TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “I was going to record talking... the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb',... and the machine reproduced it perfectly.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index M > Samuel P. Massie Quotes

Thumbnail of Samuel P. Massie (source)
Samuel P. Massie
(3 Jul 1919 - 10 Apr 2005)

Black-American chemist who was the U.S. Naval Academy’s first African-American professor. He is recognized for encouraging disadvantaged students into science careers.


Science Quotes by Samuel P. Massie (6 quotes)

Photo of Samuel Massie leaning on a chemistry lab bench with electronic instruments in the background
Samuel P. Massie (source)
Because basic learning takes place so early—as…the classic musical South Pacific reminds us, “You've got to be taught before it’s too late, before you are six or seven or eight; you’ve got to be carefully taught,”—we must strengthen our pre-school program, especially Headstart, Kindergarten and Day Care.
— Samuel P. Massie
In address, to the Economic Club of Detroit (14 Jan 1990), 'Where Do We Go From Here?' on the massiechairs.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Care (203)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Classic (13)  |  Early (196)  |  Kindergarten (5)  |  Late (119)  |  Learning (291)  |  Musical (10)  |  Must (1525)  |  Reminder (13)  |  School (227)  |  South (39)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  Teach (299)

On my tests I used to always give as my first question, define chemistry, because I thought every student should know what they were taking. I do this quite often.
— Samuel P. Massie
In address, to the Economic Club of Detroit (14 Jan 1990), 'Where Do We Go From Here?' on the massiechairs.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Define (53)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Question (649)  |  Student (317)  |  Test (221)  |  Thought (995)

On my tests, I [had] … what I called a “two and fifty question.” Two points if they got it right; 50 points off if they missed it.
Now this isn’t as unfair as it seems because much of life is that way. You can do right all your life and nobody says anything. But you go out and make one little mistake and everybody censures you.
— Samuel P. Massie
In address, to the Economic Club of Detroit (14 Jan 1990), 'Where Do We Go From Here?' on the massiechairs.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Censure (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Miss (51)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Point (584)  |  Question (649)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  Test (221)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)

The fact that human life can be prolonged with fewer physical problems requires that we give increasing attention to improving the quality of life. As the poet Edwin Markham stated: “We are all fools until we know that in the common plan, nothing is worth the building if it does not build the man; why build these temples glorious, if man unbuilded goes?”
— Samuel P. Massie
In 'Millenial Musings', Chemical & Engineering News (6 Dec 1999), 77, No. 49, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Common (447)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fewer (11)  |  Fool (121)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Physical (518)  |  Plan (122)  |  Poet (97)  |  Problem (731)  |  Prolong (29)  |  Quality (139)  |  Require (229)  |  Temple (45)  |  Why (491)  |  Worth (172)

The ten most important two-letter words in the English language: “if it is to be, it is up to me.” …
[Remember] the African parable of the sparrow who while flying through the sky heard a clap of thunder. He fell to the ground with his two little legs sticking up.
An eagle flying nearby saw the sparrow and asked “Hey, man, what’s happening?”
Replied the sparrow, “The sky is falling down.”
Mocked the eagle, “And what are you going to do, hold it up with those two little legs of yours?”
Replied the sparrow, “One does what one can with what one has.”
— Samuel P. Massie
In address, to the Economic Club of Detroit (14 Jan 1990), 'Where Do We Go From Here?' on the massiechairs.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  African (11)  |  Ask (420)  |  Clap (3)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Fall (243)  |  Flying (74)  |  Ground (222)  |  Happening (59)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hold (96)  |  Importance (299)  |  Language (308)  |  Leg (35)  |  Letter (117)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mocking (4)  |  Most (1728)  |  Parable (5)  |  Remember (189)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sparrow (6)  |  Sticking (3)  |  Through (846)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Two (936)  |  Word (650)

We must not only prepare [students] in sciences, we must prepare them in other areas. For example, I teach Chemistry but on every test I give I have an English question. And I give a simple question. I say, “Discuss your understanding of this topic.”
— Samuel P. Massie
In address, to the Economic Club of Detroit (14 Jan 1990), 'Where Do We Go From Here?' on the massiechairs.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Discuss (26)  |  English (35)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Question (649)  |  Say (989)  |  Simple (426)  |  Student (317)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Test (221)  |  Topic (23)  |  Understanding (527)


See also:
  • 3 Jul - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Massie's birth.
  • Catalyst: The Autobiography of an American Chemist, by Samuel Proctor Massie and Robert C. Hayden. - book suggestion.

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)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 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


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.