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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index B > Dave Barry Quotes

Dave Barry
(3 Jul 1947 - )

American humorist and writer best known for his wacky humor column published by The Miami Herald (1983-2005) and syndicated in 500 other newspapers.

Science Quotes by Dave Barry (13 quotes)

Although a science fair can seem like a big “pain” it can help you understand important scientific principles, such as Newton’s First Law of Inertia, which states: “A body at rest will remain at rest until 8:45 p.m. the night before the science fair project is due, at which point the body will come rushing to the body’s parents, who are already in their pajamas, and shout, “I JUST REMEMBERED THE SCIENCE FAIR IS TOMORROW AND WE GOTTA GO TO THE STORE RIGHT NOW!”
— Dave Barry
'Science: It’s Just Not Fair', Miami Herald (22 Mar 1998)
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Body (557)  |  Due (143)  |  First (1302)  |  Important (229)  |  Inertia (17)  |  Law (913)  |  Pain (144)  |  Parent (80)  |  Point (584)  |  Principle (530)  |  Project (77)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remember (189)  |  Rest (287)  |  Right (473)  |  Science Fair (7)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Shout (25)  |  State (505)  |  Store (49)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

At least once per year, some group of scientists will become very excited and announce that:
•The universe is even bigger than they thought!
•There are even more subatomic particles than they thought!
•Whatever they announced last year about global warming is wrong.
— Dave Barry
From newspaper column '25 Things I Have Learned in 50 Years' (Oct 1998), collected in Dave Barry Turns Fifty (2010), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Announce (13)  |  Announcement (15)  |  Become (821)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Global (39)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  Last (425)  |  More (2558)  |  Particle (200)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Subatomic (10)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)  |  Warming (24)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)

Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking.
— Dave Barry
In The Taming of the Screw: How to Sidestep Several Million Homeowner's Problems (1983), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Drink (56)  |  Drinking (21)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electron (96)  |  Eye (440)  |  Naked Eye (12)  |  Particle (200)  |  See (1094)  |  Tiny (74)

Gravity is a contributing factor in nearly 73 percent of all accidents involving falling objects.
— Dave Barry
Syndicated column, 'Problems Of Utmost Gravity', seen, for example, in the Chicago Tribune (15 Mar 1998).
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Factor (47)  |  Falling (6)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Object (438)  |  Percent (5)

If there really is God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and He decides to deliver a message to humanity, He will not use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.
— Dave Barry
From newspaper column '25 Things I Have Learned in 50 Years' (Oct 1998), collected in Dave Barry Turns Fifty (2010), 185.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Cable (11)  |  Creation (350)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Glory (66)  |  God (776)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Message (53)  |  Person (366)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)

Magnetism, you recall from physics class, is a powerful force that causes certain items to be attracted to refrigerators.
— Dave Barry
In Peter Archer, The Quotable Intellectual: 1,417 Bon Mots, Ripostes, and Witticisms (2010), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Attraction (61)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Class (168)  |  Force (497)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Refrigerator (8)

Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricty goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires.
— Dave Barry
In The Taming of the Screw: How to Sidestep Several Million Homeowner’s Problems (1983), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternating Current (5)  |  Current (122)  |  Direction (185)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electron (96)  |  Harm (43)  |  Home (184)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Wire (36)

My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished two bags of M&Ms and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.
— Dave Barry
Found widely on the web, but probably originally from a (?) Miami Herald column. Please contact Webmaster if you can confirm a date.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Cake (6)  |  Chocolate (5)  |  Finish (62)  |  Start (237)  |  Therapist (3)  |  True (239)

People in the computer industry use the term ‘user,’ which to them means ‘idiot.’.
— Dave Barry
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Computer (131)  |  Idiot (22)  |  Industry (159)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  People (1031)  |  Term (357)  |  Use (771)  |  User (5)

The most powerful force in the universe is: gossip.
— Dave Barry
From newspaper column '25 Things I Have Learned in 50 Years' (Oct 1998), collected in Dave Barry Turns Fifty (2010), 182.
Science quotes on:  |  Force (497)  |  Gossip (10)  |  Most (1728)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Universe (900)

The science fair has long been a favorite educational tool in the American school system, and for a good reason: Your teachers hate you.
— Dave Barry
'Science: It’s just not fair', Miami Herald (22 Mar 1998)
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Competition (45)  |  Education (423)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Good (906)  |  Hate (68)  |  Long (778)  |  Reason (766)  |  School (227)  |  Science Fair (7)  |  System (545)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Tool (129)

What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.
— Dave Barry
In Geoff Tibballs, The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004), 502.
Science quotes on:  |  Asteroid (19)  |  Bad (185)  |  Common (447)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Frog (44)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Happen (282)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Realistic (6)  |  Simulation (7)  |  Sledge Hammer (3)  |  Strike (72)  |  Will (2350)

You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe “Daylight Saving Time.”
— Dave Barry
From newspaper column '25 Things I Have Learned in 50 Years' (Oct 1998), collected in Dave Barry Turns Fifty (2010), 181.
Science quotes on:  |  Anybody (42)  |  Compelling (11)  |  Daylight (23)  |  Daylight Saving Time (10)  |  Find (1014)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observe (179)  |  Reason (766)  |  Time (1911)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
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- 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


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