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: “Politics is more difficult than physics.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index E > Category: Excuse

Excuse Quotes (27 quotes)

SCIENCE: a way of finding things out and then making them work. Science explains what is happening around us the whole time. So does RELIGION, but science is better because it comes up with more understandable excuses when it’s wrong.
In Wings (1990, 2007), 147.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Explain (334)  |  Happening (59)  |  Making (300)  |  More (2558)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Small (489)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understandable (12)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)

A great swindle of our time is the assumption that science has made religion obsolete. All science has damaged is the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Jonah and the Whale. Everything else holds up pretty well, particularly lessons about fairness and gentleness. People who find those lessons irrelevant in the twentieth century are simply using science as an excuse for greed and harshness. Science has nothing to do with it, friends.
Through the Looking Glass. In Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain (1986), 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Adam And Eve (5)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Century (319)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  Find (1014)  |  Friend (180)  |  Gentleness (4)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greed (17)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  People (1031)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Story (122)  |  Swindle (2)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whale (45)

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height, spots a man down below and asks,“Excuse me, can you help me? I promised to return the balloon to its owner, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man below says: “You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 350 feet above mean sea level and 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude.”
“You must be an engineer,” says the balloonist.
“I am,” replies the man.“How did you know?”
“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost.”
The man below says, “You must be a manager.”
“I am,” replies the balloonist,“but how did you know?”
“Well,” says the engineer,“you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem.The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault.”
Anonymous
In Jon Fripp, Michael Fripp and Deborah Fripp, Speaking of Science (2000), 199.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Ask (420)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Correct (95)  |  Degree (277)  |  Down (455)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fault (58)  |  Field (378)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Help (116)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hover (8)  |  Hovering (5)  |  Idea (881)  |  Information (173)  |  Joke (90)  |  Know (1538)  |  Latitude (6)  |  Longitude (8)  |  Lost (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manager (6)  |  Mean (810)  |  Must (1525)  |  Problem (731)  |  Promise (72)  |  Realize (157)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Return (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sea Level (5)  |  Solve (145)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Still (614)

A work of genius is something like the pie in the nursery song, in which the four and twenty blackbirds are baked. When the pie is opened, the birds begin to sing. Hereupon three fourths of the company run away in a fright; and then after a time, feeling ashamed, they would fain excuse themselves by declaring, the pie stank so, they could not sit near it. Those who stay behind, the men of taste and epicures, say one to another, We came here to eat. What business have birds, after they have been baked, to be alive and singing? This will never do. We must put a stop to so dangerous an innovation: for who will send a pie to an oven, if the birds come to life there? We must stand up to defend the rights of all the ovens in England. Let us have dead birds..dead birds for our money. So each sticks his fork into a bird, and hacks and mangles it a while, and then holds it up and cries, Who will dare assert that there is any music in this bird’s song?
Co-author with his brother Augustus William Hare Guesses At Truth, By Two Brothers: Second Edition: With Large Additions (1848), Second Series, 86. (The volume is introduced as “more than three fourths new.” This quote is identified as by Julius; Augustus had died in 1833.)
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Ashamed (3)  |  Assert (69)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Baking (2)  |  Begin (275)  |  Behind (139)  |  Bird (163)  |  Blackbird (4)  |  Business (156)  |  Company (63)  |  Cry (30)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Dare (55)  |  Death (406)  |  Defend (32)  |  Do (1905)  |  Eat (108)  |  Eating (46)  |  England (43)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fork (2)  |  Fright (11)  |  Genius (301)  |  Hacking (2)  |  Holding (3)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Life (1870)  |  Money (178)  |  Music (133)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nursery (4)  |  Open (277)  |  Opening (15)  |  Oven (5)  |  Pie (4)  |  Right (473)  |  Run (158)  |  Say (989)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Sing (29)  |  Singing (19)  |  Something (718)  |  Song (41)  |  Stand (284)  |  Standing (11)  |  Stink (8)  |  Stop (89)  |  Taste (93)  |  Themself (4)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.
From On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1861), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Allow (51)  |  Coming (114)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Decision (98)  |  Detail (150)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Five (16)  |  Hasty (7)  |  Hope (321)  |  Myself (211)  |  Note (39)  |  Object (438)  |  Period (200)  |  Personal (75)  |  Present (630)  |  Probable (24)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Short (200)  |  Show (353)  |  Sketch (8)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Steadily (7)  |  Subject (543)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

As evolutionary time is measured, we have only just turned up and have hardly had time to catch breath, still marveling at our thumbs, still learning to use the brand-new gift of language. Being so young, we can be excused all sorts of folly and can permit ourselves the hope that someday, as a species, we will begin to grow up.
From 'Introduction' written by Lewis Thomas for Horace Freeland Judson, The Search for Solutions (1980, 1987), xvii.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Breath (61)  |  Catch (34)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Folly (44)  |  Gift (105)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Hardly (19)  |  Hope (321)  |  Language (308)  |  Learning (291)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Measurement (178)  |  New (1273)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Permission (7)  |  Permit (61)  |  Someday (15)  |  Species (435)  |  Still (614)  |  Thumb (18)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  Young (253)

Four college students taking a class together, had done so well through the semester, and each had an “A”. They were so confident, the weekend before finals, they went out partying with friends. Consequently, on Monday, they overslept and missed the final. They explained to the professor that they had gone to a remote mountain cabin for the weekend to study, but, unfortunately, they had a flat tire on the way back, didn’t have a spare, and couldn’t get help for a long time. As a result, they missed the final. The professor kindly agreed they could make up the final the following day. When they arrived the next morning, he placed them each in separate rooms, handed each one a test booklet, and told them to begin. The the first problem was simple, worth 5 points. Turning the page they found the next question, written: “(For 95 points): Which tire?”
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Begin (275)  |  Class (168)  |  College (71)  |  Confident (25)  |  Education (423)  |  Exam (5)  |  Explain (334)  |  Final (121)  |  First (1302)  |  Flat (34)  |  Friend (180)  |  Joke (90)  |  Long (778)  |  Miss (51)  |  Morning (98)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Next (238)  |  Point (584)  |  Problem (731)  |  Professor (133)  |  Question (649)  |  Remote (86)  |  Result (700)  |  Separate (151)  |  Simple (426)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Test (221)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tire (7)  |  Together (392)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Way (1214)  |  Worth (172)

From our best qualities come our worst. From our urge to pull together comes our tendency to pull apart. From our devotion to higher good comes our propensity to the foulest atrocities. From out commitment to ideals come our excuse to hate. Since the beginning of history, we have been blinded by evil’s ability to don a selfless disguise. We have failed to see that our finest qualities often lead us to the actions we most abhor—murder, torture, genocide, and war.
In 'Who is Lucifer?', The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History (1997), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Abhor (8)  |  Ability (162)  |  Action (342)  |  Atrocity (6)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Best (467)  |  Blind (98)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Disguise (12)  |  Don (2)  |  Evil (122)  |  Fail (191)  |  Finest (3)  |  Foul (15)  |  Good (906)  |  Hate (68)  |  History (716)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Lead (391)  |  Most (1728)  |  Murder (16)  |  Propensity (9)  |  Pull (43)  |  Pull Together (2)  |  Quality (139)  |  See (1094)  |  Selfless (2)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Together (392)  |  Torture (30)  |  Urge (17)  |  War (233)  |  Worst (57)

I am not unmindful of the journalist’s quip that yesterday’s paper wraps today’s garbage. I am also not unmindful of the outrages visited upon our forests to publish redundant and incoherent collections of essays; for, like Dr. Seuss’ Lorax, I like to think that I speak for the trees. Beyond vanity, my only excuses for a collection of these essays lie in the observation that many people like (and as many people despise) them, and that they seem to cohere about a common theme–Darwin’s evolutionary perspective as an antidote to our cosmic arrogance.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Antidote (9)  |  Arrogance (22)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Collection (68)  |  Common (447)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Darwins (5)  |  Despise (16)  |  Essay (27)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Forest (161)  |  Garbage (10)  |  Incoherent (7)  |  Journalist (8)  |  Lie (370)  |  Observation (593)  |  Outrage (3)  |  Paper (192)  |  People (1031)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Publish (42)  |  Quip (81)  |  Seem (150)  |  Speak (240)  |  Theme (17)  |  Think (1122)  |  Today (321)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vanity (20)  |  Visit (27)  |  Wrap (7)  |  Yesterday (37)

Florence Nightingale quote: I attribute my success to this:— I never gave or took an excuse.
I attribute my success to this:— I never gave or took an excuse.
Letter (1861) to Miss H. Bonham Carter, transcribed in Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913, 1914), Vol. 1, 506.
Science quotes on:  |  Attribute (65)  |  Give (208)  |  Never (1089)  |  Success (327)  |  Take (10)

I do see the difference now between me and other men. When a disaster happens, I act and they make excuses.
Letter (1861) to Miss H. Bonham Carter, transcribed in Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913, 1914), Vol. 1, 506. The “disaster” that resulted in this remark was when her dressing-room was flooded by a bad pipe from a water cistern. She had first been given an excuse that it resulted from a frost, but she persisted until the real cause was determined and remedied.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Difference (355)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Do (1905)  |  Happen (282)  |  Man (2252)  |  Other (2233)  |  See (1094)

I hate science. It denies a man’s responsibility for his own deeds, abolishes the brotherhood that springs from God’s fatherhood. It is a hectoring, dictating expertise, which makes the least lovable of the Church Fathers seem liberal by contrast. It is far easier for a Hitler or a Stalin to find a mock-scientific excuse for persecution than it was for Dominic to find a mock-Christian one.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abolish (13)  |  Brotherhood (6)  |  Christian (44)  |  Church (64)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Deed (34)  |  Deny (71)  |  Dictate (11)  |  Easier (53)  |  Easy (213)  |  Expertise (8)  |  Far (158)  |  Father (113)  |  Fatherhood (2)  |  Find (1014)  |  God (776)  |  Hate (68)  |  Adolf Hitler (20)  |  Least (75)  |  Liberal (8)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mock (7)  |  Persecution (14)  |  Pseudoscience (17)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seem (150)  |  Spring (140)  |  Stalin_Joseph (5)

In 1963, when I assigned the name “quark” to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been “kwork.” Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word “quark” in the phrase “Three quarks for Muster Mark.” Since “quark” (meaning, for one thing, the cry of a gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with “Mark,” as well as “bark” and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as “kwork.” But the book represents the dreams of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the “portmanteau words” in Through the Looking Glass. From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry “Three quarks for Muster Mark” might be pronunciation for “Three quarts for Mister Mark,” in which case the pronunciation “kwork” would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature.
The Quark and the Jaguar (1994), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Bark (19)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Cry (30)  |  Dream (222)  |  Drink (56)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Glass (94)  |  Looking (191)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Multiple (19)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Nucleon (5)  |  Number (710)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Occur (151)  |  Other (2233)  |  Partially (8)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Portmanteau (2)  |  Pronounce (11)  |  Quark (9)  |  Represent (157)  |  Rhyme (6)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spelling (8)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

In other branches of science, where quick publication seems to be so much desired, there may possibly be some excuse for giving to the world slovenly or ill-digested work, but there is no such excuse in mathematics. The form ought to be as perfect as the substance, and the demonstrations as rigorous as those of Euclid. The mathematician has to deal with the most exact facts of Nature, and he should spare no effort to render his interpretation worthy of his subject, and to give to his work its highest degree of perfection. “Pauca sed matura” was Gauss’s motto.
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Section A, (1890), Nature, 42, 467. [The Latin motto translates as “Few, but ripe”. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Branch (155)  |  Deal (192)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Desire (212)  |  Effort (243)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Exact (75)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Form (976)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Give (208)  |  High (370)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motto (29)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Publication (102)  |  Quick (13)  |  Render (96)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Seem (150)  |  Slovenly (2)  |  Spare (9)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substance (253)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Worthy (35)

Nature has no compassion.… [It] accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.
In Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer (1982), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Compassion (12)  |  Death (406)  |  Know (1538)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Punishment (14)

Of itself an arithmetic average is more likely to conceal than to disclose important facts; it is of the nature of an abbreviation, and is often an excuse for laziness.
In The Nature and Purpose of the Measurement of Social Phenomena (1923), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Abbreviation (2)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Average (89)  |  Conceal (19)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Important (229)  |  Laziness (9)  |  Likely (36)  |  Nature (2017)

People who have read a great deal seldom make great discoveries. I do not say this to excuse laziness, for invention presupposes an extensive contemplation of things on one's own account; one must see for oneself more than let oneself be told.
Aphorism 85 in Notebook E (1775-1776), as translated by R.J. Hollingdale in Aphorisms (1990). Reprinted as The Waste Books (2000), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Deal (192)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Great (1610)  |  Invention (400)  |  Laziness (9)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Oneself (33)  |  People (1031)  |  Presuppose (15)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Thing (1914)

Research! A mere excuse for idleness; it has never achieved, and will never achieve any results of the slightest value.
As quoted from author’s conversation with Jowett, in Logan Pearsall Smith, Unforgotten Years (1938, 1939), 186-187.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Idleness (15)  |  Mere (86)  |  Never (1089)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Slight (32)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)

Stupidity is no excuse for not thinking.
Unkempt Thoughts (1962), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Stupidity (40)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)

Suppose…a boy thrown upon his own choice, fresh from the limitations of a schoolroom, to believe that science is an epitome of human desires. There is so much to fire his imagination and lend eagerness to his pursuit, that it is no wonder if he thinks it. Men of today are so astounded with the advance of empirical observation beyond what their fathers had accomplished, they have results that would so have exceeded even their predecessors’ fancy, that they go mad in the search for scientific truth, and shall not the rasher judgment of a boy be likewise moved? The mere ideals strain his imagination and extend his view into the eternities, backward or forward. His power is absolute, he is the only real prophet, the prophet who after his baptism of patience and of faith finds the whole world at his feet, if only he has the determination and the courage to make it his. The contempt with which the prophet may regard the loose and inaccurate babblings of other men who have less scope and make less splendid promises, is after all excusable when his prophecies are found so often true and his results so useful.
In Learned Hand and Irving Dilliard (ed.), The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses of Learned Hand (1952), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Contempt (20)  |  Courage (82)  |  Determination (80)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Promise (72)  |  Prophet (22)  |  Result (700)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Useful (260)

The evidence from both approaches, statistical and experimental, does not appear sufficiently significant to me to warrant forsaking the pleasure of smoking. As a matter of fact, if the investigations had been pointed toward some material that I thoroughly dislike, such as parsnips, I still would not feel that evidence of the type presented constituted a reasonable excuse for eliminating the things from my diet. I will still continue to smoke, and if the tobacco companies cease manufacturing their product, I will revert to sweet fern and grape leaves.
Introduction in Eric Northrup, Science Looks at Smoking (1957), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Both (496)  |  Cease (81)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Continue (179)  |  Diet (56)  |  Dislike (16)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fern (10)  |  Grape (4)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Manufacturer (10)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Product (166)  |  Revert (4)  |  Significance (114)  |  Significant (78)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Smoking (27)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Still (614)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Tobacco (19)  |  Type (171)  |  Warrant (8)  |  Will (2350)

The fact that nature deals the occasional death blow doesn’t hand us an excuse to imitate it.
With co-author Jack Cohen. In Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, Chap. 42, 'Ways to Leave Your Planet', The Science of Discworld (1999), 301. Pratchett wrote the fantasy story told in the odd-numbered chapters. Following each, relevant real science is provided by his co-authors, Stewart and Cohen, in the even-numbered chapters (such as Chap. 42), but which of the two wrote which lines, is not designated.
Science quotes on:  |  Blow (45)  |  Deal (192)  |  Death (406)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Imitate (18)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occasional (23)

The greater part of it, I shall show, is nonsense, tricked out with a variety of tedious metaphysical conceits, and its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself. … it is the style that creates the illusion of content, and which is a cause as well as merely a symptom of Teilhard's alarming apocalyptic seizures.
Medawar’s acerbic book review of The Phenomenon of Man by Teilhard de Chardin first appeared as 'Critical Notice' in the journal Mind (1961), 70, No. 277, 99. The book review was reprinted in The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and Originality in Science (1967), 71. Medawar thus strongly contradicted other reviewers of the book, which he said was “widely held to be of the utmost profundity and significance; it created something like a sensation upon its publication in France, and some reviewers hereabouts called it the Book of the Year—one, the Book of the Century.”
Science quotes on:  |  Alarming (4)  |  Author (175)  |  Cause (561)  |  Conceit (15)  |  Create (245)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Deceiving (5)  |  Dishonesty (9)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Ground (222)  |  Himself (461)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Merely (315)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pain (144)  |  Show (353)  |  Symptom (38)  |  Tedious (15)  |  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (30)  |  Trick (36)  |  Variety (138)

The statistician cannot excuse himself from the duty of getting his head clear on the principles of scientific inference, but equally no other thinking man can avoid a like obligation.
The Design of Experiments (1935), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Avoid (123)  |  Equally (129)  |  Himself (461)  |  Inference (45)  |  Man (2252)  |  Obligation (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Statistician (27)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Thinking (425)

They say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it... and it’s worked out pretty well so far. I present to you the newest in Stark Industries’ Freedom line. Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee, the bad guys won’t even wanna come out of their caves. Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration... the Jericho.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Bad (185)  |  Best (467)  |  Cave (17)  |  Chain (51)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Dad (4)  |  Disagree (14)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Gentleman (26)  |  Guarantee (30)  |  Guy (5)  |  Industry (159)  |  Lady (12)  |  Let (64)  |  Line (100)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Personally (7)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Present (630)  |  Pretty (21)  |  Say (989)  |  Stark (3)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Work (1402)

What sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you excuse me. I have no time to listen to such nonsense.
In Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans and Andrew Frothingham, And I Quote (1992), 172, but without definitive source. Webmaster has not found any 19th-century book with such a quotation. Contact webmaster if you can help identify if this is a valid quote or merely a joke.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Current (122)  |  Robert Fulton (8)  |  Invention (400)  |  Listen (81)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Sail (37)  |  Ship (69)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wind (141)

Why do they prefer to tell stories about the possible medicinal benefits of the Houston toad rather than to offer moral reasons for supporting the Endangered Species Act? That law is plainly ideological; it is hardly to be excused on economic grounds.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Do (1905)  |  Economic (84)  |  Endangered Species (6)  |  Fit (139)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hardly (19)  |  Houston (5)  |  Ideological (2)  |  Law (913)  |  Medicinal (3)  |  Moral (203)  |  Offer (142)  |  Plainly (5)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Reason (766)  |  Species (435)  |  Story (122)  |  Tell (344)  |  Toad (10)  |  Why (491)


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.