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: “The Superfund legislation... may prove to be as far-reaching and important as any accomplishment of my administration. The reduction of the threat to America's health and safety from thousands of toxic-waste sites will continue to be an urgent�issue �”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index C > Category: Cosmic

Cosmic Quotes (74 quotes)

...Outer space, once a region of spirited international competition, is also a region of international cooperation. I realized this as early as 1959, when I attended an international conference on cosmic radiation in Moscow. At this conference, there were many differing views and differing methods of attack, but the problems were common ones to all of us and a unity of basic purpose was everywhere evident. Many of the papers presented there depended in an essential way upon others which had appeared originally in as many as three or four different languages. Surely science is one of the universal human activities.
Science quotes on:  |  Attack (86)  |  Attend (67)  |  Basic (144)  |  Common (447)  |  Competition (45)  |  Conference (18)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Depend (238)  |  Different (595)  |  Early (196)  |  Essential (210)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evident (92)  |  Human (1512)  |  International (40)  |  Language (308)  |  Method (531)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Space (523)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Surely (101)  |  Unity (81)  |  Universal (198)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)

[The surplus of basic knowledge of the atomic nucleus was] largely used up [during the war with the atomic bomb as the dividend.] We must, without further delay restore this surplus in preparation for the important peacetime job for the nucleus - power production. ... Many of the proposed applications of atomic power - even for interplanetary rockets - seem to be within the realm of possibility provided the economic factor is ruled out completely, and the doubtful physical and chemical factors are weighted heavily on the optimistic side. ... The development of economic atomic power is not a simple extrapolation of knowledge gained during the bomb work. It is a new and difficult project to reach a satisfactory answer. Needless to say, it is vital that the atomic policy legislation now being considered by the congress recognizes the essential nature of this peacetime job, and that it not only permits but encourages the cooperative research-engineering effort of industrial, government and university laboratories for the task. ... We must learn how to generate the still higher energy particles of the cosmic rays - up to 1,000,000,000 volts, for they will unlock new domains in the nucleus.
Addressing the American Institute of Electrical Engineering, in New York (24 Jan 1946). In Schenectady Gazette (25 Jan 1946),
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Application (257)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Atomic Power (9)  |  Basic (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Completely (137)  |  Congress (20)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Delay (21)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dividend (3)  |  Domain (72)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Effort (243)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Essential (210)  |  Extrapolation (6)  |  Gain (146)  |  Government (116)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Industry (159)  |  Job (86)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Learn (672)  |  Legislation (10)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Optimism (17)  |  Particle (200)  |  Peacetime (4)  |  Permit (61)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Power (771)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Production (190)  |  Project (77)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reach (286)  |  Realm (87)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Say (989)  |  Side (236)  |  Simple (426)  |  Still (614)  |  Surplus (2)  |  Task (152)  |  University (130)  |  Unlock (12)  |  Unlocking (2)  |  Vital (89)  |  War (233)  |  Weight (140)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World War II (9)

A cosmic mystery of immense proportions, once seemingly on the verge of solution, has deepened and left astronomers and astrophysicists more baffled than ever. The crux ... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing.
[Reporting a Nature article discrediting explanation of invisible mass being due to neutrinos]
In 'If Theory is Right, Most of Universe is Still “Missing”', New York Times (11 Sep 1984).
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astrophysicist (7)  |  Baffling (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Dark Matter (4)  |  Deepening (2)  |  Due (143)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Immense (89)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Majority (68)  |  Mass (160)  |  Missing (21)  |  Missing Mass (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neutrino (11)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Reporting (9)  |  Seem (150)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Solution (282)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Verge (10)

A possible explanation for the observed excess noise is the one given by Dicke, Peebles, Roll, and Wilkinson (1965) in a companion letter in this issue.
[The low-key announcement of the detection of the cosmic microwave background radiation which is the afterglow of the Big Bang. Co-author with Robert Wilson. They received the 1978 Nobel Prize for their discovery.]
'A measurement of excess antenna temperature at 4080 Mc/s'. In Astrophysical Journal (1965). Reprinted in R. B. Partridge, 3 K the cosmic microwave background radiation? (1995), Appendix A, 355.
Science quotes on:  |  Announcement (15)  |  Author (175)  |  Background (44)  |  Background Radiation (3)  |  Bang (29)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Co-Author (2)  |  Companion (22)  |  Detection (19)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Excess (23)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Give (208)  |  Issue (46)  |  Letter (117)  |  Low (86)  |  Microwave (4)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Noise (40)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Possible (560)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Receive (117)  |  Roll (41)

A thing is either alive or it isn’t; there is nothing that is almost alive. There is but the remotest possibility of the origin of life by spontaneous generation, and every likelihood that Arrhenius is right when he dares to claim that life is a cosmic phenomenon, something that drifts between the spheres, like light, and like light transiently descends upon those fit to receive it.
In An Almanac for Moderns (1935), 393.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Svante Arrhenius (11)  |  Claim (154)  |  Dare (55)  |  Descend (49)  |  Descent (30)  |  Drift (14)  |  Fit (139)  |  Generation (256)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Likelihood (10)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Receive (117)  |  Right (473)  |  Something (718)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Spontaneous Generation (9)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transient (13)

All change is relative. The universe is expanding relatively to our common material standards; our material standards are shrinking relatively to the size of the universe. The theory of the “expanding universe” might also be called the theory of the “shrinking atom”. …
:Let us then take the whole universe as our standard of constancy, and adopt the view of a cosmic being whose body is composed of intergalactic spaces and swells as they swell. Or rather we must now say it keeps the same size, for he will not admit that it is he who has changed. Watching us for a few thousand million years, he sees us shrinking; atoms, animals, planets, even the galaxies, all shrink alike; only the intergalactic spaces remain the same. The earth spirals round the sun in an ever-decreasing orbit. It would be absurd to treat its changing revolution as a constant unit of time. The cosmic being will naturally relate his units of length and time so that the velocity of light remains constant. Our years will then decrease in geometrical progression in the cosmic scale of time. On that scale man’s life is becoming briefer; his threescore years and ten are an ever-decreasing allowance. Owing to the property of geometrical progressions an infinite number of our years will add up to a finite cosmic time; so that what we should call the end of eternity is an ordinary finite date in the cosmic calendar. But on that date the universe has expanded to infinity in our reckoning, and we have shrunk to nothing in the reckoning of the cosmic being.
We walk the stage of life, performers of a drama for the benefit of the cosmic spectator. As the scenes proceed he notices that the actors are growing smaller and the action quicker. When the last act opens the curtain rises on midget actors rushing through their parts at frantic speed. Smaller and smaller. Faster and faster. One last microscopic blurr of intense agitation. And then nothing.
In The Expanding Universe (1933) , 90-92.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Agitation (10)  |  Alike (60)  |  Allowance (6)  |  Animal (651)  |  Atom (381)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Body (557)  |  Calendar (9)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Common (447)  |  Constancy (12)  |  Constant (148)  |  Drama (24)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Expand (56)  |  Faster (50)  |  Finite (60)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Growing (99)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Number (710)  |  Open (277)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Owing (39)  |  Planet (402)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Progression (23)  |  Property (177)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Rise (169)  |  Say (989)  |  Scale (122)  |  Scene (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Shrink (23)  |  Space (523)  |  Speed (66)  |  Spiral (19)  |  Stage (152)  |  Sun (407)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Velocity (51)  |  View (496)  |  Walk (138)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

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)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bipedal (3)  |  Brain (281)  |  Cell (146)  |  Change (639)  |  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)

Believe me, this planet has put up with much worse than us. It’s been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, solar flares, sun-spots, magnetic storms, pole reversals, planetary floods, worldwide fires, tidal waves, wind and water erosion, cosmic rays, ice ages, and hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets, asteroids, and meteors. And people think a few plastic bags and aluminum cans are going to make a difference?
In Napalm and Silly Putty (2002), 97.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Aluminum (15)  |  Asteroid (19)  |  Bombardment (3)  |  Comet (65)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Difference (355)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Environment (239)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flood (52)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Ice (58)  |  Ice Age (10)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Meteor (19)  |  People (1031)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Plastic Bag (2)  |  Plate Tectonics (22)  |  Pole (49)  |  Ray (115)  |  Solar Flare (2)  |  Storm (56)  |  Storms (18)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunspot (5)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Tidal Wave (2)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wind (141)  |  Worldwide (19)  |  Worse (25)  |  Year (963)

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)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Breath (61)  |  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)

Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropomorphic (4)  |  Anyone (38)  |  Belong (168)  |  Call (781)  |  Character (259)  |  Common (447)  |  Community (111)  |  Conception (160)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Elucidate (4)  |  Endowment (16)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Especially (31)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Exceptionally (3)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extent (142)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  God (776)  |  High (370)  |  Individual (420)  |  Level (69)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Pure (299)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Religious (134)  |  Rise (169)  |  Stage (152)  |  Third (17)  |  Type (171)

Constant, or free, life is the third form of life; it belongs to the most highly organized animals. In it, life is not suspended in any circumstance, it unrolls along a constant course, apparently indifferent to the variations in the cosmic environment, or to the changes in the material conditions that surround the animal. Organs, apparatus, and tissues function in an apparently uniform manner, without their activity undergoing those considerable variations exhibited by animals with an oscillating life. This because in reality the internal environment that envelops the organs, the tissues, and the elements of the tissues does not change; the variations in the atmosphere stop there, so that it is true to say that physical conditions of the environment are constant in the higher animals; it is enveloped in an invariable medium, which acts as an atmosphere of its own in the constantly changing cosmic environment. It is an organism that has placed itself in a hot-house. Thus the perpetual changes in the cosmic environment do not touch it; it is not chained to them, it is free and independent.
Lectures on the Phenomena of Life Common to Animals and Plants (1878), trans. Hebbel E. Hoff, Roger Guillemin and Lucienne Guillemin (1974), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Activity (218)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Belong (168)  |  Body (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Condition (362)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Constant (148)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Environment (239)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Function (235)  |  Hot (63)  |  House (143)  |  Internal (69)  |  Life (1870)  |  Material (366)  |  Most (1728)  |  Organ (118)  |  Organism (231)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Physical (518)  |  Reality (274)  |  Say (989)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Touch (146)  |  Variation (93)

Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before. Some day, I doubt not, we shall arrive at an understanding of the evolution of the aesthetic faculty; but all the understanding in the world will neither increase nor diminish the force of the intuition that this is beautiful and that is ugly.
'Evolution and Ethics' (1893). In Collected Essays (1894), Vol. 9, 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Better (493)  |  Call (781)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Evil (122)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Force (497)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Good (906)  |  Increase (225)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Man (2252)  |  Reason (766)  |  Teach (299)  |  Ugly (14)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Cosmic religiousness is the strongest and most noble driving force of scientific research.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Drive (61)  |  Driving (28)  |  Force (497)  |  Most (1728)  |  Noble (93)  |  Religiousness (3)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Strong (182)  |  Strongest (38)

Cosmology is a science which has only a few observable facts to work with. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation added one—the present radiation temperature of the universe. This, however, was a significant increase in our knowledge since it requires a cosmology with a source for the radiation at an early epoch and is a new probe of that epoch. More sensitive measurements of the background radiation in the future will allow us to discover additional facts about the universe.
'Discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background', in B. Bertotti (ed.) Modern Cosmology in Retrospect (1990), 304.
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Background Radiation (3)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Early (196)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Future (467)  |  Increase (225)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Microwave (4)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Observable (21)  |  Observation (593)  |  Present (630)  |  Probe (12)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Require (229)  |  Significant (78)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Each of the major sciences has contributed an essential ingredient in our long retreat from an initial belief in our own cosmic importance. Astronomy defined our home as a small planet tucked away in one corner of an average galaxy among millions; biology took away our status as paragons created in the image of God; geology gave us the immensity of time and taught us how little of it our own species has occupied.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Average (89)  |  Belief (615)  |  Biology (232)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Corner (59)  |  Create (245)  |  Define (53)  |  Essential (210)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Geology (240)  |  Give (208)  |  God (776)  |  Home (184)  |  Image (97)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Importance (299)  |  Ingredient (16)  |  Initial (17)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Major (88)  |  Millions (17)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Paragon (4)  |  Planet (402)  |  Retreat (13)  |  Small (489)  |  Species (435)  |  Status (35)  |  Teach (299)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tuck (3)

Everything is determined … by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust—we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
In interview, George Sylvester Viereck, 'What Life Means to Einstein', The Saturday Evening Post (26 Oct 1929), 117.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Control (182)  |  Dance (35)  |  Determine (152)  |  Distance (171)  |  Dust (68)  |  Everything (489)  |  Force (497)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Insect (89)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Piper (2)  |  Star (460)  |  Tune (20)  |  Vegetable (49)

Finally, from what we now know about the cosmos, to think that all this was created for just one species among the tens of millions of species who live on one planet circling one of a couple of hundred billion stars that are located in one galaxy among hundreds of billions of galaxies, all of which are in one universe among perhaps an infinite number of universes all nestled within a grand cosmic multiverse, is provincially insular and anthropocentrically blinkered. Which is more likely? That the universe was designed just for us, or that we see the universe as having been designed just for us?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropocentric (2)  |  Billion (104)  |  Billions (7)  |  Circle (117)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Couple (9)  |  Create (245)  |  Design (203)  |  Finally (26)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Grand (29)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hundreds (6)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Likely (36)  |  Live (650)  |  Locate (7)  |  Millions (17)  |  More (2558)  |  Multiverse (2)  |  Number (710)  |  Planet (402)  |  Provincial (2)  |  See (1094)  |  Species (435)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Tens (3)  |  Think (1122)  |  Universe (900)

For forty-nine months between 1968 and 1972, two dozen Americans had the great good fortune to briefly visit the Moon. Half of us became the first emissaries from Earth to tread its dusty surface. We who did so were privileged to represent the hopes and dreams of all humanity. For mankind it was a giant leap for a species that evolved from the Stone Age to create sophisticated rockets and spacecraft that made a Moon landing possible. For one crowning moment, we were creatures of the cosmic ocean, an epoch that a thousand years hence may be seen as the signature of our century.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  American (56)  |  Become (821)  |  Briefly (5)  |  Century (319)  |  Create (245)  |  Creature (242)  |  Crown (39)  |  Dozen (10)  |  Dream (222)  |  Dusty (8)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Forty-Nine (2)  |  Giant (73)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Half (63)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Leap (57)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Moment (260)  |  Month (91)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moon Landing (9)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Possible (560)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Represent (157)  |  Rocket (52)  |  See (1094)  |  Signature (4)  |  Sophisticated (16)  |  Spacecraft (6)  |  Species (435)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stone Age (14)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tread (17)  |  Two (936)  |  Visit (27)  |  Year (963)

Freeman’s gift? It’s cosmic. He is able to see more interconnections between more things than almost anybody. He sees the interrelationships, whether it’s in some microscopic physical process or in a big complicated machine like Orion. He has been, from the time he was in his teens, capable of understanding essentially anything that he’s interested in. He’s the most intelligent person I know.
As quoted in Kenneth Brower, 'The Danger of Cosmic Genius', The Atlantic (Dec 2010). Webmaster note: The Orion Project was a study of the possibility of nuclear powered propulsion of spacecraft.
Science quotes on:  |  Anybody (42)  |  Capable (174)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Connection (171)  |  Freeman Dyson (55)  |  Gift (105)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Interconnection (12)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interested (5)  |  Know (1538)  |  Machine (271)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Person (366)  |  Physical (518)  |  Process (439)  |  Relationship (114)  |  See (1094)  |  Teen (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Art (680)  |  Awaken (17)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Definite (114)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Function (235)  |  Give (208)  |  God (776)  |  Important (229)  |  Keep (104)  |  Most (1728)  |  Notion (120)  |  Person (366)  |  Receptive (5)  |  Religious (134)  |  Rise (169)  |  Theology (54)  |  View (496)

Humanity should accept that science has eliminated the justification for believing in cosmic purpose, and that any survival of purpose is inspired only by sentiment.
In 'Will Science Ever Fail?', New Scientist (8 Aug 1992), 135, No. 1883, 32-35.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Belief (615)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Justification (52)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Science (39)  |  Sentiment (16)  |  Survival (105)

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)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Collection (68)  |  Common (447)  |  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 assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (69)  |  Behind (139)  |  Drive (61)  |  Driving (28)  |  Experience (494)  |  Force (497)  |  Nobl (4)  |  Religious (134)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Strong (182)  |  Strongest (38)

I have presented the periodic table as a kind of travel guide to an imaginary country, of which the elements are the various regions. This kingdom has a geography: the elements lie in particular juxtaposition to one another, and they are used to produce goods, much as a prairie produces wheat and a lake produces fish. It also has a history. Indeed, it has three kinds of history: the elements were discovered much as the lands of the world were discovered; the kingdom was mapped, just as the world was mapped, and the relative positions of the elements came to take on a great significance; and the elements have their own cosmic history, which can be traced back to the stars.
In The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey Into the Land of the Chemical Elements (1995), Preface, viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Country (269)  |  Discover (571)  |  Element (322)  |  Fish (130)  |  Geography (39)  |  Good (906)  |  Goods (9)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guide (107)  |  History (716)  |  Imaginary (16)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Juxtaposition (3)  |  Kind (564)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Lake (36)  |  Land (131)  |  Lie (370)  |  Map (50)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Position (83)  |  Prairie (4)  |  Present (630)  |  Produce (117)  |  Region (40)  |  Relative (42)  |  Significance (114)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Table (105)  |  Trace (109)  |  Travel (125)  |  Various (205)  |  Wheat (10)  |  World (1850)

I have satisfied myself that the [cosmic] rays are not generated by the formation of new matter in space, a process which would be like water running up a hill. Nor do they come to any appreciable amount from the stars. According to my investigations the sun emits a radiation of such penetrative power that it is virtually impossible to absorb it in lead or other substances. ... This ray, which I call the primary solar ray, gives rise to a secondary radiation by impact against the cosmic dust scattered through space. It is the secondary radiation which now is commonly called the cosmic ray, and comes, of course, equally from all directions in space. [The article continues: The phenomena of radioactivity are not the result of forces within the radioactive substances but are caused by this ray emitted by the sun. If radium could be screened effectively against this ray it would cease to be radioactive, he said.]
Quoted in 'Tesla, 75, Predicts New Power Source', New York Times (5 Jul 1931), Section 2, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  According (236)  |  Against (332)  |  Amount (153)  |  Call (781)  |  Cease (81)  |  Continue (179)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Course (413)  |  Direction (185)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dust (68)  |  Emit (15)  |  Equally (129)  |  Force (497)  |  Formation (100)  |  Hill (23)  |  Impact (45)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Lead (391)  |  Matter (821)  |  Myself (211)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Power (771)  |  Primary (82)  |  Process (439)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Radium (29)  |  Ray (115)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Running (61)  |  Solar Energy (21)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sun (407)  |  Through (846)  |  Water (503)

I know of scarcely anything so apt to impress the imagination as the wonderful form of cosmic order expressed by the “Law of Frequency of Error.” The law would have been personified by the Greeks and deified, if they had known of it. It reigns with serenity and in complete self-effacement, amidst the wildest confusion. The huger the mob, and the greater the apparent anarchy, the more perfect is its sway. It is the supreme law of Unreason. Whenever a large sample of chaotic elements are taken in hand and marshaled in the order of their magnitude, an unsuspected and most beautiful form of regularity proves to have been latent all along.
In Natural Inheritance (1894), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Anarchy (8)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Complete (209)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Element (322)  |  Error (339)  |  Express (192)  |  Form (976)  |  Frequency (25)  |  Greater (288)  |  Greek (109)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impress (66)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Latent (13)  |  Law (913)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mob (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Order (638)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Prove (261)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Reign (24)  |  Sample (19)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Self (268)  |  Serenity (11)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Unsuspected (7)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Wonderful (155)

I like to summarize what I regard as the pedestal-smashing messages of Darwin’s revolution in the following statement, which might be chanted several times a day, like a Hare Krishna mantra, to encourage penetration into the soul: Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought, a tiny little twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life, which, if replanted from seed, would almost surely not grow this twig again, or perhaps any twig with any property that we would care to call consciousness.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Afterthought (6)  |  Bush (11)  |  Call (781)  |  Care (203)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Darwins (5)  |  Encourage (43)  |  End (603)  |  Enormously (4)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Follow (389)  |  Fortuitous (11)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hare (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Message (53)  |  Pedestal (3)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Predictable (10)  |  Progress (492)  |  Property (177)  |  Regard (312)  |  Result (700)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Seed (97)  |  Several (33)  |  Soul (235)  |  Statement (148)  |  Summarize (10)  |  Surely (101)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Twig (15)

In 1905, a physicist measuring the thermal conductivity of copper would have faced, unknowingly, a very small systematic error due to the heating of his equipment and sample by the absorption of cosmic rays, then unknown to physics. In early 1946, an opinion poller, studying Japanese opinion as to who won the war, would have faced a very small systematic error due to the neglect of the 17 Japanese holdouts, who were discovered later north of Saipan. These cases are entirely parallel. Social, biological and physical scientists all need to remember that they have the same problems, the main difference being the decimal place in which they appear.
In William G. Cochran, Frederick Mosteller and John W. Tukey, 'Principles of Sampling', Journal of the American Statistical Society, 1954, 49, 31. Collected in Selected Papers of Frederick Mosteller (2006), 290.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorption (13)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biological (137)  |  Conductivity (4)  |  Copper (25)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Due (143)  |  Early (196)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Error (339)  |  Japanese (7)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Problem (731)  |  Ray (115)  |  Remember (189)  |  Sample (19)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Small (489)  |  Social (261)  |  Studying (70)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Unknown (195)  |  War (233)

In every living being there exists a capacity for endless diversity of form; each possesses the power of adapting its organization to the variations of the external world, and it is this power, called into activity by cosmic changes, which has enabled the simple zoophytes of the primitive world to climb to higher and higher stages of organization, and has brought endless variety into nature.
From Gottfried Reinold Treviranus, Biologie, oder Philosophie der lebenden Natur [Biology, or Philosophy of Animate Nature], quoted in Lecture 1, August Weismann (1904, 2nd German ed.) as translated in August Weismann, Margaret R. Thomson (trans.), The Evolution Theory, Vol 1., 18-19.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Change (639)  |  Climb (39)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Enable (122)  |  Endless (60)  |  Exist (458)  |  External (62)  |  Form (976)  |  Higher (37)  |  Living (492)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Simple (426)  |  Stage (152)  |  Variation (93)  |  Variety (138)  |  World (1850)  |  Zoophyte (5)

In general I would be cautious against … plays of fancy and would not make way for their reception into scientific astronomy, which must have quite a different character. Laplace’s cosmogenic hypotheses belong in that class. Indeed, I do not deny that I sometimes amuse myself in a similar manner, only I would never publish the stuff. My thoughts about the inhabitants of celestial bodies, for example, belong in that category. For my part, I am (contrary to the usual opinion) convinced … that the larger the cosmic body, the smaller are the inhabitants and other products. For example, on the sun trees, which in the same ratio would be larger than ours, as the sun exceeds the earth in magnitude, would not be able to exist, for on account of the much greater weight on the surface of the sun, all branches would break themselves off, in so far as the materials are not of a sort entirely heterogeneous with those on earth.
Letter to Heinrich Schumacher (7 Nov 1847). Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 411.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Against (332)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Belong (168)  |  Body (557)  |  Break (109)  |  Category (19)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Character (259)  |  Class (168)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Deny (71)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fancy (50)  |  General (521)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greater (288)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Product (166)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Reception (16)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tree (269)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)

In my estimation it was obvious that Jansky had made a fundamental and very important discovery. Furthermore, he had exploited it to the limit of his equipment facilities. If greater progress were to be made it would be necessary to construct new and different equipment especially designed to measure the cosmic static.
Reber explaining his own motivation to build the first radio telescope.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Construct (129)  |  Design (203)  |  Different (595)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Exploit (19)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Greater (288)  |  Limit (294)  |  Measure (241)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Progress (492)  |  Radio Telescope (5)

In the course of centuries the naïve self-love of men has had to submit to two major blows at the hands of science. The first was when they learnt that our earth was not the centre of the universe but only a tiny fragment of a cosmic system of scarcely imaginable vastness… the second blow fell when biological research destroyed man’s supposedly privileged place in creation and proved his descent from the animal kingdom and his ineradicable animal nature… But human megalomania will have suffered its third and most wounding blow from the psychological research of the present time which seeks to prove to the ego that it is not even master in its own house, but must content itself with scanty information of what is going on unconsciously in its mind.
Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalyis (1916), in James Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (1963), Vol. 16, 284-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Kingdom (21)  |  Biological (137)  |  Blow (45)  |  Course (413)  |  Creation (350)  |  Descent (30)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ego (17)  |  First (1302)  |  Fragment (58)  |  House (143)  |  Human (1512)  |  Information (173)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Love (328)  |  Major (88)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Present (630)  |  Prove (261)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Research (753)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Seek (218)  |  Self (268)  |  System (545)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vastness (15)  |  Will (2350)

In the index to the six hundred odd pages of Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History, abridged version, the names of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes and Newton do not occur … yet their cosmic quest destroyed the mediaeval vision of an immutable social order in a walled-in universe and transformed the European landscape, society, culture, habits and general outlook, as thoroughly as if a new species had arisen on this planet.
First lines of 'Preface', in The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe (1959), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Nicolaus Copernicus (54)  |  Culture (157)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Do (1905)  |  Europe (50)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  General (521)  |  Habit (174)  |  History (716)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Mediaeval (3)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Occur (151)  |  Order (638)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Planet (402)  |  Quest (39)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Species (435)  |  Study (701)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Arnold J. Toynbee (3)  |  Transform (74)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vision (127)  |  Wall (71)

In the index to the six hundred odd pages of Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History, abridged version, the names of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes and Newton do not occur yet their cosmic quest destroyed the medieval vision of an immutable social order in a walled-in universe and transformed the European landscape, society, culture, habits and general outlook, as thoroughly as if a new species had arisen on this planet.
In The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959), Preface, 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Copernicus_Nicolaud (2)  |  Culture (157)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Do (1905)  |  Europe (50)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  General (521)  |  Habit (174)  |  History (716)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Medieval (12)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Occur (151)  |  Order (638)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Planet (402)  |  Quest (39)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Order (8)  |  Society (350)  |  Species (435)  |  Study (701)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Arnold J. Toynbee (3)  |  Transform (74)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vision (127)  |  Wall (71)

In the social equation, the value of a single life is nil; in the cosmic equation, it is infinite… Not only communism, but any political movement which implicitly relies on purely utilitarian ethics, must become a victim to the same fatal error. It is a fallacy as naïve as a mathematical teaser, and yet its consequences lead straight to Goya’s Disasters, to the reign of the guillotine, the torture chambers of the Inquisition, or the cellars of the Lubianka.
In 'The Invisible Writing', Arrow in the Blue: An Autobiography (1952), Vol. 2, 357.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Cellar (4)  |  Communism (11)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Equation (138)  |  Error (339)  |  Ethic (39)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Guillotine (5)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Inquisition (9)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Movement (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Political (124)  |  Politics (122)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reign (24)  |  Single (365)  |  Social (261)  |  Straight (75)  |  Torture (30)  |  Value (393)  |  Victim (37)

It is a remarkable illustration of the ranging power of the human intellect that a principle first detected in connection with the clumsy puffing of the early steam engines should be found to apply to the whole world, and possibly, even to the whole cosmic universe.
In Man and Energy (1955, 1963), 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Clumsy (7)  |  Connection (171)  |  Detect (45)  |  Early (196)  |  Engine (99)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  World (1850)

It is as if Cleopatra fell off her barge in 40 BC and hasn't hit the water yet.
[Illustrating how strange the behaviour of kaon particles, when first found in cosmic rays, which lived without predicted decay for a surprisingly long time—seemingly postponed a million billion times longer than early theory expected.]
Anonymous
In Frank Close, Michael Marten, Christine Sutton, The Particle Odyssey: a Journey to the Heart of the Matter (2004),75.
Science quotes on:  |  Barge (2)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Billion (104)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Decay (59)  |  Early (196)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fall (243)  |  First (1302)  |  Long (778)  |  Particle (200)  |  Predict (86)  |  Ray (115)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Strange (160)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Water (503)

It is tempting to wonder if our present universe, large as it is and complex though it seems, might not be merely the result of a very slight random increase in order over a very small portion of an unbelievably colossal universe which is virtually entirely in heat-death. Perhaps we are merely sliding down a gentle ripple that has been set up, accidently and very temporarily, in a quiet pond, and it is only the limitation of our own infinitesimal range of viewpoint in space and time that makes it seem to ourselves that we are hurtling down a cosmic waterfall of increasing entropy, a waterfall of colossal size and duration.
(1976). In Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 331.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Colossal (15)  |  Complex (202)  |  Death (406)  |  Down (455)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Heat (180)  |  Increase (225)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Large (398)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Merely (315)  |  Order (638)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Pond (17)  |  Portion (86)  |  Present (630)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Random (42)  |  Range (104)  |  Result (700)  |  Ripple (12)  |  Set (400)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Temporary (24)  |  Tempting (10)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Universe (900)  |  Viewpoint (13)  |  Waterfall (5)  |  Wonder (251)

It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Age (509)  |  Alone (324)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Celestial Mechanics (4)  |  Century (319)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Church (64)  |  Completely (137)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Countless (39)  |  Deep (241)  |  Derive (70)  |  Develop (278)  |  Devote (45)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Devotee (7)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Disentangle (4)  |  Easily (36)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effort (243)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Enable (122)  |  End (603)  |  Failure (176)  |  False (105)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fight (49)  |  Give (208)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Issue (46)  |  Kepler (4)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Man (2252)  |  Materialistic (2)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mentality (5)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motive (62)  |  Must (1525)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Nobl (4)  |  Notion (120)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ours (4)  |  People (1031)  |  Persecute (6)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Practical (225)  |  Principle (530)  |  Profoundly (13)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Reality (274)  |  Realization (44)  |  Realize (157)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Religious (134)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remote (86)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Say (989)  |  Scatter (7)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Serious (98)  |  Show (353)  |  Similar (36)  |  Skeptical (21)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spite (55)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Surround (33)  |  Theoretical Science (4)  |  Through (846)  |  True (239)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unjustly (2)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Wide (97)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worker (34)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)  |  Yearn (13)  |  Yearning (13)

Mars tugs at the human imagination like no other planet. With a force mightier than gravity, it attracts the eye to its shimmering red presence in the clear night sky. It is like a glowing ember in a field of ethereal lights, projecting energy and promise. It inspires visions of an approachable world. The mind vaults to thoughts of what might have been (if Mars were a litter closer to the warming Sun) and of what could be (if humans were one day to plant colonies there). Mysterious Mars, alluring Mars, fourth planet from the Sun: so far away and yet, on a cosmic scale, so very near.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alluring (5)  |  Attract (25)  |  Clear (111)  |  Close (77)  |  Closer (43)  |  Colony (8)  |  Ember (2)  |  Energy (373)  |  Ethereal (9)  |  Eye (440)  |  Far (158)  |  Field (378)  |  Force (497)  |  Fourth (8)  |  Glow (15)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Light (635)  |  Litter (5)  |  Mars (47)  |  Mighty (13)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Night (133)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plant (320)  |  Presence (63)  |  Project (77)  |  Promise (72)  |  Red (38)  |  Scale (122)  |  Shimmering (2)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thought (995)  |  Vault (2)  |  Vision (127)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warming (24)  |  World (1850)

More of cosmic history occurred in the first millisecond than has occurred in the ensuing 10 billion years.
As given in an epigraph, without citation, in David M. Harland (ed.), The Big Bang: A View from the 21st Century (2003), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Billion (104)  |  Ensuing (3)  |  First (1302)  |  History (716)  |  More (2558)  |  Year (963)

My own emotional feeling is that life has a purpose—ultimately, I’d guess that purpose it has is the purpose that we’ve given it and not a purpose that come out of any cosmic design.
Alan Guth
As quoted in Michio Kaku, Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos (2006), 359.
Science quotes on:  |  Design (203)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Give (208)  |  Guess (67)  |  Life (1870)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Ultimately (56)

Not only is the state of nature hostile to the state of art of the garden; but the principle of the horticultural process, by which the latter is created and maintained, is antithetic to that of the cosmic process. The characteristic feature of the latter is the intense and unceasing competition of the struggle for existence. The characteristic of the former is the elimination of that struggle, by the removal of the conditions which give rise to it. The tendency of the cosmic process is to bring about the adjustment of the forms of plant life to the current conditions; the tendency of the horticultural process is the adjustment of the conditions to the needs of the forms of plant life which the gardener desires to raise.
'Evolution and Ethics-Prolegomena' (1894). In Collected Essays (1894), Vol. 9, 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Adjustment (21)  |  Art (680)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Competition (45)  |  Condition (362)  |  Current (122)  |  Desire (212)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Existence (481)  |  Form (976)  |  Former (138)  |  Garden (64)  |  Horticulture (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Plant (320)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Rise (169)  |  State (505)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Tendency (110)

Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler, but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat.
Religion without Revelation (1957), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Cat (52)  |  Cheshire Cat (3)  |  God (776)  |  Last (425)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Ruler (21)  |  Smile (34)

Our posturing, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Challenge (91)  |  Dark (145)  |  Delusion (26)  |  Elsewhere (10)  |  Envelop (5)  |  Great (1610)  |  Help (116)  |  Hint (21)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Importance (299)  |  Light (635)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Pale (9)  |  Planet (402)  |  Point (584)  |  Position (83)  |  Posture (7)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Save (126)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Importance (3)  |  Speck (25)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vastness (15)  |  Will (2350)

Realistic thinking accrues only after mistake making, which is the cosmic wisdom's most cogent way of teaching each of us how to carry on.
In Buckminster Fuller and Answar Dil, Humans in Universe (1983), 218.
Science quotes on:  |  Accrue (3)  |  Carry (130)  |  Cogent (6)  |  Make (25)  |  Making (300)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Most (1728)  |  Realistic (6)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wisdom (235)

Religion and science ... constitute deep-rooted and ancient efforts to find richer experience and deeper meaning than are found in the ordinary biological and social satisfactions. As pointed out by Whitehead, religion and science have similar origins and are evolving toward similar goals. Both started from crude observations and fanciful concepts, meaningful only within a narrow range of conditions for the people who formulated them of their limited tribal experience. But progressively, continuously, and almost simultaneously, religious and scientific concepts are ridding themselves of their coarse and local components, reaching higher and higher levels of abstraction and purity. Both the myths of religion and the laws of science, it is now becoming apparent, are not so much descriptions of facts as symbolic expressions of cosmic truths.
'On Being Human,' A God Within, Scribner (1972).
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Biological (137)  |  Both (496)  |  Coarse (4)  |  Component (51)  |  Concept (242)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Continuously (7)  |  Crude (32)  |  Deep (241)  |  Description (89)  |  Effort (243)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fanciful (6)  |  Find (1014)  |  Formulate (16)  |  Goal (155)  |  High (370)  |  Law (913)  |  Level (69)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Local (25)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meaningful (19)  |  Myth (58)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Observation (593)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Origin (250)  |  People (1031)  |  Point (584)  |  Progressively (4)  |  Purity (15)  |  Range (104)  |  Reach (286)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Rich (66)  |  Rid (14)  |  Root (121)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Similar (36)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Social (261)  |  Start (237)  |  Symbolic (16)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Toward (45)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Alfred North Whitehead (140)

Science is, perhaps, some kind of cosmic apple juice from the Garden of Eden. Those of it are doomed to carry the burden of original sin.
As quoted in Norman C. Harris, Updating Occupational Education (1973), 105. Also in News Summaries (9 Apr 1971), as cited in Bill Swainson (ed.),The Encarta Book of Quotations (2000), 134.
Science quotes on:  |  Apple (46)  |  Burden (30)  |  Carry (130)  |  Carrying (7)  |  Doom (34)  |  Eden (2)  |  Garden (64)  |  Juice (7)  |  Kind (564)  |  Original (61)  |  Sin (45)

Success is voltage under control—keeping one hand on the transformer of your Kosmic Kilowatts.
In Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers (1909), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Control (182)  |  Hand (149)  |  Kilowatt (2)  |  Success (327)  |  Voltage (3)

Telescopes are in some ways like time machines. They reveal galaxies so far away that their light has taken billions of years to reach us. We in astronomy have an advantage in studying the universe, in that we can actually see the past.
We owe our existence to stars, because they make the atoms of which we are formed. So if you are romantic you can say we are literally starstuff. If you’re less romantic you can say we’re the nuclear waste from the fuel that makes stars shine.
We’ve made so many advances in our understanding. A few centuries ago, the pioneer navigators learnt the size and shape of our Earth, and the layout of the continents. We are now just learning the dimensions and ingredients of our entire cosmos, and can at last make some sense of our cosmic habitat.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Advance (298)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Atom (381)  |  Billion (104)  |  Billions (7)  |  Century (319)  |  Continent (79)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entire (50)  |  Existence (481)  |  Far (158)  |  Form (976)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Habitat (17)  |  Ingredient (16)  |  Last (425)  |  Layout (2)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Less (105)  |  Light (635)  |  Literally (30)  |  Machine (271)  |  Navigator (8)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Waste (4)  |  Owe (71)  |  Past (355)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Romantic (13)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shape (77)  |  Shine (49)  |  Size (62)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Starstuff (5)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time Machine (4)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)  |  Waste (109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

That man can interrogate as well as observe nature was a lesson slowly learned in his evolution. Of the two methods by which he can do this, the mathematical and the experimental, both have been equally fruitful—by the one he has gauged the starry heights and harnessed the cosmic forces to his will; by the other he has solved many of the problems of life and lightened many of the burdens of humanity.
In 'The Evolution of the Idea of Experiment in Medicine', in C.G. Roland, Sir William Osler, 1849-1919: A Selection for Medical Students (1982), 103. As cited in William Osler and Mark E. Silverman (ed.), The Quotable Osler (2002), 249
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Burden (30)  |  Do (1905)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Force (497)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Harness (25)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Interrogation (5)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)

The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning. It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the head-mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one.
Man on His Nature (1940), 225.
Science quotes on:  |  Abiding (3)  |  Become (821)  |  Brain (281)  |  Dance (35)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Enchantment (9)  |  Enter (145)  |  Flash (49)  |  Loom (20)  |  Mass (160)  |  Meaningful (19)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Million (124)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Return (133)  |  Shuttle (3)  |  Waking (17)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weave (21)

The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the psyche, opening into the cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego-consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness may extend.
Carl Jung
In Civilization in Transition (1964), 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Door (94)  |  Dream (222)  |  Ego (17)  |  Extend (129)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Night (133)  |  Opening (15)  |  Psyche (9)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Recess (8)  |  Remain (355)  |  Secret (216)  |  Will (2350)

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Arena (4)  |  Become (821)  |  Blood (144)  |  Corner (59)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Distinguishable (2)  |  Dot (18)  |  Eager (17)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emperor (6)  |  Endless (60)  |  Fervent (6)  |  Fraction (16)  |  Frequent (26)  |  General (521)  |  Glory (66)  |  Hatred (21)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Kill (100)  |  Master (182)  |  Misunderstanding (13)  |  Momentary (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pixel (2)  |  River (140)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Small (489)  |  Spill (3)  |  Stage (152)  |  Think (1122)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Vast (188)  |  Visit (27)

The experiments that we will do with the LHC [Large Hadron Collider] have been done billions of times by cosmic rays hitting the earth. ... They're being done continuously by cosmic rays hitting our astronomical bodies, like the moon, the sun, like Jupiter and so on and so forth. And the earth's still here, the sun's still here, the moon's still here. LHC collisions are not going to destroy the planet.
As quoted in Alan Boyle, 'Discovery of Doom? Collider Stirs Debate', article (8 Sep 2008) on a msnbc.com web page.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Billion (104)  |  Collision (16)  |  Continuously (7)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Large (398)  |  Large Hadron Collider (6)  |  Moon (252)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plant (320)  |  Ray (115)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this. The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Aim (175)  |  Akin (5)  |  Already (226)  |  Appear (122)  |  Atheist (16)  |  Base (120)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beginnings (5)  |  Both (496)  |  Buddhism (4)  |  Case (102)  |  Central (81)  |  Church (64)  |  Closely (12)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Contain (68)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  David (6)  |  Democritus of Abdera (17)  |  Desire (212)  |  Development (441)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Early (196)  |  Element (322)  |  Especially (31)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fill (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Francis (2)  |  Futility (7)  |  Genius (301)  |  God (776)  |  Heretic (8)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Image (97)  |  Impress (66)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marvelous (31)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Prison (13)  |  Prophet (22)  |  Psalm (3)  |  Regard (312)  |  Religious (134)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Saint (17)  |  Schopenhauer (6)  |  Significant (78)  |  Single (365)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Sort (50)  |  Spinoza (11)  |  Stage (152)  |  Strong (182)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Sublimity (6)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teachings (11)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universe (900)  |  Want (504)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)  |  Writing (192)  |  Writings (6)

The instinctive tendency of the scientific man is toward the existential substrate that appears when use and purpose—cosmic significance, artistic value, social utility, personal preference—have been removed. He responds positively to the bare “what” of things; he responds negatively to any further demand for interest or appreciation.
In Systemic Psychology: Prolegomena (1929), 32-33.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciation (37)  |  Artistic (24)  |  Bare (33)  |  Demand (131)  |  Interest (416)  |  Man (2252)  |  Preference (28)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Significance (114)  |  Social (261)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Utility (52)  |  Value (393)

The mind of God we believe is cosmic music, the music of strings resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace. That is the mind of God.
From online article with video 'Math is the Mind of God', (29 Dec 2012) on website of bigthink.com.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Dimension (64)  |  God (776)  |  Hyperspace (3)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Music (133)  |  Resonate (2)  |  String (22)  |  Superstring (4)  |  Through (846)

The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved.
New Hopes for a Changing World (1952), 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Amazing (35)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Face (214)  |  Force (497)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Impotence (8)  |  Minuteness (8)  |  More (2558)  |  Realize (157)

The notion that individualism came first runs against the very grain of cosmic history. … grouping has been inherent in evolution since the first quarks joined to form neutrons and protons. Similarly, replicators—RNA, DNA, and genes—have always worked in teams… The bacteria of 3.5 billion years ago were creatures of the crowd. So were the trilobites and echinoderms of the Cambrian age.
In 'The Embryonic Meme', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Age (509)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Billion (104)  |  Cambrian (2)  |  Creature (242)  |  Crowd (25)  |  DNA (81)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Gene (105)  |  Grain (50)  |  Group (83)  |  History (716)  |  Individualism (3)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Join (32)  |  Neutron (23)  |  Notion (120)  |  Proton (23)  |  Quark (9)  |  Replicator (3)  |  RNA (5)  |  Run (158)  |  Similarly (4)  |  Team (17)  |  Trilobite (6)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

The practice of that which is ethically best—what we call goodness or virtue—involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows… It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence… Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process.
'Evolution and Ethics' (1893). In Collected Essays (1894), Vol. 9, 81-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Call (781)  |  Competition (45)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Course (413)  |  Demand (131)  |  Direct (228)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Individual (420)  |  Involve (93)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Merely (315)  |  Moral (203)  |  Practice (212)  |  Precept (10)  |  Process (439)  |  Repudiate (7)  |  Require (229)  |  Respect (212)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Ruthless (12)  |  Self (268)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Success (327)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Virtue (117)

The progress of Science is generally regarded as a kind of clean, rational advance along a straight ascending line; in fact it has followed a zig-zag course, at times almost more bewildering than the evolution of political thought. The history of cosmic theories, in particular, may without exaggeration be called a history of collective obsessions and controlled schizophrenias; and the manner in which some of the most important individual discoveries were arrived at reminds one more of a sleepwalker’s performance than an electronic brain’s.
From 'Preface', in The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe (1959), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Bewildering (5)  |  Brain (281)  |  Call (781)  |  Clean (52)  |  Collective (24)  |  Course (413)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exaggeration (16)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Follow (389)  |  History (716)  |  Important (229)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Line (100)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obsession (13)  |  Performance (51)  |  Political (124)  |  Progress (492)  |  Progress Of Science (40)  |  Rational (95)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remind (16)  |  Schizophrenia (4)  |  Sleepwalker (2)  |  Straight (75)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Zigzag (3)

The subject, cosmic physics, of her inaugural lecture was reported as 'cosmetic physics' in the press (more plausible with a female Dozent!).
Anonymous
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (1970), 16, 408.
Science quotes on:  |  Cosmetic (2)  |  Female (50)  |  Lecture (111)  |  More (2558)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Press (21)  |  Report (42)  |  Subject (543)

There is no force inherent in living matter, no vital force independent of and differing from the cosmic forces; the energy which living matter gives off is counterbalanced by the energy which it receives.
In Disease and its Causes (1913), 10-11.
Science quotes on:  |  Conservation Of Energy (30)  |  Counterbalance (4)  |  Energy (373)  |  Force (497)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Receive (117)  |  Vital (89)  |  Vital Force (7)

This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened,?
[Having attended Lemaitre’s seminar at Caltech on the ‘cosmic egg’, the mass of all the Universe at its origination. (Dec 1932).]
In David Michael Harland, The Big Bang (), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Attend (67)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Caltech (2)  |  Creation (350)  |  Egg (71)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Listen (81)  |  Mass (160)  |  Most (1728)  |  Origination (7)  |  Satisfactory (19)  |  Seminar (5)  |  Universe (900)

We are not alone in the universe, and do not bear alone the whole burden of life and what comes of it. Life is a cosmic event—so far as we know the most complex state of organization that matter has achieved in our cosmos. It has come many times, in many places—places closed off from us by impenetrable distances, probably never to be crossed even with a signal. As men we can attempt to understand it, and even somewhat to control and guide its local manifestations. On this planet that is our home, we have every reason to wish it well. Yet should we fail, all is not lost. Our kind will try again elsewhere.
In 'The Origin of Life', Scientific American (Aug 1954), 191, No. 2, 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Complex (202)  |  Control (182)  |  Distance (171)  |  Fail (191)  |  Guide (107)  |  Home (184)  |  Impenetrable (7)  |  Life (1870)  |  Local (25)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Matter (821)  |  Organization (120)  |  Planet (402)  |  Probable (24)  |  Signal (29)  |  Try (296)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)

We have little more personal stake in cosmic destiny than do sunflowers or butterflies. The transfiguration of the universe lies some 50 to 100 billion years in the future; snap your fingers twice and you will have consumed a greater fraction of your life than all human history is to such a span. ... We owe our lives to universal processes ... and as invited guests we might do better to learn about them than to complain about them. If the prospect of a dying universe causes us anguish, it does so only because we can forecast it, and we have as yet not the slightest idea why such forecasts are possible for us. ... Why should nature, whether hostile or benign, be in any way intelligible to us? All the mysteries of science are but palace guards to that mystery.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Anguish (2)  |  Benign (2)  |  Better (493)  |  Billion (104)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Cause (561)  |  Complain (10)  |  Consume (13)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Die (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Finger (48)  |  Forecast (15)  |  Fraction (16)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Guard (19)  |  Guest (5)  |  History (716)  |  Hostile (8)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Invite (10)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Owe (71)  |  Palace (8)  |  Personal (75)  |  Possible (560)  |  Process (439)  |  Prospect (31)  |  Slight (32)  |  Snap (7)  |  Span (5)  |  Stake (20)  |  Sunflower (2)  |  Twice (20)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

We live on an obscure hunk of rock and metal circling a humdrum sun, which is on the outskirts of a perfectly ordinary galaxy comprised of 400 billion other suns, which, in turn, is one of some hundred billion galaxies that make up the universe, which, current thinking suggests, is one of a huge number—perhaps an infinite number—of other closed-off universes. From that perspective, the idea that we’re at the center, that we have some cosmic importance, is ludicrous.
From interview with Linda Obst in her article 'Valentine to Science', in Interview (Feb 1996). Quoted and cited in Tom Head (ed.), Conversations with Carl Sagan (2006), ix, and cited on p.xix.
Science quotes on:  |  Billion (104)  |  Center (35)  |  Closed (38)  |  Current (122)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Humdrum (3)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Idea (881)  |  Importance (299)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Live (650)  |  Ludicrous (7)  |  Metal (88)  |  Number (710)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outskirts (2)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Turn (454)  |  Universe (900)

We must somehow keep the dreams of space exploration alive, for in the long run they will prove to be of far more importance to the human race than the attainment of material benefits. Like Darwin, we have set sail upon an ocean: the cosmic sea of the Universe. There can be no turning back. To do so could well prove to be a guarantee of extinction. When a nation, or a race or a planet turns its back on the future, to concentrate on the present, it cannot see what lies ahead. It can neither plan nor prepare for the future, and thus discards the vital opportunity for determining its evolutionary heritage and perhaps its survival.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ahead (21)  |  Alive (97)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Back (395)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Darwin (14)  |  Determine (152)  |  Discard (32)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Far (158)  |  Future (467)  |  Guarantee (30)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Importance (299)  |  In The Long Run (18)  |  Keep (104)  |  Lie (370)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Plan (122)  |  Planet (402)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Present (630)  |  Prove (261)  |  Race (278)  |  Sail (37)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Set (400)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Exploration (15)  |  Survival (105)  |  Turn (454)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vital (89)  |  Will (2350)

What a splendid perspective contact with a profoundly different civilization might provide! In a cosmic setting vast and old beyond ordinary human understanding we are a little lonely, and we ponder the ultimate significance, if any, of our tiny but exquisite blue planet, the Earth… In the deepest sense the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a search for ourselves.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Blue (63)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Contact (66)  |  Deep (241)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Extraterrestrial (6)  |  Human (1512)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Little (717)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Old (499)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Planet (402)  |  Ponder (15)  |  Profoundly (13)  |  Provide (79)  |  Search (175)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Setting (44)  |  Significance (114)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vast (188)

When I entered the field of space physics in 1956, I recall that I fell in with the crowd believing, for example, that electric fields could not exist in the highly conducting plasma of space. It was three years later that I was shamed by S. Chandrasekhar into investigating Alfvén's work objectively. My degree of shock and surprise in finding Alfvén right and his critics wrong can hardly be described. I learned that a cosmic ray acceleration mechanism basically identical to the famous mechanism suggested by Fermi in 1949 had [previously] been put forth by Alfvén.
Quoted in Anthony L. Peratt, 'Dean of the Plasma Dissidents', Washington Times, supplement: The World and I (May 1988), 195.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceleration (12)  |  Belief (615)  |  Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (8)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Critic (21)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Degree (277)  |  Description (89)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electric Field (3)  |  Electromagnetic Field (2)  |  Enter (145)  |  Exist (458)  |  Enrico Fermi (20)  |  Field (378)  |  Identical (55)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Objectively (6)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plasma (8)  |  Ray (115)  |  Recall (11)  |  Right (473)  |  Shame (15)  |  Shock (38)  |  Space (523)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)

When I use the phrase “Cosmic Facts,” the reader is asked not to assume too rigid a meaning for the word “facts”; what is considered factual today is tomorrow recognized as capable of further refinement.
From Of Stars and Men: The Human Response to an Expanding Universe (1958 Rev. Ed. 1964), Foreword.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Capable (174)  |  Consider (428)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Further (6)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Refinement (19)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

While natural selection drives Darwinian evolution, the growth of human culture is largely Lamarckian: new generations of humans inherit the acquired discoveries of generations past, enabling cosmic insight to grow slowly, but without limit.
In magazine article, 'The Beginning of Science', Natural History (Mar 2001). Collected in Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries (2007), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Culture (157)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enable (122)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Generation (256)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Culture (10)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Insight (107)  |  Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (24)  |  Limit (294)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  New (1273)  |  Past (355)  |  Selection (130)  |  Slow (108)

Why Become Extinct? Authors with varying competence have suggested that dinosaurs disappeared because the climate deteriorated (became suddenly or slowly too hot or cold or dry or wet), or that the diet did (with too much food or not enough of such substances as fern oil; from poisons in water or plants or ingested minerals; by bankruptcy of calcium or other necessary elements). Other writers have put the blame on disease, parasites, wars, anatomical or metabolic disorders (slipped vertebral discs, malfunction or imbalance of hormone and endocrine systems, dwindling brain and consequent stupidity, heat sterilization, effects of being warm-blooded in the Mesozoic world), racial old age, evolutionary drift into senescent overspecialization, changes in the pressure or composition of the atmosphere, poison gases, volcanic dust, excessive oxygen from plants, meteorites, comets, gene pool drainage by little mammalian egg-eaters, overkill capacity by predators, fluctuation of gravitational constants, development of psychotic suicidal factors, entropy, cosmic radiation, shift of Earth’s rotational poles, floods, continental drift, extraction of the moon from the Pacific Basin, draining of swamp and lake environments, sunspots, God’s will, mountain building, raids by little green hunters in flying saucers, lack of standing room in Noah’s Ark, and palaeoweltschmerz.
'Riddles of the Terrible Lizards', American Scientist (1964) 52, 231.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Author (175)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blame (31)  |  Blood (144)  |  Brain (281)  |  Building (158)  |  Calcium (8)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Cold (115)  |  Comet (65)  |  Competence (13)  |  Composition (86)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Constant (148)  |  Continental Drift (15)  |  Development (441)  |  Diet (56)  |  Dinosaur (26)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disease (340)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Dry (65)  |  Dust (68)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Egg (71)  |  Element (322)  |  Endocrine (2)  |  Enough (341)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Environment (239)  |  Excessive (24)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Extraction (10)  |  Fern (10)  |  Flood (52)  |  Fluctuation (15)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Saucer (3)  |  Food (213)  |  Gene (105)  |  God (776)  |  Green (65)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hormone (11)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Lack (127)  |  Lake (36)  |  Little (717)  |  Malfunction (4)  |  Meteorite (9)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Noah�s Ark (2)  |  Oil (67)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Plant (320)  |  Poison (46)  |  Pole (49)  |  Predator (6)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Shift (45)  |  Sterilization (2)  |  Stupidity (40)  |  Substance (253)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Suicide (23)  |  Sunspot (5)  |  Swamp (9)  |  System (545)  |  UFO (4)  |  Volcano (46)  |  War (233)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warm-Blooded (3)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Writer (90)


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.