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 I > Category: Imitate

Imitate Quotes (18 quotes)

According to Herr Cook's observation, the inhabitants of New Guinea have something they set light to which burns up almost like gunpowder. They also put it into hollow staves, and from a distance you could believe they are shooting. But it does not produce so much as a bang. Presumably they are trying to imitate the Europeans. They have failed to realize its real purpose.
Aphorism 27 in Notebook D (1773-1775), as translated by R.J. Hollingdale in Aphorisms (1990). Reprinted as The Waste Books (2000), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Bang (29)  |  Burn (99)  |  Distance (171)  |  Europe (50)  |  Fail (191)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Imitation (24)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Light (635)  |  New (1273)  |  New Guinea (4)  |  Observation (593)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Realize (157)  |  Rifle (3)  |  Set (400)  |  Shooting (6)  |  Something (718)  |  Trying (144)

All things on the earth are the result of chemical combination. The operation by which the commingling of molecules and the interchange of atoms take place we can imitate in our laboratories; but in nature they proceed by slow degrees, and, in general, in our hands they are distinguished by suddenness of action. In nature chemical power is distributed over a long period of time, and the process of change is scarcely to be observed. By acts we concentrate chemical force, and expend it in producing a change which occupies but a few hours at most.
In chapter 'Chemical Forces', The Poetry of Science: Or, Studies of the Physical Phenomena of Nature (1848), 235-236. Charles Dicken used this quote, with his own sub-head of 'Relative Importance Of Time To Man And Nature', to conclude his review of the book, published in The Examiner (1848).
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Atom (381)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Combination (150)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Degree (277)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Hour (192)  |  Interchange (4)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Long (778)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observed (149)  |  Operation (221)  |  Period (200)  |  Place (192)  |  Power (771)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Process (439)  |  Producing (6)  |  Result (700)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Slow (108)  |  Suddenness (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)

An eye critically nice can only be formed by observing well-colored pictures with attention; and by close attention … discover … expedients by which good colorists have raised the value of their tints, and by which nature has been so happily imitated.
In The Life and Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1853), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Color (155)  |  Critical (73)  |  Discover (571)  |  Expedient (6)  |  Eye (440)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nice (15)  |  Observe (179)  |  Picture (148)  |  Tint (3)

Analogy is a wonderful, useful and most important form of thinking, and biology is saturated with it. Nothing is worse than a horrible mass of undigested facts, and facts are indigestible unless there is some rhyme or reason to them. The physicist, with his facts, seeks reason; the biologist seeks something very much like rhyme, and rhyme is a kind of analogy.... This analogizing, this fine sweeping ability to see likenesses in the midst of differences is the great glory of biology, but biologists don't know it.... They have always been so fascinated and overawed by the superior prestige of exact physical science that they feel they have to imitate it.... In its central content, biology is not accurate thinking, but accurate observation and imaginative thinking, with great sweeping generalizations.
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 98-100.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Awe (43)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Biology (232)  |  Central (81)  |  Content (75)  |  Difference (355)  |  Exact (75)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fascination (35)  |  Feel (371)  |  Form (976)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Glory (66)  |  Great (1610)  |  Horrible (10)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imitation (24)  |  Importance (299)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Mass (160)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Prestige (16)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rhyme (6)  |  Saturation (9)  |  See (1094)  |  Seek (218)  |  Something (718)  |  Superior (88)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Undigested (2)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wonderful (155)

Few scientists acquainted with the chemistry of biological systems at the molecular level can avoid being inspired. Evolution has produced chemical compounds exquisitely organized to accomplish the most complicated and delicate of tasks. Many organic chemists viewing crystal structures of enzyme systems or nucleic acids and knowing the marvels of specificity of the immune systems must dream of designing and synthesizing simpler organic compounds that imitate working features of these naturally occurring compounds.
In 'The Design of Molecular Hosts, Guests, and Their Complexes', Nobel Lecture, 8 December 1987. In Nobel Lectures: Chemistry 1981-1990 (1992), 419.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biological (137)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Compound (117)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Dream (222)  |  Enzyme (19)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Immune System (3)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Molecular Biology (27)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Compound (3)  |  Produced (187)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)  |  Task (152)

Human language is in some ways similar to, but in other ways vastly different from, other kinds of animal communication. We simply have no idea about its evolutionary history, though many people have speculated about its possible origins. There is, for instance, the “bow-bow” theory, that language started from attempts to imitate animal sounds. Or the “ding-dong” theory, that it arose from natural sound-producing responses. Or the “pooh-pooh” theory, that it began with violent outcries and exclamations.
We have no way of knowing whether the kinds of men represented by the earliest fossils could talk or not…
Language does not leave fossils, at least not until it has become written.
Man in Nature (1961), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Become (821)  |  Bow (15)  |  Communication (101)  |  Different (595)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exclamation (3)  |  Fossil (143)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Language (308)  |  Natural (810)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outcry (3)  |  People (1031)  |  Possible (560)  |  Represent (157)  |  Response (56)  |  Similar (36)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Start (237)  |  Talk (108)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Violent (17)  |  Way (1214)  |  Write (250)

I was unable to devote myself to the learning of this al-jabr [algebra] and the continued concentration upon it, because of obstacles in the vagaries of Time which hindered me; for we have been deprived of all the people of knowledge save for a group, small in number, with many troubles, whose concern in life is to snatch the opportunity, when Time is asleep, to devote themselves meanwhile to the investigation and perfection of a science; for the majority of people who imitate philosophers confuse the true with the false, and they do nothing but deceive and pretend knowledge, and they do not use what they know of the sciences except for base and material purposes; and if they see a certain person seeking for the right and preferring the truth, doing his best to refute the false and untrue and leaving aside hypocrisy and deceit, they make a fool of him and mock him.
A. P. Youschkevitch and B. A. Rosenfeld, 'Al-Khayyami', in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1973), Vol. 7, 324.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Base (120)  |  Best (467)  |  Certain (557)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Concern (239)  |  Deceit (7)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Fool (121)  |  Hinder (12)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Majority (68)  |  Material (366)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  People (1031)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Research (753)  |  Right (473)  |  Save (126)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Snatch (14)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Untrue (12)  |  Use (771)

If we wish to imitate the physical sciences, we must not imitate them in their contemporary, most developed form; we must imitate them in their historical youth, when their state of development was comparable to our own at the present time. Otherwise we should behave like boys who try to copy the imposing manners of full-grown men without understanding their raison d’être, also without seeing that in development one cannot jump over intermediate and preliminary phases.
Gestalt Psychology (1929), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Boy (100)  |  Copy (34)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Form (976)  |  Historical (70)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Jump (31)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Phase (37)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Present (630)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Seeing (143)  |  State (505)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Wish (216)  |  Youth (109)

It is among the psychoanalysts in particular that man is defined as a human being and woman as a female—whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.
The Second Sex (1949). Trans. H. M. Parshley (1953), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Female (50)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Man (2252)  |  Psychoanalyst (4)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Woman (160)

Man is a megalomaniac among animals—if he sees mountains he will try to imitate them by pyramids, and if he sees some grand process like evolution, and thinks it would be at all possible for him to be in on that game, he would irreverently have to have his whack at that too. That daring megalomania of his—has it not brought him to his present place?
'Application and Prospects', unpublished lecture, 1916. In Philip J. Pauly, Controlling Life: Jacques Loeb and the Engineering idea in Biology (1987), 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Daring (17)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Game (104)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Pyramid (9)  |  See (1094)  |  Think (1122)  |  Try (296)  |  Will (2350)

Of beasts, it is confess’d, the ape
Comes nearest us in human shape;
Like man he imitates each fashion,
And malice is his ruling passion.
In Poetical Essay, 'The Logicians Refuted', The Scots Magazine (1759),-21, 525.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal Behavior (10)  |  Ape (54)  |  Beast (58)  |  Confess (42)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Human (1512)  |  Malice (6)  |  Man (2252)  |  Passion (121)  |  Rule (307)  |  Shape (77)

Of beasts, it is confess’d, the ape
Comes nearest us in human shape;
Like man he imitates each fashion,
And malice is his ruling passion.
In Poetical Essay, 'The Logicians Refuted', The Scots Magazine (1759),-21, 525.
Science quotes on:  |  Ape (54)  |  Beast (58)  |  Confess (42)  |  Human (1512)  |  Man (2252)  |  Passion (121)

The fact that nature deals the occasional death blow doesn’t hand us an excuse to imitate it.
With co-author Jack Cohen. In Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, Chap. 42, 'Ways to Leave Your Planet', The Science of Discworld (1999), 301. Pratchett wrote the fantasy story told in the odd-numbered chapters. Following each, relevant real science is provided by his co-authors, Stewart and Cohen, in the even-numbered chapters (such as Chap. 42), but which of the two wrote which lines, is not designated.
Science quotes on:  |  Blow (45)  |  Deal (192)  |  Death (406)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occasional (23)

The function of Art is to imitate Nature in her manner of operation. Our understanding of “her manner of operation” changes according to advances in the sciences.
John Cage
A Year from Monday (1969), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Advance (298)  |  Art (680)  |  Change (639)  |  Function (235)  |  Manner (62)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Operation (221)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Understanding (527)

The magnetic force is animate, or imitates a soul; in many respects it surpasses the human soul while it is united to an organic body.
In De Magnete. Cited in Gerrit L. Verschuur, Hidden Attraction (1996), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Animation (6)  |  Body (557)  |  Force (497)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imitation (24)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Organic (161)  |  Respect (212)  |  Soul (235)  |  Surpassing (12)  |  Uniting (4)

The motive for the study of mathematics is insight into the nature of the universe. Stars and strata, heat and electricity, the laws and processes of becoming and being, incorporate mathematical truths. If language imitates the voice of the Creator, revealing His heart, mathematics discloses His intellect, repeating the story of how things came into being. And Value of Mathematics, appealing as it does to our energy and to our honor, to our desire to know the truth and thereby to live as of right in the household of God, is that it establishes us in larger and larger certainties. As literature develops emotion, understanding, and sympathy, so mathematics develops observation, imagination, and reason.
In A Theory of Motives, Ideals and Values in Education (1907), 406.
Science quotes on:  |  Appeal (46)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Creator (97)  |  Desire (212)  |  Develop (278)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Energy (373)  |  Establish (63)  |  God (776)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heat (180)  |  Honor (57)  |  Household (8)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Incorporate (9)  |  Insight (107)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Know (1538)  |  Language (308)  |  Larger (14)  |  Law (913)  |  Literature (116)  |  Live (650)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Motive (62)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Process (439)  |  Reason (766)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Right (473)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Story (122)  |  Strata (37)  |  Stratum (11)  |  Study (701)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)  |  Value (393)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Voice (54)

There is, I think, no more wonderful and illuminating spectacle than that of an osmotic growth,—a crude lump of brute inanimate matter germinating before our very eyes, putting forth bud and stem and root and branch and leaf and fruit, with no stimulus from germ or seed, without even the presence of organic matter. For these mineral growths are not mere crystallizations as many suppose … They imitate the forms, the colour, the texture, and even the microscopical structure of organic growth so closely as to deceive the very elect.
In the 'Translator’s Preface' of his translation of Stéphane Leduc, The Mechanism of Life (1911), vii-viii. Butcher is drawing attention to the remarkable discussion of “Organic Growth” in Leduc’s book. Must-see illustrations of various inorganic growths are shown on the M.I.T. web page Osmotic Morphogenesis. Also note that “to deceive the very elect” is a Biblical reference, where the “elect” are the chosen ones faithful to their divine call.See, for example, Matthew 24:24.
Science quotes on:  |  Branch (155)  |  Brute (30)  |  Color (155)  |  Crude (32)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Deceiving (5)  |  Eye (440)  |  Form (976)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Germ (54)  |  Germinating (2)  |  Growth (200)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Imitation (24)  |  Inanimate (18)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mineral (66)  |  More (2558)  |  Organic (161)  |  Osmosis (3)  |  Presence (63)  |  Root (121)  |  Seed (97)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Stem (31)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Structure (365)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Texture (8)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wonderful (155)

You have chosen the most fascinating and dynamic profession there is, a profession with the highest potential for greatness, since the physician’s daily work is wrapped up in the subtle web of history. Your labors are linked with those of your colleagues who preceded you in history, and those who are now working all over the world. It is this spiritual unity with our colleagues of all periods and all countries that has made medicine so universal and eternal. For this reason we must study and try to imitate the lives of the “Great Doctors” of history.
epilogue to A Prelude to Medical History
Science quotes on:  |  Chosen (48)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Country (269)  |  Daily (91)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Dynamic (16)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatness (55)  |  History (716)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Period (200)  |  Physician (284)  |  Potential (75)  |  Preceded (2)  |  Profession (108)  |  Reason (766)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Study (701)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Try (296)  |  Unity (81)  |  Universal (198)  |  Web (17)  |  Work (1402)  |  Working (23)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrapped (2)


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.