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 path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it... That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That�s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index F > Category: Fellow

Fellow Quotes (88 quotes)

‘I was reading an article about “Mathematics”. Perfectly pure mathematics. My own knowledge of mathematics stops at “twelve times twelve,” but I enjoyed that article immensely. I didn’t understand a word of it; but facts, or what a man believes to be facts, are always delightful. That mathematical fellow believed in his facts. So do I. Get your facts first, and’—the voice dies away to an almost inaudible drone—’then you can distort ‘em as much as you please.’
In 'An Interview with Mark Twain', in Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea (1899), Vol. 2, 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Article (22)  |  Belief (615)  |  Delight (111)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Distort (22)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drone (4)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Please (68)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Reading (136)  |  Stop (89)  |  Time (1911)  |  Twelve (4)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Word (650)

[A man] must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings in order to acquire a proper relationship to individual fellow-men and to the community. These precious things … primarily constitutes and preserves culture. This is what I have in mind when I recommend the “humanities” as important, not just dry specialized knowledge in the fields of history and philosophy.
From interview with Benjamin Fine, 'Einstein Stresses Critical Thinking', New York Times (5 Oct 1952), 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Community (111)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Culture (157)  |  Dry (65)  |  Field (378)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Humanities (21)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Important (229)  |  Individual (420)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motive (62)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Precious (43)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Proper (150)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Specialized (9)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Sufferings (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)

[My favourite fellow of the Royal Society is the Reverend Thomas Bayes, an obscure 18th-century Kent clergyman and a brilliant mathematician who] devised a complex equation known as the Bayes theorem, which can be used to work out probability distributions. It had no practical application in his lifetime, but today, thanks to computers, is routinely used in the modelling of climate change, astrophysics and stock-market analysis.
Quoted in Max Davidson, 'Bill Bryson: Have faith, science can solve our problems', Daily Telegraph (26 Sep 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Application (257)  |  Astrophysics (15)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Century (319)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Complex (202)  |  Computer (131)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Equation (138)  |  Known (453)  |  Market (23)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Model (106)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Practical (225)  |  Practicality (7)  |  Probability (135)  |  Routine (26)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Society (350)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thanks (26)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Today (321)  |  Work (1402)

[Niels Bohr] is a national pride to his fellow Danes. In Denmark, Bohr’s standing is only slightly less than that of the royal family and Hans Christian Anderson. When the wife of an American physicist casually told a gentleman seated next to her on a Copenhagen streetcar that her husband was studying under Professor Bohr, the old man jumped to his feet, swept off his hat with a flourish and bowed deeply.
Quoted in Bill Becker, 'Pioneer of the Atom', New York Times Sunday Magazine (20 Oct 1957), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Niels Bohr (55)  |  Bow (15)  |  Casual (9)  |  Christian (44)  |  Copenhagen (6)  |  Family (101)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Gentleman (26)  |  Hat (9)  |  Husband (13)  |  Jump (31)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nation (208)  |  Next (238)  |  Old (499)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Pride (84)  |  Professor (133)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Family (2)  |  Seat (7)  |  Streetcar (2)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Telling (24)  |  Wife (41)

[Scientists are explorers.] Spoke-like, their trails into the unknown leave the little hub of common knowledge far behind and their fellow explorers further and further out of touch.
The Development of Design (1981), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Common (447)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Hub (3)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Touch (146)  |  Trail (11)  |  Unknown (195)

A formative influence on my undergraduate self was the response of a respected elder statesmen of the Oxford Zoology Department when an American visitor had just publicly disproved his favourite theory. The old man strode to the front of the lecture hall, shook the American warmly by the hand and declared in ringing, emotional tones: “My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.” And we clapped our hands red. Can you imagine a Government Minister being cheered in the House of Commons for a similar admission? “Resign, Resign” is a much more likely response!
From a talk, 'Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder', (21 Dec 1996), published on edge.org website.
Science quotes on:  |  Admission (17)  |  American (56)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cheer (7)  |  Clap (3)  |  Common (447)  |  Declare (48)  |  Declared (24)  |  Department (93)  |  Disprove (25)  |  Elder (9)  |  Emotional (17)  |  Favourite (7)  |  Formative (2)  |  Front (16)  |  Government (116)  |  Hand (149)  |  House (143)  |  House Of Commons (2)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Influence (231)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Lecture Hall (2)  |  Likely (36)  |  Man (2252)  |  Minister (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Man (6)  |  Oxford (16)  |  Publicly (3)  |  Red (38)  |  Resign (4)  |  Respect (212)  |  Response (56)  |  Ring (18)  |  Self (268)  |  Shake (43)  |  Similar (36)  |  Statesman (20)  |  Stride (15)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thank You (8)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tone (22)  |  Undergraduate (17)  |  Visitor (3)  |  Wish (216)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)  |  Zoology (38)

A man who speaks out honestly and fearlessly that which he knows, and that which he believes, will always enlist the good will and the respect, however much he may fail in winning the assent, of his fellow men.
Reflection #295, Thomas Henry Huxley and Henrietta A. Huxley (ed.), Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T.H. Huxley (1907).
Science quotes on:  |  Assent (12)  |  Belief (615)  |  Enlist (2)  |  Fail (191)  |  Fearless (7)  |  Good (906)  |  Goodwill (6)  |  Honestly (10)  |  Honesty (29)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Respect (212)  |  Speak (240)  |  Will (2350)  |  Win (53)  |  Winning (19)

A man’s value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows. We call him good or bad according to how he stands in this matter. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depended entirely on his social qualities.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Action (342)  |  Bad (185)  |  Call (781)  |  Community (111)  |  Depend (238)  |  Direct (228)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Far (158)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  First (1302)  |  First Sight (6)  |  Good (906)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Primarily (12)  |  Promote (32)  |  Quality (139)  |  Sight (135)  |  Social (261)  |  Stand (284)  |  Thought (995)  |  Value (393)

An enthusiastic philosopher, of whose name we are not informed, had constructed a very satisfactory theory on some subject or other, and was not a little proud of it. “But the facts, my dear fellow,” said his friend, “the facts do not agree with your theory.”—“Don't they?” replied the philosopher, shrugging his shoulders, “then, tant pis pour les faits;”—so much the worse for the facts!
From Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (1841), Vol. 3, 313, footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Agree (31)  |  Construct (129)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enthusiastic (7)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Friend (180)  |  Inform (50)  |  Little (717)  |  Name (359)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Pride (84)  |  Reply (58)  |  Satisfactory (19)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Worse (25)

An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn’t take his education too seriously. You see, from the time a person is six years old until he graduates form college he has to take three or four examinations a year. If he flunks once, he is out. But an inventor is almost always failing. He tries and fails maybe a thousand times. It he succeeds once then he’s in. These two things are diametrically opposite. We often say that the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.
In 'How Can We Develop Inventors?' presented to the Annual meeting of the American Society of Society Engineers. Reprinted in Mechanical Engineering (Apr 1944). Collected in Prophet of Progress: Selections from the Speeches of Charles F. Kettering (1961), 108.
Science quotes on:  |  College (71)  |  Diametrically (6)  |  Education (423)  |  Examination (102)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Form (976)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Job (86)  |  Learn (672)  |  Old (499)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Person (366)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Train (118)  |  Trying (144)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

As Littlewood said to me once [of the ancient Greeks], they are not clever school boys or “scholarship candidates,” but “Fellows of another college.”
Quoted in G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology (1940, 1992), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Boy (100)  |  Candidate (8)  |  Clever (41)  |  College (71)  |  Greek (109)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  School (227)

As scientific men we have all, no doubt, felt that our fellow men have become more and more satisfying as fish have taken up their work which has been put often to base uses, which must lead to disaster. But what sin is to the moralist and crime to the jurist so to the scientific man is ignorance. On our plane, knowledge and ignorance are the immemorial adversaries. Scientific men can hardly escape the charge of ignorance with regard to the precise effect of the impact of modern science upon the mode of living of the people and upon their civilisation. For them, such a charge is worse than that of crime.
From Banquet Speech (10 Dec 1922), Nobel Prize in Chemistry, collected in Carl Gustaf Santesson (ed.), Les Prix Nobel en 1921-1922 (1923).
Science quotes on:  |  Adversary (7)  |  Base (120)  |  Become (821)  |  Charge (63)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Crime (39)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Effect (414)  |  Escape (85)  |  Fish (130)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Immemorial (3)  |  Impact (45)  |  Jurist (6)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mode (43)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Moralist (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  People (1031)  |  Precise (71)  |  Regard (312)  |  Satisfying (5)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sin (45)  |  Use (771)  |  Work (1402)

August 29, 1662. The council and fellows of the Royal Society went in a body to Whitehall to acknowledge his Majesty’s royal grace to granting our charter and vouchsafing to be himself our founder; then the president gave an eloquent speech, to which his Majesty gave a gracious reply and we all kissed his hand. Next day, we went in like manner with our address to my Lord Chancellor, who had much prompted our patent.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Body (557)  |  Chancellor (8)  |  Charter (4)  |  Council (9)  |  Founder (26)  |  Funding (20)  |  Grace (31)  |  Himself (461)  |  King (39)  |  Kiss (9)  |  Lord (97)  |  Majesty (21)  |  Next (238)  |  Patent (34)  |  President (36)  |  Prompt (14)  |  Reply (58)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Society (350)  |  Speech (66)

Charles Darwin [is my personal favorite Fellow of the Royal Society]. I suppose as a physical scientist I ought to have chosen Newton. He would have won hands down in an IQ test, but if you ask who was the most attractive personality then Darwin is the one you'd wish to meet. Newton was solitary and reclusive, even vain and vindictive in his later years when he was president of the society.
From interview with Graham Lawton, 'One Minute with Martin Rees', in New Scientist (12 Dec 2009), 204, No. 2738.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Attractive (25)  |  Choice (114)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Down (455)  |  Favorite (37)  |  IQ (5)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Personal (75)  |  Personality (66)  |  Physical (518)  |  President (36)  |  Reclusive (2)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Society (350)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Test (221)  |  Vain (86)  |  Wish (216)  |  Year (963)

Collective unity is not the result of the brotherly love of the faithful for each other. The loyalty of the true believer is to the whole—the church, party, nation—and not to his fellow true believer. True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society.
In The True Believer (1951), 122
Science quotes on:  |  Believer (26)  |  Brotherly (2)  |  Church (64)  |  Collective (24)  |  Faithful (13)  |  Free (239)  |  Individual (420)  |  Loose (14)  |  Love (328)  |  Loyalty (10)  |  Nation (208)  |  Other (2233)  |  Party (19)  |  Possible (560)  |  Relatively (8)  |  Result (700)  |  Society (350)  |  True (239)  |  Unity (81)  |  Whole (756)

Concentrate only on the achievements, and ignore the mistakes. When judging a mathematician you should only integrate f+ (the positive part of his function) and ignore the negative part. Perhaps this should apply more generally to all evaluations of your fellow men.
On his philosophy of writing letters of recommendation. 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 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:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Apply (170)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Evaluation (10)  |  Function (235)  |  General (521)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Integrate (8)  |  Judge (114)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Negative (66)  |  Positive (98)

Doesn’t it strike you as odd
That a commonplace fellow like Todd Should spell if you please,
His name with two Ds.
When one is sufficient for God.
Anonymous
Quoted by M. G. De St. V. Atkins, The Times (22 Jan 1997), from memory of a conversation with 'an American tribiologist' who recalled it as current when he was an undergraduate at Christ's College.
Science quotes on:  |  Commonplace (24)  |  God (776)  |  Name (359)  |  Odd (15)  |  Please (68)  |  Spell (9)  |  Strike (72)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Lord Alexander R. Todd (5)  |  Two (936)

Each of us has read somewhere that in New Guinea pidgin the word for 'piano' is (I use English spelling) 'this fellow you hit teeth belonging to him he squeal all same pig'. I am inclined to doubt whether this expression is authentic; it looks just like the kind of thing a visitor to the Islands would facetiously invent. But I accept 'cut grass belong head belong me' for 'haircut' as genuine... Such phrases seem very funny to us, and make us feel very superior to the ignorant foreigners who use long winded expressions for simple matters. And then it is our turn to name quite a simple thing, a small uncomplicated molecule consisting of nothing more than a measly 11 carbons, seven hydrogens, one nitrogen and six oxygens. We sharpen our pencils, consult our rule books and at last come up with 3-[(1, 3- dihydro-1, 3-dioxo-2H-isoindol-2-yl) oxy]-3-oxopropanoic acid. A name like that could drive any self-respecting Papuan to piano-playing.
The Chemist's English (1990), 3rd Edition, 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acid (83)  |  Authentic (9)  |  Belong (168)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Book (413)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Complication (30)  |  Cut (116)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Expression (181)  |  Feel (371)  |  Foreigner (3)  |  Funny (11)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Grass (49)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Invention (400)  |  Island (49)  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Matter (821)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  New Guinea (4)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pencil (20)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Piano (12)  |  Playing (42)  |  Read (308)  |  Rule (307)  |  Self (268)  |  Sharpen (22)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  Spelling (8)  |  Superior (88)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Use (771)  |  Wind (141)  |  Word (650)

Everything material which is the subject of knowledge has number, order, or position; and these are her first outlines for a sketch of the universe. If our feeble hands cannot follow out the details, still her part has been drawn with an unerring pen, and her work cannot be gainsaid. So wide is the range of mathematical sciences, so indefinitely may it extend beyond our actual powers of manipulation that at some moments we are inclined to fall down with even more than reverence before her majestic presence. But so strictly limited are her promises and powers, about so much that we might wish to know does she offer no information whatever, that at other moments we are fain to call her results but a vain thing, and to reject them as a stone where we had asked for bread. If one aspect of the subject encourages our hopes, so does the other tend to chasten our desires, and he is perhaps the wisest, and in the long run the happiest, among his fellows, who has learned not only this science, but also the larger lesson which it directly teaches, namely, to temper our aspirations to that which is possible, to moderate our desires to that which is attainable, to restrict our hopes to that of which accomplishment, if not immediately practicable, is at least distinctly within the range of conception.
From Presidential Address (Aug 1878) to the British Association, Dublin, published in the Report of the 48th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1878), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Actual (118)  |  Ask (420)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Attainable (3)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bread (42)  |  Call (781)  |  Chasten (2)  |  Conception (160)  |  Desire (212)  |  Detail (150)  |  Directly (25)  |  Distinctly (5)  |  Down (455)  |  Draw (140)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Everything (489)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fall (243)  |  Feeble (28)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Hand (149)  |  Happy (108)  |  Hope (321)  |  Immediately (115)  |  In The Long Run (18)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Indefinitely (10)  |  Information (173)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Least (75)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Material (366)  |  Moderate (6)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Namely (11)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Number (710)  |  Offer (142)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outline (13)  |  Part (235)  |  Pen (21)  |  Position (83)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Practicable (2)  |  Presence (63)  |  Promise (72)  |  Range (104)  |  Reject (67)  |  Restrict (13)  |  Result (700)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Sketch (8)  |  Still (614)  |  Stone (168)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Temper (12)  |  Tend (124)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unerring (4)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vain (86)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wise (143)  |  Wish (216)  |  Work (1402)

Freudian psychoanalytical theory is a mythology that answers pretty well to Levi-Strauss's descriptions. It brings some kind of order into incoherence; it, too, hangs together, makes sense, leaves no loose ends, and is never (but never) at a loss for explanation. In a state of bewilderment it may therefore bring comfort and relief … give its subject a new and deeper understanding of his own condition and of the nature of his relationship to his fellow men. A mythical structure will be built up around him which makes sense and is believable-in, regardless of whether or not it is true.
From 'Science and Literature', The Hope of Progress: A Scientist Looks at Problems in Philosophy, Literature and Science (1973), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Believable (3)  |  Bewilderment (8)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Condition (362)  |  Deeper (4)  |  Description (89)  |  End (603)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Sigmund Freud (70)  |  Freudian (4)  |  Hang (46)  |  Incoherence (2)  |  Kind (564)  |  Loose End (3)  |  Loss (117)  |  Myth (58)  |  Mythology (19)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Psychoanalysis (37)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Relief (30)  |  Sense (785)  |  State (505)  |  Structure (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Together (392)  |  True (239)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

God help the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and insists on lighting up the rays of science in a fellow's head whose skull is impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive fracture with a cudgel.
In a letter to Mr. Cunningham, 11 Jun 1791. Quoted in James Wood Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 126:18.
Science quotes on:  |  Father (113)  |  Fracture (7)  |  Genius (301)  |  God (776)  |  Impervious (5)  |  Inaccessible (18)  |  Man (2252)  |  Other (2233)  |  Positive (98)  |  Present (630)  |  Ray (115)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Way (1214)

How I hate the man who talks about the “brute creation”, with an ugly emphasis on Brute. Only Christians are capable of it. As for me, I am proud of my close kinship with other animals. I take a jealous pride in my Simian ancestry. I like to think that I was once a magnificent hairy fellow living in the trees and that my frame has come down through geological time via sea jelly and worms and Amphioxus, Fish, Dinosaurs, and Apes. Who would exchange these for the pallid couple in the Garden of Eden?
In W.N.P. Barbellion, The Journal of a Disappointed Man (1919), 27-28.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancestry (13)  |  Animal (651)  |  Ape (54)  |  Brute (30)  |  Capable (174)  |  Christian (44)  |  Creation (350)  |  Dinosaur (26)  |  Down (455)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Fish (130)  |  Garden (64)  |  God (776)  |  Hate (68)  |  Jelly (6)  |  Living (492)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Man (2252)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pride (84)  |  Sea (326)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tree (269)  |  Worm (47)

However absurd it may seem, I do in all seriousness hereby declare that I am animated mainly by philanthropic motives. I desire to do good to my fellow creatures, even to the Cui bonos.
In Electrical Papers (1882), Vol. I; Preface, vi-vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Creature (242)  |  Declaration (10)  |  Declare (48)  |  Desire (212)  |  Do (1905)  |  Good (906)  |  Motive (62)  |  Philanthropy (2)  |  Seeming (10)  |  Seriousness (10)

I ... express a wish that you may, in your generation, be fit to compare to a candle; that you may, like it, shine as lights to those about you; that, in all your actions, you may justify the beauty of the taper by making your deeds honourable and effectual in the discharge of your duty to your fellow-men.
[Concluding remarks for the final lecture (Christmas 1860-61) for children at the Royal Institution. These six lectures were the first series in the tradition of Christmas lectures continued to the present day.]
A Course of Six Lectures on the Chemical History of a Candle (1861), 183.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Candle (32)  |  Children (201)  |  Christmas (13)  |  Compare (76)  |  Deed (34)  |  Discharge (21)  |  Express (192)  |  Final (121)  |  First (1302)  |  Fit (139)  |  Generation (256)  |  Institution (73)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Light (635)  |  Making (300)  |  Present (630)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Institution (4)  |  Series (153)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Wish (216)

I do not believe in freedom of the will. Schopenhauer’s words: ‘Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills’ accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of freedom of will preserves me from taking too seriously myself and my fellow men as acting and deciding individuals and from losing my temper.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accompany (22)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Belief (615)  |  Decide (50)  |  Do (1905)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Individual (420)  |  Lack (127)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lose (165)  |  Man (2252)  |  Myself (211)  |  Other (2233)  |  Painful (12)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Reconcile (19)  |  Schopenhauer (6)  |  Schopenhauers (2)  |  Seriously (20)  |  Situation (117)  |  Temper (12)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

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)  |  Different (595)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Dog (70)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Feeling (259)  |  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 must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.
In Redbook, November 1978.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Individual (420)  |  Measure (241)  |  Must (1525)  |  Success (327)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)

I said that there is something every man can do, if he can only find out what that something is. Henry Ford has proved this. He has installed in his vast organization a system for taking hold of a man who fails in one department, and giving him a chance in some other department. Where necessary every effort is made to discover just what job the man is capable of filling. The result has been that very few men have had to be discharged, for it has been found that there was some kind of work each man could do at least moderately well. This wonderful system adopted by my friend Ford has helped many a man to find himself. It has put many a fellow on his feet. It has taken round pegs out of square holes and found a round hole for them. I understand that last year only 120 workers out of his force of 50,000 were discharged.
As quoted from an interview by B.C. Forbes in The American Magazine (Jan 1921), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chance (244)  |  Department (93)  |  Discharge (21)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effort (243)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Henry Ford (23)  |  Friend (180)  |  Himself (461)  |  Job (86)  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Result (700)  |  Something (718)  |  Square (73)  |  System (545)  |  Talent (99)  |  Understand (648)  |  Vast (188)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

If basketball was going to enable Bradley to make friends, to prove that a banker’s son is as good as the next fellow, to prove that he could do without being the greatest-end-ever at Missouri, to prove that he was not chicken, and to live up to his mother’s championship standards, and if he was going to have some moments left over to savor his delight in the game, he obviously needed considerable practice, so he borrowed keys to the gym and set a schedule for himself that he adhereded to for four full years—in the school year, three and a half hours every day after school, nine to five on Saturday, one-thirty to five on Sunday, and, in the summer, about three hours a day.
A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton
Science quotes on:  |  Basketball (4)  |  Being (1276)  |  Borrow (31)  |  Bradley (2)  |  Championship (2)  |  Chicken (12)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Delight (111)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enable (122)  |  End (603)  |  Five (16)  |  Friend (180)  |  Full (68)  |  Game (104)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Gym (3)  |  Half (63)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hour (192)  |  Key (56)  |  Leave (138)  |  Live (650)  |  Missouri (2)  |  Moment (260)  |  Mother (116)  |  Need (320)  |  Next (238)  |  Nine To Five (3)  |  Obviously (11)  |  Practice (212)  |  Prove (261)  |  Saturday (11)  |  Schedule (5)  |  School (227)  |  Set (400)  |  Son (25)  |  Standard (64)  |  Summer (56)  |  Sunday (8)  |  Year (963)

If Darwin had printed “The Origin of Species” as a serial running twenty or thirty years he might have found himself, at the end of it, a member of the House of Lords or even Archbishop of Canterbury. But he disgorged it in one stupendous and appalling dose, and in consequence he alarmed millions, including many of his fellow scientists, and got an evil name.
From Baltimore Evening Sun (6 Apr 1931). Collected in A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949, 1956), 330.
Science quotes on:  |  Alarm (19)  |  Appalling (10)  |  Archbishop Of Canterbury (2)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Dose (17)  |  End (603)  |  Evil (122)  |  Himself (461)  |  House (143)  |  Lord (97)  |  Member (42)  |  Million (124)  |  Name (359)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Running (61)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Serial (4)  |  Species (435)  |  Stupendous (13)  |  Year (963)

If someday they say of me that in my work I have contributed something to the welfare and happiness of my fellow man, I shall be satisfied.
In Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr., George Westinghouse: Gentle Genius (2007), 237.
Science quotes on:  |  Contribution (93)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Say (989)  |  Someday (15)  |  Something (718)  |  Welfare (30)  |  Work (1402)

If there is such a thing as luck, then I must be the most unlucky fellow in the world. I’ve never once made a lucky strike in all my life. When I get after something that I need, I start finding everything in the world that I don’t need—one damn thing after another. I find ninety-nine things that I don’t need, and then comes number one hundred, and that—at the very last—turns out to be just what I had been looking for.
In Martin André Rosanoff, 'Edison in His Laboratory', Harper’s Magazine (Sep 1932), 406.
Science quotes on:  |  Everything (489)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Looking (191)  |  Luck (44)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Something (718)  |  Start (237)  |  Strike (72)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  World (1850)

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)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Ethnology (9)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  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 departing from any settled opinion or belief, the variation, the change, the break with custom may come gradually; and the way is usually prepared; but the final break is made, as a rule, by some one individual, … who sees with his own eyes, and with an instinct or genius for truth, escapes from the routine in which his fellows live. But he often pays dearly for his boldness.
In The Harveian Oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London (18 Oct 1906). Printed in 'The Growth of Truth, as Illustrated in the Discovery of the Circulation of Blood', The Lancet (27 Oct 1906), Vol. 2, Pt. 2, 1114.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Boldness (11)  |  Break (109)  |  Change (639)  |  Custom (44)  |  Escape (85)  |  Eye (440)  |  Final (121)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Live (650)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Routine (26)  |  Rule (307)  |  See (1094)  |  Settled (34)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Usually (176)  |  Variation (93)  |  Way (1214)

In every phase of business life, keep at least one year ahead of the other fellow.
As quoted by H.M. Davidson, in System: The Magazine of Business (Apr 1922), 41, 412.
Science quotes on:  |  Ahead (21)  |  Business (156)  |  Keep (104)  |  Least (75)  |  Life (1870)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phase (37)  |  Year (963)

In the history of science and throughout the whole course of its progress we see certain epochs following one another more or less rapidly. Some important view is expressed, it may be original or only revived; sooner or later it receives recognition; fellow-Workers spring up; the outcome of it finds its way into the schools; it is taught and handed down; and we observe, unhappily, that it does not in the least matter whether the view be true or false. In either case its course is the same; in either case it comes in the end to he a mere phrase, a lifeless word stamped on the memory.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 184.
Science quotes on:  |  Case (102)  |  Certain (557)  |  Course (413)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Express (192)  |  False (105)  |  Find (1014)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Important (229)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Matter (821)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mere (86)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Observe (179)  |  Original (61)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Receive (117)  |  Recognition (93)  |  School (227)  |  See (1094)  |  Spring (140)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Teach (299)  |  Throughout (98)  |  True (239)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Word (650)

Infectious disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world. The dragons are all dead and the lance grows rusty in the chimney corner. ... About the only sporting proposition that remains unimpaired by the relentless domestication of a once free-living human species is the war against those ferocious little fellow creatures, which lurk in dark corners and stalk us in the bodies of rats, mice and all kinds of domestic animals; which fly and crawl with the insects, and waylay us in our food and drink and even in our love
Rats, Lice and History (1935)
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Against (332)  |  Animal (651)  |  Corner (59)  |  Crawl (9)  |  Creature (242)  |  Dark (145)  |  Disease (340)  |  Domestic (27)  |  Domestication (5)  |  Drink (56)  |  Fly (153)  |  Food (213)  |  Free (239)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Grow (247)  |  Human (1512)  |  Insect (89)  |  Kind (564)  |  Little (717)  |  Living (492)  |  Love (328)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Rat (37)  |  Remain (355)  |  Research (753)  |  Species (435)  |  Stalk (6)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)

It does appear that on the whole a physicist… tries to reduce his theory at all times to as few parameters as possible and is inclined to feel that a theory is a “respectable” one, though by no means necessarily correct, if in principle it does offer reasonably specific means for its possible refutation. Moreover the physicist will generally arouse the irritation amongst fellow physicists if he is not prepared to abandon his theory when it clashes with subsequent experiments. On the other hand it would appear that the chemist regards theories—or perhaps better his theories (!) —as far less sacrosanct, and perhaps in extreme cases is prepared to modify them continually as each bit of new experimental evidence comes in.
'Discussion: Physics and Chemistry: Comments on Caldin's View of Chemistry', British Journal of the Philosophy of Science, 1960, 11, 222.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Arouse (13)  |  Better (493)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Clash (10)  |  Continually (17)  |  Correct (95)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Feel (371)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Irritation (3)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Modify (15)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  New (1273)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parameter (4)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Refutation (13)  |  Regard (312)  |  Respectability (2)  |  Sacrosanct (3)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Specific (98)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

It has been said that he who was the first to abuse his fellow-man instead of knocking out his brains without a word, laid thereby the basis of civilisation.
'On affections of Speech from the Disease of the Brain' (1878). In James Taylor (ed.), Selected Writings of John Hughlings Jackson, Vol. 2 (1932), 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Abuse (25)  |  Basis (180)  |  Brain (281)  |  Civilisation (23)  |  Fight (49)  |  First (1302)  |  Man (2252)  |  Word (650)

It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organisation to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader.
In 'What I Believe', Forum and Century (1930), 84, 193-194.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Attain (126)  |  Aware (36)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Ceaseless (6)  |  Choose (116)  |  Coerce (2)  |  Desire (212)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Excessive (24)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fault (58)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Generally (15)  |  Goal (155)  |  Idea (881)  |  Irony (9)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leader (51)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merit (51)  |  Must (1525)  |  Myself (211)  |  Organisation (7)  |  Power (771)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recipient (3)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Through (846)  |  Unattainable (6)  |  Understand (648)

It is not a case we are treating; it is a living, palpitating, alas, too often suffering fellow creature.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alas (2)  |  Case (102)  |  Creature (242)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Often (109)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Treat (38)

It is only those who know a little of nature, who fancy they know much. I have heard a young man say, after hearing a few popular chemical lectures, and seeing a few bottle and squirt experiments: Oh, water—water is only oxygen and hydrogen!—as if he knew all about it. While the true chemist would smile sadly enough at the the youth's hasty conceit, and say in his heart: 'Well, he is a lucky fellow.'
'Thoughts in a Gravel Pit', a lecture delivered at the Mechanics' Institute, Odiham (1857). The Works of Charles Kingsley (1880), 284.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Conceit (15)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Hearing (50)  |  Heart (243)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Say (989)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Smile (34)  |  Water (503)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

Let us now declare the means whereby our understanding can rise to knowledge without fear of error. There are two such means: intuition and deduction. By intuition I mean not the varying testimony of the senses, nor the deductive judgment of imagination naturally extravagant, but the conception of an attentive mind so distinct and so clear that no doubt remains to it with regard to that which it comprehends; or, what amounts to the same thing, the self-evidencing conception of a sound and attentive mind, a conception which springs from the light of reason alone, and is more certain, because more simple, than deduction itself. …
It may perhaps be asked why to intuition we add this other mode of knowing, by deduction, that is to say, the process which, from something of which we have certain knowledge, draws consequences which necessarily follow therefrom. But we are obliged to admit this second step; for there are a great many things which, without being evident of themselves, nevertheless bear the marks of certainty if only they are deduced from true and incontestable principles by a continuous and uninterrupted movement of thought, with distinct intuition of each thing; just as we know that the last link of a long chain holds to the first, although we can not take in with one glance of the eye the intermediate links, provided that, after having run over them in succession, we can recall them all, each as being joined to its fellows, from the first up to the last. Thus we distinguish intuition from deduction, inasmuch as in the latter case there is conceived a certain progress or succession, while it is not so in the former; … whence it follows that primary propositions, derived immediately from principles, may be said to be known, according to the way we view them, now by intuition, now by deduction; although the principles themselves can be known only by intuition, the remote consequences only by deduction.
In Rules for the Direction of the Mind, Philosophy of Descartes. [Torrey] (1892), 64-65.
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  According (236)  |  Add (42)  |  Admit (49)  |  Alone (324)  |  Amount (153)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attentive (15)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Case (102)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chain (51)  |  Clear (111)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Declare (48)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Deductive (13)  |  Derive (70)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Draw (140)  |  Error (339)  |  Evident (92)  |  Extravagant (10)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fear (212)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Former (138)  |  Glance (36)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hold (96)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Inasmuch (5)  |  Incontestable (3)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Join (32)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Last (425)  |  Latter (21)  |  Let (64)  |  Light (635)  |  Link (48)  |  Long (778)  |  Mark (47)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mode (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Naturally (11)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Obliged (6)  |  Other (2233)  |  Primary (82)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Provide (79)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recall (11)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remote (86)  |  Rise (169)  |  Run (158)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Second (66)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simple (426)  |  Something (718)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spring (140)  |  Step (234)  |  Succession (80)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Therefrom (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  True (239)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Uninterrupted (7)  |  Vary (27)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whereby (2)  |  Why (491)

Man is a god to his fellow-man, if he know his duty.
From the original Latin, “Homo homini deus est, si suum officium sciat,” in Fragment XVI. As translated in Thomas Benfield Harbottle, Dictionary of Quotations (Classical) (1897), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Duty (71)  |  God (776)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)

Men cannot help feeling a little ashamed of their cousin-german the Ape. His close yet grotesque and clumsy semblance of the human form is accompanied by no gleams of higher instinct. Our humble friend the dog, our patient fellow-labourer the horse, are nearer to us in this respect. The magnanimous and sagacious elephant, doomed though he be to all fours, is godlike compared with this spitefully ferocious creature. Strangely enough, too, the most repulsive and ferocious of all apekind, the recently discovered Gorilla is, the comparative anatomist assures us, nearest to us all: the most closely allied in structure to the human form.
In 'Our Nearest Relation', All Year Round (28 May 1859), 1, No. 5, 112. Charles Dickens was both the editor and publisher of this magazine. The author of the article remains unknown. The articles were by custom printed without crediting the author. Biographers have been able to use extant office records to identify various authors of other articles, but not this specific one. Dickens and Richard Owen were friends; they read each other’s work. Owen is known to have found at least a little time to write a few articles for Dickens’ magazines. Owen had given a talk at the Royal Institution (4 Feb 1859) titled 'On the Gorilla.' This would suggest why Dickens may have had a definite interest in publishing on this subject, regardless of who in fact wrote the article.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomist (24)  |  Ape (54)  |  Assurance (17)  |  Clumsy (7)  |  Comparative (14)  |  Cousin (12)  |  Creature (242)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dog (70)  |  Doom (34)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Enough (341)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Form (976)  |  Friend (180)  |  German (37)  |  Gleam (13)  |  Gorilla (19)  |  Grotesque (6)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humble (54)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Laborer (9)  |  Little (717)  |  Magnanimous (2)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Nearest (4)  |  Patient (209)  |  Repulsive (7)  |  Respect (212)  |  Sagacious (7)  |  Semblance (5)  |  Shame (15)  |  Structure (365)

Men who believe too firmly in their theories, do not believe enough in the theories of others. So … these despisers of their fellows … make experiments only to destroy a theory, instead of to seek the truth.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1957), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 38. From the original French by Claude Bernard: “Ceux qui croient trop à leurs théories ne croient pas assez à celles des autres. Alors … ces contempteurs d'autrui … font des expériences que pour détruire une théorie, au lieu de les faire pour chercher la vérité.” (1865), 68. A Google translation gives: “Those who believe too much in their theories do not believe enough in those of others. So … these despisers of others … do experiments only to destroy a theory, instead of doing them to seek the truth.”
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Despising (3)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destroying (3)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Other (2233)  |  Seek (218)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Truth (1109)

My definition of an educated man is the fellow who knows the right thing to do at the time it has to be done. You can be sincere and still be stupid.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Definition (238)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Right (473)  |  Still (614)  |  Stupid (38)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)

Napoleon and other great men were makers of empires, but these eight men whom I am about to mention were makers of universes and their hands were not stained with the blood of their fellow men. I go back 2,500 years and how many can I count in that period? I can count them on the fingers of my two hands. Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Kepler, Copernicus, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton and Einstein—and I still have two fingers left vacant.
Speech (28 Oct 1930) at the Savoy Hotel, London in Einstein’s honor sponsored by a committee to help needy Jews in Eastern Europe. In Albert Einstein, Cosmic Religion: With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Back (395)  |  Blood (144)  |  Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte (20)  |  Nicolaus Copernicus (54)  |  Count (107)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Empire (17)  |  Finger (48)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Great (1610)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Maker (34)  |  Mention (84)  |  Napoleon (16)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Ptolemy (19)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Still (614)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Year (963)

Nobody knows more than a tiny fragment of science well enough to judge its validity and value at first hand. For the rest he has to rely on views accepted at second hand on the authority of a community of people accredited as scientists. But this accrediting depends in its turn on a complex organization. For each member of the community can judge at first hand only a small number of his fellow members, and yet eventually each is accredited by all. What happens is that each recognizes as scientists a number of others by whom he is recognized as such in return, and these relations form chains which transmit these mutual recognitions at second hand through the whole community. This is how each member becomes directly or indirectly accredited by all. The system extends into the past. Its members recognize the same set of persons as their masters and derive from this allegiance a common tradition, of which each carries on a particular strand.
Personal Knowledge (1958), 163.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Allegiance (5)  |  Authority (99)  |  Become (821)  |  Carrying (7)  |  Chain (51)  |  Common (447)  |  Community (111)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependance (4)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Derive (70)  |  Directly (25)  |  Enough (341)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extension (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Indirectly (7)  |  Judge (114)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Master (182)  |  Member (42)  |  More (2558)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Number (710)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particular (80)  |  Past (355)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Rest (287)  |  Return (133)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Secondhand (6)  |  Set (400)  |  Small (489)  |  Strand (9)  |  System (545)  |  Through (846)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Turn (454)  |  Validity (50)  |  Value (393)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)

On the morning of 1 November 1956 the US physicist John Bardeen dropped the frying-pan of eggs that he was cooking for breakfast, scattering its contents on the kitchen floor. He had just heard that he had won the Nobel Prize for Physics along with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for their invention of the transistor. That evening Bardeen was startled again, this time by a parade of his colleagues from the University of Illinois marching to the door of his home bearing champagne and singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”.
In Abstract for 'John Bardeen: An Extraordinary Physicist', Physics World (2008), 21, No. 4, 22.
Science quotes on:  |  John Bardeen (6)  |  Biography (254)  |  Walter H. Brattain (4)  |  Breakfast (10)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Cook (20)  |  Cooking (12)  |  Door (94)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dropped (17)  |  Egg (71)  |  Good (906)  |  Hear (144)  |  Home (184)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kitchen (14)  |  Morning (98)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Parade (3)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Scattering (4)  |  William B. Shockley (4)  |  Sing (29)  |  Singing (19)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transistor (6)  |  University (130)  |  Win (53)

One most necessary function of the brain is to exert an inhibitory power over the nerve centres that lie below it, just as man exercises a beneficial control over his fellow animals of a lower order of dignity; and the increased irregular activity of the lower centres surely betokens a degeneration: it is like the turbulent, aimless action of a democracy without a head.
The Physiology and Pathology of Mind (1868), 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Activity (218)  |  Aimless (5)  |  Animal (651)  |  Brain (281)  |  Control (182)  |  Degeneration (11)  |  Democracy (36)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Exert (40)  |  Function (235)  |  Inhibition (13)  |  Lie (370)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Order (638)  |  Power (771)  |  Surely (101)  |  Turbulent (4)

Only to often on meeting scientific men, even those of genuine distiction, one finds that they are dull fellows and very stupid. They know one thing to excess; they know nothing else. Pursuing facts too doggedly and unimaginatively, they miss all the charming things that are not facts. ... Too much learning, like too little learning, is an unpleasant and dangerous thing.
A Second Mencken Chrestomathy: A New Selection from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit (2006), 157.
Science quotes on:  |  Charming (4)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Dull (58)  |  Excess (23)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Find (1014)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learning (291)  |  Little (717)  |  Miss (51)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Stupid (38)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unpleasant (15)

Our methods of communication with our fellow men take many forms. We share with other animals the ability to transmit information by such diverse means as the posture of our bodies, by the movements of our eyes, head, arms, and hands, and by our utterances of non-specific sounds. But we go far beyond any other species on earth in that we have evolved sophisticated forms of pictorial representation, elaborate spoken and written languages, ingenious methods of recording music and language on discs, on magnetic tape and in a variety of other kinds of code.
As quoted in epigraph before title page in John Wolfenden, Hermann Bondi, et al., The Languages of Science: A Survey of Techniques of Communication (1963), i.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Code (31)  |  Communication (101)  |  Diverse (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Eye (440)  |  Form (976)  |  Hand (149)  |  Head (87)  |  Information (173)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Kind (564)  |  Language (308)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Movement (162)  |  Music (133)  |  Other (2233)  |  Picture (148)  |  Posture (7)  |  Record (161)  |  Recording (13)  |  Representation (55)  |  Share (82)  |  Sophisticated (16)  |  Sound (187)  |  Species (435)  |  Specific (98)  |  Spoken (3)  |  Tape (5)  |  Utterance (11)  |  Variety (138)  |  Written (6)

Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here involuntarily and uninvited for a short stay, without knowing the whys and the wherefore. In our daily lives we only feel that man is here for the sake of others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected with our own. I am often worried at the thought that my life is based to such a large extent on the work of my fellow human beings and I am aware of my great indebtedness to them.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Aware (36)  |  Base (120)  |  Being (1276)  |  Connect (126)  |  Daily (91)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fate (76)  |  Feel (371)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Indebtedness (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Often (109)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sake (61)  |  Seem (150)  |  Short (200)  |  Situation (117)  |  Stay (26)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wherefore (2)  |  Why (491)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worry (34)

Paris ... On this side of the ocean it is difficult to understand the susceptibility of American citizens on the subject and precisely why they should so stubbornly cling to the biblical version. It is said in Genesis the first man came from mud and mud is not anything very clean. In any case if the Darwinian hypothesis should irritate any one it should only be the monkey. The monkey is an innocent animal—a vegetarian by birth. He never placed God on a cross, knows nothing of the art of war, does not practice lynch law and never dreams of assassinating his fellow beings. The day when science definitely recognizes him as the father of the human race the monkey will have no occasion to be proud of his descendants. That is why it must be concluded that the American Association which is prosecuting the teacher of evolution can be no other than the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
[A cynical article in the French press on the Scopes Monkey Trial, whether it will decide “a monkey or Adam was the grandfather of Uncle Sam.”]
Newspaper
Article from a French daily newspaper on the day hearings at the Scopes Monkey Trial began, Paris Soir (13 Jul 1925), quoted in 'French Satirize the Case', New York Times (14 Jul 1925), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Animal (651)  |  Art (680)  |  Association (49)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bible (105)  |  Birth (154)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Clean (52)  |  Clinging (3)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Cynical (3)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Descendant (18)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dream (222)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Father (113)  |  First (1302)  |  France (29)  |   Genesis (26)  |  God (776)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Lynching (2)  |  Man (2252)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Mud (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Other (2233)  |  Practice (212)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Prevention (37)  |  Prosecution (2)  |  Race (278)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Scope (44)  |  Scopes Monkey Trial (9)  |  Side (236)  |  Society (350)  |  Subject (543)  |  Susceptibility (3)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Trial (59)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vegetarian (13)  |  War (233)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

Perhaps the majority of paleontologists of the present time, who believe in orthogenesis, the irreversibility of evolution and the polyphyletic origin families, will assume that a short molar must keep on getting shorter, that it can never get longer and then again grow relatively shorter and therefore that Propliopithecus with its extremely short third molar and Dryopithecus its long m3 are alike excluded from ancestry of the Gorilla, in which the is a slight retrogression in length of m3. After many years reflection and constant study of the evolution of the vertebrates however, I conclude that 'orthogenesis' should mean solely that structures and races evolve in a certain direction, or toward a certain goal, only until the direction of evolution shifts toward some other goal. I believe that the 'irreversibility of evolution' means only that past changes irreversibly limit and condition future possibilities, and that, as a matter of experience, if an organ is once lost the same (homogenous) organ can be regained, although nature is fertile in substituting imitations. But this not mean, in my judgement, that if one tooth is smaller than its fellows it will in all cases continue to grow smaller.
'Studies on the Evolution of the Primates’, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 1916, 35, 307.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Ancestry (13)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constant (148)  |  Continue (179)  |  Direction (185)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Future (467)  |  Goal (155)  |  Gorilla (19)  |  Grow (247)  |  Irreversibility (4)  |  Limit (294)  |  Long (778)  |  Majority (68)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Organ (118)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paleontologist (19)  |  Past (355)  |  Present (630)  |  Race (278)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Retrogression (6)  |  Shift (45)  |  Short (200)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Philosophers no longer write for the intelligent, only for their fellow professionals. The few thousand academic philosophers in the world do not stint themselves: they maintain more than seventy learned journals. But in the handful that cover more than one subdivision of philosophy, any given philosopher can hardly follow more than one or two articles in each issue. This hermetic condition is attributed to “technical problems” in the subject. Since William James, Russell, and Whitehead, philosophy, like history, has been confiscated by scholarship and locked away from the contamination of general use.
In The Culture We Deserve (1989), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Academic (20)  |  Article (22)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contamination (4)  |  Cover (40)  |  Do (1905)  |  Follow (389)  |  General (521)  |  Give (208)  |  Handful (14)  |  Hardly (19)  |  Hermetic (2)  |  History (716)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Issue (46)  |  William James (50)  |  Journal (31)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lock (14)  |  Long (778)  |  Maintain (105)  |  More (2558)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Problem (731)  |  Professional (77)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Seventy (2)  |  Subdivision (2)  |  Subject (543)  |  Technical (53)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Alfred North Whitehead (140)  |  World (1850)  |  Write (250)

Physicists are not regular fellows—and neither are poets. Anyone engaged in an activity that makes considerable demands on both the intellect and the emotions is not unlikely to be a little bit odd.
In Physics for Poets (1978).
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Both (496)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Demand (131)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Little (717)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Regular (48)

Society is a republic. When an individual endeavors to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means of ridicule or of calumny. No one shall be more virtuous or more intellectually gifted than others. Whoever, by the irresistible force of genius, rises above the common herd is certain to be ostracized by society, which will pursue him with such merciless derision and detraction that at last he will be compelled to retreat into the solitude of his thoughts.
In Heinrich Heine: His Wit, Wisdom, Poetry (1892), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Calumny (3)  |  Certain (557)  |  Common (447)  |  Compel (31)  |  Derision (8)  |  Down (455)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Force (497)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Himself (461)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Last (425)  |  Lift (57)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Republic (16)  |  Retreat (13)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Rise (169)  |  Society (350)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Thought (995)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Virtuous (9)  |  Whoever (42)  |  Will (2350)

Someone poring over the old files in the United States Patent Office at Washington the other day found a letter written in 1833 that illustrates the limitations of the human imagination. It was from an old employee of the Patent Office, offering his resignation to the head of the department His reason was that as everything inventable had been invented the Patent Office would soon be discontinued and there would be no further need of his services or the services of any of his fellow clerks. He, therefore, decided to leave before the blow fell.
Written jokingly, to contrast with the burgeoning of American inventions in the new century. In 'Nothing More to Invent?', Scientific American (16 Oct 1915), 334. Compare that idea, expressed in 1915, with the classic myth still in endless recirculation today, “Everything that can be invented, has been invented,” for example, in Chris Morgan and David Langford, Facts and Fallacies (1981), on the Charles Duell Quotations page on this website, which includes references debunking the myth.
Science quotes on:  |  Blow (45)  |  Clerk (13)  |  Department (93)  |  Everything (489)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Invent (57)  |  Joke (90)  |  Letter (117)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Office (71)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Patent (34)  |  Reason (766)  |  Service (110)  |  Soon (187)  |  State (505)

The “hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and, pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits,” this good fellow carried hidden in his nature, apparently, something destined to develop into a necessity for humane letters.
'Literature and Science', delivered as a lecture during Arnold's tour of the United States in 1883 and published in Discourses in America (1885). Taken from M. H. Abrams (ed.), The Norton Anthology of English Literature (1993), Vol. 2, 1441.
Science quotes on:  |  Arboreal (8)  |  Destined (42)  |  Develop (278)  |  Ear (69)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Good (906)  |  Habit (174)  |  Humane (19)  |  Letter (117)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Point (584)  |  Something (718)

The astronomer is, in some measure, independent of his fellow astronomer; he can wait in his observatory till the star he wishes to observe comes to his meridian; but the meteorologist has his observations bounded by a very limited horizon, and can do little without the aid of numerous observers furnishing him contemporaneous observations over a wide-extended area.
Second Report on Meteorology to the Secretary of the Navy (1849), US Senate Executive Document 39, 31st Congress, 1st session. Quoted in J. R. Fleming, Meteorology in America: 1800-1870 (1990), vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Bound (120)  |  Do (1905)  |  Extend (129)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Little (717)  |  Measure (241)  |  Meridian (4)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observatory (18)  |  Observe (179)  |  Star (460)  |  Wide (97)

The constructions of the mathematical mind are at the same time free and necessary. The individual mathematician feels free to define his notions and set up his axioms as he pleases. But the question is will he get his fellow-mathematician interested in the constructs of his imagination. We cannot help the feeling that certain mathematical structures which have evolved through the combined efforts of the mathematical community bear the stamp of a necessity not affected by the accidents of their historical birth. Everybody who looks at the spectacle of modern algebra will be struck by this complementarity of freedom and necessity.
In 'A Half-Century of Mathematics',The American Mathematical Monthly (Oct 1951), 58, No. 8, 538-539.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Affect (19)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Bear (162)  |  Birth (154)  |  Certain (557)  |  Combine (58)  |  Community (111)  |  Complementarity (6)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Define (53)  |  Effort (243)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interest (416)  |  Look (584)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Notion (120)  |  Please (68)  |  Question (649)  |  Set (400)  |  Set Up (3)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Strike (72)  |  Structure (365)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)

The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the great enterprises and ideals of American society.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  American (56)  |  Apathetic (2)  |  Belong (168)  |  Blend (9)  |  Bold (22)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Common (447)  |  Content (75)  |  Courage (82)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Face (214)  |  Fearful (7)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Man (2252)  |  New (1273)  |  New Ideas (17)  |  Passion (121)  |  Personal (75)  |  Problem (731)  |  Project (77)  |  Reason (766)  |  Society (350)  |  Timid (6)  |  Today (321)  |  Toward (45)  |  Will (2350)

The growth curves of the famous Hopkins' rats are familiar to anyone who has ever opened a textbook of physiology. One recalls the proud ascendant curve of the milk-fed group which suddenly turns downwards as the milk supplement is removed, and the waning curve of the other group taking its sudden milk-assisted upward spring, until it passes its fellow now abruptly on the decline. 'Feeding experiments illustrating the importance of accessory factors in normal dietaries', Jour. Physiol., 1912, xliv, 425, ranks aesthetically beside the best stories of H. G. Wells.
Vitamins and Other Dietary Essentials (1933), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Curve (49)  |  Decline (28)  |  Diet (56)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Food (213)  |  Growth (200)  |  Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (11)  |  Importance (299)  |  Milk (23)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Rank (69)  |  Rat (37)  |  Spring (140)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Turn (454)  |  Upward (44)

The mortal enemies of man are not his fellows of another continent or race; they are the aspects of the physical world which limit or challenge his control, the disease germs that attack him and his domesticated plants and animals, and the insects that carry many of these germs as well as working notable direct injury. This is not even the age of man, however great his superiority in size and intelligence; it is literally the age of insects.
In Chap. 7, 'Some Human Implications', The Social Life of Animals (1938), 240-241. [Books that cite a source of The Social Life of Insects are incorrect. There is no such title in the Library of Congress catalog. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Attack (86)  |  Carry (130)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Continent (79)  |  Control (182)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disease (340)  |  Germ (54)  |  Great (1610)  |  Injury (36)  |  Insect (89)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Limit (294)  |  Literally (30)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Plant (320)  |  Race (278)  |  Superiority (19)  |  World (1850)

The practice of that which is ethically best—what we call goodness or virtue—involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows… It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence… Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process.
'Evolution and Ethics' (1893). In Collected Essays (1894), Vol. 9, 81-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Call (781)  |  Competition (45)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Course (413)  |  Demand (131)  |  Direct (228)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Goodness (26)  |  Individual (420)  |  Involve (93)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Merely (315)  |  Moral (203)  |  Practice (212)  |  Precept (10)  |  Process (439)  |  Repudiate (7)  |  Require (229)  |  Respect (212)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Ruthless (12)  |  Self (268)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Success (327)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Virtue (117)

The respect which in all ages and countries has ever been paid to inventors seems, indeed, to rest on something more profound than mere gratitude for the benefits which they have been the means of conferring on mankind; and to imply, if it does not express, a consciousness that by the grand and original conceptions of their minds they approach somewhat more nearly than their fellows to the qualities and pre-eminence of a higher order of being.
The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (1854), Vol.1, 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Approach (112)  |  Being (1276)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Express (192)  |  Gratitude (14)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Order (638)  |  Pre-eminence (4)  |  Profound (105)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rest (287)  |  Something (718)

The surveyor ought to work in solitude. He must no more admit company while mapping than a writer admits visitors to his study while writing. This applies even to geological company, nay, even to the company of a skilled fellow-surveyor... The two authors of this book [Edward Greenly and Howell Williams] once thought that it would be pleasant to have a day's mapping together, and decided to break through their rule. The result was a ludicrous paralysis. The commonest operation seemed a mountain of difficulty. Next day the senior author (whose ground it was) swept an india-rubber over every line and went out again, when, hey presto! And all was clear.
Edward Greenly and Howell Williams, Methods in Geological Surveying (1930), 375-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Book (413)  |  Break (109)  |  Company (63)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Geology (240)  |  Ground (222)  |  Ludicrous (7)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Next (238)  |  Operation (221)  |  Paralysis (9)  |  Result (700)  |  Rubber (11)  |  Rule (307)  |  Senior (7)  |  Skill (116)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Study (701)  |  Surveying (6)  |  Surveyor (5)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)  |  Writing (192)

There is a story that once, not long after he came to Berlin, Planck forgot which room had been assigned to him for a lecture and stopped at the entrance office of the university to find out. Please tell me, he asked the elderly man in charge, “In which room does Professor Planck lecture today?” The old man patted him on the shoulder “Don't go there, young fellow,” he said “You are much too young to understand the lectures of our learned Professor Planck.”
Anonymous
In Barbara Lovett Cline, Men Who Made a New Physics: Physicists and the Quantum Theory (1987), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Assignment (12)  |  Berlin (10)  |  Charge (63)  |  Entrance (16)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forgetting (13)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Office (71)  |  Old (499)  |  Max Planck (83)  |  Please (68)  |  Professor (133)  |  Room (42)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Story (122)  |  Tell (344)  |  Today (321)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  University (130)  |  Young (253)

There was a young fellow from Trinity,
Who took the square root of infinity.
But the number of digits,
Gave him the fidgets;
He dropped Math and took up Divinity.
Epigraph on title page of One, Two, Three… Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science (1947, 1988), i. The original text shows symbols instead of the words which appear above as “square root of infinity.”
Science quotes on:  |  Digit (4)  |  Divinity (23)  |  Dropped (17)  |  Humour (116)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Limerick (7)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Number (710)  |  Root (121)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Trinity (9)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

There was wildlife, untouched, a jungle at the border of the sea, never seen by those who floated on the opaque roof.
Describing his early experience, in 1936, when a fellow naval officer, Philippe Tailliez, gave him goggles to see below the Mediterranean Sea surface.
Quoted in 'Sport: Poet of the Depths', Time (28 Mar 1960)
Science quotes on:  |  Border (10)  |  Early (196)  |  Experience (494)  |  Float (31)  |  Floating (4)  |  Goggles (2)  |  Jungle (24)  |  Marine Biology (24)  |  Mediterranean (9)  |  Mediterranean Sea (6)  |  Never (1089)  |  Officer (12)  |  Opaque (7)  |  Roof (14)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Surface (223)  |  Untouched (5)  |  Wildlife (16)

Thus died Negro Tom [Thomas Fuller], this untaught arithmetician, this untutored scholar. Had his opportunities of improvement been equal to those of thousands of his fellow-men, neither the Royal Society of London, the Academy of Science at Paris, nor even a Newton himself need have been ashamed to acknowledge him a brother in science.
[Thomas Fuller (1710-1790), although enslaved from Africa at age 14, was an arithmetical prodigy. He was known as the Virginia Calculator because of his exceptional ability with arithmetic calculations. His intellectual accomplishments were related by Dr. Benjamin Rush in a letter read to the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery.]
Obituary
From obituary in the Boston Columbian Centinal (29 Dec 1790), 14, No. 31. In George Washington Williams, History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 (1882), Vol. 1, 400
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Academy (37)  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Africa (38)  |  African American (8)  |  Age (509)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Brother (47)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Calculator (9)  |  Equal (88)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Himself (461)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Known (453)  |  Letter (117)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Negro (8)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Prodigy (5)  |  Read (308)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Shame (15)  |  Slave (40)  |  Slavery (13)  |  Society (350)  |  Thousand (340)

Towards the end of his life, he [Ernest Rutherford] said, “I’ve just finished reading some of my early papers, and you know, when I’d finished I said to myself, ‘Rutherford, my boy, you used to be a damned clever fellow.’”
As quoted in 'The Rutherford Memorial Lecture' (29 Mar 1939), Memorial Lectures Delivered Before the Chemical Society (1951), Vol. 4, 183. Although quoted without source, note that Tizard and Rutherford were friends.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Boy (100)  |  Clever (41)  |  Early (196)  |  End (603)  |  Finish (62)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Myself (211)  |  Paper (192)  |  Reading (136)

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)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Easily (36)  |  Elemental (4)  |  Enter (145)  |  Escape (85)  |  Evident (92)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Factor (47)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  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 have never had another man like him [Charles Kettering] in America. He is the most willing man to do things I have ever seen. Benjamin Franklin was a little like him. Both had horse sense and love of fun. If a fellow goes to school long enough he gets frozen in his thinking. He is not free any more. But Ket has always been free.
In book review, T.A. Boyd, 'Charles F. Kettering: Prophet of Progress', Science (30 Jan 1959), 256.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Both (496)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enough (341)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  Free (239)  |  Freeze (6)  |  Fun (42)  |  Horse (78)  |  Horse Sense (4)  |  Charles F. Kettering (70)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  School (227)  |  Sense (785)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Willing (44)

We have reason not to be afraid of the machine, for there is always constructive change, the enemy of machines, making them change to fit new conditions.
We suffer not from overproduction but from undercirculation. You have heard of technocracy. I wish I had those fellows for my competitors. I'd like to take the automobile it is said they predicted could be made now that would last fifty years. Even if never used, this automobile would not be worth anything except to a junkman in ten years, because of the changes in men's tastes and ideas. This desire for change is an inherent quality in human nature, so that the present generation must not try to crystallize the needs of the future ones.
We have been measuring too much in terms of the dollar. What we should do is think in terms of useful materials—things that will be of value to us in our daily life.
In 'Quotation Marks: Against Technocracy', New York Times (1 Han 1933), E4.
Science quotes on:  |  Afraid (24)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Change (639)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Competitor (4)  |  Condition (362)  |  Construction (114)  |  Constructive (15)  |  Crystallization (2)  |  Crystallize (12)  |  Daily (91)  |  Daily Life (18)  |  Desire (212)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Dollar (22)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Fifty (17)  |  Fit (139)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Junk (6)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Making (300)  |  Material (366)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reason (766)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Taste (93)  |  Technocracy (2)  |  Ten (3)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Try (296)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
The Outermost House (1928), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attain (126)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Concept (242)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extension (60)  |  Fate (76)  |  Finish (62)  |  Form (976)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Glass (94)  |  Hear (144)  |  Image (97)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Survey (36)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tragic (19)  |  Universal (198)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

We need another, wiser, and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. For the animal shall not be measured by man....They are not underlings. They are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of Earth.
The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod (2003), 24-25.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Catch (34)  |  Concept (242)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystic (23)  |  Mystical (9)  |  Nation (208)  |  Need (320)  |  Net (12)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Prisoner (8)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travail (5)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)

We share the Earth not only with our fellow human beings, but with all the other creatures that live on the land, in the sea or in the air.
In Julia Martin, Ecological Responsibility: A Dialogue With Buddhism: A Collection of Essays & Talks (1997), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Being (1276)  |  Creature (242)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Live (650)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sea (326)  |  Share (82)

We were very privileged to leave on the Moon a plaque ... saying, ‘For all Mankind’. Perhaps in the third millennium a wayward stranger will read the plaque at Tranquility Base. We’ll let history mark that this was the age in which that became a fact. I was struck this morning in New York by a proudly waved but uncarefully scribbled sign. It said, ‘Through you we touched the Moon.’ It was our privilege today to touch America. I suspect perhaps the most warm, genuine feeling that all of us could receive came through the cheers and shouts and, most of all, the smiles of our fellow Americans. We hope and think that those people shared our belief that this is the beginning of a new era—the beginning of an era when man understands the universe around him, and the beginning of the era when man understands himself.
Acceptance speech (13 Aug 1969), upon receiving the Medal of Freedom as a member of the first manned moon-landing mission. In James R. Hansen, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong (2005), 569.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  America (143)  |  Base (120)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belief (615)  |  Era (51)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Hope (321)  |  Leaving (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mark (47)  |  Millenium (2)  |  Moon (252)  |  Morning (98)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  People (1031)  |  Plaque (2)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Read (308)  |  Receive (117)  |  Scribble (5)  |  Sharing (11)  |  Shout (25)  |  Sign (63)  |  Smile (34)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Today (321)  |  Touch (146)  |  Touching (16)  |  Tranquility Base (3)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)  |  Warm (74)  |  Wayward (3)  |  Will (2350)

What is the meaning of human life, or for that matter, of the life of any creature? To know an answer to this question means to be religious. Does it make any sense, then, to pose this question? I answer: The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.
In Ideas and Opinions (1954), 11. A different translation is given in The World As I See It (1935), 1. From the original German in Mein Weltbild (1934).
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Creature (242)  |  Fit (139)  |  Hardly (19)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meaningless (17)  |  Means (587)  |  Mere (86)  |  Merely (315)  |  Pose (9)  |  Question (649)  |  Regard (312)  |  Religious (134)  |  Sense (785)  |  Unhappy (16)

What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.
In The World As I See It (1935), 1. A different translation is given in Ideas and Opinions (1954), 11. From the original German in Mein Weltbild (1934).
Science quotes on:  |  Altogether (9)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Creature (242)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Imply (20)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meaningless (17)  |  Merely (315)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Life (2)  |  Question (649)  |  Regard (312)  |  Religion (369)  |  Sense (785)  |  Unfortunate (19)

George Washington Carver quote: When our thoughts—which bring actions—are filled with hate against anyone, Negro or white
Image credit: Fugue cc-by-2.0 (source)
When our thoughts—which bring actions—are filled with hate against anyone, Negro or white, we are in a living hell. That is as real as hell will ever be.
While hate for our fellow man puts us in a living hell, holding good thoughts for them brings us an opposite state of living, one of happiness, success, peace. We are then in heaven.
In Alvin D. Smith, George Washington Carver: Man of God (1954), 27-28. Cited in Linda O. McMurry, George Washington Carver, Scientist and Symbol (1982), 107. Smith's book is about his recollections of G.W. Carver's Sunday School classes at Tuskegee, some 40 years earlier. Webmaster, who has not yet been able to see the original book, cautions this quote may be the gist of Carver's words, rather than a verbatim quote.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Against (332)  |  Good (906)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Hate (68)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Hell (32)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Negro (8)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Peace (116)  |  State (505)  |  Success (327)  |  Thought (995)  |  White (132)  |  Will (2350)

When the child outgrows the narrow circle of family life … then comes the period of the school, whose object is to initiate him into the technicalities of intercommunication with his fellow-men, and to familiarize him with the ideas that underlie his civilization, and which he must use as tools of thought if he would observe and understand the phases of human life around him; for these … are invisible to the human being who has not the aid of elementary ideas with which to see them.
In Psychologic Foundations of Education: An Attempt to Show the Genesis of the Higher Faculties of the Mind (1907), 265.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Being (1276)  |  Child (333)  |  Circle (117)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Education (423)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Familiarize (5)  |  Family (101)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Idea (881)  |  Initiate (13)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Life (1870)  |  Must (1525)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Object (438)  |  Observe (179)  |  Outgrow (4)  |  Period (200)  |  Phase (37)  |  School (227)  |  See (1094)  |  Technicality (5)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tool (129)  |  Underlie (19)  |  Understand (648)  |  Use (771)

Whenever you look at a piece of work and you think the fellow was crazy, then you want to pay some attention to that. One of you is likely to be, and you had better find out which one it is. It makes an awful lot of difference.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Attention (196)  |  Better (493)  |  Crazy (27)  |  Difference (355)  |  Find (1014)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  Think (1122)  |  Want (504)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Work (1402)

While religion prescribes brotherly love in the relations among the individuals and groups, the actual spectacle more resembles a battlefield than an orchestra. Everywhere, in economic as well as in political life, the guiding principle is one of ruthless striving for success at the expense of one’s fellow men. This competitive spirit prevails even in school and, destroying all feelings of human fraternity and cooperation, conceives of achievement not as derived from the love for productive and thoughtful work, but as springing from personal ambition and fear of rejection.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Actual (118)  |  Ambition (46)  |  Battlefield (9)  |  Brotherly (2)  |  Competitive (8)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Derive (70)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Economic (84)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Expense (21)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Fraternity (4)  |  Group (83)  |  Guide (107)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  More (2558)  |  Orchestra (3)  |  Personal (75)  |  Political (124)  |  Prescribe (11)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Principle (530)  |  Productive (37)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Relation (166)  |  Religion (369)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Ruthless (12)  |  School (227)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spring (140)  |  Strive (53)  |  Success (327)  |  Thoughtful (16)  |  Work (1402)

You know, I am sorry for the poor fellows that haven’t got labs to work in.
Remark addressed to H.R. Robinson, recorded by Robinson in 'Personal Reminiscences of the Manchester Period', collected in J.B. Birks, Rutherford at Manchester (1962), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Experiment (736)  |  Know (1538)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Poor (139)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Work (1402)


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.