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: “I was going to record talking... the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb',... and the machine reproduced it perfectly.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index F > Category: Fulfillment

Fulfillment Quotes (20 quotes)
Fulfillments Quotes, Fulfilment Quotes

[In] the realm of science, … what we have achieved will be obsolete in ten, twenty or fifty years. That is the fate, indeed, that is the very meaning of scientific work. … Every scientific “fulfillment” raises new “questions” and cries out to be surpassed and rendered obsolete. Everyone who wishes to serve science has to resign himself to this.
Max Weber
From a Speech (1918) presented at Munich University, published in 1919, and collected in 'Wissenschaft als Beruf', Gessammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre (1922), 524-525. As translated by Rodney Livingstone in David Owen (ed.), The Vocation Lectures: Science as a Vocation: Politics as a Vocation (2004), 11. A different translation of a longer excerpt for this quote, beginning “In science, each of us knows …”, is also on the Max Weber Quotes web page on this site.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Fate (76)  |  Himself (461)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Meaning (244)  |  New (1273)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  Question (649)  |  Raise (38)  |  Realm (87)  |  Render (96)  |  Resign (4)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Serve (64)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

All the scientist creates in a fact is the language in which he enunciates it. If he predicts a fact, he will employ this language, and for all those who can speak and understand it, his prediction is free from ambiguity. Moreover, this prediction once made, it evidently does not depend upon him whether it is fulfilled or not.
The Value of Science (1905), in The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science, Science and Method(1946), trans. by George Bruce Halsted, 332.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambiguity (17)  |  Create (245)  |  Creation (350)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Employ (115)  |  Employment (34)  |  Enunciation (7)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Language (308)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

All women scientists should marry, rear children, cook, and clean in order to achieve fulfillment, to be a complete woman.
Quoted in The Chemical Educator, vol. 7, No. 2, in a book review of Eugene Straus, Rosalyn Yalow, Nobel Laureate: Her Life and Work in Medicine.
Science quotes on:  |  Children (201)  |  Clean (52)  |  Complete (209)  |  Order (638)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Woman (160)  |  Women Scientists (18)

An understanding of the natural world and what’s in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfilment.
As quoted in Jack Shepherd, "David Attenborough: 15 of the naturalist’s best quotes: In celebration of his 94th birthday", Independent (8 May 2017), on independent.co.uk website.
Science quotes on:  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Natural World (33)  |  Source (101)  |  Understanding (527)

And so the great truth, now a paradox, may become a commonplace, that man is greater than his surroundings, and that the production of a breed of men and women, even in our great cities, less prone to disease, and pain, more noble in aspect, more rational in habits, more exultant in the pure joy of living, is not only scientifically possible, but that even the partial fulfillment of this dream, if dream it be, is the most worthy object towards which the lover of his kind can devote the best energies of his life.
In 'The Breed of Man', The Nineteenth Century, (Oct 1900), 669, as collected in Martin Polley (ed.), The History of Sport in Britain, 1880-1914: Sport, Education, and Improvement (2004), Vol. 2, 181.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Become (821)  |  Best (467)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Disease (340)  |  Dream (222)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Habit (174)  |  Joy (117)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Noble (93)  |  Object (438)  |  Pain (144)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Possible (560)  |  Production (190)  |  Pure (299)  |  Rational (95)  |  Truth (1109)

Common sense is science exactly in so far as it fulfills the ideal of common sense; that is, sees facts as they are, or at any rate, without the distortion of prejudice, and reasons from them in accordance with the dictates of sound judgment. And science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.
The Crayfish: an Introduction to the Study of Zoölogy (1880), 2. Excerpted in Popular Science (Apr 1880), 16, 789.
Science quotes on:  |  Accordance (10)  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Best (467)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Dictate (11)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Logic (311)  |  Observation (593)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rigidity (5)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sound (187)

First, inevitably, the idea, the fantasy, the fairy tale. Then, scientific calculation. Ultimately, fulfillment crowns the dream.
Science quotes on:  |  Calculation (134)  |  Crown (39)  |  Dream (222)  |  Fairy Tale (7)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Idea (881)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Ultimately (56)

Geology is rapidly taking its place as an introduction to the higher history of man. If the author has sought to exalt a favorite science, it has been with the desire that man—in whom geological history had its consummation, the prophecies of the successive ages their fulfilment—might better comprehend his own nobility and the true purpose of his existence.
Concluding remark in Preface (1 Nov 1862), in Manual of Geology, Treating of the Principles of the Science (1863), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Author (175)  |  Better (493)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Desire (212)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Existence (481)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Geology (240)  |  History (716)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nobility (5)  |  Prophecy (14)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Successive (73)

I suppose that Dr. [Florence] Sabin is the most eminent of living women scientists. The knowledge she has derived from her studies has led to better understanding of the anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the body in health and in disease, and has been not only of theoretical but of practical value. It is of the nature of conspicuous social service to have added to the knowledge of our bodies, well and ill, and thus to have helped make them better instruments for the fulfilment of the purposes of society as a whole.
In Genevieve Parkhurst, 'Dr. Sabin, Scientist: Winner Of Pictorial Review’s Achievement Award', Pictorial Review (Jan 1930), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Body (557)  |  Conspicuous (13)  |  Derive (70)  |  Disease (340)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Health (210)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Pathology (19)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Practical (225)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Florence Rena Sabin (19)  |  Society (350)  |  Study (701)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understand (648)  |  Value (393)  |  Women Scientists (18)

In science, each of us knows that what he has accomplished will be antiquated in ten, twenty, fifty years. That is the fate to which science is subjected; it is the very meaning of scientific work, to which it is devoted in a quite specific sense, as compared with other spheres of culture for which in general the same holds. Every scientific “fulfilment” raises new “questions”; it asks to be “surpassed” and outdated. Whoever wishes to serve science has to resign himself to this fact. Scientific works certainly can last as “gratifications” because of their artistic quality, or they may remain important as a means of training. Yet they will be surpassed scientifically—let that be repeated—for it is our common fate and, more our common goal. We cannot work without hoping that others will advance further than we have. In principle, this progress goes on ad infinitum.
Max Weber
From a Speech (1918) presented at Munich University, published in 1919, and collected in 'Wissenschaft als Beruf', Gessammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre (1922), 524-525. As given in H.H. Gerth and C. Wright-Mills (translators and eds.), 'Science as a Vocation', Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (1946), 138. A different translation of a shorter excerpt from this quote, beginning “[In] the realm of science, …” is also on the Max Weber Quotes web page on this site.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Ad Infinitum (5)  |  Advance (298)  |  Antiquated (3)  |  Artistic (24)  |  Ask (420)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Common (447)  |  Culture (157)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fifty (17)  |  General (521)  |  Goal (155)  |  Gratification (22)  |  Himself (461)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Progress (492)  |  Quality (139)  |  Question (649)  |  Remain (355)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)  |  Specific (98)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Subject (543)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Surpassing (12)  |  Training (92)  |  Whoever (42)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Mathematics is a form of poetry which transcends poetry in that it proclaims a truth; a form of reasoning which transcends reasoning in that it wants to bring about the truth it proclaims; a form of action, of ritual behavior, which does not find fulfilment in the act but must proclaim and elaborate a poetic form of truth.
'Why Mathematics Grows', Journal of the History of Ideas (Jan-Mar 1965), 26, No. 1, 3. In Salomon Bochner and Robert Clifford Gunning (ed.) Collected Papers of Salomon Bochner (1992), Vol. 4, 191. Footnoted as restating about Mathematics what was written about Myth by Henri Frankfort, et al., in The Intellectual Adventures of Ancient Man (1946), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Must (1525)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Proclaim (31)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Ritual (9)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Want (504)

My life has been a continuous fulfillment of dreams. It appears that everything I saw and did has a new, and perhaps, more significant meaning, every time I see it. The earth is good. It is a privilege to live thereon.
In The National Gardener (1952?), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Continuous (83)  |  Dream (222)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everything (489)  |  Good (906)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Meaning (244)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Significant (78)  |  Time (1911)

Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth.
From Man’s Place in Nature (1894), 108-109.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Enunciation (7)  |  Function (235)  |  Truth (1109)

Society is a self-regulating mechanism for preventing the fulfilment of its members.
In The Decline and Fall of Science (1976), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Member (42)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Regulating (3)  |  Society (350)

The adequate study of culture, our own and those on the opposite side of the globe, can press on to fulfillment only as we learn today from the humanities as well as from the sciences.
In An Anthropologist at Work (1959, 2011), 470.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Culture (157)  |  Fulfill (19)  |  Humanities (21)  |  Learn (672)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Side (236)  |  Study (701)  |  Today (321)  |  World (1850)

The helicopter approaches closer than any other [transport] to fulfillment of mankind’s ancient dream of the flying horse and the magic carpet.
In The Story of the Winged-S: The Autobiography of Igor I. Sikorsky (2011).
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Carpet (3)  |  Closer (43)  |  Dream (222)  |  Flying (74)  |  Helicopter (2)  |  Horse (78)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Other (2233)  |  Transport (31)

The meaning that we are seeking in evolution is its meaning to us, to man. The ethics of evolution must be human ethics. It is one of the many unique qualities of man, the new sort of animal, that he is the only ethical animal. The ethical need and its fulfillment are also products of evolution, but they have been produced in man alone.
The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of its Significance for Man (1949), 309.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Ethic (39)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Human (1512)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Must (1525)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Produced (187)  |  Product (166)  |  Quality (139)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Sort (50)  |  Unique (72)

There is inherent in nature a hidden harmony that reflects itself in our minds under the image of simple mathematical laws. That then is the reason why events in nature are predictable by a combination of observation and mathematical analysis. Again and again in the history of physics this conviction, or should I say this dream, of harmony in nature has found fulfillments beyond our expectations.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Dream (222)  |  Event (222)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Hide (70)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Physics (3)  |  Image (97)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Predictable (10)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Say (989)  |  Simple (426)  |  Why (491)

There is nothing which Nature so clearly reveals, and upon which science so strongly insists, as the universal reign of law, absolute, universal, invariable law... Not one jot or tittle of the laws of Nature are unfulfilled. I do not believe it is possible to state this fact too strongly... Everything happens according to law, and, since law is the expression of Divine will, everything happens according to Divine will, i.e. is in some sense ordained, decreed.
Lecture 18, 'Predestination and Free-Will', Religion and Science: A Series of Sunday Lectures (1874), 278.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Accordance (10)  |  According (236)  |  Belief (615)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Decree (9)  |  Divine (112)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Insistence (12)  |  Invariability (6)  |  Jot (3)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Ordinance (2)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reign (24)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  State (505)  |  Statement (148)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universality (22)  |  Will (2350)

This method is, to define as the number of a class the class of all classes similar to the given class. Membership of this class of classes (considered as a predicate) is a common property of all the similar classes and of no others; moreover every class of the set of similar classes has to the set of a relation which it has to nothing else, and which every class has to its own set. Thus the conditions are completely fulfilled by this class of classes, and it has the merit of being determinate when a class is given, and of being different for two classes which are not similar. This, then, is an irreproachable definition of the number of a class in purely logical terms.
The Principles of Mathematics (1903), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Class (168)  |  Common (447)  |  Completely (137)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consider (428)  |  Definition (238)  |  Determination (80)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Irreproachable (2)  |  Logic (311)  |  Membership (6)  |  Merit (51)  |  Method (531)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Predicate (3)  |  Property (177)  |  Purely (111)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Set (400)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Two (936)


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.