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 path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it... That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That�s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index I > Category: Identity

Identity Quotes (19 quotes)

[Davy's] March of Glory, which he has run for the last six weeks—within which time by the aid and application of his own great discovery, of the identity of electricity and chemical attractions, he has placed all the elements and all their inanimate combinations in the power of man; having decomposed both the Alkalies, and three of the Earths, discovered as the base of the Alkalies a new metal... Davy supposes there is only one power in the world of the senses; which in particles acts as chemical attractions, in specific masses as electricity, & on matter in general, as planetary Gravitation... when this has been proved, it will then only remain to resolve this into some Law of vital Intellect—and all human knowledge will be Science and Metaphysics the only Science.
In November 1807 Davy gave his famous Second Bakerian Lecture at the Royal Society, in which he used Voltaic batteries to “decompose, isolate and name” several new chemical elements, notably sodium and potassium.
Letter to Dorothy Wordsworth, 24 November 1807. In Earl Leslie Griggs (ed.), The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1956), Vol. 3, 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Aid (101)  |  Application (257)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Base (120)  |  Both (496)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Combination (150)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Decompose (10)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Element (322)  |  General (521)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Man (2252)  |  March (48)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metal (88)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Particle (200)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Potassium (12)  |  Power (771)  |  Remain (355)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Run (158)  |  Sense (785)  |  Society (350)  |  Sodium (15)  |  Specific (98)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vital (89)  |  Voltaic (9)  |  Week (73)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Ampère was a mathematician of various resources & I think might rather be called excentric [sic] than original. He was as it were always mounted upon a hobby horse of a monstrous character pushing the most remote & distant analogies. This hobby horse was sometimes like that of a child ['s] made of heavy wood, at other times it resembled those [?] shapes [?] used in the theatre [?] & at other times it was like a hypogrif in a pantomime de imagie. He had a sort of faith in animal magnetism & has published some refined & ingenious memoirs to prove the identity of electricity & magnetism but even in these views he is rather as I said before excentric than original. He has always appeared to me to possess a very discursive imagination & but little accuracy of observation or acuteness of research.
'Davy’s Sketches of his Contemporaries', Chymia, 1967, 12, 135-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  André-Marie Ampère (11)  |  Animal (651)  |  Call (781)  |  Character (259)  |  Child (333)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Faith (209)  |  Horse (78)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Little (717)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mount (43)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Personality (66)  |  Possess (157)  |  Prove (261)  |  Remote (86)  |  Research (753)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Wood (97)

BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  36.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Essential (210)  |  Humour (116)  |  Italian (13)  |  Poison (46)  |  Striking (48)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Two (936)

I then began to study arithmetical questions without any great apparent result, and without suspecting that they could have the least connexion with my previous researches. Disgusted at my want of success, I went away to spend a few days at the seaside, and thought of entirely different things. One day, as I was walking on the cliff, the idea came to me, again with the same characteristics of conciseness, suddenness, and immediate certainty, that arithmetical transformations of indefinite ternary quadratic forms are identical with those of non-Euclidian geometry.
Science and Method (1908), trans. Francis Maitland (1914), 53-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparent (85)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Conciseness (3)  |  Connection (171)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Disgust (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Identical (55)  |  Immediacy (2)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Indefinite (21)  |  Non-Euclidian (2)  |  Previous (17)  |  Quadratic (3)  |  Question (649)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Seaside (2)  |  Spend (97)  |  Study (701)  |  Success (327)  |  Suddenness (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Walk (138)  |  Want (504)  |  Wanting (2)

In an age of egoism, it is so difficult to persuade man that of all studies, the most important is that of himself. This is because egoism, like all passions, is blind. The attention of the egoist is directed to the immediate needs of which his senses give notice, and cannot be raised to those reflective needs that reason discloses to us; his aim is satisfaction, not perfection. He considers only his individual self; his species is nothing to him. Perhaps he fears that in penetrating the mysteries of his being he will ensure his own abasement, blush at his discoveries, and meet his conscience. True philosophy, always at one with moral science, tells a different tale. The source of useful illumination, we are told, is that of lasting content, is in ourselves. Our insight depends above all on the state of our faculties; but how can we bring our faculties to perfection if we do not know their nature and their laws! The elements of happiness are the moral sentiments; but how can we develop these sentiments without considering the principle of our affections, and the means of directing them? We become better by studying ourselves; the man who thoroughly knows himself is the wise man. Such reflection on the nature of his being brings a man to a better awareness of all the bonds that unite us to our fellows, to the re-discovery at the inner root of his existence of that identity of common life actuating us all, to feeling the full force of that fine maxim of the ancients: 'I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me.'
Considerations sur les diverses méthodes à suivre dans l'observation des peuples sauvages (1800) The Observation of Savage Peoples, trans. F. C. T. Moore (1969), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Age (509)  |  Aim (175)  |  Alien (35)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Attention (196)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Blind (98)  |  Bond (46)  |  Common (447)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Consider (428)  |  Depend (238)  |  Develop (278)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Ethnology (9)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Force (497)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Illumination (15)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inner (72)  |  Insight (107)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moral (203)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Passion (121)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Root (121)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Self (268)  |  Sense (785)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Studying (70)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Unite (43)  |  Useful (260)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wise (143)  |  Wise Man (17)

In order that an inventory of plants may be begun and a classification of them correctly established, we must try to discover criteria of some sort for distinguishing what are called “species”. After a long and considerable investigation, no surer criterion for determining species had occurred to me than distinguishing features that perpetuate themselves in propagation from seed. Thus, no matter what variations occur in the individuals or the species, if they spring from the seed of one and the same plant, they are accidental variations and not such as to distinguish a species. For these variations do not perpetuate themselves in subsequent seeding. Thus, for example, we do not regard caryophylli with full or multiple blossoms as a species distinct from caryophylli with single blossoms, because the former owe their origin to the seed of the latter and if the former are sown from their own seed, they once more produce single-blossom caryophylli. But variations that never have as their source seed from one and the same species may finally be regarded as distinct species. Or, if you make a comparison between any two plants, plants which never spring from each other's seed and never, when their seed is sown, are transmuted one into the other, these plants finally are distinct species. For it is just as in animals: a difference in sex is not enough to prove a difference of species, because each sex is derived from the same seed as far as species is concerned and not infrequently from the same parents; no matter how many and how striking may be the accidental differences between them; no other proof that bull and cow, man and woman belong to the same species is required than the fact that both very frequently spring from the same parents or the same mother. Likewise in the case of plants, there is no surer index of identity of species than that of origin from the seed of one and the same plant, whether it is a matter of individuals or species. For animals that differ in species preserve their distinct species permanently; one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa.
John Ray
Historia Plantarum (1686), Vol. 1, 40. Trans. Edmund Silk. Quoted in Barbara G. Beddall, 'Historical Notes on Avian Classification', Systematic Zoology (1957), 6, 133-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Accidental (31)  |  Animal (651)  |  Belong (168)  |  Blossom (22)  |  Both (496)  |  Bull (3)  |  Call (781)  |  Classification (102)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Concern (239)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Cow (42)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Former (138)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inventory (7)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Likewise (2)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Mother (116)  |  Multiple (19)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Occur (151)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Parent (80)  |  Permanence (26)  |  Perpetuate (11)  |  Perpetuation (4)  |  Plant (320)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Production (190)  |  Proof (304)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Prove (261)  |  Regard (312)  |  Required (108)  |  Seed (97)  |  Sex (68)  |  Single (365)  |  Species (435)  |  Spring (140)  |  Striking (48)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Try (296)  |  Two (936)  |  Variation (93)  |  Vice (42)  |  Woman (160)

In presenting a mathematical argument the great thing is to give the educated reader the chance to catch on at once to the momentary point and take details for granted: his successive mouthfuls should be such as can be swallowed at sight; in case of accidents, or in case he wishes for once to check in detail, he should have only a clearly circumscribed little problem to solve (e.g. to check an identity: two trivialities omitted can add up to an impasse). The unpractised writer, even after the dawn of a conscience, gives him no such chance; before he can spot the point he has to tease his way through a maze of symbols of which not the tiniest suffix can be skipped.
In A Mathematician's Miscellany (1953). Reissued as Béla Bollobás (ed.), Littlewood’s Miscellany (1986), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Argument (145)  |  Chance (244)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Detail (150)  |  Educated (12)  |  Grant (76)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impasse (2)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reader (42)  |  Sight (135)  |  Solve (145)  |  Successive (73)  |  Suffix (2)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Writer (90)

It is to geometry that we owe in some sort the source of this discovery [of beryllium]; it is that [science] that furnished the first idea of it, and we may say that without it the knowledge of this new earth would not have been acquired for a long time, since according to the analysis of the emerald by M. Klaproth and that of the beryl by M. Bindheim one would not have thought it possible to recommence this work without the strong analogies or even almost perfect identity that Citizen Haüy found for the geometrical properties between these two stony fossils.
Haüy used the geometry of cleavage to reveal the underlying crystal structure, and thus found the emeral and beryl were geometrically identical. In May Elvira Weeks, The Discovery of the Elements (1934), 153, citing Mellor, Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry (1923), 204-7.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Beryllium (3)  |  Citizen (52)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  First (1302)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Furnishing (4)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Idea (881)  |  Martin Heinrich Klaproth (3)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  Mineral (66)  |  New (1273)  |  Owe (71)  |  Owing (39)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Property (177)  |  Say (989)  |  Source (101)  |  Stone (168)  |  Strong (182)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Work (1402)

Life is a series of definite and successive changes both in structure and in composition, which take place in an individual without destroying its identity.
In Problems of Life and Mind: Second Series: the Physical Basis of Mind (1891), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Change (639)  |  Composition (86)  |  Definite (114)  |  Definition (238)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Individual (420)  |  Life (1870)  |  Series (153)  |  Structure (365)  |  Successive (73)

Logic issues in tautologies, mathematics in identities, philosophy in definitions; all trivial, but all part of the vital work of clarifying and organising our thought.
'Last Papers: Philosophy' (1929), in The Foundations of Mathematics and Other Logical Essays (1931), 264.
Science quotes on:  |  Clarification (8)  |  Definition (238)  |  Issue (46)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Organization (120)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Tautology (4)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Vital (89)  |  Work (1402)

Mathematics has the completely false reputation of yielding infallible conclusions. Its infallibility is nothing but identity. Two times two is not four, but it is just two times two, and that is what we call four for short. But four is nothing new at all. And thus it goes on and on in its conclusions, except that in the higher formulas the identity fades out of sight.
As quoted in Richard von Mises, 'Mathematical Postulates and Human Understanding', collected in J.R. Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics (1956), Vol. 3, 1754.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Fade (12)  |  False (105)  |  Formula (102)  |  Infallibility (7)  |  Infallible (18)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Reputation (33)  |  Short (200)  |  Sight (135)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Yield (86)

OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  237.
Science quotes on:  |  Door (94)  |  Humour (116)  |  Lead (391)  |  Opiate (2)  |  Prison (13)  |  Unlock (12)

Science arises from the discovery of Identity amid Diversity.
The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1874), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Diversity (75)

The actual evolution of mathematical theories proceeds by a process of induction strictly analogous to the method of induction employed in building up the physical sciences; observation, comparison, classification, trial, and generalisation are essential in both cases. Not only are special results, obtained independently of one another, frequently seen to be really included in some generalisation, but branches of the subject which have been developed quite independently of one another are sometimes found to have connections which enable them to be synthesised in one single body of doctrine. The essential nature of mathematical thought manifests itself in the discernment of fundamental identity in the mathematical aspects of what are superficially very different domains. A striking example of this species of immanent identity of mathematical form was exhibited by the discovery of that distinguished mathematician … Major MacMahon, that all possible Latin squares are capable of enumeration by the consideration of certain differential operators. Here we have a case in which an enumeration, which appears to be not amenable to direct treatment, can actually be carried out in a simple manner when the underlying identity of the operation is recognised with that involved in certain operations due to differential operators, the calculus of which belongs superficially to a wholly different region of thought from that relating to Latin squares.
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sheffield, Section A, Nature (1 Sep 1910), 84, 290.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Actually (27)  |  Amenable (4)  |  Analogous (7)  |  Appear (122)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Belong (168)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Branch (155)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Capable (174)  |  Carry (130)  |  Case (102)  |  Certain (557)  |  Classification (102)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Develop (278)  |  Different (595)  |  Differential (7)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discernment (4)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Domain (72)  |  Due (143)  |  Employ (115)  |  Enable (122)  |  Essential (210)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Example (98)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Include (93)  |  Independent (74)  |  Independently (24)  |  Induction (81)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Latin (44)  |  Percy Alexander MacMahon (3)  |  Major (88)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Manner (62)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Observation (593)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Operator (4)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Process (439)  |  Really (77)  |  Recognise (14)  |  Region (40)  |  Relate (26)  |  Result (700)  |  Simple (426)  |  Single (365)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Square (73)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Strike (72)  |  Striking (48)  |  Subject (543)  |  Superficial (12)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Synthesize (3)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Trial (59)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Wholly (88)

The Astonishing Hypothesis is that “You,” your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased it: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.”
In 'Introduction', The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for Soul (1994), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambition (46)  |  Assembly (13)  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Brain (281)  |  Lewis Carroll (48)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Free (239)  |  Free Will (15)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Joy (117)  |  Memory (144)  |  Molecule (185)  |  More (2558)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Neuron (10)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Vast (188)  |  Will (2350)

The Universe was a stage in which always the same actors—the atoms—played their parts, differing in disguises and groupings, but without change of identity. And these actors were endowed with immortality.
In The Mysterious Universe (1930, Rev. Ed. 1942), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Change (639)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Stage (152)  |  Universe (900)

The whole value of science consists in the power which it confers upon us of applying to one object the knowledge acquired from like objects; and it is only so far, therefore, as we can discover and register resemblances that we can turn our observations to account.
Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1874, 2nd ed., 1913), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Application (257)  |  Confer (11)  |  Consist (223)  |  Definition (238)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Diveristy (2)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Power (771)  |  Register (22)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Turn (454)  |  Value (393)  |  Whole (756)

There is a noble vision of the great Castle of Mathematics, towering somewhere in the Platonic World of Ideas, which we humbly and devotedly discover (rather than invent). The greatest mathematicians manage to grasp outlines of the Grand Design, but even those to whom only a pattern on a small kitchen tile is revealed, can be blissfully happy. … Mathematics is a proto-text whose existence is only postulated but which nevertheless underlies all corrupted and fragmentary copies we are bound to deal with. The identity of the writer of this proto-text (or of the builder of the Castle) is anybody’s guess. …
In 'Mathematical Knowledge: Internal, Social, and Cultural Aspects', Mathematics As Metaphor: Selected Essays (2007), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Anybody (42)  |  Bound (120)  |  Builder (16)  |  Castle (5)  |  Copy (34)  |  Deal (192)  |  Design (203)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Discover (571)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fragmentary (8)  |  Grand (29)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Guess (67)  |  Happy (108)  |  Humble (54)  |  Humbly (8)  |  Idea (881)  |  Invent (57)  |  Kitchen (14)  |  Manage (26)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Noble (93)  |  Outline (13)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Platonic (4)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Small (489)  |  Text (16)  |  Tile (2)  |  Towering (11)  |  Underlie (19)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)  |  Writer (90)

With moth cytochrome C there are 30 differences and 74 identities. With bread yeast and humans, there are about 45 amino acids that are different and about 59 that are identical. Think how close together man and this other organism, bread yeast, are. What is the probability that in 59 positions the same choice out of 20 possibilities would have been made by accident? It is impossibly small. There is, there must be, a developmental explanation of this. The developmental explanation is that bread yeast and man have a common ancestor, perhaps two billion years ago. And so we see that not only are all men brothers, but men and yeast cells, too, are at least close cousins, to say nothing about men and gorillas or rhesus monkeys. It is the duty of scientists to dispel ignorance of such relationships.
'The Social Responsibilities of Scientists and Science', The Science Teacher (1933), 33, 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Acid (83)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Billion (104)  |  Bread (42)  |  Brother (47)  |  Cell (146)  |  Choice (114)  |  Closeness (4)  |  Common (447)  |  Cousin (12)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Dispelling (4)  |  Duty (71)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Gorilla (19)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identical (55)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Man (2252)  |  Monkey (57)  |  Moth (5)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Position (83)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Probability (135)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Think (1122)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)  |  Year (963)  |  Yeast (7)


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.