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

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index C > Category: Contemplating

Contemplating Quotes (11 quotes)

And I believe there are many Species in Nature, which were never yet taken notice of by Man, and consequently of no use to him, which yet we are not to think were created in vain; but it’s likely … to partake of the overflowing Goodness of the Creator, and enjoy their own Beings. But though in this sense it be not true, that all things were made for Man; yet thus far it is, that all the Creatures in the World may be some way or other useful to us, at least to exercise our Wits and Understandings, in considering and contemplating of them, and so afford us Subject of Admiring and Glorifying their and our Maker. Seeing them, we do believe and assert that all things were in some sense made for us, we are thereby obliged to make use of them for those purposes for which they serve us, else we frustrate this End of their Creation.
John Ray
The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691), 169-70.
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (67)  |  Being (1277)  |  Belief (596)  |  Consideration (142)  |  Contemplation (74)  |  Creation (342)  |  Creator (95)  |  Creature (239)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (598)  |  Exercise (112)  |  Frustration (14)  |  Glorification (2)  |  Goodness (25)  |  Maker (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (1973)  |  Never (1088)  |  Notice (78)  |  Other (2233)  |  Purpose (324)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sense (776)  |  Species (419)  |  Subject (532)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1096)  |  Understanding (525)  |  Use (768)  |  Useful (254)  |  Usefulness (89)  |  Vain (85)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wit (59)  |  World (1822)

Every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.
Address to the United Nations General Assembly, (25 Sep 1961). On U.S. Department of State website.
Science quotes on:  |  Abolish (13)  |  Accident (90)  |  Atomic Bomb (113)  |  Being (1277)  |  Capable (169)  |  Child (322)  |  Cut (114)  |  Habitable (3)  |  Hanging (4)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Life (1830)  |  Live (637)  |  Madness (33)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moment (256)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nuclear (109)  |  Planet (381)  |  Thread (34)  |  War (229)  |  Weapon (97)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Woman (152)

If we are to define science, ... it does not consist so much in knowing, nor even in “organized knowledge,” as it does in diligent inquiry into truth for truth’s sake, without any sort of axe to grind, nor for the sake of the delight of contemplating it, but from an impulse to penetrate into the reason of things.
From 'Lessons from the History of Science: The Scientific Attitude' (c.1896), in Collected Papers (1931), Vol. 1, 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Axe (16)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contemplate (20)  |  Define (50)  |  Delight (109)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Grind (11)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Inquiry (85)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1610)  |  Organized (9)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Reason (757)  |  Sake (59)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1088)

In our search after the Knowledge of Substances, our want of Ideas, that are suitable to such a way of proceeding, obliges us to a quite different method. We advance not here, as in the other (where our abstract Ideas are real as well as nominal Essences) by contemplating our Ideas, and considering their Relations and Correspondencies; that helps us very little, for the Reasons, and in another place we have at large set down. By which, I think it is evident, that Substances afford Matter of very little general Knowledge; and the bare Contemplation of their abstract Ideas, will carry us but a very little way in the search of Truth and Certainty. What then are we to do for the improvement of our Knowledge in Substantial beings? Here we are to take a quite contrary Course, the want of Ideas of their real essences sends us from our own Thoughts, to the Things themselves, as they exist.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book 4, Chapter 12, Section 9, 644.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (131)  |  Advance (290)  |  Bare (33)  |  Being (1277)  |  Carry (127)  |  Certainty (179)  |  Contemplation (74)  |  Contrary (142)  |  Correspondence (23)  |  Course (410)  |  Different (581)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Essence (84)  |  Evident (91)  |  Exist (447)  |  Existence (475)  |  General (516)  |  Idea (861)  |  Improvement (114)  |  Knowledge (1610)  |  Large (396)  |  Little (708)  |  Matter (810)  |  Method (517)  |  Oblige (6)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Reason (757)  |  Relation (160)  |  Search (165)  |  Set (396)  |  Substance (252)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1096)  |  Thought (967)  |  Truth (1088)  |  Want (498)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2352)

It is very remarkable that while the words Eternal, Eternity, Forever, are constantly in our mouths, and applied without hesitation, we yet experience considerable difficulty in contemplating any definite term which bears a very large proportion to the brief cycles of our petty chronicles. There are many minds that would not for an instant doubt the God of Nature to have existed from all Eternity, and would yet reject as preposterous the idea of going back a million of years in the History of His Works. Yet what is a million, or a million million, of solar revolutions to an Eternity?
Memoir on the Geology of Central France (1827), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (253)  |  Applied (176)  |  Back (392)  |  Bear (162)  |  Brief (36)  |  Chronicle (6)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Constant (145)  |  Contemplation (74)  |  Cycle (41)  |  Definite (112)  |  Difficulty (200)  |  Doubt (311)  |  Eternal (112)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Exist (447)  |  Experience (484)  |  Forever (104)  |  God (764)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  History (694)  |  Idea (861)  |  Instant (46)  |  Large (396)  |  Million (120)  |  Mind (1359)  |  Mouth (53)  |  Nature (1973)  |  Petty (9)  |  Preposterous (8)  |  Proportion (136)  |  Reject (65)  |  Remarkable (48)  |  Revolution (132)  |  Sun (402)  |  Term (352)  |  Word (634)  |  Work (1374)  |  Year (939)

MAGNITUDE, n. Size. Magnitude being purely relative, nothing is large and nothing small. If everything in the universe were increased in bulk one thousand diameters nothing would be any larger than it was before, but if one thing remained unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been. To an understanding familiar with the relativity of magnitude and distance the spaces and masses of the astronomer would be no more impressive than those of the microscopist. For anything we know to the contrary, the visible universe may be a small part of an atom, with its component ions, floating in the life-fluid (luminiferous ether) of some animal. Possibly the wee creatures peopling the corpuscles of our own blood are overcome with the proper emotion when contemplating the unthinkable distance from one of these to another.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  209.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (634)  |  Astronomer (96)  |  Atom (377)  |  Being (1277)  |  Blood (142)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Component (49)  |  Contrary (142)  |  Corpuscle (14)  |  Creature (239)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Distance (166)  |  Emotion (102)  |  Ether (36)  |  Everything (482)  |  Fluid (53)  |  Humour (116)  |  Impressive (26)  |  Ion (21)  |  Know (1526)  |  Large (396)  |  Life (1830)  |  Magnitude (86)  |  More (2559)  |  Nothing (987)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Proper (148)  |  Purely (111)  |  Relativity (88)  |  Remain (352)  |  Small (484)  |  Space (510)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (331)  |  Understanding (525)  |  Universe (883)  |  Unthinkable (8)  |  Visible (86)

The biologist can push it back to the original protist, and the chemist can push it back to the crystal, but none of them touch the real question of why or how the thing began at all. The astronomer goes back untold million of years and ends in gas and emptiness, and then the mathematician sweeps the whole cosmos into unreality and leaves one with mind as the only thing of which we have any immediate apprehension. Cogito ergo sum, ergo omnia esse videntur. All this bother, and we are no further than Descartes. Have you noticed that the astronomers and mathematicians are much the most cheerful people of the lot? I suppose that perpetually contemplating things on so vast a scale makes them feel either that it doesn’t matter a hoot anyway, or that anything so large and elaborate must have some sense in it somewhere.
As co-author with Robert Eustace, The Documents in the Case (1930), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Astronomer (96)  |  Back (392)  |  Begin (265)  |  Biologist (69)  |  Cheerful (10)  |  Chemist (161)  |  Cogito Ergo Sum (4)  |  Contemplate (20)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Crystal (71)  |  René Descartes (82)  |  Elaborate (29)  |  Emptiness (13)  |  End (598)  |  Feel (365)  |  Gas (86)  |  Immediate (96)  |  Large (396)  |  Leave (132)  |  Lot (151)  |  Mathematician (400)  |  Matter (810)  |  Million (120)  |  Mind (1359)  |  Most (1729)  |  Must (1525)  |  People (1012)  |  Perpetual (58)  |  Perpetually (20)  |  Protist (3)  |  Push (64)  |  Question (640)  |  Scale (122)  |  Sense (776)  |  Sum (103)  |  Suppose (157)  |  Sweep (21)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touch (145)  |  Unreality (3)  |  Vast (180)  |  Whole (746)  |  Why (491)  |  Year (939)

The idea of an atom has been so constantly associated with incredible assumptions of infinite strength, absolute rigidity, mystical actions at a distance, and individuality, that chemists and many other reasonable naturalists of modern times, losing all patience with it, have dismissed it to the realms of metaphysics, and made it smaller than ‘anything we can conceive.’ But if atoms are inconceivably small, why are not all chemical actions infinitely swift? Chemistry is powerless to deal with this question, and many others of paramount importance, if barred by the hardness of its fundamental assumptions, from contemplating the atom as a real portion of matter occupying a finite space, and forming not an immeasurably small constituent of any palpable body.
Sir William Thomson and Peter Guthrie Tait, A Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1883), Vol. I, Part 2, 495.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (149)  |  Action (332)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Atom (377)  |  Body (545)  |  Chemical (296)  |  Chemist (161)  |  Chemistry (365)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Deal (189)  |  Distance (166)  |  Finite (60)  |  Forming (42)  |  Fundamental (258)  |  Idea (861)  |  Importance (294)  |  Incredible (42)  |  Individuality (22)  |  Infinite (236)  |  Matter (810)  |  Metaphysics (51)  |  Modern (392)  |  Naturalist (76)  |  Other (2233)  |  Palpable (8)  |  Paramount (10)  |  Patience (58)  |  Portion (84)  |  Question (640)  |  Realm (86)  |  Rigidity (5)  |  Small (484)  |  Space (510)  |  Strength (130)  |  Time (1890)  |  Why (491)

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.
Recollection of a statement to William Miller, an editor, as quoted in, 'Old Man’s Advice to Youth: “Never Lose a Holy Curiosity”', Life (2 May 1955), 64.
Science quotes on:  |  Awe (43)  |  Curiosity (135)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Existing (10)  |  Help (110)  |  Life (1830)  |  Marvelous (30)  |  Mystery (185)  |  Reality (270)  |  Reason (757)  |  Structure (359)  |  Thing (1914)

[On the 11th day of November 1572], in the evening, after sunset, when, according to my habit, I was contemplating the stars in a clear sky, I noticed that a new and unusual star, surpassing all others in brilliancy, was shining almost directly over my head; and since I had, almost from boyhood, known all the stars of the heavens perfectly (there is no great difficulty in gaining that knowledge), it was quite evident to me that there had never before been any star in that place in the sky, even the smallest, to say nothing of a star so conspicuously bright as this. I was so astonished at this sight that I was not ashamed to doubt the trustworthiness of my own eyes. But when I observed that others, too, on having the place pointed out to them, could see that there was a star there, I had no further doubts. A miracle indeed, either the greatest of all that have occurred in the whole range of nature since the beginning of the world, or one certainly that is to be classed with those attested by the Holy Oracles.
De Stello. Nova (On the New Star) (1573). Quoted in H. Shapley and A. E. Howarth (eds.), Source Book in Astronomy (1929), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Astonish (37)  |  Beginning (310)  |  Bright (79)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Class (167)  |  Difficulty (200)  |  Doubt (311)  |  Evident (91)  |  Eye (432)  |  Great (1579)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Habit (172)  |  Heaven (261)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Holy (34)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Knowledge (1610)  |  Known (451)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Nature (1973)  |  Never (1088)  |  New (1247)  |  Nothing (987)  |  Nova (6)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (583)  |  Range (103)  |  Say (985)  |  See (1082)  |  Shining (35)  |  Sight (134)  |  Sky (171)  |  Star (448)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surpassing (12)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Whole (746)  |  World (1822)

“Talent is a long patience.” We must look on what we wish to express long enough and with enough attention to discover an aspect that has not been seen and portrayed by another. There is, in everything, something unexplored, because we always use our eyes only with the recollection of what has been thought before on the subject we are contemplating.
From Pierre et Jean (1888), as translated by Alexina Loranger in 'Introduction', Pierre et Jean (Peter and John) (1890), 38-39. The opening words are quoted from Gustave Flaubert. From the original French, “Le talent est une longue patience. — Il s’agit de regarder tout ce qu’on veut exprimer assez longtemps et avec assez d’attention pour en découvrir un aspect qui n’ait été vu et dit par personne. Il y a, dans tout, de l’inexploré, parce que nous sommes habitués à ne nous servir de nos yeux qu’avec le souvenir de ce qu’on a pensé avant nous sur ce que nous contemplons.”
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (125)  |  Attention (195)  |  Contemplate (20)  |  Discover (566)  |  Enough (341)  |  Everything (482)  |  Express (189)  |  Eye (432)  |  Long (772)  |  Look (581)  |  Must (1525)  |  Patience (58)  |  Portray (5)  |  Recollection (12)  |  See (1082)  |  Something (718)  |  Subject (532)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thought (967)  |  Unexplored (15)  |  Use (768)  |  Wish (215)


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

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

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

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


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