TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 25 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Dangerous... to take shelter under a tree, during a thunder-gust. It has been fatal to many, both men and beasts.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index B > Category: Beyond

Beyond Quotes (316 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:  |  Alien (35)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Better (493)  |  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)

… There can be no doubt about faith and not reason being the ultima ratio. Even Euclid, who has laid himself as little open to the charge of credulity as any writer who ever lived, cannot get beyond this. He has no demonstrable first premise. He requires postulates and axioms which transcend demonstration, and without which he can do nothing. His superstructure indeed is demonstration, but his ground his faith. Nor again can he get further than telling a man he is a fool if he persists in differing from him. He says “which is absurd,” and declines to discuss the matter further. Faith and authority, therefore, prove to be as necessary for him as for anyone else.
In The Way of All Flesh (1917), 319-320.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Authority (99)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Being (1276)  |  Charge (63)  |  Credulity (16)  |  Decline (28)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Faith (209)  |  First (1302)  |  Fool (121)  |  Ground (222)  |  Himself (461)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Open (277)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Premise (40)  |  Prove (261)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Reason (766)  |  Require (229)  |  Say (989)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Writer (90)

...That day in the account of creation, or those days that are numbers according to its recurrence, are beyond the experience and knowledge of us mortal earthbound men. And if we are able to make any effort towards an understanding of those days, we ought not to rush forward with an ill considered opinion, as if no other reasonable and plausible interpretation could be offered.
iv.44
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Account (195)  |  Consider (428)  |  Creation (350)  |  Earthbound (4)  |  Effort (243)  |  Experience (494)  |  Forward (104)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Number (710)  |  Offer (142)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Recurrence (5)  |  Rush (18)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

“Expect surprises!” should be the watchword of all scientists who try to look beyond the fashions of the day.
In Internal Factors in Evolution (1965), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Expect (203)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Look (584)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Try (296)  |  Watchword (2)

[1665-08-31] Up, and after putting several things in order to my removal to Woolwich, the plague having a great increase this week beyond all expectation, of almost 2000 - making the general Bill 7000, odd 100 and the plague above 6000 .... Thus this month ends, with great sadness upon the public through the greateness of the plague, everywhere through the Kingdom almost. Every day sadder and sadder news of its increase. In the City died this week 7496; and all of them, 6102 of the plague. But it is feared that the true number of the dead this week is near 10000 - partly from the poor that cannot be taken notice of through the greatness of the number, and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for them. As to myself, I am very well; only, in fear of the plague, and as much of an Ague, by being forced to go early and late to Woolwich, and my family to lie there continually.
Diary of Samuel Pepys (31 August 1665)
Science quotes on:  |  2000 (15)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bell (35)  |  City (87)  |  Early (196)  |  End (603)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Family (101)  |  Fear (212)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Increase (225)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Late (119)  |  Lie (370)  |  Making (300)  |  Month (91)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Notice (81)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plague (42)  |  Poor (139)  |  Sadness (36)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Week (73)  |  Will (2350)

[Beyond natural history] Other biological sciences take up the study at other levels of organization: dissecting the individual into organs and tissues and seeing how these work together, as in physiology; reaching down still further to the level of cells, as in cytology; and reaching the final biological level with the study of living molecules and their interactions, as in biochemistry. No one of these levels can be considered as more important than any other.
In The Nature of Natural History (1961, 2014), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cell (146)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cytology (7)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Down (455)  |  Final (121)  |  History (716)  |  Importance (299)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Level (69)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Organ (118)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Together (392)  |  Work (1402)

[In the beginning, before creation] There was neither Aught nor Naught, no air nor sky beyond. …
[There was only]
A self-supporting mass beneath, and energy above.
Who knows, who ever told, from whence this vast creation rose?
No gods had yet been born—who then can e’er the truth disclose?
In Rigveda. In John Robson, Hinduism and Its Relations to Christianity (1893), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Aught (6)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Creation (350)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Energy (373)  |  God (776)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mass (160)  |  Myth (58)  |  Naught (10)  |  Rose (36)  |  Self (268)  |  Sky (174)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)

[Man] … his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labour of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins…
From 'A Free Man's Worship', Independent Review (Dec 1903). Collected in Mysticism and Logic: And Other Essays (1918), 47-48.
Science quotes on:  |  Accidental (31)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Age (509)  |  Atom (381)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Death (406)  |  Destined (42)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fire (203)  |  Genius (301)  |  Grave (52)  |  Growth (200)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Origin (250)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Solar System (81)  |  System (545)  |  Temple (45)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Whole (756)

[P]olitical and social and scientific values … should be correlated in some relation of movement that could be expressed in mathematics, nor did one care in the least that all the world said it could not be done, or that one knew not enough mathematics even to figure a formula beyond the schoolboy s=(1/2)gt2. If Kepler and Newton could take liberties with the sun and moon, an obscure person ... could take liberties with Congress, and venture to multiply its attraction into the square of its time. He had only to find a value, even infinitesimal, for its attraction.
The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography? (1918), 376.
Science quotes on:  |  Attraction (61)  |  Care (203)  |  Congress (20)  |  Enough (341)  |  Express (192)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  Formula (102)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Moon (252)  |  Motion (320)  |  Movement (162)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Person (366)  |  Politics (122)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Square (73)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Value (393)  |  World (1850)

[The] humanization of mathematical teaching, the bringing of the matter and the spirit of mathematics to bear not merely upon certain fragmentary faculties of the mind, but upon the whole mind, that this is the greatest desideratum is. I assume, beyond dispute.
Address (28 Mar 1912), Michigan School Masters' Club, Ann Arbor, 'The Humanization of the Teaching of Mathematics. Printed in Science (26 Apr 1912). Collected in The Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking: Essays and Addresses (1916), 62-63.
Science quotes on:  |  Assume (43)  |  Bear (162)  |  Certain (557)  |  Desideratum (5)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fragmentary (8)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Whole (756)

[When I was a child] I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and I was a street kid. … [T]here was one aspect of that environment that, for some reason, struck me as different, and that was the stars. … I could tell they were lights in the sky, but that wasn’t an explanation. I mean, what were they? Little electric bulbs on long black wires, so you couldn’t see what they were held up by? What were they? … My mother said to me, "Look, we’ve just got you a library card … get out a book and find the answer.” … It was in there. It was stunning. The answer was that the Sun was a star, except very far away. … The dazzling idea of a universe vast beyond imagining swept over me. … I sensed awe.
In 'Wonder and Skepticism', Skeptical Enquirer (Jan-Feb 1995), 19, No. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Awe (43)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Brooklyn (3)  |  Bulb (10)  |  Child (333)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Different (595)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Environment (239)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Kid (18)  |  Library (53)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mother (116)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Reason (766)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sky (174)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Street (25)  |  Stunning (4)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tell (344)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vastness (15)  |  Wire (36)

[Recalling Professor Ira Remsen's remarks (1895) to a group of his graduate students about to go out with their degrees into the world beyond the university:]
He talked to us for an hour on what was ahead of us; cautioned us against giving up the desire to push ahead by continued study and work. He warned us against allowing our present accomplishments to be the high spot in our lives. He urged us not to wait for a brilliant idea before beginning independent research, and emphasized the fact the Lavoisier's first contribution to chemistry was the analysis of a sample of gypsum. He told us that the fields in which the great masters had worked were still fruitful; the ground had only been scratched and the gleaner could be sure of ample reward.
Quoted in Frederick Hutton Getman, The Life of Ira Remsen (1980), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Against (332)  |  Ample (4)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Brilliance (14)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Caution (24)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Degree (277)  |  Desire (212)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Graduate Student (13)  |  Graduation (6)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Gypsum (2)  |  High (370)  |  Hour (192)  |  Idea (881)  |  Independent (74)  |  Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (41)  |  Live (650)  |  Master (182)  |  Present (630)  |  Professor (133)  |  Push (66)  |  Ira Remsen (6)  |  Research (753)  |  Reward (72)  |  Sample (19)  |  Scratch (14)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  University (130)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Every teacher certainly should know something of non-euclidean geometry. Thus, it forms one of the few parts of mathematics which, at least in scattered catch-words, is talked about in wide circles, so that any teacher may be asked about it at any moment. … Imagine a teacher of physics who is unable to say anything about Röntgen rays, or about radium. A teacher of mathematics who could give no answer to questions about non-euclidean geometry would not make a better impression.
On the other hand, I should like to advise emphatically against bringing non-euclidean into regular school instruction (i.e., beyond occasional suggestions, upon inquiry by interested pupils), as enthusiasts are always recommending. Let us be satisfied if the preceding advice is followed and if the pupils learn to really understand euclidean geometry. After all, it is in order for the teacher to know a little more than the average pupil.
In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Advise (7)  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Average (89)  |  Better (493)  |  Bring (95)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Circle (117)  |  Emphatically (8)  |  Enthusiast (9)  |  Euclidean (3)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Least (75)  |  Let (64)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Non-Euclidean (7)  |  Occasional (23)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Precede (23)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Question (649)  |  Radium (29)  |  Ray (115)  |  Really (77)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Regular (48)  |  Wilhelm Röntgen (8)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Say (989)  |  Scatter (7)  |  School (227)  |  Something (718)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Talk (108)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Unable (25)  |  Understand (648)  |  Wide (97)  |  Word (650)  |  X-ray (43)

Homo hominem arreptum a tellure, et utcunque exigua impulsum vi, vel uno etiam oris flatu impetitum, ab hominum omnium commercio in infinitum expelleret, nunquam per totam aeternitatem rediturum.
Were it not for gravity one man might hurl another by a puff of his breath into the depths of space, beyond recall for all eternity.
Philosophiae Naturalis Theoria (1758), Vol. 1, para. DXLIII, 293.
Science quotes on:  |  Breath (61)  |  Depth (97)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Man (2252)  |  Space (523)

Ita est … rerum natura, post omnia oceanus, post oceanum nihil.
Thus is nature, Beyond all things is the ocean, beyond the ocean nothing.
In Suasoriarum, collected in L. Annaei Senecae (1557), Vol. 4, 620. As translated in Fridtjof Nansen, In Northern Mists: Arctic Exploration in Early Times (1911), Vol. 1, 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Thing (1914)

L'imagination au contraire qui tend à nous porter continuellement au-delà du vrai, l'amour-propre et la confiance en nous-mêmes, qu'il sait si bien nous inspirer, nous sollicitent à tirer des conséquences qui ne dérivent pas immédiatement des faits.
Imagination, on the contrary, which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions which are not immediately derived from facts.
From the original French in Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789, 1793), discours préliminaire, ix; and from edition translated into English by Robert Kerr, as Elements of Chemistry (1790), Preface, xvii.
Science quotes on:  |  Bound (120)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Draw (140)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Indulge (15)  |  Love (328)  |  Prompt (14)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Confidence (11)  |  Tend (124)  |  Truth (1109)

230(231-1) ... is the greatest perfect number known at present, and probably the greatest that ever will be discovered; for; as they are merely curious without being useful, it is not likely that any person will attempt to find a number beyond it.
In An Elementary Investigation of the Theory of Numbers (1811), 43. The stated number, which evaluates as 2305843008139952128 was discovered by Euler in 1772 as the eighth known perfect number. It has 19 digits. By 2013, the 48th perfect number found had 34850340 digits.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Curious (95)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Find (1014)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Known (453)  |  Merely (315)  |  Number (710)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfect Number (6)  |  Person (366)  |  Present (630)  |  Unlikely (15)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Will (2350)

A mind exclusively bent upon the idea of utility necessarily narrows the range of the imagination. For it is the imagination which pictures to the inner eye of the investigator the indefinitely extending sphere of the possible,—that region of hypothesis and explanation, of underlying cause and controlling law. The area of suggestion and experiment is thus pushed beyond the actual field of vision.
In 'The Paradox of Research', The North American Review (Sep 1908), 188, No. 634, 425.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Cause (561)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Field (378)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Inner (72)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Law (913)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Picture (148)  |  Possible (560)  |  Push (66)  |  Range (104)  |  Region (40)  |  Research (753)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Utility (52)  |  Vision (127)

A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation.
Politics, Law and Ritual in Tribal Society (1965), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Discipline (85)  |  Fool (121)  |  Generation (256)  |  Genius (301)  |  Last (425)  |  Point (584)  |  Reach (286)

A troubling question for those of us committed to the widest application of intelligence in the study and solution of the problems of men is whether a general understanding of the social sciences will be possible much longer. Many significant areas of these disciplines have already been removed by the advances of the past two decades beyond the reach of anyone who does not know mathematics; and the man of letters is increasingly finding, to his dismay, that the study of mankind proper is passing from his hands to those of technicians and specialists. The aesthetic effect is admittedly bad: we have given up the belletristic “essay on man” for the barbarisms of a technical vocabulary, or at best the forbidding elegance of mathematical syntax.
Opening paragraph of 'The Study of Man: Sociology Learns the Language of Mathematics' in Commentary (1 Sep 1952). Reprinted in James Roy Newman, The World of Mathematics (1956), Vol. 2, 1294.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Already (226)  |  Application (257)  |  Bad (185)  |  Barbarism (8)  |  Best (467)  |  Decade (66)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Dismay (5)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Essay (27)  |  General (521)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Know (1538)  |  Letter (117)  |  Man (2252)  |  Man Of Letters (6)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Passing (76)  |  Past (355)  |  Possible (560)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proper (150)  |  Question (649)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remove (50)  |  Significant (78)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Solution (282)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Study (701)  |  Syntax (2)  |  Technical (53)  |  Technician (9)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vocabulary (10)  |  Will (2350)

A world of facts lies outside and beyond the world of words.
From After-Dinner Speech (Apr 1869) delivered before the Liverpool Philomathic Society, 'Scientific Education', collected in Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews (1870), 63. Previously published in Macmillan’s Magazine.
Science quotes on:  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Lie (370)  |  Outside (141)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

After the discovery of spectral analysis no one trained in physics could doubt the problem of the atom would be solved when physicists had learned to understand the language of spectra. So manifold was the enormous amount of material that has been accumulated in sixty years of spectroscopic research that it seemed at first beyond the possibility of disentanglement. An almost greater enlightenment has resulted from the seven years of Röntgen spectroscopy, inasmuch as it has attacked the problem of the atom at its very root, and illuminates the interior. What we are nowadays hearing of the language of spectra is a true 'music of the spheres' in order and harmony that becomes ever more perfect in spite of the manifold variety. The theory of spectral lines will bear the name of Bohr for all time. But yet another name will be permanently associated with it, that of Planck. All integral laws of spectral lines and of atomic theory spring originally from the quantum theory. It is the mysterious organon on which Nature plays her music of the spectra, and according to the rhythm of which she regulates the structure of the atoms and nuclei.
Atombau und Spektrallinien (1919), viii, Atomic Structure and Spectral Lines, trans. Henry L. Brose (1923), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Amount (153)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Theory (16)  |  Attack (86)  |  Bear (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Niels Bohr (55)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Enlightenment (21)  |  First (1302)  |  Greater (288)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Integral (26)  |  Interior (35)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Manifold (23)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  Music (133)  |  Music Of The Spheres (3)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Order (638)  |  Organon (2)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Max Planck (83)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Problem (731)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Wilhelm Röntgen (8)  |  Root (121)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spectral Analysis (4)  |  Spectral Line (5)  |  Spectroscopy (11)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spite (55)  |  Spring (140)  |  Structure (365)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Train (118)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Variety (138)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Alas, your dear friend and servant is totally blind. Henceforth this heaven, this universe, which by wonderful observations I had enlarged by a hundred and a thousand times beyond the conception of former ages, is shrunk for me into the narrow space which I myself fill in it. So it pleases God; it shall therefore please me also.
In Letter, as quoted in Sir Oliver Lodge, Pioneers of Science (1905), 133.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Blind (98)  |  Conception (160)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Former (138)  |  Friend (180)  |  God (776)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Myself (211)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Observation (593)  |  Please (68)  |  Servant (40)  |  Shrink (23)  |  Space (523)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wonderful (155)

Alexander the king of the Macedonians, began like a wretch to learn geometry, that he might know how little the earth was, whereof he had possessed very little. Thus, I say, like a wretch for this, because he was to understand that he did bear a false surname. For who can be great in so small a thing? Those things that were delivered were subtile, and to be learned by diligent attention: not which that mad man could perceive, who sent his thoughts beyond the ocean sea. Teach me, saith he, easy things. To whom his master said: These things be the same, and alike difficult unto all. Think thou that the nature of things saith this. These things whereof thou complainest, they are the same unto all: more easy things can be given unto none; but whosoever will, shall make those things more easy unto himself. How? With uprightness of mind.
In Thomas Lodge (trans.), 'Epistle 91', The Workes of Lucius Annaeus Seneca: Both Morrall and Naturall (1614), 383. Also in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica (1914), 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Alexander the Great (4)  |  Alike (60)  |  Attention (196)  |  Bear (162)  |  Complain (10)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  False (105)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Little (717)  |  Mad (54)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Possess (157)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Small (489)  |  Subtile (3)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understand (648)  |  Upright (2)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wretch (5)

All fossil anthropoids found hitherto have been known only from mandibular or maxillary fragments, so far as crania are concerned, and so the general appearance of the types they represented had been unknown; consequently, a condition of affairs where virtually the whole face and lower jaw, replete with teeth, together with the major portion of the brain pattern, have been preserved, constitutes a specimen of unusual value in fossil anthropoid discovery. Here, as in Homo rhodesiensis, Southern Africa has provided documents of higher primate evolution that are amongst the most complete extant. Apart from this evidential completeness, the specimen is of importance because it exhibits an extinct race of apes intermediate between living anthropoids and man ... Whether our present fossil is to be correlated with the discoveries made in India is not yet apparent; that question can only be solved by a careful comparison of the permanent molar teeth from both localities. It is obvious, meanwhile, that it represents a fossil group distinctly advanced beyond living anthropoids in those two dominantly human characters of facial and dental recession on one hand, and improved quality of the brain on the other. Unlike Pithecanthropus, it does not represent an ape-like man, a caricature of precocious hominid failure, but a creature well advanced beyond modern anthropoids in just those characters, facial and cerebral, which are to be anticipated in an extinct link between man and his simian ancestor. At the same time, it is equally evident that a creature with anthropoid brain capacity and lacking the distinctive, localised temporal expansions which appear to be concomitant with and necessary to articulate man, is no true man. It is therefore logically regarded as a man-like ape. I propose tentatively, then, that a new family of Homo-simidæ be created for the reception of the group of individuals which it represents, and that the first known species of the group be designated Australopithecus africanus, in commemoration, first, of the extreme southern and unexpected horizon of its discovery, and secondly, of the continent in which so many new and important discoveries connected with the early history of man have recently been made, thus vindicating the Darwinian claim that Africa would prove to be the cradle of mankind.
'Australopithicus africanus: The Man-Ape of South Africa', Nature, 1925, 115, 195.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Anthropoid (9)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Ape (54)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Both (496)  |  Brain (281)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Character (259)  |  Claim (154)  |  Commemoration (2)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Concern (239)  |  Condition (362)  |  Connect (126)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Continent (79)  |  Cradle (19)  |  Creature (242)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Early (196)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evident (92)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Face (214)  |  Failure (176)  |  Family (101)  |  First (1302)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fragment (58)  |  General (521)  |  History (716)  |  Hominid (4)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Human (1512)  |  Importance (299)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Known (453)  |  Living (492)  |  Major (88)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Portion (86)  |  Present (630)  |  Primate (11)  |  Prove (261)  |  Quality (139)  |  Question (649)  |  Race (278)  |  Reception (16)  |  Regard (312)  |  Represent (157)  |  Species (435)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Value (393)  |  Whole (756)

All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou are bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.
Frankenstein (1818, 1823), Vol. 1, 205.
Science quotes on:  |  Annihilation (15)  |  Bound (120)  |  Creator (97)  |  Creature (242)  |  Hate (68)  |  Hatred (21)  |  Living (492)  |  Must (1525)  |  Spurn (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tie (42)  |  Wretched (8)

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire of every organism to live beyond its means.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Base (120)  |  Desire (212)  |  Innate (14)  |  Live (650)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Organism (231)  |  Progress (492)  |  Universal (198)

All that Anatomie can doe is only to shew us the gross and sensible parts of the body, or the vapid and dead juices all which, after the most diligent search, will be noe more able to direct a physician how to cure a disease than how to make a man; for to remedy the defects of a part whose organicall constitution and that texture whereby it operates, he cannot possibly know, is alike hard, as to make a part which he knows not how is made. Now it is certaine and beyond controversy that nature performs all her operations on the body by parts so minute and insensible that I thinke noe body will ever hope or pretend, even by the assistance of glasses or any other intervention, to come to a sight of them, and to tell us what organicall texture or what kinde offerment (for whether it be done by one or both of these ways is yet a question and like to be soe always notwithstanding all the endeavours of the most accurate dissections) separate any part of the juices in any of the viscera, or tell us of what liquors the particles of these juices are, or if this could be donne (which it is never like to be) would it at all contribute to the cure of the diseases of those very parts which we so perfectly knew.
'Anatomie' (1668). Quoted in Kenneth Dewhurst (ed.), Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689): His Life and Original Writings (1966), 85-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Alike (60)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Cure (124)  |  Defect (31)  |  Diligence (22)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disease (340)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hope (321)  |  Intervention (18)  |  Juice (7)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Liquor (6)  |  Man (2252)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Perform (123)  |  Physician (284)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Search (175)  |  Separate (151)  |  Sight (135)  |  Tell (344)  |  Viscera (2)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

All the species recognized by Botanists came forth from the Almighty Creator’s hand, and the number of these is now and always will be exactly the same, while every day new and different florists’ species arise from the true species so-called by Botanists, and when they have arisen they finally revert to the original forms. Accordingly to the former have been assigned by Nature fixed limits, beyond which they cannot go: while the latter display without end the infinite sport of Nature.
In Philosophia Botanica (1751), aphorism 310. Trans. Frans A. Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789 (1971), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Almighty (23)  |  Arise (162)  |  Botanist (25)  |  Call (781)  |  Creator (97)  |  Different (595)  |  Display (59)  |  End (603)  |  Form (976)  |  Former (138)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Limit (294)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Species (435)  |  Sport (23)  |  Variety (138)  |  Will (2350)

Although we are mere sojourners on the surface of the planet, chained to a mere point in space, enduring but for a moment of time, the human mind is not only enabled to number worlds beyond the unassisted ken of mortal eye, but to trace the events of indefinite ages before the creation of our race, and is not even withheld from penetrating into the dark secrets of the ocean, or the interior of the solid globe; free, like the spirit which the poet described as animating the universe.
In Principles of Geology (1830).
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Creation (350)  |  Dark (145)  |  Event (222)  |  Eye (440)  |  Free (239)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Interior (35)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Number (710)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Planet (402)  |  Point (584)  |  Race (278)  |  Secret (216)  |  Solid (119)  |  Space (523)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Surface (223)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  American (56)  |  Background (44)  |  Bind (26)  |  Birth (154)  |  Blood (144)  |  Bound (120)  |  Child (333)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Country (269)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Interest (416)  |  Less (105)  |  Lift (57)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Principle (530)  |  Soil (98)  |  Teach (299)  |  United (15)

And beyond our galaxy are other galaxies, in the universe all told at least a hundred billion, each containing a hundred billion stars. Do these figures mean anything to you?
In The Centaur (1990).
Science quotes on:  |  Billion (104)  |  Do (1905)  |  Figure (162)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Mean (810)  |  Other (2233)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Universe (900)

And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by “nothingness”' as by a boundary; not by something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a space that might be “empty” here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and its years, blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness: this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self-creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my “beyond good and evil,” without goal, unless the joy of the circle itself is a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself-do you want a name for this world? A solution for all its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?—This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!
The Will to Power (Notes written 1883-1888), book 4, no. 1067. Trans. W. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale and ed. W. Kaufmann (1968), 549-50.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Back (395)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Best (467)  |  Blessing (26)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Circle (117)  |  Complex (202)  |  Concealed (25)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Course (413)  |  Definite (114)  |  Delight (111)  |  Disgust (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Empty (82)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Evil (122)  |  Extend (129)  |  Feel (371)  |  Firm (47)  |  Flood (52)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Goal (155)  |  Good (906)  |  Grow (247)  |  Home (184)  |  Income (18)  |  Increase (225)  |  Iron (99)  |  Joy (117)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Monster (33)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Name (359)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nothingness (12)  |  Power (771)  |  Return (133)  |  Riddle (28)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Sea (326)  |  Self (268)  |  Set (400)  |  Show (353)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solution (282)  |  Something (718)  |  Space (523)  |  Still (614)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Transform (74)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Tremendous (29)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Voluptuous (3)  |  Want (504)  |  Wave (112)  |  Weariness (6)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

And this grey spirit yearning in desire, To follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
From poem, 'Ulysses', collected in The Complete Poetical Works of Tennyson (1909), Vol. 2, 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Bound (120)  |  Desire (212)  |  Follow (389)  |  Grey (10)  |  Human (1512)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Star (460)  |  Thought (995)  |  Yearn (13)  |  Yearning (13)

Antiqua consuetudo difficulter relinquitur: & ultra proprium videre nemo libenter ducitur.
Old habits are hard to break: and no one is easily led beyond his own point of view.
In De Imitatione Christi (1709), Book 1, Chap. 14, 23. As translated by William C. Creasy in The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis: A New Reading of the 1441 Latin Autograph Manuscript (2007), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Break (109)  |  Easily (36)  |  Habit (174)  |  Hard (246)  |  Lead (391)  |  Old (499)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  View (496)

Any conception which is definitely and completely determined by means of a finite number of specifications, say by assigning a finite number of elements, is a mathematical conception. Mathematics has for its function to develop the consequences involved in the definition of a group of mathematical conceptions. Interdependence and mutual logical consistency among the members of the group are postulated, otherwise the group would either have to be treated as several distinct groups, or would lie beyond the sphere of mathematics.
In 'Mathematics', Encyclopedia Britannica (9th ed.).
Science quotes on:  |  Assign (15)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Definite (114)  |  Definition (238)  |  Definitions and Objects of Mathematics (33)  |  Determine (152)  |  Develop (278)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Element (322)  |  Finite (60)  |  Function (235)  |  Group (83)  |  Interdependence (4)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Lie (370)  |  Logical (57)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Member (42)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Say (989)  |  Several (33)  |  Specification (7)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Treat (38)

Any one who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact, rarely get as far as fact.
In 'The Progress of Science 1837-1887' (1887), Collected Essays (1901), Vol. 1, 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Fact (1257)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Work (1402)

Art arises in those strange complexities of action that are called human beings. It is a kind of human behavior. As such it is not magic, except as human beings are magical. Nor is it concerned in absolutes, eternities, “forms,” beyond those that may reside in the context of the human being and be subject to his vicissitudes. Art is not an inner state of consciousness, whatever that may mean. Neither is it essentially a supreme form of communication. Art is human behavior, and its values are contained in human behavior.
In Art Is Action: A Discussion of Nine Arts in a Modern World (1939), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Action (342)  |  Arise (162)  |  Art (680)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Communication (101)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Context (31)  |  Essential (210)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Behavior (10)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Inner (72)  |  Kind (564)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mean (810)  |  Reside (25)  |  State (505)  |  Strange (160)  |  Subject (543)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Value (393)  |  Vicissitude (6)  |  Whatever (234)

As regards railways, it is certain that nothing is so profitable, because nothing is so cheaply transported, as passenger traffic. Goods traffic, of whatsoever description, must be more or less costly. Every article conveyed by railway requires handling and conveyance beyond the limit of the railway stations; but passengers take care of themselves, and find their own way.
From 'Railway System and its Results' (Jan 1856) read to the Institution of Civil Engineers, reprinted in Samuel Smiles, Life of George Stephenson (1857), 520.
Science quotes on:  |  Care (203)  |  Certain (557)  |  Cheap (13)  |  Convey (17)  |  Conveyance (2)  |  Find (1014)  |  Good (906)  |  Goods (9)  |  Handling (7)  |  Limit (294)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Passenger (10)  |  Profit (56)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Railway (19)  |  Regard (312)  |  Require (229)  |  Station (30)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Traffic (10)  |  Transport (31)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatsoever (41)

As the human fetus develops, its changing form seems to retrace the whole of human evolution from the time we were cosmic dust to the time we were single-celled organisms in the primordial sea to the time we were four-legged, land-dwelling reptiles and beyond, to our current status as large­brained, bipedal mammals. Thus, humans seem to be the sum total of experience since the beginning of the cosmos.
From interview with James Reston, Jr., in Pamela Weintraub (ed.), The Omni Interviews (1984), 99. Previously published in magazine, Omni (May 1982).
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bipedal (3)  |  Brain (281)  |  Cell (146)  |  Change (639)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Current (122)  |  Develop (278)  |  Dust (68)  |  Dwelling (12)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fetus (2)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Land (131)  |  Large (398)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Organism (231)  |  Primordial (14)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Retrace (3)  |  Sea (326)  |  Single (365)  |  Status (35)  |  Sum (103)  |  Time (1911)  |  Total (95)  |  Whole (756)

As we look ahead through the vista of science with its tremendous possibilities for progress in peacetime, let us not feel that we are looking beyond the horizon of hope. The outlook is not discouraging, for there is no limit to man’s ingenuity and no end to the opportunities for progress.
In address (Fall 1946) at a dinner in New York to commemorate the 40 years of Sarnoff’s service in the radio field, 'Institute News and Radio Notes: The Past and Future of Radio', Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers (I.R.E.), (May 1947), 35, No. 5, 498.
Science quotes on:  |  Discouragement (10)  |  End (603)  |  Hope (321)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Limit (294)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Peacetime (4)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Progress (492)  |  Tremendous (29)  |  Vista (12)

Astronomers and physicists, dealing habitually with objects and quantities far beyond the reach of the senses, even with the aid of the most powerful aids that ingenuity has been able to devise, tend almost inevitably to fall into the ways of thinking of men dealing with objects and quantities that do not exist at all, e.g., theologians and metaphysicians. Thus their speculations tend almost inevitably to depart from the field of true science, which is that of precise observation, and to become mere soaring in the empyrean. The process works backward, too. That is to say, their reports of what they pretend actually to see are often very unreliable. It is thus no wonder that, of all men of science, they are the most given to flirting with theology. Nor is it remarkable that, in the popular belief, most astronomers end by losing their minds.
Minority Report: H. L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956), Sample 74, 60.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Backward (10)  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Do (1905)  |  Empyrean (3)  |  End (603)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fall (243)  |  Field (378)  |  Habit (174)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Loss (117)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Metaphysician (7)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precision (72)  |  Process (439)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reach (286)  |  Report (42)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soaring (9)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Tend (124)  |  Theologian (23)  |  Theology (54)  |  Thinking (425)  |  True Science (25)  |  Unreliable (4)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Work (1402)

At first he who invented any art that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to its recreation, the inventors of the latter were always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility.
Aristotle
Metaphysics, 981b, 13-20. In Jonathan Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle (1984), Vol. 2, 1553.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Art (680)  |  Common (447)  |  Direct (228)  |  First (1302)  |  Former (138)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perception (97)  |  Recreation (23)  |  Regard (312)  |  Rest (287)  |  Something (718)  |  Superior (88)  |  Thought (995)  |  Useful (260)  |  Utility (52)  |  Wise (143)

At the present time there exist problems beyond our ability to solve, not because of theoretical difficulties, but because of insufficient means of mechanical computation.
In 'Proposed Automatic Calculating Machine' (1937). As quoted in I. Bernard Cohen, Gregory W. Welch (eds.), Makin' Numbers: Howard Aiken and the Computer (1999), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Computation (28)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Exist (458)  |  Insufficient (10)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Solve (145)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  Time (1911)

Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. ...The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.
Dune
Science quotes on:  |  Critical (73)  |  Critical Point (3)  |  Diminish (17)  |  Do (1905)  |  Existence (481)  |  Finite (60)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Human (1512)  |  Increase (225)  |  Kind (564)  |  Number (710)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Space (523)  |  Survive (87)  |  System (545)

Beyond lonely Pluto, dark and shadowless, lies the glittering realm of interstellar space, the silent ocean that rolls on and on, past stars and galaxies alike, to the ends of the Universe. What do men know of this vast infinity, this shoreless ocean? Is it hostile or friendly–or merely indifferent?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Dark (145)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Friendly (7)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Glitter (10)  |  Hostile (8)  |  Indifferent (17)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Interstellar (8)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lie (370)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Merely (315)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Past (355)  |  Pluto (6)  |  Realm (87)  |  Roll (41)  |  Silent (31)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)

Beyond these are other suns, giving light and life to systems, not a thousand, or two thousand merely, but multiplied without end, and ranged all around us, at immense distances from each other, attended by ten thousand times ten thousand worlds, all in rapid motion; yet calm, regular and harmonious—all space seems to be illuminated, and every particle of light a world. ... all this vast assemblages of suns and worlds may bear no greater proportion to what lies beyond the utmost boundaries of human vision, than a drop of water to the ocean.
In The Geography of the Heavens and Class-Book of Astronomy (1874), 148 That knowledge is not happiness.
Science quotes on:  |  Assemblage (17)  |  Attend (67)  |  Bear (162)  |  Calm (32)  |  Distance (171)  |  Drop (77)  |  End (603)  |  Greater (288)  |  Harmonious (18)  |  Human (1512)  |  Immense (89)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Merely (315)  |  Motion (320)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Regular (48)  |  Space (523)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vision (127)  |  Water (503)  |  World (1850)

But beyond the bright searchlights of science,
Out of sight of the windows of sense,
Old riddles still bid us defiance,
Old questions of Why and of Whence.
from Recent Development of Physical Science (p. 10)
Science quotes on:  |  Bright (81)  |  Old (499)  |  Poem (104)  |  Question (649)  |  Riddle (28)  |  Searchlight (5)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sight (135)  |  Still (614)  |  Why (491)  |  Window (59)

But if we are to control evolution we shall have to find out how to influence gene reproduction in a definite direction, just as organic chemists nowadays work for definite ends. Such a possibility is at present entirely beyond our grasp, but a century hence it may not be so.
In 'The Biochemistry of the Individual' (1937), collected in Neurath Hans (ed.), Perspectives in Biochemistry (1989), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Century (319)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Control (182)  |  Definite (114)  |  Direction (185)  |  End (603)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gene (105)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Influence (231)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Present (630)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Work (1402)

But that which will excite the greatest astonishment by far, and which indeed especially moved me to call the attention of all astronomers and philosophers, is this: namely, that I have observed four planets, neither known nor observed by any one of the astronomers before my time, which have their orbits round a certain bright star [Jupiter], one of those previously known, like Venus or Mercury round the sun, and are sometimes in front of it, sometimes behind it, though they never depart from it beyond certain limits. All of which facts were discovered and observed a few days ago by the help of a telescope devised by me, through God’s grace first enlightening my mind.
In pamphlet, The Sidereal Messenger (1610), reprinted in The Sidereal Messenger of Galileo Galilei: And a Part of the Preface to the Preface to Kepler's Dioptrics Containing the Original Account of Galileo's Astronomical Discoveries (1880), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Attention (196)  |  Behind (139)  |  Bright (81)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Discover (571)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightening (3)  |  Especially (31)  |  Excite (17)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Four (6)  |  Front (16)  |  God (776)  |  Grace (31)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Planet (402)  |  Previously (12)  |  Star (460)  |  Sun (407)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Venus (21)  |  Will (2350)

But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.
From Aphorism 70, Novum Organum, Book I (1620). Collected in James Spedding (ed.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1858), Vol. 4, 70.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Best (467)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)

But the nature of our civilized minds is so detached from the senses, even in the vulgar, by abstractions corresponding to all the abstract terms our languages abound in, and so refined by the art of writing, and as it were spiritualized by the use of numbers, because even the vulgar know how to count and reckon, that it is naturally beyond our power to form the vast image of this mistress called ‘Sympathetic Nature.’
The New Science, bk. 2, para. 378 (1744, trans. 1984).
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Art (680)  |  Call (781)  |  Civilized (20)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Count (107)  |  Detach (5)  |  Form (976)  |  Image (97)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mistress (7)  |  Naturally (11)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Power (771)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Refine (8)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sympathetic (10)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Use (771)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

But when science, passing beyond its own limits, assumes to take the place of theology, and sets up its own conception of the order of Nature as a sufficient account of its cause, it is invading a province of thought to which it has no claim, and not unreasonably provokes the hostility of its best friends.
Presidential Address (14 Aug 1872) to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Brighton, reprinted in The Journal of the Society of Arts (16 Aug 1872), 20, No. 1030, 799, penultimate sentence.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Assume (43)  |  Best (467)  |  Best Friend (4)  |  Cause (561)  |  Claim (154)  |  Conception (160)  |  Friend (180)  |  Hostility (16)  |  Invade (5)  |  Limit (294)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Place (192)  |  Province (37)  |  Provoke (9)  |  Set (400)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Theology (54)  |  Thought (995)

By death the moon was gathered in Long ago, ah long ago;
Yet still the silver corpse must spin
And with another's light must glow.
Her frozen mountains must forget
Their primal hot volcanic breath,
Doomed to revolve for ages yet,
Void amphitheatres of death.
And all about the cosmic sky,
The black that lies beyond our blue,
Dead stars innumerable lie,
And stars of red and angry hue
Not dead but doomed to die.
'Cosmic Death' (1923), in The Captive Shrew and Other Poems of a Biologist (1932), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Amphitheatre (2)  |  Breath (61)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Crater (8)  |  Death (406)  |  Doom (34)  |  Forget (125)  |  Gather (76)  |  Hot (63)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Poem (104)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Silver (49)  |  Sky (174)  |  Spin (26)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Void (31)  |  Volcano (46)

By explanation the scientist understands nothing except the reduction to the least and simplest basic laws possible, beyond which he cannot go, but must plainly demand them; from them however he deduces the phenomena absolutely completely as necessary.
From his memoir 'Erdmagnetismus und Magnetometer' in Collected Works (1877), Vol. 5, 315-316. Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 411.
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Completely (137)  |  Demand (131)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Law (913)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Understand (648)

By research in pure science I mean research made without any idea of application to industrial matters but solely with the view of extending our knowledge of the Laws of Nature. I will give just one example of the ‘utility’ of this kind of research, one that has been brought into great prominence by the War—I mean the use of X-rays in surgery. Now, not to speak of what is beyond money value, the saving of pain, or, it may be, the life of the wounded, and of bitter grief to those who loved them, the benefit which the state has derived from the restoration of so many to life and limb, able to render services which would otherwise have been lost, is almost incalculable. Now, how was this method discovered? It was not the result of a research in applied science starting to find an improved method of locating bullet wounds. This might have led to improved probes, but we cannot imagine it leading to the discovery of X-rays. No, this method is due to an investigation in pure science, made with the object of discovering what is the nature of Electricity. The experiments which led to this discovery seemed to be as remote from ‘humanistic interest’ —to use a much misappropriated word—as anything that could well be imagined. The apparatus consisted of glass vessels from which the last drops of air had been sucked, and which emitted a weird greenish light when stimulated by formidable looking instruments called induction coils. Near by, perhaps, were great coils of wire and iron built up into electro-magnets. I know well the impression it made on the average spectator, for I have been occupied in experiments of this kind nearly all my life, notwithstanding the advice, given in perfect good faith, by non-scientific visitors to the laboratory, to put that aside and spend my time on something useful.
In Speech made on behalf of a delegation from the Conjoint Board of Scientific Studies in 1916 to Lord Crewe, then Lord President of the Council. In George Paget Thomson, J. J. Thomson and the Cavendish Laboratory in His Day (1965), 167-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Air (366)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Average (89)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Bitter (30)  |  Call (781)  |  Consist (223)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Drop (77)  |  Due (143)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Faith (209)  |  Find (1014)  |  Glass (94)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grief (20)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impression (118)  |  Induction (81)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Interest (416)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Iron (99)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Looking (191)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Method (531)  |  Money (178)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Non-Scientific (7)  |  Object (438)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Pain (144)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Probe (12)  |  Prominence (5)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Ray (115)  |  Remote (86)  |  Render (96)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Service (110)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Spend (97)  |  State (505)  |  Suck (8)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Utility (52)  |  Value (393)  |  Vessel (63)  |  View (496)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wire (36)  |  Word (650)  |  Wound (26)  |  X-ray (43)

Chemistry as a science is still in its infancy. I hold to my view because there is still so much beyond our understanding even in the simplest systems the chemist has cared to deal with.
Speech at the Nobel Banquet (10 Dec 1983) for his Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In Wilhelm Odelberg (ed.), Les Prix Nobel: The Nobel Prizes (1984), 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Car (75)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Deal (192)  |  Infancy (14)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Simple (426)  |  Still (614)  |  System (545)  |  Understanding (527)  |  View (496)

Climbing is all about freedom, the freedom to go beyond all the rules and take a chance, to experience something new, to gain insight into human nature.
In Reinhold Messner: My Life At The Limit (2014), 12-13.
Science quotes on:  |  Chance (244)  |  Climb (39)  |  Experience (494)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Insight (107)  |  New (1273)  |  Rule (307)

Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
From poem, 'Ulysses', collected in Walter James Turner (ed.), Great Names: Being an Anthology of English & American Literature from Chaucer to Francis Thompson (1926), 198.
Science quotes on:  |  Bath (11)  |  Die (94)  |  Friend (180)  |  Late (119)  |  New (1273)  |  Sail (37)  |  Seek (218)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Western (45)  |  World (1850)

Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.
Anonymous
Very often seen (?mis-)attributed to Albert Einstein, but there seems to be no authenticating primary source. (Webmaster has tried, but not yet found one.) Probably best regarded as Anonymous.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Computer (131)  |  Fast (49)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inaccurate (4)  |  Incredibly (3)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Slow (108)  |  Stupid (38)  |  Together (392)

Concerning the alchemist, Mamugnano, no one harbors doubts any longer about his daily experiments in changing quicksilver into gold. It was realized that his craft did not go beyond one pound of quicksilver… . Thus the belief is now held that his allegations to produce a number of millions have been a great fraud.
Anonymous
'Further Successes by Bragadini. From Vienna on the 26th day of January 1590'. As quoted in George Tennyson Matthews (ed.) News and Rumor in Renaissance Europe: The Fugger Newsletters (1959), 179. A handwritten collection of news reports (1568-1604) by the powerful banking and merchant house of Fugger in Ausburg.
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemist (23)  |  Belief (615)  |  Change (639)  |  Daily (91)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fraud (15)  |  Gold (101)  |  Great (1610)  |  Mamugnano (2)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Million (124)  |  Mineralogy (24)  |  Number (710)  |  Produce (117)  |  Quicksilver (8)

Consciousness is not sharply defined, but fades into sub-consciousness; and beyond that we must postulate something indefinite but yet continuous with our mental nature. This I take it be the world-stuff.
From Gifford Lecture, Edinburgh, (1927), 'Reality', collected in The Nature of the Physical World (1928), 280.
Science quotes on:  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Mental (179)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Something (718)  |  World (1850)

Crowds of silent voices whisper in our ears, transforming the nature of what we see and hear. Some are those of childhood authorities and heroes; others come from family and peers. The strangest emerge from beyond the grave.
In 'Reality is a Shared Hallucination', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Authority (99)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Ear (69)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Family (101)  |  Grave (52)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hero (45)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peer (13)  |  See (1094)  |  Silent (31)  |  Strange (160)  |  Transform (74)  |  Voice (54)  |  Whisper (11)

Data isn't information. ... Information, unlike data, is useful. While there’s a gulf between data and information, there’s a wide ocean between information and knowledge. What turns the gears in our brains isn't information, but ideas, inventions, and inspiration. Knowledge—not information—implies understanding. And beyond knowledge lies what we should be seeking: wisdom.
In High-Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian (2000), 185-186.
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Data (162)  |  Gear (5)  |  Gulf (18)  |  Idea (881)  |  Implies (2)  |  Information (173)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Turn (454)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unlike (9)  |  Useful (260)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wisdom (235)

Decades spent in contact with science and its vehicles have directed my mind and senses to areas beyond their reach. I now see scientific accomplishments as a path, not an end; a path leading to and disappearing in mystery. Science, in fact, forms many paths branching from the trunk of human progress; and on every periphery they end in the miraculous. Following these paths far enough, one must eventually conclude that science itself is a miracle—like the awareness of man arising from and then disappearing in the apparent nothingness of space. Rather than nullifying religion and proving that “God is dead,” science enhances spiritual values by revealing the magnitudes and minitudes—from cosmos to atom—through which man extends and of which he is composed.
A Letter From Lindbergh', Life (4 Jul 1969), 60B. In Eugene C. Gerhart, Quote it Completely! (1998), 409.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Arising (22)  |  Atom (381)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Branching (10)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Contact (66)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Decade (66)  |  Direct (228)  |  End (603)  |  Enhance (17)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Progress (18)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nothingness (12)  |  Path (159)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reach (286)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Space (523)  |  Spent (85)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Through (846)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Value (393)  |  Vehicle (11)

Despite the continuing expansion or even explosion of information, there will forever be limits beyond which the devices of science cannot lead a man.
In Boundaries of the Soul (1972, 1994), 378.
Science quotes on:  |  Device (71)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Forever (111)  |  Information (173)  |  Lead (391)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Will (2350)

Do not great Bodies conserve their heat the longest, their parts heating one another, and may not great dense and fix'd Bodies, when heated beyond a certain degree, emit Light so copiously, as by the Emission and Re-action of its Light, and the Reflexions and Refractions of its Rays within its Pores to grow still hotter, till it comes to a certain period of heat, such as is that of the Sun?
Opticks (1704), Book 3, Query II, 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Degree (277)  |  Density (25)  |  Do (1905)  |  Emission (20)  |  Emit (15)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heat (180)  |  Light (635)  |  Period (200)  |  Pore (7)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Refraction (13)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)

Does it not seem as if Algebra had attained to the dignity of a fine art, in which the workman has a free hand to develop his conceptions, as in a musical theme or a subject for a painting? It has reached a point where every properly developed algebraical composition, like a skillful landscape, is expected to suggest the notion of an infinite distance lying beyond the limits of the canvas.
In 'Lectures on the Theory of Reciprocants', Lecture XXI, American Journal of Mathematics (Jul 1886), 9, No. 3, 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Art (680)  |  Attain (126)  |  Canvas (3)  |  Composition (86)  |  Conception (160)  |  Develop (278)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Distance (171)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fine (37)  |  Free (239)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Limit (294)  |  Lying (55)  |  Musical (10)  |  Notion (120)  |  Painting (46)  |  Point (584)  |  Reach (286)  |  Skillful (17)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Theme (17)  |  Workman (13)

Does the harmony the human intelligence thinks it discovers in nature exist outside of this intelligence? No, beyond doubt, a reality completely independent of the mind which conceives it, sees or feels it, is an impossibility.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Completely (137)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Discover (571)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Exist (458)  |  Feel (371)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Outside (141)  |  Reality (274)  |  See (1094)  |  Think (1122)

Dr. Walter Baade of Mount Wilson Observatory facetiously accused the present generation of Milky Way astronomers of not having looked sufficiently far beyond our “local swimming hole”.
At then-recent symposium of the American Astronomical Society, as stated in Leaflet The Cemter of the Galaxy (1948), No. 230, 254.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuse (4)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Walter Baade (3)  |  Facetious (2)  |  Generation (256)  |  Hole (17)  |  Local (25)  |  Look (584)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Mount (43)  |  Mount Wilson (2)  |  Observatory (18)  |  Present (630)  |  Swimming (19)  |  Way (1214)

During my pre-college years I went on many trips with my father into the oil fields to visit their operations. … I puttered around the machine, electronics, and automobile shops while he carried on his business. Both of my parents are inveterate do-it-yourselfers, almost no task being beneath their dignity or beyond their ingenuity. Having picked up a keen interest in electronics from my father, I used to fix radios and later television sets for fun and spending money. I built my own hi-fi set and enjoyed helping friends with their amateur radio transmitters, but lost interest as soon as they worked.
Remarks on how his high school interests foreshadowed his career as a radio astronomer. From autobiography in Stig Lundqvist (ed.) Nobel Lectures, Physics 1971-1980 (1992).
Science quotes on:  |  Amateur (22)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Biography (254)  |  Both (496)  |  Building (158)  |  Business (156)  |  College (71)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Father (113)  |  Field (378)  |  Friend (180)  |  Fun (42)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Interest (416)  |  Inveterate (3)  |  Machine (271)  |  Money (178)  |  Oil (67)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Parent (80)  |  Radio (60)  |  Set (400)  |  Shop (11)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spending (24)  |  Task (152)  |  Television (33)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Each human life is unique, born of a miracle that reaches beyond laboratory science.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 42
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Life (1870)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Reach (286)  |  Unique (72)

Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men–the balance-wheel of the social machinery.
Twelfth Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education (1948). Life and Works of Horace Mann (1891), Vol. 4, 251.
Science quotes on:  |  Balance (82)  |  Condition (362)  |  Device (71)  |  Education (423)  |  Equalizer (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Social (261)  |  Wheel (51)

Euclid always contemplates a straight line as drawn between two definite points, and is very careful to mention when it is to be produced beyond this segment. He never thinks of the line as an entity given once for all as a whole. This careful definition and limitation, so as to exclude an infinity not immediately apparent to the senses, was very characteristic of the Greeks in all their many activities. It is enshrined in the difference between Greek architecture and Gothic architecture, and between Greek religion and modern religion. The spire of a Gothic cathedral and the importance of the unbounded straight line in modern Geometry are both emblematic of the transformation of the modern world.
In Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 119.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Both (496)  |  Careful (28)  |  Cathedral (27)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Contemplate (21)  |  Definite (114)  |  Definition (238)  |  Difference (355)  |  Draw (140)  |  Enshrine (2)  |  Entity (37)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Exclude (8)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Gothic (4)  |  Greek (109)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Importance (299)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Line (100)  |  Mention (84)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Modern World (5)  |  Never (1089)  |  Point (584)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Religion (369)  |  Segment (6)  |  Sense (785)  |  Spire (5)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Think (1122)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Two (936)  |  Unbounded (5)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Ever since celestial mechanics in the skillful hands of Leverrier and Adams led to the world-amazed discovery of Neptune, a belief has existed begotten of that success that still other planets lay beyond, only waiting to be found.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Amazed (4)  |  Begotten (2)  |  Belief (615)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Celestial Mechanics (4)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hand (149)  |  Lead (391)  |  LeVerrier_Urbain (3)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Neptune (13)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planet (402)  |  Skillful (17)  |  Still (614)  |  Success (327)  |  Wait (66)  |  Waiting (42)  |  World (1850)

Every new theory as it arises believes in the flush of youth that it has the long sought goal; it sees no limits to its applicability, and believes that at last it is the fortunate theory to achieve the 'right' answer. This was true of electron theory—perhaps some readers will remember a book called The Electrical Theory of the Universe by de Tunzelman. It is true of general relativity theory with its belief that we can formulate a mathematical scheme that will extrapolate to all past and future time and the unfathomed depths of space. It has been true of wave mechanics, with its first enthusiastic claim a brief ten years ago that no problem had successfully resisted its attack provided the attack was properly made, and now the disillusionment of age when confronted by the problems of the proton and the neutron. When will we learn that logic, mathematics, physical theory, are all only inventions for formulating in compact and manageable form what we already know, like all inventions do not achieve complete success in accomplishing what they were designed to do, much less complete success in fields beyond the scope of the original design, and that our only justification for hoping to penetrate at all into the unknown with these inventions is our past experience that sometimes we have been fortunate enough to be able to push on a short distance by acquired momentum.
The Nature of Physical Theory (1936), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Age (509)  |  Already (226)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arise (162)  |  Attack (86)  |  Belief (615)  |  Book (413)  |  Brief (37)  |  Call (781)  |  Claim (154)  |  Compact (13)  |  Complete (209)  |  Depth (97)  |  Design (203)  |  Disillusionment (2)  |  Distance (171)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electron (96)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experience (494)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  General Relativity (10)  |  Goal (155)  |  Invention (400)  |  Justification (52)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Learn (672)  |  Limit (294)  |  Logic (311)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Momentum (10)  |  Neutron (23)  |  New (1273)  |  Past (355)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Physical (518)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proton (23)  |  Push (66)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Remember (189)  |  Right (473)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Scope (44)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Space (523)  |  Success (327)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Wave (112)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)  |  Youth (109)

Everything material which is the subject of knowledge has number, order, or position; and these are her first outlines for a sketch of the universe. If our feeble hands cannot follow out the details, still her part has been drawn with an unerring pen, and her work cannot be gainsaid. So wide is the range of mathematical sciences, so indefinitely may it extend beyond our actual powers of manipulation that at some moments we are inclined to fall down with even more than reverence before her majestic presence. But so strictly limited are her promises and powers, about so much that we might wish to know does she offer no information whatever, that at other moments we are fain to call her results but a vain thing, and to reject them as a stone where we had asked for bread. If one aspect of the subject encourages our hopes, so does the other tend to chasten our desires, and he is perhaps the wisest, and in the long run the happiest, among his fellows, who has learned not only this science, but also the larger lesson which it directly teaches, namely, to temper our aspirations to that which is possible, to moderate our desires to that which is attainable, to restrict our hopes to that of which accomplishment, if not immediately practicable, is at least distinctly within the range of conception.
From Presidential Address (Aug 1878) to the British Association, Dublin, published in the Report of the 48th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1878), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Actual (118)  |  Ask (420)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Attainable (3)  |  Bread (42)  |  Call (781)  |  Chasten (2)  |  Conception (160)  |  Desire (212)  |  Detail (150)  |  Directly (25)  |  Distinctly (5)  |  Down (455)  |  Draw (140)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Everything (489)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fall (243)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Fellow (88)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Hand (149)  |  Happy (108)  |  Hope (321)  |  Immediately (115)  |  In The Long Run (18)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Indefinitely (10)  |  Information (173)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Least (75)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Material (366)  |  Moderate (6)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Namely (11)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Number (710)  |  Offer (142)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outline (13)  |  Part (235)  |  Pen (21)  |  Position (83)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Practicable (2)  |  Presence (63)  |  Promise (72)  |  Range (104)  |  Reject (67)  |  Restrict (13)  |  Result (700)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Sketch (8)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Temper (12)  |  Tend (124)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unerring (4)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vain (86)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wise (143)  |  Wish (216)  |  Work (1402)

Evolution: At the Mind's Cinema
I turn the handle and the story starts:
Reel after reel is all astronomy,
Till life, enkindled in a niche of sky,
Leaps on the stage to play a million parts.
Life leaves the slime and through all ocean darts;
She conquers earth, and raises wings to fly;
Then spirit blooms, and learns how not to die,-
Nesting beyond the grave in others' hearts.
I turn the handle: other men like me
Have made the film: and now I sit and look
In quiet, privileged like Divinity
To read the roaring world as in a book.
If this thy past, where shall they future climb,
O Spirit, built of Elements and Time?
'Evolution: At the Mind's Cinema' (1922), in The Captive Shrew and Other Poems of a Biologist (1932), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Book (413)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Death (406)  |  Divinity (23)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Film (12)  |  Fly (153)  |  Future (467)  |  Grave (52)  |  Handle (29)  |  Heart (243)  |  Leap (57)  |  Learn (672)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Niche (9)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Poem (104)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Read (308)  |  Sky (174)  |  Slime (6)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stage (152)  |  Start (237)  |  Story (122)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Wing (79)  |  World (1850)

Extrasensory perception is a scientifically inept term. By suggesting that forms of human perception exist beyond the senses, it prejudges the question.
In Margaret Mead and Rhoda Bubendey Métraux (ed.), Margaret Mead, Some Personal Views (1979), 220.
Science quotes on:  |  Exist (458)  |  Extrasensory Perception (2)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inept (4)  |  Perception (97)  |  Prejudge (2)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Term (357)

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
In The Kahlil Gibran Reader: Inspirational Writings (2006), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Faith (209)  |  Heart (243)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reach (286)

For many of us, water simply flows from a faucet, and we think little about it beyond this point of contact. We have lost a sense of respect for the wild river, for the complex workings of a wetland, for the intricate web of life that water supports.
Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity (1997), 184.
Science quotes on:  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Contact (66)  |  Flow (89)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Point (584)  |  Respect (212)  |  River (140)  |  Sense (785)  |  Support (151)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Water (503)  |  Web Of Life (9)  |  Wetland (5)  |  Wild (96)  |  Working (23)

For strictly scientific or technological purposes all this is irrelevant. On a pragmatic view, as on a religious view, theory and concepts are held in faith. On the pragmatic view the only thing that matters is that the theory is efficacious, that it “works” and that the necessary preliminaries and side issues do not cost too much in time and effort. Beyond that, theory and concepts go to constitute a language in which the scientistic matters at issue can be formulated and discussed.
In Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1994), 'Slow Neutron Spectroscopy and the Grand Atlas of the Physical World', Nobel Lectures: Physics 1991-1995 (1997), 111.
Science quotes on:  |  Concept (242)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Cost (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Faith (209)  |  Language (308)  |  Matter (821)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Religious (134)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Side (236)  |  Technological (62)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)  |  Work (1402)

FORTRAN —’the infantile disorder’—, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use. PL/I —’the fatal disease’— belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set. It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence. APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Basic (144)  |  Belong (168)  |  Bum (3)  |  Carry (130)  |  Clumsy (7)  |  Code (31)  |  Computer (131)  |  Create (245)  |  Criminal (18)  |  Cripple (3)  |  Disease (340)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Expensive (10)  |  Exposure (9)  |  Fatal (14)  |  Fortran (3)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Good (906)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hopelessly (3)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  Infantile (3)  |  Language (308)  |  Mentally (3)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Mutilated (2)  |  Nearly (137)  |  New (1273)  |  Offence (4)  |  Old (499)  |  Past (355)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Potential (75)  |  Practically (10)  |  Prior (6)  |  Problem (731)  |  Program (57)  |  Programmer (5)  |  Regard (312)  |  Regeneration (5)  |  Risky (4)  |  Set (400)  |  Solution (282)  |  Student (317)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Technique (84)  |  Through (846)  |  Today (321)  |  Use (771)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Year (963)

Fractal is a word invented by Mandelbrot to bring together under one heading a large class of objects that have [played] … an historical role … in the development of pure mathematics. A great revolution of ideas separates the classical mathematics of the 19th century from the modern mathematics of the 20th. Classical mathematics had its roots in the regular geometric structures of Euclid and the continuously evolving dynamics of Newton. Modern mathematics began with Cantor’s set theory and Peano’s space-filling curve. Historically, the revolution was forced by the discovery of mathematical structures that did not fit the patterns of Euclid and Newton. These new structures were regarded … as “pathological,” .… as a “gallery of monsters,” akin to the cubist paintings and atonal music that were upsetting established standards of taste in the arts at about the same time. The mathematicians who created the monsters regarded them as important in showing that the world of pure mathematics contains a richness of possibilities going far beyond the simple structures that they saw in Nature. Twentieth-century mathematics flowered in the belief that it had transcended completely the limitations imposed by its natural origins.
Now, as Mandelbrot points out, … Nature has played a joke on the mathematicians. The 19th-century mathematicians may not have been lacking in imagination, but Nature was not. The same pathological structures that the mathematicians invented to break loose from 19th-century naturalism turn out to be inherent in familiar objects all around us.
From 'Characterizing Irregularity', Science (12 May 1978), 200, No. 4342, 677-678. Quoted in Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1977, 1983), 3-4.
Science quotes on:  |  19th Century (41)  |  Art (680)  |  Belief (615)  |  Break (109)  |  Century (319)  |  Class (168)  |  Classical (49)  |  Completely (137)  |  Curve (49)  |  Development (441)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Fit (139)  |  Flower (112)  |  Fractal (11)  |  Gallery (7)  |  Great (1610)  |  Historical (70)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Joke (90)  |  Large (398)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Benoît Mandelbrot (15)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Monster (33)  |  Music (133)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Object (438)  |  Origin (250)  |  Painting (46)  |  Pathological (21)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Point (584)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Regard (312)  |  Regular (48)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Role (86)  |  Root (121)  |  Saw (160)  |  Separate (151)  |  Set (400)  |  Set Theory (6)  |  Simple (426)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Taste (93)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Turn (454)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.
Written in his spiritual diary, published posthumously, Markings (1963), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Cease (81)  |  Daily (91)  |  Deity (22)  |  Die (94)  |  God (776)  |  Live (650)  |  Personal (75)  |  Radiance (7)  |  Reason (766)  |  Renew (20)  |  Source (101)  |  Steady (45)  |  Wonder (251)

Goethe said that he who cannot draw on 3,000 years of learning is living hand to mouth. It could just as well be said that individuals who do tap deeply into this rich cultural legacy are wealthy indeed. Yet the paradox is that much of this wisdom is buried in a sea of lesser books or like lost treasure beneath an ocean of online ignorance and trivia. That doesn’t mean that with a little bit of diligence you can’t tap into it. Yet many people, perhaps most, never take advantage of all this human experience. They aren’t obtaining knowledge beyond what they need to know for work or to get by. As a result, their view of our amazing world is diminished and their lives greatly circumscribed.
In An Embarrassment of Riches: Tapping Into the World's Greatest Legacy of Wealth (2013), 65.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Amazing (35)  |  Arent (6)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Bit (21)  |  Book (413)  |  Bury (19)  |  Circumscribe (3)  |  Cultural (26)  |  Deeply (17)  |  Diligence (22)  |  Diminish (17)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Experience (494)  |  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (150)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Hand (149)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Lesser (6)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Need (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Online (4)  |  Paradox (54)  |  People (1031)  |  Result (700)  |  Rich (66)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Tap (10)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Trivia (2)  |  View (496)  |  Wealthy (5)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

He [Lord Bacon] appears to have been utterly ignorant of the discoveries which had just been made by Kepler’s calculations … he does not say a word about Napier’s Logarithms, which had been published only nine years before and reprinted more than once in the interval. He complained that no considerable advance had been made in Geometry beyond Euclid, without taking any notice of what had been done by Archimedes and Apollonius. He saw the importance of determining accurately the specific gravities of different substances, and himself attempted to form a table of them by a rude process of his own, without knowing of the more scientific though still imperfect methods previously employed by Archimedes, Ghetaldus and Porta. He speaks of the εὕρηκα of Archimedes in a manner which implies that he did not clearly appreciate either the problem to be solved or the principles upon which the solution depended. In reviewing the progress of Mechanics, he makes no mention either of Archimedes, or Stevinus, Galileo, Guldinus, or Ghetaldus. He makes no allusion to the theory of Equilibrium. He observes that a ball of one pound weight will fall nearly as fast through the air as a ball of two, without alluding to the theory of acceleration of falling bodies, which had been made known by Galileo more than thirty years before. He proposed an inquiry with regard to the lever,—namely, whether in a balance with arms of different length but equal weight the distance from the fulcrum has any effect upon the inclination—though the theory of the lever was as well understood in his own time as it is now. … He speaks of the poles of the earth as fixed, in a manner which seems to imply that he was not acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes; and in another place, of the north pole being above and the south pole below, as a reason why in our hemisphere the north winds predominate over the south.
From Spedding’s 'Preface' to De Interpretations Naturae Proœmium, in The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 3, 511-512. [Note: the Greek word “εὕρηκα” is “Eureka” —Webmaster.]
Science quotes on:  |  Acceleration (12)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Advance (298)  |  Air (366)  |  Apollonius (6)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Balance (82)  |  Ball (64)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Complain (10)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Depend (238)  |  Determine (152)  |  Different (595)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Employ (115)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Equinox (5)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Eureka (13)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fast (49)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Form (976)  |  Fulcrum (3)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Hemisphere (5)  |  Himself (461)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Importance (299)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Known (453)  |  Length (24)  |  Lever (13)  |  Logarithm (12)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mention (84)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  John Napier (4)  |  Nearly (137)  |  North Pole (5)  |  North Wind (2)  |  Notice (81)  |  Observe (179)  |  Pole (49)  |  Pound (15)  |  Precession (4)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regard (312)  |  Saw (160)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  South (39)  |  South Pole (3)  |  Speak (240)  |  Specific (98)  |  Specific Gravity (2)  |  Still (614)  |  Substance (253)  |  Table (105)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Weight (140)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

Hitherto, no rival hypothesis has been proposed as a substitute for the doctrine of transmutation; for 'independent creation,' as it is often termed, or the direct intervention of the Supreme Cause, must simply be considered as an avowal that we deem the question to lie beyond the domain of science.
The Antiquity of Man (1863), 421.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Consider (428)  |  Creation (350)  |  Direct (228)  |  Domain (72)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Intervention (18)  |  Lie (370)  |  Must (1525)  |  Question (649)  |  Rival (20)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Term (357)  |  Transmutation (24)

How have people come to be taken in by The Phenomenon of Man? Just as compulsory primary education created a market catered for by cheap dailies and weeklies, so the spread of secondary and latterly of tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought … [The Phenomenon of Man] is written in an all but totally unintelligible style, and this is construed as prima-facie evidence of profundity.
Medawar’s book review of The Phenomenon of Man by Teilhard de Chardin first appeared as 'Critical Notice' in the journal Mind (1961), 70, No. 277, 105. The book review was reprinted in The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and Originality in Science (1967).
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Cheap (13)  |  Compulsory (8)  |  Construed (2)  |  Created (6)  |  Daily (91)  |  Develop (278)  |  Developed (11)  |  Educated (12)  |  Education (423)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Large (398)  |  Literary (15)  |  Man (2252)  |  Market (23)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Population (115)  |  Prima Facie (2)  |  Primary (82)  |  Profundity (6)  |  Scholarly (2)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Spread (86)  |  Style (24)  |  Taste (93)  |  Tertiary (4)  |  Thought (995)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Written (6)

However high we climb in the pursuit of knowledge we shall still see heights above us, and the more we extend our view, the more conscious we shall be of the immensity which lies beyond.
Address to the British Association (1863), in Report of the Thirty-Third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1864), li
Science quotes on:  |  Extend (129)  |  High (370)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  More (2558)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  See (1094)  |  Still (614)  |  View (496)

I always rejoice to hear of your being still employed in experimental researches into nature, and of the success you meet with. The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon: it is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter; we may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its labour and double its produce; all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured (not excepting even that of old age), and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard. Oh! that moral science were in as fair a way of improvement; that men would cease to be wolves to one another; and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity!
Letter to Dr Priestley, 8 Feb 1780. In Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (1845), Vol. 2, 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Age (509)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Antediluvian (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Cease (81)  |  Disease (340)  |  Easy (213)  |  Employ (115)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moral (203)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Power (771)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Progress (492)  |  Sake (61)  |  Soon (187)  |  Still (614)  |  Success (327)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Transport (31)  |  True Science (25)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

I am convinced that it is impossible to expound the methods of induction in a sound manner, without resting them upon the theory of probability. Perfect knowledge alone can give certainty, and in nature perfect knowledge would be infinite knowledge, which is clearly beyond our capacities. We have, therefore, to content ourselves with partial knowledge—knowledge mingled with ignorance, producing doubt.
The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method, 2nd edition (1877), 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Alone (324)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Induction (81)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Probability (135)  |  Sound (187)  |  Theory (1015)

I am not unmindful of the journalist’s quip that yesterday’s paper wraps today’s garbage. I am also not unmindful of the outrages visited upon our forests to publish redundant and incoherent collections of essays; for, like Dr. Seuss’ Lorax, I like to think that I speak for the trees. Beyond vanity, my only excuses for a collection of these essays lie in the observation that many people like (and as many people despise) them, and that they seem to cohere about a common theme–Darwin’s evolutionary perspective as an antidote to our cosmic arrogance.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Antidote (9)  |  Arrogance (22)  |  Collection (68)  |  Common (447)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Darwins (5)  |  Despise (16)  |  Essay (27)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Forest (161)  |  Garbage (10)  |  Incoherent (7)  |  Journalist (8)  |  Lie (370)  |  Observation (593)  |  Outrage (3)  |  Paper (192)  |  People (1031)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Publish (42)  |  Quip (81)  |  Seem (150)  |  Speak (240)  |  Theme (17)  |  Think (1122)  |  Today (321)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vanity (20)  |  Visit (27)  |  Wrap (7)  |  Yesterday (37)

I am not, personally, a believer or a religious man in any sense of institutional commitment or practice. But I have a great respect for religion, and the subject has always fascinated me, beyond almost all others (with a few exceptions, like evolution and paleontology).
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History (1998), 281.
Science quotes on:  |  Believer (26)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exception (74)  |  Fascination (35)  |  Great (1610)  |  Man (2252)  |  Other (2233)  |  Practice (212)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Respect (212)  |  Sense (785)  |  Subject (543)

I ask any one who has adopted the calling of an engineer, how much time he lost when he left school, because he had to devote himself to pursuits which were absolutely novel and strange, and of which he had not obtained the remotest conception from his instructors? He had to familiarize himself with ideas of the course and powers of Nature, to which his attention had never been directed during his school-life, and to learn, for the first time, that a world of facts lies outside and beyond the world of words.
From After-Dinner Speech (Apr 1869) delivered before the Liverpool Philomathic Society, 'Scientific Education', collected in Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews (1870), 63. Previously published in Macmillan’s Magazine.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Attention (196)  |  Conception (160)  |  Course (413)  |  Direct (228)  |  Directed (2)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Familiarize (5)  |  First (1302)  |  Himself (461)  |  Idea (881)  |  Instructor (5)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lose (165)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Novel (35)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Outside (141)  |  Power (771)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  School (227)  |  Strange (160)  |  Time (1911)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure
In 'Removal' (Jul 1938), collected in One Man's Meat (1942), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Discover (571)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Fall (243)  |  General (521)  |  Modern (402)  |  New (1273)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Peace (116)  |  Radiance (7)  |  Range (104)  |  Saving (20)  |  See (1094)  |  Sky (174)  |  Stand (284)  |  Television (33)  |  Test (221)  |  Unbearable (2)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Creature (242)  |  Death (406)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeble (28)  |  God (776)  |  Individual (420)  |  Notion (120)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physical (518)  |  Punish (8)  |  Reward (72)  |  Soul (235)  |  Survive (87)  |  Type (171)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

I consider [H. G. Wells], as a purely imaginative writer, to be deserving of very high praise, but our methods are entirely different. I have always made a point in my romances of basing my so-called inventions upon a groundwork of actual fact, and of using in their construction methods and materials which are not entirely without the pale of contemporary engineering skill and knowledge. ... The creations of Mr. Wells, on the other hand, belong unreservedly to an age and degree of scientific knowledge far removed from the present, though I will not say entirely beyond the limits of the possible.
Gordon Jones, 'Jules Verne at Home', Temple Bar (Jun 1904), 129, 670.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Age (509)  |  Belong (168)  |  Call (781)  |  Consider (428)  |  Construction (114)  |  Creation (350)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Fact (1257)  |  High (370)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Material (366)  |  Method (531)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Purely (111)  |  Romance (18)  |  Say (989)  |  Science Fiction (35)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skill (116)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Herbert George (H.G.) Wells (41)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writer (90)

I definitely deny that any pathological process, i.e. any life-process taking place under unfavourable circumstances, is able to call forth qualitatively new formations lying beyond the customary range of forms characteristic of the species. All pathological formations are either degenerations, transformations, or repetitions of typical physiological structures.
In 'Cellular-Pathologie', Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und fur klinische Medizin (1855), 8, 13-14, as translated in LellandJ. Rather, 'Cellular Pathology', Disease, Life, and Man: Selected Essays by Rudolf Virchow (1958), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Custom (44)  |  Customary (18)  |  Degeneration (11)  |  Denial (20)  |  Deny (71)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Forth (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lying (55)  |  New (1273)  |  Pathological (21)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Process (439)  |  Qualitative (15)  |  Range (104)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Typical (16)  |  Unfavorable (3)

I do not … reject the use of statistics in medicine, but I condemn not trying to get beyond them and believing in statistics as the foundation of medical science. … Statistics … apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still [uncertain or] indeterminate. … There will always be some indeterminism … in all the sciences, and more in medicine than in any other. But man’s intellectual conquest consists in lessening and driving back indeterminism in proportion as he gains ground for determinism by the help of the experimental method..
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 138-140.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Back (395)  |  Cause (561)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Condemnation (16)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Consist (223)  |  Determinism (12)  |  Do (1905)  |  Driving (28)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Gain (146)  |  Ground (222)  |  Indeterminate (4)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Lessening (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Medical Science (19)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Still (614)  |  Trying (144)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)

I do not want to write beyond this point, because those days when I studied relentlessly are nostalgic to me; and on the other hand, I am sad when I think how I have become increasingly preoccupied with matters other than study.
Explaining why he went no further in his autobiography than 1934, the year he published his paper describing his great discovery, the meson theory. From the original Japanese autobiography Tabibito, translated as The Traveler (1982), 207.
Science quotes on:  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Become (821)  |  Biography (254)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Great (1610)  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Point (584)  |  Recording (13)  |  Study (701)  |  Think (1122)  |  Want (504)  |  Why (491)  |  Write (250)

I had a feeling once about Mathematics—that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me—the Byss and Abyss. I saw—as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor’s Show—a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go.
In Sir Winston Churchill: A Self-Portrait (1954), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Change (639)  |  Depth (97)  |  Dinner (15)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Minus (7)  |  Passing (76)  |  Plus (43)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Sign (63)  |  Through (846)  |  Venus (21)  |  Why (491)

I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress: I am convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.g., about space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking (complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.
Max Born
My Life & My Views (1968), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Age (509)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Causality (11)  |  Complementarity (6)  |  Concept (242)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  New (1273)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Progress (492)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Read (308)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Space-Time (20)  |  Steady (45)  |  Substance (253)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understanding (527)

I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the range of sight,
New earths and skies and seas around,
And in my day the sun doth pale his light.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Earth (1076)  |  Hear (144)  |  Light (635)  |  New (1273)  |  Pale (9)  |  Range (104)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sound (187)  |  Sun (407)

I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open.
In Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906), Vol. 1, 101.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Being (1276)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fine (37)  |  Idea (881)  |  Open (277)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Sure (15)  |  Surrender (21)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Way (1214)  |  Willingness (10)

I need scarcely say that the beginning and maintenance of life on earth is absolutely and infinitely beyond the range of sound speculation in dynamical science.
In lecture, 'The Sun's Heat' delivered to the Friday Evening Discourse in Physical Science at the Royal Institution in London. Collected in Popular Lectures and Addresses (1889), Vol. 1, 415.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Dynamical (15)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Infinitely (13)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maintenance (21)  |  Range (104)  |  Say (989)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speculation (137)

I see nothing wrong ethically with the idea of correcting single gene defects [through genetic engineering]. But I am concerned about any other kind of intervention, for anything else would be an experiment, [which would] impose our will on future generations [and take unreasonable chances] with their welfare ... [Thus] such intervention is beyond the scope of consideration.
in The Second Creation: Dolly and the Age of Biological Control
Science quotes on:  |  Chance (244)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Defect (31)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Future (467)  |  Gene (105)  |  Generation (256)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetic Engineering (16)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intervention (18)  |  Kind (564)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Scope (44)  |  See (1094)  |  Single (365)  |  Through (846)  |  Welfare (30)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wrong (246)

I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can't conceive. And there could, of course, be forms of intelligence beyond human capacity—beyond as much as we are beyond a chimpanzee.
As quoted by Robin McKie in 'Aliens Can't Hear Us, Says Astronomer', The Guardian (27 Jan 2010), reporting on “a special meeting on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence” on 26 Jan 2010.
Science quotes on:  |  Capacity (105)  |  Chimpanzee (14)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Course (413)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Life (1870)

I traveled among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.
First verse of poem, 'I Travelled among Unknown Men', In Poems: In Two Volumes (1807), Vol. 1, 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  England (43)  |  Know (1538)  |  Land (131)  |  Love (328)  |  Sea (326)  |  Thou (9)  |  Travel (125)  |  Unknown (195)

I will insist particularly upon the following fact, which seems to me quite important and beyond the phenomena which one could expect to observe: The same [double sulfate of uranium and potassium] crystalline crusts, arranged the same way [as reported to the French academy on 24 Feb 1896] with respect to the photographic plates, in the same conditions and through the same screens, but sheltered from the excitation of incident rays and kept in darkness, still produce the same photographic images … [when kept from 26 Feb 1896] in the darkness of a bureau drawer. … I developed the photographic plates on the 1st of March, expecting to find the images very weak. Instead the silhouettes appeared with great intensity.
It is important to observe that it appears this phenomenon must not be attributed to the luminous radiation emitted by phosphorescence … One hypothesis which presents itself to the mind naturally enough would be to suppose that these rays, whose effects have a great similarity to the effects produced by the rays studied by M. Lenard and M. Röntgen, are invisible rays …
[Having eliminated phosphorescence as a cause, he has further revealed the effect of the as yet unknown radioactivity.]
Read at French Academy of Science (2 Mar 1896). In Comptes Rendus (1896), 122, 501. As translated by Carmen Giunta on the Classic Chemistry web site.
Science quotes on:  |  Academy (37)  |  Cause (561)  |  Condition (362)  |  Crust (43)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enough (341)  |  Excitation (9)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Image (97)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Luminous (19)  |  March (48)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observe (179)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Phosphorescence (2)  |  Photograph (23)  |  Potassium (12)  |  Present (630)  |  Produced (187)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Ray (115)  |  Respect (212)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Wilhelm Röntgen (8)  |  Shelter (23)  |  Silhouette (4)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Still (614)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Through (846)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Uranium (21)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weak (73)  |  Will (2350)

If I choose to impose individual blame for all past social ills, there will be no one left to like in some of the most fascinating periods of our history. For example ... if I place every Victorian anti-Semite beyond the pale of my attention, my compass of available music and literature will be pitifully small. Though I hold no shred of sympathy for active persecution, I cannot excoriate individuals who acquiesced passively in a standard societal judgment. Rail instead against the judgment, and try to understand what motivates men of decent will.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Acquiesce (2)  |  Active (80)  |  Against (332)  |  Attention (196)  |  Available (80)  |  Blame (31)  |  Choose (116)  |  Compass (37)  |  Decent (12)  |  Example (98)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  History (716)  |  Hold (96)  |  Impose (22)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instead (23)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Leave (138)  |  Literature (116)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motivate (8)  |  Music (133)  |  Pale (9)  |  Passively (3)  |  Past (355)  |  Period (200)  |  Persecution (14)  |  Place (192)  |  Rail (5)  |  Shred (7)  |  Small (489)  |  Social (261)  |  Standard (64)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Try (296)  |  Understand (648)  |  Victorian (6)  |  Will (2350)

If I had been taught from my youth all the truths of which I have since sought out demonstrations, and had thus learned them without labour, I should never, perhaps, have known any beyond these; at least, I should never have acquired the habit and the facility which I think I possess in always discovering new truths in proportion as I give myself to the search.
In Discours de la Méthode (1637). In English from John Veitch (trans.), A Discourse on Method (1912), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Discover (571)  |  Facility (14)  |  Habit (174)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Labor (200)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Myself (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Possess (157)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Search (175)  |  Seek (218)  |  Teach (299)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Youth (109)

If the finding of Coines, Medals, Urnes, and other Monuments of famous Persons, or Towns, or Utensils, be admitted for unquestionable Proofs, that such Persons or things have, in former Times, had a being, certainly those Petrifactions may be allowed to be of equal Validity and Evidence, that there have been formerly such Vegetables or Animals. These are truly Authentick Antiquity not to be counterfeited, the Stamps, and Impressions, and Characters of Nature that are beyond the Reach and Power of Humane Wit and Invention, and are true universal Characters legible to all rational Men.
Lectures and Discourses of Earthquakes (1668). In The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke, containing his Cutlerian Lectures and other Discourses read at the Meetings of the Illustrious Royal Society (1705), 449.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Archaeology (51)  |  Being (1276)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Character (259)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Former (138)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Humane (19)  |  Impression (118)  |  Invention (400)  |  Monument (45)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Power (771)  |  Proof (304)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reach (286)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)  |  Universal (198)  |  Unquestionable (10)  |  Validity (50)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Wit (61)

If the Humours of the Eye by old Age decay, so as by shrinking to make the Cornea and Coat of the Crystalline Humour grow flatter than before, the Light will not be refracted enough, and for want of a sufficient Refraction will not converge to the bottom of the Eye but to some place beyond it, and by consequence paint in the bottom of the Eye a confused Picture, and according to the Indistinctuess of this Picture the Object will appear confused. This is the reason of the decay of sight in old Men, and shews why their Sight is mended by Spectacles. For those Convex glasses supply the defect of plumpness in the Eye, and by increasing the Refraction make the rays converge sooner, so as to convene distinctly at the bottom of the Eye if the Glass have a due degree of convexity. And the contrary happens in short-sighted Men whose Eyes are too plump. For the Refraction being now too great, the Rays converge and convene in the Eyes before they come at the bottom; and therefore the Picture made in the bottom and the Vision caused thereby will not be distinct, unless the Object be brought so near the Eye as that the place where the converging Rays convene may be removed to the bottom, or that the plumpness of the Eye be taken off and the Refractions diminished by a Concave-glass of a due degree of Concavity, or lastly that by Age the Eye grow flatter till it come to a due Figure: For short-sighted Men see remote Objects best in Old Age, and therefore they are accounted to have the most lasting Eyes.
Opticks (1704), Book 1, Part 1, Axiom VII, 10-11.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Account (195)  |  Age (509)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Concave (6)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Converge (10)  |  Convergence (4)  |  Convex (6)  |  Decay (59)  |  Defect (31)  |  Degree (277)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Due (143)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eye (440)  |  Figure (162)  |  Glass (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Happen (282)  |  Humour (116)  |  Lens (15)  |  Light (635)  |  Most (1728)  |  Object (438)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Picture (148)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reason (766)  |  Refraction (13)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Short-Sighted (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Spectacles (10)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supply (100)  |  Vision (127)  |  Want (504)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

If we imagine an observer to approach our planet from outer space, and, pushing aside the belts of red-brown clouds which obscure our atmosphere, to gaze for a whole day on the surface of the earth as it rotates beneath him, the feature, beyond all others most likely to arrest his attention would be the wedge-like outlines of the continents as they narrow away to the South.
The Face of the Earth (1904), Vol. 1, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Arrest (9)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Attention (196)  |  Belt (4)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Brown (23)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Continent (79)  |  Day (43)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Feature (49)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Most (1728)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Observer (48)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outer Space (6)  |  Outline (13)  |  Planet (402)  |  Push (66)  |  Rotate (8)  |  Rotation (13)  |  South (39)  |  Space (523)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Wedge (3)  |  Whole (756)

If you ask a person, “What were you thinking?” you may get an answer that is richer and more revealing of the human condition than any stream of thoughts a novelist could invent. I try to see through people’s faces into their minds and listen through their words into their lives, and what I find there is beyond imagining.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Condition (362)  |  Face (214)  |  Find (1014)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Condition (6)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Invent (57)  |  Listen (81)  |  Live (650)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Novelist (9)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Rich (66)  |  See (1094)  |  Stream (83)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Try (296)  |  Word (650)

Imagine a school-boy who has outgrown his clothes. Imagine the repairs made on the vestments where the enlarged frame had burst the narrow limits of the enclosure. Imagine the additions made where the projecting limbs had fairly and far emerged beyond the confines of the garment. Imagine the boy still growing, and the clothes, mended allover, now more than ever in want of mending—such is chemistry, and such is nomenclature.
Chemical Recreations (1834), 206, footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Boy (100)  |  Burst (41)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Enclosure (4)  |  Garment (13)  |  Growing (99)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mending (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  School (227)  |  Still (614)  |  Vestment (2)  |  Want (504)

In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found. But naturalists are now beginning to look beyond this, and to see that there must be some other principle regulating the infinitely varied forms of animal life. It must strike every one, that the numbers of birds and insects of different groups having scarcely any resemblance to each other, which yet feed on the same food and inhabit the same localities, cannot have been so differently constructed and adorned for that purpose alone. Thus the goat-suckers, the swallows, the tyrant fly-catchers, and the jacamars, all use the same kind ‘Of food, and procure it in the same manner: they all capture insects on the wing, yet how entirely different is the structure and the whole appearance of these birds!
In A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro (1853), 83-84.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bird (163)  |  Capture (11)  |  Constant (148)  |  Construct (129)  |  Constructed (3)  |  Detail (150)  |  Different (595)  |  Feed (31)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fly (153)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Goat (9)  |  Habit (174)  |  History (716)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Insect (89)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  See (1094)  |  Strike (72)  |  Structure (365)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Tyrant (10)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wing (79)  |  Work (1402)

In early times, when the knowledge of nature was small, little attempt was made to divide science into parts, and men of science did not specialize. Aristotle was a master of all science known in his day, and wrote indifferently treatises on physics or animals. As increasing knowledge made it impossible for any one man to grasp all scientific subjects, lines of division were drawn for convenience of study and of teaching. Besides the broad distinction into physical and biological science, minute subdivisions arose, and, at a certain stage of development, much attention was, given to methods of classification, and much emphasis laid on the results, which were thought to have a significance beyond that of the mere convenience of mankind.
But we have reached the stage when the different streams of knowledge, followed by the different sciences, are coalescing, and the artificial barriers raised by calling those sciences by different names are breaking down. Geology uses the methods and data of physics, chemistry and biology; no one can say whether the science of radioactivity is to be classed as chemistry or physics, or whether sociology is properly grouped with biology or economics. Indeed, it is often just where this coalescence of two subjects occurs, when some connecting channel between them is opened suddenly, that the most striking advances in knowledge take place. The accumulated experience of one department of science, and the special methods which have been developed to deal with its problems, become suddenly available in the domain of another department, and many questions insoluble before may find answers in the new light cast upon them. Such considerations show us that science is in reality one, though we may agree to look on it now from one side and now from another as we approach it from the standpoint of physics, physiology or psychology.
In article 'Science', Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), 402.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulated (2)  |  Advance (298)  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Approach (112)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attention (196)  |  Available (80)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Become (821)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cast (69)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Class (168)  |  Classification (102)  |  Coalesce (5)  |  Coalescence (2)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Data (162)  |  Deal (192)  |  Department (93)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Divide (77)  |  Division (67)  |  Domain (72)  |  Down (455)  |  Early (196)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Geology (240)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Indifferent (17)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Master (182)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Method (531)  |  Minute (129)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Occur (151)  |  Open (277)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Problem (731)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Question (649)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reality (274)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Show (353)  |  Side (236)  |  Significance (114)  |  Small (489)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Special (188)  |  Specialize (4)  |  Stage (152)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Stream (83)  |  Striking (48)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)

In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design. … This may be called the cunning of reason.
From Vorlesungen über die philosophie der weltgeschichte (1837), as translated from the Third German Edition by J. Sibree (1857), in The Philosophy of History (1857, 1861), 28-29 & 34. Hegel coined the expression List der Vernunft translated as the cunning of reason. In Hegel’s philosophical view, the expression represents a process by which a certain purpose is realized in the history of mankind that is not conscious to the acting man.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Aim (175)  |  Call (781)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Cunning (17)  |  Design (203)  |  Desire (212)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Interest (416)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Present (630)  |  Produced (187)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Result (700)  |  Something (718)

In its earliest development knowledge is self-sown. Impressions force themselves upon men’s senses whether they will or not, and often against their will. The amount of interest in which these impressions awaken is determined by the coarser pains and pleasures which they carry in their train or by mere curiosity; and reason deals with the materials supplied to it as far as that interest carries it, and no further. Such common knowledge is rather brought than sought; and such ratiocination is little more than the working of a blind intellectual instinct. It is only when the mind passes beyond this condition that it begins to evolve science. When simple curiosity passes into the love of knowledge as such, and the gratification of the æsthetic sense of the beauty of completeness and accuracy seems more desirable that the easy indolence of ignorance; when the finding out of the causes of things becomes a source of joy, and he is accounted happy who is successful in the search, common knowledge passes into what our forefathers called natural history, whence there is but a step to that which used to be termed natural philosophy, and now passes by the name of physical science.
In this final state of knowledge the phenomena of nature are regarded as one continuous series of causes and effects; and the ultimate object of science is to trace out that series, from the term which is nearest to us, to that which is at the farthest limit accessible to our means of investigation.
The course of nature as it is, as it has been, and as it will be, is the object of scientific inquiry; whatever lies beyond, above, or below this is outside science. But the philosopher need not despair at the limitation on his field of labor; in relation to the human mind Nature is boundless; and, though nowhere inaccessible, she is everywhere unfathomable.
The Crayfish: an Introduction to the Study of Zoölogy (1880), 2-3. Excerpted in Popular Science (Apr 1880), 16, 789-790.
Science quotes on:  |  Accessible (27)  |  Account (195)  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Against (332)  |  Amount (153)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Blind (98)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Call (781)  |  Carry (130)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cause And Effect (21)  |  Common (447)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Condition (362)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Course (413)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Deal (192)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Despair (40)  |  Determination (80)  |  Development (441)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effect (414)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Field (378)  |  Final (121)  |  Finding (34)  |  Force (497)  |  Forefather (4)  |  Gratification (22)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Happy (108)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inaccessible (18)  |  Indolence (8)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Interest (416)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Joy (117)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Lie (370)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Little (717)  |  Love (328)  |  Material (366)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Outside (141)  |  Pain (144)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Ratiocination (4)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regard (312)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Search (175)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Simple (426)  |  State (505)  |  Step (234)  |  Successful (134)  |  Term (357)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trace (109)  |  Tracing (3)  |  Train (118)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unfathomable (11)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)

In science its main worth is temporary, as a stepping-stone to something beyond. Even the Principia, as Newton with characteristic modesty entitled his great work, is truly but the beginning of a natural philosophy, and no more an ultimate work, than Watt’s steam-engine, or Arkwright's spinning-machine.
Co-author with his brother Augustus William Hare Guesses At Truth, By Two Brothers: Second Edition: With Large Additions (1848), Second Series, 46. (The volume is introduced as “more than three fourths new.” This quote is identified as by Julius; Augustus had died in 1833.)
Science quotes on:  |  Sir Richard Arkwright (3)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Engine (99)  |  Great (1610)  |  Machine (271)  |  Modesty (18)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Principia (14)  |  Something (718)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Spinning Machine (2)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Stepping Stone (2)  |  Stone (168)  |  Temporary (24)  |  Title (20)  |  Truly (118)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  James Watt (11)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)

In scientific matters ... the greatest discoverer differs from the most arduous imitator and apprentice only in degree, whereas he differs in kind from someone whom nature has endowed for fine art. But saying this does not disparage those great men to whom the human race owes so much in contrast to those whom nature has endowed for fine art. For the scientists' talent lies in continuing to increase the perfection of our cognitions and on all the dependent benefits, as well as in imparting that same knowledge to others; and in these respects they are far superior to those who merit the honour of being called geniuses. For the latter's art stops at some point, because a boundary is set for it beyond which it cannot go and which has probably long since been reached and cannot be extended further.
The Critique of Judgement (1790), trans. J. C. Meredith (1991), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Apprentice (4)  |  Art (680)  |  Being (1276)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Call (781)  |  Cognition (7)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Degree (277)  |  Differ (88)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disparage (5)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Extend (129)  |  Genius (301)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Honour (58)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Imitator (3)  |  Imparting (6)  |  Increase (225)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Long (778)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merit (51)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Point (584)  |  Race (278)  |  Reach (286)  |  Respect (212)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Set (400)  |  Superior (88)  |  Talent (99)

In the beginning (if there was such a thing), God created Newton’s laws of motion together with the necessary masses and forces. This is all; everything beyond this follows from the development of appropriate mathematical methods by means of deduction.
Autobiographical Notes (1946), 19. In Albert Einstein, Alice Calaprice, Freeman Dyson , The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2011), 397.
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Development (441)  |  Everything (489)  |  Follow (389)  |  Following (16)  |  Force (497)  |  God (776)  |  Law (913)  |  Laws Of Motion (10)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Motion (320)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and repossession, and suffer his reason and feelings to determine for themselves; and that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of man, and generously enlarge his view beyond the present day.
In Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America (1792), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Character (259)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Determine (152)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Generous (17)  |  Himself (461)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plain (34)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Preliminary (6)  |  Present (630)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simple (426)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Themselves (433)  |  True (239)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

In the infancy of physical science, it was hoped that some discovery might be made that would enable us to emancipate ourselves from the bondage of gravity, and, at least, pay a visit to our neighbour the moon. The poor attempts of the aeronaut have shewn the hopelessness of the enterprise. The success of his achievement depends on the buoyant power of the atmosphere, but the atmosphere extends only a few miles above the earth, and its action cannot reach beyond its own limits. The only machine, independent of the atmosphere, we can conceive of, would be one on the principle of the rocket. The rocket rises in the air, not from the resistance offered by the atmosphere to its fiery stream, but from the internal reaction. The velocity would, indeed, be greater in a vacuum than in the atmosphere, and could we dispense with the comfort of breathing air, we might, with such a machine, transcend the boundaries of our globe, and visit other orbs.
God's Glory in the Heavens (1862, 3rd Ed. 1867) 3-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Action (342)  |  Air (366)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Bondage (6)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Buoyancy (7)  |  Buoyant (6)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Depend (238)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emancipate (2)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extend (129)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hopelessness (6)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Internal (69)  |  Limit (294)  |  Machine (271)  |  Moon (252)  |  Offer (142)  |  Orb (20)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Poor (139)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Space Travel (23)  |  Stream (83)  |  Success (327)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Velocity (51)

In the nature of life and in the principles of evolution we have had our answer. Of men elsewhere, and beyond, there will be none, forever.
In 'Little Men and Flying Sources', The Immense Journey (1957), 162.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Elsewhere (10)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Forever (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Principle (530)  |  Will (2350)

In this lecture I would like to conclude with … some characteristics [of] gravity … The most impressive fact is that gravity is simple. It is simple to state the principles completely and not have left any vagueness for anybody to change the ideas of the law. It is simple, and therefore it is beautiful. It is simple in its pattern. I do not mean it is simple in its action—the motions of the various planets and the perturbations of one on the other can be quite complicated to work out, and to follow how all those stars in a globular cluster move is quite beyond our ability. It is complicated in its actions, but the basic pattern or the system beneath the whole thing is simple. This is common to all our laws; they all turn out to be simple things, although complex in their actual actions.
In 'The Law of Gravitation, as Example of Physical Law', the first of his Messenger Lectures (1964), Cornell University. Collected in The Character of Physical Law (1967), 33-34.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Action (342)  |  Actual (118)  |  Anybody (42)  |  Basic (144)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Change (639)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Cluster (16)  |  Common (447)  |  Completely (137)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Follow (389)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Law (913)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Perturbation (7)  |  Planet (402)  |  Principle (530)  |  Simple (426)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  State (505)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Vagueness (15)  |  Various (205)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

Indeed, we need not look back half a century to times which many now living remember well, and see the wonderful advances in the sciences and arts which have been made within that period. Some of these have rendered the elements themselves subservient to the purposes of man, have harnessed them to the yoke of his labors and effected the great blessings of moderating his own, of accomplishing what was beyond his feeble force, and extending the comforts of life to a much enlarged circle, to those who had before known its necessaries only.
From paper 'Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Fix the Site of the University of Virginia' (Dec 1818), reprinted in Annual Report of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia for the Fiscal Year Ending May 31, 1879 (1879), 10. Collected in Commonwealth of Virginia, Annual Reports of Officers, Boards, and Institutions of the Commonwealth of Virginia, for the Year Ending September 30, 1879 (1879).
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Advance (298)  |  Art (680)  |  Back (395)  |  Blessing (26)  |  Blessings (17)  |  Century (319)  |  Circle (117)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Effect (414)  |  Element (322)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Force (497)  |  Great (1610)  |  Harness (25)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Known (453)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Period (200)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Remember (189)  |  Render (96)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  See (1094)  |  Subservient (5)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Yoke (3)

Individual events. Events beyond law. Events so numerous and so uncoordinated that, flaunting their freedom from formula, they yet fabricate firm form.
'Frontiers of Time', cited in At Home in the Universe (1994), 283. Quoted in James Gleick, Genius: the Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1993), 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Coordination (11)  |  Event (222)  |  Fabricate (6)  |  Firm (47)  |  Form (976)  |  Formula (102)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Individual (420)  |  Law (913)  |  Numerous (70)

Instead of disbursing her annual millions for these dye stuffs, England will, beyond question, at no distant day become herself the greatest coloring producing country in the world; nay, by the very strangest of revolutions she may ere long send her coal-derived blues to indigo-growing India, her tar-distilled crimson to cochineal-producing Mexico, and her fossil substitutes for quercitron and safflower to China, Japan and the other countries whence these articles are now derived.
From 'Report on the Chemical Section of the Exhibition of 1862.' As quoted in Sir Frederick Abel, 'The Work of the Imperial Institute' Nature (28 Apr 1887), 35, No. 913, 620. Abel called the display of the first dye-products derived from coal tar at the Exhibition of 1862, “one of the features of greatest novelty.”
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Blue (63)  |  China (27)  |  Coal (64)  |  Color (155)  |  Country (269)  |  Crimson (4)  |  Derived (5)  |  Distilled (2)  |  Dye (10)  |  England (43)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Growing (99)  |  India (23)  |  Japan (9)  |  Long (778)  |  Other (2233)  |  Producing (6)  |  Question (649)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Send (23)  |  Strangest (4)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

It did not take atomic weapons to make man want peace. But the atomic bomb was the turn of the screw. The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.
Commencement address (1946). As quoted in book review (of Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb), by William J. Broad, ‘The Men Who Made the Sun Rise', New York Times Book Review (8 Feb 1987), 39. Cited as from 'The Atomic Bomb and College Education' (1946), in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (18th ed., 2014). as quoted, without citation, in . Please contact Webmaster if you know a primary source.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Country (269)  |  Different (595)  |  Future (467)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Pass (241)  |  Peace (116)  |  Prospect (31)  |  Screw (17)  |  Step (234)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unendurable (2)  |  Want (504)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

It is a remarkable fact that the second law of thermodynamics has played in the history of science a fundamental role far beyond its original scope. Suffice it to mention Boltzmann’s work on kinetic theory, Planck’s discovery of quantum theory or Einstein’s theory of spontaneous emission, which were all based on the second law of thermodynamics.
From Nobel lecture, 'Time, Structure and Fluctuations', in Tore Frängsmyr and Sture Forsén (eds.), Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1971-1980, (1993), 263.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (25)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Emission (20)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Kinetic (12)  |  Kinetic Theory (7)  |  Law (913)  |  Mention (84)  |  Max Planck (83)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Role (86)  |  Scope (44)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Work (1402)

It is above all the duty of the methodical text-book to adapt itself to the pupil’s power of comprehension, only challenging his higher efforts with the increasing development of his imagination, his logical power and the ability of abstraction. This indeed constitutes a test of the art of teaching, it is here where pedagogic tact becomes manifest. In reference to the axioms, caution is necessary. It should be pointed out comparatively early, in how far the mathematical body differs from the material body. Furthermore, since mathematical bodies are really portions of space, this space is to be conceived as mathematical space and to be clearly distinguished from real or physical space. Gradually the student will become conscious that the portion of the real space which lies beyond the visible stellar universe is not cognizable through the senses, that we know nothing of its properties and consequently have no basis for judgments concerning it. Mathematical space, on the other hand, may be subjected to conditions, for instance, we may condition its properties at infinity, and these conditions constitute the axioms, say the Euclidean axioms. But every student will require years before the conviction of the truth of this last statement will force itself upon him.
In Methodisches Lehrbuch der Elementar-Mathemalik (1904), Teil I, Vorwort, 4-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Art (680)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Basis (180)  |  Become (821)  |  Body (557)  |  Book (413)  |  Caution (24)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Comparatively (8)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Concern (239)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Consequently (5)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Development (441)  |  Differ (88)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Duty (71)  |  Early (196)  |  Effort (243)  |  Euclidean (3)  |  Far (158)  |  Force (497)  |  Furthermore (2)  |  Gradually (102)  |  High (370)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Increase (225)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Instance (33)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Lie (370)  |  Logical (57)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Methodical (8)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pedagogy (2)  |  Physical (518)  |  Point (584)  |  Portion (86)  |  Power (771)  |  Property (177)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Real (159)  |  Really (77)  |  Reference (33)  |  Require (229)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Space (523)  |  Statement (148)  |  Stellar (4)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tact (8)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Test (221)  |  Text-Book (5)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Visible (87)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

It is arguable whether the human race have been gainers by the march of science beyond the steam engine. Electricity opens a field of infinite conveniences to ever greater numbers, but they may well have to pay dearly for them. But anyhow in my thought I stop short of the internal combustion engine which has made the world so much smaller. Still more must we fear the consequences of entrusting a human race so little different from their predecessors of the so-called barbarous ages such awful agencies as the atomic bomb. Give me the horse.
Address to the Royal College of Surgeons (10 Jul 1951). Collected in Stemming the Tide: Speeches 1951 and 1952 (1953), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Call (781)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Different (595)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fear (212)  |  Field (378)  |  Greater (288)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Internal (69)  |  Internal Combustion Engine (4)  |  Invention (400)  |  Little (717)  |  March (48)  |  March Of Science (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Open (277)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Progress (492)  |  Race (278)  |  Short (200)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Still (614)  |  Thought (995)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)

It is no way derogatory to Newton, or Kepler, or Galileo, that Science in these days should have advanced far beyond them. Rather is this itself their crown of glory. Their works are still bearing fruit, and will continue to do so. The truths which they discovered are still living in our knowledge, pregnant with infinite consequences.
Co-author with his brother Augustus William Hare Guesses At Truth, By Two Brothers: Second Edition: With Large Additions (1848), Second Series, 251. (The volume is introduced as “more than three fourths new.” This quote is identified as by Julius; Augustus had died in 1833.)
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Bearing (10)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Continue (179)  |  Crown (39)  |  Derogatory (3)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Glory (66)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Living (492)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Pregnant (4)  |  Still (614)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

It is not enough to say that we cannot know or judge because all the information is not in. The process of gathering knowledge does not lead to knowing. A child's world spreads only a little beyond his understanding while that of a great scientist thrusts outward immeasurably. An answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions. So we draw worlds and fit them like tracings against the world about us, and crumple them when we find they do not fit and draw new ones.
In John Steinbeck and Edward Flanders Ricketts, Sea of Cortez: a Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941), 165-66.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  Child (333)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Enough (341)  |  Family (101)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fit (139)  |  Gathering (23)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Information (173)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Judge (114)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Little (717)  |  New (1273)  |  Outward (7)  |  Parent (80)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Spread (86)  |  Thrust (13)  |  Tracing (3)  |  Understanding (527)  |  World (1850)

It is not failure but success that is forcing man off this earth. It is not sickness but the triumph of health... Our capacity to survive has expanded beyond the capacity of Earth to support us. The pains we are feeling are growing pains. We can solve growth problems in direct proportion to our capacity to find new worlds... If man stays on Earth, his extinction is sure even if he lasts till the sun expands and destroys him... It is no longer reasonable to assume that the meaning of life lies on this earth alone. If Earth is all there is for man, we are reaching the foreseeable end of man.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Assume (43)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Direct (228)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Expand (56)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Failure (176)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Foreseeable (3)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growth (200)  |  Health (210)  |  Last (425)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  New (1273)  |  New Worlds (5)  |  Pain (144)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Sickness (26)  |  Solve (145)  |  Stay (26)  |  Success (327)  |  Sun (407)  |  Support (151)  |  Survive (87)  |  Triumph (76)  |  World (1850)

It is possible to read books on Natural History with intelligence and profit, and even to make good observations, without a scientific groundwork of biological instruction; and it is possible to arrive at empirical facts of hygiene and medical treatment without any physiological instruction. But in all three cases the absence of a scientific basis will render the knowledge fragmentary and incomplete; and this ought to deter every one from offering an opinion on debatable questions which pass beyond the limit of subjective observations. The psychologist who has not prepared himself by a study of the organism has no more right to be heard on the genesis of the psychical states, or of the relations between body and mind, than one of the laity has a right to be heard on a question of medical treatment.
The Physical Basis of Mind (1877), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Body (557)  |  Book (413)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Fragmentary (8)  |   Genesis (26)  |  Good (906)  |  Groundwork (4)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Hygiene (13)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Observation (593)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organism (231)  |  Pass (241)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Possible (560)  |  Profit (56)  |  Psychologist (26)  |  Question (649)  |  Read (308)  |  Render (96)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientific (955)  |  State (505)  |  Study (701)  |  Subjective (20)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Will (2350)

It is said that the composing of the Lilavati was occasioned by the following circumstance. Lilavati was the name of the author’s daughter, concerning whom it appeared, from the qualities of the ascendant at her birth, that she was destined to pass her life unmarried, and to remain without children. The father ascertained a lucky hour for contracting her in marriage, that she might be firmly connected and have children. It is said that when that hour approached, he brought his daughter and his intended son near him. He left the hour cup on the vessel of water and kept in attendance a time-knowing astrologer, in order that when the cup should subside in the water, those two precious jewels should be united. But, as the intended arrangement was not according to destiny, it happened that the girl, from a curiosity natural to children, looked into the cup, to observe the water coming in at the hole, when by chance a pearl separated from her bridal dress, fell into the cup, and, rolling down to the hole, stopped the influx of water. So the astrologer waited in expectation of the promised hour. When the operation of the cup had thus been delayed beyond all moderate time, the father was in consternation, and examining, he found that a small pearl had stopped the course of the water, and that the long-expected hour was passed. In short, the father, thus disappointed, said to his unfortunate daughter, I will write a book of your name, which shall remain to the latest times—for a good name is a second life, and the ground-work of eternal existence.
In Preface to the Persian translation of the Lilavati by Faizi (1587), itself translated into English by Strachey and quoted in John Taylor (trans.) Lilawati, or, A Treatise on Arithmetic and Geometry by Bhascara Acharya (1816), Introduction, 3. [The Lilavati is the 12th century treatise on mathematics by Indian mathematician, Bhaskara Acharya, born 1114.]
Science quotes on:  |  12th Century (3)  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Appear (122)  |  Approach (112)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Ascendant (2)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Astrologer (10)  |  Attendance (2)  |  Author (175)  |  Birth (154)  |  Book (413)  |  Bring (95)  |  Chance (244)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Coming (114)  |  Compose (20)  |  Concern (239)  |  Connect (126)  |  Contract (11)  |  Course (413)  |  Cup (7)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Delay (21)  |  Destined (42)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Disappoint (14)  |  Disappointed (6)  |  Down (455)  |  Dress (10)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Examine (84)  |  Existence (481)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Fall (243)  |  Father (113)  |  Find (1014)  |  Firmly (6)  |  Follow (389)  |  Girl (38)  |  Good (906)  |  Ground (222)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Hole (17)  |  Hour (192)  |  Indian (32)  |  Influx (2)  |  Intend (18)  |  Jewel (10)  |  Keep (104)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Late (119)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Lucky (13)  |  Marriage (39)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Moderate (6)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Observe (179)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Operation (221)  |  Order (638)  |  Pass (241)  |  Pearl (8)  |  Precious (43)  |  Promise (72)  |  Quality (139)  |  Remain (355)  |  Roll (41)  |  Say (989)  |  Second (66)  |  Separate (151)  |  Short (200)  |  Small (489)  |  Son (25)  |  Stop (89)  |  Subside (5)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Two (936)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  United (15)  |  Unmarried (3)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Wait (66)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)

It is the reciprocity of these appearances—that each party should think the other has contracted—that is so difficult to realise. Here is a paradox beyond even the imagination of Dean Swift. Gulliver regarded the Lilliputians as a race of dwarfs; and the Lilliputians regarded Gulliver as a giant. That is natural. If the Lilliputians had appeared dwarfs to Gulliver, and Gulliver had appeared a dwarf to the Lilliputians—but no! that is too absurd for fiction, and is an idea only to be found in the sober pages of science. …It is not only in space but in time that these strange variations occur. If we observed the aviator carefully we should infer that he was unusually slow in his movements; and events in the conveyance moving with him would be similarly retarded—as though time had forgotten to go on. His cigar lasts twice as long as one of ours. …But here again reciprocity comes in, because in the aviator’s opinion it is we who are travelling at 161,000 miles a second past him; and when he has made all allowances, he finds that it is we who are sluggish. Our cigar lasts twice as long as his.
In Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory (1920, 1921), 23-24.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Allowance (6)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Event (222)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Giant (73)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Last (425)  |  Long (778)  |  Movement (162)  |  Natural (810)  |  Observed (149)  |  Occur (151)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Past (355)  |  Race (278)  |  Regard (312)  |  Slow (108)  |  Space (523)  |  Strange (160)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Variation (93)

It may well be doubted whether, in all the range of science, there is any field so fascinating to the explorer—so rich in hidden treasures—so fruitful in delightful surprises—as that of Pure Mathematics. The charm lies chiefly, I think, in the absolute certainty of its results; for that is what, beyond all mental treasures, the human intellect craves for. Let us only be sure of something! More light, more light!
Written without pseudonym as Charles L. Dodgson. Opening remarks in Introduction to A New Theory of Parallels (1888, 1890), xv.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Charm (54)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Crave (10)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Fascinate (12)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Field (378)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  More (2558)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Range (104)  |  Result (700)  |  Science And Mathematics (10)  |  Something (718)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Think (1122)  |  Treasure (59)

It may well be doubted whether, in all the range of Science, there is any field so fascinating to the explorer—so rich in hidden treasures—so fruitful in delightful surprises—as that of Pure Mathematics. The charm lies chiefly, I think, in the absolute certainty of its results: for that is what, beyond all mental treasures, the human intellect craves for. Let us only be sure of something! More light, more light … “And if our fate be death, give light and let us die” This is the cry that, through all the ages, is going up from perplexed Humanity, and Science has little else to offer, that will really meet the demands of its votaries, than the conclusions of Pure Mathematics.
Opening of 'Introduction', A New Theory of Parallels (1890), xv. As a non-fiction work, the author’s name on the title page of this book was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Being better known for his works of fiction as Lewis Carroll, all quotes relating to this one person, published under either name, are gathered on this single web page under his pen name.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Age (509)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Charm (54)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Crave (10)  |  Cry (30)  |  Death (406)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Demand (131)  |  Die (94)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Fate (76)  |  Field (378)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Give (208)  |  Hide (70)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Let (64)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  More (2558)  |  Offer (142)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Range (104)  |  Result (700)  |  Rich (66)  |  Something (718)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Votary (3)  |  Will (2350)

It need scarcely be pointed out that with such a mechanism complete isolation of portion of a species should result relatively rapidly in specific differentiation, and one that is not necessarily adaptive. The effective inter­group competition leading to adaptive advance may be between species rather than races. Such isolation is doubtless usually geographic in character at the outset but may be clinched by the development of hybrid sterility. The usual difference of the chromosome complements of related species puts the importance of chromosome aberration as an evolutionary process beyond question, but, as I see it, this importance is not in the character differences which they bring (slight in balanced types), but rather in leading to the sterility of hybrids and thus making permanent the isolation of two groups.
How far do the observations of actual species and their subdivisions conform to this picture? This is naturally too large a subject for more than a few suggestions.
That evolution involves non-adaptive differentiation to a large extent at the subspecies and even the species level is indicated by the kinds of differences by which such groups are actually distinguished by systematics. It is only at the subfamily and family levels that clear-cut adaptive differences become the rule. The principal evolutionary mechanism in the origin of species must thus be an essentially nonadaptive one.
In Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Genetics: Ithaca, New York, 1932 (1932) Vol. 1, 363-364.
Science quotes on:  |  Aberration (10)  |  Actual (118)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Advance (298)  |  Become (821)  |  Character (259)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Clear-Cut (10)  |  Competition (45)  |  Complement (6)  |  Complete (209)  |  Cut (116)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effective (68)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extent (142)  |  Family (101)  |  Geographic (10)  |  Geography (39)  |  Hybrid (14)  |  Importance (299)  |  Inter (12)  |  Involve (93)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Making (300)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Observation (593)  |  Origin (250)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Picture (148)  |  Point (584)  |  Portion (86)  |  Principal (69)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Race (278)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  See (1094)  |  Species (435)  |  Specific (98)  |  Sterility (10)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Systematics (4)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Usually (176)

It seems that the increased number of scientific workers, their being split up into groups whose studies are limited to a small subject, and over-specialization have brought about a shrinking of intelligence. There is no doubt that the quality of any human group decreases when the number of the individuals composing this group increases beyond certain limits… The best way to increase the intelligence of scientists would be to decrease their number.
Man the Unknown (1935), 48-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Certain (557)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Human (1512)  |  Increase (225)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Number (710)  |  Quality (139)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Small (489)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Subject (543)  |  Way (1214)

It seems to me that you are solving a problem which goes beyond the limits of physiology in too simple a way. Physiology has realized its problem with fortitude, breaking man down into endless actions and counteractions and reducing him to a crossing, a vortex of reflex acts. Let it now permit sociology to restore him as a whole. Sociology will wrest man from the anatomical theatre and return him to history.
Letter to his son, Alexander, July-Aug 1868. Trans. Roger Smith, Inhibition: History and Meaning in the Sciences of Mind and Brain (1992), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Down (455)  |  Endless (60)  |  History (716)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Permit (61)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reflex (14)  |  Return (133)  |  Simple (426)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Vortex (10)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

It seems to me, that the only Objects of the abstract Sciences or of Demonstration is Quantity and Number, and that all Attempts to extend this more perfect Species of Knowledge beyond these Bounds are mere Sophistry and Illusion.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), 252.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Bound (120)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Extend (129)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Sophistry (3)  |  Species (435)

It will be possible in a few more years to build radio controlled rockets which can be steered into such orbits beyond the limits of the atmosphere and left to broadcast scientific information back to the Earth. A little later, manned rockets will be able to make similar flights with sufficient excess power to break the orbit and return to Earth. (1945) [Predicting communications satellites.]
In 'Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Coverage?', Wireless World (Oct 1945). Quoted and cited in Arthur C. Clarke, Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!: Collected Essays, 1934-1998, 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Back (395)  |  Break (109)  |  Broadcast (2)  |  Build (211)  |  Communication (101)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Excess (23)  |  Flight (101)  |  Information (173)  |  Limit (294)  |  Little (717)  |  More (2558)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Radio (60)  |  Return (133)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Satellite (30)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

It’s beyond imagination until you actually get up and see it and experience it and feel it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Experience (494)  |  Feel (371)  |  Get Up (5)  |  Imagination (349)  |  See (1094)

It’s that moment, that brief epiphany when the universe opens up and shows us something, and in that instant we get just a sense of an order greater than Heaven and, as yet at least, beyond the grasp of Stephen Hawking.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 109
Science quotes on:  |  Brief (37)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Stephen W. Hawking (62)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Instant (46)  |  Least (75)  |  Moment (260)  |  Open (277)  |  Order (638)  |  Sense (785)  |  Show (353)  |  Something (718)  |  Universe (900)

John Dalton was a very singular Man, a quaker by profession & practice: He has none of the manners or ways of the world. A tolerable mathematician He gained his livelihood I believe by teaching the mathematics to young people. He pursued science always with mathematical views. He seemed little attentive to the labours of men except when they countenanced or confirmed his own ideas... He was a very disinterested man, seemed to have no ambition beyond that of being thought a good Philosopher. He was a very coarse Experimenter & almost always found the results he required.—Memory & observation were subordinate qualities in his mind. He followed with ardour analogies & inductions & however his claims to originality may admit of question I have no doubt that he was one of the most original philosophers of his time & one of the most ingenious.
J. Z. Fullmer, 'Davy's Sketches of his Contemporaries', Chymia, 1967, 12, 133-134.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambition (46)  |  Attentive (15)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biography (254)  |  Claim (154)  |  Confirm (58)  |  John Dalton (25)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Follow (389)  |  Gain (146)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Induction (81)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Labor (200)  |  Little (717)  |  Livelihood (13)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Observation (593)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Practice (212)  |  Profession (108)  |  Question (649)  |  Required (108)  |  Result (700)  |  Singular (24)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)  |  Young (253)

Knowledge once gained casts a faint light beyond its own immediate boundaries. There is no discovery so limited as not to illuminate something beyond itself.
In 'On the Methods and Tendencies of Physical Investigation', Scientific Addresses (1870), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Boundary (55)  |  Cast (69)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Faint (10)  |  Gain (146)  |  Illumination (15)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Itself (7)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Something (718)

Let him look at that dazzling light hung aloft as an eternal lamp to lighten the universe; let him behold the earth, a mere dot compared with the vast circuit which that orb describes, and stand amazed to find that the vast circuit itself is but a very fine point compared with the orbit traced by the stars as they roll their course on high. But if our vision halts there, let imagination pass beyond; it will fail to form a conception long before Nature fails to supply material. The whole visible world is but an imperceptible speck in the ample bosom of Nature. No notion comes near it. Though we may extend our thought beyond imaginable space, yet compared with reality we bring to birth mere atoms. Nature is an infinite sphere whereof the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. In short, imagination is brought to silence at the thought, and that is the most perceptible sign of the all-power of God.
Let man reawake and consider what he is compared with the reality of things; regard himself lost in this remote corner of Nature; and from the tiny cell where he lodges, to wit the Universe, weigh at their true worth earth, kingdoms, towns, himself. What is a man face to face with infinity?
Pensées (1670), Section 1, aphorism 43. In H. F. Stewart (ed.), Pascal’s Pensées (1950), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Aloft (5)  |  Amazement (19)  |  Ample (4)  |  Atom (381)  |  Behold (19)  |  Birth (154)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Cell (146)  |  Centre (31)  |  Circuit (29)  |  Circumference (23)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Corner (59)  |  Course (413)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Describe (132)  |  Dot (18)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Extend (129)  |  Face (214)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Halt (10)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imperceptibility (2)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Light (635)  |  Lodge (3)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Lost (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Orb (20)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perception (97)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Reality (274)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remote (86)  |  Roll (41)  |  Short (200)  |  Sign (63)  |  Silence (62)  |  Space (523)  |  Speck (25)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Stand (284)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Supply (100)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Town (30)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Visibility (6)  |  Visible (87)  |  Vision (127)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wit (61)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

Life is not the object of Science: we see a little, very little; And what is beyond we can only conjecture.
In Samuel Johnson and William P. Page (ed.), 'Causes Which Produce Diversity of Opinion', The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson (1840), Vol. 2, 244.
Science quotes on:  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Object (438)  |  See (1094)

Look round the world, contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance-of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence.
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), 47-48.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Curious (95)  |  Degree (277)  |  Design (203)  |  End (603)  |  Explain (334)  |  Find (1014)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Look (584)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Minute (129)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Production (190)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Sense (785)  |  Thought (995)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Trace (109)  |  Various (205)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  World (1850)

Look somewhere else for someone who can follow you in your researches about numbers. For my part, I confess that they are far beyond me, and I am competent only to admire them.
In Letter (27 Oct 1654), the third from Pascal to Fermat. As translated in George F. Simmons, Calculus Gems: Brief Lives and Memorable Mathematics (2007), 103. From the original French, “Cherchez ailleurs qui vous suive dans vos inventions numériques,… pour moi je vous confesse que cela me passé de bien loin: je ne fuis capable que de les admirer,” in Francis Maseres,Scriptores Logarithmici: Or, a Collection of Several Curious Tracts on the Nature and Construction of Logarithms (1801), Vol. 4, 495.
Science quotes on:  |  Admire (19)  |  Competent (20)  |  Confess (42)  |  Follow (389)  |  Look (584)  |  Number (710)  |  Research (753)

Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye. He must look through and beyond her, to look at her is fatal as to look at the head of Medusa. It turns the man of science to stone. I feel that I am dissipated by so many observations. I should be the magnet in the midst of all this dust and filings.
From Journal entry (23 Mar 1953), in Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), Journal (1906), Vol. 5, 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Afford (19)  |  Directly (25)  |  Dust (68)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feel (371)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Only (2)  |  Side (236)  |  Stone (168)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)

Man has mounted science, and is now run away with. I firmly believe that before many centuries more, science will be the master of men. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Someday science may have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race commit suicide, by blowing up the world. Not only shall we be able to cruise in space, but I’ll be hanged if I see any reason why some future generation shouldn’t walk off like a beetle with the world on its back, or give it another rotary motion so that every zone should receive in turn its due portion of heat and light.
Letter to his brother, Charles Francis Adams Jr., London, (11 Apr 1862). In J. C. Levenson, E. Samuels, C. Vandersee and V. Hopkins Winner (eds.), The Letters of Henry Adams: 1858-1868 (1982), Vol. 1, 290.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Beetle (19)  |  Blowing (22)  |  Commit (43)  |  Control (182)  |  Due (143)  |  Engine (99)  |  Existence (481)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Hang (46)  |  Heat (180)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Master (182)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mount (43)  |  Portion (86)  |  Power (771)  |  Race (278)  |  Reason (766)  |  Receive (117)  |  Run (158)  |  See (1094)  |  Someday (15)  |  Space (523)  |  Strength (139)  |  Suicide (23)  |  Turn (454)  |  Walk (138)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Man is uncanny, yet nothing
uncannier than man bestirs itself, rising up beyond him.
Sophocles
First line of a choral ode in Antigone, line 332, as translated from a French translation. One of several variations given in Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 3, (2010), 237.
Science quotes on:  |  Man (2252)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Stir (23)  |  Uncanny (5)

Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or thought of the course of nature; beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 1. As translated from the original Latin, “Homo enim naturae minister et interpres tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturae ordine, opere vel mente, observaverit: nec amplius scit, aut potest.” in The New Organon: Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man), collected in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 4, 47. Also seen translated as “Man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, is limited in act and understanding by his observation of the order of nature; neither his understanding nor his power extends farther,” in Robert Routledge, Discoveries and Inventions of the 19th Century (1891), 697.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Servant (40)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understand (648)

Man, the cutting edge of terrestrial life, has no rational alternative but to expand the environmental and resource base beyond earth.
On the 'extraterrestrial imperative,' recalled on his death 11 Dec 84
Science quotes on:  |  Alternative (32)  |  Base (120)  |  Cut (116)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Edge (51)  |  Expand (56)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Rational (95)  |  Resource (74)  |  Terrestrial (62)

Mankind will not remain on Earth forever, but in its quest for light and space will at first timidly penetrate beyond the confines of the atmosphere, and later will conquer for itself all the space near the Sun.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Confine (26)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Earth (1076)  |  First (1302)  |  Forever (111)  |  Late (119)  |  Light (635)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Quest (39)  |  Remain (355)  |  Space (523)  |  Sun (407)  |  Timid (6)  |  Will (2350)

Mathematics is often erroneously referred to as the science of common sense. Actually, it may transcend common sense and go beyond either imagination or intuition. It has become a very strange and perhaps frightening subject from the ordinary point of view, but anyone who penetrates into it will find a veritable fairyland, a fairyland which is strange, but makes sense, if not common sense.
With co-author James R. Newman, in Mathematics and the Imagination (1940), 359.
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Become (821)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Find (1014)  |  Frightening (3)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Refer (14)  |  Sense (785)  |  Strange (160)  |  Subject (543)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Veritable (5)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

Mathematics, from the earliest times to which the history of human reason can reach, has followed, among that wonderful people of the Greeks, the safe way of science. But it must not be supposed that it was as easy for mathematics as for logic, in which reason is concerned with itself alone, to find, or rather to make for itself that royal road. I believe, on the contrary, that there was a long period of tentative work (chiefly still among the Egyptians), and that the change is to be ascribed to a revolution, produced by the happy thought of a single man, whose experiments pointed unmistakably to the path that had to be followed, and opened and traced out for the most distant times the safe way of a science. The history of that intellectual revolution, which was far more important than the passage round the celebrated Cape of Good Hope, and the name of its fortunate author, have not been preserved to us. … A new light flashed on the first man who demonstrated the properties of the isosceles triangle (whether his name was Thales or any other name), for he found that he had not to investigate what he saw in the figure, or the mere concepts of that figure, and thus to learn its properties; but that he had to produce (by construction) what he had himself, according to concepts a priori, placed into that figure and represented in it, so that, in order to know anything with certainty a priori, he must not attribute to that figure anything beyond what necessarily follows from what he has himself placed into it, in accordance with the concept.
In Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the Second Edition, (1900), 690.
Science quotes on:  |  A Priori (26)  |  Accord (36)  |  Accordance (10)  |  According (236)  |  Alone (324)  |  Ascribe (18)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Author (175)  |  Belief (615)  |  Celebrate (21)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Change (639)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Concept (242)  |  Concern (239)  |  Construction (114)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Distant (33)  |  Early (196)  |  Easy (213)  |  Egyptian (5)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Far (158)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Flash (49)  |  Follow (389)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  From The Earliest Times (2)  |  Good (906)  |  Greek (109)  |  Happy (108)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Important (229)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Intellectual Revolution (4)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Isosceles Triangle (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Light (635)  |  Logic (311)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mere (86)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Path (159)  |  People (1031)  |  Period (200)  |  Place (192)  |  Point (584)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Property (177)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Represent (157)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Round (26)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Road (4)  |  Safe (61)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Single (365)  |  Still (614)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tentative (18)  |  Thales (9)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Triangle (20)  |  Unmistakably (2)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Work (1402)

Matter, though divisible in an extreme degree, is nevertheless not infinitely divisible. That is, there must be some point beyond which we cannot go in the division of matter. ... I have chosen the word “atom” to signify these ultimate particles.
Dalton's Manuscript Notes, Royal Institution Lecture 18 (30 Jan 1810). In Ida Freund, The Study of Chemical Composition: An Account of its Method and Historical Development (1910), 288.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Definition (238)  |  Degree (277)  |  Division (67)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Particle (200)  |  Point (584)  |  Signify (17)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Word (650)

Men always fool themselves when they give up experience for systems born of the imagination. Man is the work of nature, he exists in nature, he is subject to its laws, he can not break free, he can not leave even in thought; it is in vain that his spirit wants to soar beyond the bounds of the visible world, he is always forced to return.
Opening statement of first chapter of Système de la Nature (1770), Vol. 1, 1. Translation by Webmaster using Google Translate. From the original French, “Les hommes se tromperont toujours, quand ils abandonneront l'expérience pour des systèmes enfantés par l’imagination. L’homme est l’ouvrage de la nature, il existe dans la nature, il est soumis à ses lois, il ne peut s’en affranchir, il ne peut même par la pensée en sortir; c’est en vain que son esprit veut s’élancer au delà des bornes du monde visible, il est toujours forcé d’y rentrer.” In the English edition (1820-21), Samuel Wilkinson gives this as “Man has always deceived himself when he abandoned experience to follow imaginary systems.—He is the work of nature.—He exists in Nature.—He is submitted to the laws of Nature.—He cannot deliver himself from them:—cannot step beyond them even in thought. It is in vain his mind would spring forward beyond the visible world: direful and imperious necessity ever compels his return.”
Science quotes on:  |  Bound (120)  |  Break (109)  |  Escape (85)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fool (121)  |  Free (239)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Return (133)  |  Soar (23)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Subject (543)  |  Submit (21)  |  System (545)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Vain (86)  |  Visible (87)  |  Want (504)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Men are weak now, and yet they transform the Earth’s surface. In millions of years their might will increase to the extent that they will change the surface of the Earth, its oceans, the atmosphere, and themselves. They will control the climate and the Solar System just as they control the Earth. They will travel beyond the limits of our planetary system; they will reach other Suns, and use their fresh energy instead of the energy of their dying luminary.
In Plan of Space Exploration (1926). Quote as translated in Vitaliĭ Ivanovich Sevastʹi︠a︡nov, Arkadiĭ Dmitrievich Ursul, I︠U︡riĭ Andreevich Shkolenko, The Universe and Civilisation (1981), 104.
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Control (182)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Increase (225)  |  Limit (294)  |  Luminary (4)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Reach (286)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  System (545)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Transform (74)  |  Travel (125)  |  Use (771)  |  Weak (73)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Modern chemistry, with its far-reaching generalizations and hypotheses, is a fine example of how far the human mind can go in exploring the unknown beyond the limits of human senses.
In 'Introduction', General Chemistry: An Elementary Survey Emphasizing Industrial Applications of Fundamental Principles (1923), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Example (98)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Far (158)  |  Far-Reaching (9)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Sense (785)  |  Unknown (195)

Money. It has such an inherent power to run itself clear of taint that human ingenuity cannot devise the means of making it work permanent mischief, any more than means can be found of torturing people beyond what they can bear. Even if a man founds a College of Technical Instruction, the chances are ten to one that no one will be taught anything and that it will have been practically left to a number of excellent professors who will know very well what to do with it.
Samuel Butler, Henry Festing Jones (ed.), The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1917), 221.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Chance (244)  |  Clear (111)  |  College (71)  |  Devise (16)  |  Do (1905)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Found (11)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mischief (13)  |  Money (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Power (771)  |  Professor (133)  |  Run (158)  |  Taint (10)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Technical (53)  |  Torture (30)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Much of his [Clifford’s] best work was actually spoken before it was written. He gave most of his public lectures with no visible preparation beyond very short notes, and the outline seemed to be filled in without effort or hesitation. Afterwards he would revise the lecture from a shorthand writer’s report, or sometimes write down from memory almost exactly what he had said. It fell out now and then, however, that neither of these things was done; in such cases there is now no record of the lecture at all.
In Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock (eds.), Lectures and Essays by William Kingdon Clifford(1879), Vol. 1, Introduction, 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  William Kingdon Clifford (23)  |  Down (455)  |  Effort (243)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Memory (144)  |  Most (1728)  |  Note (39)  |  Outline (13)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Record (161)  |  Revise (6)  |  Short (200)  |  Shorthand (5)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Visible (87)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)  |  Writer (90)

My first view - a panorama of brilliant deep blue ocean, shot with shades of green and gray and white - was of atolls and clouds. Close to the window I could see that this Pacific scene in motion was rimmed by the great curved limb of the Earth. It had a thin halo of blue held close, and beyond, black space. I held my breath, but something was missing - I felt strangely unfulfilled. Here was a tremendous visual spectacle, but viewed in silence. There was no grand musical accompaniment; no triumphant, inspired sonata or symphony. Each one of us must write the music of this sphere for ourselves.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Black (46)  |  Blue (63)  |  Breath (61)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Close (77)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Curve (49)  |  Deep (241)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Grand (29)  |  Gray (9)  |  Great (1610)  |  Green (65)  |  Halo (7)  |  Hold (96)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Limb (9)  |  Miss (51)  |  Missing (21)  |  Motion (320)  |  Music (133)  |  Musical (10)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Pacific (4)  |  Panorama (5)  |  Rim (5)  |  Scene (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Shade (35)  |  Shoot (21)  |  Silence (62)  |  Something (718)  |  Sonata (2)  |  Space (523)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Strangely (5)  |  Symphony (10)  |  Thin (18)  |  Tremendous (29)  |  Triumphant (10)  |  Unfulfilled (3)  |  View (496)  |  Visual (16)  |  White (132)  |  Window (59)  |  Write (250)

Nature is beyond all teaching.
No. 3505 in Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs, Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings (1732), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Nature (2017)  |  Teaching (190)

Nature, everywhere the most amazingly and outstandingly remarkable producer of living bodies, being most carefully arranged according to physical, mechanical, and chemical laws, does not give even the smallest hint of its extraordinary and tireless workings and quite clearly points to its work as being alone worthy of a benign and omnipotent God; and it carries this bright quality in all of its traces, in that, just as all of its general mechanisms rejoice, so also do all of their various smallest component parts rejoice in the depth of wisdom, in the height of perfection, and in the lofty arrangement of forms and qualities, which lie far beyond every investigation of the human mind.
'Inaugural Physico-Medical Dissertation on the Blood and the Circulation of the Microcosm' (1749). Trans. Arthur Donovan and Joseph Prentiss, James Hutton's Medical Dissertation (1980), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Alone (324)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Bright (81)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Component (51)  |  Depth (97)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  God (776)  |  Hint (21)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Law (913)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Omnipotent (13)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Physical (518)  |  Point (584)  |  Quality (139)  |  Tireless (5)  |  Trace (109)  |  Various (205)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)

Nearly anyone in this line of work would take a bullet for the last pregnant dodo. But should we not admire the person who, when faced with an overwhelmingly sad reality beyond and personal blame or control, strives valiantly to rescue what ever can be salvaged, rather than retreating to the nearest corner to weep or assign fault?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admire (19)  |  Anyone (38)  |  Assign (15)  |  Blame (31)  |  Bullet (6)  |  Control (182)  |  Corner (59)  |  Dodo (7)  |  Face (214)  |  Fault (58)  |  Last (425)  |  Line (100)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Overwhelmingly (3)  |  Person (366)  |  Personal (75)  |  Pregnant (4)  |  Reality (274)  |  Rescue (14)  |  Retreat (13)  |  Sadness (36)  |  Salvage (2)  |  Strive (53)  |  Valiantly (2)  |  Weep (5)  |  Work (1402)

No generalizing beyond the data, no theory. No theory, no insight. And if no insight, why do research.
'Developing Theory About the Development of Theory,' in Ken G. Smith and Michael A. Hitt, Great Minds in Management: the Theory of Process Development (2005), 361.
Science quotes on:  |  Data (162)  |  Do (1905)  |  Generalize (19)  |  Insight (107)  |  Research (753)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Why (491)

No Man’s Knowledge here, can go beyond his Experience.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book 2, Chapter 1, Section 19, 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Experience (494)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)

No one wants to learn by mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art
To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design (1992), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Enough (341)  |  Error (339)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mistake (180)  |  State (505)  |  Success (327)  |  Want (504)

No scientist is admired for failing in the attempt to solve problems that lie beyond his competence. … Good scientists study the most important problems they think they can solve. It is, after all, their professional business to solve problems, not merely to grapple with them.
The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and Originality in Science (1967), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Business (156)  |  Competence (13)  |  Failure (176)  |  Good (906)  |  Grapple (11)  |  Grappling (2)  |  Importance (299)  |  Lie (370)  |  Merely (315)  |  Most (1728)  |  Problem (731)  |  Professional (77)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Study (701)  |  Think (1122)

No species … possesses a purpose beyond the imperatives created by genetic history … The human mind is a device for survival and reproduction, and reason is just one of its various techniques.
'Dilemma'. On Human Nature (1978, 1979), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Device (71)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Imperative (16)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Species (435)  |  Survival (105)  |  Technique (84)  |  Various (205)

Not greatly moved with awe am I
To learn that we may spy
Five thousand firmaments beyond our own.
The best that's known
Of the heavenly bodies does them credit small.
View'd close, the Moon's fair ball
Is of ill objects worst,
A corpse in Night's highway, naked, fire-scarr'd, accurst;
And now they tell
That the Sun is plainly seen to boil and burst
Too horribly for hell.
So, judging from these two,
As we must do,
The Universe, outside our living Earth,
Was all conceiv'd in the Creator's mirth,
Forecasting at the time Man's spirit deep,
To make dirt cheap.
Put by the Telescope!
Better without it man may see,
Stretch'd awful in the hush'd midnight,
The ghost of his eternity.
'The Two Deserts' (1880-85). Poems, Introduction Basil Champneys (1906), 302.
Science quotes on:  |  Awe (43)  |  Ball (64)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Boil (24)  |  Burst (41)  |  Cheap (13)  |  Conception (160)  |  Corpse (7)  |  Creator (97)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dirt (17)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Fire (203)  |  Firmament (18)  |  Forecast (15)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Hell (32)  |  Highway (15)  |  Horrible (10)  |  Judge (114)  |  Known (453)  |  Learn (672)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Midnight (12)  |  Moon (252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Naked (10)  |  Night (133)  |  Object (438)  |  Outside (141)  |  Poem (104)  |  Scar (8)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spy (9)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Sun (407)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Worst (57)

Nothing is there beyond hope
Nothing that can be sworn impossible
Nothing wonderful, since Zeus,
Father of the Olympians
Made night from mid-day
Hiding the bright sunlight
And sore fear came upon men.
[Perhaps written having seen the eclipse of 6 Apr 648 BC.]
Quoted in B S Shylaja, Eclipse (1999), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Bright (81)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Father (113)  |  Fear (212)  |  Hiding (12)  |  Hope (321)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Night (133)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Zeus (6)

Now Freud may be right or he may be wrong in the place he gives to biology in human fate, but I think we must stop to consider whether this emphasis on biology, whether correct or incorrect, is not so far from being a reactionary idea that it is actually a liberating idea. It proposes to us that culture is not all-powerful. It suggests that there is a residue of human quality beyond the reach of cultural control, and that this residue of human quality, elemental as it may be, serves to bring culture itself under criticism and keeps it from being absolute.
In Freud and the Crisis of our Culture (1955), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  All-Powerful (2)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biology (232)  |  Consider (428)  |  Control (182)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Culture (157)  |  Fate (76)  |  Sigmund Freud (70)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Incorrect (6)  |  Must (1525)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Propose (24)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reactionary (3)  |  Residue (9)  |  Right (473)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wrong (246)

October 9, 1863
Always, however great the height of the balloon, when I have seen the horizon it has roughly appeared to be on the level of the car though of course the dip of the horizon is a very appreciable quantity or the same height as the eye. From this one might infer that, could the earth be seen without a cloud or anything to obscure it, and the boundary line of the plane approximately the same height as the eye, the general appearance would be that of a slight concavity; but I have never seen any part of the surface of the earth other than as a plane.
Towns and cities, when viewed from the balloon are like models in motion. I shall always remember the ascent of 9th October, 1863, when we passed over London about sunset. At the time when we were 7,000 feet high, and directly over London Bridge, the scene around was one that cannot probably be equalled in the world. We were still so low as not to have lost sight of the details of the spectacle which presented itself to our eyes; and with one glance the homes of 3,000,000 people could be seen, and so distinct was the view, that every large building was easily distinguishable. In fact, the whole of London was visible, and some parts most clearly. All round, the suburbs were also very distinct, with their lines of detached villas, imbedded as it were in a mass of shrubs; beyond, the country was like a garden, its fields, well marked, becoming smaller and smaller as the eye wandered farther and farther away.
Again looking down, there was the Thames, throughout its whole length, without the slightest mist, dotted over its winding course with innumerable ships and steamboats, like moving toys. Gravesend was visible, also the mouth of the Thames, and the coast around as far as Norfolk. The southern shore of the mouth of the Thames was not so clear, but the sea beyond was seen for many miles; when at a higher elevation, I looked for the coast of France, but was unable to see it. On looking round, the eye was arrested by the garden-like appearance of the county of Kent, till again London claimed yet more careful attention.
Smoke, thin and blue, was curling from it, and slowly moving away in beautiful curves, from all except one part, south of the Thames, where it was less blue and seemed more dense, till the cause became evident; it was mixed with mist rising from the ground, the southern limit of which was bounded by an even line, doubtless indicating the meeting of the subsoils of gravel and clay. The whole scene was surmounted by a canopy of blue, everywhere free from cloud, except near the horizon, where a band of cumulus and stratus extended all round, forming a fitting boundary to such a glorious view.
As seen from the earth, the sunset this evening was described as fine, the air being clear and the shadows well defined; but, as we rose to view it and its effects, the golden hues increased in intensity; their richness decreased as the distance from the sun increased, both right and left; but still as far as 90º from the sun, rose-coloured clouds extended. The remainder of the circle was completed, for the most part, by pure white cumulus of well-rounded and symmetrical forms.
I have seen London by night. I have crossed it during the day at the height of four miles. I have often admired the splendour of sky scenery, but never have I seen anything which surpassed this spectacle. The roar of the town heard at this elevation was a deep, rich, continuous sound the voice of labour. At four miles above London, all was hushed; no sound reached our ears.
Travels in the Air (1871), 99-100.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attention (196)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Bound (120)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Building (158)  |  Canopy (8)  |  Car (75)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circle (117)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Completed (30)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Country (269)  |  Course (413)  |  Curve (49)  |  Deep (241)  |  Detail (150)  |  Distance (171)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evident (92)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Farther (51)  |  Field (378)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Free (239)  |  Garden (64)  |  General (521)  |  Glance (36)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Golden (47)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  High (370)  |  Home (184)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Limit (294)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Low (86)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mist (17)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  People (1031)  |  Present (630)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remainder (7)  |  Remember (189)  |  Right (473)  |  Rising (44)  |  Rose (36)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Ship (69)  |  Shrub (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Sound (187)  |  South (39)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Still (614)  |  Suburb (7)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Thames (6)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toy (22)  |  View (496)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wander (44)  |  White (132)  |  Whole (756)  |  Winding (8)  |  World (1850)

Of all regions of the earth none invites speculation more than that which lies beneath our feet, and in none is speculation more dangerous; yet, apart from speculation, it is little that we can say regarding the constitution of the interior of the earth. We know, with sufficient accuracy for most purposes, its size and shape: we know that its mean density is about 5½ times that of water, that the density must increase towards the centre, and that the temperature must be high, but beyond these facts little can be said to be known. Many theories of the earth have been propounded at different times: the central substance of the earth has been supposed to be fiery, fluid, solid, and gaseous in turn, till geologists have turned in despair from the subject, and become inclined to confine their attention to the outermost crust of the earth, leaving its centre as a playground for mathematicians.
'The Constitution of the Interior of the Earth, as Revealed by Earthquakes', Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society (1906), 62, 456.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Attention (196)  |  Become (821)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Central (81)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Crust (43)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Density (25)  |  Despair (40)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Geologist (82)  |  High (370)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Increase (225)  |  Interior (35)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Lie (370)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Playground (6)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Say (989)  |  Solid (119)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Water (503)

Official science is fully committed to the principle of muddling through and not looking beyond the tip of your nose. All past experience, it is said, teaches us to take only one step at a time.
From transcript of BBC radio Reith Lecture (12 Nov 1967), 'A Runaway World', on the bbc.co.uk website.
Science quotes on:  |  Commit (43)  |  Experience (494)  |  Looking (191)  |  Muddle (3)  |  Nose (14)  |  Official (8)  |  Past (355)  |  Principle (530)  |  Step (234)  |  Teach (299)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tip (2)

On 17th July there came to us at Potsdam the eagerly-awaited news of the trial of the atomic bomb in the [New] Mexican desert. Success beyond all dreams crowded this sombre, magnificent venture of our American allies. The detailed reports ... could leave no doubt in the minds of the very few who were informed, that we were in the presence of a new factor in human affairs, and possessed of powers which were irresistible.
From Churchill's final review of the war and his first major speech as Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons (16 Aug 1945). In Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963 (1974), Vol. 1, 7210.
Science quotes on:  |  Affair (29)  |  Ally (7)  |  American (56)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Desert (59)  |  Detail (150)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dream (222)  |  Factor (47)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inform (50)  |  Information (173)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Los Alamos (6)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possession (68)  |  Power (771)  |  Presence (63)  |  Report (42)  |  Sombre (2)  |  Success (327)  |  Test (221)  |  Trial (59)  |  Trinity (9)  |  Venture (19)

Once we have judged a thing a work of art, we have judged it ethically of the first importance and put it beyond the reach of the moralist.
In Art (1913), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Ethically (4)  |  First (1302)  |  Importance (299)  |  Judge (114)  |  Moralist (2)  |  Reach (286)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Work (1402)

One of the main causes of our artistic decline lies beyond doubt in the separation of art and science.
In Marco Treves, Artists on art, from the XIV to the XX century (1945), 437.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Artistic (24)  |  Cause (561)  |  Decline (28)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Lie (370)  |  Separation (60)

One-story intellects, two-story intellects, three-story intellects with skylights. All fact-collectors, who have no aim beyond their facts, are one-story men. Two-story men compare, reason, generalize, using the labors of the fact-collectors as well as their own. Three-story men idealize, imagine, predict; their best illumination comes from above, through the skylight. There are minds with large ground-floors, that can store an infinite amount of knowledge; some librarians, for instance, who know enough of books to help other people, without being able to make much other use of their knowledge, have intellects of this class. Your great working lawyer has two spacious stories; his mind is clear, because his mental floors are large, and he has room to arrange his thoughts so that lie can get at them,—facts below, principles above, and all in ordered series; poets are often narrow below, incapable of clear statement, and with small power of consecutive reasoning, but full of light, if sometimes rather bare of furniture, in the attics.
The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1883), 50.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Amount (153)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Bare (33)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Book (413)  |  Class (168)  |  Collector (8)  |  Compare (76)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Furniture (8)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Generalize (19)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Idealization (3)  |  Illumination (15)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Librarian (2)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Poet (97)  |  Power (771)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Series (153)  |  Small (489)  |  Statement (148)  |  Store (49)  |  Story (122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)

Only rarely do we see beyond the needs of humanity. … Now that we are over six billion hungry and greedy individuals, all aspiring to a first-world lifestyle, our urban way of life encroaches upon the domain of the living Earth. We are taking so much that it is no longer able to sustain the familiar and comfortable world we have taken for granted. Now it is changing, according to its own internal rules, to a state where we are no longer welcome.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 9. The first sentence is a concept acknowledged to John Gray, Straw Dogs (2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  Aspire (15)  |  Billion (104)  |  Change (639)  |  Comfortable (13)  |  Domain (72)  |  Encroach (2)  |  Environmentalism (9)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Greed (17)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Hungry (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Internal (69)  |  Lifestyle (2)  |  Living Earth (5)  |  Need (320)  |  Rare (94)  |  Rule (307)  |  State (505)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Urban (12)  |  Way Of Life (15)  |  Welcome (20)  |  World (1850)

Our methods of communication with our fellow men take many forms. We share with other animals the ability to transmit information by such diverse means as the posture of our bodies, by the movements of our eyes, head, arms, and hands, and by our utterances of non-specific sounds. But we go far beyond any other species on earth in that we have evolved sophisticated forms of pictorial representation, elaborate spoken and written languages, ingenious methods of recording music and language on discs, on magnetic tape and in a variety of other kinds of code.
As quoted in epigraph before title page in John Wolfenden, Hermann Bondi, et al., The Languages of Science: A Survey of Techniques of Communication (1963), i.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Code (31)  |  Communication (101)  |  Diverse (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Form (976)  |  Hand (149)  |  Head (87)  |  Information (173)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Movement (162)  |  Music (133)  |  Other (2233)  |  Picture (148)  |  Posture (7)  |  Record (161)  |  Recording (13)  |  Representation (55)  |  Share (82)  |  Sophisticated (16)  |  Sound (187)  |  Species (435)  |  Specific (98)  |  Spoken (3)  |  Tape (5)  |  Utterance (11)  |  Variety (138)  |  Written (6)

People say Richard Feynman had one of these extraordinary minds that could grapple with ideas of which I have no concept. And you hear all the ancillary bits—like he was a good bongo player—that make him human. So I admire this man who could not only deal with string theory but also play the bongos. But he is beyond me. I have no idea what he was talking of.
From 'Interview: Of Mind and Matter: David Attenborough Meets Richard Dawkins', The Guardian (11 Sep 2010). When asked, “Which living scientist do you most admire, and why?”, Attenborough first replied, “I don’t know.” He continued with the quote above. [String theory pioneer John H. Schwarz of Caltech, in a 2018 interview said that Feynman, who died in 1988, was also at Caltech at the time of the 1984 to 1985 breakthroughs in understanding superstring theory; but Feynman held a “skepticism of superstring theory … based mostly on the concern that it could not be tested experimentally.”]
Science quotes on:  |  Admire (19)  |  Concept (242)  |  Deal (192)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Richard P. Feynman (125)  |  Grapple (11)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Play (116)  |  String Theory (14)  |  Talk (108)

Perhaps a species that has accumulated … tons of explosive per capita has already demonstrated its biological unfitness beyond any further question.
In 'Prelude to Star Wars', Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography (1989), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Already (226)  |  Biological (137)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Far (158)  |  Question (649)  |  Species (435)  |  Ton (25)

Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard, you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants?
In An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Anger (21)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Belief (615)  |  Difference (355)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Examination (102)  |  Find (1014)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Persecution (14)  |  Theology (54)  |  Warrant (8)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)

Piecemeal social engineering resembles physical engineering in regarding the ends as beyond the province of technology. (All that technology may say about ends is whether or not they are compatible with each other or realizable.)
In The Poverty of Historicism (1960), 64.
Science quotes on:  |  Compatibility (4)  |  End (603)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Piecemeal (3)  |  Province (37)  |  Realizable (2)  |  Regarding (4)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Say (989)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Engineering (2)  |  Technology (281)

Publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record.
From article 'As We May Think', in Atlantic Magazine (Jul 1945). Bush was expressing concern that the vastly increasing body of research information and knowledge needed mechanical systems to store and effectively manage its retrieval.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Extend (129)  |  Far (158)  |  Present (630)  |  Publication (102)  |  Real (159)  |  Record (161)  |  Use (771)

Quite distinct from the theoretical question of the manner in which mathematics will rescue itself from the perils to which it is exposed by its own prolific nature is the practical problem of finding means of rendering available for the student the results which have been already accumulated, and making it possible for the learner to obtain some idea of the present state of the various departments of mathematics. … The great mass of mathematical literature will be always contained in Journals and Transactions, but there is no reason why it should not be rendered far more useful and accessible than at present by means of treatises or higher text-books. The whole science suffers from want of avenues of approach, and many beautiful branches of mathematics are regarded as difficult and technical merely because they are not easily accessible. … I feel very strongly that any introduction to a new subject written by a competent person confers a real benefit on the whole science. The number of excellent text-books of an elementary kind that are published in this country makes it all the more to be regretted that we have so few that are intended for the advanced student. As an example of the higher kind of text-book, the want of which is so badly felt in many subjects, I may mention the second part of Prof. Chrystal’s Algebra published last year, which in a small compass gives a great mass of valuable and fundamental knowledge that has hitherto been beyond the reach of an ordinary student, though in reality lying so close at hand. I may add that in any treatise or higher text-book it is always desirable that references to the original memoirs should be given, and, if possible, short historic notices also. I am sure that no subject loses more than mathematics by any attempt to dissociate it from its history.
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Section A (1890), Nature, 42, 466.
Science quotes on:  |  Accessible (27)  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Add (42)  |  Advance (298)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Already (226)  |  Approach (112)  |  At Hand (7)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Available (80)  |  Avenue (14)  |  Badly (32)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Book (413)  |  Branch (155)  |  George Chrystal (8)  |  Close (77)  |  Compass (37)  |  Competent (20)  |  Confer (11)  |  Contain (68)  |  Country (269)  |  Department (93)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dissociate (2)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Easily (36)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Example (98)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Expose (28)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Far (158)  |  Feel (371)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Give (208)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Historic (7)  |  History (716)  |  Hitherto (6)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intend (18)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Journal (31)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Learner (10)  |  Lie (370)  |  Literature (116)  |  Lose (165)  |  Lying (55)  |  Making (300)  |  Manner (62)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Memoir (13)  |  Mention (84)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Notice (81)  |  Number (710)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Original (61)  |  Part (235)  |  Peril (9)  |  Person (366)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practical (225)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Prof (2)  |  Prolific (5)  |  Publish (42)  |  Question (649)  |  Reach (286)  |  Real (159)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reference (33)  |  Regard (312)  |  Regret (31)  |  Render (96)  |  Rescue (14)  |  Result (700)  |  Second (66)  |  Short (200)  |  Small (489)  |  State (505)  |  Strongly (9)  |  Student (317)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Technical (53)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Transaction (13)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value (393)  |  Various (205)  |  Want (504)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Write (250)  |  Year (963)

Random search for data on ... off-chance is hardly scientific. A questionnaire on 'Intellectual Immoralities' was circulated by a well-known institution. 'Intellectual Immorality No. 4' read: 'Generalizing beyond one's data'. [Wilder Dwight] Bancroft asked whether it would not be more correct to word question no. 4 'Not generalizing beyond one's data.'
From Dream to Discovery: On Being a Scientist (1964), 279. In Henry Mintzberg, essay, 'Developing Theory About the Development of Theory,' in Ken G. Smith and Michael A. Hitt, Great Minds in Management: the Theory of Process Development (2005), 361.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Wilder Dwight Bancroft (6)  |  Chance (244)  |  Data (162)  |  Generalize (19)  |  Immorality (7)  |  Institution (73)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Known (453)  |  More (2558)  |  Question (649)  |  Questionnaire (3)  |  Random (42)  |  Read (308)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Search (175)  |  Word (650)

Revere those things beyond science which really matter and about which it is so difficult to speak.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Difficult (263)  |  Matter (821)  |  Really (77)  |  Revere (2)  |  Speak (240)  |  Thing (1914)

Science bestowed immense new powers on man, and, at the same time, created conditions which were largely beyond his comprehension.
Science quotes on:  |  Bestow (18)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Condition (362)  |  Create (245)  |  Immense (89)  |  Man (2252)  |  New (1273)  |  Power (771)  |  Time (1911)

Science cannot answer the deepest questions. As soon as you ask why is there something instead of nothing, you have gone beyond science.
As quoted in John Noble Wilford, 'Sizing up the Cosmos: An Astronomers Quest', New York Times (12 Mar 1991), C10.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Deep (241)  |  Instead (23)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Question (649)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Why (491)

Science is in a literal sense constructive of new facts. It has no fixed body of facts passively awaiting explanation, for successful theories allow the construction of new instruments—electron microscopes and deep space probes—and the exploration of phenomena that were beyond description—the behavior of transistors, recombinant DNA, and elementary particles, for example. This is a key point in the progressive nature of science—not only are there more elegant or accurate analyses of phenomena already known, but there is also extension of the range of phenomena that exist to be described and explained.
Co-author with Michael A. Arbib, English-born professor of computer science and biomedical engineering (1940-)
Michael A. Arbib and Mary B. Hesse, The Construction of Reality (1986), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Already (226)  |  Author (175)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Body (557)  |  Computer (131)  |  Computer Science (11)  |  Construction (114)  |  Constructive (15)  |  Deep (241)  |  DNA (81)  |  Electron (96)  |  Electron Microscope (3)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extension (60)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Known (453)  |  Literal (12)  |  Microscope (85)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Particle (200)  |  Point (584)  |  Probe (12)  |  Professor (133)  |  Range (104)  |  Sense (785)  |  Space (523)  |  Successful (134)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Transistor (6)

Science is often regarded as the most objective and truth-directed of human enterprises, and since direct observation is supposed to be the favored route to factuality, many people equate respectable science with visual scrutiny–just the facts ma’am, and palpably before my eyes. But science is a battery of observational and inferential methods, all directed to the testing of propositions that can, in principle, be definitely proven false ... At all scales, from smallest to largest, quickest to slowest, many well-documented conclusions of science lie beyond the strictly limited domain of direct observation. No one has ever seen an electron or a black hole, the events of a picosecond or a geological eon.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Battery (12)  |  Black Hole (17)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Definitely (5)  |  Direct (228)  |  Domain (72)  |  Electron (96)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Eon (12)  |  Equate (3)  |  Event (222)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Factuality (2)  |  False (105)  |  Favor (69)  |  Favored (5)  |  Geological (11)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inferential (2)  |  Large (398)  |  Largest (39)  |  Lie (370)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Objective (96)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observational (15)  |  Often (109)  |  Palpably (2)  |  People (1031)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Prove (261)  |  Quick (13)  |  Regard (312)  |  Respectable (8)  |  Route (16)  |  Scale (122)  |  Scrutiny (15)  |  See (1094)  |  Slow (108)  |  Small (489)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Test (221)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Visual (16)

Science would have us believe that such accuracy, leading to certainty, is the only criterion of knowledge, would make the trial of Galileo the paradigm of the two points of view which aspire to truth, would suggest, that is, that the cardinals represent only superstition and repression, while Galileo represents freedom. But there is another criterion which is systematically neglected in this elevation of science. Man does not now—and will not ever—live by the bread of scientific method alone. He must deal with life and death, with love and cruelty and despair, and so must make conjectures of great importance which may or may not be true and which do not lend themselves to experimentation: It is better to give than to receive; Love thy neighbor as thyself; Better to risk slavery through non-violence than to defend freedom with murder. We must deal with such propositions, must decide whether they are true, whether to believe them, whether to act on them—and scientific method is no help for by their nature these matters lie forever beyond the realm of science.
In The End of the Modern Age (1973), 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Act (278)  |  Alone (324)  |  Aspire (15)  |  Belief (615)  |  Better (493)  |  Bread (42)  |  Cardinal (9)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Deal (192)  |  Death (406)  |  Decide (50)  |  Despair (40)  |  Do (1905)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Experimentation (7)  |  Forever (111)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Great (1610)  |  Importance (299)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Paradigm (16)  |  Point (584)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Realm (87)  |  Receive (117)  |  Represent (157)  |  Repression (3)  |  Risk (68)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Slavery (13)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Trial (59)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Violence (37)  |  Will (2350)

Science, in the immediate, produces knowledge and, indirectly, means of action. It leads to methodical action if definite goals are set up in advance. For the function of setting up goals and passing statements of value transcends its domain. While it is true that science, to the extent of its grasp of causative connections, may reach important conclusions as to the compatibility and incompatibility of goals and evaluations, the independent and fundamental definitions regarding goals and values remain beyond science’s reach.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Advance (298)  |  Compatibility (4)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Connection (171)  |  Definite (114)  |  Definition (238)  |  Domain (72)  |  Evaluation (10)  |  Extent (142)  |  Function (235)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Goal (155)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Important (229)  |  Incompatibility (3)  |  Independent (74)  |  Indirectly (7)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Methodical (8)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Produce (117)  |  Reach (286)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remain (355)  |  Set (400)  |  Setting (44)  |  Statement (148)  |  Transcend (27)  |  True (239)  |  Value (393)

Should the research worker of the future discover some means of releasing this [atomic] energy in a form which could be employed, the human race will have at its command powers beyond the dream of scientific fiction, but the remotest possibility must always be considered that the energy once liberated will be completely uncontrollable and by its intense violence detonate all neighbouring substances. In this event, the whole of the hydrogen on earth might be transformed at once and the success of the experiment published at large to the universe as a new star.
'Mass Spectra and Isotopes', Nobel Lecture, 12 December 1922. In Nobel Lectures, Chemistry, 1922-1941 (1966), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Energy (25)  |  Command (60)  |  Completely (137)  |  Consider (428)  |  Discover (571)  |  Dream (222)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Employ (115)  |  Energy (373)  |  Event (222)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Large (398)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Power (771)  |  Race (278)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Star (460)  |  Substance (253)  |  Success (327)  |  Transform (74)  |  Universe (900)  |  Violence (37)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

Since the Universe is defined as including all that exists, it is useless to ask what lies beyond it.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 328.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Definition (238)  |  Exist (458)  |  Include (93)  |  Lie (370)  |  Universe (900)  |  Useless (38)

So-called extraordinary events always split into two extremes naturalists who have not witnessed them: those who believe blindly and those who do not believe at all. The latter have always in mind the story of the golden goose; if the facts lie slightly beyond the limits of their knowledge, they relegate them immediately to fables. The former have a secret taste for marvels because they seem to expand Nature; they use their imagination with pleasure to find explanations. To remain doubtful is given to naturalists who keep a middle path between the two extremes. They calmly examine facts; they refer to logic for help; they discuss probabilities; they do not scoff at anything, not even errors, because they serve at least the history of the human mind; finally, they report rather than judge; they rarely decide unless they have good evidence.
Quoted in Albert V. Carozzi, Histoire des sciences de la terre entre 1790 et 1815 vue à travers les documents inédités de la Societé de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Genève, trans. Albert V. and Marguerite Carozzi. (1990), 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Blindness (11)  |  Call (781)  |  Decision (98)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Error (339)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Examine (84)  |  Expand (56)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fable (12)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Final (121)  |  Find (1014)  |  Former (138)  |  Gold (101)  |  Golden (47)  |  Good (906)  |  Goose (13)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Judge (114)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Limit (294)  |  Logic (311)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Path (159)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Probability (135)  |  Rare (94)  |  Relegation (3)  |  Remain (355)  |  Report (42)  |  Scoff (8)  |  Secret (216)  |  Service (110)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Split (15)  |  Story (122)  |  Taste (93)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Witness (57)

Some things mankind can finish and be done with, but not ... science, that persists, and changes from ancient Chaldeans studying the stars to a new telescope with a 200-inch reflector and beyond; not religion, that persists, and changes from old credulities and world views to new thoughts of God and larger apprehensions of his meaning.
In 'What Keeps Religion Going?', collected in Living Under Tension: Sermons On Christianity Today (1941), 51-52.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Chaldea (4)  |  Change (639)  |  Credulity (16)  |  Finish (62)  |  God (776)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Meaning (244)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Persist (13)  |  Reflector (4)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Studying (70)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  View (496)  |  World (1850)  |  WorldView (5)

Spherical space is not very easy to imagine. We have to think of the properties of the surface of a sphere—the two-dimensional case—and try to conceive something similar applied to three-dimensional space. Stationing ourselves at a point let us draw a series of spheres of successively greater radii. The surface of a sphere of radius r should be proportional to r2; but in spherical space the areas of the more distant spheres begin to fall below the proper proportion. There is not so much room out there as we expected to find. Ultimately we reach a sphere of biggest possible area, and beyond it the areas begin to decrease. The last sphere of all shrinks to a point—our antipodes. Is there nothing beyond this? Is there a kind of boundary there? There is nothing beyond and yet there is no boundary. On the earth’s surface there is nothing beyond our own antipodes but there is no boundary there
In Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory (1920, 1921), 158-159.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Begin (275)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Draw (140)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fall (243)  |  Find (1014)  |  Greater (288)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proper (150)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Reach (286)  |  Series (153)  |  Shrink (23)  |  Something (718)  |  Space (523)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Surface (223)  |  Think (1122)  |  Three-Dimensional (11)  |  Try (296)  |  Two (936)  |  Ultimately (56)

The aim of scientific thought, then, is to apply past experience to new circumstances; the instrument is an observed uniformity in the course of events. By the use of this instrument it gives us information transcending our experience, it enables us to infer things that we have not seen from things that we have seen; and the evidence for the truth of that information depends on our supposing that the uniformity holds good beyond our experience.
'On the Aims and Instruments of Scientific Thought,' a Lecture delivered before the members of the British Association, at Brighton, on 19 Aug 1872, in Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock (eds.), Lectures and Essays, by the Late William Kingdon Clifford (1886), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Apply (170)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Course (413)  |  Depend (238)  |  Enable (122)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experience (494)  |  Good (906)  |  Information (173)  |  Instrument (158)  |  New (1273)  |  Observed (149)  |  Past (355)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Thought (17)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Use (771)

The Arctic has a call that is compelling. The distant mountains [of the Brooks Range in Alaska] make one want to go on and on over the next ridge and over the one beyond. The call is that of a wilderness known only to a few…. This last American wilderness must remain sacrosanct.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alaska (3)  |  American (56)  |  Arctic (10)  |  Brook (6)  |  Call (781)  |  Compel (31)  |  Compelling (11)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Distant (33)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Last (425)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Next (238)  |  Range (104)  |  Remain (355)  |  Ridge (9)  |  Sacrosanct (3)  |  Want (504)  |  Wilderness (57)

The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope, then he sees worlds beyond; but, if he looks at his telescope, then he does not see anything but that.
In Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Bible (105)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Through (846)  |  World (1850)

The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors. … In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket, and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the Earth. These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring idealism, we will miss them all the more. … The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.
Address to the Nation on the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy, from the Cabinet Room (1 Feb 2003). In William J. Federer, A Treasury of Presidential Quotations (2004), 437.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Astronaut (34)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Cause (561)  |  Continue (179)  |  Courage (82)  |  Danger (127)  |  Daring (17)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Death (406)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Flight (101)  |  High (370)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Journey (48)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Life (1870)  |  Longing (19)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Miss (51)  |  More (2558)  |  Noble (93)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Routine (26)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Space Shuttle (12)  |  Travel (125)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The complacent manner in which geologists have produced their theories has been extremely amusing; for often with knowledge (and that frequently inaccurate) not extending beyond a given province, they have described the formation of a world with all the detail and air of eye-witnesses. That much good ensues, and that the science is greatly advanced, by the collision of various theories, cannot be doubted. Each party is anxious to support opinions by facts. Thus, new countries are explored, and old districts re-examined; facts come to light that do not suit either party; new theories spring up; and, in the end, a greater insight into the real structure of the earth's surface is obtained.
Sections and Views Illustrative of Geological Phenomena (1830), iii.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Collision (16)  |  Detail (150)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Formation (100)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Geology (240)  |  Good (906)  |  Greater (288)  |  Insight (107)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  New (1273)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Produced (187)  |  Province (37)  |  Spring (140)  |  Structure (365)  |  Support (151)  |  Surface (223)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Various (205)  |  World (1850)

The desire for truth so prominent in the quest of science, a reaching out of the spirit from its isolation to something beyond, a response to beauty in nature and art, an Inner Light of conviction and guidance—are these as much a part of our being as our sensitivity to sense impressions?
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 42-43.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Being (1276)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Desire (212)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inner (72)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Light (635)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Quest (39)  |  Response (56)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensitivity (10)  |  Something (718)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Truth (1109)

The discovery of the telephone has made us acquainted with many strange phenomena. It has enabled us, amongst other things, to establish beyond a doubt the fact that electric currents actually traverse the earth’s crust. The theory that the earth acts as a great reservoir for electricity may be placed in the physicist's waste-paper basket, with phlogiston, the materiality of light, and other old-time hypotheses.
From Recent Progress in Telephony: British Association Report (1882). Excerpted in John Joseph Fahie, A History of Wireless Telegraphy (1902), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Basket (8)  |  Crust (43)  |  Current (122)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Enabling (7)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Light (635)  |  Materiality (2)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Phlogiston (9)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Reservoir (9)  |  Strange (160)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Traverse (5)  |  Waste (109)

The earth was covered by a huge ice sheet which buried the Siberian mammoths, and reached just as far south as did the phenomenon of erratic boulders. This ice sheet filled all the irregularities of the surface of Europe before the uplift of the Alps, the Baltic Sea, all the lakes of Northern Germany and Switzerland. It extended beyond the shorelines of the Mediterranean and of the Atlantic Ocean, and even covered completely North America and Asiatic Russia. When the Alps were uplifted, the ice sheet was pushed upwards like the other rocks, and the debris, broken loose from all the cracks generated by the uplift, fell over its surface and, without becoming rounded (since they underwent no friction), moved down the slope of the ice sheet.
From Études sur Les Glaciers (1840), as translated by Albert V. Carozzi in Studies on Glaciers: Preceded by the Discourse of Neuchâtel (1967), 166.
Science quotes on:  |  Alp (9)  |  Alps (9)  |  America (143)  |  Atlantic Ocean (7)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Boulder (8)  |  Broken (56)  |  Completely (137)  |  Debris (7)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Erratic (4)  |  Extend (129)  |  Friction (14)  |  Geology (240)  |  Glacier (17)  |  Ice (58)  |  Lake (36)  |  Mammoth (9)  |  Mediterranean (9)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Push (66)  |  Reach (286)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sea (326)  |  Slope (10)  |  South (39)  |  Surface (223)  |  Uplift (6)  |  Upward (44)

The expenditure [on building railways] of £286,000,000 by the people has secured to us the advantages of internal communication all but perfect,—of progress in science and arts unexampled at any period of the history of the world,—of national progress almost unchecked, and of prosperity and happiness increased beyond all precedent.
From 'Railway System and its Results' (Jan 1856) read to the Institution of Civil Engineers, reprinted in Samuel Smiles, Life of George Stephenson (1857), 512.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Art (680)  |  Building (158)  |  Communication (101)  |  Expenditure (16)  |  Happiness (126)  |  History (716)  |  Internal (69)  |  People (1031)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Period (200)  |  Precedent (9)  |  Progress (492)  |  Prosperity (31)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Railway (19)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Secured (18)  |  World (1850)

The eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.