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

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

Friendship Quotes (18 quotes)

[My uncle said to me…] When I read, forty years ago, that shells from Syria were found in the Alps, I say, I admit, with a slightly mocking tone, that these shells were apparently brought by pilgrims who were returning from Jerusalem. M. de Buffon reprimanded me very sharply in his Theory of the Earth, page 281. I did not want to quarrel with him over shells, but I remain of the same opinion, because the impossibility that the sea formed the mountains is evident to me. Some may tell me that porphyry is made of sea urchin spikes, I’ll believe it when I see white marble is made of ostrich feathers.
Voltaire is recounting one of the reasons his uncle (Abbe Ambroise Bazing) had told him, for disputing Buffon’s claim that the sea that made the mountains. Translated by Webmaster from 'La Défense de Mon Oncle: Des montagnes et des Coquilles', collected in Oeuvres complètes: Histoire.- Mélanges historiques (1817), Tome 15, Chap. 19, 133-134. From the original French; “Quand je lus, il y a quarante ans, qu’on avait trouvé dans les Alpes des coquilles de Syrie, je dis, je l’avoue , d’un ton un peu goguenard, que ces coquilles avaient été apparemment apportées par des pélerins qui revenaient de Jérusalem. M. de Buffon m’en reprit très-vertement dans sa Théorie de la terre, page 281. Je n’ai pas voulu me brouiller avec lui pour des coquilles, mais je suis demeuré dans non opinion, parce que l’impossibilité que la mer ait formé les montagnes m’est démontrée. On a beau me dire que le porphyre est fait de pointes d’oursin, je le croirai quand je verrai que le marbre blanc est fait de plumes d’autruche.” [Note: porphyry is a form of igneous rock. Also note, this passage does NOT appear in 'Les Singularités de la Nature', which may be found elsewhere incorrectly cited as the source. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Alps (9)  |  Comte Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (37)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Find (1014)  |  Formation (100)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Lose (165)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Peanut (4)  |  Pilgrim (4)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Return (133)  |  Same (166)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sharply (4)  |  Shell (69)  |  Still (614)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

A circumstance which influenced my whole career more than any other … was my friendship with Professor Henslow … a man who knew every branch of science…. During the latter half of my time at Cambridge [I] took long walks with him on most days; so that I was called by some of the dons “the man who walks with Henslow.”
In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), 'Autobiography', The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887, 1896), Vol. 1, 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Branch (155)  |  Call (781)  |  Career (86)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  John Stevens Henslow (2)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Professor (133)  |  Time (1911)  |  Walk (138)  |  Whole (756)

Human societies are glued together with conversation and friendship. Conversation is the natural and characteristic activity of human beings. Friendship is the milieu within which we function.
In From Eros to Gaia (1992), 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Being (1276)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Function (235)  |  Glue (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Milieu (5)  |  Natural (810)  |  Society (350)  |  Together (392)

I belonged to a small minority of boys who were lacking in physical strength and athletic prowess. ... We found our refuge in science. ... We learned that science is a revenge of victims against oppressors, that science is a territory of freedom and friendship in the midst of tyranny and hatred.
[Referring to the science club he founded to escape bullying at his preparatory school.]
Essay 'To Teach or Not to Teach'. In From Eros to Gaia (1992), Vol. 5, 191. Partial quote in Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (2001), 26. Different part of quote in Bill Swainson, Encarta Book of Quotations (2000), 299.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Athletic (5)  |  Belong (168)  |  Boy (100)  |  Escape (85)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Hatred (21)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Minority (24)  |  Physical (518)  |  Refuge (15)  |  Revenge (10)  |  School (227)  |  Small (489)  |  Strength (139)  |  Territory (25)  |  Tyranny (15)  |  Victim (37)

I cannot let the year run out without sending you a sign of my continued existence and to extend my sincere wishes for the well-being of you and your dear ones in the New Year. We will not be able to send New Year greetings much longer; but even when we have passed away and have long since decomposed, the bonds that united us in life will remain and we shall be remembered as a not too common example of two men, who truly without envy and jealousy, contended and struggled in the same field, yet nevertheless remained always closely bound in friendship.
Letter from Liebig to Wohler (31 Dec 1871). Quoted in Ralph Oesper, The Human Side of Scientists (1975), 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Bond (46)  |  Bound (120)  |  Common (447)  |  Envy (15)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extend (129)  |  Field (378)  |  Friend (180)  |  Greeting (10)  |  Jealousy (9)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  New (1273)  |  Pass (241)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remember (189)  |  Run (158)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Truly (118)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

I still find it hard to believe how far we have come, from the time I first flew on Friendship 7 and the Discovery flight. I go from being crammed into a capsule the size of a telephone booth to a place where I could live and work in space. … Amazing.
As quoted by Howard Wilkinson in 'John Glenn Had the Stuff U.S. Heroes are Made of', The Cincinnati Enquirer (20 Feb 2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Amazing (35)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capsule (7)  |  Cram (5)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Flight (101)  |  Friendship 7 (3)  |  Hard (246)  |  Live (650)  |  Space (523)  |  Still (614)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Telephone Booth (2)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)

Iamblichus in his treatise On the Arithmetic of Nicomachus observes p. 47- “that certain numbers were called amicable by those who assimilated the virtues and elegant habits to numbers.” He adds, “that 284 and 220 are numbers of this kind; for the parts of each are generative of each other according to the nature of friendship, as was shown by Pythagoras. For some one asking him what a friend was, he answered, another I (ετεϑος εγω) which is demonstrated to take place in these numbers.” [“Friendly” thus: Each number is equal to the sum of the factors of the other.]
In Theoretic Arithmetic (1816), 122. (Factors of 284 are 1, 2, 4 ,71 and 142, which give the sum 220. Reciprocally, factors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11 ,22, 44, 55 and 110, which give the sum 284.) Note: the expression “alter ego” is Latin for “the other I.”
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Addition (70)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Asking (74)  |  Assimilate (9)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Factor (47)  |  Friend (180)  |  Generative (2)  |  Habit (174)  |  Kind (564)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Number (710)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Place (192)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Sum (103)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Virtue (117)

If we evolved a race of Isaac Newtons, that would not be progress. For the price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood, and many other desirable things. As a man he was a failure; as a monster he was superb.
Interview with J.W.N. Sullivan, Contemporary Mind, London, 1934. As cited in James Roy Newman, The World of Mathematics (1956), Vol. 4, 2222.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Failure (176)  |  Fatherhood (2)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Monster (33)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Other (2233)  |  Price (57)  |  Progress (492)  |  Race (278)  |  Superb (3)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Thing (1914)

It is said of Jacobi, that he attracted the particular attention and friendship of Böckh, the director of the philological seminary at Berlin, by the great talent he displayed for philology, and only at the end of two years’ study at the University, and after a severe mental struggle, was able to make his final choice in favor of mathematics.
In Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2 (1908), 661.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Attract (25)  |  Berlin (10)  |  Choice (114)  |  Director (3)  |  Display (59)  |  End (603)  |  Favor (69)  |  Final (121)  |  Great (1610)  |  Karl Jacobi (11)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Particular (80)  |  Philological (3)  |  Say (989)  |  Severe (17)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Study (701)  |  Talent (99)  |  Two (936)  |  University (130)  |  Year (963)

It was my good fortune to be linked with Mme. Curie through twenty years of sublime and unclouded friendship. I came to admire her human grandeur to an ever growing degree. Her strength, her purity of will, her austerity toward herself, her objectivity, her incorruptible judgement—all these were of a kind seldom found joined in a single individual… The greatest scientific deed of her life—proving the existence of radioactive elements and isolating them—owes its accomplishment not merely to bold intuition but to a devotion and tenacity in execution under the most extreme hardships imaginable, such as the history of experimental science has not often witnessed.
Out of My Later Years (1950), 227-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Austerity (3)  |  Bold (22)  |  Marie Curie (37)  |  Deed (34)  |  Degree (277)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Element (322)  |  Execution (25)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Good (906)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Growing (99)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Merely (315)  |  Most (1728)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Owe (71)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Single (365)  |  Strength (139)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Tenacity (10)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)  |  Witness (57)  |  Year (963)

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

Science and technology, and the various forms of art, all unite humanity in a single and interconnected system. As science progresses, the worldwide cooperation of scientists and technologists becomes more and more of a special and distinct intellectual community of friendship, in which, in place of antagonism, there is growing up a mutually advantageous sharing of work, a coordination of efforts, a common language for the exchange of information, and a solidarity, which are in many cases independent of the social and political differences of individual states.
In The Medvedev Papers (1970).
Science quotes on:  |  Advantageous (10)  |  Antagonism (6)  |  Art (680)  |  Become (821)  |  Common (447)  |  Community (111)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Coordination (11)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Effort (243)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Form (976)  |  Growing (99)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Individual (420)  |  Information (173)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Language (308)  |  More (2558)  |  Political (124)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sharing (11)  |  Single (365)  |  Social (261)  |  Special (188)  |  State (505)  |  System (545)  |  Technologist (7)  |  Technology (281)  |  Unite (43)  |  Various (205)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worldwide (19)

Science will never be able to reduce the value of a sunset to arithmetic. Nor can it reduce friendship or statesmanship to a formula. Laughter and love, pain and loneliness, the challenge of beauty and truth: these will always surpass the scientific mastery of nature.
As President, American Medical Association. From Commencement address at Emory University, Atlanta, 6 Jun 60
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Formula (102)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Loneliness (6)  |  Love (328)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Pain (144)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Statesmanship (2)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)

Scientists are as gregarious a species as termites. If the lives of scientists are on the whole joyful, it is because our friendships are deep and lasting. Our friendships are lasting because we are engaged in a collective enterprise.
In From Eros to Gaia (1992), 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Collective (24)  |  Deep (241)  |  Engage (41)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Gregarious (3)  |  Joy (117)  |  Lasting (7)  |  Live (650)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Species (435)  |  Termite (7)  |  Whole (756)

The particular ‘desire’ of the Eregion Elves—an ‘allegory’ if you like of a love of machinery, and technical devices—is also symbolised by their special friendship with the Dwarves of Moria.
From Letter draft to Peter Hastings (manager of a Catholic bookshop in Oxford, who wrote about his enthusiasm for Lord of the Rings) (Sep 1954). In Humphrey Carpenter (ed.) assisted by Christopher Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1995, 2014), 190, Letter No. 153.
Science quotes on:  |  Allegory (8)  |  Desire (212)  |  Device (71)  |  Dwarf (7)  |  Elf (7)  |  Lord Of The Rings (6)  |  Love (328)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Special (188)  |  Symbolise (2)  |  Technology (281)

There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Heart (243)  |  Human (1512)  |  Know (1538)  |  Literature (116)  |  Love (328)  |  Machine (271)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Produce (117)  |  Secret (216)  |  Spring (140)  |  Still (614)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

This is Friendship 7. Can see clear back; a big cloud pattern way back across towards the Cape. Beautiful sight.
From the transcript of in-flight communications, 5 min 35 sec after launch, about his view through the porthole.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Big (55)  |  Clear (111)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Friendship 7 (3)  |  Pattern (116)  |  See (1094)  |  Sight (135)  |  Toward (45)  |  Way (1214)

To me, it [the 1962 space flight of Friendship 7] is not something that happened a long time ago. It seems like a couple of days ago, really. It’s a rare day I don’t think about it, relive it in my mind. I can remember every switch I flipped, every move I made, every word I spoke and every word spoken to me. Clear as a bell.
As reported by Howard Wilkinson in 'John Glenn Had the Stuff U.S. Heroes are Made of', The Cincinnati Enquirer (20 Feb 2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Bell (35)  |  Flight (101)  |  Friendship 7 (3)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Move (223)  |  Rare (94)  |  Relive (2)  |  Remember (189)  |  Something (718)  |  Space (523)  |  Space Flight (26)  |  Switch (10)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Word (650)


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.