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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 > Woody Allen Quotes

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Woody Allen
(1 Dec 1935 - )

American humorist and film director who began as a staff writer for National Broadcasting Corp (NBC), and subsequently gained fame as a comedian, actor, director, and writer for films, stage and television.

Science Quotes by Woody Allen (15 quotes)

[An audience conditioned by a lifetime of television-watching is so corrupted that] their standards have been systematically lowered over the years. These guys sit in front of their sets and the gamma rays eat the white cells of their brains out!
— Woody Allen
Spoken by character Isaac Davis (played by Woody Allen) in the movie, Manhattan (1979). Quoted in Eighteen Woody Allen Films Analyzed (2000), 63. Woody Allen directed the movie, which he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman.
Science quotes on:  |  Audience (28)  |  Brain (281)  |  Condition (362)  |  Eat (108)  |  Gamma Ray (3)  |  Ray (115)  |  Set (400)  |  Sit (51)  |  Standard (64)  |  Television (33)  |  White (132)  |  Year (963)

Can we actually “know” the universe? My God, it’s hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown.
— Woody Allen
In Getting Even (1971).
Science quotes on:  |  Enough (341)  |  God (776)  |  Hard (246)  |  Know (1538)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)

I took a course in speed reading course … and I was able to go through read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It’s about Russia.
— Woody Allen
As quoted in Reader's Digest (Oct 1967), 91, 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Course (413)  |  Minute (129)  |  Peace (116)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Russia (14)  |  Speed (66)  |  Through (846)  |  War (233)

I was depressed at that time. I was in analysis. I was suicidal as a matter of fact and would have killed myself, but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian, and, if you kill yourself, they make you pay for the sessions you miss.
— Woody Allen
As character Alvy Singer doing a stand-up comedy act to a college audience, in movie Annie Hall (1977). Screenplay by Woody Allen with Marshall Brickman, transcript printed in Four films of Woody Allen (1982), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Depression (26)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Freudian (4)  |  Kill (100)  |  Killed (2)  |  Matter (821)  |  Miss (51)  |  Missing (21)  |  Myself (211)  |  Pay (45)  |  Session (3)  |  Strict (20)  |  Suicide (23)  |  Time (1911)

I was thrown out of NYU in my freshman year … for cheating on my metaphysics final. You know, I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
— Woody Allen
As character Alvy Singer doing a stand-up comedy act to a college audience, in movie Annie Hall (1977). Screenplay by Woody Allen with Marshall Brickman, transcript printed in Four films of Woody Allen (1982), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Boy (100)  |  Cheating (2)  |  Examination (102)  |  Final (121)  |  Freshman (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Next (238)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Soul (235)  |  Thrown Out (3)  |  Year (963)

I’m astounded by people who want to “know” the universe when its hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.
— Woody Allen
Getting Even. In Lily Splane, Quantum Consciousness (2004),307
Science quotes on:  |  Astound (9)  |  Enough (341)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hard (246)  |  Know (1538)  |  People (1031)  |  Universe (900)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)

Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought—particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things.
— Woody Allen
Side Effects (1981), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Finite (60)  |  Modern (402)  |  Never (1089)  |  People (1031)  |  Remember (189)  |  Space (523)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)

It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one’s hat keeps blowing off.
— Woody Allen
Side Effects (1981), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Blowing (22)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Faster (50)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Light (635)  |  Travel (125)

It’s not that I’m afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
— Woody Allen
Spoken by the character Kleinman in Death: A Comedy in One Act p. 63 (1975)
Science quotes on:  |  Death (406)  |  Happen (282)  |  Want (504)

Life is hard for insects. And don’t think mice are having any fun either.
— Woody Allen
Without Feathers (1975), 103
Science quotes on:  |  Fun (42)  |  Hard (246)  |  Insect (89)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Think (1122)

Mother: He’s been depressed. All of a sudden, he can’t do anything.
Doctor: Why are you depressed, Alvy?
Mother: Tell Dr. Flicker. It’s something he read.
Doctor: Something he read, huh?
Alvy: The universe is expanding.
Doctor: The universe is expanding?
Alvy: Well, the universe is everything, and if it’s expanding, someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything!
Mother: What is that your business? He stopped doing his homework.
Alvy: What’s the point?
— Woody Allen
With co-author Marshall Brickman, Annie Hall (1973).
Science quotes on:  |  Break (109)  |  Business (156)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Doing (277)  |  End (603)  |  Everything (489)  |  Mother (116)  |  Point (584)  |  Read (308)  |  Someday (15)  |  Something (718)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Tell (344)  |  Universe (900)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

Science is something we depend on all the time. If I develop a pain in the chest I must take an X-ray. But what if the radiation from the X-ray causes me deeper problems? Before I know it. I’m going in for surgery. Naturally, while they’re giving me oxygen an intern decides to light up a cigarette. The next thing you know I’m rocketing over the World Trade Center in bed clothes. Is this science?
— Woody Allen
In 'My Speech to the Graduates', Side Effects (1986), 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Chest (3)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Depend (238)  |  Intern (2)  |  Light (635)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pain (144)  |  Problem (731)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Surgery (54)  |  X-ray (43)

Standard mathematics has recently been rendered obsolete by the discovery that for years we have been writing the numeral five backward. This has led to reevaluation of counting as a method of getting from one to ten. Students are taught advanced concepts of Boolean algebra, and formerly unsolvable equations are dealt with by threats of reprisals.
— Woody Allen
Getting Even (1978), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Boolean Algebra (2)  |  Concept (242)  |  Counting (26)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Education (423)  |  Equation (138)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Number (710)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  Reevaluation (2)  |  Render (96)  |  Reprisal (2)  |  Student (317)  |  Threat (36)  |  Unsolvable (2)  |  Writing (192)  |  Year (963)

The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God’s mind—a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you’ve just made a down payment on a house.
— Woody Allen
In Getting Even (1971), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Down (455)  |  Fleeting (3)  |  God (776)  |  House (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Thought (995)  |  Uncomfortable (7)  |  Universe (900)

Those who can’t do, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach gym.
— Woody Allen
From movie script, Annie Hall, as quoted and cited in The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader (1993), 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Education (423)  |  Gym (3)  |  Teach (299)


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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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


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