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: “Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index A > Category: Alien

Alien Quotes (35 quotes)

... finding that in [the Moon] there is a provision of light and heat; also in appearance, a soil proper for habitation fully as good as ours, if not perhaps better who can say that it is not extremely probable, nay beyond doubt, that there must be inhabitants on the Moon of some kind or other?
Letter to Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne (1780). Quoted in Patrick Moore, Patrick Moore on the Moon (2006), 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Better (493)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Good (906)  |  Habitation (7)  |  Heat (180)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Kind (564)  |  Light (635)  |  Moon (252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proper (150)  |  Say (989)  |  Soil (98)

[Freud's] great strength, though sometimes also his weakness, was the quite extraordinary respect he had for the singular fact... When he got hold of a simple but significant fact he would feel, and know, that it was an example of something general or universal, and the idea of collecting statistics on the matter was quite alien to him.
The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1953), Vol 1, 96-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feel (371)  |  Sigmund Freud (70)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Matter (821)  |  Respect (212)  |  Significant (78)  |  Simple (426)  |  Singular (24)  |  Something (718)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Strength (139)  |  Universal (198)  |  Weakness (50)

[O]ne might ask why, in a galaxy of a few hundred billion stars, the aliens are so intent on coming to Earth at all. It would be as if every vertebrate in North America somehow felt drawn to a particular house in Peoria, Illinois. Are we really that interesting?
Quoted in 'Do Aliens Exist in the Milky Way', PBS web page for WGBH Nova, 'Origins.'
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Ask (420)  |  Billion (104)  |  Come (4)  |  Coming (114)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  House (143)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Intention (46)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  North America (5)  |  Particular (80)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Why (491)

[T]here are some common animal behaviors that seem to favor the development of intelligence, behaviors that might lead to brainy beasts on many worlds. Social interaction is one of them. If you're an animal that hangs out with others, then there's clearly an advantage in being smart enough to work out the intentions of the guy sitting next to you (before he takes your mate or your meal). And if you're clever enough to outwit the other members of your social circle, you'll probably have enhanced opportunity to breed..., thus passing on your superior intelligence. ... Nature—whether on our planet or some alien world—will stumble into increased IQ sooner or later.
Seth Shostak, Alex Barnett, Cosmic Company: the Search for Life in the Universe (2003), 62 & 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Behavior (10)  |  Beast (58)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brain (281)  |  Breeding (21)  |  Circle (117)  |  Clever (41)  |  Common (447)  |  Development (441)  |  Enhancement (5)  |  Enough (341)  |  Favor (69)  |  Hang (46)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intention (46)  |  Interaction (47)  |  IQ (5)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mate (7)  |  Meal (19)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Next (238)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outwit (6)  |  Passing (76)  |  Planet (402)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Smart (33)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Superior (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

[T]here is little chance that aliens from two societies anywhere in the Galaxy will be culturally close enough to really 'get along.' This is something to ponder as you watch the famous cantina scene in Star Wars. ... Does this make sense, given the overwhelmingly likely situation that galactic civilizations differ in their level of evolutionary development by thousands or millions of years? Would you share drinks with a trilobite, an ourang-outang, or a saber-toothed tiger? Or would you just arrange to have a few specimens stuffed and carted off to the local museum?
Quoted in 'Do Aliens Exist in the Milky Way', PBS web page for WGBH Nova, 'Origins.'
Science quotes on:  |  Arrange (33)  |  Chance (244)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Culture (157)  |  Development (441)  |  Differ (88)  |  Drink (56)  |  Enough (341)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Galactic (6)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Little (717)  |  Museum (40)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Ponder (15)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sense (785)  |  Share (82)  |  Situation (117)  |  Society (350)  |  Something (718)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Star (460)  |  Star Wars (3)  |  Stuff (24)  |  Taxidermy (2)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Trilobite (6)  |  Two (936)  |  War (233)  |  Watch (118)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Primas sum: primatum nihil a me alienum puto
I am a primate; nothing about primates is alien to me.
Paraphrasing Latin playwright Terence's words: Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto (I am a man; nothing about men is alien to me).
Attributed. (Caution: presently widely found quoted on the internet, but without a source.) Please contact webmaster if you know a primary print source.
Science quotes on:  |  Latin (44)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Primate (11)  |  Sum (103)  |  Word (650)

A bewildering assortment of (mostly microscopic) life-forms has been found thriving in what were once thought to be uninhabitable regions of our planet. These hardy creatures have turned up in deep, hot underground rocks, around scalding volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean, in the desiccated, super-cold Dry Valleys of Antarctica, in places of high acid, alkaline, and salt content, and below many meters of polar ice. ... Some deep-dwelling, heat-loving microbes, genetic studies suggest, are among the oldest species known, hinting that not only can life thrive indefinitely in what appear to us totally alien environments, it may actually originate in such places.
In Life Everywhere: the Maverick Science of Astrobiology (2002), xi.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Alkali (6)  |  Antarctica (8)  |  Assortment (5)  |  Bewilderment (8)  |  Cold (115)  |  Creature (242)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dry (65)  |  Environment (239)  |  Form (976)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Heat (180)  |  High (370)  |  Hot (63)  |  Ice (58)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life-Form (6)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Microbes (14)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Origin (250)  |  Originate (39)  |  Planet (402)  |  Polar (13)  |  Rock (176)  |  Salt (48)  |  Species (435)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thrive (22)  |  Thriving (2)  |  Turn (454)  |  Underground (12)  |  Valley (37)  |  Vent (2)  |  Volcano (46)

Concerned to reconstruct past ideas, historians must approach the generation that held them as the anthropologist approaches an alien culture. They must, that is, be prepared at the start to find that natives speak a different language and map experience into different categories from those they themselves bring from home. And they must take as their object the discovery of those categories and the assimilation of the corresponding language.
'Revisiting Planck', Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences (1984), 14, 246.
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropologist (8)  |  Approach (112)  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Category (19)  |  Concern (239)  |  Culture (157)  |  Different (595)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  Generation (256)  |  Historian (59)  |  History (716)  |  Home (184)  |  Idea (881)  |  Language (308)  |  Map (50)  |  Must (1525)  |  Native (41)  |  Object (438)  |  Past (355)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Speak (240)  |  Start (237)  |  Themselves (433)

Everywhere in science the talk is of winners, patents, pressures, money, no money, the rat race, the lot; things that are so completely alien ... that I no longer know whether I can be classified as a modern scientist or as an example of a beast on the way to extinction.
An Imagined World: A Story of Scientific Discovery (1981), 213. Quoted in Evelyn Fox Keller, A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock (1984), 207.
Science quotes on:  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Beast (58)  |  Completely (137)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lot (151)  |  Modern (402)  |  Money (178)  |  Patent (34)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Race (278)  |  Rat (37)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)

George Sears, called Nessmuk, whose “Woodcraft,” published in 1884, was the first American book on forest camping, and is written with so much wisdom, wit, and insight that it makes Henry David Thoreau seem alien, humorless, and French.
Coming into the Country
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Camp (12)  |  First (1302)  |  Forest (161)  |  French (21)  |  Insight (107)  |  Publish (42)  |  Sear (2)  |  Seem (150)  |  Henry Thoreau (93)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wit (61)  |  Write (250)

However dangerous might be the shock of a comet, it might be so slight, that it would only do damage at the part of the Earth where it actually struck; perhaps even we might cry quits if while one kingdom were devastated, the rest of the Earth were to enjoy the rarities which a body which came from so far might bring it. Perhaps we should be very surprised to find that the debris of these masses that we despised were formed of gold and diamonds; but who would be the most astonished, we, or the comet-dwellers, who would be cast on our Earth? What strange being each would find the other!
From 'Lettre sur la comète', Œuvres de M. Maupertuis (1752), 203. As quoted in Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (1979), 95-96.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonish (39)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Cast (69)  |  Comet (65)  |  Cry (30)  |  Damage (38)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Debris (7)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Gold (101)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Rest (287)  |  Shock (38)  |  Strange (160)

If a superior alien civilisation sent us a message saying, “We’ll arrive in a few decades,” would we just reply, “OK, call us when you get here—we’ll leave the lights on”? Probably not—but this is more or less what is happening with AI. Although we are facing potentially the best or worst thing to happen to humanity in history, little serious research is devoted to these issues outside non-profit institutes such as the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, the Future of Humanity Institute, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and the Future of Life Institute. All of us should ask ourselves what we can do now to improve the chances of reaping the benefits and avoiding the risks.
From article with byline attributing several authors collectively, namely: Stephen Hawking, Stuart Russell, Max Tegmark, Frank Wilczek, 'Stephen Hawking: `Transcendence looks at the implications of artificial intelligence—but are we taking AI seriously enough?’', Independent. Posted on the newspaper site www.independent.co.uk (01 May 2014). The article does not given an individual attribution to the quoter, so it is not clear if Stephen Hawking contributed it, and it is easily possible he did not. Thus this entry is filed under his name only because he is the first-listed in the byline.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrive (40)  |  Artificial Intelligence (12)  |  Ask (420)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Bad (185)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Call (781)  |  Cambridge (17)  |  Chance (244)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Decade (66)  |  Devote (45)  |  Existential (3)  |  Future (467)  |  Good (906)  |  Happen (282)  |  History (716)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Improve (64)  |  Institute (8)  |  Issue (46)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Message (53)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Ourself (21)  |  Potential (75)  |  Probably (50)  |  Reap (19)  |  Reply (58)  |  Research (753)  |  Risk (68)  |  Serious (98)  |  Superior (88)

If we are correct in understanding how evolution actually works, and provided we can survive the complications of war, environmental degradation, and possible contact with interstellar planetary travelers, we will look exactly the same as we do now. We won’t change at all. The species is now so widely dispersed that it is not going to evolve, except by gradualism.
In Pamela Weintraub, The Omni Interviews (1984), 75.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Complication (30)  |  Contact (66)  |  Degradation (18)  |  Do (1905)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Interstellar (8)  |  Look (584)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Possible (560)  |  Species (435)  |  Survive (87)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

If we ever establish contact with intelligent aliens living on a planet around a distant star … They would be made of similar atoms to us. They could trace their origins back to the big bang 13.7 billion years ago, and they would share with us the universe's future. However, the surest common culture would be mathematics.
In 'Take Me to Your Mathematician', New Scientist (14 Feb 2009), 201, No. 2695.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Back (395)  |  Bang (29)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Billion (104)  |  Common (447)  |  Contact (66)  |  Culture (157)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Future (467)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Living (492)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Origin (250)  |  Planet (402)  |  Share (82)  |  Star (460)  |  Trace (109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Year (963)

In an age of egoism, it is so difficult to persuade man that of all studies, the most important is that of himself. This is because egoism, like all passions, is blind. The attention of the egoist is directed to the immediate needs of which his senses give notice, and cannot be raised to those reflective needs that reason discloses to us; his aim is satisfaction, not perfection. He considers only his individual self; his species is nothing to him. Perhaps he fears that in penetrating the mysteries of his being he will ensure his own abasement, blush at his discoveries, and meet his conscience. True philosophy, always at one with moral science, tells a different tale. The source of useful illumination, we are told, is that of lasting content, is in ourselves. Our insight depends above all on the state of our faculties; but how can we bring our faculties to perfection if we do not know their nature and their laws! The elements of happiness are the moral sentiments; but how can we develop these sentiments without considering the principle of our affections, and the means of directing them? We become better by studying ourselves; the man who thoroughly knows himself is the wise man. Such reflection on the nature of his being brings a man to a better awareness of all the bonds that unite us to our fellows, to the re-discovery at the inner root of his existence of that identity of common life actuating us all, to feeling the full force of that fine maxim of the ancients: 'I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me.'
Considerations sur les diverses méthodes à suivre dans l'observation des peuples sauvages (1800) The Observation of Savage Peoples, trans. F. C. T. Moore (1969), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Age (509)  |  Aim (175)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Attention (196)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Blind (98)  |  Bond (46)  |  Common (447)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Consider (428)  |  Depend (238)  |  Develop (278)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Ethnology (9)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Force (497)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identity (19)  |  Illumination (15)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inner (72)  |  Insight (107)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Passion (121)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Root (121)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Studying (70)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Unite (43)  |  Useful (260)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wise (143)  |  Wise Man (17)

It is probable that the scheme of physics will be enlarged so as to embrace the behaviour of living organisms under the influence of life and mind. Biology and psychology are not alien sciences; their operations are not solely mechanical, nor can they be formulated by physics as it is today; but they belong to a physical universe, and their mode of action ought to be capable of being formulated in terms of an enlarged physics in the future, in which the ether will take a predominant place. On the other hand it may be thought that those entities cannot be brought to book so easily, and that they will always elude our ken. If so, there will be a dualism in the universe, which posterity will find staggering, but that will not alter the facts.
In Past Years: an Autobiography (1932), 350. Quoted in book review, Waldehar Kaempfert, 'Sir Oliver Lodge Stands by the Old Physics', New York Times (21 Feb 1932), BR5.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Alter (64)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Biology (232)  |  Book (413)  |  Capable (174)  |  Dualism (4)  |  Elude (11)  |  Eluding (2)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Enlargement (8)  |  Ether (37)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Find (1014)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Future (467)  |  Influence (231)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mode (43)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Predominance (3)  |  Probability (135)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Staggering (2)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thought (995)  |  Today (321)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

It is the triumph of civilization that at last communities have obtained such a mastery over natural laws that they drive and control them. The winds, the water, electricity, all aliens that in their wild form were dangerous, are now controlled by human will, and are made useful servants.
In Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), 75.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Community (111)  |  Control (182)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Servant (40)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Useful (260)  |  Water (503)  |  Wild (96)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)

Leave your home, O youth, and seek out alien shores. A wider range of life has been ordained for you.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Home (184)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Ordain (4)  |  Range (104)  |  Seek (218)  |  Shore (25)  |  Wide (97)  |  Youth (109)

Man is not a machine, ... although man most certainly processes information, he does not necessarily process it in the way computers do. Computers and men are not species of the same genus. .... No other organism, and certainly no computer, can be made to confront genuine human problems in human terms. ... However much intelligence computers may attain, now or in the future, theirs must always be an intelligence alien to genuine human problems and concerns.
Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, (1976) 203 and 223. Also excerpted in Ronald Chrisley (ed.), Artificial Intelligence: Critical Concepts (2000), Vol. 3, 313 and 321. Note that the second ellipsis spans 8 pages.
Science quotes on:  |  Artificial Intelligence (12)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Computer (131)  |  Concern (239)  |  Confront (18)  |  Do (1905)  |  Future (467)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Genus (27)  |  Human (1512)  |  Information (173)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Species (435)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Way (1214)

Now, it may be stretching an analogy to compare epidemics of cholera—caused by a known agent—with that epidemic of violent crime which is destroying our cities. It is unlikely that our social problems can be traced to a single, clearly defined cause in the sense that a bacterial disease is ‘caused’ by a microbe. But, I daresay, social science is about as advanced in the late twentieth century as bacteriological science was in the mid nineteenth century. Our forerunners knew something about cholera; they sensed that its spread was associated with misdirected sewage, filth, and the influx of alien poor into crowded, urban tenements. And we know something about street crime; nowhere has it been reported that a member of the New York Stock Exchange has robbed ... at the point of a gun. Indeed, I am naively confident that an enlightened social scientist of the next century will be able to point out that we had available to us at least some of the clues to the cause of urban crime.
'Cholera at the Harvey,' Woods Hole Cantata: Essays on Science and Society (1985).
Science quotes on:  |  19th Century (41)  |  20th Century (40)  |  Advance (298)  |  Agent (73)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Associate (25)  |  Available (80)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Cause (561)  |  Century (319)  |  Cholera (7)  |  City (87)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Clue (20)  |  Compare (76)  |  Confident (25)  |  Crime (39)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Define (53)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Disease (340)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightened (25)  |  Epidemic (8)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Filth (5)  |  Forerunner (4)  |  Gun (10)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Influx (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Late (119)  |  Member (42)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Misdirect (2)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Next (238)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Out (9)  |  Poor (139)  |  Problem (731)  |  Report (42)  |  Rob (6)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sewage (9)  |  Single (365)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Social Scientist (5)  |  Something (718)  |  Spread (86)  |  Stock Exchange (2)  |  Street (25)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Teenager (6)  |  Trace (109)  |  Unlikely (15)  |  Urban (12)  |  Violent (17)  |  Will (2350)

Outside intelligences, exploring the solar system with true impartiality, would be quite likely to enter the sun in their records thus: Star X, spectral class G0, 4 planets plus debris.
Essay 16, 'By Jove!'. In View From a Height (1963), 227.
Science quotes on:  |  Class (168)  |  Debris (7)  |  Enter (145)  |  Impartiality (7)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Outside (141)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plus (43)  |  Record (161)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Star (460)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)

Outside our consciousness there lies the cold and alien world of actual things. Between the two stretches the narrow borderland of the senses. No communication between the two worlds is possible excepting across the narrow strip. For a proper understanding of ourselves and of the world, it is of the highest importance that this borderland should be thoroughly explored.
Keynote Address, a tribute to Helmholtz, at the Imperial Palace, Berlin (Aug 1891). Cited in Davis Baird, R.I.G. Hughes and Alfred Nordmann, Heinrich Hertz: Classical Physicist, Modern Philosopher (1998), 157.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Actuality (6)  |  Borderland (6)  |  Cold (115)  |  Coldness (2)  |  Communication (101)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Importance (299)  |  Lie (370)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Outside (141)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reality (274)  |  Sense (785)  |  Strip (7)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  World (1850)

Read no newspapers, try to find a few friends who think as you do, read the wonderful writers of earlier times, Kant, Goethe, Lessing, and the classics of other lands, and enjoy the natural beauties of Munich’s surroundings. Make believe all the time that you are living, so to speak, on Mars among alien creatures and blot out any deeper interest in the actions of those creatures. Make friends with a few animals. Then you will become a cheerful man once more and nothing will be able to trouble you.
Letter (5 Apr 1933). As quoted in Jamie Sayen, Einstein in America: The Scientist’s Conscience in the Age of Hitler and Hiroshima (1985), 12. This is part of Einstein’s reply to a letter from a troubled, unemployed musician, presumably living in Munich.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Become (821)  |  Cheerful (10)  |  Classic (13)  |  Creature (242)  |  Do (1905)  |  Find (1014)  |  Friend (180)  |  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (150)  |  Interest (416)  |  Immanuel Kant (50)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mars (47)  |  More (2558)  |  Munich (3)  |  Natural (810)  |  Newspaper (39)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Read (308)  |  Speak (240)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Try (296)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Writer (90)

The computational formalism of mathematics is a thought process that is externalised to such a degree that for a time it becomes alien and is turned into a technological process. A mathematical concept is formed when this thought process, temporarily removed from its human vessel, is transplanted back into a human mold. To think ... means to calculate with critical awareness.
Mathematics and Physics (1981), Foreward. Reprinted in Mathematics as Metaphor: Selected Essays of Yuri I. Manin (2007), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Awareness (42)  |  Back (395)  |  Become (821)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Computation (28)  |  Concept (242)  |  Critical (73)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Degree (277)  |  External (62)  |  Form (976)  |  Formalism (7)  |  Human (1512)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mold (37)  |  Process (439)  |  Remove (50)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transplant (12)  |  Transplantation (4)  |  Turn (454)  |  Vessel (63)

The key to SETI is to guess the type of communication that an alien society would use. The best guesses so far have been that they would use radio waves, and that they would choose a frequency based on 'universal' knowledge—for instance, the 1420 MHz hydrogen frequency. But these are assumptions formulated by the human brain. Who knows what sort of logic a superadvanced nonhuman life form might use? ... Just 150 years ago, an eyeblink in history, radio waves themselves were inconceivable, and we were thinking of lighting fires to signal the Martians.
Quoted on PBS web page related to Nova TV program episode on 'Origins: Do Aliens Exist in the Milky Way'.
Science quotes on:  |  Assumption (96)  |  Best (467)  |  Brain (281)  |  Choose (116)  |  Communication (101)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Fire (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Frequency (25)  |  Guess (67)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifeform (2)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mars (47)  |  Radio (60)  |  SETI (3)  |  Signal (29)  |  Society (350)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Type (171)  |  Universal (198)  |  Use (771)  |  Wave (112)  |  Year (963)

The mathematical take-over of physics has its dangers, as it could tempt us into realms of thought which embody mathematical perfection but might be far removed, or even alien to, physical reality. Even at these dizzying heights we must ponder the same deep questions that troubled both Plato and Immanuel Kant. What is reality? Does it lie in our mind, expressed by mathematical formulae, or is it “out there”.
In Book Review 'Pulling the Strings,' of Lawrence Krauss's Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Lure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond in Nature (22 Dec 2005), 438, 1081.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Danger (127)  |  Deep (241)  |  Express (192)  |  Formula (102)  |  Immanuel Kant (50)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plato (80)  |  Ponder (15)  |  Question (649)  |  Reality (274)  |  Realm (87)  |  Thought (995)

The only truly alien planet is Earth.
In 'Which Way to Inner Space?', New Worlds (May 1962). Quoted in The Riverside Dictionary of Biography (2004), 54.
Science quotes on:  |  Earth (1076)  |  Planet (402)  |  Truly (118)

The process of self-estrangement and its removal underlies all education. The mind must fix its attention upon what is alien to it and penetrate its disguise, making it become familiar. … Wonder is only the first stage of this estrangement. It must be followed by recognition.
In Psychologic Foundations of Education: An Attempt to Show the Genesis of the Higher Faculties of the Mind (1907), 289.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Become (821)  |  Disguise (12)  |  Education (423)  |  Familiar (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Making (300)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Process (439)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Removal (12)  |  Self (268)  |  Stage (152)  |  Underlie (19)  |  Wonder (251)

They look a little like the monster in ‘Alien.’ They’re horrifying to look at up close. That’s sort of what makes them fun. [About his microscopic study of ants.]
As quoted by Lindsay Whitehurst in 'University of Utah Scientist Discovers Terrifying Ant Species', The Salt Lake Tribune (31 Jul 2013)
Science quotes on:  |  Ant (34)  |  Close (77)  |  Fun (42)  |  Horror (15)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Make (25)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Monster (33)  |  Sort (50)  |  Study (701)

We divorced ourselves from the materials of the earth, the rock, the wood, the iron ore; we looked to new materials which were cooked in vats, long complex derivatives of urine which we called plastic. They had no odor of the living, ... their touch was alien to nature. ... [They proliferated] like the matastases of cancer cells.
The Idol and the Octopus: political writings (1968), 83 and 118.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Cook (20)  |  Derivative (6)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Iron (99)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Material (366)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Odor (11)  |  Ore (14)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Rock (176)  |  Touch (146)  |  Urine (18)  |  Vat (2)  |  Wood (97)

We intend to say something about the structure of the atom but lack a language in which we can make ourselves understood. We are in much the same position as a sailor, marooned on a remote island where conditions differ radically from anything he has ever known and where, to make things worse, the natives speak a completely alien tongue.
In conversation during first meeting with Werner Heisenberg (summer 1920), as quoted in William H. Cropper, Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking (2001), 249-250.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Completely (137)  |  Condition (362)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Island (49)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Lack (127)  |  Language (308)  |  Native (41)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Radically (5)  |  Remote (86)  |  Sailor (21)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)

We need not hesitate to admit that the Sun is richly stored with inhabitants.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, from their commencement in 1665 to the year 1800. Vol. 17: From 1791 to 1796 (1809), 490. Quoted in Edward Polehampton and John Mason Good The Gallery of Nature and Art (1818), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Hesitate (24)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Sun (407)

Well beyond the tropostrata
There is a region stark and stellar
Where, on a streak of anti-matter
Lived Dr. Edward anti-Teller.

Remote from Fusion’s origin,

He lived unguessed and unawares
With all his antikith and kin,
And kept macassars on his chairs.

One morning, idling by the sea,
He spied a tin of monstrous girth
That bore three letters: A. E. C.
Out stepped a visitor from Earth.

Then, shouting gladly o’er the sands,
Met two who in their alien ways
Were like as lentils. Their right hands
Clasped, and the rest was gamma rays.
In 'Perils of Modern Living', The New Yorker (10 Nov 1956), 56. Reprinted in Edward Teller with Judith Schoolery, Memoirs: A Twentieth Century Journey in Science and Politics (2002), 428. Webmaster supposes the initials 'A.E.C.' might be for the Atomic Energy Commission.
Science quotes on:  |  Anti-Matter (4)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Chair (25)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fusion (16)  |  Gamma Ray (3)  |  Kin (10)  |  Letter (117)  |  Matter (821)  |  Morning (98)  |  Origin (250)  |  Ray (115)  |  Remote (86)  |  Rest (287)  |  Right (473)  |  Sand (63)  |  Sea (326)  |  Edward Teller (43)  |  Tin (18)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)

When living with the Indians in their homes and pursuing my ethnological studies: One day I suddenly realized with a rude shock that, unlike my Indian friends, I was an alien, a stranger in my native land; its fauna and flora had no fond, familiar place amid my mental imagery, nor did any thoughts of human aspiration or love give to its hills and valleys the charm of personal companionship. I was alone, even in my loneliness.
Opening of Preface, Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs (1915), v.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Charm (54)  |  Companionship (4)  |  Ethnology (9)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Flora (9)  |  Fond (13)  |  Friend (180)  |  Hill (23)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagery (3)  |  Indian (32)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Loneliness (6)  |  Love (328)  |  Mental (179)  |  Native (41)  |  Native Land (3)  |  Personal (75)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Realize (157)  |  Shock (38)  |  Strange (160)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unlike (9)  |  Valley (37)

While there is still much to learn and discover through space exploration, we also need to pay attention to our unexplored world here on earth. Our next big leap into the unknown can be every bit as exciting and bold as our pioneering work in space. It possesses the same “wow” factor: alien worlds, dazzling technological feats and the mystery of the unknown.
In 'Why Exploring the Ocean is Mankind’s Next Giant Leap', contributed to CNN 'Lightyears Blog' (13 Mar 2012)
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Bold (22)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Discover (571)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Excite (17)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Factor (47)  |  Feat (11)  |  Leap (57)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Next (238)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Possess (157)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Exploration (15)  |  Still (614)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)  |  Through (846)  |  Unexplored (15)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)


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.