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Charles Fort
(6 Aug 1874 - 3 May 1932)
Dutch-American author who sought out scientific anomalies and collected many notes on odd phenomena that were seemingly inexplicable by the science of his day. He published his research, on such reports as flying saucers and spontaneous human combustion, in The Book of the Damned (1919), in which title, the "damned" were the data rejected or explained away by mainstream science.
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Science Quotes by Charles Fort (14 quotes)
A procession of the damned. By the damned, I mean the excluded. We shall have a procession of data that Science has excluded.
— Charles Fort
The Book of the Damned (1932). In The Complete Books of Charles Fort (1975), 3.
But Truth is that besides which there is nothing: nothing to modify it, nothing to question it, nothing to form an exception: the all-inclusive, the complete — By Truth, I mean the Universal.
— Charles Fort
The Book of the Damned (1932). In The Complete Books of Charles Fort (1975), 9.
I conceive of nothing, in religion, science, or philosophy, that is more than the proper thing to wear, for a while.
— Charles Fort
Wild Talents (1932, 2006), 240.
I have taken the stand that nobody can be always wrong, but it does seem to me that I have approximated so highly that I am nothing short of a negative genius.
— Charles Fort
Wild Talents (1932). In The Complete Books of Charles Fort (1975), 1037.
If any spiritualistic medium can do stunts, there is no more need for special conditions than there is for a chemist to turn down lights, start operations with a hymn, and ask whether there's any chemical present that has affinity with something named Hydrogen.
— Charles Fort
Lo! (1932). In The Complete Books of Charles Fort (1975), 575.
If human thought is a growth, like all other growths, its logic is without foundation of its own, and is only the adjusting constructiveness of all other growing things. A tree cannot find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time. A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine-time.
— Charles Fort
Lo! (1931, 1941), 20.
If there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.
— Charles Fort
Lo! (1931, 1941), 8.
One can't be of an enquiring and experimental nature, and still be very sensible.
— Charles Fort
Wild Talents (1932, 2004), 308.
Peasants have believed in dowsing, and scientists used to believe that dowsing was only a belief of peasants. Now there are so many scientists who believe in dowsing that the suspicion comes to me that it may only be a myth after all.
— Charles Fort
Wild Talents (1932). In The Complete Books of Charles Fort (1975), 1049.
Science of to-day—the superstition of to-morrow. Science of to-morrow—the superstition of to-day.
— Charles Fort
The Book of The Damned (1919), 157
Sometimes I am a collector of data, and only a collector, and am likely to be gross and miserly, piling up notes, pleased with merely numerically adding to my stores.
— Charles Fort
Wild Talents (1932, 2004), 41.
The fate of all explanation is to close one door only to have another fly wide open.
— Charles Fort
The Book of the Damned (1932). In The Complete Books of Charles Fort (1975), 30.
The fittest survive.
What is meant by the fittest?
Not the strongest; not the cleverest—
Weakness and stupidity everywhere survive.
There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does survive.
'Fitness,' then, is only another name for 'survival.'
Darwinism:
That survivors survive.
What is meant by the fittest?
Not the strongest; not the cleverest—
Weakness and stupidity everywhere survive.
There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does survive.
'Fitness,' then, is only another name for 'survival.'
Darwinism:
That survivors survive.
— Charles Fort
The Book of the Damned (1932). In The Complete Books of Charles Fort (1975), 24.
The history of science is a record of the transformations of contempts amd amusements.
— Charles Fort
Wild Talents (1932, 2004), 98.
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) -- 
