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: “I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, ... finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell ... whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index I > Category: Instruction

Instruction Quotes (101 quotes)
Instructed Quotes, Instructive Quotes, Instructing Quotes, Instruct Quotes


[Decoding the human genome sequence] is the most significant undertaking that we have mounted so far in an organized way in all of science. I believe that reading our blueprints, cataloguing our own instruction book, will be judged by history as more significant than even splitting the atom or going to the moon.
Interview (23 May 1998), 'Cracking the Code to Life', Academy of Achievement web site.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Blueprint (9)  |  Book (413)  |  Catalog (5)  |  Genome (15)  |  Going (6)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Genome (13)  |  Judgement (8)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mount (43)  |  Organization (120)  |  Reading (136)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Significance (114)  |  Significant (78)  |  Splitting (3)  |  Splitting The Atom (4)  |  Undertaking (17)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

[The object of education is] to train the mind to ascertain the sequence of a particular conclusion from certain premises, to detect a fallacy, to correct undue generalisation, to prevent the growth of mistakes in reasoning. Everything in these must depend on the spirit and the manner in which the instruction itself is conveyed and honoured. If you teach scientific knowledge without honouring scientific knowledge as it is applied, you do more harm than good. I do think that the study of natural science is so glorious a school for the mind, that with the laws impressed on all these things by the Creator, and the wonderful unity and stability of matter, and the forces of matter, there cannot be a better school for the education of the mind.
Giving Evidence (18 Nov 1862) to the Public Schools Commission. As quoted in John L. Lewis, 125 Years: The Physical Society & The Institute of Physics (1999), 168-169.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Better (493)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Creator (97)  |  Depend (238)  |  Detect (45)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Force (497)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Good (906)  |  Growth (200)  |  Harm (43)  |  Honour (58)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Object (438)  |  Premise (40)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stability (28)  |  Study (701)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Train (118)  |  Unity (81)  |  Wonderful (155)

Drosophila melanogaster has been more extensively used in the study of genetics than any other organism, and the theory of heredity that is now generally accepted is based chiefly on the results obtained with this fly. … Not only has Drosophila been the most productive material for research in the subject, but it is now the standard object for laboratory instruction, and is used as such in many colleges and universities.
In The North American Species of Drosophila (1921), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  College (71)  |  Drosophila (10)  |  Fly (153)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Organism (231)  |  Productive (37)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Standard (64)  |  Theory (1015)  |  University (130)

Every teacher certainly should know something of non-euclidean geometry. Thus, it forms one of the few parts of mathematics which, at least in scattered catch-words, is talked about in wide circles, so that any teacher may be asked about it at any moment. … Imagine a teacher of physics who is unable to say anything about Röntgen rays, or about radium. A teacher of mathematics who could give no answer to questions about non-euclidean geometry would not make a better impression.
On the other hand, I should like to advise emphatically against bringing non-euclidean into regular school instruction (i.e., beyond occasional suggestions, upon inquiry by interested pupils), as enthusiasts are always recommending. Let us be satisfied if the preceding advice is followed and if the pupils learn to really understand euclidean geometry. After all, it is in order for the teacher to know a little more than the average pupil.
In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Advise (7)  |  Against (332)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Average (89)  |  Better (493)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bring (95)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Circle (117)  |  Emphatically (8)  |  Enthusiast (9)  |  Euclidean (3)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Least (75)  |  Let (64)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Non-Euclidean (7)  |  Occasional (23)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Precede (23)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Question (649)  |  Radium (29)  |  Ray (115)  |  Really (77)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Regular (48)  |  Wilhelm Röntgen (8)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  Say (989)  |  Scatter (7)  |  School (227)  |  Something (718)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Talk (108)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Unable (25)  |  Understand (648)  |  Wide (97)  |  Word (650)  |  X-ray (43)

Neque enim ingenium sine disciplina aut disciplina sine ingenio perfectum artificem potest efficere
For neither talent without instruction nor instruction without talent can produce the perfect craftsman.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 1, Chap 1, Sec. 3. As in Frank Granger (trans.), Vitruvius: De Architectura (1931), 8-9. Also translated as “Neither natural ability without instruction nor instruction without natural ability can make the perfect artist.” In Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Artist (97)  |  Craftsman (5)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Produce (117)  |  Talent (99)

Ut ager quamvis fertilis sine cultura fructuosus esse non potest, sic sine doctrina animus.
A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.
In Hannis Taylor and Mary Lillie Taylor Hunt, Cicero: a Sketch of His Life and Works (2nd Ed., 1918), 597.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Cultivate (24)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Education (423)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Field (378)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)

A fear of intellectual inadequacy, of powerlessness before the tireless electronic wizards, has given rise to dozens of science-fiction fantasies of computer takeovers. ... Other scientists too are apprehensive. D. Raj Reddy, a computer scientist at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie-Mellon University, fears that universally available microcomputers could turn into formidable weapons. Among other things, says Reddy, sophisticated computers in the wrong hands could begin subverting a society by tampering with people’s relationships with their own computers—instructing the other computers to cut off telephone, bank and other services, for example.
An early prediction of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service), viruses and worms like Stuxnet. As stated, without further citation, in 'The Age of Miracle Chips', Time (20 Feb 1978), 44. The article introduces a special section on 'The Computer Society.' Please contact Webmaster if you know a primary source.
Science quotes on:  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Available (80)  |  Bank (31)  |  Begin (275)  |  Computer (131)  |  Cut (116)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Fear (212)  |  Formidable (8)  |  Hand (149)  |  Inadequacy (4)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Rise (169)  |  Say (989)  |  Science Fiction (35)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Service (110)  |  Society (350)  |  Sophisticated (16)  |  Subvert (2)  |  Tamper (7)  |  Tampering (3)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tireless (5)  |  Turn (454)  |  Universal (198)  |  University (130)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Wizard (4)  |  Wrong (246)

A lecturer should … give them [the audience] full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.
In Letter to his friend Benjamin Abbott (11 Jun 1813), collected in Bence Jones, Life and Letters of Faraday, Vol. 1, 73. Faraday was age 21, less than a year since completing his bookbinder apprenticeship, and had decided upon “giving up trade and taking to science.” From several letters, various opinions about lecturing were gathered in an article, 'Faraday on Scientific Lecturing', Norman Locker (ed.), Nature (23 Oct 1873), 8, 524.
Science quotes on:  |  Audience (28)  |  Belief (615)  |  Exert (40)  |  Lecturer (13)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Power (771)  |  Reason (766)  |  Science And Education (17)

A mind which has once imbibed a taste for scientific enquiry, and has learnt the habit of applying its principles readily to the cases which occur, has within itself an inexhaustable source of pure and exciting contemplations:— One would think that Shakespeare had such a mind in view when he describes a contemplative man as finding
    “Tongues in trees—books in running brooks—
    Sermons in stones—and good in everything.”
Accustomed to trace the operations of general causes and the exemplification of general laws, in circumstances where the uninformed and uninquiring eye, perceives neither novelty nor beauty, he walks in the midst of wonders; every object which falls in his way elucidates some principle, affords some instruction and impresses him with a sense of harmony and order. Nor is it a mere passive pleasure which is thus communicated. A thousand questions are continually arising in his mind, a thousand objects of enquiry presenting themselves, which keep his faculties in constant exercise, and his thoughts perpetually on the wing, so that lassitude is excluded from his life, and that craving after artificial excitement and dissipation of the mind, which leads so many into frivolous, unworthy, and destructive pursuits, is altogether eradicated from his bosom.
In Dionysius Lardner (ed.), Cabinet Cyclopaedia, Vol 1, Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1831), 14-15.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Arising (22)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Book (413)  |  Bosom (14)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Describe (132)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Everything (489)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fall (243)  |  Frivolous (8)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Habit (174)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Lassitude (4)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Object (438)  |  Occur (151)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Order (638)  |  Perpetually (20)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Question (649)  |  Running (61)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sermon (9)  |  Stone (168)  |  Taste (93)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Trace (109)  |  Tree (269)  |  Unworthy (18)  |  View (496)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wing (79)  |  Wonder (251)

A true anecdote which illustrates his unworldly nature is of the instruction he received in 1922 to appear at Buckingham Palace to receive the accolade of the Order of Knighthood; he replied that as the date coincided with that of a meeting of the Physiological Society, he would be unable to attend.
Charles Lovatt Evans, Reminiscences of Bayliss and Starling (1964), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Anecdote (21)  |  Attend (67)  |  Sir William Bayliss (3)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Receive (117)  |  Society (350)

Alexander Langmuir was quoted in the early 1960s instructing incoming Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers that the only need for the laboratory in an outbreak investigation was to “prove their conclusions were right.” (2011)
As given in epigraph to Chap. 9, in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The CDC Field Epidemiology Manual (2018), 188. A footnoted reference explains: “Langmuir’s point was not to denigrate the laboratory but to emphasize the power of an investigation based on a solid clinical case definition and established field epidemiologic principles,” in Walter R. Dowdle (corresponding author), Leonard W. Mayer, Karen K. Steinberg, Neelam D. Ghiya and Tanja Popovic (co-authors), 'CDC Laboratory Contributions to Public Health', Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Supplements (7 Oct 2011), 60, 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Correct (95)  |  Epidemiologist (3)  |  Fieldwork (5)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Alexander Langmuir (4)  |  Need (320)  |  Prove (261)  |  Right (473)

All living things need their instruction manual (even nonliving things like viruses) and that is all they need, carried in one very small suitcase.
In The Center of Life: A Natural History of the Cell (1977, 1978), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  DNA (81)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Manual (7)  |  Need (320)  |  Nonliving (4)  |  Small (489)  |  Suitcase (3)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Virus (32)

Among all the liberal arts, the first is logic, and specifically that part of logic which gives initial instruction about words. … [T]he word “logic” has a broad meaning, and is not restricted exclusively to the science of argumentative reasoning. [It includes] Grammar [which] is “the science of speaking and writing correctly—the starting point of all liberal studies.”
In John of Salisbury and Daniel D. McGarry (trans.), 'Whence grammar gets its name', The Metalogicon (2009), 37. It is footnoted: Isidore, Etym., i, 5, §1.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  First (1302)  |  Grammar (15)  |  Include (93)  |  Liberal Arts (5)  |  Logic (311)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Point (584)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Start (237)  |  Study (701)  |  Word (650)  |  Writing (192)

As a child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bible (105)  |  Both (496)  |  Child (333)  |  Enthral (2)  |  Figure (162)  |  Jew (11)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Receive (117)  |   Talmud (5)

As is well known the principle of virtual velocities transforms all statics into a mathematical assignment, and by D'Alembert's principle for dynamics, the latter is again reduced to statics. Although it is is very much in order that in gradual training of science and in the instruction of the individual the easier precedes the more difficult, the simple precedes the more complicated, the special precedes the general, yet the min, once it has arrived at the higher standpoint, demands the reverse process whereby all statics appears only as a very special case of mechanics.
Collected Works (1877), Vol. 5, 25-26. Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 412.
Science quotes on:  |  Assignment (12)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Jean le Rond D’Alembert (13)  |  Demand (131)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Easier (53)  |  General (521)  |  Individual (420)  |  Known (453)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Simple (426)  |  Special (188)  |  Special Case (9)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Statics (6)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Training (92)  |  Transform (74)

But for twenty years previous to 1847 a force had been at work in a little county town of Germany destined to effect the education of Christendom, and at the same time to enlarge the boundaries of human knowledge, first in chemistry and the allied branches, then in every other one of the natural sciences. The place was Giessen; the inventor Liebig; the method, a laboratory for instruction and research.
A Semi-Centennial Discourse, 1847-97' (28 Oct 1897), The Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. Quoted in Daniel Coit Gilman, University Problems in the United States (1898), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Destined (42)  |  Education (423)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Justus von Liebig (39)  |  Little (717)  |  Method (531)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Other (2233)  |  Research (753)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

But indeed, the English generally have been very stationary in latter times, and the French, on the contrary, so active and successful, particularly in preparing elementary books, in the mathematical and natural sciences, that those who wish for instruction, without caring from what nation they get it, resort universally to the latter language.
Letter (29 Jan 1824) to Patrick K. Rodgers. Collected in Andrew A. Lipscomb (ed.), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1904), Vol. 16, 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Book (413)  |  Caring (6)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Elementary (98)  |  English (35)  |  French (21)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Language (308)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nation (208)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Preparing (21)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Successful (134)  |  Time (1911)  |  Wish (216)

But it is precisely mathematics, and the pure science generally, from which the general educated public and independent students have been debarred, and into which they have only rarely attained more than a very meagre insight. The reason of this is twofold. In the first place, the ascendant and consecutive character of mathematical knowledge renders its results absolutely insusceptible of presentation to persons who are unacquainted with what has gone before, and so necessitates on the part of its devotees a thorough and patient exploration of the field from the very beginning, as distinguished from those sciences which may, so to speak, be begun at the end, and which are consequently cultivated with the greatest zeal. The second reason is that, partly through the exigencies of academic instruction, but mainly through the martinet traditions of antiquity and the influence of mediaeval logic-mongers, the great bulk of the elementary text-books of mathematics have unconsciously assumed a very repellant form,—something similar to what is termed in the theory of protective mimicry in biology “the terrifying form.” And it is mainly to this formidableness and touch-me-not character of exterior, concealing withal a harmless body, that the undue neglect of typical mathematical studies is to be attributed.
In Editor’s Preface to Augustus De Morgan and Thomas J. McCormack (ed.), Elementary Illustrations of the Differential and Integral Calculus (1899), v.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Academic (20)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Ascendant (2)  |  Assume (43)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Biology (232)  |  Body (557)  |  Book (413)  |  Bulk (24)  |  Character (259)  |  Conceal (19)  |  Consecutive (2)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Cultivate (24)  |  Debar (2)  |  Devotee (7)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Educated (12)  |  Elementary (98)  |  End (603)  |  Exigency (3)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Exterior (7)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Formidable (8)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Harmless (9)  |  Independent (74)  |  Influence (231)  |  Insight (107)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Meager (2)  |  Medieval (12)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Part (235)  |  Patient (209)  |  Person (366)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Protective (5)  |  Public (100)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Reason (766)  |  Render (96)  |  Repellent (4)  |  Result (700)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Term (357)  |  Terrify (12)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Through (846)  |  Touch (146)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Typical (16)  |  Unacquainted (3)  |  Unconscious (24)  |  Undue (4)  |  Zeal (12)

But the idea of science and systematic knowledge is wanting to our whole instruction alike, and not only to that of our business class ... In nothing do England and the Continent at the present moment more strikingly differ than in the prominence which is now given to the idea of science there, and the neglect in which this idea still lies here; a neglect so great that we hardly even know the use of the word science in its strict sense, and only employ it in a secondary and incorrect sense.
Schools and Universities on the Continent (1868),278-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Business (156)  |  Class (168)  |  Continent (79)  |  Differ (88)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Employ (115)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Present (630)  |  Prominence (5)  |  Sense (785)  |  Still (614)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)  |  Word (650)

Criticism of first principles which Aristotle and Ptolemy and Galen underwent waited longer in Euclid’s case than in theirs, it came for him at last. What Vesalius was to Galen, what Copernicus was to Ptolemy, that was Lobatchewsky to Euclid. There is, indeed, a somewhat instructive parallel between … Copernicus and Lobatchewsky.
In 'The Postulates of Time And Space', Lectures and Essays (1901), Vol. 1, 356.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Nicolaus Copernicus (54)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Galen (20)  |  Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky (8)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Principle (530)  |  Ptolemy (19)  |  Undergo (18)  |  Wait (66)

Each and every loss becomes an instance of ultimate tragedy–something that once was, but shall never be known to us. The hump of the giant deer–as a nonfossilizable item of soft anatomy–should have fallen into the maw of erased history. But our ancestors provided a wondrous rescue, and we should rejoice mightily. Every new item can instruct us; every unexpected object possesses beauty for its own sake; every rescue from history’s great shredding machine is–and I don’t know how else to say this–a holy act of salvation for a bit of totality.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Become (821)  |  Bit (21)  |  Deer (11)  |  Erase (7)  |  Fall (243)  |  Giant (73)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Holy (35)  |  Hump (3)  |  Instance (33)  |  Item (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Loss (117)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mightily (2)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Possess (157)  |  Provide (79)  |  Rejoice (11)  |  Rescue (14)  |  Sake (61)  |  Salvation (13)  |  Say (989)  |  Shred (7)  |  Soft (30)  |  Something (718)  |  Totality (17)  |  Tragedy (31)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Wondrous (22)

Education is like a diamond with many facets: It includes the basic mastery of numbers and letters that give us access to the treasury of human knowledge, accumulated and refined through the ages; it includes technical and vocational training as well as instruction in science, higher mathematics, and humane letters.
In Proclamation 5463, for Education Day (19 Apr 1986). Collected in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1986 (1988), 490.
Science quotes on:  |  Access (21)  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Age (509)  |  Basic (144)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Education (423)  |  Facet (9)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humane (19)  |  Humanities (21)  |  Include (93)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Letter (117)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Number (710)  |  Refinement (19)  |  Technical (53)  |  Through (846)  |  Training (92)  |  Treasury (3)

Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities—that's training or instruction—but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed.
The Education of the Heart (1996), Introduction, 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Data (162)  |  Education (423)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Information (173)  |  Learning (291)  |  Making (300)  |  Seed (97)  |  Skill (116)  |  Training (92)  |  Visible (87)

Engineering is the art or science of utilizing, directing or instructing others in the utilization of the principles, forces, properties and substance of nature in the production, manufacture, construction, operation and use of things ... or of means, methods, machines, devices and structures ...
(1920}
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Construction (114)  |  Device (71)  |  Direct (228)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Force (497)  |  Machine (271)  |  Manufacture (30)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Operation (221)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Production (190)  |  Property (177)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Utilization (16)  |  Utilize (10)

Even fairly good students, when they have obtained the solution of the problem and written down neatly the argument, shut their books and look for something else. Doing so, they miss an important and instructive phase of the work. ... A good teacher should understand and impress on his students the view that no problem whatever is completely exhausted.
In How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method (2004), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Book (413)  |  Completely (137)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Doing (277)  |  Down (455)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Good (906)  |  Importance (299)  |  Impress (66)  |  Look (584)  |  Miss (51)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Phase (37)  |  Problem (731)  |  Shut (41)  |  Solution (282)  |  Something (718)  |  Student (317)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  View (496)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)

Every physical fact, every expression of nature, every feature of the earth, the work of any and all of those agents which make the face of the world what it is, and as we see it, is interesting and instructive. Until we get hold of a group of physical facts, we do not know what practical bearings they may have, though right-minded men know that they contain many precious jewels, which science, or the expert hand of philosophy will not fail top bring out, polished, and bright, and beautifully adapted to man's purposes.
In The Physical Geography of the Sea (1855), 209-210. Maury was in particular referring to the potential use of deep-sea soundings.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Agent (73)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Bright (81)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Expert (67)  |  Expression (181)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fail (191)  |  Feature (49)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Jewel (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Polish (17)  |  Practical (225)  |  Precious (43)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Right (473)  |  See (1094)  |  Top (100)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Few will deny that even in the first scientific instruction in mathematics the most rigorous method is to be given preference over all others. Especially will every teacher prefer a consistent proof to one which is based on fallacies or proceeds in a vicious circle, indeed it will be morally impossible for the teacher to present a proof of the latter kind consciously and thus in a sense deceive his pupils. Notwithstanding these objectionable so-called proofs, so far as the foundation and the development of the system is concerned, predominate in our textbooks to the present time. Perhaps it will be answered, that rigorous proof is found too difficult for the pupil’s power of comprehension. Should this be anywhere the case,—which would only indicate some defect in the plan or treatment of the whole,—the only remedy would be to merely state the theorem in a historic way, and forego a proof with the frank confession that no proof has been found which could be comprehended by the pupil; a remedy which is ever doubtful and should only be applied in the case of extreme necessity. But this remedy is to be preferred to a proof which is no proof, and is therefore either wholly unintelligible to the pupil, or deceives him with an appearance of knowledge which opens the door to all superficiality and lack of scientific method.
In 'Stücke aus dem Lehrbuche der Arithmetik', Werke, Bd. 2 (1904), 296.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Anywhere (16)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Base (120)  |  Call (781)  |  Case (102)  |  Circle (117)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Concern (239)  |  Confession (9)  |  Consciously (6)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Deceive (26)  |  Defect (31)  |  Deny (71)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Door (94)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Especially (31)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fallacy (31)  |  Far (158)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Forego (4)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Frank (4)  |  Give (208)  |  Historic (7)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lack (127)  |  Latter (21)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Morally (2)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plan (122)  |  Power (771)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Preference (28)  |  Present (630)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proof (304)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Sense (785)  |  So-Called (71)  |  State (505)  |  Superficiality (4)  |  System (545)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Unintelligible (17)  |  Vicious Circle (4)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)

First of all a natural talent is required; for when Nature opposes, everything else is in vain; but when Nature leads the way to what is most excellent, instruction in the art takes place...
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, trans. Francis Adams (1886), Vol. 2, 284.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Education (423)  |  Everything (489)  |  First (1302)  |  Lead (391)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Required (108)  |  Talent (99)  |  Vain (86)  |  Way (1214)

First, as concerns the success of teaching mathematics. No instruction in the high schools is as difficult as that of mathematics, since the large majority of students are at first decidedly disinclined to be harnessed into the rigid framework of logical conclusions. The interest of young people is won much more easily, if sense-objects are made the starting point and the transition to abstract formulation is brought about gradually. For this reason it is psychologically quite correct to follow this course.
Not less to be recommended is this course if we inquire into the essential purpose of mathematical instruction. Formerly it was too exclusively held that this purpose is to sharpen the understanding. Surely another important end is to implant in the student the conviction that correct thinking based on true premises secures mastery over the outer world. To accomplish this the outer world must receive its share of attention from the very beginning.
Doubtless this is true but there is a danger which needs pointing out. It is as in the case of language teaching where the modern tendency is to secure in addition to grammar also an understanding of the authors. The danger lies in grammar being completely set aside leaving the subject without its indispensable solid basis. Just so in Teaching of Mathematics it is possible to accumulate interesting applications to such an extent as to stunt the essential logical development. This should in no wise be permitted, for thus the kernel of the whole matter is lost. Therefore: We do want throughout a quickening of mathematical instruction by the introduction of applications, but we do not want that the pendulum, which in former decades may have inclined too much toward the abstract side, should now swing to the other extreme; we would rather pursue the proper middle course.
In Ueber den Mathematischen Unterricht an den hoheren Schulen; Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung, Bd. 11, 131.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Addition (70)  |  Application (257)  |  Attention (196)  |  Author (175)  |  Base (120)  |  Basis (180)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bring (95)  |  Case (102)  |  Completely (137)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Correct (95)  |  Course (413)  |  Danger (127)  |  Decade (66)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Do (1905)  |  End (603)  |  Essential (210)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Extent (142)  |  Extreme (78)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Former (138)  |  Formerly (5)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Framework (33)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Grammar (15)  |  Harness (25)  |  High (370)  |  High School (15)  |  Hold (96)  |  Implant (5)  |  Important (229)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Kernel (4)  |  Language (308)  |  Large (398)  |  Leave (138)  |  Lie (370)  |  Logic (311)  |  Lose (165)  |  Majority (68)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Middle (19)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Need (320)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outer (13)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  People (1031)  |  Permit (61)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Premise (40)  |  Proper (150)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Quicken (7)  |  Quickening (4)  |  Reason (766)  |  Receive (117)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Rigid (24)  |  School (227)  |  Secure (23)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Set Aside (4)  |  Share (82)  |  Sharpen (22)  |  Side (236)  |  Solid (119)  |  Starting Point (16)  |  Student (317)  |  Stunt (7)  |  Subject (543)  |  Success (327)  |  Surely (101)  |  Swing (12)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Transition (28)  |  True (239)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Want (504)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wise (143)  |  World (1850)  |  Young (253)

General preparatory instruction must continue to be the aim in the instruction at the higher institutions of learning. Exclusive selection and treatment of subject matter with reference to specific avocations is disadvantageous.
In Resolution adopted by the German Association for the Advancement of Scientific and Mathematical Instruction, in Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung (1896), 41. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Avocation (5)  |  Continue (179)  |  Disadvantageous (2)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  General (521)  |  Higher Education (3)  |  Institution (73)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Preparatory (3)  |  Reference (33)  |  Selection (130)  |  Specific (98)  |  Subject (543)  |  Subject Matter (4)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Treatment (135)

Geognosy urgently needs the instruction of zoology.
Abhandlungen der koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1830 ), 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Geognosy (2)  |  Zoology (38)

Geometrical reasoning, and arithmetical process, have each its own office: to mix the two in elementary instruction, is injurious to the proper acquisition of both.
In Trigonometry and Double Algebra (1849), 92.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Both (496)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Geometrical (11)  |  Injurious (14)  |  Mix (24)  |  Office (71)  |  Process (439)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Two (936)

Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser.
Bible
Proverbs 9:9 KJV
Science quotes on:  |  Wise (143)  |  Wise Man (17)

Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun.
In An Essay on Man (1736), Epistle II, lines 19-22, 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Correct (95)  |  Creature (242)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Guide (107)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mount (43)  |  Old (499)  |  Orb (20)  |  Planet (402)  |  Regulate (11)  |  Run (158)  |  State (505)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tide (37)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wondrous (22)

He that could teach mathematics well, would not be a bad teacher in any of [physics, chemistry, biology or psychology] unless by the accident of total inaptitude for experimental illustration; while the mere experimentalist is likely to fall into the error of missing the essential condition of science as reasoned truth; not to speak of the danger of making the instruction an affair of sensation, glitter, or pyrotechnic show.
In Education as a Science (1879), 298.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Aptitude (19)  |  Bad (185)  |  Biology (232)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Condition (362)  |  Danger (127)  |  Error (339)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Fall (243)  |  Glitter (10)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Missing (21)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Pyrotechnic (2)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sensational (2)  |  Show (353)  |  Speak (240)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Total (95)  |  Truth (1109)

He that would learn by experiments, ought to proceed from particulars to generals; but the method of instructing academically, proceeds from generals to particulars.
As quoted in Thomas Steele Hall, A Source Book in Animal Biology (1951), 486.
Science quotes on:  |  Academic (20)  |  Experiment (736)  |  General (521)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Method (531)  |  Particular (80)  |  Proceed (134)

Here too all Forms of social Union find,
And hence let Reason, late, instruct mankind:
Here subterranean Works and Cities see,
There Towns aerial on the waving Tree.
Learn each small people’s Genius, Policies;
The Ants Republick, and the Realm of Bees;
How those in common all their stores bestow,
And Anarchy without confusion know.
In 'Epistle III', Essay on Man,: Being the First Book of Ethic Epistles (1734), 47.
Science quotes on:  |  Anarchy (8)  |  Ant (34)  |  Bee (44)  |  City (87)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Genius (301)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Realm (87)  |  Republic (16)  |  Society (350)  |  Subterranean (2)  |  Town (30)  |  Tree (269)  |  Union (52)  |  Web Of Life (9)

His motion to the meeting of the Council of the Chemical Society:
That henceforth the absurd game of chemical noughts and crosses be tabu within the Society's precincts and that, following the practice of the Press in ending a correspondence, it be an instruction to the officers to give notice “That no further contributions to the mysteries of Polarity will be received, considered or printed by the Society.” His challenge was not accepted.
From the personal and other items column of Chemistry and Industry (1925), 44, 1050.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Accept (198)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Council (9)  |  Game (104)  |  Motion (320)  |  Notice (81)  |  Officer (12)  |  Polarity (5)  |  Practice (212)  |  Society (350)  |  Will (2350)

I am of the decided opinion, that mathematical instruction must have for its first aim a deep penetration and complete command of abstract mathematical theory together with a clear insight into the structure of the system, and doubt not that the instruction which accomplishes this is valuable and interesting even if it neglects practical applications. If the instruction sharpens the understanding, if it arouses the scientific interest, whether mathematical or philosophical, if finally it calls into life an esthetic feeling for the beauty of a scientific edifice, the instruction will take on an ethical value as well, provided that with the interest it awakens also the impulse toward scientific activity. I contend, therefore, that even without reference to its applications mathematics in the high schools has a value equal to that of the other subjects of instruction.
In 'Ueber das Lehrziel im mathemalischen Unterricht der höheren Realanstalten', Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung, 2, 192. (The Annual Report of the German Mathematical Association. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Abstract Mathematics (9)  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Activity (218)  |  Aesthetics (12)  |  Aim (175)  |  Application (257)  |  Arouse (13)  |  Awaken (17)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Call (781)  |  Clear (111)  |  Command (60)  |  Complete (209)  |  Contend (8)  |  Decide (50)  |  Deep (241)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Equal (88)  |  Ethical (34)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Finally (26)  |  First (1302)  |  High (370)  |  High School (15)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Insight (107)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Must (1525)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Practical (225)  |  Provide (79)  |  Reference (33)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sharpen (22)  |  Structure (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  System (545)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Together (392)  |  Toward (45)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)

I am particularly fond of his [Emmanuel Mendes da Costa’s] Natural History of Fossils because this treatise, more than any other work written in English, records a short episode expressing one of the grand false starts in the history of natural science–and nothing can be quite so informative and instructive as a juicy mistake.
In Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History (1998, 2011), 93. [Gould uses the spelling “Emmanuel”, but it is usually seen as “Emanuel”. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Emanuel Mendes da Costa (3)  |  English (35)  |  Episode (5)  |  Express (192)  |  False (105)  |  Fond (13)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Grand (29)  |  History (716)  |  Informative (3)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particularly (21)  |  Record (161)  |  Short (200)  |  Start (237)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Work (1402)  |  Write (250)

I could wish that it [instruction in moral philosophy] were more expository, less polemical, and above all less dogmatic.
In Inaugural Address: Delivered to the University of St. Andrews, Feb. 1st, 1867 (1867), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Dogmatic (8)  |  Expository (2)  |  Less (105)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Wish (216)

I do present you with a man of mine
Cunning in music and the mathematics
To instruct her fully in those sciences.
Referring to Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrew (1594), Act 2, Scene 1, in The Plays of William Shakespeare (1813), 242.
Science quotes on:  |  Cunning (17)  |  Do (1905)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mine (78)  |  Music (133)  |  Present (630)

I have come to the conclusion that the exertion, without which a knowledge of mathematics cannot be acquired, is not materially increased by logical rigor in the method of instruction.
In Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung (1898), 143.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Acquired (77)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Exertion (17)  |  Increase (225)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)

I really see no harm which can come of giving our children a little knowledge of physiology. ... The instruction must be real, based upon observation, eked out by good explanatory diagrams and models, and conveyed by a teacher whose own knowledge has been acquired by a study of the facts; and not the mere catechismal parrot-work which too often usurps the place of elementary teaching.
Science and Culture (1882), 92.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Catechism (2)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Education (423)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Good (906)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Model (106)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Physiology (101)  |  See (1094)  |  Study (701)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Work (1402)

I should object to any experimentation which can justly be called painful, for the purpose of elementary instruction ... [but I regret] a condition of the law which permits a boy to troll for pike, or set lines with live frog bait, for idle amusement; and, at the same time, lays the teacher of that boy open to the penalty of fine and imprisonment, if he uses the same animal for the purpose of exhibiting one of the most beautiful and instructive of physiological spectacles, the circulation in the web of the foot. ... [Maybe the frog is] inconvenienced by being wrapped up in a wet rag, and having his toes tied out ... But you must not inflict the least pain on a vertebrated animal for scientific purposes (though you may do a good deal in that way for gain or for sport) without due licence of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, granted under the authority of the Vivisection Act.
... [Yet, in] 1877, two persons may be charged with cruelty to animals. One has impaled a frog, and suffered the creature to writhe about in that condition for hours; the other has pained the animal no more than one of us would be pained by tying strings round his fingers, and keeping him in the position of a hydropathic patient. The first offender says, 'I did it because I find fishing very amusing,' and the magistrate bids him depart in peace; nay, probably wishes him good sport. The second pleads, 'I wanted to impress a scientific truth, with a distinctness attainable in no other way, on the minds of my scholars,' and the magistrate fines him five pounds.
I cannot but think that this is an anomalous and not wholly creditable state of things.
'On Elementary Instruction in Physiology'. Science and Culture (1882), 92.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Amusement (37)  |  Animal (651)  |  Authority (99)  |  Bait (2)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boy (100)  |  Call (781)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Condition (362)  |  Creature (242)  |  Creditable (3)  |  Cruelty (24)  |  Deal (192)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Department (93)  |  Do (1905)  |  Due (143)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fine (37)  |  First (1302)  |  Fishing (20)  |  Frog (44)  |  Gain (146)  |  Good (906)  |  Grant (76)  |  Home (184)  |  Hour (192)  |  Idle (34)  |  Impress (66)  |  Law (913)  |  Live (650)  |  Magistrate (2)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Object (438)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pain (144)  |  Patient (209)  |  Peace (116)  |  Permit (61)  |  Person (366)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Regret (31)  |  Say (989)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Truth (23)  |  Set (400)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Spectacles (10)  |  Sport (23)  |  State (505)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trial (59)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Vivisection (7)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wholly (88)

I think that each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, either in one body or several, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, nor for the navy, nor to make wagons, but stand and decay for higher uses—a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation. All Walden Wood might have been reserved, with Walden in the midst of it.
In Wild Fruits: Thoreau’s Rediscovered Last Manuscript (2000), 238. Also appears as an epigraph after the title page.
Science quotes on:  |  Acre (13)  |  Common (447)  |  Cut (116)  |  Decay (59)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forever (111)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Navy (10)  |  Park (10)  |  Possession (68)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Recreation (23)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stick (27)  |  Town (30)  |  Use (771)  |  Wagon (10)

I wish they would use English instead of Greek words. When I want to know why a leaf is green, they tell me it is coloured by “chlorophyll,” which at first sounds very instructive; but if they would only say plainly that a leaf is coloured green by a thing which is called “green leaf,” we should see more precisely how far we had got.
The word “chlorophyll” is formed from the Greek words for “green” “leaf.” In The Queen of the Air: a Study of the Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm (1869, 1889), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Chlorophyll (5)  |  Color (155)  |  English (35)  |  First (1302)  |  Greek (109)  |  Green (65)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leaf (73)  |  More (2558)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sound (187)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Want (504)  |  Why (491)  |  Wish (216)  |  Word (650)

Isaac Asimov quote It’s the bees and the flowers.
Macro photo of bee by Forest Wander (cc by-sa 2.0) (source)
I’m tired of that stupid phrase, “the birds and the bees” which is supposed to represent “the facts of life” or the beginnings of the sex instruction of the young. … Well for heaven’s sake, has anyone ever tried to explain sex by talking about the birds and the bees? What have the birds and the bees to do with it? IT’S THE BEES AND THE FLOWERS. Will you get that through your head? IT’S THE BEES AND THE FLOWERS. The bee travels to one flower and picks up pollen from the stamens. The pollen contains the male sex cells of the plant. The bee then travels to another flower (of the same species) and the pollen brushes off onto the pistil, which contains the female sex cells of the plant. … Now in the human being … we don’t rely on bees to do it for us.
From Isaac Asimov’s letter in 'Hue and Cry' letter column in magazine, James L. Quinn (ed.), IF: Worlds of Science Fiction (Dec 1957), 7, No. 6, 119
Science quotes on:  |  Bee (44)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bird (163)  |  Do (1905)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Female (50)  |  Flower (112)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Life (1870)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Plant (320)  |  Pollen (6)  |  Represent (157)  |  Sake (61)  |  Science And Education (17)  |  Sex (68)  |  Species (435)  |  Stamen (4)  |  Stupid (38)  |  Talking (76)  |  Through (846)  |  Travel (125)  |  Will (2350)  |  Young (253)

If you enquire about him [J.J. Sylvester], you will hear his genius universally recognized but his power of teaching will probably be said to be quite deficient. Now there is no man living who is more luminary in his language, to those who have the capacity to comprehend him than Sylvester, provided the hearer is in a lucid interval. But as the barn yard fowl cannot understand the flight of the eagle, so it is the eaglet only who will be nourished by his instruction.
Letter (18 Sep 1875) to Daniel C. Gilman. In Daniel C. Gilman Papers, Ms. 1, Special Collections Division, Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University. As quoted in Karen Hunger Parshall, 'America’s First School of Mathematical Research: James Joseph Sylvester at The Johns Hopkins University 1876—1883', Archive for History of Exact Sciences (1988), 38, No. 2, 167.
Science quotes on:  |  Capacity (105)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Deficient (3)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fowl (6)  |  Genius (301)  |  Hear (144)  |  Interval (14)  |  Language (308)  |  Living (492)  |  Lucid (9)  |  Luminary (4)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Nourish (18)  |  Power (771)  |  Recognize (136)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)

In addition to instructing them in the holy Scriptures, they also taught their pupils poetry, astronomy, and the calculation of the church calendar.
Bede
Referring to the teaching methods of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Hadrian, abbot of Canterbury (A.D. 669).
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Calendar (9)  |  Church (64)  |  Holy (35)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Science And Education (17)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scripture (14)  |  Teach (299)

In my opinion instruction is very purposeless for such individuals who do no want merely to collect a mass of knowledge, but are mainly interested in exercising (training) their own powers. One doesn't need to grasp such a one by the hand and lead him to the goal, but only from time to time give him suggestions, in order that he may reach it himself in the shortest way.
Letter to Heinrich Schumacher (2 Oct 1808). Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 416.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Goal (155)  |  Himself (461)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interest (416)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mass (160)  |  Merely (315)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Power (771)  |  Reach (286)  |  Shortest (16)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Time (1911)  |  Training (92)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)

In Science the paramount appeal is to the Intellect—its purpose being instruction; in Art, the paramount appeal is to the Emotions—its purpose being pleasure.
In The Principles of Success in Literature (1901), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Appeal (46)  |  Art (680)  |  Being (1276)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Paramount (11)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Purpose (336)

In this country, science is almost exclusively prosecuted by those engaged in the laborious and exhaustive employment of imparting instruction. Science among us brings comparatively little emolument and is accompanied with but little honor.
In Letter (3 Feb 1873) to the Committee of Arrangements, in Proceedings of the Farewell Banquet to Professor Tyndall (4 Feb 1873), 19. Reprinted as 'On the Importance of the Cultivation of Science', The Popular Science Monthly (1873), Vol. 2, 646.
Science quotes on:  |  Accompany (22)  |  Country (269)  |  Emolument (3)  |  Employment (34)  |  Exhaustive (4)  |  Honor (57)  |  Imparting (6)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Little (717)

Instruction ends in the schoolroom, but education ends only with life. A child is given to the universe to be educated.
Sermons Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton (1866), 271.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Education (423)  |  End (603)  |  Life (1870)  |  Universe (900)

It has been said that computing machines can only carry out the processes that they are instructed to do. This is certainly true in the sense that if they do something other than what they were instructed then they have just made some mistake. It is also true that the intention in constructing these machines in the first instance is to treat them as slaves, giving them only jobs which have been thought out in detail, jobs such that the user of the machine fully understands what in principle is going on all the time. Up till the present machines have only been used in this way. But is it necessary that they should always be used in such a manner? Let us suppose we have set up a machine with certain initial instruction tables, so constructed that these tables might on occasion, if good reason arose, modify those tables. One can imagine that after the machine had been operating for some time, the instructions would have altered out of all recognition, but nevertheless still be such that one would have to admit that the machine was still doing very worthwhile calculations. Possibly it might still be getting results of the type desired when the machine was first set up, but in a much more efficient manner. In such a case one would have to admit that the progress of the machine had not been foreseen when its original instructions were put in. It would be like a pupil who had learnt much from his master, but had added much more by his own work. When this happens I feel that one is obliged to regard the machine as showing intelligence.
Lecture to the London Mathematical Society, 20 February 1947. Quoted in B. E. Carpenter and R. W. Doran (eds.), A. M. Turing's Ace Report of 1946 and Other Papers (1986), 122-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Carry (130)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Computer (131)  |  Construct (129)  |  Detail (150)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Happen (282)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intention (46)  |  Job (86)  |  Machine (271)  |  Master (182)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Progress (492)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Regard (312)  |  Result (700)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Slave (40)  |  Something (718)  |  Still (614)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Table (105)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Type (171)  |  Understand (648)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worthwhile (18)

It is easier to believe than to be scientifically instructed.
In The Conduct of the Understanding (1794, 1801), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Easier (53)  |  Scientific (955)

It is possible to read books on Natural History with intelligence and profit, and even to make good observations, without a scientific groundwork of biological instruction; and it is possible to arrive at empirical facts of hygiene and medical treatment without any physiological instruction. But in all three cases the absence of a scientific basis will render the knowledge fragmentary and incomplete; and this ought to deter every one from offering an opinion on debatable questions which pass beyond the limit of subjective observations. The psychologist who has not prepared himself by a study of the organism has no more right to be heard on the genesis of the psychical states, or of the relations between body and mind, than one of the laity has a right to be heard on a question of medical treatment.
The Physical Basis of Mind (1877), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Body (557)  |  Book (413)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Fragmentary (8)  |   Genesis (26)  |  Good (906)  |  Groundwork (4)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Hygiene (13)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Observation (593)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organism (231)  |  Pass (241)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Possible (560)  |  Profit (56)  |  Psychologist (26)  |  Question (649)  |  Read (308)  |  Render (96)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientific (955)  |  State (505)  |  Study (701)  |  Subjective (20)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Will (2350)

It is raining DNA outside. On the bank of the Oxford canal at the bottom of my garden is a large willow tree, and it is pumping downy seeds into the air. ... [spreading] DNA whose coded characters spell out specific instructions for building willow trees that will shed a new generation of downy seeds. … It is raining instructions out there; it’s raining programs; it’s raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading, algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth. It couldn’t be any plainer if it were raining floppy discs.
The Blind Watchmaker (1986), 111.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Algorithm (5)  |  Bank (31)  |  Building (158)  |  Canal (18)  |  Character (259)  |  DNA (81)  |  Garden (64)  |  Generation (256)  |  Growing (99)  |  Large (398)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  New (1273)  |  Outside (141)  |  Oxford (16)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Seed (97)  |  Specific (98)  |  Tree (269)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)

It is rigid dogma that destroys truth; and, please notice, my emphasis is not on the dogma, but on the rigidity. When men say of any question, “This is all there is to be known or said of the subject; investigation ends here,” that is death. It may be that the mischief comes not from the thinker but for the use made of his thinking by late-comers. Aristotle, for example, gave us our scientific technique … yet his logical propositions, his instruction in sound reasoning which was bequeathed to Europe, are valid only within the limited framework of formal logic, and, as used in Europe, they stultified the minds of whole generations of mediaeval Schoolmen. Aristotle invented science, but destroyed philosophy.
Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, as recorded by Lucien Price (1954, 2001), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Death (406)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dogma (49)  |  End (603)  |  Framework (33)  |  Generation (256)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Known (453)  |  Late (119)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mischief (13)  |  Notice (81)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Please (68)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Question (649)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Rigidity (5)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Sound (187)  |  Subject (543)  |  Technique (84)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)

It is the province of prejudice to blind; and scientific writers, not less than others, write to please, as well as to instruct, and even unconsciously to themselves, (sometimes), sacrifice what is true to what is popular.
In address, delivered at Commencement (12 Jul 1854), Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio, 'The Negro Ethnologically Considered', collected in The Speeches of Frederick Douglass (2018), 133. In his speech, Douglass challenged racially biased premises of ethnology, and Southern pretenders to science.
Science quotes on:  |  Bias (22)  |  Blind (98)  |  Please (68)  |  Popular (34)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  True (239)  |  Unconsciously (9)  |  Writer (90)

It seems to me, he says, that the test of “Do we or not understand a particular subject in physics?” is, “Can we make a mechanical model of it?” I have an immense admiration for Maxwell’s model of electromagnetic induction. He makes a model that does all the wonderful things that electricity docs in inducing currents, etc., and there can be no doubt that a mechanical model of that kind is immensely instructive and is a step towards a definite mechanical theory of electromagnetism.
From stenographic report by A.S. Hathaway of the Lecture 20 Kelvin presented at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, on 'Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light' (1884), 132. (Hathaway was a Mathematics fellow there.) This remark is not included in the first typeset publication—a revised version, printed twenty years later, in 1904, as Lord Kelvin’s Baltimore Lectures on Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light. The original notes were reproduced by the “papyrograph” process. They are excerpted in Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem, Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science (1996), 54-55.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Current (122)  |  Definite (114)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Immense (89)  |  Induction (81)  |  Kind (564)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Model (106)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Say (989)  |  Step (234)  |  Subject (543)  |  Test (221)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Wonderful (155)

Mathematical instruction, in this as well as in other countries, is laboring under a burden of century-old tradition. Especially is this so with reference to the teaching of geometry. Our texts in this subject are still patterned more or less closely after the model of Euclid, who wrote over two thousand years ago, and whose text, moreover, was not intended for the use of boys and girls, but for mature men.
In Lectures on Fundamental Concepts of Algebra and Geometry (1911), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Boy (100)  |  Burden (30)  |  Century (319)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Girl (38)  |  Intend (18)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mature (17)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Text (16)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Use (771)  |  Year (963)

Mathematics because of its nature and structure is peculiarly fitted for high school instruction [Gymnasiallehrfach]. Especially the higher mathematics, even if presented only in its elements, combines within itself all those qualities which are demanded of a secondary subject.
In Die Mathematik die Fackelträgerin einer neuen Zeit (1889), 40. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Combine (58)  |  Demand (131)  |  Element (322)  |  Fit (139)  |  High (370)  |  High School (15)  |  Higher Mathematics (7)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Peculiarly (4)  |  Present (630)  |  Quality (139)  |  School (227)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Structure (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)

Mathematics gives the young man a clear idea of demonstration and habituates him to form long trains of thought and reasoning methodically connected and sustained by the final certainty of the result; and it has the further advantage, from a purely moral point of view, of inspiring an absolute and fanatical respect for truth. In addition to all this, mathematics, and chiefly algebra and infinitesimal calculus, excite to a high degree the conception of the signs and symbols—necessary instruments to extend the power and reach of the human mind by summarizing an aggregate of relations in a condensed form and in a kind of mechanical way. These auxiliaries are of special value in mathematics because they are there adequate to their definitions, a characteristic which they do not possess to the same degree in the physical and mathematical [natural?] sciences.
There are, in fact, a mass of mental and moral faculties that can be put in full play only by instruction in mathematics; and they would be made still more available if the teaching was directed so as to leave free play to the personal work of the student.
In 'Science as an Instrument of Education', Popular Science Monthly (1897), 253.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Addition (70)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Auxiliary (11)  |  Available (80)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Clear (111)  |  Conception (160)  |  Condense (15)  |  Connect (126)  |  Definition (238)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Excite (17)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fanatical (3)  |  Far (158)  |  Final (121)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Full (68)  |  Give (208)  |  Habituate (3)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Kind (564)  |  Leave (138)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mental (179)  |  Methodically (2)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Personal (75)  |  Physical (518)  |  Play (116)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Relation (166)  |  Respect (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Same (166)  |  Sign (63)  |  Special (188)  |  Still (614)  |  Student (317)  |  Summarize (10)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  Young (253)

Mathematics is the only instructional material that can be presented in an entirely undogmatic way.
Max Dehn
Address (18 Jan 1928) at the University of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Trans. by Abe Schenitzer, and published in 'The Mentality of the Mathematician: A Characterization', The Mathematical Intelligencer (1983), 5, No. 2, 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Dogmatic (8)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Present (630)  |  Way (1214)

Mathematics will not be properly esteemed in wider circles until more than the a b c of it is taught in the schools, and until the unfortunate impression is gotten rid of that mathematics serves no other purpose in instruction than the formal training of the mind. The aim of mathematics is its content, its form is a secondary consideration and need not necessarily be that historic form which is due to the circumstance that mathematics took permanent shape under the influence of Greek logic.
In Die Entivickelung der Mathematik in den letzten Jahrhunderten (1884), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Circle (117)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Content (75)  |  Due (143)  |  Esteem (18)  |  Form (976)  |  Formal (37)  |  Greek (109)  |  Historic (7)  |  Impression (118)  |  Influence (231)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Need (320)  |  Other (2233)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Properly (21)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rid (14)  |  School (227)  |  Secondary (15)  |  Serve (64)  |  Shape (77)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Training (92)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)

Mere instruction to memorise data is empty. The attempt to enforce conventional mediocrity on the young is criminal.
As quoted, without citation, in Ronald William Clark, The Life of Bertrand Russell (1976), 423.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Conventional (31)  |  Criminal (18)  |  Data (162)  |  Education (423)  |  Empty (82)  |  Enforce (11)  |  Mediocrity (8)  |  Young (253)

Money. It has such an inherent power to run itself clear of taint that human ingenuity cannot devise the means of making it work permanent mischief, any more than means can be found of torturing people beyond what they can bear. Even if a man founds a College of Technical Instruction, the chances are ten to one that no one will be taught anything and that it will have been practically left to a number of excellent professors who will know very well what to do with it.
Samuel Butler, Henry Festing Jones (ed.), The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1917), 221.
Science quotes on:  |  Bear (162)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Chance (244)  |  Clear (111)  |  College (71)  |  Devise (16)  |  Do (1905)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Found (11)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mischief (13)  |  Money (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Power (771)  |  Professor (133)  |  Run (158)  |  Taint (10)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Technical (53)  |  Torture (30)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Nature is silent only to those who know not how to interrogate her—to the man of inquisitive mind she offers ample instruction.
From Introduction to a Course of Lectures on Natural History: Delivered in the University of Pennsylvania, Nov. 16, 1799 (1800), 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Inquisitiveness (6)  |  Interrogation (5)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Silence (62)

Nothing in the whole system of nature is isolated or unimportant. The fall of a leaf and the motion of a planet are governed by the same laws. … It is in the study of objects considered trivial and unworthy of notice by the casual observer that genius finds the most important and interesting phenomena. It was in the investigation of the varying colors of the soap-bubble that Newton detected the remarkable fact of the fits of easy reflection and easy refraction presented by a ray of light in its passage through space, and upon which he established the fundamental principle of the present generalization of the undulatory theory of light. … The microscopic organization of animals and plants is replete with the highest instruction; and, surely, in the language of one of the fathers of modern physical science, “nothing can be unworthy of being investigated by man which was thought worthy of being created by GOD.”
In 'Report of the Secretary', Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1852 (1853), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Color (155)  |  Consider (428)  |  Detect (45)  |  Easy (213)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fall (243)  |  Father (113)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fit (139)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Genius (301)  |  God (776)  |  Govern (66)  |  Important (229)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Isolated (15)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Object (438)  |  Organization (120)  |  Passage (52)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plant (320)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Refraction (13)  |  Same (166)  |  Soap (11)  |  Space (523)  |  Study (701)  |  Surely (101)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Unimportant (6)  |  Unworthy (18)  |  Whole (756)

Now if we want poets to interpret physical science as Milton and Shelley did (Shelley and Keats were the last English poets who were at all up-to-date in their chemical knowledge), we must see that our possible poets are instructed, as their masters were, in science and economics.
In Daedalus or Science and the Future (1924). Reprinted in Haldane's Daedalus Revisited (1995), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economics (44)  |  English (35)  |  Interpret (25)  |  John Keats (12)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Master (182)  |  John Milton (31)  |  Must (1525)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Poet (97)  |  Possible (560)  |  See (1094)  |  Percy Shelley (7)  |  Want (504)

Other things being equal, the investigator is always the best instructor. The highest grade of instruction in any science can only be furnished by one who is thoroughly imbued with the scientific spirit, and who is actually engaged in original work.
Quoted in Frank R. Lillie, The Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (1944), 37-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Instructor (5)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Other (2233)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Work (1402)

Our great mistake in education is ... the worship of book-learning—the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind. … We ought to follow exactly the opposite course with children—to give them a wholesome variety of mental food, and endeavour to cultivate their tastes, rather than to fill their minds with dry facts.
The Pleasures of Life (Appleton, 1887), 183-184, or (2007), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Course (413)  |  Dry (65)  |  Education (423)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Follow (389)  |  Food (213)  |  Great (1610)  |  Learning (291)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Taste (93)  |  Variety (138)  |  Wholesome (12)  |  Worship (32)

Particular and contingent inventions in the solution of problems, which, though many times more concise than a general method would allow, yet, in my judgment, are less proper to instruct a learner, as acrostics, and such kind of artificial poetry, though never so excellent, would be but improper examples to instruct one that aims at Ovidean poetry.
In Letter to Collins (Macclesfield, 1670), Correspondence of Scientific Men (1841), Vol. 2, 307.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Allow (51)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Concise (9)  |  Contingent (12)  |  Example (98)  |  Excellent (29)  |  General (521)  |  Improper (3)  |  Invention (400)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Kind (564)  |  Learner (10)  |  Less (105)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Publius Ovid (15)  |  Particular (80)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proper (150)  |  Solution (282)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Time (1911)

PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  251.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Humour (116)  |  Photograph (23)  |  Picture (148)  |  Sun (407)

Recently, we’ve reported that we have made all five bases, the compounds that spell out the instructions for all life and are a part of the nucleic acids, RNA and DNA. Not only did we make all five bases but we found them in a meteorite! So that these two things coming together really assure us that the molecules necessary for life can be found in the absence of life. This was the biggest stumbling block.
In Space World (1985), 5, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Absence (21)  |  Acid (83)  |  Base (120)  |  Coming (114)  |  Compound (117)  |  DNA (81)  |  Life (1870)  |  Meteorite (9)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  RNA (5)  |  Stumbling Block (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)

Speaking concretely, when we say “making experiments or making observations,” we mean that we devote ourselves to investigation and to research, that we make attempts and trials in order to gain facts from which the mind, through reasoning, may draw knowledge or instruction.
Speaking in the abstract, when we say “relying on observation and gaining experience,” we mean that observation is the mind's support in reasoning, and experience the mind's support in deciding, or still better, the fruit of exact reasoning applied to the interpretation of facts. It follows from this that we can gain experience without making experiments, solely by reasoning appropriately about well-established facts, just as we can make experiments and observations without gaining experience, if we limit ourselves to noting facts.
Observation, then, is what shows facts; experiment is what teaches about facts and gives experience in relation to anything.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Applied (176)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Better (493)  |  Concretely (4)  |  Draw (140)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Follow (389)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Gain (146)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Limit (294)  |  Making (300)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Show (353)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Still (614)  |  Support (151)  |  Through (846)  |  Trial (59)

The errors of a wise man are literally more instructive than the truths of a fool. The wise man travels in lofty, far-seeing regions; the fool in low-lying, high-fenced lanes; retracing the footsteps of the former, to discover where he diviated, whole provinces of the universe are laid open to us; in the path of the latter, granting even that he has not deviated at all, little is laid open to us but two wheel-ruts and two hedges.
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 425:26.
Science quotes on:  |  Discover (571)  |  Error (339)  |  Far-Seeing (3)  |  Fool (121)  |  Former (138)  |  High (370)  |  Literally (30)  |  Little (717)  |  Low (86)  |  Lying (55)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Open (277)  |  Path (159)  |  Province (37)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Travel (125)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wise (143)  |  Wise Man (17)

The examination system, and the fact that instruction is treated mainly as a training for a livelihood, leads the young to regard knowledge from a purely utilitarian point of view as the road to money, not as the gateway to wisdom.
In 'Education as a Political Institution', Atlantic Monthly, (Jun 1916), 117 755. Also in Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916, 2013), 113.
Science quotes on:  |  Examination (102)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Gateway (6)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Livelihood (13)  |  Money (178)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Purely (111)  |  Regard (312)  |  System (545)  |  Training (92)  |  Useful (260)  |  View (496)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Young (253)

The fact is that up to now the free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither accorded him a superior status to sustain his confidence nor made it easy for him to acquire an unquestioned sense of social usefulness. For he derives his sense of usefulness mainly from directing, instructing, and planning-from minding other people’s business-and is bound to feel superfluous and neglected where people believe themselves competent to manage individual and communal affairs, and are impatient of supervision and regulation. A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual’s sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman’s sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.
In 'Concerning Individual Freedom', The Ordeal of Change (1963), 141.
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  Acquire (46)  |  Affair (29)  |  Anathema (2)  |  Belief (615)  |  Bind (26)  |  Bound (120)  |  Business (156)  |  Communal (7)  |  Competent (20)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Derive (70)  |  Direct (228)  |  Easy (213)  |  Economy (59)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feel (371)  |  Free (239)  |  Function (235)  |  Good (906)  |  Impatient (4)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Leadership (13)  |  Mainly (10)  |  Manage (26)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minimum (13)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Planning (21)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Sense (785)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Order (8)  |  Society (350)  |  Status (35)  |  Superfluous (21)  |  Superior (88)  |  Supervision (4)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Threat (36)  |  Unquestioned (7)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Will (2350)  |  Workingman (2)  |  Worth (172)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Bible
King James Version, Proverbs 1:7.
Science quotes on:  |  Despise (16)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fool (121)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Wisdom (235)

The history of mathematics may be instructive as well as agreeable; it may not only remind us of what we have, but may also teach us to increase our store. Says De Morgan, “The early history of the mind of men with regards to mathematics leads us to point out our own errors; and in this respect it is well to pay attention to the history of mathematics.” It warns us against hasty conclusions; it points out the importance of a good notation upon the progress of the science; it discourages excessive specialization on the part of the investigator, by showing how apparently distinct branches have been found to possess unexpected connecting links; it saves the student from wasting time and energy upon problems which were, perhaps, solved long since; it discourages him from attacking an unsolved problem by the same method which has led other mathematicians to failure; it teaches that fortifications can be taken by other ways than by direct attack, that when repulsed from a direct assault it is well to reconnoiter and occupy the surrounding ground and to discover the secret paths by which the apparently unconquerable position can be taken.
In History of Mathematics (1897), 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Agreeable (20)  |  Apparently (22)  |  Assault (12)  |  Attack (86)  |  Attention (196)  |  Branch (155)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Connect (126)  |  Augustus De Morgan (45)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discourage (14)  |  Discover (571)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Early (196)  |  Energy (373)  |  Error (339)  |  Excessive (24)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fortification (6)  |  Good (906)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hasty (7)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Mathematics (7)  |  Importance (299)  |  Increase (225)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Lead (391)  |  Link (48)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Notation (28)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Path (159)  |  Pay (45)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Out (9)  |  Position (83)  |  Possess (157)  |  Problem (731)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reconnoitre (2)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remind (16)  |  Repulse (2)  |  Respect (212)  |  Save (126)  |  Say (989)  |  Secret (216)  |  Show (353)  |  Solve (145)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Store (49)  |  Student (317)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Surround (33)  |  Teach (299)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unconquerable (3)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Unsolved (15)  |  Warn (7)  |  Waste (109)  |  Way (1214)

The Hypotenuse has a square on,
which is equal Pythagoras instructed,
to the sum of the squares on the other two sides
If a triangle is cleverly constructed.
From lyrics of song Sod’s Law.
Science quotes on:  |  Clever (41)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Equal (88)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Hypotenuse (4)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Side (236)  |  Square (73)  |  Sum (103)  |  Triangle (20)  |  Two (936)

The instruction of children should aim gradually to combine knowing and doing [Wissen und Konnen]. Among all sciences mathematics seems to be the only one of a kind to satisfy this aim most completely.
In Werke, Bd. 9 (1888), 409.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Combine (58)  |  Completely (137)  |  Doing (277)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Seem (150)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)

The Mathematics, I say, which effectually exercises, not vainly deludes or vexatiously torments studious Minds with obscure Subtilties, perplexed Difficulties, or contentious Disquisitions; which overcomes without Opposition, triumphs without Pomp, compels without Force, and rules absolutely without Loss of Liberty; which does not privately over-reach a weak Faith, but openly assaults an armed Reason, obtains a total Victory, and puts on inevitable Chains; whose Words are so many Oracles, and Works as many Miracles; which blabs out nothing rashly, nor designs anything from the Purpose, but plainly demonstrates and readily performs all Things within its Verge; which obtrudes no false Shadow of Science, but the very Science itself, the Mind firmly adhering to it, as soon as possessed of it, and can never after desert it of its own Accord, or be deprived of it by any Force of others: Lastly the Mathematics, which depends upon Principles clear to the Mind, and agreeable to Experience; which draws certain Conclusions, instructs by profitable Rules, unfolds pleasant Questions; and produces wonderful Effects; which is the fruitful Parent of, I had almost said all, Arts, the unshaken Foundation of Sciences, and the plentiful Fountain of Advantage to human Affairs.
Address to the University of Cambridge upon being elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics (14 Mar 1664). In Mathematical Lectures (1734), xxviii.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Agreeable (20)  |  Arm (82)  |  Art (680)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chain (51)  |  Compel (31)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Delude (3)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Depend (238)  |  Desert (59)  |  Design (203)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Draw (140)  |  Effect (414)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Experience (494)  |  Faith (209)  |  False (105)  |  Force (497)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fountain (18)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Liberty (29)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Oracle (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Parent (80)  |  Perform (123)  |  Pomp (2)  |  Possess (157)  |  Principle (530)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Rashly (2)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Soon (187)  |  Studious (5)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Torment (18)  |  Total (95)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Verge (10)  |  Victory (40)  |  Weak (73)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)

THE OATH. I swear by Apollo [the healing God], the physician and Aesclepius [son of Apollo], and Health [Hygeia], and All-heal [Panacea], and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation—to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further, from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!
The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, trans. Francis Adams (1886), Vol. 2, 344-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Abortion (4)  |  Abroad (19)  |  Abstain (7)  |  According (236)  |  Act (278)  |  Art (680)  |  Ask (420)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Bound (120)  |  Brother (47)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continue (179)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Counsel (11)  |  Cut (116)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Enter (145)  |  Equally (129)  |  Female (50)  |  Follow (389)  |  God (776)  |  Grant (76)  |  Healing (28)  |  Health (210)  |  Hear (144)  |  Holiness (7)  |  House (143)  |  Impart (24)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mischief (13)  |  Mischievous (12)  |  Oath (10)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pass (241)  |  Patient (209)  |  Person (366)  |  Physician (284)  |  Practice (212)  |  Practitioner (21)  |  Precept (10)  |  Professional (77)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Required (108)  |  Respect (212)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seduction (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Share (82)  |  Sick (83)  |  Slave (40)  |  Stone (168)  |  Substance (253)  |  Swear (7)  |  System (545)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trespass (5)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Woman (160)  |  Work (1402)

The participation in the general development of the mental powers without special reference to his future vocation must be recognized as the essential aim of mathematical instruction.
In Anleitung zum Mathematischen Unterricht an höheren Schulen (1906), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Development (441)  |  Essential (210)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Must (1525)  |  Participate (10)  |  Participation (15)  |  Power (771)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Reference (33)  |  Special (188)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Vocation (10)

The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.
Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 53, ed. Pocock (1790).
Science quotes on:  |  A Priori (26)  |  Cause (561)  |  Commonwealth (5)  |  Construct (129)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Moral (203)  |  Other (2233)  |  Practical (225)  |  Real (159)  |  Reform (22)  |  Renovate (3)  |  Short (200)  |  Teach (299)

The universe came into being in a big bang, before which, Einstein’s theory instructs us, there was no before. Not only particles and fields of force had to come into being at the big bang, but the laws of physics themselves, and this by a process as higgledy-piggledy as genetic mutation or the second law of thermodynamics.
In 'The Computer and the Universe', International Journal of Theoretical Physics (1982), 21, 565.
Science quotes on:  |  Bang (29)  |  Being (1276)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Field (378)  |  Force (497)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Law (913)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Particle (200)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Process (439)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Universe (900)

The value of mathematical instruction as a preparation for those more difficult investigations, consists in the applicability not of its doctrines but of its methods. Mathematics will ever remain the past perfect type of the deductive method in general; and the applications of mathematics to the simpler branches of physics furnish the only school in which philosophers can effectually learn the most difficult and important of their art, the employment of the laws of simpler phenomena for explaining and predicting those of the more complex. These grounds are quite sufficient for deeming mathematical training an indispensable basis of real scientific education, and regarding with Plato, one who is … as wanting in one of the most essential qualifications for the successful cultivation of the higher branches of philosophy
In System of Logic, Bk. 3, chap. 24, sect. 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Applicability (7)  |  Application (257)  |  Art (680)  |  Basis (180)  |  Branch (155)  |  Complex (202)  |  Consist (223)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Deductive (13)  |  Deem (7)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Education (423)  |  Effectually (2)  |  Employment (34)  |  Essential (210)  |  Explain (334)  |  Furnish (97)  |  General (521)  |  Ground (222)  |  High (370)  |  Important (229)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Past (355)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plato (80)  |  Predict (86)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Qualification (15)  |  Real (159)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remain (355)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Simple (426)  |  Successful (134)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Training (92)  |  Type (171)  |  Value (393)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

The wise are instructed by reason; ordinary minds by experience; the stupid, by necessity; and brutes by instinct.
In Charles Simmons, A Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker (1852), 273.
Science quotes on:  |  Brute (30)  |  Experience (494)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Reason (766)  |  Stupid (38)  |  Wise (143)

This is true of all science. Successes were largely due to forgetting completely about what one ultimately wanted, or whether one wanted anything ultimately; in refusing to investigate things which profit, and in relying solely on guidance by criteria of intellectual elegance. … And I think it extremely instructive to watch the role of science in everyday life, and to note how in this area the principle of laissez faire has led to strange and wonderful results.
Address (Jun 1954) to Princeton Graduate Alumni, 'The Role of Mathematics in the Science and in Society', in Collected Works: Vol. 6: Theory of Games, Astrophysics, Hydrodynamics and Meteorology (1961), Vol. 6, 489. As quoted in Armand Borel, 'On the Place of Mathematics in Culture', in Armand Borel: Œvres: Collected Papers (1983), Vol. 4, 422.
Science quotes on:  |  Area (33)  |  Completely (137)  |  Criterion (28)  |  Due (143)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everyday Life (15)  |  Forget (125)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Note (39)  |  Principle (530)  |  Profit (56)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Rely (12)  |  Result (700)  |  Role (86)  |  Strange (160)  |  Success (327)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Want (504)  |  Watch (118)  |  Wonderful (155)

Those who intend to practise Midwifery, ought first of all to make themselves masters of anatomy, and acquire a competent knowledge in surgery and physic; because of their connections with the obstetric art, if not always, at least in many cases. He ought to take the best opportunities he can find of being well instructed; and of practising under a master, before he attempts to deliver by himself. ... He should also embrace every occasion of being present at real labours, ... he will assist the poor as well as the rich, behaving always with charity and compassion.
In A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery (1766), 440-441.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Art (680)  |  Assist (9)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Behave (18)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Charity (13)  |  Compassion (12)  |  Competent (20)  |  Connection (171)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Himself (461)  |  Intend (18)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Labor (200)  |  Master (182)  |  Obstetrics (3)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Physic (515)  |  Poor (139)  |  Practise (7)  |  Practising (2)  |  Present (630)  |  Rich (66)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Will (2350)

To see the clear, logical ideas gradually being disentangled from vagueness and confusion is vastly more instructive than simply starting with the logical ideas.
In 'Projective Geometery', Prelude to Mathematics (1955), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Clear (111)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Disentangle (4)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Idea (881)  |  Logic (311)  |  More (2558)  |  See (1094)  |  Simply (53)  |  Start (237)  |  Vague (50)  |  Vagueness (15)  |  Vast (188)

To the manufacturer, chemistry has lately become fruitful of instruction and assistance. In the arts of brewing, tanning, dying, and bleaching, its doctrines are important guides. In making soap, glass, pottery, and all metallic wares, its principles are daily applied, and are capable of a still more useful application, as they become better understood.
From 'Artist and Mechanic', The artist & Tradesman’s Guide: embracing some leading facts & principles of science, and a variety of matter adapted to the wants of the artist, mechanic, manufacturer, and mercantile community (1827), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Art (680)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Become (821)  |  Better (493)  |  Brewing (2)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Daily (91)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Dyeing (2)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Glass (94)  |  Guide (107)  |  Important (229)  |  Making (300)  |  Manufacturer (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Pottery (4)  |  Principle (530)  |  Soap (11)  |  Still (614)  |  Tanning (3)  |  Understood (155)  |  Useful (260)  |  Ware (2)

We must make practice in thinking, or, in other words, the strengthening of reasoning power, the constant object of all teaching from infancy to adult age, no matter what may be the subject of instruction. … Effective training of the reasoning powers cannot be secured simply by choosing this subject or that for study. The method of study and the aim in studying are the all-important things.
From 'Wherein Popular Education has Failed' Forum (Dec 1892), collected in American Contributions to Civilization: And Other Essays and Addresses (1897), 229 & 231.
Science quotes on:  |  Adult (24)  |  Age (509)  |  Aim (175)  |  Choose (116)  |  Constant (148)  |  Education (423)  |  Effective (68)  |  Important (229)  |  Infancy (14)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Practice (212)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Secure (23)  |  Secured (18)  |  Simply (53)  |  Strengthen (25)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Training (92)  |  Word (650)

What more powerful form of study of mankind could there be than to read our own instruction book?
From White House Announcement of the Completion of the First Survey of the Entire Human Genome Project, broadcast on the day of the publication of the first draft of the human genome. Quoted in transcript on the National Archives, Clinton White House web site, 'Text of Remarks on the Completion of the First Survey of the Entire Human Genome Project' (26 Jun 2000).
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Form (976)  |  Human Genome (13)  |  Mankind (356)  |  More (2558)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Read (308)  |  Study (701)

What politicians do not understand is that [Ian] Wilmut discovered not so much a technical trick as a new law of nature. We now know that an adult mammalian cell can fire up all the dormant genetic instructions that shut down as it divides and specializes and ages, and thus can become a source of new life. You can outlaw technique; you cannot repeal biology.
Writing after Wilmut's successful cloning of the sheep, Dolly, that research on the cloning of human beings cannot be suppressed.
'A Special Report on Cloning'. Charles Krauthammer in Time (10 Mar 1997).
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ban (9)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cell (146)  |  Clone (8)  |  Cloning (8)  |  Discover (571)  |  Divide (77)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dolly (2)  |  Down (455)  |  Fire (203)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Politician (40)  |  Research (753)  |  Shut (41)  |  Successful (134)  |  Technique (84)  |  Trick (36)  |  Understand (648)  |  Ian Wilmut (5)  |  Writing (192)

When we seek a textbook case for the proper operation of science, the correction of certain error offers far more promise than the establishment of probable truth. Confirmed hunches, of course, are more upbeat than discredited hypotheses. Since the worst traditions of ‘popular’ writing falsely equate instruction with sweetness and light, our promotional literature abounds with insipid tales in the heroic mode, although tough stories of disappointment and loss give deeper insight into a methodology that the celebrated philosopher Karl Popper once labeled as ‘conjecture and refutation.’
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abound (17)  |  Bad (185)  |  Case (102)  |  Celebrate (21)  |  Certain (557)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Correction (42)  |  Course (413)  |  Deep (241)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Discredit (8)  |  Equate (3)  |  Error (339)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Falsely (2)  |  Far (158)  |  Give (208)  |  Heroic (4)  |  Hunch (5)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Insight (107)  |  Label (11)  |  Light (635)  |  Literature (116)  |  Loss (117)  |  Methodology (14)  |  Mode (43)  |  More (2558)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Offer (142)  |  Operation (221)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Karl Raimund Popper (48)  |  Popular (34)  |  Probable (24)  |  Promise (72)  |  Proper (150)  |  Refutation (13)  |  Seek (218)  |  Story (122)  |  Sweetness (12)  |  Tale (17)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Tough (22)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Worst (57)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.
In Norbert Guterman, The Anchor Book of Latin Quotations (1990), 193.
Science quotes on:  |  Brief (37)  |  Brimming (4)  |  Faithfully (3)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Pour (9)  |  Retain (57)  |  Say (989)  |  Side (236)  |  Unnecessary (23)  |  Wish (216)  |  Word (650)

Young men, … Live in the serene peace of laboratories and libraries. Say to yourselves first: “What have I done for my instruction?” and, as you gradually advance, “What have I done for my country?”
Acceptance speech (27 Dec 1892) when awarded a 70th birthday commemorative medal by the Academy of Sciences in the great theatre of the Sorbonne, as translated in René Vallery-Radot and Mrs R.L. Devonshire (trans.), The Life of Pasteur (1902), Vol. 2, 297-298. Pasteur addressed an audience that included “deep masses of students” and “boys from the lycées.”
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Advance (298)  |  Country (269)  |  Education (423)  |  First (1302)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Library (53)  |  Live (650)  |  Peace (116)  |  Say (989)  |  Serene (5)  |  Young (253)


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.