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Robert Staughton Lynd
(1892 - 1970)
American sociologist.
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Science Quotes by Robert Staughton Lynd (5 quotes)
In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence. One has to sit still like a mystic and wait. One soon learns that fussing, instead of achieving things, merely prevents things from happening.
— Robert Staughton Lynd
First essay collected in Solomon in All his Glory (1922), 12. Also seen reprinted titled 'Kingfisher' in The New Statesman (1921), 17, 619. “Solomon in All His Glory” refers to a kingfisher, the subject of the essay.
Sparrows are sociable, like a crowd of children begging from a tourist.
— Robert Staughton Lynd
In 'Londoners', Solomon in All his Glory (1922), 68.
The art of writing history is the art of emphasizing the significant facts at the expense of the insignificant. And it is the same in every field of knowledge. Knowledge is power only if a man knows what facts not to bother about.
— Robert Staughton Lynd
In The Orange Tree: A Volume of Essays (1926), 60.
There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.
— Robert Staughton Lynd
In The Blue Lion, and Other Essays (1923), 29.
When the last Puritan has disappeared from the earth, the man of science will take his place as a killjoy, and we shall be given the same old advice but for different reasons.
— Robert Staughton Lynd
Attributed.
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) -- 
