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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index B > Arthur Balfour Quotes

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Arthur Balfour
(25 Jul 1848 - 19 Mar 1930)

Scottish statesman and philosopher who was British Prime Minister (1902-05). He wrote the Balfour Declaration, (1917), approving the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

Science Quotes by Arthur Balfour (7 quotes)

But science is the great instrument of social change, all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of political and religious strife, is the most vital of all the revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilisation.
— Arthur Balfour
Decadence: Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1908), 55-6.
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Lord Kelvin had, in a manner hardly and perhaps never equalled before, except by Archimedes, the power of theorizing on the darkest, most obscure, and most intimate secrets of Nature, and at the same time, and almost in the same breath, carrying out effectively and practically some engineering feat, or carrying to a successful issue some engineering invention. He was one of the leaders in the movement which has compelled all modern engineers worthy of the name to be themselves men not merely of practice, but of theory, to carry out engineering undertakings in the spirit of true scientific inquiry and with an eye fixed on the rapidly growing knowledge of the mechanics of Nature, which can only be acquired by the patient work of physicists and mathematicians in their laboratories and studies.
— Arthur Balfour
In Speech (May 1921) to the Institute of Civil Engineers, to award the newly created Kelvin Medal. As quoted in Sarah Knowles Bolton, 'Lord Kelvin', Famous Men of Science (1889, Revised Ed. 1926), 316-317.
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Man, so far as natural science by itself is able to teach us, is no longer the final cause of the universe, the heaven-descended heir of all the ages. His very existence is an accident, his story a brief and discreditable episode in the life of one of the meanest of the planets. Of the combination of causes which first converted a piece or pieces of unorganised jelly into the living progenitors of humanity, science indeed, as yet, knows nothing.
— Arthur Balfour
In 'The Religion of Humanity', Essays and Addresses by the Right Hon. Arthur J. Balfour (1893), 307.
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Science preceded the theory of science, and is independent of it. Science preceded naturalism, and will survive it.
— Arthur Balfour
The Foundations of Belief: Being Notes Introductory to the Study of Theology (1895), 134.
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The recommendation not to throw yourself out of a second-floor window is a part of the science of mutually gravitating bodies.
— Arthur Balfour
In 'The Religion of Humanity', Essays and Addresses by the Right Hon. Arthur J. Balfour (1893), 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Recommendation (12)  |  Throw (45)  |  Window (59)

Though the parallel is not complete, it is safe to say that science will never touch them unaided by its practical applications. Its wonders may be catalogued for purposes of education, they may be illustrated by arresting experiments, by numbers and magnitudes which startle or fatigue the imagination but they will form no familiar portion of the intellectual furniture of ordinary men unless they be connected, however remotely, with the conduct of ordinary life.
— Arthur Balfour
Decadence (1908), 53.
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We sound the future, and learn that after a period, long compared with the divisions of time open to our investigation, the energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish.
— Arthur Balfour
The Foundations of Belief: Being Notes Introductory to the Study of Theology (1895), 30-1.
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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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- 90 -
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- 80 -
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- 70 -
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- 50 -
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- 40 -
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- 30 -
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Richard Feynman
James Hutton
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- 20 -
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- 10 -
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