globe. On him alone is bestowed, by the bounty of the Creator of the universe, the power and the capacity of acquiring knowledge. Knowledge is the attribute of his nature which at once enables him to improve his condition upon earth, and to prepare him for the enjoyment of a happier existence hereafter.
— John Quincy Adams
Report, as chairman of a committee, on the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution (Jan 1836). In Josiah Quincy, Memoir of the life of John Quincy Adams (1858), 265.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquiring (5)  |  Alone (324)  |  Animated (5)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bestow (18)  |  Bounty (2)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Condition (362)  |  Creator (97)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Existence (481)  |  Globe (51)  |  High (370)  |  Improve (64)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Numberless (3)  |  Power (771)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Universe (900)

To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is … the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of existence.
— John Quincy Adams
Report, as chairman of a committee, on the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution (Jan 1836). In Josiah Quincy, Memoir of the life of John Quincy Adams (1858), 265.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquiring (5)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Conferred (2)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Existence (481)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Prolong (29)  |  Sphere (118)


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)
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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
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Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
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- 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


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