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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index C > Santiago Ramón y Cajal Quotes > Intellect

Thumbnail of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (source)
Santiago Ramón y Cajal
(1 May 1852 - 18 Oct 1934)

Spanish histologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his studies of the retina.


Santiago Ramón y Cajal Quotes on Intellect (5 quotes)

>> Click for 24 Science Quotes by Santiago Ramón y Cajal

>> Click for Santiago Ramón y Cajal Quotes on | Life | Pain |

If a photographic plate under the center of a lens focused on the heavens is exposed for hours, it comes to reveal stars so far away that even the most powerful telescopes fail to reveal them to the naked eye. In a similar way, time and concentration allow the intellect to perceive a ray of light in the darkness of the most complex problem.
— Santiago Ramón y Cajal
From Reglas y Consejos sobre Investigacíon Cientifica: Los tónicos de la voluntad. (1897), as translated by Neely and Larry W. Swanson, in Advice for a Young Investigator (1999), 34.
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If a solution fails to appear … and yet we feel success is just around the corner, try resting for a while. … Like the early morning frost, this intellectual refreshment withers the parasitic and nasty vegetation that smothers the good seed. Bursting forth at last is the flower of truth.
— Santiago Ramón y Cajal
From Reglas y Consejos sobre Investigacíon Cientifica: Los tónicos de la voluntad. (1897), as translated by Neely and Larry W. Swanson, in Advice for a Young Investigator (1999), 35.
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Intellectual beauty is sufficient unto itself, and only for it rather than for the future good of humanity does the scholar condemn himself to arduous and painful labors.
— Santiago Ramón y Cajal
From Reglas y Consejos sobre Investigacíon Cientifica: Los tónicos de la voluntad. (1897), as translated by Neely and Larry W. Swanson, in Advice for a Young Investigator (1999), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Ardor (5)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Condemnation (16)  |  Future (467)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Itself (7)  |  Labor (200)  |  Pain (144)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Sufficiency (16)  |  Sufficient (133)

Intellectual work is an act of creation. It is as if the mental image that is studied over a period of time were to sprout appendages like an ameba—outgrowths that extend in all directions while avoiding one obstacle after another—before interdigitating with related ideas.
— Santiago Ramón y Cajal
From Reglas y Consejos sobre Investigacíon Cientifica: Los tónicos de la voluntad. (1897), as translated by Neely and Larry W. Swanson, in Advice for a Young Investigator (1999), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Amoeba (21)  |  Appendage (2)  |  Avoiding (2)  |  Creation (350)  |  Direction (185)  |  Extend (129)  |  Idea (881)  |  Image (97)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Mental (179)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Period (200)  |  Related (5)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)

The history of civilization proves beyond doubt just how sterile the repeated attempts of metaphysics to guess at nature’s laws have been. Instead, there is every reason to believe that when the human intellect ignores reality and concentrates within, it can no longer explain the simplest inner workings of life’s machinery or of the world around us.
— Santiago Ramón y Cajal
From Reglas y Consejos sobre Investigacíon Cientifica: Los tónicos de la voluntad. (1897), as translated by Neely and Larry W. Swanson, in Advice for a Young Investigator (1999), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Explain (334)  |  Guess (67)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Inner (72)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Repeated (5)  |  Simplest (10)  |  Sterile (24)  |  Working (23)  |  World (1850)


See also:
  • 1 May - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Cajal's birth.

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
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