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: “Genius is two percent inspiration, ninety-eight percent perspiration.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index B > Category: Bug

Bug Quotes (10 quotes)

[About reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, age 14, in the back seat of his parents' sedan. I almost threw up. I got physically ill when I learned that ospreys and peregrine falcons weren't raising chicks because of what people were spraying on bugs at their farms and lawns. This was the first time I learned that humans could impact the environment with chemicals. [That a corporation would create a product that didn't operate as advertised] was shocking in a way we weren't inured to.
As quoted by Eliza Griswold, in 'The Wild Life of “Silent Spring”', New York Times (23 Sep 2012), Magazine 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Back (395)  |  Rachel Carson (49)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chick (5)  |  Corporation (6)  |  Create (245)  |  Environment (239)  |  Falcon (2)  |  Farm (28)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impact (45)  |  Lawn (5)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Parent (80)  |  People (1031)  |  Product (166)  |  Reading (136)  |  Shock (38)  |  Sick (83)  |  Spring (140)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)

A theoretical physicist can spend his entire lifetime missing the intellectual challenge of experimental work, experiencing none of the thrills and dangers — the overhead crane with its ten-ton load, the flashing skull and crossbones and danger, radioactivity signs. A theorist’s only real hazard is stabbing himself with a pencil while attacking a bug that crawls out of his calculations.
In Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi, The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question (1993), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Attack (86)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Crawl (9)  |  Crawling (2)  |  Danger (127)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Hazard (21)  |  Himself (461)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Missing (21)  |  Pencil (20)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Spend (97)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Thrill (26)  |  Ton (25)  |  Work (1402)

Adam is fading out. It is on account of Darwin and that crowd. I can see that he is not going to last much longer. There's a plenty of signs. He is getting belittled to a germ—a little bit of a speck that you can't see without a microscope powerful enough to raise a gnat to the size of a church. They take that speck and breed from it: first a flea; then a fly, then a bug, then cross these and get a fish, then a raft of fishes, all kinds, then cross the whole lot and get a reptile, then work up the reptiles till you've got a supply of lizards and spiders and toads and alligators and Congressmen and so on, then cross the entire lot again and get a plant of amphibiums, which are half-breeds and do business both wet and dry, such as turtles and frogs and ornithorhyncuses and so on, and cross-up again and get a mongrel bird, sired by a snake and dam'd by a bat, resulting in a pterodactyl, then they develop him, and water his stock till they've got the air filled with a million things that wear feathers, then they cross-up all the accumulated animal life to date and fetch out a mammal, and start-in diluting again till there's cows and tigers and rats and elephants and monkeys and everything you want down to the Missing Link, and out of him and a mermaid they propagate Man, and there you are! Everything ship-shape and finished-up, and nothing to do but lay low and wait and see if it was worth the time and expense.
'The Refuge of the Derelicts' collected in Mark Twain and John Sutton Tuckey, The Devil's Race-Track: Mark Twain's Great Dark Writings (1980), 340-41. - 1980
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Adam (7)  |  Air (366)  |  Amphibian (7)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Bat (10)  |  Bird (163)  |  Both (496)  |  Business (156)  |  Church (64)  |  Cow (42)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Develop (278)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Dry (65)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Enough (341)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expense (21)  |  Feather (13)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Fish (130)  |  Flea (11)  |  Fly (153)  |  Frog (44)  |  Germ (54)  |  Gnat (7)  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Lizard (7)  |  Lot (151)  |  Low (86)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mermaid (5)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Missing (21)  |  Missing Link (4)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Plant (320)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Pterodactyl (2)  |  Rat (37)  |  Reptile (33)  |  See (1094)  |  Ship (69)  |  Snake (29)  |  Speck (25)  |  Spider (14)  |  Start (237)  |  Supply (100)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tiger (7)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toad (10)  |  Turtle (8)  |  Wait (66)  |  Want (504)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)

I have never seen a food writer mention this, but all shrimp imported into the United States must first be washed in chlorine bleach to kill bugs. What this does for the taste, I do not know, but I think we should be told.
In The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat (2008), 301.
Science quotes on:  |  Bleach (3)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Food (213)  |  Kill (100)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mention (84)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Shrimp (5)  |  State (505)  |  Taste (93)  |  Think (1122)  |  Told (4)  |  United (15)  |  Wash (23)  |  Washed (2)  |  Writer (90)

In the good old days physicists repeated each other’s experiments, just to be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so that they can share each other’s programs, bugs included.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fortran (3)  |  Good (906)  |  Include (93)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Program (57)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Share (82)  |  Stick (27)  |  Today (321)

It has been just so in all my inventions. The first step is an intuition—and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise. This thing that gives out and then that—“Bugs” as such little faults and difficulties are called show themselves and months of anxious watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success—or failure—is certainly reached.
Describing his invention of a storage battery that involved 10,296 experiments. Note Edison’s use of the term “Bug” in the engineering research field for a mechanical defect greatly predates the use of the term as applied by Admiral Grace Murray Hopper to a computing defect upon finding a moth in the electronic mainframe.] Letter to Theodore Puskas (18 Nov 1878). In The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Applied (176)  |  Arise (162)  |  Battery (12)  |  Burst (41)  |  Call (781)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Commercial (28)  |  Defect (31)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Failure (176)  |  Fault (58)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Grace (31)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Invention (400)  |  Involved (90)  |  Labor (200)  |  Little (717)  |  Mainframe (3)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Month (91)  |  Reach (286)  |  Research (753)  |  Show (353)  |  Small (489)  |  Step (234)  |  Storage (6)  |  Study (701)  |  Success (327)  |  Term (357)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Watch (118)

Most children have a bug period, and I never grew out of mine.
In Naturalist (1994, 2006), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Entomologist (7)  |  Insect (89)  |  Mine (78)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  Period (200)

Program testing can be a very effective way to show the presence of bugs, but is hopelessly inadequate for showing their absence.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Absence (21)  |  Effective (68)  |  Hopelessly (3)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  Presence (63)  |  Program (57)  |  Show (353)  |  Test (221)  |  Way (1214)

The way a child discovers the world constantly replicates the way science began. You start to notice what’s around you, and you get very curious about how things work. How things interrelate. It’s as simple as seeing a bug that intrigues you. You want to know where it goes at night; who its friends are; what it eats.
In David Chronenberg and Chris Rodley (ed.), Chronenberg on Chronenberg (1992), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Curious (95)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Eat (108)  |  Eating (46)  |  Food (213)  |  Friend (180)  |  Interrelation (8)  |  Intriguing (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Night (133)  |  Notice (81)  |  Replication (10)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Simple (426)  |  Start (237)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

True, no one can absolutely control the direction of his life; but each person can certainly influence it. The armchair explorers who complain that they never got their “one lucky shot” were never really infected by the incurable drive to explore. Those who have the bug—go.
In Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein, The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World (2007), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Armchair (7)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Complain (10)  |  Control (182)  |  Direction (185)  |  Drive (61)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Incurable (10)  |  Influence (231)  |  Life (1870)  |  Luck (44)  |  Never (1089)  |  Person (366)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

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

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


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