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: “Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index D > Category: Degree

Degree Quotes (277 quotes)

… on these expanded membranes [butterfly wings] Nature writes, as on a tablet, the story of the modifications of species, so truly do all changes of the organisation register themselves thereon. Moreover, the same colour-patterns of the wings generally show, with great regularity, the degrees of blood-relationship of the species. As the laws of nature must be the same for all beings, the conclusions furnished by this group of insects must be applicable to the whole world.
From The Naturalist on the River Amazons: A record of Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian life, and Aspects of Nature under the Equator, During Eleven Years of Travel (1864), 413.
Science quotes on:  |  Applicable (31)  |  Application (257)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blood (144)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Change (639)  |  Color (155)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Do (1905)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expand (56)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Furnishing (4)  |  Great (1610)  |  Group (83)  |  Insect (89)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Membrane (21)  |  Modification (57)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organization (120)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Register (22)  |  Registration (2)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Sameness (3)  |  Show (353)  |  Species (435)  |  Story (122)  |  Tablet (6)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Truly (118)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  Wing (79)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

… the reasoning process [employed in mathematics] is not different from that of any other branch of knowledge, … but there is required, and in a great degree, that attention of mind which is in some part necessary for the acquisition of all knowledge, and in this branch is indispensably necessary. This must be given in its fullest intensity; … the other elements especially characteristic of a mathematical mind are quickness in perceiving logical sequence, love of order, methodical arrangement and harmony, distinctness of conception.
In Treatise on Infinitesimal Calculus (1868), Vol. 8, 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Attention (196)  |  Branch (155)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conception (160)  |  Different (595)  |  Element (322)  |  Employ (115)  |  Great (1610)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logical (57)  |  Love (328)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Methodical (8)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Process (439)  |  Quickness (5)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Required (108)  |  Sequence (68)

...great difficulties are felt at first and these cannot be overcome except by starting from experiments .. and then be conceiving certain hypotheses ... But even so, very much hard work remains to be done and one needs not only great perspicacity but often a degree of good fortune.
Letter to Tschirnhaus (1687). Quoted in Archana Srinivasan, Great Inventors (2007), 37-38.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Luck (44)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Remain (355)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Work (1402)

…reality is a system, completely ordered and fully intelligible, with which thought in its advance is more and more identifying itself. We may look at the growth of knowledge … as an attempt by our mind to return to union with things as they are in their ordered wholeness…. and if we take this view, our notion of truth is marked out for us. Truth is the approximation of thought to reality … Its measure is the distance thought has travelled … toward that intelligible system … The degree of truth of a particular proposition is to be judged in the first instance by its coherence with experience as a whole, ultimately by its coherence with that further whole, all comprehensive and fully articulated, in which thought can come to rest.
In The Nature of Thought (1921), Vol II, 264.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Coherence (13)  |  Completely (137)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Distance (171)  |  Experience (494)  |  First (1302)  |  Growth (200)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Look (584)  |  Marked (55)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Notion (120)  |  Order (638)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Reality (274)  |  Rest (287)  |  Return (133)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Union (52)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wholeness (9)

[Alchemists] finde out men so covetous of so much happiness, whom they easily perswade that they shall finde greater Riches in Hydargyrie [mercury], than Nature affords in Gold. Such, whom although they have twice or thrice already been deluded, yet they have still a new Device wherewith to deceive um again; there being no greater Madness…. So that the smells of Coles, Sulphur, Dung, Poyson, and Piss, are to them a greater pleasure than the taste of Honey; till their Farms, Goods, and Patrimonies being wasted, and converted into Ashes and Smoak, when they expect the rewards of their Labours, births of Gold, Youth, and Immortality, after all their Time and Expences; at length, old, ragged, famisht, with the continual use of Quicksilver [mercury] paralytick, onely rich in misery, … a laughing-stock to the people: … compell’d to live in the lowest degree of poverty, and … at length compell’d thereto by Penury, they fall to Ill Courses, as Counterfeiting of Money.
In The Vanity of the Arts and Sciences (1530), translation (1676), 313.
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemist (23)  |  Already (226)  |  Being (1276)  |  Birth (154)  |  Coal (64)  |  Continual (44)  |  Counterfeit (2)  |  Course (413)  |  Covetous (2)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Delude (3)  |  Deluded (7)  |  Device (71)  |  Dung (10)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fall (243)  |  Farm (28)  |  Gold (101)  |  Good (906)  |  Greater (288)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Honey (15)  |  Labor (200)  |  Live (650)  |  Madness (33)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Misery (31)  |  Money (178)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Penury (3)  |  People (1031)  |  Persuade (11)  |  Piss (3)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Poison (46)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Quicksilver (8)  |  Reward (72)  |  Smell (29)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Still (614)  |  Sulphur (19)  |  Taste (93)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Youth (109)

[De Morgan relates that some person had made up 800 anagrams on his name, of which he had seen about 650. Commenting on these he says:]
Two of these I have joined in the title-page:
[Ut agendo surgamus arguendo gustamus.]
A few of the others are personal remarks.
Great gun! do us a sum!
is a sneer at my pursuit; but,
Go! great sum! [integral of a to the power u to the power n with respect to u] is more dignified. …
Adsum, nugator, suge!
is addressed to a student who continues talking after the lecture has commenced: …
Graduatus sum! nego
applies to one who declined to subscribe for an M.A. degree.
In Budget of Paradoxes (1872), 82. [The Latin phrases translate as, respectively, “Such action will start arguing with taste”, “Here babbler suck!” and “I graduate! I reject.” —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Address (13)  |  Anagram (9)  |  Apply (170)  |  Argue (25)  |  Babble (2)  |  Commence (5)  |  Comment (12)  |  Continue (179)  |  Decline (28)  |  Augustus De Morgan (45)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Great (1610)  |  Gun (10)  |  Integral (26)  |  Join (32)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Other (2233)  |  Page (35)  |  Person (366)  |  Personal (75)  |  Power (771)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Relate (26)  |  Remark (28)  |  Respect (212)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sneer (9)  |  Student (317)  |  Subscribe (2)  |  Suck (8)  |  Sum (103)  |  Talk (108)  |  Talking (76)  |  Title (20)  |  Two (936)

[Jethro Tull] was the first Englishman—perhaps the first writer, ancient and modern—who has attempted, with any tolerable degree of success, to reduce the art of agriculture to certain and uniform principles; and it must be acknowledged that he has done more towards establishing a rational and practical method of husbandry than all the writers who have gone before him.
Anonymous
In Letter (18 Oct 1764), signed only “D.Y.” from Hungerford, in Sylvanus Urban (ed.), 'Observations on the late Improvements in Agriculture', The Gentleman’s Magazine (Nov 1764), 525.
Science quotes on:  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Certain (557)  |  Englishman (5)  |  Establishing (7)  |  First (1302)  |  Husbandry (2)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Practical (225)  |  Principle (530)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Success (327)  |  Jethro Tull (8)  |  Uniform (20)  |  Writer (90)

[My Book] will endeavour to establish the principle[s] of reasoning in ... [geology]; and all my geology will come in as illustration of my views of those principles, and as evidence strengthening the system necessarily arising out of the admission of such principles, which... are neither more nor less than that no causes whatever have from the earliest time to which we can look back, to the present, ever acted, but those now acting; and that they never acted with different degrees of energy from that which they now exert.
Letter to Roderick Murchison Esq. (15 Jan 1829). In Mrs Lyell (ed.), The Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart (1881), Vol. 1, 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Admission (17)  |  Arising (22)  |  Back (395)  |  Book (413)  |  Cause (561)  |  Different (595)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Energy (373)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exert (40)  |  Geology (240)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Never (1089)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  System (545)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uniformitarianism (9)  |  View (496)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)

[The chemical bond] First, it is related to the disposition of two electrons (remember, no one has ever seen an electron!): next, these electrons have their spins pointing in opposite directions (remember, no one can ever measure the spin of a particular electron!): then, the spatial distribution of these electrons is described analytically with some degree of precision (remember, there is no way of distinguishing experimentally the density distribution of one electron from another!): concepts like hybridization, covalent and ionic structures, resonance, all appear, not one of which corresponds to anything that is directly measurable. These concepts make a chemical bond seem so real, so life-like, that I can almost see it. Then I wake with a shock to the realization that a chemical bond does not exist; it is a figment of the imagination that we have invented, and no more real than the square root of - 1. I will not say that the known is explained in terms of the unknown, for that is to misconstrue the sense of intellectual adventure. There is no explanation: there is form: there is structure: there is symmetry: there is growth: and there is therefore change and life.
Quoted in his obituary, Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society 1974, 20, 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Bond (46)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Concept (242)  |  Covalent (2)  |  Density (25)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Electron (96)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Growth (200)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Precision (72)  |  Realization (44)  |  Remember (189)  |  Resonance (7)  |  Root (121)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shock (38)  |  Spin (26)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Structure (365)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Two (936)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

[The famous attack of Sir William Hamilton on the tendency of mathematical studies] affords the most express evidence of those fatal lacunae in the circle of his knowledge, which unfitted him for taking a comprehensive or even an accurate view of the processes of the human mind in the establishment of truth. If there is any pre-requisite which all must see to be indispensable in one who attempts to give laws to the human intellect, it is a thorough acquaintance with the modes by which human intellect has proceeded, in the case where, by universal acknowledgment, grounded on subsequent direct verification, it has succeeded in ascertaining the greatest number of important and recondite truths. This requisite Sir W. Hamilton had not, in any tolerable degree, fulfilled. Even of pure mathematics he apparently knew little but the rudiments. Of mathematics as applied to investigating the laws of physical nature; of the mode in which the properties of number, extension, and figure, are made instrumental to the ascertainment of truths other than arithmetical or geometrical—it is too much to say that he had even a superficial knowledge: there is not a line in his works which shows him to have had any knowledge at all.
In Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (1878), 607.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Acknowledgment (13)  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Afford (19)  |  Apparently (22)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Ascertainment (2)  |  Attack (86)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Case (102)  |  Circle (117)  |  Comprehensive (29)  |  Direct (228)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Express (192)  |  Extension (60)  |  Famous (12)  |  Figure (162)  |  Fulfill (19)  |  Geometrical (11)  |  Give (208)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hamilton (2)  |  Hamilton_William (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Important (229)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Instrumental (5)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Line (100)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mode (43)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Prerequisite (9)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Process (439)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Recondite (8)  |  Requisite (12)  |  Rudiment (6)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Study (701)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Superficial (12)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Tolerable (2)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unfitted (3)  |  Universal (198)  |  Verification (32)  |  View (496)  |  Work (1402)

[The nanotube] brings those properties you cannot get from other organic molecules. And it’s still carbon, so it has organic chemistry. Here is an object that has, to a superlative degree, the aspects that we hold most central to the inorganic world: hardness, toughness, terrific strength, thermal and electrical conductivity. Things you just can’t do with bone and wood. But it’s made out of carbon. It’s something that plays the game at the same level of perfection as molecules and life.
From interview in 'Wires of Wonder', Technology Review (Mar 2001), 104, No. 2, 88.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Bone (101)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Central (81)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Conductivity (4)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Game (104)  |  Hardness (4)  |  Inorganic (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Object (438)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Property (177)  |  Something (718)  |  Still (614)  |  Strength (139)  |  Terrific (4)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Wood (97)  |  World (1850)

[Theory is] an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact. That’s what scientists mean when they talk about a theory: not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence. They embrace such an explanation confidently but provisionally—taking it as their best available view of reality, at least until some severely conflicting data or some better explanation might come along.
In 'Was Darwin Wrong?', National Geographic (Nov 2004), 206, 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Available (80)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Conflicting (13)  |  Data (162)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Expert (67)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fit (139)  |  Mean (810)  |  Observation (593)  |  Reality (274)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Statement (148)  |  Theory (1015)  |  View (496)

Strictly Germ-proof

The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup
Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up;
They looked upon the Creature with a loathing undisguised;—
It wasn't Disinfected and it wasn't Sterilized.

They said it was a Microbe and a Hotbed of Disease;
They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees;
They froze it in a freezer that was cold as Banished Hope
And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap.

In sulphurated hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears;
They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears;
They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand
And elected it a member of the Fumigated Band.

There's not a Micrococcus in the garden where they play;
They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day;
And each imbibes his rations from a Hygienic Cup—
The Bunny and the Baby and the Prophylactic Pup.
Printed in various magazines and medical journals, for example, The Christian Register (11 Oct 1906), 1148, citing Women's Home Companion. (Making fun of the contemporary national passion for sanitation.)
Science quotes on:  |  Antiseptic (8)  |  Baby (29)  |  Banish (11)  |  Boil (24)  |  Cold (115)  |  Creature (242)  |  Disease (340)  |  Ear (69)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Fumigation (2)  |  Gambol (2)  |  Garden (64)  |  Germ (54)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Hygiene (13)  |  Imbibed (3)  |  Loathe (4)  |  Look (584)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Play (116)  |  Playing (42)  |  Proof (304)  |  Pure (299)  |  Rubber (11)  |  Soap (11)  |  Steam (81)  |  Sterile (24)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vapor (12)  |  Wash (23)

[Recalling Professor Ira Remsen's remarks (1895) to a group of his graduate students about to go out with their degrees into the world beyond the university:]
He talked to us for an hour on what was ahead of us; cautioned us against giving up the desire to push ahead by continued study and work. He warned us against allowing our present accomplishments to be the high spot in our lives. He urged us not to wait for a brilliant idea before beginning independent research, and emphasized the fact the Lavoisier's first contribution to chemistry was the analysis of a sample of gypsum. He told us that the fields in which the great masters had worked were still fruitful; the ground had only been scratched and the gleaner could be sure of ample reward.
Quoted in Frederick Hutton Getman, The Life of Ira Remsen (1980), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Against (332)  |  Ample (4)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Brilliance (14)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Caution (24)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Desire (212)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Graduate Student (13)  |  Graduation (6)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Gypsum (2)  |  High (370)  |  Hour (192)  |  Idea (881)  |  Independent (74)  |  Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (41)  |  Live (650)  |  Master (182)  |  Present (630)  |  Professor (133)  |  Push (66)  |  Ira Remsen (6)  |  Research (753)  |  Reward (72)  |  Sample (19)  |  Scratch (14)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  University (130)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Branches or types are characterized by the plan of their structure,
Classes, by the manner in which that plan is executed, as far as ways and means are concerned,
Orders, by the degrees of complication of that structure,
Families, by their form, as far as determined by structure,
Genera, by the details of the execution in special parts, and
Species, by the relations of individuals to one another and to the world in which they live, as well as by the proportions of their parts, their ornamentation, etc.
Essay on Classification (1857). Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of America (1857), Vol. I, 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Classification (102)  |  Complication (30)  |  Concern (239)  |  Detail (150)  |  Execution (25)  |  Form (976)  |  Individual (420)  |  Live (650)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Order (638)  |  Plan (122)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)  |  Type (171)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

Je me rends parfaitement compte du desagreable effet que produit sur la majorite de l'humanité, tout ce qui se rapporte, même au plus faible dègré, á des calculs ou raisonnements mathematiques.
I am well aware of the disagreeable effect produced on the majority of humanity, by whatever relates, even at the slightest degree to calculations or mathematical reasonings.
From 'French Reply to Baron Czyllak' concerning the game at Monte Carlo, Monte Carlo Facts and Fallacies (1904), 290, originally published in L'Écho de la Mediterranée as a response to an earlier open letter by the Baron in the same magazine. Maxim defended his prior mathematical calculations about gambling games. At the end of his paper giving a cautionary mathematical analysis of 'The Gambler's Ruin', < a href="http://todayinsci.com/C/Coolidge_Julian/CoolidgeJulian-Quotations.htm">Julian Coolidge referenced this quotation, saying “it gives the best explanation which I have seen for the fact that the people continue to gamble.”
Science quotes on:  |  Aware (36)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Disagreeable (5)  |  Effect (414)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Majority (68)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Plus (43)  |  Produced (187)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reasonings (2)  |  Slightest (2)  |  Whatever (234)

Of Cooking. This is an art of various forms, the object of which is to give ordinary observations the appearance and character of those of the highest degree of accuracy. One of its numerous processes is to make multitudes of observations, and out of these to select only those which agree, or very nearly agree. If a hundred observations are made, the cook must be very unhappy if he cannot pick out fifteen or twenty which will do for serving up.
Reflections on the Decline of Science in England (1830). In Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao, Statistics and Truth (1997), 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Art (680)  |  Character (259)  |  Cooking (12)  |  Do (1905)  |  Form (976)  |  Fraud (15)  |  Hoax (6)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Select (45)  |  Serving (15)  |  Unhappy (16)  |  Various (205)  |  Will (2350)

Question: On freezing water in a glass tube, the tube sometimes breaks. Why is this? An iceberg floats with 1,000,000 tons of ice above the water line. About how many tons are below the water line?
Answer: The water breaks the tube because of capallarity. The iceberg floats on the top because it is lighter, hence no tons are below the water line. Another reason is that an iceberg cannot exceed 1,000,000 tons in weight: hence if this much is above water, none is below. Ice is exceptional to all other bodies except bismuth. All other bodies have 1090 feet below the surface and 2 feet extra for every degree centigrade. If it were not for this, all fish would die, and the earth be held in an iron grip.
P.S.—When I say 1090 feet, I mean 1090 feet per second.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 179-80, Question 13. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Above (7)  |  Answer (389)  |  Below (26)  |  Bismuth (7)  |  Break (109)  |  Centigrade (2)  |  Death (406)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Examination (102)  |  Exception (74)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Extra (7)  |  Fish (130)  |  Float (31)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Glass (94)  |  Grip (10)  |  Howler (15)  |  Ice (58)  |  Iceberg (4)  |  Iron (99)  |  Lighter (2)  |  Mean (810)  |  Other (2233)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  Surface (223)  |  Ton (25)  |  Top (100)  |  Tube (6)  |  Water (503)  |  Weight (140)  |  Why (491)

That the general characters of the big group to which the embryo belongs appear in development earlier than the special characters. In agreement with this is the fact that the vesicular form is the most general form of all; for what is common in a greater degree to all animals than the opposition of an internal and an external surface?
The less general structural relations are formed after the more general, and so on until the most special appear.
The embryo of any given form, instead of passing through the state of other definite forms, on the contrary separates itself from them.

Fundamentally the embryo of a higher animal form never resembles the adult of another animal form, but only its embryo.
Über Entwicklungsgeschichte der Thiere: Beobachtung und Reflexion (1828), 224. Trans. E. S. Russell, Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology (1916), 125-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Animal (651)  |  Belong (168)  |  Character (259)  |  Common (447)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Definite (114)  |  Development (441)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Greater (288)  |  Internal (69)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passing (76)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Separate (151)  |  Special (188)  |  State (505)  |  Structural (29)  |  Surface (223)  |  Through (846)

~~[No known source]~~ Every kind of science, if it has only reached a certain degree of maturity, automatically becomes a part of mathematics.
Eine jede Wissenschaft fällt, hat sie erst eine gewisse Reife erreicht, automatisch der Mathematik anheim.
Webmaster has so far found no source for these verbatim words. (Can you help?) Expressed in totally different words, Hilbert expresses a similar idea in Address (11 Sep 1917), 'Axiomatisches Denken' delivered before the Swiss Mathematical Society in Zürich. See the quote that begins, “Anything at all that can be the object of scientific thought …”, on the David Hilbert Quotes page on this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Automatically (5)  |  Become (821)  |  Certain (557)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Maturity (14)  |  Part (235)  |  Reach (286)

A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements, but not with a corresponding degree of strength, though it is deficient only in the power of maintaining equilibrium. We may therefore say that such an instrument constructed by man is lacking in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be supplied from that of man.
'Of the Bird's Movement' from Codice Atlantico 161 r.a., in Leonardo da Vinci's Notebooks, trans. E. MacCurdy (1906), Vol. 1, 153.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Bird (163)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Flight (101)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Movement (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Power (771)  |  Say (989)  |  Strength (139)

A distinguished writer [Siméon Denis Poisson] has thus stated the fundamental definitions of the science:
“The probability of an event is the reason we have to believe that it has taken place, or that it will take place.”
“The measure of the probability of an event is the ratio of the number of cases favourable to that event, to the total number of cases favourable or contrary, and all equally possible” (equally like to happen).
From these definitions it follows that the word probability, in its mathematical acceptation, has reference to the state of our knowledge of the circumstances under which an event may happen or fail. With the degree of information which we possess concerning the circumstances of an event, the reason we have to think that it will occur, or, to use a single term, our expectation of it, will vary. Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave neither room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.
An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854), 243-244. The Poisson quote is footnoted as from Recherches sur la Probabilité des Jugemens.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Change (639)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Definition (238)  |  Demand (131)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Equally (129)  |  Event (222)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Fail (191)  |  Follow (389)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Happen (282)  |  Information (173)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Measure (241)  |  Number (710)  |  Occur (151)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Siméon-Denis Poisson (7)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possible (560)  |  Probability (135)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Reason (766)  |  Single (365)  |  State (505)  |  Term (357)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Total (95)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Writer (90)

A graduate with a science degree asks: 'Why does it work?'
A graduate with an engineering degree asks: 'How does it work?'
A graduate with an accounting degree asks: 'How much will it cost?'
A graduate with an arts degree asks: 'Do you want fries with that?'
Anonymous
In Geoff Tibballs, The Mammoth Book of Humor (2000), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Ask (420)  |  Cost (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Humour (116)  |  Want (504)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

A great department of thought must have its own inner life, however transcendent may be the importance of its relations to the outside. No department of science, least of all one requiring so high a degree of mental concentration as Mathematics, can be developed entirely, or even mainly, with a view to applications outside its own range. The increased complexity and specialisation of all branches of knowledge makes it true in the present, however it may have been in former times, that important advances in such a department as Mathematics can be expected only from men who are interested in the subject for its own sake, and who, whilst keeping an open mind for suggestions from outside, allow their thought to range freely in those lines of advance which are indicated by the present state of their subject, untrammelled by any preoccupation as to applications to other departments of science. Even with a view to applications, if Mathematics is to be adequately equipped for the purpose of coping with the intricate problems which will be presented to it in the future by Physics, Chemistry and other branches of physical science, many of these problems probably of a character which we cannot at present forecast, it is essential that Mathematics should be allowed to develop freely on its own lines.
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sheffield, Section A, Nature (1 Sep 1910), 84, 286.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Advance (298)  |  Allow (51)  |  Application (257)  |  Branch (155)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Cope (9)  |  Department (93)  |  Develop (278)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Equip (6)  |  Equipped (17)  |  Essential (210)  |  Expect (203)  |  Forecast (15)  |  Former (138)  |  Freely (13)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Importance (299)  |  Important (229)  |  Increase (225)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Inner (72)  |  Interest (416)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Least (75)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mainly (10)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physics (564)  |  Preoccupation (7)  |  Present (630)  |  Probably (50)  |  Problem (731)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Range (104)  |  Relation (166)  |  Require (229)  |  Sake (61)  |  Specialize (4)  |  State (505)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transcendent (3)  |  True (239)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree or certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which the world suffers.
In Bertrand Russell and Paul Edwards (ed.), 'Preface', Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects (1957), vi.
Science quotes on:  |  Base (120)  |  Become (821)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Cure (124)  |  Evidence (267)  |  General (521)  |  Habit (174)  |  Most (1728)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Warrant (8)  |  World (1850)

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height, spots a man down below and asks,“Excuse me, can you help me? I promised to return the balloon to its owner, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man below says: “You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 350 feet above mean sea level and 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude.”
“You must be an engineer,” says the balloonist.
“I am,” replies the man.“How did you know?”
“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost.”
The man below says, “You must be a manager.”
“I am,” replies the balloonist,“but how did you know?”
“Well,” says the engineer,“you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem.The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault.”
Anonymous
In Jon Fripp, Michael Fripp and Deborah Fripp, Speaking of Science (2000), 199.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Ask (420)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Correct (95)  |  Down (455)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Everything (489)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fault (58)  |  Field (378)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Help (116)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hover (8)  |  Hovering (5)  |  Idea (881)  |  Information (173)  |  Joke (90)  |  Know (1538)  |  Latitude (6)  |  Longitude (8)  |  Lost (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manager (6)  |  Mean (810)  |  Must (1525)  |  Problem (731)  |  Promise (72)  |  Realize (157)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Return (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sea Level (5)  |  Solve (145)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Still (614)

A patent is property carried to the highest degree of abstraction—a right in rem to exclude, without a physical object or content.
Homes-Pollock Letters (1946), edited by Mark DeWolfe Howe, Vol. 1, 53. In Eugene C. Gerhart, Quote it Completely! (1998), 802.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Law (913)  |  Object (438)  |  Patent (34)  |  Physical (518)  |  Property (177)  |  Right (473)

A system such as classical mechanics may be ‘scientific’ to any degree you like; but those who uphold it dogmatically — believing, perhaps, that it is their business to defend such a successful system against criticism as long as it is not conclusively disproved — are adopting the very reverse of that critical attitude which in my view is the proper one for the scientist.
In The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959, reprint 2002), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Business (156)  |  Classical (49)  |  Critical (73)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Long (778)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Successful (134)  |  System (545)  |  View (496)

According to Democritus, atoms had lost the qualities like colour, taste, etc., they only occupied space, but geometrical assertions about atoms were admissible and required no further analysis. In modern physics, atoms lose this last property, they possess geometrical qualities in no higher degree than colour, taste, etc. The atom of modern physics can only be symbolized by a partial differential equation in an abstract multidimensional space. Only the experiment of an observer forces the atom to indicate a position, a colour and a quantity of heat. All the qualities of the atom of modern physics are derived, it has no immediate and direct physical properties at all, i.e. every type of visual conception we might wish to design is, eo ipso, faulty. An understanding of 'the first order' is, I would almost say by definition, impossible for the world of atoms.
Philosophic Problems of Nuclear Science, trans. F. C. Hayes (1952), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  According (236)  |  Admissible (6)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Atom (381)  |  Conception (160)  |  Definition (238)  |  Design (203)  |  Differential Equation (18)  |  Direct (228)  |  Equation (138)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Heat (180)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Last (425)  |  Lose (165)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Physics (23)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Order (638)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possess (157)  |  Property (177)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Required (108)  |  Say (989)  |  Space (523)  |  Taste (93)  |  Type (171)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Wish (216)  |  World (1850)

Adam, the first man, didn’t know anything about the nucleus but Dr. George Gamow, visiting professor from George Washington University, pretends he does. He says for example that the nucleus is 0.00000000000003 feet in diameter. Nobody believes it, but that doesn't make any difference to him.
He also says that the nuclear energy contained in a pound of lithium is enough to run the United States Navy for a period of three years. But to get this energy you would have to heat a mixture of lithium and hydrogen up to 50,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit. If one has a little stove of this temperature installed at Stanford, it would burn everything alive within a radius of 10,000 miles and broil all the fish in the Pacific Ocean.
If you could go as fast as nuclear particles generally do, it wouldn’t take you more than one ten-thousandth of a second to go to Miller's where you could meet Gamow and get more details.
'Gamow interviews Gamow' Stanford Daily, 25 Jun 1936. In Helge Kragh, Cosmology and Controversy: The Historica1 Development of Two Theories of the Universe (1996), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Burn (99)  |  Detail (150)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enough (341)  |  Everything (489)  |  First (1302)  |  Fish (130)  |  Fusion (16)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lithium (3)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mixture (44)  |  More (2558)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Energy (18)  |  Nuclear Power (16)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pacific Ocean (5)  |  Particle (200)  |  Period (200)  |  Professor (133)  |  Run (158)  |  Say (989)  |  State (505)  |  Temperature (82)  |  University (130)  |  Year (963)

After all, we scientific workers … like women, are the victims of fashion: at one time we wear dissociated ions, at another electrons; and we are always loth to don rational clothing; some fixed belief we must have manufactured for us: we are high or low church, of this or that degree of nonconformity, according to the school in which we are brought up—but the agnostic is always rare of us and of late years the critic has been taboo.
'The Thirst of Salted Water or the Ions Overboard', Science Progress (1909), 3, 643.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Agnostic (10)  |  Belief (615)  |  Church (64)  |  Electron (96)  |  High (370)  |  Ion (21)  |  Late (119)  |  Low (86)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Must (1525)  |  Rare (94)  |  Rational (95)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Taboo (5)  |  Time (1911)  |  Victim (37)  |  Year (963)

Again, it [the Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine. Supposing for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.
In Richard Taylor (ed.), 'Translator’s Notes to M. Menabrea’s Memoir', Scientific Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Foreign Academies and Learned Societies and from Foreign Journals (1843), 3, Note A, 694. Her notes were appended to L.F. Menabrea, of Turin, Officer of the Military Engineers, 'Article XXIX: Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage Esq.', Bibliothèque Universelle de Gnve (Oct 1842), No. 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Analytical Engine (5)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Composition (86)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Engine (99)  |  Express (192)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Music (133)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Notation (28)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Relation (166)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sound (187)  |  Supposing (3)  |  Susceptible (8)  |  Thing (1914)

All living forms are the results of physical influences which are still in operation, and vary only in degree and direction
Entry for Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus in Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), Vol. 27, 256.
Science quotes on:  |  Difference (355)  |  Direction (185)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Form (976)  |  Influence (231)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Operation (221)  |  Physical (518)  |  Result (700)  |  Still (614)

All that passes for knowledge can be arranged in a hierarchy of degrees of certainty, with arithmetic and the facts of perception at the top.
From 'Philosophy For Laymen', collected in Unpopular Essays (1950, 1996), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arranged (4)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Hierarchy (17)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Perception (97)  |  Top (100)

All things on the earth are the result of chemical combination. The operation by which the commingling of molecules and the interchange of atoms take place we can imitate in our laboratories; but in nature they proceed by slow degrees, and, in general, in our hands they are distinguished by suddenness of action. In nature chemical power is distributed over a long period of time, and the process of change is scarcely to be observed. By acts we concentrate chemical force, and expend it in producing a change which occupies but a few hours at most.
In chapter 'Chemical Forces', The Poetry of Science: Or, Studies of the Physical Phenomena of Nature (1848), 235-236. Charles Dicken used this quote, with his own sub-head of 'Relative Importance Of Time To Man And Nature', to conclude his review of the book, published in The Examiner (1848).
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Atom (381)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Combination (150)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Hour (192)  |  Imitate (18)  |  Interchange (4)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Long (778)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observed (149)  |  Operation (221)  |  Period (200)  |  Place (192)  |  Power (771)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Process (439)  |  Producing (6)  |  Result (700)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Slow (108)  |  Suddenness (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)

Although I was four years at the University [of Wisconsin], I did not take the regular course of studies, but instead picked out what I thought would be most useful to me, particularly chemistry, which opened a new world, mathematics and physics, a little Greek and Latin, botany and and geology. I was far from satisfied with what I had learned, and should have stayed longer.
[Enrolled in Feb 1861, left in 1863 without completing a degree, and began his first botanical foot journey.]
John Muir
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913), 286.
Science quotes on:  |  Botany (63)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Course (413)  |  First (1302)  |  Geology (240)  |  Greek (109)  |  Journey (48)  |  Latin (44)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Regular (48)  |  Thought (995)  |  University (130)  |  Useful (260)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Although man is not armed by nature nor is naturally swiftest in flight, yet he has something better by far—reason. For by the possession of this function he exceeds the beasts to such a degree that he subdues. … You see, therefore, how much the gift of reason surpasses mere physical equipment.
As given in Toby E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West (2003), 102, citing Tina Stiefel, Science, Reason, and Faith in the Twelfth Century (1976), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (82)  |  Armed (2)  |  Beast (58)  |  Better (493)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Flight (101)  |  Function (235)  |  Gift (105)  |  Man (2252)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possession (68)  |  Reason (766)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Subdue (7)  |  Surpassing (12)  |  Swiftness (5)

An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains.
Entry for 26 Dec 1852 in Amiel’s Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel, trans. Humphry Ward (1893), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Error (339)  |  More (2558)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Truth (1109)

An immune system of enormous complexity is present in all vertebrate animals. When we place a population of lymphocytes from such an animal in appropriate tissue culture fluid, and when we add an antigen, the lymphocytes will produce specific antibody molecules, in the absence of any nerve cells. I find it astonishing that the immune system embodies a degree of complexity which suggests some more or less superficial though striking analogies with human language, and that this cognitive system has evolved and functions without assistance of the brain.
'The Generative Grammar of the Immune System', Nobel Lecture, 8 Dec 1984. In Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1981-1990 (1993), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Animal (651)  |  Antibody (6)  |  Antigen (5)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Brain (281)  |  Cognitive (7)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Culture (157)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Function (235)  |  Human (1512)  |  Immune System (3)  |  Immunology (14)  |  Language (308)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Population (115)  |  Present (630)  |  Specific (98)  |  Striking (48)  |  System (545)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Will (2350)

Anatomists have ever been engaged in contention. And indeed, if a man has not such a degree of enthusiasm, and love of the art, as will make him impatient of unreasonable opposition and of encroachments upon his discoveries and his reputation, he will hardly become considerable in Anatomy or in any branch of natural knowledge.
Medical Commentaries (1764), Introduction, iii. In Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1972), Vol. 6, 569.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomist (24)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Art (680)  |  Become (821)  |  Branch (155)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Contention (14)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Natural (810)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Reputation (33)  |  Will (2350)

Anaximenes ... said that infinite air was the principle, from which the things that are becoming, and that are, and that shall be, and gods and things divine, all come into being, and the rest from its products. The form of air is of this kind: whenever it is most equable it is invisible to sight, but is revealed by the cold and the hot and the damp and by movement. It is always in motion; for things that change do not change unless there be movement. Through becoming denser or finer it has different appearances; for when it is dissolved into what is finer it becomes fire, while winds, again, are air that is becoming condensed, and cloud is produced from air by felting. When it is condensed still more, water is produced; with a further degree of condensation earth is produced, and when condensed as far as possible, stones. The result is that the most influential components of the generation are opposites, hot and cold.
Hippolytus, Refutation, 1.7.1. In G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield (eds.), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1983), p. 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Anaximander (5)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Cold (115)  |  Component (51)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Different (595)  |  Divine (112)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fire (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  God (776)  |  Hot (63)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Kind (564)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Movement (162)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Produced (187)  |  Product (166)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Sight (135)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Water (503)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Wind (141)

And from this such small difference of eight minutes [of arc] it is clear why Ptolemy, since he was working with bisection [of the linear eccentricity], accepted a fixed equant point… . For Ptolemy set out that he actually did not get below ten minutes [of arc], that is a sixth of a degree, in making observations. To us, on whom Divine benevolence has bestowed the most diligent of observers, Tycho Brahe, from whose observations this eight-minute error of Ptolemy’s in regard to Mars is deduced, it is fitting that we accept with grateful minds this gift from God, and both acknowledge and build upon it. So let us work upon it so as to at last track down the real form of celestial motions (these arguments giving support to our belief that the assumptions are incorrect). This is the path I shall, in my own way, strike out in what follows. For if I thought the eight minutes in [ecliptic] longitude were unimportant, I could make a sufficient correction (by bisecting the [linear] eccentricity) to the hypothesis found in Chapter 16. Now, because they could not be disregarded, these eight minutes alone will lead us along a path to the reform of the whole of Astronomy, and they are the matter for a great part of this work.
Astronomia Nova, New Astronomy (1609), ch. 19, 113-4, Johannes Kepler Gesammelte Werke (1937-), Vol. 3, 177-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Alone (324)  |  Arc (14)  |  Argument (145)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Belief (615)  |  Benevolence (11)  |  Bestow (18)  |  Both (496)  |  Tycho Brahe (24)  |  Build (211)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Correction (42)  |  Difference (355)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Divine (112)  |  Down (455)  |  Error (339)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Gift (105)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Last (425)  |  Lead (391)  |  Linear (13)  |  Longitude (8)  |  Making (300)  |  Mars (47)  |  Matter (821)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Observation (593)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Path (159)  |  Point (584)  |  Ptolemy (19)  |  Reform (22)  |  Regard (312)  |  Set (400)  |  Small (489)  |  Strike (72)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Support (151)  |  Thought (995)  |  Track (42)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Any man who is intelligent must, on considering that health is of the utmost value to human beings, have the personal understanding necessary to help himself in diseases, and be able to understand and to judge what physicians say and what they administer to his body, being versed in each of these matters to a degree reasonable for a layman.
Affections, in Hippocrates, trans. P. Potter (1988), Vol. 5, 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Disease (340)  |  Health (210)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Judge (114)  |  Layman (21)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Physician (284)  |  Say (989)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Value (393)

Archimedes … had stated that given the force, any given weight might be moved, and even boasted, we are told, relying on the strength of demonstration, that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this. Hiero being struck with amazement at this, and entreating him to make good this problem by actual experiment, and show some great weight moved by a small engine, he fixed accordingly upon a ship of burden out of the king’s arsenal, which could not be drawn out of the dock without great labor and many men; and, loading her with many passengers and a full freight, sitting himself the while far off with no great endeavor, but only holding the head of the pulley in his hand and drawing the cords by degrees, he drew the ship in a straight line, as smoothly and evenly, as if she had been in the sea. The king, astonished at this, and convinced of the power of the art, prevailed upon Archimedes to make him engines accommodated to all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of a siege. … the apparatus was, in most opportune time, ready at hand for the Syracusans, and with it also the engineer himself.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodate (17)  |  According (236)  |  Actual (118)  |  Amazement (19)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Arsenal (5)  |  Art (680)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonished (10)  |  At Hand (7)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boast (22)  |  Burden (30)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Cord (3)  |  Defensive (2)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Engine (99)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Far (158)  |  Fix (34)  |  Force (497)  |  Freight (3)  |  Full (68)  |  Give (208)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hand (149)  |  Head (87)  |  Hiero (2)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hold (96)  |  King (39)  |  Labor (200)  |  Load (12)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Offensive (4)  |  Passenger (10)  |  Power (771)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pulley (2)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Ready (43)  |  Rely (12)  |  Remove (50)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Show (353)  |  Siege (2)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Small (489)  |  Smoothly (2)  |  State (505)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strike (72)  |  Syracuse (5)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weight (140)

As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries—not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.
From A Logical Point of View (1953), 44. [Note: “qua” means “in the character or role of,” thus “qua lay physicist” means “in the role of lay physicist,” or perhaps even (?) “putting on my lay physicist hat.” —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Both (496)  |  Concept (242)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continue (179)  |  Culture (157)  |  Definition (238)  |  Device (71)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Empiricist (3)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entity (37)  |  Epistemology (8)  |  Error (339)  |  Experience (494)  |  Flux (21)  |  Footing (2)  |  Future (467)  |  God (776)  |  Homer (11)  |  Import (5)  |  Intermediary (3)  |  Kind (564)  |  Light (635)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myth (58)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Past (355)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Point (584)  |  Posit (2)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Situation (117)  |  Structure (365)  |  Superior (88)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tool (129)  |  Ultimately (56)

At the planet’s very heart lies a solid rocky core, at least five times larger than Earth, seething with the appalling heat generated by the inexorable contraction of the stupendous mass of material pressing down to its centre. For more than four billion years Jupiter’s immense gravitational power has been squeezing the planet slowly, relentlessly, steadily, converting gravitational energy into heat, raising the temperature of that rocky core to thirty thousand degrees, spawning the heat flow that warms the planet from within. That hot, rocky core is the original protoplanet seed from the solar system’s primeval time, the nucleus around which those awesome layers of hydrogen and helium and ammonia, methane, sulphur compounds and water have wrapped themselves.
Ben Bova
Jupiter
Science quotes on:  |  Ammonia (15)  |  Appalling (10)  |  Awesome (15)  |  Billion (104)  |  Centre (31)  |  Compound (117)  |  Contraction (18)  |  Convert (22)  |  Core (20)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Five (16)  |  Flow (89)  |  Generate (16)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heat (180)  |  Helium (11)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inexorable (10)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Large (398)  |  Layer (41)  |  Least (75)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mass (160)  |  Material (366)  |  Methane (9)  |  More (2558)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Original (61)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Press (21)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Raise (38)  |  Relentlessly (2)  |  Rocky (3)  |  Seed (97)  |  Seething (3)  |  Slowly (19)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Solar Systems (5)  |  Solid (119)  |  Spawn (2)  |  Squeeze (7)  |  Steadily (7)  |  Stupendous (13)  |  Sulphur (19)  |  System (545)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thirty (6)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)  |  Wrap (7)  |  Year (963)

Because intelligence is our own most distinctive feature, we may incline to ascribe superior intelligence to the basic primate plan, or to the basic plan of the mammals in general, but this point requires some careful consideration. There is no question at all that most mammals of today are more intelligent than most reptiles of today. I am not going to try to define intelligence or to argue with those who deny thought or consciousness to any animal except man. It seems both common and scientific sense to admit that ability to learn, modification of action according to the situation, and other observable elements of behavior in animals reflect their degrees of intelligence and permit us, if only roughly, to compare these degrees. In spite of all difficulties and all the qualifications with which the expert (quite properly) hedges his conclusions, it also seems sensible to conclude that by and large an animal is likely to be more intelligent if it has a larger brain at a given body size and especially if its brain shows greater development of those areas and structures best developed in our own brains. After all, we know we are intelligent, even though we wish we were more so.
In The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of its Significance for Man (1949), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  According (236)  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Area (33)  |  Argument (145)  |  Ascribe (18)  |  Basic (144)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Best (467)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Brain (281)  |  Care (203)  |  Common (447)  |  Compare (76)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Deny (71)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Element (322)  |  Expert (67)  |  Feature (49)  |  General (521)  |  Greater (288)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Know (1538)  |  Large (398)  |  Larger (14)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modification (57)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Observable (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  Permit (61)  |  Plan (122)  |  Point (584)  |  Primate (11)  |  Qualification (15)  |  Question (649)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Require (229)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)  |  Show (353)  |  Situation (117)  |  Size (62)  |  Spite (55)  |  Structure (365)  |  Superior (88)  |  Thought (995)  |  Today (321)  |  Try (296)  |  Wish (216)

Before his [Sir Astley Cooper’s] time, operations were too often frightful alternatives or hazardous compromises; and they were not seldom considered rather as the resource of despair than as a means of remedy; he always made them follow, as it were, in the natural course of treatment; he gave them a scientific character; and he moreover, succeeded, in a great degree, in divesting them of their terrors, by performing them unostentatiously, simply, confidently, and cheerfully, and thereby inspiring the patient with hope of relief, where previously resignation under misfortune had too often been all that could be expected from the sufferer.
In John Forbes (ed.), British and Foreign Medical Review (Jul 1840), 10, No. 19, 104. In Bransby Blake Cooper, The Life of Sir Astley Cooper (1843), Vol. 2, 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Character (259)  |  Compromise (12)  |  Consider (428)  |  Sir Astley Paston Cooper (13)  |  Course (413)  |  Despair (40)  |  Expect (203)  |  Follow (389)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hope (321)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Misfortune (13)  |  Natural (810)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Patient (209)  |  Relief (30)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Sufferer (7)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Terror (32)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatment (135)

Between the lowest and the highest degree of spiritual and corporal perfection, there is an almost infinite number of intermediate degrees. The succession of degrees comprises the Universal Chain. It unites all beings, ties together all worlds, embraces all the spheres. One SINGLE BEING is outside this chain, and this is HE who made it.
Contemplation de la nature (1764), Vol. I, 27. Trans. Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (1977), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Embrace (47)  |  God (776)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Outside (141)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Single (365)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Succession (80)  |  Tie (42)  |  Together (392)  |  Unite (43)  |  Universal (198)  |  World (1850)

But if you have seen the soil of India with your own eyes and meditate on its nature - if you consider the rounded stones found in the earth however deeply you dig, stones that are huge near the mountains and where the rivers have a violent current; stones that are of smaller size at greater distance from the mountains, and where the streams flow more slowly; stones that appear pulverised in the shape of sand where the streams begin to stagnate near their mouths and near the sea - if you consider all this, you could scarcely help thinking that India has once been a sea which by degrees has been filled up by the alluvium of the streams.
Alberuni's India, trans. E. C. Sachau (1888), Vol. 1, 198.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Consider (428)  |  Current (122)  |  Dig (25)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eye (440)  |  Flow (89)  |  Greater (288)  |  India (23)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Nature (2017)  |  River (140)  |  Sand (63)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Sea (326)  |  Soil (98)  |  Stone (168)  |  Stream (83)  |  Thinking (425)

But nothing of a nature foreign to the duties of my profession [clergyman] engaged my attention while I was at Leeds so much as the, prosecution of my experiments relating to electricity, and especially the doctrine of air. The last I was led into a consequence of inhabiting a house adjoining to a public brewery, where first amused myself with making experiments on fixed air [carbon dioxide] which found ready made in the process of fermentation. When I removed from that house, I was under the necessity making the fixed air for myself; and one experiment leading to another, as I have distinctly and faithfully noted in my various publications on the subject, I by degrees contrived a convenient apparatus for the purpose, but of the cheapest kind. When I began these experiments I knew very little of chemistry, and had in a manner no idea on the subject before I attended a course of chymical lectures delivered in the Academy at Warrington by Dr. Turner of Liverpool. But I have often thought that upon the whole, this circumstance was no disadvantage to me; as in this situation I was led to devise an apparatus and processes of my own, adapted to my peculiar views. Whereas, if I had been previously accustomed to the usual chemical processes, I should not have so easily thought of any other; and without new modes of operation I should hardly have discovered anything materially new.
Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley, in the Year 1795 (1806), Vol. 1, 61-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Academy (37)  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adjoining (3)  |  Air (366)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Attend (67)  |  Attention (196)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Disadvantage (10)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Duty (71)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fermentation (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Fixed Air (2)  |  Foreign (45)  |  House (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Little (717)  |  Making (300)  |  Mode (43)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Operation (221)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Process (439)  |  Profession (108)  |  Publication (102)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Situation (117)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thought (995)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)

By destroying the biological character of phenomena, the use of averages in physiology and medicine usually gives only apparent accuracy to the results. From our point of view, we may distinguish between several kinds of averages: physical averages, chemical averages and physiological and pathological averages. If, for instance, we observe the number of pulsations and the degree of blood pressure by means of the oscillations of a manometer throughout one day, and if we take the average of all our figures to get the true or average blood pressure and to learn the true or average number of pulsations, we shall simply have wrong numbers. In fact, the pulse decreases in number and intensity when we are fasting and increases during digestion or under different influences of movement and rest; all the biological characteristics of the phenomenon disappear in the average. Chemical averages are also often used. If we collect a man's urine during twenty-four hours and mix all this urine to analyze the average, we get an analysis of a urine which simply does not exist; for urine, when fasting, is different from urine during digestion. A startling instance of this kind was invented by a physiologist who took urine from a railroad station urinal where people of all nations passed, and who believed he could thus present an analysis of average European urine! Aside from physical and chemical, there are physiological averages, or what we might call average descriptions of phenomena, which are even more false. Let me assume that a physician collects a great many individual observations of a disease and that he makes an average description of symptoms observed in the individual cases; he will thus have a description that will never be matched in nature. So in physiology, we must never make average descriptions of experiments, because the true relations of phenomena disappear in the average; when dealing with complex and variable experiments, we must study their various circumstances, and then present our most perfect experiment as a type, which, however, still stands for true facts. In the cases just considered, averages must therefore be rejected, because they confuse, while aiming to unify, and distort while aiming to simplify. Averages are applicable only to reducing very slightly varying numerical data about clearly defined and absolutely simple cases.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 134-135.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Average (89)  |  Biological (137)  |  Blood (144)  |  Call (781)  |  Character (259)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Complex (202)  |  Consider (428)  |  Data (162)  |  Different (595)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disease (340)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distort (22)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fasting (3)  |  Figure (162)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hour (192)  |  Increase (225)  |  Individual (420)  |  Influence (231)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Kind (564)  |  Learn (672)  |  Man (2252)  |  Match (30)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Oscillation (13)  |  Pass (241)  |  Pathological (21)  |  People (1031)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physician (284)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Physiologist (31)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Present (630)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplify (14)  |  Stand (284)  |  Startling (15)  |  Station (30)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Type (171)  |  Unify (7)  |  Urine (18)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  Variable (37)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wrong (246)

By the death of Mr. O. Chanute the world has lost one whose labors had to an unusual degree influenced the course of human progress. If he had not lived the entire history of progress in flying would have been other than it has been.
Writing in Aeronautics in Jan 1911 about Chanute's death, collected in Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright, The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright: Volume Two 1906-1948 (1953), 1013.
Science quotes on:  |  Octave Chanute (3)  |  Course (413)  |  Death (406)  |  Entire (50)  |  Flying (74)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Progress (18)  |  Influence (231)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Loss (117)  |  Other (2233)  |  Progress (492)  |  Unusual (37)  |  World (1850)

Chemistry is the science or study of those effects and qualities of matter which are discovered by mixing bodies variously together, or applying them to one another with a view to mixture, and by exposing them to different degrees of heat, alone, or in mixture with one another, in order to enlarge our knowledge of nature, and to promote the useful arts.
From the first of a series of lectures on chemistry, collected in John Robison (ed.), Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry: Delivered in the University of Edinburgh (1807), Vol. 1, 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Art (680)  |  Body (557)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Different (595)  |  Discover (571)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Expose (28)  |  Heat (180)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Promote (32)  |  Quality (139)  |  Study (701)  |  Together (392)  |  Useful (260)  |  View (496)

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
In 'Hacket’s Life of Lord Keeper Williams', notes published in Henry Nelson Coleridge (ed.), The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1838), Vol. 3, 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Sense (785)  |  Uncommon (14)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  World (1850)

Consider the plight of a scientist of my age. I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1940. In the 41 years since then the amount of biological information has increased 16 fold; during these 4 decades my capacity to absorb new information has declined at an accelerating rate and now is at least 50% less than when I was a graduate student. If one defines ignorance as the ratio of what is available to be known to what is known, there seems no alternative to the conclusion that my ignorance is at least 25 times as extensive as it was when I got my bachelor’s degree. Although I am sure that my unfortunate condition comes as no surprise to my students and younger colleagues, I personally find it somewhat depressing. My depression is tempered, however, by the fact that all biologists, young or old, developing or senescing, face the same melancholy situation because of an interlocking set of circumstances.
In 'Scientific innovation and creativity: a zoologist’s point of view', American Zoologist (1982), 22, 228.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Accelerate (11)  |  Age (509)  |  Alternative (32)  |  Amount (153)  |  Available (80)  |  Bachelor (3)  |  Berkeley (3)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consider (428)  |  Decade (66)  |  Decline (28)  |  Define (53)  |  Depressing (3)  |  Depression (26)  |  Develop (278)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fold (9)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Graduate Student (13)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Increase (225)  |  Information (173)  |  Interlocking (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Least (75)  |  Less (105)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Personally (7)  |  Plight (5)  |  Rate (31)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Same (166)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seem (150)  |  Set (400)  |  Situation (117)  |  Student (317)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Temper (12)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  University (130)  |  University Of California (2)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)  |  Younger (21)

Consider the very roots of our ability to discern truth. Above all (or perhaps I should say “underneath all”), common sense is what we depend on—that crazily elusive, ubiquitous faculty we all have to some degree or other. … If we apply common sense to itself over and over again, we wind up building a skyscraper. The ground floor of the structure is the ordinary common sense we all have, and the rules for building news floors are implicit in the ground floor itself. However, working it all out is a gigantic task, and the result is a structure that transcends mere common sense.
In Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern (1985), 93–94.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Apply (170)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Consider (428)  |  Crazy (27)  |  Depend (238)  |  Discern (35)  |  Elusive (8)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Floor (21)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Ground (222)  |  Ground Floor (2)  |  Implicit (12)  |  Mere (86)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Result (700)  |  Root (121)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Skyscraper (9)  |  Structure (365)  |  Task (152)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Ubiquitous (5)  |  Underneath (4)  |  Wind (141)  |  Work (1402)

Cosmology, for centuries consisting of speculation based on a minimum of observational evidence and a maximum of philosophical predilection, became in the twentieth century an observational science, its theories now subject to verification or refutation to a degree previously unimaginable.
Opening sentence in 'Philosophical Values and Observation in Edwin Hubble's Choice of a Model of the Universe', Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences (1982), 13, No. 1, 41.
Science quotes on:  |  20th Century (40)  |  Century (319)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Maximum (16)  |  Minimum (13)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observational (15)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Predilection (4)  |  Refutation (13)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unimaginable (7)  |  Verification (32)

Daniel Bernoulli used to tell two little adventures, which he said had given him more pleasure than all the other honours he had received. Travelling with a learned stranger, who, being pleased with his conversation, asked his name; “I am Daniel Bernoulli,” answered he with great modesty; “and I,” said the stranger (who thought he meant to laugh at him) “am Isaac Newton.” Another time, having to dine with the celebrated Koenig, the mathematician, who boasted, with some degree of self-complacency, of a difficult problem he had solved with much trouble, Bernoulli went on doing the honours of his table, and when they went to drink coffee he presented Koenig with a solution of the problem more elegant than his own.
In A Philosophical and Mathematical Dictionary (1815), 1, 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Being (1276)  |  Daniel Bernoulli (5)  |  Boast (22)  |  Celebrate (21)  |  Coffee (21)  |  Complacent (7)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dine (5)  |  Doing (277)  |  Drink (56)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Great (1610)  |  Honour (58)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Modesty (18)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pleased (3)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Self (268)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Table (105)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travel (125)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Two (936)

Degree is much: the whole Atlantic might be lukewarm and never boil us a potato.
From chapter 'Jottings from a Note-book', in Canadian Stories (1918), 167.
Science quotes on:  |  Atlantic (8)  |  Boil (24)  |  Lukewarm (2)  |  Never (1089)  |  Potato (11)  |  Whole (756)

Despite rapid progress in the right direction, the program of the average elementary school has been primarily devoted to teaching the fundamental subjects, the three R’s, and closely related disciplines… Artificial exercises, like drills on phonetics, multiplication tables, and formal writing movements, are used to a wasteful degree. Subjects such as arithmetic, language, and history include content that is intrinsically of little value. Nearly every subject is enlarged unwisely to satisfy the academic ideal of thoroughness… Elimination of the unessential by scientific study, then, is one step in improving the curriculum.
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Average (89)  |  Curriculum (11)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Education (423)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  History (716)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Include (93)  |  Language (308)  |  Little (717)  |  Movement (162)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Progress (492)  |  Right (473)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Step (234)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Table (105)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thoroughness (4)  |  Value (393)  |  Writing (192)

Do not great Bodies conserve their heat the longest, their parts heating one another, and may not great dense and fix'd Bodies, when heated beyond a certain degree, emit Light so copiously, as by the Emission and Re-action of its Light, and the Reflexions and Refractions of its Rays within its Pores to grow still hotter, till it comes to a certain period of heat, such as is that of the Sun?
Opticks (1704), Book 3, Query II, 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Density (25)  |  Do (1905)  |  Emission (20)  |  Emit (15)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heat (180)  |  Light (635)  |  Period (200)  |  Pore (7)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Refraction (13)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)

Each volcano is an independent machine—nay, each vent and monticule is for the time being engaged in its own peculiar business, cooking as it were its special dish, which in due time is to be separately served. We have instances of vents within hailing distance of each other pouring out totally different kinds of lava, neither sympathizing with the other in any discernible manner nor influencing other in any appreciable degree.
In Report on the Geology of the High Plateaus of Utah (1880), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Business (156)  |  Cooking (12)  |  Different (595)  |  Discernible (9)  |  Distance (171)  |  Due (143)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lava (12)  |  Machine (271)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Special (188)  |  Time (1911)  |  Volcano (46)

Education in my family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d'être. Virtually all of our aunts and uncles had Ph.D.s in science or engineering, and it was taken for granted that the next generation of Chu's were to follow the family tradition. When the dust had settled, my two brothers and four cousins collected three MDs, four Ph.D.s and a law degree. I could manage only a single advanced degree.
Autobiography in Gösta Ekspong (ed.), Nobel Lectures: Physics 1996-2000 (2002), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Brother (47)  |  Cousin (12)  |  Dust (68)  |  Education (423)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Family (101)  |  Follow (389)  |  Generation (256)  |  Grant (76)  |  Law (913)  |  Manage (26)  |  Merely (315)  |  Next (238)  |  Settled (34)  |  Single (365)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Two (936)

Embryology will often reveal to us the structure, in some degree obscured, of the prototype of each great class.
Science quotes on:  |  Class (168)  |  Embryology (18)  |  Great (1610)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Prototype (9)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Structure (365)  |  Will (2350)

Entrepreneurs must devote a portion of their minds to constantly processing uncertainty. So you sacrifice a degree of being present.
Replying to question, “What have you sacrificed for success.” In Issie Lapowsky, 'Scott Belsky', Inc. (Nov 2013), 140. Biography in Context,
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Devote (45)  |  Entrepreneur (5)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Portion (86)  |  Present (630)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Uncertainty (58)

Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.
In Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (1958, 1962), 168.
Science quotes on:  |  Criterion (28)  |  Description (89)  |  Language (308)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Plain (34)  |  Reach (286)  |  Science And Journalism (3)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

Every living language, like the perspiring bodies of living creatures, is in perpetual motion and alteration; some words go off, and become obsolete; others are taken in, and by degrees grow into common use; or the same word is inverted to a new sense and notion, which in tract of time makes as observable a change in the air and features of a language as age makes in the lines and mien of a face.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Air (366)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Common (447)  |  Creature (242)  |  Face (214)  |  Grow (247)  |  Language (308)  |  Living (492)  |  Motion (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Notion (120)  |  Observable (21)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Perpetual Motion (14)  |  Perspire (2)  |  Sense (785)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

Every natural scientist who thinks with any degree of consistency at all will, I think, come to the view that all those capacities that we understand by the phrase psychic activities (Seelenthiitigkeiten) are but functions of the brain substance; or, to express myself a bit crudely here, that thoughts stand in the same relation to the brain as gall does to the liver or urine to the kidneys. To assume a soul that makes use of the brain as an instrument with which it can work as it pleases is pure nonsense; we would then be forced to assume a special soul for every function of the body as well.
Carl Vogt
In Physiologische Briefe für Gelbildete aIle Stünde (1845-1847), 3 parts, 206. as translated in Frederick Gregory, Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany (1977), 64.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Brain (281)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Crude (32)  |  Express (192)  |  Function (235)  |  Gall (3)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Kidney (19)  |  Liver (22)  |  Myself (211)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Please (68)  |  Psychic (15)  |  Pure (299)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Soul (235)  |  Special (188)  |  Stand (284)  |  Substance (253)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Urine (18)  |  Use (771)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve … You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 253
Science quotes on:  |  Anybody (42)  |  College (71)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Full (68)  |  Generate (16)  |  Grace (31)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Love (328)  |  Need (320)  |  Serve (64)  |  Soul (235)

Everybody is pathological to a certain degree... the more so the elevated his standing... only myth and cliche have that a person must be either sane or crazy.
In Ausgewahlte Werke, Vol. I (1909), xi.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Cliche (8)  |  Crazy (27)  |  Everybody (72)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myth (58)  |  Pathological (21)  |  Person (366)  |  Sanity (9)

Experience is never at fault; it is only your judgment that is in error in promising itself such results from experience as are not caused by our experiments. For having given a beginning, what follows from it must necessarily be a natural development of such a beginning, unless it has been subject to a contrary influence, while, if it is affected by any contrary influence, the result which ought to follow from the aforesaid beginning will be found to partake of this contrary influence in a greater or less degree in proportion as the said influence is more or less powerful than the aforesaid beginning.
'Philosophy', in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, trans. E. MacCurdy (1938), Vol. 1, 70.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Development (441)  |  Error (339)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fault (58)  |  Follow (389)  |  Greater (288)  |  Influence (231)  |  Judgment (140)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Never (1089)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Result (700)  |  Subject (543)  |  Will (2350)

For if there is any truth in the dynamical theory of gases the different molecules in a gas at uniform temperature are moving with very different velocities. Put such a gas into a vessel with two compartments [A and B] and make a small hole in the wall about the right size to let one molecule through. Provide a lid or stopper for this hole and appoint a doorkeeper, very intelligent and exceedingly quick, with microscopic eyes but still an essentially finite being.
Whenever he sees a molecule of great velocity coming against the door from A into B he is to let it through, but if the molecule happens to be going slow he is to keep the door shut. He is also to let slow molecules pass from B to A but not fast ones ... In this way the temperature of B may be raised and that of A lowered without any expenditure of work, but only by the intelligent action of a mere guiding agent (like a pointsman on a railway with perfectly acting switches who should send the express along one line and the goods along another).
I do not see why even intelligence might not be dispensed with and the thing be made self-acting.
Moral The 2nd law of Thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again.
Letter to John William Strutt (6 Dec 1870). In P. M. Hannan (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1995), Vol. 2, 582-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Against (332)  |  Agent (73)  |  Being (1276)  |  Coming (114)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Door (94)  |  Dynamical (15)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Expenditure (16)  |  Express (192)  |  Eye (440)  |  Finite (60)  |  Gas (89)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Law (913)  |  Maxwell�s Demon (2)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Moral (203)  |  Pass (241)  |  Railway (19)  |  Right (473)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Self (268)  |  Shut (41)  |  Slow (108)  |  Small (489)  |  Statement (148)  |  Still (614)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Wall (71)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Why (491)  |  Work (1402)

For nearly twelve years I travelled and lived mostly among uncivilised or completely savage races, and I became convinced that they all possessed good qualities, some of them in a very remarkable degree, and that in all the great characteristics of humanity they are wonderfully like ourselves. Some, indeed, among the brown Polynesians especially, are declared by numerous independent and unprejudiced observers, to be physically, mentally, and intellectually our equals, if not our superiors; and it has always seemed to me one of the disgraces of our civilisation that these fine people have not in a single case been protected from contamination by the vices and follies of our more degraded classes, and allowed to develope their own social and political organislll under the advice of some of our best and wisest men and the protection of our world-wide power. That would have been indeed a worthy trophy of our civilisation. What we have actually done, and left undone, resulting in the degradation and lingering extermination of so fine a people, is one of the most pathetic of its tragedies.
In 'The Native Problem in South Africa and Elsewhere', Independent Review (1906), 11, 182.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Best (467)  |  Brown (23)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Completely (137)  |  Contamination (4)  |  Declared (24)  |  Degradation (18)  |  Development (441)  |  Disgrace (12)  |  Extermination (14)  |  Folly (44)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intellect (251)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Observer (48)  |  Organism (231)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  People (1031)  |  Political (124)  |  Polynesian (2)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Protect (65)  |  Protection (41)  |  Race (278)  |  Savage (33)  |  Single (365)  |  Social (261)  |  Superior (88)  |  Tragedy (31)  |  Trophy (3)  |  Uncivilised (2)  |  Vice (42)  |  Wide (97)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Formula for breakthroughs in research: Take young researchers, put them together in virtual seclusion, give them an unprecedented degree of freedom and turn up the pressure by fostering competitiveness.
In James Beasley Simpson, Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Breakthrough (18)  |  Competitiveness (2)  |  Formula (102)  |  Fostering (4)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Research (753)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Seclusion (2)  |  Together (392)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unprecedented (11)  |  Young (253)

Furthermore, it’s equally evident that what goes on is actually one degree better than self-reproduction, for organisms appear to have gotten more elaborate in the course of time. Today's organisms are phylogenetically descended from others which were vastly simpler than they are, so much simpler, in fact, that it’s inconceivable, how any kind of description of the latter, complex organism could have existed in the earlier one. It’s not easy to imagine in what sense a gene, which is probably a low order affair, can contain a description of the human being which will come from it. But in this case you can say that since the gene has its effect only within another human organism, it probably need not contain a complete description of what is to happen, but only a few cues for a few alternatives. However, this is not so in phylogenetic evolution. That starts from simple entities, surrounded by an unliving amorphous milieu, and produce, something more complicated. Evidently, these organisms have the ability to produce something more complicated than themselves.
From lecture series on self-replicating machines at the University of Illinois, Lecture 5 (Dec 1949), 'Re-evaluation of the Problems of Complicated Automata—Problems of Hierarchy and Evolution', Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata (1966).
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Alternative (32)  |  Amorphous (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Course (413)  |  Descend (49)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evident (92)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Gene (105)  |  Happen (282)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Kind (564)  |  Low (86)  |  Milieu (5)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phylogenetic (3)  |  Produce (117)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Say (989)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simple (426)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Will (2350)

Gauss was not the son of a mathematician; Handel’s father was a surgeon, of whose musical powers nothing is known; Titian was the son and also the nephew of a lawyer, while he and his brother, Francesco Vecellio, were the first painters in a family which produced a succession of seven other artists with diminishing talents. These facts do not, however, prove that the condition of the nerve-tracts and centres of the brain, which determine the specific talent, appeared for the first time in these men: the appropriate condition surely existed previously in their parents, although it did not achieve expression. They prove, as it seems to me, that a high degree of endowment in a special direction, which we call talent, cannot have arisen from the experience of previous generations, that is, by the exercise of the brain in the same specific direction.
In 'On Heredity', Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems (1889), Vol. 1, 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Appear (122)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Artist (97)  |  Brain (281)  |  Brother (47)  |  Call (781)  |  Centre (31)  |  Condition (362)  |  Determine (152)  |  Diminish (17)  |  Direction (185)  |  Do (1905)  |  Endowment (16)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Family (101)  |  Father (113)  |  First (1302)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Generation (256)  |  High (370)  |  Known (453)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Music (133)  |  Nephew (2)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Painter (30)  |  Parent (80)  |  Power (771)  |  Previous (17)  |  Produced (187)  |  Prove (261)  |  Son (25)  |  Special (188)  |  Specific (98)  |  Succession (80)  |  Surely (101)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Talent (99)  |  Time (1911)  |  Titian (2)

Good applied science in medicine, as in physics, requires a high degree of certainty about the basic facts at hand, and especially about their meaning, and we have not yet reached this point for most of medicine.
The Medusa and the Snail (1979), 143.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Basic (144)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Good (906)  |  High (370)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Point (584)  |  Reach (286)  |  Require (229)

GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  119-120.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Author (175)  |  Bird (163)  |  Call (781)  |  Character (259)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Goose (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humour (116)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occult (9)  |  Paper (192)  |  Person (366)  |  Power (771)  |  Process (439)  |  Result (700)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Various (205)  |  Writing (192)

However, if we consider that all the characteristics which have been cited are only differences in degree of structure, may we not suppose that this special condition of organization of man has been gradually acquired at the close of a long period of time, with the aid of circumstances which have proved favorable? What a subject for reflection for those who have the courage to enter into it!
In Recherches sur l'Organization des corps vivans (1802), as translated in Alpheus Spring Packard, Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution: His Life and Work (1901), 363. Packard's italics.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Aid (101)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Close (77)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consider (428)  |  Courage (82)  |  Difference (355)  |  Enter (145)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Organization (120)  |  Period (200)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Special (188)  |  Structure (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Time (1911)

I carried this problem around in my head basically the whole time. I would wake up with it first thing in the morning, I would be thinking about it all day, and I would be thinking about it when I went to sleep. Without distraction I would have the same thing going round and round in my mind.
Recalling the degree of focus and determination that eventually yielded the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
Quoted in interview for PBS TV program Nova. In William Byers, How Mathematicians Think (2007), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Determination (80)  |  Distraction (7)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Pierre de Fermat (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Focus (36)  |  Last (425)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Morning (98)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proof (304)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whole (756)  |  Yield (86)

I claim that many patterns of Nature are so irregular and fragmented, that, compared with Euclid—a term used in this work to denote all of standard geometry—Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity … The existence of these patterns challenges us to study these forms that Euclid leaves aside as being “formless,” to investigate the morphology of the “amorphous.”
Cited as from Fractals: Form, Chance, and Dimension (1977), by J.W. Cannon, in review of The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982) in The American Mathematical Monthly (Nov 1984), 91, No. 9, 594.
Science quotes on:  |  Amorphous (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Claim (154)  |  Compared (8)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Different (595)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Existence (481)  |  Form (976)  |  Formless (4)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Fragmented (2)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Irregular (7)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Level (69)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Standard (64)  |  Study (701)  |  Term (357)  |  Work (1402)

I consider [H. G. Wells], as a purely imaginative writer, to be deserving of very high praise, but our methods are entirely different. I have always made a point in my romances of basing my so-called inventions upon a groundwork of actual fact, and of using in their construction methods and materials which are not entirely without the pale of contemporary engineering skill and knowledge. ... The creations of Mr. Wells, on the other hand, belong unreservedly to an age and degree of scientific knowledge far removed from the present, though I will not say entirely beyond the limits of the possible.
Gordon Jones, 'Jules Verne at Home', Temple Bar (Jun 1904), 129, 670.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Age (509)  |  Belong (168)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Consider (428)  |  Construction (114)  |  Creation (350)  |  Different (595)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Fact (1257)  |  High (370)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Material (366)  |  Method (531)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Purely (111)  |  Romance (18)  |  Say (989)  |  Science Fiction (35)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skill (116)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Herbert George (H.G.) Wells (41)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writer (90)

I consider then, that generally speaking, to render a reason of an effect or Phaenomenon, is to deduce It from something else in Nature more known than it self, and that consequently there may be divers kinds of Degrees of Explication of the same thing. For although such Explications be the most satisfactory to the Understanding, wherein ’tis shewn how the effect is produc’d by the more primitive and Catholick Affection of Matter, namely bulk, shape and motion, yet are not these Explications to be despis’d, wherein particular effects are deduc’d from the more obvious and familiar Qualities or States of Bodies, … For in the search after Natural Causes, every new measure of Discovery does both instinct and gratifie the Understanding.
Physiological Essays (1669), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Both (496)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Cause (561)  |  Consider (428)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effect (414)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Matter (821)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Reason (766)  |  Render (96)  |  Research (753)  |  Search (175)  |  Self (268)  |  Something (718)  |  Speaking (118)  |  State (505)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understanding (527)

I did enjoy the [CCNY geology] field trips. We went upstate and clambered over formations of synclines and anticlines. We had to diagram them, and figure out their mirror images. If you had an anticline here, you should be able to predict a complementing syncline bulging out somewhere else. Very satisfying when I got it right. Geology allowed me to display my brilliance to my non-college friends. “You know, the Hudson really isn’t a river.” “What are you talking about? … Everybody knows the Hudson River’s a river.” I would explain that the Hudson was a “drowned” river, up to about Poughkeepsie. The Ice Age had depressed the riverbed to a depth that allowed the Atlantic Ocean to flood inland. Consequently, the lower Hudson was really a saltwater estuary.
In My American Journey (1996), 30-31. [Powell graduated with a B.S. degree in Geology.]
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Atlantic Ocean (7)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Brilliance (14)  |  College (71)  |  Depth (97)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Display (59)  |  Estuary (3)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Explain (334)  |  Field (378)  |  Field Trip (2)  |  Figure (162)  |  Flood (52)  |  Formation (100)  |  Friend (180)  |  Geology (240)  |  Ice (58)  |  Ice Age (10)  |  Image (97)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Predict (86)  |  Right (473)  |  River (140)  |  Talking (76)

I do not maintain that the chief value of the study of arithmetic consists in the lessons of morality that arise from this study. I claim only that, to be impressed from day to day, that there is something that is right as an answer to the questions with which one is able to grapple, and that there is a wrong answer—that there are ways in which the right answer can be established as right, that these ways automatically reject error and slovenliness, and that the learner is able himself to manipulate these ways and to arrive at the establishment of the true as opposed to the untrue, this relentless hewing to the line and stopping at the line, must color distinctly the thought life of the pupil with more than a tinge of morality. … To be neighborly with truth, to feel one’s self somewhat facile in ways of recognizing and establishing what is right, what is correct, to find the wrong persistently and unfailingly rejected as of no value, to feel that one can apply these ways for himself, that one can think and work independently, have a real, a positive, and a purifying effect upon moral character. They are the quiet, steady undertones of the work that always appeal to the learner for the sanction of his best judgment, and these are the really significant matters in school work. It is not the noise and bluster, not even the dramatics or the polemics from the teacher’s desk, that abide longest and leave the deepest and stablest imprint upon character. It is these still, small voices that speak unmistakably for the right and against the wrong and the erroneous that really form human character. When the school subjects are arranged on the basis of the degree to which they contribute to the moral upbuilding of human character good arithmetic will be well up the list.
In Arithmetic in Public Education (1909), 18. As quoted and cited in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 69.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arise (162)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Automatic (16)  |  Basis (180)  |  Best (467)  |  Bluster (2)  |  Build (211)  |  Character (259)  |  Chief (99)  |  Claim (154)  |  Color (155)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Desk (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Effect (414)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Error (339)  |  Establish (63)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Facile (4)  |  Feel (371)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Good (906)  |  Grapple (11)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Imprint (6)  |  Independently (24)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Learner (10)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Life (1870)  |  List (10)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Manipulate (11)  |  Matter (821)  |  Moral (203)  |  Morality (55)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Noise (40)  |  Oppose (27)  |  Polemic (3)  |  Positive (98)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Question (649)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Relentless (9)  |  Right (473)  |  Sanction (8)  |  School (227)  |  Self (268)  |  Significant (78)  |  Slovenliness (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Stable (32)  |  Steady (45)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  True (239)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Undertone (2)  |  Unmistakable (6)  |  Untrue (12)  |  Value (393)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Voice (54)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)

I do not think that G. H. Hardy was talking nonsense when he insisted that the mathematician was discovering rather than creating, nor was it wholly nonsense for Kepler to exult that he was thinking God's thoughts after him. The world for me is a necessary system, and in the degree to which the thinker can surrender his thought to that system and follow it, he is in a sense participating in that which is timeless or eternal.
'Reply to Lewis Edwin Hahn', The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard (1980), 901.
Science quotes on:  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Follow (389)  |  God (776)  |  G. H. Hardy (71)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Sense (785)  |  Surrender (21)  |  System (545)  |  Talking (76)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Timeless (8)  |  Wholly (88)  |  World (1850)

I have approximate answers and possible beliefs in different degrees of certainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything, and of many things I don’t know anything about but I don’t have to know an answer.
Interview, in BBC TV program, 'The Pleasure of Finding Things Out', Horizon (23 Nov 1981). As quoted in Caroline Baillie, Alice Pawley, Donna M. Riley, Engineering and Social Justice: In the University and Beyond (2012), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Answer (389)  |  Approximate (25)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Belief (615)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Different (595)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Possible (560)  |  Thing (1914)

I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto. This is performed, in some degree, by the honest and liberal practice of a profession; where men shall carry a respect not to descend into any course that is corrupt and unworthy thereof, and preserve themselves free from the abuses wherewith the same profession is noted to be infected: but much more is this performed, if a man be able to visit and strengthen the roots and foundation of the science itself; thereby not only gracing it in reputation and dignity, but also amplifying it in profession and substance.
Opening sentences of Preface, Maxims of Law (1596), in The Works of Francis Bacon: Law tracts. Maxims of the Law (1803), Vol. 4, 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Abuse (25)  |  Amplification (3)  |  Carry (130)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Countenance (9)  |  Course (413)  |  Descend (49)  |  Descent (30)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Do (1905)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Grace (31)  |  Help (116)  |  Honest (53)  |  Honesty (29)  |  Infection (27)  |  Liberal (8)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Ornament (20)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Practice (212)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Profession (108)  |  Profit (56)  |  Receive (117)  |  Reputation (33)  |  Respect (212)  |  Root (121)  |  Seek (218)  |  Substance (253)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Unworthy (18)  |  Visit (27)  |  Way (1214)

I imagined in the beginning, that a few experiments would determine the problem; but experience soon convinced me, that a very great number indeed were necessary before such an art could be brought to any tolerable degree of perfection.
Upon pursuing the ''
Preface to An Essay on Combustion with a View to a New Art of Dyeing and Painting (1794), iii. In Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie and Joy Dorothy Harvey, The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science (2000), 478.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Determine (152)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Great (1610)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Number (710)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Soon (187)

I propose to substitute the word 'autonomic'. The word implies a certain degree of independent action, but exercised under control of a higher power. The 'autonomic' nervous system means the nervous system of the glands and of the involuntary muscle; it governs the 'organic' functions of the body.
'On the Union of Cranial Autonomic (Visceral) Fibres w;th the Nerve Cells of the Superior Cervical Ganglion', The Journal of Physiology, 1898-99, 23, 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Autonomic (2)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Control (182)  |  Function (235)  |  Gland (14)  |  Govern (66)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Organic (161)  |  Power (771)  |  Substitute (47)  |  System (545)  |  Word (650)

I read … that the celebrated Amontons, using a thermometer of his own invention, had discovered that water boils at a fixed degree of heat. I was at once inflamed with a great desire to make for myself a thermometer of the same sort, so that I might with my own eyes perceive this beautiful phenomenon of nature.
From 'Experimenta circa gradum caloris liquorum nonnullorum ebullientium instituta', Philosophical Transactions (1724), 33, 1, as translated in William Francis Magie, A Source Book in Physics (1935), 131.
Science quotes on:  |  Guillaume Amontons (3)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Boil (24)  |  Celebrate (21)  |  Desire (212)  |  Discover (571)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heat (180)  |  Inflame (2)  |  Invention (400)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Read (308)  |  Thermometer (11)  |  Water (503)

I refrained from writing another one, thinking to myself: Never mind, I will prove that I am able to become a greater scientist than some of you, even without the title of doctor.
Reaction when his thesis (1922) on rocket experiments was rejected as too cursory. In Astronautics (1959), 4, No. 6, 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Greater (288)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Myself (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  PhD (10)  |  Prove (261)  |  Refrain (9)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Will (2350)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

I shall explain a System of the World differing in many particulars from any yet known, answering in all things to the common Rules of Mechanical Motions: This depends upon three Suppositions. First, That all Cœlestial Bodies whatsoever, have an attraction or gravitating power towards their own Centers, whereby they attract not only their own parts, and keep them from flying from them, as we may observe the Earth to do, but that they do also attract all the other Cœlestial bodies that are within the sphere of their activity; and consequently that not only the Sun and Moon have an influence upon the body and motion the Earth, and the Earth upon them, but that Mercury also Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter by their attractive powers, have a considerable influence upon its motion in the same manner the corresponding attractive power of the Earth hath a considerable influence upon every one of their motions also. The second supposition is this, That all bodies whatsoever that are put into a direct and simple motion, will continue to move forward in a streight line, till they are by some other effectual powers deflected and bent into a Motion, describing a Circle, Ellipse, or some other more compounded Curve Line. The third supposition is, That these attractive powers are so much the more powerful in operating, by how much the nearer the body wrought upon is to their own Centers. Now what these several degrees are I have not yet experimentally verified; but it is a notion, which if fully prosecuted as it ought to be, will mightily assist the Astronomer to reduce all the Cœlestial Motions to a certain rule, which I doubt will never be done true without it. He that understands the nature of the Circular Pendulum and Circular Motion, will easily understand the whole ground of this Principle, and will know where to find direction in Nature for the true stating thereof. This I only hint at present to such as have ability and opportunity of prosecuting this Inquiry, and are not wanting of Industry for observing and calculating, wishing heartily such may be found, having myself many other things in hand which I would first compleat and therefore cannot so well attend it. But this I durst promise the Undertaker, that he will find all the Great Motions of the World to be influenced by this Principle, and that the true understanding thereof will be the true perfection of Astronomy.
An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth from Observations (1674), 27-8. Based on a Cutlerian Lecture delivered by Hooke at the Royal Society four years earlier.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Activity (218)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Attend (67)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Attractive (25)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Circle (117)  |  Circular (19)  |  Circular Motion (7)  |  Common (447)  |  Compound (117)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Continue (179)  |  Curve (49)  |  Depend (238)  |  Direct (228)  |  Direction (185)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ellipse (8)  |  Explain (334)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Flying (74)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hint (21)  |  Industry (159)  |  Inertia (17)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Mars (47)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Never (1089)  |  Notion (120)  |  Observe (179)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Promise (72)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Rule (307)  |  Saturn (15)  |  Simple (426)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Sun (407)  |  Supposition (50)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Venus (21)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

I studied for my degree in Calcium Anthropology: the study of milkmen.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Calcium (8)  |  Joke (90)  |  Study (701)

I wandered away on a glorious botanical and geological excursion, which has lasted nearly fifty years and is not yet completed, always happy and free, poor and rich, without thought of a diploma or of making a name, urged on and on through endless, inspiring Godful beauty.
[Shortly after leaving university in 1863, without completing a degree, at age 25, he began his first botanical foot journey along the Wisconsin River to the Mississippi.]
John Muir
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913), 286.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Botany (63)  |  Completed (30)  |  Diploma (2)  |  Endless (60)  |  Excursion (12)  |  First (1302)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Geology (240)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Happy (108)  |  Journey (48)  |  Last (425)  |  Making (300)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Poor (139)  |  River (140)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  University (130)  |  Wander (44)  |  Year (963)

I was led to the conclusion that at the most extreme dilutions all salts would consist of simple conducting molecules. But the conducting molecules are, according to the hypothesis of Clausius and Williamson, dissociated; hence at extreme dilutions all salt molecules are completely disassociated. The degree of dissociation can be simply found on this assumption by taking the ratio of the molecular conductivity of the solution in question to the molecular conductivity at the most extreme dilution.
Letter to Van’t Hoff, 13 April 1887. In J. R. Partington, A History of Chemistry (1961), Vol. 4, 678.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Conductivity (4)  |  Consist (223)  |  Dilution (5)  |  Electrolyte (4)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Question (649)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Salt (48)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solution (282)

I will try to account for the degree of my aesthetic emotion. That, I conceive, is the function of the critic.
In Art (1913), 169.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Critic (21)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Function (235)  |  Try (296)  |  Will (2350)

I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree [Cardinal Baronius (1538-1607)]: “That the intention of the holy ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.”
Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany: concerning the Use of Biblical Quotations in Matters of Science (1611 5), trans. Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957), 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Cardinal (9)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Holy (35)  |  Intention (46)  |  Most (1728)  |  Religion (369)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Teach (299)

I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: 'That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.
Letter to Cristina di Lorena, Grand Duchess of Tuscany (the mother of his patron Cosmo), 1615. Translation as given in the Galilean Library web page www.galilean-library.org/manuscript.php?postid=43841.
Science quotes on:  |  Ghost (36)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Holy (35)  |  Intention (46)  |  Most (1728)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Teach (299)

If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances.
According to Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When (2006), 53, on other occasions Einstein said “he might rather have been a musician, or light-house keeper”; however it is a “popular misquotation” that refers to being a watchmaker.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Become (821)  |  Biography (254)  |  Career (86)  |  Choose (116)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hope (321)  |  Independence (37)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modest (19)  |  Plumber (10)  |  Present (630)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Still (614)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Try (296)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

If the Humours of the Eye by old Age decay, so as by shrinking to make the Cornea and Coat of the Crystalline Humour grow flatter than before, the Light will not be refracted enough, and for want of a sufficient Refraction will not converge to the bottom of the Eye but to some place beyond it, and by consequence paint in the bottom of the Eye a confused Picture, and according to the Indistinctuess of this Picture the Object will appear confused. This is the reason of the decay of sight in old Men, and shews why their Sight is mended by Spectacles. For those Convex glasses supply the defect of plumpness in the Eye, and by increasing the Refraction make the rays converge sooner, so as to convene distinctly at the bottom of the Eye if the Glass have a due degree of convexity. And the contrary happens in short-sighted Men whose Eyes are too plump. For the Refraction being now too great, the Rays converge and convene in the Eyes before they come at the bottom; and therefore the Picture made in the bottom and the Vision caused thereby will not be distinct, unless the Object be brought so near the Eye as that the place where the converging Rays convene may be removed to the bottom, or that the plumpness of the Eye be taken off and the Refractions diminished by a Concave-glass of a due degree of Concavity, or lastly that by Age the Eye grow flatter till it come to a due Figure: For short-sighted Men see remote Objects best in Old Age, and therefore they are accounted to have the most lasting Eyes.
Opticks (1704), Book 1, Part 1, Axiom VII, 10-11.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Account (195)  |  Age (509)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Concave (6)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Converge (10)  |  Convergence (4)  |  Convex (6)  |  Decay (59)  |  Defect (31)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Due (143)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eye (440)  |  Figure (162)  |  Glass (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Happen (282)  |  Humour (116)  |  Lens (15)  |  Light (635)  |  Most (1728)  |  Object (438)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Picture (148)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reason (766)  |  Refraction (13)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Short-Sighted (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Spectacles (10)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supply (100)  |  Vision (127)  |  Want (504)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

If the love of surgery is a proof of a person’s being adapted for it, then certainly I am fitted to he a surgeon; for thou can’st hardly conceive what a high degree of enjoyment I am from day to day experiencing in this bloody and butchering department of the healing art. I am more and more delighted with my profession.
Letter to his father (1853). In John Vaughan, 'Lord Lister', The Living Age (1918), 297, 361. Reprinted from The Fortnightly Review (1918), 109, 417- .
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Art (680)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blood (144)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Delight (111)  |  Department (93)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Healing (28)  |  High (370)  |  Love (328)  |  More (2558)  |  Person (366)  |  Profession (108)  |  Proof (304)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Surgery (54)

If the scientific method, and especially its application to human relations, is as important as we have contended, then our educational efforts must be judged largely by the degree to which they inculcate a familiarity with this method, and the reliable generalizations it has yielded thus far.
In 'Education in a Scientific Age', Can Science Save Us? (1947, 2nd ed. 1961), 66-67.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Contend (8)  |  Education (423)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Human Relations (2)  |  Important (229)  |  Inculcate (7)  |  Judge (114)  |  Reliable (13)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Yield (86)

If we assume that there is only one enzyme present to act as an oxidizing agent, we must assume for it as many different degrees of activity as are required to explain the occurrence of the various colors known to mendelize (three in mice, yellow, brown, and black). If we assume that a different enzyme or group of enzymes is responsible for the production of each pigment we must suppose that in mice at least three such enzymes or groups of enzymes exist. To determine which of these conditions occurs in mice is not a problem for the biologist, but for the chemist. The biologist must confine his attention to determining the number of distinct agencies at work in pigment formation irrespective of their chemical nature. These agencies, because of their physiological behavior, the biologist chooses to call 'factors,' and attempts to learn what he can about their functions in the evolution of color varieties.
Experimental Studies of the Inheritance of Color in Mice (1913), 17-18.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Activity (218)  |  Agent (73)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attention (196)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Brown (23)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Choose (116)  |  Color (155)  |  Condition (362)  |  Determine (152)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Enzyme (19)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explain (334)  |  Factor (47)  |  Formation (100)  |  Function (235)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Known (453)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Number (710)  |  Occur (151)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Pigment (9)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Production (190)  |  Required (108)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Variety (138)  |  Various (205)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yellow (31)

In [great mathematics] there is a very high degree of unexpectedness, combined with inevitability and economy.
In A Mathematician’s Apology (1940, reprint with Foreward by C.P. Snow 1992), 113.
Science quotes on:  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Inevitability (10)  |  Mathematics (1395)

In destroying the predisposition to anger, science of all kind is useful; but the mathematics possess this property in the most eminent degree.
Quoted in Day, Collacon (no date).
Science quotes on:  |  Anger (21)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Possess (157)  |  Predisposition (4)  |  Property (177)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)

In order to comprehend and fully control arithmetical concepts and methods of proof, a high degree of abstraction is necessary, and this condition has at times been charged against arithmetic as a fault. I am of the opinion that all other fields of knowledge require at least an equally high degree of abstraction as mathematics,—provided, that in these fields the foundations are also everywhere examined with the rigour and completeness which is actually necessary.
In 'Die Theorie der algebraischen Zahlkorper', Vorwort, Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung, Bd. 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Actually (27)  |  Against (332)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Charge (63)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Concept (242)  |  Condition (362)  |  Control (182)  |  Equally (129)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Examine (84)  |  Fault (58)  |  Field (378)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fully (20)  |  High (370)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Least (75)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proof (304)  |  Provide (79)  |  Require (229)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Time (1911)

In other branches of science, where quick publication seems to be so much desired, there may possibly be some excuse for giving to the world slovenly or ill-digested work, but there is no such excuse in mathematics. The form ought to be as perfect as the substance, and the demonstrations as rigorous as those of Euclid. The mathematician has to deal with the most exact facts of Nature, and he should spare no effort to render his interpretation worthy of his subject, and to give to his work its highest degree of perfection. “Pauca sed matura” was Gauss’s motto.
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Section A, (1890), Nature, 42, 467. [The Latin motto translates as “Few, but ripe”. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Branch (155)  |  Deal (192)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Desire (212)  |  Effort (243)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Exact (75)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Form (976)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Give (208)  |  High (370)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motto (29)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Publication (102)  |  Quick (13)  |  Render (96)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Seem (150)  |  Slovenly (2)  |  Spare (9)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substance (253)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Worthy (35)

In science “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.” I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
'Evolution as Fact and Theory', in Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History (1983), 255.
Science quotes on:  |  Apple (46)  |  Assent (12)  |  Classroom (11)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Mean (810)  |  Merit (51)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Provisional (7)  |  Rise (169)  |  Start (237)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tomorrow (63)

In scientific matters ... the greatest discoverer differs from the most arduous imitator and apprentice only in degree, whereas he differs in kind from someone whom nature has endowed for fine art. But saying this does not disparage those great men to whom the human race owes so much in contrast to those whom nature has endowed for fine art. For the scientists' talent lies in continuing to increase the perfection of our cognitions and on all the dependent benefits, as well as in imparting that same knowledge to others; and in these respects they are far superior to those who merit the honour of being called geniuses. For the latter's art stops at some point, because a boundary is set for it beyond which it cannot go and which has probably long since been reached and cannot be extended further.
The Critique of Judgement (1790), trans. J. C. Meredith (1991), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Apprentice (4)  |  Art (680)  |  Being (1276)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Call (781)  |  Cognition (7)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Differ (88)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disparage (5)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Extend (129)  |  Genius (301)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Honour (58)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Imitator (3)  |  Imparting (6)  |  Increase (225)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Long (778)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merit (51)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Point (584)  |  Race (278)  |  Reach (286)  |  Respect (212)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Set (400)  |  Superior (88)  |  Talent (99)

In the 1940s when I did my natural sciences degree in zoology it was very much laboratory-based. … I was not keen on the idea of spending the rest of my life in the lab. I also don’t think I would have been particularly good at it. I don't think I have as analytical a mind or the degree of application that one would need to become a first-rate research scientist.
From interview with Michael Bond, 'It’s a Wonderful Life', New Scientist (14 Dec 2002), 176, No. 2373, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Application (257)  |  Become (821)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Keen (10)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Research (753)  |  Rest (287)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Spending (24)  |  Think (1122)  |  Zoology (38)

In the application of inductive logic to a given knowledge situation, the total evidence available must be used as a basis for determining the degree of confirmation.
In Logical Foundations of Probability (1950, 1962), 211.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Available (80)  |  Basis (180)  |  Confirmation (25)  |  Determine (152)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logic (311)  |  Must (1525)  |  Situation (117)  |  Total (95)

In the beginning there was an explosion. Not an explosion like those familiar on earth, starting from a definite center and spreading out to engulf more and more of the circumambient air, but an explosion which occurred simultaneously everywhere, filling all space from the beginning, with every particle of matter rushing apart from every other particle. ‘All space’ in this context may mean either all of an infinite universe, or all of a finite universe which curves back on itself like the surface of a sphere. Neither possibility is easy to comprehend, but this will not get in our way; it matters hardly at all in the early universe whether space is finite or infinite. At about one-hundredth of a second, the earliest time about which we can speak with any confidence, the temperature of the universe was about a hundred thousand million (1011) degrees Centigrade. This is much hotter than in the center of even the hottest star, so hot, in fact, that none of the components of ordinary matter, molecules, or atoms, or even the nuclei of atoms, could have held together. Instead, the matter rushing apart in this explosion consisted of various types of the so-called elementary particles, which are the subject of modern high­energy nuclear physics.
The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (1977), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Back (395)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Call (781)  |  Component (51)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Consist (223)  |  Context (31)  |  Curve (49)  |  Definite (114)  |  Early (196)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Energy (373)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Finite (60)  |  High (370)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hottest (2)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Million (124)  |  Modern (402)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Physics (6)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Particle Physics (13)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibility (172)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Space (523)  |  Speak (240)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Star (460)  |  Subject (543)  |  Surface (223)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Type (171)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

In the progressive growth of astronomy, physics or mechanical science was developed, and when this had been, to a certain degree, successfully cultivated, it gave birth to the science of chemistry.
Familiar Letters on Chemistry (1851), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Birth (154)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Develop (278)  |  Growth (200)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)

In the real changes which animals undergo during their embryonic growth, in those external transformations as well as in those structural modifications within the body, we have a natural scale to measure the degree or the gradation of those full grown animals which corresponds in their external form and in their structure, to those various degrees in the metamorphoses of animals, as illustrated by embryonic changes, a real foundation for zoological classification.
From Lecture 4, collected in Twelve Lectures on Comparative Embryology: Delivered Before the Lowell Institute in Boston: December and January 1848-9 (1849), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Body (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Classification (102)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Growth (200)  |  Illustrate (14)  |  Measure (241)  |  Modification (57)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Scale (122)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Taxonomy (19)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Various (205)  |  Zoological (5)

In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge... to his mother in Lincolnshire & whilst he was musing in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (wch brought an apple from the tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from the earth but that this power must extend much farther than was usually thought. Why not as high as the moon said he to himself & if so that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition but being absent from books & taking the common estimate in use among Geographers & our seamen before Norwood had measured the earth, that 60 English miles were contained in one degree of latitude on the surface of the Earth his computation did not agree with his theory & inclined him then to entertain a notion that together with the force of gravity there might be a mixture of that force wch the moon would have if it was carried along in a vortex.
[The earliest account of Newton, gravity and an apple.]
Memorandum of a conversation with Newton in August 1726. Quoted in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (1980), 154.
Science quotes on:  |  Absent (3)  |  Account (195)  |  Apple (46)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certain (557)  |  Common (447)  |  Computation (28)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Extend (129)  |  Farther (51)  |  Force (497)  |  Garden (64)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Ground (222)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Influence (231)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Moon (252)  |  Mother (116)  |  Motion (320)  |  Must (1525)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Notion (120)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Power (771)  |  Retain (57)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Together (392)  |  Tree (269)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  Vortex (10)  |  Why (491)  |  Year (963)

In Winter, [the Antarctic] is perhaps the dreariest of places. Our base, Little America, lay in a bowl of ice, near the edge of the Ross Ice Barrier. The temperature fell as low as 72 degrees below zero. One could actually hear one's breath freeze.
In 'Hoover Presents Special Medal to Byrd...', New York Times (21 Jun 1930), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Antarctic (7)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Base (120)  |  Bowl (4)  |  Breath (61)  |  Coldness (2)  |  Dreariness (3)  |  Edge (51)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Ice (58)  |  Little (717)  |  Low (86)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Winter (46)  |  Zero (38)

Indeed, the ideal for a well-functioning democratic state is like the ideal for a gentleman’s well-cut suit—it is not noticed. For the common people of Britain, Gestapo and concentration camps have approximately the same degree of reality as the monster of Loch Ness. Atrocity propaganda is helpless against this healthy lack of imagination.
In 'A Challenge to “Knights in Rusty Armor”', The New York Times (14 Feb 1943), Sunday Magazine, 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Atrocity (6)  |  Britain (26)  |  Camp (12)  |  Common (447)  |  Common People (2)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Cut (116)  |  Democracy (36)  |  Democratic (12)  |  Gentleman (26)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Helpless (14)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Lack (127)  |  Loch Ness Monster (2)  |  Monster (33)  |  People (1031)  |  Propaganda (13)  |  Reality (274)  |  State (505)  |  Suit (12)

It be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable in kind and degree. Education, in like manner, engrafts a new man on the native stock, and improves what in his nature was vicious and perverse into qualities of virtue and social worth.
From paper 'Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Fix the Site of the University of Virginia', included in Annual Report of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia for the Fiscal Year Ending May 31, 1879 (1879), 10. Collected in Commonwealth of Virginia, Annual Reports of Officers, Boards, and Institutions of the Commonwealth of Virginia, for the Year Ending September 30, 1879 (1879).
Science quotes on:  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Art (680)  |  Better (493)  |  Bitter (30)  |  Education (423)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Graft (4)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Native (41)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Perverse (5)  |  Producing (6)  |  Quality (139)  |  Savage (33)  |  Social (261)  |  Sour (3)  |  Stock (7)  |  Tree (269)  |  Uncultivated (2)  |  Vicious (5)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wild (96)  |  Worth (172)  |  Yield (86)

It has been demonstrated that a species of penicillium produces in culture a very powerful antibacterial substance which affects different bacteria in different degrees. Generally speaking it may be said that the least sensitive bacteria are the Gram-negative bacilli, and the most susceptible are the pyogenic cocci ... In addition to its possible use in the treatment of bacterial infections penicillin is certainly useful... for its power of inhibiting unwanted microbes in bacterial cultures so that penicillin insensitive bacteria can readily be isolated.
'On the Antibacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium, with Special Reference to their Use in the Isolation of B. Influenzae', British Journal of Experimental Pathology, 1929, 10, 235-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bacteriology (5)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Culture (157)  |  Different (595)  |  Infection (27)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Microbes (14)  |  Most (1728)  |  Negative (66)  |  Penicillin (18)  |  Penicillium (3)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Species (435)  |  Substance (253)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)

It has been pointed out already that no knowledge of probabilities, less in degree than certainty, helps us to know what conclusions are true, and that there is no direct relation between the truth of a proposition and its probability. Probability begins and ends with probability. That a scientific investigation pursued on account of its probability will generally lead to truth, rather than falsehood, is at the best only probable.
In A Treatise on Probability (1921), 322.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Already (226)  |  Begin (275)  |  Best (467)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Direct (228)  |  End (603)  |  Falsehood (30)  |  Help (116)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Less (105)  |  Point (584)  |  Probability (135)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Relation (166)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)

It is admitted by all that a finished or even a competent reasoner is not the work of nature alone; the experience of every day makes it evident that education develops faculties which would otherwise never have manifested their existence. It is, therefore, as necessary to learn to reason before we can expect to be able to reason, as it is to learn to swim or fence, in order to attain either of those arts. Now, something must be reasoned upon, it matters not much what it is, provided it can be reasoned upon with certainty. The properties of mind or matter, or the study of languages, mathematics, or natural history, may be chosen for this purpose. Now of all these, it is desirable to choose the one which admits of the reasoning being verified, that is, in which we can find out by other means, such as measurement and ocular demonstration of all sorts, whether the results are true or not. When the guiding property of the loadstone was first ascertained, and it was necessary to learn how to use this new discovery, and to find out how far it might be relied on, it would have been thought advisable to make many passages between ports that were well known before attempting a voyage of discovery. So it is with our reasoning faculties: it is desirable that their powers should be exerted upon objects of such a nature, that we can tell by other means whether the results which we obtain are true or false, and this before it is safe to trust entirely to reason. Now the mathematics are peculiarly well adapted for this purpose, on the following grounds:
1. Every term is distinctly explained, and has but one meaning, and it is rarely that two words are employed to mean the same thing.
2. The first principles are self-evident, and, though derived from observation, do not require more of it than has been made by children in general.
3. The demonstration is strictly logical, taking nothing for granted except self-evident first principles, resting nothing upon probability, and entirely independent of authority and opinion.
4. When the conclusion is obtained by reasoning, its truth or falsehood can be ascertained, in geometry by actual measurement, in algebra by common arithmetical calculation. This gives confidence, and is absolutely necessary, if, as was said before, reason is not to be the instructor, but the pupil.
5. There are no words whose meanings are so much alike that the ideas which they stand for may be confounded. Between the meaning of terms there is no distinction, except a total distinction, and all adjectives and adverbs expressing difference of degrees are avoided.
In On the Study and Difficulties of Mathematics (1898), chap. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Actual (118)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adjective (3)  |  Admit (49)  |  Adverb (3)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Alike (60)  |  Alone (324)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Art (680)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Authority (99)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Being (1276)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Choose (116)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Common (447)  |  Competent (20)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Confound (21)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Derive (70)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Distinctly (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Employ (115)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Evident (92)  |  Exert (40)  |  Existence (481)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explain (334)  |  Express (192)  |  Faculty (76)  |  False (105)  |  Falsehood (30)  |  Far (158)  |  Fence (11)  |  Find (1014)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Grant (76)  |  Ground (222)  |  Guide (107)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Independent (74)  |  Instructor (5)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lodestone (7)  |  Logical (57)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meanings (5)  |  Means (587)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ocular (3)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Peculiarly (4)  |  Port (2)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Property (177)  |  Provide (79)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Rely (12)  |  Require (229)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Safe (61)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Something (718)  |  Sort (50)  |  Stand (284)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Study (701)  |  Swim (32)  |  Tell (344)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Total (95)  |  True (239)  |  Trust (72)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Verify (24)  |  Voyage (13)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

It is curious to observe with what different degrees of architectonic skill Providence has endowed birds of the same genus, and so nearly correspondent in their general mode of life! for while the swallow and the house-martin discover the greatest address in raising and securely fixing crusts or shells of loam as cunabula for their young, the bank-martin terebrates a round and regular hole in the sand or earth, which is serpentine, horizontal, and about two feet deep. At the inner end of this burrow does this bird deposit, in a good degree of safety, her rude nest, consisting of fine grasses and feathers, usually goose-feathers, very inartificially laid together.
In Letter to Daines Barrington, (26 Feb 1774), in The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789), 176.
Science quotes on:  |  Bank (31)  |  Bird (163)  |  Crust (43)  |  Curious (95)  |  Deep (241)  |  Different (595)  |  Discover (571)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Feather (13)  |  General (521)  |  Genus (27)  |  Good (906)  |  Goose (13)  |  Grass (49)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  House (143)  |  Inner (72)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Nest (26)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Providence (19)  |  Regular (48)  |  Safety (58)  |  Sand (63)  |  Shell (69)  |  Skill (116)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)  |  Usually (176)  |  Young (253)

It is interesting to observe the result of habit in the peculiar shape and size of the giraffe (Camelo-pardalis): this animal, the largest of the mammals, is known to live in the interior of Africa in places where the soil is nearly always arid and barren, so that it is obliged to browse on the leaves on the trees and to make constant efforts to reach them. From this habit long maintained in all its race, it has resulted that the animal's fore-legs have become longer than its hind legs, and that its neck is lengthened to such a degree that the giraffe, without standing up on its hind legs, attains a height of six metres (nearly 20 feet).
Philosophie Zoologique (1809), Vol. 1, 256, trans. Hugh Elliot (1914), 122.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arid (6)  |  Attain (126)  |  Barren (33)  |  Become (821)  |  Constant (148)  |  Effort (243)  |  Giraffe (5)  |  Habit (174)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Interior (35)  |  Known (453)  |  Largest (39)  |  Leg (35)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Neck (15)  |  Observe (179)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Race (278)  |  Reach (286)  |  Result (700)  |  Soil (98)  |  Tree (269)

It is not surprising, in view of the polydynamic constitution of the genuinely mathematical mind, that many of the major heros of the science, men like Desargues and Pascal, Descartes and Leibnitz, Newton, Gauss and Bolzano, Helmholtz and Clifford, Riemann and Salmon and Plücker and Poincaré, have attained to high distinction in other fields not only of science but of philosophy and letters too. And when we reflect that the very greatest mathematical achievements have been due, not alone to the peering, microscopic, histologic vision of men like Weierstrass, illuminating the hidden recesses, the minute and intimate structure of logical reality, but to the larger vision also of men like Klein who survey the kingdoms of geometry and analysis for the endless variety of things that flourish there, as the eye of Darwin ranged over the flora and fauna of the world, or as a commercial monarch contemplates its industry, or as a statesman beholds an empire; when we reflect not only that the Calculus of Probability is a creation of mathematics but that the master mathematician is constantly required to exercise judgment—judgment, that is, in matters not admitting of certainty—balancing probabilities not yet reduced nor even reducible perhaps to calculation; when we reflect that he is called upon to exercise a function analogous to that of the comparative anatomist like Cuvier, comparing theories and doctrines of every degree of similarity and dissimilarity of structure; when, finally, we reflect that he seldom deals with a single idea at a tune, but is for the most part engaged in wielding organized hosts of them, as a general wields at once the division of an army or as a great civil administrator directs from his central office diverse and scattered but related groups of interests and operations; then, I say, the current opinion that devotion to mathematics unfits the devotee for practical affairs should be known for false on a priori grounds. And one should be thus prepared to find that as a fact Gaspard Monge, creator of descriptive geometry, author of the classic Applications de l’analyse à la géométrie; Lazare Carnot, author of the celebrated works, Géométrie de position, and Réflections sur la Métaphysique du Calcul infinitesimal; Fourier, immortal creator of the Théorie analytique de la chaleur; Arago, rightful inheritor of Monge’s chair of geometry; Poncelet, creator of pure projective geometry; one should not be surprised, I say, to find that these and other mathematicians in a land sagacious enough to invoke their aid, rendered, alike in peace and in war, eminent public service.
In Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Art (1908), 32-33.
Science quotes on:  |  A Priori (26)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Administrator (11)  |  Admit (49)  |  Affair (29)  |  Aid (101)  |  Alike (60)  |  Alone (324)  |  Analogous (7)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Anatomist (24)  |  Application (257)  |  François Arago (15)  |  Army (35)  |  Attain (126)  |  Author (175)  |  Balance (82)  |  Behold (19)  |  Bernhard Bolzano (2)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Call (781)  |  Lazare-Nicolas-Marguerite Carnot (4)  |  Celebrated (2)  |  Central (81)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chair (25)  |  Civil (26)  |  Classic (13)  |  William Kingdon Clifford (23)  |  Commercial (28)  |  Comparative (14)  |  Compare (76)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Current (122)  |  Baron Georges Cuvier (34)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Deal (192)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Descriptive (18)  |  Descriptive Geometry (3)  |  Devotee (7)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Direct (228)  |  Dissimilar (6)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Diverse (20)  |  Division (67)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Due (143)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Empire (17)  |  Endless (60)  |  Engage (41)  |  Enough (341)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  False (105)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Field (378)  |  Finally (26)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flora (9)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Baron Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier (17)  |  Function (235)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  General (521)  |  Genuinely (4)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Ground (222)  |  Group (83)  |  Hero (45)  |  Hide (70)  |  High (370)  |  Histology (4)  |  Host (16)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Industry (159)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Inheritor (2)  |  Interest (416)  |  Intimate (21)  |  Invoke (7)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Felix Klein (15)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Land (131)  |  Large (398)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Letter (117)  |  Logical (57)  |  Major (88)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Monarch (6)  |  Gaspard Monge (2)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Office (71)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organize (33)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Blaise Pascal (81)  |  Peace (116)  |  Peer (13)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Henri Poincaré (99)  |  Jean-Victor Poncelet (2)  |  Position (83)  |  Practical (225)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Probability (135)  |  Projective Geometry (3)  |  Public Service (6)  |  Pure (299)  |  Range (104)  |  Reality (274)  |  Recess (8)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Reducible (2)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Relate (26)  |  Render (96)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Bernhard Riemann (7)  |  Rightful (3)  |  Sagacious (7)  |  Salmon (7)  |  Say (989)  |  Scatter (7)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Service (110)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Single (365)  |  Statesman (20)  |  Structure (365)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Survey (36)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tune (20)  |  Unfit (13)  |  Variety (138)  |  View (496)  |  Vision (127)  |  War (233)  |   Karl Weierstrass, (10)  |  Wield (10)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

It is not, indeed, strange that the Greeks and Romans should not have carried ... any ... experimental science, so far as it has been carried in our time; for the experimental sciences are generally in a state of progression. They were better understood in the seventeenth century than in the sixteenth, and in the eighteenth century than in the seventeenth. But this constant improvement, this natural growth of knowledge, will not altogether account for the immense superiority of the modern writers. The difference is a difference not in degree, but of kind. It is not merely that new principles have been discovered, but that new faculties seem to be exerted. It is not that at one time the human intellect should have made but small progress, and at another time have advanced far; but that at one time it should have been stationary, and at another time constantly proceeding. In taste and imagination, in the graces of style, in the arts of persuasion, in the magnificence of public works, the ancients were at least our equals. They reasoned as justly as ourselves on subjects which required pure demonstration.
History (May 1828). In Samuel Austin Allibone, Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay (1880), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  16th Century (3)  |  17th Century (20)  |  18th Century (21)  |  Account (195)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Better (493)  |  Century (319)  |  Constant (148)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Exert (40)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Grace (31)  |  Greek (109)  |  Growth (200)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immense (89)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Magnificence (14)  |  Merely (315)  |  Modern (402)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Persuasion (9)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Progress (492)  |  Progression (23)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reason (766)  |  Required (108)  |  Roman (39)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Small (489)  |  State (505)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Strange (160)  |  Subject (543)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Taste (93)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understood (155)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

It is now necessary to indicate more definitely the reason why mathematics not only carries conviction in itself, but also transmits conviction to the objects to which it is applied. The reason is found, first of all, in the perfect precision with which the elementary mathematical concepts are determined; in this respect each science must look to its own salvation .... But this is not all. As soon as human thought attempts long chains of conclusions, or difficult matters generally, there arises not only the danger of error but also the suspicion of error, because since all details cannot be surveyed with clearness at the same instant one must in the end be satisfied with a belief that nothing has been overlooked from the beginning. Every one knows how much this is the case even in arithmetic, the most elementary use of mathematics. No one would imagine that the higher parts of mathematics fare better in this respect; on the contrary, in more complicated conclusions the uncertainty and suspicion of hidden errors increases in rapid progression. How does mathematics manage to rid itself of this inconvenience which attaches to it in the highest degree? By making proofs more rigorous? By giving new rules according to which the old rules shall be applied? Not in the least. A very great uncertainty continues to attach to the result of each single computation. But there are checks. In the realm of mathematics each point may be reached by a hundred different ways; and if each of a hundred ways leads to the same point, one may be sure that the right point has been reached. A calculation without a check is as good as none. Just so it is with every isolated proof in any speculative science whatever; the proof may be ever so ingenious, and ever so perfectly true and correct, it will still fail to convince permanently. He will therefore be much deceived, who, in metaphysics, or in psychology which depends on metaphysics, hopes to see his greatest care in the precise determination of the concepts and in the logical conclusions rewarded by conviction, much less by success in transmitting conviction to others. Not only must the conclusions support each other, without coercion or suspicion of subreption, but in all matters originating in experience, or judging concerning experience, the results of speculation must be verified by experience, not only superficially, but in countless special cases.
In Werke [Kehrbach] (1890), Bd. 5, 105. As quoted, cited and translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arise (162)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belief (615)  |  Better (493)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Care (203)  |  Carry (130)  |  Case (102)  |  Chain (51)  |  Check (26)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Coercion (4)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Computation (28)  |  Concept (242)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Continue (179)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Convince (43)  |  Correct (95)  |  Countless (39)  |  Danger (127)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Definitely (5)  |  Depend (238)  |  Detail (150)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Elementary (98)  |  End (603)  |  Error (339)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fare (5)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Generally (15)  |  Give (208)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hide (70)  |  High (370)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Thought (7)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Inconvenience (3)  |  Increase (225)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Instant (46)  |  Isolate (24)  |  Judge (114)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Least (75)  |  Less (105)  |  Logical (57)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Making (300)  |  Manage (26)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metaphysic (7)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Old (499)  |  Originate (39)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Part (235)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfectly (10)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Point (584)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precision (72)  |  Progression (23)  |  Proof (304)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Reach (286)  |  Realm (87)  |  Reason (766)  |  Respect (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Reward (72)  |  Rid (14)  |  Right (473)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Rule (307)  |  Salvation (13)  |  Same (166)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  See (1094)  |  Single (365)  |  Soon (187)  |  Special (188)  |  Special Case (9)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Speculative (12)  |  Still (614)  |  Success (327)  |  Superficial (12)  |  Support (151)  |  Survey (36)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transmit (12)  |  True (239)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Use (771)  |  Verify (24)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

It is one of the signs of the times that modern chemists hold themselves bound and consider themselves in a position to give an explanation for everything, and when their knowledge fails them to make sure of supernatural explanations. Such a treatment of scientific subjects, not many degrees removed from a belief in witches and spirit-rapping, even Wislicenus considers permissible.
In H. Kolbe, 'Sign of the Times', Journal für Praktische Chemie (1877), 15, 473. Trans. W. H. Brock.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Bound (120)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Consider (428)  |  Everything (489)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fail (191)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Modern (402)  |  Permissible (9)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Subject (543)  |  Supernatural (26)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Johannes Wislicenus (4)  |  Witch (4)

It is probably no exaggeration to suppose that in order to improve such an organ as the eye at all, it must be improved in ten different ways at once. And the improbability of any complex organ being produced and brought to perfection in any such way is an improbability of the same kind and degree as that of producing a poem or a mathematical demonstration by throwing letters at random on a table.
[Expressing his reservations about Darwin's proposed evolution of the eye by natural selection.]
Opening address to the Belfast Natural History Society, as given in the 'Belfast Northern Whig,' (19 Nov 1866). As cited by Charles Darwin in The Variation of Animals & Plants Under Domestication (1868), 222.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Bring (95)  |  Complex (202)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Different (595)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exaggeration (16)  |  Eye (440)  |  Improbability (11)  |  Improve (64)  |  Kind (564)  |  Letter (117)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Order (638)  |  Organ (118)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Poem (104)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Random (42)  |  Selection (130)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Table (105)  |  Throw (45)  |  Throwing (17)  |  Way (1214)

It is still false to conclude that man is nothing but the highest animal, or the most progressive product of organic evolution. He is also a fundamentally new sort of animal and one in which, although organic evolution continues on its way, a fundamentally new sort of evolution has also appeared. The basis of this new sort of evolution is a new sort of heredity, the inheritance of learning. This sort of heredity appears modestly in other mammals and even lower in the animal kingdom, but in man it has incomparably fuller development and it combines with man's other characteristics unique in degree with a result that cannot be considered unique only in degree but must also be considered unique in kind.
In The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of its Significance for Man (1949), 286.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Kingdom (21)  |  Basis (180)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Combination (150)  |  Combine (58)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continue (179)  |  Development (441)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Falsity (16)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Highest (19)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Kind (564)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Learning (291)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Organic (161)  |  Other (2233)  |  Product (166)  |  Result (700)  |  Sort (50)  |  Still (614)  |  Unique (72)  |  Uniqueness (11)  |  Way (1214)

It is suitable to the magnificent harmony of the universe that the species of creatures should, by gentle degrees, ascend upward from us toward His perfection, as we see them gradually descend from us downward.
In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1849), Book 3, Chap 6, Sec. 12, 326.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascend (30)  |  Creature (242)  |  Descend (49)  |  Downward (4)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Perfection (131)  |  See (1094)  |  Species (435)  |  Universe (900)  |  Upward (44)

It is the great beauty of our science that advancement in it, whether in a degree great or small, instead of exhausting the subject of research, opens the doors to further and more abundant knowledge, overflowing with beauty and utility.
From 'Experimental Researches in Electricity: Series VII: § 13. On the absolute quantity of Electricity associated with the particles or atoms of Matter', Philosophic Transactions, (text dated 31 Dec 1833, received 9 Jan 1834, read 13 Feb 1834). Collected in Experimental Researches in Electricity (1839), Vol. 1, 257.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundant (23)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Door (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  More (2558)  |  Open (277)  |  Research (753)  |  Small (489)  |  Subject (543)  |  Utility (52)

It seems to me that the view toward which we are tending is that the specificity in gene action is always a chemical specificity, probably the production of enzymes which guide metabolic processes along particular channels. A given array of genes thus determines the production of a particular kind of protoplasm with particular properties—such, for example, as that of responding to surface forces by the formation of a special sort of semipermeable membrane, and that of responding to trivial asymmetries in the play of external stimuli by polarization, with consequent orderly quantitative gradients in all physiologic processes. Different genes may now be called into play at different points in this simple pattern, either through the local formation of their specific substrates for action, or by activation of a mutational nature. In either case the pattern becomes more complex and qualitatively differentiated. Successive interactions of differentiated regions and the calling into play of additional genes may lead to any degree of complexity of pattern in the organism as a largely self-contained system. The array of genes, assembled in the course of evolution, must of course be one which determines a highly self­regulatory system of reactions. On this view the genes are highly specific chemically, and thus called into play only under very specific conditions; but their morphological effects, if any, rest on quantitative influences of immediate or remote products on growth gradients, which are resultants of all that has gone on before in the organism.
In 'Genetics of Abnormal Growth in the Guinea Pig', Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology (1934), 2, 142.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Activation (6)  |  Asymmetry (6)  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Channel (23)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Course (413)  |  Determine (152)  |  Different (595)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enzyme (19)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Force (497)  |  Formation (100)  |  Gene (105)  |  Gradient (2)  |  Growth (200)  |  Guide (107)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lead (391)  |  Membrane (21)  |  Metabolism (15)  |  More (2558)  |  Morphological (3)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Organism (231)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Point (584)  |  Polarization (4)  |  Product (166)  |  Production (190)  |  Protoplasm (13)  |  Qualitative (15)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Remote (86)  |  Rest (287)  |  Self (268)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Special (188)  |  Specific (98)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Successive (73)  |  Surface (223)  |  System (545)  |  Through (846)  |  Trivial (59)  |  View (496)

It was his [Leibnitz’s] love of method and order, and the conviction that such order and harmony existed in the real world, and that our success in understanding it depended upon the degree and order which we could attain in our own thoughts, that originally was probably nothing more than a habit which by degrees grew into a formal rule. This habit was acquired by early occupation with legal and mathematical questions. We have seen how the theory of combinations and arrangements of elements had a special interest for him. We also saw how mathematical calculations served him as a type and model of clear and orderly reasoning, and how he tried to introduce method and system into logical discussions, by reducing to a small number of terms the multitude of compound notions he had to deal with. This tendency increased in strength, and even in those early years he elaborated the idea of a general arithmetic, with a universal language of symbols, or a characteristic which would be applicable to all reasoning processes, and reduce philosophical investigations to that simplicity and certainty which the use of algebraic symbols had introduced into mathematics.
A mental attitude such as this is always highly favorable for mathematical as well as for philosophical investigations. Wherever progress depends upon precision and clearness of thought, and wherever such can be gained by reducing a variety of investigations to a general method, by bringing a multitude of notions under a common term or symbol, it proves inestimable. It necessarily imports the special qualities of number—viz., their continuity, infinity and infinite divisibility—like mathematical quantities—and destroys the notion that irreconcilable contrasts exist in nature, or gaps which cannot be bridged over. Thus, in his letter to Arnaud, Leibnitz expresses it as his opinion that geometry, or the philosophy of space, forms a step to the philosophy of motion—i.e., of corporeal things—and the philosophy of motion a step to the philosophy of mind.
In Leibnitz (1884), 44-45. [The first sentence is reworded to better introduce the quotation. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Algebraic (5)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Bring (95)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Clear (111)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Combination (150)  |  Common (447)  |  Compound (117)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Corporeal (5)  |  Deal (192)  |  Depend (238)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Early (196)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Elaborated (7)  |  Element (322)  |  Exist (458)  |  Express (192)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Form (976)  |  Formal (37)  |  Gain (146)  |  Gap (36)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Grow (247)  |  Habit (174)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Highly (16)  |  Idea (881)  |  Import (5)  |  Increase (225)  |  Inestimable (4)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Interest (416)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Language (308)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Legal (9)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Letter (117)  |  Logical (57)  |  Love (328)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Original (61)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Precision (72)  |  Probable (24)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Prove (261)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Question (649)  |  Quotation (19)  |  Real World (15)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Rule (307)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Serve (64)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Special (188)  |  Special Interest (2)  |  Step (234)  |  Strength (139)  |  Success (327)  |  Symbol (100)  |  System (545)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Try (296)  |  Type (171)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universal (198)  |  Use (771)  |  Variety (138)  |  Wherever (51)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

It was my good fortune to be linked with Mme. Curie through twenty years of sublime and unclouded friendship. I came to admire her human grandeur to an ever growing degree. Her strength, her purity of will, her austerity toward herself, her objectivity, her incorruptible judgement—all these were of a kind seldom found joined in a single individual… The greatest scientific deed of her life—proving the existence of radioactive elements and isolating them—owes its accomplishment not merely to bold intuition but to a devotion and tenacity in execution under the most extreme hardships imaginable, such as the history of experimental science has not often witnessed.
Out of My Later Years (1950), 227-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Austerity (3)  |  Bold (22)  |  Marie Curie (37)  |  Deed (34)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Element (322)  |  Execution (25)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Friendship (18)  |  Good (906)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Growing (99)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Merely (315)  |  Most (1728)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Owe (71)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Single (365)  |  Strength (139)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Tenacity (10)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)  |  Witness (57)  |  Year (963)

It would be a mistake to suppose that a science consists entirely of strictly proved theses, and it would be unjust to require this. Only a disposition with a passion for authority will raise such a demand, someone with a craving to replace his religious catechism by another, though it is a scientific one. Science has only a few apodeictic propositions in its catechism: the rest are assertions promoted by it to some particular degree of probability. It is actually a sign of a scientific mode of thought to find satisfaction in these approximations to certainty and to be able to pursue constructive work further in spite of the absence of final confirmation.
In Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1916-17). Also seen translated as: “It is a mistake to believe that a science consists in nothing but conclusively proved propositions, and it is unjust to demand that it should. It is a demand only made by those who feel a craving for authority in some form and a need to replace the religious catechism by something else, even if it be a scientific one.”
Science quotes on:  |  Approximation (32)  |  Authority (99)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Confirmation (25)  |  Consist (223)  |  Constructive (15)  |  Demand (131)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Final (121)  |  Find (1014)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Passion (121)  |  Probability (135)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Religious (134)  |  Require (229)  |  Rest (287)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spite (55)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Thought (995)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say “this we know.”
From Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F.H. Bradley (1964, 1989), 151.
Science quotes on:  |  Datum (3)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Matter (821)  |  Say (989)  |  Simplest (10)

Liebig was not a teacher in the ordinary sense of the word. Scientifically productive himself in an unusual degree, and rich in chemical ideas, he imparted the latter to his advanced pupils, to be put by them to experimental proof; he thus brought his pupils gradually to think for themselves, besides showing and explaining to them the methods by which chemical problems might be solved experimentally.
As quoted in G. H. Getman, The Life of Ira Remsen (1980), 18-19.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemical (303)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Himself (461)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impart (24)  |  Justus von Liebig (39)  |  Method (531)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Problem (731)  |  Productive (37)  |  Proof (304)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Sense (785)  |  Student (317)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Word (650)

Life is order, death is disorder. A fundamental law of Nature states that spontaneous chemical changes in the universe tend toward chaos. But life has, during milliards of years of evolution, seemingly contradicted this law. With the aid of energy derived from the sun it has built up the most complicated systems to be found in the universe—living organisms. Living matter is characterized by a high degree of chemical organisation on all levels, from the organs of large organisms to the smallest constituents of the cell. The beauty we experience when we enjoy the exquisite form of a flower or a bird is a reflection of a microscopic beauty in the architecture of molecules.
The Nobel Prize for Chemistry: Introductory Address'. Nobel Lectures: Chemistry 1981-1990 (1992), 69.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Bird (163)  |  Build (211)  |  Cell (146)  |  Change (639)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Change (8)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Death (406)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Energy (373)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Flower (112)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  High (370)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Organ (118)  |  Organism (231)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  State (505)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)  |  Tend (124)  |  Universe (900)  |  Year (963)

Look Nature thro’, ’tis neat Gradation all.
By what minute Degrees her Scale ascends!
Each middle Nature join’d at each Extreme,
To that above it join’d, to that beneath.
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 6, 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascend (30)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Join (32)  |  Look (584)  |  Middle (19)  |  Minute (129)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Scale (122)

Look round the world, contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance-of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence.
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), 47-48.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Curious (95)  |  Design (203)  |  End (603)  |  Explain (334)  |  Find (1014)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Look (584)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Minute (129)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Production (190)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Sense (785)  |  Thought (995)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Trace (109)  |  Various (205)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  World (1850)

Mathematics gives the young man a clear idea of demonstration and habituates him to form long trains of thought and reasoning methodically connected and sustained by the final certainty of the result; and it has the further advantage, from a purely moral point of view, of inspiring an absolute and fanatical respect for truth. In addition to all this, mathematics, and chiefly algebra and infinitesimal calculus, excite to a high degree the conception of the signs and symbols—necessary instruments to extend the power and reach of the human mind by summarizing an aggregate of relations in a condensed form and in a kind of mechanical way. These auxiliaries are of special value in mathematics because they are there adequate to their definitions, a characteristic which they do not possess to the same degree in the physical and mathematical [natural?] sciences.
There are, in fact, a mass of mental and moral faculties that can be put in full play only by instruction in mathematics; and they would be made still more available if the teaching was directed so as to leave free play to the personal work of the student.
In 'Science as an Instrument of Education', Popular Science Monthly (1897), 253.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Addition (70)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Auxiliary (11)  |  Available (80)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Clear (111)  |  Conception (160)  |  Condense (15)  |  Connect (126)  |  Definition (238)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Excite (17)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fanatical (3)  |  Far (158)  |  Final (121)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Full (68)  |  Give (208)  |  Habituate (3)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Kind (564)  |  Leave (138)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mental (179)  |  Methodically (2)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Personal (75)  |  Physical (518)  |  Play (116)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Relation (166)  |  Respect (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Sign (63)  |  Special (188)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Summarize (10)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  Young (253)

Mathematics is a type of thought which seems ingrained in the human mind, which manifests itself to some extent with even the primitive races, and which is developed to a high degree with the growth of civilization. … A type of thought, a body of results, so essentially characteristic of the human mind, so little influenced by environment, so uniformly present in every civilization, is one of which no well-informed mind today can be ignorant.
In Teaching of Mathematics in the Elementary and the Secondary School (1906), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Develop (278)  |  Environment (239)  |  Extent (142)  |  Growth (200)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inform (50)  |  Informed (5)  |  Ingrained (5)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Present (630)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Race (278)  |  Result (700)  |  Thought (995)  |  Today (321)  |  Type (171)  |  Uniform (20)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Well-Informed (7)

Mathematics is indeed dangerous in that it absorbs students to such a degree that it dulls their senses to everything else.
While a student, an observation made about his teacher, Professor Karl Schellbach. Quoted, without citation, in Howard W. Eves, Mathematical Circles Adieu, (1977).
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Dull (58)  |  Everything (489)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Sense (785)  |  Student (317)

Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds you stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out depends upon what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat-flour from peascods, so pages of formulae will not get a definite result out of loose data.
From Anniversary Address of the President to the Geological Society, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society (1869), l. In 'Geological Reform', Collected Essays: Discourses, Biological and Geological (1894), Vol. 8, 333.
Science quotes on:  |  Data (162)  |  Definite (114)  |  Depend (238)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Extract (40)  |  Flour (4)  |  Formula (102)  |  Grandest (10)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mill (16)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Result (700)  |  Will (2350)  |  Workmanship (7)  |  World (1850)

Mathematics, including not merely Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, and the higher Calculus, but also the applied Mathematics of Natural Philosophy, has a marked and peculiar method or character; it is by preeminence deductive or demonstrative, and exhibits in a nearly perfect form all the machinery belonging to this mode of obtaining truth. Laying down a very small number of first principles, either self-evident or requiring very little effort to prove them, it evolves a vast number of deductive truths and applications, by a procedure in the highest degree mathematical and systematic.
In Education as a Science (1879), 148.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Mathematics (15)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Character (259)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Demonstrative (14)  |  Down (455)  |  Effort (243)  |  Evident (92)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Little (717)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Number (710)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Preeminence (3)  |  Principle (530)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Prove (261)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Small (489)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vast (188)

Matter, though divisible in an extreme degree, is nevertheless not infinitely divisible. That is, there must be some point beyond which we cannot go in the division of matter. ... I have chosen the word “atom” to signify these ultimate particles.
Dalton's Manuscript Notes, Royal Institution Lecture 18 (30 Jan 1810). In Ida Freund, The Study of Chemical Composition: An Account of its Method and Historical Development (1910), 288.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Definition (238)  |  Division (67)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Particle (200)  |  Point (584)  |  Signify (17)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Word (650)

May the Gods confound that man who first disclosed the hours, and who first, in fact, erected a sun-dial here; who, for wretched me, minced the day up into pieces. For when I was a boy, this stomach was the sun-dial, one much better and truer than all of these; when that used to warn me to eat. Except when there was nothing to eat. Now, even when there is something to eat, it’s not eaten, unless the sun chooses; and to such a degree now, in fact, is the city filled with sun-dials, that the greater part of the people are creeping along the streets shrunk up with famine.
Plautus
A fragment, preserved in the works of Aulus Gellius, as translated by Henry Thomas Riley, in The Comedies of Plautus (1890), Vol. 2, 517.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Boy (100)  |  Choose (116)  |  City (87)  |  Confound (21)  |  Day (43)  |  Dial (9)  |  Eat (108)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Famine (18)  |  First (1302)  |  God (776)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hour (192)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  People (1031)  |  Something (718)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sundial (6)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wretched (8)

Men today who have had an irreproachable training in the art are seen to abstain from the use of the hand as from the plague, and for this very reason, lest they should be slandered by the masters of the profession as barbers… . For it is indeed above all things the wide prevalence of this hateful error that prevents us even in our age from taking up the healing art as a whole, makes us confine ourselves merely to the treatment of internal complaints, and, if I may utter the blunt truth once for all, causes us, to the great detriment of mankind, to study to be healers only in a very limited degree.
As given in George I. Schwartz and ‎Philip W. Bishop, 'Andreas Vesalius', Moments of Discovery: The Development of Modern Science (1958), Vol. 1, 521.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstain (7)  |  Age (509)  |  Art (680)  |  Barber (5)  |  Blunt (5)  |  Cause (561)  |  Complaint (13)  |  Detriment (3)  |  Error (339)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hand (149)  |  Healer (3)  |  Healing (28)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Internal (69)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Master (182)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Merely (315)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Plague (42)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Profession (108)  |  Reason (766)  |  Slander (3)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Today (321)  |  Training (92)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wide (97)

Natural selection is a mechanism for generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability.
This is not a verbatim quote, but it is a summary of Fisher’s idea, as appearing without quotation marks in the words of the editor, Julian Huxley, in J.S. Huxley, A.C. Hardy and E.B. Ford (eds.), Evolution as a Process (1954), 5. The lengthier quote is from Fisher’s full essay 'Retrospect of the Criticisms of the Theory of Natural Selection' which appears in the same book on p.91. See it elsewhere in this site’s collection, as the Fisher quote that begins: “It was Darwin’s chief contribution…”.
Science quotes on:  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  High (370)  |  Improbability (11)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Selection (130)

Neither the absolute nor the relative size of the brain can be used to measure the degree of mental ability in animal or in man. So far as man is concerned, the weights of the brains or the volumes of the cranial cavities of a hundred celebrities of all branches of knowledge all over the world have been listed. … At the bottom of those lists are Gall, the famous phrenologist, Anatole France, the French novelist, and Gambetta, the French statesman, each with about 1,100 cc brain mass. The lists are topped by Dean Jonathan Swift, the English writer, Lord Byron, the English poet, and Turgenev, the Russian novelist, all with about 2,000 cc … Now our mental test! Had Turgenev really twice the mental ability of Anatole France?
In 'The Human Brain in the Light of Its Phylogenetic Development', Scientific Monthly (Aug 1948), 67, No. 2, 104-105. Collected in Sherwood Larned Washburn and ‎Davida Wolffson (eds.), The Shorter Anthropological Papers of Franz Weidenreich Published in the Period 1939-1948: A Memorial Volume (1949), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Absolute (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Brain (281)  |  Lord George Gordon Byron (28)  |  Cavity (9)  |  Celebrity (8)  |  Concern (239)  |  Cranial (2)  |  Anatole France (12)  |  Franz Joseph Gall (4)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lord (97)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mental (179)  |  Novelist (9)  |  Phrenologist (2)  |  Poet (97)  |  Relative (42)  |  Size (62)  |  Statesman (20)  |  Jonathan Swift (27)  |  Test (221)  |  Ivan Turgenev (2)  |  Volume (25)  |  Weight (140)  |  World (1850)  |  Writer (90)

No degree of commitment to beliefs makes them knowledge.
In Radio Lecture (30 Jun 1973) broadcast by the Open University, collected in Imre Lakatos, John Worrall (ed.) and Gregory Currie (ed.), 'Introduction: Science and Pseudoscience', The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (1978, 1980), Vol. 1, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Knowledge (1647)

No person will deny that the highest degree of attainable accuracy is an object to be desired, and it is generally found that the last advances towards precision require a greater devotion of time, labour, and expense, than those which precede them.
Reflections on the Decline of Science in England (1830), 167.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Advance (298)  |  Deny (71)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Greater (288)  |  Labor (200)  |  Last (425)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Object (438)  |  Person (366)  |  Precision (72)  |  Require (229)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)

Non-standard analysis frequently simplifies substantially the proofs, not only of elementary theorems, but also of deep results. This is true, e.g., also for the proof of the existence of invariant subspaces for compact operators, disregarding the improvement of the result; and it is true in an even higher degree in other cases. This state of affairs should prevent a rather common misinterpretation of non-standard analysis, namely the idea that it is some kind of extravagance or fad of mathematical logicians. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Rather, there are good reasons to believe that non-standard analysis, in some version or other, will be the analysis of the future.
In 'Remark on Non-standard Analysis' (1974), in S. Feferman (ed.), Kurt Gödel Collected Works: Publications 1938-1974 (1990), Vol. 2, 311.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Common (447)  |  Compact (13)  |  Deep (241)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fad (10)  |  Farther (51)  |  Future (467)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Invariant (10)  |  Kind (564)  |  Logician (18)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reason (766)  |  Result (700)  |  State (505)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)

Not long ago the head of what should be a strictly scientific department in one of the major universities commented on the odd (and ominous) phenomenon that persons who can claim to be scientists on the basis of the technical training that won them the degree of Ph.D. are now found certifying the authenticity of the painted rag that is called the “Turin Shroud” or adducing “scientific” arguments to support hoaxes about the “paranormal” or an antiquated religiosity. “You can hire a scientist [sic],” he said, “to prove anything.” He did not adduce himself as proof of his generalization, but he did boast of his cleverness in confining his own research to areas in which the results would not perturb the Establishment or any vociferous gang of shyster-led fanatics. If such is indeed the status of science and scholarship in our darkling age, Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls.
In 'The Price of the Head', Instauration Magazine (Mar 1980).
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Antiquated (3)  |  Area (33)  |  Argument (145)  |  Ask (420)  |  Authenticity (5)  |  Basis (180)  |  Bell (35)  |  Boast (22)  |  Call (781)  |  Certify (2)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cleverness (15)  |  Comment (12)  |  Confine (26)  |  Department (93)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Fanatic (7)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gang (4)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Head (87)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hire (7)  |  Hoax (6)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Long (778)  |  Long Ago (12)  |  Major (88)  |  Odd (15)  |  Ominous (5)  |  Paint (22)  |  Paranormal (3)  |  Person (366)  |  Perturb (2)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Prove Anything (7)  |  Rag (2)  |  Religiosity (2)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Send (23)  |  Shroud (2)  |  Status (35)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Support (151)  |  Technical (53)  |  Toll (3)  |  Training (92)  |  Turin (3)  |  University (130)  |  Win (53)

Nothing has afforded me so convincing a proof of the unity of the Deity as these purely mental conceptions of numerical and mathematical science which have been by slow degrees vouchsafed to man, and are still granted in these latter times by the Differential Calculus, now superseded by the Higher Algebra, all of which must have existed in that sublimely omniscient Mind from eternity.
Martha Somerville (ed.) Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville (1874), 140-141.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Conception (160)  |  Convince (43)  |  Deity (22)  |  Differential Calculus (11)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Exist (458)  |  Grant (76)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Omniscient (6)  |  Proof (304)  |  Purely (111)  |  Slow (108)  |  Still (614)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Supersede (8)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unity (81)  |  Vouchsafe (3)

Nothing in physics seems so hopeful to as the idea that it is possible for a theory to have a high degree of symmetry was hidden from us in everyday life. The physicist's task is to find this deeper symmetry.
In American Scientist (1977) (as cited in The Atlantic (1984), 254, 81.) As an epigraph in Crystal and Dragon: The Cosmic Dance of Symmetry and Chaos in Nature, Art and Consciousness (1993), 139.
Science quotes on:  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everyday Life (15)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hidden (43)  |  High (370)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hopeful (6)  |  Idea (881)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Seem (150)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Task (152)  |  Theory (1015)

Now of the difficulties bound up with the public in which we doctors work, I hesitate to speak in a mixed audience. Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education.
'Teaching and Thinking' (1894). In Aequanimitas with Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine (1904), 131.
Science quotes on:  |  Audience (28)  |  Binding (9)  |  Bound (120)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Education (423)  |  Hesitate (24)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  Inverse (7)  |  Matter (821)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mixed (6)  |  Public (100)  |  Rare (94)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Sense (785)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Usually (176)  |  Work (1402)

Once in a while you find yourself in an odd situation. You get into it by degrees and in the most natural way but, when you are right in the midst of it, you are suddenly astonished and ask yourself how in the world it all came about.
Opening sentences in Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft (1990), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Astonished (10)  |  Happen (282)  |  Midst (8)  |  Natural (810)  |  Odd (15)  |  Situation (117)  |  World (1850)

One can descend by imperceptible degree from the most perfect creature to the most shapeless matter, from the best-organised animal to the roughest mineral.
'Premier Discours: De la Manière d'Étudier et de Traiter l'Histoire naturelle'. In Oeuvres Complètes (1774-79), Vol. I, 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Best (467)  |  Creature (242)  |  Descend (49)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Perfect (223)

One never finds fossil bones bearing no resemblance to human bones. Egyptian mummies, which are at least three thousand years old, show that men were the same then. The same applies to other mummified animals such as cats, dogs, crocodiles, falcons, vultures, oxen, ibises, etc. Species, therefore, do not change by degrees, but emerged after the new world was formed. Nor do we find intermediate species between those of the earlier world and those of today's. For example, there is no intermediate bear between our bear and the very different cave bear. To our knowledge, no spontaneous generation occurs in the present-day world. All organized beings owe their life to their fathers. Thus all records corroborate the globe's modernity. Negative proof: the barbaritY of the human species four thousand years ago. Positive proof: the great revolutions and the floods preserved in the traditions of all peoples.
'Note prese al Corso di Cuvier. Corso di Geologia all'Ateneo nel 1805', quoted in Pietro Corsi, The Age of Lamarck, trans. J. Mandelbaum (1988), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bone (101)  |  Cat (52)  |  Change (639)  |  Crocodile (14)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dog (70)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Falcon (2)  |  Father (113)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flood (52)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Species (11)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Men (20)  |  Mummy (7)  |  Negative (66)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Occur (151)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Ox (5)  |  Oxen (8)  |  People (1031)  |  Positive (98)  |  Present (630)  |  Present Day (5)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Proof (304)  |  Record (161)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Same (166)  |  Show (353)  |  Species (435)  |  Spontaneity (7)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Spontaneous Generation (9)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Today (321)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Vulture (5)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

One of the major goals when studying specific genetic diseases is to find the primary gene product, which in turn leads to a better understanding of the biochemical basis of the disorder. The bottom line often reads, 'This may lead to effective prenatal diagnosis and eventual eradication of the disease.' But we now have the ironic situation of being able to jump right to the bottom line without reading the rest of the page, that is, without needing to identify the primary gene product or the basic biochemical mechanism of the disease. The technical capability of doing this is now available. Since the degree of departure from our previous approaches and the potential of this procedure are so great, one will not be guilty of hyperbole in calling it the 'New Genetics'.
'Prenatal Diagnosis and the New Genetics', The American Journal of Human Genetics, 1980, 32:3, 453.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Basic (144)  |  Basis (180)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Capability (44)  |  Diagnosis (65)  |  Disease (340)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Doing (277)  |  Effective (68)  |  Find (1014)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Goal (155)  |  Great (1610)  |  Jump (31)  |  Lead (391)  |  Major (88)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  New (1273)  |  Potential (75)  |  Primary (82)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Product (166)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Rest (287)  |  Right (473)  |  Situation (117)  |  Specific (98)  |  Studying (70)  |  Turn (454)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

One rarely hears of the mathematical recitation as a preparation for public speaking. Yet mathematics shares with these studies [foreign languages, drawing and natural science] their advantages, and has another in a higher degree than either of them.
Most readers will agree that a prime requisite for healthful experience in public speaking is that the attention of the speaker and hearers alike be drawn wholly away from the speaker and concentrated upon the thought. In perhaps no other classroom is this so easy as in the mathematical, where the close reasoning, the rigorous demonstration, the tracing of necessary conclusions from given hypotheses, commands and secures the entire mental power of the student who is explaining, and of his classmates. In what other circumstances do students feel so instinctively that manner counts for so little and mind for so much? In what other circumstances, therefore, is a simple, unaffected, easy, graceful manner so naturally and so healthfully cultivated? Mannerisms that are mere affectation or the result of bad literary habit recede to the background and finally disappear, while those peculiarities that are the expression of personality and are inseparable from its activity continually develop, where the student frequently presents, to an audience of his intellectual peers, a connected train of reasoning. …
One would almost wish that our institutions of the science and art of public speaking would put over their doors the motto that Plato had over the entrance to his school of philosophy: “Let no one who is unacquainted with geometry enter here.”
In A Scrap-book of Elementary Mathematics: Notes, Recreations, Essays (1908), 210-211.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Alike (60)  |  Art (680)  |  Attention (196)  |  Audience (28)  |  Background (44)  |  Bad (185)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Classroom (11)  |  Command (60)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Connect (126)  |  Count (107)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Develop (278)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  Door (94)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entrance (16)  |  Experience (494)  |  Expression (181)  |  Feel (371)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Habit (174)  |  Hear (144)  |  Inseparable (18)  |  Institution (73)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Language (308)  |  Listener (7)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peer (13)  |  Personality (66)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plato (80)  |  Power (771)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Present (630)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Recede (11)  |  Recitation (2)  |  Result (700)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  School (227)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Share (82)  |  Simple (426)  |  Speaker (6)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Student (317)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Unaffected (6)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

Our earth is very old, an old warrior that has lived through many battles. Nevertheless, the face of it is still changing, and science sees no certain limit of time for its stately evolution. Our solid earth, apparently so stable, inert, and finished, is changing, mobile, and still evolving. Its major quakings are largely the echoes of that divine far-off event, the building of our noble mountains. The lava floods and intriguing volcanoes tell us of the plasticity, mobility, of the deep interior of the globe. The slow coming and going of ancient shallow seas on the continental plateaus tell us of the rhythmic distortion of the deep interior-deep-seated flow and changes of volume. Mountain chains prove the earth’s solid crust itself to be mobile in high degree. And the secret of it all—the secret of the earthquake, the secret of the “temple of fire,” the secret of the ocean basin, the secret of the highland—is in the heart of the earth, forever invisible to human eyes.
In Our Mobile Earth (1926), 320.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Building (158)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Coming (114)  |  Crust (43)  |  Deep (241)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Divine (112)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Event (222)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Finish (62)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flood (52)  |  Flow (89)  |  Forever (111)  |  Heart (243)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inert (14)  |  Interior (35)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Lava (12)  |  Limit (294)  |  Lithosphere (2)  |  Magma (4)  |  Major (88)  |  Mobility (11)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Noble (93)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Old (499)  |  Plasticity (7)  |  Prove (261)  |  Sea (326)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Slow (108)  |  Solid (119)  |  Stable (32)  |  Stately (12)  |  Still (614)  |  Tell (344)  |  Temple (45)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Volcano (46)

Our most trustworthy safeguard in making general statements on this question is imagination. If we can imagine the breaking of a law of physics then… it is in some degree an empirical law. With a purely rational law we could not conceive an alternative… This ultimate criterion serves as an anchor to keep us from drifting unduly in a perilous sea of thought.
From concluding paragraph of 'Transition to General Relativity', The Special Theory of Relativity (1940, 2014), Chap 8, 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Alternative (32)  |  Anchor (10)  |  Break (109)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Drift (14)  |  Empirical (58)  |  General (521)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Keep (104)  |  Law (913)  |  Making (300)  |  Most (1728)  |  Perilous (4)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Purely (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Rational (95)  |  Safeguard (8)  |  Sea (326)  |  Serve (64)  |  Statement (148)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trustworthy (14)  |  Ultimate (152)

Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relationship to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Complex (202)  |  External (62)  |  Generally (15)  |  Individual (420)  |  Infinitely (13)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Inherited (21)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Organic (161)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Owing (39)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Slight (32)  |  Species (435)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Tend (124)  |  Variation (93)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)

Plants, again, inasmuch as they are without locomotion, present no great variety in their heterogeneous pacts. For, when the functions are but few, few also are the organs required to effect them. ... Animals, however, that not only live but perceive, present a great multiformity of pacts, and this diversity is greater in some animals than in others, being most varied in those to whose share has fallen not mere life but life of high degree. Now such an animal is man.
Aristotle
Parts of Animals, 655b, 37-656a, 7. In Jonathan Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle (1984), Vol. I, 1021-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Effect (414)  |  Function (235)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  High (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Organ (118)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Present (630)  |  Required (108)  |  Share (82)  |  Variety (138)

Plasticity, then, in the wide sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once. Each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure is marked by what we may call a new set of habits. Organic matter, especially nervous tissue, seems endowed with a very extraordinary degree of plasticity of this sort ; so that we may without hesitation lay down as our first proposition the following, that the phenomena of habit in living beings are due to plasticity of the organic materials of which their bodies are composed.
'The Laws of Habit', The Popular Science Monthly (Feb 1887), 434.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Composition (86)  |  Down (455)  |  Due (143)  |  Endow (17)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Enough (341)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  First (1302)  |  Habit (174)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  Influence (231)  |  Living (492)  |  Marked (55)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nerve (82)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Organic (161)  |  Phase (37)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Plasticity (7)  |  Possession (68)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Stable (32)  |  Strong (182)  |  Structure (365)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Weak (73)  |  Wide (97)  |  Word (650)  |  Yield (86)

Poets need be in no degree jealous of the geologists. The stony science, with buried creations for its domains, and half an eternity charged with its annals, possesses its realms of dim and shadowy fields, in which troops of fancies already walk like disembodied ghosts in the old fields of Elysium, and which bid fair to be quite dark and uncertain enough for all the purposes of poesy for centuries to come.
Lecture Third, collected in Popular Geology: A Series of Lectures Read Before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's Portfolio (1859), 127.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Annal (3)  |  Creation (350)  |  Dark (145)  |  Disembodied (6)  |  Domain (72)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Field (378)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Jealousy (9)  |  Old (499)  |  Poet (97)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Realm (87)  |  Science And Poetry (17)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Walk (138)

Primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war.
The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Thing (1914)  |  War (233)

Prof. Sarabhai assessed the work capacity of an engineer or a scientist not by his degree or his training, but by his self-confidence.
As given in narrative form by Mahesh Sharma, P. Bhalla and P.K. Das, in 'Prof. Vikram Sarabhai in the Opinion of Dr. Kalam', Pride Of The Nation: Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (2004), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Capacity (105)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Vikram Sarabhai (8)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Self-Confidence (11)  |  Training (92)

Professor [Max] Planck, of Berlin, the famous originator of the Quantum Theory, once remarked to me that in early life he had thought of studying economics, but had found it too difficult! Professor Planck could easily master the whole corpus of mathematical economics in a few days. He did not mean that! But the amalgam of logic and intuition and the wide knowledge of facts, most of which are not precise, which is required for economic interpretation in its highest form is, quite truly, overwhelmingly difficult for those whose gift mainly consists in the power to imagine and pursue to their furthest points the implications and prior conditions of comparatively simple facts which are known with a high degree of precision.
'Alfred Marshall: 1842-1924' (1924). In Geoffrey Keynes (ed.), Essays in Biography (1933), 191-2
Science quotes on:  |  Condition (362)  |  Consist (223)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Early (196)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Form (976)  |  Gift (105)  |  High (370)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Intution (2)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Logic (311)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Originator (7)  |  Max Planck (83)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precision (72)  |  Professor (133)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Required (108)  |  Simple (426)  |  Studying (70)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truly (118)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wide (97)

Science has a simple faith, which transcends utility. Nearly all men of science, all men of learning for that matter, and men of simple ways too, have it in some form and in some degree. It is the faith that it is the privilege of man to learn to understand, and that this is his mission. If we abandon that mission under stress we shall abandon it forever, for stress will not cease. Knowledge for the sake of understanding, not merely to prevail, that is the essence of our being. None can define its limits, or set its ultimate boundaries.
Science is Not Enough (1967), 191.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Cease (81)  |  Definition (238)  |  Essence (85)  |  Faith (209)  |  Forever (111)  |  Form (976)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mission (23)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Sake (61)  |  Set (400)  |  Simple (426)  |  Stress (22)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Transcendence (2)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Utility (52)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

Science has been arranging, classifying, methodizing, simplifying, everything except itself. It has made possible the tremendous modern development of power of organization which has so multiplied the effective power of human effort as to make the differences from the past seem to be of kind rather than of degree. It has organized itself very imperfectly. Scientific men are only recently realizing that the principles which apply to success on a large scale in transportation and manufacture and general staff work to apply them; that the difference between a mob and an army does not depend upon occupation or purpose but upon human nature; that the effective power of a great number of scientific men may be increased by organization just as the effective power of a great number of laborers may be increased by military discipline.
'The Need for Organization in Scientific Research', in Bulletin of the National Research Council: The National Importance of Scientific and Industrial Research (Oct 1919), Col 1, Part 1, No. 1, 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Army (35)  |  Classification (102)  |  Depend (238)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Effective (68)  |  Effort (243)  |  Everything (489)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Kind (564)  |  Laborer (9)  |  Large (398)  |  Manufacture (30)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Military (45)  |  Mob (10)  |  Modern (402)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Organization (120)  |  Past (355)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Scale (122)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Success (327)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Tremendous (29)  |  Work (1402)

Science is a dynamic undertaking directed to lowering the degree of the empiricism involved in solving problems; or, if you prefer, science is a process of fabricating a web of interconnected concepts and conceptual schemes arising from experiments and ob
Modern Science and Modern Man, p. 62, New York (1952).
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Arising (22)  |  Concept (242)  |  Conceptual (11)  |  Direct (228)  |  Dynamic (16)  |  Empiricism (21)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fabricate (6)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Lowering (4)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Solve (145)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Undertaking (17)  |  Web (17)

Science is a speculative enterprise. The validity of a new idea and the significance of a new experimental finding are to be measured by the consequences—consequences in terms of other ideas and other experiments. Thus conceived, science is not a quest for certainty; it is rather a quest which is successful only to the degree that it is continuous.
In Science and Common Sense (1951), 25-26.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainty (180)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Idea (881)  |  Measure (241)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Quest (39)  |  Significance (114)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Success (327)  |  Successful (134)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Validity (50)

Science is neither discontinuous nor monolithic. It is variously jointed, and loose in the joints in varying degrees.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Discontinuous (6)  |  Joint (31)  |  Loose (14)  |  Variously (2)  |  Vary (27)

Scientists do not believe in fundamental and absolute certainties. For the scientist, certainty is never an end, but a search; not the ordering of certainty, but its exploration. For the scientist, certainty represents the highest degree of probability.
Ashley Montagu (ed.), Science and Creationism (1984), Introduction, 7-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Never (1089)  |  Order (638)  |  Probability (135)  |  Represent (157)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Search (175)

Scientists still do not appear to understand sufficiently that all earth sciences must contribute evidence toward unveiling the state of our planet in earlier times, and that the truth of the matter can only be reached by combing all this evidence. ... It is only by combing the information furnished by all the earth sciences that we can hope to determine 'truth' here, that is to say, to find the picture that sets out all the known facts in the best arrangement and that therefore has the highest degree of probability. Further, we have to be prepared always for the possibility that each new discovery, no matter what science furnishes it, may modify the conclusions we draw.
The Origins of Continents and Oceans
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Best (467)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Determine (152)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Find (1014)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Geology (240)  |  Hope (321)  |  Information (173)  |  Known (453)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Picture (148)  |  Planet (402)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Probability (135)  |  Reach (286)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Set (400)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)

She has the sort of body you go to see in marble. She has golden hair. Quickly, deftly, she reaches with both hands behind her back and unclasps her top. Setting it on her lap, she swivels ninety degrees to face the towboat square. Shoulders back, cheeks high, she holds her pose without retreat. In her ample presentation there is defiance of gravity. There is no angle of repose. She is a siren and these are her songs.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Ample (4)  |  Angle (25)  |  Back (395)  |  Behind (139)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Cheek (3)  |  Defiance (7)  |  Face (214)  |  Golden (47)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Hair (25)  |  Hand (149)  |  High (370)  |  Hold (96)  |  Lap (9)  |  Marble (21)  |  Ninety (2)  |  Pose (9)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Quickly (21)  |  Reach (286)  |  Repose (9)  |  Retreat (13)  |  See (1094)  |  Set (400)  |  Setting (44)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Siren (4)  |  Song (41)  |  Sort (50)  |  Square (73)  |  Top (100)

Since as the Creation is, so is the Creator also magnified, we may conclude in consequence of an infinity, and an infinite all-active power, that as the visible creation is supposed to be full of siderial systems and planetary worlds, so on, in like similar manner, the endless Immensity is an unlimited plenum of creations not unlike the known Universe.… That this in all probability may be the real case, is in some degree made evident by the many cloudy spots, just perceivable by us, as far without our starry Regions, in which tho’ visibly luminous spaces, no one Star or particular constituent body can possibly be distinguished; those in all likelyhood may be external creation, bordering upon the known one, too remote for even our Telescopes to reach.
In The Universe and the Stars: Being an Original Theory on the Visible Creation, Founded on the Laws of Nature (1750, 1837), 143-144.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Body (557)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Endless (60)  |  Evident (92)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Known (453)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Plenum (2)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Power (771)  |  Probability (135)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remote (86)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  System (545)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unlimited (24)  |  Visible (87)  |  World (1850)

Sophie Germain proved to the world that even a woman can accomplish something in the most rigorous and abstract of sciences and for that reason would well have deserved an honorary degree.
Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Sophie Germain (4)  |  Most (1728)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Something (718)  |  Woman (160)  |  World (1850)

That special substance according to whose mass and degree of development all the creatures of this world take rank in the scale of creation, is not bone, but brain.
The Foot-prints of the Creator: Or, The Asterolepis of Stromness (1850, 1859), 160.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Bone (101)  |  Brain (281)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Development (441)  |  Mass (160)  |  Rank (69)  |  Scale (122)  |  Special (188)  |  Substance (253)  |  World (1850)

That the master manufacturer, by dividing the work to be executed into different processes, each requiring different degrees of skill or of force, can purchase precisely the precise quantity of both which is necessary for each process; whereas, if the whole work were executed by one workman, that person must possess sufficient skill to perform the most difficult, and sufficient strength to execute the most laborious, of the operations into which the art is divided.
In 'On the Division of Labour', Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1st ed., 1832), chap. 18, 127.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Both (496)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Divide (77)  |  Divided (50)  |  Economics (44)  |  Execute (7)  |  Force (497)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Manufacturer (10)  |  Master (182)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Perform (123)  |  Person (366)  |  Possess (157)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Process (439)  |  Purchase (8)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Skill (116)  |  Strength (139)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)  |  Workman (13)

The American Cancer Society's position on the question of a possible cause-effect relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer is:
1. The evidence to date justifies suspicion that cigarette smoking does, to a degree as yet undetermined, increase the likelihood of developing cancer of the lung.
2. That available evidence does not constitute irrefutable proof that cigarette smoking is wholly or chiefly or partly responsible for lung cancer.
3. That the evidence at hand calls for the extension of statistical and laboratory studies designed to confirm or deny a causual relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.
4. That the society is committed to furthering such intensified investigation as its resources will permit.
Conclusions of statement after a meeting of the ACS board of directors in San Francisco (17 Mar 1954). Quoted in 'Tobacco Industry Denies Cancer Tie'. New York Times (14 Apr 1954), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Call (781)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Deny (71)  |  Design (203)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extension (60)  |  Increase (225)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Irrefutable (5)  |  Justification (52)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Lung (37)  |  Lung Cancer (7)  |  Permit (61)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proof (304)  |  Question (649)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Research (753)  |  Smoking (27)  |  Society (350)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Tobacco (19)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)

The automatic computing engine now being designed at N.P.L. [National Physics Laboratory] is atypical large scale electronic digital computing machine. In a single lecture it will not be possible to give much technical detail of this machine, and most of what I shall say will apply equally to any other machine of this type now being planned. From the point of view of the mathematician the property of being digital should be of greater interest than that of being electronic. That it is electronic is certainly important because these machines owe their high speed to this, and without the speed it is doubtful if financial support for their construction would be forthcoming. But this is virtually all that there is to be said on that subject. That the machine is digital however has more subtle significance. It means firstly that numbers are represented by sequences of digits which can be as long as one wishes. One can therefore work to any desired degree of accuracy. This accuracy is not obtained by more careful machining of parts, control of temperature variations, and such means, but by a slight increase in the amount of equipment in the machine.
Lecture to the London Mathematical Society, 20 February 1947. Quoted in B. E. Carpenter and R. W. Doran (eds.), A. M. Turing's Ace Report of 1946 and Other Papers (1986), 106.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Amount (153)  |  Apply (170)  |  Atypical (2)  |  Automatic (16)  |  Being (1276)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Computer (131)  |  Construction (114)  |  Control (182)  |  Design (203)  |  Designed (2)  |  Desired (5)  |  Detail (150)  |  Digital (10)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Engine (99)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Equally (129)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Greater (288)  |  High (370)  |  Increase (225)  |  Interest (416)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Large (398)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Long (778)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Possible (560)  |  Property (177)  |  Represent (157)  |  Say (989)  |  Scale (122)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Significance (114)  |  Single (365)  |  Speed (66)  |  Subject (543)  |  Support (151)  |  Technology (281)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Type (171)  |  Variation (93)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

The calculus of probabilities, when confined within just limits, ought to interest, in an equal degree, the mathematician, the experimentalist, and the statesman.
In François Arago, trans. by William Henry Smyth, Baden Powell and Robert Grant, 'Laplace', Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859), Vol. 1, 364. This comment introduces how the calculus of probabilities, being used in preparing tables of, for example, population and mortality, can give information for use by government and businesses deciding reserves for pensions, or premiums for life insurance.
Science quotes on:  |  Calculus (65)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Interest (416)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Statesman (20)

The cause of rain is now, I consider, no longer an object of doubt. If two masses of air of unequal temperatures, by the ordinary currents of the winds, are intermixed, when saturated with vapour, a precipitation ensues. If the masses are under saturation, then less precipitation takes place, or none at all, according to the degree. Also, the warmer the air, the greater is the quantity of vapour precipitated in like circumstances. ... Hence the reason why rains are heavier in summer than in winter, and in warm countries than in cold.
Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester (1819), 3, 507. Quoted in George Drysdale Dempsey and Daniel Kinnear Clark, On the Drainage of Lands, Towns, & Buildings (1887), 246.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Air (366)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Cold (115)  |  Consider (428)  |  Current (122)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Greater (288)  |  Intermix (3)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Object (438)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Precipitation (7)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Rain (70)  |  Reason (766)  |  Saturation (9)  |  Summer (56)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Two (936)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Vapour (16)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Why (491)  |  Wind (141)  |  Winter (46)

The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.
Aristotle
As translated in Book 13, 1078.a3, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, a Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary by W. D. Ross (1924), Vol. 2, 416.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Chief (99)  |  Definiteness (3)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Form (976)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Order (638)  |  Special (188)  |  Symmetry (44)

The complexity of an object depends not on itself, but of the degree to which it is investigated, and the questions we ourselves raise in investigating it.
In The Unity of Science (1921), 141.
Science quotes on:  |  Complexity (121)  |  Depend (238)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Object (438)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Question (649)

The computational formalism of mathematics is a thought process that is externalised to such a degree that for a time it becomes alien and is turned into a technological process. A mathematical concept is formed when this thought process, temporarily removed from its human vessel, is transplanted back into a human mold. To think ... means to calculate with critical awareness.
Mathematics and Physics (1981), Foreward. Reprinted in Mathematics as Metaphor: Selected Essays of Yuri I. Manin (2007), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Alien (35)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Back (395)  |  Become (821)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Computation (28)  |  Concept (242)  |  Critical (73)  |  Criticism (85)  |  External (62)  |  Form (976)  |  Formalism (7)  |  Human (1512)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mold (37)  |  Process (439)  |  Remove (50)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transplant (12)  |  Transplantation (4)  |  Turn (454)  |  Vessel (63)

The degree 48 … in my thermometers holds the middle between between the limit of the most intense cold obtained artificially in a mixture of water, of ice and of sal-ammoniac or even of sea-salt, and the limit of heat which is found in the blood of a healthy man.
From 'Experimenta circa gradum caloris liquorum nonnullorum ebullientium instituta', Philosophical Transactions (1724), 33, 1, as translated in William Francis Magie, A Source Book in Physics (1935), 131. Hence, Fahrenheit specified the upper and lower fixed points of his temperature scale, ranging from 0 to 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Artificial (38)  |  Blood (144)  |  Cold (115)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Heat (180)  |  Ice (58)  |  Intense (22)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Sal Ammoniac (2)  |  Salt (48)  |  Sea (326)  |  Thermometer (11)  |  Water (503)

The degree of exactness of the intuition of space may be different in different individuals, perhaps even in different races. It would seem as if a strong naive space-intuition were an attribute pre-eminently of the Teutonic race, while the critical, purely logical sense is more fully developed in the Latin and Hebrew races. A full investigation of this subject, somewhat on the lines suggested by Francis Gallon in his researches on heredity, might be interesting.
In The Evanston Colloquium Lectures (1894), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Attribute (65)  |  Critical (73)  |  Develop (278)  |  Developed (11)  |  Different (595)  |  Exactness (29)  |  Hebrew (10)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Latin (44)  |  Line (100)  |  Logical (57)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  More (2558)  |  Naive (13)  |  Preeminent (6)  |  Purely (111)  |  Race (278)  |  Research (753)  |  Sense (785)  |  Space (523)  |  Strong (182)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suggest (38)

The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts—the less you know the hotter you get.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Emotion (106)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Hot (63)  |  Inversely (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Less (105)  |  Vary (27)

The development doctrines are doing much harm on both sides of the Atlantic, especially among intelligent mechanics, and a class of young men engaged in the subordinate departments of trade and the law. And the harm thus considerable in amount must be necessarily more than considerable in degree. For it invariably happens, that when persons in these walks become materialists, they become turbulent subjects and bad men.
The Foot-prints of the Creator: Or, The Asterolepis of Stromness (1850, 1859), Preface, vi.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Atlantic (8)  |  Bad (185)  |  Become (821)  |  Both (496)  |  Class (168)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Department (93)  |  Development (441)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Doing (277)  |  Happen (282)  |  Harm (43)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Law (913)  |  Materialist (4)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Person (366)  |  Side (236)  |  Subject (543)  |  Trade (34)  |  Turbulent (4)  |  Walk (138)  |  Young (253)

The earth in its rapid motion round the sun possesses a degree of living force so vast that, if turned into the equivalent of heat, its temperature would be rendered at least one thousand times greater than that of red-hot iron, and the globe on which we tread would in all probability be rendered equal in brightness to the sun itself.
'On Matter, Living Force, and Heat' (1847). In The Scientific Papers of James Prescott Joule (1884), Vol. 1, 271.
Science quotes on:  |  Brightness (12)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Force (497)  |  Greater (288)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hot (63)  |  Iron (99)  |  Living (492)  |  Motion (320)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Probability (135)  |  Render (96)  |  Sun (407)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tread (17)  |  Turn (454)  |  Vast (188)

The enthusiasm of Sylvester for his own work, which manifests itself here as always, indicates one of his characteristic qualities: a high degree of subjectivity in his productions and publications. Sylvester was so fully possessed by the matter which for the time being engaged his attention, that it appeared to him and was designated by him as the summit of all that is important, remarkable and full of future promise. It would excite his phantasy and power of imagination in even a greater measure than his power of reflection, so much so that he could never marshal the ability to master his subject-matter, much less to present it in an orderly manner.
Considering that he was also somewhat of a poet, it will be easier to overlook the poetic flights which pervade his writing, often bombastic, sometimes furnishing apt illustrations; more damaging is the complete lack of form and orderliness of his publications and their sketchlike character, … which must be accredited at least as much to lack of objectivity as to a superfluity of ideas. Again, the text is permeated with associated emotional expressions, bizarre utterances and paradoxes and is everywhere accompanied by notes, which constitute an essential part of Sylvester’s method of presentation, embodying relations, whether proximate or remote, which momentarily suggested themselves. These notes, full of inspiration and occasional flashes of genius, are the more stimulating owing to their incompleteness. But none of his works manifest a desire to penetrate the subject from all sides and to allow it to mature; each mere surmise, conceptions which arose during publication, immature thoughts and even errors were ushered into publicity at the moment of their inception, with utmost carelessness, and always with complete unfamiliarity of the literature of the subject. Nowhere is there the least trace of self-criticism. No one can be expected to read the treatises entire, for in the form in which they are available they fail to give a clear view of the matter under contemplation.
Sylvester’s was not a harmoniously gifted or well-balanced mind, but rather an instinctively active and creative mind, free from egotism. His reasoning moved in generalizations, was frequently influenced by analysis and at times was guided even by mystical numerical relations. His reasoning consists less frequently of pure intelligible conclusions than of inductions, or rather conjectures incited by individual observations and verifications. In this he was guided by an algebraic sense, developed through long occupation with processes of forms, and this led him luckily to general fundamental truths which in some instances remain veiled. His lack of system is here offset by the advantage of freedom from purely mechanical logical activity.
The exponents of his essential characteristics are an intuitive talent and a faculty of invention to which we owe a series of ideas of lasting value and bearing the germs of fruitful methods. To no one more fittingly than to Sylvester can be applied one of the mottos of the Philosophic Magazine:
“Admiratio generat quaestionem, quaestio investigationem investigatio inventionem.”
In Mathematische Annalen (1898), 50, 155-160. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 176-178.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Active (80)  |  Activity (218)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Applied (176)  |  Attention (196)  |  Available (80)  |  Being (1276)  |  Carelessness (7)  |  Character (259)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conception (160)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Consist (223)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Creative (144)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Desire (212)  |  Develop (278)  |  Easier (53)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Error (339)  |  Essential (210)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Expect (203)  |  Exponent (6)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fail (191)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Genius (301)  |  Germ (54)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Greater (288)  |  High (370)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inception (3)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Individual (420)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lack (127)  |  Literature (116)  |  Long (778)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mature (17)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Orderliness (9)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Owe (71)  |  Owing (39)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Production (190)  |  Promise (72)  |  Proximate (4)  |  Publication (102)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purely (111)  |  Read (308)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remote (86)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Side (236)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subject-Matter (8)  |  Summit (27)  |  Surmise (7)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  System (545)  |  Talent (99)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unfamiliarity (5)  |  Utterance (11)  |  Value (393)  |  Veil (27)  |  Verification (32)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)

The general knowledge of our author [Leonhard Euler] was more extensive than could well be expected, in one who had pursued, with such unremitting ardor, mathematics and astronomy as his favorite studies. He had made a very considerable progress in medical, botanical, and chemical science. What was still more extraordinary, he was an excellent scholar, and possessed in a high degree what is generally called erudition. He had attentively read the most eminent writers of ancient Rome; the civil and literary history of all ages and all nations was familiar to him; and foreigners, who were only acquainted with his works, were astonished to find in the conversation of a man, whose long life seemed solely occupied in mathematical and physical researches and discoveries, such an extensive acquaintance with the most interesting branches of literature. In this respect, no doubt, he was much indebted to an uncommon memory, which seemed to retain every idea that was conveyed to it, either from reading or from meditation.
In Philosophical and Mathematical Dictionary (1815), 493-494.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaint (11)  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Ardor (5)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Attentive (15)  |  Author (175)  |  Botany (63)  |  Branch (155)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Civil (26)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Convey (17)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Erudition (7)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Expect (203)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Find (1014)  |  Foreigner (3)  |  General (521)  |  Generally (15)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indebted (8)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literary (15)  |  Literature (116)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Memory (144)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nation (208)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possess (157)  |  Progress (492)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Respect (212)  |  Retain (57)  |  Rome (19)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Uncommon (14)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

The great mathematician, like the great poet or naturalist or great administrator, is born. My contention shall be that where the mathematic endowment is found, there will usually be found associated with it, as essential implications in it, other endowments in generous measure, and that the appeal of the science is to the whole mind, direct no doubt to the central powers of thought, but indirectly through sympathy of all, rousing, enlarging, developing, emancipating all, so that the faculties of will, of intellect and feeling learn to respond, each in its appropriate order and degree, like the parts of an orchestra to the “urge and ardor” of its leader and lord.
In Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Art (1908), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Administrator (11)  |  Appeal (46)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Ardor (5)  |  Associate (25)  |  Bear (162)  |  Central (81)  |  Contention (14)  |  Develop (278)  |  Direct (228)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Emancipate (2)  |  Endowment (16)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Essential (210)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Find (1014)  |  Generous (17)  |  Great (1610)  |  Implication (25)  |  Indirectly (7)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Leader (51)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mathematic (3)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Orchestra (3)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Poet (97)  |  Power (771)  |  Respond (14)  |  Rouse (4)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Urge (17)  |  Usually (176)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

The greatest enemy, however, to true arithmetic work is found in so-called practical or illustrative problems, which are freely given to our pupils, of a degree of difficulty and complexity altogether unsuited to their age and mental development. … I am, myself, no bad mathematician, and all the reasoning powers with which nature endowed me have long been as fully developed as they are ever likely to be; but I have, not infrequently, been puzzled, and at times foiled, by the subtle logical difficulty running through one of these problems, given to my own children. The head-master of one of our Boston high schools confessed to me that he had sometimes been unable to unravel one of these tangled skeins, in trying to help his own daughter through her evening’s work. During this summer, Dr. Fairbairn, the distinguished head of one of the colleges of Oxford, England, told me that not only had he himself encountered a similar difficulty, in the case of his own children, but that, on one occasion, having as his guest one of the first mathematicians of England, the two together had been completely puzzled by one of these arithmetical conundrums.
Address before the Grammar-School Section of the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association (25 Nov 1887), 'The Teaching of Arithmetic in the Boston Schools', printed The Academy (Jan 1888). Collected in Francis Amasa Walker, Discussions in Education (1899), 253.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Bad (185)  |  Boston (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Children (201)  |  College (71)  |  Completely (137)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Confess (42)  |  Conundrum (3)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Enemy (86)  |  First (1302)  |  Greatest (330)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Long (778)  |  Master (182)  |  Mental (179)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Oxford (16)  |  Power (771)  |  Practical (225)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Running (61)  |  School (227)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Summer (56)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  True (239)  |  Trying (144)  |  Two (936)  |  Unravel (16)  |  Work (1402)

The idea of winning a doctor’s degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle, and the moral fight possessed immense attraction for me.
In Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Fight (49)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immense (89)  |  Moral (203)  |  PhD (10)  |  Possess (157)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Win (53)  |  Winning (19)

The importance of a result is largely relative, is judged differently by different men, and changes with the times and circumstances. It has often happened that great importance has been attached to a problem merely on account of the difficulties which it presented; and indeed if for its solution it has been necessary to invent new methods, noteworthy artifices, etc., the science has gained more perhaps through these than through the final result. In general we may call important all investigations relating to things which in themselves are important; all those which have a large degree of generality, or which unite under a single point of view subjects apparently distinct, simplifying and elucidating them; all those which lead to results that promise to be the source of numerous consequences; etc.
From 'On Some Recent Tendencies in Geometric Investigations', Rivista di Matematica (1891), 44. In Bulletin American Mathematical Society (1904), 444.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Artifice (4)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Elucidate (4)  |  Final (121)  |  Gain (146)  |  General (521)  |  Generality (45)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Invent (57)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Judge (114)  |  Large (398)  |  Lead (391)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Noteworthy (4)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Promise (72)  |  Relative (42)  |  Result (700)  |  Simplify (14)  |  Single (365)  |  Solution (282)  |  Source (101)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Subject (543)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unite (43)  |  View (496)

The individual, if left alone from birth would remain primitive and beast-like in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and has the significance that he has not so much in virtue of his individuality, but rather as a member of a great human society, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Beast (58)  |  Beast-Like (2)  |  Birth (154)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Cradle (19)  |  Direct (228)  |  Existence (481)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Grave (52)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hardly (19)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Society (14)  |  Individual (420)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Leave (138)  |  Material (366)  |  Member (42)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Remain (355)  |  Significance (114)  |  Society (350)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Thought (995)  |  Virtue (117)

The influence of the leaders is due in very small measure to the arguments they employ, but in a large degree to their prestige. The best proof of this is that, should they by any circumstance lose their prestige, their influence disappears.
From Psychologie des Foules (1895), 175. English text in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897), Book 2, Chap. 5, 197-198. Original French text: “Les meneurs agissent très peu par leurs raisonnements, beaucoup par leur prestige. Et la meilleure preuve, c'est que si une circonstance quelconque les en dépouille, ils n’ont plus d’influence.”
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Best (467)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Due (143)  |  Employ (115)  |  Influence (231)  |  Large (398)  |  Leader (51)  |  Lose (165)  |  Measure (241)  |  Prestige (16)  |  Proof (304)  |  Small (489)

The Japanese are, to the highest degree, both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic, both insolent and polite, rigid and adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushed around, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservative and hospitable to new ways.
In The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (1946, 2006), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptable (2)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Aggressive (4)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Brave (16)  |  Conservative (16)  |  Hospitable (3)  |  Insolent (2)  |  Japanese (7)  |  Loyal (5)  |  Military (45)  |  New (1273)  |  Polite (9)  |  Push (66)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Submissive (2)  |  Timid (6)  |  Treacherous (2)  |  Way (1214)

The Johns Hopkins University certifies that John Wentworth Doe does not know anything but Biochemistry. Please pay no attention to any pronouncements he may make on any other subject, particularly when he joins with others of his kind to save the world from something or other. However, he worked hard for this degree and is potentially a most valuable citizen. Please treat him kindly.
[An imaginary academic diploma reworded to give a more realistic view of the value of the training of scientists.]
'Our Splintered Learning and the Nature of Scientists', Science (15 Apr 1955), 121, 516.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Diploma (2)  |  Hard (246)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Johns Hopkins (7)  |  Johns Hopkins University (2)  |  Kind (564)  |  Kindness (14)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Please (68)  |  Potential (75)  |  Pronouncement (2)  |  Realistic (6)  |  Save (126)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Something (718)  |  Subject (543)  |  Training (92)  |  University (130)  |  Value (393)  |  View (496)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

The lives of scientists, considered as Lives, almost always make dull reading. For one thing, the careers of the famous and the merely ordinary fall into much the same pattern, give or take an honorary degree or two, or (in European countries) an honorific order. It could be hardly otherwise. Academics can only seldom lead lives that are spacious or exciting in a worldly sense. They need laboratories or libraries and the company of other academics. Their work is in no way made deeper or more cogent by privation, distress or worldly buffetings. Their private lives may be unhappy, strangely mixed up or comic, but not in ways that tell us anything special about the nature or direction of their work. Academics lie outside the devastation area of the literary convention according to which the lives of artists and men of letters are intrinsically interesting, a source of cultural insight in themselves. If a scientist were to cut his ear off, no one would take it as evidence of a heightened sensibility; if a historian were to fail (as Ruskin did) to consummate his marriage, we should not suppose that our understanding of historical scholarship had somehow been enriched.
'J.B.S: A Johnsonian Scientist', New York Review of Books (10 Oct 1968), reprinted in Pluto's Republic (1982), and inThe Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science (1996), 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Academic (20)  |  According (236)  |  Artist (97)  |  Career (86)  |  Cogent (6)  |  Comic (5)  |  Company (63)  |  Consider (428)  |  Convention (16)  |  Culture (157)  |  Cut (116)  |  Devastation (6)  |  Direction (185)  |  Distress (9)  |  Dull (58)  |  Ear (69)  |  Enrich (27)  |  Enrichment (7)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fame (51)  |  Historian (59)  |  Historical (70)  |  Insight (107)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Lead (391)  |  Letter (117)  |  Library (53)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literary (15)  |  Live (650)  |  Man Of Letters (6)  |  Marriage (39)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Privacy (7)  |  Privation (5)  |  Reading (136)  |  John Ruskin (25)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensibility (5)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Special (188)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unhappiness (9)  |  Unhappy (16)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

The moment after, I began to respire 20 quarts of unmingled nitrous oxide. A thrilling, extending from the chest to the extremities, was almost immediately produced. I felt a sense of tangible extension highly pleasurable in every limb; my visible impressions were dazzling, and apparently magnified, I heard distinctly every sound in the room and was perfectly aware of my situation. By degrees, as the pleasurable sensations increased, I last all connection with external things; trains of vivid visible images rapidly passed through my mind, and were connected with words in such a manner, as to produce perceptions perfectly novel. I existed in a world of newly connected and newly modified ideas. I theorised—I imagined that I made discoveries. When I was awakened from this semi-delirious trance by Dr. Kinglake, who took the bag from my mouth, indignation and pride were the first feelings produced by the sight of the persons about me. My emotions were enthusiastic and sublime; and for a minute I walked round the room, perfectly regardless of what was said to me. As I recovered my former state of mind, I felt an inclination to communicate the discoveries I had made during the experiment. I endeavoured to recall the ideas, they were feeble and indistinct; one collection of terms, however, presented itself: and with the most intense belief and prophetic manner, I exclaimed to Dr Kinglake, 'Nothing exists but thoughts!—the universe is composed of impressions, ideas, pleasures and pains!'
Researches, Chemical and Philosophical (1800), in J. Davy (ed.), The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy (1839-40), Vol 3, 289-90.
Science quotes on:  |  Anaesthetic (2)  |  Belief (615)  |  Biography (254)  |  Collection (68)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Connect (126)  |  Connection (171)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Exclaim (15)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extension (60)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  First (1302)  |  Former (138)  |  Idea (881)  |  Image (97)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Last (425)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Nitrous Oxide (5)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Novel (35)  |  Pain (144)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perception (97)  |  Person (366)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Present (630)  |  Pride (84)  |  Produced (187)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sight (135)  |  Situation (117)  |  Sound (187)  |  State (505)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Train (118)  |  Universe (900)  |  Visible (87)  |  Vivid (25)  |  Walk (138)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees:
Three centuries he grows, and three he stays
Supreme in state; and in three more decays.
Science quotes on:  |  Century (319)  |  Decay (59)  |  Forestry (17)  |  Grow (247)  |  Monarch (6)  |  More (2558)  |  Oak (16)  |  Patriarch (4)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Shoot (21)  |  Slow (108)  |  Spread (86)  |  State (505)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Tree (269)

The more progress physical sciences make, the more they tend to enter the domain of mathematics, which is a kind of center to which they all converge. We may even judge of the degree of perfection to which a science has arrived by the facility with which it may be submitted to calculation.
In Eulogy of Quetelet by E. Mailly (1874).
Science quotes on:  |  Calculation (134)  |  Converge (10)  |  Domain (72)  |  Enter (145)  |  Judge (114)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Progress (492)  |  Tend (124)

The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. That intellectuality is more vigorous that has attained its strength gradually. It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider—and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation—persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.
In Orison Swett Marden, 'Bell Telephone Talk: Hints on Success by Alexander G. Bell', How They Succeeded: Life Stories of Successful Men Told by Themselves (1901), 35.
Science quotes on:  |  Accretion (5)  |  Advance (298)  |  Attain (126)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Better (493)  |  Bound (120)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Concentration (29)  |  End (603)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Practical (225)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Result (700)  |  Situation (117)  |  Steady (45)  |  Step (234)  |  Step By Step (11)  |  Strength (139)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Successful (134)  |  Theme (17)  |  Thought (995)  |  Vigorous (21)

The night spread out of the east in a great flood, quenching the red sunlight in a single minute. We wriggled by breathless degrees deep into our sleeping bags. Our sole thought was of comfort; we were not alive to the beauty or the grandeur of our position; we did not reflect on the splendor of our elevation. A regret I shall always have is that I did not muster up the energy to spend a minute or two stargazing. One peep I did make between the tent flaps into the night, and I remember dimly an appalling wealth of stars, not pale and remote as they appear when viewed through the moisture-laden air of lower levels, but brilliant points of electric blue fire standing out almost stereoscopically. It was a sight an astronomer would have given much to see, and here were we lying dully in our sleeping bags concerned only with the importance of keeping warm and comfortable.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Alive (97)  |  Appalling (10)  |  Appear (122)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Bag (4)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Blue (63)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Comfortable (13)  |  Concern (239)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dimly (6)  |  East (18)  |  Electric (76)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Energy (373)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flap (2)  |  Flood (52)  |  Give (208)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Great (1610)  |  Importance (299)  |  Keep (104)  |  Level (69)  |  Lie (370)  |  Low (86)  |  Lying (55)  |  Minute (129)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Muster (2)  |  Night (133)  |  Pale (9)  |  Peep (4)  |  Point (584)  |  Position (83)  |  Red (38)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Regret (31)  |  Remember (189)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Sight (135)  |  Single (365)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Sole (50)  |  Spend (97)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Spread (86)  |  Stand (284)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Tent (13)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Wriggle (3)

The number of humble-bees in any district depends in a great degree on the number of field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests; and Mr. H. Newman, who has long attended to the habits of humble-bees, ... says “Near villages and small towns I have found the nests of humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice.” Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district!
From On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1861), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attend (67)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Bee (44)  |  Cat (52)  |  Certain (557)  |  Credible (3)  |  Depend (238)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Determine (152)  |  District (11)  |  Elsewhere (10)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Flower (112)  |  Food Chain (7)  |  Found (11)  |  Frequency (25)  |  Great (1610)  |  Habit (174)  |  Humble (54)  |  Intervention (18)  |  Large (398)  |  Long (778)  |  More (2558)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Nest (26)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Presence (63)  |  Say (989)  |  Small (489)  |  Through (846)  |  Town (30)  |  Village (13)

The observer is not he who merely sees the thing which is before his eyes, but he who sees what parts the thing is composed of. To do this well is a rare talent. One person, from inattention, or attending only in the wrong place, overlooks half of what he sees; another sets down much more than he sees, confounding it with what he imagines, or with what he infers; another takes note of the kind of all the circumstances, but being inexpert in estimating their degree, leaves the quantity of each vague and uncertain; another sees indeed the whole, but makes such an awkward division of it into parts, throwing into one mass things which require to be separated, and separating others which might more conveniently be considered as one, that the result is much the same, sometimes even worse than if no analysis had been attempted at all.
In A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive (1858), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attend (67)  |  Awkward (11)  |  Being (1276)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Composed (3)  |  Confound (21)  |  Confounding (8)  |  Consider (428)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Division (67)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Eye (440)  |  Half (63)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Inattention (5)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inexpert (2)  |  Infer (12)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mass (160)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Note (39)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observer (48)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Part (235)  |  Person (366)  |  Place (192)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Rare (94)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Separate (151)  |  Set (400)  |  Set Down (2)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throwing (17)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Vague (50)  |  Whole (756)  |  Worse (25)  |  Wrong (246)

The ordinary patient goes to his doctor because he is in pain or some other discomfort and wants to be comfortable again; he is not in pursuit of the ideal of health in any direct sense. The doctor on the other hand wants to discover the pathological condition and control it if he can. The two are thus to some degree at cross purposes from the first, and unless the affair is brought to an early and happy conclusion this diversion of aims is likely to become more and more serious as the case goes on.
Address, opening of 1932-3 session of U.C.H. Medical School (4 Oct 1932), 'Art and Science in Medicine', The Collected Papers of Wilfred Trotter, FRS (1941), 98.
Science quotes on:  |  Affair (29)  |  Aim (175)  |  Become (821)  |  Case (102)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Condition (362)  |  Control (182)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discomfort (4)  |  Discover (571)  |  Diversion (10)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Early (196)  |  First (1302)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Happy (108)  |  Health (210)  |  Ideal (110)  |  More (2558)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Other Hand (2)  |  Pain (144)  |  Pathological (21)  |  Pathology (19)  |  Patient (209)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Sense (785)  |  Serious (98)  |  Seriousness (10)  |  Two (936)  |  Want (504)

The persons who have been employed on these problems of applying the properties of matter and the laws of motion to the explanation of the phenomena of the world, and who have brought to them the high and admirable qualities which such an office requires, have justly excited in a very eminent degree the admiration which mankind feels for great intellectual powers. Their names occupy a distinguished place in literary history; and probably there are no scientific reputations of the last century higher, and none more merited, than those earned by great mathematicians who have laboured with such wonderful success in unfolding the mechanism of the heavens; such for instance as D ’Alembert, Clairaut, Euler, Lagrange, Laplace.
In Astronomy and General Physics (1833), Bk. 3, chap. 4, 327.
Science quotes on:  |  Admirable (20)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Apply (170)  |  Bring (95)  |  Century (319)  |  Alexis Claude Clairaut (2)  |  Jean le Rond D’Alembert (13)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Earn (9)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Employ (115)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Excited (8)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Feel (371)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Instance (33)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Justly (7)  |  Labor (200)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Motion (14)  |  Laws Of Motion (10)  |  Literary (15)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Merit (51)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Name (359)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Office (71)  |  Person (366)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Place (192)  |  Power (771)  |  Probably (50)  |  Problem (731)  |  Properties Of Matter (7)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reputation (33)  |  Require (229)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Success (327)  |  Unfold (15)  |  Unfolding (16)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

The present state of the system of nature is evidently a consequence of what it was in the preceding moment, and if we conceive of an intelligence that at a given instant comprehends all the relations of the entities of this universe, it could state the respective position, motions, and general affects of all these entities at any time in the past or future. Physical astronomy, the branch of knowledge that does the greatest honor to the human mind, gives us an idea, albeit imperfect, of what such an intelligence would be. The simplicity of the law by which the celestial bodies move, and the relations of their masses and distances, permit analysis to follow their motions up to a certain point; and in order to determine the state of the system of these great bodies in past or future centuries, it suffices for the mathematician that their position and their velocity be given by observation for any moment in time. Man owes that advantage to the power of the instrument he employs, and to the small number of relations that it embraces in its calculations. But ignorance of the different causes involved in the production of events, as well as their complexity, taken together with the imperfection of analysis, prevents our reaching the same certainty about the vast majority of phenomena. Thus there are things that are uncertain for us, things more or less probable, and we seek to compensate for the impossibility of knowing them by determining their different degrees of likelihood. So it was that we owe to the weakness of the human mind one of the most delicate and ingenious of mathematical theories, the science of chance or probability.
'Recherches, 1º, sur l'Intégration des Équations Différentielles aux Différences Finies, et sur leur Usage dans la Théorie des Hasards' (1773, published 1776). In Oeuvres complètes de Laplace, 14 Vols. (1843-1912), Vol. 8, 144-5, trans. Charles Coulston Gillispie, Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science (1997), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Branch (155)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Cause (561)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chance (244)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Determine (152)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Distance (171)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Employ (115)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Follow (389)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Honor (57)  |  Honour (58)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Instant (46)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Involved (90)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Likelihood (10)  |  Majority (68)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Owe (71)  |  Past (355)  |  Permit (61)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Point (584)  |  Position (83)  |  Power (771)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Present (630)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Probability (135)  |  Production (190)  |  Relation (166)  |  Seek (218)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Small (489)  |  State (505)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Weakness (50)

Thomas Robert Malthus quote The prodigious waste of human life
colorization © todayinsci (Terms of Use) (source)

Please respect the colorization artist’s wishes and do not copy this image for ONLINE use anywhere else.

Thank you.

For offline use, click Terms of Use tab on top menu.

The prodigious waste of human life occasioned by this perpetual struggle for room and food, was more than supplied by the mighty power of population, acting, in some degree, unshackled, from the constant habit of emigration.
An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Constant (148)  |  Food (213)  |  Habit (174)  |  Human (1512)  |  Life (1870)  |  More (2558)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Perpetuity (9)  |  Population (115)  |  Power (771)  |  Prodigious (20)  |  Room (42)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Supply (100)  |  Unshackled (2)  |  Waste (109)

The proof given by Wright, that non-adaptive differentiation will occur in small populations owing to “drift,” or the chance fixation of some new mutation or recombination, is one of the most important results of mathematical analysis applied to the facts of neo-mendelism. It gives accident as well as adaptation a place in evolution, and at one stroke explains many facts which puzzled earlier selectionists, notably the much greater degree of divergence shown by island than mainland forms, by forms in isolated lakes than in continuous river-systems.
Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (1942), 199-200.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Applied (176)  |  Chance (244)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Divergence (6)  |  Drift (14)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fixation (5)  |  Form (976)  |  Greater (288)  |  Island (49)  |  Lake (36)  |  Mainland (3)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mutation (40)  |  New (1273)  |  Occur (151)  |  Owing (39)  |  Population (115)  |  Proof (304)  |  Result (700)  |  River (140)  |  Small (489)  |  Stroke (19)  |  System (545)  |  Will (2350)

The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intension nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to fill bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.
From Isaac Newton, Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy, Rule 3, as translated by Andrew Motte in The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1803), Vol. 2, 160.
Science quotes on:  |  Admit (49)  |  Belong (168)  |  Body (557)  |  Esteem (18)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fill (67)  |  Intention (46)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remission (3)  |  Universal (198)  |  Whatsoever (41)

The reformer [of the body of law] who would seek to improve such a system in any material degree, mistakes his vocation. That task had better be left to time and experience. He will often find it impossible to know what to eradicate and what to spare, and in plucking up the tares, the wheat may sometimes be destroyed. “The pound of flesh” may be removed, indeed, but with it will come, gushing forth, the blood of life.
From biographical preface by T. Bigelow to Austin Abbott (ed.), Official Report of the Trial of Henry Ward Beecher (1875), Vol. 1, xii.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Blood (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Eradicate (6)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Improve (64)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Material (366)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Pluck (5)  |  Reformer (5)  |  Remove (50)  |  Seek (218)  |  System (545)  |  Task (152)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vocation (10)  |  Wheat (10)  |  Will (2350)

The result is that a generation of physicists is growing up who have never exercised any particular degree of individual initiative, who have had no opportunity to experience its satisfactions or its possibilities, and who regard cooperative work in large teams as the normal thing. It is a natural corollary for them to feel that the objectives of these large teams must be something of large social significance.
In 'Science and Freedom: Reflections of a Physicist', Isis, 1947, 37, 130.
Science quotes on:  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Experience (494)  |  Feel (371)  |  Generation (256)  |  Growing (99)  |  Individual (420)  |  Initiative (17)  |  Large (398)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Never (1089)  |  Objective (96)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Regard (312)  |  Result (700)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Significance (114)  |  Social (261)  |  Something (718)  |  Team (17)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Work (1402)

The result of all these experiments has given place to a new division of the parts of the human body, which I shall follow in this short essay, by distinguishing those which are susceptible of Irritability and Sensibility, from those which are not. But the theory, why some parts of the human body are endowed with these properties, while others are not, I shall not at all meddle with. For I am persuaded that the source of both lies concealed beyond the reach of the knife and microscope, beyond which I do not chuse to hazard many conjectures, as I have no desire of teaching what I am ignorant of myself. For the vanity of attempting to guide others in paths where we find ourselves in the dark, shews, in my humble opinion, the last degree of arrogance and ignorance.
'A Treatise on the Sensible and Irritable Parts of Animals' (Read 1752). Trans. 1755 and reprinted in Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, 1936, 4(2), 657-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Arrogance (22)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Concealed (25)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Dark (145)  |  Desire (212)  |  Division (67)  |  Do (1905)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Essay (27)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hazard (21)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humble (54)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Irritability (4)  |  Knife (24)  |  Last (425)  |  Lie (370)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nerve (82)  |  New (1273)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Path (159)  |  Reach (286)  |  Result (700)  |  Short (200)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Why (491)

The rudest numerical scales, such as that by which the mineralogists distinguish different degrees of hardness, are found useful. The mere counting of pistils and stamens sufficed to bring botany out of total chaos into some kind of form. It is not, however, so much from counting as from measuring, not so much from the conception of number as from that of continuous quantity, that the advantage of mathematical treatment comes. Number, after all, only serves to pin us down to a precision in our thoughts which, however beneficial, can seldom lead to lofty conceptions, and frequently descend to pettiness.
On the Doctrine of Chances, with Later Reflections (1878), 61-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Beneficial (16)  |  Botany (63)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Conception (160)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Count (107)  |  Counting (26)  |  Descend (49)  |  Descent (30)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Down (455)  |  Form (976)  |  Hardness (4)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lofty (16)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mineralogist (3)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Pettiness (3)  |  Pin (20)  |  Precision (72)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Rudeness (5)  |  Scale (122)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Stamen (4)  |  Sufficiency (16)  |  Thought (995)  |  Total (95)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)

The science of medicine is a barbarous jargon and the effects of our medicine on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain, except indeed that they have already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and famine combined.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Barbarous (4)  |  Combine (58)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Effect (414)  |  Famine (18)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Jargon (13)  |  Live (650)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  Pestilence (14)  |  System (545)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  War (233)

The senses at first let in particular Ideas, and furnish the yet empty Cabinet: And the Mind by degrees growing familiar with some of them, they are lodged in the Memory, and Names got to them.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book I, Chapter 2, Section 15, 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Empty (82)  |  First (1302)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Growing (99)  |  Idea (881)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Name (359)  |  Sense (785)  |  Understanding (527)

The speculative propositions of mathematics do not relate to facts; … all that we are convinced of by any demonstration in the science, is of a necessary connection subsisting between certain suppositions and certain conclusions. When we find these suppositions actually take place in a particular instance, the demonstration forces us to apply the conclusion. Thus, if I could form a triangle, the three sides of which were accurately mathematical lines, I might affirm of this individual figure, that its three angles are equal to two right angles; but, as the imperfection of my senses puts it out of my power to be, in any case, certain of the exact correspondence of the diagram which I delineate, with the definitions given in the elements of geometry, I never can apply with confidence to a particular figure, a mathematical theorem. On the other hand, it appears from the daily testimony of our senses that the speculative truths of geometry may be applied to material objects with a degree of accuracy sufficient for the purposes of life; and from such applications of them, advantages of the most important kind have been gained to society.
In Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1827), Vol. 3, Chap. 1, Sec. 3, 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Angle (25)  |  Appear (122)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Connection (171)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Daily (91)  |  Definition (238)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Equal (88)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Gain (146)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Line (100)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Object (438)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Right (473)  |  Right Angle (4)  |  Sense (785)  |  Side (236)  |  Society (350)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Triangle (20)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)

The starting point of Darwin’s theory of evolution is precisely the existence of those differences between individual members of a race or species which morphologists for the most part rightly neglect. The first condition necessary, in order that any process of Natural Selection may begin among a race, or species, is the existence of differences among its members; and the first step in an enquiry into the possible effect of a selective process upon any character of a race must be an estimate of the frequency with which individuals, exhibiting any given degree of abnormality with respect to that, character, occur. The unit, with which such an enquiry must deal, is not an individual but a race, or a statistically representative sample of a race; and the result must take the form of a numerical statement, showing the relative frequency with which the various kinds of individuals composing the race occur.
Biometrika: A Joumal for the Statistical Study of Biological Problems (1901), 1, 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Character (259)  |  Composition (86)  |  Condition (362)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Deal (192)  |  Difference (355)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Frequency (25)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Member (42)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Occur (151)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Order (638)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Precision (72)  |  Process (439)  |  Race (278)  |  Relative (42)  |  Representative (14)  |  Respect (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Sample (19)  |  Selection (130)  |  Selective (21)  |  Species (435)  |  Start (237)  |  Starting Point (16)  |  Statement (148)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Step (234)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Various (205)

The study of economics does not seem to require any specialised gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy and pure science? Yet good, or even competent, economists are the rarest of birds. An easy subject, at which very few excel! The paradox finds its explanation, perhaps, in that the master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must reach a high standard in several different directions and must combine talents not often found together. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher—in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man's nature or his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near the earth as a politician.
'Alfred Marshall: 1842-1924' (1924). In Geoffrey Keynes (ed.), Essays in Biography (1933), 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Artist (97)  |  Bird (163)  |  Combination (150)  |  Combine (58)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Different (595)  |  Direction (185)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flight (101)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Gift (105)  |  Good (906)  |  High (370)  |  Historian (59)  |  Institution (73)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Outside (141)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Past (355)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Politician (40)  |  Possess (157)  |  Present (630)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rare (94)  |  Reach (286)  |  Regard (312)  |  Require (229)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Speak (240)  |  Statesman (20)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Talent (99)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thought (995)  |  Together (392)  |  Touch (146)  |  Understand (648)  |  Word (650)

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace,
Where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.
Yo ho, it’s hot, the sun is not a place where we could live.
But here on earth there’d be no life without the light it gives.
We need its light, we need its heat, we need its energy.
Without the sun, without a doubt, there’d be no you and me.
Hy Zaret
From song 'Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas)' on LP record album Space Songs (1961), in the series Ballads for the Age of Science. Music by Louis Singer, and sung by Tom Glazer. Also recorded by the group They Might Be Giants (1998) who followed up with 'Why Does The Sun Really Shine? (The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)' on CD album Here Comes Science (2009), which corrects several scientific inaccuracies in the lyrics
Science quotes on:  |  Built (7)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Furnace (13)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Heat (180)  |  Helium (11)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Incandescent (7)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Live (650)  |  Mass (160)  |  Million (124)  |  Need (320)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Sun (407)  |  Temperature (82)

The Universe forces those who live in it to understand it. Those creatures who find everyday experience a muddled jumble of events with no predictability, no regularity, are in grave peril. The Universe belongs to those who, at least to some degree, have figured it out.
In Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (1979, 1980), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Creature (242)  |  Event (222)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Experience (494)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Grave (52)  |  Jumble (10)  |  Least (75)  |  Live (650)  |  Muddle (3)  |  Peril (9)  |  Predictability (7)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)

The world's forests need to be seen for what they are—giant global utilities, providing essential public services to humanity on a vast scale. They store carbon, which is lost to the atmosphere when they burn, increasing global warming. The life they support cleans the atmosphere of pollutants and feeds it with moisture. They act as a natural thermostat, helping to regulate our climate and sustain the lives of 1.4 billion of the poorest people on this Earth. And they do these things to a degree that is all but impossible to imagine.
Speech (25 Oct 2007) at the World Wildlife Fund gala dinner, Hampton Court Palace, announcing the Prince's Rainforests Project. On the Prince of Wales website.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Billion (104)  |  Burn (99)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Cycle (5)  |  Clean (52)  |  Climate (102)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Essential (210)  |  Forest (161)  |  Giant (73)  |  Global (39)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Increase (225)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Loss (117)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Natural (810)  |  People (1031)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Public Service (6)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Scale (122)  |  Service (110)  |  Store (49)  |  Support (151)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Thermostat (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Utility (52)  |  Vast (188)  |  Warming (24)  |  World (1850)

The worth of a new idea is invariably determined, not by the degree of its intuitiveness—which incidentally, is to a major extent a matter of experience and habit—but by the scope and accuracy of the individual laws to the discovery of which it eventually leads.
In Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (1968), 109-110.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Determine (152)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extent (142)  |  Habit (174)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Major (88)  |  Matter (821)  |  New (1273)  |  New Ideas (17)  |  Scope (44)  |  Worth (172)

There is in the chemist a form of thought by which all ideas become visible in the mind as strains of an imagined piece of music. This form of thought is developed in Faraday in the highest degree, whence it arises that to one who is not acquainted with this method of thinking, his scientific works seem barren and dry, and merely a series of researches strung together, while his oral discourse when he teaches or explains is intellectual, elegant, and of wonderful clearness.
Autobiography, 257-358. Quoted in William H. Brock, Justus Von Liebig (2002), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Barren (33)  |  Become (821)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Develop (278)  |  Dry (65)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Explain (334)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Form (976)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Music (133)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Series (153)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Together (392)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Work (1402)

There is no area in our minds reserved for superstition, such as the Greeks had in their mythology; and superstition, under cover of an abstract vocabulary, has revenged itself by invading the entire realm of thought. Our science is like a store filled with the most subtle intellectual devices for solving the most complex problems, and yet we are almost incapable of applying the elementary principles of rational thought. In every sphere, we seem to have lost the very elements of intelligence: the ideas of limit, measure, degree, proportion, relation, comparison, contingency, interdependence, interrelation of means and ends. To keep to the social level, our political universe is peopled exclusively by myths and monsters; all it contains is absolutes and abstract entities. This is illustrated by all the words of our political and social vocabulary: nation, security, capitalism, communism, fascism, order, authority, property, democracy. We never use them in phrases such as: There is democracy to the extent that… or: There is capitalism in so far as… The use of expressions like “to the extent that” is beyond our intellectual capacity. Each of these words seems to represent for us an absolute reality, unaffected by conditions, or an absolute objective, independent of methods of action, or an absolute evil; and at the same time we make all these words mean, successively or simultaneously, anything whatsoever. Our lives are lived, in actual fact, among changing, varying realities, subject to the casual play of external necessities, and modifying themselves according to specific conditions within specific limits; and yet we act and strive and sacrifice ourselves and others by reference to fixed and isolated abstractions which cannot possibly be related either to one another or to any concrete facts. In this so-called age of technicians, the only battles we know how to fight are battles against windmills.
From 'The Power of Words', collected in Siân Miles (ed.), Simone Weil: An Anthology (2000), 222-223.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Actual (118)  |  Against (332)  |  Age (509)  |  Apply (170)  |  Area (33)  |  Authority (99)  |  Battle (36)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Capitalism (12)  |  Casual (9)  |  Change (639)  |  Communism (11)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Complex (202)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contain (68)  |  Contingency (11)  |  Cover (40)  |  Democracy (36)  |  Device (71)  |  Element (322)  |  Elementary (98)  |  End (603)  |  Entire (50)  |  Entity (37)  |  Evil (122)  |  Exclusively (10)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extent (142)  |  External (62)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Far (158)  |  Fascism (4)  |  Fight (49)  |  Fill (67)  |  Fix (34)  |  Greek (109)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illustrate (14)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Interdependence (4)  |  Interrelation (8)  |  Invade (5)  |  Isolate (24)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Level (69)  |  Limit (294)  |  Live (650)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measure (241)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modify (15)  |  Monster (33)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myth (58)  |  Mythology (19)  |  Nation (208)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Never (1089)  |  Objective (96)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  P (2)  |  People (1031)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Play (116)  |  Political (124)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Property (177)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reality (274)  |  Realm (87)  |  Reference (33)  |  Relate (26)  |  Relation (166)  |  Represent (157)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Revenge (10)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Same (166)  |  Security (51)  |  Seem (150)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Social (261)  |  Solve (145)  |  Specific (98)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Store (49)  |  Strive (53)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Superstition (70)  |  Technician (9)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unaffected (6)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Vary (27)  |  Vocabulary (10)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Windmill (4)  |  Word (650)

There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless.
In Art (1913), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Altogether (9)  |  Art (680)  |  Exist (458)  |  Least (75)  |  Must (1525)  |  Possess (157)  |  Quality (139)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worthless (22)

They [mathematicians] only take those things into consideration, of which they have clear and distinct ideas, designating them by proper, adequate, and invariable names, and premising only a few axioms which are most noted and certain to investigate their affections and draw conclusions from them, and agreeably laying down a very few hypotheses, such as are in the highest degree consonant with reason and not to be denied by anyone in his right mind. In like manner they assign generations or causes easy to be understood and readily admitted by all, they preserve a most accurate order, every proposition immediately following from what is supposed and proved before, and reject all things howsoever specious and probable which can not be inferred and deduced after the same manner.
In Mathematical Lectures (1734), 65-66.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Affection (44)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Draw (140)  |  Easy (213)  |  Generation (256)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Infer (12)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Order (638)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proper (150)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reject (67)  |  Right (473)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)

Think of a single problem confronting the world today. Disease, poverty, global warming… If the problem is going to be solved, it is science that is going to solve it. Scientists tend to be unappreciated in the world at large, but you can hardly overstate the importance of the work they do. If anyone ever cures cancer, it will be a guy with a science degree. Or a woman with a science degree.
Quoted in Max Davidson, 'Bill Bryson: Have faith, science can solve our problems', Daily Telegraph (26 Sep 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Cancer (61)  |  Cure (124)  |  Disease (340)  |  Do (1905)  |  Global (39)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  Importance (299)  |  Large (398)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Problem (731)  |  Research (753)  |  Science Degree (3)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Single (365)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Tend (124)  |  Think (1122)  |  Today (321)  |  Warming (24)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

This is the element that distinguishes applied science from basic. Surprise is what makes the difference. When you are organized to apply knowledge, set up targets, produce a usable product, you require a high degree of certainty from the outset. All the facts on which you base protocols must be reasonably hard facts with unambiguous meaning. The challenge is to plan the work and organize the workers so that it will come out precisely as predicted. For this, you need centralized authority, elaborately detailed time schedules, and some sort of reward system based on speed and perfection. But most of all you need the intelligible basic facts to begin with, and these must come from basic research. There is no other source. In basic research, everything is just the opposite. What you need at the outset is a high degree of uncertainty; otherwise it isn’t likely to be an important problem. You start with an incomplete roster of facts, characterized by their ambiguity; often the problem consists of discovering the connections between unrelated pieces of information. You must plan experiments on the basis of probability, even bare possibility, rather than certainty.
The Planning of Science, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, (1974) .
Science quotes on:  |  Ambiguity (17)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Apply (170)  |  Authority (99)  |  Bare (33)  |  Base (120)  |  Basic (144)  |  Basic Research (15)  |  Basis (180)  |  Begin (275)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consist (223)  |  Detail (150)  |  Difference (355)  |  Element (322)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Hard (246)  |  High (370)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Information (173)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Organize (33)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Plan (122)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Predict (86)  |  Probability (135)  |  Problem (731)  |  Product (166)  |  Require (229)  |  Research (753)  |  Reward (72)  |  Set (400)  |  Speed (66)  |  Start (237)  |  Surprise (91)  |  System (545)  |  Target (13)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

This science, Geometry, is one of indispensable use and constant reference, for every student of the laws of nature; for the relations of space and number are the alphabet in which those laws are written. But besides the interest and importance of this kind which geometry possesses, it has a great and peculiar value for all who wish to understand the foundations of human knowledge, and the methods by which it is acquired. For the student of geometry acquires, with a degree of insight and clearness which the unmathematical reader can but feebly imagine, a conviction that there are necessary truths, many of them of a very complex and striking character; and that a few of the most simple and self-evident truths which it is possible for the mind of man to apprehend, may, by systematic deduction, lead to the most remote and unexpected results.
In The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences Part 1, Bk. 2, chap. 4, sect. 8 (1868).
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Alphabet (14)  |  Apprehend (5)  |  Character (259)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Complex (202)  |  Constant (148)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Evident (92)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Insight (107)  |  Interest (416)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Man (2252)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mind Of Man (7)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Number (710)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reader (42)  |  Reference (33)  |  Relation (166)  |  Remote (86)  |  Result (700)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Simple (426)  |  Space (523)  |  Strike (72)  |  Striking (48)  |  Student (317)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Wish (216)  |  Write (250)

Those who assert that the mathematical sciences make no affirmation about what is fair or good make a false assertion; for they do speak of these and frame demonstrations of them in the most eminent sense of the word. For if they do not actually employ these names, they do not exhibit even the results and the reasons of these, and therefore can be hardly said to make any assertion about them. Of what is fair, however, the most important species are order and symmetry, and that which is definite, which the mathematical sciences make manifest in a most eminent degree. And since, at least, these appear to be the causes of many things—now, I mean, for example, order, and that which is a definite thing, it is evident that they would assert, also, the existence of a cause of this description, and its subsistence after the same manner as that which is fair subsists in.
Aristotle
In Metaphysics [MacMahon] Bk. 12, chap. 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Affirmation (8)  |  Appear (122)  |  Assert (69)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Cause (561)  |  Definite (114)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Description (89)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Employ (115)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Evident (92)  |  Example (98)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fair (16)  |  False (105)  |  Frame (26)  |  Good (906)  |  Hardly (19)  |  Important (229)  |  It Is Evident (6)  |  Least (75)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Manner (62)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Order (638)  |  Reason (766)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sense Of The Word (6)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Subsist (5)  |  Subsistence (9)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Word (650)

Through the Middle Ages and down to the late eighteenth century, many philosophers, most men of science, and, indeed, most educated men, were to accept without question—the conception of the universe as a Great Chain of Being, composed of an immense, or—by the strict but seldom rigorously applied logic of the principle of continuity—of an infinite number of links ranging in hierarchical order from the meagerest kind of existents, which barely escape non-existence, through 'every possible' grade up to the ens perfectissimum—or, in a somewhat more orthodox version, to the highest possible kind of creature, between which and the Absolute Being the disparity was assumed to be infinite—every one of them differing from that immediately above and that immediately below it by the 'least possible' degree of difference.
The Great Chain of Being (1936), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  Absolute (153)  |  Accept (198)  |  Age (509)  |  Applied (176)  |  Being (1276)  |  Century (319)  |  Conception (160)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Creature (242)  |  Difference (355)  |  Down (455)  |  Escape (85)  |  Existence (481)  |  Great (1610)  |  Great Chain Of Being (2)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Immense (89)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Kind (564)  |  Late (119)  |  Logic (311)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Question (649)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Through (846)  |  Universe (900)

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real.
On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859, 1882), 143-144.
Science quotes on:  |  Aberration (10)  |  Absurd (60)  |  Amount (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Chromatic (4)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Complex (202)  |  Condition (362)  |  Confess (42)  |  Consider (428)  |  Correction (42)  |  Declared (24)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Distance (171)  |  Exist (458)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Focus (36)  |  Form (976)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Inherited (21)  |  Inimitable (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Modification (57)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Old (499)  |  Organ (118)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reason (766)  |  Selection (130)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simple (426)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tell (344)  |  Trust (72)  |  Turn (454)  |  Useful (260)  |  Variation (93)  |  World (1850)

Tobacco, in its various forms, is one of the most mischievous of all drugs. There is perhaps no other drug which injures the body in so many ways and so universally as does tobacco. Some drugs offer a small degree of compensation for the evil effects which they produce; but tobacco has not a single redeeming feature and gives nothing in return.
In Tobaccoism: or, How Tobacco Kills (1922), Preface, 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Compensation (8)  |  Drug (61)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evil (122)  |  Feature (49)  |  Form (976)  |  Injury (36)  |  Mischievous (12)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Return (133)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Tobacco (19)  |  Universal (198)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)

Today it is no longer questioned that the principles of the analysts are the more far-reaching. Indeed, the synthesists lack two things in order to engage in a general theory of algebraic configurations: these are on the one hand a definition of imaginary elements, on the other an interpretation of general algebraic concepts. Both of these have subsequently been developed in synthetic form, but to do this the essential principle of synthetic geometry had to be set aside. This principle which manifests itself so brilliantly in the theory of linear forms and the forms of the second degree, is the possibility of immediate proof by means of visualized constructions.
In Riemannsche Flächen (1906), Bd. 1, 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analyst (8)  |  Both (496)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Concept (242)  |  Configuration (8)  |  Construction (114)  |  Definition (238)  |  Develop (278)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Engage (41)  |  Essential (210)  |  Far-Reaching (9)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Imaginary (16)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Lack (127)  |  Linear (13)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proof (304)  |  Question (649)  |  Set (400)  |  Set Aside (4)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Today (321)  |  Two (936)  |  Visualize (8)

True spite is a commonplace in human societies, undoubtedly because human beings are keenly aware of their own blood lines and have the intelligence to plot intrigue. Human beings are unique in the degree of their capacity to lie to other members of their own species.
In Sociobiology (1975), 119.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Blood (144)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intrigue (4)  |  Lie (370)  |  Other (2233)  |  Species (435)  |  Spite (55)  |  Unique (72)

Under the... new hypothesis [of Continental Drift] certain geological concepts come to acquire a new significance amounting in a few cases to a complete inversion of principles, and the inquirer will find it necessary to re-orient his ideas. For the first time he will get glimpses... of a pulsating restless earth, all parts of which are in greater or less degree of movement in respect to the axis of rotation, having been so, moreover, throughout geological time. He will have to leave behind him—perhaps reluctantly—the dumbfounding spectacle of the present continental masses, firmly anchored to a plastic foundation yet remaining fixed in space; set thousands of kilometres apart, it may be, yet behaving in almost identical fashion from epoch to epoch and stage to stage like soldiers, at drill; widely stretched in some quarters at various times and astoundingly compressed in others, yet retaining their general shapes, positions and orientations; remote from one another through history, yet showing in their fossil remains common or allied forms of terrestrial life; possessed during certain epochs of climates that may have ranged from glacial to torrid or pluvial to arid, though contrary to meteorological principles when their existing geographical positions are considered -to mention but a few such paradoxes!
Our Wandering Continents: An Hypothesis of Continental Drifting (1937), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Arid (6)  |  Behind (139)  |  Certain (557)  |  Climate (102)  |  Common (447)  |  Complete (209)  |  Concept (242)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continental Drift (15)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Foundation (177)  |  General (521)  |  Greater (288)  |  History (716)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Identical (55)  |  Inquirer (9)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mention (84)  |  Movement (162)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Possess (157)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Remote (86)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rotation (13)  |  Set (400)  |  Significance (114)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Space (523)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Stage (152)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Various (205)  |  Will (2350)

Vagueness is very much more important in the theory of knowledge than you would judge it to be from the writings of most people. Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise, and everything precise is so remote from everything that we normally think, that you cannot for a moment suppose that is what we really mean when we say what we think.
In The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1918, 1919), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  Important (229)  |  Judge (114)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mean (810)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Normal (29)  |  People (1031)  |  Precise (71)  |  Realize (157)  |  Remote (86)  |  Say (989)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Vague (50)  |  Vagueness (15)  |  Writing (192)

We are … led to a somewhat vague distinction between what we may call “hard” data and “soft” data. This distinction is a matter of degree, and must not be pressed; but if not taken too seriously it may help to make the situation clear. I mean by “hard” data those which resist the solvent influence of critical reflection, and by “soft” data those which, under the operation of this process, become to our minds more or less doubtful.
Our Knowledge of the External World (1925), 75.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Call (781)  |  Clear (111)  |  Critical (73)  |  Data (162)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Hard (246)  |  Influence (231)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Must (1525)  |  Operation (221)  |  Process (439)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Seriousness (10)  |  Situation (117)  |  Soft (30)  |  Solvent (7)  |  Vague (50)  |  Vagueness (15)

We cannot observe external things without some degree of Thought; nor can we reflect upon our Thoughts, without being influenced in the course of our reflection by the Things which we have observed.
In The Elements of Morality (1845), Vol 1, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Course (413)  |  External (62)  |  Influence (231)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)

We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea; it is at least a neater word and a more generalised one than viviculture, which I once ventured to use.
First use of the term Eugenics.
Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (1883), 25, footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Blood (144)  |  Brief (37)  |  Chance (244)  |  Eugenics (6)  |  Express (192)  |  First (1302)  |  Idea (881)  |  Influence (231)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Question (649)  |  Race (278)  |  Remote (86)  |  Tend (124)  |  Term (357)  |  Use (771)  |  Want (504)  |  Word (650)

We know that nature invariably uses the same materials in its operations. Its ingeniousness is displayed only in the variation of form. Indeed, as if nature had voluntarily confined itself to using only a few basic units, we observe that it generally causes the same elements to reappear, in the same number, in the same circumstances, and in the same relationships to one another. If an organ happens to grow in an unusual manner, it exerts a considerable influence on adjacent parts, which as a result fail to reach their standard degree of development.
'Considérations sur les pieces de la tête osseuse des animaux vertebras, et particulièrement sur celle du crane des oiseaux', Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, 1807, 10, 343. Trans. J. Mandelbaum. Quoted in Pietro Corsi, The Age of Lamarck (1988), 232.
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Development (441)  |  Display (59)  |  Element (322)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exert (40)  |  Fail (191)  |  Form (976)  |  Grow (247)  |  Happen (282)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Influence (231)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Know (1538)  |  Material (366)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Observe (179)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Organ (118)  |  Reach (286)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Result (700)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Use (771)  |  Variation (93)

We know that the probability of well-established induction is great, but, when we are asked to name its degree we cannot. Common sense tells us that some inductive arguments are stronger than others, and that some are very strong. But how much stronger or how strong we cannot express.
In A Treatise on Probability (1921), Chap. 22, 259.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Ask (420)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Express (192)  |  Great (1610)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Know (1538)  |  Name (359)  |  Other (2233)  |  Probability (135)  |  Sense (785)  |  Strong (182)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Tell (344)  |  Well-Established (6)

We shall find everywhere, that the several Species are linked together, and differ but in almost insensible degrees. And when we consider the infinite Power and Wisdom of the Maker, we have reason to think, that it is suitable to the magnificent Harmony of the Universe, and the great Design and infinite Goodness of the Architect, that the Species of Creatures should also, by gentle degrees, ascend upward from us toward his infinite Perfection, as we see they gradually descend from us downwards.
In An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (1689, 1706, 5th ed.), 381.
Science quotes on:  |  Architect (32)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Consider (428)  |  Creature (242)  |  Descend (49)  |  Design (203)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Downward (4)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Find (1014)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Maker (34)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Power (771)  |  Reason (766)  |  See (1094)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Species (435)  |  Think (1122)  |  Together (392)  |  Universe (900)  |  Upward (44)  |  Wisdom (235)

When a [mercury] thermometer … was made (perhaps imperfect in many ways) the result answered to my prayer; and with great pleasure of mind I observed the truth [that water boils at a fixed degree of heat].
From 'Experimenta circa gradum caloris liquorum nonnullorum ebullientium instituta', Philosophical Transactions (1724), 33, 1, as translated in William Francis Magie, A Source Book in Physics (1935), 131.
Science quotes on:  |  Guillaume Amontons (3)  |  Answer (389)  |  Boil (24)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heat (180)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Observed (149)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Prayer (30)  |  Result (700)  |  Thermometer (11)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)

When I began my physical studies [in Munich in 1874] and sought advice from my venerable teacher Philipp von Jolly...he portrayed to me physics as a highly developed, almost fully matured science...Possibly in one or another nook there would perhaps be a dust particle or a small bubble to be examined and classified, but the system as a whole stood there fairly secured, and theoretical physics approached visibly that degree of perfection which, for example, geometry has had already for centuries.

From a lecture (1924). In Damien Broderick (ed.), Year Million: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge (2008), 104.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Already (226)  |  Approach (112)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Develop (278)  |  Dust (68)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Particle (200)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Secured (18)  |  Small (489)  |  System (545)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Venerable (7)  |  Whole (756)

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 (74)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Critic (21)  |  Crowd (25)  |  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 received my B.S. degree in 1932, only two of the fundamental particles of physics were known. Every bit of matter in the universe was thought to consist solely of protons and electrons.
From Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1968). Collected in Yong Zhou (ed.), Nobel Lecture: Physics, 1963-1970 (2013), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Consist (223)  |  Electron (96)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Matter (821)  |  Particle (200)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Proton (23)  |  Solely (9)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)

When the moon is ninety degrees away from the sun it sees but half the earth illuminated (the western half). For the other (the eastern half) is enveloped in night. Hence the moon itself is illuminated less brightly from the earth, and as a result its secondary light appears fainter to us.
The Starry Messenger (1610), trans. Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957), 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Earth (1076)  |  Light (635)  |  Moon (252)  |  Other (2233)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Sun (407)  |  Western (45)

When the war finally came to an end, 1 was at a loss as to what to do. ... I took stock of my qualifications. A not-very-good degree, redeemed somewhat by my achievements at the Admiralty. A knowledge of certain restricted parts of magnetism and hydrodynamics, neither of them subjects for which I felt the least bit of enthusiasm.
No published papers at all … [Only gradually did I realize that this lack of qualification could be an advantage. By the time most scientists have reached age thirty they are trapped by their own expertise. They have invested so much effort in one particular field that it is often extremely difficult, at that time in their careers, to make a radical change. I, on the other hand, knew nothing, except for a basic training in somewhat old-fashioned physics and mathematics and an ability to turn my hand to new things. … Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice. …
In What Mad Pursuit (1988).
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Age (509)  |  Basic (144)  |  Career (86)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Choice (114)  |  Completely (137)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  End (603)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Expertise (8)  |  Field (378)  |  Free (239)  |  Good (906)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Invest (20)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lack (127)  |  Loss (117)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Old-Fashioned (9)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Qualification (15)  |  Radical (28)  |  Reach (286)  |  Realize (157)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Training (92)  |  Turn (454)  |  War (233)

When we have amassed a great store of such general facts, they become the objects of another and higher species of classification, and are themselves included in laws which, as they dispose of groups, not individuals have a far superior degree of generality, till at length, by continuing the process, we arrive at axioms of the highest degree of generality of which science is capable. This process is what we mean by induction.
In A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1830), 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Amass (6)  |  Amassed (2)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Become (821)  |  Capable (174)  |  Classification (102)  |  Continuing (4)  |  Dispose (10)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  General (521)  |  Generality (45)  |  Great (1610)  |  Group (83)  |  Higher (37)  |  Highest (19)  |  Included (2)  |  Individual (420)  |  Induction (81)  |  Law (913)  |  Length (24)  |  Mean (810)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Object (438)  |  Process (439)  |  Species (435)  |  Store (49)  |  Superior (88)  |  Themselves (433)

When we survey our lives and endeavours we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and desires are bound up with the existence of other human beings. We see that our whole nature resembles that of the social animals. We eat food that others have grown, wear clothes that others have made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our knowledge and beliefs has been communicated to us by other people through the medium of a language which others have created. Without language our mental capacities would be poor indeed, comparable to those of the higher animals; we have, therefore, to admit that we owe our principal advantage over the beasts to the fact of living in human society. The individual, if left alone from birth would remain primitive and beast-like in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and has the significance that he has not so much in virtue of his individuality, but rather as a member of a great human society, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Admit (49)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Beast (58)  |  Beast-Like (2)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Bind (26)  |  Birth (154)  |  Bound (120)  |  Build (211)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Clothes (11)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Comparable (7)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Cradle (19)  |  Create (245)  |  Desire (212)  |  Direct (228)  |  Eat (108)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Food (213)  |  Grave (52)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hardly (19)  |  High (370)  |  House (143)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Human Society (14)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Language (308)  |  Leave (138)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Medium (15)  |  Member (42)  |  Mental (179)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Part (235)  |  People (1031)  |  Poor (139)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Principal (69)  |  Remain (355)  |  Resemble (65)  |  See (1094)  |  Significance (114)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Survey (36)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wear (20)  |  Whole (756)

When young Galileo, then a student at Pisa, noticed one day during divine service a chandelier swinging backwards and forwards, and convinced himself, by counting his pulse, that the duration of the oscillations was independent of the arc through which it moved, who could know that this discovery would eventually put it in our power, by means of the pendulum, to attain an accuracy in the measurement of time till then deemed impossible, and would enable the storm-tossed seaman in the most distant oceans to determine in what degree of longitude he was sailing?
Hermann von Helmholtz, Edmund Atkinson (trans.), Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects: First Series (1883), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Arc (14)  |  Attain (126)  |  Backwards (18)  |  Church (64)  |  Counting (26)  |  Determine (152)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Divine (112)  |  Enable (122)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Forward (104)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Himself (461)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Independent (74)  |  Know (1538)  |  Longitude (8)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Oscillation (13)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Power (771)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Sailing (14)  |  Seaman (3)  |  Service (110)  |  Storm (56)  |  Student (317)  |  Swing (12)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toss (8)  |  Young (253)

Whether we like it or not, quantification in history is here to stay for reasons which the quantifiers themselves might not actively approve. We are becoming a numerate society: almost instinctively there seems now to be a greater degree of truth in evidence expressed numerically than in any literary evidence, no matter how shaky the statistical evidence, or acute the observing eye.
Is History Sick? (1973), 64.
Science quotes on:  |  Acuity (3)  |  Approval (12)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Express (192)  |  Eye (440)  |  Greater (288)  |  History (716)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Liking (4)  |  Literature (116)  |  Matter (821)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Quantification (2)  |  Reason (766)  |  Society (350)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Truth (1109)

While electric railroading is perhaps the most important branch of electrical engineering, at least as regards commercial importance, considering the amount capital invested therein, nevertheless it is a remarkable fact that while most other branches of electrical engineering had been developed to a very high degree of perfection, even a few years ago theoretical investigation of electric railroading was still conspicuous by its almost entire absence.
All the work was done by some kind of empirical experimenting, that is, some kind of motor was fitted up with some gearing or some sort of railway car, and then run, and if the motor burned out frequently it was replaced with a larger motor, and if it did not burn out, a trailer was put on the car, and perhaps a second trailer, until the increase of the expense account in burn-outs of the motors balanced the increased carrying capacity of the train.
'The Electric Railway', Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (1902), 125.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Amount (153)  |  Branch (155)  |  Burn (99)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Car (75)  |  Carrying capacity (3)  |  Conspicuous (13)  |  Develop (278)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electrical Engineering (12)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Empirical Science (9)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Fact (1257)  |  High (370)  |  Importance (299)  |  Increase (225)  |  Invest (20)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Kind (564)  |  Money (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motor (23)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Railway (19)  |  Regard (312)  |  Run (158)  |  Still (614)  |  Train (118)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

While no one can ascribe a single weather event to climate change with any degree of scientific certainty, higher maximum temperatures are one of the most predictable impacts of accelerated global warming, and the parallels—between global climate change and global terrorism—are becoming increasingly obvious.
In 'Global Warming is Now a Weapon of Mass Destruction', The Guardian (28 Jul 2003).
Science quotes on:  |  Accelerate (11)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Event (222)  |  Global (39)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  Impact (45)  |  Maximum (16)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Predictable (10)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Single (365)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Terrorism (3)  |  Warming (24)  |  Weather (49)

While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men. There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized, more ennobled by mental cultivation than others—but none in themselves nobler than others. All are in like degree designed for freedom.
Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (1845-62), trans. E. C. Otte (1849), Vol 1, 368.
Science quotes on:  |  Assumption (96)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Design (203)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mental (179)  |  More (2558)  |  Nation (208)  |  Other (2233)  |  Race (278)  |  Species (435)  |  Superior (88)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unity (81)

While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men. There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized, more enobled by mental cultivation than others, but none in themselves nobler than others. All are in like degree designed for freedom; a freedom which, in the ruder conditions of society, belongs only to the individual, but which, in social states enjoying political institutions, appertains as a right to the whole body of the community.
In Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (1850), Vol. 1, 358, as translated by E.C. Otté.
Science quotes on:  |  Assumption (96)  |  Belong (168)  |  Body (557)  |  Civilized (20)  |  Community (111)  |  Condition (362)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Depressing (3)  |  Design (203)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Institution (73)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Nation (208)  |  Noble (93)  |  Other (2233)  |  Political (124)  |  Race (278)  |  Right (473)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Superior (88)  |  Susceptible (8)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unity (81)  |  Whole (756)

Who has studied the works of such men as Euler, Lagrange, Cauchy, Riemann, Sophus Lie, and Weierstrass, can doubt that a great mathematician is a great artist? The faculties possessed by such men, varying greatly in kind and degree with the individual, are analogous with those requisite for constructive art. Not every mathematician possesses in a specially high degree that critical faculty which finds its employment in the perfection of form, in conformity with the ideal of logical completeness; but every great mathematician possesses the rarer faculty of constructive imagination.
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sheffield, Section A, Nature (1 Sep 1910), 84, 290.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogous (7)  |  Art (680)  |  Artist (97)  |  Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (11)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Conformity (15)  |  Constructive (15)  |  Critical (73)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Employment (34)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Lie (370)  |  Sophus Lie (6)  |  Logical (57)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Possess (157)  |  Rare (94)  |  Requisite (12)  |  Bernhard Riemann (7)  |  Specially (3)  |  Study (701)  |  Vary (27)  |   Karl Weierstrass, (10)  |  Work (1402)

Who runs may read the scroll which reason has placed as a warning over the human menageries: “chained, not tamed.” And yet who can doubt that the leaven of science, working in the individual, leavens in some slight degree the whole social fabric. Reason is at least free, or nearly so; the shackles of dogma have been removed, and faith herself, freed from a morganatic alliance, finds in the release great gain.
Address to the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology of the University of Pennsylvania (1894). Collected in 'The Leaven of Science', Aequanimitas (1904), 100. A “morganatic” alliance is one between persons of unequal rank, the noble and the common.
Science quotes on:  |  Alliance (5)  |  Chain (51)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Fabric (27)  |  Faith (209)  |  Find (1014)  |  Free (239)  |  Gain (146)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Read (308)  |  Reason (766)  |  Release (31)  |  Run (158)  |  Shackle (4)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Warning (18)  |  Whole (756)

Why is geometry often described as “cold” and “dry?” One reason lies in its inability to describe the shape of a cloud, a mountain, a coastline, or a tree. Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line… Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity.
From The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1977, 1983), Introduction, xiii.
Science quotes on:  |  Bark (19)  |  Circle (117)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Coast (13)  |  Cold (115)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Cone (8)  |  Describe (132)  |  Different (595)  |  Dry (65)  |  Fractal (11)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Inability (11)  |  Lie (370)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Line (100)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Reason (766)  |  Shape (77)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Travel (125)  |  Tree (269)  |  Why (491)

Why then does science work? The answer is that nobody knows. It is a complete mystery—perhaps the complete mystery&mdashwhy the human mind should be able to understand anything at all about the wider universe. ... Perhaps it is because our brains evolved through the working of natural law that they somehow resonate with natural law. ... But the mystery, really, is not that we are at one with the universe, but that we are so to some degree at odds with it, different from it, and yet can understand something about it. Why is this so?
Coming of Age in the Milky Way (1988), 385. In Vinoth Ramachandra, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping our World (2008), 185.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Brain (281)  |  Complete (209)  |  Different (595)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Odds (6)  |  Really (77)  |  Resonate (2)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Something (718)  |  Through (846)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)  |  Why (491)  |  Wide (97)  |  Work (1402)

With highly civilised nations continued progress depends in a subordinate degree on natural selection; for such nations do not supplant and exterminate one another as do savage tribes. Nevertheless the more intelligent members within the same community will succeed better in the long run than the inferior, and leave a more numerous progeny, and this is a form of natural selection.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Civilised (4)  |  Community (111)  |  Continue (179)  |  Depend (238)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exterminate (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Highly (16)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Leave (138)  |  Member (42)  |  More (2558)  |  Nation (208)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Progeny (16)  |  Progress (492)  |  Same (166)  |  Savage (33)  |  Selection (130)  |  Subordinate (11)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Supplant (4)  |  Tribe (26)  |  Will (2350)

Years ago I used to worry about the degree to which I specialized. Vision is limited enough, yet I was not really working on vision, for I hardly made contact with visual sensations, except as signals, nor with the nervous pathways, nor the structure of the eye, except the retina. Actually my studies involved only the rods and cones of the retina, and in them only the visual pigments. A sadly limited peripheral business, fit for escapists. But it is as though this were a very narrow window through which at a distance, one can only see a crack of light. As one comes closer the view grows wider and wider, until finally looking through the same narrow window one is looking at the universe. It is like the pupil of the eye, an opening only two to three millimetres across in daylight, but yielding a wide angle of view, and manoeuvrable enough to be turned in all directions. I think this is always the way it goes in science, because science is all one. It hardly matters where one enters, provided one can come closer, and then one does not see less and less, but more and more, because one is not dealing with an opaque object, but with a window.
In Scientific American, 1960s, attributed.
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Business (156)  |  Closer (43)  |  Cone (8)  |  Contact (66)  |  Crack (15)  |  Daylight (23)  |  Dealing (11)  |  Direction (185)  |  Distance (171)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enter (145)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fit (139)  |  Grow (247)  |  Involved (90)  |  Light (635)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Looking (191)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Object (438)  |  Opaque (7)  |  Opening (15)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Peripheral (3)  |  Pigment (9)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Really (77)  |  Retina (4)  |  Rod (6)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Signal (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Vision (127)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wide (97)  |  Window (59)  |  Year (963)

You don't need a science degree to understand about science. You just need to think about it.
Quoted in Max Davidson, 'Bill Bryson: Have faith, science can solve our problems', Daily Telegraph (26 Sep 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Science Degree (3)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

You Surgeons of London, who puzzle your Pates,
To ride in your Coaches, and purchase Estates,
Give over, for Shame, for your Pride has a Fall,
And ye Doctress of Epsom has outdone you all.

Dame Nature has given her a doctor's degree,
She gets all the patients and pockets the fee;
So if you don't instantly prove it a cheat,
She'll loll in a chariot whilst you walk the street.
Cautioning doctors about the quack bone-setter, Mrs. Mapp (d. 22 Dec 1737), who practiced in Epsom town once a week, arriving in a coach-and-four.
Anonymous
Verses from a song in a comedy at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, called The Husband's Relief, or The Female Bone-setter and the Worm-doctor. In Robert Chambers, The Book of Days (1832), 729.
Science quotes on:  |  Bone (101)  |  Chariot (9)  |  Cheat (13)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Fall (243)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Money (178)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physician (284)  |  Pride (84)  |  Prove (261)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Quack (18)  |  Ride (23)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Walk (138)  |  Week (73)


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.