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

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

Hurry Quotes (16 quotes)

“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.
“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so on.”
“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice.
“That's the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.”
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865, 1869), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Alice (8)  |  Alice In Wonderland (8)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Curious (95)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Exclaim (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Gryphon (2)  |  Hour (192)  |  Lessen (6)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Mock Turtle (2)  |  Next (238)  |  Plan (122)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remark (28)  |  Subject (543)

“Progress” was synonymous with distance from nature. The adults, who set the pace of progress from nature, were so absorbed by their own ability to invent and to alter the existing world, that they hurried headlong, with no design for the ultimate structure. A man-made environment was the obvious goal, but who was the responsible architect? No one in my country. Not even the king of Great Britain or the president of America. Each inventor and producer who worked on building tomorrow’s world just threw in a brick or a cogwheel wherever he cared to, and it was up to us of the next generation to find out what the result would be.
In Ch. 1, 'Farewell to Civilization', Fatu-Hiva (1974), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Absorb (54)  |  Adult (24)  |  Alter (64)  |  America (143)  |  Architect (32)  |  Brick (20)  |  Build (211)  |  Care (203)  |  Country (269)  |  Design (203)  |  Distance (171)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Generation (256)  |  Goal (155)  |  Headlong (2)  |  Invent (57)  |  Inventor (79)  |  King (39)  |  Man-Made (10)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Next (238)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Pace (18)  |  President (36)  |  Producer (4)  |  Progress (492)  |  Responsible (19)  |  Result (700)  |  Structure (365)  |  Synonymous (2)  |  Throw (45)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  United Kingdom (2)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Accordingly the primordial state of things which I picture is an even distribution of protons and electrons, extremely diffuse and filling all (spherical) space, remaining nearly balanced for an exceedingly long time until its inherent instability prevails. We shall see later that the density of this distribution can be calculated; it was about one proton and electron per litre. There is no hurry for anything to begin to happen. But at last small irregular tendencies accumulate, and evolution gets under way. The first stage is the formation of condensations ultimately to become the galaxies; this, as we have seen, started off an expansion, which then automatically increased in speed until it is now manifested to us in the recession of the spiral nebulae.
As the matter drew closer together in the condensations, the various evolutionary processes followed—evolution of stars, evolution of the more complex elements, evolution of planets and life.
The Expanding Universe (1933), 56-57.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Closer (43)  |  Complex (202)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Density (25)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Electron (96)  |  Element (322)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Expansion (43)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Formation (100)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Happen (282)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Picture (148)  |  Planet (402)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Proton (23)  |  Remaining (45)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Speed (66)  |  Spiral (19)  |  Stage (152)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Start (237)  |  State (505)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)

Do the day’s work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand-patter, but don’t be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don’t be a demagogue. Don’t hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don’t hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don’t hurry to legislate. Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation.
Speech (7 Jan 1914), to the State Senate of Massachusetts upon election as its president. Collected in Coolidge, Have Faith in Massachusetts (1919, 2004), 7-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Administration (15)  |  Better (493)  |  Build (211)  |  Call (781)  |  Catch (34)  |  Chance (244)  |  Corporation (6)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Hesitate (24)  |  Legislation (10)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Object (438)  |  Opposition (49)  |  People (1031)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Protect (65)  |  Reactionary (3)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Right (473)  |  Serve (64)  |  Stand (284)  |  Strong (182)  |  Table (105)  |  Weak (73)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whoever (42)  |  Work (1402)

He sows hurry and reaps indigestion.
In 'An Apology For Idlers', The Living Age (1877), 134, 436.
Science quotes on:  |  Indigestion (5)  |  Reap (19)  |  Sow (11)

How can you shorten the subject? That stern struggle with the multiplication table, for many people not yet ended in victory, how can you make it less? Square root, as obdurate as a hardwood stump in a pasture nothing but years of effort can extract it. You can’t hurry the process. Or pass from arithmetic to algebra; you can’t shoulder your way past quadratic equations or ripple through the binomial theorem. Instead, the other way; your feet are impeded in the tangled growth, your pace slackens, you sink and fall somewhere near the binomial theorem with the calculus in sight on the horizon. So died, for each of us, still bravely fighting, our mathematical training; except for a set of people called “mathematicians”—born so, like crooks.
In Too Much College: Or, Education Eating up Life, with Kindred Essays in Education and Humour (1939), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Binomial (6)  |  Binomial Theorem (5)  |  Brave (16)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Call (781)  |  Crook (2)  |  Die (94)  |  Effort (243)  |  End (603)  |  Equation (138)  |  Extract (40)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fight (49)  |  Foot (65)  |  Growth (200)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Impede (4)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiplication Table (16)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pace (18)  |  Pass (241)  |  Past (355)  |  Pasture (15)  |  People (1031)  |  Process (439)  |  Ripple (12)  |  Root (121)  |  Set (400)  |  Shorten (5)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sink (38)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Stern (6)  |  Still (614)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Stump (3)  |  Subject (543)  |  Table (105)  |  Tangle (8)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Through (846)  |  Training (92)  |  Victory (40)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

I remember working out a blueprint for my future when I was twelve years old I resolved first to make enough money so I'd never be stopped from finishing anything; second, that to accumulate money in a hurry—and I was in a hurry—I'd have to invent something that people wanted. And third, that if I ever was going to stand on my own feet, I'd have to leave home.
In Sidney Shalett, 'Aviation’s Stormy Genius', Saturday Evening Post (13 Oct 1956), 229, No. 15, 26 & 155
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Blueprint (9)  |  Enough (341)  |  Finish (62)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Home (184)  |  Invention (400)  |  Money (178)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  People (1031)  |  Remember (189)  |  Something (718)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stop (89)  |  Want (504)  |  Year (963)

I stand almost with the others. They believe the world was made for man, I believe it likely that it was made for man; they think there is proof, astronomical mainly, that it was made for man, I think there is evidence only, not proof, that it was made for him. It is too early, yet, to arrange the verdict, the returns are not all in. When they are all in, I think that they will show that the world was made for man; but we must not hurry, we must patiently wait till they are all in.
Attributed.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrange (33)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Belief (615)  |  Early (196)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Likely (36)  |  Made (14)  |  Mainly (10)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Patiently (3)  |  Proof (304)  |  Return (133)  |  Show (353)  |  Stand (284)  |  Think (1122)  |  Verdict (8)  |  Wait (66)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

If catastrophic geology had at times pushed Nature to almost indecent extremes of haste, uniformitarian geology, on the other hand, had erred in the opposite direction, and pictured Nature when she was “young and wantoned in her prime”, as moving with the lame sedateness of advanced middle age. It became necessary, therefore, as Dr. Haughton expresses it, “to hurry up the phenomena”.
From British Association Address to Workingmen, 'Geology and Deluges', published in Nature (1984), 50, 505-510. Also printed in Popular Science Monthly (Dec 1894), 46 251. “Wontoned” (sic) was likely used for “wanton.” and Dr. Samuel Haughton was an Irish scientific writer —Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Age Of The Earth (12)  |  Catastrophe (35)  |  Catastrophic (10)  |  Direction (185)  |  Err (5)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Geology (240)  |  Haste (6)  |  Lame (5)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Push (66)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uniformitarianism (9)  |  Wanton (2)  |  Young (253)

It must happen that in some cases the author is not understood, or is very imperfectly understood; and the question is what is to be done. After giving a reasonable amount of attention to the passage, let the student pass on, reserving the obscurity for future efforts. … The natural tendency of solitary students, I believe, is not to hurry away prematurely from a hard passage, but to hang far too long over it; the just pride that does not like to acknowledge defeat, and the strong will that cannot endure to be thwarted, both urge to a continuance of effort even when success seems hopeless. It is only by experience we gain the conviction that when the mind is thoroughly fatigued it has neither the power to continue with advantage its course in .an assigned direction, nor elasticity to strike out a new path; but that, on the other hand, after being withdrawn for a time from the pursuit, it may return and gain the desired end.
In 'Private Study of Mathematics', Conflict of Studies and other Essays (1873), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Amount (153)  |  Assign (15)  |  Attention (196)  |  Author (175)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Both (496)  |  Case (102)  |  Continuance (2)  |  Continue (179)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Course (413)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Desire (212)  |  Direction (185)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elasticity (8)  |  End (603)  |  Endure (21)  |  Experience (494)  |  Far (158)  |  Fatigue (13)  |  Future (467)  |  Gain (146)  |  Give (208)  |  Hang (46)  |  Happen (282)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hopeless (17)  |  Imperfectly (2)  |  Let (64)  |  Long (778)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  Obscurity (28)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passage (52)  |  Path (159)  |  Power (771)  |  Premature (22)  |  Pride (84)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Question (649)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Return (133)  |  Seem (150)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Strike (72)  |  Strong (182)  |  Student (317)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Success (327)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)  |  Urge (17)  |  Will (2350)  |  Withdraw (11)

Man occasionally stumbles on the truth, but then just picks himself up and hurries on regardless.
Anonymous
Saying.
Science quotes on:  |  Himself (461)  |  Man (2252)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Stumble (19)  |  Truth (1109)

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
In Tao Te Ching. As quoted in Robert Kharshiing, Writers on… Nature (2016), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Everything (489)  |  Nature (2017)

Only simpletons go to fortune-tellers. Who else would be in such a hurry to hear bad news.
Aphorism as given by the fictional character Dezhnev Senior, in Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain (1987), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Hear (144)  |  New (1273)  |  News (36)

The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentments by hissing; and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in post-chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that, when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my garden; however, in the evening, the weather being cold, it buried it-self in the loose mound, and continues still concealed … When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander more than two-thirds of its existence in joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in the profoundest of slumbers.
In Letter to Daines Barrington, (21 Apr 1780) in The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789), 357.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bestow (18)  |  Box (22)  |  Cold (115)  |  Concealed (25)  |  Continue (179)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enough (341)  |  Existence (481)  |  Express (192)  |  Find (1014)  |  Garden (64)  |  Hibernation (3)  |  Journey (48)  |  Last (425)  |  Little (717)  |  Longevity (6)  |  March (48)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mention (84)  |  Month (91)  |  More (2558)  |  Old (499)  |  Property (177)  |  Providence (19)  |  Relish (4)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Self (268)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Slumber (6)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  Strange (160)  |  Stupor (2)  |  Together (392)  |  Tortoise (10)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Walk (138)  |  Waste (109)  |  Weather (49)  |  Winter (46)  |  Wonder (251)

The student should read his author with the most sustained attention, in order to discover the meaning of every sentence. If the book is well written, it will endure and repay his close attention: the text ought to be fairly intelligible, even without illustrative examples. Often, far too often, a reader hurries over the text without any sincere and vigorous effort to understand it; and rushes to some example to clear up what ought not to have been obscure, if it had been adequately considered. The habit of scrupulously investigating the text seems to me important on several grounds. The close scrutiny of language is a very valuable exercise both for studious and practical life. In the higher departments of mathematics the habit is indispensable: in the long investigations which occur there it would be impossible to interpose illustrative examples at every stage, the student must therefore encounter and master, sentence by sentence, an extensive and complicated argument.
In 'Private Study of Mathematics', Conflict of Studies and other Essays (1873), 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequately (4)  |  Argument (145)  |  Attention (196)  |  Author (175)  |  Book (413)  |  Both (496)  |  Clear (111)  |  Close (77)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Consider (428)  |  Department (93)  |  Discover (571)  |  Effort (243)  |  Encounter (23)  |  Endure (21)  |  Example (98)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Fairly (4)  |  Far (158)  |  Ground (222)  |  Habit (174)  |  High (370)  |  Important (229)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Occur (151)  |  Often (109)  |  Order (638)  |  Practical (225)  |  Read (308)  |  Reader (42)  |  Repay (3)  |  Rush (18)  |  Scrupulous (7)  |  Scrutiny (15)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Several (33)  |  Sincere (4)  |  Stage (152)  |  Student (317)  |  Studious (5)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Text (16)  |  Understand (648)  |  Value (393)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Will (2350)  |  Write (250)

There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.
Quotation translated by A.L. Mackay in Alan Lindsay Mackay and Maurice Ebison, The Harvest of a Quiet Eye (1977), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Down (455)  |  Error (339)  |  Hunt (32)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Truth (1109)


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.