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: “A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index G > Category: Gifted

Gifted Quotes (25 quotes)

[George] Uhlenbeck was a highly gifted physicist. One of his remarkable traits was he would read every issue of The Physical Review from cover to cover.
'The Physical Review Then and Now', in H. Henry Stroke, Physical Review: The First Hundred Years: a Selection of Seminal Papers and Commentaries, Vol. 1, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Gift (105)  |  Issue (46)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Review (27)

Epitaph of John Hunter
The Royal College of Surgeons of England have placed this tablet over the grave of Hunter, to record their admiration of his genius as a gifted interpreter of the Divine Power and Wisdom at work in the Laws of Organic Life, and their grateful veneration for his services to mankind as the Founder of Scientific Surgery.
Memorial brass in the floor of north aisle of Westminster Abbey, placed when Hunter's remains were reinterred there (28 Mar 1859). In Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1972), Vol. 6, 568.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  College (71)  |  Divine (112)  |   Epitaph (19)  |  Founder (26)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gift (105)  |  Grave (52)  |  Hunter (28)  |  John Hunter (8)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Organic (161)  |  Power (771)  |  Record (161)  |  Royal (56)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Service (110)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Tablet (6)  |  Westminster Abbey (2)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)

A fallacy entertained by many … is that any problem can be solved by gathering enough scientists and giving them enough money. To solve the problem of the common cold assemble a great institution, fill it with scientists and money, and soon we will have no more colds! It is folly to thus proceed. The great scientific steps forward originate in the minds of gifted scientists, not in the minds of promoters. The best way to proceed is to be sure that really inspired scientists have what they need to work with, and leave them alone
From a statement (21 Nov 1963) to the Select Committee on Government Research of the U.S. House of Representatives. Excerpted in 'Vannevar Bush Speaks', Science (27 Dec 1963), New Series, 142, No. 3600, 1623.
Science quotes on:  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Money (178)  |  Research (753)  |  Science And Government (5)

Although with the majority of those who study and practice in these capacities [engineers, builders, surveyors, geographers, navigators, hydrographers, astronomers], secondhand acquirements, trite formulas, and appropriate tables are sufficient for ordinary purposes, yet these trite formulas and familiar rules were originally or gradually deduced from the profound investigations of the most gifted minds, from the dawn of science to the present day. … The further developments of the science, with its possible applications to larger purposes of human utility and grander theoretical generalizations, is an achievement reserved for a few of the choicest spirits, touched from time to time by Heaven to these highest issues. The intellectual world is filled with latent and undiscovered truth as the material world is filled with latent electricity.
In Orations and Speeches, Vol. 3 (1870), 513.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Acquirement (3)  |  Application (257)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Builder (16)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Development (441)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Far (158)  |  Fill (67)  |  Formula (102)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Geographer (7)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Grand (29)  |  Heaven (266)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hydrographer (3)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Issue (46)  |  Large (398)  |  Latent (13)  |  Majority (68)  |  Material (366)  |  Material World (8)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Navigator (8)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Originally (7)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practice (212)  |  Present (630)  |  Present Day (5)  |  Profound (105)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Rule (307)  |  Secondhand (6)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Study (701)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Surveyor (5)  |  Table (105)  |  Theoretical (27)  |  Time (1911)  |  Touch (146)  |  Trite (5)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Undiscovered (15)  |  Utility (52)  |  World (1850)

For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things (which is the chief point) , and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to reconsider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture. So I thought my nature had a kind of familiarity and relationship with Truth.
From 'Progress of philosophical speculations. Preface to intended treatise De Interpretatione Naturæ (1603), in Francis Bacon and James Spedding (ed.), Works of Francis Bacon (1868), Vol. 3, 85.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Affectation (4)  |  Assert (69)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Being (1276)  |  Catch (34)  |  Chief (99)  |  Desire (212)  |  Difference (355)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Enough (341)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Fix (34)  |  Fondness (7)  |  Gift (105)  |  Hate (68)  |  Imposture (6)  |  Kind (564)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meditation (19)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Nimble (2)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Order (638)  |  Patience (58)  |  Point (584)  |  Readiness (9)  |  Reconsideration (3)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Seek (218)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Set (400)  |  Setting (44)  |  Slowness (6)  |  Steady (45)  |  Study (701)  |  Subtlety (19)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Versatile (6)

Here I am at the limit which God and nature has assigned to my individuality. I am compelled to depend upon word, language and image in the most precise sense, and am wholly unable to operate in any manner whatever with symbols and numbers which are easily intelligible to the most highly gifted minds.
In Letter to Naumann (1826), in Vogel, Goethe's Selbstzeugnisse (1903), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Assign (15)  |  Compel (31)  |  Depend (238)  |  Easily (36)  |  Gift (105)  |  God (776)  |  Highly (16)  |  Image (97)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Language (308)  |  Limit (294)  |  Manner (62)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Operate (19)  |  Precise (71)  |  Sense (785)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Unable (25)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Word (650)

I would be the last to deny that the greatest scientific pioneers belonged to an aristocracy of the spirit and were exceptionally intelligent, something that we as modest investigators will never attain, no matter how much we exert ourselves. Nevertheless … I continue to believe that there is always room for anyone with average intelligence … to utilize his energy and … any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain, and that even the least gifted may, like the poorest land that has been well-cultivated and fertilized, produce an abundant harvest..
From Preface to the second edition, Reglas y Consejos sobre Investigacíon Cientifica: Los tónicos de la voluntad. (1897), as translated by Neely and Larry W. Swanson, in Advice for a Young Investigator (1999), xv.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundant (23)  |  Aristocracy (7)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Average (89)  |  Belief (615)  |  Belong (168)  |  Brain (281)  |  Continue (179)  |  Cultivated (7)  |  Deny (71)  |  Energy (373)  |  Exceptional (19)  |  Exert (40)  |  Exertion (17)  |  Fertilized (2)  |  Gift (105)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Harvest (28)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Land (131)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modest (19)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Poorest (2)  |  Produce (117)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sculptor (10)  |  Something (718)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Utilize (10)  |  Will (2350)

If mankind is to profit freely from the small and sporadic crop of the heroically gifted it produces, it will have to cultivate the delicate art of handling ideas. Psychology is now able to tell us with reasonable assurance that the most influential obstacle to freedom of thought and to new ideas is fear; and fear which can with inimitable art disguise itself as caution, or sanity, or reasoned skepticism, or on occasion even as courage.
'The Commemoration of Great Men', Hunterian Oration, Royal College of Surgeons (15 Feb 1952) British Medical Journal (20 Feb 1932), 1, 317-20. The Collected Papers of Wilfred Trotter, FRS (1941), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Assurance (17)  |  Caution (24)  |  Courage (82)  |  Crop (26)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Delicacy (8)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Disguise (12)  |  Fear (212)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Gift (105)  |  Handle (29)  |  Hero (45)  |  Idea (881)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inimitable (6)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Product (166)  |  Profit (56)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Sanity (9)  |  Skepticism (31)  |  Small (489)  |  Sporadic (2)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thought (995)  |  Will (2350)

In an era in which the domain of intellect and politics were almost exclusively male, Theon [her father] was an unusually liberated person who taught an unusually gifted daughter [Hypatia] and encouraged her to achieve things that, as far as we know, no woman before her did or perhaps even dreamed of doing.
From 'Hypatia', in Louise S. Grinstein (ed.), Women of Mathematics, (1987), 74.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Doing (277)  |  Domain (72)  |  Dream (222)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Era (51)  |  Exclusively (10)  |  Far (158)  |  Father (113)  |  Gift (105)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Know (1538)  |  Liberated (2)  |  Male (26)  |  Person (366)  |  Politics (122)  |  Teach (299)  |  Theon (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Woman (160)

In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary. Machinery, gifted with the wonderful power of shortening and fructifying human labor, we behold starving and overworking it… . At the same pace that mankind masters nature, man seems to become enslaved to other men or his own infamy. Even the pure light of science seems unable to shine but on the dark background of ignorance.
Karl Marx
In Speech (14 Apr 1856) on the 4th Anniversary of the People’s Paper, collected in David McLellan (ed.), Karl Marx: Selected Writings (2000), 368.
Science quotes on:  |  Background (44)  |  Become (821)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Dark (145)  |  Everything (489)  |  Gift (105)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Infamy (2)  |  Labor (200)  |  Light (635)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Master (182)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overwork (2)  |  Pace (18)  |  Power (771)  |  Pure (299)  |  Shine (49)  |  Starve (3)  |  Unable (25)  |  Wonderful (155)

It is safe to say that the little pamphlet which was left to find its way through the slow mails to the English scientist outweighed in importance and interest for the human race all the press dispatches which have been flashed under the channel since the delivery of the address—March 24. The rapid growth of the Continental capitals, the movements of princely noodles and fat, vulgar Duchesses, the debates in the Servian Skupschina, and the progress or receding of sundry royal gouts are given to the wings of lightning; a lumbering mail-coach is swift enough for the news of one of the great scientific discoveries of the age. Similarly, the gifted gentlemen who daily sift out for the American public the pith and kernel of the Old World's news; leave Dr. KOCH and his bacilli to chance it in the ocean mails, while they challenge the admiration of every gambler and jockey in this Republic by the fullness and accuracy of their cable reports of horse-races.
New York Times (3 May 1882). Quoted in Thomas D. Brock, Robert Koch (1988), 131.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Age (509)  |  Bacillus (9)  |  Cable (11)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Chance (244)  |  Daily (91)  |  Debate (40)  |  Enough (341)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flash (49)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gout (5)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growth (200)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interest (416)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Little (717)  |  Mail (2)  |  March (48)  |  Movement (162)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Old (499)  |  Old World (9)  |  Progress (492)  |  Race (278)  |  Republic (16)  |  Royal (56)  |  Safe (61)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Slow (108)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Through (846)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wing (79)  |  World (1850)

Life is not easy for any of us, but what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted in something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.
Letter to brother (1894). In Eve Curie, Madame Curie: a Biography by Eve Curie (1937, 2007), 158.
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Cost (94)  |  Easy (213)  |  Gift (105)  |  Life (1870)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Self-Confidence (11)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Whatever (234)

Man is an eating animal, a drinking animal, and a sleeping animal, and one placed in a material world, which alone furnishes all the human animal can desire. He is gifted besides with knowing faculties, practically to explore and to apply the resources of this world to his use. These are realities. All else is nothing; conscience and sentiment are mere figments of the imagination. Man has but five gates of knowledge, the five senses; he can know nothing but through them; all else is a vain fancy, and as for the being of a God, the existence of a soul, or a world to come, who can know anything about them? Depend upon it, my dear madam, these are only the bugbears by which men of sense govern fools.
Attributed to Darwin by Mary Anne Schimmelpennick. Quoted in Christiana C. Hankin (ed.) Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck (1858), Vol. I, 241-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apply (170)  |  Being (1276)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Depend (238)  |  Desire (212)  |  Drinking (21)  |  Eating (46)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Fool (121)  |  Gate (33)  |  Gift (105)  |  God (776)  |  Govern (66)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soul (235)  |  Through (846)  |  Use (771)  |  Vain (86)  |  World (1850)

Not one man in a thousand has accuracy of eye and judgment sufficient to become an eminent breeder. If gifted with these qualities, and he studies his subject for years, and devotes his lifetime to it with indomitable perseverance, he will succeed, and may make great improvements; if he wants any of these qualities, he will assuredly fail.
In On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859, 1860), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Breeder (4)  |  Devote (45)  |  Eminent (20)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Indomitable (4)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Perserverance (2)  |  Quality (139)  |  Study (701)  |  Success (327)

Numbers … were his friends. In the simplest array of digits [Ramanujan] detected wonderful properties: congruences, symmetries and relationships which had escaped the notice of even the outstandingly gifted theoreticians.
In James R. Newman (ed.), 'Commentary on Srinivasa Ramanujan', The World of Mathematics (1956), Vol. 1, 367.
Science quotes on:  |  Array (5)  |  Congruence (3)  |  Detect (45)  |  Detection (19)  |  Digit (4)  |  Escape (85)  |  Friend (180)  |  Gift (105)  |  Notice (81)  |  Number (710)  |  Outstanding (16)  |  Property (177)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wonderful (155)

Society is a republic. When an individual endeavors to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means of ridicule or of calumny. No one shall be more virtuous or more intellectually gifted than others. Whoever, by the irresistible force of genius, rises above the common herd is certain to be ostracized by society, which will pursue him with such merciless derision and detraction that at last he will be compelled to retreat into the solitude of his thoughts.
In Heinrich Heine: His Wit, Wisdom, Poetry (1892), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Calumny (3)  |  Certain (557)  |  Common (447)  |  Compel (31)  |  Derision (8)  |  Down (455)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Force (497)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gift (105)  |  Himself (461)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Last (425)  |  Lift (57)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Republic (16)  |  Retreat (13)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Rise (169)  |  Society (350)  |  Sociology (46)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Thought (995)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Virtuous (9)  |  Whoever (42)  |  Will (2350)

Some gifted adventurer is always sailing round the world of art and science, to bring home costly merchandise from every port.
Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature (1855), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Gift (105)  |  Home (184)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Sailing (14)  |  World (1850)

The best person able to appraise promise as a mathematician is a gifted teacher, and not a professional tester.
In speech, 'Education for Creativity in the Sciences', Conference at New York University, Washington Square. As quoted by Gene Currivan in 'I.Q. Tests Called Harmful to Pupil', New York Times (16 Jun 1963), 66.
Science quotes on:  |  Appraisal (2)  |  Best (467)  |  Gift (105)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Person (366)  |  Professional (77)  |  Promise (72)  |  Teacher (154)

The enthusiasm of Sylvester for his own work, which manifests itself here as always, indicates one of his characteristic qualities: a high degree of subjectivity in his productions and publications. Sylvester was so fully possessed by the matter which for the time being engaged his attention, that it appeared to him and was designated by him as the summit of all that is important, remarkable and full of future promise. It would excite his phantasy and power of imagination in even a greater measure than his power of reflection, so much so that he could never marshal the ability to master his subject-matter, much less to present it in an orderly manner.
Considering that he was also somewhat of a poet, it will be easier to overlook the poetic flights which pervade his writing, often bombastic, sometimes furnishing apt illustrations; more damaging is the complete lack of form and orderliness of his publications and their sketchlike character, … which must be accredited at least as much to lack of objectivity as to a superfluity of ideas. Again, the text is permeated with associated emotional expressions, bizarre utterances and paradoxes and is everywhere accompanied by notes, which constitute an essential part of Sylvester’s method of presentation, embodying relations, whether proximate or remote, which momentarily suggested themselves. These notes, full of inspiration and occasional flashes of genius, are the more stimulating owing to their incompleteness. But none of his works manifest a desire to penetrate the subject from all sides and to allow it to mature; each mere surmise, conceptions which arose during publication, immature thoughts and even errors were ushered into publicity at the moment of their inception, with utmost carelessness, and always with complete unfamiliarity of the literature of the subject. Nowhere is there the least trace of self-criticism. No one can be expected to read the treatises entire, for in the form in which they are available they fail to give a clear view of the matter under contemplation.
Sylvester’s was not a harmoniously gifted or well-balanced mind, but rather an instinctively active and creative mind, free from egotism. His reasoning moved in generalizations, was frequently influenced by analysis and at times was guided even by mystical numerical relations. His reasoning consists less frequently of pure intelligible conclusions than of inductions, or rather conjectures incited by individual observations and verifications. In this he was guided by an algebraic sense, developed through long occupation with processes of forms, and this led him luckily to general fundamental truths which in some instances remain veiled. His lack of system is here offset by the advantage of freedom from purely mechanical logical activity.
The exponents of his essential characteristics are an intuitive talent and a faculty of invention to which we owe a series of ideas of lasting value and bearing the germs of fruitful methods. To no one more fittingly than to Sylvester can be applied one of the mottos of the Philosophic Magazine:
“Admiratio generat quaestionem, quaestio investigationem investigatio inventionem.”
In Mathematische Annalen (1898), 50, 155-160. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 176-178.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Active (80)  |  Activity (218)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Applied (176)  |  Attention (196)  |  Available (80)  |  Being (1276)  |  Carelessness (7)  |  Character (259)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conception (160)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Consist (223)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Creative (144)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Degree (277)  |  Desire (212)  |  Develop (278)  |  Easier (53)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Error (339)  |  Essential (210)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Expect (203)  |  Exponent (6)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fail (191)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Genius (301)  |  Germ (54)  |  Gift (105)  |  Greater (288)  |  High (370)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inception (3)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Individual (420)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lack (127)  |  Literature (116)  |  Long (778)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mature (17)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occasional (23)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Orderliness (9)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Owe (71)  |  Owing (39)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Production (190)  |  Promise (72)  |  Proximate (4)  |  Publication (102)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purely (111)  |  Read (308)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remote (86)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Series (153)  |  Side (236)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subject-Matter (8)  |  Summit (27)  |  Surmise (7)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  System (545)  |  Talent (99)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unfamiliarity (5)  |  Utterance (11)  |  Value (393)  |  Veil (27)  |  Verification (32)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)

The general disposition of the land [in the Periodic Kingdom] is one of metals in the west, giving way, as you travel eastward, to a varied landscape of nonmetals, which terminates in largely inert elements at the eastern shoreline. To the south of the mainland, there is an offshore island, which we shall call the Southern Island. It consists entirely of metals of subtly modulated personality. North of the mainland, situated rather like Iceland off the northwestern edge of Europe, lies a single, isolated region-hydrogen. This simple but gifted element is an essential outpost of the kingdom, for despite its simplicity it is rich in chemical personality. It is also the most abundant element in the universe and the fuel of the stars.
In The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey Into the Land of the Chemical Elements (1995), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundant (23)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Consist (223)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Edge (51)  |  Element (322)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fuel (39)  |  General (521)  |  Gift (105)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Inert (14)  |  Island (49)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Lie (370)  |  Metal (88)  |  Most (1728)  |  Outpost (2)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Personality (66)  |  Rich (66)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Single (365)  |  South (39)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Travel (125)  |  Universe (900)  |  Varied (6)  |  Way (1214)

The microbial global brain—gifted with long-range transport, data trading, genetic variants … and the ability to reinvent genomes—began its operations some 91 trillion bacterial generations before the birth of the Internet. Ancient bacteria, if they functioned like those today, had mastered the art of worldwide information exchange. … The earliest microorganisms would have used planet-sweeping currents of wind and water to carry the scraps of genetic code…
In 'Creative Nets in the Precambrian Era', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 18-19.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Begin (275)  |  Birth (154)  |  Brain (281)  |  Carry (130)  |  Code (31)  |  Current (122)  |  Data (162)  |  Early (196)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Function (235)  |  Generation (256)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genome (15)  |  Gift (105)  |  Global (39)  |  Information (173)  |  Internet (24)  |  Long (778)  |  Master (182)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Microorganism (29)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Planet (402)  |  Range (104)  |  Scrap (3)  |  Today (321)  |  Trade (34)  |  Transport (31)  |  Trillion (4)  |  Variant (9)  |  Water (503)  |  Wind (141)  |  Worldwide (19)

The position of the anthropologist of to-day resembles in some sort the position of classical scholars at the revival of learning. To these men the rediscovery of ancient literature came like a revelation, disclosing to their wondering eyes a splendid vision of the antique world, such as the cloistered of the Middle Ages never dreamed of under the gloomy shadow of the minster and within the sound of its solemn bells. To us moderns a still wider vista is vouchsafed, a greater panorama is unrolled by the study which aims at bringing home to us the faith and the practice, the hopes and the ideals, not of two highly gifted races only, but of all mankind, and thus at enabling us to follow the long march, the slow and toilsome ascent, of humanity from savagery to civilization. And as the scholar of the Renaissance found not merely fresh food for thought but a new field of labour in the dusty and faded manuscripts of Greece and Rome, so in the mass of materials that is steadily pouring in from many sides—from buried cities of remotest antiquity as well as from the rudest savages of the desert and the jungle—we of to-day must recognise a new province of knowledge which will task the energies of generations of students to master.
'Author’s Introduction' (1900). In Dr Theodor H. Gaster (ed.), The New Golden Bough (1959), xxv-xxvi.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Aim (175)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Bell (35)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Classical (49)  |  Desert (59)  |  Dream (222)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fad (10)  |  Faith (209)  |  Field (378)  |  Follow (389)  |  Food (213)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Generation (256)  |  Gift (105)  |  Greater (288)  |  Home (184)  |  Hope (321)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Jungle (24)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Learning (291)  |  Literature (116)  |  Long (778)  |  Mankind (356)  |  March (48)  |  Mass (160)  |  Master (182)  |  Material (366)  |  Merely (315)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Panorama (5)  |  Practice (212)  |  Province (37)  |  Race (278)  |  Rediscovery (2)  |  Renaissance (16)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Rome (19)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Side (236)  |  Slow (108)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Sound (187)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Task (152)  |  Thought (995)  |  Two (936)  |  Vision (127)  |  Vista (12)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The scientist, if he is to be more than a plodding gatherer of bits of information, needs to exercise an active imagination. The scientists of the past whom we now recognize as great are those who were gifted with transcendental imaginative powers, and the part played by the imaginative faculty of his daily life is as least as important for the scientist as it is for the worker in any other field—much more important than for most. A good scientist thinks logically and accurately when conditions call for logical and accurate thinking—but so does any other good worker when he has a sufficient number of well-founded facts to serve as the basis for the accurate, logical induction of generalizations and the subsequent deduction of consequences.
‘Imagination in Science’, Tomorrow (Dec 1943), 38-9. Quoted In Barbara Marinacci (ed.), Linus Pauling In His Own Words: Selected Writings, Speeches, and Interviews (1995), 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Active (80)  |  Basis (180)  |  Call (781)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Daily (91)  |  Daily Life (18)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Field (378)  |  Gather (76)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Gift (105)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Importance (299)  |  Induction (81)  |  Information (173)  |  Life (1870)  |  Logic (311)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Power (771)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Sufficiency (16)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Transcendental (11)  |  Worker (34)

There is, however, no genius so gifted as not to need control and verification. ... [T]he brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they have been proved to have their counterparts in the world of fact. Thus the vocation of the true experimentalist may be defined as the continued exercise of spiritual insight, and its incessant correction and realisation. His experiments constitute a body, of which his purified intuitions are, as it were, the soul.
In 'Vitality', Scientific Use of the Imagination and Other Essays (1872), 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Bright (81)  |  Brightest (12)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Control (182)  |  Correction (42)  |  Counterpart (11)  |  Definition (238)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flash (49)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gift (105)  |  Incessant (9)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Incompleteness (2)  |  Insight (107)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Need (320)  |  Proof (304)  |  Purification (10)  |  Realisation (4)  |  Realization (44)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Thought (995)  |  Verification (32)  |  Vocation (10)  |  World (1850)

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
The Outermost House (1928), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attain (126)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Concept (242)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extension (60)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Finish (62)  |  Form (976)  |  Gift (105)  |  Glass (94)  |  Hear (144)  |  Image (97)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Survey (36)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tragic (19)  |  Universal (198)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)


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.