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

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

Different Quotes (595 quotes)

… (T)he same cause, such as electricity, can simultaneously affect all sensory organs, since they are all sensitive to it; and yet, every sensory nerve reacts to it differently; one nerve perceives it as light, another hears its sound, another one smells it; another tastes the electricity, and another one feels it as pain and shock. One nerve perceives a luminous picture through mechanical irritation, another one hears it as buzzing, another one senses it as pain… He who feels compelled to consider the consequences of these facts cannot but realize that the specific sensibility of nerves for certain impressions is not enough, since all nerves are sensitive to the same cause but react to the same cause in different ways… (S)ensation is not the conduction of a quality or state of external bodies to consciousness, but the conduction of a quality or state of our nerves to consciousness, excited by an external cause.
Law of Specific Nerve Energies.
Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen für Vorlesungen, 2nd Ed. translation by Edwin Clarke and Charles Donald O'Malley
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conduction (8)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consider (428)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Feel (371)  |  Hear (144)  |  Impression (118)  |  Law (913)  |  Light (635)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Organ (118)  |  Pain (144)  |  Picture (148)  |  Quality (139)  |  Realize (157)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensory (16)  |  Shock (38)  |  Smell (29)  |  Sound (187)  |  Specific (98)  |  State (505)  |  Taste (93)  |  Through (846)  |  Way (1214)

… however useful the words may have been in the past, they have now become handicaps to the further development of knowledge. Words like botany and zoology imply that plants and animals are quite different things. … But the differences rapidly become blurred when we start looking at the world through a microscope. … The similarities between plants and animals became more important than their differences with the discoveries that both were built up of cells, had sexual reproduction,… nutrition and respiration … and with the development of evolutionary theory.
In The Forest and the Sea (1960), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Become (821)  |  Blur (8)  |  Botany (63)  |  Both (496)  |  Cell (146)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Handicap (7)  |  Imply (20)  |  Important (229)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Microscope (85)  |  More (2558)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Nutrition (25)  |  Past (355)  |  Plant (320)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Sex (68)  |  Sexual (27)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Start (237)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Useful (260)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)  |  Zoology (38)

… 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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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)

...after my first feeling of revulsion had passed, I spent three of the most entertaining and instructive weeks of my life studying the fascinating molds which appeared one by one on the slowly disintegrating mass of horse-dung. Microscopic molds are both very beautiful and absorbingly interesting. The rapid growth of their spores, the way they live on each other, the manner in which the different forms come and go, is so amazing and varied that I believe a man could spend his life and not exhaust the forms or problems contained in one plate of manure.
The World Was My Garden (1938, 1941), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Amazing (35)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Biology (232)  |  Both (496)  |  Dung (10)  |  Entertaining (9)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Feeling (259)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Growth (200)  |  Horse (78)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Mold (37)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Problem (731)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Spore (3)  |  Studying (70)  |  Way (1214)  |  Week (73)

...each metal has a certain power, which is different from metal to metal, of setting the electric fluid in motion...
Le Opere, Vol. 1, 149. In Giuliano Pancaldi, Volta: Science and Culture in the Age of Enlightenment (2005), 190.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Current (122)  |  Difference (355)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Metal (88)  |  Motion (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Setting (44)  |  Voltage (3)

...for the animals, which we resemble and which would be our equals if we did not have reason, do not reflect upon the actions or the passions of their external or internal senses, and do not know what is color, odor or sound, or if there is any differences between these objects, to which they are moved rather than moving themselves there. This comes about by the force of the impression that the different objects make on their organs and on their senses, for they cannot discern if it is more appropriate to go and drink or eat or do something else, and they do not eat or drink or do anything else except when the presence of objects or the animal imagination [l'imagination brutalle], necessitates them and transports them to their objects, without their knowing what they do, whether good or bad; which would happen to us just as to them if we were destitute of reason, for they have no enlightenment except what they must have to take their nourishment and to serve us for the uses to which God has destined them.
[Arguing the uniqueness of man by regarding animals to be merely automatons.].
Les Préludes de l'Harmonie Universelle (1634), 135-139. In Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1974), Vol. 9, 318.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Automaton (12)  |  Bad (185)  |  Color (155)  |  Destined (42)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Destitution (2)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drink (56)  |  Eat (108)  |  Enlightenment (21)  |  Equal (88)  |  Force (497)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Happen (282)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impression (118)  |  Internal (69)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Nourishment (26)  |  Object (438)  |  Odor (11)  |  Organ (118)  |  Passion (121)  |  Presence (63)  |  Reason (766)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Sense (785)  |  Serve (64)  |  Something (718)  |  Sound (187)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Transport (31)  |  Uniqueness (11)  |  Use (771)

...He cannot conclude however, without observing, that from the contemplation of so great a variety of extraneous fossils discovered in the cliffs which were evidently the produce of very different climates, he thinks himself rationally induced to believe that nothing short of an universal deluge could be a cause adequate to this effect.
Plantae Favershamiensis, Appendix, 'Establishing a short view of the fossil bodies of the adjacent island of Sheppey.' Quoted in David Beerling, The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History (2007), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Climate (102)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Deluge (14)  |  Discover (571)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Extraneous (6)  |  Flood (52)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Short (200)  |  Think (1122)  |  Universal (198)  |  Variety (138)

...Outer space, once a region of spirited international competition, is also a region of international cooperation. I realized this as early as 1959, when I attended an international conference on cosmic radiation in Moscow. At this conference, there were many differing views and differing methods of attack, but the problems were common ones to all of us and a unity of basic purpose was everywhere evident. Many of the papers presented there depended in an essential way upon others which had appeared originally in as many as three or four different languages. Surely science is one of the universal human activities.
Science quotes on:  |  Attack (86)  |  Attend (67)  |  Basic (144)  |  Common (447)  |  Competition (45)  |  Conference (18)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Depend (238)  |  Early (196)  |  Essential (210)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evident (92)  |  Human (1512)  |  International (40)  |  Language (308)  |  Method (531)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Space (523)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Surely (101)  |  Unity (81)  |  Universal (198)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)

“I’m not so sure he’s wrong about automobiles,” he said, “With all their speed forward they may be a step backward for civilization—that is, spiritual civilization … But automobiles have come, and they bring a greater change in our life than most of us expect. They are here, and almost all outward things are going to be different because of what they bring. They are going to alter war, and they are going to alter peace.”
Spoken by character Eugene, in the novel, The Magnificent Ambersons (1918), 275
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Change (639)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Forward (104)  |  Greater (288)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Peace (116)  |  Speed (66)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Step (234)  |  Thing (1914)  |  War (233)  |  Wrong (246)

“They were apes only yesterday. Give them time.”
“Once an ape—always an ape.”…
“No, it will be different. … Come back here in an age or so and you shall see. …”
[The gods, discussing the Earth, in the movie version of Wells’ The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936).]
The Man Who Could Work Miracles: a film by H.G. Wells based on the short story (1936), 105-106. Quoted in Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain (1979, 1986), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ape (54)  |  Back (395)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  God (776)  |  Man (2252)  |  Miracle (85)  |  See (1094)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yesterday (37)

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871, 1897), 124.
Science quotes on:  |  Choose (116)  |  Definition (238)  |  Master (182)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Question (649)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tone (22)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

[A dragonfly larva is] carrying inside it two entirely separate blueprints, two different programmes [to turn into a dragonfly].
From 'Interview: Of Mind and Matter: David Attenborough Meets Richard Dawkins', The Guardian (11 Sep 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Blueprint (9)  |  Change (639)  |  Dragonfly (3)  |  Inside (30)  |  Larva (8)  |  Program (57)  |  Separate (151)

[About the great synthesis of atomic physics in the 1920s:] It was a heroic time. It was not the doing of any one man; it involved the collaboration of scores of scientists from many different lands. But from the first to last the deeply creative, subtle and critical spirit of Niels Bohr guided, restrained, deepened and finally transmuted the enterprise.
Quoted in Bill Becker, 'Pioneer of the Atom', New York Times Sunday Magazine (20 Oct 1957), 54.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Physics (7)  |  Niels Bohr (55)  |  Collaboration (16)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Critical (73)  |  Deep (241)  |  Difference (355)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guide (107)  |  Involved (90)  |  Land (131)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Restrain (6)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Subtlety (19)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transmutation (24)

[Cloning] can't make you immortal because clearly the clone is a different person. If I take twins and shoot one of them, it will be faint consolation to the dead one that the other one is still running around, even though they are genetically identical. So the road to immortality is not through cloning.
Quoted in 'Baby, It's You! And You, And You...', Time magazine (19 Feb 2001).
Science quotes on:  |  Clone (8)  |  Cloning (8)  |  Consolation (9)  |  Identical (55)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Running (61)  |  Still (614)  |  Through (846)  |  Twin (16)  |  Will (2350)

[Haunted by the statistic that the best predictor of SAT scores is family income:] Where you were born, into what family you are born, what their resources are, are to a large extent are going to determine the quality of education you receive, beginning in preschool and moving all the way up through college.
And what this is going to create in America is a different kind of aristocracy that's going to be self-perpetuating, unless we find ways to break that juggernaut.
... I think what that really reflects is the fact that resources, and not wealth necessarily, but just good middle-class resources, can buy quality of experience for children.
In a segment from PBS TV program, Newshour (9 Sep 2013).
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Aristocracy (7)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Best (467)  |  Break (109)  |  Buy (21)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Class (168)  |  College (71)  |  Create (245)  |  Determine (152)  |  Education (423)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Family (101)  |  Find (1014)  |  Good (906)  |  Income (18)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Middle-Class (2)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Quality (139)  |  Receive (117)  |  Resource (74)  |  Score (8)  |  Self (268)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wealth (100)

[In my early youth, walking with my father,] “See that bird?” he says. “It’s a Spencer’s warbler.” (I knew he didn’t know the real name.) “Well, in Italian, it’s a Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it’s a Bom da Peida. In Chinese, it’s a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese, it’s a Katano Tekeda. You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing—that’s what counts.” (I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.)
In 'The Making of a Scientist', What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character (2001), 13-14.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Bird (163)  |  Call (781)  |  Chinese (22)  |  Count (107)  |  Difference (355)  |  Doing (277)  |  Early (196)  |  Father (113)  |  Finish (62)  |  Human (1512)  |  Italian (13)  |  Japanese (7)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Name (359)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Warbler (2)  |  Whatever (234)  |  World (1850)  |  Youth (109)

[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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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)

[Reading a cartoon story,] the boy favored reading over reality. Adults might have characterized him in any number of negative ways—as uninquisitive, uninvolved, apathetic about the world around him and his place in it. I’ve often wondered: Are many adults much different when they read the scriptures of their respective faiths?
In Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein, The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World (2007), 117.
Science quotes on:  |  Adult (24)  |  Apathetic (2)  |  Boy (100)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Faith (209)  |  Favor (69)  |  Inquisitive (5)  |  Involved (90)  |  Negative (66)  |  Number (710)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Reality (274)  |  Scripture (14)  |  Story (122)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

[T]he explosive development of our intellect, … I personally think was at least partly triggered by the fact we developed this way of talking with words. … We can bring people from different disciplines together to discuss a problem. That’s because of words. We now have developed a moral code with our words. And we know perfectly well what we should and shouldn’t do.
From huffpost.com webpage interview by Alexander C. Kaufman, 'Jane Goodall: If We Don’t Make Peace With Nature, Expect More Deadly Pandemics' (28 May 2021).
Science quotes on:  |  Develop (278)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Moral (203)  |  People (1031)  |  Problem (731)  |  Talk (108)  |  Trigger (6)  |  Word (650)

[T]he phenomena of animal life correspond to one another, whether we compare their rank as determined by structural complication with the phases of their growth, or with their succession in past geological ages; whether we compare this succession with their relative growth, or all these different relations with each other and with the geographical distribution of animals upon the earth. The same series everywhere!
In Essay on Classification (1851), 196.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Compare (76)  |  Complication (30)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Determine (152)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Geographical (6)  |  Geology (240)  |  Growth (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Phase (37)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Rank (69)  |  Relative (42)  |  Series (153)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)

[The ancient Clovis people] had the same gray matter as you or me. They were at a different stage in their technology, that’s all.
As quoted in Sharman Apt Russell, When the Land Was Young: Reflections on American Archaeology (2001), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Brain (281)  |  Matter (821)  |  People (1031)  |  Stage (152)  |  Technology (281)

[The word] genius is derived from gignere, gigno; I bring forth, I produce; it always supposes invention, and this quality, is the only one which belongs to all the different kinds of genius.
From the original French, “Celui de génie dérive de gignere, gigno; j’enfante, je produis; il suppose toujours invention: & cette qualité est la seule qui appartienne à tous les génies différents,” in 'Du Génie', L’Esprit (1758), Discourse 4, 476. English version from Claude Adrien Helvétius and William Mudford (trans.), 'Of Genius', De l’Esprit or, Essays on the Mind and its several Faculties (1759), Essay 4, Chap. 1, 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Derive (70)  |  Genius (301)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kind (564)  |  Produce (117)  |  Quality (139)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Word (650)

[The] structural theory is of extreme simplicity. It assumes that the molecule is held together by links between one atom and the next: that every kind of atom can form a definite small number of such links: that these can be single, double or triple: that the groups may take up any position possible by rotation round the line of a single but not round that of a double link: finally that with all the elements of the first short period [of the periodic table], and with many others as well, the angles between the valencies are approximately those formed by joining the centre of a regular tetrahedron to its angular points. No assumption whatever is made as to the mechanism of the linkage. Through the whole development of organic chemistry this theory has always proved capable of providing a different structure for every different compound that can be isolated. Among the hundreds of thousands of known substances, there are never more isomeric forms than the theory permits.
Presidential Address to the Chemical Society (16 Apr 1936), Journal of the Chemical Society (1936), 533.
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Atom (381)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Definite (114)  |  Development (441)  |  Double (18)  |  Element (322)  |  Extreme (78)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Isolated (15)  |  Isomer (6)  |  Joining (11)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Link (48)  |  Linkage (5)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Next (238)  |  Number (710)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Permit (61)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Regular (48)  |  Rotation (13)  |  Short (200)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Table (105)  |  Tetrahedron (4)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Valency (4)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whole (756)

[This] may prove to be the beginning of some embracing generalization, which will throw light, not only on radioactive processes, but on elements in general and the Periodic Law.... Chemical homogeneity is no longer a guarantee that any supposed element is not a mixture of several of different atomic weights, or that any atomic weight is not merely a mean number.
From Chemical Society's Annual Reports (1910), Vol. 7, 285. As quoted in Francis Aston in Lecture (1936) on 'Forty Years of Atomic Theory', collected in Needham and Pagel (eds.) in Background to Modern Science: Ten Lectures at Cambridge Arranged by the History of Science Committee, (1938), 100. Cited in Alfred Walter Stewart, Recent Advances in Physical and Inorganic Chemistry (1920), 198.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Weight (6)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Element (322)  |  General (521)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Guarantee (30)  |  Homogeneity (9)  |  Isotope (4)  |  Law (913)  |  Light (635)  |  Mean (810)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Number (710)  |  Periodic Law (6)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Process (439)  |  Prove (261)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Several (33)  |  Supposed (5)  |  Weight (140)  |  Will (2350)

[To elucidate using models] the different combining powers in elementary atoms, I … select my illustrations from that most delightful of games, croquet. Let the croquet balls represent our atoms, and let us distinguish the atoms of different elements by different colours. The white balls are hydrogen, the green ones chlorine atoms; the atoms of fiery oxygen are red, those of nitrogen, blue; the carbon atoms, lastly, are naturally represented by black balls. But we have, in addition, exhibit the different combining powers of these atoms … by screwing into the balls a number of metallic arms (tubes and pins), which correspond respectively to the combining powers of the atoms represented … to join the balls … in imitation of the atomic edifices represented.
Paper presented at the Friday Discourse of the the Royal Institution (7 Apr 1865). 'On the Combining Power of Atoms', Proceedings of the Royal Institution (1865), 4, No. 42, 416.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Atom (381)  |  Ball (64)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Croquet (2)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Element (322)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Game (104)  |  Green (65)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Model (106)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Number (710)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pin (20)  |  Power (771)  |  Represent (157)  |  Respectively (13)  |  Select (45)  |  White (132)

[Using mice as model systems for genetic engineering in biomedicine, instead of bacterial or yeast systems matters because] this transition will have as big an impact on the future of biology as the shift from printing presses to video technology has had on pop culture. A mouse-based world looks and feels different from one viewed through microorganisms.
Quoted in Michael Schrage, 'Biomedical Researchers Scurry to Make Genetically Altered Mice', San Jose Mercury News (8 Feb 1993), 3D. In Donna Jeanne Haraway and Lynn M. Randolph, [email protected]: Feminism and Technoscience (1996), 98.
Science quotes on:  |  Biology (232)  |  Biomedicine (5)  |  Culture (157)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Feel (371)  |  Future (467)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetic Engineering (16)  |  Impact (45)  |  Look (584)  |  Matter (821)  |  Microorganism (29)  |  Model (106)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Printing (25)  |  Shift (45)  |  System (545)  |  Technology (281)  |  Through (846)  |  Transition (28)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Yeast (7)

[When I was a child] I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and I was a street kid. … [T]here was one aspect of that environment that, for some reason, struck me as different, and that was the stars. … I could tell they were lights in the sky, but that wasn’t an explanation. I mean, what were they? Little electric bulbs on long black wires, so you couldn’t see what they were held up by? What were they? … My mother said to me, "Look, we’ve just got you a library card … get out a book and find the answer.” … It was in there. It was stunning. The answer was that the Sun was a star, except very far away. … The dazzling idea of a universe vast beyond imagining swept over me. … I sensed awe.
In 'Wonder and Skepticism', Skeptical Enquirer (Jan-Feb 1995), 19, No. 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Awe (43)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Brooklyn (3)  |  Bulb (10)  |  Child (333)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Environment (239)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Kid (18)  |  Library (53)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mother (116)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Reason (766)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sky (174)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Street (25)  |  Stunning (4)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tell (344)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vastness (15)  |  Wire (36)

Ce que nous connaissons est peu de chose; ce que nous ignorons est immense.
What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.
Commonly said to be his last words. However, different true last words are stated by Augustus De Morgan.
Quoted in Augustus De Morgan, Budget of Paradoxes (1915), Vol. 2, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Do (1905)  |  Immense (89)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Last Word (10)  |  Last Words (6)  |  Word (650)

Compounds formed by chemical attraction, possess new properties different from those of their component parts... chemists have long believed that the contrary took place in their combination. They thought, in fact, that the compounds possessed properties intermediate between those of their component parts; so that two bodies, very coloured, very sapid, or insapid, soluble or insoluble, fusible or infusible, fixed or volatile, assumed in chemical combination, a shade or colour, or taste, solubility or volatility, intermediate between, and in some sort composed of, the same properties which were considered in their principles. This is an illusion or error which modern chemistry is highly interested to overthrow.
Quoted in A General System of Chemical Knowledge (1804), Vol. I, trans. W. Nicholson, 102-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Attraction (61)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Combination (150)  |  Component (51)  |  Compound (117)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Error (339)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Interest (416)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Long (778)  |  Modern (402)  |  New (1273)  |  Possess (157)  |  Principle (530)  |  Property (177)  |  Shade (35)  |  Solubility (2)  |  Soluble (5)  |  Taste (93)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)

Die Mathematiker sind eine Art Franzosen. Spricht man zu ihnen, so übersetzen sie alles in ihre eigene Sprache, und so wird es alsobald etwas ganz anderes.
Mathematicians are a kind of Frenchmen. Whenever you say anything or talk to them, they translate it into their own language, and right away it is something completely different.
Quoted by Christiane Senn-Fennell, 'Oral and Written Communication', in Ian Westbury et al. (eds.), Teaching as a Reflective Practice (2000), 225.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Completely (137)  |  Frenchman (4)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Talk (108)  |  Translate (21)  |  Whenever (81)

La vérité ne diffère de l'erreur qu'en deux points: elle est un peu plus difficile à prouver et beaucoup plus difficile à faire admettre. (Dec 1880)
Truth is different from error in two respects: it is a little harder to prove and more difficult to admit.
In Recueil d'Œuvres de Léo Errera: Botanique Générale (1908), 193. Google translation by Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Admission (17)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Error (339)  |  Hard (246)  |  Little (717)  |  More (2558)  |  Plus (43)  |  Point (584)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Respect (212)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)

Quelquefois, par exemple, je me figure que je suis suspendu en l’air, et que j’y demeure sans mouvement, pendant que la Terre tourne sous moi en vingt-quatre heures. Je vois passer sous mes yeux tous ces visages différents, les uns blancs, les autres noirs, les autres basanés, les autres olivâtres. D’abord ce sont des chapeaux et puis des turbans, et puis des têtes chevelues, et puis des têtes rasées; tantôt des villes à clochers, tantôt des villes à longues aiguilles qui ont des croissants, tantôt des villes à tours de porcelaine, tantôt de grands pays qui n’ont que des cabanes; ici de vastes mers, là des déserts épouvantables; enfin, toute cette variété infinie qui est sur la surface de la Terre.
Sometimes, for instance, I imagine that I am suspended in the air, and remain there motionless, while the earth turns under me in four-and-twenty hours. I see pass beneath me all these different countenances, some white, others black, others tawny, others olive-colored. At first they wear hats, and then turbans, then heads with long hair, then heads shaven; sometimes towns with steeples, sometimes towns with long spires, which have crescents, sometimes towns with porcelain towers, sometimes extensive countries that have only huts; here wide seas; there frightful deserts; in short, all this infinite variety on the surface of the earth.
In 'Premier Soir', Entretiens Sur La Pluralité Des Mondes (1686, 1863), 43. French and translation in Craufurd Tait Ramage, Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors (1866), 117-118.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Black (46)  |  Color (155)  |  Countenance (9)  |  Country (269)  |  Crescent (4)  |  Desert (59)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Face (214)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Hair (25)  |  Hat (9)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hut (2)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Long (778)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Porcelain (4)  |  Remain (355)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Spire (5)  |  Steeple (4)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Tawny (3)  |  Tower (45)  |  Turban (2)  |  Turn (454)  |  Variety (138)  |  White (132)  |  Wide (97)

Question: Explain how to determine the time of vibration of a given tuning-fork, and state what apparatus you would require for the purpose.
Answer: For this determination I should require an accurate watch beating seconds, and a sensitive ear. I mount the fork on a suitable stand, and then, as the second hand of my watch passes the figure 60 on the dial, I draw the bow neatly across one of its prongs. I wait. I listen intently. The throbbing air particles are receiving the pulsations; the beating prongs are giving up their original force; and slowly yet surely the sound dies away. Still I can hear it, but faintly and with close attention; and now only by pressing the bones of my head against its prongs. Finally the last trace disappears. I look at the time and leave the room, having determined the time of vibration of the common “pitch” fork. This process deteriorates the fork considerably, hence a different operation must be performed on a fork which is only lent.
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), 176-7, Question 4. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Against (332)  |  Air (366)  |  Answer (389)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beat (42)  |  Bone (101)  |  Bow (15)  |  Close (77)  |  Common (447)  |  Deterioration (10)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Dial (9)  |  Difference (355)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Ear (69)  |  Examination (102)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Faint (10)  |  Figure (162)  |  Force (497)  |  Head (87)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Howler (15)  |  Last (425)  |  Leaving (10)  |  Listen (81)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mount (43)  |  Mounting (2)  |  Must (1525)  |  Operation (221)  |  Original (61)  |  Particle (200)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Pressing (2)  |  Process (439)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Require (229)  |  Room (42)  |  Second (66)  |  Sensitivity (10)  |  Slow (108)  |  Sound (187)  |  Stand (284)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Sure (15)  |  Surely (101)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Tuning Fork (2)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Watch (118)

Question: Explain why, in order to cook food by boiling, at the top of a high mountain, you must employ a different method from that used at the sea level.
Answer: It is easy to cook food at the sea level by boiling it, but once you get above the sea level the only plan is to fry it in its own fat. It is, in fact, impossible to boil water above the sea level by any amount of heat. A different method, therefore, would have to be employed to boil food at the top of a high mountain, but what that method is has not yet been discovered. The future may reveal it to a daring experimentalist.
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), 178-9, Question 11. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Answer (389)  |  Boil (24)  |  Boiling (3)  |  Cooking (12)  |  Daring (17)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Easy (213)  |  Employ (115)  |  Examination (102)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fat (11)  |  Food (213)  |  Frying (2)  |  Future (467)  |  Heat (180)  |  High (370)  |  Howler (15)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Method (531)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Plan (122)  |  Question (649)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sea Level (5)  |  Top (100)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)

Srinivasa Ramanujan quote: Replying to G. H. Hardy's suggestion that the number of a taxi (1729) was “dull”: No, it is a very in
Replying to G. H. Hardy’s suggestion that the number of a taxi (1729) was “dull”: No, it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two different ways, the two ways being 1³ + 12³ and 9³ + 10³.
Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society (26 May 1921).
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Cube (14)  |  Dull (58)  |  G. H. Hardy (71)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Number (710)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Sum (103)  |  Taxi (4)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)

Ron Hutcheson, a Knight-Ridder reporter: [Mr. President, what are your] personal views [about the theory of] intelligent design?
President George W. Bush: [Laughing. You're] doing a fine job of dragging me back to the past [days as governor of Texas]. ... Then, I said that, first of all, that decision should be made to local school districts, but I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught...”
Hutcheson: Both sides ought to be properly taught?
President: Yes ... so people can understand what the debate is about.
Hutcheson: So the answer accepts the validity of “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution?
President: I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, and I'm not suggesting—you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.
Hutcheson: So we've got to give these groups—...
President: [interrupting] Very interesting question, Hutch. [Laughter from other reporters]
From conversation with reporters at the White House (1 Aug 2005), as quoted by Matthew Cooper in 'Fanning the Controversy Over “Intelligent Design”', Time (3 Aug 2005). The Time writer stated, “The president has gone farther in questioning the widely-taught theories of evolution and natural selection than any president since Ronald Reagan, who advocated teaching creationism in public schools alongside evolution.” Just a few months later, in the nation's first case on that point, on 20 Dec 2005, “a federal judge [John E. Jones] ruled it was unconstitutional for a Pennsylvania school district to present intelligent design as an alternative in high school biology courses, because it is a religious viewpoint,” as reported by Laurie Goodstein in 'Judge Rejects Teaching Intelligent Design', New York Times (21 Dec 2005). Goodstein also wrote “Judge Jones, a Republican appointed by President Bush, concluded that intelligent design was not science,” and that “the evidence in the trial proved that intelligent design was 'creationism relabeled.' The Supreme Court has already ruled that creationism ... cannot be taught as science in a public school.”
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Alternative (32)  |  Answer (389)  |  Asking (74)  |  Back (395)  |  Both (496)  |  Debate (40)  |  Decision (98)  |  Design (203)  |  District (11)  |  Doing (277)  |  Dragging (6)  |  Education (423)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expose (28)  |  Exposed (33)  |  First (1302)  |  Governor (13)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Intelligent Design (5)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Job (86)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Local (25)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Personal (75)  |  President (36)  |  Question (649)  |  School (227)  |  Side (236)  |  Teach (299)  |  Texas (4)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understand (648)  |  Validity (50)  |  View (496)

The Word Reason in the English Language has different Significances: sometimes it is taken for true, and clear Principles: Sometimes for clear, and fair deductions from those Principles: and sometimes for Cause, and particularly the final Cause: but the Consideration I shall have of it here, is in a Signification different from all these; and that is, as it stands for a Faculty of Man, That Faculty, whereby Man is supposed to be distinguished from Beasts; and wherein it is evident he much surpasses them.
In 'Of Reason', Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (1690), Book 4, Ch. 17, Sec. 1, 341.
Science quotes on:  |  Beast (58)  |  Cause (561)  |  Clear (111)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Definition (238)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  English (35)  |  Evident (92)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Final (121)  |  Language (308)  |  Man (2252)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Significance (114)  |  Stand (284)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Word (650)

There is no such thing as a Scientific Mind. Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers, and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics.
The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and Originality in Science (1967). Reprinted in Pluto’s Republic (1982), 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Artisan (9)  |  Artist (97)  |  Collector (8)  |  Compulsive (3)  |  Detective (11)  |  Difference (355)  |  Dissimilar (6)  |  Doing (277)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mystic (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Poet (97)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Mind (13)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Temperament (18)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)

A Beethoven string-quartet is truly, as some one has said, a scraping of horses’ tails on cats’ bowels, and may be exhaustively described in such terms; but the application of this description in no way precludes the simultaneous applicability of an entirely different description.
In The Sentiment of Rationality (1882, 1907), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Beethoven (14)  |  Beethoven_Ludwig (8)  |  Bowel (17)  |  Cat (52)  |  Description (89)  |  Horse (78)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Truly (118)  |  Violin (6)  |  Way (1214)

A cell has a history; its structure is inherited, it grows, divides, and, as in the embryo of higher animals, the products of division differentiate on complex lines. Living cells, moreover, transmit all that is involved in their complex heredity. I am far from maintaining that these fundamental properties may not depend upon organisation at levels above any chemical level; to understand them may even call for different methods of thought; I do not pretend to know. But if there be a hierarchy of levels we must recognise each one, and the physical and chemical level which, I would again say, may be the level of self-maintenance, must always have a place in any ultimate complete description.
'Some Aspects of Biochemistry', The Irish Journal of Medical Science (1932), 79, 346.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Call (781)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complex (202)  |  Depend (238)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Divide (77)  |  Division (67)  |  Do (1905)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Hierarchy (17)  |  History (716)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Inherited (21)  |  Involved (90)  |  Know (1538)  |  Living (492)  |  Maintenance (21)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Physical (518)  |  Product (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Self (268)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thought (995)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Understand (648)

A cell of a higher organism contains a thousand different substances, arranged in a complex system. This great organized system was not discovered by chemical or physical methods; they are inadequate to its refinement and delicacy and complexity.
'The Cell in Relation to its Environment', Journal of the Maryland Academy of Sciences (1931), 2, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Delicacy (8)  |  Discover (571)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  Method (531)  |  Organism (231)  |  Physical (518)  |  Refinement (19)  |  Substance (253)  |  System (545)  |  Thousand (340)

A century ago, Darwin and his friends were thought to be dangerous atheists, but their heresy simply replaced a benevolent personal deity called God by a benevolent impersonal deity called Evolution. In their different ways Bishop Wilberforce and T.H. Huxley both believed in Fate.
From transcript of BBC radio Reith Lecture (12 Nov 1967), 'A Runaway World', on the bbc.co.uk website.
Science quotes on:  |  Atheist (16)  |  Belief (615)  |  Benevolent (9)  |  Both (496)  |  Call (781)  |  Century (319)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Darwin (14)  |  Deity (22)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fate (76)  |  Friend (180)  |  God (776)  |  Heresy (9)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (132)  |  Impersonal (5)  |  Personal (75)  |  Replace (32)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Simply (53)  |  Thought (995)  |  Way (1214)  |  Samuel Wilberforce (3)

A demonstrative and convincing proof that an acid does consist of pointed parts is, that not only all acid salts do Crystallize into edges, but all Dissolutions of different things, caused by acid liquors, do assume this figure in their Crystallization; these Crystalls consist of points differing both in length and bigness from one another, and this diversity must be attributed to the keener or blunter edges of the different sorts of acids
A Course of Chymistry (1675), trans. W. Harris (1686), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Both (496)  |  Consist (223)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Crystallize (12)  |  Demonstrative (14)  |  Dissolution (11)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Edge (51)  |  Figure (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Point (584)  |  Proof (304)  |  Salt (48)  |  Thing (1914)

A DNA sequence for the genome of bacteriophage ΦX174 of approximately 5,375 nucleotides has been determined using the rapid and simple “plus and minus” method. The sequence identifies many of the features responsible for the production of the proteins of the nine known genes of the organism, including initiation and termination sites for the proteins and RNAs. Two pairs of genes are coded by the same region of DNA using different reading frames.
[Paper co-author]
Frederick Sanger, et al., 'Nucleotide Sequence of Bacteriophage ΦX174 DNA', Nature (1977), 265, 687.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Bacteriophage (2)  |  Code (31)  |  Determination (80)  |  Difference (355)  |  DNA (81)  |  Feature (49)  |  Frame (26)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genome (15)  |  Identification (20)  |  Initiation (8)  |  Known (453)  |  Method (531)  |  Nucleotide (6)  |  Organism (231)  |  Paper (192)  |  Plus (43)  |  Production (190)  |  Protein (56)  |  Reading (136)  |  Region (40)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Simple (426)  |  Site (19)  |  Termination (4)  |  Two (936)

A man who sets out to justify his existence and his activities has to distinguish two different questions. The first is whether the work which he does is worth doing; and the second is why he does it (whatever its value may be).
In A Mathematician's Apology (1940, 2012), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Doing (277)  |  Existence (481)  |  First (1302)  |  Justification (52)  |  Man (2252)  |  Question (649)  |  Set (400)  |  Two (936)  |  Value (393)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Why (491)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)

A modern mathematical proof is not very different from a modern machine, or a modern test setup: the simple fundamental principles are hidden and almost invisible under a mass of technical details.
Unterrichtsblätter für Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften (1932), 38, 177-188. As translated by Abe Shenitzer, in 'Part I. Topology and Abstract Algebra as Two Roads of Mathematical Comprehension', The American Mathematical Monthly (May 1995), 102, No. 7, 453.
Science quotes on:  |  Detail (150)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern (402)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proof (304)  |  Simple (426)  |  Technical (53)  |  Test (221)

A noteworthy and often-remarked similarity exists between the facts and methods of geology and those of linguistic study. The science of language is, as it were, the geology of the most modern period, the Age of the Man, having for its task to construct the history of development of the earth and its inhabitants from the time when the proper geological record remains silent … The remains of ancient speech are like strata deposited in bygone ages, telling of the forms of life then existing, and of the circumstances which determined or affected them; while words are as rolled pebbles, relics of yet more ancient formations, or as fossils, whose grade indicates the progress of organic life, and whose resemblances and relations show the correspondence or sequence of the different strata; while, everywhere, extensive denudation has marred the completeness of the record, and rendered impossible a detailed exhibition of the whole course of development.
In Language and the Study of Language (1867), 47.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Bygone (4)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Course (413)  |  Denudation (2)  |  Detail (150)  |  Development (441)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Exhibition (7)  |  Exist (458)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Geology (240)  |  History (716)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marred (3)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Organic (161)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Period (200)  |  Progress (492)  |  Proper (150)  |  Record (161)  |  Remain (355)  |  Render (96)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Roll (41)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Show (353)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Speech (66)  |  Strata (37)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Study (701)  |  Task (152)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whole (756)  |  Word (650)

A practical botanist will distinguish, at the first glance, the plant of different quarters of the globe, and yet will be at a loss to tell by what mark he detects them. There is, I know not what look—sinister, dry, obscure, in African plants; superb and elevated in the Asiatic; smooth and cheerful in the American; stunted and indurated in the Alpine.
Quoted in William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences (1847), Vol. 3, 355-356, citing ‘Philosophia Botanica’ (1751), 171.
Science quotes on:  |  African (11)  |  Botanist (25)  |  Cheerful (10)  |  Detect (45)  |  Detection (19)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Dry (65)  |  First (1302)  |  Glance (36)  |  Globe (51)  |  Know (1538)  |  Look (584)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mark (47)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Plant (320)  |  Practical (225)  |  Quarter (6)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Stunt (7)  |  Tell (344)  |  Will (2350)

A scientist can be productive in various ways. One is having the ability to plan and carry out experiments, but the other is having the ability to formulate new ideas, which can be about what experiments can be carried out … by making [the] proper calculations. Individual scientists who are successful in their work are successful for different reasons.
Interview with George B. Kauffman and Laurie M. Kauffman, in 'Linus Pauling: Reflections', American Scientist (Nov-Dec 1994), 82, No. 6, 522.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Carry (130)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Formulate (16)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Making (300)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plan (122)  |  Productive (37)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reason (766)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Success (327)  |  Successful (134)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

A single kind of red cell is supposed to have an enormous number of different substances on it, and in the same way there are substances in the serum to react with many different animal cells. In addition, the substances which match each kind of cell are different in each kind of serum. The number of hypothetical different substances postulated makes this conception so uneconomical that the question must be asked whether it is the only one possible. ... We ourselves hold that another, simpler, explanation is possible.
Landsteiner and Adriano Sturli, 'Hamagglutinine normaler Sera', Wiener klinische Wochenschrift (1902), 15, 38-40. Trans. Pauline M. H. Mazumdar.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Cell (2)  |  Ask (420)  |  Blood (144)  |  Conception (160)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Immunology (14)  |  Kind (564)  |  Match (30)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Possible (560)  |  Question (649)  |  Red Cell (2)  |  Serum (11)  |  Single (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Way (1214)

A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended is its area of applicability. Therefore the deep impression which classical thermodynamics made upon me. It is the only physical theory of universal content concerning which I am convinced that within the framework of the applicability of its basic concepts, it will never be overthrown.
Autobiographical Notes (1946), 33. Quoted in Gerald Holton and Yehuda Elkana, Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives (1997), 227.
Science quotes on:  |  Applicability (7)  |  Area (33)  |  Basic (144)  |  Classical (49)  |  Concept (242)  |  Concern (239)  |  Content (75)  |  Convincing (9)  |  Deep (241)  |  Difference (355)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extension (60)  |  Framework (33)  |  Greater (288)  |  Impression (118)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Impressiveness (2)  |  Kind (564)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Overthrown (8)  |  Physical (518)  |  Premise (40)  |  Relation (166)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Universal (198)  |  Will (2350)

According to the older view, for every single effect of a serum, there was a separate substance, or at least a particular chemical group... A normal serum contained as many different haemagglutinins as it agglutinated different cells. The situation was undoubtedly made much simpler if, to use the Ehrlich terminology... the separate haptophore groups can combine with an extremely large number of receptors in stepwise differing quantities as a stain does with different animal tissues, though not always with the same intensity. A normal serum would therefore visibly affect such a large number of different blood cells... not because it contained countless special substances, but because of the colloids of the serum, and therefore of the agglutinins by reason of their chemical constitution and the electrochemical properties resulting from it. That this manner of representation is a considerable simplification is clear; it also opens the way to direct experimental testing by the methods of structural chemistry.
'Die Theorien der Antikorperbildung ... ', Wiener klinische Wöchenschrift (1909), 22, 1623-1631. Trans. Pauline M. H. Mazumdar.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Animal (651)  |  Blood (144)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Colloid (5)  |  Combine (58)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Countless (39)  |  Direct (228)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electrochemical (4)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Immunology (14)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Large (398)  |  Method (531)  |  Number (710)  |  Open (277)  |  Reason (766)  |  Representation (55)  |  Separate (151)  |  Serum (11)  |  Simplification (20)  |  Single (365)  |  Situation (117)  |  Special (188)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Terminology (12)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Use (771)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)

Across the road from my cabin was a huge clear-cut—hundreds of acres of massive spruce stumps interspersed with tiny Douglas firs—products of what they call “Reforestation,” which I guess makes the spindly firs en masse a “Reforest,” which makes an individual spindly fir a “Refir,” which means you could say that Weyerhauser, who owns the joint, has Refir Madness, since they think that sawing down 200-foot-tall spruces and replacing them with puling 2-foot Refirs is no different from farming beans or corn or alfalfa. They even call the towering spires they wipe from the Earth’s face forever a “crop”--as if they’d planted the virgin forest! But I'm just a fisherman and may be missing some deeper significance in their nomenclature and stranger treatment of primordial trees.
In David James Duncan, The River Why (1983), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Acre (13)  |  Bean (3)  |  Cabin (5)  |  Call (781)  |  Clear-Cut (10)  |  Corn (20)  |  Crop (26)  |  Cut (116)  |  Deeper (4)  |  Difference (355)  |  Douglas Fir (2)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Face (214)  |  Farming (8)  |  Fisherman (9)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forever (111)  |  Guess (67)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individual (420)  |  Joint (31)  |  Madness (33)  |  Massive (9)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Miss (51)  |  Missing (21)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Plant (320)  |  Primordial (14)  |  Product (166)  |  Reforestation (6)  |  Replacement (13)  |  Road (71)  |  Sawing (3)  |  Say (989)  |  Significance (114)  |  Spire (5)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Stump (3)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Towering (11)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Tree (269)  |  Virgin (11)

Active experimentation must force the apparent facts of nature into forms different to those in which they familiarly present themselves; and thus make them tell the truth about themselves, as torture may compel an unwilling witness to reveal what he has been concealing.
In Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Compel (31)  |  Conceal (19)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Present (630)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Torture (30)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unwilling (9)  |  Witness (57)

After death, life reappears in a different form and with different laws. It is inscribed in the laws of the permanence of life on the surface of the earth and everything that has been a plant and an animal will be destroyed and transformed into a gaseous, volatile and mineral substance.
Quoted in Patrice Debré, Louis Pasteur, trans. Elborg Forster (1994), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Death (406)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Difference (355)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everything (489)  |  Form (976)  |  Gas (89)  |  Inscription (12)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Plant (320)  |  Reappearance (2)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Transform (74)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Volatility (3)  |  Will (2350)

After having produced aquatic animals of all ranks and having caused extensive variations in them by the different environments provided by the waters, nature led them little by little to the habit of living in the air, first by the water's edge and afterwards on all the dry parts of the globe. These animals have in course of time been profoundly altered by such novel conditions; which so greatly influenced their habits and organs that the regular gradation which they should have exhibited in complexity of organisation is often scarcely recognisable.
Hydrogéologie (1802), trans. A. V. Carozzi (1964), 69-70.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Animal (651)  |  Aquatic (5)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Condition (362)  |  Course (413)  |  Dry (65)  |  Edge (51)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extensive (34)  |  First (1302)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Habit (174)  |  Little (717)  |  Living (492)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Novel (35)  |  Organ (118)  |  Produced (187)  |  Rank (69)  |  Regular (48)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variation (93)  |  Water (503)

All living organisms are but leaves on the same tree of life. The various functions of plants and animals and their specialized organs are manifestations of the same living matter. This adapts itself to different jobs and circumstances, but operates on the same basic principles. Muscle contraction is only one of these adaptations. In principle it would not matter whether we studied nerve, kidney or muscle to understand the basic principles of life. In practice, however, it matters a great deal.
'Muscle Research', Scientific American, 1949, 180 (6), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Animal (651)  |  Basic (144)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Contraction (18)  |  Deal (192)  |  Function (235)  |  Great (1610)  |  Job (86)  |  Kidney (19)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Matter (821)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Operation (221)  |  Organ (118)  |  Organism (231)  |  Plant (320)  |  Practice (212)  |  Principle (530)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Tree (269)  |  Tree Of Life (10)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Various (205)

All that can be said upon the number and nature of elements is, in my opinion, confined to discussions entirely of a metaphysical nature. The subject only furnishes us with indefinite problems, which may be solved in a thousand different ways, not one of which, in all probability, is consistent with nature. I shall therefore only add upon this subject, that if, by the term elements, we mean to express those simple and indivisible atoms of which matter is composed, it is extremely probable we know nothing at all about them; but, if we apply the term elements, or principles of bodies, to express our idea of the last point which analysis is capable of reaching, we must admit, as elements, all the substances into which we are capable, by any means, to reduce bodies by decomposition.
Elements of Chemistry (1790), trans. R. Kerr, Preface, xxiv.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Apply (170)  |  Atom (381)  |  Capable (174)  |  Composition (86)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Element (322)  |  Express (192)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Point (584)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solution (282)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substance (253)  |  Term (357)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Way (1214)

All the different classes of beings which taken together make up the universe are, in the ideas of God who knows distinctly their essential gradations, only so many ordinates of a single curve so closely united that it would be impossible to place others between any two of them, since that would imply disorder and imperfection. Thus men are linked with the animals, these with the plants and these with the fossils which in turn merge with those bodies which our senses and our imagination represent to us as absolutely inanimate. And, since the law of continuity requires that when the essential attributes of one being approximate those of another all the properties of the one must likewise gradually approximate those of the other, it is necessary that all the orders of natural beings form but a single chain, in which the various classes, like so many rings, are so closely linked one to another that it is impossible for the senses or the imagination to determine precisely the point at which one ends and the next begins?all the species which, so to say, lie near the borderlands being equivocal, at endowed with characters which might equally well be assigned to either of the neighboring species. Thus there is nothing monstrous in the existence zoophytes, or plant-animals, as Budaeus calls them; on the contrary, it is wholly in keeping with the order of nature that they should exist. And so great is the force of the principle of continuity, to my thinking, that not only should I not be surprised to hear that such beings had been discovered?creatures which in some of their properties, such as nutrition or reproduction, might pass equally well for animals or for plants, and which thus overturn the current laws based upon the supposition of a perfect and absolute separation of the different orders of coexistent beings which fill the universe;?not only, I say, should I not be surprised to hear that they had been discovered, but, in fact, I am convinced that there must be such creatures, and that natural history will perhaps some day become acquainted with them, when it has further studied that infinity of living things whose small size conceals them for ordinary observation and which are hidden in the bowels of the earth and the depth of the sea.
Lettre Prétendue de M. De Leibnitz, à M. Hermann dont M. Koenig a Cité le Fragment (1753), cxi-cxii, trans. in A. O. Lovejoy, Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (1936), 144-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Approximate (25)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Being (1276)  |  Borderland (6)  |  Bowel (17)  |  Call (781)  |  Character (259)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Creature (242)  |  Current (122)  |  Curve (49)  |  Depth (97)  |  Determine (152)  |  Discover (571)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Equally (129)  |  Essential (210)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  God (776)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hear (144)  |  History (716)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Lie (370)  |  Living (492)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Next (238)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nutrition (25)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Plant (320)  |  Point (584)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Principle (530)  |  Represent (157)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Require (229)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sense (785)  |  Separation (60)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Species (435)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Together (392)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)

All the experiments which have been hitherto carried out, and those that are still being daily performed, concur in proving that between different bodies, whether principles or compounds, there is an agreement, relation, affinity or attraction (if you will have it so), which disposes certain bodies to unite with one another, while with others they are unable to contract any union: it is this effect, whatever be its cause, which will help us to give a reason for all the phenomena furnished by chemistry, and to tie them together.
From Elemens de Chymie Theorique (1749). As quoted, in Trevor Harvey Levere, Affinity and Matter: Elements of Chemical Philosophy, 1800-1865 (1971), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Affinity (27)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Daily (91)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perform (123)  |  Principle (530)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reason (766)  |  Still (614)  |  Tie (42)  |  Together (392)  |  Union (52)  |  Unite (43)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)

All the species recognized by Botanists came forth from the Almighty Creator’s hand, and the number of these is now and always will be exactly the same, while every day new and different florists’ species arise from the true species so-called by Botanists, and when they have arisen they finally revert to the original forms. Accordingly to the former have been assigned by Nature fixed limits, beyond which they cannot go: while the latter display without end the infinite sport of Nature.
In Philosophia Botanica (1751), aphorism 310. Trans. Frans A. Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789 (1971), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Almighty (23)  |  Arise (162)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Botanist (25)  |  Call (781)  |  Creator (97)  |  Display (59)  |  End (603)  |  Form (976)  |  Former (138)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Limit (294)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Species (435)  |  Sport (23)  |  Variety (138)  |  Will (2350)

All things are the same except for the differences, and different except for the similarities.
'Penetrating the Rhetoric', The Vision of the Anointed (1996), 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Difference (355)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Thing (1914)

Almighty God, to whose efficacious Word all things owe their original, abounding in his own glorious Essence with infinite goodness and fecundity, did in the beginning Create Man after his own likeness, Male and Female, created he them; the true distinction of which Sexes, consists merely in the different site of those parts of the body, wherein Generation necessarily requires a Diversity: for both Male and Female he impartially endued with the same, and altogether indifferent form of Soul, the Woman being possess’d of no less excellent Faculties of Mind, Reason, and Speech, than the Man, and equally with him aspiring to those Regions of Bliss and Glory, where there shall be no exception of Sex.
In Female Pre-eminence: Or, The Dignity and Excellency of that Sex above the Male, translation (1670).
Science quotes on:  |  Almighty (23)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bliss (3)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Consist (223)  |  Create (245)  |  Creation (350)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Equally (129)  |  Essence (85)  |  Exception (74)  |  Female (50)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Glory (66)  |  God (776)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Owe (71)  |  Possess (157)  |  Reason (766)  |  Require (229)  |  Sex (68)  |  Soul (235)  |  Speech (66)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Woman (160)  |  Word (650)

Although the ocean’s surface seems at first to be completely homogeneous, after half a month we began to differentiate various seas and even different parts of oceans by their characteristic shades. We were astonished to discover that, during an flight, you have to learn anew not only to look, but also to see. At first the finest nuances of color elude you, but gradually your vision sharpens and your color perception becomes richer, and the planet spreads out before you with all its indescribable beauty.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Anew (19)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonished (10)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Color (155)  |  Completely (137)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Discover (571)  |  Elude (11)  |  Fine (37)  |  First (1302)  |  Flight (101)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Half (63)  |  Homogeneous (17)  |  Indescribable (2)  |  Learn (672)  |  Look (584)  |  Month (91)  |  Nuance (4)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Part (235)  |  Perception (97)  |  Planet (402)  |  Rich (66)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Shade (35)  |  Sharpen (22)  |  Spread (86)  |  Surface (223)  |  Various (205)  |  Vision (127)

Among the multitude of animals which scamper, fly, burrow and swim around us, man is the only one who is not locked into his environment. His imagination, his reason, his emotional subtlety and toughness, make it possible for him not to accept the environment, but to change it. And that series of inventions, by which man from age to age has remade his environment, is a different kind of evolution—not biological, but cultural evolution. I call that brilliant sequence of cultural peaks The Ascent of Man. I use the word ascent with a precise meaning. Man is distinguished from other animals by his imaginative gifts. He makes plans, inventions, new discoveries, by putting different talents together; and his discoveries become more subtle and penetrating, as he learns to combine his talents in more complex and intimate ways. So the great discoveries of different ages and different cultures, in technique, in science, in the arts, express in their progression a richer and more intricate conjunction of human faculties, an ascending trellis of his gifts.
The Ascent of Man (1973), 19-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Art (680)  |  Ascent Of Man (7)  |  Become (821)  |  Biological (137)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Combine (58)  |  Complex (202)  |  Conjunction (12)  |  Culture (157)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Express (192)  |  Fly (153)  |  Gift (105)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kind (564)  |  Learn (672)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  More (2558)  |  Multitude (50)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plan (122)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precise (71)  |  Progression (23)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Series (153)  |  Subtlety (19)  |  Swim (32)  |  Talent (99)  |  Technique (84)  |  Together (392)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

An act cannot be defined by the end sought by the actor, for an identical system of behaviour may be adjustable to too many different ends without altering its nature.
Suicide: A Study in Sociology (1897), trans. J. A. Spaulding and G. Simpson (1952), 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  End (603)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Identical (55)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Sociology (46)  |  System (545)

An amoeba never is torn apart through indecision, though, for even if two parts of the amoeba are inclined to go in different directions, a choice is always made. We could interpret this as schizophrenia or just confusion, but it could also be a judicious simultaneous sampling of conditions, in order to make a wise choice of future direction.
In The Center of Life: A Natural History of the Cell (1977, 1978), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Amoeba (21)  |  Choice (114)  |  Condition (362)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Difference (355)  |  Direction (185)  |  Future (467)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Indecision (4)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Never (1089)  |  Order (638)  |  Sample (19)  |  Schizophrenia (4)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Through (846)  |  Torn (17)  |  Two (936)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)

An evolutionary perspective of our place in the history of the earth reminds us that Homo sapiens sapiens has occupied the planet for the tiniest fraction of that planet's four and a half thousand million years of existence. In many ways we are a biological accident, the product of countless propitious circumstances. As we peer back through the fossil record, through layer upon layer of long-extinct species, many of which thrived far longer than the human species is ever likely to do, we are reminded of our mortality as a species. There is no law that declares the human animal to be different, as seen in this broad biological perspective, from any other animal. There is no law that declares the human species to be immortal.
Co-author with American science writer Roger Amos Lewin (1946), Origins: What New Discoveries Reveal about the Emergence of our Species and its Possible Future (1977), 256.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Animal (651)  |  Back (395)  |  Biological (137)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Countless (39)  |  Declare (48)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extinct (25)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fossil Record (12)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Earth (2)  |  Homo Sapiens (23)  |  Human (1512)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Law (913)  |  Layer (41)  |  Long (778)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Planet (402)  |  Product (166)  |  Record (161)  |  Species (435)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

An experiment in nature, like a text in the Bible, is capable of different interpretations, according to the preconceptions of the interpreter.
Physiological Disquisitions (1781), 148.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Capable (174)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Preconception (13)

An infinity of these tiny animals defoliate our plants, our trees, our fruits... they attack our houses, our fabrics, our furniture, our clothing, our furs ... He who in studying all the different species of insects that are injurious to us, would seek means of preventing them from harming us, would seek to cause them to perish, proposes for his goal important tasks indeed.
In J. B. Gough, 'Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur', in Charles Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1975), Vol. 11, 332.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attack (86)  |  Cause (561)  |  Clothing (11)  |  Difference (355)  |  Fabric (27)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Fur (7)  |  Furniture (8)  |  Goal (155)  |  Harm (43)  |  House (143)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Injurious (14)  |  Injury (36)  |  Insect (89)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Perish (56)  |  Plant (320)  |  Prevention (37)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Seek (218)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Species (435)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Task (152)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Tree (269)

Analogue. A part or organ in one animal which has the same function as another part or organ in a different animal.
'Glossary', Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals Delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1843 (1843), 374.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogue (7)  |  Animal (651)  |  Difference (355)  |  Function (235)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Organ (118)  |  Part (235)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 no one has the right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps will ever do. But surely [if one were caught] ... they would have put it into spirits, or into the Illustrated News, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see what they would each say about it.
The Water-babies (1886), 79-80.
Science quotes on:  |  Cut (116)  |  Do (1905)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (132)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Little (717)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Sir Richard Owen (17)  |  Poor (139)  |  Professor (133)  |  Proof (304)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Surely (101)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

And, in this case, science could learn an important lesson from the literati–who love contingency for the same basic reason that scientists tend to regard the theme with suspicion. Because, in contingency lies the power of each person, to make a difference in an unconstrained world bristling with possibilities, and nudgeable by the smallest of unpredictable inputs into markedly different channels spelling either vast improvement or potential disaster.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Bristle (3)  |  Case (102)  |  Channel (23)  |  Contingency (11)  |  Difference (355)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Important (229)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Input (2)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Lie (370)  |  Love (328)  |  Markedly (2)  |  Person (366)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Potential (75)  |  Power (771)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regard (312)  |  Same (166)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Small (489)  |  Spell (9)  |  Spelling (8)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Tend (124)  |  Theme (17)  |  Unconstrained (2)  |  Unpredictable (18)  |  Vast (188)  |  World (1850)

Animals, even plants, lie to each other all the time, and we could restrict the research to them, putting off the real truth about ourselves for the several centuries we need to catch our breath. What is it that enables certain flowers to resemble nubile insects, or opossums to play dead, or female fireflies to change the code of their flashes in order to attract, and then eat, males of a different species?
In Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony(1984), 131.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Breath (61)  |  Century (319)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Code (31)  |  Death (406)  |  Difference (355)  |  Eat (108)  |  Eating (46)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enabling (7)  |  Female (50)  |  Firefly (8)  |  Flash (49)  |  Flower (112)  |  Insect (89)  |  Lie (370)  |  Lying (55)  |  Male (26)  |  Opossum (3)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Plant (320)  |  Put Off (2)  |  Reality (274)  |  Research (753)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Resembling (2)  |  Restriction (14)  |  Species (435)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)

Anthropology is the science which tells us that people are the same the whole world over—except when they are different.
The Guardian (21 Jul 1988).
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropology (61)  |  People (1031)  |  Tell (344)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Anthropology is the study of human beings as creatures of society. It fastens its attention upon those physical characteristics and industrial techniques, those conventions and values, which distinguish one community from all others that belong to a different tradition.
In 'The Science of Custom', Patterns of Culture (1934, 2005), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Attention (196)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Community (111)  |  Convention (16)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Industrial (15)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Society (350)  |  Study (701)  |  Technique (84)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Value (393)

Are the humanistic and scientific approaches different? Scientists can calculate the torsion of a skyscraper at the wing-beat of a bird, or 155 motions of the Moon and 500 smaller ones in addition. They move in academic garb and sing logarithms. They say, “The sky is ours”, like priests in charge of heaven. We poor humanists cannot even think clearly, or write a sentence without a blunder, commoners of “common sense”. We never take a step without stumbling; they move solemnly, ever unerringly, never a step back, and carry bell, book, and candle.
Quoting himself in Stargazers and Gravediggers: Memoirs to Worlds in Collision (2012), 212.
Science quotes on:  |  Academic (20)  |  Addition (70)  |  Approach (112)  |  Back (395)  |  Beat (42)  |  Bell (35)  |  Bird (163)  |  Blunder (21)  |  Book (413)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Candle (32)  |  Carry (130)  |  Charge (63)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Garb (6)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Humanist (8)  |  Humanistic (3)  |  Logarithm (12)  |  Moon (252)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Never (1089)  |  Poor (139)  |  Priest (29)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Sing (29)  |  Sky (174)  |  Skyscraper (9)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Step (234)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Think (1122)  |  Unerring (4)  |  Wing (79)  |  Write (250)

Art and science work in quite different ways: agreed. But, bad as it may sound, I have to admit that I cannot get along as an artist without the use of one or two sciences. ... In my view, the great and complicated things that go on in the world cannot be adequately recognized by people who do not use every possible aid to understanding.
Bertolt Brecht, John Willett (trans.), Brecht on Theatre (1964), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Art (680)  |  Artist (97)  |  Bad (185)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Do (1905)  |  Great (1610)  |  People (1031)  |  Possible (560)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Sound (187)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

As a different, but perhaps more common, strategy for the suppression of novelty, we may admit the threatening object to our midst, but provide an enveloping mantle of ordinary garb… . This kind of cover-up, so often amusing in our daily lives, can be quite dangerous in science, for nothing can stifle originality more effectively than an ordinary mantle placed fully and securely over an extraordinary thing.
In 'A Short Way to Big Ends', Natural History (Jan 1986), 95, No. 1, 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Common (447)  |  Daily (91)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Envelop (5)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Garb (6)  |  Kind (564)  |  Live (650)  |  Mantle (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Object (438)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Originality (21)  |  Research (753)  |  Stifle (5)  |  Strategy (13)  |  Suppression (9)  |  Thing (1914)

As a nation, we are too young to have true mythic heroes, and we must press real human beings into service. Honest Abe Lincoln the legend is quite a different character from Abraham Lincoln the man. And so should they be. And so should both be treasured, as long as they are distinguished. In a complex and confusing world, the perfect clarity of sports provides a focus for legitimate, utterly unambiguous support or disdain. The Dodgers are evil, the Yankees good. They really are, and have been for as long as anyone in my family can remember.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Anyone (38)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Character (259)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Complex (202)  |  Confuse (22)  |  Disdain (10)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Evil (122)  |  Family (101)  |  Focus (36)  |  Good (906)  |  Hero (45)  |  Honest (53)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Legend (18)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Abraham Lincoln (13)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Press (21)  |  Provide (79)  |  Real (159)  |  Really (77)  |  Remember (189)  |  Service (110)  |  Sport (23)  |  Support (151)  |  Treasure (59)  |  True (239)  |  Unambiguous (6)  |  Utterly (15)  |  World (1850)  |  Yankee (2)  |  Young (253)

As an antiquary of a new order, I have been obliged to learn the art of deciphering and restoring these remains, of discovering and bringing together, in their primitive arrangement, the scattered and mutilated fragments of which they are composed, of reproducing in all their original proportions and characters, the animals to which these fragments formerly belonged, and then of comparing them with those animals which still live on the surface of the earth; an art which is almost unknown, and which presupposes, what had scarcely been obtained before, an acquaintance with those laws which regulate the coexistence of the forms by which the different parts of organized being are distinguished.
'Preliminary discourse', to Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles (1812), trans. R. Kerr Essay on the Theory of the Earth (1813), 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Animal (651)  |  Antiquary (4)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Art (680)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Character (259)  |  Classification (102)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  New (1273)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Order (638)  |  Presuppose (15)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Remain (355)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Still (614)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Together (392)  |  Unknown (195)

As arithmetic and algebra are sciences of great clearness, certainty, and extent, which are immediately conversant about signs, upon the skilful use whereof they entirely depend, so a little attention to them may possibly help us to judge of the progress of the mind in other sciences, which, though differing in nature, design, and object, may yet agree in the general methods of proof and inquiry.
In Alciphron: or the Minute Philosopher, Dialogue 7, collected in The Works of George Berkeley D.D. (1784), Vol. 1, 621.
Science quotes on:  |  Agree (31)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Attention (196)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Clearness (11)  |  Conversant (6)  |  Depend (238)  |  Design (203)  |  Entire (50)  |  Extent (142)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Help (116)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Judge (114)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Progress (492)  |  Proof (304)  |  Sign (63)  |  Skillful (17)  |  Use (771)

As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith’s door,
And hearing the hammers, as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire.
And formed the seven-chorded lyre.
From poem 'To A Child' (1847), as collected in The Poetical Works of H.W. Longfellow (1855), 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Anvil (3)  |  Blacksmith (5)  |  Chord (4)  |  Door (94)  |  Form (976)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Iron (99)  |  Note (39)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sound (187)  |  Standing (11)  |  Tone (22)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Vibrant (2)  |  Wire (36)

As new areas of the world came into view through exploration, the number of identified species of animals and plants grew astronomically. By 1800 it had reached 70,000. Today more than 1.25 million different species, two-thirds animal and one-third plant, are known, and no biologist supposes that the count is complete.
In The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science: The Biological Sciences (1960), 654. Also in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 320.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Complete (209)  |  Count (107)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Identify (13)  |  Known (453)  |  Million (124)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Plant (320)  |  Reach (286)  |  Species (435)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Taxonomy (19)  |  Through (846)  |  Today (321)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  World (1850)

As science has supplanted its predecessors, so it may hereafter be superseded by some more perfect hypothesis, perhaps by some totally different way of looking at the phenomena—of registering the shadows on the screen—of which we in this generation can form no idea. The advance of knowledge is an infinite progression towards a goal that for ever recedes.
In The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (1890, 1900), Vol. 3, 460.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  Goal (155)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Looking (191)  |  More (2558)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Progression (23)  |  Recede (11)  |  Register (22)  |  Screen (8)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Supersede (8)  |  Supplant (4)  |  Way (1214)

At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a “tendency to progression”, “adaptations from the slow willing of animals”, &c! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from his; though the means of change are wholly so. I think I have found out (here’s presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends.
Letter to Sir Joseph Hooker (11 Jan 1844). In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters (1892), 173-174.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Animal (651)  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Contrary (143)  |  End (603)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (24)  |  Last (425)  |  Light (635)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Presumption (15)  |  Progression (23)  |  Simple (426)  |  Slow (108)  |  Species (435)  |  Start (237)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Think (1122)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Willing (44)

Be daring, be different, be impractical; be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imagination vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slave of the ordinary.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Assert (69)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Creature (242)  |  Dare (55)  |  Daring (17)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impractical (3)  |  Integrity (21)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Slave (40)  |  Vision (127)  |  Will (2350)

Between men of different studies and professions, may be observed a constant reciprocation of reproaches. The collector of shells and stones derides the folly of him who pastes leaves and flowers upon paper, pleases himself with colours that are perceptibly fading, and amasses with care what cannot be preserved. The hunter of insects stands amazed that any man can waste his short time upon lifeless matter, while many tribes of animals yet want their history. Every one is inclined not only to promote his own study, but to exclude all others from regard, and having heated his imagination with some favourite pursuit, wonders that the rest of mankind are not seized with the same passion.
From 'Numb. 83, Tuesday, January 1, 1750', The Rambler (1756), Vol. 2, 150.
Science quotes on:  |  Amass (6)  |  Amazed (4)  |  Animal (651)  |  Care (203)  |  Collector (8)  |  Color (155)  |  Constant (148)  |  Deride (2)  |  Exclude (8)  |  Fading (3)  |  Favourite (7)  |  Flower (112)  |  Folly (44)  |  Heat (180)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Insect (89)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Matter (821)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Passion (121)  |  Paste (4)  |  Perceptibly (2)  |  Please (68)  |  Preserved (3)  |  Profession (108)  |  Promote (32)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Regard (312)  |  Reproach (4)  |  Rest (287)  |  Seized (2)  |  Shell (69)  |  Short (200)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stone (168)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tribe (26)  |  Want (504)  |  Waste (109)  |  Wonder (251)

Bias has to be taught. If you hear your parents downgrading women or people of different backgrounds, why, you are going to do that.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Bias (22)  |  Do (1905)  |  Downgrade (2)  |  Hear (144)  |  Parent (80)  |  People (1031)  |  Teach (299)  |  Why (491)  |  Woman (160)

Body and soul are not two different things, but only two different ways of perceiving the same thing. Similarly, physics and psychology are only different attempts to link our experiences together by way of systematic thought.
(1937). In Albert Einstein, the Human Side by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman (1979), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Body (557)  |  Body And Soul (4)  |  Experience (494)  |  Link (48)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Physics (564)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Same (166)  |  Soul (235)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Thought (995)

Break the chains of your prejudices and take up the torch of experience, and you will honour nature in the way she deserves, instead of drawing derogatory conclusions from the ignorance in which she has left you. Simply open your eyes and ignore what you cannot understand, and you will see that a labourer whose mind and knowledge extend no further than the edges of his furrow is no different essentially from the greatest genius, as would have been proved by dissecting the brains of Descartes and Newton; you will be convinced that the imbecile or the idiot are animals in human form, in the same way as the clever ape is a little man in another form; and that, since everything depends absolutely on differences in organisation, a well-constructed animal who has learnt astronomy can predict an eclipse, as he can predict recovery or death when his genius and good eyesight have benefited from some time at the school of Hippocrates and at patients' bedsides.
Machine Man (1747), in Ann Thomson (ed.), Machine Man and Other Writings (1996), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Ape (54)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Brain (281)  |  Break (109)  |  Clever (41)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Construct (129)  |  Death (406)  |  Depend (238)  |  Derogatory (3)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Difference (355)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Eclipse (25)  |  Edge (51)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Eyesight (5)  |  Form (976)  |  Genius (301)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hippocrates (49)  |  Honour (58)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idiot (22)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Imbecile (4)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Open (277)  |  Patient (209)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Recovery (24)  |  School (227)  |  See (1094)  |  Time (1911)  |  Torch (13)  |  Understand (648)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

But for us, it’s different. Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Being (1276)  |  Child (333)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Confident (25)  |  Corrupt (4)  |  Couple (9)  |  Coward (5)  |  Creator (97)  |  Destroyer (5)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Dot (18)  |  Dust (68)  |  Economic (84)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Father (113)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hero (45)  |  History (716)  |  Home (184)  |  Hopeful (6)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Hunter (28)  |  Ideology (15)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Joy (117)  |  King (39)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leader (51)  |  Live (650)  |  Look (584)  |  Love (328)  |  Moral (203)  |  Mote (3)  |  Mother (116)  |  Peasant (9)  |  Politician (40)  |  Religion (369)  |  Saint (17)  |  Sinner (2)  |  Species (435)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Sunbeam (3)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Suspend (11)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Young (253)

But from the time I was in college I learned that there is nothing one could imagine which is so strange and incredible that it was not said by some philosopher; and since that time, I have recognized through my travels that all those whose views are different from our own are not necessarily, for that reason, barbarians or savages, but that many of them use their reason either as much as or even more than we do. I also considered how the same person, with the same mind, who was brought up from infancy either among the French or the Germans, becomes different from what they would have been if they had always lived among the Chinese or among the cannibals, and how, even in our clothes fashions, the very thing that we liked ten years ago, and that we may like again within the next ten years, appears extravagant and ridiculous to us today. Thus our convictions result from custom and example very much more than from any knowledge that is certain... truths will be discovered by an individual rather than a whole people.
Discourse on Method in Discourse on Method and Related Writings (1637), trans. Desmond M. Clarke, Penguin edition (1999), Part 2, 14-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chinese (22)  |  College (71)  |  Consider (428)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Custom (44)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ethnology (9)  |  Extravagant (10)  |  German (37)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Individual (420)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Next (238)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Reason (766)  |  Result (700)  |  Ridiculous (24)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Travel (125)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Use (771)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

But how to raise a sum in the different States has been my greatest difficulty.
Letter from Robert Fulton from London (5 Feb 1797) to President George Washington, proposing benefits from building canals. In Henry Winram Dickinson, Robert Fulton, Engineer and Artist (1913), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Invention (400)  |  State (505)  |  Sum (103)

But it will be found... that one universal law prevails in all these phenomena. Where two portions of the same light arrive in the eye by different routes, either exactly or very nearly in the same direction, the appearance or disappearance of various colours is determined by the greater or less difference in the lengths of the paths.
Lecture XIV. 'Of Physical Optics'. In A Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy (1802), 112-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Color (155)  |  Determination (80)  |  Difference (355)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Eye (440)  |  Greater (288)  |  Law (913)  |  Length (24)  |  Light (635)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Path (159)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Portion (86)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Route (16)  |  Two (936)  |  Universal (198)  |  Various (205)  |  Will (2350)

But since the brain, as well as the cerebellum, is composed of many parts, variously figured, it is possible, that nature, which never works in vain, has destined those parts to various uses, so that the various faculties of the mind seem to require different portions of the cerebrum and cerebellum for their production.
A Dissertation on the Functions of the Nervous System (1784), trans. and ed. Thomas Laycock (1851), 446.
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Cerebellum (4)  |  Cerebrum (10)  |  Composition (86)  |  Destined (42)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Part (235)  |  Portion (86)  |  Possible (560)  |  Production (190)  |  Require (229)  |  Use (771)  |  Vain (86)  |  Various (205)  |  Work (1402)

But the Presidence of that mighty Power … its particular Agency and Concern therein: and its Purpose and Design … will more evidently appear, when I shall have proved … That the said Earth, though not indifferently and alike fertil in all parts of it, was yet generally much more fertil than ours is … That its Soil was more luxuriant, and teemed forth its Productions in far greater plenty and abundance than the present Earth does … That when Man was fallen, and had abandoned his primitive Innocence, the Case was much altered: and a far different Scene of Things presented; that generous Vertue, masculine Bravery, and prudent Circumspection which he was before Master of, now deserting him … and a strange imbecility immediately seized and laid hold of him: he became pusillanimous, and was easily ruffled with every little Passion within: supine, and as openly exposed to any Temptation or Assault from without. And now these exuberant Productions of the Earth became a continued Decoy and Snare unto him.
In An Essay Toward A Natural History of the Earth (1695), 84-86.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Abundance (26)  |  Alike (60)  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Circumspection (5)  |  Concern (239)  |  Design (203)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Fertility (23)  |  Generous (17)  |  Greater (288)  |  Imbecility (5)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Innocence (13)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Masculine (4)  |  Master (182)  |  More (2558)  |  Passion (121)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Production (190)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Scene (36)  |  Soil (98)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

But what exceeds all wonders, I have discovered four new planets and observed their proper and particular motions, different among themselves and from the motions of all the other stars; and these new planets move about another very large star [Jupiter] like Venus and Mercury, and perchance the other known planets, move about the Sun. As soon as this tract, which I shall send to all the philosophers and mathematicians as an announcement, is finished, I shall send a copy to the Most Serene Grand Duke, together with an excellent spyglass, so that he can verify all these truths.
Letter to the Tuscan Court, 30 Jan 1610. Quoted in Albert van Heiden (ed.), Siderius Nuncius or The Sidereal Messenger (1989), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Announcement (15)  |  Copy (34)  |  Discover (571)  |  Finish (62)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  New (1273)  |  Observed (149)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Planet (402)  |  Proper (150)  |  Soon (187)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sun (407)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Together (392)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Venus (21)  |  Verify (24)  |  Wonder (251)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 looking at the sun at different wavelengths, we can peel off the different layers in the (solar) atmosphere, just like peeling an onion.
Primary Source needed. Can you help?
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Layer (41)  |  Looking (191)  |  Onion (9)  |  Peel (6)  |  Solar (8)  |  Sun (407)  |  Wavelength (10)

Camels, unlike most animals, regulate their body temperatures at two different but stable states. During daytime in the desert, when it is unbearably hot, camels regulate close to 40°C, a close enough match to the air temperature to avoid having to cool by sweating precious water. At night the desert is cold, and even cold enough for frost; the camel would seriously lose heat if it tried to stay at 40°C, so it moves its regulation to a more suitable 34°C, which is warm.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Animal (651)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Camel (12)  |  Close (77)  |  Cold (115)  |  Cool (15)  |  Daytime (3)  |  Desert (59)  |  Frost (15)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hot (63)  |  Lose (165)  |  Match (30)  |  Move (223)  |  Night (133)  |  Precious (43)  |  Regulate (11)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Seriously (20)  |  Stable (32)  |  State (505)  |  Stay (26)  |  Suitable (10)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Try (296)  |  Unlike (9)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)

Chemistry is an art that has furnished the world with a great number of useful facts, and has thereby contributed to the improvement of many arts; but these facts lie scattered in many different books, involved in obscure terms, mixed with many falsehoods, and joined to a great deal of false philosophy; so that it is not great wonder that chemistry has not been so much studied as might have been expected with regard to so useful a branch of knowledge, and that many professors are themselves but very superficially acquainted with it. But it was particularly to be expected, that, since it has been taught in universities, the difficulties in this study should have been in some measure removed, that the art should have been put into form, and a system of it attempted—the scattered facts collected and arranged in a proper order. But this has not yet been done; chemistry has not yet been taught but upon a very narrow plan. The teachers of it have still confined themselves to the purposes of pharmacy and medicine, and that comprehends a small branch of chemistry; and even that, by being a single branch, could not by itself be tolerably explained.
John Thomson, An Account of the Life, Lectures and Writings of William Cullen, M.D. (1832), Vol. 1, 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Branch (155)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Deal (192)  |  Expect (203)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Falsehood (30)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Great (1610)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Involved (90)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Measure (241)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Number (710)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Order (638)  |  Pharmacy (4)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plan (122)  |  Professor (133)  |  Proper (150)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Regard (312)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  System (545)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Useful (260)  |  Wonder (251)  |  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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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)

Communism is at once a complete system of proletarian ideology and a new social system. It is different from any other ideological and social system, and is the most complete, progressive, revolutionary, and rational system in human history.
In Mao Tse-Tung: On New Democracy: Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art (1967), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Communism (11)  |  Complete (209)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human History (7)  |  Ideology (15)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Rational (95)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  System (545)

Compare ... the various quantities of the same element contained in the molecule of the free substance and in those of all its different compounds and you will not be able to escape the following law: The different quantities of the same element contained in different molecules are all whole multiples of one and the same quantity, which always being entire, has the right to be called an atom.
Sketch of a Course of Chemical Philosophy (1858), Alembic Club Reprint (1910), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Compare (76)  |  Compound (117)  |  Element (322)  |  Escape (85)  |  Free (239)  |  Law (913)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Multiple (19)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Right (473)  |  Substance (253)  |  Various (205)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

Concerned to reconstruct past ideas, historians must approach the generation that held them as the anthropologist approaches an alien culture. They must, that is, be prepared at the start to find that natives speak a different language and map experience into different categories from those they themselves bring from home. And they must take as their object the discovery of those categories and the assimilation of the corresponding language.
'Revisiting Planck', Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences (1984), 14, 246.
Science quotes on:  |  Alien (35)  |  Anthropologist (8)  |  Approach (112)  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Category (19)  |  Concern (239)  |  Culture (157)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  Generation (256)  |  Historian (59)  |  History (716)  |  Home (184)  |  Idea (881)  |  Language (308)  |  Map (50)  |  Must (1525)  |  Native (41)  |  Object (438)  |  Past (355)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Speak (240)  |  Start (237)  |  Themselves (433)

Counting stars by candlelight all are dim but one is bright; the spiral light of Venus rising first and shining best, from the northwest corner of a brand-new crescent moon crickets and cicadas sing a rare and different tune.
Terrapin Station
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Bright (81)  |  Candlelight (3)  |  Cicada (3)  |  Corner (59)  |  Count (107)  |  Counting (26)  |  Crescent (4)  |  Cricket (8)  |  Dim (11)  |  First (1302)  |  Light (635)  |  Moon (252)  |  New (1273)  |  Rare (94)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Shine (49)  |  Shining (35)  |  Sing (29)  |  Spiral (19)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Tune (20)  |  Venus (21)

Darwin grasped the philosophical bleakness with his characteristic courage. He argued that hope and morality cannot, and should not, be passively read in the construction of nature. Aesthetic and moral truths, as human concepts, must be shaped in human terms, not ‘discovered’ in nature. We must formulate these answers for ourselves and then approach nature as a partner who can answer other kinds of questions for us–questions about the factual state of the universe, not about the meaning of human life. If we grant nature the independence of her own domain–her answers unframed in human terms–then we can grasp her exquisite beauty in a free and humble way. For then we become liberated to approach nature without the burden of an inappropriate and impossible quest for moral messages to assuage our hopes and fears. We can pay our proper respect to nature’s independence and read her own ways as beauty or inspiration in our different terms.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Answer (389)  |  Approach (112)  |  Argue (25)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Become (821)  |  Bleakness (2)  |  Burden (30)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Concept (242)  |  Construction (114)  |  Courage (82)  |  Darwin (14)  |  Discover (571)  |  Domain (72)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Factual (8)  |  Fear (212)  |  Formulate (16)  |  Free (239)  |  Grant (76)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Humble (54)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inappropriate (5)  |  Independence (37)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Kind (564)  |  Liberate (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Message (53)  |  Moral (203)  |  Morality (55)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Partner (5)  |  Passively (3)  |  Pay (45)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Proper (150)  |  Quest (39)  |  Question (649)  |  Read (308)  |  Respect (212)  |  Shape (77)  |  State (505)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)

Deductivism in mathematical literature and inductivism in scientific papers are simply the postures we choose to be seen in when the curtain goes up and the public sees us. The theatrical illusion is shattered if we ask what goes on behind the scenes. In real life discovery and justification are almost always different processes.
Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought (1969), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Behind (139)  |  Choice (114)  |  Choose (116)  |  Curtain (4)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Justification (52)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literature (116)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Paper (192)  |  Posture (7)  |  Process (439)  |  Public (100)  |  Publication (102)  |  Real Life (8)  |  Scene (36)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Shatter (8)  |  Shattered (8)  |  Theatre (5)

Differences between individuals are the raw materials for evolutionary change and for the evolution of adaptations, yet of course most physiologists treat these differences as noise that is to be filtered out. From the standpoint of physiological ecology, the traditional emphasis of physiologists on central tendencies rather than on variance has some unhappy consequences. Variation is not just noise; it is also the stuff of evolution and a central attribute of living systems. The physiological differences between individuals in the same species or population, and also the patterns of variation in different groups, must not be ignored.
From 'Interspecific comparison as a tool for ecological physiologists', collected in M.E. Feder, A.F. Bennett, W.W. Burggren, and R.B. Huey, (eds.), New Directions in Ecological Physiology (1987), 32-33,
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Central (81)  |  Change (639)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Difference (355)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Emphasis (18)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Filter (10)  |  Group (83)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Individual (420)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Noise (40)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Physiologist (31)  |  Population (115)  |  Raw (28)  |  Same (166)  |  Species (435)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Stuff (24)  |  System (545)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Traditional (16)  |  Treat (38)  |  Unhappy (16)  |  Variance (12)  |  Variation (93)

Different kinds of animals and plants live together in different places: camels in deserts, whales in the seas, gorillas in tropical forests. The totality of this diversity from the genetic level, through organisms to ecosystems and landscapes is termed collectively biological diversity.
From Reith Lecture, 'Biodiversity', on BBC Radio 4 (19 Apr 2000). Transcript and audio on BBC website.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biological Diversity (5)  |  Camel (12)  |  Desert (59)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Ecosystem (33)  |  Forest (161)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Gorilla (19)  |  Kind (564)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Live (650)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Organism (231)  |  Place (192)  |  Plant (320)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Sea (326)  |  Term (357)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Totality (17)  |  Whale (45)

Do not the Rays which differ in Refrangibility differ also in Flexibity; and are they not by their different Inflexions separated from one another, so as after separation to make the Colours in the three Fringes above described? And after what manner are they inflected to make those Fringes?
Opticks (1704), Book 3, Query 2, 132-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Color (155)  |  Description (89)  |  Differ (88)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fringe (7)  |  Inflection (4)  |  Manner (62)  |  Ray (115)  |  Refrangibility (2)  |  Separation (60)

Dumbness and silence are two different things.
From chapter 'Jottings from a Note-Book', in Canadian Stories (1918), 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Silence (62)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)

During the time that [Karl] Landsteiner gave me an education in the field of imununology, I discovered that he and I were thinking about the serologic problem in very different ways. He would ask, What do these experiments force us to believe about the nature of the world? I would ask, What is the most. simple and general picture of the world that we can formulate that is not ruled by these experiments? I realized that medical and biological investigators were not attacking their problems the same way that theoretical physicists do, the way I had been in the habit of doing.
‘Molecular Disease’, Pfizer Spectrum (1958), 6:9, 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Belief (615)  |  Biological (137)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Education (423)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Field (378)  |  Force (497)  |  Formulation (37)  |  General (521)  |  Generality (45)  |  Habit (174)  |  Immunology (14)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Karl Landsteiner (8)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Picture (148)  |  Problem (731)  |  Realization (44)  |  Research (753)  |  Rule (307)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

Each species has evolved a special set of solutions to the general problems that all organisms must face. By the fact of its existence, a species demonstrates that its members are able to carry out adequately a series of general functions. … These general functions offer a framework within which one can integrate one’s view of biology and focus one’s research. Such a view helps one to avoid becoming lost in a morass of unstructured detail—even though the ways in which different species perform these functions may differ widely. A few obvious examples will suffice. Organisms must remain functionally integrated. They must obtain materials from their environments, and process and release energy from these materials. … They must differentiate and grow, and they must reproduce. By focusing one’s questions on one or another of these obligatory and universal capacities, one can ensure that one’s research will not be trivial and that it will have some chance of achieving broad general applicability.
In 'Integrative Biology: An Organismic Biologist’s Point of View', Integrative and Comparative Biology (2005), 45, 331.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Adequately (4)  |  Applicability (7)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Biology (232)  |  Broad (28)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Carry (130)  |  Chance (244)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Detail (150)  |  Differ (88)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Energy (373)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Example (98)  |  Existence (481)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Focus (36)  |  Framework (33)  |  Function (235)  |  General (521)  |  Grow (247)  |  Help (116)  |  Integrate (8)  |  Integrated (10)  |  Lose (165)  |  Material (366)  |  Member (42)  |  Morass (2)  |  Must (1525)  |  Obligatory (3)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Offer (142)  |  Organism (231)  |  Perform (123)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Release (31)  |  Remain (355)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Research (753)  |  Series (153)  |  Set (400)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Suffice (7)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Universal (198)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Widely (9)  |  Will (2350)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  Discernible (9)  |  Distance (171)  |  Due (143)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lava (12)  |  Machine (271)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Special (188)  |  Time (1911)  |  Volcano (46)

Educators may bring upon themselves unnecessary travail by taking a tactless and unjustifiable position about the relation between scientific and religious narratives. … The point is that profound but contradictory ideas may exist side by side, if they are constructed from different materials and methods and have different purposes. Each tells us something important about where we stand in the universe, and it is foolish to insist that they must despise each other.
In The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School (1995), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Construct (129)  |  Contradictory (8)  |  Creationism (8)  |  Despise (16)  |  Educator (7)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Idea (881)  |  Important (229)  |  Insist (22)  |  Material (366)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Narrative (9)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Position (83)  |  Profound (105)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Relation (166)  |  Religious (134)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Side (236)  |  Side By Side (2)  |  Something (718)  |  Stand (284)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Travail (5)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unjustifiable (2)  |  Unnecessary (23)

Einstein, twenty-six years old, only three years away from crude privation, still a patent examiner, published in the Annalen der Physik in 1905 five papers on entirely different subjects. Three of them were among the greatest in the history of physics. One, very simple, gave the quantum explanation of the photoelectric effect—it was this work for which, sixteen years later, he was awarded the Nobel prize. Another dealt with the phenomenon of Brownian motion, the apparently erratic movement of tiny particles suspended in a liquid: Einstein showed that these movements satisfied a clear statistical law. This was like a conjuring trick, easy when explained: before it, decent scientists could still doubt the concrete existence of atoms and molecules: this paper was as near to a direct proof of their concreteness as a theoretician could give. The third paper was the special theory of relativity, which quietly amalgamated space, time, and matter into one fundamental unity.
This last paper contains no references and quotes no authority. All of them are written in a style unlike any other theoretical physicist’s. They contain very little mathematics. There is a good deal of verbal commentary. The conclusions, the bizarre conclusions, emerge as though with the greatest of ease: the reasoning is unbreakable. It looks as though he had reached the conclusions by pure thought, unaided, without listening to the opinions of others. To a surprisingly large extent, that is precisely what he had done.
In Variety of Men (1966), 100-101. First published in Commentary magazine.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Authority (99)  |  Award (13)  |  Bizarre (6)  |  Brownian Motion (2)  |  Commentary (3)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Concreteness (5)  |  Conjuring (3)  |  Crude (32)  |  Deal (192)  |  Decent (12)  |  Difference (355)  |  Direct (228)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Ease (40)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effect (414)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Erratic (4)  |  Examiner (5)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Physics (3)  |  Large (398)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Listening (26)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Motion (320)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Particle (200)  |  Patent (34)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Photoelectric Effect (2)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Privation (5)  |  Proof (304)  |  Publication (102)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quote (46)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reference (33)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Show (353)  |  Simple (426)  |  Space (523)  |  Special (188)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suspension (7)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Trick (36)  |  Unbreakable (3)  |  Unity (81)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Engineering is quite different from science. Scientists try to understand nature. Engineers try to make things that do not exist in nature. Engineers stress invention. To embody an invention the engineer must put his idea in concrete terms, and design something that people can use. That something can be a device, a gadget, a material, a method, a computing program, an innovative experiment, a new solution to a problem, or an improvement on what is existing. Since a design has to be concrete, it must have its geometry, dimensions, and characteristic numbers. Almost all engineers working on new designs find that they do not have all the needed information. Most often, they are limited by insufficient scientific knowledge. Thus they study mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and mechanics. Often they have to add to the sciences relevant to their profession. Thus engineering sciences are born.
Y.C. Fung and P. Tong, Classical and Computational Solid Mechanics (2001), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Biology (232)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Design (203)  |  Device (71)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Find (1014)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Idea (881)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Information (173)  |  Invention (400)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Problem (731)  |  Profession (108)  |  Science And Engineering (16)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Solution (282)  |  Something (718)  |  Stress (22)  |  Study (701)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Try (296)  |  Understand (648)  |  Use (771)

Eskimos living in a world of ice have no word at all for that substance—and this has been cited as evidence of their primitive mentality. But ice as such is of no interest to an Eskimo; what is of interest, indeed of vital importance, are the different kinds of ice with which he must deal virtually every day of his life.
As co-author with Floyd W. Matson, in The Human Connection (1979), 174. More often seen without explanatory context, as “The Eskimos live among ice all their lives but have no single word for ice,” for example, in Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America, The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar (1989), 111.
Science quotes on:  |  Deal (192)  |  Eskimo (2)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Ice (58)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Interest (416)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mentality (5)  |  Must (1525)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Substance (253)  |  Vital (89)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

Every theoretical physicist who is any good knows six or seven different theoretical representations for exactly the same physics. He knows that they are all equivalent, and that nobody is ever going to be able to decide which one is right at that level, but he keeps them in his head, hoping that they will give him different ideas for guessing.
In The Character of Physical Law (1965, 2001), 168.
Science quotes on:  |  Decide (50)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Good (906)  |  Guess (67)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Level (69)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Representation (55)  |  Right (473)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Will (2350)

Exper. I. I made a small hole in a window-shutter, and covered it with a piece of thick paper, which I perforated with a fine needle. For greater convenience of observation I placed a small looking-glass without the window-shutter, in such a position as to reflect the sun's light, in a direction nearly horizontal, upon the opposite wall, and to cause the cone of diverging light to pass over a table on which were several little screens of card-paper. I brought into the sunbeam a slip of card, about one-thirtieth of an inch in breadth, and observed its shadow, either on the wall or on other cards held at different distances. Besides the fringes of colour on each side of the shadow, the shadow itself was divided by similar parallel fringes, of smaller dimensions, differing in number, according to the distance at which the shadow was observed, but leaving the middle of the shadow always white. Now these fringes were the joint effects of the portions of light passing on each side of the slip of card and inflected, or rather diffracted, into the shadow. For, a little screen being placed a few inches from the card, so as to receive either edge of the shadow on its margin, all the fringes which had before been observed in the shadow on the wall, immediately disappeared, although the light inflected on the other side was allowed to retain its course, and although this light must have undergone any modification that the proximity of the other edge of the slip of card might have been capable of occasioning... Nor was it for want of a sufficient intensity of light that one of the two portions was incapable of producing the fringes alone; for when they were both uninterrupted, the lines appeared, even if the intensity was reduced to one-tenth or one-twentieth.
'Experiments and Calculations Relative to Physical Optics' (read in 1803), Philosophical Transactions (1804), 94, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Alone (324)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Breadth (15)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cone (8)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Course (413)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Distance (171)  |  Divided (50)  |  Edge (51)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fringe (7)  |  Glass (94)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hole (17)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Interference (22)  |  Joint (31)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Looking (191)  |  Modification (57)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Portion (86)  |  Receive (117)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Retain (57)  |  Screen (8)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Side (236)  |  Small (489)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunbeam (3)  |  Table (105)  |  Two (936)  |  Uninterrupted (7)  |  Wall (71)  |  Want (504)  |  White (132)  |  Window (59)

Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate rival theories for explaining them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome.
'Evolution as Fact and Theory', in Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes (1983, 1994), Chap. 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Apple (46)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Data (162)  |  Debate (40)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Hierarchy (17)  |  Idea (881)  |  Increasing (4)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Mid-Air (3)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Outcome (15)  |  Pending (2)  |  Rival (20)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Structure (365)  |  Suspend (11)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Gravitation (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  World (1850)

Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.
In Pensées (1670), Section 10, 11. As translated in Blaise Pascal and W.F. Trotter (trans.), 'Thoughts', No. 248, collected in Charles W. Eliot (ed.), The Harvard Classics (1910), Vol. 48, 92. From the original French, “La foi est différente de la preuve: l’une est humaine, l’autre est un don de Dieu,” in Ernest Havet (ed.), Pensées de Pascal (1892), 276.
Science quotes on:  |  Faith (209)  |  Former (138)  |  Gift (105)  |  God (776)  |  Human (1512)  |  Latter (21)  |  Proof (304)

Finally in a large population, divided and subdivided into partially isolated local races of small size, there is a continually shifting differentiation among the latter (intensified by local differences in selection but occurring under uniform and static conditions) which inevitably brings about an indefinitely continuing, irreversible, adaptive, and much more rapid evolution of the species. Complete isolation in this case, and more slowly in the preceding, originates new species differing for the most part in nonadaptive parallel orthogenetic lines, in accordance with the conditions. It is suggested, in conclusion, that the differing statistical situations to be expected among natural species are adequate to account for the different sorts of evolutionary processes which have been described, and that, in particular, conditions in nature are often such as to bring about the state of poise among opposing tendencies on which an indefinitely continuing evolutionary process depends.
In 'Evolution In Mendelian Populations', Genetics, (1931), 16, 158.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Condition (362)  |  Depend (238)  |  Difference (355)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Divided (50)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Large (398)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Originate (39)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Partially (8)  |  Population (115)  |  Process (439)  |  Race (278)  |  Selection (130)  |  Situation (117)  |  Small (489)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Statistics (170)

Finally, I aim at giving denominations to things, as agreeable to truth as possible. I am not ignorant that words, like money, possess an ideal value, and that great danger of confusion may be apprehended from a change of names; in the mean time it cannot be denied that chemistry, like the other sciences, was formerly filled with improper names. In different branches of knowledge, we see those matters long since reformed: why then should chemistry, which examines the real nature of things, still adopt vague names, which suggest false ideas, and favour strongly of ignorance and imposition? Besides, there is little doubt but that many corrections may be made without any inconvenience.
Physical and Chemical Essays (1784), Vol. I, xxxvii.
Science quotes on:  |  Agreeable (20)  |  Aim (175)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Correction (42)  |  Danger (127)  |  Denomination (6)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Error (339)  |  Examine (84)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Money (178)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reform (22)  |  Reformed (4)  |  See (1094)  |  Still (614)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vague (50)  |  Value (393)  |  Why (491)  |  Word (650)

Finite systems of deterministic ordinary nonlinear differential equations may be designed to represent forced dissipative hydrodynamic flow. Solutions of these equations can be identified with trajectories in phase space. For those systems with bounded solutions, it is found that nonperiodic solutions are ordinarily unstable with respect to small modifications, so that slightly differing initial states can evolve into considerably different states. Systems with bounded solutions are shown to possess bounded numerical solutions.
A simple system representing cellular convection is solved numerically. All of the solutions are found to be unstable, and almost all of them are nonperiodic.
The feasibility of very-long-range weather prediction is examined in the light of these results
Abstract from his landmark paper introducing Chaos Theory in relation to weather prediction, 'Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow', Journal of the Atmospheric Science (Mar 1963), 20, 130.
Science quotes on:  |  Bound (120)  |  Chaos Theory (4)  |  Convection (3)  |  Design (203)  |  Differential Equation (18)  |  Equation (138)  |  Feasibility (4)  |  Finite (60)  |  Flow (89)  |  Hydrodynamics (5)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modification (57)  |  Nonlinear (4)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Phase (37)  |  Phase Space (2)  |  Possess (157)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Range (104)  |  Represent (157)  |  Respect (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Space (523)  |  State (505)  |  System (545)  |  Unstable (9)  |  Weather (49)  |  Weather Prediction (2)

First, by what means it is that a Plant, or any Part of it, comes to Grow, a Seed to put forth a Root and Trunk... How the Aliment by which a Plant is fed, is duly prepared in its several Parts ... How not only their Sizes, but also their Shapes are so exceedingly various ... Then to inquire, What should be the reason of their various Motions; that the Root should descend; that its descent should sometimes be perpendicular, sometimes more level: That the Trunk doth ascend, and that the ascent thereof, as to the space of Time wherein it is made, is of different measures... Further, what may be the Causes as of the Seasons of their Growth; so of the Periods of their Lives; some being Annual, others Biennial, others Perennial ... what manner the Seed is prepared, formed and fitted for Propagation.
'An Idea of a Philosophical History of Plants', in The Anatomy of Plants With an Idea of a Philosophical History of Plants and Several Other Lectures Read Before the Royal Society (1682), 3-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascend (30)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Descend (49)  |  Descent (30)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Live (650)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perennial (9)  |  Period (200)  |  Plant (320)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Reason (766)  |  Root (121)  |  Season (47)  |  Seed (97)  |  Space (523)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Various (205)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 Linnaeus, Homo sapiens was both special and not special ... Special and not special have come to mean nonbiological and biological, or nurture and nature. These later polarizations are nonsensical. Humans are animals and everything we do lies within our biological potential ... the statement that humans are animals does not imply that our specific patterns of behavior and social arrangements are in any way directly determined by our genes. Potentiality and determination are different concepts.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Biological (137)  |  Both (496)  |  Concept (242)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Directly (25)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  Gene (105)  |  Homo Sapiens (23)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imply (20)  |  Late (119)  |  Lie (370)  |  Carolus Linnaeus (36)  |  Mean (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Polarization (4)  |  Potential (75)  |  Potentiality (9)  |  Social (261)  |  Special (188)  |  Specific (98)  |  Statement (148)  |  Way (1214)

For more than ten years, my theory was in limbo. Then, finally, in the late 1980s, physicists at Princeton said, “There’s nothing wrong with this theory. It’s the only one that works, and we have to open out minds to hyperspace.” We weren’t destined to discover this theory for another 100 years because it’s so bizarre, so different from everything we’d been doing. We didn’t use the normal sequence of discoveries to get to it.
Describing reaction to his superstring theory of hyperspace which mathematically relates the universe’s basic forces.
Quoted in Nina L. Diamond, Voices of Truth (2000), 326.
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Destined (42)  |  Discover (571)  |  Doing (277)  |  Everything (489)  |  Force (497)  |  Hyperspace (3)  |  Late (119)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Open (277)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Sequence (68)  |  String Theory (14)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)

For the holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word, the former as the dictate of the Holy Ghost and the latter as the observant executrix of God's commands. It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned. But Nature, on the other hand, is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men. For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words.
Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany: Concerning the Use of Biblical Quotations in Matters of Science (1615), trans. Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957), 182-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Abstruse (12)  |  Alike (60)  |  Bare (33)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Call (781)  |  Care (203)  |  Command (60)  |  Concern (239)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Differ (88)  |  Divine (112)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Former (138)  |  Ghost (36)  |  God (776)  |  Holy (35)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Inexorable (10)  |  Law (913)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Operation (221)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passage (52)  |  Physical (518)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Prove (261)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Speak (240)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understandable (12)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Word (650)

For the little that one has reflected on the origin of our knowledge, it is easy to perceive that we can acquire it only by means of comparison. That which is absolutely incomparable is wholly incomprehensible. God is the only example that we could give here. He cannot be comprehended, because he cannot be compared. But all which is susceptible of comparison, everything that we can perceive by different aspects, all that we can consider relatively, can always be judged according to our knowledge.
'Histoire naturelle de l'Homme', Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière, Avec la Description du Cabinet du Roi (1749), Vol. 2, 431. Trans. Phillip R. Sloan.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Consider (428)  |  Easy (213)  |  Everything (489)  |  God (776)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Observation (593)  |  Origin (250)  |  Wholly (88)

For the sake of persons of ... different types, scientific truth should be presented in different forms, and should be regarded as equally scientific, whether it appears in the robust form and the vivid coloring of a physical illustration, or in the tenuity and paleness of a symbolic expression.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Color (155)  |  Equally (129)  |  Expression (181)  |  Form (976)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Person (366)  |  Physical (518)  |  Present (630)  |  Regard (312)  |  Robust (7)  |  Sake (61)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Truth (23)  |  Symbolic (16)  |  Tenuity (2)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Type (171)  |  Vivid (25)

For those who want some proof that physicists are human, the proof is in the idiocy of all the different units which they use for measuring energy.
In The Character of Physical Law (1967, 2001), 75.
Science quotes on:  |  Energy (373)  |  Human (1512)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Proof (304)  |  Unit (36)  |  Use (771)  |  Want (504)

Fortunately Nature herself seems to have prepared for us the means of supplying that want which arises from the impossibility of making certain experiments on living bodies. The different classes of animals exhibit almost all the possible combinations of organs: we find them united, two and two, three and three, and in all proportions; while at the same time it may be said that there is no organ of which some class or some genus is not deprived. A careful examination of the effects which result from these unions and privations is therefore sufficient to enable us to form probable conclusions respecting the nature and use of each organ, or form of organ. In the same manner we may proceed to ascertain the use of the different parts of the same organ, and to discover those which are essential, and separate them from those which are only accessory. It is sufficient to trace the organ through all the classes which possess it, and to examine what parts constantly exist, and what change is produced in the respective functions of the organ, by the absence of those parts which are wanting in certain classes.
Letter to Jean Claude Mertrud. In Lectures on Comparative Anatomy (1802), Vol. I, xxiii--xxiv.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Arise (162)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Class (168)  |  Classification (102)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Discover (571)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enable (122)  |  Essential (210)  |  Examination (102)  |  Examine (84)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Function (235)  |  Genus (27)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Living (492)  |  Making (300)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organ (118)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Produced (187)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Result (700)  |  Separate (151)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Two (936)  |  Union (52)  |  Use (771)  |  Want (504)

Forty years as an astronomer have not quelled my enthusiasm for lying outside after dark, staring up at the stars. It isn’t only the beauty of the night sky that thrills me. It’s the sense I have that some of those points of light—which ones I can’t even guess—are the home stars of beings not so different from us, daily cares and all, who look across space and wonder, just as we do.
In Frank Drake and Dava Sobel, Is Anyone Out There?: The Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (1992), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Being (1276)  |  Care (203)  |  Daily (91)  |  Dark (145)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Forty (4)  |  Home (184)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  Lying (55)  |  Night (133)  |  Outside (141)  |  Point (584)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sky (174)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stare (9)  |  Stars (304)  |  Thrill (26)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Year (963)

From all we have learnt about the structure of living matter, we must be prepared to find it working in a manner that cannot be reduced to the ordinary laws of physics. And that not on the ground that there is any “new force” or what not, directing the behavior of the single atoms within a living organism, but because the construction is different from anything we have yet tested in the physical laboratory.
What is Life? (1956), 74.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Construction (114)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Ground (222)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Organism (231)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Single (365)  |  Structure (365)  |  Test (221)

From him [Wilard Bennett] I learned how different a working laboratory is from a student laboratory. The answers are not known!
[While an undergraduate, doing experimental measurements in the laboratory of his professor, at Ohio State University.]
From autobiography on Nobel Prize website.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Doing (277)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Known (453)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Professor (133)  |  State (505)  |  Student (317)  |  Undergraduate (17)  |  University (130)

From the rocket we can see the huge sphere of the planet in one or another phase of the Moon. We can see how the sphere rotates, and how within a few hours it shows all its sides successively ... and we shall observe various points on the surface of the Earth for several minutes and from different sides very closely. This picture is so majestic, attractive and infinitely varied that I wish with all my soul that you and I could see it. (1911)
As translated in William E. Burrows, The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth (2007), 147. From Tsiolkovsky's 'The Investigation of Universal Space by Means of Reactive Devices', translated in K.E. Tsiolkovsky, Works on Rocket Technology (NASA, NASATT F-243, n.d.), 76-77.
Science quotes on:  |  Attractive (25)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Hour (192)  |  Infinitely (13)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Minute (129)  |  Moon (252)  |  Observe (179)  |  Phase (37)  |  Picture (148)  |  Planet (402)  |  Point (584)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Rotate (8)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Side (236)  |  Soul (235)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Varied (6)  |  Various (205)  |  Wish (216)

Fundamentally, as is readily seen, there exists neither force nor matter. Both are abstractions of things, such as they are, looked at from different standpoints. They complete and presuppose each other. Isolated they are meaningless. … Matter is not a go-cart, to and from which force, like a horse, can be now harnessed, now loosed. A particle of iron is and remains exactly the same thing, whether it shoot through space as a meteoric stone, dash along on the tire of an engine-wheel, or roll in a blood-corpuscle through the veins of a poet. … Its properties are eternal, unchangeable, untransferable.
From the original German text in 'Über die Lebenskraft', Preface to Untersuchungen über tierische Elektrizität (1848), xliii. As translated in Ludwig Büchner, Force and Matter: Or, Principles of the Natural Order of the Universe (1891), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Blood (144)  |  Both (496)  |  Complete (209)  |  Corpuscle (14)  |  Engine (99)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Force (497)  |  Force And Matter (3)  |  Harness (25)  |  Horse (78)  |  Iron (99)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Look (584)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meaningless (17)  |  Meteor (19)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Poet (97)  |  Presuppose (15)  |  Property (177)  |  Remain (355)  |  Roll (41)  |  Space (523)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Stone (168)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Unchangeable (11)  |  Vein (27)  |  Wagon (10)  |  Wheel (51)

Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton…. The relationship between these very different personalities is like that of two complementary stages of a rocket. Galileo, the argumentative “wrangler” who demanded that the universe be examined through a telescope rather than by means of a philosophy book, provided the first liftoff, and Newton, the secretive mathematician who searched among his notes to find a mislaid proof for universal gravitation, put the world into orbit.
In 'Foreword', The Universe of Galileo and Newton (1964), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Complementary (15)  |  Demand (131)  |  Examine (84)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Liftoff (2)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Means (587)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Note (39)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Personality (66)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Proof (304)  |  Provide (79)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Search (175)  |  Stage (152)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Universe (900)  |  World (1850)

Going by railroad I do not consider as travelling at all; it is merely “being sent” to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.
In Modern Painters (1856, 1872), Vol. 3, 300. James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 128:25.
Science quotes on:  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Consider (428)  |  Do (1905)  |  Little (717)  |  Merely (315)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Travelling (17)

Gold is found in our own part of the world; not to mention the gold extracted from the earth in India by the ants, and in Scythia by the Griffins. Among us it is procured in three different ways; the first of which is in the shape of dust, found in running streams. … A second mode of obtaining gold is by sinking shafts or seeking among the debris of mountains …. The third method of obtaining gold surpasses the labors of the giants even: by the aid of galleries driven to a long distance, mountains are excavated by the light of torches, the duration of which forms the set times for work, the workmen never seeing the light of day for many months together.
In Pliny and John Bostock (trans.), The Natural History of Pliny (1857), Vol. 6, 99-101.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Ant (34)  |  Debris (7)  |  Distance (171)  |  Dust (68)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Excavate (4)  |  Extract (40)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Gallery (7)  |  Giant (73)  |  Gold (101)  |  India (23)  |  Labor (200)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Mention (84)  |  Method (531)  |  Month (91)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Never (1089)  |  Procure (6)  |  Run (158)  |  Running (61)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Seek (218)  |  Set (400)  |  Shaft (5)  |  Stream (83)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Torch (13)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  Workman (13)  |  World (1850)

Gradually, at various points in our childhoods, we discover different forms of conviction. There’s the rock-hard certainty of personal experience (“I put my finger in the fire and it hurt,”), which is probably the earliest kind we learn. Then there’s the logically convincing, which we probably come to first through maths, in the context of Pythagoras’s theorem or something similar, and which, if we first encounter it at exactly the right moment, bursts on our minds like sunrise with the whole universe playing a great chord of C Major.
In short essay, 'Dawkins, Fairy Tales, and Evidence', 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Burst (41)  |  Bursting (3)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Chord (4)  |  Context (31)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Convincing (9)  |  Discover (571)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experience (494)  |  Finger (48)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hurting (2)  |  Kind (564)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Logic (311)  |  Major (88)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  Music (133)  |  Playing (42)  |  Point (584)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Right (473)  |  Rock (176)  |  Something (718)  |  Sunrise (14)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Through (846)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Whole (756)

Haemoglobin is a very large molecule by ordinary standards, containing about ten thousand atoms, but the chances are that your haemoglobin and mine are identical, and significantly different from that of a pig or horse. You may be impressed by how much human beings differ from one another, but if you were to look into the fine details of the molecules of which they are constructed, you would be astonished by their similarity.
In Of Molecules and Men (1966, 2004), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chance (244)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Detail (150)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Fine (37)  |  Haemoglobin (4)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Identical (55)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Large (398)  |  Look (584)  |  Mine (78)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Pig (8)  |  Significance (114)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Standard (64)  |  Thousand (340)

Have you ever watched an eagle held captive in a zoo, fat and plump and full of food and safe from danger too?
Then have you seen another wheeling high up in the sky, thin and hard and battle-scarred, but free to soar and fly?
Well, which have you pitied the caged one or his brother? Though safe and warm from foe or storm, the captive, not the other!
There’s something of the eagle in climbers, don’t you see; a secret thing, perhaps the soul, that clamors to be free.
It’s a different sort of freedom from the kind we often mean, not free to work and eat and sleep and live in peace serene.
But freedom like a wild thing to leap and soar and strive, to struggle with the icy blast, to really be alive.
That’s why we climb the mountain’s peak from which the cloud-veils flow, to stand and watch the eagle fly, and soar, and wheel... below...
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Below (26)  |  Blast (13)  |  Brother (47)  |  Cage (12)  |  Captive (2)  |  Climb (39)  |  Climber (7)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Danger (127)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Eat (108)  |  Fat (11)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fly (153)  |  Foe (11)  |  Food (213)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Full (68)  |  Hard (246)  |  High (370)  |  Hold (96)  |  Icy (3)  |  Kind (564)  |  Leap (57)  |  Live (650)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Often (109)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peace (116)  |  Peak (20)  |  Pity (16)  |  Really (77)  |  Safe (61)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Serene (5)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Soar (23)  |  Something (718)  |  Sort (50)  |  Soul (235)  |  Stand (284)  |  Storm (56)  |  Strive (53)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Thin (18)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Veil (27)  |  Warm (74)  |  Watch (118)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Wheeling (3)  |  Why (491)  |  Wild (96)  |  Work (1402)  |  Zoo (9)

He (Anaxagoras) is said to have been twenty years old at the time of Xerxes' crossing, and to have lived to seventy-two. Apollodorus says in his Chronicles that he was born in the seventieth Olympiad (500-497 B.C.) and died in the first year of the eighty-eighth (428/7). He began to be a philosopher at Athens in the archonship of Callias (456/5), at the age of twenty, as Demetrius Phalereus tells us in his Register of Archons, and they say he spent thirty years there. … There are different accounts given of his trial. Sotion, in his Succession of Philosophers, says that he was prosecuted by Cleon for impiety, because he maintained that the sun was a red hot mass of metal, and after that Pericles, his pupil, had made a speech in his defence, he was fined five talents and exiled. Satyrus in his Uves, on the other hand, says that the charge was brought by Thucydides in his political campaign against Pericles; and he adds that the charge was not only for the impiety but for Medism as well; and he was condemned to death in his absence. ... Finally he withdrew to Lampsacus, and there died. It is said that when the rulers of the city asked him what privilege he wished to be granted, he replied that the children should be given a holiday every year in the month in which he died. The custom is preserved to the present day. When he died the Lampsacenes buried him with full honours.
Diogenes Laërtius 2.7. In G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield (eds.), The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (1983), p. 353.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Against (332)  |  Age (509)  |  Anaxagoras (11)  |  Ask (420)  |  Charge (63)  |  Children (201)  |  City (87)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Custom (44)  |  Death (406)  |  Defence (16)  |  First (1302)  |  Grant (76)  |  Holiday (12)  |  Honour (58)  |  Hot (63)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mass (160)  |  Metal (88)  |  Month (91)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Political (124)  |  Present (630)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Register (22)  |  Ruler (21)  |  Say (989)  |  Speech (66)  |  Spent (85)  |  Succession (80)  |  Sun (407)  |  Talent (99)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trial (59)  |  Two (936)  |  Wish (216)  |  Year (963)

He [Lord Bacon] appears to have been utterly ignorant of the discoveries which had just been made by Kepler’s calculations … he does not say a word about Napier’s Logarithms, which had been published only nine years before and reprinted more than once in the interval. He complained that no considerable advance had been made in Geometry beyond Euclid, without taking any notice of what had been done by Archimedes and Apollonius. He saw the importance of determining accurately the specific gravities of different substances, and himself attempted to form a table of them by a rude process of his own, without knowing of the more scientific though still imperfect methods previously employed by Archimedes, Ghetaldus and Porta. He speaks of the εὕρηκα of Archimedes in a manner which implies that he did not clearly appreciate either the problem to be solved or the principles upon which the solution depended. In reviewing the progress of Mechanics, he makes no mention either of Archimedes, or Stevinus, Galileo, Guldinus, or Ghetaldus. He makes no allusion to the theory of Equilibrium. He observes that a ball of one pound weight will fall nearly as fast through the air as a ball of two, without alluding to the theory of acceleration of falling bodies, which had been made known by Galileo more than thirty years before. He proposed an inquiry with regard to the lever,—namely, whether in a balance with arms of different length but equal weight the distance from the fulcrum has any effect upon the inclination—though the theory of the lever was as well understood in his own time as it is now. … He speaks of the poles of the earth as fixed, in a manner which seems to imply that he was not acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes; and in another place, of the north pole being above and the south pole below, as a reason why in our hemisphere the north winds predominate over the south.
From Spedding’s 'Preface' to De Interpretations Naturae Proœmium, in The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 3, 511-512. [Note: the Greek word “εὕρηκα” is “Eureka” —Webmaster.]
Science quotes on:  |  Acceleration (12)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Advance (298)  |  Air (366)  |  Apollonius (6)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Balance (82)  |  Ball (64)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Body (557)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Complain (10)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Depend (238)  |  Determine (152)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Employ (115)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Equinox (5)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Eureka (13)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fast (49)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Form (976)  |  Fulcrum (3)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Hemisphere (5)  |  Himself (461)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Importance (299)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Known (453)  |  Length (24)  |  Lever (13)  |  Logarithm (12)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mention (84)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  John Napier (4)  |  Nearly (137)  |  North Pole (5)  |  North Wind (2)  |  Notice (81)  |  Observe (179)  |  Pole (49)  |  Pound (15)  |  Precession (4)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regard (312)  |  Saw (160)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  South (39)  |  South Pole (3)  |  Speak (240)  |  Specific (98)  |  Specific Gravity (2)  |  Still (614)  |  Substance (253)  |  Table (105)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Weight (140)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

He who studies it [Nature] has continually the exquisite pleasure of discerning or half discerning and divining laws; regularities glimmer through an appearance of confusion, analogies between phenomena of a different order suggest themselves and set the imagination in motion; the mind is haunted with the sense of a vast unity not yet discoverable or nameable. There is food for contemplation which never runs short; you are gazing at an object which is always growing clearer, and yet always, in the very act of growing clearer, presenting new mysteries.
From 'Natural History', Macmillan's Magazine (1875), 31, 366.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Clearer (4)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Continuing (4)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Discover (571)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Food (213)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Glimmer (5)  |  Growing (99)  |  Half (63)  |  Haunting (3)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Law (913)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Presenting (2)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Run (158)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Short (200)  |  Study (701)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Unity (81)  |  Vast (188)

He who wishes to explain Generation must take for his theme the organic body and its constituent parts, and philosophize about them; he must show how these parts originated, and how they came to be in that relation in which they stand to each other. But he who learns to know a thing not only from its phenomena, but also its reasons and causes; and who, therefore, not by the phenomena merely, but by these also, is compelled to say: “The thing must be so, and it cannot be otherwise; it is necessarily of such a character; it must have such qualities; it is impossible for it to possess others”—understands the thing not only historically but truly philosophically, and he has a philosophic knowledge of it. Our own Theory of Generation is to be such a philosphic comprehension of an organic body, a very different one from one merely historical. (1764)
Quoted as an epigraph to Chap. 2, in Ernst Haeckel, The Evolution of Man, (1886), Vol 1, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Cause (561)  |  Character (259)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Explain (334)  |  Generation (256)  |  Historical (70)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Merely (315)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Organic (161)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possess (157)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  Show (353)  |  Stand (284)  |  Theme (17)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truly (118)  |  Understand (648)

Hidden within the vast spaces of the Milky Way are over a billion targets for the search for intelligent life. … A decision has to be made as to which stars should be the first objects of this search, … [But] only stars not much different from the sun are likely to support intelligent creatures. So the search should concentrate on … the nearest of these stars first, since the inverse square law indicates that signals from the closest stars would be the strongest received on the earth.
In Intelligent Life in Space (1962), 99-100.
Science quotes on:  |  Billion (104)  |  Close (77)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Creature (242)  |  Decision (98)  |  Earth (1076)  |  First (1302)  |  Hide (70)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Inverse Square Law (5)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Receive (117)  |  Search (175)  |  Signal (29)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Strong (182)  |  Sun (407)  |  Support (151)  |  Target (13)  |  Vast (188)

Higher Mathematics is the art of reasoning about numerical relations between natural phenomena; and the several sections of Higher Mathematics are different modes of viewing these relations.
In Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry and Physics (1902), Prologue, xvii.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Definitions and Objects of Mathematics (33)  |  Higher Mathematics (7)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mode (43)  |  Natural (810)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Relation (166)  |  Section (11)  |  Several (33)  |  View (496)

Historical science is not worse, more restricted, or less capable of achieving firm conclusions because experiment, prediction, and subsumption under invariant laws of nature do not represent its usual working methods. The sciences of history use a different mode of explanation, rooted in the comparative and observational richness in our data. We cannot see a past event directly, but science is usually based on inference, not unvarnished observation (you don’t see electrons, gravity, or black holes either).
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Badly (32)  |  Base (120)  |  Black Hole (17)  |  Black Holes (4)  |  Capable (174)  |  Comparative (14)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Data (162)  |  Directly (25)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electron (96)  |  Event (222)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Firm (47)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Inference (45)  |  Invariant (10)  |  Law (913)  |  Less (105)  |  Method (531)  |  Mode (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observational (15)  |  Past (355)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Represent (157)  |  Restrict (13)  |  Richness (15)  |  Root (121)  |  See (1094)  |  Subsumption (3)  |  Unvarnished (2)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  Work (1402)

Homologue. The same organ in different animals under every variety of form and function.
'Glossary', Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals Delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1843 (1843), 379.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Difference (355)  |  Form (976)  |  Function (235)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Organ (118)  |  Same (166)  |  Variation (93)  |  Variety (138)

How different would geological literature be to-day if men had tried to think and write like Playfair!
In The Founders of Geology (1905), 298. He was praising the logical arrangement and clarity of Playfair’s classic book, Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802). Geikie added, “Of this great classic it is impossible to speak too highly … it may be read with as much profit and pleasure as when it first appeared.”
Science quotes on:  |  Geology (240)  |  Literature (116)  |  John Playfair (13)  |  Think (1122)  |  To-Day (6)  |  Try (296)  |  Write (250)

How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.
'Prometheus.' The Roving Mind (1983), Chap 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Artist (97)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Cold (115)  |  Doing (277)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Follow (389)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Interconnection (12)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leap (57)  |  People (1031)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reason (766)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Speak (240)  |  Step (234)  |  Step By Step (11)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Wrong (246)

Hubble's observations suggested that there was a time, called the big bang, when the universe was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense. Under such conditions all the laws of science, and therefore all ability to predict the future, would break down. If there were events earlier than this time, then they could not affect what happens at the present time. Their existence can be ignored because it would have no observational consequences. One may say that time had a beginning at the big bang, in the sense that earlier times simply would not be defined. It should be emphasized that this beginning in time is very different from those that had been considered previously. In an unchanging universe a beginning in time is something that has to be imposed by some being outside the universe; there is no physical necessity for a beginning. One can imagine that God created the universe at literally any time in the past. On the other hand, if the universe is expanding, there may be physical reasons why there had to be a beginning. One could still imagine that God created the universe at the instant of the big bang, or even afterwards in just such a way as to make it look as though there had been a big bang, but it would be meaningless to suppose that it was created before the big bang. An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job!
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (1988), 8-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Bang (29)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Break (109)  |  Call (781)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consider (428)  |  Creator (97)  |  Down (455)  |  Event (222)  |  Existence (481)  |  Future (467)  |  God (776)  |  Happen (282)  |  Edwin Powell Hubble (29)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Instant (46)  |  Job (86)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Literally (30)  |  Look (584)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observational (15)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Past (355)  |  Physical (518)  |  Predict (86)  |  Present (630)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  Sense (785)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Still (614)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)

Human language is in some ways similar to, but in other ways vastly different from, other kinds of animal communication. We simply have no idea about its evolutionary history, though many people have speculated about its possible origins. There is, for instance, the “bow-bow” theory, that language started from attempts to imitate animal sounds. Or the “ding-dong” theory, that it arose from natural sound-producing responses. Or the “pooh-pooh” theory, that it began with violent outcries and exclamations.
We have no way of knowing whether the kinds of men represented by the earliest fossils could talk or not…
Language does not leave fossils, at least not until it has become written.
Man in Nature (1961), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Become (821)  |  Bow (15)  |  Communication (101)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exclamation (3)  |  Fossil (143)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imitate (18)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Language (308)  |  Natural (810)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outcry (3)  |  People (1031)  |  Possible (560)  |  Represent (157)  |  Response (56)  |  Similar (36)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Start (237)  |  Talk (108)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Violent (17)  |  Way (1214)  |  Write (250)

I am afraid all we can do is to accept the paradox and try to accommodate ourselves to it, as we have done to so many paradoxes lately in modern physical theories. We shall have to get accustomed to the idea that the change of the quantity R, commonly called the 'radius of the universe', and the evolutionary changes of stars and stellar systems are two different processes, going on side by side without any apparent connection between them. After all the 'universe' is an hypothesis, like the atom, and must be allowed the freedom to have properties and to do things which would be contradictory and impossible for a finite material structure.
Kosmos (1932), 133.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Accommodate (17)  |  Accommodation (9)  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Afraid (24)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Atom (381)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Connection (171)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Finite (60)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Material (366)  |  Modern (402)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Physical (518)  |  Process (439)  |  Property (177)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Radius (5)  |  Side (236)  |  Side By Side (2)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Stellar (4)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Try (296)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)

I am pleased, however, to see the efforts of hypothetical speculation, because by the collisions of different hypotheses, truth may be elicited and science advanced in the end.
Letter (5 Sep 1822) to Mr. George F. Hopkins. Collected in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence (1854), Vol. 7, 260.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Collision (16)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elicit (2)  |  End (603)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Hypothetical (6)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  See (1094)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Truth (1109)

I am quite sure that our views on evolution would be very different had biologists studied genetics and natural selection before and not after most of them were convinced that evolution had occurred.
Attributed.
Science quotes on:  |  Biologist (70)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Selection (130)  |  View (496)

I approached the bulk of my schoolwork as a chore rather than an intellectual adventure. The tedium was relieved by a few courses that seem to be qualitatively different. Geometry was the first exciting course I remember. Instead of memorizing facts, we were asked to think in clear, logical steps. Beginning from a few intuitive postulates, far reaching consequences could be derived, and I took immediately to the sport of proving theorems.
Autobiography in Gösta Ekspong (ed.), Nobel Lectures: Physics 1996-2000 (2002), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Approach (112)  |  Ask (420)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Biography (254)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Logic (311)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Proof (304)  |  Remember (189)  |  School (227)  |  Sport (23)  |  Step (234)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Think (1122)

I believe that life can go on forever. It takes a million years to evolve a new species, ten million for a new genus, one hundred million for a class, a billion for a phylum—and that’s usually as far as your imagination goes. In a billion years, it seems, intelligent life might be as different from humans as humans are from insects. But what would happen in another ten billion years? It’s utterly impossible to conceive of ourselves changing as drastically as that, over and over again. All you can say is, on that kind of time scale the material form that life would take is completely open. To change from a human being to a cloud may seem a big order, but it’s the kind of change you’d expect over billions of years.
Quoted in Omni (1986), 8, 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Billion (104)  |  Change (639)  |  Class (168)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Forever (111)  |  Form (976)  |  Genus (27)  |  Happen (282)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Insect (89)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Material (366)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Order (638)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Say (989)  |  Scale (122)  |  Species (435)  |  Time (1911)  |  Usually (176)  |  Year (963)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 confess, that very different from you, I do find sometimes scientific inspiration in mysticism … but this is counterbalanced by an immediate sense for mathematics.
Letter to Niels Bohr (1955). Quoted in Robert J. Scully, The Demon and the Quantum (2007), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Confess (42)  |  Do (1905)  |  Find (1014)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mysticism (14)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 despair of persuading people to drop the familiar and comforting tactic of dichotomy. Perhaps, instead, we might expand the framework of debates by seeking other dichotomies more appropriate than, or simply different from, the conventional divisions. All dichotomies are simplifications, but the rendition of a conflict along differing axes of several orthogonal dichotomies might provide an amplitude of proper intellectual space without forcing us to forgo our most comforting tool of thought.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Amplitude (4)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Axe (16)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Conventional (31)  |  Debate (40)  |  Despair (40)  |  Dichotomy (4)  |  Differ (88)  |  Division (67)  |  Drop (77)  |  Expand (56)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Force (497)  |  Forgo (4)  |  Framework (33)  |  Instead (23)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Persuade (11)  |  Proper (150)  |  Provide (79)  |  Seek (218)  |  Several (33)  |  Simplification (20)  |  Simply (53)  |  Space (523)  |  Tactic (9)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tool (129)

I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an exact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible to minds entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinary accountants fail to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires a mind like mine to perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the bottom up, and then from the top down, the result is always different. Again if you multiply a number by another number before you have had your tea, and then again after, the product will be different. It is also remarkable that the Post-tea product is more likely to agree with other people’s calculations than the Pre-tea result.
Letter to Mrs Arthur Severn (Jul 1878), collected in The Letters of a Noble Woman (Mrs. La Touche of Harristown) (1908), 50. Also in 'Gleanings Far and Near', Mathematical Gazette (May 1924), 12, 95.
Science quotes on:  |  Aberration (10)  |  Accountant (4)  |  Add (42)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Bottom (36)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Call (781)  |  Discernible (9)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Exact Science (11)  |  Fail (191)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hate (68)  |  Hide (70)  |  Law (913)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mine (78)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Noble (93)  |  Number (710)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Permutation (5)  |  Product (166)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Sum (103)  |  Tea (13)  |  Top (100)  |  Variation (93)  |  Will (2350)

I feel that the recent ruling of the United States Army and Navy regarding the refusal of colored blood donors is an indefensible one from any point of view. As you know, there is no scientific basis for the separation of the bloods of different races except on the basis of the individual blood types or groups. (1942)
Spencie Love, One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew (1996), 155-56, quoting as it appeared in Current Biography (1944), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Army (35)  |  Basis (180)  |  Blood (144)  |  Color (155)  |  Feel (371)  |  Group (83)  |  Individual (420)  |  Know (1538)  |  Navy (10)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Race (278)  |  Recent (78)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Separation (60)  |  State (505)  |  Type (171)  |  United States (31)  |  View (496)

I had observed that there were different lines exhibited in the spectra of different metals when ignited in the voltaic arc; and if I had had any reasonable amount of wit I ought to have seen the converse, viz., that by ignition different bodies show in their spectral lines the materials of which they are formed. If that thought had occured to my mind, I should have discovered the spectroscope before Kirchoff; but it didn’t.
Address, in 'Report to the Chemical Society's Jubilee', Nature (26 Mar 1891), 43, 493. Words as in original text, occured and Kirchoff are sic.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Arc (14)  |  Blunder (21)  |  Converse (9)  |  Discover (571)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Form (976)  |  Ignite (3)  |  Ignition (3)  |  Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (4)  |  Line (100)  |  Material (366)  |  Metal (88)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Occur (151)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Realize (157)  |  Remorse (9)  |  Research (753)  |  Show (353)  |  Spectral Line (5)  |  Spectroscope (3)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Thought (995)  |  Voltaic (9)  |  Wit (61)

I have a friendly feeling towards pigs generally, and consider them the most intelligent of beasts, not excepting the elephant and the anthropoid ape—the dog is not to be mentioned in this connection. I also like his disposition and attitude towards all other creatures, especially man. He is not suspicious, or shrinkingly submissive, like horses, cattle, and sheep; nor an impudent devil-may-care like the goat; nor hostile like the goose; nor condescending like the cat; nor a flattering parasite like the dog. He views us from a totally different, a sort of democratic, standpoint as fellow-citizens and brothers, and takes it for granted, or grunted, that we understand his language, and without servility or insolence he has a natural, pleasant, camerados-all or hail-fellow-well-met air with us.
In The Book of a Naturalist (1919), 295-296.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Anthropoid (9)  |  Ape (54)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Beast (58)  |  Brother (47)  |  Care (203)  |  Cat (52)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Comrade (4)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cow (42)  |  Creature (242)  |  Democratic (12)  |  Devil (34)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Dog (70)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Flattery (7)  |  Goat (9)  |  Goose (13)  |  Grant (76)  |  Grunt (3)  |  Horse (78)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Language (308)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mention (84)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Pig (8)  |  Pleasant (22)  |  Sheep (13)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Understand (648)  |  View (496)

I have always found small mammals enough like ourselves to feel that I could understand what their lives would be like, and yet different enough to make it a sort of adventure and exploration to see what they were doing.
Echoes of Bats and Men (1959), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Difference (355)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enough (341)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Life (1870)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Live (650)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Ourself (21)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

I have always liked horticulturists, people who make their living from orchards and gardens, whose hands are familiar with the feel of the bark, whose eyes are trained to distinguish the different varieties, who have a form memory. Their brains are not forever dealing with vague abstractions; they are satisfied with the romance which the seasons bring with them, and have the patience and fortitude to gamble their lives and fortunes in an industry which requires infinite patience, which raise hopes each spring and too often dashes them to pieces in fall. They are always conscious of sun and wind and rain; must always be alert lest they lose the chance of ploughing at the right moment, pruning at the right time, circumventing the attacks of insects and fungus diseases by quick decision and prompt action. They are manufacturers of a high order, whose business requires not only intelligence of a practical character, but necessitates an instinct for industry which is different from that required by the city dweller always within sight of other people and the sound of their voices. The successful horticulturist spends much time alone among his trees, away from the constant chatter of human beings.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Action (342)  |  Alert (13)  |  Alone (324)  |  Attack (86)  |  Bark (19)  |  Being (1276)  |  Brain (281)  |  Business (156)  |  Chance (244)  |  Character (259)  |  City (87)  |  Constant (148)  |  Decision (98)  |  Disease (340)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fall (243)  |  Feel (371)  |  Forever (111)  |  Form (976)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Fungus (8)  |  Garden (64)  |  High (370)  |  Hope (321)  |  Horticulture (10)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Industry (159)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Insect (89)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Lose (165)  |  Memory (144)  |  Moment (260)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Patience (58)  |  People (1031)  |  Practical (225)  |  Prompt (14)  |  Pruning (7)  |  Rain (70)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Right (473)  |  Romance (18)  |  Season (47)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spring (140)  |  Successful (134)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Train (118)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vague (50)  |  Wind (141)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Possible (560)  |  Thing (1914)

I have devoted my whole life to the study of Nature, and yet a single sentence may express all that I have done. I have shown that there is a correspondence between the succession of Fishes in geological times and the different stages of their growth in the egg,—this is all. It chanced to be a result that was found to apply to other groups and has led to other conclusions of a like nature.
In Methods of Study in Natural History (1863), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Egg (71)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Express (192)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Geology (240)  |  Growth (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Result (700)  |  Single (365)  |  Stage (152)  |  Study (701)  |  Succession (80)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whole (756)

I have no doubt that certain learned men, now that the novelty of the hypotheses in this work has been widely reported—for it establishes that the Earth moves, and indeed that the Sun is motionless in the middle of the universe—are extremely shocked, and think that the scholarly disciplines, rightly established once and for all, should not be upset. But if they are willing to judge the matter thoroughly, they will find that the author of this work has committed nothing which deserves censure. For it is proper for an astronomer to establish a record of the motions of the heavens with diligent and skilful observations, and then to think out and construct laws for them, or rather hypotheses, whatever their nature may be, since the true laws cannot be reached by the use of reason; and from those assumptions the motions can be correctly calculated, both for the future and for the past. Our author has shown himself outstandingly skilful in both these respects. Nor is it necessary that these hypotheses should be true, nor indeed even probable, but it is sufficient if they merely produce calculations which agree with the observations. … For it is clear enough that this subject is completely and simply ignorant of the laws which produce apparently irregular motions. And if it does work out any laws—as certainly it does work out very many—it does not do so in any way with the aim of persuading anyone that they are valid, but only to provide a correct basis for calculation. Since different hypotheses are sometimes available to explain one and the same motion (for instance eccentricity or an epicycle for the motion of the Sun) an astronomer will prefer to seize on the one which is easiest to grasp; a philosopher will perhaps look more for probability; but neither will grasp or convey anything certain, unless it has been divinely revealed to him. Let us therefore allow these new hypotheses also to become known beside the older, which are no more probable, especially since they are remarkable and easy; and let them bring with them the vast treasury of highly learned observations. And let no one expect from astronomy, as far as hypotheses are concerned, anything certain, since it cannot produce any such thing, in case if he seizes on things constructed for another other purpose as true, he departs from this discipline more foolish than he came to it.
Although this preface would have been assumed by contemporary readers to be written by Copernicus, it was unsigned. It is now believed to have been written and added at press time by Andreas Osiander (who was then overseeing the printing of the book). It suggests the earth’s motion as described was merely a mathematical device, and not to be taken as absolute reality. Text as given in 'To the Reader on the Hypotheses in this Work', Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543), translated by ‎Alistair Matheson Duncan (1976), 22-3. By adding this preface, Osiander wished to stave off criticism by theologians. See also the Andreas Osiander Quotes page of this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Author (175)  |  Available (80)  |  Basis (180)  |  Become (821)  |  Both (496)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Censure (5)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Completely (137)  |  Concern (239)  |  Construct (129)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enough (341)  |  Expect (203)  |  Explain (334)  |  Find (1014)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Future (467)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Himself (461)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Judge (114)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Look (584)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Probability (135)  |  Proper (150)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Record (161)  |  Respect (212)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Shock (38)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Sun (407)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Universe (900)  |  Upset (18)  |  Use (771)  |  Vast (188)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Willing (44)  |  Work (1402)

I have no doubt that many small strikes of a hammer will finally have as much effect as one very heavy blow: I say as much in quantity, although they may be different in mode, but in my opinion, everything happens in nature in a mathematical way, and there is no quantity that is not divisible into an infinity of parts; and Force, Movement, Impact etc. are types of quantities.
From the original French, “Ie ne doute point que plusieurs petits coups de Marteau ne fassent enfin autant d’effet qu’vn fort grand coup, ie dis autant en quantité, bien qu’ils puissent estre différents, in modo; mais apud me omnia fiunt Mathematicè in Natura, & il n’y a point de quantité qui ne soit divisible en une infinité de parties; Or la Force, le Mouuement, la Percussion, &c. sont des Especes de quantitez,” in letter (11 Mar 1640) to Père Marin Mersenne (AT III 36), collected in Lettres de Mr Descartes (1659), Vol. 2, 211-212. English version by Webmaster using online resources.
Science quotes on:  |  Blow (45)  |  Divisible (5)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Effect (414)  |  Everything (489)  |  Force (497)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Happen (282)  |  Impact (45)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Part (235)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Say (989)  |  Small (489)  |  Strike (72)  |  Type (171)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

I have recently observed and stated that the serum of normal people is capable of clumping the red cells of other healthy individuals... As commonly expressed, it can be said that in these cases at least two different kinds of agglutinins exist, one kind in A, the other in B, both together in C. The cells are naturally insensitive to the agglutinins in their own serum.
Ueber Agglutinationserscheinungen normalen menschlichen Blutes', Wiener klinische Wochenschrift (1901), 14, 1132-1134. Trans. Pauline M. H. Mazumdar.
Science quotes on:  |  Blood (144)  |  Both (496)  |  Capable (174)  |  Exist (458)  |  Express (192)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Immunology (14)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Red Cell (2)  |  Serum (11)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)

I have stated, that in the thirteen species of ground-finches [in the Galapagos Islands], a nearly perfect gradation may be traced, from a beak extraordinarily thick, to one so fine, that it may be compared to that of a warbler. I very much suspect, that certain members of the series are confined to different islands; therefore, if the collection had been made on any one island, it would not have presented so perfect a gradation. It is clear, that if several islands have each their peculiar species of the same genera, when these are placed together, they will have a wide range of character. But there is not space in this work, to enter on this curious subject.
Journal of Researches: into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World (1839), ch. XIX, 475.
Science quotes on:  |  Beagle (14)  |  Bird (163)  |  Certain (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Collection (68)  |  Curious (95)  |  Enter (145)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Galapagos (5)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Ground (222)  |  Island (49)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Present (630)  |  Range (104)  |  Series (153)  |  Space (523)  |  Species (435)  |  Subject (543)  |  Together (392)  |  Warbler (2)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

I kind of like scientists, in a funny way. … I'm kind of interested in genetics though. I think I would have liked to have met Gregor Mendel. Because he was a monk who just sort of figured this stuff out on his own. That's a higher mind, that’s a mind that's connected. … But I would like to know about Mendel, because I remember going to the Philippines and thinking “this is like Mendel’s garden” because it had been invaded by so many different countries over the years, and you could see the children shared the genetic traits of all their invaders over the years, and it made for this beautiful varietal garden.
Answering question: “If you could go back in time and have a conversation with one person, who would it be and why?” by Anniedog03 during an Internet Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) online session (17 Jan 2014).
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Connect (126)  |  Country (269)  |  Garden (64)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Interest (416)  |  Invader (2)  |  Invasion (9)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Like (23)  |  Meeting (22)  |  Gregor Mendel (22)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monk (5)  |  Philippines (3)  |  Remember (189)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Share (82)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Trait (23)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

I learned a lot of different things from different schools. MIT is a very good place…. It has developed for itself a spirit, so that every member of the whole place thinks that it’s the most wonderful place in the world—it’s the center, somehow, of scientific and technological development in the United States, if not the world … and while you don’t get a good sense of proportion there, you do get an excellent sense of being with it and in it, and having motivation and desire to keep on…
From Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character (1985), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Center (35)  |  Desire (212)  |  Develop (278)  |  Developed (11)  |  Development (441)  |  Do (1905)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Good (906)  |  Keep (104)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Lot (151)  |  M.I.T. (2)  |  Member (42)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motivation (28)  |  Place (192)  |  Proportion (140)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Spirit (278)  |  State (505)  |  Technological (62)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  United States (31)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

I noticed affixed to a laboratory door the following words: “Les théories passent. Le Grenouille reste. [The theories pass. The frog remains.] &mdashJean Rostand, Carnets d’un biologiste.” There is a risk that in the less severe discipline of criticism the result may turn out to be different; the theories will remain but the frog may disappear.
In An Appetite for Poetry (1989), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Criticism (85)  |  Difference (355)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Door (94)  |  Frog (44)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Notice (81)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Result (700)  |  Risk (68)  |  Jean Rostand (21)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Turn (454)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Words (2)

I observed on most collected stones the imprints of innumerable plant fragments which were so different from those which are growing in the Lyonnais, in the nearby provinces, and even in the rest of France, that I felt like collecting plants in a new world… The number of these leaves, the way they separated easily, and the great variety of plants whose imprints I saw, appeared to me just as many volumes of botany representing in the same quarry the oldest library of the world.
In 'Examen des causes des Impressions des Plantes marquees sur certaines Pierres des environs de Saint-Chaumont dans le Lionnais', Memoires de l’ Academie Royale des Sciences (1718), 364, as trans. by Albert V. and Marguerite Carozzi.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Botany (63)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growing (99)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Library (53)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Observed (149)  |  Plant (320)  |  Province (37)  |  Quarry (14)  |  Rest (287)  |  Saw (160)  |  Stone (168)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

I recognize that to view the Earth as if it were alive is just a convenient, but different, way of organizing the facts of the Earth. I am, of course, prejudiced in favour of Gaia and have filled my life for the past 25 years with the thought that the Earth might be in certain ways be alive—not as the ancients saw her, a sentient goddess with purpose and foresight—more like a tree. A tree that exists, never moving except to sway in the wind, yet endlessly conversing with the sunlight and the soil. Using sunlight and water and nutrients to grow and change. But all done so imperceptibly that, to me, the old oak tree on the green is the same as it was when I was a child.
In Healing Gaia: Practical Medicine for the Planet (1991), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Child (333)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Converse (9)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endlessly (4)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Favor (69)  |  Fill (67)  |  Foresight (8)  |  Gaia (15)  |  Goddess (9)  |  Green (65)  |  Grow (247)  |  Imperceptibly (2)  |  Life (1870)  |  Move (223)  |  Nutrient (8)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Old (499)  |  Organize (33)  |  Past (355)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Same (166)  |  See (1094)  |  Sentient (8)  |  Soil (98)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Sway (5)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tree (269)  |  View (496)  |  Water (503)  |  Wind (141)  |  Year (963)

I remember once going to see him when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. “No,” he replied, “it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.”
Quoted in G.H. Hardy, Ramanujan; Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by his Life and Work (1940, reprint 1999), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Cube (14)  |  Dull (58)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Lying (55)  |  Number (710)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  Remember (189)  |  See (1094)  |  Sum (103)  |  Taxi (4)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)

I respect Kirkpatrick both for his sponges and for his numinous nummulosphere. It is easy to dismiss a crazy theory with laughter that debars any attempt to understand a man’s motivation–and the nummulosphere is a crazy theory. I find that few men of imagination are not worth my attention. Their ideas may be wrong, even foolish, but their methods often repay a close study ... The different drummer often beats a fruitful tempo.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beat (42)  |  Both (496)  |  Close (77)  |  Crazy (27)  |  Debar (2)  |  Dismiss (12)  |  Drummer (3)  |  Easy (213)  |  Find (1014)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Method (531)  |  Motivation (28)  |  Often (109)  |  Repay (3)  |  Respect (212)  |  Sponge (9)  |  Study (701)  |  Tempo (3)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understand (648)  |  Worth (172)  |  Wrong (246)

I should like to compare this rearrangement which the proteins undergo in the animal or vegetable organism to the making up of a railroad train. In their passage through the body parts of the whole may be left behind, and here and there new parts added on. In order to understand fully the change we must remember that the proteins are composed of Bausteine united in very different ways. Some of them contain Bausteine of many kinds. The multiplicity of the proteins is determined by many causes, first through the differences in the nature of the constituent Bausteine; and secondly, through differences in the arrangement of them. The number of Bausteine which may take part in the formation of the proteins is about as large as the number of letters in the alphabet. When we consider that through the combination of letters an infinitely large number of thoughts may be expressed, we can understand how vast a number of the properties of the organism may be recorded in the small space which is occupied by the protein molecules. It enables us to understand how it is possible for the proteins of the sex-cells to contain, to a certain extent, a complete description of the species and even of the individual. We may also comprehend how great and important the task is to determine the structure of the proteins, and why the biochemist has devoted himself with so much industry to their analysis.
'The Chemical Composition of the Cell', The Harvey Lectures (1911), 7, 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Behind (139)  |  Biochemist (9)  |  Body (557)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cell (146)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Combination (150)  |  Compare (76)  |  Complete (209)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Determine (152)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Difference (355)  |  Enable (122)  |  Express (192)  |  Extent (142)  |  First (1302)  |  Formation (100)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Individual (420)  |  Industry (159)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Letter (117)  |  Making (300)  |  Model (106)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Multiplicity (14)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Order (638)  |  Organism (231)  |  Passage (52)  |  Possible (560)  |  Protein (56)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Rearrangement (5)  |  Record (161)  |  Remember (189)  |  Sex (68)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)  |  Task (152)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Train (118)  |  Understand (648)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)

I specifically paused to show that, if there were such machines with the organs and shape of a monkey or of some other non-rational animal, we would have no way of discovering that they are not the same as these animals. But if there were machines that resembled our bodies and if they imitated our actions as much as is morally possible, we would always have two very certain means for recognizing that, none the less, they are not genuinely human. The first is that they would never be able to use speech, or other signs composed by themselves, as we do to express our thoughts to others. For one could easily conceive of a machine that is made in such a way that it utters words, and even that it would utter some words in response to physical actions that cause a change in its organs—for example, if someone touched it in a particular place, it would ask what one wishes to say to it, or if it were touched somewhere else, it would cry out that it was being hurt, and so on. But it could not arrange words in different ways to reply to the meaning of everything that is said in its presence, as even the most unintelligent human beings can do. The second means is that, even if they did many things as well as or, possibly, better than anyone of us, they would infallibly fail in others. Thus one would discover that they did not act on the basis of knowledge, but merely as a result of the disposition of their organs. For whereas reason is a universal instrument that can be used in all kinds of situations, these organs need a specific disposition for every particular action.
Discourse on Method in Discourse on Method and Related Writings (1637), trans. Desmond M. Clarke, Penguin edition (1999), Part 5, 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Ask (420)  |  Basis (180)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Cry (30)  |  Discover (571)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  Express (192)  |  Fail (191)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Means (587)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  Organ (118)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possible (560)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Presence (63)  |  Rational (95)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reply (58)  |  Response (56)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  Show (353)  |  Situation (117)  |  Specific (98)  |  Speech (66)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Touch (146)  |  Two (936)  |  Universal (198)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

I then began to study arithmetical questions without any great apparent result, and without suspecting that they could have the least connexion with my previous researches. Disgusted at my want of success, I went away to spend a few days at the seaside, and thought of entirely different things. One day, as I was walking on the cliff, the idea came to me, again with the same characteristics of conciseness, suddenness, and immediate certainty, that arithmetical transformations of indefinite ternary quadratic forms are identical with those of non-Euclidian geometry.
Science and Method (1908), trans. Francis Maitland (1914), 53-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparent (85)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Conciseness (3)  |  Connection (171)  |  Difference (355)  |  Disgust (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Identical (55)  |  Identity (19)  |  Immediacy (2)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Non-Euclidian (2)  |  Previous (17)  |  Quadratic (3)  |  Question (649)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Seaside (2)  |  Spend (97)  |  Study (701)  |  Success (327)  |  Suddenness (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Walk (138)  |  Want (504)  |  Wanting (2)

I think my most important work has been done on the borderlines between different areas of science. My first work was in geophysics, a combination of physics and geology, and then at the Bell Laboratories, it was more a combination of physics and electrical engineering. That’s what I’m following more or less as time goes on. My appointment here at the university relates to physics and electrical engineering, but I have also worked in the borderline areas between physics and chemistry. I think reading widely and being interested in many different areas in science is important.
In Robert L. Burtch, 'Interview with a Nobel Laureate: Fifth Graders Learn About a Scientist We All Should Know', Science and Children, (Nov/Dec 1990), 28, No. 3, 16-17.
Science quotes on:  |  Appointment (12)  |  Area (33)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bell (35)  |  Bell Laboratories (3)  |  Borderline (2)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Combination (150)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electrical Engineering (12)  |  Engineering (188)  |  First (1302)  |  Geology (240)  |  Geophysics (5)  |  Important (229)  |  Interest (416)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  University (130)  |  Widely (9)  |  Work (1402)

I think that intelligence does not emerge from a handful of very beautiful principles—like physics. It emerges from perhaps a hundred fundamentally different kinds of mechanisms that have to interact just right. So, even if it took only four years to understand them, it might take four hundred years to unscramble the whole thing.
As quoted from an interview with author Jeremy Bernstein, in Science Observed: Essays Out of My Mind (1982), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Handful (14)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Interact (8)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Principle (530)  |  Right (473)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understand (648)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

I think the name atomic theory was an unfortunate one. We talk fluently about atoms as the smallest particles that exist, and chemists regard them as indivisible … To my mind the infinitely small is as incomprehensible as the infinitely great. … we cannot comprehend it, we cannot take it in. And so with the atom. Therefore I think that it would have been better to have taken a different word—say minim—which would have been a safer term than atom.
Address, in 'Report to the Chemical Society's Jubilee', Nature (26 Mar 1891), 43, 493.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Theory (16)  |  Better (493)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Exist (458)  |  Great (1610)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Particle (200)  |  Regard (312)  |  Safe (61)  |  Say (989)  |  Small (489)  |  Term (357)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  Word (650)

I think we are living in a new time. I think that the ways of working when there was not the current widespread questioning of what science does are no longer applicable. Besides, there is a difference between the sort of research you do when you’re developing something for the first time and the sort of thing you have to do to make sure it continues to work—and the two different sorts of research are done best by different sorts of people. And, just as with basic science, one needs confirmatory experiments. One can’t just have one group saying “yes they’re safe, yes they’re safe, take our word for it, we made them and we know they’re safe”. Someone else, quite independent, needs to take a look, do the confirmatory experiment. Duplication in this case can do nothing but good.
From interview with Graham Chedd, 'The Lady Gets Her Way', New Scientist (5 Jul 1973), 59, No. 853, 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Applicable (31)  |  Basic (144)  |  Best (467)  |  Confirmation (25)  |  Continue (179)  |  Current (122)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Independent (74)  |  Know (1538)  |  Living (492)  |  Look (584)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  People (1031)  |  Question (649)  |  Research (753)  |  Safe (61)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Widespread (23)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

I want to note that, because there is the aforementioned difference between mountain and mountain, it will be appropriate, to avoid confusion, to distinguish one [type] from another by different terms; so I shall call the first Primary and the second Secondary.
From De’ Crostacei e degli altri Marini Corpi che si truovano su’ monti (1740), 263, as translated by Ezio Vaccari, from the original Italian, “Qui sol piacemi notare, che, giacchè tra monti e monti v’è l'accennata differenza, farà bene, per ischifar la confusione , distinguere gli uni dagli altri con differenti vocaboli; e perciò i primi Primarie, i secondi Secondarie monti per me si appelleranno.”
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Call (781)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  First (1302)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Primary (82)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Type (171)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

I was working with these very long-chain … extended-chain polymers, where you had a lot of benzene rings in them. … Transforming a polymer solution from a liquid to a fiber requires a process called spinning. … We spun it and it spun beautifully. It [Kevlar] was very strong and very stiff—unlike anything we had made before. I knew that I had made a discovery. I didn’t shout “Eureka!” but I was very excited, as was the whole laboratory excited, and management was excited, because we were looking for something new. Something different. And this was it.
From transcript for video interview (2007, published Aug 2012), 'Stephanie Kwolek: Curiosity and the Discovery of Kevlar', in the series Women in Chemistry, on Chemical Heritage Foundation website.
Science quotes on:  |  Benzene (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Eureka (13)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fiber (16)  |  Invention (400)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Long (778)  |  Looking (191)  |  Lot (151)  |  Management (23)  |  New (1273)  |  Polymer (4)  |  Process (439)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Research (753)  |  Ring (18)  |  Shout (25)  |  Solution (282)  |  Something (718)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Stiff (3)  |  Strong (182)  |  Transforming (4)  |  Whole (756)

I would clarify that by ‘animal’ I understand a being that has feeling and that is capable of exercising life functions through a principle called soul; that the soul uses the body's organs, which are true machines, by virtue of its being the principal cause of the action of each of the machine's parts; and that although the placement that these parts have with respect to one another does scarcely anything else through the soul's mediation than what it does in pure machines, the entire machine nonetheless needs to be activated and guided by the soul in the same way as an organ, which, although capable of rendering different sounds through the placement of the parts of which it is composed, nonetheless never does so except through the guidance of the organist.
'La Mechanique des Animaux', in Oeuvres Diverses de Physique et de Mechanique (1721), Vol. 1, 329. Quoted in Jacques Roger, Keith R. Benson (ed.), Robert Ellrich (trans.), The Life Sciences in Eighteenth-Century French Thought, (1997), 273-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Activation (6)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Clarification (8)  |  Composition (86)  |  Difference (355)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Function (235)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mediation (4)  |  Never (1089)  |  Organ (118)  |  Part (235)  |  Principal (69)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pure (299)  |  Respect (212)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Soul (235)  |  Sound (187)  |  Through (846)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Way (1214)

I would liken science and poetry in their natural independence to those binary stars, often different in colour, which Herschel’s telescope discovered to revolve round each other. “There is one light of the sun,” says St. Paul, “and another of the moon, and another of the stars: star differeth from star in glory.” It is so here. That star or sun, for it is both, with its cold, clear, white light, is SCIENCE: that other, with its gorgeous and ever-shifting hues and magnificent blaze, is POETRY. They revolve lovingly round each other in orbits of their own, pouring forth and drinking in the rays which they exchange; and they both also move round and shine towards that centre from which they came, even the throne of Him who is the Source of all truth and the Cause of all beauty.
'The Alleged Antagonism between Poetry and Chemistry.' In Jesse Aitken Wilson, Memoirs of George Wilson. Quoted in Natural History Society of Montreal, 'Reviews and Notices of Books,' The Canadian Naturalist and Geologist (1861) Vol. 6, 393.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Binary (12)  |  Both (496)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cold (115)  |  Discover (571)  |  Drinking (21)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Moon (252)  |  Move (223)  |  Natural (810)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Other (2233)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Ray (115)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Poetry (17)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sun (407)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Truth (1109)  |  White (132)  |  White Light (5)

I’m a little different from all those conservation types.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Conservation (187)  |  Little (717)  |  Type (171)

I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It doe s not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atheist (16)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Child (333)  |  Dimly (6)  |  Enter (145)  |  Fill (67)  |  God (776)  |  Huge (30)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Library (53)  |  Little (717)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Order (638)  |  Position (83)  |  Seem (150)  |  Someone (24)  |  Suspect (18)  |  Think (1122)  |  Toward (45)  |  Write (250)

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured and far away.
In Walden: Or, Life in the Woods (1854, 1906), 358.
Science quotes on:  |  Companion (22)  |  Drummer (3)  |  Eccentric (11)  |  Far (158)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Keep (104)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  Music (133)  |  Pace (18)  |  Step (234)

If a mixture of different kinds of electrified atoms is moving along in one stream, then when electric and magnetic forces are applied to the stream simultaneously, the different kinds of atoms are sorted out, and the original stream is divided up into a number of smaller streams separated from each other. The particles in any one of the smaller streams are all of the same kind.
From the Romanes Lecture (10 Jun 1914) delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, published as The Atomic Theory (1914), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Atom (381)  |  Divided (50)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electrified (2)  |  Force (497)  |  Ion (21)  |  Kind (564)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Mass Spectrometer (2)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Move (223)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Simultaneous (23)  |  Sort (50)  |  Stream (83)

If an event can be produced by a number n of different causes, the probabilities of the existence of these causes, given the event (prises de l'événement), are to each other as the probabilities of the event, given the causes: and the probability of each cause is equal to the probability of the event, given that cause, divided by the sum of all the probabilities of the event, given each of the causes.
'Mémoire sur la Probabilité des Causes par les Événements' (1774). In Oeuvres complètes de Laplace, 14 Vols. (1843-1912), Vol. 8, 29, trans. Charles Coulston Gillispie, Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science (1997), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Chance (244)  |  Divided (50)  |  Event (222)  |  Existence (481)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Probability (135)  |  Produced (187)  |  Sum (103)

If man were by nature a solitary animal, the passions of the soul by which he was conformed to things so as to have knowledge of them would be sufficient for him; but since he is by nature a political and social animal it was necessary that his conceptions be made known to others. This he does through vocal sound. Therefore there had to be significant vocal sounds in order that men might live together. Whence those who speak different languages find it difficult to live together in social unity.
As quoted in Jeffrey J. Maciejewski, Thomas Aquinas on Persuasion: Action, Ends, and Natural Rhetoric (2013), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Conception (160)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Find (1014)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Language (308)  |  Linguistics (39)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  Political (124)  |  Significant (78)  |  Social (261)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Soul (235)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speak (240)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Unity (81)  |  Voice (54)

If many a man did not feel obliged to repeat what is untrue, because he has said it once, the world would have been quite different.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 196.
Science quotes on:  |  Feel (371)  |  Man (2252)  |  Obliged (6)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Say (989)  |  Untrue (12)  |  World (1850)

If molecules can be structurally identical and yet possess dissimilar properties, this can be explained only on the ground that the difference is due to a different arrangement of the atoms in space.
In Annalen der Chemie (1873), 166, 47, translated in A. Ihde, The Development of Modern Chemistry (1964), 326.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Difference (355)  |  Dissimilar (6)  |  Due (143)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Ground (222)  |  Identical (55)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Possess (157)  |  Property (177)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)

If one small and odd lineage of fishes had not evolved fins capable of bearing weight on land (though evolved for different reasons in lakes and seas,) terrestrial vertebrates would never have arisen. If a large extraterrestrial object—the ultimate random bolt from the blue—had not triggered the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, mammals would still be small creatures, confined to the nooks and crannies of a dinosaur's world, and incapable of evolving the larger size that brains big enough for self-consciousness require. If a small and tenuous population of protohumans had not survived a hundred slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (and potential extinction) on the savannas of Africa, then Homo sapiens would never have emerged to spread throughout the globe. We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction.
Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin (1996), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Africa (38)  |  Arrow (22)  |  Asteroid (19)  |  Bolt (11)  |  Bolt From The Blue (2)  |  Brain (281)  |  Capable (174)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Construction (114)  |  Creature (242)  |  Dinosaur (26)  |  Enough (341)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Homo Sapiens (23)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Lake (36)  |  Large (398)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Object (438)  |  Population (115)  |  Potential (75)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Random (42)  |  Reason (766)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Sea (326)  |  Self (268)  |  Sling (4)  |  Small (489)  |  Spread (86)  |  Still (614)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unpredictable (18)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Weight (140)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)  |  Yearn (13)

If one were to demonstrate to an architect that the bricks…in his constructions were under other circumstances capable of entirely different uses—let us say,…that they could with effect be employed as an explosive incomparably more powerful in its activities than dynamite—the surprise of the architect would be no greater than the surprise of the chemist at the new and undreamt of possibilities of matter demonstrated by the mere existence of such an element as radium.
In 'The Discovery of Radioactivity: Radioactivity, a New Science', The Interpretation of Radium and the Structure of the Atom (4th ed., 1920), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Architect (32)  |  Brick (20)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Construction (114)  |  Dynamite (8)  |  Effect (414)  |  Element (322)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Incomparable (14)  |  Matter (821)  |  New (1273)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Radium (29)  |  Surprise (91)

If some nuclear properties of the heavy elements had been a little different from what they turned out to be, it might have been impossible to build a bomb.
In Enrico Fermi: Physicist (1970), 149.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Difference (355)  |  Element (322)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Little (717)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Plutonium (5)  |  Property (177)  |  Turn (454)  |  Uranium (21)

If there were some solitary or feral man, the passions of the soul would be sufficient for him; by them he would be conformed to things in order that he might have knowledge of them. But because man is naturally political and social, there is need for one man to make his conceptions known to others, which is done with speech. So significant speech was needed if men were to live together. Which is why those of different tongues do not easily live together.
Sententia super libri Perihermeneias (Commentary on Aristotle’s On Interpretation) [1270-1271], Book I, lesson 2, number 2, trans. R. McInerny, quoted in R. McInerny (ed.) Thomas Aquinas, Selected Writings (1998), 460.
Science quotes on:  |  Communication (101)  |  Conception (160)  |  Do (1905)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  Political (124)  |  Significant (78)  |  Social (261)  |  Soul (235)  |  Speech (66)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Why (491)

If this plane were to crash, we could get a new start on this quasar problem.
Said to colleagues, dramatically cupping his hand over his brow, shortly after the take-off of a propeller plane leaving Austin, Texas, after the Second Texas Symposium for Relativistic Astrophysics in Dec 1964. Various different theories had been presented at the conference. The flight passengers included many of the major scientists in quasar research, including Margaret and Geoffrey Burbridge, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, John Wheeler and Maarten Schmidt.
As quoted by Arthur I. Miller, Empire of the Stars (2005), 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Airplane (43)  |  Astrophysics (15)  |  Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (8)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Conference (18)  |  Crash (9)  |  Flight (101)  |  Major (88)  |  New (1273)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Quasar (4)  |  Research (753)  |  Maarten Schmidt (2)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Small (489)  |  Start (237)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Various (205)  |  John Wheeler (40)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  Determine (152)  |  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)

If we betake ourselves to the statistical method, we do so confessing that we are unable to follow the details of each individual case, and expecting that the effects of widespread causes, though very different in each individual, will produce an average result on the whole nation, from a study of which we may estimate the character and propensities of an imaginary being called the Mean Man.
'Does the Progress of Physical Science tend to give any advantage to the opinion of necessity (or determinism) over that of the continuency of Events and the Freedom of the Will?' In P. M. Hannan (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1995), Vol. 2, 1862-1873, 818.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Character (259)  |  Confession (9)  |  Detail (150)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Estimation (7)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Follow (389)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Individual (420)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Method (531)  |  Nation (208)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Propensity (9)  |  Result (700)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Study (701)  |  Whole (756)  |  Widespread (23)  |  Will (2350)

If we look round the world, there seem to be not above six distinct varieties in the human species, each of which is strongly marked, and speaks the kind seldom to have mixed with any other. But there is nothing in the shape, nothing in the faculties, that shows their coming from different originals; and the varieties of climate, of nourishment, and custom, are sufficient to produce every change.
In History of the Earth and Animated Nature (1774, 1812), Vol. 2, 154.
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Coming (114)  |  Custom (44)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Human (1512)  |  Kind (564)  |  Look (584)  |  Marked (55)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nourishment (26)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Show (353)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Variety (138)  |  World (1850)

If we seek for the simplest arrangement, which would enable it [the eye] to receive and discriminate the impressions of the different parts of the spectrum, we may suppose three distinct sensations only to be excited by the rays of the three principal pure colours, falling on any given point of the retina, the red, the green, and the violet; while the rays occupying the intermediate spaces are capable of producing mixed sensations, the yellow those which belong to the red and green, and the blue those which belong to the green and violet.
'Chromatics', in Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1824), Vol. 3, 142.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Belong (168)  |  Blue (63)  |  Capable (174)  |  Color (155)  |  Discrimination (9)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Enable (122)  |  Eye (440)  |  Green (65)  |  Impression (118)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Mixed (6)  |  Point (584)  |  Principal (69)  |  Pure (299)  |  Ray (115)  |  Receive (117)  |  Reception (16)  |  Red (38)  |  Retina (4)  |  Seek (218)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Space (523)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Violet (11)  |  Yellow (31)

If we were capable of following the progress of increase of the number of the parts of the most perfect animal, as they first formed in succession, from the very first to its state of full perfection, we should probably be able to compare it with some one of the incomplete animals themselves, of every order of animals in the Creation, being at no stage different from some of the inferior orders; or, in other words, if we were to take a series of animals, from the more imperfect to the perfect, we should probably find an imperfect animal, corresponding with some stage of the most perfect.
R. Owen (ed.), John Hunter's Observations on Animal Development (1841), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capable (174)  |  Compare (76)  |  Creation (350)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Increase (225)  |  Inferior (37)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Progress (492)  |  Series (153)  |  Stage (152)  |  State (505)  |  Succession (80)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Word (650)

If you confine yourself to this Skinnerian technique, you study nothing but the learning apparatus and you leave out everything that is different in octopi, crustaceans, insects and vertebrates. In other words, you leave out everything that makes a pigeon a pigeon, a rat a rat, a man a man, and, above all, a healthy man healthy and a sick man sick.
'Some Psychological Concepts and Issues. A Discussion between Konrad Lorenz and Richard I Evans'. In Richard I. Evans, Konrad Lorenz: The Man and his Ideas (1975), 60.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Crustacean (3)  |  Difference (355)  |  Everything (489)  |  Health (210)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Insect (89)  |  Learning (291)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Octopus (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pidgeon (2)  |  Pigeon (8)  |  Rat (37)  |  Sick (83)  |  Sickness (26)  |  Study (701)  |  Technique (84)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Word (650)

If you have an idea that you wish your audience to carry away, turn it upside down and inside out, rephrasing it from different angles. Remember that the form in which the thing may appear best to you may not impress half your audience.
Advice to the writer of his first paper for presentation at a scientific meeting. As expressed in quotation marks by Charles Thom in 'Robert Almer Harper', National Academy Biographical Memoirs (1948), 25, 233-234. Also, in Thom's words, “[Harper] added that a miscellaneous audience can not he expected to carry away a lot of separate facts but one good idea, well pictured out, will be remembered by some of them.”
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Audience (28)  |  Best (467)  |  Carry (130)  |  Down (455)  |  Form (976)  |  Half (63)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inside Out (3)  |  Remember (189)  |  Rephrasing (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Upside Down (8)  |  Wish (216)

If, unwarned by my example, any man shall undertake and shall succeed in really constructing an engine embodying in itself the whole of the executive department of mathematical analysis upon different principles or by simpler mechanical means, I have no fear of leaving my reputation in his charge, for he alone will be fully able to appreciate the nature of my efforts and the value of their results.
In Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), 450.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Charge (63)  |  Construct (129)  |  Department (93)  |  Effort (243)  |  Embody (18)  |  Engine (99)  |  Example (98)  |  Executive (3)  |  Fear (212)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reputation (33)  |  Result (700)  |  Simpler (8)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Value (393)  |  Warning (18)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

In a certain sense I made a living for five or six years out of that one star [υ Sagittarii] and it is still a fascinating, not understood, star. It’s the first star in which you could clearly demonstrate an enormous difference in chemical composition from the sun. It had almost no hydrogen. It was made largely of helium, and had much too much nitrogen and neon. It’s still a mystery in many ways … But it was the first star ever analysed that had a different composition, and I started that area of spectroscopy in the late thirties.
Oral History Transcript of interview with Dr. Jesse Greenstein by Paul Wright (31 Jul 1974), on website of American Institute of Physics, about his research on strange shell stars. As quoted in J. B. Hearnshaw, The Analysis of Starlight: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Astronomical Spectroscopy (1986, 1990), 362. Hearnshaw footnoted that Berman earlier analysed the peculiar star R CrB (1935).
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Composition (86)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Difference (355)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  First (1302)  |  Helium (11)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Late (119)  |  Living (492)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Neon (4)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Sense (785)  |  Spectroscopy (11)  |  Star (460)  |  Start (237)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

In a great number of programmes I’m not a scientist—I’m simply a commentator. So I should claim no virtue for the fact that [people] seem to trust me, if that is indeed the case. It’s simply that I very seldom talk about something they can’t see. If I say a lion is attacking a wildebeest, they can see it is; if I were to say something about a proton, it might be different.
As quoted in Bill Parry, 'Sir David Attenborough in Conversation', The Biologist (Jun 2010), 57, No. 2, 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Claim (154)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Great (1610)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Lion (23)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Proton (23)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Something (718)  |  Trust (72)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wildebeest (2)

In a sense cosmology contains all subjects because it is the story of everything, including biology, psychology and human history. In that single sense it can be said to contain an explanation also of time's arrow. But this is not what is meant by those who advocate the cosmological explanation of irreversibility. They imply that in some way the time arrow of cosmology imposes its sense on the thermodynamic arrow. I wish to disagree with this view. The explanation assumes that the universe is expanding. While this is current orthodoxy, there is no certainty about it. The red-shifts might be due to quite different causes. For example, when light passes through the expanding clouds of gas it will be red-shifted. A large number of such clouds might one day be invoked to explain these red shifts. It seems an odd procedure to attempt to 'explain' everyday occurrences, such as the diffusion of milk into coffee, by means of theories of the universe which are themselves less firmly established than the phenomena to be explained. Most people believe in explaining one set of things in terms of others about which they are more certain, and the explanation of normal irreversible phenomena in terms of the cosmological expansion is not in this category.
'Thermodynamics, Cosmology) and the Physical Constants', in J. T. Fraser (ed.), The Study of Time III (1973), 117-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Advocate (20)  |  Arrow (22)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Biology (232)  |  Category (19)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Coffee (21)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Current (122)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Due (143)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Gas (89)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Irreversibility (4)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Large (398)  |  Light (635)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Milk (23)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Orthodoxy (11)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Red-Shift (4)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Shift (45)  |  Single (365)  |  Story (122)  |  Subject (543)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found. But naturalists are now beginning to look beyond this, and to see that there must be some other principle regulating the infinitely varied forms of animal life. It must strike every one, that the numbers of birds and insects of different groups having scarcely any resemblance to each other, which yet feed on the same food and inhabit the same localities, cannot have been so differently constructed and adorned for that purpose alone. Thus the goat-suckers, the swallows, the tyrant fly-catchers, and the jacamars, all use the same kind ‘Of food, and procure it in the same manner: they all capture insects on the wing, yet how entirely different is the structure and the whole appearance of these birds!
In A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro (1853), 83-84.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bird (163)  |  Capture (11)  |  Constant (148)  |  Construct (129)  |  Constructed (3)  |  Detail (150)  |  Feed (31)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fly (153)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Goat (9)  |  Habit (174)  |  History (716)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Insect (89)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  See (1094)  |  Strike (72)  |  Structure (365)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Tyrant (10)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wing (79)  |  Work (1402)

In an age of egoism, it is so difficult to persuade man that of all studies, the most important is that of himself. This is because egoism, like all passions, is blind. The attention of the egoist is directed to the immediate needs of which his senses give notice, and cannot be raised to those reflective needs that reason discloses to us; his aim is satisfaction, not perfection. He considers only his individual self; his species is nothing to him. Perhaps he fears that in penetrating the mysteries of his being he will ensure his own abasement, blush at his discoveries, and meet his conscience. True philosophy, always at one with moral science, tells a different tale. The source of useful illumination, we are told, is that of lasting content, is in ourselves. Our insight depends above all on the state of our faculties; but how can we bring our faculties to perfection if we do not know their nature and their laws! The elements of happiness are the moral sentiments; but how can we develop these sentiments without considering the principle of our affections, and the means of directing them? We become better by studying ourselves; the man who thoroughly knows himself is the wise man. Such reflection on the nature of his being brings a man to a better awareness of all the bonds that unite us to our fellows, to the re-discovery at the inner root of his existence of that identity of common life actuating us all, to feeling the full force of that fine maxim of the ancients: 'I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me.'
Considerations sur les diverses méthodes à suivre dans l'observation des peuples sauvages (1800) The Observation of Savage Peoples, trans. F. C. T. Moore (1969), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Age (509)  |  Aim (175)  |  Alien (35)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Attention (196)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Blind (98)  |  Bond (46)  |  Common (447)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Consider (428)  |  Depend (238)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Ethnology (9)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Force (497)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identity (19)  |  Illumination (15)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inner (72)  |  Insight (107)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Passion (121)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Root (121)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Studying (70)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Unite (43)  |  Useful (260)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wise (143)  |  Wise Man (17)

In an enterprise such as the building of the atomic bomb the difference between ideas, hopes, suggestions and theoretical calculations, and solid numbers based on measurement, is paramount. All the committees, the politicking and the plans would have come to naught if a few unpredictable nuclear cross sections had been different from what they are by a factor of two.
Epigraph in Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Building (158)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Committee (16)  |  Difference (355)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Factor (47)  |  Hope (321)  |  Idea (881)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Naught (10)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Number (710)  |  Paramount (11)  |  Plan (122)  |  Politics (122)  |  Solid (119)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Two (936)  |  Unpredictable (18)

In early times, when the knowledge of nature was small, little attempt was made to divide science into parts, and men of science did not specialize. Aristotle was a master of all science known in his day, and wrote indifferently treatises on physics or animals. As increasing knowledge made it impossible for any one man to grasp all scientific subjects, lines of division were drawn for convenience of study and of teaching. Besides the broad distinction into physical and biological science, minute subdivisions arose, and, at a certain stage of development, much attention was, given to methods of classification, and much emphasis laid on the results, which were thought to have a significance beyond that of the mere convenience of mankind.
But we have reached the stage when the different streams of knowledge, followed by the different sciences, are coalescing, and the artificial barriers raised by calling those sciences by different names are breaking down. Geology uses the methods and data of physics, chemistry and biology; no one can say whether the science of radioactivity is to be classed as chemistry or physics, or whether sociology is properly grouped with biology or economics. Indeed, it is often just where this coalescence of two subjects occurs, when some connecting channel between them is opened suddenly, that the most striking advances in knowledge take place. The accumulated experience of one department of science, and the special methods which have been developed to deal with its problems, become suddenly available in the domain of another department, and many questions insoluble before may find answers in the new light cast upon them. Such considerations show us that science is in reality one, though we may agree to look on it now from one side and now from another as we approach it from the standpoint of physics, physiology or psychology.
In article 'Science', Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), 402.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulated (2)  |  Advance (298)  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Approach (112)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attention (196)  |  Available (80)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Become (821)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cast (69)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Class (168)  |  Classification (102)  |  Coalesce (5)  |  Coalescence (2)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Data (162)  |  Deal (192)  |  Department (93)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Divide (77)  |  Division (67)  |  Domain (72)  |  Down (455)  |  Early (196)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Geology (240)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Indifferent (17)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Master (182)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Method (531)  |  Minute (129)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Occur (151)  |  Open (277)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Problem (731)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Question (649)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reality (274)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Show (353)  |  Side (236)  |  Significance (114)  |  Small (489)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Special (188)  |  Specialize (4)  |  Stage (152)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Stream (83)  |  Striking (48)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)

In general I would be cautious against … plays of fancy and would not make way for their reception into scientific astronomy, which must have quite a different character. Laplace’s cosmogenic hypotheses belong in that class. Indeed, I do not deny that I sometimes amuse myself in a similar manner, only I would never publish the stuff. My thoughts about the inhabitants of celestial bodies, for example, belong in that category. For my part, I am (contrary to the usual opinion) convinced … that the larger the cosmic body, the smaller are the inhabitants and other products. For example, on the sun trees, which in the same ratio would be larger than ours, as the sun exceeds the earth in magnitude, would not be able to exist, for on account of the much greater weight on the surface of the sun, all branches would break themselves off, in so far as the materials are not of a sort entirely heterogeneous with those on earth.
Letter to Heinrich Schumacher (7 Nov 1847). Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 411.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Against (332)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Belong (168)  |  Body (557)  |  Break (109)  |  Category (19)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Character (259)  |  Class (168)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Deny (71)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fancy (50)  |  General (521)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greater (288)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Product (166)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Reception (16)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tree (269)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)

In geologists’ own lives, the least effect of time is that they think in two languages, function on two different scales. … “A million years is a short time—the shortest worth messing with for most problems.”
In Basin and Range (1981), 134.
Science quotes on:  |  Effect (414)  |  Function (235)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Million (124)  |  Most (1728)  |  Problem (731)  |  Scale (122)  |  Short (200)  |  Shortest (16)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

In my estimation it was obvious that Jansky had made a fundamental and very important discovery. Furthermore, he had exploited it to the limit of his equipment facilities. If greater progress were to be made it would be necessary to construct new and different equipment especially designed to measure the cosmic static.
Reber explaining his own motivation to build the first radio telescope.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Construct (129)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Design (203)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Exploit (19)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Greater (288)  |  Limit (294)  |  Measure (241)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Progress (492)  |  Radio Telescope (5)

In nature there is no law of refraction, only different cases of refraction. The law of refraction is a concise compendious rule, devised by us for the mental reconstruction of a fact.
In The Science of Mechanics (1893), 485-486.
Science quotes on:  |  Case (102)  |  Concise (9)  |  Devise (16)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Law (913)  |  Mental (179)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Reconstruction (16)  |  Refraction (13)  |  Rule (307)

In one department of his [Joseph Black’s] lecture he exceeded any I have ever known, the neatness and unvarying success with which all the manipulations of his experiments were performed. His correct eye and steady hand contributed to the one; his admirable precautions, foreseeing and providing for every emergency, secured the other. I have seen him pour boiling water or boiling acid from a vessel that had no spout into a tube, holding it at such a distance as made the stream’s diameter small, and so vertical that not a drop was spilt. While he poured he would mention this adaptation of the height to the diameter as a necessary condition of success. I have seen him mix two substances in a receiver into which a gas, as chlorine, had been introduced, the effect of the combustion being perhaps to produce a compound inflammable in its nascent state, and the mixture being effected by drawing some string or wire working through the receiver's sides in an air-tight socket. The long table on which the different processes had been carried on was as clean at the end of the lecture as it had been before the apparatus was planted upon it. Not a drop of liquid, not a grain of dust remained.
In Lives of Men of Letters and Science, Who Flourished in the Time of George III (1845), 346-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Air (366)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Being (1276)  |  Joseph Black (14)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Clean (52)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Compound (117)  |  Condition (362)  |  Department (93)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Distance (171)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dust (68)  |  Effect (414)  |  Emergency (10)  |  End (603)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Gas (89)  |  Grain (50)  |  Inflammable (5)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Known (453)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Long (778)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Nascent (4)  |  Neatness (6)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perform (123)  |  Plant (320)  |  Remain (355)  |  Secured (18)  |  Side (236)  |  Small (489)  |  Spout (2)  |  State (505)  |  Steady (45)  |  Stream (83)  |  Substance (253)  |  Success (327)  |  Table (105)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Water (503)  |  Wire (36)

In our search after the Knowledge of Substances, our want of Ideas, that are suitable to such a way of proceeding, obliges us to a quite different method. We advance not here, as in the other (where our abstract Ideas are real as well as nominal Essences) by contemplating our Ideas, and considering their Relations and Correspondencies; that helps us very little, for the Reasons, and in another place we have at large set down. By which, I think it is evident, that Substances afford Matter of very little general Knowledge; and the bare Contemplation of their abstract Ideas, will carry us but a very little way in the search of Truth and Certainty. What then are we to do for the improvement of our Knowledge in Substantial beings? Here we are to take a quite contrary Course, the want of Ideas of their real essences sends us from our own Thoughts, to the Things themselves, as they exist.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book 4, Chapter 12, Section 9, 644.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Advance (298)  |  Bare (33)  |  Being (1276)  |  Carry (130)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Essence (85)  |  Evident (92)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  General (521)  |  Idea (881)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Little (717)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Oblige (6)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Reason (766)  |  Relation (166)  |  Search (175)  |  Set (400)  |  Substance (253)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

In reality, all Arguments from Experience are founded on the Similarity which we discover among natural Objects, and by which we are induc'd to expect effects similar to those which we have found to follow from such Objects. And tho' none but a Fool or Madman will ever pretend to dispute the Authority of Experience, or to reject that great Guide of human Life, it may surely be allow'd a Philosopher to have so much Curiosity at least as to examine the Principle of human Nature, which gives this mighty Authority to Experience, and makes us draw Advantage from that Similarity which Nature has plac'd among different Objects. From Causes which appear similar we expect similar Effects. This is the Sum of our experimental Conclusions.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Argument (145)  |  Authority (99)  |  Cause (561)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Discover (571)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Draw (140)  |  Effect (414)  |  Examine (84)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Follow (389)  |  Fool (121)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guide (107)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Life (1870)  |  Madman (6)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reject (67)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Sum (103)  |  Surely (101)  |  Will (2350)

In so far as such developments utilise the natural energy running to waste, as in water power, they may be accounted as pure gain. But in so far as they consume the fuel resources of the globe they are very different. The one is like spending the interest on a legacy, and the other is like spending the legacy itself. ... [There is] a still hardly recognised coming energy problem.
Matter and Energy (1911), 139.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Coming (114)  |  Consumption (16)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Energy (373)  |  Energy Conservation (6)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Gain (146)  |  Globe (51)  |  Interest (416)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pure (299)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Resource (74)  |  Running (61)  |  Spending (24)  |  Still (614)  |  Utilization (16)  |  Waste (109)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Power (6)

In that memorable year, 1822: Oersted, a Danish physicist, held in his hands a piece of copper wire, joined by its extremities to the two poles of a Volta pile. On his table was a magnetized needle on its pivot, and he suddenly saw (by chance you will say, but chance only favours the mind which is prepared) the needle move and take up a position quite different from the one assigned to it by terrestrial magnetism. A wire carrying an electric current deviates a magnetized needle from its position. That, gentlemen, was the birth of the modern telegraph.
Le hasard favorise l’esprit preparé
Inaugural Address as newly appointed Professor and Dean (Sep 1854) at the opening of the new Faculté des Sciences at Lille (7 Dec 1854). In René Vallery-Radot, The Life of Pasteur, translated by Mrs. R. L. Devonshire (1919), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Battery (12)  |  Birth (154)  |  Chance (244)  |  Compass (37)  |  Copper (25)  |  Current (122)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Move (223)  |  Movement (162)  |  Needle (7)  |  Hans Christian Oersted (5)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Pole (49)  |  Saw (160)  |  Say (989)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Table (105)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wire (36)  |  Year (963)

In the dog two conditions were found to produce pathological disturbances by functional interference, namely, an unusually acute clashing of the excitatory and inhibitory processes, and the influence of strong and extraordinary stimuli. In man precisely similar conditions constitute the usual causes of nervous and psychic disturbances. Different conditions productive of extreme excitation, such as intense grief or bitter insults, often lead, when the natural reactions are inhibited by the necessary restraint, to profound and prolonged loss of balance in nervous and psychic activity.
Ivan Pavlov and G. V. Anrep (ed., trans.), Conditioned Reflexes—An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex (1927), 397.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Acuteness (3)  |  Balance (82)  |  Bitter (30)  |  Bitterness (4)  |  Cause (561)  |  Clash (10)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Difference (355)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Dog (70)  |  Excitation (9)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Function (235)  |  Grief (20)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inhibition (13)  |  Insult (16)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Interference (22)  |  Lead (391)  |  Loss (117)  |  Man (2252)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Nervousness (2)  |  Pathological (21)  |  Pathology (19)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Production (190)  |  Productive (37)  |  Profound (105)  |  Profoundness (2)  |  Prolong (29)  |  Psychic (15)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Strong (182)  |  Two (936)  |  Unusual (37)

In the mathematical investigations I have usually employed such methods as present themselves naturally to a physicist. The pure mathematician will complain, and (it must be confessed) sometimes with justice, of deficient rigour. But to this question there are two sides. For, however important it may be to maintain a uniformly high standard in pure mathematics, the physicist may occasionally do well to rest content with arguments which are fairly satisfactory and conclusive from his point of view. To his mind, exercised in a different order of ideas, the more severe procedure of the pure mathematician may appear not more but less demonstrative. And further, in many cases of difficulty to insist upon the highest standard would mean the exclusion of the subject altogether in view of the space that would be required.
In Preface to second edition, The Theory of Sound (1894), Vol. 1, vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Argument (145)  |  Complain (10)  |  Conclusive (11)  |  Confess (42)  |  Deficient (3)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Demonstrative (14)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Do (1905)  |  Employ (115)  |  Exclusion (16)  |  High (370)  |  Idea (881)  |  Insist (22)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Justice (40)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Present (630)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Question (649)  |  Required (108)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Satisfactory (19)  |  Severe (17)  |  Side (236)  |  Space (523)  |  Standard (64)  |  Subject (543)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Two (936)  |  Usually (176)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

In the present state of our knowledge, it would be useless to attempt to speculate on the remote cause of the electrical energy, or the reason why different bodies, after being brought into contact, should be found differently electrified; its relation to chemical affinity is, however, sufficiently evident. May it not be identical with it, and an essential property of matter?
Bakerian Lecture, 'On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1807, 97, 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Affinity (27)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Charge (63)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Contact (66)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Energy (373)  |  Essential (210)  |  Evident (92)  |  Identical (55)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Matter (821)  |  Present (630)  |  Property (177)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remote (86)  |  State (505)  |  Why (491)

In the world of science different levels of esteem are accorded to different kinds of specialist. Mathematicians have always been eminently respectable, and so are those who deal with hard lifeless theories about what constitutes the physical world: the astronomers, the physicists, the theoretical chemists. But the more closely the scientist interests himself in matters which are of direct human relevance, the lower his social status. The real scum of the scientific world are the engineers and the sociologists and the psychologists. Indeed, if a psychologist wants to rate as a scientist he must study rats, not human beings. In zoology the same rules apply. It is much more respectable to dissect muscle tissues in a laboratory than to observe the behaviour of a living animal in its natural habitat.
From transcript of BBC radio Reith Lecture (12 Nov 1967), 'A Runaway World', on the bbc.co.uk website.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Apply (170)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Close (77)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Deal (192)  |  Direct (228)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Esteem (18)  |  Habitat (17)  |  Hard (246)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Interest (416)  |  Kind (564)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Level (69)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Low (86)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Observe (179)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Psychologist (26)  |  Rat (37)  |  Rate (31)  |  Real (159)  |  Relevance (18)  |  Respectable (8)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Social (261)  |  Sociologist (5)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Status (35)  |  Study (701)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Want (504)  |  World (1850)  |  Zoology (38)

Incandescent carbon particles, by the tens of millions, leap free of the log and wave like banners, as flame. Several hundred significantly different chemical reactions are now going on. For example, a carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms, coming out of the breaking cellulose, may lock together and form methane, natural gas. The methane, burning (combining with oxygen), turns into carbon dioxide and water, which also go up the flue. If two carbon atoms happen to come out of the wood with six hydrogen atoms, they are, agglomerately, ethane, which bums to become, also, carbon dioxide and water. Three carbons and eight hydrogens form propane, and propane is there, too, in the fire. Four carbons and ten hydrogens—butane. Five carbons … pentane. Six … hexane. Seven … heptane. Eight carbons and eighteen hydrogens—octane. All these compounds come away in the breaking of the cellulose molecule, and burn, and go up the chimney as carbon dioxide and water. Pentane, hexane, heptane, and octane have a collective name. Logs burning in a fireplace are making and burning gasoline.
In 'Firewood', Pieces of the Frame (1975), 205-206.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Banner (9)  |  Become (821)  |  Break (109)  |  Bum (3)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Cellulose (3)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Reaction (17)  |  Chemical Reactions (13)  |  Chimney (4)  |  Collective (24)  |  Combine (58)  |  Coming (114)  |  Compound (117)  |  Example (98)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fireplace (3)  |  Five (16)  |  Flame (44)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gasoline (4)  |  Happen (282)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Incandescent (7)  |  Leap (57)  |  Lock (14)  |  Log (7)  |  Making (300)  |  Methane (9)  |  Millions (17)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Gas (2)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Particle (200)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Several (33)  |  Significantly (2)  |  Tens (3)  |  Together (392)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wood (97)

Industrial Society is not merely one containing 'industry,' large-scale productive units capable of supplying man's material needs in a way which can eliminate poverty: it is also a society in which knowledge plays a part wholly different from that which it played in earlier social forms, and which indeed possesses a quite different type of knowledge. Modern science is inconceivable outside an industrial society: but modern industrial society is equally inconceivable without modern science. Roughly, science is the mode of cognition of industrial society, and industry is the ecology of science.
Thought and Change (1965), 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Capable (174)  |  Cognition (7)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Equally (129)  |  Form (976)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Industry (159)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Merely (315)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Outside (141)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Productive (37)  |  Scale (122)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Type (171)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wholly (88)

Influenza is something unique. It behaves epidemiologically in a way different from that of any other known infection.
In W.I.B . Beveridge, Influenza: The Last Great Plague (1977), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Infection (27)  |  Influenza (4)  |  Known (453)  |  Other (2233)  |  Something (718)  |  Unique (72)  |  Virus (32)  |  Way (1214)

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Doing (277)  |  Expect (203)  |  Insanity (8)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Thing (1914)

Is man a peculiar organism? Does he originate in a wholly different way from a dog, bird, frog, or fish? and does he thereby justify those who assert that he has no place in nature, and no real relationship with the lower world of animal life? Or does he develop from a similar embryo, and undergo the same slow and gradual progressive modifications? The answer is not for an instant doubtful, and has not been doubtful for the last thirty years. The mode of man’s origin and the earlier stages of his development are undoubtedly identical with those of the animals standing directly below him in the scale; without the slightest doubt, he stands in this respect nearer the ape than the ape does to the dog. (1863)
As quoted in Ernst Haeckel and E. Ray Lankester (trans.) as epigraph for Chap. 12, The History of Creation (1886), Vol. 1, 364.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ape (54)  |  Assert (69)  |  Bird (163)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Dog (70)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Fish (130)  |  Frog (44)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Identical (55)  |  Instant (46)  |  Justify (26)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lower (11)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modification (57)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Man (9)  |  Originate (39)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Place (192)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Respect (212)  |  Scale (122)  |  Similar (36)  |  Slow (108)  |  Stage (152)  |  Stand (284)  |  Undergo (18)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wholly (88)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

It did not take atomic weapons to make man want peace. But the atomic bomb was the turn of the screw. The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.
Commencement address (1946). As quoted in book review (of Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb), by William J. Broad, ‘The Men Who Made the Sun Rise', New York Times Book Review (8 Feb 1987), 39. Cited as from 'The Atomic Bomb and College Education' (1946), in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (18th ed., 2014). as quoted, without citation, in . Please contact Webmaster if you know a primary source.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Country (269)  |  Future (467)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Pass (241)  |  Peace (116)  |  Prospect (31)  |  Screw (17)  |  Step (234)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unendurable (2)  |  Want (504)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil—which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.
'Viewpoint' Interview (with Bill Stout) for Los Angeles KNXT television station (1 May 1959), printed in Michelle Feynman (ed.) Perfectly Reasonable Deviations (from the Beaten Track) (2006), Appendix I, 426. Also quoted in James Gleick, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992), 372. Gleick adds that KNXT “felt obliged to suppress” the interview. It was not broadcast until after Feynman, asked to redo the interview, wrote back with a letter objecting to “a direct censorship of the expression of my views.”
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Big (55)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Difference (355)  |  Drama (24)  |  Evil (122)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Kind (564)  |  Marvelous (31)  |  Merely (315)  |  Motion (320)  |  Planet (402)  |  Range (104)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Space (523)  |  Stage (152)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Tremendous (29)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Watch (118)

It follows from the theory of relativity that mass and energy are both different manifestations of the same thing—a somewhat unfamiliar conception for the average man. Furthermore E=MC2, in which energy is put equal to mass multiplied with the square of the velocity of light, showed that a very small amount of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy... the mass and energy were in fact equivalent.
As expressed in the Einstein film, produced by Nova Television (1979). Quoted in Alice Calaprice, The Quotable Einstein (1996), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Average (89)  |  Both (496)  |  Conception (160)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Follow (389)  |  Large (398)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Mass (160)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Show (353)  |  Small (489)  |  Square (73)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Relativity (33)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unfamiliar (17)  |  Velocity (51)

It had the old double keyboard, an entirely different set of keys for capitals and figures, so that the paper seemed a long way off, and the machine was as big and solid as a battle cruiser. Typing was then a muscular activity. You could ache after it. If you were not familiar with those vast keyboards, your hand wandered over them like a child lost in a wood. The noise might have been that of a shipyard on the Clyde. You would no more have thought of carrying one of those grim structures as you would have thought of travelling with a piano.
[About his first typewriter.]
English Journey (1934), 122-123.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Child (333)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Keyboard (3)  |  Long (778)  |  Machine (271)  |  More (2558)  |  Noise (40)  |  Old (499)  |  Paper (192)  |  Piano (12)  |  Set (400)  |  Solid (119)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thought (995)  |  Travel (125)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Typewriter (6)  |  Vast (188)  |  Wander (44)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wood (97)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 said that no science is established on a firm basis unless its generalisations can be expressed in terms of number, and it is the special province of mathematics to assist the investigator in finding numerical relations between phenomena. After experiment, then mathematics. While a science is in the experimental or observational stage, there is little scope for discerning numerical relations. It is only after the different workers have “collected data” that the mathematician is able to deduce the required generalisation. Thus a Maxwell followed Faraday and a Newton completed Kepler.
In Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry and Physics (1902), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Assist (9)  |  Basis (180)  |  Collect (19)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completed (30)  |  Data (162)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Establish (63)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Express (192)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Firm (47)  |  Follow (389)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observational (15)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Province (37)  |  Relation (166)  |  Required (108)  |  Scope (44)  |  Special (188)  |  Stage (152)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Worker (34)

It is arguable whether the human race have been gainers by the march of science beyond the steam engine. Electricity opens a field of infinite conveniences to ever greater numbers, but they may well have to pay dearly for them. But anyhow in my thought I stop short of the internal combustion engine which has made the world so much smaller. Still more must we fear the consequences of entrusting a human race so little different from their predecessors of the so-called barbarous ages such awful agencies as the atomic bomb. Give me the horse.
Address to the Royal College of Surgeons (10 Jul 1951). Collected in Stemming the Tide: Speeches 1951 and 1952 (1953), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fear (212)  |  Field (378)  |  Greater (288)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Internal (69)  |  Internal Combustion Engine (4)  |  Invention (400)  |  Little (717)  |  March (48)  |  March Of Science (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Open (277)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Progress (492)  |  Race (278)  |  Short (200)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Still (614)  |  Thought (995)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)

It is clear, from these considerations, that the three methods of classifying mankind—that according to physical characters, according to language, and according to culture—all reflect the historical development of races from different standpoints; and that the results of the three classifications are not comparable, because the historical facts do not affect the three classes of phenomena equally. A consideration of all these classes of facts is needed when we endeavour to reconstruct the early history of the races of mankind.
'Summary of the Work of the Committee in British Columbia', Report of the Sixty-Eighth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1899, 670.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Character (259)  |  Classification (102)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Culture (157)  |  Development (441)  |  Do (1905)  |  Early (196)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Equally (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Mankind (15)  |  Human Culture (10)  |  Language (308)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Method (531)  |  Physical (518)  |  Race (278)  |  Result (700)  |  Standpoint (28)

It is curious to observe how differently these great men [Plato and Bacon] estimated the value of every kind of knowledge. Take Arithmetic for example. Plato, after speaking slightly of the convenience of being able to reckon and compute in the ordinary transactions of life, passes to what he considers as a far more important advantage. The study of the properties of numbers, he tells us, habituates the mind to the contemplation of pure truth, and raises us above the material universe. He would have his disciples apply themselves to this study, not that they may be able to buy or sell, not that they may qualify themselves to be shop-keepers or travelling merchants, but that they may learn to withdraw their minds from the ever-shifting spectacle of this visible and tangible world, and to fix them on the immutable essences of things.
Bacon, on the other hand, valued this branch of knowledge only on account of its uses with reference to that visible and tangible world which Plato so much despised. He speaks with scorn of the mystical arithmetic of the later Platonists, and laments the propensity of mankind to employ, on mere matters of curiosity, powers the whole exertion of which is required for purposes of solid advantage. He advises arithmeticians to leave these trifles, and employ themselves in framing convenient expressions which may be of use in physical researches.
In 'Lord Bacon', Edinburgh Review (Jul 1837). Collected in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Contributed to the Edinburgh Review (1857), Vol. 1, 394.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Advise (7)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Arithmetician (3)  |  Bacon (4)  |  Being (1276)  |  Branch (155)  |  Buy (21)  |  Compute (19)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Curious (95)  |  Despise (16)  |  Disciple (8)  |  Employ (115)  |  Essence (85)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Example (98)  |  Exertion (17)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fix (34)  |  Frame (26)  |  Great (1610)  |  Habituate (3)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Important (229)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lament (11)  |  Late (119)  |  Learn (672)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merchant (7)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystical (9)  |  Number (710)  |  Observe (179)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Physical (518)  |  Plato (80)  |  Platonist (2)  |  Power (771)  |  Propensity (9)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Raise (38)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Reference (33)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Research (753)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Sell (15)  |  Shifting (5)  |  Solid (119)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Study (701)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transaction (13)  |  Travel (125)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Trifle (18)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Visible (87)  |  Whole (756)  |  Withdraw (11)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 difficult even to attach a precise meaning to the term “scientific truth.” So different is the meaning of the word “truth” according to whether we are dealing with a fact of experience, a mathematical proposition or a scientific theory. “Religious truth” conveys nothing clear to me at all.
From 'Scientific Truth' in Essays in Science (1934, 2004), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Attach (57)  |  Clear (111)  |  Convey (17)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Precise (71)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Religious (134)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Scientific Truth (23)  |  Term (357)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Word (650)

It is evident that certain genes which either initially or ultimately have beneficial effects may at the same time produce characters of a non-adaptive type, which will therefore be established with them. Such characters may sometimes serve most easily to distinguish different races or species; indeed, they may be the only ones ordinarily available, when the advantages with which they are associated are of a physiological nature. Further, it may happen that the chain of reactions which a gene sets going is of advantage, while the end-product to which this gives rise, say a character in a juvenile or the adult stage, is of no adaptive significance.
Mendelism and Evolution (1931), 78-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Available (80)  |  Certain (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Effect (414)  |  End (603)  |  Evident (92)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Happen (282)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Product (166)  |  Race (278)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Rise (169)  |  Say (989)  |  Set (400)  |  Significance (114)  |  Species (435)  |  Stage (152)  |  Time (1911)  |  Type (171)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Will (2350)

It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognize that we live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us, and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body.
'Le Côté de Guermantes', À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27).
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Body (557)  |  Creature (242)  |  Disease (340)  |  Illness (35)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Live (650)  |  Moment (260)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms.
Concluding remarks in final chapter, The Origin of Species (1859), 490.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Bank (31)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bird (163)  |  Character (259)  |  Complex (202)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Construct (129)  |  Direct (228)  |  Divergence (6)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Food Web (8)  |  Form (976)  |  Growth (200)  |  High (370)  |  Increase (225)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Insect (89)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Kind (564)  |  Largest (39)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Plant (320)  |  Produced (187)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Selection (130)  |  Sense (785)  |  Singing (19)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Use (771)  |  Various (205)  |  Worm (47)

It is not only a decided preference for synthesis and a complete denial of general methods which characterizes the ancient mathematics as against our newer Science [modern mathematics]: besides this extemal formal difference there is another real, more deeply seated, contrast, which arises from the different attitudes which the two assumed relative to the use of the concept of variability. For while the ancients, on account of considerations which had been transmitted to them from the Philosophie school of the Eleatics, never employed the concept of motion, the spatial expression for variability, in their rigorous system, and made incidental use of it only in the treatment of phonoromically generated curves, modern geometry dates from the instant that Descartes left the purely algebraic treatment of equations and proceeded to investigate the variations which an algebraic expression undergoes when one of its variables assumes a continuous succession of values.
In 'Untersuchungen über die unendlich oft oszillierenden und unstetigen Functionen', Ostwald’s Klassiker der exacten Wissenschaften (1905), No. 153, 44-45. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 115. From the original German, “Nicht allein entschiedene Vorliebe für die Synthese und gänzliche Verleugnung allgemeiner Methoden charakterisiert die antike Mathematik gegenüber unserer neueren Wissenschaft; es gibt neben diesem mehr äußeren, formalen, noch einen tiefliegenden realen Gegensatz, welcher aus der verschiedenen Stellung entspringt, in welche sich beide zu der wissenschaftlichen Verwendung des Begriffes der Veränderlichkeit gesetzt haben. Denn während die Alten den Begriff der Bewegung, des räumlichen Ausdruckes der Veränderlichkeit, aus Bedenken, die aus der philosophischen Schule der Eleaten auf sie übergegangen waren, in ihrem strengen Systeme niemals und auch in der Behandlung phoronomisch erzeugter Kurven nur vorübergehend verwenden, so datiert die neuere Mathematik von dem Augenblicke, als Descartes von der rein algebraischen Behandlung der Gleichungen dazu fortschritt, die Größenveränderungen zu untersuchen, welche ein algebraischer Ausdruck erleidet, indem eine in ihm allgemein bezeichnete Größe eine stetige Folge von Werten durchläuft.”
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Against (332)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Arise (162)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Complete (209)  |  Concept (242)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Curve (49)  |  Denial (20)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Difference (355)  |  Employ (115)  |  Equation (138)  |  Expression (181)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Incidental (15)  |  Instant (46)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  Preference (28)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Purely (111)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  School (227)  |  Succession (80)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  System (545)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Variable (37)  |  Variation (93)

It is notorious that the same discovery is frequently made simultaneously and quite independently, by different persons. Thus, to speak of only a few cases in late years, the discoveries of photography, of electric telegraphy, and of the planet Neptune through theoretical calculations, have all their rival claimants. It would seem, that discoveries are usually made when the time is ripe for them—that is to say, when the ideas from which they naturally flow are fermenting in the minds of many men.
Hereditary Genius (1869), 192.
Science quotes on:  |  Calculation (134)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electric (76)  |  Flow (89)  |  Idea (881)  |  Independently (24)  |  Late (119)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Neptune (13)  |  Person (366)  |  Photography (9)  |  Planet (402)  |  Rival (20)  |  Say (989)  |  Speak (240)  |  Telegraphy (3)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Usually (176)  |  Year (963)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depend (238)  |  Detail (150)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  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 obvious that we know with certainty, that the Flütz [layered] and primitive mountains have been produced by a series of precipitations and depositions formed in succession; that they took place from water which covered the globe, existing always more or less generally, and containing the different substances which have been produced from them.
In New Theory of the Formation of Veins (1809), 110-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainty (180)  |  Deposition (4)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Layer (41)  |  Layered (2)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Precipitation (7)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Produced (187)  |  Series (153)  |  Substance (253)  |  Succession (80)  |  Water (503)

It is only through the psyche that we can establish that God acts upon us, but we are unable to distinguish whether these actions emanate from God or from the unconscious. We cannot tell whether God and the unconscious are two different entities. Both are border-line concepts for transcendental contents.
Carl Jung
In Psychology and Religion: West and East (1969), 468.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Both (496)  |  Concept (242)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  God (776)  |  Psyche (9)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Tell (344)  |  Through (846)  |  Transcendental (11)  |  Two (936)  |  Unconscious (24)

It is possible for a mathematician to be “too strong” for a given occasion. He forces through, where another might be driven to a different, and possible more fruitful, approach. (So a rock climber might force a dreadful crack, instead of finding a subtle and delicate route.)
In A Mathematician's Miscellany (1953). Reissued as Béla Bollobás (ed.), Littlewood’s Miscellany (1986), 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Climber (7)  |  Crack (15)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Dreadful (16)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  More (2558)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Possible (560)  |  Rock (176)  |  Route (16)  |  Strong (182)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Through (846)

It is possible to state as a general principle that the mesodermic phagocytes, which originally (as in the sponges of our days) acted as digestive cells, retained their role to absorb the dead or weakened parts of the organism as much as different foreign intruders.
'Uber die Pathologische Bedeutung der Intracellularen Verduung', Fortschritte der Medizin (1884), 17, 558-569. Trans. Alfred I. Tauber and Leon Chernyak, Metchnikoff and the Origins of Immunology (1991), 141.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Act (278)  |  Cell (146)  |  Dead (65)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Foreign (45)  |  General (521)  |  Intruder (5)  |  Organism (231)  |  Phagocyte (2)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Retain (57)  |  Role (86)  |  Sponge (9)  |  State (505)

It is presumed that there exists a great unity in nature, in respect of the adequacy of a single cause to account for many different kinds of consequences.
In Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770, trans. and ed. By David Walford (2003), 155.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Adequacy (10)  |  Cause (561)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Difference (355)  |  Exist (458)  |  External (62)  |  Great (1610)  |  Kind (564)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Respect (212)  |  Single (365)  |  Unity (81)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  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 really laughable to see what different ideas are prominent in various naturalists’ minds, when they speak of “species”; in some, resemblance is everything and descent of little weight—in some, resemblance seems to go for nothing, and Creation the reigning idea—in some, descent is the key,—in some, sterility an unfailing test, with others it is not worth a farthing. It all comes, I believe, from trying to define the undefinable.
Letter to J. D. Hooker (24 Dec 1856). In Francis Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1888), 446.
Science quotes on:  |  Creation (350)  |  Definition (238)  |  Descent (30)  |  Everything (489)  |  Idea (881)  |  Laughable (4)  |  Little (717)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  See (1094)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Sterility (10)  |  Test (221)  |  Trying (144)  |  Various (205)  |  Weight (140)  |  Worth (172)

It is structure that we look for whenever we try to understand anything. All science is built upon this search; we investigate how the cell is built of reticular material, cytoplasm, chromosomes; how crystals aggregate; how atoms are fastened together; how electrons constitute a chemical bond between atoms. We like to understand, and to explain, observed facts in terms of structure. A chemist who understands why a diamond has certain properties, or why nylon or hemoglobin have other properties, because of the different ways their atoms are arranged, may ask questions that a geologist would not think of formulating, unless he had been similarly trained in this way of thinking about the world.
‘The Place of Chemistry In the Integration of the Sciences’, Main Currents in Modern Thought (1950), 7, 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Aggregation (6)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Ask (420)  |  Atom (381)  |  Bond (46)  |  Building (158)  |  Cell (146)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Chromosomes (17)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Cytoplasm (6)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Electron (96)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fastening (2)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Haemoglobin (4)  |  Hemoglobin (5)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Look (584)  |  Material (366)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Property (177)  |  Question (649)  |  Search (175)  |  Structure (365)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Together (392)  |  Train (118)  |  Training (92)  |  Try (296)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Why (491)  |  World (1850)

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
Dean Inge
In 'Patriotism' (Aug 1919), Outspoken Essays (1919), 42-43.
Science quotes on:  |  Favor (69)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Pass (241)  |  Remain (355)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Sheep (13)  |  Useless (38)  |  Vegetarian (13)  |  Wolf (11)

It is very different to make a practical system and to introduce it. A few experiments in the laboratory would prove the practicability of system long before it could be brought into general use. You can take a pipe and put a little coal in it, close it up, heat it and light the gas that comes out of the stem, but that is not introducing gas lighting. I'll bet that if it were discovered to-morrow in New York that gas could be made out of coal it would be at least five years before the system would be in general use.
From the New York Herald (30 Jan 1879), as cited in Leslie Tomory, 'Building the First Gas Network, 1812-1820', Technology and Culture (Jan 2011), 52, No. 1, 75-102.
Science quotes on:  |  Bet (13)  |  Coal (64)  |  Discover (571)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Gas (89)  |  General (521)  |  Heat (180)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Light (635)  |  Lighting (5)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Pipe (7)  |  Practical (225)  |  Prove (261)  |  Stem (31)  |  System (545)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Use (771)  |  Year (963)

It may seem rash indeed to draw conclusions valid for the whole universe from what we can see from the small corner to which we are confined. Who knows that the whole visible universe is not like a drop of water at the surface of the earth? Inhabitants of that drop of water, as small relative to it as we are relative to the Milky Way, could not possibly imagine that beside the drop of water there might be a piece of iron or a living tissue, in which the properties of matter are entirely different.
Space and Time (1926), 227.
Science quotes on:  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Corner (59)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drop (77)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Iron (99)  |  Know (1538)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Properties Of Matter (7)  |  Rash (15)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Universe (900)  |  Visible (87)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)

It must … be admitted that very simple relations … exist between the volumes of gaseous substances and the numbers of simple or compound molecules which form them. The first hypothesis to present itself in this connection, and apparently even the only admissible one, is the supposition that the number of integral molecules in any gases is always the same for equal volumes, or always proportional to the volumes. Indeed, if we were to suppose that the number of molecules contained in a given volume were different for different gases, it would scarcely be possible to conceive that the law regulating the distance of molecules could give in all cases relations so simple as those which the facts just detailed compel us to acknowledge between the volume and the number of molecules.
In 'Essay on a Manner of Determining the Relative Masses of the Elementary Molecules of Bodies, and the Proportions in which they enter into these Compounds', Journal de Physique, 1811, 73, 58-76. In Foundations of the Molecular Theory; Alembic Club Reprints, Number 4 (1923), 28-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Admissible (6)  |  Compel (31)  |  Compound (117)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Connection (171)  |  Detail (150)  |  Distance (171)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Gas (89)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Integral (26)  |  Law (913)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Simple (426)  |  Substance (253)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Supposition (50)

It often happens that men, even of the best understandings and greatest circumspection, are guilty of that fault in reasoning which the writers on logick call the insufficient, or imperfect enumeration of parts, or cases: insomuch that I will venture to assert, that this is the chief, and almost the only, source of the vast number of erroneous opinions, and those too very often in matters of great importance, which we are apt to form on all the subjects we reflect upon, whether they relate to the knowledge of nature, or the merits and motives of human actions. It must therefore be acknowledged, that the art which affords a cure to this weakness, or defect, of our understandings, and teaches us to enumerate all the possible ways in which a given number of things may be mixed and combined together, that we may be certain that we have not omitted anyone arrangement of them that can lead to the object of our inquiry, deserves to be considered as most eminently useful and worthy of our highest esteem and attention. And this is the business of the art, or doctrine of combinations ... It proceeds indeed upon mathematical principles in calculating the number of the combinations of the things proposed: but by the conclusions that are obtained by it, the sagacity of the natural philosopher, the exactness of the historian, the skill and judgement of the physician, and the prudence and foresight of the politician, may be assisted; because the business of all these important professions is but to form reasonable conjectures concerning the several objects which engage their attention, and all wise conjectures are the results of a just and careful examination of the several different effects that may possibly arise from the causes that are capable of producing them.
Ars conjectandi (1713). In F. Maseres, The Doctrine of Permutations and Combinations (1795), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Arise (162)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Art (680)  |  Assert (69)  |  Attention (196)  |  Best (467)  |  Business (156)  |  Call (781)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chief (99)  |  Circumspection (5)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cure (124)  |  Defect (31)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Effect (414)  |  Engage (41)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  Error (339)  |  Exactness (29)  |  Examination (102)  |  Fault (58)  |  Form (976)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Happen (282)  |  Historian (59)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imperfect (46)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merit (51)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motive (62)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physician (284)  |  Politician (40)  |  Possible (560)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Profession (108)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Sagacity (11)  |  Skill (116)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Useful (260)  |  Vast (188)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weakness (50)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wise (143)  |  Writer (90)

It really is worth the trouble to invent a new symbol if we can thus remove not a few logical difficulties and ensure the rigour of the proofs. But many mathematicians seem to have so little feeling for logical purity and accuracy that they will use a word to mean three or four different things, sooner than make the frightful decision to invent a new word.
Grundgesetz der Arithmetik(1893), Vol. 2, Section 60, In P. Greach and M. Black (eds., Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege (1952), 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Decision (98)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Little (717)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mean (810)  |  New (1273)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Proof (304)  |  Remove (50)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Worth (172)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  Determine (152)  |  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 surely can be no offence to state, that the progress of science has led to new views, and that the consequences that can be deduced from the knowledge of a hundred facts may be very different from those deducible from five. It is also possible that the facts first known may be the exceptions to a rule and not the rule itself, and generalisations from these first-known facts, though useful at the time, may be highly mischievous, and impede the progress of the science if retained when it has made some advance.
Sections and Views Illustrative of Geological Phenomena (1830), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Exception (74)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Mischievous (12)  |  New (1273)  |  Possible (560)  |  Progress (492)  |  Progress Of Science (40)  |  Retain (57)  |  Rule (307)  |  State (505)  |  Surely (101)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Useful (260)  |  View (496)

It was through living among these groups and much more I think, through moving regularly from one to the other and back again that I got occupied with the problem of what, long before I put it on paper, I christened to myself as the ‘two cultures’. For constantly I felt I was moving among two groups [scientists and literary intellectuals] comparable in intelligence, identical in race, not grossly different in social origin, earning about the same incomes, who had almost ceased to communicate at all, who in intellectual, moral and psychological climate had so little in common that instead of going from Burlington House or South Kensington to Chelsea, one might have crossed an ocean.
The Two Cultures: The Rede Lecture (1959), 2. The places mentioned are all in London. Burlington House is the home of the Royal Society and South Kensington is the site of the Natural History Museum, whereas Chelsea represents an affluent centre of artistic life.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Cessation (13)  |  Climate (102)  |  Common (447)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Cross (20)  |  Culture (157)  |  House (143)  |  Identical (55)  |  Income (18)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Little (717)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Myself (211)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Problem (731)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Race (278)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  South (39)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)

It will be noticed that the fundamental theorem proved above bears some remarkable resemblances to the second law of thermodynamics. Both are properties of populations, or aggregates, true irrespective of the nature of the units which compose them; both are statistical laws; each requires the constant increase of a measurable quantity, in the one case the entropy of a physical system and in the other the fitness, measured by m, of a biological population. As in the physical world we can conceive the theoretical systems in which dissipative forces are wholly absent, and in which the entropy consequently remains constant, so we can conceive, though we need not expect to find, biological populations in which the genetic variance is absolutely zero, and in which fitness does not increase. Professor Eddington has recently remarked that “The law that entropy always increases—the second law of thermodynamics—holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of nature.” It is not a little instructive that so similar a law should hold the supreme position among the biological sciences. While it is possible that both may ultimately be absorbed by some more general principle, for the present we should note that the laws as they stand present profound differences—-(1) The systems considered in thermodynamics are permanent; species on the contrary are liable to extinction, although biological improvement must be expected to occur up to the end of their existence. (2) Fitness, although measured by a uniform method, is qualitatively different for every different organism, whereas entropy, like temperature, is taken to have the same meaning for all physical systems. (3) Fitness may be increased or decreased by changes in the environment, without reacting quantitatively upon that environment. (4) Entropy changes are exceptional in the physical world in being irreversible, while irreversible evolutionary changes form no exception among biological phenomena. Finally, (5) entropy changes lead to a progressive disorganization of the physical world, at least from the human standpoint of the utilization of energy, while evolutionary changes are generally recognized as producing progressively higher organization in the organic world.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biological (137)  |  Both (496)  |  Change (639)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Difference (355)  |  Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (135)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exception (74)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Existence (481)  |  Expect (203)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  General (521)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Human (1512)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Increase (225)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Little (717)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occur (151)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Population (115)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Professor (133)  |  Profound (105)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Remain (355)  |  Require (229)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  Species (435)  |  Stand (284)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Supreme (73)  |  System (545)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Think (1122)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Utilization (16)  |  Variance (12)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Zero (38)

It would, of course, be a poor lookout for the advancement of science if young men started believing what their elders tell them, but perhaps it is legitimate to remark that young Turks look younger, or more Turkish ... if the conclusions they eventually reach are different from what anyone had said before.
In Nature, 1969.
Science quotes on:  |  Advancement (63)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Course (413)  |  Elder (9)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Poor (139)  |  Reach (286)  |  Start (237)  |  Tell (344)  |  Young (253)  |  Younger (21)

It’s a common occurrence in a forefront area of science, where the questions are tough and the measurements extremely difficult. You have different groups using different methods and they get different answers. You see it all the time, and the public rarely notices. But when it happens to be in cosmology, it makes headlines.
As quoted in John Moble Wilford, 'Astronomers Debate Conflicting Answers for the Age of the Universe', New York Times (27 Dec 1994), C9.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Area (33)  |  Common (447)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Extremely (17)  |  Forefront (2)  |  Group (83)  |  Happen (282)  |  Headline (8)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Method (531)  |  Notice (81)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Public (100)  |  Question (649)  |  Rarely (21)  |  See (1094)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tough (22)

Just as in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, an individual comes into being, so to speak, grows, remains in being, declines and passes on, will it not be the same for entire species? If our faith did not teach us that animals left the Creator's hands just as they now appear and, if it were permitted to entertain the slightest doubt as to their beginning and their end, may not a philosopher, left to his own conjectures, suspect that, from time immemorial, animal life had its own constituent elements, scattered and intermingled with the general body of matter, and that it happened when these constituent elements came together because it was possible for them to do so; that the embryo formed from these elements went through innumerable arrangements and developments, successively acquiring movement, feeling, ideas, thought, reflection, consciousness, feelings, emotions, signs, gestures, sounds, articulate sounds, language, laws, arts and sciences; that millions of years passed between each of these developments, and there may be other developments or kinds of growth still to come of which we know nothing; that a stationary point either has been or will be reached; that the embryo either is, or will be, moving away from this point through a process of everlasting decay, during which its faculties will leave it in the same way as they arrived; that it will disappear for ever from nature-or rather, that it will continue to exist there, but in a form and with faculties very different from those it displays at this present point in time? Religion saves us from many deviations, and a good deal of work. Had religion not enlightened us on the origin of the world and the universal system of being, what a multitude of different hypotheses we would have been tempted to take as nature's secret! Since these hypotheses are all equally wrong, they would all have seemed almost equally plausible. The question of why anything exists is the most awkward that philosophy can raise- and Revelation alone provides the answer.
Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature and Other Philosophical Works (1753/4), ed. D. Adams (1999), Section LVIII, 75-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Art (680)  |  Awkward (11)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Continue (179)  |  Creator (97)  |  Deal (192)  |  Decay (59)  |  Decline (28)  |  Development (441)  |  Deviation (21)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Display (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Element (322)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Emotion (106)  |  End (603)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightened (25)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Equally (129)  |  Exist (458)  |  Faith (209)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Kind (564)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Save (126)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Still (614)  |  System (545)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Universal (198)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)

Just as, in civil History, one consults title-deeds, one studies coins, one deciphers ancient inscriptions, in order to determine the epochs of human revolutions and to fix the dates of moral [i.e. human] events; so, in Natural History, one must excavate the archives of the world, recover ancient monuments from the depths of the earth, collect their remains, and assemble in one body of proofs all the evidence of physical changes that enable us to reach back to the different ages of Nature. This, then, is the order of the times indicated by facts and monuments: these are six epochs in the succession of the first ages of Nature; six spaces of duration, the limits of which although indeterminate are not less real; for these epochs are not like those of civil History ... that we can count and measure exactly; nevertheless we can compare them with each other and estimate their relative duration.
'Des Époques de la Nature', Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière contenant les Époques de la Nature (1778), Supplement Vol. 9, 1-2, 41. Trans. Martin J. Rudwick.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Assemble (14)  |  Back (395)  |  Body (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Civil (26)  |  Compare (76)  |  Count (107)  |  Deed (34)  |  Depth (97)  |  Determine (152)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enable (122)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Fossil (143)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inscription (12)  |  Limit (294)  |  Measure (241)  |  Monument (45)  |  Moral (203)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Change (5)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Space (523)  |  Succession (80)  |  Time (1911)  |  World (1850)

Kirchhoff’s whole tendency, and its true counterpart, the form of his presentation, was different [from Maxwell’s “dramatic bulk”]. … He is characterized by the extreme precision of his hypotheses, minute execution, a quiet rather than epic development with utmost rigor, never concealing a difficulty, always dispelling the faintest obscurity. … he resembled Beethoven, the thinker in tones. — He who doubts that mathematical compositions can be beautiful, let him read his memoir on Absorption and Emission … or the chapter of his mechanics devoted to Hydrodynamics.
In Ceremonial Speech (15 Nov 1887) celebrating the 301st anniversary of the Karl-Franzens-University Graz. Published as Gustav Robert Kirchhoff: Festrede zur Feier des 301. Gründungstages der Karl-Franzens-Universität zu Graz (1888), 30, as translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 187. From the original German, “Kirchhoff … seine ganze Richtung war eine andere, und ebenso auch deren treues Abbild, die Form seiner Darstellung. … Ihn charakterisirt die schärfste Präcisirung der Hypothesen, feine Durchfeilung, ruhige mehr epische Fortentwicklung mit eiserner Consequenz ohne Verschweigung irgend einer Schwierigkeit, unter Aufhellung des leisesten Schattens. … er glich dem Denker in Tönen: Beethoven. – Wer in Zweifel zieht, dass mathematische Werke künstlerisch schön sein können, der lese seine Abhandlung über Absorption und Emission oder den der Hydrodynamik gewidmeten Abschnitt seiner Mechanik.” The memoir reference is Gesammelte Abhandlungen (1882), 571-598.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorption (13)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beethoven (14)  |  Beethoven_Ludwig (8)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Chapter (11)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Composition (86)  |  Conceal (19)  |  Counterpart (11)  |  Development (441)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Dispel (5)  |  Dispelling (4)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Emission (20)  |  Epic (12)  |  Execution (25)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Faint (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Hydrodynamics (5)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (4)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Memoir (13)  |  Minute (129)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  Precision (72)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Read (308)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Tone (22)  |  Utmost (12)  |  Whole (756)

Knowing what we know from X-ray and related studies of the fibrous proteins, how they are built from long polypeptide chains with linear patterns drawn to a grand scale, how these chains can contract and take up different configurations by intramolecular folding, how the chain- groups are penetrated by, and their sidechains react with, smaller co-operating molecules, and finally how they can combine so readily with nucleic acid molecules and still maintain the fibrous configuration, it is but natural to assume, as a first working hypothesis at least, that they form the long scroll on which is written the pattern of life. No other molecules satisfy so many requirements.
William Thomas Astbury and Florence O. Bell. 'Some Recent Developments in the X-Ray Study of Proteins and Related Structures', Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, 1938, 6, 1144.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Combine (58)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Life (1870)  |  Linear (13)  |  Long (778)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Protein (56)  |  Ray (115)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Scale (122)  |  Still (614)  |  Structure (365)  |  X-ray (43)

Knowing, henceforth, the physiognomy of the disease when allowed to run its own course, you can, without risk of error, estimate the value of the different medications which have been employed. You will discover which remedies have done no harm, and which have notably curtailed the duration of the disease; and thus for the future you will have a standard by which to measure the value of the medicine which you see employed to counteract the malady in question. What you have done in respect of one disease, you will be able to do in respect of many; and by proceeding in this way you will be able, on sure data, to pass judgment on the treatment pursued by your masters.
In Armand Trousseau, as translated by P. Victor and John Rose Cormack, Lectures on Clinical Medicine: Delivered at the Hôtel-Dieu, Paris (1873), Vol. 1, 40-41.
Science quotes on:  |  Counteract (5)  |  Course (413)  |  Data (162)  |  Discover (571)  |  Disease (340)  |  Do (1905)  |  Employ (115)  |  Error (339)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Future (467)  |  Harm (43)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Malady (8)  |  Master (182)  |  Measure (241)  |  Medication (8)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Pass (241)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Question (649)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Respect (212)  |  Risk (68)  |  Run (158)  |  See (1094)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Value (393)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

Language is a guide to 'social reality.' Though language is not ordinarily thought of as essential interest to the students of social science, it powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and processes. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.
'The Status of Linguistics as a Science', Language (1929), 5, 207-14. In David Mandelbaum (ed.), Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture, and Personality (1949), 162.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Alone (324)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Communication (101)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consider (428)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Do (1905)  |  Essential (210)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Guide (107)  |  Habit (174)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Incidental (15)  |  Interest (416)  |  Label (11)  |  Language (308)  |  Large (398)  |  Live (650)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Merely (315)  |  Objective (96)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Society (350)  |  Solution (282)  |  Specific (98)  |  Student (317)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Understood (155)  |  Use (771)  |  World (1850)

Language is simply alive, like an organism. We all tell each other this, in fact, when we speak of living languages, and I think we mean something more than an abstract metaphor. We mean alive. Words are the cells of language, moving the great body, on legs. Language grows and evolves, leaving fossils behind. The individual words are like different species of animals. Mutations occur. Words fuse, and then mate. Hybrid words and wild varieties or compound words are the progeny. Some mixed words are dominated by one parent while the other is recessive. The way a word is used this year is its phenotype, but it has deeply immutable meanings, often hidden, which is its genotype.... The separate languages of the Indo-European family were at one time, perhaps five thousand years ago, maybe much longer, a single language. The separation of the speakers by migrations had effects on language comparable to the speciation observed by Darwin on various islands of the Galapagos. Languages became different species, retaining enough resemblance to an original ancestor so that the family resemblance can still be seen.
in 'Living Language,' The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, (1974, 1984), 106.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Alive (97)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Animal (651)  |  Behind (139)  |  Body (557)  |  Compound (117)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Family (101)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Galapagos (5)  |  Genotype (8)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hybrid (14)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Individual (420)  |  Island (49)  |  Language (308)  |  Leg (35)  |  Living (492)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Migration (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Observed (149)  |  Occur (151)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Phenotype (5)  |  Progeny (16)  |  Recessive (6)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Separate (151)  |  Separation (60)  |  Single (365)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Still (614)  |  Tell (344)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wild (96)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

Later scientific theories are better than earlier ones for solving puzzles in the often quite different environments to which they are applied. That is not a relativist's position, and it displays the sense in which I am a convinced believer in scientific progress.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd edition (1970), 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Believer (26)  |  Better (493)  |  Display (59)  |  Environment (239)  |  Progress (492)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Relativist (2)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Progress (14)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solution (282)  |  Theory (1015)

Lecturing after a fashion is easy enough ; teaching is a very different affair. ... The transmission of ideas from one mind to another, in a simple unequivocal form, is not always easy ; but in teaching, the object is not merely to convey the idea, but to give a lively and lasting impression; something that should not merely cause the retention of the image, but in such connection as to excite another process, ' thought.'
Memoirs of John Abernethy (1854), 253.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Connection (171)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enough (341)  |  Form (976)  |  Idea (881)  |  Image (97)  |  Impression (118)  |  Lively (17)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Object (438)  |  Process (439)  |  Simple (426)  |  Something (718)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transmission (34)

Let Nature do your bottling and your pickling and preserving. For all Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist her. With the least inclination to be well, we should not be sick. Men have discovered—or think they have discovered—the salutariness of a few wild things only, and not of all nature. Why, “nature” is but another name for health, and the seasons are but different states of health. Some men think that they are not well in spring, or summer, or autumn, or winter; it is only because they are not well in them.
(23 Aug 1853). In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: V: March 5-November 30, 1853 (1906), 395.
Science quotes on:  |  Autumn (11)  |  Best (467)  |  Bottle (17)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  End (603)  |  Exist (458)  |  Health (210)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Moment (260)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pickle (3)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Resist (15)  |  Salutary (5)  |  Season (47)  |  Sick (83)  |  Spring (140)  |  State (505)  |  Summer (56)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Why (491)  |  Wild (96)  |  Winter (46)

Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.
Letter to W. Ogle (22 Feb 1882). In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1896), 427.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Baron Georges Cuvier (34)  |  God (776)  |  Carolus Linnaeus (36)  |  Old (499)  |  Schoolboy (9)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)

Long intervals frequently elapse between the discovery of new principles in science and their practical application… Those intellectual qualifications, which give birth to new principles or to new methods, are of quite a different order from those which are necessary for their practical application.
Reflections on the Decline of Science in England (1830), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Birth (154)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Invention (400)  |  Long (778)  |  Method (531)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Practical (225)  |  Principle (530)  |  Qualification (15)

Looking back over the last thousand years, one can divide the development of the machine and the machine civilization into three successive but over-lapping and interpenetrating phases: eotechnic, paleotechnic, neotechnic … Speaking in terms of power and characteristic materials, the eotechnic phase is a water-and-wood complex: the paleotechnic phase is a coal-and-wood complex… The dawn-age of our modern technics stretches roughly from the year 1000 to 1750. It did not, of course, come suddenly to an end in the middle of the eighteenth century. A new movement appeared in industrial society which had been gathering headway almost unnoticed from the fifteenth century on: after 1750 industry passed into a new phase, with a different source of power, different materials, different objectives.
Technics and Civilisation (1934), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  Age (509)  |  Back (395)  |  Century (319)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Coal (64)  |  Complex (202)  |  Course (413)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Divide (77)  |  End (603)  |  Gathering (23)  |  Headway (2)  |  Industry (159)  |  Last (425)  |  Looking (191)  |  Machine (271)  |  Material (366)  |  Modern (402)  |  Movement (162)  |  New (1273)  |  Objective (96)  |  Paleotechnic (2)  |  Pass (241)  |  Phase (37)  |  Power (771)  |  Society (350)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Successive (73)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Technics (2)  |  Technology (281)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Water (503)  |  Wood (97)  |  Year (963)

Man is a classifying animal: in one sense it may be said that the whole process of speaking is nothing but distributing phenomena, of which no two are alike in every respect, into different classes on the strength of perceived similarities and dissimilarities. In the name-giving process we witness the same ineradicable and very useful tendency to see likenesses and to express similarity in the phenomena through similarity in name.
Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin (1922), 388-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Animal (651)  |  Classification (102)  |  Express (192)  |  Man (2252)  |  Name (359)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Process (439)  |  Respect (212)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Speech (66)  |  Strength (139)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Useful (260)  |  Whole (756)  |  Witness (57)

Many scientific theories have, for very long periods of time, stood the test of experience until they had to be discarded owing to man’s decision, not merely to make other experiments, but to have different experiences.
In The Disinherited Mind: Essays in Modern German Literature and Thought (1952), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Decision (98)  |  Discard (32)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merely (315)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owing (39)  |  Period (200)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Test (221)  |  Time (1911)

Mathematical proofs are essentially of three different types: pre-formal; formal; post-formal. Roughly the first and third prove something about that sometimes clear and empirical, sometimes vague and ‘quasi-empirical’ stuff, which is the real though rather evasive subject of mathematics.
In Mathematics, Science and Epistemology (1980), Vol. 2, 69.
Science quotes on:  |  Clear (111)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Essential (210)  |  First (1302)  |  Formal (37)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Real (159)  |  Something (718)  |  Subject (543)  |  Type (171)  |  Vague (50)

Mathematical science is in my opinion an indivisible whole, an organism whose vitality is conditioned upon the connection of its parts. For with all the variety of mathematical knowledge, we are still clearly conscious of the similarity of the logical devices, the relationship of the ideas in mathematics as a whole and the numerous analogies in its different departments.
In 'Mathematical Problems', Bulletin American Mathematical Society, 8, 478.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Condition (362)  |  Connection (171)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Department (93)  |  Device (71)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logical (57)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organism (231)  |  Part (235)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Still (614)  |  Variety (138)  |  Vitality (24)  |  Whole (756)

Mathematical studies … when combined, as they now generally are, with a taste for physical science, enlarge infinitely our views of the wisdom and power displayed in the universe. The very intimate connexion indeed, which, since the date of the Newtonian philosophy, has existed between the different branches of mathematical and physical knowledge, renders such a character as that of a mere mathematician a very rare and scarcely possible occurrence.
In Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1827), Vol. 3, Chap. 1, Sec. 3, 184.
Science quotes on:  |  Branch (155)  |  Character (259)  |  Connection (171)  |  Display (59)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Exist (458)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mere (86)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Rare (94)  |  Render (96)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Taste (93)  |  Universe (900)  |  View (496)  |  Wisdom (235)

Mathematicians are like a certain type of Frenchman: when you talk to them they translate it into their own language, and then it soon turns into something completely different.
Maxims and Reflections (1998), trans. E. Stopp, 162.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Completely (137)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Translate (21)  |  Turn (454)  |  Type (171)

Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.
From Maximen und Reflexionen (1907), Vol. 21, 266, Maxim 1279. Translation as quoted in George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 94. From the original German, “Mathematiker sind eine Art Franzosen: redet man zu ihnen, so übersetzen sie es in ihre Sprache, und dann ist es alsobald ganz etwas anderes.”
Science quotes on:  |  Entirely (36)  |  Forthwith (2)  |  Frenchman (4)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Translate (21)  |  Whatever (234)

Mathematics and art are quite different. We could not publish so many papers that used, repeatedly, the same idea and still command the respect of our colleagues.
As given in essay, Ronald Coifman and Robert S. Strichartz, 'The School of Antoni Zygmund', collected in Peter Duren (ed.), A Century of Mathematics in America (1989), 348. The comment was made “after passing through several rooms in a museum filled with the paintings of a rather well-known modem painter”. The authors acknowledge students of Zygmund provided personal recollections to them for the essay in general. Webmaster speculates the quote is from a student recollection, and not necessarily verbatim.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Command (60)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics And Art (8)  |  Paper (192)  |  Publish (42)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Respect (212)  |  Same (166)  |  Still (614)

Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality. Though different traditions may emphasize different aspects, it is only the interplay of these antithetic forces and the struggle for their synthesis that constitute the life, usefulness, and supreme value of mathematical science.
As co-author with Herbert Robbins, in What Is Mathematics?: An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods (1941, 1996), x.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Activity (218)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Aesthetics (12)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Antithesis (7)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Basic (144)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Construction (114)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Desire (212)  |  Difference (355)  |  Element (322)  |  Emphasis (18)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Expression (181)  |  Force (497)  |  Generality (45)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Interplay (9)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Life (1870)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
Henri Poincaré and George Bruce Halsted (trans.) The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis (1921), 375.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Give (208)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Name (359)  |  Same (166)  |  Thing (1914)

Men are of three different capacities; one understands intuitively, another only understands so far as it is explained; and a third understands neither of himself nor by explanation; the first is excellent, the second commendable, and the third altogether useless.
Collected, without citation, in Day's Collacon: an Encyclopaedia of Prose Quotations (1884), 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Capacity (105)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  First (1302)  |  Himself (461)  |  Intuitive (14)  |  Understand (648)  |  Useless (38)

Men of science belong to two different types—the logical and the intuitive. Science owes its progress to both forms of minds. Mathematics, although a purely logical structure, nevertheless makes use of intuition. Among the mathematicians there are intuitives and logicians, analysts and geometricians. Hermite and Weierstrass were intuitives. Riemann and Bertrand, logicians. The discoveries of intuition have always to be developed by logic.
In Man the Unknown (1935), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Analyst (8)  |  Belong (168)  |  Joseph Bertrand (6)  |  Both (496)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometrician (6)  |  Charles Hermite (10)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Intuitive (14)  |  Logic (311)  |  Logician (18)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Owe (71)  |  Progress (492)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purely (111)  |  Bernhard Riemann (7)  |  Structure (365)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Use (771)  |   Karl Weierstrass, (10)

Modern music, headstrong, wayward, tragically confused as to what to say and how to say it, has mounted its horse, as the joke goes, and ridden off in all directions. If we require of an art that it be unified as a whole and expressed in a universal language known to all, if it must be a consistent symbolization of the era, then modern music is a disastrous failure. It has many voices, many symbolizations. It it known to one, unknown to another. But if an art may be as variable and polyvocal as the different individuals and emotional regions from which it comes in this heterogeneous modern world, then the diversity and contradiction of modern music may be acceptable.
In Art Is Action: A Discussion of Nine Arts in a Modern World (1939), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptable (14)  |  Art (680)  |  Confused (13)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disastrous (3)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Era (51)  |  Express (192)  |  Failure (176)  |  Horse (78)  |  Individual (420)  |  Joke (90)  |  Known (453)  |  Language (308)  |  Modern (402)  |  Mount (43)  |  Music (133)  |  Must (1525)  |  Require (229)  |  Say (989)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Tragic (19)  |  Unified (10)  |  Universal (198)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Variable (37)  |  Wayward (3)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Most classifications, whether of inanimate objects or of organisms, are hierarchical. There are “higher” and “lower” categories, there are higher and lower ranks. What is usually overlooked is that the use of the term “hierarchy” is ambiguous, and that two fundamentally different kinds of arrangements have been designated as hierarchical. A hierarchy can be either exclusive or inclusive. Military ranks from private, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, up to general are a typical example of an exclusive hierarchy. A lower rank is not a subdivision of a higher rank; thus, lieutenants are not a subdivision of captains. The scala naturae, which so strongly dominated thinking from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, is another good illustration of an exclusive hierarchy. Each level of perfection was considered an advance (or degradation) from the next lower (or higher) level in the hierarchy, but did not include it.
The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance (1982), 205-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Ambiguity (17)  |  Ambiguous (14)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Captain (16)  |  Century (319)  |  Classification (102)  |  Consider (428)  |  Degradation (18)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Hierarchy (17)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Inanimate (18)  |  Include (93)  |  Inclusive (4)  |  Kind (564)  |  Level (69)  |  Military (45)  |  Most (1728)  |  Next (238)  |  Object (438)  |  Organism (231)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Rank (69)  |  Term (357)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)

Most educated people are aware that we're the outcome of nearly 4 billion years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. It will not be humans who watch the sun's demise, 6 billion years from now. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae.
Lecture (2006), reprinted as 'Dark Materials'. As cited in J.G. Ballard, 'The Catastrophist', collected in Christopher Hitchens, Arguably: Selected Essays (2011), 353
Science quotes on:  |  Amoeba (21)  |  Aware (36)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Billion (104)  |  Creature (242)  |  Culmination (5)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Demise (2)  |  Difference (355)  |  Education (423)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Human (1512)  |  Lifespan (9)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Outcome (15)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Selection (130)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tend (124)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Watch (118)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Mr. Dalton's aspect and manner were repulsive. There was no gracefulness belonging to him. His voice was harsh and brawling; his gait stiff and awkward; his style of writing and conversation dry and almost crabbed. In person he was tall, bony, and slender. He never could learn to swim: on investigating this circumstance he found that his spec. grav. as a mass was greater than that of water; and he mentioned this in his lectures on natural philosophy in illustration of the capability of different persons for attaining the art of swimming. Independence and simplicity of manner and originality were his best qualities. Though in comparatively humble circumstances he maintained the dignity of the philosophical character. As the first distinct promulgator of the doctrine that the elements of bodies unite in definite proportions to form chemical compounds, he has acquired an undying fame.
Dr John Davy's (brother of Humphry Davy) impressions of Dalton written in c.1830-31 in Malta.
John Davy
Quoted in W. C. Henry, Memoirs of the Life and Scientific Researches of John Dalton (1854), 217-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Art (680)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Awkward (11)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Best (467)  |  Biography (254)  |  Brother (47)  |  Capability (44)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Compound (117)  |  Conversation (46)  |  John Dalton (25)  |  Definite (114)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Dry (65)  |  Element (322)  |  Fame (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Greater (288)  |  Humble (54)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Impression (118)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mention (84)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Never (1089)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Swim (32)  |  Swimming (19)  |  Unite (43)  |  Water (503)  |  Writing (192)

My belief (is) that one should take a minimum of care and preparation over first experiments. If they are unsuccessful one is not then discouraged since many possible reasons for failure can be thought of, and improvements can be made. Much can often be learned by the repetition under different conditions, even if the desired result is not obtained. If every conceivable precaution is taken at first, one is often too discouraged to proceed at all.
Nobel Lectures in Chemistry (1999), Vol. 3, 364.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Care (203)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Condition (362)  |  Desire (212)  |  Discourage (14)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Failure (176)  |  First (1302)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Minimum (13)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precaution (5)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Reason (766)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Result (700)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unsuccessful (4)

My visceral perception of brotherhood harmonizes with our best modern biological knowledge ... Many people think (or fear) that equality of human races represents a hope of liberal sentimentality probably squashed by the hard realities of history. They are wrong. This essay can be summarized in a single phrase, a motto if you will: Human equality is a contingent fact of history. Equality is not true by definition; it is neither an ethical principle (though equal treatment may be) nor a statement about norms of social action. It just worked out that way. A hundred different and plausible scenarios for human history would have yielded other results (and moral dilemmas of enormous magnitude). They didn’t happen.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Best (467)  |  Biological (137)  |  Brotherhood (6)  |  Contingent (12)  |  Definition (238)  |  Dilemma (11)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equality (34)  |  Essay (27)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fear (212)  |  Happen (282)  |  Hard (246)  |  Harmonize (4)  |  History (716)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Liberal (8)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Modern (402)  |  Moral (203)  |  Motto (29)  |  Norm (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Perception (97)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probably (50)  |  Race (278)  |  Reality (274)  |  Represent (157)  |  Result (700)  |  Scenario (3)  |  Sentimentality (2)  |  Single (365)  |  Social (261)  |  Squash (4)  |  Statement (148)  |  Summarize (10)  |  Think (1122)  |  Treatment (135)  |  True (239)  |  Visceral (3)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Yield (86)

Natural science is founded on minute critical views of the general order of events taking place upon our globe, corrected, enlarged, or exalted by experiments, in which the agents concerned are placed under new circumstances, and their diversified properties separately examined. The body of natural science, then, consists of facts; is analogy,—the relation of resemblance of facts by which its different parts are connected, arranged, and employed, either for popular use, or for new speculative improvements.
'Introductory Lecture to the Chemistry of Nature' (1807), in J. Davy (ed.), The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy (1839-40), Vol 8, 167-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Body (557)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Concern (239)  |  Connect (126)  |  Consist (223)  |  Critical (73)  |  Employ (115)  |  Event (222)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Exalted (22)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  General (521)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Minute (129)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Use (771)  |  View (496)

Nature is no great mother who has borne us. She is our creation. It is our brain that she quickens to life. Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that have influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.
In 'Decay of Lying', The Writings of Oscar Wilde: Epigrams, Phrases and Philosophies For the Use of the Young (1907), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Bear (162)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Brain (281)  |  Creation (350)  |  Depend (238)  |  Great (1610)  |  Influence (231)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Mother (116)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Quicken (7)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Thing (1914)

Nature, the parent of all things, designed the human backbone to be like a keel or foundation. It is because we have a backbone that we can walk upright and stand erect. But this was not the only purpose for which Nature provided it; here, as elsewhere, she displayed great skill in turning the construction of a single member to a variety of different uses.
It Provides a Path for the Spinal Marrow, Yet is Flexible.
Firstly, she bored a hole through the posterior region of the bodies of all the vertebrae, thus fashioning a suitable pathway for the spinal marrow which would descend through them.
Secondly, she did not make the backbone out of one single bone with no joints. Such a unified construction would have afforded greater stability and a safer seat for the spinal marrow since, not having joints, the column could not have suffered dislocations, displacements, or distortions. If the Creator of the world had paid such attention to resistance to injury and had subordinated the value and importance of all other aims in the fabric of parts of the body to this one, he would certainly have made a single backbone with no joints, as when someone constructing an animal of wood or stone forms the backbone of one single and continuous component. Even if man were destined only to bend and straighten his back, it would not have been appropriate to construct the whole from one single bone. And in fact, since it was necessary that man, by virtue of his backbone, be able to perform a great variety of movements, it was better that it be constructed from many bones, even though as a result of this it was rendered more liable to injury.
From De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem: (1543), Book I, 57-58, as translated by William Frank Richardson, in 'Nature’s Skill in Creating a Backbone to Hold Us Erect', On The Fabric of the Human Body: Book I: The Bones and Cartilages (1998), 138.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Attention (196)  |  Back (395)  |  Backbone (12)  |  Bend (13)  |  Better (493)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Bored (5)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Column (15)  |  Component (51)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Creator (97)  |  Descend (49)  |  Design (203)  |  Destined (42)  |  Dislocation (4)  |  Displacement (9)  |  Display (59)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Fabric (27)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flexible (7)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Importance (299)  |  Injury (36)  |  Joint (31)  |  Keel (4)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marrow (5)  |  Member (42)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Path (159)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Perform (123)  |  Posterior (7)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Render (96)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Result (700)  |  Single (365)  |  Skill (116)  |  Someone (24)  |  Stability (28)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stone (168)  |  Straight (75)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Unified (10)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Variety (138)  |  Vertebra (4)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Walk (138)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wood (97)  |  World (1850)

Neither the natives of Munsa [chief of the Mangbetu] nor the people of Kifan who came to me knew anything of the existence of a great lake, even though I undertook a positively detective investigation in order to discover any possible political intrigues. All of the statements of different people were noted and then compared; they agree as to names etc., which put my mind at rest.
On the necessity of compiling map data by comparisons between interviews with locals. In August Petermann, Petermann’s Geographische Mittheilungen (1871), 13. As quoted and cited in Kathrin Fritsch, '"You Have Everything Confused And Mixed Up…!" Georg Schweinfurth, Knowledge And Cartography Of Africa In The 19th Century', History in Africa (2009), 36, 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Agree (31)  |  Chief (99)  |  Compare (76)  |  Detective (11)  |  Discover (571)  |  Existence (481)  |  Great (1610)  |  Intrigue (4)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lake (36)  |  Name (359)  |  Native (41)  |  Note (39)  |  Political (124)  |  Possible (560)  |  Statement (148)

Nevertheless, paradigm changes do cause scientists to see the world of their research engagements differently. Insofar as their only recourse to that world is through what they see and do, we may want to say that after a revolution scientists are responding to a different world.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engagement (9)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Paradigm (16)  |  Recourse (12)  |  Research (753)  |  Respond (14)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Through (846)  |  Want (504)  |  World (1850)

Newton’s and Darwin’s world were different from the worlds of most men, and yet their worlds were not the world, but more and better than mine, as they had followed out further and better the teachings of the sense.
In Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), xlviii.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Follow (389)  |  Mine (78)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Sense (785)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teachings (11)  |  World (1850)

No history of civilization can be tolerably complete which does not give considerable space to the explanation of scientific progress. If we had any doubts about this, it would suffice to ask ourselves what constitutes the essential difference between our and earlier civilizations. Throughout the course of history, in every period, and in almost every country, we find a small number of saints, of great artists, of men of science. The saints of to-day are not necessarily more saintly than those of a thousand years ago; our artists are not necessarily greater than those of early Greece; they are more likely to be inferior; and of course, our men of science are not necessarily more intelligent than those of old; yet one thing is certain, their knowledge is at once more extensive and more accurate. The acquisition and systematization of positive knowledge is the only human activity which is truly cumulative and progressive. Our civilization is essentially different from earlier ones, because our knowledge of the world and of ourselves is deeper, more precise, and more certain, because we have gradually learned to disentangle the forces of nature, and because we have contrived, by strict obedience to their laws, to capture them and to divert them to the gratification of our own needs.
Introduction to the History of Science (1927), Vol. 1, 3-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Activity (218)  |  Artist (97)  |  Ask (420)  |  Capture (11)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completion (23)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Country (269)  |  Course (413)  |  Cumulative (14)  |  Difference (355)  |  Disentangle (4)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Early (196)  |  Essential (210)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Gratification (22)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Greece (9)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Need (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Obedience (20)  |  Old (499)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Period (200)  |  Positive (98)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precision (72)  |  Progress (492)  |  Saint (17)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Progress (14)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Truly (118)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

No matter when you had been to this spot before, a thousand years ago or a hundred thousand years ago, or if you came back to it a million years from now, you would see some different things each time, but the scene would be generally the same.
[Referring to the topography of the Moon.]
Co-author with Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, Edwin E. Aldrin, Grace Farmer (ed.) and Dora Jane Hamblin (ed.), First on the Moon(1970), 297.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Matter (821)  |  Moon (252)  |  Scene (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Year (963)

No physiologist who calmly considers the question in connection with the general truths of his science, can long resist the conviction that different parts of the cerebrum subserve different kinds of mental action. Localization of function is the law of all organization whatever: separateness of duty is universally accompanied with separateness of structure: and it would be marvellous were an exception to exist in the cerebral hemispheres.
The Principles of Psychology (1855), 607.
Science quotes on:  |  Accompany (22)  |  Action (342)  |  Calm (32)  |  Cerebrum (10)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consider (428)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Difference (355)  |  Duty (71)  |  Exception (74)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Function (235)  |  General (521)  |  Hemisphere (5)  |  Kind (564)  |  Law (913)  |  Localization (3)  |  Long (778)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Mental (179)  |  Organization (120)  |  Part (235)  |  Physiologist (31)  |  Question (649)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Separateness (2)  |  Serve (64)  |  Structure (365)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universality (22)  |  Whatever (234)

Not every collision,
not every punctilious trajectory
by which billiard-ball complexes
arrive at their calculable meeting places
lead to reaction. ...
Men (and women) are not
as different from molecules
as they think.
Hoffmann, as a chemist-turned-poet is making the analogy of random intermolecular interactions to those of humans. From poem, 'Men and Molecules', The Metamict State (1984), 43. Cited as an epigraph in William L. Masterton and Cecile N. Hurley Chemistry: Principles and Reactions, Updated Edition (2005), 282.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrive (40)  |  Ball (64)  |  Billiard (4)  |  Collision (16)  |  Complex (202)  |  Difference (355)  |  Lead (391)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meeting (22)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Think (1122)  |  Trajectory (5)  |  Woman (160)

Not one of them [formulae] can be shown to have any existence, so that the formula of one of the simplest of organic bodies is confused by the introduction of unexplained symbols for imaginary differences in the mode of combination of its elements… It would be just as reasonable to describe an oak tree as composed of blocks and chips and shavings to which it may be reduced by the hatchet, as by Dr Kolbe’s formula to describe acetic acid as containing the products which may be obtained from it by destructive influences. A Kolbe botanist would say that half the chips are united with some of the blocks by the force parenthesis; the other half joined to this group in a different way, described by a buckle; shavings stuck on to these in a third manner, comma; and finally, a compound of shavings and blocks united together by a fourth force, juxtaposition, is joined to the main body by a fifth force, full stop.
'On Dr. Kolbe's Additive Formulae', Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society (1855), 7, 133-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Acetic Acid (2)  |  Acid (83)  |  Body (557)  |  Botanist (25)  |  Combination (150)  |  Compound (117)  |  Describe (132)  |  Difference (355)  |  Element (322)  |  Existence (481)  |  Force (497)  |  Formula (102)  |  Influence (231)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Hermann Kolbe (4)  |  Oak (16)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Organic (161)  |  Other (2233)  |  Product (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Together (392)  |  Tree (269)  |  Unexplained (8)  |  Way (1214)

Nothing in the entire universe ever perishes, believe me, but things vary, and adopt a new form. The phrase “being born” is used for beginning to be something different from what one was before, while “dying” means ceasing to be the same. Though this thing may pass into that, and that into this, yet the sums of things remains unchanged.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adopt (22)  |  Bear (162)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Cease (81)  |  Die (94)  |  Entire (50)  |  Form (976)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perish (56)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Remain (355)  |  Same (166)  |  Something (718)  |  Sum (103)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unchanged (4)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vary (27)

Nothing tends so much to the advancement of knowledge as the application of a new instrument. The native intellectual powers of men in different times are not so much the causes of the different success of their labors, as the peculiar nature of the means and artificial resources in their possession.
In Elements of Chemical Philosophy (1812), Vol. 1, Part 1, 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Advancement (63)  |  Application (257)  |  Cause (561)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Native (41)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Possession (68)  |  Power (771)  |  Success (327)  |  Tend (124)  |  Time (1911)

Now, all causes of natural effects must be expressed by means of lines, angles and figures, for otherwise it is impossible to grasp their explanation. This is evident as follows. A natural agent multiplies its power from itself to the recipient, whether it acts on sense or on matter. This power is sometimes called species, sometimes a likeness, and it is the same thing whatever it may be called; and the agent sends the same power into sense and into matter, or into its own contrary, as heat sends the same thing into the sense of touch and into a cold body. For it does not act, by deliberation and choice, and therefore it acts in a single manner whatever it encounters, whether sense or something insensitive, whether something animate or inanimate. But the effects are diversified by the diversity of the recipient, for when this power is received by the senses, it produces an effect that is somehow spiritual and noble; on the other hand, when it is received by matter, it produces a material effect. Thus the sun produces different effects in different recipients by the same power, for it cakes mud and melts ice.
De Uneis, Angulis et Figuris seu Fractionibus Reflexionibus Radiorum (On Lines, Angles and Figures or On the Refraction and Reflection of Rays) [1230/31], trans. D. C. Lindberg, quoted in E. Grant (ed.), A Source Book in Medieval Science (1974), 385-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Agent (73)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Choice (114)  |  Cold (115)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Deliberation (5)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evident (92)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Express (192)  |  Figure (162)  |  Follow (389)  |  Heat (180)  |  Ice (58)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Light (635)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mud (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Noble (93)  |  Optics (24)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Sense (785)  |  Single (365)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Something (718)  |  Species (435)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touch (146)  |  Whatever (234)

Observation by means of the microscope will reveal more wonderful things than those viewed in regard to mere structure and connection: for while the heart is still beating the contrary (i.e., in opposite directions in the different vessels) movement of the blood is observed in the vessels—though with difficulty—so that the circulation of the blood is clearly exposed.
De Pulmonibus (1661), trans. James Young, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine (1929-30), 23, 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Beat (42)  |  Blood (144)  |  Capillary (4)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Connection (171)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Direction (185)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Heart (243)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Microscope (85)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Regard (312)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Still (614)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vessel (63)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wonderful (155)

Of all regions of the earth none invites speculation more than that which lies beneath our feet, and in none is speculation more dangerous; yet, apart from speculation, it is little that we can say regarding the constitution of the interior of the earth. We know, with sufficient accuracy for most purposes, its size and shape: we know that its mean density is about 5½ times that of water, that the density must increase towards the centre, and that the temperature must be high, but beyond these facts little can be said to be known. Many theories of the earth have been propounded at different times: the central substance of the earth has been supposed to be fiery, fluid, solid, and gaseous in turn, till geologists have turned in despair from the subject, and become inclined to confine their attention to the outermost crust of the earth, leaving its centre as a playground for mathematicians.
'The Constitution of the Interior of the Earth, as Revealed by Earthquakes', Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society (1906), 62, 456.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Attention (196)  |  Become (821)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Central (81)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Crust (43)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Density (25)  |  Despair (40)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Geologist (82)  |  High (370)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Increase (225)  |  Interior (35)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Lie (370)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Playground (6)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Say (989)  |  Solid (119)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Water (503)

Of what use are the great number of petrifactions, of different species, shape and form which are dug up by naturalists? Perhaps the collection of such specimens is sheer vanity and inquisitiveness. I do not presume to say; but we find in our mountains the rarest animals, shells, mussels, and corals embalmed in stone, as it were, living specimens of which are now being sought in vain throughout Europe. These stones alone whisper in the midst of general silence.
Philosophia Botanica (1751), aphorism 132. Trans. Frans A. Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789 (1971), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Collection (68)  |  Coral (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inquisitiveness (6)  |  Living (492)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Mussel (2)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Number (710)  |  Petrification (5)  |  Rare (94)  |  Say (989)  |  Shape (77)  |  Shell (69)  |  Silence (62)  |  Species (435)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Stone (168)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Use (771)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Vain (86)  |  Vanity (20)  |  Whisper (11)

On a perfect planet such as might be acceptable to a physicist, one might predict that from its origin the diversity of life would grow exponentially until the carrying capacity, however defined, was reached. The fossil record on Earth, however, tells a very different story.
In 'The Evolution of Diversity in AAncient Ecosystems: a Review', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (28 Feb 1998), 353, No. 1366, 327.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptable (14)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Carrying capacity (3)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exponential (3)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fossil Record (12)  |  Grow (247)  |  Life (1870)  |  Origin (250)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Planet (402)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Reach (286)  |  Record (161)  |  Story (122)  |  Tell (344)

On the 20th of May 1747, I took twelve patients in the scurvy, on board the Salisbury at sea. Their cases were as similar as I could have them. They all in general had putrid gums, the spots and lassitude, with weakness of their knees. They lay together in one place, being a proper apartment for the sick in the fore-hold; and had one diet common to all, viz, water-gruel sweetened with sugar in the morning; fresh mutton-broth often times for dinner; at other times puddings, boiled biscuit with sugar, &c.; and for supper, barley and raisins, rice and currents, sago and wine, or the like.
Two of these were ordered each a quart of cider a-day. Two others took twenty-five gutta of elixir vitriol three times a-day, upon an empty stomach; using a gargle strongly acidulated with it for their mouths. Two others took two spoonfuls of vinegar three times a-day, upon an empty stomach; having their gruels and their other food well acidulated with it, as also the gargle for their mouth. Two of the worst patients, with the tendons in the ham rigid, (a symptom none of the rest had), were put under a course of sea-water. Of this they drank half a pint every day, and sometimes more or less as it operated, by way of gentle physics. The others had each two oranges and one lemon given them every day. These they eat with greediness, at different times, upon an empty stomach. They continued but six days under this course, having consumed the quantity that could be spared. The two remaining patients, took the bigness of a nutmeg three times a-day, of an electuary recommended by an hospital-surgeon, made of garlic, mustard-seed, rad. raphan. balsam of Peru, and gum myrrh; using for common drink, barley-water well acidulated with tamarinds; by a decoction of which, with the addition of cremor tartar, they were gently purged three or four times during the course.
The consequence was, that the most sudden and visible good effects were perceived from the use of the oranges and lemons; one of those who had taken them, being at the end of six days fit for duty. …
Next to the oranges, I thought the cider had the best effects.
A Treatise of the Scurvy (1753), 191-193. Quoted in Carleton Ellis and Annie Louise Macleod, Vital Factors of Foods: Vitamins and Nutrition (1922), 229-230.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Boil (24)  |  Cider (3)  |  Common (447)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Current (122)  |  Diet (56)  |  Drink (56)  |  Eat (108)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elixir (6)  |  Empty (82)  |  End (603)  |  Fit (139)  |  Food (213)  |  Fresh (69)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Hospital (45)  |  Lassitude (4)  |  Lemon (2)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Morning (98)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Mutton (4)  |  Next (238)  |  Nutmeg (2)  |  Nutrition (25)  |  Orange (15)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Proper (150)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rice (5)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Scurvy (5)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seaman (3)  |  Seed (97)  |  Sick (83)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Sugar (26)  |  Supper (10)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Vinegar (7)  |  Visible (87)  |  Vitamin C (3)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weakness (50)  |  Wine (39)  |  Worst (57)

On the afternoon of October 19, 1899, I climbed a tall cherry tree and, armed with a saw which I still have, and a hatchet, started to trim the dead limbs from the cherry tree. It was one of the quiet, colorful afternoons of sheer beauty which we have in October in New England, and as I looked towards the fields at the east, I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars. I was a different boy when I descended the tree from when I ascended for existence at last seemed very purposive.
In The Papers of Robert H. Goddard: 1898-1924 (1970), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Afternoon (5)  |  Arm (82)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Boy (100)  |  Climb (39)  |  Colorful (2)  |  Dead (65)  |  Descend (49)  |  Device (71)  |  Existence (481)  |  Field (378)  |  Hatchet (2)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Last (425)  |  Limb (9)  |  Look (584)  |  Mars (47)  |  New (1273)  |  New England (2)  |  October (5)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Saw (160)  |  Start (237)  |  Still (614)  |  Tall (11)  |  Tree (269)  |  Trim (4)  |  Wonderful (155)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 my complaints is that you’ve got far more scientists than ever before but the pace of discovery has not increased. Why? Because they’re all busy just filling in the details of what they think is the standard story. And the youngsters, the people with different ideas have just as big a fight as ever and normally it takes decades for science to correct itself. But science does correct itself and that’s the reason why science is such a glorious thing for our species.
From transcript of Interview (16 Aug 2007) by Robyn Williams, 'InConversation', Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Science quotes on:  |  Busy (32)  |  Complaint (13)  |  Correct (95)  |  Decade (66)  |  Detail (150)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Fight (49)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Idea (881)  |  Increase (225)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Pace (18)  |  Reason (766)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Species (435)  |  Standard (64)  |  Story (122)  |  Young (253)

One of my guiding principles is don’t do anything that other people are doing. Always do something a little different if you can. The concept is that if you do it a little differently there is a greater potential for reward than if you the same thing that other people are doing. I think that this kind of goal for one’s work, having obviously the maximum risk, would have the maximum reward no matter what the field may be.
In transcript of a video history interview with Seymour Cray by David K. Allison at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, (9 May 1995), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Concept (242)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Field (378)  |  Goal (155)  |  Greater (288)  |  Guide (107)  |  Kind (564)  |  Little (717)  |  Matter (821)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Potential (75)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reward (72)  |  Risk (68)  |  Same (166)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Work (1402)

One of the main purposes of scientific inference is to justify beliefs which we entertain already; but as a rule they are justified with a difference. Our pre-scientific general beliefs are hardly ever without exceptions; in science, a law with exceptions can only be tolerated as a makeshift. Scientific laws, when we have reason to think them accurate, are different in form from the common-sense rules which have exceptions: they are always, at least in physics, either differential equations, or statistical averages. It might be thought that a statistical average is not very different from a rule with exceptions, but this would be a mistake. Statistics, ideally, are accurate laws about large groups; they differ from other laws only in being about groups, not about individuals. Statistical laws are inferred by induction from particular statistics, just as other laws are inferred from particular single occurrences.
The Analysis of Matter (1927), 191.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Already (226)  |  Average (89)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Differential Equation (18)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Entertainment (19)  |  Equation (138)  |  Exception (74)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Group (83)  |  Individual (420)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inference (45)  |  Justification (52)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Makeshift (2)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Pre-Scientific (5)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)  |  Single (365)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Toleration (7)

One of the most striking results of modern investigation has been the way in which several different and quite independent lines of evidence indicate that a very great event occurred about two thousand million years ago. The radio-active evidence for the age of meteorites; and the estimated time for the tidal evolution of the Moon's orbit (though this is much rougher), all agree in their testimony, and, what is far more important, the red-shift in the nebulae indicates that this date is fundamental, not merely in the history of our system, but in that of the material universe as a whole.
The Solar System and its Origin (1935), 137.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Age (509)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Date (14)  |  Estimation (7)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Importance (299)  |  Independence (37)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Indication (33)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Material (366)  |  Merely (315)  |  Meteorite (9)  |  Million (124)  |  Modern (402)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nebula (16)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Radio (60)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Red-Shift (4)  |  Result (700)  |  Shift (45)  |  Striking (48)  |  System (545)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tide (37)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

One of the principal results of civilization is to reduce more and more the limits within which the different elements of society fluctuate. The more intelligence increases the more these limits are reduced, and the nearer we approach the beautiful and the good. The perfectibility of the human species results as a necessary consequence of all our researches. Physical defects and monstrosities are gradually disappearing; the frequency and severity of diseases are resisted more successfully by the progress of modern science; the moral qualities of man are proving themselves not less capable of improvement; and the more we advance, the less we shall have need to fear those great political convulsions and wars and their attendant results, which are the scourges of mankind.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Approach (112)  |  Attendant (3)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Capable (174)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Convulsion (5)  |  Defect (31)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disease (340)  |  Element (322)  |  Fear (212)  |  Frequency (25)  |  Good (906)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Species (11)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Increase (225)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Less (105)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Monstrosity (6)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Need (320)  |  Perfectibility (3)  |  Physical (518)  |  Political (124)  |  Principal (69)  |  Progress (492)  |  Prove (261)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Research (753)  |  Resist (15)  |  Result (700)  |  Scourge (3)  |  Severity (6)  |  Society (350)  |  Species (435)  |  Successful (134)  |  Themselves (433)  |  War (233)

Only a few years ago, it was generally supposed that by crossing two somewhat different species or varieties a mongrel might be produced which might, or more likely might not, surpass its parents. The fact that crossing was only the first step and that selection from the numerous variations secured in the second and a few succeeding generations was the real work of new plant creation had never been appreciated; and to-day its significance is not fully understood either by breeders or even by many scientific investigators along these very lines.
From Paper read at the Annual Meeting of the American Breeders’ Association, at Columbia, Mo. (5-8 January 1909). In 'Another Mode of Species Forming', Popular Science Monthly (Sep 1909), 75, 264-265.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Breeder (4)  |  Creation (350)  |  Cross (20)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  First Step (3)  |  Generation (256)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Investigator (71)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Parent (80)  |  Plant (320)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Secure (23)  |  Secured (18)  |  Selection (130)  |  Significance (114)  |  Species (435)  |  Step (234)  |  Succeeding (14)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Variation (93)  |  Variety (138)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Only human beings were given the power of speech, because only to them was it necessary. It was not necessary that either angels or the lower animals should be able to speak; rather, this power would have been wasted on them, and nature, of course, hates to do anything superfluous. … As for the lower animals, since they are guided only by their natural instinct, it was not necessary for them to be given the power of speech. For all animals that belong to the same species are identical in respect of action and feeling; and thus they can know the actions and feelings of others by knowing their own. Between creatures of different species, on the other hand, not only was speech unnecessary, but it would have been injurious, since there could have been no friendly exchange between them.
In Dante Alighieri and Steven Botterill (trans.), De Vulgari Eloquentia (1305), Book 1, Chap 2. from the Latin original.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Angel (47)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Course (413)  |  Creature (242)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Friend (180)  |  Hate (68)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Identical (55)  |  Injurious (14)  |  Injury (36)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Language (308)  |  Linguistics (39)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Respect (212)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Speech (66)  |  Superfluous (21)  |  Unnecessary (23)  |  Waste (109)

Our world is not an optimal place, fine tuned by omnipotent forces of selection. It is a quirky mass of imperfections, working well enough (often admirably); a jury-rigged set of adaptations built of curious parts made available by past histories in different contexts ... A world optimally adapted to current environments is a world without history, and a world without history might have been created as we find it. History matters; it confounds perfection and proves that current life transformed its own past.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Admirably (3)  |  Available (80)  |  Build (211)  |  Confound (21)  |  Context (31)  |  Create (245)  |  Curious (95)  |  Current (122)  |  Enough (341)  |  Environment (239)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fine (37)  |  Force (497)  |  History (716)  |  Imperfection (32)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  Often (109)  |  Omnipotent (13)  |  Optimal (4)  |  Optimally (2)  |  Part (235)  |  Past (355)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Place (192)  |  Prove (261)  |  Quirky (3)  |  Selection (130)  |  Set (400)  |  Transform (74)  |  Tune (20)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Owing to his lack of knowledge, the ordinary man cannot attempt to resolve conflicting theories of conflicting advice into a single organized structure. He is likely to assume the information available to him is on the order of what we might think of as a few pieces of an enormous jigsaw puzzle. If a given piece fails to fit, it is not because it is fraudulent; more likely the contradictions and inconsistencies within his information are due to his lack of understanding and to the fact that he possesses only a few pieces of the puzzle. Differing statements about the nature of things, differing medical philosophies, different diagnoses and treatments—all of these are to be collected eagerly and be made a part of the individual's collection of puzzle pieces. Ultimately, after many lifetimes, the pieces will fit together and the individual will attain clear and certain knowledge.
'Strategies of Resort to Curers in South India', contributed in Charles M. Leslie (ed.), Asian Medical Systems: A Comparative Study (1976), 185.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Availability (10)  |  Available (80)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Collection (68)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Conflicting (13)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Diagnosis (65)  |  Difference (355)  |  Due (143)  |  Eagerness (5)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Few (15)  |  Fit (139)  |  Inconsistency (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Information (173)  |  Jigsaw (4)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lack (127)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Man (2252)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Order (638)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Organization (120)  |  Owing (39)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Piece (39)  |  Possession (68)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Single (365)  |  Statement (148)  |  Structure (365)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Together (392)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

Perhaps the central problem we face in all of computer science is how we are to get to the situation where we build on top of the work of others rather than redoing so much of it in a trivially different way.
From Turing Award lecture (1968), 'One Man's View of Computer Science', collected in ACM Turing Award Lectures: The First Twenty Years, 1966 to 1985 (1987), 216. ACM is the Association for Computing Machinery. The lecture is also published in Journal of the ACM (Jan 1969), 16, No. 1, 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Center (35)  |  Central (81)  |  Computer (131)  |  Computer Science (11)  |  Difference (355)  |  Face (214)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Situation (117)  |  Top (100)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

Perhaps we see equations as simple because they are easily expressed in terms of mathematical notation already invented at an earlier stage of development of the science, and thus what appears to us as elegance of description really reflects the interconnectedness of Nature's laws at different levels.
Nobel Banquet Speech (10 Dec 1969), in Wilhelm Odelberg (ed.),Les Prix Nobel en 1969 (1970).
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Description (89)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Early (196)  |  Ease (40)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Equation (138)  |  Express (192)  |  Expression (181)  |  Invention (400)  |  Law (913)  |  Level (69)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notation (28)  |  Reflection (93)  |  See (1094)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Stage (152)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)

Philosophers have said that if the same circumstances don't always produce the same results, predictions are impossible and science will collapse. Here is a circumstance—identical photons are always coming down in the same direction to the piece of glass—that produces different results. We cannot predict whether a given photon will arrive at A or B. All we can predict is that out of 100 photons that come down, an average of 4 will be reflected by the front surface. Does this mean that physics, a science of great exactitude, has been reduced to calculating only the probability of an event, and not predicting exactly what will happen? Yes. That's a retreat, but that's the way it is: Nature permits us to calculate only probabilities. Yet science has not collapsed.
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Coming (114)  |  Direction (185)  |  Down (455)  |  Event (222)  |  Exactitude (10)  |  Glass (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Identical (55)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Mean (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Permit (61)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Photon (11)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Probability (135)  |  Result (700)  |  Surface (223)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

Plants, generally speaking, meet the impact of the terrestrial environment head on, although of course they in turn modify the physical environment by adventitious group activity. The individual plant cannot select its habitat; its location is largely determined by the vagaries of the dispersal of seeds or spores and is thus profoundly affected by chance. Because of their mobility and their capacity for acceptance or rejection terrestrial animals, in contrast, can and do actively seek out and utilize the facets of the environment that allow their physiological capacities to function adequately. This means that an animal by its behavior can fit the environment to its physiology by selecting situations in which its physiological capacities can cope with physical conditions. If one accepts this idea, it follows that there is no such thing as The Environment, for there exist as many different terrestrial environments as there are species of animals.
From 'The role of physiology in the distribution of terrestrial vertebrates', collected in C.L. Hubbs (ed.), Zoogeography: Publ. 51 (1958), 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Actively (3)  |  Activity (218)  |  Adequately (4)  |  Affect (19)  |  Allow (51)  |  Animal (651)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Chance (244)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Cope (9)  |  Course (413)  |  Determine (152)  |  Dispersal (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exist (458)  |  Facet (9)  |  Fit (139)  |  Follow (389)  |  Function (235)  |  Generally (15)  |  Group (83)  |  Habitat (17)  |  Head (87)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impact (45)  |  Individual (420)  |  Largely (14)  |  Location (15)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Meet (36)  |  Mobility (11)  |  Modify (15)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Plant (320)  |  Profoundly (13)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Seed (97)  |  Seek (218)  |  Select (45)  |  Situation (117)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Species (435)  |  Spore (3)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Utilize (10)  |  Vagary (2)

Positive, objective knowledge is public property. It can be transmitted directly from one person to another, it can be pooled, and it can be passed on from one generation to the next. Consequently, knowledge accumulates through the ages, each generation adding its contribution. Values are quite different. By values, I mean the standards by which we judge the significance of life. The meaning of good and evil, of joy and sorrow, of beauty, justice, success-all these are purely private convictions, and they constitute our store of wisdom. They are peculiar to the individual, and no methods exist by which universal agreement can be obtained. Therefore, wisdom cannot be readily transmitted from person to person, and there is no great accumulation through the ages. Each man starts from scratch and acquires his own wisdom from his own experience. About all that can be done in the way of communication is to expose others to vicarious experience in the hope of a favorable response.
The Nature of Science and Other Lectures (1954), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Age (509)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Communication (101)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Evil (122)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Expose (28)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Generation (256)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hope (321)  |  Individual (420)  |  Joy (117)  |  Judge (114)  |  Justice (40)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Method (531)  |  Next (238)  |  Objective (96)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Person (366)  |  Positive (98)  |  Property (177)  |  Purely (111)  |  Response (56)  |  Scratch (14)  |  Significance (114)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Start (237)  |  Store (49)  |  Success (327)  |  Through (846)  |  Universal (198)  |  Value (393)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wisdom (235)

Preferring a search for objective reality over revelation is another way of satisfying religious hunger. It is an endeavor almost as old as civilization and intertwined with traditional religion, but it follows a very different course—a stoic’s creed, an acquired taste, a guidebook to adventure plotted across rough terrain. It aims to save the spirit, not by surrender but by liberation of the human mind. Its central tenet, as Einstein knew, is the unification of knowledge. When we have unified enough certain knowledge, we will understand who we are and why we are here. If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way.
In Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Adventure (69)  |  Aim (175)  |  Central (81)  |  Certain (557)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Creed (28)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Liberation (12)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Objective (96)  |  Old (499)  |  Quest (39)  |  Reality (274)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Save (126)  |  Search (175)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Surrender (21)  |  Taste (93)  |  Terrain (6)  |  Understand (648)  |  Unification (11)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

Proposition VIII. When two Undulations, from different Origins, coincide either perfectly or very nearly in Direction, their joint effect is a Combination of the Motions belonging to each.
'On the Theory of Light and Colours' (read in 1801), Philosophical Transactions (1802), 92, 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Belonging (36)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conincidence (4)  |  Difference (355)  |  Direction (185)  |  Effect (414)  |  Effort (243)  |  Joint (31)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Origin (250)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Two (936)  |  Undulation (4)

Psychoanalysis has changed American psychiatry from a diagnostic to a therapeutic science, not because so many patients are cured by the psychoanalytic technique, but because of the new understanding of psychiatric patients it has given us and the new and different concepts of illness and health.
News summaries 29 Apr 56
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Change (639)  |  Concept (242)  |  Cure (124)  |  Diagnostic (2)  |  Give (208)  |  Health (210)  |  Illness (35)  |  New (1273)  |  Patient (209)  |  Psychiatry (26)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Psychoanalytic (2)  |  Technique (84)  |  Therapeutic (6)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

Pure mathematics and physics are becoming ever more closely connected, though their methods remain different. One may describe the situation by saying that the mathematician plays a game in which he himself invents the rules while the while the physicist plays a game in which the rules are provided by Nature, but as time goes on it becomes increasingly evident that the rules which the mathematician finds interesting are the same as those which Nature has chosen. … Possibly, the two subjects will ultimately unify, every branch of pure mathematics then having its physical application, its importance in physics being proportional to its interest in mathematics.
From Lecture delivered on presentation of the James Scott prize, (6 Feb 1939), 'The Relation Between Mathematics And Physics', printed in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1938-1939), 59, Part 2, 124.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Branch (155)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Closely (12)  |  Connect (126)  |  Connected (8)  |  Describe (132)  |  Evident (92)  |  Find (1014)  |  Game (104)  |  Himself (461)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Invent (57)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Play (116)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Proportional (5)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rule (307)  |  Situation (117)  |  Subject (543)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Unify (7)  |  Will (2350)

Relativity teaches us the connection between the different descriptions of one and the same reality.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Connection (171)  |  Description (89)  |  Reality (274)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Same (166)  |  Teach (299)

Religion shows a pattern of heredity which I think is similar to genetic heredity. ... There are hundreds of different religious sects, and every religious person is loyal to just one of these. ... The overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one their parents belonged to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained-glass, the best music when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing compared to the matter of heredity.
From edited version of a speech, at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (15 Apr 1992), as reprinted from the Independent newspaper in Alec Fisher, The Logic of Real Arguments (2004), 82-83.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Belong (168)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Best (467)  |  Cathedral (27)  |  Choose (116)  |  Code (31)  |  Count (107)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Favor (69)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Glass (94)  |  Happen (282)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Loyal (5)  |  Majority (68)  |  Matter (821)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Moral (203)  |  Music (133)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Person (366)  |  Potential (75)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Sect (5)  |  Show (353)  |  Similar (36)  |  Stained Glass (2)  |  Think (1122)  |  Virtue (117)

Research is industrial prospecting. The oil prospectors use every scientific means to find new paying wells. Oil is found by each one of a number of methods. My own group of men are prospecting in a different field, using every possible scientific means. We believe there are still things left to be discovered. We have only stumbled upon a few barrels of physical laws from the great pool of knowledge. Some day we are going to hit a gusher.
'Industrial Prospecting', an address to the Founder Societies of Engineers (20 May 1935). In National Research Council, Reprint and Circular Series of the National Research Council (1933), No. 107, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Barrel (5)  |  Belief (615)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Field (378)  |  Find (1014)  |  Great (1610)  |  Industry (159)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Oil (67)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Law (15)  |  Pool (16)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prospector (5)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Still (614)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)

Research may start from definite problems whose importance it recognizes and whose solution is sought more or less directly by all forces. But equally legitimate is the other method of research which only selects the field of its activity and, contrary to the first method, freely reconnoitres in the search for problems which are capable of solution. Different individuals will hold different views as to the relative value of these two methods. If the first method leads to greater penetration it is also easily exposed to the danger of unproductivity. To the second method we owe the acquisition of large and new fields, in which the details of many things remain to be determined and explored by the first method.
In Zum Gedächtniss an Julius Plucker', Göttinger Abhandlungen (1871), 16, Mathematische Classe, 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Activity (218)  |  Capable (174)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Danger (127)  |  Definite (114)  |  Detail (150)  |  Determine (152)  |  Easy (213)  |  Equally (129)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Expose (28)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Freely (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hold (96)  |  Importance (299)  |  Individual (420)  |  Large (398)  |  Lead (391)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Problem (731)  |  Productivity (23)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Reconnoitre (2)  |  Relative (42)  |  Remain (355)  |  Research (753)  |  Search (175)  |  Select (45)  |  Solution (282)  |  Start (237)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Value (393)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams—they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do—they all contain truths.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 14
Science quotes on:  |  Contain (68)  |  Do (1905)  |  Lake (36)  |  Name (359)  |  Pond (17)  |  Religion (369)  |  River (140)  |  Stream (83)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Water (503)

Satire is a composition of salt and mercury; and it depends upon the different mixture and preparation of those ingredients, that it comes out a noble medicine, or a rank poison.
In Tryon Edwards (ed.), A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), 502.
Science quotes on:  |  Composition (86)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Difference (355)  |  Ingredient (16)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Noble (93)  |  Poison (46)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Rank (69)  |  Salt (48)  |  Satire (4)

Science appears to us with a very different aspect after we have found out that it is not in lecture rooms only, and by means of the electric light projected on a screen, that we may witness physical phenomena, but that we may find illustrations of the highest doctrines of science in games and gymnastics, in travelling by land and by water, in storms of the air and of the sea, and wherever there is matter in motion.
'Introductory Lecture on Experimental Physics' (1871). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 243.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Electric (76)  |  Find (1014)  |  Game (104)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Light (635)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Motion (320)  |  Physical (518)  |  Project (77)  |  Projector (3)  |  Sea (326)  |  Storm (56)  |  Storms (18)  |  Travel (125)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Water (503)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Witness (57)

Science demands great linguistic austerity and discipline, and the canons of good style in scientific writing are different from those in other kinds of literature.
In Biology and Language: An Introduction to the Methodology of the (1952), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Austerity (3)  |  Canon (3)  |  Demand (131)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Kind (564)  |  Linguistic (3)  |  Literature (116)  |  Other (2233)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Style (24)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations. Examples include the double helix in biology, and the fundamental equations of physics.
[Answer to question: What are the things you find most beautiful in science?]
'Stephen Hawking: "There is no heaven; it's a fairy story"', interview in newspaper The Guardian (15 May 2011).
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Biology (232)  |  Connection (171)  |  Difference (355)  |  DNA (81)  |  Double Helix (2)  |  Equation (138)  |  Example (98)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Helix (10)  |  Include (93)  |  Make (25)  |  Most (1728)  |  Observation (593)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Question (649)  |  Simple (426)  |  Thing (1914)

Science is the only truth and it is the great lie. It knows nothing, and people think it knows everything. It is misrepresented. People think that science is electricity, automobilism, and dirigible balloons. It is something very different. It is life devouring itself. It is the sensibility transformed into intelligence. It is the need to know stifling the need to live. It is the genius of knowledge vivisecting the vital genius.
repr. In Selected Writings, ed. and trans. by Glen S. Burne (1966). 'Art and Science,' Promenades Philosophiques (1905-1909).
Science quotes on:  |  Balloon (16)  |  Devour (29)  |  Dirigible (2)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Everything (489)  |  Genius (301)  |  Great (1610)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Misrepresentation (5)  |  Need (320)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  People (1031)  |  Sensibility (5)  |  Something (718)  |  Stifle (5)  |  Think (1122)  |  Transform (74)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vital (89)

Science is the organised attempt of mankind to discover how things work as causal systems. The scientific attitude of mind is an interest in such questions. It can be contrasted with other attitudes, which have different interests; for instance the magical, which attempts to make things work not as material systems but as immaterial forces which can be controlled by spells; or the religious, which is interested in the world as revealing the nature of God.
In The Scientific Attitude (1941), Foreword, 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Cause (561)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Control (182)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Force (497)  |  God (776)  |  Immaterial (6)  |  Instance (33)  |  Interest (416)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Material (366)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Question (649)  |  Religious (134)  |  Revealing (4)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spell (9)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Science is the way—a powerful way, indeed—to study the natural world. Science is not particularly effective—in fact, it’s rather ineffective—in making commentary about the supernatural world. Both worlds, for me, are quite real and quite important. They are investigated in different ways. They coexist. They illuminate each other.
From transcript of interview by Bob Abernathy with Francis Collins on PBS TV program 'Religion and Ethics'(16 Jun 2000).
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Coexist (4)  |  Commentary (3)  |  Effective (68)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Important (229)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Ineffective (6)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Making (300)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural World (33)  |  Other (2233)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Real (159)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Study (701)  |  Supernatural (26)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.
[Answer to question: You've said there is no reason to invoke God to light the blue touchpaper. Is our existence all down to luck?]
'Stephen Hawking: "There is no heaven; it's a fairy story"', interview in newspaper The Guardian (15 May 2011).
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Chance (244)  |  Creation (350)  |  Difference (355)  |  Down (455)  |  Existence (481)  |  God (776)  |  Kind (564)  |  Light (635)  |  Luck (44)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Spontaneity (7)  |  Universe (900)  |  Which (2)  |  Will (2350)

Science progresses not because scientists as a whole are passionately open-minded but because different scientists are passionately closed-minded about different things.
Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method (1992)
Science quotes on:  |  Closed (38)  |  Difference (355)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Open (277)  |  Open-Minded (2)  |  Passion (121)  |  Progress (492)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Whole (756)

Scientific development depends in part on a process of non-incremental or revolutionary change. Some revolutions are large, like those associated with the names of Copernicus, Newton, or Darwin, but most are much smaller, like the discovery of oxygen or the planet Uranus. The usual prelude to changes of this sort is, I believed, the awareness of anomaly, of an occurrence or set of occurrences that does not fit existing ways of ordering phenomena. The changes that result therefore require 'putting on a different kind of thinking-cap', one that renders the anomalous lawlike but that, in the process, also transforms the order exhibited by some other phenomena, previously unproblematic.
The Essential Tension (1977), xvii.
Science quotes on:  |  Anomaly (11)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Change (639)  |  Nicolaus Copernicus (54)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Depend (238)  |  Development (441)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Fit (139)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Planet (402)  |  Process (439)  |  Render (96)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Revolution (13)  |  Set (400)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Transform (74)  |  Uranus (6)  |  Way (1214)

Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poets–scientists and philosopher–scientists and even a few mystics. ... and most people who are in fact scientists could easily have been something else instead.
'Hypothesis and Imagination', The Art of the Soluble (1967), 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Artist (97)  |  Detective (11)  |  Doing (277)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mystic (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Something (718)  |  Temperament (18)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)

Scientists themselves readily admit that they do not fully understand the consequences of our many-faceted assault upon the interwoven fabric of atmosphere, water, land and life in all its biological diversity. But things could also turn out to be worse than the current scientific best guess. In military affairs, policy has long been based on the dictum that we should be prepared for the worst case. Why should it be so different when the security is that of the planet and our long-term future?
Speech, 'Global Security Lecture' at Cambridge University (28 Apr 1993).
Science quotes on:  |  Admit (49)  |  Assault (12)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Best (467)  |  Biodiversity (25)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Current (122)  |  Dictum (10)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fabric (27)  |  Future (467)  |  Guess (67)  |  Interwoven (10)  |  Land (131)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Military (45)  |  Planet (402)  |  Policy (27)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Security (51)  |  Term (357)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)  |  Worst (57)

Scientists, therefore, are responsible for their research, not only intellectually but also morally. This responsibility has become an important issue in many of today's sciences, but especially so in physics, in which the results of quantum mechanics and relativity theory have opened up two very different paths for physicists to pursue. They may lead us—to put it in extreme terms—to the Buddha or to the Bomb, and it is up to each of us to decide which path to take.
In The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture (1983), 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Become (821)  |  Buddha_Gautama (2)  |  Decision (98)  |  Difference (355)  |  Especially (31)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Importance (299)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Issue (46)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Moral (203)  |  Open (277)  |  Path (159)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Research (753)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Today (321)  |  Two (936)

Scripture and Nature agree in this, that all things were covered with water; how and when this aspect began, and how long it lasted, Nature says not, Scripture relates. That there was a watery fluid, however, at a time when animals and plants were not yet to be found, and that the fluid covered all things, is proved by the strata of the higher mountains, free from all heterogeneous material. And the form of these strata bears witness to the presence of a fluid, while the substance bears witness to the absence of heterogeneous bodies. But the similarity of matter and form in the strata of mountains which are different and distant from each other, proves that the fluid was universal.
The Prodromus of Nicolaus Steno's Dissertation Concerning a Solid Body enclosed by Process of Nature within a Solid (1669), trans. J. G. Winter (1916), 263-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Absence (21)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Animal (651)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Bear (162)  |  Covering (14)  |  Distance (171)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Heterogeneous (4)  |  Last (425)  |  Long (778)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Presence (63)  |  Prove (261)  |  Say (989)  |  Scripture (14)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Strata (37)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universality (22)  |  Water (503)  |  Witness (57)

Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends.
[Comment added to the second edition (1845) of Voyage of the Beagle (1839) concerning the variations he found of finches in the Galapagos Islands. In the first edition (p.461) he had merely described the thirteen allied species of finch but without further commentary.]
Voyage of the Beagle, 2nd ed., (1845), 380.
Science quotes on:  |  Archipelago (7)  |  Beagle (14)  |  Beak (5)  |  Bird (163)  |  Diversity (75)  |  End (603)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Finch (4)  |  First (1302)  |  Galapagos (5)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Island (49)  |  Merely (315)  |  Paucity (3)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Small (489)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)  |  Variation (93)  |  Voyage Of The Beagle (4)

Since many cases are known in which the specificities of antigens and enzymes appear to bear a direct relation to gene specificities, it seems reasonable to suppose that the gene’s primary and possibly sole function is in directing the final configurations of protein molecules.
Assuming that each specific protein of the organism has its unique configuration copied from that of a gene, it follows that every enzyme whose specificity depends on a protein should be subject to modification or inactivation through gene mutation. This would, of course, mean that the reaction normally catalyzed by the enzyme in question would either have its rate or products modified or be blocked entirely.
Such a view does not mean that genes directly “make” proteins. Regardless of precisely how proteins are synthesized, and from what component parts, these parts must themselves be synthesized by reactions which are enzymatically catalyzed and which in turn depend on the functioning of many genes. Thus in the synthesis of a single protein molecule, probably at least several hundred different genes contribute. But the final molecule corresponds to only one of them and this is the gene we visualize as being in primary control.
In 'Genetics and Metabolism in Neurospora', Physiological Reviews, 1945, 25, 660.
Science quotes on:  |  Antigen (5)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Component (51)  |  Control (182)  |  Course (413)  |  Depend (238)  |  Direct (228)  |  Enzyme (19)  |  Final (121)  |  Follow (389)  |  Function (235)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Known (453)  |  Mean (810)  |  Modification (57)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Organism (231)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Primary (82)  |  Product (166)  |  Protein (56)  |  Question (649)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Single (365)  |  Sole (50)  |  Specific (98)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unique (72)  |  View (496)

Since natural selection demands only adequacy, elegance of design is not relevant; any combination of behavioural adjustment, physiological regulation, or anatomical accommodation that allows survival and reproduction may be favoured by selection. Since all animals are caught in a phylogenetic trap by the nature of past evolutionary adjustments, it is to be expected that a given environmental challenge will be met in a variety of ways by different animals. The delineation of the patterns of the accommodations of diverse types of organisms to the environment contributes much of the fascination of ecologically relevant physiology.
In 'The roles of physiology and behaviour in the maintenance of homeostasis in the desert environment.', Symposia of the Society for Experimental Biology (1964), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodation (9)  |  Adequacy (10)  |  Adjustment (21)  |  Allow (51)  |  Anatomical (3)  |  Animal (651)  |  Catch (34)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Combination (150)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Demand (131)  |  Design (203)  |  Diverse (20)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fascination (35)  |  Favor (69)  |  Give (208)  |  Meet (36)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organism (231)  |  Past (355)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Phylogenetic (3)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Relevant (5)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Selection (130)  |  Survival (105)  |  Trap (7)  |  Type (171)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

Since nothing can exist that does not fulfil the conditions which render its existence possible, the different parts each being must be co-ordinated in such a way as to render possible the existence of the being as a whole, not only in itself, but also in its relations with other beings, and the analysis of these conditions often leads to general laws which are as certain as those which are derived from calculation or from experiment.
Le Règne Animal distribué d' Après son Organisation (1817), 6. Translated in E. S. Russell, Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology (1916), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Being (1276)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certain (557)  |  Condition (362)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experiment (736)  |  General (521)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Render (96)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)

Something to do with a puzzle being solved—things fall into place and you see a different way of looking at things which suddenly makes sense. [Naming what is a most exciting moment in his career.]
Answering “What has been the most exciting moment in your career?” From 'Interview: Of Mind and Matter: David Attenborough Meets Richard Dawkins', The Guardian (11 Sep 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Career (86)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Moment (260)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solve (145)  |  Sudden (70)

Statistical accounts are to be referred to as a dictionary by men of riper years, and by young men as a grammar, to teach them the relations and proportions of different statistical subjects, and to imprint them on the mind at a time when the memory is capable of being impressed in a lasting and durable manner, thereby laying the foundation for accurate and valuable knowledge.
In The Statistical Breviary: Shewing, on a Principle Entirely New, the Resources of Every State and Kingdom in Europe (1801), 5-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Dictionary (15)  |  Difference (355)  |  Durable (7)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Grammar (15)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Imprint (6)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lasting (7)  |  Manner (62)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Reference (33)  |  Relation (166)  |  Ripe (5)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Time (1911)  |  Value (393)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.
In Esar’s Comic Dictionary (1943, 4th ed. 1983), 569.
Science quotes on:  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Definition (238)  |  Draw (140)  |  Enable (122)  |  Expert (67)  |  Figure (162)  |  Number (710)  |  Quip (81)  |  Statistics (170)

Stop the mindless wishing that things would be different. Rather than wasting time and emotional and spiritual energy in explaining why we don’t have what we want, we can start to pursue other ways to get it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Emotional (17)  |  Energy (373)  |  Explain (334)  |  Mindless (4)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Start (237)  |  Stop (89)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Want (504)  |  Waste (109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Wish (216)

Superstring theories provide a framework in which the force of gravity may be united with the other three forces in nature: the weak, electromagnetic and strong forces. Recent progress has shown that the most promising superstring theories follow from a single theory. For the last generation, physicists have studied five string theories and one close cousin. Recently it has become clear that these five or six theories are different limiting cases of one theory which, though still scarcely understood, is the candidate for superunification of the forces of nature.
His synopsis of lecture, University of Maryland Distinguished Lecture Series (2 Mar 1998), on web page.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Candidate (8)  |  Cousin (12)  |  Follow (389)  |  Force (497)  |  Framework (33)  |  Generation (256)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Last (425)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Progress (492)  |  Recent (78)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Single (365)  |  Still (614)  |  String Theory (14)  |  Strong (182)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understood (155)  |  Weak (73)

Suppose [an] imaginary physicist, the student of Niels Bohr, is shown an experiment in which a virus particle enters a bacterial cell and 20 minutes later the bacterial cell is lysed and 100 virus particles are liberated. He will say: “How come, one particle has become 100 particles of the same kind in 20 minutes? That is very interesting. Let us find out how it happens! How does the particle get in to the bacterium? How does it multiply? Does it multiply like a bacterium, growing and dividing, or does it multiply by an entirely different mechanism ? Does it have to be inside the bacterium to do this multiplying, or can we squash the bacterium and have the multiplication go on as before? Is this multiplying a trick of organic chemistry which the organic chemists have not yet discovered ? Let us find out. This is so simple a phenomenon that the answers cannot be hard to find. In a few months we will know. All we have to do is to study how conditions will influence the multiplication. We will do a few experiments at different temperatures, in different media, with different viruses, and we will know. Perhaps we may have to break into the bacteria at intermediate stages between infection and lysis. Anyhow, the experiments only take a few hours each, so the whole problem can not take long to solve.”
[Eight years later] he has not got anywhere in solving the problem he set out to solve. But [he may say to you] “Well, I made a slight mistake. I could not do it in a few months. Perhaps it will take a few decades, and perhaps it will take the help of a few dozen other people. But listen to what I have found, perhaps you will be interested to join me.”
From 'Experiments with Bacterial Viruses (Bacteriophages)', Harvey Lecture (1946), 41, 161-162. As cited in Robert Olby, The Path of the Double Helix: The Discovery of DNA (1974, 1994), 237.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Become (821)  |  Break (109)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Condition (362)  |  Decade (66)  |  Discover (571)  |  Divide (77)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enter (145)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Find (1014)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growing (99)  |  Happen (282)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hour (192)  |  Infection (27)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Listen (81)  |  Long (778)  |  Lysis (4)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Media (14)  |  Minute (129)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Month (91)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  People (1031)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Problem (731)  |  Say (989)  |  Set (400)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solve (145)  |  Squash (4)  |  Stage (152)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Trick (36)  |  Virus (32)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Suppose that you are in love with a lady on Neptune and that she returns the sentiment. It will be some consolation for the melancholy separation if you can say to yourself at some possibly pre-arranged moment, “She is thinking of me now.” Unfortunately a difficulty has arisen because we have had to abolish Now. There is no absolute Now, but only the various relative Nows, differing according to their reckoning of different observers and covering the whole neutral wedge which at the distance of Neptune is about eight hours thick. She will have to think of you continuously for eight hours on end in order to circumvent the ambiguity “Now.”
In The Nature of the Physical World (1929), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Abolish (13)  |  Absolute (153)  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Ambiguity (17)  |  Circumvent (2)  |  Consolation (9)  |  Continuously (7)  |  Covering (14)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Distance (171)  |  End (603)  |  Hour (192)  |  Lady (12)  |  Love (328)  |  Melancholy (17)  |  Moment (260)  |  Neptune (13)  |  Neutral (15)  |  Observer (48)  |  Order (638)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Relative (42)  |  Return (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Separation (60)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Various (205)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

That is the way of the scientist. He will spend thirty years in building up a mountain range of facts with the intent to prove a certain theory; then he is so happy with his achievement that as a rule he overlooks the main chief fact of all—that all his accumulation proves an entirely different thing.
'The Bee'. In What is Man? and Other Essays? (1917), 283.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chief (99)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Happy (108)  |  Intent (9)  |  Main (29)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Range (104)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Spend (97)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

That mathematics “do not cultivate the power of generalization,”; … will be admitted by no person of competent knowledge, except in a very qualified sense. The generalizations of mathematics, are, no doubt, a different thing from the generalizations of physical science; but in the difficulty of seizing them, and the mental tension they require, they are no contemptible preparation for the most arduous efforts of the scientific mind. Even the fundamental notions of the higher mathematics, from those of the differential calculus upwards are products of a very high abstraction. … To perceive the mathematical laws common to the results of many mathematical operations, even in so simple a case as that of the binomial theorem, involves a vigorous exercise of the same faculty which gave us Kepler’s laws, and rose through those laws to the theory of universal gravitation. Every process of what has been called Universal Geometry—the great creation of Descartes and his successors, in which a single train of reasoning solves whole classes of problems at once, and others common to large groups of them—is a practical lesson in the management of wide generalizations, and abstraction of the points of agreement from those of difference among objects of great and confusing diversity, to which the purely inductive sciences cannot furnish many superior. Even so elementary an operation as that of abstracting from the particular configuration of the triangles or other figures, and the relative situation of the particular lines or points, in the diagram which aids the apprehension of a common geometrical demonstration, is a very useful, and far from being always an easy, exercise of the faculty of generalization so strangely imagined to have no place or part in the processes of mathematics.
In An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (1878), 612-13.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Admit (49)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Aid (101)  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Arduous (3)  |  Being (1276)  |  Binomial (6)  |  Binomial Theorem (5)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Call (781)  |  Case (102)  |  Class (168)  |  Common (447)  |  Competent (20)  |  Configuration (8)  |  Confuse (22)  |  Contemptible (8)  |  Creation (350)  |  Cultivate (24)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Difference (355)  |  Differential Calculus (11)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Far (158)  |  Figure (162)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Geometrical (11)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Great (1610)  |  Group (83)  |  High (370)  |  Higher Mathematics (7)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Involve (93)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Line (100)  |  Management (23)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Notion (120)  |  Object (438)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Particular (80)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Person (366)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Place (192)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Practical (225)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Product (166)  |  Purely (111)  |  Qualified (12)  |  Qualify (6)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Relative (42)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rose (36)  |  Same (166)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Mind (13)  |  Seize (18)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simple (426)  |  Single (365)  |  Situation (117)  |  Solve (145)  |  Strangely (5)  |  Successor (16)  |  Superior (88)  |  Tension (24)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Train (118)  |  Triangle (20)  |  Universal (198)  |  Upward (44)  |  Upwards (6)  |  Useful (260)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 “British Association for the Promotion of Science,” … is almost necessary for the purposes of science. The periodical assemblage of persons, pursuing the same or différent branches of knowledge, always produces an excitement which is favourable to the development of new ideas; whilst the long period of repose which succeeds, is advantageous for the prosecution of the reasonings or the experiments then suggested; and the récurrence of the meeting in the succeeding year, will stimulate the activity of the inquirer, by the hope of being then enabled to produce the successful result of his labours.
In 'Future Prospects', On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1st ed., 1832), chap. 32, 274. Note: The British Association for the Advancement of Science held its first meeting at York in 1831, the year before the first publication of this book in 1832.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Advantageous (10)  |  Assemblage (17)  |  Assembly (13)  |  Association (49)  |  Being (1276)  |  Branch (155)  |  British (42)  |  Conference (18)  |  Development (441)  |  Enable (122)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Favourable (3)  |  Hope (321)  |  Idea (881)  |  Information (173)  |  Inquirer (9)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Long (778)  |  Meeting (22)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  New Ideas (17)  |  Period (200)  |  Periodic (3)  |  Person (366)  |  Produce (117)  |  Promotion (8)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reasonings (2)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Society (350)  |  Stimulate (21)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Succeeding (14)  |  Success (327)  |  Successful (134)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

The Qualities then that are in Bodies rightly considered, are of Three sorts.
First, the Bulk, Figure, Number, Situation, and Motion, or Rest of their solid Parts; those are in them, whether we perceive them or no; and when they are of that size, that we can discover them, we have by these an Idea of the thing, as it is in it self, as is plain in artificial things. These I call primary Qualities.
Secondly, The Power that is in any Body, by Reason of its insensible primary Qualities, to operate after a peculiar manner on any of our Senses, and thereby produce in us the different Ideas of several Colours, Sounds, Smells, Tastes, etc. These are usually called sensible Qualities.
Thirdly, The Power that is in any Body, by Reason of the particular Constitution of its primary Qualities, to make such a change in the Bulk, Figure, Texture, and Motion of another Body, as to make it operate on our Senses, differently from what it did before. Thus the Sun has a Power to make Wax white, and Fire to make Lead fluid. These are usually called Powers.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Edited by Peter Nidditch (1975), Book 2, Chapter 8, Section 23, 140-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Color (155)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Discover (571)  |  Figure (162)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Idea (881)  |  Lead (391)  |  Motion (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Power (771)  |  Primary (82)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rest (287)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Situation (117)  |  Smell (29)  |  Solid (119)  |  Sound (187)  |  Sun (407)  |  Taste (93)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Usually (176)  |  Wax (13)  |  White (132)

The actual evolution of mathematical theories proceeds by a process of induction strictly analogous to the method of induction employed in building up the physical sciences; observation, comparison, classification, trial, and generalisation are essential in both cases. Not only are special results, obtained independently of one another, frequently seen to be really included in some generalisation, but branches of the subject which have been developed quite independently of one another are sometimes found to have connections which enable them to be synthesised in one single body of doctrine. The essential nature of mathematical thought manifests itself in the discernment of fundamental identity in the mathematical aspects of what are superficially very different domains. A striking example of this species of immanent identity of mathematical form was exhibited by the discovery of that distinguished mathematician … Major MacMahon, that all possible Latin squares are capable of enumeration by the consideration of certain differential operators. Here we have a case in which an enumeration, which appears to be not amenable to direct treatment, can actually be carried out in a simple manner when the underlying identity of the operation is recognised with that involved in certain operations due to differential operators, the calculus of which belongs superficially to a wholly different region of thought from that relating to Latin squares.
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sheffield, Section A, Nature (1 Sep 1910), 84, 290.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Actually (27)  |  Amenable (4)  |  Analogous (7)  |  Appear (122)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Belong (168)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Branch (155)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Capable (174)  |  Carry (130)  |  Case (102)  |  Certain (557)  |  Classification (102)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Develop (278)  |  Differential (7)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discernment (4)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Domain (72)  |  Due (143)  |  Employ (115)  |  Enable (122)  |  Essential (210)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Example (98)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Identity (19)  |  Include (93)  |  Independent (74)  |  Independently (24)  |  Induction (81)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Latin (44)  |  Percy Alexander MacMahon (3)  |  Major (88)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Manner (62)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Observation (593)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Operator (4)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Process (439)  |  Really (77)  |  Recognise (14)  |  Region (40)  |  Relate (26)  |  Result (700)  |  Simple (426)  |  Single (365)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Square (73)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Strike (72)  |  Striking (48)  |  Subject (543)  |  Superficial (12)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Synthesize (3)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Trial (59)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Wholly (88)

The advancement of science is slow; it is effected only by virtue of hard work and perseverance. And when a result is attained, should we not in recognition connect it with the efforts of those who have preceded us, who have struggled and suffered in advance? Is it not truly a duty to recall the difficulties which they vanquished, the thoughts which guided them; and how men of different nations, ideas, positions, and characters, moved solely by the love of science, have bequeathed to us the unsolved problem? Should not the last comer recall the researches of his predecessors while adding in his turn his contribution of intelligence and of labor? Here is an intellectual collaboration consecrated entirely to the search for truth, and which continues from century to century.
[Respecting how the work of prior researchers had enabled his isolation of fluorine.]
Proceedings of the Royal Institution (1897). In Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution to July 1897 (1898), 262.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Century (319)  |  Character (259)  |  Collaboration (16)  |  Connect (126)  |  Consecration (3)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Continue (179)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Duty (71)  |  Effect (414)  |  Effort (243)  |  Fluorine (5)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Labor (200)  |  Last (425)  |  Love (328)  |  Nation (208)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Position (83)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Problem (731)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recollection (12)  |  Research (753)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Result (700)  |  Search (175)  |  Slow (108)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truly (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unsolved (15)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Work (1402)

The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and natural objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organic bodies in their manifold forms—these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature which have been made during the last four hundred years. But this method of investigation has also left us as a legacy the habit of observing natural objects and natural processes in their isolation, detached from the whole vast interconnection of things; and therefore not in their motion, but in their repose; not as essentially changing, but fixed constants; not in their life, but in their death.
Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science (Anti-Dühring), First Publication (1878). Trans. Emile Burns and ed. C.P. Dutt (1935), 27-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constant (148)  |  Death (406)  |  Definite (114)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Habit (174)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interconnection (12)  |  Internal (69)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Manifold (23)  |  Method (531)  |  Motion (320)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Organic (161)  |  Stride (15)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vast (188)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

The ancestors of the higher animals must be regarded as one-celled beings, similar to the Amœbæ which at the present day occur in our rivers, pools, and lakes. The incontrovertible fact that each human individual develops from an egg, which, in common with those of all animals, is a simple cell, most clearly proves that the most remote ancestors of man were primordial animals of this sort, of a form equivalent to a simple cell. When, therefore, the theory of the animal descent of man is condemned as a “horrible, shocking, and immoral” doctrine, tho unalterable fact, which can be proved at any moment under the microscope, that the human egg is a simple cell, which is in no way different to those of other mammals, must equally be pronounced “horrible, shocking, and immoral.”
Translated from his Ueber die Entstehung und den Stammbaum des Menschengeschlechts, (1873), Vol. 2, as an epigraph to Chap. 6, The Evolution of Man, (1879), Vol 1, 120-121.
Science quotes on:  |  Amoeba (21)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cell (146)  |  Common (447)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Descent (30)  |  Descent Of Man (6)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difference (355)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Egg (71)  |  Equally (129)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Higher (37)  |  Horrible (10)  |  Human (1512)  |  Immoral (5)  |  Incontrovertible (8)  |  Individual (420)  |  Lake (36)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Man (2252)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Occur (151)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pool (16)  |  Present (630)  |  Primordial (14)  |  Pronounce (11)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remote (86)  |  River (140)  |  Shocking (3)  |  Simple (426)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unalterable (7)  |  Way (1214)

The assumptions of population thinking are diametrically opposed to those of the typologist. The populationist stresses the uniqueness of everything in the organic world. What is true for the human species,–that no two individuals are alike, is equally true for all other species of animals and plants ... All organisms and organic phenomena are composed of unique features and can be described collectively only in statistical terms. Individuals, or any kind of organic entities, form populations of which we can determine the arithmetic mean and the statistics of variation. Averages are merely statistical abstractions, only the individuals of which the populations are composed have reality. The ultimate conclusions of the population thinker and of the typologist are precisely the opposite. For the typologist, the type (eidos) is real and the variation. an illusion, while for the populationist the type (average) is an abstraction and only the variation is real. No two ways of looking at nature could be more different.
Darwin and the Evolutionary Theory in Biology (1959), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Alike (60)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Average (89)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Description (89)  |  Determine (152)  |  Diametrically (6)  |  Difference (355)  |  Equally (129)  |  Everything (489)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Species (11)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mean (810)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Population (115)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Reality (274)  |  Species (435)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unique (72)  |  Uniqueness (11)  |  Variation (93)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

The blood, the fountain whence the spirits flow,
The generous stream that waters every part,
And motion, vigour, and warm life conveys
To every Particle that moves or lives;
This vital fluid, thro' unnumber'd tubes
Pour'd by the heart, and to the heart again
Refunded; scourg'd forever round and round;
Enrag'd with heat and toil, at last forgets
Its balmy nature; virulent and thin
It grows; and now, but that a thousand gates
Are open to its flight, it would destroy
The parts it cherish' d and repair'd before.
Besides, the flexible and tender tubes
Melt in the mildest, most nectareous tide
That ripening Nature rolls; as in the stream
Its crumbling banks; but what the vital force
Of plastic fluids hourly batters down,
That very force, those plastic particles
Rebuild: so mutable the state of man.
For this the watchful appetite was given,
Daily with fresh materials to repair
This unavoidable expense of life,
This necessary waste of flesh and blood.
Hence the concoctive powers, with various art,
Subdue the cruder aliments to chyle;
The chyle to blood; the foamy purple tide
To liquors, which through finer arteries
To different parts their winding course pursue;
To try new changes, and new forms put on,
Or for the public, or some private use.
The Art of Preserving Health (1744), book 2, I. 12-23, p.15-16.
Science quotes on:  |  Appetite (20)  |  Art (680)  |  Bank (31)  |  Blood (144)  |  Change (639)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Course (413)  |  Daily (91)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Down (455)  |  Flight (101)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Force (497)  |  Forever (111)  |  Forget (125)  |  Form (976)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Gate (33)  |  Generous (17)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heat (180)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Particle (200)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Power (771)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Roll (41)  |  Spirit (278)  |  State (505)  |  Stream (83)  |  Subdue (7)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Tide (37)  |  Toil (29)  |  Try (296)  |  Use (771)  |  Various (205)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Vital (89)  |  Vital Force (7)  |  Warm (74)  |  Waste (109)  |  Water (503)  |  Winding (8)

The breaking up of the terrestrial globe, this it is we witness. It doubtless began a long time ago, and the brevity of human life enables us to contemplate it without dismay. It is not only in the great mountain ranges that the traces of this process are found. Great segments of the earth's crust have sunk hundreds, in some cases, even thousands, of feet deep, and not the slightest inequality of the surface remains to indicate the fracture; the different nature of the rocks and the discoveries made in mining alone reveal its presence. Time has levelled all.
The Face of the Earth (1904), Vol. 1, 604.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Break (109)  |  Brevity (8)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Crust (43)  |  Deep (241)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dismay (5)  |  Doubtless (8)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enabling (7)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Fracture (7)  |  Globe (51)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Indication (33)  |  Inequality (9)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Mining (22)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Presence (63)  |  Process (439)  |  Range (104)  |  Remain (355)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Rock (176)  |  Segment (6)  |  Sinking (6)  |  Surface (223)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Witness (57)

The chemical compounds are comparable to a system of planets in that the atoms are held together by chemical affinity. They may be more or less numerous, simple or complex in composition, and in the constitution of the materials, they play the same role as Mars and Venus do in our planetary system, or the compound members such as our earth with its moon, or Jupiter with its satellites... If in such a system a particle is replaced by one of different character, the equilibrium can persist, and then the new compound will exhibit properties similar to those shown by the original substance.
Quoted in Ralph Oesper, The Human Side of Scientists (1975), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Affinity (27)  |  Atom (381)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Complex (202)  |  Composition (86)  |  Compound (117)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Mars (47)  |  Material (366)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  New (1273)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Particle (200)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Role (86)  |  Satellite (30)  |  Simple (426)  |  Substance (253)  |  System (545)  |  Together (392)  |  Venus (21)  |  Will (2350)

The chemical differences among various species and genera of animals and plants are certainly as significant for the history of their origins as the differences in form. If we could define clearly the differences in molecular constitution and functions of different kinds of organisms, there would be possible a more illuminating and deeper understanding of question of the evolutionary reactions of organisms than could ever be expected from morphological considerations.
'Uber das Vorkommen von Haemoglobin in den Muskeln der Mollusken und die Verbreitung desselben in den lebenden Organismen', Pflügers Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie des Menschen und der Tiere, 1871, 4, 318-9. Trans. Joseph S. Fruton, Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1999), 270.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Define (53)  |  Difference (355)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Function (235)  |  Genus (27)  |  History (716)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Kind (564)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Plant (320)  |  Possible (560)  |  Question (649)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Significance (114)  |  Significant (78)  |  Species (435)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Various (205)

The choice of zoology as a main subject [at university] was to follow up my childhood love of nature. … My animal studies never became quite what I had hoped for. We hardly heard of wild beasts and the way they lived in the wilderness. We sliced up intestines and looked at them under the microscope … but their life and function in the environment was ignored in favor of their Latin names. … Was our knowledge of nature superior to, or only different from, that of the eagle-eyed Polynesian islanders, who specialized in appraising nature the way it could best benefit man? I had to think as a scientist now. Not as a Polynesian yet. Knowledge was to be sought independently of its purpose.
In Ch. 1, 'Farewell to Civilization', Fatu-Hiva (1974), 9-10.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Appraise (2)  |  Beast (58)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Environment (239)  |  Favor (69)  |  Function (235)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intestine (16)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Latin (44)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Polynesian (2)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Slice (3)  |  Specialized (9)  |  Study (701)  |  Superior (88)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Zoology (38)

The contingency of history (both for life in general and for the cultures of Homo sapiens) and human free will (in the factual rather than theological sense) are conjoined concepts, and no better evidence can be produced than the ‘experimental’ production of markedly different solutions in identical environments.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Both (496)  |  Concept (242)  |  Conjoin (2)  |  Contingency (11)  |  Culture (157)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Factual (8)  |  Free (239)  |  Free Will (15)  |  General (521)  |  History (716)  |  Homo Sapiens (23)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identical (55)  |  Life (1870)  |  Markedly (2)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Production (190)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Theological (3)  |  Will (2350)

The Darwinian process of continued interplay of a random and a selective process is not intermediate between pure chance and pure determinism, but qualitatively utterly different from either in its consequences.
In 'Comments on the Preliminary Working Papers of Eden and Waddington'. In P. Moorhead and M. Kaplan (eds.), Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (1967), 117.
Science quotes on:  |  Chance (244)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Determinism (12)  |  Difference (355)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Interplay (9)  |  Process (439)  |  Pure (299)  |  Qualitative (15)  |  Random (42)  |  Selective (21)  |  Utterly (15)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  Develop (278)  |  Developed (11)  |  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 determination of the relationship and mutual dependence of the facts in particular cases must be the first goal of the Physicist; and for this purpose he requires that an exact measurement may be taken in an equally invariable manner anywhere in the world… Also, the history of electricity yields a well-known truth—that the physicist shirking measurement only plays, different from children only in the nature of his game and the construction of his toys.
In 'Mémoire sur la mesure de force de l'électricité', Journal de Physique (1782), 21, 191. English version by Google Translate tweaked by Webmaster. From the original French, “La determination de la relation & de la dépendance mutuelle de ces données dans certains cas particuliers, doit être le premier but du Physicien; & pour cet effet, il falloit one mesure exacte qui indiquât d’une manière invariable & égale dans tous les lieux de la terre, le degré de l'électricité au moyen duquel les expéiences ont été faites… Aussi, l’histoire de l'électricité prouve une vérité suffisamment reconnue; c’est que le Physicien sans mesure ne fait que jouer, & qu’il ne diffère en cela des enfans, que par la nature de son jeu & la construction de ses jouets.”
Science quotes on:  |  Case (102)  |  Certain (557)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Construction (114)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Determination (80)  |  Difference (355)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Equally (129)  |  Exact (75)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Game (104)  |  Goal (155)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Invariable (6)  |  Known (453)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Particular (80)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Play (116)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Toy (22)  |  Truth (1109)  |  World (1850)  |  Yield (86)

The determining cause of most wars in the past has been, and probably will be of all wars in the future, the uncertainty of the result; war is acknowledged to be a challenge to the Unknown, it is often spoken of as an appeal to the God of Battles. The province of science is to foretell; this is true of every department of science. And the time must come—how soon we do not know—when the real science of war, something quite different from the application of science to the means of war, will make it possible to foresee with certainty the issue of a projected war. That will mark the end of battles; for however strong the spirit of contention, no nation will spend its money in a fight in which it knows it must lose.
Times Literary Supplement (28 Nov 1902), 353-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Contention (14)  |  Department (93)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Foresee (22)  |  Foretell (12)  |  Future (467)  |  God (776)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Money (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Past (355)  |  Possible (560)  |  Project (77)  |  Province (37)  |  Result (700)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Strong (182)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Unknown (195)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)

The development of science has produced an industrial revolution which has brought different peoples in such close contact with one another through colonization and commerce that no matter how some nations may still look down upon others, no country can harbor the illusion that its career is decided wholly within itself.
In Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (1916), 337.
Science quotes on:  |  Career (86)  |  Close (77)  |  Colonization (3)  |  Commerce (23)  |  Contact (66)  |  Country (269)  |  Decide (50)  |  Development (441)  |  Down (455)  |  Harbor (8)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Look (584)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nation (208)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Still (614)  |  Through (846)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Within (7)

The development of the nucleoplasm during ontogeny may be to some extent compared to an army composed of corps, which are made up of divisions, and these of brigades, and so on. The whole army may be taken to represent the nucleoplasm of the germ-cell: the earliest cell-division … may be represented by the separation of the two corps, similarly formed but with different duties: and the following cell­divisions by the successive detachment of divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, companies, etc.; and as the groups become simpler so does their sphere of action become limited.
In 'The Continuity of the Germ-plasm as the Foundation of a Theory of Heredity' (1885), Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems (1891), Vol. 1, 195.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Army (35)  |  Battalion (2)  |  Become (821)  |  Brigade (3)  |  Cell Division (6)  |  Company (63)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Corps (2)  |  Detachment (8)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Division (67)  |  Duty (71)  |  Extent (142)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Germ (54)  |  Germ Cell (2)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Nucleoplasm (2)  |  Ontogeny (10)  |  Regiment (2)  |  Represent (157)  |  Representation (55)  |  Separation (60)  |  Similarly (4)  |  Simpler (8)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Successive (73)  |  Two (936)  |  Whole (756)

The different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.
From Alice in Wonderland. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland And, Through the Looking Glass (1898), 79.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambition (46)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Branch (155)  |  Derision (8)  |  Distraction (7)

The different sorts of madness are innumerable.
Avicenna
The Canon, Bk IV.
Science quotes on:  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Insanity (8)  |  Madness (33)

The difficulties connected with my criterion of demarcation (D) are important, but must not be exaggerated. It is vague, since it is a methodological rule, and since the demarcation between science and nonscience is vague. But it is more than sharp enough to make a distinction between many physical theories on the one hand, and metaphysical theories, such as psychoanalysis, or Marxism (in its present form), on the other. This is, of course, one of my main theses; and nobody who has not understood it can be said to have understood my theory.
The situation with Marxism is, incidentally, very different from that with psychoanalysis. Marxism was once a scientific theory: it predicted that capitalism would lead to increasing misery and, through a more or less mild revolution, to socialism; it predicted that this would happen first in the technically highest developed countries; and it predicted that the technical evolution of the 'means of production' would lead to social, political, and ideological developments, rather than the other way round.
But the (so-called) socialist revolution came first in one of the technically backward countries. And instead of the means of production producing a new ideology, it was Lenin's and Stalin's ideology that Russia must push forward with its industrialization ('Socialism is dictatorship of the proletariat plus electrification') which promoted the new development of the means of production.
Thus one might say that Marxism was once a science, but one which was refuted by some of the facts which happened to clash with its predictions (I have here mentioned just a few of these facts).
However, Marxism is no longer a science; for it broke the methodological rule that we must accept falsification, and it immunized itself against the most blatant refutations of its predictions. Ever since then, it can be described only as nonscience—as a metaphysical dream, if you like, married to a cruel reality.
Psychoanalysis is a very different case. It is an interesting psychological metaphysics (and no doubt there is some truth in it, as there is so often in metaphysical ideas), but it never was a science. There may be lots of people who are Freudian or Adlerian cases: Freud himself was clearly a Freudian case, and Adler an Adlerian case. But what prevents their theories from being scientific in the sense here described is, very simply, that they do not exclude any physically possible human behaviour. Whatever anybody may do is, in principle, explicable in Freudian or Adlerian terms. (Adler's break with Freud was more Adlerian than Freudian, but Freud never looked on it as a refutation of his theory.)
The point is very clear. Neither Freud nor Adler excludes any particular person's acting in any particular way, whatever the outward circumstances. Whether a man sacrificed his life to rescue a drowning, child (a case of sublimation) or whether he murdered the child by drowning him (a case of repression) could not possibly be predicted or excluded by Freud's theory; the theory was compatible with everything that could happen—even without any special immunization treatment.
Thus while Marxism became non-scientific by its adoption of an immunizing strategy, psychoanalysis was immune to start with, and remained so. In contrast, most physical theories are pretty free of immunizing tactics and highly falsifiable to start with. As a rule, they exclude an infinity of conceivable possibilities.
'The Problem of Demarcation' (1974). Collected in David Miller (ed.) Popper Selections (1985), 127-128.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Alfred Adler (3)  |  Against (332)  |  Anybody (42)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blatant (4)  |  Break (109)  |  Call (781)  |  Capitalism (12)  |  Child (333)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Connect (126)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Course (413)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Cruel (25)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Dream (222)  |  Enough (341)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Falsification (11)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Forward (104)  |  Free (239)  |  Sigmund Freud (70)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ideology (15)  |  Immunization (3)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marxism (3)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mention (84)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Methodology (14)  |  Mild (7)  |  Misery (31)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Non-Science (2)  |  Non-Scientific (7)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Physical (518)  |  Plus (43)  |  Point (584)  |  Political (124)  |  Possible (560)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Present (630)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Principle (530)  |  Production (190)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Push (66)  |  Reality (274)  |  Refutation (13)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rescue (14)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Sense (785)  |  Situation (117)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Social (261)  |  Special (188)  |  Start (237)  |  Strategy (13)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understood (155)  |  Vague (50)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)

The dimmed outlines of phenomenal things all merge into one another unless we put on the focusing-glass of theory, and screw it up sometimes to one pitch of definition and sometimes to another, so as to see down into different depths through the great millstone of the world.
Are There Real Analogies in Nature?' (Feb 1856). Quoted in Lewis Campbell and William GarnettThe Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882), 237.
Science quotes on:  |  Definition (238)  |  Depth (97)  |  Down (455)  |  Glass (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Screw (17)  |  See (1094)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  World (1850)

The discovery of the conic sections, attributed to Plato, first threw open the higher species of form to the contemplation of geometers. But for this discovery, which was probably regarded in Plato’s tune and long after him, as the unprofitable amusement of a speculative brain, the whole course of practical philosophy of the present day, of the science of astronomy, of the theory of projectiles, of the art of navigation, might have run in a different channel; and the greatest discovery that has ever been made in the history of the world, the law of universal gravitation, with its innumerable direct and indirect consequences and applications to every department of human research and industry, might never to this hour have been elicited.
In 'A Probationary Lecture on Geometry, Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2 (1908), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Amusement (37)  |  Application (257)  |  Art (680)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Brain (281)  |  Channel (23)  |  Conic Section (8)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Course (413)  |  Department (93)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Elicit (2)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometer (24)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Hour (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Industry (159)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Universal Gravitation (3)  |  Long (778)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Never (1089)  |  Open (277)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plato (80)  |  Practical (225)  |  Present (630)  |  Present Day (5)  |  Probably (50)  |  Projectile (3)  |  Regard (312)  |  Research (753)  |  Run (158)  |  Species (435)  |  Speculative (12)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Throw (45)  |  Tune (20)  |  Universal (198)  |  Unprofitable (7)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

The diversity of life is extraordinary. There is said to be a million or so different kinds of living animals, and hundreds of thousands of kinds of plants. But we don’t need to think of the world at large. It is amazing enough to stop and look at a forest or at a meadow—at the grass and trees and caterpillars and hawks and deer. How did all these different kinds of things come about; what forces governed their evolution; what forces maintain their numbers and determine their survival or extinction; what are their relations to each other and to the physical environment in which they live? These are the problems of natural history.
In The Nature of Natural History (1950), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Amazing (35)  |  Animal (651)  |  Caterpillar (5)  |  Deer (11)  |  Determine (152)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Enough (341)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Force (497)  |  Forest (161)  |  Govern (66)  |  Grass (49)  |  Hawk (4)  |  History (716)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Look (584)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Meadow (21)  |  Million (124)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Plant (320)  |  Problem (731)  |  Relation (166)  |  Survival (105)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tree (269)  |  World (1850)

The divine tape recorder holds a million scenarios, each perfectly sensible. Little quirks at the outset, occurring for no particular reason, unleash cascades of consequences that make a particular feature seem inevitable in retrospect. But the slightest early nudge contacts a different groove, and history veers into another plausible channel, diverging continually from its original pathway. The end results are so different, the initial perturbation so apparently trivial.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Apparently (22)  |  Cascade (3)  |  Channel (23)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Contact (66)  |  Continually (17)  |  Diverge (3)  |  Divine (112)  |  Early (196)  |  End (603)  |  Feature (49)  |  Groove (3)  |  History (716)  |  Hold (96)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Initial (17)  |  Little (717)  |  Million (124)  |  Nudge (2)  |  Occur (151)  |  Original (61)  |  Outset (7)  |  Particular (80)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Perfectly (10)  |  Perturbation (7)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Quirk (2)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recorder (5)  |  Result (700)  |  Retrospect (3)  |  Scenario (3)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sensible (28)  |  Slight (32)  |  Tape (5)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Unleash (2)  |  Veer (2)

The divisions of science are not like different lines that meet in one angle, but rather like the branches of trees that join in one trunk.
The Works of Francis Bacon (1815), Vol. 6, 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Branch (155)  |  Difference (355)  |  Division (67)  |  Joining (11)  |  Like (23)  |  Line (100)  |  Meeting (22)  |  Tree (269)  |  Trunk (23)

The domain, over which the language of analysis extends its sway, is, indeed, relatively limited, but within this domain it so infinitely excels ordinary language that its attempt to follow the former must be given up after a few steps. The mathematician, who knows how to think in this marvelously condensed language, is as different from the mechanical computer as heaven from earth.
In Jahresberichte der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung, 13, 367. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Computer (131)  |  Condense (15)  |  Domain (72)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Excel (4)  |  Extend (129)  |  Follow (389)  |  Former (138)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Marvelous (31)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics As A Language (20)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Relatively (8)  |  Step (234)  |  Sway (5)  |  Think (1122)

The elementary parts of all tissues are formed of cells in an analogous, though very diversified manner, so that it may be asserted, that there is one universal principle of development for the elementary parts of organisms, however different, and that this principle is the formation of cells.
Mikroskopische Untersuchungen über die Uebereinstimmung in der Struktur und dem Wachsthum der Thiere und Pflanzen (1839). Microscopic Researches into the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants, trans. Henry Smith (1847), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Assert (69)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Cell (146)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Manner (62)  |  Organism (231)  |  Principle (530)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universality (22)

The elements of the living body have the chemical peculiarity of forming with each other most numerous combinations and very large molecules, consisting of five, six or even seven different elements.
In discourse (10 Dec 1893) to General Meeting, Nassau Association for Natural Science, Wiesbaden, Germany. Printed in 'The Distribution of the Organic Elements', The Chemical News and Journal of Industrial Science (1895), 71, No. 1832, 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Body (557)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Combination (150)  |  Element (322)  |  Forming (42)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiarity (26)

The feeling of it to my lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air; but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards. Who can tell but that, in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury. Hitherto only two mice and myself have had the privilege of breathing it.
Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775), Vol. 2, 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Become (821)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Common (447)  |  Ease (40)  |  Easy (213)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Fashionable (15)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Light (635)  |  Lung (37)  |  Luxury (21)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Myself (211)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purity (15)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)

The focal points of our different reflections have been called “science”’ or “art” according to the nature of their “formal” objects, to use the language of logic. If the object leads to action, we give the name of “art” to the compendium of rules governing its use and to their technical order. If the object is merely contemplated under different aspects, the compendium and technical order of the observations concerning this object are called “science.” Thus metaphysics is a science and ethics is an art. The same is true of theology and pyrotechnics.
Definition of 'Art', Encyclopédie (1751). Translated by Nelly S. Hoyt and Thomas Cassirer (1965), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Action (342)  |  Art (680)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Call (781)  |  Compendium (5)  |  Concern (239)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Ethic (39)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Formal (37)  |  Govern (66)  |  Governing (20)  |  Language (308)  |  Lead (391)  |  Logic (311)  |  Merely (315)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Point (584)  |  Pyrotechnic (2)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Rule (307)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Technical (53)  |  Theology (54)  |  Use (771)

The following story is true. There was a little boy, and his father said, “Do try to be like other people. Don’t frown.” And he tried and tried, but could not. So his father beat him with a strap; and then he was eaten up by lions. Reader, if young, take warning by his sad life and death. For though it may be an honour to be different from other people, if Carlyle’s dictum about the 30 million be still true, yet other people do not like it. So, if you are different, you had better hide it, and pretend to be solemn and wooden-headed. Until you make your fortune. For most wooden-headed people worship money; and, really, I do not see what else they can do. In particular, if you are going to write a book, remember the wooden-headed. So be rigorous; that will cover a multitude of sins. And do not frown.
From 'Electromagnetic Theory, CXII', The Electrician (23 Feb 1900), Vol. 44, 615.
Science quotes on:  |  Beat (42)  |  Better (493)  |  Book (413)  |  Boy (100)  |  Thomas Carlyle (38)  |  Cover (40)  |  Death (406)  |  Dictum (10)  |  Do (1905)  |  Father (113)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Frown (5)  |  Hide (70)  |  Hiding (12)  |  Honour (58)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lion (23)  |  Little (717)  |  Money (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Reader (42)  |  Remember (189)  |  Remembering (7)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Sadness (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Sin (45)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Still (614)  |  Story (122)  |  Strap (3)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Try (296)  |  Warning (18)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worship (32)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)  |  Young (253)

The fundamental characteristic of the scientific method is honesty. In dealing with any question, science asks no favors. ... I believe that constant use of the scientific method must in the end leave its impress upon him who uses it. ... A life spent in accordance with scientific teachings would be of a high order. It would practically conform to the teachings of the highest types of religion. The motives would be different, but so far as conduct is concerned the results would be practically identical.
Address as its retiring president, to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, St. Louis (28 Dec 1903). 'Scientific Investigation and Progress', Nature 928 Jan 1904), 69:1787, 309.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Constant (148)  |  Dealing (11)  |  Difference (355)  |  End (603)  |  Favor (69)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  High (370)  |  Honesty (29)  |  Identical (55)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impression (118)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Method (531)  |  Motive (62)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Question (649)  |  Religion (369)  |  Result (700)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Spent (85)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teachings (11)  |  Type (171)  |  Use (771)

The game of chess has always fascinated mathematicians, and there is reason to suppose that the possession of great powers of playing that game is in many features very much like the possession of great mathematical ability. There are the different pieces to learn, the pawns, the knights, the bishops, the castles, and the queen and king. The board possesses certain possible combinations of squares, as in rows, diagonals, etc. The pieces are subject to certain rules by which their motions are governed, and there are other rules governing the players. … One has only to increase the number of pieces, to enlarge the field of the board, and to produce new rules which are to govern either the pieces or the player, to have a pretty good idea of what mathematics consists.
In Book review, 'What is Mathematics?', Bulletin American Mathematical Society (May 1912), 18, 386-387.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Bishop (3)  |  Board (13)  |  Castle (5)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chess (27)  |  Combination (150)  |  Consist (223)  |  Diagonal (3)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Fascinate (12)  |  Feature (49)  |  Field (378)  |  Game (104)  |  Good (906)  |  Govern (66)  |  Governing (20)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Increase (225)  |  King (39)  |  Knight (6)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Motion (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pawn (2)  |  Piece (39)  |  Play (116)  |  Player (9)  |  Playing (42)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possession (68)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Pretty (21)  |  Produce (117)  |  Queen (14)  |  Reason (766)  |  Row (9)  |  Rule (307)  |  Square (73)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suppose (158)

The geometrical problems and theorems of the Greeks always refer to definite, oftentimes to rather complicated figures. Now frequently the points and lines of such a figure may assume very many different relative positions; each of these possible cases is then considered separately. On the contrary, present day mathematicians generate their figures one from another, and are accustomed to consider them subject to variation; in this manner they unite the various cases and combine them as much as possible by employing negative and imaginary magnitudes. For example, the problems which Apollonius treats in his two books De sectione rationis, are solved today by means of a single, universally applicable construction; Apollonius, on the contrary, separates it into more than eighty different cases varying only in position. Thus, as Hermann Hankel has fittingly remarked, the ancient geometry sacrifices to a seeming simplicity the true simplicity which consists in the unity of principles; it attained a trivial sensual presentability at the cost of the recognition of the relations of geometric forms in all their changes and in all the variations of their sensually presentable positions.
In 'Die Synthetische Geometrie im Altertum und in der Neuzeit', Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung (1902), 2, 346-347. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 112. The spelling of the first “Apollonius” has been corrected from “Appolonius” in the original English text. From the original German, “Die geometrischen Probleme und Sätze der Griechen beziehen sich allemal auf bestimmte, oft recht komplizierte Figuren. Nun können aber die Punkte und Linien einer solchen Figur häufig sehr verschiedene Lagen zu einander annehmen; jeder dieser möglichen Fälle wird alsdann für sich besonders erörtert. Dagegen lassen die heutigen Mathematiker ihre Figuren aus einander entstehen und sind gewohnt, sie als veränderlich zu betrachten; sie vereinigen so die speziellen Fälle und fassen sie möglichst zusammen unter Benutzung auch negativer und imaginärer Gröfsen. Das Problem z. B., welches Apollonius in seinen zwei Büchern de sectione rationis behandelt, löst man heutzutage durch eine einzige, allgemein anwendbare Konstruktion; Apollonius selber dagegen zerlegt es in mehr als 80 nur durch die Lage verschiedene Fälle. So opfert, wie Hermann Hankel treffend bemerkt, die antike Geometrie einer scheinbaren Einfachheit die wahre, in der Einheit der Prinzipien bestehende; sie erreicht eine triviale sinnliche Anschaulichkeit auf Kosten der Erkenntnis vom Zusammenhang geometrischer Gestalten in aller Wechsel und in aller Veränderlichkeit ihrer sinnlich vorstellbaren Lage.”
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Apollonius (6)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Attain (126)  |  Book (413)  |  Case (102)  |  Change (639)  |  Combine (58)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consist (223)  |  Construction (114)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Cost (94)  |  Definite (114)  |  Figure (162)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Greek (109)  |  Hermann Hankel (16)  |  Imaginary Number (6)  |  Line (100)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Negative (66)  |  Point (584)  |  Position (83)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Relation (166)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Sense (785)  |  Separate (151)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Single (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Today (321)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Two (936)  |  Unite (43)  |  Unity (81)  |  Universal (198)  |  Variation (93)  |  Various (205)

The historian of science may be tempted to claim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. even more important, during revolutions, scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before. It is rather as if the professional community had been suddenly transported to another planet where familiar objects are seen in a different light and are joined by unfamiliar ones as well.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962, 2nd ed. 1970). Excerpt 'Revolutions as Changes of World View', in Joseph Margolis and Jacques Catudal, The Quarrel between Invariance and Flux (2001), 35-36.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Claim (154)  |  Community (111)  |  Difference (355)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Historian (59)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Paradigm (16)  |  Place (192)  |  Planet (402)  |  Profession (108)  |  Professional (77)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Temptation (14)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transport (31)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Unfamiliar (17)  |  Unfamiliarity (5)  |  World (1850)

The Historic Method may be described as the comparison of the forms of an idea, or a usage, or a belief, at any given time, with the earlier forms from which they were evolved, or the later forms into which they were developed and the establishment from such a comparison, of an ascending and descending order among the facts. It consists in the explanation of existing parts in the frame of society by connecting them with corresponding parts in some earlier frame; in the identification of present forms in the past, and past forms in the present. Its main process is the detection of corresponding customs, opinions, laws, beliefs, among different communities, and a grouping of them into general classes with reference to some one common feature. It is a certain way of seeking answers to various questions of origin, resting on the same general doctrine of evolution, applied to moral and social forms, as that which is being applied with so much ingenuity to the series of organic matter.
On Compromise (1874), 22-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Applied (176)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Certain (557)  |  Class (168)  |  Common (447)  |  Community (111)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consist (223)  |  Custom (44)  |  Detection (19)  |  Develop (278)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Feature (49)  |  Form (976)  |  Frame (26)  |  General (521)  |  Group (83)  |  Idea (881)  |  Identification (20)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Law (913)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Moral (203)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin (250)  |  Past (355)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Series (153)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Time (1911)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books—a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Book (413)  |  Capable (174)  |  Ceiling (5)  |  Child (333)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Cover (40)  |  Definite (114)  |  Dimly (6)  |  Enter (145)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Huge (30)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Library (53)  |  Little (717)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Note (39)  |  Order (638)  |  Plan (122)  |  Someone (24)  |  Suspect (18)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Understand (648)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wall (71)  |  Write (250)

The idealistic tinge in my conception of the physical world arose out of mathematical researches on the relativity theory. In so far as I had any earlier philosophical views, they were of an entirely different complexion.
From the beginning I have been doubtful whether it was desirable for a scientist to venture so far into extra-scientific territory. The primary justification for such an expedition is that it may afford a better view of his own scientific domain.
From 'Introduction', The Nature of the Physical World (1928), vi.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Better (493)  |  Conception (160)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Domain (72)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Expedition (9)  |  Justification (52)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Primary (82)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Territory (25)  |  Theory (1015)  |  View (496)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 increase of disorder or entropy with time is one example of what is called an arrow of time something that gives a direction to time and distinguishes the past from the future. There are at least three different directions of time. First, there is the thermodynamic arrow of time—the direction of time in which disorder or entropy increases. Second, there is the psychological arrow of time. This is the direction in which we feel time passes—the direction of time in which we remember the past, but not the future. Third, there is the cosmological arrow of time. This is the direction of time in which the universe is expanding rather than contracting.
In 'The Direction of Time', New Scientist (9 Jul 1987), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrow (22)  |  Arrow Of Time (2)  |  Call (781)  |  Contract (11)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Expand (56)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Increase (225)  |  Past (355)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Remember (189)  |  Something (718)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)

The inducing substance, on the basis of its chemical and physical properties, appears to be a highly polymerized and viscous form of sodium desoxyribonucleate. On the other hand, the Type m capsular substance, the synthesis of which is evoked by this transforming agent, consists chiefly of a non-nitrogenous polysaccharide constituted of glucose-glucuronic acid units linked in glycosidic union. The presence of the newly formed capsule containing this type-specific polysaccharide confers on the transformed cells all the distinguishing characteristics of Pneumococcus Type III. Thus, it is evident that the inducing substance and the substance produced in turn are chemically distinct and biologically specific in their action and that both are requisite in determining the type of specificity of the cell of which they form a part. The experimental data presented in this paper strongly suggest that nucleic acids, at least those of the desoxyribose type, possess different specificities as evidenced by the selective action of the transforming principle.
Oswald T. Avery (1877-1955), Colin Macleod (1909-72) and Maclyn McCarty (1911-2005), ‘Studies in the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types', Journal of Experimental Medicine 1944, 79, 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Action (342)  |  Agent (73)  |  Basis (180)  |  Both (496)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Consist (223)  |  Data (162)  |  Distinct (98)  |  DNA (81)  |  Evident (92)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Form (976)  |  Glucose (2)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possess (157)  |  Presence (63)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Produced (187)  |  Selective (21)  |  Sodium (15)  |  Specific (98)  |  Substance (253)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Transform (74)  |  Turn (454)  |  Type (171)  |  Union (52)

The information reported in this section [about the two different forms, A and B, of DNA] was very kindly reported to us prior to its publication by Drs Wilkins and Franklin. We are most heavily indebted in this respect to the Kings College Group, and we wish to point out that without this data the formation of the picture would have been most unlikely, if not impossible.
[Co-author with Francis Crick]
In 'The Complementary Structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A (1954), 223, 82, footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  College (71)  |  Data (162)  |  Difference (355)  |  DNA (81)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Rosalind Franklin (18)  |  Group (83)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indebted (8)  |  Information (173)  |  Most (1728)  |  Picture (148)  |  Point (584)  |  Prior (6)  |  Publication (102)  |  Respect (212)  |  Two (936)  |  Unlikely (15)  |  Wish (216)

The inherent unpredictability of future scientific developments—the fact that no secure inference can be drawn from one state of science to another—has important implications for the issue of the limits of science. It means that present-day science cannot speak for future science: it is in principle impossible to make any secure inferences from the substance of science at one time about its substance at a significantly different time. The prospect of future scientific revolutions can never be precluded. We cannot say with unblinking confidence what sorts of resources and conceptions the science of the future will or will not use. Given that it is effectively impossible to predict the details of what future science will accomplish, it is no less impossible to predict in detail what future science will not accomplish. We can never confidently put this or that range of issues outside “the limits of science”, because we cannot discern the shape and substance of future science with sufficient clarity to be able to say with any assurance what it can and cannot do. Any attempt to set “limits” to science—any advance specification of what science can and cannot do by way of handling problems and solving questions—is destined to come to grief.
The Limits of Science (1984), 102-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Advance (298)  |  Assurance (17)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Conception (160)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Destined (42)  |  Detail (150)  |  Development (441)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effectiveness (13)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Future (467)  |  Grief (20)  |  Handling (7)  |  Implication (25)  |  Importance (299)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inference (45)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Issue (46)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Never (1089)  |  Outside (141)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Prospect (31)  |  Question (649)  |  Range (104)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Revolution (13)  |  Security (51)  |  Set (400)  |  Shape (77)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Specification (7)  |  State (505)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unpredictability (7)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

The Italian Renaissance, though not medieval, is not modern; it is more akin to the best age of Greece. … No Italian of the Renaissance would have been unintelligible to Plato or Aristotle…. With the seventeenth century it is different: Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas and Occam, could not have made head or tail of Newton.
In History of Western Philosophy (1979, 2004) 484.
Science quotes on:  |  17th Century (20)  |  Saint Thomas Aquinas (18)  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Greece (9)  |  Italy (6)  |  Medieval (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Plato (80)  |  Renaissance (16)  |  Unintelligible (17)

The language of the genes has a simple alphabet, not with twenty-six letters, but just four. These are the four different DNA bases—adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine (A, G, C and T for short). The bases are arranged in words of three letters such as CGA or TGG. Most of the words code for different amino acids, which themselves are joined together to make proteins, the building blocks of the body.
The Language of the Genes: Biology, History and the Evolutionary Future (1993), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Adenine (6)  |  Amino Acid (12)  |  Base (120)  |  Body (557)  |  Building (158)  |  Building Block (9)  |  Code (31)  |  Cytosine (6)  |  DNA (81)  |  Gene (105)  |  Guanine (5)  |  Language (308)  |  Letter (117)  |  Most (1728)  |  Protein (56)  |  Short (200)  |  Simple (426)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thymine (6)  |  Together (392)  |  Word (650)

The law is this: that each of our leading conceptions—each branch of our knowledge—passes successively through three different theoretical conditions: the Theological, or fictitious; the Metaphysical, or abstract; and the Scientific, or positive.
The Positive Philosophy, trans. Harriet Martineau (1853), Vol. 1, 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Branch (155)  |  Conception (160)  |  Condition (362)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Positive (98)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Through (846)

The layman, taught to revere scientists for their absolute respect for the observed facts, and for the judiciously detached and purely provisional manner in which they hold scientific theories (always ready to abandon a theory at the sight of any contradictory evidence) might well have thought that, at [Dayton C.] Miller's announcement of this overwhelming evidence of a “positive effect” [indicating that the speed of light is not independent from the motion of the observer, as Einstein's theory of relativity demands] in his presidential address to the American Physical Society on December 29th, 1925, his audience would have instantly abandoned the theory of relativity. Or, at the very least, that scientists—wont to look down from the pinnacle of their intellectual humility upon the rest of dogmatic mankind—might suspend judgment in this matter until Miller's results could be accounted for without impairing the theory of relativity. But no: by that time they had so well closed their minds to any suggestion which threatened the new rationality achieved by Einstein's world-picture, that it was almost impossible for them to think again in different terms. Little attention was paid to the experiments, the evidence being set aside in the hope that it would one day turn out to be wrong.
Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (1958, 1998), 13. Miller had earlier presented his evidence against the validity of the relativity theory at the annual meeting, 28 Apr 1925, of the National Academy of Sciences. Miller believed he had, by a much-refined and improved repetition of the so-called Michelson-Morley experiment, shown that there is a definite and measurable motion of the earth through the ether. In 1955, a paper by R.S. Shankland, et al., in Rev. Modern Phys. (1955), 27, 167, concluded that statistical fluctuations and temperature effects in the data had simulated what Miller had taken to be he apparent ether drift.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Absolute (153)  |  Account (195)  |  Announcement (15)  |  Attention (196)  |  Audience (28)  |  Being (1276)  |  Closed (38)  |  Demand (131)  |  Down (455)  |  Effect (414)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humility (31)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Layman (21)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Physical (518)  |  Picture (148)  |  Positive (98)  |  Provisional (7)  |  Purely (111)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Set (400)  |  Sight (135)  |  Society (350)  |  Speed (66)  |  Speed Of Light (18)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Relativity (33)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Threaten (33)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrong (246)

The links between ecosystem and human health are many and obvious: the value in wetlands of filtering pollutants out of groundwater aquifers; the potential future medical use of different plants’ genetic material; the human health effects of heavy metal accumulation in fish and shellfish. It is clear that healthy ecosystems provide the underpinnings for the long-term health of economics and societies.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Aquifer (3)  |  Clear (111)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  Ecosystem (33)  |  Effect (414)  |  Filter (10)  |  Fish (130)  |  Future (467)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Groundwater (2)  |  Health (210)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Human (1512)  |  Link (48)  |  Long (778)  |  Long-Term (11)  |  Material (366)  |  Medical (31)  |  Metal (88)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Plant (320)  |  Pollutant (2)  |  Potential (75)  |  Provide (79)  |  Society (350)  |  Term (357)  |  Underpinning (2)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Wetland (5)

The literature of science is filled with answers found when the question propounded had an entirely different direction and end.
In John Steinbeck and Edward Flanders Ricketts Sea of Cortez: a Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941), 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Difference (355)  |  Direction (185)  |  End (603)  |  Literature (116)  |  Question (649)

The main steps of my argument may be summarized thus:
1. Organisms are highly coordinated structures.
2. Only certain avenues of change are compatible with their conditions of coordination.
3. The formative and selective action of these internal conditions is theoretically and empirically different from that of Darwinian selection.
4. Mutations in the mode of coordination of the genetic system lie outside the scope of the classical arguments purporting to show that natural selection is the only directive agency.
5. The coordinative conditions constitute a second directive agency.
In Internal Factors in Evolution (1965), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Argument (145)  |  Avenue (14)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Classical (49)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Coordination (11)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Formation (100)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Internal (69)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Organism (231)  |  Outside (141)  |  Scope (44)  |  Selection (130)  |  Selective (21)  |  Show (353)  |  Step (234)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)

The mathematician of to-day admits that he can neither square the circle, duplicate the cube or trisect the angle. May not our mechanicians, in like manner, be ultimately forced to admit that aerial flight is one of that great class of problems with which men can never cope… I do not claim that this is a necessary conclusion from any past experience. But I do think that success must await progress of a different kind from that of invention.
[Written following Samuel Pierpoint Langley's failed attempt to launch his flying machine from a catapult device mounted on a barge in Oct 1903. The Wright Brother's success came on 17 Dec 1903.]
'The Outlook for the Flying Machine'. The Independent: A Weekly Magazine (22 Oct 1903), 2509.
Science quotes on:  |  Aerial (11)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Aviation (8)  |  Brother (47)  |  Circle (117)  |  Claim (154)  |  Class (168)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Cube (14)  |  Device (71)  |  Do (1905)  |  Duplicate (9)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fail (191)  |  Flight (101)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kind (564)  |  Launch (21)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mount (43)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Past (355)  |  Problem (731)  |  Progress (492)  |  Square (73)  |  Success (327)  |  Think (1122)  |  Ultimately (56)

The mathematics clearly called for a set of underlying elementary objects—at that time we needed three types of them—elementary objects that could be combined three at a time in different ways to make all the heavy particles we knew. ... I needed a name for them and called them quarks, after the taunting cry of the gulls, “Three quarks for Muster mark,” from Finnegan's Wake by the Irish writer James Joyce.
From asppearance in the BBC-TV program written by Nigel Calder, 'The Key to the Universe,' (27 Jan 1977). As cited in Arthur Lewis Caso, 'The Production of New Scientific Terms', American Speech (Summer 1980), 55, No. 2, 101-102.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Cry (30)  |  Elementary (98)  |  James Joyce (5)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Object (438)  |  Particle (200)  |  Quark (9)  |  Set (400)  |  Time (1911)  |  Type (171)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Way (1214)  |  Writer (90)

The mathematics of cooperation of men and tools is interesting. Separated men trying their individual experiments contribute in proportion to their numbers and their work may be called mathematically additive. The effect of a single piece of apparatus given to one man is also additive only, but when a group of men are cooperating, as distinct from merely operating, their work raises with some higher power of the number than the first power. It approaches the square for two men and the cube for three. Two men cooperating with two different pieces of apparatus, say a special furnace and a pyrometer or a hydraulic press and new chemical substances, are more powerful than their arithmetical sum. These facts doubtless assist as assets of a research laboratory.
Quoted from a speech delivered at the fiftieth anniversary of granting of M.I.T's charter, in Guy Suits, 'Willis Rodney Whitney', National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs (1960), 352.
Science quotes on:  |  Additive (2)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Cube (14)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Doubtless (8)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Furnace (13)  |  Group (83)  |  Higher (37)  |  Hydraulic (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Press (21)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Single (365)  |  Special (188)  |  Square (73)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sum (103)  |  Three (10)  |  Tool (129)  |  Trying (144)  |  Two (936)  |  Work (1402)

The mathematics of the twenty-first century may be very different from our own; perhaps the schoolboy will begin algebra with the theory of substitution groups, as he might now but for inherited habits.
From Address before the New York Mathematical Society, Bulletin of the New York Mathematical Society (1893), 3, 107. As cited in G.A. Miller, 'Appreciative Remarks on the Theory of Groups', The American Mathematical Monthly (1903), 10, No. 4, 89. https://books.google.com/books?id=hkM0AQAAMAAJ 1903
Science quotes on:  |  21st Century (11)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Begin (275)  |  Century (319)  |  First (1302)  |  Group (83)  |  Habit (174)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Inherited (21)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Schoolboy (9)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Will (2350)

The mind of a young man (his gallery I mean) is often furnished different ways. According to the scenes he is placed in, so are his pictures. They disappear, and he gets a new set in a moment. But as he grows up, he gets some substantial pieces which he always preserves, although he may alter his smaller paintings in a moment.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Alter (64)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Gallery (7)  |  Grow (247)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  New (1273)  |  Picture (148)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Scene (36)  |  Set (400)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Way (1214)  |  Young (253)

The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stood there from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest. Just so with the world of each of us, howsoever different our several views of it may be, all lay embedded in the primordial chaos of sensations, which gave the mere matter to the thought of all of us indifferently.
In 'The Stream of Thought', The Principles of Psychology (1890), Vol. 1, 288.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Data (162)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Primordial (14)  |  Receive (117)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sculptor (10)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sense (785)  |  Short (200)  |  Statue (17)  |  Stone (168)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  View (496)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

The moment man first picked up a stone or a branch to use as a tool, he altered irrevocably the balance between him and his environment. From this point on, the way in which the world around him changed was different. It was no longer regular or predictable. New objects appeared that were not recognizable as a mutation of something that existed before, and as each one merged it altered the environment not for one season, but for ever.
from Introduction to Connections by James Burke, Macmillan (1978)
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Altering (3)  |  Balance (82)  |  Branch (155)  |  Change (639)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exist (458)  |  First (1302)  |  Irrevocable (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moment (260)  |  Mutation (40)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Point (584)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Regular (48)  |  Season (47)  |  Something (718)  |  Stone (168)  |  Tool (129)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Cause (561)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Divine (112)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Domain (72)  |  Event (222)  |  Exist (458)  |  Firm (47)  |  Foot (65)  |  God (776)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imbue (2)  |  Independent (74)  |  Interfere (17)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Leave (138)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Order (638)  |  Personal (75)  |  Real (159)  |  Refuge (15)  |  Refute (6)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Room (42)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Knowledge (11)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Side (236)  |  Will (2350)

The most fundamental difference between compounds of low molecular weight and macromolecular compounds resides in the fact that the latter may exhibit properties that cannot be deduced from a close examination of the low molecular weight materials. Not very different structures can be obtained from a few building blocks; but if 10,000 or 100,000 blocks are at hand, the most varied structures become possible, such as houses or halls, whose special structure cannot be predicted from the constructions that are possible with only a few building blocks... Thus, a chromosome can be viewed as a material whose macromolecules possess a well defined arrangement, like a living room in which each piece of furniture has its place and not, as in a warehouse, where the pieces of furniture are placed together in a heap without design.
Quoted, without citation, in Ralph E. Oesper (ed.), The Human Side of Scientists (1975), 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Become (821)  |  Building (158)  |  Building Block (9)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Compound (117)  |  Construction (114)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Design (203)  |  Difference (355)  |  Examination (102)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Furniture (8)  |  Hall (5)  |  House (143)  |  Living (492)  |  Living Room (3)  |  Low (86)  |  Macromolecule (3)  |  Material (366)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Place (192)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Property (177)  |  Reside (25)  |  Special (188)  |  Structure (365)  |  Together (392)  |  Varied (6)  |  View (496)  |  Weight (140)

The mythology of science asserts that with many different scientists all asking their own questions and evaluating the answers independently, whatever personal bias creeps into their individual answers is cancelled out when the large picture is put together. This might conceivably be so if scientists were women and men from all sorts of different cultural and social backgrounds who came to science with very different ideologies and interests. But since, in fact, they have been predominantly university-trained white males from privileged social backgrounds, the bias has been narrow and the product often reveals more about the investigator than about the subject being researched.
'Have Only Men Evolved?' Women Look at Biology Looking At Women, eds. Ruth Hubbard, Mary Sue Henifin, and Barbara Fried (1979).
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Assert (69)  |  Background (44)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bias (22)  |  Cancel (5)  |  Creep (15)  |  Cultural (26)  |  Evaluate (7)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Ideology (15)  |  Independently (24)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interest (416)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Large (398)  |  Male (26)  |  More (2558)  |  Mythology (19)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Often (109)  |  Personal (75)  |  Picture (148)  |  Predominantly (4)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Product (166)  |  Question (649)  |  Research (753)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Social (261)  |  Sort (50)  |  Subject (543)  |  Together (392)  |  Train (118)  |  University (130)  |  Whatever (234)  |  White (132)  |  Woman (160)

The name is not the thing named but is of different logical type, higher than that of the thing named.
In Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred (1979, 1987), 209.
Science quotes on:  |  Logic (311)  |  Name (359)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Type (171)

The native intellectual powers of men in different times, are not so much the causes of the different success of their labours, as the peculiar nature of the means and artificial resources in their possession‎. Independent of vessels of glass, there could have been no accurate manipulations in common chemistry: the air pump was necessary for live investigation of the properties of gaseous matter; and without the Voltaic apparatus, there was no possibility of examining the relations of electrical polarities to chemical attractions.
In Elements of Chemical Philosophy (1812), Vol. 1, Part 1, 28-29.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Air (366)  |  Air Pump (2)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Common (447)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Examine (84)  |  Gas (89)  |  Glass (94)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Labor (200)  |  Live (650)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Native (41)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Polarity (5)  |  Possession (68)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Power (771)  |  Property (177)  |  Relation (166)  |  Resource (74)  |  Success (327)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Voltaic (9)

The natural history of these islands is eminently curious, and well deserves attention. Most of the organic productions are aboriginal creations, found nowhere else; there is even a difference between the inhabitants of the different islands; yet all show a marked relationship with those of America, though separated from that continent by an open space of ocean, between 500 and 600 miles in width. The archipelago is a little world within itself, or rather a satellite attached to America, whence it has derived a few stray colonists, and has received the general character of its indigenous productions. Considering the small size of these islands, we feel the more astonished at the number of their aboriginal beings, and at their confined range. Seeing every height crowned with its crater, and the boundaries of most of the lava-streams still distinct, we are led to believe that within a period, geologically recent, the unbroken ocean was here spread out. Hence, both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhere near to that great fact—that mystery of mysteries—the first appearance of new beings on this earth.
Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World, 2nd edn. (1845), 377-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Aboriginal (3)  |  America (143)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Archipelago (7)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Attach (57)  |  Attached (36)  |  Attention (196)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Character (259)  |  Colonist (2)  |  Continent (79)  |  Crater (8)  |  Creation (350)  |  Crown (39)  |  Curious (95)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Island (49)  |  Lava (12)  |  Little (717)  |  Marked (55)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Open (277)  |  Organic (161)  |  Period (200)  |  Production (190)  |  Range (104)  |  Recent (78)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Satellite (30)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Show (353)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Spread (86)  |  Still (614)  |  Stream (83)  |  Time (1911)  |  World (1850)

The new chemistry indeed has given us a new principle of the generation of rain, by proving water to be a composition of different gases, and has aided our theory of meteoric lights.
Letter (5 Sep 1822) to George F. Hopkins. Collected in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1854), Vol. 7, 260.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Aurora (3)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Composition (86)  |  Gas (89)  |  Generation (256)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Light (635)  |  New (1273)  |  Principle (530)  |  Rain (70)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Water (503)

The object of psychology is to give us a totally different idea of the things we know best.
Tel quel (1943). In Bill Swainson and Anne H. Soukhanov. Encarta Book of Quotations (2000), 951.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Object (438)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Thing (1914)

The only thing we know for sure about the future is that it will be radically different from the past. In the face of this enormous uncertainty, the least we can do for future generations is to pass on as many of the planet’s resources as possible.
In The Sinking Ark: A New Look at the Problem of Disappearing Species (1979), 189.
Science quotes on:  |  Conservation (187)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Face (214)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Know (1538)  |  Least (75)  |  Pass (241)  |  Past (355)  |  Planet (402)  |  Possible (560)  |  Radically (5)  |  Resource (74)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Will (2350)

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
Opening sentence of Prologue, in The Go-Between (1953), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Country (269)  |  Do (1905)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Past (355)  |  Thing (1914)

The phenomenon of emergence takes place at critical points of instability that arise from fluctuations in the environment, amplified by feedback loops. Emergence results in the creation of novelty, and this novelty is often qualitatively different from the phenomenon out of which it emerged.
In The Hidden Connections (2002), 116-117.
Science quotes on:  |  Amplification (3)  |  Amplified (6)  |  Arise (162)  |  Creation (350)  |  Critical (73)  |  Critical Point (3)  |  Difference (355)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Environment (239)  |  Feedback (10)  |  Fluctuation (15)  |  Instability (4)  |  Loop (6)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Point (584)  |  Qualitative (15)  |  Result (700)

The picture of scientific method drafted by modern philosophy is very different from traditional conceptions. Gone is the ideal of a universe whose course follows strict rules, a predetermined cosmos that unwinds itself like an unwinding clock. Gone is the ideal of the scientist who knows the absolute truth. The happenings of nature are like rolling dice rather than like revolving stars; they are controlled by probability laws, not by causality, and the scientist resembles a gambler more than a prophet. He can tell you only his best posits—he never knows beforehand whether they will come true. He is a better gambler, though, than the man at the green table, because his statistical methods are superior. And his goal is staked higher—the goal of foretelling the rolling dice of the cosmos. If he is asked why he follows his methods, with what title he makes his predictions, he cannot answer that he has an irrefutable knowledge of the future; he can only lay his best bets. But he can prove that they are best bets, that making them is the best he can do—and if a man does his best, what else can you ask of him?
The Rise of Scientific Philosophy (1951, 1973), 248-9. Collected in James Louis Jarrett and Sterling M. McMurrin (eds.), Contemporary Philosophy: A Book of Readings (1954), 376.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Absoluteness (4)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Best (467)  |  Bet (13)  |  Better (493)  |  Causality (11)  |  Clock (51)  |  Conception (160)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Course (413)  |  Dice (21)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draft (6)  |  Follow (389)  |  Foretelling (4)  |  Future (467)  |  Gambler (7)  |  Goal (155)  |  Green (65)  |  Happening (59)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Irrefutable (5)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Picture (148)  |  Posit (2)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Probability (135)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prophet (22)  |  Prove (261)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Roll (41)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Stake (20)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Superior (88)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Table (105)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

The point in which I am different from most inventors is that I have, besides the usual inventor’s make-up, the bump of practicality as a sort of appendix, the sense of the business, money value of an invention. Oh, no, I didn’t have it naturally. It was pounded into me by some pretty hard knocks.
As quoted in French Strother, 'The Modern Profession of Inventing', World's Work and Play (Jul 1905), 6, No. 32, 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Appendix (5)  |  Business (156)  |  Hard (246)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Knock (3)  |  Money (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Point (584)  |  Practicality (7)  |  Pretty (21)  |  Sense (785)  |  Value (393)

The popular and scientific views of “race” no longer coincide. The word “race,” as applied scientifically to human groupings, has lost any sharpness of meaning. To-day it is hardly definable in scientific terms, except as an abstract concept which may, under certain conditions, very different from those now prevalent, have been realized approximately in the past and might, under certain other but equally different conditions, be realized in the distant future.
Co-author with British anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon (1855-1940).
In Julian S. Huxley and A.C. Haddon, We Europeans: A survey of “Racial” Problems (1935), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Applied (176)  |  Author (175)  |  British (42)  |  Certain (557)  |  Concept (242)  |  Condition (362)  |  Equally (129)  |  Future (467)  |  Human (1512)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Race (278)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sharpness (9)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  View (496)  |  Word (650)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Determine (152)  |  Difference (355)  |  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)

The principles of medical management are essentially the same for individuals of all ages, albeit the same problem is handled differently in different patients. ... [just as] the principles of driving an automobile are uniform, but one drives in one manner on the New Jersey Turnpike and in another manner on a narrow, winding road in the Rocky Mountains.
Quoted in Joseph Earle Moore, The Neurologic and Psychiatric Aspects of the Disorders of Aging (1956), 247.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Driving (28)  |  Individual (420)  |  Management (23)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Narrow (85)  |  New (1273)  |  Patient (209)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Winding (8)

The reactions follow a pattern, which is valid for the blood of all humans... Basically, in fact, there are four different types of human blood, the so-called blood groups. The number of the groups follows from the fact that the erythrocytes evidently contain substances (iso-agglutinogens) with two different structures, of which both may be absent, or one or both present, in the erythrocytes of a person. This alone would still not explain the reactions; the active substances of the sera, the iso-agglutinins, must also be present in a specific distribution. This is actually the case, since every serum contains those agglutinins which react with the agglutinogens not present in the cells—a remarkable phenomenon, the cause of which is not yet known for certain.
'On Individual Differences in Human Blood', Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1930). In Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1922-1941 (1965), 235.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Agglutinin (2)  |  Alone (324)  |  Blood (144)  |  Both (496)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Follow (389)  |  Human (1512)  |  Known (453)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Person (366)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Present (630)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Serum (11)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Specific (98)  |  Still (614)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)

The ridge of the Lammer-muir hills... consists of primary micaceous schistus, and extends from St Abb's head westward... The sea-coast affords a transverse section of this alpine tract at its eastern extremity, and exhibits the change from the primary to the secondary strata... Dr HUTTON wished particularly to examine the latter of these, and on this occasion Sir JAMES HALL and I had the pleasure to accompany him. We sailed in a boat from Dunglass ... We made for a high rocky point or head-land, the SICCAR ... On landing at this point, we found that we actually trode [sic] on the primeval rock... It is here a micaceous schistus, in beds nearly vertical, highly indurated, and stretching from S.E. to N. W. The surface of this rock... has thin covering of red horizontal sandstone laid over it, ... Here, therefore, the immediate contact of the two rocks is not only visible, but is curiously dissected and laid open by the action of the waves... On us who saw these phenomena for the first time, the impression will not easily be forgotten. The palpable evidence presented to us, of one of the most extraordinary and important facts in the natural history of the earth, gave a reality and substance to those theoretical speculations, which, however probable had never till now been directly authenticated by the testimony of the senses... What clearer evidence could we have had of the different formation of these rocks, and of the long interval which separated their formation, had we actually seen them emerging from the bosom of the deep? ... The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time; and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much farther reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow.
'Biographical Account of the Late Dr James Hutton, F.R.S. Edin.' (read 1803), Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1805), 5, 71-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Accompany (22)  |  Action (342)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Change (639)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contact (66)  |  Covering (14)  |  Deep (241)  |  Earnestness (3)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Event (222)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Examine (84)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Extremity (7)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Farther (51)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Formation (100)  |  Grow (247)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  James Hutton (22)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Impression (118)  |  Listen (81)  |  Long (778)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Never (1089)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Open (277)  |  Order (638)  |  Palpable (8)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Primary (82)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sail (37)  |  Sandstone (3)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Strata (37)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Unfolding (16)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wave (112)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Wonderful (155)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  Descend (49)  |  Descent (30)  |  Difference (355)  |  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 same algebraic sum of positive and negative charges in the nucleus, when the arithmetical sum is different, gives what I call “isotopes” or “isotopic elements,” because they occupy the same place in the periodic table. They are chemically identical, and save only as regards the relatively few physical properties which depend upon atomic mass directly, physically identical also. Unit changes of this nuclear charge, so reckoned algebraically, give the successive places in the periodic table. For any one “place” or any one nuclear charge, more than one number of electrons in the outer-ring system may exist, and in such a case the element exhibits variable valency. But such changes of number, or of valency, concern only the ring and its external environment. There is no in- and out-going of electrons between ring and nucleus.
Concluding paragraph of 'Intra-atomic Charge', Nature (1913), 92, 400. Collected in Alfred Romer, Radiochemistry and the Discovery of Isotopes (1970), 251-252.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Charge (63)  |  Concern (239)  |  Depend (238)  |  Difference (355)  |  Electron (96)  |  Element (322)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exist (458)  |  Identical (55)  |  Isotope (4)  |  Mass (160)  |  More (2558)  |  Negative (66)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Physical (518)  |  Place (192)  |  Positive (98)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Regard (312)  |  Save (126)  |  Successive (73)  |  Sum (103)  |  System (545)  |  Table (105)  |  Valency (4)  |  Variable (37)

The same set of statistics can produce opposite conclusions at different levels of aggregation.
'Penetrating the Rhetoric', The Vision of the Anointed (1996), 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregation (6)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Set (400)  |  Statistics (170)

The science of optics, like every other physical science, has two different directions of progress, which have been called the ascending and the descending scale, the inductive and the deductive method, the way of analysis and of synthesis. In every physical science, we must ascend from facts to laws, by the way of induction and analysis; and we must descend from laws to consequences, by the deductive and synthetic way. We must gather and group appearances, until the scientific imagination discerns their hidden law, and unity arises from variety; and then from unity must reduce variety, and force the discovered law to utter its revelations of the future.
In On a General Method of Expressing the Paths of Light, & of the Planets, by the Coefficients of a Characteristic Function (1833), 7-8. [The spelling as “groupe” in the original text, has her been corrected to “group” to avoid an intrusive “sic”.]
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Arise (162)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Ascent (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Deductive (13)  |  Descend (49)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discover (571)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Force (497)  |  Future (467)  |  Gather (76)  |  Group (83)  |  Hide (70)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Law (913)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Optics (24)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Scale (122)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Two (936)  |  Unity (81)  |  Utter (8)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)

The science of the geologist seems destined to exert a marked influence on that of the natural theologian... Not only—to borrow from Paley's illustration—does it enable him to argue on the old grounds, from the contrivance exhibited in the watch found on the moor, that the watch could not have lain upon the moor for ever; but it establishes further, on different and more direct evidence, that there was a time when absolutely the watch was not there; nay, further, so to speak, that there was a previous time in which no watches existed at all, but only water-clocks; yet further, that there was at time in which there we not even water-clocks, but only sun-dials; and further, an earlier time still in which sun-dials were not, nor an measurers of time of any kind.
Lecture to the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, 'Geology in its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Part 1', collected in The Testimony of the Rocks: or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed (1857), 211.
Science quotes on:  |  Borrow (31)  |  Clock (51)  |  Contrivance (12)  |  Destined (42)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Dial (9)  |  Direct (228)  |  Enable (122)  |  Era (51)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exert (40)  |  Exist (458)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Ground (222)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Influence (231)  |  Kind (564)  |  Marked (55)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Moor (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Old (499)  |   William Paley (8)  |  Speak (240)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Theologian (23)  |  Time (1911)  |  Watch (118)  |  Water (503)

The sciences of Natural History and Botany require so much time to be devoted to them that, however pleasing, they may be justly considered as improper objects for the man of business to pursue scientifically, so as to enter into the exact arrangement and classification of the different bodies of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. But reading and personal observation will supply him with ample matter for reflection and admiration.
'On the Advantages of Literature and Philosophy in general and especially on the Consistency of Literary and Philosophical with Commercial Pursuits' (Read 3 Oct 1781). As quoted in Robert Angus Smith, A Centenary of Science in Manchester (1883), 79.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Botany (63)  |  Business (156)  |  Businessman (4)  |  Classification (102)  |  Consider (428)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Enter (145)  |  History (716)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Reading (136)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Require (229)  |  Supply (100)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Will (2350)

The shell model, although proposed by theoreticians, really corresponds to the experimentalist’s approach. It was born from a thorough study of the experimental data, plotting them in different ways, and looking for interconnections.
The Shell Model, Nobel Lecture.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Data (162)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Interconnection (12)  |  Looking (191)  |  Model (106)  |  Shell (69)  |  Study (701)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Way (1214)

The solution, as all thoughtful people recognize, must lie in properly melding the themes of inborn predisposition and shaping through life’s experiences. This fruitful joining cannot take the false form of percentages adding to 100–as in ‘intelligence is 80 percent nature and 20 percent nurture,’ or ‘homosexuality is 50 percent inborn and 50 percent learned,’ and a hundred other harmful statements in this foolish format. When two ends of such a spectrum are commingled, the result is not a separable amalgam (like shuffling two decks of cards with different backs), but an entirely new and higher entity that cannot be decomposed (just as adults cannot be separated into maternal and paternal contributions to their totality).
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Adult (24)  |  Back (395)  |  Card (5)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Deck (3)  |  Decompose (10)  |  End (603)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Entity (37)  |  Experience (494)  |  False (105)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Form (976)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Harmful (13)  |  High (370)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Inborn (4)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Join (32)  |  Joining (11)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maternal (2)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paternal (2)  |  People (1031)  |  Percent (5)  |  Percentage (9)  |  Predisposition (4)  |  Properly (21)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Result (700)  |  Separable (3)  |  Separate (151)  |  Shape (77)  |  Shuffle (7)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Statement (148)  |  Theme (17)  |  Thoughtful (16)  |  Through (846)  |  Totality (17)  |  Two (936)

The strata of the earth are frequently very much bent, being raised in some places, and depressed in others, and this sometimes with a very quick ascent or descent; but as these ascents and descents, in a great measure, compensate one another, if we take a large extent of country together, we may look upon the whole set of strata, as lying nearly horizontally. What is very remarkable, however, in their situation, is, that from most, if not all, large tracts of high and mountainous countries, the strata lie in a situation more inclined to the horizon, than the country itself, the mountainous countries being generally, if not always, formed out of the lower strata of earth. This situation of the strata may be not unaptly represented in the following manner. Let a number of leaves of paper, of several different sorts or colours, be pasted upon one another; then bending them up together into a ridge in the middle, conceive them to be reduced again to a level surface, by a plane so passing through them, as to cut off all the part that had been raised; let the middle now be again raised a little, and this will be a good general representation of most, if not of all, large tracts of mountainous countries, together with the parts adjacent, throughout the whole world.
'Conjectures Concerning the Cause, and Observations upon the Phenomena of Earthquakes', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1760), 51, 584-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Country (269)  |  Cut (116)  |  Descent (30)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extent (142)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Large (398)  |  Lie (370)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Lying (55)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Passing (76)  |  Past (355)  |  Represent (157)  |  Representation (55)  |  Ridge (9)  |  Set (400)  |  Situation (117)  |  Strata (37)  |  Surface (223)  |  Through (846)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Together (392)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 body of great size and power, the ruler, not only of the seasons and of the different climates, but also of the stars themselves and of the heavens. When we consider his operations, we must regard him as the life, or rather the mind of the universe, the chief regulator and the God of nature; he also lends his light to the other stars. He is the most illustrious and excellent, beholding all things and hearing all things.
In The Natural History of Pliny (1855), Vol. 1, 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Chief (99)  |  Climate (102)  |  Consider (428)  |  Excellent (29)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Illustrious (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Regard (312)  |  Regulator (3)  |  Ruler (21)  |  Season (47)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sun (407)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Universe (900)

The Sun truly “comes up like thunder,” and it sets just as fast. Each sunrise and sunset lasts only a few seconds. But in that time you see at least eight different bands of color come and go, from a brilliant red to the brightest and deepest blue. And you see sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets every day you’re in space. No sunrise or sunset is ever the same.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Band (9)  |  Blue (63)  |  Bright (81)  |  Brightest (12)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Color (155)  |  Deep (241)  |  Fast (49)  |  Last (425)  |  Least (75)  |  Red (38)  |  Same (166)  |  Second (66)  |  See (1094)  |  Set (400)  |  Space (523)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunrise (14)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)

The symptoms or the sufferings generally considered to be inevitable and incident to the disease are very often not symptoms of the disease at all, but of something quite different—of the want of fresh air, or of light, or of warmth, or of quiet, or of cleanliness, or of punctuality and care in the administration of diet, of each or of all of these.
In Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not (1859), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Care (203)  |  Cleanliness (6)  |  Consider (428)  |  Diet (56)  |  Disease (340)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Light (635)  |  Punctuality (2)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Something (718)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Want (504)  |  Warmth (21)

The techniques and criteria of religion and science are so extraordinarily different. Science seeks simplicity publicly and encourages the overthrow of authority; religion accepts complexity privately and encourages deference to authority.
In 'Religion - The Antithesis to Science', Chemistry & Industry (Feb 1997).
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Authority (99)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Deference (2)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Overthrow (5)  |  Publicly (3)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Seek (218)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Technique (84)

The term ‘community’ implies a diversity but at the same time a certain organized uniformity in the units. The units are the many individual plants that occur in every community, whether this be a beech-forest, a meadow, or a heath. Uniformity is established when certain atmospheric, terrestrial, and any of the other factors discussed in Section I are co-operating, and appears either because a certain, defined economy makes its impress on the community as a whole, or because a number of different growth-forms are combined to form a single aggregate which has a definite and constant guise.
Oecology of Plants: An Introduction to the Study of Plant Communities (1909), 91-92.
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Beech (2)  |  Certain (557)  |  Community (111)  |  Constant (148)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Definite (114)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Economy (59)  |  Established (7)  |  Factor (47)  |  Forest (161)  |  Form (976)  |  Growth (200)  |  Guise (6)  |  Heath (5)  |  Implies (2)  |  Impress (66)  |  Individual (420)  |  Meadow (21)  |  Number (710)  |  Occur (151)  |  Organized (9)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Single (365)  |  Term (357)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Whole (756)

The theory here developed is that mega-evolution normally occurs among small populations that become preadaptive and evolve continuously (without saltation, but at exceptionally rapid rates) to radically different ecological positions. The typical pattern involved is probably this: A large population is fragmented into numerous small isolated lines of descent. Within these, inadaptive differentiation and random fixation of mutations occur. Among many such inadaptive lines one or a few are preadaptive, i.e., some of their characters tend to fit them for available ecological stations quite different from those occupied by their immediate ancestors. Such groups are subjected to strong selection pressure and evolve rapidly in the further direction of adaptation to the new status. The very few lines that successfully achieve this perfected adaptation then become abundant and expand widely, at the same time becoming differentiated and specialized on lower levels within the broad new ecological zone.
Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Abundant (23)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Available (80)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Character (259)  |  Descent (30)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Direction (185)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expand (56)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Fit (139)  |  Fixation (5)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Group (83)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Involved (90)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Large (398)  |  Level (69)  |  Mutation (40)  |  New (1273)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Occur (151)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Population (115)  |  Position (83)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Probability (135)  |  Radically (5)  |  Random (42)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Selection (130)  |  Small (489)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Station (30)  |  Status (35)  |  Strong (182)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tend (124)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Typical (16)  |  Zone (5)

The thing about electronic games is that they are basically repetitive. After a while, the children get bored. They need something different. [Meccano construction toy kits] offer creativity, a notion of mechanics, discovery of the world around you.
As quoted in by Hugh Schofield in web article 'Meccano Revives French Production' (23 Dec 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Boredom (11)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Construction (114)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Game (104)  |  Kit (2)  |  Meccano (5)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Notion (120)  |  Offer (142)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Toy (22)  |  World (1850)

The truly wise ask what the thing is in itself and in relation to other things, and do not trouble themselves about the use of it,—in other words, about the way in which it may be applied to the necessities of existence and what is already known. This will soon be discovered by minds of a very different order—minds that feel the joy of living, and are keen, adroit, and practical.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 190.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Ask (420)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Existence (481)  |  Feel (371)  |  Joy (117)  |  Keen (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Practical (225)  |  Relation (166)  |  Soon (187)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Truly (118)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wise (143)  |  Word (650)

The truth is that other systems of geometry are possible, yet after all, these other systems are not spaces but other methods of space measurements. There is one space only, though we may conceive of many different manifolds, which are contrivances or ideal constructions invented for the purpose of determining space.
In Science (1903), 18, 106. In Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica (1914), 352.
Science quotes on:  |  Conceive (100)  |  Construction (114)  |  Contrivance (12)  |  Determine (152)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Invention (400)  |  Manifold (23)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Method (531)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Space (523)  |  System (545)  |  Truth (1109)

The unavoidable conclusion is that the unprecedented meekness of the majority is responsible for the increase in violence. Social stability is the product of an equilibrium between a vigorous majority and violent minorities. Disorder does not come from an increased inner pressure or from the interaction of explosive ingredients. There is no reason to believe that the nature of the violent minorities is now greatly different from what it was in the past. What has changed is the will and ability of the majority to react.
In 'Thoughts on the Present', First Things, Last Things (1971), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Belief (615)  |  Change (639)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Increase (225)  |  Ingredient (16)  |  Inner (72)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Majority (68)  |  Meekness (2)  |  Minority (24)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Past (355)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Product (166)  |  React (7)  |  Reason (766)  |  Responsible (19)  |  Social (261)  |  Stability (28)  |  Unavoidable (4)  |  Unprecedented (11)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Violence (37)  |  Violent (17)  |  Will (2350)

The Unexpected stalks a farm in big boots like a vagrant bent on havoc. Not every farmer is an inventor, but the good ones have the seeds of invention within them. Economy and efficiency move their relentless tinkering and yet the real motive often seems to be aesthetic. The mind that first designed a cutter bar is not far different from a mind that can take the intractable steel of an outsized sickle blade and make it hum in the end. The question is how to reduce the simplicity that constitutes a problem (“It's simple; it’s broke.”) to the greater simplicity that constitutes a solution.
In Making Hay (2003), 33-34.
Science quotes on:  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Aestheticism (2)  |  Blade (11)  |  Boot (5)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Cutter (2)  |  Design (203)  |  Economy (59)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  End (603)  |  Farm (28)  |  Farmer (35)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Greater (288)  |  Havoc (7)  |  Hum (4)  |  Intractable (3)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motive (62)  |  Move (223)  |  Problem (731)  |  Question (649)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Relentless (9)  |  Seed (97)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Solution (282)  |  Stalk (6)  |  Steel (23)  |  Tinkering (6)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Vagrant (5)

The union of the political and scientific estates is not like a partnership, but a marriage. It will not be improved if the two become like each other, but only if they respect each other's quite different needs and purposes. No great harm is done if in the meantime they quarrel a bit.
The Scientific Estate (1965), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Great (1610)  |  Marriage (39)  |  Other (2233)  |  Political (124)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Respect (212)  |  Science And Politics (16)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Two (936)  |  Union (52)  |  Will (2350)

The various elements had different places before they were arranged so as to form the universe. At first, they were all without reason and measure. But when the world began to get into order, fire and water and earth and air had only certain faint traces of themselves, and were altogether such as everything might be expected in the absence of God; this, I say, was their nature at that time, and God fashioned them by form and number.
Plato
In Plato and B. Jowett (trans.), The Dialogues of Plato: Republic (3rd ed., 1892), Vol. 3, 473.
Science quotes on:  |  Absence (21)  |  Air (366)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Certain (557)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Measure (241)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Place (192)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Water (503)  |  World (1850)

The world has different owners at sunrise… Even your own garden does not belong to you. Rabbits and blackbirds have the lawns; a tortoise-shell cat who never appears in daytime patrols the brick walls, and a golden-tailed pheasant glints his way through the iris spears.
In Listen! The Wind (1938), 125.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Belong (168)  |  Blackbird (4)  |  Brick (20)  |  Brick Wall (2)  |  Cat (52)  |  Daytime (3)  |  Garden (64)  |  Glint (2)  |  Golden (47)  |  Iris (2)  |  Lawn (5)  |  Never (1089)  |  Owner (5)  |  Rabbit (10)  |  Shell (69)  |  Spear (8)  |  Sunrise (14)  |  Through (846)  |  Tortoise (10)  |  Wall (71)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

The world is a very different one now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.
Inaugural address (1961). Robert G. Torricelli and Andrew Carroll, In Our Own words: Extraordinary Speeches of the American Century (1999), 222.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Power (771)  |  World (1850)

The world is full of signals that we don’t perceive. Tiny creatures live in a different world of unfamiliar forces. Many animals of our scale greatly exceed our range of perception for sensations familiar to us ... What an imperceptive lot we are. Surrounded by so much, so fascinating and so real, that we do not see (hear, smell, touch, taste) in nature, yet so gullible and so seduced by claims for novel power that we mistake the tricks of mediocre magicians for glimpses of a psychic world beyond our ken. The paranormal may be a fantasy; it is certainly a haven for charlatans. But ‘parahuman’ powers of perception lie all about us in birds, bees, and bacteria.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bacterium (6)  |  Bee (44)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bird (163)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Charlatan (8)  |  Claim (154)  |  Creature (242)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exceed (10)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Force (497)  |  Full (68)  |  Glimpse (16)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Haven (3)  |  Hear (144)  |  Ken (2)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  Lot (151)  |  Magician (15)  |  Mediocre (14)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Novel (35)  |  Paranormal (3)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Perception (97)  |  Power (771)  |  Psychic (15)  |  Range (104)  |  Real (159)  |  Scale (122)  |  Seduce (4)  |  See (1094)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Signal (29)  |  Smell (29)  |  Surround (33)  |  Taste (93)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Touch (146)  |  Trick (36)  |  Unfamiliar (17)  |  World (1850)

The world looks so different after learning science. For example, trees are made of air, primarily. When they are burned, they go back to air, and in the flaming heat is released the flaming heat of the sun which was bound in to convert the air into tree, and in the ash is the small remnant of the part which did not come from air, that came from the solid earth, instead. These are beautiful things, and the content of science is wonderfully full of them. They are very inspiring, and they can be used to inspire others.
From address (1966) at the 14th Annual Convention of the National Science Teachers Association, New York City, printed in 'What is science?', The Physics Teacher (1969), 7, No. 6, 320.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Ash (21)  |  Back (395)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Bound (120)  |  Burn (99)  |  Content (75)  |  Convert (22)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Flame (44)  |  Heat (180)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Learning (291)  |  Look (584)  |  Other (2233)  |  Released (2)  |  Remnant (7)  |  Small (489)  |  Solid (119)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tree (269)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

The worlds of our solar system are widely different, but all share a common gravitational tie to the sun.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 218.
Science quotes on:  |  Common (447)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Planet (402)  |  Share (82)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)  |  Tie (42)  |  World (1850)

Then I had shown, in the same place, what the structure of the nerves and muscles of the human body would have to be in order for the animal spirits in the body to have the power to move its members, as one sees when heads, soon after they have been cut off, still move and bite the ground even though they are no longer alive; what changes must be made in the brain to cause waking, sleep and dreams; how light, sounds, odours, tastes, warmth and all the other qualities of external objects can impress different ideas on it through the senses; how hunger, thirst, and the other internal passions can also send their ideas there; what part of the brain should be taken as “the common sense”, where these ideas are received; what should be taken as the memory, which stores the ideas, and as the imagination, which can vary them in different ways and compose new ones and, by the same means, distribute the animal spirits to the muscles, cause the limbs of the body to move in as many different ways as our own bodies can move without the will directing them, depending on the objects that are present to the senses and the internal passions in the body. This will not seem strange to those who know how many different automata or moving machines can be devised by human ingenuity, by using only very few pieces in comparison with the larger number of bones, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins and all the other parts in the body of every animal. They will think of this body like a machine which, having been made by the hand of God, is incomparably better structured than any machine that could be invented by human beings, and contains many more admirable movements.
Discourse on Method in Discourse on Method and Related Writings (1637), trans. Desmond M. Clarke, Penguin edition (1999), Part 5, 39-40.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Bite (18)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Brain (281)  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Cut (116)  |  Distribute (16)  |  Dream (222)  |  God (776)  |  Ground (222)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impress (66)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Internal (69)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Movement (162)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nerve (82)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Soon (187)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Still (614)  |  Store (49)  |  Strange (160)  |  Structure (365)  |  Taste (93)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Vein (27)  |  Waking (17)  |  Warmth (21)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

There are as many species as the infinite being created diverse forms in the beginning, which, following the laws of generation, produced many others, but always similar to them: therefore there are as many species as we have different structures before us today.
Philosophia Botanica (1751), aphorism 157. Trans. Frans A. Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linneans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789 (1971), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Law (913)  |  Other (2233)  |  Produced (187)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)  |  Today (321)

There are many different styles of composition. I characterize them always as Mozart versus Beethoven. When Mozart began to write at that time he had the composition ready in his mind. He wrote the manuscript and it was ‘aus einem Guss’ (casted as one). And it was also written very beautiful. Beethoven was an indecisive and a tinkerer and wrote down before he had the composition ready and plastered parts over to change them. There was a certain place where he plastered over nine times and one did remove that carefully to see what happened and it turned out the last version was the same as the first one.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beethoven (14)  |  Begin (275)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Cast (69)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Composition (86)  |  Down (455)  |  First (1302)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Last (425)  |  Manuscript (10)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mozart (3)  |  Part (235)  |  Place (192)  |  Plaster (5)  |  Ready (43)  |  Remove (50)  |  Same (166)  |  See (1094)  |  Style (24)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turned Out (5)  |  Version (7)  |  Write (250)

There are some four million different kinds of animals and plants in the world. Four million different solutions to the problems of staying alive.
As quoted in Jack Shepherd, "David Attenborough: 15 of the naturalist’s best quotes: In celebration of his 94th birthday", Independent (8 May 2017), on independent.co.uk website.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Animal (651)  |  Kind (564)  |  Million (124)  |  Plant (320)  |  Problem (731)  |  Solution (282)  |  World (1850)

There are, as we have seen, a number of different modes of technological innovation. Before the seventeenth century inventions (empirical or scientific) were diffused by imitation and adaption while improvement was established by the survival of the fittest. Now, technology has become a complex but consciously directed group of social activities involving a wide range of skills, exemplified by scientific research, managerial expertise, and practical and inventive abilities. The powers of technology appear to be unlimited. If some of the dangers may be great, the potential rewards are greater still. This is not simply a matter of material benefits for, as we have seen, major changes in thought have, in the past, occurred as consequences of technological advances.
Concluding paragraph of "Technology," in Dictionary of the History of Ideas (1973), Vol. 4, 364.
Science quotes on:  |  17th Century (20)  |  Ability (162)  |  Activity (218)  |  Advance (298)  |  Appear (122)  |  Become (821)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Century (319)  |  Change (639)  |  Complex (202)  |  Consciously (6)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Danger (127)  |  Diffuse (5)  |  Direct (228)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Establish (63)  |  Exemplify (5)  |  Expertise (8)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Group (83)  |  Imitation (24)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inventive (10)  |  Involve (93)  |  Major (88)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mode (43)  |  Number (710)  |  Occur (151)  |  Past (355)  |  Potential (75)  |  Power (771)  |  Practical (225)  |  Range (104)  |  Research (753)  |  Reward (72)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Simply (53)  |  Skill (116)  |  Social (261)  |  Still (614)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survival Of The Fittest (43)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unlimited (24)  |  Wide (97)

There can be no scientific foundation of religion, and belief must always remain the foundation of religion, while that of science is logical reasoning from facts, that is, sense perceptions; and all that we can say is, that the two, science and religion, are not necessarily incompatible, but are different and unrelated activities of the human mind.
In 'Religion and Modern Science', The Christian Register (16 Nov 1922), 101, 1089. The article is introduced as “the substance of an address to the Laymen’s League in All Soul’s Church (5 Nov 1922).
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Incompatible (4)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Perception (97)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remain (355)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)  |  Two (936)

There is a finite number of species of plants and animals—even of insects—upon the earth. … Moreover, the universality of the genetic code, the common character of proteins in different species, the generality of cellular structure and cellular reproduction, the basic similarity of energy metabolism in all species and of photosynthesis in green plants and bacteria, and the universal evolution of living forms through mutation and natural selection all lead inescapably to a conclusion that, although diversity may be great, the laws of life, based on similarities, are finite in number and comprehensible to us in the main even now.
Presidential Address (28 Dec 1970) to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 'Science: Endless Horizons or Golden Age?', Science (8 Jan 1971), 171, No. 3866, 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bacterium (6)  |  Basic (144)  |  Cell (146)  |  Character (259)  |  Code (31)  |  Common (447)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Difference (355)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Finite (60)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Generality (45)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Great (1610)  |  Green (65)  |  Inescapable (7)  |  Insect (89)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life Form (6)  |  Living (492)  |  Metabolism (15)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Law (46)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Number (710)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Plant (320)  |  Protein (56)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Selection (130)  |  Similar (36)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)  |  Through (846)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universality (22)

There is a moral as well as an intellectual objection to the custom, frequent in these times, of making education consist in a mere smattering of twenty different things, instead of in the mastery of five or six.
As quoted in Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations (1891), 266, attributed in the body of the text, with the single name, “Chadwick,” then, in the prefatory material, the 'Index of Authors' lists only “Chadwick, Erwin”. HOWEVER, another quote in this book (“The education of the intellect…”), also attributed in the body of the text to the single name “Chadwick”, has been definitely identified by Webmaster to be from a sermon by clergyman, John White Chadwick. This quote also seems to be more likely from a sermon, than from the pen of Edwin Chadwick, an urban health reformer. Having found no primary source to verify which person authored the quote, Webmaster—tentatively—places this quote under John W. Chadwick. If you know the primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Consist (223)  |  Custom (44)  |  Education (423)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Making (300)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Mere (86)  |  Moral (203)  |  Objection (34)  |  Smattering (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)

There is always the danger in scientific work that some word or phrase will be used by different authors to express so many ideas and surmises that, unless redefined, it loses all real significance.
'Valence and Tautomerism', Journal of the American Chemical Society (1913), 35, 1448.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Danger (127)  |  Express (192)  |  Idea (881)  |  Lose (165)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Significance (114)  |  Surmise (7)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

There is an art to science, and science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 251.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Two (936)  |  Whole (756)

There is beauty in discovery. There is mathematics in music, a kinship of science and poetry in the description of nature, and exquisite form in a molecule. Attempts to place different disciplines in different camps are revealed as artificial in the face of the unity of knowledge. All illiterate men are sustained by the philosopher, the historian, the political analyst, the economist, the scientist, the poet, the artisan, and the musician.
From address (1958), upon being appointed Chancellor of the University of California.
Science quotes on:  |  Analyst (8)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Artisan (9)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Camp (12)  |  Description (89)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Economist (20)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Face (214)  |  Form (976)  |  Historian (59)  |  Illiterate (6)  |  Kinship (5)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Music (133)  |  Musician (23)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Poet (97)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Political (124)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Science And Poetry (17)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Unity (81)

There is more evidence to prove that saltiness [of the sea] is due to the admixture of some substance ... It is this stuff which makes salt water heavy (it weighs more than fresh water) and thick. The difference in consistency is such that ships with the same cargo very nearly sink in a river when they are quite fit to navigate in the sea. This circumstance has before now caused loss to shippers freighting their ships in a river. That the thicker consistency is due to an admixture of something is proved by the fact that if you make strong brine by the admixture of salt, eggs, even when they are full, float in it. It almost becomes like mud; such a quantity of earthy matter is there in the sea.
[Aristotle recognised the different density of fresh (river) or salty (sea) water. He describes an experiment using an egg (which sinks in fresh water) that floats in a strong brine solution.]
Aristotle
Meteorology (350 B.C.), Book II, translated by E. W. Webster. Internet Classics Archive, (classics.mit.edu).
Science quotes on:  |  Admixture (2)  |  Become (821)  |  Brine (3)  |  Buoyancy (7)  |  Cargo (6)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Density (25)  |  Describe (132)  |  Difference (355)  |  Due (143)  |  Egg (71)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fit (139)  |  Float (31)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Loss (117)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Mud (26)  |  Navigate (4)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Prove (261)  |  Quantity (136)  |  River (140)  |  Salt (48)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Sink (38)  |  Sinking (6)  |  Solution (282)  |  Something (718)  |  Strong (182)  |  Substance (253)  |  Water (503)  |  Weigh (51)

There is no art so difficult as the art of observation: it requires a skillful, sober spirit and a well-trained experience, which can only be acquired by practice; for he is not an observer who only sees the thing before him with his eyes, but he who sees of what parts the thing consists, and in what connexion the parts stand to the whole. One person overlooks half from inattention; another relates more than he sees while he confounds it with that which he figures to himself; another sees the parts of the whole, but he throws things together that ought to be separated. ... When the observer has ascertained the foundation of a phenomenon, and he is able to associate its conditions, he then proves while he endeavours to produce the phenomena at his will, the correctness of his observations by experiment. To make a series of experiments is often to decompose an opinion into its individual parts, and to prove it by a sensible phenomenon. The naturalist makes experiments in order to exhibit a phenomenon in all its different parts. When he is able to show of a series of phenomena, that they are all operations of the same cause, he arrives at a simple expression of their significance, which, in this case, is called a Law of Nature. We speak of a simple property as a Law of Nature when it serves for the explanation of one or more natural phenomena.
'The Study of the Natural Sciences: An Introductory Lecture to the Course of Experimental Chemistry in the University of Munich, for the Winter Session of 1852-53,' as translated and republished in The Medical Times and Gazette (22 Jan 1853), N.S. Vol. 6, 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Art (680)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Associate (25)  |  Call (781)  |  Carelessness (7)  |  Cause (561)  |  Component (51)  |  Condition (362)  |  Confound (21)  |  Confuse (22)  |  Consist (223)  |  Correctness (12)  |  Decompose (10)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Expression (181)  |  Eye (440)  |  Figure (162)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Himself (461)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Inattention (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observer (48)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Part (235)  |  Person (366)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Practice (212)  |  Produce (117)  |  Proof (304)  |  Property (177)  |  Prove (261)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Report (42)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Sensible (28)  |  Separate (151)  |  Series (153)  |  Show (353)  |  Significance (114)  |  Simple (426)  |  Skillful (17)  |  Sober (10)  |  Speak (240)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stand (284)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Train (118)  |  Training (92)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Validity (50)  |  Verify (24)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.
In The Analysis of Mind (1921) 159–160.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Connection (171)  |  Disprove (25)  |  Event (222)  |  Future (467)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Logic (311)  |  Minute (129)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Past (355)  |  Population (115)  |  Remember (189)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unreal (4)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

There is probably no other science which presents such different appearances to one who cultivates it and to one who does not, as mathematics. To this person it is ancient, venerable, and complete; a body of dry, irrefutable, unambiguous reasoning. To the mathematician, on the other hand, his science is yet in the purple bloom of vigorous youth, everywhere stretching out after the “attainable but unattained” and full of the excitement of nascent thoughts; its logic is beset with ambiguities, and its analytic processes, like Bunyan’s road, have a quagmire on one side and a deep ditch on the other and branch off into innumerable by-paths that end in a wilderness.
In 'The Theory of Transformation Groups', (A review of Erster Abschnitt, Theorie der Transformationsgruppen (1888)), Bulletin New York Mathematical Society (1893), 2 (First series), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambiguity (17)  |  Analytic (11)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attain (126)  |  Bloom (11)  |  Body (557)  |  Branch (155)  |  John Bunyan (5)  |  Complete (209)  |  Cultivate (24)  |  Deep (241)  |  Ditch (2)  |  Dry (65)  |  End (603)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Irrefutable (5)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nascent (4)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  Person (366)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Purple (4)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Road (71)  |  Side (236)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unambiguous (6)  |  Venerable (7)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Youth (109)

There might have been a hundred or a thousand life-bearing planets, had the course of evolution of the universe been a little different, or there might have been none at all. They would probably add, that, as life and man have been produced, that shows that their production was possible; and therefore, if not now then at some other time, if not here then in some other planet of some other sun, we should be sure to have come into existence; or if not precisely the same as we are, then something a little better or a little worse.
From Conclusion to Man's Place in the Universe: A Study of the Results of Scientific Research (1903), 315.
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Appear (122)  |  Belief (615)  |  Better (493)  |  Body (557)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Control (182)  |  Course (413)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Essentially (15)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Force (497)  |  Hold (96)  |  Holding (3)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Larger (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planet (402)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Probably (50)  |  Produced (187)  |  Product (166)  |  Production (190)  |  Show (353)  |  Something (718)  |  Sun (407)  |  Superior (88)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)

There was, I think, a feeling that the best science was that done in the simplest way. In experimental work, as in mathematics, there was “style” and a result obtained with simple equipment was more elegant than one obtained with complicated apparatus, just as a mathematical proof derived neatly was better than one involving laborious calculations. Rutherford's first disintegration experiment, and Chadwick's discovery of the neutron had a “style” that is different from that of experiments made with giant accelerators.
From 'Physics in a University Laboratory Before and After World War II', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, (1975), 342, 463. As cited in Alan McComas, Galvani's Spark: The Story of the Nerve Impulse (2011), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Accelerator (11)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Sir James Chadwick (9)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disintegration (8)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Feeling (259)  |  First (1302)  |  Giant (73)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Neatness (6)  |  Neutron (23)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Obtaining (5)  |  Proof (304)  |  Result (700)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Style (24)  |  Think (1122)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

They were very different men. Or boys. Someone said they were both like curious children—Einstein the merry boy, Rutherford the boisterous one. They were looking and working in different directions—Einstein looking outward, rather dreamily trying to discover where we came from, and Rutherford drilling deep to discover what we were.
A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2007), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Boy (100)  |  Children (201)  |  Curious (95)  |  Deep (241)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discover (571)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Looking (191)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Trying (144)

Think of the image of the world in a convex mirror. ... A well-made convex mirror of moderate aperture represents the objects in front of it as apparently solid and in fixed positions behind its surface. But the images of the distant horizon and of the sun in the sky lie behind the mirror at a limited distance, equal to its focal length. Between these and the surface of the mirror are found the images of all the other objects before it, but the images are diminished and flattened in proportion to the distance of their objects from the mirror. ... Yet every straight line or plane in the outer world is represented by a straight line or plane in the image. The image of a man measuring with a rule a straight line from the mirror, would contract more and more the farther he went, but with his shrunken rule the man in the image would count out exactly the same results as in the outer world, all lines of sight in the mirror would be represented by straight lines of sight in the mirror. In short, I do not see how men in the mirror are to discover that their bodies are not rigid solids and their experiences good examples of the correctness of Euclidean axioms. But if they could look out upon our world as we look into theirs without overstepping the boundary, they must declare it to be a picture in a spherical mirror, and would speak of us just as we speak of them; and if two inhabitants of the different worlds could communicate with one another, neither, as far as I can see, would be able to convince the other that he had the true, the other the distorted, relation. Indeed I cannot see that such a question would have any meaning at all, so long as mechanical considerations are not mixed up with it.
In 'On the Origin and Significance of Geometrical Axioms,' Popular Scientific Lectures< Second Series (1881), 57-59. In Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica (1914), 357-358.
Science quotes on:  |  Aperture (5)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Behind (139)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Convex (6)  |  Convince (43)  |  Count (107)  |  Declare (48)  |  Discover (571)  |  Distance (171)  |  Distort (22)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Experience (494)  |  Farther (51)  |  Focal Length (2)  |  Good (906)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Image (97)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Lie (370)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Line (100)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mirror (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Picture (148)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Question (649)  |  Represent (157)  |  Result (700)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Rule (307)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Solid (119)  |  Speak (240)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Think (1122)  |  Two (936)  |  World (1850)

This constitution we designate by the word genotype. The word is entirely independent of any hypothesis; it is fact, not hypothesis that different zygotes arising by fertilisation can thereby have different qualities, that, even under quite similar conditions of life, phenotypically diverse individuals can develop.
Elemente der Exakten Erblichkeitslehre (1909), 165-70. Trans. in Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance (1982), 782.
Science quotes on:  |  Arising (22)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Develop (278)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fertilization (15)  |  Genotype (8)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Individual (420)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Word (650)  |  Zygote (3)

This is one of the greatest advantages of modern geometry over the ancient, to be able, through the consideration of positive and negative quantities, to include in a single enunciation the several cases which the same theorem may present by a change in the relative position of the different parts of a figure. Thus in our day the nine principal problems and the numerous particular cases, which form the object of eighty-three theorems in the two books De sectione determinata of Appolonius constitute only one problem which is resolved by a single equation.
In Histoire de la Géométrie, chap. 1, sect. 35.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Book (413)  |  Case (102)  |  Change (639)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Enunciation (7)  |  Equation (138)  |  Figure (162)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Include (93)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Negative (66)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Object (438)  |  Part (235)  |  Particular (80)  |  Position (83)  |  Positive (98)  |  Present (630)  |  Principal (69)  |  Problem (731)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Relative (42)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Same (166)  |  Several (33)  |  Single (365)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)

This leads us to ask for the reasons which call for this new theory of transmutation. The beginning of things must needs lie in obscurity, beyond the bounds of proof, though within those of conjecture or of analogical inference. Why not hold fast to the customary view, that all species were directly, instead of indirectly, created after their respective kinds, as we now behold them,--and that in a manner which, passing our comprehension, we intuitively refer to the supernatural? Why this continual striving after “the unattained and dim,”—these anxious endeavors, especially of late years, by naturalists and philosophers of various schools and different tendencies, to penetrate what one of them calls “the mystery of mysteries,” the origin of species? To this, in general, sufficient answer may be found in the activity of the human intellect, “the delirious yet divine desire to know,” stimulated as it has been by its own success in unveiling the laws and processes of inorganic Nature,—in the fact that the principal triumphs of our age in physical science have consisted in tracing connections where none were known before, in reducing heterogeneous phenomena to a common cause or origin, in a manner quite analogous to that of the reduction of supposed independently originated species to a common ultimate origin,—thus, and in various other ways, largely and legitimately extending the domain of secondary causes. Surely the scientific mind of an age which contemplates the solar system as evolved from a common, revolving, fluid mass,— which, through experimental research, has come to regard light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, and mechanical power as varieties or derivative and convertible forms of one force, instead of independent species,—which has brought the so-called elementary kinds of matter, such as the metals, into kindred groups, and raised the question, whether the members of each group may not be mere varieties of one species,—and which speculates steadily in the direction of the ultimate unity of matter, of a sort of prototype or simple element which may be to the ordinary species of matter what the protozoa or component cells of an organism are to the higher sorts of animals and plants,—the mind of such an age cannot be expected to let the old belief about species pass unquestioned.
Asa Gray
'Darwin on the Origin of Species', The Atlantic Monthly (Jul 1860), 112-3. Also in 'Natural Selection Not Inconsistent With Natural Theology', Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism (1876), 94-95.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Affinity (27)  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bound (120)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Common (447)  |  Component (51)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consist (223)  |  Continual (44)  |  Customary (18)  |  Desire (212)  |  Direction (185)  |  Divine (112)  |  Domain (72)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Element (322)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Heat (180)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Independently (24)  |  Inference (45)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Kind (564)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Late (119)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Metal (88)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Principal (69)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prototype (9)  |  Protozoa (6)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Regard (312)  |  Research (753)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Mind (13)  |  Simple (426)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Species (435)  |  Success (327)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supernatural (26)  |  Surely (101)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmutation (24)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unity (81)  |  Unquestioned (7)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Year (963)

This method is, to define as the number of a class the class of all classes similar to the given class. Membership of this class of classes (considered as a predicate) is a common property of all the similar classes and of no others; moreover every class of the set of similar classes has to the set of a relation which it has to nothing else, and which every class has to its own set. Thus the conditions are completely fulfilled by this class of classes, and it has the merit of being determinate when a class is given, and of being different for two classes which are not similar. This, then, is an irreproachable definition of the number of a class in purely logical terms.
The Principles of Mathematics (1903), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Class (168)  |  Common (447)  |  Completely (137)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consider (428)  |  Definition (238)  |  Determination (80)  |  Difference (355)  |  Fulfillment (20)  |  Irreproachable (2)  |  Logic (311)  |  Membership (6)  |  Merit (51)  |  Method (531)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Predicate (3)  |  Property (177)  |  Purely (111)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Set (400)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Two (936)

This theme of mutually invisible life at widely differing scales bears an important implication for the ‘culture wars’ that supposedly now envelop our universities and our intellectual discourse in general ... One side of this false dichotomy features the postmodern relativists who argue that all culturally bound modes of perception must be equally valid, and that no factual truth therefore exists. The other side includes the benighted, old-fashioned realists who insist that flies truly have two wings, and that Shakespeare really did mean what he thought he was saying. The principle of scaling provides a resolution for the false parts of this silly dichotomy. Facts are facts and cannot be denied by any rational being. (Often, facts are also not at all easy to determine or specify–but this question raises different issues for another time.) Facts, however, may also be highly scale dependent–and the perceptions of one world may have no validity or expression in the domain of another. The one-page map of Maine cannot recognize the separate boulders of Acadia, but both provide equally valid representations of a factual coastline.
The World as I See It (1999)
Science quotes on:  |  Argue (25)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Benighted (2)  |  Bind (26)  |  Both (496)  |  Boulder (8)  |  Bound (120)  |  Coastline (2)  |  Culturally (2)  |  Culture (157)  |  Deny (71)  |  Dependent (26)  |  Determine (152)  |  Dichotomy (4)  |  Differ (88)  |  Discourse (19)  |  Domain (72)  |  Easy (213)  |  Envelop (5)  |  Equally (129)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Factual (8)  |  False (105)  |  Feature (49)  |  Fly (153)  |  General (521)  |  Highly (16)  |  Implication (25)  |  Important (229)  |  Include (93)  |  Insist (22)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Issue (46)  |  Life (1870)  |  Map (50)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mode (43)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mutually (7)  |  Often (109)  |  Old (499)  |  Old-Fashioned (9)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Perception (97)  |  Principle (530)  |  Provide (79)  |  Question (649)  |  Raise (38)  |  Rational (95)  |  Realist (3)  |  Really (77)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Relativist (2)  |  Representation (55)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Say (989)  |  Scale (122)  |  Separate (151)  |  Shakespeare (6)  |  Side (236)  |  Silly (17)  |  Specify (6)  |  Supposedly (2)  |  Theme (17)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  University (130)  |  Valid (12)  |  Validity (50)  |  War (233)  |  Widely (9)  |  Wing (79)  |  World (1850)

This very important property of rods, and indeed also of each kind of cone, this limitation of output to a single dimension of change, may be called the Principle of Univariance and stated thus: “The output of a receptor depends upon its quantum catch, but not upon what quanta are caught.” … Young's theory of colour vision may now be stated in terms of cone pigments. “There are three classes of cone each containing a different visual pigment. The output of each cone is univariant, depending simply upon the quantum catch of its pigment. Our sensation of colour depends upon the ratios of these three cone outputs.”
Principle of Univariance, concerning color vision, as stated in Lecture to a meeting of the Physiological Society at Chelsea College, London (17 Apr 1970), and reported in 'Pigments and Signals in Colour Vision', The Journal of Physiology (1972), 220 No. 3, 4P.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Color (155)  |  Cone (8)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Eye (440)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Kind (564)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Output (12)  |  Photon (11)  |  Pigment (9)  |  Principle (530)  |  Property (177)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Retina (4)  |  Rod (6)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Single (365)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Vision (127)  |  Young (253)  |  Thomas Young (15)

Though the world does not change with a change of paradigm, the scientist afterward works in a different world... I am convinced that we must learn to make sense of statements that at least resemble these. What occurs during a scientific revolution is not fully reducible to a re-interpretation of individual and stable data. In the first place, the data are not unequivocally stable.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Data (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Learn (672)  |  Must (1525)  |  Occur (151)  |  Paradigm (16)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Revolution (13)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sense (785)  |  Stable (32)  |  Statement (148)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Thus it might be said, that the vegetable is only the sketch, nor rather the ground-work of the animal; that for the formation of the latter, it has only been requisite to clothe the former with an apparatus of external organs, by which it might be connected with external objects.
From hence it follows, that the functions of the animal are of two very different classes. By the one (which is composed of an habitual succession of assimilation and excretion) it lives within itself, transforms into its proper substance the particles of other bodies, and afterwards rejects them when they are become heterogeneous to its nature. By the other, it lives externally, is the inhabitant of the world, and not as the vegetable of a spot only; it feels, it perceives, it reflects on its sensations, it moves according to their influence, and frequently is enabled to communicate by its voice its desires, and its fears, its pleasures, and its pains.
The aggregate of the functions of the first order, I shall name the organic life, because all organized beings, whether animal or vegetable, enjoy it more or less, because organic texture is the sole condition necessary to its existence. The sum of the functions of the second class, because it is exclusively the property of the animal, I shall denominate the animal life.
Physiological Researches on Life and Death (1815), trans. P. Gold, 22-3.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Class (168)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Condition (362)  |  Connect (126)  |  Desire (212)  |  Excretion (7)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Formation (100)  |  Former (138)  |  Function (235)  |  Ground (222)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Move (223)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Organ (118)  |  Organic (161)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pain (144)  |  Particle (200)  |  Plant (320)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Proper (150)  |  Property (177)  |  Reject (67)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sole (50)  |  Substance (253)  |  Succession (80)  |  Sum (103)  |  Transform (74)  |  Two (936)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Thus one becomes entangled in contradictions if one speaks of the probable position of the electron without considering the experiment used to determine it ... It must also be emphasized that the statistical character of the relation depends on the fact that the influence of the measuring device is treated in a different manner than the interaction of the various parts of the system on one another. This last interaction also causes changes in the direction of the vector representing the system in the Hilbert space, but these are completely determined. If one were to treat the measuring device as a part of the system—which would necessitate an extension of the Hilbert space—then the changes considered above as indeterminate would appear determinate. But no use could be made of this determinateness unless our observation of the measuring device were free of indeterminateness. For these observations, however, the same considerations are valid as those given above, and we should be forced, for example, to include our own eyes as part of the system, and so on. The chain of cause and effect could be quantitatively verified only if the whole universe were considered as a single system—but then physics has vanished, and only a mathematical scheme remains. The partition of the world into observing and observed system prevents a sharp formulation of the law of cause and effect. (The observing system need not always be a human being; it may also be an inanimate apparatus, such as a photographic plate.)
The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory, trans. Carl Eckart and Frank C. Hoyt (1949), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cause And Effect (21)  |  Change (639)  |  Character (259)  |  Completely (137)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Depend (238)  |  Determine (152)  |  Device (71)  |  Direction (185)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electron (96)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extension (60)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Free (239)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Include (93)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Remain (355)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Single (365)  |  Space (523)  |  Speak (240)  |  System (545)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Various (205)  |  Vector (6)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Till the fifteenth century little progress appears to have been made in the science or practice of music; but since that era it has advanced with marvelous rapidity, its progress being curiously parallel with that of mathematics, inasmuch as great musical geniuses appeared suddenly among different nations, equal in their possession of this special faculty to any that have since arisen. As with the mathematical so with the musical faculty it is impossible to trace any connection between its possession and survival in the struggle for existence.
In 'Darwinism Applied to Man', Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection with Some of Its Applications (1901), Chap. 15, 468.
Science quotes on:  |  15th Century (5)  |  Advance (298)  |  Being (1276)  |  Century (319)  |  Connection (171)  |  Curious (95)  |  Equal (88)  |  Era (51)  |  Existence (481)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Genius (301)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Little (717)  |  Marvelous (31)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Music (133)  |  Nation (208)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Possession (68)  |  Practice (212)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Special (188)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Survival (105)  |  Trace (109)

Time has a different quality in a forest, a different kind of flow. Time moves in circles, and events are linked, even if it’s not obvious that they are linked. Events in a forest occur with precision in the flow of tree time, like the motions of an endless dance.
The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring
Science quotes on:  |  Circle (117)  |  Dance (35)  |  Endless (60)  |  Event (222)  |  Flow (89)  |  Forest (161)  |  Kind (564)  |  Link (48)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Occur (151)  |  Precision (72)  |  Quality (139)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tree (269)

To ask what qualities distinguish good from routine scientific research is to address a question that should be of central concern to every scientist. We can make the question more tractable by rephrasing it, “What attributes are shared by the scientific works which have contributed importantly to our understanding of the physical world—in this case the world of living things?” Two of the most widely accepted characteristics of good scientific work are generality of application and originality of conception. . These qualities are easy to point out in the works of others and, of course extremely difficult to achieve in one’s own research. At first hearing novelty and generality appear to be mutually exclusive, but they really are not. They just have different frames of reference. Novelty has a human frame of reference; generality has a biological frame of reference. Consider, for example, Darwinian Natural Selection. It offers a mechanism so widely applicable as to be almost coexistent with reproduction, so universal as to be almost axiomatic, and so innovative that it shook, and continues to shake, man’s perception of causality.
In 'Scientific innovation and creativity: a zoologist’s point of view', American Zoologist (1982), 22, 230.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Achieve (75)  |  Address (13)  |  Appear (122)  |  Applicable (31)  |  Application (257)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Axiomatic (2)  |  Biological (137)  |  Case (102)  |  Causality (11)  |  Central (81)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conception (160)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continue (179)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Course (413)  |  Darwinian (10)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Easy (213)  |  Example (98)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Extremely (17)  |  First (1302)  |  Frame (26)  |  Frame of Reference (5)  |  Generality (45)  |  Good (906)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Human (1512)  |  Importantly (3)  |  Innovative (3)  |  Living (492)  |  Living Things (8)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mutually (7)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Offer (142)  |  Originality (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perception (97)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Out (9)  |  Quality (139)  |  Question (649)  |  Really (77)  |  Reference (33)  |  Rephrase (2)  |  Rephrasing (2)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Research (753)  |  Routine (26)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Selection (130)  |  Shake (43)  |  Share (82)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universal (198)  |  Widely (9)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

To come very near to a true theory, and to grasp its precise application, are two different things, as the history of science teaches us. Everything of importance has been said before by someone who did not discover it.
In The Organisation of Thought (1917), 127. Collected in The Interpretation of Science: Selected Essays (1961), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Everything (489)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Importance (299)  |  Precise (71)  |  Someone (24)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)

To get your name well enough known that you can run for a public office, some people do it by being great lawyers or philanthropists or business people or work their way up the political ladder. I happened to become known from a different route.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Business (156)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enough (341)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Ladder (18)  |  Lawyer (27)  |  Name (359)  |  Office (71)  |  People (1031)  |  Philanthropist (4)  |  Political (124)  |  Public (100)  |  Route (16)  |  Run (158)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

To give a causal explanation of an event means to deduce a statement which describes it, using as premises of the deduction one or more universal laws, together with certain singular statements, the initial conditions ... We have thus two different kinds of statement, both of which are necessary ingredients of a complete causal explanation. (1959)
The Logic of Scientific Discovery: Logik Der Forschung (1959, 2002), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Complete (209)  |  Condition (362)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Describe (132)  |  Event (222)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Kind (564)  |  Law (913)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Premise (40)  |  Singular (24)  |  Statement (148)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)  |  Universal (198)

To learn… the ordinary arrangement of the different strata of minerals in the earth, to know from their habitual colocations and proximities, where we find one mineral; whether another, for which we are seeking, may be expected to be in its neighborhood, is useful.
In The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1854), Vol. 7, 443.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Expect (203)  |  Find (1014)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Location (15)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Mineralogy (24)  |  Neighborhood (12)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Proximity (3)  |  Strata (37)  |  Useful (260)

To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning; but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio; and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.
From 'Numb. 83, Tuesday, January 1, 1750', The Rambler (1756), Vol. 2, 154. (Italian architect Palladio, 1509-80, is widely considered the most influential in the history of Western architecture.)
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flower (112)  |  Genius (301)  |  Hew (3)  |  Honour (58)  |  Laborer (9)  |  Learning (291)  |  Lowest (10)  |  Mean (810)  |  Must (1525)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Number (710)  |  Search (175)  |  Shell (69)  |  Stone (168)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Suited (2)  |  Task (152)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unworthy (18)

To pick a hole–say in the 2nd law of Ωcs, that if two things are in contact the hotter cannot take heat from the colder without external agency.
Now let A & B be two vessels divided by a diaphragm and let them contain elastic molecules in a state of agitation which strike each other and the sides. Let the number of particles be equal in A & B but let those in A have equal velocities, if oblique collisions occur between them their velocities will become unequal & I have shown that there will be velocities of all magnitudes in A and the same in B only the sum of the squares of the velocities is greater in A than in B.
When a molecule is reflected from the fixed diaphragm CD no work is lost or gained.
If the molecule instead of being reflected were allowed to go through a hole in CD no work would be lost or gained, only its energy would be transferred from the one vessel to the other.
Now conceive a finite being who knows the paths and velocities of all the molecules by simple inspection but who can do no work, except to open and close a hole in the diaphragm, by means of a slide without mass.
Let him first observe the molecules in A and when lie sees one coming the square of whose velocity is less than the mean sq. vel. of the molecules in B let him open a hole & let it go into B. Next let him watch for a molecule in B the square of whose velocity is greater than the mean sq. vel. in A and when it comes to the hole let him draw and slide & let it go into A, keeping the slide shut for all other molecules.
Then the number of molecules in A & B are the same as at first but the energy in A is increased and that in B diminished that is the hot system has got hotter and the cold colder & yet no work has been done, only the intelligence of a very observant and neat fingered being has been employed. Or in short if heat is the motion of finite portions of matter and if we can apply tools to such portions of matter so as to deal with them separately then we can take advantage of the different motion of different portions to restore a uniformly hot system to unequal temperatures or to motions of large masses. Only we can't, not being clever enough.
Letter to Peter Guthrie Tait (11 Dec 1867). In P. M. Harman (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1995), Vol. 2, 331-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Agitation (10)  |  Apply (170)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Clever (41)  |  Cold (115)  |  Collision (16)  |  Coming (114)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Contact (66)  |  Deal (192)  |  Divided (50)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Employ (115)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enough (341)  |  Finite (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Greater (288)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hot (63)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Know (1538)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Lie (370)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  Maxwell�s Demon (2)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Motion (320)  |  Next (238)  |  Number (710)  |  Observe (179)  |  Occur (151)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Path (159)  |  Portion (86)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Shut (41)  |  Side (236)  |  Simple (426)  |  Square (73)  |  State (505)  |  Strike (72)  |  Sum (103)  |  System (545)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Tool (129)  |  Two (936)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Watch (118)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

To regulate something always requires two opposing factors. You cannot regulate by a single factor. To give an example, the traffic in the streets could not be controlled by a green light or a red light alone. It needs a green light and a red light as well. The ratio between retine and promine determines whether there is any motion, any growth, or not. Two different inclinations have to be there in readiness to make the cells proliferate.
In Ralph W. Moss, Free Radical (1988), 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Cell (146)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Green (65)  |  Growth (200)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Light (635)  |  Motion (320)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Readiness (9)  |  Red (38)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Require (229)  |  Single (365)  |  Something (718)  |  Street (25)  |  Traffic (10)  |  Two (936)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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)

To this day, we see all around us the Promethean drive to omnipotence through technology and to omniscience through science. The effecting of all things possible and the knowledge of all causes are the respective primary imperatives of technology and of science. But the motivating imperative of society continues to be the very different one of its physical and spiritual survival. It is now far less obvious than it was in Francis Bacon's world how to bring the three imperatives into harmony, and how to bring all three together to bear on problems where they superpose.
In 'Science, Technology and the Fourth Discontinuity' (1982). Reprinted in The Advancement of Science, and its Burdens (1986), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Bear (162)  |  Cause (561)  |  Continue (179)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Imperative (16)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Omnipotence (4)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possible (560)  |  Primary (82)  |  Problem (731)  |  See (1094)  |  Society (350)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Survival (105)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  World (1850)

To us, men of the West, a very strange thing happened at the turn of the century; without noticing it, we lost science, or at least the thing that had been called by that name for the last four centuries. What we now have in place of it is something different, radically different, and we don’t know what it is. Nobody knows what it is.
From La Science et Nous (1941), translated as 'Classical Science and After', in Richard Rees (ed.), On Science, Necessity and the Love of God (1968), as quoted and cited in Robert Andrews, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993), 809-810. Also seen translated as, “Something happened to the people of the Western world at the beginning of the century, something quite strange: we lost science without even being aware of it, or at least, what had been called science for the last four centuries. What we now have under this name is something else, something radically different, and we do not know what it is. Probably no one knows what it is”, collected in Simone Weil: Late Philosophical Writings (2015), Chap. 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Century (319)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Least (75)  |  Lose (165)  |  Name (359)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Notice (81)  |  Place (192)  |  Radically (5)  |  Something (718)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  West (21)

Under certain given circumstances, and only under those circumstances, an agglomeration of men presents new characteristics very different from those of the individuals composing it. The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory, but presenting very clearly defined characteristics. The gathering has thus become what, in the absence of a better expression, I will call an organized crowd, or, if the term is considered preferable, a psychological crowd. It forms a single being and is subject to the law of the mental unity of crowds.
From Psychologie des Foules (1895), 12. English text in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897), Book 1, Chap. 1, 1-2. The original French text is, “Dans certaines circonstances données, et seulement dans ces circonstances, une agglomération d’hommes possède des caractères nouveaux fort différents de ceux des individus composant cette agglomération. La personnalité consciente s’évanouit, les sentiments et les idées de toutes les unités sont orientés dans une même direction. Il se forme une âme collective, transitoire sans doute, mais présentant des caractères très nets. La collectivité est alors devenue ce que, faute d’une expression meilleure, j’appellerai une foule organisée, ou, si l’on préfère, une foule psychologique. Elle forme un seul être et se trouve soumise à la loi de l'unité mentale des foules.”
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Consider (428)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Direction (185)  |  Expression (181)  |  Form (976)  |  Gathering (23)  |  Idea (881)  |  Individual (420)  |  Law (913)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  New (1273)  |  Person (366)  |  Personality (66)  |  Present (630)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Single (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Term (357)  |  Unity (81)  |  Will (2350)

Understanding a theory has, indeed, much in common with understanding a human personality. We may know or understand a man's system of dispositions pretty well; that is to say, we may be able to predict how he would act in a number of different situations. But since there are infinitely many possible situations, of infinite variety, a full understanding of a man's dispositions does not seem to be possible.
Objective Knowledge: an Evolutionary Approach (1972), 299.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Common (447)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Number (710)  |  Personality (66)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Say (989)  |  Situation (117)  |  Solution (282)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Variety (138)

Unless his mind soars above his daily pursuits, it is different techniques. In the same spirit, the woodsman might claim that there are only trees but no forest.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Claim (154)  |  Daily (91)  |  Forest (161)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Same (166)  |  Soar (23)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Technique (84)  |  Tree (269)  |  Woodsman (2)

Until that afternoon, my thoughts on planetary atmospheres had been wholly concerned with atmospheric analysis as a method of life detection and nothing more. Now that I knew the composition of the Martian atmosphere was so different from that of our own, my mind filled with wonderings about the nature of the Earth. If the air is burning, what sustains it at a constant composition? I also wondered about the supply of fuel and the removal of the products of combustion. It came to me suddenly, just like a flash of enlightenment, that to persist and keep stable, something must be regulating the atmosphere and so keeping it at its constant composition. Moreover, if most of the gases came from living organisms, then life at the surface must be doing the regulation.
Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scholar (2000), 253.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Burning (49)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Composition (86)  |  Concern (239)  |  Constant (148)  |  Detection (19)  |  Doing (277)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enlightenment (21)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Flash (49)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Gaia (15)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mars (47)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Organism (231)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Product (166)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Something (718)  |  Stable (32)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Supply (100)  |  Surface (223)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Wonder (251)

Very different would be the position of the profession toward homeopathy if it had aimed, like other doctrines advanced by physicians, to gain a foothold among medical men alone or chiefly, instead of making its appeal to the popular favour and against the profession. … And as its adherents do not aim simply at the establishment of a system of doctrines, but wage a war of radicalism against the profession, and seek to throw down the barricades and guard it from the intrusion of ignorance and quackery … our duty is to expel them.
Anonymous
Proceedings of the Connecticut Medical Society (1847), 24. Quoted by Harris L. Coulter in Divided Legacy: the Conflict Between Homeopathy and the American Medical Association (1982), 204.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Aim (175)  |  Alone (324)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Gain (146)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Making (300)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physician (284)  |  Profession (108)  |  Quack (18)  |  Seek (218)  |  System (545)  |  War (233)

We admit as many genera as there are different groups of natural species of which the fructification has the same structure.
Fundamenta Botanica (1736), 159. Trans. Gunnar Eriksson, 'Linnaeus the Botanist', in Tore Frängsmyr (ed.), Linnaeus: The Man and his Work (1983), 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Fruit (108)  |  Genus (27)  |  Natural (810)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)

We all know, from what we experience with and within ourselves, that our conscious acts spring from our desires and our fears. Intuition tells us that that is true also of our fellows and of the higher animals. We all try to escape pain and death, while we seek what is pleasant. We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race. Hunger, love, pain, fear are some of those inner forces which rule the individual’s instinct for self preservation. At the same time, as social beings, we are moved in the relations with our fellow beings by such feelings as sympathy, pride, hate, need for power, pity, and so on. All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man’s actions. All such action would cease if those powerful elemental forces were to cease stirring within us. Though our conduct seems so very different from that of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much alike in them and in us. The most evident difference springs from the important part which is played in man by a relatively strong power of imagination and by the capacity to think, aided as it is by language and other symbolical devices. Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions. In that way imagination and intelligence enter into our existence in the part of servants of the primary instincts. But their intervention makes our acts to serve ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Aid (101)  |  Alike (60)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Causal (7)  |  Cease (81)  |  Claim (154)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Death (406)  |  Describe (132)  |  Desire (212)  |  Device (71)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Easily (36)  |  Elemental (4)  |  Enter (145)  |  Escape (85)  |  Evident (92)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Factor (47)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Hate (68)  |  High (370)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Important (229)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inner (72)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intersect (5)  |  Intervention (18)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Less (105)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merely (315)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Need (320)  |  Organize (33)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Pain (144)  |  Part (235)  |  Pity (16)  |  Play (116)  |  Pleasant (22)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Pride (84)  |  Primary (82)  |  Race (278)  |  Relation (166)  |  Relatively (8)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)  |  Same (166)  |  Seek (218)  |  Seem (150)  |  Self (268)  |  Servant (40)  |  Serve (64)  |  Social (261)  |  Spring (140)  |  Stir (23)  |  Strong (182)  |  Symbolic (16)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Tell (344)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  True (239)  |  Try (296)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

We are at our human finest, dancing with our minds, when there are more choices than two. Sometimes there are ten, even twenty different ways to go, all but one bound to be wrong, and the richness of the selection in such situations can lift us onto totally new ground.
In The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974, 1979), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Bound (120)  |  Choice (114)  |  Dance (35)  |  Difference (355)  |  Finest (3)  |  Ground (222)  |  Human (1512)  |  Lift (57)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Richness (15)  |  Selection (130)  |  Situation (117)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Ten (3)  |  Totally (6)  |  Twenty (4)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wrong (246)

We are going to have full success for the reason that we have attacked the problem in an entirely different way than did those who have failed.
Referring to his own typesetting machine development. From short Speech at the Chamberlain Hotel, Washington, D.C. (Feb 1885), concluding the exhibition of his own Linotype invention. As given in Carl Schlesinger (ed.), 'Mr. Mergenthaler’s Speech', The Biography of Ottmar Merganthaler: Inventor of the Linotype (1989), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Confidence (75)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Failure (176)  |  Invention (400)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reason (766)  |  Success (327)

We are like the inhabitants of an isolated valley in New Guinea who communicate with societies in neighboring valleys (quite different societies, I might add) by runner and by drum. When asked how a very advanced society will communicate, they might guess by an extremely rapid runner or by an improbably large drum. They might not guess a technology beyond their ken. And yet, all the while, a vast international cable and radio traffic passes over them, around them, and through them... We will listen for the interstellar drums, but we will miss the interstellar cables. We are likely to receive our first messages from the drummers of the neighboring galactic valleys - from civilizations only somewhat in our future. The civilizations vastly more advanced than we, will be, for a long time, remote both in distance and in accessibility. At a future time of vigorous interstellar radio traffic, the very advanced civilizations may be, for us, still insubstantial legends.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accessibility (3)  |  Add (42)  |  Advance (298)  |  Ask (420)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Both (496)  |  Cable (11)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Distance (171)  |  Drum (8)  |  Drummer (3)  |  Extremely (17)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Galactic (6)  |  Guess (67)  |  Improbable (15)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  International (40)  |  Interstellar (8)  |  Isolate (24)  |  Ken (2)  |  Large (398)  |  Legend (18)  |  Likely (36)  |  Listen (81)  |  Long (778)  |  Message (53)  |  Miss (51)  |  More (2558)  |  Neighboring (5)  |  New (1273)  |  New Guinea (4)  |  Pass (241)  |  Radio (60)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Receive (117)  |  Remote (86)  |  Runner (2)  |  Society (350)  |  Still (614)  |  Technology (281)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Traffic (10)  |  Valley (37)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vastly (8)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Will (2350)

We can hardly overestimate the significance of the fact that the scientific and religious propensities were one before they became two different activities. Their fundamental unity precedes their separateness.
Epigraph, without citation, in Michael Dowd, Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World (2008), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Precede (23)  |  Religious (134)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Separateness (2)  |  Significance (114)  |  Two (936)  |  Unity (81)

We developed a computer program, based on tests of a quarter-scale model of the lunar module, and we ran the program through some 400 different [moon] landing conditions.
From interview with Technology Review, quoted in Douglas Martin, 'Joseph Gavin, Who Helped Put First Man on Moon, Dies at 90', New York Times (4 Nov 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Base (120)  |  Computer (131)  |  Condition (362)  |  Develop (278)  |  Model (106)  |  Module (3)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moon Landing (9)  |  Program (57)  |  Scale (122)  |  Test (221)  |  Through (846)

We find that light acquires properties which are relative only to the sides of the ray,–which are the same for the north and south sides of the ray, (using the points of the compass for description’s sake only) and which are different when we go from the north and south to the east or to the west sides of the ray. I shall give the name of poles to these sides of the ray, and shall call polarization the modification which gives to light these properties relative to these poles.
(1811). As quoted in William Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840), 336.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Call (781)  |  Compass (37)  |  Find (1014)  |  Light (635)  |  Modification (57)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Point (584)  |  Polarization (4)  |  Pole (49)  |  Property (177)  |  Ray (115)  |  Relative (42)  |  Sake (61)  |  Side (236)  |  South (39)

We have here no esoteric theory of the ultimate nature of concepts, nor a philosophical championing of the primacy of the 'operation'. We have merely a pragmatic matter, namely that we have observed after much experience that if we want to do certain kinds of things with our concepts, our concepts had better be constructed in certain ways. In fact one can see that the situation here is no different from what we always find when we push our analysis to the limit; operations are not ultimately sharp or irreducible any more than any other sort of creature. We always run into a haze eventually, and all our concepts are describable only in spiralling approximation.
In Reflections of a Physicist (1950), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Better (493)  |  Certain (557)  |  Concept (242)  |  Construct (129)  |  Creature (242)  |  Do (1905)  |  Esoteric (4)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Kind (564)  |  Limit (294)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observed (149)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Push (66)  |  Run (158)  |  See (1094)  |  Situation (117)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)

We have here spoken of the prediction of facts of the same kind as those from which our rule was collected. But the evidence in favour of our induction is of a much higher and more forcible character when it enables us to explain and determine cases of a kind different from those which were contemplated in the formation of our hypothesis. The instances in which this has occurred, indeed, impress us with a conviction that the truth of our hypothesis is certain. No accident could give rise to such an extraordinary coincidence. No false supposition could, after being adjusted to one class of phenomena, so exactly represent a different class, when the agreement was unforeseen and contemplated. That rules springing from remote and unconnected quarters should thus leap to the same point, can only arise from that being where truth resides.
In The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840), Vol. 2, 230.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Arise (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Certain (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Class (168)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Determine (152)  |  Enable (122)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Explain (334)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Formation (100)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Impress (66)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Induction (81)  |  Kind (564)  |  Leap (57)  |  More (2558)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Point (584)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Remote (86)  |  Represent (157)  |  Reside (25)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rule (307)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unconnected (10)  |  Unforeseen (11)

We have long been seeking a different kind of evolutionary process and have now found one; namely, the change within the pattern of the chromosomes. ... The neo-Darwinian theory of the geneticists is no longer tenable.
The Material Basis of Evolution (1940), 397.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Chromosomes (17)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Geneticist (16)  |  Kind (564)  |  Long (778)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Process (439)  |  Tenable (4)  |  Theory (1015)

We may therefore say in the future, strictly within the limits of observation, that in certain respects the fossil species of a class traverse in their historical succession metamorphoses similar to those which the embryos undergo in themselves. … The development of a class in the history of the earth offers, in many respects, the greatest analogy with the development of an individual at different periods of his life. The demonstration of this truth is one of the most beautiful results of modern paleontology.
Carl Vogt
From Embryologie des Salmones, collected in L. Agassiz, Poissons d'Eau Douce de l’Europe Centrale (1842), 260. Translated by Webmaster using Google Translate, from the original French, “On pourra donc dire à l'avenir, en restant rigoureusement dans les limites de l'observation, qu'à certains égards, les espèces fossiles d'une classe parcourent dans leur succession historique des métamorphoses semblables à celles que subissent les embryons en se développant … Le développement d’une classe dans l’histoire de la terre offre, à divers égards, la plus grande analogie avec le dévelopment d’un individu aux différentes époques de sa vie. La démonstration de cette vérité est un des plus beaux résultat de la paléontologie moderne.”
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Certain (557)  |  Class (168)  |  Classification (102)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Development (441)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Future (467)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  History Of The Earth (3)  |  Individual (420)  |  Life (1870)  |  Limit (294)  |  Metamorphosis (5)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Observation (593)  |  Offer (142)  |  Paleontology (32)  |  Period (200)  |  Respect (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  Species (435)  |  Succession (80)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Truth (1109)

We must examine the moral alchemy through which the in-group readily transmutes virtue into vice and vice into virtue, as the occasion may demand. … We begin with the engagingly simple formula of moral alchemy: the same behavior must be differently evaluated according to the person who exhibits it. For example, the proficient alchemist will at once know that the word “firm” is properly declined as follows:
I am firm,
Thou art obstinate,
He is pig-headed.
There are some, unversed in the skills of this science, who will tell you that one and the same term should be applied to all three instances of identical behavior.
In article, 'The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy', The Antioch Review (Summer 1948), 8, No. 2, 195-196. Included as Chap. 7 of Social Theory and Social Structure (1949), 201.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Alchemist (23)  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Applied (176)  |  Art (680)  |  Begin (275)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Demand (131)  |  Evaluate (7)  |  Evaluated (4)  |  Examine (84)  |  Firm (47)  |  Follow (389)  |  Formula (102)  |  Identical (55)  |  Know (1538)  |  Moral (203)  |  Must (1525)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Person (366)  |  Simple (426)  |  Skill (116)  |  Tell (344)  |  Term (357)  |  Through (846)  |  Vice (42)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way. Not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other.
Essay, 'On Committees' collected in The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974, 1979), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Change (639)  |  Down (455)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Individual (420)  |  Literature (116)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Music (133)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  People (1031)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Ponder (15)  |  Reach (286)  |  Read (308)  |  Society (350)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unique (72)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

We receive it as a fact, that some minds are so constituted as absolutely to require for their nurture the severe logic of the abstract sciences; that rigorous sequence of ideas which leads from the premises to the conclusion, by a path, arduous and narrow, it may be, and which the youthful reason may find it hard to mount, but where it cannot stray; and on which, if it move at all, it must move onward and upward… . Even for intellects of a different character, whose natural aptitude is for moral evidence and those relations of ideas which are perceived and appreciated by taste, the study of the exact sciences may be recommended as the best protection against the errors into which they are most likely to fall. Although the study of language is in many respects no mean exercise in logic, yet it must be admitted that an eminently practical mind is hardly to be formed without mathematical training.
In Orations and Speeches (1870), Vol. 8, 510.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Admit (49)  |  Against (332)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Aptitude (19)  |  Arduous (3)  |  Best (467)  |  Character (259)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Error (339)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exact Science (11)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fall (243)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hardly (19)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Language (308)  |  Lead (391)  |  Likely (36)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mount (43)  |  Move (223)  |  Must (1525)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nurture (17)  |  Path (159)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Practical (225)  |  Premise (40)  |  Protection (41)  |  Reason (766)  |  Receive (117)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Relation (166)  |  Require (229)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Severe (17)  |  Stray (7)  |  Study (701)  |  Taste (93)  |  Training (92)  |  Upward (44)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Youthful (2)

We say that, in very truth the productive cause is a mineralizing power which is active in forming stones… . This power, existing in the particular material of stones, has two instruments according to different natural conditions.
One of these is heat, which is active in drawing out moisture and digesting the material and bringing about its solidification into the form of stone, in Earth that has been acted upon by unctuous moisture… .
The other instrument is in watery moist material that has been acted upon by earthy dryness; and this [instrument] is cold, which … is active in expelling moisture.
From De Mineralibus (c.1261-1263), as translated by Dorothy Wyckoff, Book of Minerals (1967), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Act (278)  |  Active (80)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cold (115)  |  Condition (362)  |  Digest (10)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Dryness (5)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expel (4)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Heat (180)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Material (366)  |  Mineralize (2)  |  Mineralogy (24)  |  Moist (13)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Natural (810)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particular (80)  |  Power (771)  |  Productive (37)  |  Say (989)  |  Solidification (2)  |  Stone (168)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)

We see the universe the way it is because if it were different, we would not be here to observe it.
In the Washington Post, April 15, 1988.
Science quotes on:  |  Observe (179)  |  See (1094)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)

We set out, therefore, with the supposition that an organised body is not produced by a fundamental power which is guided in its operation by a definite idea, but is developed, according to blind laws of necessity, by powers which, like those of inorganic nature, are established by the very existence of matter. As the elementary materials of organic nature are not different from those of the inorganic kingdom, the source of the organic phenomena can only reside in another combination of these materials, whether it be in a peculiar mode of union of the elementary atoms to form atoms of the second order, or in the arrangement of these conglomerate molecules when forming either the separate morphological elementary parts of organisms, or an entire organism.
Mikroskopische Untersuchungen über die Uebereinstimmung in der Struktur und dem Wachsthum der Thiere und Pflanzen (1839). Microscopic Researches into the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants, trans. Henry Smith (1847), 190-1.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Blind (98)  |  Body (557)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conglomerate (2)  |  Definite (114)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Existence (481)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inorganic (14)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Law (913)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Operation (221)  |  Order (638)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Power (771)  |  Produced (187)  |  Reside (25)  |  Separate (151)  |  Set (400)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Union (52)

We spend our years as a tale that is told, but the tale varies in a hundred different ways, varies between man and man, between year and year, between youth and age, sorrow and joy, laughter and tears. How different the story of the child’s year from the man’s; how much longer it seems; how far apart seem the vacations, and the Christmases, and the New Years! But let the child become a man, and he will find that he can tell full fast enough these stories of a year; that if he is disposed to make good use of them he has no hours to wish away; the plot develops very rapidly, and the conclusion gallops on the very heels of that first chapter which records the birth of a new year.
In Edward Parsons Day (ed.), Day’s Collacon: An Encyclopaedia of Prose Quotations (1884), 1050.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Become (821)  |  Birth (154)  |  Chapter (11)  |  Child (333)  |  Christmas (13)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Develop (278)  |  Dispose (10)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fast (49)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Full (68)  |  Good (906)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Joy (117)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Longer (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  New (1273)  |  Plot (11)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Record (161)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Spend (97)  |  Story (122)  |  Tale (17)  |  Tear (48)  |  Tell (344)  |  Use (771)  |  Vacation (4)  |  Vary (27)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Year (963)  |  Youth (109)

We think of Euclid as of fine ice; we admire Newton as we admire the peak of Teneriffe. Even the intensest labors, the most remote triumphs of the abstract intellect, seem to carry us into a region different from our own—to be in a terra incognita of pure reasoning, to cast a chill on human glory.
In Estimates of Some Englishmen and Scotchmen (1856), 411-412
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Carry (130)  |  Cast (69)  |  Chill (10)  |  Difference (355)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Fine (37)  |  Glory (66)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ice (58)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Labor (200)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Peak (20)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Region (40)  |  Remote (86)  |  Think (1122)  |  Triumph (76)

We wish to put forward a radically different structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid. This structure has two helical chains each coiled round the same axis (see diagram).
[Co-author with Francis Crick]
From James Watson and Francis Crick, 'Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid', Nature (25 Apr 1953), 171, No. 4356, 737.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Author (175)  |  Axis (9)  |  Chain (51)  |  Coil (4)  |  Francis Crick (62)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Difference (355)  |  DNA (81)  |  Forward (104)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Radical (28)  |  Salt (48)  |  See (1094)  |  Structure (365)  |  Two (936)  |  Wish (216)

Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate rival theories for explaining them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome. And human beings evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered … Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor).
'Evolution as Fact and Theory', in Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History (1983), 254-255.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Apple (46)  |  Argument (145)  |  Attack (86)  |  Being (1276)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Claim (154)  |  Creationist (16)  |  Data (162)  |  Debate (40)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Favor (69)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Hierarchy (17)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Mid-Air (3)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pending (2)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Rival (20)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Structure (365)  |  Suspend (11)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Gravitation (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  World (1850)

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

What attracted me to immunology was that the whole thing seemed to revolve around a very simple experiment: take two different antibody molecules and compare their primary sequences. The secret of antibody diversity would emerge from that. Fortunately at the time I was sufficiently ignorant of the subject not to realise how naive I was being.
From Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1984), collected in Tore Frängsmyr and Jan Lindsten (eds.), Nobel Lectures in Physiology Or Medicine: 1981-1990 (1993), 248.
Science quotes on:  |  Antibody (6)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Being (1276)  |  Compare (76)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fortunately (9)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Immunology (14)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Naive (13)  |  Primary (82)  |  Realisation (4)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Whole (756)

What caused me to undertake the catalog was the nebula I discovered above the southern horn of Taurus on September 12, 1758, while observing the comet of that year. ... This nebula had such a resemblance to a comet in its form and brightness that I endeavored to find others, so that astronomers would not confuse these same nebulae with comets just beginning to shine. I observed further with suitable refractors for the discovery of comets, and this is the purpose I had in mind in compiling the catalog.
After me, the celebrated Herschel published a catalog of 2000 which he has observed. This unveiling the sky, made with instruments of great aperture, does not help in the perusal of the sky for faint comets. Thus my object is different from his, and I need only nebulae visible in a telescope of two feet [focal length].
Connaissance des Temps for 1800/1801. In Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1974), Vol. 9, 330.
Science quotes on:  |  2000 (15)  |  Aperture (5)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Catalog (5)  |  Comet (65)  |  Compilation (3)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Find (1014)  |  Focal Length (2)  |  Form (976)  |  Great (1610)  |  Sir William Herschel (14)  |  Horn (18)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nebula (16)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perusal (2)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Sky (174)  |  Taurus (2)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Two (936)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Undertaking (17)  |  Unveiling (2)  |  Visibility (6)  |  Visible (87)  |  Year (963)

What clearer evidence could we have had of the different formation of these rocks, and of the long interval which separated their formation, had we actually seen them emerging from the bosom of the deep? … The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time.
As quoted in Dennis R. Dean, James Hutton and the History of Geology (1992), 122.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Clear (111)  |  Deep (241)  |  Emerge (24)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Far (158)  |  Formation (100)  |  Geology (240)  |  Giddy (3)  |  Grow (247)  |  Interval (14)  |  Long (778)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Rock (176)  |  Seem (150)  |  Separate (151)  |  Time (1911)

What I’m really interested in is whether God could have made the world in a different way; that is, whether the necessity of logical simplicity leaves any freedom at all.
Told to Ernst Straus. As quoted in Gerald Holton, The Scientific Imagination: Case Studies (1978), xii.
Science quotes on:  |  Freedom (145)  |  God (776)  |  Interest (416)  |  Logic (311)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

What is mathematics? What is it for? What are mathematicians doing nowadays? Wasn't it all finished long ago? How many new numbers can you invent anyway? Is today’s mathematics just a matter of huge calculations, with the mathematician as a kind of zookeeper, making sure the precious computers are fed and watered? If it’s not, what is it other than the incomprehensible outpourings of superpowered brainboxes with their heads in the clouds and their feet dangling from the lofty balconies of their ivory towers?
Mathematics is all of these, and none. Mostly, it’s just different. It’s not what you expect it to be, you turn your back for a moment and it's changed. It's certainly not just a fixed body of knowledge, its growth is not confined to inventing new numbers, and its hidden tendrils pervade every aspect of modern life.
Opening paragraphs of 'Preface', From Here to Infinity (1996), vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Back (395)  |  Balcony (2)  |  Body (557)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Change (639)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Computer (131)  |  Confine (26)  |  Dangle (2)  |  Doing (277)  |  Expect (203)  |  Finish (62)  |  Finished (4)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Foot (65)  |  Growth (200)  |  Head (87)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Huge (30)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Invent (57)  |  Ivory Tower (5)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lofty (16)  |  Long (778)  |  Long Ago (12)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Life (3)  |  Moment (260)  |  New (1273)  |  Nowadays (6)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pervade (10)  |  Precious (43)  |  Today (321)  |  Tower (45)  |  Turn (454)  |  Water (503)  |  Zookeeper (2)

What made von Liebig and his students “different” from other chemists was their effort to apply their fundamental discoveries to the development of specific chemical processes and products.
In 'The Origins of Academic Chemical Engineering', collected in Nicholas A. Peppas (ed.), One Hundred Years of Chemical Engineering: From Lewis M. Norton (M.I.T. 1888) to Present (2012), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effort (243)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Justus von Liebig (39)  |  Other (2233)  |  Process (439)  |  Product (166)  |  Specific (98)  |  Student (317)

What makes planets go around the sun? At the time of Kepler, some people answered this problem by saying that there were angels behind them beating their wings and pushing the planets around an orbit. As you will see, the answer is not very far from the truth. The only difference is that the angels sit in a different direction and their wings push inward.
In The Character of Physical Law (1965), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Angel (47)  |  Answer (389)  |  Beating (4)  |  Behind (139)  |  Difference (355)  |  Direction (185)  |  Inward (6)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Orbit (85)  |  People (1031)  |  Planet (402)  |  Problem (731)  |  Push (66)  |  See (1094)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wing (79)

What the founders of modern science, among them Galileo, had to do, was not to criticize and to combat certain faulty theories, and to correct or to replace them by better ones. They had to do something quite different. They had to destroy one world and to replace it by another. They had to reshape the framework of our intellect itself, to restate and to reform its concepts, to evolve a new approach to Being, a new concept of knowledge, a new concept of science—and even to replace a pretty natural approach, that of common sense, by another which is not natural at all.
In 'Galileo and Plato', Journal of the History of Ideas (1943), 405.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Certain (557)  |  Combat (16)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Concept (242)  |  Criticize (7)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Do (1905)  |  Founder (26)  |  Framework (33)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  Reform (22)  |  Scientific Revolution (13)  |  Sense (785)  |  Something (718)  |  Theory (1015)  |  World (1850)

When an observation is made on any atomic system that has been prepared in a given way and is thus in a given state, the result will not in general be determinate, i.e. if the experiment is repeated several times under identical conditions several different results may be obtained. If the experiment is repeated a large number of times it will be found that each particular result will be obtained a definite fraction of the total number of times, so that one can say there is a definite probability of its being obtained any time that the experiment is performed. This probability the theory enables one to calculate. (1930)
The Principles of Quantum Mechanics 4th ed. (1981), 13-14
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Condition (362)  |  Definite (114)  |  Enable (122)  |  Experiment (736)  |  General (521)  |  Identical (55)  |  Large (398)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Perform (123)  |  Probability (135)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  State (505)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Total (95)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

When Bohr is about everything is somehow different. Even the dullest gets a fit of brilliancy.
Isidor I. Rabi in Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists (1978), 201.
Science quotes on:  |  Niels Bohr (55)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fit (139)  |  Somehow (48)

When ever we turn in these days of iron, steam and electricity we find that Mathematics has been the pioneer. Were its back bone removed, our material civilization would inevitably collapse. Modern thought and belief would have been altogether different, had Mathematics not made the various sciences exact.
The Teaching of Mathematics in the Elementary and the Secondary School (1907), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Backbone (12)  |  Belief (615)  |  Bone (101)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Collapse (19)  |  Difference (355)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Exactness (29)  |  Find (1014)  |  Inevitability (10)  |  Iron (99)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Thought (4)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Removal (12)  |  Steam (81)  |  Thought (995)  |  Turn (454)  |  Various (205)

When first I applied my mind to Mathematics I read straight away most of what is usually given by the mathematical writers, and I paid special attention to Arithmetic and Geometry because they were said to be the simplest and so to speak the way to all the rest. But in neither case did I then meet with authors who fully satisfied me. I did indeed learn in their works many propositions about numbers which I found on calculation to be true. As to figures, they in a sense exhibited to my eyes a great number of truths and drew conclusions from certain consequences. But they did not seem to make it sufficiently plain to the mind itself why these things are so, and how they discovered them. Consequently I was not surprised that many people, even of talent and scholarship, should, after glancing at these sciences, have either given them up as being empty and childish or, taking them to be very difficult and intricate, been deterred at the very outset from learning them. … But when I afterwards bethought myself how it could be that the earliest pioneers of Philosophy in bygone ages refused to admit to the study of wisdom any one who was not versed in Mathematics … I was confirmed in my suspicion that they had knowledge of a species of Mathematics very different from that which passes current in our time.
In Elizabeth S. Haldane (trans.) and G.R.T. Ross (trans.), 'Rules for the Direction of the Mind', The Philosophical Works of Descartes (1911, 1973), Vol. 1, Rule 4, 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Applied (176)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Attention (196)  |  Author (175)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bygone (4)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certain (557)  |  Childish (20)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Current (122)  |  Deter (4)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discover (571)  |  Empty (82)  |  Eye (440)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Read (308)  |  Rest (287)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Sense (785)  |  Speak (240)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Straight (75)  |  Study (701)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Usually (176)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

When I was an undergraduate, I went to the professor of geology and said, “Would you talk to us about the way that continents are drifting?” And he said, “The moment we can demonstrate that continents are moving by a millimetre, I will consider it, but until then it’s sheer moonshine, dear boy.” And within five years of me leaving Cambridge, it was confirmed, and all the problems disappeared—why Australian animals were different—that one thing changed our understanding and made sense of everything.
From 'Interview: Of Mind and Matter: David Attenborough Meets Richard Dawkins', The Guardian (11 Sep 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Australia (11)  |  Change (639)  |  Confirmation (25)  |  Continental Drift (15)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Everything (489)  |  Geology (240)  |  Moment (260)  |  Moonshine (5)  |  Move (223)  |  Plate Tectonics (22)  |  Problem (731)  |  Professor (133)  |  Sense (785)  |  Undergraduate (17)  |  Understand (648)

When Richard Dawkins first published his idea of a meme, he made it clear he was speaking of “a unit of imitation” … Memes were supposed to be exclusive triumphs of humanity. But memes come in two different kinds—behavioral and verbal. … behavioral memes began brain-hopping long before there were such things as human minds.
In 'Threading a New Tapestry', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Behavioral (6)  |  Brain (281)  |  Richard Dawkins (49)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  First (1302)  |  Hop (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imitation (24)  |  Kind (564)  |  Long (778)  |  Meme (2)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Publish (42)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Two (936)  |  Unit (36)  |  Verbal (10)

When the last Puritan has disappeared from the earth, the man of science will take his place as a killjoy, and we shall be given the same old advice but for different reasons.
Attributed.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Old (499)  |  Puritan (3)  |  Reason (766)  |  Will (2350)

When the time is ripe for certain things, these things appear in different places in the manner of violets coming to light in early spring.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Certain (557)  |  Coming (114)  |  Early (196)  |  Light (635)  |  Manner (62)  |  Place (192)  |  Ripe (5)  |  Spring (140)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Violet (11)

When two plants, constantly different in one or several traits, are crossed, the traits they have in common are transmitted unchanged to the hybrids and their progeny, as numerous experiments have proven; a pair of differing traits, on the other hand, are united in the hybrid to form a new trait, which usually is subject to changes in the hybrids' progeny.
'Experiments on Plant Hybrids' (1865). In Curt Stern and Eva R. Sherwood (eds.), The Origin of Genetics: A Mendel Source Book (1966), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Common (447)  |  Difference (355)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Form (976)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Hybrid (14)  |  New (1273)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Progeny (16)  |  Subject (543)  |  Trait (23)  |  Transmit (12)  |  Two (936)  |  Usually (176)

When two texts, or two assertions, perhaps two ideas, are in contradiction, be ready to reconcile them rather than cancel one by the other; regard them as two different facets, or two successive stages, of the same reality, a reality convincingly human just because it is too complex.
In Gary William Flake, The Computational Beauty of Nature (2000), 427.
Science quotes on:  |  Assertion (35)  |  Cancel (5)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Difference (355)  |  Facet (9)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Other (2233)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reconcile (19)  |  Regard (312)  |  Stage (152)  |  Succession (80)  |  Successive (73)  |  Two (936)

When we say “science” we can either mean any manipulation of the inventive and organizing power of the human intellect: or we can mean such an extremely different thing as the religion of science, the vulgarized derivative from this pure activity manipulated by a sort of priestcraft into a great religious and political weapon.
'The Art of Being Ruled'. Revolution and Progress (1926), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Derivative (6)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Invention (400)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Mean (810)  |  Organization (120)  |  Political (124)  |  Power (771)  |  Pure (299)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Weapon (98)

When you don’t know that you don’t know, it’s a lot different than when you do know that you don’t know.
As a coach, explaining a player's improved performance. As quoted in William Harmon, The Poetry Toolkit: For Readers and Writers (2012), xi.
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lot (151)

Whereas in The Two Towers you have different races, nations, cultures coming together and examining their conscience and unifying against a very real and terrifying enemy. What the United States has been doing for the past year is bombing innocent civilians without having come anywhere close to catching Osama bin Laden or any presumed enemy.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Anywhere (16)  |  Bomb (20)  |  Catch (34)  |  Civilian (2)  |  Close (77)  |  Coming (114)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Culture (157)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Examine (84)  |  Innocent (13)  |  Load (12)  |  Nation (208)  |  Past (355)  |  Presume (9)  |  Race (278)  |  Real (159)  |  State (505)  |  Terrify (12)  |  Together (392)  |  Tower (45)  |  Two (936)  |  Unify (7)  |  United States (31)  |  Year (963)

Wherefore also these Kinds [elements] occupied different places even before the universe was organised and generated out of them. Before that time, in truth, all these were in a state devoid of reason or measure, but when the work of setting in order this Universe was being undertaken, fire and water and earth and air, although possessing some traces of their known nature, were yet disposed as everything is likely to be in the absence of God; and inasmuch as this was then their natural condition, God began by first marking them out into shapes by means of forms and numbers.
Plato
Timaeus 53ab, trans. R. G. Bury, in Plato: Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles (1929), 125-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Being (1276)  |  Condition (362)  |  Difference (355)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  God (776)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measure (241)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Order (638)  |  Organization (120)  |  Place (192)  |  Reason (766)  |  Setting (44)  |  State (505)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)

While all bodies are composed of the four elements, that is, of heat, moisture, the earthy, and air, yet there are mixtures according to natural temperament which make up the natures of all the different animals of the world, each after its kind.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 1, Chap 4, Sec. 5. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Air (366)  |  Animal (651)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Heat (180)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Phlogiston Theory (2)  |  Temperament (18)  |  World (1850)

While playing the part of the detective the investigator follows clues, but having captured his alleged fact, he turns judge and examines the case by means of logically arranged evidence. Both functions are equally essential but they are different.
In The Art of Scientific Investigation (1950, 1957), 92.
Science quotes on:  |  Alleged (2)  |  Both (496)  |  Capture (11)  |  Case (102)  |  Clue (20)  |  Detective (11)  |  Difference (355)  |  Equal (88)  |  Equally (129)  |  Essential (210)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Examination (102)  |  Examine (84)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Follow (389)  |  Function (235)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Judge (114)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Playing (42)  |  Turn (454)

While the method of the natural sciences is... analytic, the method of the social sciences is better described as compositive or synthetic. It is the so-called wholes, the groups of elements which are structurally connected, which we learn to single out from the totality of observed phenomena... Insofar as we analyze individual thought in the social sciences the purpose is not to explain that thought, but merely to distinguish the possible types of elements with which we shall have to reckon in the construction of different patterns of social relationships. It is a mistake... to believe that their aim is to explain conscious action ... The problems which they try to answer arise only insofar as the conscious action of many men produce undesigned results... If social phenomena showed no order except insofar as they were consciously designed, there would indeed be no room for theoretical sciences of society and there would be, as is often argued, only problems of psychology. It is only insofar as some sort of order arises as a result of individual action but without being designed by any individual that a problem is raised which demands a theoretical explanation... people dominated by the scientistic prejudice are often inclined to deny the existence of any such order... it can be shown briefly and without any technical apparatus how the independent actions of individuals will produce an order which is no part of their intentions... The way in which footpaths are formed in a wild broken country is such an instance. At first everyone will seek for himself what seems to him the best path. But the fact that such a path has been used once is likely to make it easier to traverse and therefore more likely to be used again; and thus gradually more and more clearly defined tracks arise and come to be used to the exclusion of other possible ways. Human movements through the region come to conform to a definite pattern which, although the result of deliberate decision of many people, has yet not be consciously designed by anyone.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Aim (175)  |  Analytic (11)  |  Analyze (12)  |  Answer (389)  |  Anyone (38)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Argue (25)  |  Arise (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Break (109)  |  Briefly (5)  |  Broken (56)  |  Call (781)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Conform (15)  |  Connect (126)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Consciously (6)  |  Construction (114)  |  Country (269)  |  Decision (98)  |  Define (53)  |  Definite (114)  |  Deliberate (19)  |  Demand (131)  |  Deny (71)  |  Describe (132)  |  Design (203)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Dominate (20)  |  Easier (53)  |  Easy (213)  |  Element (322)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Exclusion (16)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Group (83)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Independent (74)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instance (33)  |  Intention (46)  |  Learn (672)  |  Likely (36)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Often (109)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Path (159)  |  Pattern (116)  |  People (1031)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Problem (731)  |  Produce (117)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Raise (38)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Region (40)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Result (700)  |  Room (42)  |  Seek (218)  |  Seem (150)  |  Show (353)  |  Single (365)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Society (350)  |  Sort (50)  |  Structurally (2)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Technical (53)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  Theoretical Science (4)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Totality (17)  |  Track (42)  |  Traverse (5)  |  Try (296)  |  Type (171)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wild (96)  |  Will (2350)

While we have faced challenges before, this one is different. This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal. We will succeed—and that success will belong to every one of us.
Televised address (5 Apr 2020), after outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Common (447)  |  Compassion (12)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Globe (51)  |  Heal (7)  |  Instinctive (5)  |  Join (32)  |  Nation (208)  |  Science (39)  |  Success (327)

Whoever limits his exertions to the gratification of others, whether by personal exhibition, as in the case of the actor and of the mimic, or by those kinds of literary composition which are calculated for no end but to please or to entertain, renders himself, in some measure, dependent on their caprices and humours. The diversity among men, in their judgments concerning the objects of taste, is incomparably greater than in their speculative conclusions; and accordingly, a mathematician will publish to the world a geometrical demonstration, or a philosopher, a process of abstract reasoning, with a confidence very different from what a poet would feel, in communicating one of his productions even to a friend.
In Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1827), Vol. 3, Chap. 1, Sec. 3, 202.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Actor (9)  |  Caprice (10)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Composition (86)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Diversity (75)  |  End (603)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Exhibition (7)  |  Feel (371)  |  Friend (180)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Gratification (22)  |  Greater (288)  |  Himself (461)  |  Humour (116)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Kind (564)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mimic (2)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Please (68)  |  Poet (97)  |  Process (439)  |  Production (190)  |  Publish (42)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Render (96)  |  Taste (93)  |  Whoever (42)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Why can the chemist not take the requisite numbers of atoms and simply put them together? The answer is that the chemist never has atoms at his disposal, and if he had, the direct combination of the appropriate numbers of atoms would lead only to a Brobdingnagian potpourri of different kinds of molecules, having a vast array of different structures. What the chemist has at hand always consists of substances, themselves made up of molecules, containing defined numbers of atoms in ordered arrangements. Consequently, in order to synthesize anyone substance, his task is that of combining, modifying, transforming, and tailoring known substances, until the total effect of his manipulations is the conversion of one or more forms of matter into another.
In 'Art and Science in the Synthesis of Organic Compounds: Retrospect and Prospect', in Maeve O'Connor (ed.), Pointers and Pathways in Research (1963), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Brobdingnag (2)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Combination (150)  |  Consist (223)  |  Conversion (17)  |  Direct (228)  |  Effect (414)  |  Form (976)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Lead (391)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modification (57)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Task (152)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Together (392)  |  Total (95)  |  Vast (188)  |  Why (491)

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)  |  Degree (277)  |  Describe (132)  |  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)  |  Degree (277)  |  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 crystals we are in a situation similar to an attempt to investigate an optical grating merely from the spectra it produces... But a knowledge of the positions and intensities of the spectra does not suffice for the determination of the structure. The phases with which the diffracted waves vibrate relative to one another enter in an essential way. To determine a crystal structure on the atomic scale, one must know the phase differences between the different interference spots on the photographic plate, and this task may certainly prove to be rather difficult.
Physikalische Zeitschrift (1913), 14. Translated in Walter Moore, Schrödinger. Life and Thought (1989), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Difference (355)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Diffraction (5)  |  Enter (145)  |  Essential (210)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Interference (22)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Merely (315)  |  Must (1525)  |  Optical (11)  |  Phase (37)  |  Photograph (23)  |  Position (83)  |  Prove (261)  |  Scale (122)  |  Situation (117)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Structure (365)  |  Task (152)  |  Vibrate (7)  |  Wave (112)  |  Way (1214)

With moth cytochrome C there are 30 differences and 74 identities. With bread yeast and humans, there are about 45 amino acids that are different and about 59 that are identical. Think how close together man and this other organism, bread yeast, are. What is the probability that in 59 positions the same choice out of 20 possibilities would have been made by accident? It is impossibly small. There is, there must be, a developmental explanation of this. The developmental explanation is that bread yeast and man have a common ancestor, perhaps two billion years ago. And so we see that not only are all men brothers, but men and yeast cells, too, are at least close cousins, to say nothing about men and gorillas or rhesus monkeys. It is the duty of scientists to dispel ignorance of such relationships.
'The Social Responsibilities of Scientists and Science', The Science Teacher (1933), 33, 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Acid (83)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Billion (104)  |  Bread (42)  |  Brother (47)  |  Cell (146)  |  Choice (114)  |  Closeness (4)  |  Common (447)  |  Cousin (12)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Dispelling (4)  |  Duty (71)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Gorilla (19)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identical (55)  |  Identity (19)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Man (2252)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Moth (5)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Position (83)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Probability (135)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Think (1122)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)  |  Year (963)  |  Yeast (7)

Within the nucleus [of a cell] is a network of fibers, a sap fills the interstices of the network. The network resolves itself into a definite number of threads at each division of the cell. These threads we call chromosomes. Each species of animals and plants possesses a characteristic number of these threads which have definite size and sometimes a specific shape and even characteristic granules at different levels. Beyond this point our strongest microscopes fail to penetrate.
In A Critique of the Theory of Evolution (1916), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Cell (146)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Chromosomes (17)  |  Definite (114)  |  Division (67)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fiber (16)  |  Fibers (2)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Granule (3)  |  Interstice (3)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Network (21)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Plant (320)  |  Point (584)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Sap (5)  |  Shape (77)  |  Size (62)  |  Species (435)  |  Specific (98)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Thread (36)

Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.
In Pensées. As translated by W.F. Trotter in Blaise Pascal: Thoughts, Letters, and Minor Works (1910), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrange (33)  |  Effect (414)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Word (650)

You do not know what you will find, you may set out to find one thing and end up by discovering something entirely different.
About “pure fundamental research.” From Dedication Address opening the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, Fleming stressed training “to look for significance in scientific ‘accidents,’” and “the importance of serendipity in science,” as well as a “free atmosphere which will allow genius full play.” In 'Penicillin Discoverer Calls For Free Path for Research', New York Times (4 Jul 1949), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Find (1014)  |  Know (1538)  |  Research (753)  |  Set (400)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

You find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.
Winnie-the-Pooh
Science quotes on:  |  Find (1014)  |  Inside (30)  |  Looking (191)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Thing (1914)


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.