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: “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index I > Category: Innocence

Innocence Quotes (13 quotes)

A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty until found effective.
Edward Teller, Wendy Teller, Wilson Talley, Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics (1991, 2002), Footnote, 69.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Effective (68)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Guilt (13)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Novel (35)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Statement (148)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Want (504)

A new theory is guilty until proven innocent, and the pre-existing theory innocent until proven guilty ... Continental drift was guilty until proven innocent.
The Nemesis Affair: A Story of the Death of the Dinosaurs and the Ways of Science (1986), 195-205.
Science quotes on:  |  Continental Drift (15)  |  Guilt (13)  |  New (1273)  |  Pre-existing (2)  |  Proof (304)  |  Theory (1015)

But the Presidence of that mighty Power … its particular Agency and Concern therein: and its Purpose and Design … will more evidently appear, when I shall have proved … That the said Earth, though not indifferently and alike fertil in all parts of it, was yet generally much more fertil than ours is … That its Soil was more luxuriant, and teemed forth its Productions in far greater plenty and abundance than the present Earth does … That when Man was fallen, and had abandoned his primitive Innocence, the Case was much altered: and a far different Scene of Things presented; that generous Vertue, masculine Bravery, and prudent Circumspection which he was before Master of, now deserting him … and a strange imbecility immediately seized and laid hold of him: he became pusillanimous, and was easily ruffled with every little Passion within: supine, and as openly exposed to any Temptation or Assault from without. And now these exuberant Productions of the Earth became a continued Decoy and Snare unto him.
In An Essay Toward A Natural History of the Earth (1695), 84-86.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Abundance (26)  |  Alike (60)  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Circumspection (5)  |  Concern (239)  |  Design (203)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Fertility (23)  |  Generous (17)  |  Greater (288)  |  Imbecility (5)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Masculine (4)  |  Master (182)  |  More (2558)  |  Passion (121)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Production (190)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Scene (36)  |  Soil (98)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

By what process of reasoning should the State of Texas be more concerned in the conviction of the guilty than in the acquittal of the innocent? [Urging the use of scopolamine “truth serum” to determine innocence.]
From paper read at the Section on State Medicine and Public Hygiene of the State Medical Association of Texas at El Paso (11 May 1922), 'The Use Of Scopolamine In Criminology', published in Texas State Journal of Medicine (Sep 1922). Reprinted in The American Journal of Police Science (Jul-Aug 1931), 2, No. 4, 328.
Science quotes on:  |  Concern (239)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Determine (152)  |  Guilty (8)  |  Innocent (13)  |  More (2558)  |  Process (439)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Scopolamine (3)  |  Serum (11)  |  State (505)  |  Texas (4)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Truth Serum (2)  |  Use (771)

During this [book preparation] time attacks have not been wanting—we must always be prepared for them. If they grow out of a scientific soil, they cannot but be useful, by laying bare weak points and stimulating to their correction; but if they proceed from that soil, from which the lilies of innocence and the palms of conciliation should spring up, where, however, nothing but the marsh-trefoil of credulity and the poisonous water-hemlock of calumniation grow, they deserve no attention.
Carl Vogt
From Carl Vogt and James Hunt (ed.), Lectures on Man: His Place in Creation, and in the History of the Earth (1861), Author's Preface, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Attack (86)  |  Attention (196)  |  Bare (33)  |  Book (413)  |  Correction (42)  |  Credulity (16)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Deserving (4)  |  Grow (247)  |  Lily (5)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Palm (5)  |  Point (584)  |  Poison (46)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spring (140)  |  Stimulation (18)  |  Time (1911)  |  Useful (260)  |  Water (503)  |  Weak (73)  |  Weakness (50)

Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture. An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock, a learned man is a torch. A lamb is innocence; a snake is subtle spite; flowers express to us the delicate affections. Light and darkness are our familiar expressions for knowledge and ignorance ; and heat for love. Visible distance behind and before us, is respectively our image of memory and hope.
In essay, 'Language', collected in Nature: An Essay ; And, Lectures on the Times (1844), 23-24.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Behind (139)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Cunning (17)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Describe (132)  |  Distance (171)  |  Express (192)  |  Expression (181)  |  Firm (47)  |  Flower (112)  |  Fox (9)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hope (321)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Image (97)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lamb (6)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Light (635)  |  Linguistics (39)  |  Lion (23)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Picture (148)  |  Respectively (13)  |  Rock (176)  |  Snake (29)  |  Spite (55)  |  State (505)  |  State Of Mind (4)  |  Subtle (37)  |  Torch (13)  |  Visible (87)

In logic, A asserts and B denies. Assertions being proverbially untrue, the presumption would be in favor of B’s innocence were it not that denials are notoriously false.
The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary (2000), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (69)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Being (1276)  |  Denial (20)  |  False (105)  |  Favor (69)  |  Logic (311)  |  Notorious (8)  |  Presumption (15)  |  Proverb (29)  |  Untrue (12)

It is sometimes asserted that a surgical operation is or should be a work of art … fit to rank with those of the painter or sculptor. … That proposition does not admit of discussion. It is a product of the intellectual innocence which I think we surgeons may fairly claim to possess, and which is happily not inconsistent with a quite adequate worldly wisdom.
Address, opening of 1932-3 session of U.C.H. Medical School (4 Oct 1932), 'Art and Science in Medicine', The Collected Papers of Wilfred Trotter, FRS (1941), 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequacy (10)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Admission (17)  |  Art (680)  |  Assert (69)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Claim (154)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Fit (139)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Inconsistency (5)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Operation (221)  |  Painter (30)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possession (68)  |  Product (166)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Rank (69)  |  Sculptor (10)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)

Science, that gives man hope to live without lies
Or blast himself off the earth; curb science
Until morality catches up?
But look:
At present morality is running rapidly retrograde.
You’d have to turn science, too, back to the witch doctors,
the myth drunkards. Besides that,
Morality is not an end in itself; truth is an end.
To seek the truth is
better than good works, better than survival
Holier than innocence, and higher than love.
Poem, 'Curb Science?', in The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: 1938-1962 (1988), 199. The poem was suppressed until 1977.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Better (493)  |  Blast (13)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Good (906)  |  Himself (461)  |  Holy (35)  |  Hope (321)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  Look (584)  |  Love (328)  |  Man (2252)  |  Morality (55)  |  Myth (58)  |  Present (630)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Retrograde (8)  |  Running (61)  |  Seek (218)  |  Survival (105)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Witch Doctor (2)  |  Work (1402)

The double horror of two Japanese city names [Hiroshima and Nagasaki] grew for me into another kind of double horror; an estranging awareness of what the United States was capable of, the country that five years before had given me its citizenship; a nauseating terror at the direction the natural sciences were going. Never far from an apocalyptic vision of the world, I saw the end of the essence of mankind an end brought nearer, or even made, possible, by the profession to which I belonged. In my view, all natural sciences were as one; and if one science could no longer plead innocence, none could.
Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before Nature (1978), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Awareness (42)  |  Belong (168)  |  Capable (174)  |  City (87)  |  Country (269)  |  Direction (185)  |  End (603)  |  Essence (85)  |  Hiroshima (18)  |  Horror (15)  |  Japanese (7)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Nagasaki (3)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Never (1089)  |  Possible (560)  |  Profession (108)  |  Saw (160)  |  State (505)  |  Terror (32)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

The only sure foundations of medicine are, an intimate knowledge of the human body, and observation on the effects of medicinal substances on that. The anatomical and clinical schools, therefore, are those in which the young physician should be formed. If he enters with innocence that of the theory of medicine, it is scarcely possible he should come out untainted with error. His mind must be strong indeed, if, rising above juvenile credulity, it can maintain a wise infidelity against the authority of his instructors, and the bewitching delusions of their theories.
In letter to Caspar Wistar (21 Jun 1807), collected in Thomas Jefferson Randolph (ed.), Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson (1829), Vol. 4, 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Authority (99)  |  Body (557)  |  Clinic (4)  |  Clinical (18)  |  Credulity (16)  |  Delusion (26)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enter (145)  |  Error (339)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Infidelity (3)  |  Instructor (5)  |  Juvenile (4)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Physician (284)  |  Possible (560)  |  Rising (44)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  School (227)  |  Strong (182)  |  Substance (253)  |  Taint (10)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)  |  Young (253)

The vulgar opinion, then, which, on health reasons, condemns vegetable food and so much praises animal food, being so ill-founded, I have always thought it well to oppose myself to it, moved both by experience and by that refined knowledge of natural things which some study and conversation with great men have given me. And perceiving now that such my constancy has been honoured by some learned and wise physicians with their authoritative adhesion (della autorevole sequela), I have thought it my duty publicly to diffuse the reasons of the Pythagorean diet, regarded as useful in medicine, and, at the same time, as full of innocence, of temperance, and of health. And it is none the less accompanied with a certain delicate pleasure, and also with a refined and splendid luxury (non è privo nemmeno d’una certa delicate voluttà e d’un lusso gentile e splendido ancora), if care and skill be applied in selection and proper supply of the best vegetable food, to which the fertility and the natural character of our beautiful country seem to invite us. For my part I have been so much the more induced to take up this subject, because I have persuaded myself that I might be of service to intending diet-reformers, there not being, to my knowledge, any book of which this is the sole subject, and which undertakes exactly to explain the origin and the reasons of it.
From Dell Vitto Pitagorico (1743), (The Pythagorean Diet: for the Use of the Medical Faculty), as translated quotes in Howard Williams, The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-Eating (1883), 158.
Science quotes on:  |  Adhesion (6)  |  Animal (651)  |  Applied (176)  |  Authority (99)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Book (413)  |  Both (496)  |  Care (203)  |  Certain (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Constancy (12)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Country (269)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Diet (56)  |  Experience (494)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fertility (23)  |  Food (213)  |  Great (1610)  |  Health (210)  |  Honour (58)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Luxury (21)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  Myself (211)  |  Natural (810)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Oppose (27)  |  Origin (250)  |  Physician (284)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Praise (28)  |  Proper (150)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reformer (5)  |  Regard (312)  |  Selection (130)  |  Service (110)  |  Skill (116)  |  Sole (50)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Supply (100)  |  Temperance (3)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Useful (260)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Vegetarian (13)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Wise (143)

This shall be the test of innocence—if I can hear a taunt, and look out on this friendly moon, pacing the heavens in queenlike majesty, with the accustomed yearning.
In 'Sin Destroys the Perception of the Beautiful' (13 Nov 1837). In Henry David Thoreau and Bradford Torrey (ed.), The Writings of Henry Thoreau: Journal: I: 1837-1846 (1906), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Friendly (7)  |  Hear (144)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Look (584)  |  Majesty (21)  |  Moon (252)  |  Queen (14)  |  Test (221)  |  Yearn (13)  |  Yearning (13)


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.