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: “A change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed and takes place along the straight line in which that force is impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index E > Category: Editor

Editor Quotes (10 quotes)

[Lockyer]... sometimes forgets he is only the editor and not the author of Nature.
[Lockyer was the first editor of Nature.]
J. W. L. Glaisher (ed.), The Collected Mathematical Papers of Henry John Stephen Smith (1894), Vol. 1, xliv.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  First (1302)  |  Forget (125)  |  Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer (15)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Journal (8)

Google can aggregate all web and paper-based information, and they can build fantastic search engines, but that will not directly lead to truth or wisdom. For that we will continue to need education, training in critical thought, and good editors who can help us winnow the fact from the fiction.
From post 're:The Pursuit of Knowledge, from Genesis to Google' to the 'Interesting People' List (6 Jan 2005) maintained by David J. Farber, now archived at interesting-people.org website.
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Build (211)  |  Continue (179)  |  Critical (73)  |  Directly (25)  |  Education (423)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  Fiction (23)  |  Good (906)  |  Google (4)  |  Information (173)  |  Lead (391)  |  Need (320)  |  Paper (192)  |  Search (175)  |  Thought (995)  |  Training (92)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Web (17)  |  Will (2350)  |  Winnow (4)  |  Wisdom (235)

I called it ignose, not knowing which carbohydrate it was. This name was turned down by my editor. 'God-nose' was not more successful, so in the end 'hexuronic acid' was agreed upon. To-day the substance is called 'ascorbic acid' and I will use this name.
Studies on Biological Oxidation and Some of its Catalysts (C4 Dicarboxylic Acids, Vitamin C and P Etc.) (1937), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Call (781)  |  Carbohydrate (3)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  God (776)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Substance (253)  |  Success (327)  |  Successful (134)  |  Turn (454)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)

I once heard a physicist and an editor discussing science news. The editor said, “If you told me that the world was flat, I’d put it in banner headlines.” The physicist replied, “I hope you’d also print a denial.” I cite that story … about the role of science in our society … that science is front-page news.
From Draft of Science Speech for Presidential Campaign (1960), held by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Digital Identifier: JFKCAMP1960-0993-005.
Science quotes on:  |  Banner (9)  |  Denial (20)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Flat (34)  |  Headline (8)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Print (20)  |  Science (39)  |  Science And Society (25)  |  Story (122)  |  World (1850)

If in the citation of work that we have both done together only one of us is named, and especially in a journal [Annalen der Chemie] in which both are named on the title page, about which everyone knows that you are the actual editor, and this editor allows that to happen and does not show the slightest consideration to report it, then everyone will conclude that this represents an agreement between us, that the work is yours alone, and that I am a jackass.
Letter from Wohler to Liebig (15 Nov 1840). In A. W. Hofmann (ed.), Aus Justus Liebigs und Friedrich Wohlers Briefwechsel (1888), Vol. 1, 166. Trans. W. H. Brock.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Agreement (55)  |  Alone (324)  |  Both (496)  |  Citation (4)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Happen (282)  |  Jackass (3)  |  Journal (31)  |  Know (1538)  |  Report (42)  |  Represent (157)  |  Show (353)  |  Title (20)  |  Together (392)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

It would be as if you were appointed to be copy editor to Dante. If you were the assistant to Dante, and then Dante died, and then you had in your possession the whole of “The Divine Comedy,” what would you do?
On the challenge of taking over (from the late Edwin Hubble) and continuing the universe expansion research at the new 200-inch telescope on Palomar Mountain, California. It was just as the telescope was going into operation, and Sandage was a fresh Ph.D. at age 27. As quoted in Obituary, 'Allan Sandage, 84, Astronomer, Dies; Charted Cosmos’s Age and Expansion', New York Times (17 Nov 2010), B19.
Science quotes on:  |  Appoint (3)  |  Assistant (6)  |  Biography (254)  |  Comedy (4)  |  Copy (34)  |  Dante Alighieri (10)  |  Die (94)  |  Divine (112)  |  Do (1905)  |  Possession (68)  |  Whole (756)

Professor Cayley has since informed me that the theorem about whose origin I was in doubt, will be found in Schläfli’s De Eliminatione. This is not the first unconscious plagiarism I have been guilty of towards this eminent man whose friendship I am proud to claim. A more glaring case occurs in a note by me in the Comptes Rendus, on the twenty-seven straight lines of cubic surfaces, where I believe I have followed (like one walking in his sleep), down to the very nomenclature and notation, the substance of a portion of a paper inserted by Schlafli in the Mathematical Journal, which bears my name as one of the editors upon the face.
In Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1864), 642.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Belief (615)  |  Case (102)  |  Arthur Cayley (17)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cubic (2)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Down (455)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Face (214)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Friendship (18)  |  Glare (3)  |  Guilty (8)  |  Inform (50)  |  Insert (4)  |  Journal (31)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Notation (28)  |  Note (39)  |  Occur (151)  |  Origin (250)  |  Paper (192)  |  Plagiarism (10)  |  Portion (86)  |  Pride (84)  |  Professor (133)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Unconscious (24)  |  Walk (138)  |  Will (2350)

Sylvester’s writings are flowery and eloquent. He was able to make the dullest subject bright, fresh and interesting. His enthusiasm is evident in every line. He would get quite close up to his subject, so that everything else looked small in comparison, and for the time would think and make others think that the world contained no finer matter for contemplation. His handwriting was bad, and a trouble to his printers. His papers were finished with difficulty. No sooner was the manuscript in the editor’s hands than alterations, corrections, ameliorations and generalizations would suggest themselves to his mind, and every post would carry further directions to the editors and printers.
In Nature (1897), 55, 494.
Science quotes on:  |  Alteration (31)  |  Ameliorate (2)  |  Bad (185)  |  Bright (81)  |  Carry (130)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Correction (42)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Direction (185)  |  Dull (58)  |  Eloquent (2)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evident (92)  |  Finish (62)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Hand (149)  |  Handwriting (2)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Look (584)  |  Manuscript (10)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Post (8)  |  Printer (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Sooner (6)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suggest (38)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trouble (117)  |  World (1850)  |  Writing (192)

There came in February the issue of Life saying on the cover “Dr. Teller Refutes 9000 Scientists”… I wrote to Life and said first that Teller hadn’t refuted 9000 scientists and second I felt that they should publish the article that I had written… They sent the article back and said that they didn’t want it and then I offered it to Look. The editor of Look called me and said they couldn’t get into a controversy with Life. Then I offered it to the Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies Home Journal and Readers Digest and none of them were interested in it. And then I thought, “What shall I do? I’ll have to write a book and see if I can’t get it published.”’
As quoted in Ted Goertzel, et al., Linus Pauling: A Life in Science and Politics (1965, 1995), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Article (22)  |  Back (395)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Home (184)  |  Interest (416)  |  Journal (31)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Offer (142)  |  Publish (42)  |  Refute (6)  |  Return (133)  |  Saturday (11)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Edward Teller (43)  |  Thought (995)  |  Want (504)  |  Write (250)

There was once an Editor of the Chemical Society, given to dogmatic expressions of opinion, who once duly said firmly that 'isomer' was wrong usage and 'isomeride' was correct, because the ending 'er' always meant a 'do-er'. 'As in water?' snapped Sidgwick.
Obituary of Nevil Vincent Sidgwick by L. E Sutton, Proceedings of the Chemical Society (1958), 318.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemical (303)  |  Correct (95)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dogmatism (15)  |  Ending (3)  |  Expression (181)  |  Isomer (6)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Society (350)  |  Suffix (2)  |  Usage (3)  |  Water (503)  |  Wrong (246)


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.