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: “Dangerous... to take shelter under a tree, during a thunder-gust. It has been fatal to many, both men and beasts.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index F > Category: Full

Full Quotes (68 quotes)

[In biological evolution,] there are organs which have lost their purpose and are yet carried over as an evolutionary legacy: modern science is full of appendices and rudimentary monkey-tails.
In Epilogue, The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe (1959), 515.
Science quotes on:  |  Appendix (5)  |  Biological (137)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Organ (118)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rudimentary (4)  |  Tail (21)

[S]uppose you make a hole in an ordinary evacuated electric light bulb and allow the air molecules to pass in at the rate of 1,000,000 a second, the bulb will become full of air in approximately 100,000,000 years.
In Lecture (1936) on 'Forty Years of Atomic Theory', collected in Needham and Pagel (eds.) in Background to Modern Science: Ten Lectures at Cambridge Arranged by the History of Science Committee, (1938), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Approximate (25)  |  Atomic Size (2)  |  Become (821)  |  Bulb (10)  |  Electric (76)  |  Hole (17)  |  Light (635)  |  Light Bulb (6)  |  Million (124)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Pass (241)  |  Rate (31)  |  Second (66)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: Pierre de Fermat: I just don’t have room here to give the full explanation.
Anonymous
[Note: Pierre de Fermat is famous for an enigmatic marginal note in his notebook, “I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.”]
Science quotes on:  |  Chicken (12)  |  Cross (20)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Pierre de Fermat (15)  |  Give (208)  |  Joke (90)  |  Road (71)  |  Room (42)  |  Why (491)

~~[Atrributed]~~ I’m sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It’s just been too intelligent to come here.
Webmaster doubts the authenticity of this quote. It is all over the web, without any source cited. So far, in books available to search, the earliest instance of the quote Webmaster finds is 2003, also with no source, in New Scientist (2003), 177, 53. If this was an authentic quote, wouldn't it show up somewhere before that, with a source, since he died in 2008? Perhaps it is a paraphrase, or from an interview. Can you help?
Science quotes on:  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Life (1870)  |  Universe (900)

A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.
In The Sense of Wonder (1956, 1998), 54.
Science quotes on:  |  Adult (24)  |  Awe (43)  |  Awe-Inspiring (3)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Child (333)  |  Clear (111)  |  Dim (11)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Lose (165)  |  Misfortune (13)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Reach (286)  |  True (239)  |  Vision (127)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

A few drops of science will often disinfect an entire barrel full of ignorance and prejudice.
In The Story of America (1921, 1934)
Science quotes on:  |  Barrel (5)  |  Disinfect (2)  |  Drop (77)  |  Entire (50)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Will (2350)

Access to more information isn’t enough—the information needs to be correct, timely, and presented in a manner that enables the reader to learn from it. The current network is full of inaccurate, misleading, and biased information that often crowds out the valid information. People have not learned that “popular” or “available” information is not necessarily valid.
Response to the Pew Research Center survey question, “Is Google making us stupid?” Posted 19 Feb 2010 on page 'Future of the Internet IV' at pewinternet.org website.
Science quotes on:  |  Access (21)  |  Available (80)  |  Bias (22)  |  Correct (95)  |  Current (122)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enough (341)  |  Google (4)  |  Inaccurate (4)  |  Information (173)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Manner (62)  |  Misleading (21)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Need (320)  |  Network (21)  |  People (1031)  |  Popular (34)  |  Present (630)  |  Reader (42)  |  Timely (3)  |  Valid (12)

All the Universe is full of the life of perfect creatures.
In The Scientific Ethics (1930), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Creature (242)  |  Life (1870)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Universe (900)

An informed appraisal of life absolutely require(s) a full understanding of life’s arena–the universe. … By deepening our understanding of the true nature of physical reality, we profoundly reconfigure our sense of ourselves and our experience of the universe.
In The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (2007), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Appraisal (2)  |  Arena (4)  |  Deepen (6)  |  Experience (494)  |  Inform (50)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physical (518)  |  Profoundly (13)  |  Reality (274)  |  Require (229)  |  Sense (785)  |  True (239)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)

And now, as a germination of planetary dimensions, comes the thinking layer which over its full extent develops and intertwines its fibres, not to confuse and neutralise them but to reinforce them in the living unity of a single tissue.
In Teilhard de Chardin and Bernard Wall (trans.), The Phenomenon of Man (1959, 2008), 244. Originally published in French as Le Phénomene Humain (1955).
Science quotes on:  |  Confuse (22)  |  Develop (278)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fibre (6)  |  Germination (3)  |  Intertwine (4)  |  Layer (41)  |  Living (492)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Reinforce (5)  |  Single (365)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Unity (81)

And yet I think that the Full House model does teach us to treasure variety for its own sake–for tough reasons of evolutionary theory and nature’s ontology, and not from a lamentable failure of thought that accepts all beliefs on the absurd rationale that disagreement must imply disrespect. Excellence is a range of differences, not a spot. Each location on the range can be occupied by an excellent or an inadequate representative– and we must struggle for excellence at each of these varied locations. In a society driven, of ten unconsciously, to impose a uniform mediocrity upon a former richness of excellence–where McDonald’s drives out the local diner, and the mega-Stop & Shop eliminates the corner Mom and Pop–an understanding and defense of full ranges as natural reality might help to stem the tide and preserve the rich raw material of any evolving system: variation itself.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Accept (198)  |  Belief (615)  |  Corner (59)  |  Defense (26)  |  Difference (355)  |  Disagreement (14)  |  Disrespect (3)  |  Drive (61)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Failure (176)  |  Former (138)  |  Help (116)  |  House (143)  |  Imply (20)  |  Impose (22)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  Lamentable (5)  |  Local (25)  |  Location (15)  |  Material (366)  |  Mediocrity (8)  |  Model (106)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Pop (2)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Range (104)  |  Rationale (8)  |  Raw (28)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Representative (14)  |  Rich (66)  |  Richness (15)  |  Sake (61)  |  Shop (11)  |  Society (350)  |  Spot (19)  |  Stem (31)  |  Struggle (111)  |  System (545)  |  Teach (299)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tide (37)  |  Tough (22)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Unconsciously (9)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Uniform (20)  |  Variation (93)  |  Variety (138)  |  Vary (27)

Antiessentialist thinking forces us to view the world differently. We must accept shadings and continua as fundamental. We lose criteria for judgment by comparison to some ideal: short people, retarded people, people of other beliefs, colors, and religions are people of full status.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Belief (615)  |  Color (155)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Continua (3)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Differently (4)  |  Force (497)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Lose (165)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Religion (369)  |  Retarded (5)  |  Short (200)  |  Status (35)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  View (496)  |  World (1850)

Archimedes … had stated that given the force, any given weight might be moved, and even boasted, we are told, relying on the strength of demonstration, that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this. Hiero being struck with amazement at this, and entreating him to make good this problem by actual experiment, and show some great weight moved by a small engine, he fixed accordingly upon a ship of burden out of the king’s arsenal, which could not be drawn out of the dock without great labor and many men; and, loading her with many passengers and a full freight, sitting himself the while far off with no great endeavor, but only holding the head of the pulley in his hand and drawing the cords by degrees, he drew the ship in a straight line, as smoothly and evenly, as if she had been in the sea. The king, astonished at this, and convinced of the power of the art, prevailed upon Archimedes to make him engines accommodated to all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of a siege. … the apparatus was, in most opportune time, ready at hand for the Syracusans, and with it also the engineer himself.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodate (17)  |  According (236)  |  Actual (118)  |  Amazement (19)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Arsenal (5)  |  Art (680)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonished (10)  |  At Hand (7)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boast (22)  |  Burden (30)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Cord (3)  |  Defensive (2)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Engine (99)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Far (158)  |  Fix (34)  |  Force (497)  |  Freight (3)  |  Give (208)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hand (149)  |  Head (87)  |  Hiero (2)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hold (96)  |  King (39)  |  Labor (200)  |  Load (12)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Offensive (4)  |  Passenger (10)  |  Power (771)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pulley (2)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Ready (43)  |  Rely (12)  |  Remove (50)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Show (353)  |  Siege (2)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Small (489)  |  Smoothly (2)  |  State (505)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strike (72)  |  Syracuse (5)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weight (140)

Even as a coin attains its full value when it is spent, so life attains its supreme value when one knows how to forfeit it with grace when the time comes.
In The Crystal Arrow: Essays on Literature, Travel, Art, Love, and the History of Medicine (1964), 436.
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Coin (13)  |  Forfeit (2)  |  Grace (31)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Spending (24)  |  Spent (85)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Time (1911)  |  Value (393)

Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve … You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 253
Science quotes on:  |  Anybody (42)  |  College (71)  |  Degree (277)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Generate (16)  |  Grace (31)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Love (328)  |  Need (320)  |  Serve (64)  |  Soul (235)

Have you ever watched an eagle held captive in a zoo, fat and plump and full of food and safe from danger too?
Then have you seen another wheeling high up in the sky, thin and hard and battle-scarred, but free to soar and fly?
Well, which have you pitied the caged one or his brother? Though safe and warm from foe or storm, the captive, not the other!
There’s something of the eagle in climbers, don’t you see; a secret thing, perhaps the soul, that clamors to be free.
It’s a different sort of freedom from the kind we often mean, not free to work and eat and sleep and live in peace serene.
But freedom like a wild thing to leap and soar and strive, to struggle with the icy blast, to really be alive.
That’s why we climb the mountain’s peak from which the cloud-veils flow, to stand and watch the eagle fly, and soar, and wheel... below...
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Below (26)  |  Blast (13)  |  Brother (47)  |  Cage (12)  |  Captive (2)  |  Climb (39)  |  Climber (7)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Danger (127)  |  Different (595)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Eat (108)  |  Fat (11)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fly (153)  |  Foe (11)  |  Food (213)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Hard (246)  |  High (370)  |  Hold (96)  |  Icy (3)  |  Kind (564)  |  Leap (57)  |  Live (650)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Often (109)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peace (116)  |  Peak (20)  |  Pity (16)  |  Really (77)  |  Safe (61)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Serene (5)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Soar (23)  |  Something (718)  |  Sort (50)  |  Soul (235)  |  Stand (284)  |  Storm (56)  |  Strive (53)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Thin (18)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Veil (27)  |  Warm (74)  |  Watch (118)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Wheeling (3)  |  Why (491)  |  Wild (96)  |  Work (1402)  |  Zoo (9)

He made an instrument to know If the moon shine at full or no;
That would, as soon as e’er she shone straight,
Whether ‘twere day or night demonstrate;
Tell what her d’ameter to an inch is,
And prove that she’s not made of green cheese.
Science quotes on:  |  Cheese (10)  |  Day (43)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Green (65)  |  Inch (10)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Know (1538)  |  Moon (252)  |  Night (133)  |  Prove (261)  |  Shine (49)  |  Soon (187)  |  Straight (75)  |  Tell (344)

I can see him [Sylvester] now, with his white beard and few locks of gray hair, his forehead wrinkled o’er with thoughts, writing rapidly his figures and formulae on the board, sometimes explaining as he wrote, while we, his listeners, caught the reflected sounds from the board. But stop, something is not right, he pauses, his hand goes to his forehead to help his thought, he goes over the work again, emphasizes the leading points, and finally discovers his difficulty. Perhaps it is some error in his figures, perhaps an oversight in the reasoning. Sometimes, however, the difficulty is not elucidated, and then there is not much to the rest of the lecture. But at the next lecture we would hear of some new discovery that was the outcome of that difficulty, and of some article for the Journal, which he had begun. If a text-book had been taken up at the beginning, with the intention of following it, that text-book was most likely doomed to oblivion for the rest of the term, or until the class had been made listeners to every new thought and principle that had sprung from the laboratory of his mind, in consequence of that first difficulty. Other difficulties would soon appear, so that no text-book could last more than half of the term. In this way his class listened to almost all of the work that subsequently appeared in the Journal. It seemed to be the quality of his mind that he must adhere to one subject. He would think about it, talk about it to his class, and finally write about it for the Journal. The merest accident might start him, but once started, every moment, every thought was given to it, and, as much as possible, he read what others had done in the same direction; but this last seemed to be his real point; he could not read without finding difficulties in the way of understanding the author. Thus, often his own work reproduced what had been done by others, and he did not find it out until too late.
A notable example of this is in his theory of cyclotomic functions, which he had reproduced in several foreign journals, only to find that he had been greatly anticipated by foreign authors. It was manifest, one of the critics said, that the learned professor had not read Rummer’s elementary results in the theory of ideal primes. Yet Professor Smith’s report on the theory of numbers, which contained a full synopsis of Kummer’s theory, was Professor Sylvester’s constant companion.
This weakness of Professor Sylvester, in not being able to read what others had done, is perhaps a concomitant of his peculiar genius. Other minds could pass over little difficulties and not be troubled by them, and so go on to a final understanding of the results of the author. But not so with him. A difficulty, however small, worried him, and he was sure to have difficulties until the subject had been worked over in his own way, to correspond with his own mode of thought. To read the work of others, meant therefore to him an almost independent development of it. Like the man whose pleasure in life is to pioneer the way for society into the forests, his rugged mind could derive satisfaction only in hewing out its own paths; and only when his efforts brought him into the uncleared fields of mathematics did he find his place in the Universe.
In Florian Cajori, Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 266-267.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Adhere (3)  |  Anticipate (20)  |  Appear (122)  |  Article (22)  |  Author (175)  |  Beard (8)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Board (13)  |  Book (413)  |  Bring (95)  |  Class (168)  |  Companion (22)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contain (68)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Critic (21)  |  Derive (70)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doom (34)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Elucidate (4)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Error (339)  |  Example (98)  |  Explain (334)  |  Field (378)  |  Figure (162)  |  Final (121)  |  Finally (26)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forehead (3)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Forest (161)  |  Formula (102)  |  Function (235)  |  Genius (301)  |  Give (208)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Hair (25)  |  Half (63)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hear (144)  |  Help (116)  |  Hew (3)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intention (46)  |  Journal (31)  |  Ernst Eduard Kummer (3)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Last (425)  |  Late (119)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Likely (36)  |  Listen (81)  |  Listener (7)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mere (86)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mode (43)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Notable (6)  |  Number (710)  |  Oblivion (10)  |  Often (109)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outcome (15)  |  Oversight (4)  |  Pass (241)  |  Path (159)  |  Pause (6)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Place (192)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Prime (11)  |  Principle (530)  |  Professor (133)  |  Quality (139)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Read (308)  |  Real (159)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Report (42)  |  Reproduce (12)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Rugged (7)  |  Rum (3)  |  Same (166)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Several (33)  |  Small (489)  |  Smith (3)  |  Society (350)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spring (140)  |  Start (237)  |  Stop (89)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subsequently (2)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Synopsis (2)  |  Talk (108)  |  Term (357)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Numbers (7)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weakness (50)  |  White (132)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worry (34)  |  Wrinkle (4)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

I think there is something more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren’t enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Ahead (21)  |  Arent (6)  |  Begin (275)  |  Belief (615)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Dreamer (14)  |  Enough (341)  |  Important (229)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Something (718)  |  Step (234)  |  Think (1122)  |  Vision (127)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

I think understanding animals enriches your pleasure, finding out how to understand them is the great pleasure. I never stop reading books about man and animals; they’re always full of interesting stuff. I’ll turn the page and my eyes will be popping out.
Speaking at the launch of “David Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities” on Watch, the BBC TV channel (2 Feb 2015). As quoted in 'Sir David Attenborough Shocked By Rat on the Toilet' on femalefirst.co.uk website.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Book (413)  |  Enrich (27)  |  Eye (440)  |  Finding Out (6)  |  Great (1610)  |  Interest (416)  |  Man And Animals (7)  |  Page (35)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Read (308)  |  Stop (89)  |  Stuff (24)  |  Turn (454)  |  Understand (648)

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)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Five (16)  |  Friend (180)  |  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 there ever was a misnomer, it is “exact science.” Science has always been full of mistakes. The present day is no exception. And our mistakes are good mistakes; they require a genius to correct. Of course, we do not see our own mistakes.
In Edward Teller, Wendy Teller and Wilson Talley, Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics (1991, 2013), 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Correction (42)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exact Science (11)  |  Exactness (29)  |  Exception (74)  |  Genius (301)  |  Good (906)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Present (630)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)

In a nutshell, the universe is 4% visible, 23% undetectable and 73% unimaginable. Welcome to the cosmos, full of mass you can measure but not manhandle, driven by a force you can infer but not explain.
In 'Dark Side of Creation', The Guardian (12 Feb 2004).
Science quotes on:  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Drive (61)  |  Explain (334)  |  Force (497)  |  Infer (12)  |  Mass (160)  |  Measure (241)  |  Nutshell (3)  |  Undetectable (3)  |  Unimaginable (7)  |  Universe (900)  |  Visible (87)  |  Welcome (20)

It is characteristic of science that the full explanations are often seized in their essence by the percipient scientist long in advance of any possible proof.
The Origin of Life, 1967
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Essence (85)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Long (778)  |  Often (109)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proof (304)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seize (18)

It is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany: all nature is so full, that that district produces the greatest variety which is the most examined.
Letter XX to Thomas Pennant (8 Oct 1768), in The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Botany (63)  |  District (11)  |  Examination (102)  |  Find (1014)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Production (190)  |  Variety (138)  |  Zoology (38)

Like the ski resort full of girls hunting for husbands and husbands hunting for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.
In lecture at Birkbeck College, University of London, quoted in Alan L. MacKay, A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991), 160.
Science quotes on:  |  Girl (38)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Hunting (23)  |  Husband (13)  |  Resort (8)  |  Seem (150)  |  Situation (117)  |  Symmetrical (3)

Man is a small thing, and the night is large and full of wonder.
In Plays of Gods and Men (1917), 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Large (398)  |  Man (2252)  |  Night (133)  |  Small (489)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Wonder (251)

Man is full of desires: he loves only those who can satisfy them all. “This man is a good mathematician,” someone will say. But I have no concern for mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. “That one is a good soldier.” He would take me for a besieged town. I need, that is to say, a decent man who can accommodate himself to all my desires in a general sort of way.
From Pensées (1670), Sect. 6, Aphorism 18. As translated in W.H. Auden and L. Kronenberger (eds.) The Viking Book of Aphorisms (1966), 199. From the original French, “L’homme est plein de besoins: il n’aime que ceux qui peuvent les remplir tous. ‘C’est un bon mathématicien,’ dira-t-on. Mais je n’ai que faire de mathématiques; il me prendroit pour une proposition. ‘C’est un bon guerrier.’ Il me prendroit pour une place assiégée. Il faut donc un honnête homme qui puisse s’accommoder à tous mes besoins généralement,” in Oeuvres Complètes de Blaise Pascal (1858), Vol. 1, 276.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodate (17)  |  Besiege (2)  |  Concern (239)  |  Decent (12)  |  Desire (212)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Need (320)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Say (989)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Town (30)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

Mathematics gives the young man a clear idea of demonstration and habituates him to form long trains of thought and reasoning methodically connected and sustained by the final certainty of the result; and it has the further advantage, from a purely moral point of view, of inspiring an absolute and fanatical respect for truth. In addition to all this, mathematics, and chiefly algebra and infinitesimal calculus, excite to a high degree the conception of the signs and symbols—necessary instruments to extend the power and reach of the human mind by summarizing an aggregate of relations in a condensed form and in a kind of mechanical way. These auxiliaries are of special value in mathematics because they are there adequate to their definitions, a characteristic which they do not possess to the same degree in the physical and mathematical [natural?] sciences.
There are, in fact, a mass of mental and moral faculties that can be put in full play only by instruction in mathematics; and they would be made still more available if the teaching was directed so as to leave free play to the personal work of the student.
In 'Science as an Instrument of Education', Popular Science Monthly (1897), 253.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Addition (70)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Auxiliary (11)  |  Available (80)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Clear (111)  |  Conception (160)  |  Condense (15)  |  Connect (126)  |  Definition (238)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Excite (17)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fanatical (3)  |  Far (158)  |  Final (121)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Give (208)  |  Habituate (3)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Kind (564)  |  Leave (138)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mental (179)  |  Methodically (2)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Personal (75)  |  Physical (518)  |  Play (116)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Relation (166)  |  Respect (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Sign (63)  |  Special (188)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Summarize (10)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  Young (253)

Myriad small ponds and streams would reflect the full glare of the sun for one or two seconds, then fade away as a new set of water surfaces came into the reflecting position. The effect was as if the land were covered with sparkling jewels.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Cover (40)  |  Effect (414)  |  Fade (12)  |  Glare (3)  |  Jewel (10)  |  Land (131)  |  Myriad (32)  |  New (1273)  |  Pond (17)  |  Position (83)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Second (66)  |  Set (400)  |  Small (489)  |  Sparkle (8)  |  Sparkling (7)  |  Stream (83)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Two (936)  |  Water (503)

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.
In Journal, (5 Jan 1856). In Henry David Thoreau and Odell Shepard (ed.), The Heart of Thoreau’s Journals (1927), 227.
Science quotes on:  |  Divinity (23)  |  Escape (85)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Genius (301)  |  Hand (149)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Snowflake (15)

Newton could not admit that there was any difference between him and other men, except in the possession of such habits as … perseverance and vigilance. When he was asked how he made his discoveries, he answered, “by always thinking about them;” and at another time he declared that if he had done anything, it was due to nothing but industry and patient thought: “I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light.”
In History of the Inductive Sciences, Bk. 7, chap, 1, sect. 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Admit (49)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Clear (111)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Declare (48)  |  Declared (24)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Due (143)  |  First (1302)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Habit (174)  |  Industry (159)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Keep (104)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Patient (209)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Possession (68)  |  Subject (543)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vigilance (5)  |  Wait (66)

On the way back [from the moon] we had an EVA [extra-vehicular activity, or spacewalk] I had a chance to look around while I was outside and Earth was off to the right, 180,000 miles away, a little thin sliver of blue and white like a new moon surrounded by this blackness of space. Back over my left shoulder was almost a full moon. I didn’t feel like I was a participant. It was like sitting in the last row of the balcony, looking down at all of that play going on down there. I had that insignificant feeling of the immensity of this, God’s creation.
Reflecting on his participation on the Apollo 16 moon mission. Contributed to Kevin W. Kelley (ed.), The Home Planet (1988), unpaginated, with photo 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Back (395)  |  Balcony (2)  |  Blackness (4)  |  Blue (63)  |  Chance (244)  |  Creation (350)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  God (776)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Last (425)  |  Leave (138)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mile (43)  |  Moon (252)  |  New (1273)  |  Outside (141)  |  Participant (6)  |  Play (116)  |  Right (473)  |  Row (9)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Sliver (2)  |  Space (523)  |  Surround (33)  |  Thin (18)  |  Way (1214)  |  White (132)

One cannot ignore half of life for the purposes of science, and then claim that the results of science give a full and adequate picture of the meaning of life. All discussions of “life” which begin with a description of man's place on a speck of matter in space, in an endless evolutionary scale, are bound to be half-measures, because they leave out most of the experiences which are important to use as human beings.
In Religion and the Rebel (1957), 309.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Begin (275)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bound (120)  |  Claim (154)  |  Description (89)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Endless (60)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Important (229)  |  Leave Out (2)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meaning Of Life (2)  |  Measure (241)  |  Most (1728)  |  Picture (148)  |  Place (192)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Result (700)  |  Scale (122)  |  Space (523)  |  Speck (25)  |  Use (771)

Orthodoxy can be as stubborn in science as in religion. I do not know how to shake it except by vigorous imagination that inspires unconventional work and contains within itself an elevated potential for inspired error. As the great Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto wrote: ‘Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.’ Not to mention a man named Thomas Henry Huxley who, when not in the throes of grief or the wars of parson hunting, argued that ‘irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.’
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Argue (25)  |  Burst (41)  |  Contain (68)  |  Correction (42)  |  Do (1905)  |  Economist (20)  |  Elevate (15)  |  Error (339)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Give (208)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grief (20)  |  Harmful (13)  |  Hold (96)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Hunting (23)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Italian (13)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mention (84)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  Orthodoxy (11)  |   Vilfredo Pareto, (5)  |  Parson (3)  |  Potential (75)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Seed (97)  |  Shake (43)  |  Sterile (24)  |  Stubborn (14)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unconventional (4)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  War (233)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)

People who wouldn’t think of talking with their mouths full often speak with their heads empty.
In Wolfgang Mieder, Wolfgang Mieder, Stewart A. Kingsbury (eds.), A Dictionary of American Proverbs (1992), 472.
Science quotes on:  |  Communication (101)  |  Empty (82)  |  Head (87)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Often (109)  |  People (1031)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Speak (240)  |  Talk (108)  |  Talking (76)  |  Think (1122)

Perhaps five or even ten per cent of men can do something rather well. It is a tiny minority who can do anything really well, and the number of men who can do two things well is negligible. If a man has any genuine talent, he should be ready to make almost any sacrifice in order to cultivate it to the full.
In A Mathematician's Apology (1940, 2012), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Do (1905)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Man (2252)  |  Minority (24)  |  Negligible (5)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Ready (43)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Something (718)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Two (936)

Science and religion are in full accord, but science and faith are in complete discord.
In The Kahlil Gibran Reader: Inspirational Writings (2006), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  Complete (209)  |  Discord (10)  |  Faith (209)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)

Sir Hiram Maxim is a genuine and typical example of the man of science, romantic, excitable, full of real but somewhat obvious poetry, a little hazy in logic and philosophy, but full of hearty enthusiasm and an honorable simplicity. He is, as he expresses it, “an old and trained engineer,” and is like all of the old and trained engineers I have happened to come across, a man who indemnifies himself for the superhuman or inhuman concentration required for physical science by a vague and dangerous romanticism about everything else.
In G.K. Chesterton, 'The Maxims of Maxim', Daily News (25 Feb 1905). Collected in G. K. Chesterton and Dale Ahlquist (ed.), In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton (2011), 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Danger (127)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Else (4)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Everything (489)  |  Example (98)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Expression (181)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Hearty (3)  |  Himself (461)  |  Honorable (14)  |  Honour (58)  |  Indemnification (2)  |  Inhuman (4)  |  Little (717)  |  Logic (311)  |  Man (2252)  |  Sir Hiram Maxim (4)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Old (499)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Real (159)  |  Required (108)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Romance (18)  |  Romantic (13)  |  Romanticism (5)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Superhuman (6)  |  Train (118)  |  Training (92)  |  Typical (16)  |  Vague (50)  |  Vagueness (15)

Some of the scientists, I believe, haven’t they been changing their opinion a little bit on global warming? There’s a lot of differing opinions and before we react I think it’s best to have the full accounting, full understanding of what’s taking place.
Presidential Debate (2000). In Historic Documents of 2000 (2001), 823.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Best (467)  |  Changing (7)  |  Differing (2)  |  Global (39)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  Little (717)  |  Lot (151)  |  Opinion (291)  |  React (7)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Warming (24)

Talent is full of thoughts; genius, of thought. One has definite acquisitions; the other, indefinite power.
In 'Genius', Wellman’s Miscellany (Dec 1871), 4, No. 6, 203.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Definite (114)  |  Genius (301)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Talent (99)  |  Thought (995)

The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Aware (36)  |  Clever (41)  |  Competent (20)  |  Fully (20)  |  Humility (31)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Plague (42)  |  Programmer (5)  |  Size (62)  |  Skull (5)  |  Task (152)  |  Trick (36)

The desire to fly after the fashion of the birds is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air.
In The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright: Including the Chanute-Wright Letters (1953), 934.
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Air (366)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Bird (163)  |  Desire (212)  |  Down (455)  |  Fly (153)  |  Freely (13)  |  Grueling (2)  |  Handed Down (2)  |  Highway (15)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Land (131)  |  Look (584)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Prehistoric (12)  |  Soar (23)  |  Soaring (9)  |  Space (523)  |  Speed (66)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trackless (2)  |  Travel (125)

The Earth obey’d and straight
Op’ning her fertile womb, teem’d at a birth Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limb’d and full grown.
From 'Paradise Lost', Book 7, collected in Edward Hawkins (ed.), The Poetical Works of John Milton (1824), Vol. 2, 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Birth (154)  |  Creature (242)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Form (976)  |  Grow (247)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Obey (46)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Straight (75)  |  Womb (25)

The Excellence of Modern Geometry is in nothing more evident, than in those full and adequate Solutions it gives to Problems; representing all possible Cases in one view, and in one general Theorem many times comprehending whole Sciences; which deduced at length into Propositions, and demonstrated after the manner of the Ancients, might well become the subjects of large Treatises: For whatsoever Theorem solves the most complicated Problem of the kind, does with a due Reduction reach all the subordinate Cases.
In 'An Instance of the Excellence of Modern Algebra, etc', Philosophical Transactions, 1694, 960.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Become (821)  |  Case (102)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Due (143)  |  Evident (92)  |  Excellence (40)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Length (24)  |  Manner (62)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Possible (560)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Represent (157)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Solve (145)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subordinate (11)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatise (46)  |  View (496)  |  Whatsoever (41)  |  Whole (756)

The facts of the present won’t sit still for a portrait. They are constantly vibrating, full of clutter and confusion.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Clutter (6)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Portrait (5)  |  Present (630)  |  Sit (51)  |  Still (614)  |  Vibrate (7)

The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 27
Science quotes on:  |  Badly (32)  |  Hole (17)  |  Secular (11)  |  World (1850)

The Universe is full of peculiar coincidences.
As given in an epigraph, without citation, in David M. Harland (ed.), The Big Bang: A View from the 21st Century (2003), ix. Webmaster has not yet been able to verify its source. If you know the primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Universe (900)

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Apparently apocryphal. Although found widely quoted, Webmaster has as yet not found when or where he is purported to have uttered these exact words. Webmaster believes the idea may have existed as an aphorism that predates Russell. (If you know the primary source, please make contact.)
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Fanatic (7)  |  Fool (121)  |  People (1031)  |  Problem (731)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wise (143)  |  World (1850)

The world is full of signals that we don’t perceive. Tiny creatures live in a different world of unfamiliar forces. Many animals of our scale greatly exceed our range of perception for sensations familiar to us ... What an imperceptive lot we are. Surrounded by so much, so fascinating and so real, that we do not see (hear, smell, touch, taste) in nature, yet so gullible and so seduced by claims for novel power that we mistake the tricks of mediocre magicians for glimpses of a psychic world beyond our ken. The paranormal may be a fantasy; it is certainly a haven for charlatans. But ‘parahuman’ powers of perception lie all about us in birds, bees, and bacteria.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bacterium (6)  |  Bee (44)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bird (163)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Charlatan (8)  |  Claim (154)  |  Creature (242)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exceed (10)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Force (497)  |  Glimpse (16)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Haven (3)  |  Hear (144)  |  Ken (2)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  Lot (151)  |  Magician (15)  |  Mediocre (14)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Novel (35)  |  Paranormal (3)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Perception (97)  |  Power (771)  |  Psychic (15)  |  Range (104)  |  Real (159)  |  Scale (122)  |  Seduce (4)  |  See (1094)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Signal (29)  |  Smell (29)  |  Surround (33)  |  Taste (93)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Touch (146)  |  Trick (36)  |  Unfamiliar (17)  |  World (1850)

The world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
In 'Happy Thought', in A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Happiness (126)  |  Happy (108)  |  King (39)  |  Number (710)  |  Research (753)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

The world is so full of wonderful things we should all, if we were taught how to appreciate it, be far richer than kings.
In Growing Young (1989), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciate (67)  |  King (39)  |  Rich (66)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

There are dark, hard, cherty silt-stones from some deep ocean trench full of rapidly accumulating Pennsylvanian guck.
In Basin and Range (1981), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deep (241)  |  Hard (246)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Stone (168)  |  Trench (6)

This [the fact that the pursuit of mathematics brings into harmonious action all the faculties of the human mind] accounts for the extraordinary longevity of all the greatest masters of the Analytic art, the Dii Majores of the mathematical Pantheon. Leibnitz lived to the age of 70; Euler to 76; Lagrange to 77; Laplace to 78; Gauss to 78; Plato, the supposed inventor of the conic sections, who made mathematics his study and delight, who called them the handles or aids to philosophy, the medicine of the soul, and is said never to have let a day go by without inventing some new theorems, lived to 82; Newton, the crown and glory of his race, to 85; Archimedes, the nearest akin, probably, to Newton in genius, was 75, and might have lived on to be 100, for aught we can guess to the contrary, when he was slain by the impatient and ill mannered sergeant, sent to bring him before the Roman general, in the full vigour of his faculties, and in the very act of working out a problem; Pythagoras, in whose school, I believe, the word mathematician (used, however, in a somewhat wider than its present sense) originated, the second founder of geometry, the inventor of the matchless theorem which goes by his name, the pre-cognizer of the undoubtedly mis-called Copernican theory, the discoverer of the regular solids and the musical canon who stands at the very apex of this pyramid of fame, (if we may credit the tradition) after spending 22 years studying in Egypt, and 12 in Babylon, opened school when 56 or 57 years old in Magna Græcia, married a young wife when past 60, and died, carrying on his work with energy unspent to the last, at the age of 99. The mathematician lives long and lives young; the wings of his soul do not early drop off, nor do its pores become clogged with the earthy particles blown from the dusty highways of vulgar life.
In Presidential Address to the British Association, Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2 (1908), 658.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Age (509)  |  Aid (101)  |  Akin (5)  |  Analytic (11)  |  Apex (6)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Art (680)  |  Aught (6)  |  Babylon (7)  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Blow (45)  |  Bring (95)  |  Call (781)  |  Called (9)  |  Canon (3)  |  Carry (130)  |  Clog (5)  |  Conic Section (8)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Copernican Theory (3)  |  Credit (24)  |  Crown (39)  |  Delight (111)  |  Die (94)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dusty (8)  |  Early (196)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Energy (373)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fame (51)  |  Founder (26)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  General (521)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Glory (66)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Guess (67)  |  Handle (29)  |  Harmonious (18)  |  Highway (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Impatient (4)  |  Invent (57)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Last (425)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Let (64)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Longevity (6)  |  Manner (62)  |  Marry (11)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Musical (10)  |  Name (359)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Old (499)  |  Open (277)  |  Originate (39)  |  Pantheon (2)  |  Particle (200)  |  Past (355)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plato (80)  |  Pore (7)  |  Present (630)  |  Probably (50)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Pyramid (9)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Race (278)  |  Regular (48)  |  Roman (39)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Second (66)  |  Send (23)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sergeant (2)  |  Solid (119)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spending (24)  |  Stand (284)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Undoubtedly (3)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wife (41)  |  Wing (79)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.
'A Meditation Upon a Broom-stick: According to The Style and Manner of the Honorable Robert Boyle's Meditations' (1703), collected in 'Thoughts On Various Subjects', The Works of Jonathan Swift (1746), Vol. 1, 55-56.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Art (680)  |  Behold (19)  |  Best (467)  |  Bough (10)  |  Bundle (7)  |  Busy (32)  |  Corner (59)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Flourishing (6)  |  Forest (161)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Lying (55)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Pretend (18)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Root (121)  |  Sap (5)  |  Single (365)  |  State (505)  |  Stick (27)  |  Tree (269)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turned (2)  |  Twig (15)  |  Tying (2)  |  Upside Down (8)  |  Vain (86)

Thursday, May 30 [1912]. This morning at 3:15, Wilbur passed away, aged 45 years, 1 month, and 14 days. A short life, full of consequences. An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great selfreliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadily, he lived and died. Many called - many telegrams. (Probably over a thousand.)
From Milton’s handwritten Diary entry for Thur, 30 May 1912.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Call (781)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Death (406)  |  Die (94)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Modesty (18)  |  Month (91)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Right (473)  |  Short (200)  |  Steadily (7)  |  Telegram (5)  |  Temper (12)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Unfailing (6)  |  Wilbur Wright (14)  |  Year (963)

To him who devotes his life to science, nothing can give more happiness than increasing the number of discoveries, but his cup of joy is full when the results of his studies immediately find practical applications.
As quoted in René J. Dubos, Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science (1960, 1986), 85.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Devote (45)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Find (1014)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Increase (225)  |  Joy (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Practical (225)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Study (701)

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Design (203)  |  Empty (82)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Glass (94)  |  Need (320)  |  Optimist (8)  |  Pessimist (7)

Tonight, the moon came out, it was nearly full.
Way down here on earth, I could feel it’s pull.
The weight of gravity or just the lure of life,
Made me want to leave my only home tonight.
I’m just wondering how we know where we belong
Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn
In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn
Singing in between here and gone
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Arc (14)  |  Belong (168)  |  Bird (163)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Feel (371)  |  Firefly (8)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Home (184)  |  In Between (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lawn (5)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lure (9)  |  Moon (252)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Path (159)  |  Pull (43)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Sing (29)  |  Singing (19)  |  Single (365)  |  Tonight (9)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)  |  Wonder (251)

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Charm (54)  |  End (603)  |  Eye (440)  |  Live (650)  |  Open (277)  |  Seek (218)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

We modern chemists, the witnesses and workers of this “Age of Chemistry,” can learn something from the old alchemy, full as it was of errors and fantasies! … Let the Past furnish us a warning against too much phantasy in modern chemistry.
From 'What Can the Modern Chemist Learn From the Old Alchemy?', Introductory Lecture (1917), delivered at Cornell University, written in German, translated by L.F. Audrieth, and published in Salts, Acids, and Bases: Electrolytes Stereochemistry (1929), 1-2, as Vol. 4 of the George Fisher Baker Non-Resident Lectureship in Chemistry at Cornell University.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Age (509)  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Error (339)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Learn (672)  |  Modern (402)  |  Old (499)  |  Past (355)  |  Something (718)  |  Warning (18)  |  Witness (57)  |  Worker (34)

We spend our years as a tale that is told, but the tale varies in a hundred different ways, varies between man and man, between year and year, between youth and age, sorrow and joy, laughter and tears. How different the story of the child’s year from the man’s; how much longer it seems; how far apart seem the vacations, and the Christmases, and the New Years! But let the child become a man, and he will find that he can tell full fast enough these stories of a year; that if he is disposed to make good use of them he has no hours to wish away; the plot develops very rapidly, and the conclusion gallops on the very heels of that first chapter which records the birth of a new year.
In Edward Parsons Day (ed.), Day’s Collacon: An Encyclopaedia of Prose Quotations (1884), 1050.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Become (821)  |  Birth (154)  |  Chapter (11)  |  Child (333)  |  Christmas (13)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Develop (278)  |  Different (595)  |  Dispose (10)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fast (49)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Joy (117)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Longer (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  New (1273)  |  Plot (11)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Record (161)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Spend (97)  |  Story (122)  |  Tale (17)  |  Tear (48)  |  Tell (344)  |  Use (771)  |  Vacation (4)  |  Vary (27)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Year (963)  |  Youth (109)

We urgently need [the landmark National Ocean Policy] initiative, as we use our oceans heavily: Cargo ships crisscross the sea, carrying goods between continents. Commercial and recreational fishing boats chase fish just offshore. Cruise ships cruise. Oil and gas drilling continues, but hopefully we will add renewable energy projects as well. Without planning, however, these various industrial activities amount to what we call “ocean sprawl,” steamrolling the resources we rely upon for our livelihoods, food, fun, and even the air we breathe. While humankind relies on many of these industries, we also need to keep the natural riches that support them healthy and thriving. As an explorer, I know firsthand there are many places in the ocean so full of life that they should be protected.
In 'A Blueprint for Our Blue Home', Huffington Post (18 Jul 2011).
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Air (366)  |  Amount (153)  |  Boat (17)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Call (781)  |  Cargo (6)  |  Carry (130)  |  Chase (14)  |  Commercial (28)  |  Continent (79)  |  Continue (179)  |  Cruise (2)  |  Drill (12)  |  Energy (373)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Firsthand (2)  |  Fish (130)  |  Fishing (20)  |  Food (213)  |  Fun (42)  |  Gas (89)  |  Good (906)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Humankind (15)  |  Industry (159)  |  Initiative (17)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Landmark (9)  |  Life (1870)  |  Livelihood (13)  |  National (29)  |  Natural (810)  |  Need (320)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Offshore (3)  |  Oil (67)  |  Place (192)  |  Plan (122)  |  Planning (21)  |  Policy (27)  |  Project (77)  |  Protect (65)  |  Recreation (23)  |  Rely (12)  |  Renewable Energy (15)  |  Resource (74)  |  Rich (66)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Sprawl (2)  |  Support (151)  |  Thrive (22)  |  Urgent (15)  |  Use (771)  |  Various (205)  |  Will (2350)

What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft repeated, than the story of a large research program that impaled itself upon a false central assumption accepted by all practitioners? Do we regard all people who worked within such traditions as dishonorable fools? What of the scientists who assumed that the continents were stable, that the hereditary material was protein, or that all other galaxies lay within the Milky Way? These false and abandoned efforts were pursued with passion by brilliant and honorable scientists. How many current efforts, now commanding millions of research dollars and the full attention of many of our best scientists, will later be exposed as full failures based on false premises?
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Accept (198)  |  Assume (43)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Attention (196)  |  Base (120)  |  Best (467)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Central (81)  |  Command (60)  |  Continent (79)  |  Current (122)  |  Dishonorable (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dollar (22)  |  Effort (243)  |  Expose (28)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Failure (176)  |  False (105)  |  Fool (121)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Hereditary (7)  |  Honorable (14)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Large (398)  |  Late (119)  |  Lie (370)  |  Material (366)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Millions (17)  |  More (2558)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passion (121)  |  People (1031)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Practitioner (21)  |  Premise (40)  |  Program (57)  |  Protein (56)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Regard (312)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Stable (32)  |  Story (122)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
In 'The Poet and the City' (1962), collected in The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays (1965), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Company (63)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Duke (2)  |  Feel (371)  |  Find (1014)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Myself (211)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Shabby (2)  |  Stray (7)

Without adventure civilization is in full decay. ... The great fact [is] that in their day the great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past.
In Adventures of Ideas (1933), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Adventure (69)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Decay (59)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Great (1610)  |  Past (355)

Yesterday, a small white keel feather escaped from my goose and lodged in the bank boughs near the kitchen porch, where I spied it as I came home in the cold twilight. The minute I saw the feather, I was projected into May, knowing a barn swallow would be along to claim the prize and use it to decorate the front edge of its nest. Immediately, the December air seemed full of wings of swallows and the warmth of barns.
In 'Home-Coming' (10 Dec 1955), collected in Essays of E.B. White (1977), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Bank (31)  |  Barn (6)  |  Bough (10)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cold (115)  |  December (3)  |  Decorate (2)  |  Edge (51)  |  Feather (13)  |  Front (16)  |  Goose (13)  |  Home (184)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Kitchen (14)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Minute (129)  |  Nest (26)  |  Prize (13)  |  Project (77)  |  Saw (160)  |  Seem (150)  |  Small (489)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Use (771)  |  Warmth (21)  |  White (132)  |  Wing (79)  |  Yesterday (37)

You can prepare yourself for work. The paintings of the great masters, the compositions of great musicians, the sermons of great preachers, the policies of great statesmen, and the campaigns of great generals, do not spring full bloom from barren rock. … If you are a true student you will be more dissatisfied with yourself when you graduate than you are now.
From Cameron Prize Lecture (1928), delivered before the University of Edinburgh. As quoted in J.B. Collip 'Frederick Grant Banting, Discoverer of Insulin', The Scientific Monthly (May 1941), 52, No. 5, 473-474.
Science quotes on:  |  Barren (33)  |  Bloom (11)  |  Campaign (6)  |  Composition (86)  |  Dissatisfaction (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  General (521)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Great (1610)  |  Master (182)  |  More (2558)  |  Musician (23)  |  Painting (46)  |  Policy (27)  |  Preacher (13)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Rock (176)  |  Sermon (9)  |  Spring (140)  |  Statesman (20)  |  Student (317)  |  True (239)  |  Will (2350)  |  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.